a. fucking. amazing.

http://tbd.yi.org/Gd/

this is an excerpt:

"Why do people have different religions?" I asked. "It seems like the

best one would win, eventually, and we'd all believe the same thing."

The old man paused and rocked. He tucked both hands inside his red

plaid blanket.

"Imagine that a group of curious bees land on the outside of a church

window. Each bee gazes upon the interior through a different stained

glass pane. To one bee, the church's interior is all red. To another it is

all yellow, and so on. The bees cannot experience the inside of the

church directly; they can only see it. They can never touch the interior or

smell it or interact with it in any way. If bees could talk they might argue

over the color of the interior. Each bee would stick to his version, not

capable of understanding that the other bees were looking through

different pieces of stained glass. Nor would they understand the

purpose of the church or how it got there or anything about it. The brain

of a bee is not capable of such things.

But these are curious bees. When they don't understand something,

they become unsettled and unhappy. In the long run the bees would

have to choose between permanent curiosity -- an uncomfortable

mental state -- and delusion. The bees don't like those choices. They

would prefer to know the true color of the curch's interior and its

purpose, but bee brains are not designed for that level of

understanding. They must choose from what is possible, either

discomfort or self-deception. The bees that choose discomfort will be

unpleasant to be around and they will be ostracized. The bees that

choose self-deception will band together to reinforce their vision of a

red-based interior or a yellow-based interior and so on."

"So you're saying we're like dumb bees?" I asked, trying to lighten the

mood.

"Worse. We are curious."

Seems very interesting. I'll read it.

Wow, I'm at Ch. 20 right now. Although the first part was more interesting, this is very striking. Good find.

Finished it. WOW. That was incredible. Thanks alot for the find.

Sounds nicely balanced. Alternative to the usual yes-yes-amen, no-no-curse binary crap?

What if the bees say, "hey maybe this, maybe that, and in any case it's great so who cares if this or that colour? Let it bee"

Wow, that was amazing. I just read the whole thing tonight. The first 3/4 of it were more interesting than the end parts, but I did like the ending.

Bravo!!! very enlightening

It was bizarre. In a nice kind of way.

well, i'm glad that you all liked it.

quote:WOW. That was incredible.

that was my first thought. it kinda makes you look at the world in a whole new way.

talus

loved what i skimmed through, definitely checking it out.

talus ever read illusions: the adventures of a reluctant messiah by richard bach?

http://www.concentric.net/~conure/bach.shtml

that is chapter 1 written in a biblical format, great book for the deist philosophy.

the more i read it the more i realized i read it before.....

http://reluctant-messenger.com/main.htm

i however disagree with the eastern philosophy conveyed that we need to "awaken our god-consciousness"

although many of the concepts, such as no time, no motion, and the probability factor are ones i've held to according to my research through people like julian barbour, michiu kaku, and stephen hawking have instilled in me.

the probability concept is immortalized in the wave function of the universe summed up schroedinger's cat.

and i don't think it really answered well enough what creates our singular identity. sure it identified that throughout the course of life, none of the cells that make up our body will be the cells there when we die, yet we retain a singular identity a singular memory.

in one area i think it even contradicted itself, but supports the appeal it has; is in the arrogance of man. as i've stated before, god did not create us in his image, we created god in our image, i think he nailed that perfectly. especially in that we do that out of arrogance, but isn't arrogant as well then to assume that we are god?

i also liked what he pointed out about religious wars, in that religion has helped far more people than it has hurt, a concept i agree with, despite disagreeing with religion.

he also seemed to fuse eastern and western religious philosophy, the eastern we are all part of the uncreated god with the western lift up a rock and i am there, strike another and you strike me, where he states everything is a part of the uncreated god.

i wouldn't be at all surprised if the origin for the idea of the book stemmed from the website i linked to above.

i also believe you can have free will with a pre-determined destiny.

there are some who suggest that every moment that ever was or ever will be has already happened,

i can make a choice right now to get up and open the door or choose to leave it closed, whether or not i have already made that choice does not take away the fact that it was my choice to make.

the part about esp i loved as well, i got into discussion with a friend one time about this crazy ass show called crossing over with john edwards, he's just using probability as the author stated in guessing these "facts"

the part on the skeptics was intriguing as well, but without skeptics the pursuit of truth would never occur.

I read it and liked it a lot for awhile, but then around Chapter 23 or so it started to feel like an advertisement to get me to contribute more to capitalism than to really reach any awareness. Then it went back to being good after he stopped explaining why we should go with probability.

I have some of the same problems with it as Izzy.

Enlightening? Not really.

Interesting? Definitely.

no, i cant say that ive ever read that izzy, i'll have to take a look at that. thanks for the link.

quote:i can make a choice right now to get up and open the door or choose to leave it closed, whether or not i have already made that choice does not take away the fact that it was my choice to make.



yea, ive always been intregued by the concept of fate. you could think of choice as an illusion, in that we allready are predestined on path we will take, but we see that we have a choice, even though we do not.

man, fate is confusing. ive never liked the idea of fate, i dnt like not having controll over my life

talus