Fresh Air Fund

Gmail :FAF apparantly assuming animal lovers live in the suburbs sent me this link. I am a bit far from NY but knew a few kids that enjoyed "Camp" when I was living there. As they say Check it out! http://freshairfundhosts.com/

Sacred for the People

Facebook:

"...the category of the sacred really pertains to the emotional side of humanity, while the profanes is the languishing, dull, non-emotional side. But the sacred canopy has collapsed, nothing is sacred anymore, and that which was sacred and emotional has become public, pedestrain, accessible to all - in a word, it has ...been profaned.' -Mestrovic, quoted from 'The Emotional Organization' Via Eric Johnson"

Nope, the category of sacred has just been given back to the people from the churches. Or should I say that the people have taken it away from God. Every sunrise, every rainbow, and even the hummingbirds at the feeder in my window are sacred. The sacred is still there. But you do have to look.

Sacred still has too much God for my taste, I have generally substituted transcendental, for the non-God mediated exceptional experiences that make me just stop everything and simply appreciate.

Sources of Oughts for Living

Credibility of Miracles - Beliefnet

Science is almost completely neutral on how you ought to live your life. No wonder you are confused. You have no guide on how you ought to live your life.
Godman

"And science is completely neutral on atheism. Atheism returns the compliment. If science could support a hypothesis that one social paradigm was superior to another most scientists atheist or believer would adopt that social paradigm as the best available. Social science is in its infancy at this point and hand-waving is the normal experimental protocol.

Atheists who have no belief that a particular social paradigm is better than any other must look around them and say this works, and this doesn't. The data may come from many different social paradigms. From the religious realm I have adopted the love your neighbor paradigm as useful and hate the sin as dysfunctional as it normally is a very slippery and very steep slope to hating the sinner. I find God support for a social paradigm to be a flag for dysfunctionality but not necessarily a fatal flaw.

From all this I have constructed a guide for how I should live my life that I observe works much better than any religious guide I have studied. About the only contribution from science is the scientific imperative of looking at results. Results speak for themselves. Or as Jesus was reported as saying, look at the fruits under the tree to find out whether the tree is good. Many of the fruits under the religious trees are just rotten."

The fruits under many religious trees are all rotten. Fundamentalist Christianity and Fundamentalist Islam are two clear examples. Others, traditional Protestant and Catholic if you exclude the upper echelons of the hierarchy are generally good. My debt to Catholics, especially Jesuits, and to the traditional Protestants is huge. I have learned much about living from discussions with them. I have learned next to nothing good from any church with "Christian" on the nameplate.

Suspension of Disbelief

Credibility of Miracles - Beliefnet

Has anyone on the board had the experience of being able to believe something that wasn't actually believable to you, simply by deciding to do so?
McAtheist

"I assume here you are not talking about suspension of disbelief. Part of enjoying a movie or a book is accepting for the duration of the experience that the characters are real or suspending disbelief in the fact that they are fictional creations. I have no issues at all with doing this, but when the credits roll or the book is closed the characters are back in the category of fictional. The problem I have with believers is that they cannot make this distinction. They put the Bible back on the shelf, but God doesn't go away.

This is characteristic of small children. Dick, Jane and Spot are real and stay in the childs world. On my 5th birthday I got The Red Pony as a gift, and for a year or so Jody was my best friend. He went with me to school, I played in his barn. As my mind matured I learned the difference between my real friends and Jody. I always wondered why my religious friends did not make this distinction with their real friends and God."

Self, Soul, and God

Richard Dawkins cult - Beliefnet

The brain activity can be adequately described from a third person perspective, but if it is the be-all and end-all of explaining consciousness, why wouldn't a third person researcher be able to explain the subjective aspects as well? The internal life that goes on where brain activity generates a mind that has a sense that it is a unified self....provided the subject isn't mentally ill ofcourse, seems to be off limits to the onlooker, and can only be understood as a lived experience by the subject. Is it good enough to just say that we have a neural correllate of the experience?
Ralph.m

"The sense of self is off limits to the onlooker, because it is a combination of hardwired neural connections generated while the brain was developing as a child, and distributed memory tracks of incidents that defined self and other.

