romansh

To be fair it was early winter … June The wineries seem to be taking some time off. But it was horror ...

I went there on a day trip from Perth … certainly pretty. We were looking for a place to have lunch … we ended up at a brewery. My friends were philistines.

I went through an Australian shiraz phase. If I visit Australia I will add the Barossa Valley to the itinerary. Currently in a Malbec phase … though it is 8 in the morning here so it is time for a cup of tea.

Judgement has two broad uses (at least I suppose) Classifying things into good and bad (perhaps evil) Simply an evaluation In the second case forgiveness is not needed and the first is predicated on people having free will. For the evaluation sense … I have a desire … and will someone's actions help achieve that desire. Now some might object to said desire, but then they can't help themselves.

Paul … I think what we are doing at the moment is not working. Doing more of the same is not going to help. Recently, I have read Pollan (and a year or so ago Harris) on the subject. We might try something different (legalizing?) and monitor the effects closely. And funnily enough I touched on the subject here. Some of the drugs are starting to be called entheogens - in God. To be honest, I am in ethanol at the moment … not finding god … but feeling oneness. Until the liver gives up the ghost that is.

For a while I have been pondering nationality and the ilk. A brief summary here. Another question that comes to mind here is if there are too many people for the planet to support what would our resident Progressive Christians do? Closing the borders would not be an option. And finally it is not what Trump wants that is not Progressive Christian … it is the way that he goes about it.

link

The article seemed like a half hearted attempt at apologetics to me. Ultimately the answers that are not in the Bible come from the complexity of our nature and the society(ies) that has shaped us. We could equally argue there are no answers in the Books of Harry Potter; rather these books "hold up a mirror", "they ask questions of ourselves". "They transform us". "They bring change". "They are a story of redemption". The books are more of a journey than a destination". Not a great article, I thought..

Fundamentally … How does being born somewhere (or ones forbearers being somewhere) give a 'right' to that plot of land. My forbearers came from the plane Earth. I claim my right to live on Earth.

OK what is the 'good" that he has done? But it has been going backwards under his administration. And is projected to get worse? I am reminded of I'm alright, Jack. There are at lot of antipodeans who have settled in my bit of Canada When I cross into the States at the local border crossing … I am reminded of going into a prison.

In juxtaposition. I can't remember if I have posted this before.

And yet we do it all the time. That was the point of my blog … to improve my "knowledge" around the claims that Trump has improved the economics of the USA. It is clear on average Americans are better off than they were three and even more so ten years ago. There is no dispute. Can Trump claim credit for this? Things were improving before Trump's term. The few Americans I know locally are saying it is increasingly difficult to get affordable health insurance. How is it for your relatives?

Afterthought … so it behooves us to try and ascertain the accuracy of the propaganda we are being fed. And that is what the first two thirds of what my blog was about.

If only 10% of what CNN reports is accurate … Trump is still a terrible president. Even Fox is beginning to show signs of criticism, is this propaganda too? Take the purchase of Greenland for the USA … in of itself not a bad or unreasonable wish. Executed extremely amateurishly … it was almost designed to fail. The world now laughs at the Office of the President. But with the exception of Russia it is a nervous laugh of uncertainty. The world is not laughing with you Joseph.

Affordable care act for anyone? Does this explain you voted? Perhaps you noticed things were steadily improving once the recession finished … as they have done in the recent recessions. There is nothing magical about this. If you are not swayed by data, then I am not sure what I can say. The data I provided was from the US government! They have been collecting the data for decades. I am not sure what you are trying to say by this. Including being to busy to play as much golf as Obama did? Regarding the border immigration issue, it not that the borders shouldn't be secure, but the way he goes about doing it. eg Separating children from their parents on an unprecedented scale. I am not sure how any Progressive Christian could not be critical of this.

Did a quick review of economic indicators over the last twelve years https://romscorner.home.blog/2019/09/01/trump-doing-well/

Indra's net …. Some other interpretations can also be found here …. http://www.pragyata.com/mag/the-vedic-metaphor-of-indras-net-234 To me panentheism holds onto that one last vestige of separation. I can't help thinking that when we point to the metaphor of god we are pointing to the universe is some shape or form.

