Would you convert into a different religion just to learn a certain style?

[Royal Dragon]

1. GOD exists
The universe s to ordered to have just "happened"

2. GOD made everything
Someone had to, and I call that one God, but you may call him Alla or George for that matter. Names don't mean jack to the all powerfull one, that's a man made thing.

3. GOD does not care about anything you do so long as you don't harm others.

He doesn't care, if he did drug dealers couldn't shoot little kids.

All else is made by man to controll other men.

Read the bible and study religion, most of it is contrlol freaky jibberish.

If you sort through the worlds religions, and examin the core belifes you will find (With few exceptions of course) that it all boils down to "Don't hurt others and play nice, the all powerfull one is watching"

[Repulsive Monkey]

Martial arts are not founded on religiosity, and therefore any art thsat requires you as a prequisite to take orders of a particular religious faith should be frowned upon. Religious proclivity will not not necessarily improve your art.

[apoweyn]

royal dragon,

1. GOD exists
The universe s to ordered to have just "happened"

this argument has always seemed backward to me. it's not as if we, humanity, had a concept of order. then a world came along that fit that concept, suggesting the hand of a higher power at work. our concept of order is based on how the world is. how we've always observed it to be. if it had somehow turned out differently, then our sense of order would be different.


stuart b.

[scotty1]

good point ap.

Whatever the world had turned out like we would judge it as ordered, because it is all we know, and for any system to be it has to have some kind of order, surely.

[Merryprankster]

Ap,

The reason that argument is intellectually unfulfilling is because it is teleological in nature:

It's essentially like saying God exists because the bible says so and the bible is infallible because it's the word of God so therefore God exists.

Just change the words around a bit and you'll see what I mean:

God exists because the universe is too ordered and only God could create such order so therefore God exists.

It starts with a set of **** poor assumptions: An all powerful being is necessary to create the universe with such order. Well, not necessarily. There is no difference in effect in this case, between A SUFFICIENTLY powerful being and an ALL Powerful one, so this argument doesn't prove anything.

Not only that, but order can come out of chaos. Certain fractal patterns are created by complete randomness bound by a certain set of rules carried out over thousands of iterations. Using this idea you might even say it's inevitable that over time, order emerges from the chaos. Can't predict the individual event, but you can predict the pattern---electron clouds, and the heisenberg uncertainty principle anyone?

[apoweyn]

merryprankster,

that's about the size of it, yeah.

personally, i'm inclined to believe in a divine of some sort. but that particular argument is about as satisfying as a steven seagal movie. (and that ain't very satisfying.)



stuart b.

[apoweyn]

cheers scotty.

i think there are probably two sorts of order. order we perceive and order we create. our sense of perceived order is based on how things have always been. so that would be radically different if things had always been a different way.

and our sense of created order, well regardless of what the world was like, wouldn't that instinct be the same? for us to establish order in chaos?

not sure, obviously. but that's my guess.


stuart b.

[Braden]

Royal Dragon -

"1. GOD exists - The universe is to ordered to have just 'happened'"

Wouldn't this assertion support point two (below) rather than this?

"2. GOD made everything"

"All else is made by man to controll other men. Read the bible and study religion, most of it is contrlol freaky jibberish."

I think we should be careful about making such wide-scale statements. It's not so hard to believe that at some point someone had something honest to say. It seems to me that the root of all religious movements (keeping in mind the formal definition of religious I have argued for) is in mysticism - which is to say, in direct and personal experience of that which is called religious. In this sense, there is a very important message being passed along, which is neither control freaky jibberish, nor cultural context - and that is, how to have that experience for yourself.

Regarding 'The Problem of Evil' which you alluded to when you mentioned he must not care if he created everything and many things are bad... The Christian (and many other) gnostics have an interesting view. God, in the sense which you mean here, to them is not a/the creator. Just cause I like pimping this site so much, if you're interested, check out http://www.gnosis.org/gnintro.htm for an account of this.

[Black Jack]

Royal,

I and a lot of others have a problem with that kind of a concrete blanket premis on what is and what is not, in this regard to creationism and the existence of any supernatural creature or divine being.

I don't know what your definition of logic is but the Concise Oxford Engilsh Dictionary defines it as follows-"the science of reasoning, proof, thinking, or inference".

A premis is a core assumption that a arguement is built on, if I can not agree on the premis, since in this case I know the premis to be of a false statement, the arguement is really dead in the water to begin with.

That is the one thing theists need to understand, conditional blanket statements just don't fly for everyone, some people choose to use science, logic, commonsense and reasoning instead of a occult creationism dogma or blind faith to lead them through life.

Royal, no offense intended for your personal views, just making a point of blanket statements based on the supernatural, I am pretty militant on my beliefs so again no offense, though I don't really hold back to much when in comes to this type of stuff.

Cheers,

Since somebody was talking about orgasms, here is a passage in the bible on the very same thing.

"And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto brothers wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his: and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also." (Genesis 38:7-10)

The term onanism, from the name Onan, has come to stand for masturbation which has suffered a fate similar to sodomy in the sense that it has evolved to have a meaning far different from its original use.

Dicitionaries define onanism as male masturbation or uncompleted coitus. According to the wacked out fanatsy land of the bible, Onan removed his ***** from his partner's vagina before he ejgaculated so that his seed fell onto the ground. This displeased the peace loving energy ball in the sky so much that "he" killed him.