Incidentally, the complexity of the sense of self is for me the most powerful argument against any kind of dualist external imposition of soul. The sense of self of which the soul is an integral, and integrating part, is so much a part of the functioning of the entire brain, that the imposition by God would be impossible unless God was present as the brain developed. It seems more likely to me that God was created later on in the life of the self, as the self encountered the other identified as God by social peers and mentors."

Sin and Shadow

Owning Your Own Shadow - Beliefnet

It's not a belief system. It operates with people who don't even know the shadow exists. How can that be a belief system.
stardustpilgrim

"If it operates with people like me who do not have one, it is a belief system. I do not have a sinful nature nor a shadow. I have a very well developed sense of what natural tendencies I have to control to assume a beneficial role in my chosen society, but those natural tendencies are not dark, or bad, or evil, they are simply not useful in an intelligent cosmopolitan society.

One of the reasons I have found God dysfunctional is some of the natural tendencies encouraged by God are not useful in my society. Fear of strangers or people different from me is a natural tendency that at one time was quite useful. It is no longer so. As Oscar Hammerstein wrote in South Pacific

You've got to be taught before it's too late.
Before you are six or seven or eight.
To hate all the people your relatives hate.

You won't do it naturally, you may naturally fear strangers, but this fear is not bad or dark or shadowy, you have to be taught that the fear is hate which is bad, and dark and a shadow. But someone had to teach you."

The dark side legacy of Paul

Circumstantial evidence for God - Beliefnet

'Everything with substance casts a shadow. The ego stands to the shadow as light to shade. This is the quality that makes us human. Much as we would like to deny it, we are imperfect'.

MEETING THE SHADOW, The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature; edited by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams
Wendyness

"I do not argue that perhaps most people believe in the dark side of humanity. I suspect this is a result of the prevailing Pauline concept of universal sinfulness. When you are taught from a young age that you are a miserable sinner and require salvation it is easy to internalize the concept of sin or a dark side. The trick it to understand Paul's theology, reject it rationally, and look around at the people you know. How many of them could you even identify what their dark side consisted of?"

For me this is the most devastating legacy of Paul's sales pitch. And why I find Romans 1 to be the most crippling book in the whole bible. It is a litany of all the human impulses that must be controlled to be sure, but are not inherent in all or even most. And yet one has this peroration that tries to rope everybody into the sinner category so Paul can later sell his savior. And guess what? If you give the church the child till he is 10 you will have a child with an internalized sinful nature with a dark side that he must find salvation for. He can reject the church, and even God. But the dark side remains. If only people could internalize "I am a good kid. God doesn't make junk." If only Paul had.

Eternity with God or Hell

pertaining to IQ. - Beliefnet

So, I can't say that non-Christians don't have the hope of spending eternal life with God? If you don't believe in God, why would you have hope that comes from knowing you'll spend eternal life with him?
Girlchristian

"Why would I care. Everything I read about God or gods spending eternal life with them would certainly be hell. I will take my chances that existence ends with death."

Is the Dark Side Human?

Circumstantial evidence for God - Beliefnet

Bull crap, '[J'C]without religion there is no dark nature'. It is innate within human nature, we are UNCONCSIOUS and the UNCONSCIOUS has nothing to do with religion, it is part of what we are.
Wendyness

"You seem to be an expert on bull crap which is equivalent to BS which is equivalent to Belief System. And belief systems are not all religious.

I am not unconscious. It is not part of what I am. I was brought up to be responsible for all of my actions conscious or not, and therefore had to be aware of unconscious, read instinctive, reactions and control them. It was not hard, I never was indoctrinated that my instinctive reactions were bad, just that they needed to be controlled for moral, social living.

