09 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
The Big Gods Hypothesis
...without supernatural enforcement of cooperative, “moral” behavior, ancient Egypt—as well as nearly every other large-scale society in history—wouldn't have been able to get off the ground. All-knowing big gods are “crazily effective” at enforcing social norms, says Norenzayan's collaborator Edward Slingerland, a historian at UBC Vancouver. “Not only can they see you everywhere you are, but they can actually look inside your mind.” And once big gods and big societies existed...Folksonomies: civilization theology
Folksonomies: civilization theology
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notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Religion or Science, Our Purpose is the Same
Though much has been written foolishly about the antagonism of science and religion, there is indeed no such antagonism. What all these world religions declare by inspiration and insight, history as it grows clearer and science as its range extends display, as a reasonable and demonstrable fact, that men form one universal brotherhood, that they spring from one common origin, that their individual lives, their nations and races, interbreed and blend and go on to merge again at last in one com... 1 notes
notes11 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Jesus was a Revolutionary
The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought. It is small wonder if the world of that time failed to grasp its full significance, and recoiled in dismay from even a half apprehension of its tremendous challenges to the established habits and institutions of mankind. For the doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus seems to have preached it, was no less than a bol... 1 notes
notesHG Wells goes point by point through Jesus' teachings, illustrating how he challenged tradition, the establishment, and even traditional family values.
18 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Buckminster Fuller on the Concept of God
My definition of the word believe means to accept an explanation of phys¬ ical phenomena without any experiential evidence. At the outset of my re¬ solve not only to do my own thinking but to keep that thinking concerned only with directly experienced evidence, I resolved to abandon completely all that I ever had been taught to beheve. Experience had demonstrated to me that most people had an authority-trusting sense that persuaded them to believingly accept the dogma and legends of one rel... 1 notes
notesHe believes the word fails to capture the awesomeness of the universe.
17 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Life Before Science
As recorded in the stone carvings of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the history of worid society begins with humanity at large knowing nothing of physics. chemistry, or biology. Humans recognized but few safe edibles. Humans had witnessed many lethal poisonings by superficially attractive items plucked from the mysterious scenery. Infection was rampant. Average survival was in the neighborhood of twenty-two years, or about one-third of the once-in-a-rare-while-demonstrated, biblically mentioned "thre... 1 notes
notesWas so tortuous that the Egyptians had to believe in an afterlife to justify it.
06 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
The Question of God is Not Valid to Science
I don’t think you can refute creationism. Science only explores the natural world, not the supernatural world, and God is a supernatural question. Even creationists will admit that God is supernatural.
The question of God is not a question that’s answerable by science because you can’t create an experiment that shows God doesn’t exist. That’s what scientists do. They create experiments to prove the negative. In fact, most of science is failure—failure to prove your hypothesis. If...
1 You cannot prove God does or does not exist, and science is concerned with what is provable.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Earth is Not the Center of the Universe
To a body of infinite size there can be ascribed neither center nor boundary ... Just as we regard ourselves as at the center of that universally equidistant circle, which is the great horizon and the limit of our own encircling ethereal region, so doubtless the inhabitants of the moon believe themselves to be at the center (of a great horizon) that embraces this earth, the sun, and the stars, and is the boundary of the radii of their own horizon. Thus the earth no more than any other world i... 1 notes
notesGiordano Bruno's logical argument that the earth cannot be the center of the Universe, because the universe is infinite in size and something infinite has not center. He would be executed by the church for this heresy.
16 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Creator Put the Sun in the Center of the Universe
Copernicus, who rightly did condemn This eldest systeme, form'd a wiser scheme;
In which he leaves the Sun at Rest, and rolls
The Orb Terrestial on its proper Poles;
Which makes the Night and Day by this Career,
And by its slow and crooked Course the Year.
The famous Dane, who oft the Modern guides,
To Earth and Sun their Provinces divides:
The Earth's Rotation makes the Night and Day,
The Sun revolving through th'Eccliptic Way
Effects the various seasons of the Year,
Which in their Turn for... 1 notes
notesBecause this makes more sense according to Richard Blackmore... Little did he know the Sun would soon be ousted as the center.
10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
God Ages Through the Bible
“Well, where is God,” said Mrs. Coulter, “if he’s alive? And why doesn’t he speak anymore? At the beginning of the world, God walked in the Garden and spoke with Adam and Eve. Then he began to withdraw, and he forbade Moses to look at his face. Later, in the time of Daniel, he was aged, he was the Ancient of Days. Where is he now? Is he still alive, at some inconceivable age, decrepit and demented, unable to think or act or speak and unable to die, a rotten hulk? And if that is his ... 1 notes
notesNeed to factcheck this, but in this passage, Coulter describes an Old Testament god who grows older and older, so that, if he still lives, death would be merciful for him.
10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
The Church is the Antithesis of Nature
Ruta Skadi stood. Her white arms gleamed in the firelight; her eyes glittered so brightly that even the farthest witch could see the play of expression on her vivid face.
“Sisters,” she began, “let me tell you what is happening, and who it is that we must fight. For there is a war coming. I don’t know who will join with us, but I know whom we must fight. It is the Magisterium, the Church. For all its history- and that’s not long by our lives, but it’s many, many of theirsit’s t... 1 notes
notesA witch rallies an army of witches by explaining how the church subverts natural understanding.
