43 Things

work together with people worldwide to help ourselves and each other to live whole-centred and balanced lives by making constructive changes within ourselves and in the world (read all 1448 entries…)

Worth doing!

Quote of the Day: 2 May 2009 — 2 months ago

“If I were to say, ’God, why me?’ about the bad things, then I should have said, ’God, why me?’ about the good things that happened in my life.” – Arthur Ashe

May 06, 10:40AM PDT 2 cheers

Comments:

Compassionist

We ARE family!

Just to reassure you – I have read your whole post and you are coherent despite being tired.

I totally agree that we are family. All evidence points to it. In fact, all living things are the surviving descendants from our common ancestors who were just RNA-like self-replicating molecules in the Earth of around 4 billion years ago. That is why 97% of the human genome is junk and does not code for anything. This junk is the evolutionary detritius. This is why mice have 90% of the human genome.

What is even more interesting is that life forms an unbroken living chain since its beginning. Let me expand for clarification. You are alive. You started out as a single cell called a zygote which was formed when a sperm from your Dad fused with an egg from your Mum. The sperm and the egg were alive and are themselves descendants of the respective zygotes that formed them. This trail of living cells goes on and on to single celled organisms and even before that when life was just RNA-like molecules.

I find the Genesis account to be incongruent and sadistic. I don’t find Genesis to be of any value but no one is required to agree with me. How sadistic of God to punish Eve and all her daughters with childbearing and childbirth pain! Especially when God did not warn Eve that He was going to do this to her if she were to eat from a certain tree.

Not that any of Genesis is true. I am convinced that the whole Bible is fabrication. Did you know that Christians insisted on not giving women pain relief during labour? Queen Victoria decided to break this sadistic tradition by taking chloroform when she was in labour with Prince Leopold. With time, this high status precedent lead to the use of pain relief during labour being common place.

May 08, 07:40AM PDT | Parent | Respond to this 1 cheer

New Isabella has houseguests arriving sometime Sunday afternoon...

Did you read the article...

...on yahoo news today about the genome of the duck-billed platypus? It is fascinating stuff. Here is the link if you haven’t read it.

Science is amazing and fascinating, and also terrifying. It is amazing to me that DNA is something that has only been discovered in my lifetime. As with all scientific knowledge, this new understanding can be used for good or evil, and sometimes even what seems to be good at first turns out to have unintended bad consequences in the longer run. I wonder about unintended consequences of the changes that we are making to the DNA of a variety of living organisms with genetic engineering.

I did not know anything about Queen Victoria and her part in the practice of giving pain medication during labor. I have never been through the pain of childbirth, but a friend described it as a feeling of being run over by a train. I think that if I were to go through childbirth, I would want that option of pain relief. Like the example of the trial of Galileo, this seems like another example of how people have a tendency to take the Bible too literally. The Bible is a large collection of writing from different authors at different times and in different circumstances, and it seems to me that it isn’t possible to take the entire Bible literally, yet there are people who claim that they are able to do it.

Not unlike scientific knowledge, the words in the Bible can be used to good ends and can also be used to justify evil. From what I understand, the words and ideas of the Bible inspired the creation of the first hospitals. The Gospel stories in the Bible inspired that poem by Peter Maurin that you liked very much, and inspired people who tried very hard to live out the ideals of that poem, including my own uncle.

May 08, 10:49AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 4 cheers

Compassionist

Yes, I read that yahoo article. Thanks for reminding me of it. It is indeed fascinating.

I agree that there are inspiring verses in the Bible – just as there are inspiring verses in the Quran and other religious texts.

Actually, the Buddhists created hospitals before the Christians. I think Buddhism is preferable to Christianity. I read a book called ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs’ which presents Buddhism as it was originally conceived by Gautama. Later on it got religionised with concepts such as reincarnation borrowed from Hinduism.

I am not anti-religion. I am anti-persecution in the name of religion.

May 09, 01:32PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

New Isabella has houseguests arriving sometime Sunday afternoon...

I have skimmed the book you mention...

...at the bookstore, and liked it a very much. I have been studying the origins of the Christian church and Bible, and there are scholars who are convinced that a similar process happened here as well, of re-interpreting and adding to the original teachings of Jesus.

I would like to think that I am anti-persecution in the name of any belief system, religion included.

May 11, 01:50PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

Compassionist

Me too

I am anti-persecution regardless what the persecution is about. There have been religious, political, sexual, economic – all sorts of persecution in the history of this species. The Bible says ‘Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.’ This verse caused the deaths of many women in Europe and America.

May 12, 03:53AM PDT | Respond to this 2 cheers