Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

I sometimes wonder if a great deal of conflict could be avoided if belief was at a more personal level and if there were no such thing as "organized" religion.

In principle, is there a reason for "organized" religion to exist? Then what is it for? To conveniently compartmentalize the various subtleties in people's beliefs into tidy categories and then mutually reinforce them through social interaction? But people tend to stay in whatever denomination they were raised in. Often the subtleties in people's personal beliefs vary more within a religion or denomination than they do between them.

Curious what people think about this.

Isn't it weird? This forum didn't exist a year ago and it's been the 2nd biggest on the site for a while now.

I think one of the things Constitutional historians will remark much upon with regard to the 20th century is Congress' willing abdication of its power, and responsibility in, declaring war.

The Constitution makes the duties of parties clear, declaring war, committing the nation to war, is Congress's responsibility. The President's responsibility as Commander in Chief is to then carry out those wars. After all, committing the nation to war is an enormous decision. In a free country, this decision can't be made by one man.

Then came the War Powers Resolution of 1973, and the National Emergencies Act of 2002 (implemented in this case, this war, where the President notified Congress that a National Emergency was to remain in effect due to "proliferation of weapons of mass destruction"), this power and responsibility have effectively shifted to the President.

So it used to be that a national decision as monumental as going to war required discussion and deliberation, and finally a vote. By contrast today, one man, the President, has the effective power to commit the entire nation to war, and the expense associated therewith, based on fragmentary or faulty data, outdated intelligence, or just a bad mood. Here merely has to consult with Congress from time to time, not that that matters once you're committed to combat.

Congress was only too happy to give up this Constitutional responsibility as war is unpredictable and things often go less 'optimal' than planned with regard to public opinion. Avoid responsibility, avoid blame.

Premise: Consciousness is the real-time manifestation of the conversion of energy (via sensory inputs) to information (via neuron and dendrite arrangements). It can also be the using of energy for the re-processing of existing information (via memory recall) to be reconfigured, as in to reconsider a thought, or to "sleep on it".

Note that at certain points of unconsciousness or immediately upon death, the 'information' (neural patterns and structures) is still present but not conscious. Consciousness, therefore, is not the information itself, i.e. brain cells, but the change of phase of 'something else' (energy, reconstituted memories, etc.) into new information.

Proposal: Say you're a being that knows everything. EVERY thing. Whatever it is, you've already processed it, and re-processed it, in every conceivable imaginable way.

Speculation: With no unprocessed information left to process, no new thoughts left to think, would you any more be 'conscious'?

Chew on that one for a while!

Beautiful image.

And I was just catching up on sleep after the Summer of Mars too. Must... resist... Saturn...

"But, as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here. We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free. There is no escaping reason; no denying purpose. Because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist."

--- Agent Smith

>>If one believes there is no God, no Jesus, no Adam and Eve, then one must believe there is no Abraham.

So are there really Jews?<<

You have there a mix of characters, some or all of which may be real, some or all of which may be mythical. So frankly the premise statement doesn't work too well, since the cast of characters is hardly an all-or-nothing exist-or-not-exist package. Some could be real. Some could be myths. Some could be larger-than-life myths built upon real characters lost to prehistory.

As for the follow-up question, does a people need an identified patriarch in order to exist? If there is a group of humans on the planet, who identify themselves (whether by ethnicity, culture, or religion) as "Jewish", then yes, Jews exist. They don't need Abraham's permission.

outpacing the equipment forum on an hourly basis!

This is for 'believers' and 'non-believers' alike.

One thing I've noticed is how differently people think. Some people seem to believe (or not believe) based strictly on evidence (whatever you consider that to be), some have some feeling of 'connection' with something or some hunch or gut feeling or something.

What is you belief system (or lack of one) based upon?

1) Logical evaluation of evidence at hand?
2) A 'gut feeling'? Or a 'hunch' of some sort?
3) A strong sense that you have 'experienced' something?
4) A simple desire for something to be true?
5) A fundamental philosophy of yours (i.e. this 'must' be true because BLAH)

I'm curious. Feel free to add to the list.

The one place where established religion seems to consistently fall flat on its face is the treatment of its own holy texts.

Genesis is one of the more obvious examples. The entire book reads like myth and legend, not like an historical accounting of actual events. Another example of course is the book of Esther wherein the story of Esther and Mordecai, which is a secularized adaptation of mythology of the Babylonian god and goddess Marduk and Ishtar, who were worshipped my many ancient Jews.

Holy books, generally, appear filled with stories which embody various lessons to teach people how to live their lives. Some things are included to tell some sort of moral tale, some things are included for purely cultural reasons, many are stories meant to tell people something about themselves.

But all this gets lost in time. It is somewhat unfortunate that literalist versions of religion often take over and predominate, interpreting everything that is 'written' as actual people and actual events. Mostly, they are stories.