Chili

There is truth behind fiction and for those who do not agree with this just ask yourself why it is that within only two generations after Margareth Mead was given her 20 honorary PhD's (for a fabulous story that was based an a lie but neverhteless led to the sexual liberation of modern day man), we now find that fertility clinics are needed and soon will outnumber abortion clinics to try and save the day in our modern day gender equal society.

It is true that religion is man made but it is wrong to see it as fiction if the mythology exists only for the survival and prosperity of the tribe. To me, that would be like throwing out the baby with the bathwater which here is for keeps and not just a figure of speech.

Of course, if one is a homosexual there is no need to worry about this but, here too, one must wonder if they will not soon outnumber hetero's as well.

Oops, I just heard that Canada set aside $35 million to research the validity of polygamy in effort to spread those good old sperm around that still hold the fleeting Y chromosome. Funny thing here is that we crucified the wrong one when we called it fiction and set the ego free to roam.

Hello Mountainman, I would argue here that that monstrous tale bears witness to thruth and that the fiction part pertains to the illusion.

Doug Shaver

Always? No exceptions?

Chili

You know, the creator is the first cause and his role also ends with the first cause so there is no need to blame God for anything that you would like to see changed. God just is and said what would be and it is Lord God who came to be and it was not until Gen.3 that our ego was conjectured and that is wherein only wrong and evil came to be because we wanted to have a mind of our own and do it our way instead.

But I agree that bible reading is not for adults unless they have been "tied fast and carried away by another against their own will" as Jn.21:18 would have it -- and this will be the censorship of the Church that wrote the damn thing.

Chili

Yes, whatever exists in the imagination must exists in reality as well except maybe not in the sum total of its parts. It is therefore wrong to think that pink elephants exist but much worse to create another such phantasm and dwell in a world of our own wherein we linger and argue between kinetic vision and total oblivion of that which really is (between "kata symbebekon" and "kata' auto" or between "accidents" and existence "per se") while remaining oblivious to the ground of things as they are (the einai of the on).

No exceptions.

Steve Weiss

You assume that there is a creator and that this creator is a first cause, except for himself, of course. Existence, which I think you have confused with a deity, just is; that's true. A god, on the other hand, one is required to define and prove. You also assume that the bible is a reliable and truthful text. No such assumption is justified.

Your preferred state of existence appears to be that of an unthinking robot content to live a passive life in some mythical Garden of Eden. That is existence, but not human living which depends upon effective use of one's cognitive faculties.

Chili

Of course there is or we could not be co-creator with the creator with whom we are at odds until paradise is regained, at which time we are one (as in fully one) with the creator of whom we now see only a shadow because we live in this ivory tower from where we see only shadows of reality as if with snot in our nose, soup in our eyes and shit in our ears. Oblivion is what they call it to be politically correct but I would say that my triple S syndrome is more like it, for sure.

In my world the Intelligent Design exists inside the species that indeed was created in Gods image and are therefore God after realization. In animals we call this metamorphosis but we do not recognize that as such in our own because we insists that humans cannot soar without wings and must remain earthbound (read materialistic) until we die.

Of course the bible is a reliable text but you forget that we look with our eyes and read with our mind wherein your world is not necessarily the same as mine.

. . . and obviously, your idea of Eden is different then mine wherein our cognitive faculties have been placed subservient to our knowledge divine and thus where thinking is the activity of dummies. The proof here is to put human knowledge on the slippery slope between gnostic and agnostic to see where the word gnostic finds its origin.

Steve Weiss

Congratulations, you have achieved new levels of incomprehensibility. Please see the terms "non sequitur" and "stream of consciousness."

Chili

. . . and so was Mary and also Magdalene who was the temple tramp inside the conscious mind of Joseph the Jew who's faculty of reason was called Pilate who in turn was a subject of Herod who ruled surpreme over the being called Joseph the upright Jewish carpenter, as in "I, we four were but one of the innumerable waves of a powerful torrent" (WE, Zamjatin page 7 Dutton paperback).

Steve Weiss

Thanks for being a prime example of why religion should be rejected out of hand by any rational, or even semi-rational person.

Chili

For sure, religion is the enemy of reason and was never meant to be a social club but more like a collective effort to move the civilization into the future and there prosper and bloom. If the above is true it makes freeloaders out of those who reject it.