As an example from the hot topic on this thread, I was never indoctrinated that my sexual impulses were bad or 'dirty.' I was, however, strongly indoctrinated that if the Girl Scout was not similarly inclined or I was not prepared and ready to accept the consequences of my instinctual action, I had better cause her to cry and walk out the door, or cause myself to say 'Oh, shit. Oh well, there will be another who will be similarly inclined.'"

All of which have happened to me. As well as similar situations where we were both willing and eager, but not ready for the expected consequences. In one case purely psychological consequences. As a normal heterosexual male, in normal heterosexual social activities, I have had all the usual opportunities, and temptations, but in general according to my standards I behaved morally rather than instinctively. I have no regrets about missed opportunities, I think I chose wisely to miss them. But it was not denying my dark side. It was controlling my life.

How Good Religion Works.

Meaning - Beliefnet

Any properly socialized child up to about age 5 will be compassionate and empathetic. See any preschool thru kindergarten class. After that other socialization forces may come into play that will instill a feeling of superiority and the inferiority of others. If you think I am talking about religion you are correct. Children in religious societies are taught that they are bad and need the help of God to counter this badness. And they act out. As I have selected a society away from the religious in general, the people in my society have avoided these feelings of inferiority, and therefore are compassionate and empathetic as adults. They are not stupid, they recognize that not all people are compassionate and empathetic, but it is surprisingly easy to avoid those that aren't.

My religion never told me 'I' was bad, it told me that murder is bad, stealing is bad, etc....I was never told in a Sunday school class as a child that 'I' was bad, I was taught that God loved me. I was taught that there are moral boundaries, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, and I still believe that having these moral boundaries is a good thing. I don't believe killing is a good thing, I don't believe that coveting your neighbor's wife is a good thing, I believe that honoring your mother and father is a good thing. I believe that loving your neighbor as you would love yourself is a good thing. I don't know what kind of religion you were exposed to on a regular basis as a child, I am sorry that you had such a 'bad' experience, I, however had a 'good' experience. My life is a living example of that."
Wendyness

Synchrony in Human Activities.

Human Cognition: Can Materialism explain it?- Beliefnet

That is exactly what we see; therefore, until this changes, materialism has been vindicated thus far as the ontology which most accurately describes our universe.
Faustus5

As long as you are willing to stipulate that materialism does very poorly in describing a probably insignificant blip in the universe called human cognition. At this point all materialism can say about cognition is that somehow neurochemicals and electrical impulses in neurons create or possibly detect cognition. I readily admit my cognitive bias that cognition is created in the mind/brain, but materialism must by definition be agnostic.

In particular I would like the materialists to explain how a top level string quartet manages the rubato, retards, fermatas, and other musical effects to produce a performance that can make a listener cry, or in one case of a quatuor pour le fin du temps sob uncontrollably. Or how a listener can control the attacks of a professional Rock band. All of which I have personally observed.

Or explain

With a dramatic bow of pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii’s head, rich sounds of the piano, violins, cello and viola broke the concert hall silence as he and a string quartet played Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44.

The standing ovation lasted nearly five minutes, so long that the 20-year-old from Japan returned to the stage twice to bow, grinning from ear to ear.

The audience may have loved Friday’s performance, but not everyone may have known its significance. Tsujii—who was born blind—had to figure out how to cue the other musicians. That was especially important with the Schumann piece, because all instruments must start playing simultaneously in the first movement.

Yeah, sure. The quartet all mentally counted the 3472 microseconds from when his blind eyes crossed the horizontal and they all came in on the 3473rd. There was something else going on here. The leader, in this case Tsujii caused the syncing of the brain waves of the quintet so they could all attack at the same instant. A trained human ear can hear at least millisecond differences in the attack of stringed instruments. With a good ensemble it never does.

So, materialists how did Tsujii sync the brain waves of 4 other people?

I don't know what constitutes psychic by your definition, but the SciAm report states that syncing with the metronome, at the initial attack, and in difficult rhythmic passages the measured brain waves of two unacquainted guitarists in 8 trials were synced.

