Debate

[BobTheBuilder]

Why do people believe the world is billions of years old? Seems real random to me when there is no evidence, it's a guessing game.

[zendancer]

Jun 16, 2010 10:30:06 GMT -5 @BobTheBuilder said:

Why do people believe the world is billions of years old? Seems real random to me when there is no evidence, it's a guessing game.

Bob: My original degree was in geology. It would take a long time to explain why cosmologists think the universe (as we know it) is x billions of years old and why geologists think the earth is x billions of years old. Geologists use potassium argon dating and other atomic methods of dating; cosmologists, astronomers, and physicists base their dating upon a wide range of factors including the speed of light, the red shift of starlight, background radiation from the Big Bang, etc. The estimates are not random, but they are only an approximation based upon the results of current experiments and our current understanding of theoretical physics.

[The Uncreated]

Jun 16, 2010 8:50:58 GMT -5 @Guest said:

Everyone has beliefs, they are always personal. I don't agree with anything you typed. You would probably not agree with anything i type.

That's where you and I differ then. There are no beliefs of inherent value. Yours, mine or anybody else's. I may state I have beliefs, but what are they ultimately worth?

Agree, disagree -- pointless. I know what I'm searching for, do you?

This is why I left the board ages ago. I'm not sure why I'm back, but like then, all I continue to see are circular "debates" and basically the same basic life questions re-hashed a zillion different ways.

It is a full out stalemate. But please do not think you have ALL the correct answers. Maybe a Creationist is correct?

Is being correct a pre-requisite of being truthful in the absolute sense? Does it even matter?

What is creation anyway? Sooner or later, you're going to have to recognize that creation isn't absolute. Creation has to stop somewhere, like the point where the creator and the creation are the one and the same, perhaps? What becomes of creator and creation then? What becomes of anything?

Think about that. Or don't.

Maybe ALL of the bible is true? What if all of the Holy books were true? What would you do then!? Im sure you would poop yourself and feel pretty embarressed that you wasted most of your life looking into pointless Zen Kôans .

Screw them all. In the final sense, they're all false.

[Myself]

This is why I left the board ages ago. I'm not sure why I'm back, but like then, all I continue to see are circular "debates" and basically the same basic life questions re-hashed a zillion different ways.

Why did you leave the forum? Are you jimmytrantic or one of his users who was posting awhile back?

You have done some interesting posts!! Please stick around for abit.

So instead of Creationism you prefer Uncreation? So nothing in the world is created to you? What is a piece of grass then? What is a house? What is the sun? What is the sea? What are people? None of these things are created? What are they to you?

[lobo]

Regarding Christianity, and all the beliefs.....

The paths all lead to the same place. If one is sincerely seeking god, then it happens the the concept of god has to change if one sticks with it.

If anyone is interested in this, then check out Fr Thomas Keating and his work bringing the contemplative christian tradition from the monasterys to the public.

Look up Contemplative outreach. There was a newsletter from about a year ago called "The four Yous" where he actually says, in the end, tip toeing around blasphmey, that you and god are one and the same. This is his fourth level of course.

Fr Keating is a Trappist monk and very old. I guess he can get away with that because he is beyond being punished for it. Not all christians, not even all catholics are limited to the basic spoon fed beliefs.

[The Uncreated]

Jun 16, 2010 19:47:15 GMT -5 @Myself said:

Why did you leave the forum? Are you jimmytrantic or one of his users who was posting awhile back?

No, and I left because when I was here last I was even then long tired of the ongoing and endless debate. For most, the debate might be necessary for them to get a feeling for a particular path; to get a sense of the sadhana that's best for their temperament -- but there are others here that need to detach themselves from this tornado of discussion and get down to solidifying their realizations into something concrete.

I say the above in particular because there are several very advanced people on this board who have a clear and deep theoretical understanding of this whole truth game. Frankly if they haven't broken through, I feel they're very close to doing so. I also feel they are wasting their time addressing issues that are well below their level of development.

So instead of Creationism you prefer Uncreation? So nothing in the world is created to you? What is a piece of grass then? What is a house? What is the sun? What is the sea? What are people? None of these things are created? What are they to you?

I could best address this with an example. The illustration might click for you or it mightn't. I won't leave it to you or anyone to figure out; I'll lay it all out for you here.

