Reckless Forum

Yes, sometimes the Internet seems like a huge college bull session -- except everyone is set on transmit, rather than receive. This is a common issue - within and without the Internet I think. Also, I hope the music career becomes both a reward and a success! Thanks much. I'm back in school now, so...

Groups of evolved apes are the problem ;) Sorry I've been gone so long. I took a semester off from school to focus on music and so most of my spare time has been spent with a brass slide and an old guitar, often in the local watering holes. I haven't cracked the Internet as a recreation in months. T...

I think the human desire to be right and better are very difficult to overcome. It's true not just in religion but in many other arenas--even in science. Because skepticism and questioning are incorporated into the mechanism of science, science has much better (not perfect) defenses against dogma. ...

The Spirit was once female, rather than a disembodied or neuter representation -- Sophia (=wisdom, since you brought it up!) in Christianity, Shekinah in Judaism. If we are to pursue the very worthwhile goal of compassion, inclusion of the female is among the basics. If the female is by definition ...

I think your comments about compassion are important and spot-on. Two of my favorite religious icons are the Tibetan pair of Chenrezig and Green Tara that are normally arranged beside each other at a place of honor. Chenrezig represents compassion and Tara wisdom. Enlightenment is shown as seated be...

Cool thread! Fist let me say that my opinion is that human impacted global warming is a reality, and that we should address our carbon output ASAP to hopefully stop any unnecessary climate change. That said, Earth has obviously gone through numerous climate changes of a fairly drastic nature over ti...

I would say that humans, as inherently social animals, are indeed susceptible to bad ideas -- hence groupthink and lynch mobs. The core bad idea in all absolutisms is: believe tenets posited as immutable and unquestionable, and the more arbitrary, the better. Corollary: if you question, you are evi...

I wasn't offended. All that offends me are mean-spiritedness and sloppy thinking. I myself was raised in a fairly healthy religious environment, where I was allowed to question, where women were treated as equals, and where charity mattered. After hearing many people's stories and reading history I...

Caliban, I respect your sentiments entirely and you won't get flamed from me! They surprised me because I made assumptions about you. Your post was excellent. For my part, I was a tonsured reader on the way to the deaconate in the Russian Orthodox Church and still have most of my books and like a lo...

I agree. The Manichean schools of gnosticism combine the worst aspects of Platonism and monotheistic fundamentalism (including a truly poisonous version of the fall). The monistic versions of gnosticism are more attractive to someone of my bend. Well put. Manicheans went on to screw up a few of the...

You should realize you can't trust the media distortions surrounding the "discovery" of gnostic texts. None of it is terribly new. Actually a fair amount of it had been lost since the early purges and book burnings. We knew about some of it due to the anti-Arianists writing about the evil...

Josh, I found your analysis astute, constructive and enjoyable. I loved the Doppler shift analogy! Thanks much - glad you enjoyed it! The hardening of the founders' fluid words into stone (sometimes literally) is a key element in all movements that you define as "conservative", whether po...

I love these boards - you go away for a couple days and all sorts of cool stuff pops up! Athena - I really liked the essay. I think we discussed it some back then, but a couple new ideas popped into my head on re-reading it. First, perhaps there is a need to go through periods of despoliation, naval...

Cool topic! I followed your link one more step to: http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=191981&ct=1232463 A few things occurred to me as additional problems to the ones they list. In the process of solar system formation in a small environment like one that would pro...

I think that neither Newton's nor Einstein's version of the universe is warm and fuzzy. Newtonian physics, as you say, are totally deterministic. QM introduces not purpose, but randomness -- which cannot in any way be interpreted as free will. The fact that we arose from a process is undeniable. Th...