As noted in my previous post this phenomenon of "knowing when to attack" and following unpredictable tempo modifications is second nature to ensemble musicians. It is not unusual for ensemble musicians especially in rehearsal to be concentrating on the score, and yet still follow the subtle tempo changes that constitute the music. I don't know whether it would be called psychic by your definition or not, but I have experienced and seen the synchronization and its failures.

As another example I have seen a pairs figure skater "stumble" in a blind maneuver but be perfectly in sync with herm partner at the rejoin move which was also blind. I would submit that the skeptics have the burden of proof that the rejoin was based on anything but brain wave sync of unexplained communication channel. Not incidentally, they were out of sync with the music which was one of the reasons I noticed it.

I personally have "researched" the reaction time bill drop bar bet. That is if you catch the bill when I drop it it is yours. Catcher's thumb and finger over the portrait. A false grab means the catcher owes the dropper the bill. Reaction time says the money is in the bank. I was demonstrating this bet with a "fresh squeeze" who eventually became my wife. She caught the bill every time. Fingers right on the portrait usually. We tried this with a wall between us bill in a doorway and the only way I could beat her was randomizing my drop. If I so much as thought about dropping it I lost. This was witnessed by a fairly large group of peers, who were able to observe a randomized trial by a finger signal out of sight of all but the control observer. OT have you ever tried to randomize a physical action?

It would appear that the scientists who did the study you cited see nothing in their results that requires an explanation which goes beyond normal brain events understood in biochemical or information processing terms--business as usual.
Faustus5

"Stipulated. It would be quite beyond the experimental design to explain the mechanism of the synchrony. The synchrony was of course biochemical and information processing functions of the brains of the musicians. That is what they could measure. Like the drunk under the street light looking for lost car keys, science can only look where they have light to see. All the scientists could do was note that the synchrony existed. They could not publish the mechanism of the synchrony even if they speculated on it. At this point it is not science. That does not mean that the mechanism for the synchrony does not exist, it is just in the class of things beyond the measurable world of science."

What's to explain about mirror neurons, religious perceptions God or mental influence on others? At least in the sense that you have a better explanation for us?
Blü

How they work. I don't have any explanation of how they work. Just the observation that they do work. I have a speculation that the spinal chord is a brain wave detector, and particularly with respect to motor nerve stimulus can provide the observed synchrony, as in the movement of a school of fish in response to a predator. Whether it can provide higher function synchrony is much more speculative, but it explains some unexplainable observations, including mirror neuron response, and group perceptions of God.

I am always amused by the way scientists conveniently ignore things like reaction time and speed of pressure wave transmission in water in trying to explain the unexplainable synchrony. But currently ESP is a grant killer on par with Creation Science, so it will take a lot of "it just works" scientific evidence to force investigation of the mechanisms.

I have no dog in the fight. I don't believe in skepticism. Science always catches up and disproves belief systems contrary to fact. It will probably take a remote fMRI to catch a group of musicians, or a group of believers syncing up brain waves to do what is necessary. I wish you could have been at the Faure Requiem performance I mentioned earlier. (You don't.) The stick was right on the money. The chorus was all over the bar line.

I have personally experienced, or perhaps imagined, all of the synchronies mentioned in my previous post including the presence of God in a Catholic service. I can only speculate on the mechanism(s). Perhaps in the Catholic service I had a temporal lobe brain fart. Everything is on the table. But it was a physical action, genuflection, that triggered the connection with the congregation or whatever it was.

I'm trying to work out whether I think really good sync is more common amongst instrument players than amongst singers of the same professional status or not. I suspect it might be, but I can also think of extrinsic reasons why that might be so - especially amongst larger choirs. Amongst my CDs, the Robert Shaw chorale and some of the madrigal groups eg Les Arts Florissants doing Gesualdo make a positive case for the singers.
Blü

I think the secret is unconducted chamber work either choral or instrumental. And since instrumental chamber music is required of all pro level instrumentalists but not choral singers I suspect you are right.