A man who has shaken off the fetters of the "I" visits a beach and picks up a shovel. He then procedes to build a sand castle. Who or what could be said to have built that castle? With no conscious center, the man could be said to be removed from the equation, would he not?

What could be said about the spontaneous appearance of the sand castle? Could it be described as having been created by something or someone? The combination of flesh, shovel and sandcastle, could a causal chan be attributed to the order in which those things are deployed to result in the sand castle being erected? How could we identify the root cause of the castle's appearance?

Our task is to positively identify the creator, and once that's done, then we could identify the castle as that entity's creation.

So back to our example of the Seer and the sandcastle on the beach. With no conscious center, we could theoretically conclude that there was a spontaneous action of "creation", prompted either by innumerable causes spanning back an infinite amount of cause-effect pairs (turtles all the way down) with no end to that regression, or prompted by nothing other than itself.

The castle creates itself. Both creator and creation and neither creator nor creation. That's where the conscious center in this whole thing resides. Having said that, examples of uncreated phenemonae happen all around us every waking moment. Snap your figures and the sound that's produced is the clearest example of the void's expression available. Understand that and you've understood everything.

Ever read Godel, Escher and Bach? Familiar with the painting of the hand that draws itself? That picture is overflowing with meaning. It is the appearance of creator and creation in one neat package.

So to answer your question, I might try to believe in creation or something else entirely, but what's the use? Creation in and of itself is incomplete -- it doesn't represent the Essential Nature.

Uncreated

[karen]

Uncreated, you can stick around and like me: shine on these debates.

[The Uncreated]

We'll see.

Just happened to look back over the posts I made over a year ago, and I noticed there was some lingering discussion about where I went, etc. and about some sort of masquerade everyone thinks I'm pulling.

For starters, I left for reasons I stated in my previous post.

(By the way, hello again LightMystic and Peter)

Next, I am not any teacher anybody recognizes. Not Jed, not Adyashanti -- none of those people. In fact I don't teach anything. I merely do my own seeking and attempt to resolve into The Answer. I'm one of many.

I'm nobody important.

Anyway, I might pipe up occasionally, but I don't see myself getting to deeply involved in the discussions here because for me, discussions cloud the waters. So to speak. I firmly believe truth seeking is best done in a call and response manner, call out looking for it; search for it everywhere and in every discipline -- religious, scientific, philosophical -- but then retreat into silence and attempt to feel and ultimately become the answer. Repeat.

Once all that you've learned subsides and disappears from your awareness over time, you're left all that more vulnerable to a breakthrough. Forgetting is key and I feel this is a very important thing. We have to foster a healthy disdain for collecting knowledge for the sake of doing so -- the seeker will know he's ready for the next step when he begins to despise study, debate and erudition: intellectual materialism.

Regards,

The Uncreated

[robert]

that uncreated, was worth the drop in for me.
couldn't have said it better.
off to forget
robert

[Guest]

I say the above in particular because there are several very advanced people on this board who have a clear and deep theoretical understanding of this whole truth game. Frankly if they haven't broken through, I feel they're very close to doing so. I also feel they are wasting their time addressing issues that are well below their level of development.

Can you please state who these 3 advanced people are?

Is it Zendancer, lightmystic and whos the third!!?? So you believe these 3 people are wasting their time here which is lowering their level of development? !!

[The Uncreated]

Jun 17, 2010 15:28:50 GMT -5 @Guest said:

Can you please state who these 3 advanced people are?

I chuckle. How does "several" become 3?

Anyway, I won't accept the bait. Not going to bite.

[User]

What religion are you Uncreated are you atheist?

[The Uncreated]

Since you ask, the closest thing that I dare consider myself is an agnostic. Theist agnostic. Theist in the sense that "god" to me is synonymous with the nondual void, and I firmly belief there is an uncreated source that is said void -- a primordial uncaused, immovable, indestructible and immutable non-thing -- and agnostic in the sense that "god" is ultimately unknowable.

[question]

@who built the sand castle?

Why can't I simply say that the universe built the castle?

[Peter]

Jun 17, 2010 21:07:18 GMT -5 question said:

Why can't I simply say that the universe built the castle?

Well of course you're welcome to say whatever you like. You could say it was build by a Flying Spaghetti Monster if you wanted. But unless the mechanism of it's being built is known, then there can be no real understanding.

Or so it seems to me. I obviously have my scientist head on today...