Stumbling off the path.....

Aupmanyav said:
Self-replicating molecules, RNA bacteria followed by DNA bacteria.
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
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That's very generic. Molecules self-replicating based on the instructions of their DNA and RNA. DNA and RNA are insanely complicated.

I don't think you understand the definition of "empirical evidence". If there were empirical evidence that DNA and RNA came about on their own, and thus gave instructions for the self-replicating of molecules, then you would be holding a Nobel Peace Prize in your hand right now.
 
wil said:
The path...the path to spirituality....or is the path of spirituality??

the path to enlightenment....or the path of righteousness....

The path that my or your beliefs or religion prescribes...

Following the path has its obvious benefit....in the constraints of your belief, and hopefully has its obvious benefit in your life....


BUT....

but...

to me falling off the path, stumbing off the path, is where I learn my lessons....about life, and about the path I am on.

tis the obstacles, not the clear path that I learn from....

walking a tightrope, it is falling off that teaches me where my balance point was, and what it feels like to not be able to hold it....the warble and getting back on balance is what teaches me what I need to stay on line... The pole, a crutch, is a benefit, even needed at times....of long stretches between guy lines/my support team....needed in cases of wind, outer influences which attempt to remove me from my path....needed in fog, when I can't clearly see my goal....

I like the path, and I love it when it is like a perfectly designed waterslide, traversing effortlessly and thrillingly along....but I benefit most when I stumble, when I hit my head in the darkness on the cabinet door....when I stumble off my path and my friends are there to remind me....or when trouble befalls me and I get to understand a portion of the bigger picture...
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Held your thought in my mind for the past few days, I encountered synchronicity. First, the sermon the following day was all about Apostle Paul’s treatise on the soft power of “weakness.” I had been feeling recently quite a bit of the falling apart version of weakness that Paul was talking about, so between that and your own timely message, it was super easy to relate to the sermon I was hearing (not once, but twice, since I happened to attend both services that morning).

Flash forward to the following Tuesday (today), and I realized while running that the better me (closer to being on that path you write about) is not owned, but rented. The insight was assisted by a comment someone made here that reminded me of Gary Zuchoff’s (sp?) concept of our individual existence as being an “Earth School.” I also had “Night School” dreams of limited-but-not-altogether-absent control which brought me to a place of charitable feelings towards three human strangers in the dream. The three strangers were probably inspired by the wonderful movie, The Miracle Club, that my wife and I happened (synchronistically?) to see that night. My takeaway is that I don’t have to own “me” like owning the means of production. I don’t have to be a capitalistic me. I can be, instead a me loaned by Ultimate Reality or God. I can be a steward of that rented me, in a way that allows it to be an instrument of God, like Francis of Ascisi (sp?) prayed for. My running (while processing these notions) took on a more flow quality, as though the Holy Spirit was assisting me to run for God. Running for God meant that I was showing how an aging, falling apart, individual could show the greater than expected potential that Ultimate Reality packs into each (and any) being.
 
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moralorel said:
That's very generic. Molecules self-replicating based on the instructions of their DNA and RNA. DNA and RNA are insanely complicated.

I don't think you understand the definition of "empirical evidence". If there were empirical evidence that DNA and RNA came about on their own, and thus gave instructions for the self-replicating of molecules, then you would be holding a Nobel Peace Prize in your hand right now.
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Perhaps no “thing” ever really was “on its own,” but instead was quantum entangled with all other things via a different dimension that cut(s) across all “ten thousand things” (Taosm’s phrase) ????!!!!!!
 
AdvaitaZen said:
The problem with ideals, with notion of perfection, is that they cause us to overlook the miracle we experience with each breath. They are the product of dissatisfaction, yet it seems to me that ideals seem to create only bigger problems. Arriving at one, we place the bar higher, and eventually we come to the top and realize it was all for naught, we are no more fulfilled, we remain essentially the same.

Some die still striving for more, the lucky ones are content when they leave, the blessed ones find contentment long before death, and thus enjoy the fruits of bliss even in this place - this very earth becomes paradise, heaven.
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I meditate in a chair inside my banana tree cluster (mountain variety that survives Ohio climate). The other day I noticed the beyondness of my tall oak tree leaves while peering out the openings in the banana tree. I took solice in the Christlike intimacy of the soft enveloping banana tree leaves.
 
Thomas said:
As Matthieu Ricard states in his commentary on meditation — most people's idea of the exercise of 'personal freedom' is actually the mark of the undisciplined mind, which demonstrates its freedom by being led by every whim and fancy that crosses its path — not free at all, but they've bought the consumer ideal.
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I think as with all things, balance and moderation are required.

