do ya worship anyone?

[dan]

God.

I'm definately not entering a debate about this one :p

[Beanpole]

If there's a god of surfing its the god of the hunt. A primitive god who rewards the cunning and lucky. The one who is in charge of the weather and waves.His name is Huey isn't it

[fatboy]

don't really wanna get involved in this debate but if you want to know where the human race came from read Maps of Time by David Christian. Difficult but brilliant history of mankind from the big bang to now.
P.s. i worship john frusciante

[Nugger]

I worship me schlong. Whatever he says, goes.

[cousteau]

surely the facts speak most loudly ........ nobody really knows what's it all about when it comes down to the crunch.I find the poem Desiderata (google it)the perfect dogma as it has none just a simple guide for living a good and honest life.I personally find all organised religion arrogant in their fundamental forms,but most religions at their core are good guides for life.

[Clif]

For a Being who's remained utterly and enigmatically silent throughout the course of human history, there certainly seems to be a s**tload of people who know what God would like us all to be doing.

right on the money.

and why is it that when humans can't understand something they invent all sorts of reasons and justifications in their own image. funny that, ego = god?

by the way stephen hawkings does categorically rule out a divine being.

if you don't think chemicals and chance played a huge role in developing us as organisms then check out a few piccies of the planets throught the universe. we live, as are planets formed, by chance everyday and life is irrational. RATIONAL explanations of god are a product of the enlightenment period - pretty ironic really.

nonetheless if you need a divine explanation more power to you. room for many explanations though - it doesn't have to be either/or.

altho as wittgenstein wrote - "there are no atheists on a battelfield".

[Larry]

Howabout when JC was on the planet and one hot day he was sitting around in the shade under a palm tree with his mob of followers, eating dates and drinking wine and talking politics, and there was this bunch of kids making a bloody racket around his feet - and when a couple of his heavies suggested that the kids p.ss orf for a little peace and quiet - he says ' NO ! '

then he sez that he wishes that everyone was like these kids because that's the kind of attitude that would make for good company in heaven

makes sense to me -

[Nick Carroll]

altho as wittgenstein wrote - "there are no atheists on a battelfield".

How did he know? I bet Wittgenstein didn't spend much time on a battlefield.

For those battling with the Fluke Theory of human existence, here's something to consider: perhaps you're looking at it from a very restricted angle.

Imagine you're standing in a footy field with a bow and arrow. You pull back the bow and boom! without taking any super particular aim, let go the arrow. It flies away from you and lands, thump! out there in the field somewhere.

Now imagine you're a small insect and the arrow's smacked into the ground right next to you. It's sliced through a piece of grass JUST SO, and dug PRECISELY a certain amount of earth out upon landing, and in the process it's driven EXACTLY through the noggin of the lizard who's been in hot pursuit of your flavourful little exoskeleton. BAM!

From your insect-type angle, you might possibly conceive of this arrow as an astounding miracle, sent by an all powerful God to the perfect place at the perfect moment. But if you were the arrow-shooter, you could never for a moment conceive of such accuracy -- even if you'd known about the lizard and its potential prey.

Many things were involved in the path of that arrow, many of them of a random nature -- a little gust of wind here, a deflective twist accidentally imparted upon release, even the turning of the earth.

The arrow ended up somewhere -- it had to. But to look at it from only the supposed end-point, gasp in astonishment at its impossible perfection, and assign the point of impact to the unseen hand of God .... it's to remain profoundly incurious about the arrow itself and how it really got there.

It's also -- not to put too fine a point on it -- a bit self centred. After all, I doubt the lizard reckons the arrow landed perfectly.

To expand this to life's evolution on Earth, well, shit, guess what, for some billions of years, a giant bow and arrow -- the Sun -- has been shooting colossal amounts of radiation at a planet where there's a lot of water and trace hydrocarbons. Perhaps life is the general result -- perhaps we humans aren't the tip of the perfectly aimed arrow, but the result of a gust of wind, or a deflective twist. Is that really so difficult to conceive?

Cripes, think I'd better go for a paddle now.

[oldman]

i believe GOD put us here, have you read the bible oldman?

Yep, but I wouldn't bother again, it just doesn't have any depth to it.

Also read the mahabharata, which includes the Bhagawad Gita. Almost certainly the defining spiritual treatise of mankind.

I've also read some literature from just about every religion and spiritual philosophy.

god gave us all a choice, its up to you what you do.

That is your belief. Because we believe we have choice, it does not follow that it was given by God. It is also possible that free choice is a delusion.

I don't mind that people believe what they believe, but I do have a problem with those who insist their way is the only way.

I used to think Marx (was it Marx?) was a cynic when he described religion as the opiate of the masses. I am inclined to agree with him now, but I believe that religion and spirituality are very different beasts.

[philw]

bloody hell! is this a first? has wittgenstein ever been invoked on a surfing forum before?

i think he did have battlefield experience - on the worst one of all - flanders in the first world war. as for his views on faith, it's not unusual for the mosrt ardent rationalists to end up having to grudgingly accept the the possibilty of a divine influence. kiekergaard struggled with it his whole life and, while he's in a totally different area I think stephen hawking has also said that he can't absolutely refute god.

it takes as much of a leap of faith to be relegious as it does to be an aetheist. they're both impossible to prove. which makes them oddly similar.

if there is a god though, i think he's a mean bastard. there's too much suffering in this world for him to be a benevolent influence.

[oldman]

Blimey Nick,

The question of chance? An immense number of mathematical near impossibilities rendered over an immensely long period of time.

The question has no answer, only opinions, however your story highlights the importance of perspective when looking at phenomena.

As someone who holds mathematics to be high philosophy, I'm inclined to think that it did not happen by chance.

However, that does not mean that God created anything. I'm more inclined to think of God as part of the creation. The main reason I like that idea is because it really f*cks with the minds of the religious

[Meataxe]

What do you mean that God is "part of the creation" old man?

[philw]

wittgentsein - if anyone's interested


He served first on a ship then in an artillery workshop but he found his fellow soldiers very difficult as they subjected him to cruelty. In 1916 he was sent as a member of a howitzer regiment to the Russian front where he gained many distinctions for bravery. In 1918 he was sent to north Italy in an artillery regiment and he was there at the end of the war, becoming a prisoner of the Italians in Cassino.

[Clif]

yeah, wittgenstein was on the battlefront like philw notes. he was wounded etc. and saw many close friends die first hand. heavy stuff. made him refute a lot of his original ideas.

regarding the arrow metaphor ... check out brian massumi's "parables of the virtual" for an amazing account of the flight of arrows, potential, and how we privilege "choice" is a relatively new logical phenomena.

then again, you could ask yourself:

which is the chicken, and which is the egg?

no surf does stange things.

[oldman]

Hi meataxe,

The underlying assumption in religion is one of cause and effect. i.e. something exists, therefore something must have created it. We observe a known universe, therefore God created it. It is the story of genesis.

But it is also possible that things just exist, even god. If there is a god, perhaps god has to play by certain rules, which might explain why we don't see god intervening in human affairs more directly.

Perhaps god is not omnipotent, and is not the 'creator', as the western religions assume.

[Johnno]

Or God exists because man exists.............

Also it was 330 years after the death of Christ that the Catholic church was formed.................lot of time to fill in a few gray areas.

[Larry]

Just quietly Johnno , old mate , where do you do your research ?