Here is a list of Robin Le Poidevin agnostic manifesto points. As far as the onus of proof is concerned, the theist and atheist are in exactly the same position; neither has a greater duty to justify their position than the other. There should be no automatic presumption of atheism, but rather an initial presumption of agnosticism. Theism is not ‘bad science’; it is the very general hypothesis there exists, in terms of an intelligent being, a true unifying explanation of the world, ourselves, our consciousness and our capacity for good. The initial probability of the proposition that there exists such an explanation (as opposed to a detailed attempt at one) is not smaller than the initial probability that there is no such explanation. [The agnostic principle: always seek reasons for beliefs, and do not make knowledge claims that are not adequately supported by the evidence. Clifford’s statement of this principle, that it is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence, is too strong. Clifford does not allow for degrees of belief: we should proportion the extent to which we are inclined to believe something to the weight of the evidence. The evidence which is often pointed to as supporting, or undermining, theism is ambiguous: it can be shown to be consistent both with theism and atheism without resorting to ad hoc implausible manoeuvres. Since the evidence is ambiguous, commitment either to theism or atheism is, at least in part, an emotional response to the world, not a purely rational one. But this does not make either theism or atheism an irrational response. Theists regard the religious attitude as natural, in-built, and one which is valuable and to be encouraged and developed. Atheists, while often recognizing the response as natural, see it apt to delude us, and as something to be exorcised. The difference is more temperamental than either side acknowledges. Agnosticism as an attitude should not be viewed as final, but should be provisional, to be accompanied by an open-minded attitude, and a willingness to look at the new evidence and arguments. There are different shades of agnosticism, reflecting different views on how probable or improbable theism is. The admission that one doesn’t know whether or not God exists is entirely compatible with either a theist or an atheist outlook. There can be belief without knowledge Even the kind of agnosticism that takes theism and atheism to be equiprobable is compatible with a practical and emotional commitment to a religious way of life. James [William] thought that such a commitment necessitated genuine belief, but the agnostic participation in religion is more akin to participation in a game of make-believe. Agnosticism is part of the wider phenomenon of uncertainty, and uncertainty is positive in so far as it promotes creativity, theoretical progress, and social tolerance. Agnosticism thus promotes religious pluralism: peaceful co-existence between different faiths, and between religious and humanist groups. What id does not promote or imply is a relativistic view of truth: ‘Islam is true-for-me but false-for-you and so on. Not sure it is exactly a manifesto ... but hey ... when I write a manifesto. I thought they were OK, but I would have had different emphases, and I thought he lets off theists lightly. A more detailed response can be found here.

I am not disagreeing, but it would seem it boils down to, there is only stuff we give labels to. I suppose some of those labels might point us in an accurate direction. I would prefer an answer.

Which second question?

I do not take 'part' in my life, it is already mine. I partake or take part in the lives of others and in the life of the world. So too, I (we) partake of and participate in the Life that is God. Therefore, participation is Life is participation in God and such Life is not possible apart or separate from God. As there is no separation (and neither is there identification, "we are God"), all is in God and God/Being is in all. Can I take that as a "No"? I understood the question, but the answer …

I would strongly disagree here … without mathematics our descriptions of what we see as physics are weak. The cause and effect (that makes this universe unfold if indeed it is unfolding) is the same before mankind came into existence. But I think we are in agreement here overall. Inductive logic that we use to investigate this universe does not provide proof. So the question becomes how do we act in this universe? By logic or beauty are two options? What causes us to choose either? Is logic beautiful and what are the underlying reasons for our answers? Just some thoughts. I think your Rabbi is wrong here. Firstly I don't think we choose our beliefs … at least not in any formal-ish sense of the word choose. At least I don't. I find I have my beliefs. I can't help myself but as to approach things agnostically asking do things make sense. I did not choose to stop being deistically inclined; one day I found I could no longer sustain that belief. So logically your rabbi should be far more agnostic than Jewish.

Just to add my two cents … is not "God" also death, the inanimate, the things we label as "good and evil" and perhaps things we see as neutral?

Well it truly means we should not divide numbers by zero. 1=2: A Proof using Beginner Algebra The Fallacious Proof: Step 1: Let a=b. Step 2: Then , Step 3: , Step 4: , Step 5: , Step 6: and . Step 7: This can be written as , Step 8: and cancelling the from both sides gives 1=2. There is no proof in the real world … if you are you have come to the wrong universe. Perhaps you are not convinced, that is fair enough. In the same way I am far convinced of the various notions of gods that have been proposed. I am far convinced that we (I) even need a notion of god.

A couple of things I am not sure I followed Hawking's and Mlodinow's argument that God is not a necessary requirement for our universe. Hawking and presumably Mlodinow are proponents of a multiverse model and hence universes are popping into existence all the time. Of course there are critics of this and can be quite vociferous. Note Sabine does not let God theories off the hook either. Now Newtonian mechanics is wrong in the sense it is not accurate, ie Newton's laws do not explain the precession of Mercury. But of course Einstein's relativity does. But I seem to recall Einstein himself thought that relativity too will fall one day. And relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible theories though they describe some aspects of reality really accurately. Nowhere in The Grand Design do the authors state there is no God, only that it is an unnecessary addition to the theory (Similar to Sabine's position and I am reminded of Laplace's apocryphal rejoinder to Bonaparte "I have no need of that hypothesis.") Also, Newton's argument for God creating something out of nothing is an argument from incredulity … I don't understand how it could have possibly happened therefore God did it.