“A republic, if you can keep it.”
--Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
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The United States' Founding Fathers knew the people must be G!d fearing, or this experiment in governance would eventually fail. Even Thomas Jefferson, well known for his personal edit of the New Testament, believed in a Creator and behaved accordingly (for his time).
 
Peacegiver said:
Scripture says; "The paths of the Lord are straight, the righteous walk in them but sinners will stumble."

That is pretty straight forward. To be righteous is to walk in the paths of the Lord. obviously if you sin you are not righteous and you stumble, that is you do not walk in the paths of the Lord.

Blessed is he who finds no stumbling block in me.
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If you are hiking, you may choose to follow a personal tour guide, follow your written tour guide, choose where you want to go and use a map, take the path that seems nice when you have to decide, or go cross country without any path.
There are many ways to go.
If you go cross country, you will get a lot of experience, you will stumble and face obstacles. You will have the most intense experience, but you will be slow to get somewhere.
If you take the path that seems nice, you will get anywhere.
If you plan everything yourself using a map, you may get lost for a moment, but you will get there and see whether it's been worth while going there.
If you use a written tour guide, you will use the same path as many. You won't be alone, and come to places "of interest"
If you follow a personal tour guide, you inherit his experience.
 
moralorel said:
That's very generic. Molecules self-replicating based on the instructions of their DNA and RNA. DNA and RNA are insanely complicated.

I don't think you understand the definition of "empirical evidence". If there were empirical evidence that DNA and RNA came about on their own, and thus gave instructions for the self-replicating of molecules, then you would be holding a Nobel Peace Prize in your hand right now.
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Perhaps a Wikipedia check will clear up your confusion. Not the peace prize, but the Chemistry prize.
 
RJM said:
But all this is really 'evolution' of the universe, not genesis of the universe. There's no more evidence that the universe 'poofed' itself into being, than there is evidence some greater designer caused the universe? There's no actual knowledge of what originated the Big Bang singularity -- only speculation?
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I have already mentioned that science is not able to answer that today (which you can take as your victory and say that this proves existence of Allah and his messengers).
 
otherbrother said:
Perhaps no “thing” ever really was “on its own,” but instead was quantum entangled with all other things via a different dimension that cut(s) across all “ten thousand things” (Taosm’s phrase) ????!!!!!!
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My Name is Quanta

There’s more to me
Than meets the I.
I meet the earth and sky
That greet a stranger
Passing by.

Look all around.
Feel the ground.
You’re beginning to see
That the being before you
Never was just me.
 
otherbrother said:
Perhaps no “thing” ever really was “on its own,” but instead was quantum entangled with all other things via a different dimension that cut(s) across all “ten thousand things” (Taosm’s phrase) ????!!!!!!
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Perhaps. But "perhaps" isn't empirical evidence.
 
muhammad_isa said:
Indeed .. we all belong to G-d, and to Him we will return.
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Unfortunately, much, (actually, MOST) of the time, I fall into the illusion of a being who owns one’s particular self, instead of renting it as a vehicle of Ultimate expression and experience. When that misperception fails to make me feel reasonably worthwhile or intact, then I wander into the space of “child of God” or some similar spiritual identity. Or, as Wil says at the start of this thread, I feel like I’m off the path.
But doesn’t that discernment suggest that I do somehow remember my greater, more connected and whole, self identity? That I am a spiritual being in a human form (something like Wayne Dyer said)?
Perhaps the path instructs us when we get off it?
 
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Aupmanyav said:
Perhaps a Wikipedia check will clear up your confusion. Not the peace prize, but the Chemistry prize.
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I'm not confused. I know what empirical evidence is. You haven't provided any. No experiment exists that has been able to replicate the origins of RNA and DNA. We have ideas of how RNA and DNA came into existence. But no experiment has been successful.

There is a Nobel Peace Prize for Chemistry.
 
The Path With a Heart

Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Carlos Castaneda -- The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
 
Aupmanyav said:
I have already mentioned that science is not able to answer that today (which you can take as your victory and say that this proves existence of Allah and his messengers).
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That's not my conclusion. It doesn't prove anything. But it clearly does not exclude a higher designer.

That is the 'mission creep' of scientific atheism, imo
 
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otherbrother said:
When that misperception fails to make me feel reasonably worthwhile or intact, then I wander into the space of “child of God” or some similar spiritual identity. Or, as Wil says at the start of this thread, I feel like I’m off the path.
But doesn’t that discernment suggest that I do somehow remember my greater, more connected and whole, self identity? That I am a spiritual being in a human form (something like Wayne Dyer said)?
Perhaps the path instructs us when we get off it?
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Is it a misperception because it fails to satisfy you? And you return to the womb of safety of being a 'child of God'?
We are species with a certain length of life as with all other living beings.
Your actual identity is the stuff that constitutes all things in the universe, 'physical energy'.
 
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