But having sung for Robert Shaw, there is no way to be out of sync. Somehow, one always knows exactly when to come in. The concentration he puts into a rehearsal and a performance suggests an athlete. A face towel is standard equipment and is changed at every opportunity. He is not an active conductor, so the effort is all mental. I performed the Missa Solemnis under his baton, and there is no way to do the Et Vitam fugue at the tempo he takes it by watching the stick. There is just too much going on. I will admit to the possibility of learning to count microseconds in the rehearsal, but I wouldn't bet on it.

J'C But it was a physical action, genuflection, that triggered the connection with the congregation or whatever it was.I have no reason to doubt your word. The only question between us is whether a word like 'psychic' comes into the explanation.
Blü

I wouldn't take it off the table. It would have to be right up there with the brain fart. I don't have a clue as to how it worked. And as I had no previous experience of God, the feeling was of a presence like another person as described by unbelievers in the God Helmet experiment. But it definitely was not a person in the church, not even the priest. The closest analogy I can muster is the feeling I had in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

I think the analogy is apt. I have seen many a noisy group of school children fall dead silent as they cross the threshold of the memorial. I don't think it is anything supernatural, just a feeling of awe and reverence generated by those in the memorial. Is it phychic? A brain fart? Mirror neurons compelling awe and reverence? I don't think science dares to have a clue as to the mechanism. At this point it can just add a data point to the unexplained barrel.

Who owns the Soul

The Science of "Souls" - Beliefnet

Every hear of the 'dark night of the soul'? The soul is 'whole' and contains both dark and light.
Wendyness

"Perhaps, but if you break the religious leash on the dark side, you may find that it is relatively easily controlled if not completely eliminated. The first step is to realize that almost all people are good people, most importantly yourself. That way when the religious guru tries to help you control the dark side, you may properly ask what dark side? The guru will say the dark side we all have, and you can properly say speak for yourself. Depending on the religion the guru will say all are sinners, or all have the yin and the yang, and you have every right to use the tiresome atheist mantra: Prove it. The guru is making a positive assertion and the default is that it is false. Pointing to the occasional bad guy doesn't cut it. You may properly ask to show your dark side, hesh did say all after all.

A person starts with total control over herm soul. It has no sides or points. Your parents and family will normally help you shape it into the benevolent and beneficent soul that is your birthright. Don't sell it to the devil guru who will inevitably shape it to herm needs, not yours."

The most pernicious result of ceding the soul to religions is that they then get to define it any way they want to, and you can bet your tithe that it won't be for the benefit of the parishioners. It will always have the dark side that God or the guru will have to help you manage. And managing it means making you worry about it all the time as if it were really a part of the natural soul. It isn't.

If humans were evolved with a dark side to the soul they would have joined the rest of the hominids in extinction. Mom and the other caregivers including of course Fulghum's Kindergarten teacher, will guide the development of the soul in socially integrative, benign, empathetic, loving ways. Unfortunately the social milieu historically has included religious indoctrination which includes hijacking the soul for the benefit of the shaman.

It is critical that when one shucks ones milk church, one pulls one's soul out and shucks the dark side that was indoctrinated right along with the need for the God of the milk church.

The Red Pony

I passed on the ancient boxed first edition given to me on my birthday when I was 5 to Gabriel for his 6th. When I get there next time, I will add to the inscription: Gabriel, I learned to read with this book. I also learned to cry. Both are important to know.

Steinbeck is not an easy writer to read, as he writes of real people, with real lives. Like all great fiction he can put more truth about living on every page, than any other type of writing. It may not be nice truth, but it is truth worth knowing.

Christianity and the Arts

If Man is the Measure- Beliefnet

F1fan: and to my mind it IS the arts that has allowed religion to flourish and hold some significance to many cultures. I have my music favorites as well and am often so moved that I think it amazing that humans are capable of creating such beauty.

Myownpath: This is an excellent point. What if religions did not have grand architecture, paintings, music, ceremony, art objects,

Steven Guy: Well, the Christian churches in Europe bankrolled the arts there for many centuries and offered secure employment to artists, composers, singers, musicians, architects, builders, sculptors, writers and poets when patronage by the aristocracy was the only alternative, if it was an alternative at all.