Maybe if the fiction writers who wrote this crap took the time to understand the Jewish law of those days was that any child born to the wife of the eldest son died without heirs-and if his wife had no children sired by a relative of her dead spouse-the dominance would pass to the second son-which means that poor old Onan stood to lose a great deal if he complied with his fathers order to impregnate his brothers wife.

At the very least they could of given Onan some super natural ****ing ability like this dude. There is nothing like the flatulent passing of gas from the bowels of a prophet to wake you up.

"Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kirharesh" (Isaiah 16:11)

[ReverendTim]

Man, if some of the knuckleheads from the Underground could read this thread, there'd be heads exploding all over the country.

"Teleological? I think he just called me a f@g!!! Quelle gospel...what the...metaphysic...POP!!!"

--
Rev. Tim

[guohuen]

Sorry, The idea of a gnostic bishop is as ludicrous to me as chan literature. Sort of supports Royal Dragons viewpoint in my opinion.
"Don't follow leaders, and watch the parking meters."-Bob Dylan

[Braden]

Guohen - What, exactly, is wrong with having a formal structure in place to facilitate the spread of information and encourage interaction in the general sense?

[KC Elbows]

OK, I can't stay away from this thread any longer.

I am not a particularly religious person. What beliefs I do have are based upon my experiences and the experiences of those before me and around me, and on points those beliefs have parallels within the religions of the world, but to date, I have yet to find a religion that doesn't have some points I find unrealistsic.

Therefore, if someone wanted me to convert to a religion in order to study an art with them, I would probably say "You've proven your martial skill, that's why I'm here. You'll have to prove the merits of your belief system to me before I even consider such a thing", but I probably would just try to attempt to dissuade them from the need for converting me if I really want to learn from them.

Some points I agree with from religion(mostly surface stuff, no profound theological points from me, I'm afraid):

Christianity:

-Mystery as a tool- I can see the point of this, and its really not that different than the unrealistic view many have of their sifu's in the early parts of their training.

-The Golden Rule. Sure, it predates christianity, but its a good one, I can agree with that.

-Give unto Caesar. If I have to, why shouldn't the church?

-The power of confession- Its good to recognize your own faults.


Buddhism

-The Four Noble Truths. Great stuff. Not much more that I can say about that.

-Enlightenment is the goal.

-Suffering ends by ending it in ourselves.


Judaism

-I'm not particularly knowledgeable on judaism, but most of what I've seen has some really interesting stuff on the actual art of living.


Now, some of the stuff I don't agree with:

Christianity
-The inability to question the bible for fear of invalidating the important parts.

-The intolerance as put forward in the bible and carried out by some christians.

-The reliance on heaven as a goal and hell as a deterrent. I've always felt that many christians I've met were like the accountants of salvation, if they kept the books clean, then they would get the great tax return in the sky. I've met a great many of them through my folks(big catholics) who, on the surface, lived the good life as put forward by their interpretation of the bible, but just didn't seem like they did it for any other reason than to get to heaven/be god's favorite children. In otherwords, they didn't do it to be good people, they had ulterior motives.

-The permanence of heaven and hell-people are supposed to go there forever. What if a soul in hell finds redemption? Sorry, no luck. What if a spirit in heaven falls? Sorry again, couldn't happen. On a symbollic level, I can accept it, maening that the times you suffer remain with you forever, as well as the times you prevail as a person. But on a literal level, I don't buy it.


Buddhism
-I really dig buddhism. But I don't really agree with the reincarnation thing on a literal level. I can buy the endlessness of concepts. For instance, say GDA's testes finally pop, and he bites it. Somewhere out there, there'll be someone else posting who reminds us of GDA, not exactly the same, but enough to remind us. However, I don't think that's GDA. To me, reincarnation seems to be the element of buddhism that functions like heaven and hell in the christian religion. It's a motivator. However, if you're motivated already, do you even need the concept? I don't feel you do.


Judaism
-Too tied up in past glory and the promised land.

I've excluded a whole bunch of religions as these were more influential on me than others.

Anyway, it seems to me that spirituality is a devotion, not unlike kung fu or writing or building motorcycles or what have you. In this particular devotion, the goal is to gain skill at, for want of a real word, numinosity. In otherwords, to make yourself what is in your capacity in the "divine" scheme of things. In christianity, to match up to god's will. In buddhism, to be enlightened. To be more holy. Not more religious, but more holy.

So, if a teacher wanted to teach me MA, but also insisted I convert, I would expect him to convince me that he has something spiritually to teach me before I agree.

Hope I haven't offended anyone.


Sorry to the satanists, I wasn't able to include any pros and cons of satanism due to the fact that there's really no such thing, regardless of what that LaVey guy wrote. Just hedonism, and not very fun hedonism at that. Sex and big black robes just isn't fun anymore.

[guohuen]

Spreading information and encouraging interaction is a wonderful thing. Formal structure is the first step in becoming political rather than spiritual. This has been the demise of most religions. Religion-from the latin religios, meaning to be bound.

[Braden]

Structure doesn't equate to politics.

Let's try to **** people for what they've done rather than what we decide they're bound to do in the future, or what we can associate to them through word games - there's certainly enough reason to be jaded allready, without such efforts.