Asking of the Designer what we would of any other designer (The atheist delusion)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, July 31, 2011, 16:40 (4864 days ago) @ whateverist

"There are formulations of God (Deism, especially what I term "radical" deism.) that wouldn't be challenged by a natural explanation, though I don't see the need to resort to them."
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> I agree on both points. Theists need not worry so much about the natural world -and- while you can reasonably embrace both science and a deity, what do we need the deity for?
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> "I developed what I can only say is a powerful insight; knowing isn't something that can be contained in words"
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> Yep, you can say a lot of things but you can't convey in words what it is to realize a thing without words. I'm convinced it is possible to recognize what is significant, urgent or possible at any moment without the use of any language, internally or inter-personally. Dogs do this all the time as do many other creatures who cannot express what it is they recognize in language. Their kind of knowing is more immediate. We have this capacity too but we tend to let it atrophy by relying too much on language. Too often I suspect people don't know what they think until they sound it out in words. By then of course what they think is filtered, limited and twisted by the language itself into a weak facsimile of the wordless realization they don't even recognize having experienced. Language is a mixed blessing. 
> -Buddhism centers so much on breaking the reliance of language. That short snipped from Hesse I have in my sig is repeated by every Zen teacher I have read or met. Reality comprehended is NOT comprehended by words, it's comprehended... perhaps at the level of the soul, whatever value that word still has in today's society. -The two books I recommend for anyone who asks me about Buddhism are "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," by Suzuki, and "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" by Thich Nhat Hanh. The Suzuki book begins giving you meditation techniques, the same ones I've found useful for exploring my inner life. Hanh offers MANY other technical books on meditation. 
 -> You make me curious to go back and re-read some Nietzsche. On the topic of books I'd have to say Pirzig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance" and Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity" probably gave me the most to think about. But I also got a lot from reading e.e. cummings' "Six Non-lectures", James Hillman's "Re-visioning Psychology", and Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle".-I consider myself quite fluent in Nietzsche. TSZ is his masterwork by his own admission. I don't get the impression at all that he was the angry atheist I learned about in my youth, and that he simply saw the great mystery for exactly what it was. -I haven't heard of Watts' book, from the reviews at Amazon it should have been on my reading list years ago. It sounds very much like EXACTLY what Buddhism teaches; security only exists in the here and now, attachment to possibilities creates unhappiness. Didn't know about Cummings either. I'll finish Jung and Campbell before I tread the road of Hillman. And Vonnegut... so many books, so little time!!!

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"