Myownpath: etc. would the sermons (words of damnation) have moved them so emotionally to stay with their religion?

Steven Guy: In theatre one talks of 'bums on seats' and Christianity has worked harder than most religions to achieve that aim by appealing to the eye, the ear and the mind via Arts employed to keep the punters coming back.

Myownpath: Maybe everyone should send their tithes to art organizations since this seems to be the true inspiration.


Steven Guy: Sadly, for Christianity, the Arts seem to have largely abandoned Christianity since the 20th century. Messiaen and Poulenc probably wrote the last really decent Christian sacred music, although Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, John Tavener, Arvo Pärt and Sofia Gubaidulina have written some passable 'Christian' music, from time to time.

Or as is probably a better take: Christianity has abandoned the arts. I think to the detriment of Christianity. Even the Mormons have gone to religious arrangements of DWM art. Some of the multimedia crap in the megas might be considered art, but it generally is generic hack.

Or maybe God has decided that Christianity has failed and has turned to Pixar, Lucasfilms, etc. to sponsor the arts, and create new myths. Most of the best music these days are movie scores.

Self is brain function

If Man is the Measure- Beliefnet

Here's the deal. Do you believe in freedom, or not? Is self merely an epiphenomenon? Is self merely a result of brain function?

If it is, then, is there or is there not such a thing as a (personal) feed-back loop? In concert, what about what we have discovered about brain plasticity? In concert, what is the placebo effect?

Can self 'operate' on itself? ..........Or is this an illusion?
stardustpilgrim

"Self is brain function. It certainly can and does operate on itself. The self like any other brain process generates stimuli for other areas of the brain, including the more primitive areas of the cerebellum and brain stem. These areas send back other stimuli that may be interpreted by the self as relevant to activities it may be contemplating.

The placebo effect is simply the cognitive areas of the brain providing stimuli to the control centers of the brain that certain actions are appropriate, an increase in body temperature, a nap that might be otherwise ignored etc.

In order to survive before the advent of medicine the human needed considerable control over the autonomous nervous system. We still have it. A very intelligent family practitioner I know well, commented on some odd medicine that worked for me, 'If you believe in your doctor, everything she tells you to do works.' As a result of that advice, the only thing I believe in is my doctor. Which by the way was a chosen belief."

Human Cognition

Human Cognition: Can Materialism explain it?- Beliefnet

That is exactly what we see; therefore, until this changes, materialism has been vindicated thus far as the ontology which most accurately describes our universe.
Faustus5

As long as you are willing to stipulate that materialism does very poorly in describing a probably insignificant blip in the universe called human cognition. At this point all materialism can say about cognition is that somehow neurochemicals and electrical impulses in neurons create or possibly detect cognition. I readily admit my cognitive bias that cognition is created in the mind/brain, but materialism must by definition be agnostic.

In particular I would like the materialists to explain how a top level string quartet manages the rubato, retards, fermatas, and other musical effects to produce a performance that can make a listener cry, or in one case of a Quatuor pour la fin du temps, sob uncontrollably. Or how a listener can control the attacks of a professional Rock band. All of which I have personally observed.

Or explain

With a dramatic bow of pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii’s head, rich sounds of the piano, violins, cello and viola broke the concert hall silence as he and a string quartet played Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44.

The standing ovation lasted nearly five minutes, so long that the 20-year-old from Japan returned to the stage twice to bow, grinning from ear to ear.

The audience may have loved Friday’s performance, but not everyone may have known its significance. Tsujii—who was born blind—had to figure out how to cue the other musicians. That was especially important with the Schumann piece, because all instruments must start playing simultaneously in the first movement.
Japan Today

Yeah, sure. The quartet all mentally counted the 3472 microseconds from when his blind eyes crossed the horizontal and they all came in on the 3473rd. There was something else going on here. The leader, in this case Tsujii caused the syncing of the brain waves of the quintet so they could all attack at the same instant. A trained human ear can hear at least millisecond differences in the attack of stringed instruments. With a good ensemble it never does.

