What would it take to convince you that you were wrong?

Diogenes' Dog said:
Whatever your beliefs, we do not have the whole picture... there may be purpose in suffering, if death is not the end.
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I think you are correct here, but I think the purpose of suffering is ourselves. If we have done stupid things in the past or in past lives... We have to pay for every suffering we caused to others. This is the only way of justice and dualism. Karma.

The Buddha teachings about how to live are basically:

- Help others.
- If you do not help others, at least don´t make them suffer.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
That´s what I thought. And I constantly think about Hitler for this examples as well. The thing is, how can you not-judge Hitler?
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It's an interesting question WS. IMHO it's impossible NOT to judge. However, it is possible to view all our judgements with skepticism. Judgments of Hitler (or anyone), are always based on partial knowledge. I judge you from MY OWN terms of reference, morality etc. not yours. I also cannot know your thinking.

We judge Hitler as an immoral mass-murderer, but in Nietzscherian terms that is because 2000 years of Christianity has subscribed us to 'slave morality'. Hitler saw himself as an 'Ubermensche' - like all leaders who make history; defining his own morality in pursuit of his overwhelming vision for a new ideology and greatness for Germany that would (if he'd won) have rivalled the Roman Empire. We would see him now as a hero, not a villain if he'd succeeded. We'd also be speaking German!

Our judgements are therefore relative, and shaped by our culture, history and traditions. We cannot avoid making judgements, but we should hold them lightly, realising their limitation... even in the case of Hitler.
 
Diogenes' Dog said:
It's an interesting question WS. IMHO it's impossible NOT to judge. However, it is possible to view all our judgements with skepticism. Judgments of Hitler (or anyone), are always based on partial knowledge. I judge you from MY OWN terms of reference, morality etc. not yours. I also cannot know your thinking.

We judge Hitler as an immoral mass-murderer, but in Nietzscherian terms that is because 2000 years of Christianity has subscribed us to 'slave morality'. Hitler saw himself as an 'Ubermensche' - like all leaders who make history; defining his own morality in pursuit of his overwhelming vision for a new ideology and greatness for Germany that would (if he'd won) have rivalled the Roman Empire. We would see him now as a hero, not a villain if he'd succeeded. We'd also be speaking German!

Our judgements are therefore relative, and shaped by our culture, history and traditions. We cannot avoid making judgements, but we should hold them lightly, realising their limitation... even in the case of Hitler.
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You put it greatly into words, and I share your perspective.

I´m actually working on the non-judging thing, because I believe that the moment we judge, we are going against ourselves. If we judge someone, then we are also judging ourselves by the same means, it goes both ways. Judging cannot be one-sided.

Hitler is a good point of start for this. Since he is hated by most people.

If we go deeply into this, we would find that current justice ideology is screwed up:
- Why jails?
- Why a government justice system?
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
I think you are correct here, but I think the purpose of suffering is ourselves. If we have done stupid things in the past or in past lives... We have to pay for every suffering we caused to others. This is the only way of justice and dualism. Karma.

The Buddha teachings about how to live are basically:

- Help others.
- If you do not help others, at least don´t make them suffer.
Click to expand...
I'd agree with the Buddha's teaching there WS. I'm not sure about Karma... it sounds a bit punitive to me!

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. Roberta Flack

I want to see suffering as a transforming process. There's a good essay by Tillich on "The Depth of Existence" which links the depth of the soul and depth of suffering.

Paul Tillich said:
"Deep" in its spiritual use has two meanings: it means either the opposite of "shallow", or the opposite of "high". Truth is deep and not shallow; suffering is depth and not height. Both the light of truth and the darkness of suffering are deep. There is a depth in God, and there is a depth out of which the psalmist cries to God. Why is truth deep? And why is suffering deep? And why is the same spatial symbol used for both experiences? These questions shall guide our meditation. [...]

The depth of thought is a part of the depth of life. Most of our life continues on the surface. We are enslaved by the routine of our daily lives, in work and pleasure, in business and recreation. We are conquered by innumerable hazards, both good and evil. We are more driven than driving. We do not stop to look at the height above us, or to the depth below us. We are always moving forward, although usually in a circle, which finally brings us back to the place from which we first moved. We are in constant motion and never stop to plunge into the depth. We talk and talk and never listen to the voices speaking to our depth and from our depth. We accept ourselves as we appear to ourselves, and do not care what we really are. Like hit-and-run drivers, we injure our souls by the speed with which we move on the surface; and then we rush away, leaving our bleeding souls alone. We miss, therefore, our depth and our true life. And it is only when the picture that we have of ourselves breaks down completely, only when we find ourselves acting against all the expectations we had derived from that picture, and only when an earthquake shakes and disrupts the surface of our self- knowledge, that we are willing to look into a deeper level of our being.
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AHA! What would convince me that god exists...