As a high level ensemble singer I know who is syncing the brain waves, the conductor, and when hesh loses concentration, the performance falls apart. I remember one performance of the Faure Requiem where the conductor was somewhere in never-never-land. He was waving the stick OK but the entrances especially on the Kyrie were painfully out of sync.

It is my theory, I have no experience to back this up, is that the leadership in a small ensemble like a string quartet, passes smoothly from one performer to another, perhaps on the importance of the part at that point, and they all follow that lead.

Why a Legacy?

Why answer these questions - Beliefnet

Why do you find a need to build some sort of legacy? I certainly do not.
Passionatereason

"Fine. Stumble your way through life, doing whatever is necessary to achieve the promised fulfillment on death.

I have a definitely limited time to accomplish the things that I have chosen to accept as my duty to my genetic and spiritual ancestors who left the legacy I am building on; to my family, friends and my chosen society who are helping me shape that legacy; and to those who will carry on after I have done all I can. You will notice that my duty is to real people alive, dead, and yet to be born. No imaginary entities in the lot. This is the way I choose to live my life.

I have no need for advice from those who choose differently. I sincerely hope their pie in the sky after they die does not turn out to be rhubarb with no sugar."

Cold and Dark?

Life after death: a thought experiment - Beliefnet

And that 10,000 Million Year-old Light continues to propagate and effect even AFTER its Original Generator has gone Dark and Cold ...
teilhard

"As will some of the things I generate continue to propagate and effect even after I have gone cold and dark. Some will be mine. Some will be those of people long since gone cold and dark.

Right now I am thinking of my great grandmother whose children's songs that I have made my own and pass on in my turn have delighted countless people. One of them probably has delighted you, not through my efforts, but by a child in her preschool who took one of her songs to the Yale Whiffenpoofs. They changed the bridge, but the poor little lambs that stray were probably hers."

I have no interest in even thinking about what will happen to my soul when I am cold and dark. I doubt that anything will happen to it, but in the 1 in 10 billion chance that the light will hit some photoreceptor after it has gone out, it will be evaluated by what I did with that soul while I was alive. I intend to insure that my soul shines as brightly as I can drive it in this life. Some of us may make it to supernova, but even the random blip in the APOD deep field is important at least to the texture of the overall scene. It works for me

Life after death.

Life after death: - Beliefnet

huh ... So ... the Light from that Star 10,000 Million Light Years distant is from a Star STILL THERE ... ??? Shining ... ??? ... huh ...
teilhard

"10 billion years is beyond expectation for the life of any star. By now it is recycled into dust clouds or perhaps a new star. However, the light we see is a small instant in the life of the star, a few photons collected on a photocell or film. Yet that dead star affected us. It taught us a little more about the early universe. (Or at least taught those able to understand.) Was it necessary for that star to have eternal life to teach us something?

If in some small instant in our lives we make a difference in some other person's 'photocell' do we need eternal life to prove it? You may worry about God's eternal 'photocell' but I don't. I will worry about those around me and make as much difference as I can to make their lives better. That is all I need. I don't need to brag about it forever."

Life after death?

Problem with Pascal's wager - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

We RESENT The Facts of Mortality, Contingency, Suffering, and Death ... So we BLAME 'God' or 'diss' Existence Itself as 'shit' ...
teilhard

Some of you may do either. The most common is to blame God, or diss the human condition as shit. Both of which are religious concepts. Others have come to terms with the fact that life is finite and while there are unpredictable intervals of suffering we realize that this life is all there is, and we had best work through the suffering and contingencies to make what we can of it before our inevitable death. We try to live so that our legacy at death will be something that those following us can build on and enjoy. I don't resent the challenges of building a life worth dying for, and I don't waste a bit of life worrying about what might happen after. Particularly as nothing at all that I can change in this life will make any difference afterward. Re. Pascal's wager: If there is, paraphrasing Grantland Rice, One Great Scorer that makes Herm mark against your name, Hesh marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game."