Said being will come for tea (or dinner or whatever) at my house and...

1. Apologize for the mess that the world's become...after all, being omnipotent and omniscient, other stuff captured his attention for a few millenia.
2. Share a jibe and a joke over such individuals as Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Dubya, Osama et al, and agree that such people don't have a clue what life's all about, perhaps whimsically making Pat cluck like a chicken on his TV show, or make it impossible for Dubya to pull up his pants at his press conference.
3. Give me personally the godly power and understanding he posesses, such that I know the origin of the universe.

I think such a series of events would convince me that god exists. Because I'd be one :)
 
Enterprise-D said:
AHA! What would convince me that god exists...

Said being will come for tea (or dinner or whatever) at my house and...

1. Apologize for the mess that the world's become...after all, being omnipotent and omniscient, other stuff captured his attention for a few millenia.
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not only apologize but FIX it too!
 
Naw...I think humans still have to learn that we should be responsible and mature enough to properly wield free will and fix most of our own messes; stop blaming some red-skinned dude with a pointy suit and horns (or whatever).
 
From the last paragraph of the last chapter of A. E. Haydon's "The Biography of the Gods": "For too long, we have put off unto the gods those things that we should be doing for ourselves."
 
one_raven said:
I'd like you validate that statement.
Prove it.
Why must there be hate in order for there to be love?
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We naturally hate, when a child hates, he goes crazy about it, he becomes the hate.
We naturally love, when a child loves, he become the love as well.
When I say naturally, I mean that we were born with that, it is natural, not learned, not knowledge. Is instinct.

We agree on that one?

Well, I personally would like to think that the world could become all love and no hate. But my experience tells me otherwise.

The thing most people call love, is not love. Because love is unconditional. You say you love your partner, but if she cheats, she can go to hell right? How can that be love? There is nothing unconditional about that love.

I cannot prove that love cannot exist without hate. But you cannot love and hate at the same time can you? You can hate your girl in a certain moment, and love her in another one, but you cannot have both feelings at the same time, can you? Because if you can, you can prove me wrong.

A witness that I am of duality, see it in everything of creation, total opposites complement each other. The nature of the darkness can only be explained with light, the nature of unglyness can only be explained with beauty, ying/yang, etc.
I can only tell you that by this very nature of duality, love and hate are complements.

Although, I think that hate is just ignorance, because love is in our nature, if you love, you cannot hate, and that is intelligence. Hate is only bad for you, love is good in every way.
If those 2 feelings arise from within you, you can control them and make them manifest anytime. There is no reason why external factors should affect our feelings, only we are responsible for our feelings. Because we create those feelings with our brain.
If you can control your emotions, why would you feel hate? Love is good for you because it will make you happy, not stressed, not depressed. And you can spread the love like if you were a flame, it can light a fire. But the hate has the same nature, though it is bad for us and our emotional and physical health.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
We agree on that one?
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NOT AT ALL!
But I don't have time to address this properly, hopefully I will get to it this weekend.

I have posted a few things recently about fear that I think apply to this in one way or another, so I will point those out to you, in case you want to read them in the meantime...

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1428295&highlight=fear#post1428295

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1408546&highlight=fear#post1408546

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=64676

Hatred, like fear, I think is a manmade emotion that comes about through nurture, not nature.
 
God gave us free will. It started with Adam and Eve. And look how they screwed it up. It's been a mess ever since.

We have this free will. We make our own choices: to believe or not. Only we will suffer the consequences of disbelief or the joy of belief when we die.

It's not God's job to take care of earth. He gave it to man. He gave us dominion over it.

Self-responsibility is key. Without it we are an even bigger mess.
 
one_raven said:
I'd like you validate that statement.
Prove it.
Why must there be hate in order for there to be love?
Click to expand...

I try to look at this way. The physical universe operates on a principle of duality as we can observe..positive/negative,up/down,electron/proton, matter/anti-matter,love/hate.
The reality as we see it operates on this duality and unfortunately all the bad things that happen in life are simply the counter force of this universal law.
 
sandy said:
He did.;)
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So what was the point? Why would god do anything if he already knew the results of his actions? In the end, it's all the same for God. He can do whatever he wants, with no limitation, but it always happens how he expected it. No surprises. Just the same old boring shit for eternity. Really, what's the point?
 
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