But religion is a faith thing not a knowing thing.

If I were female, I'd go to the doctor or at least shave it off and see if the burning sensation goes away.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

But who defines right and wrong?

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Common sense, and society as a whole.

In general, anything that violates another person's individuals rights or liberties is "wrong".

Mike

__________________
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1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
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1985 300TD
270,000 miles
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1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
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Adam didn't want to pluck the apple from the tree, but someone just wouldn't shut up about it. What is not written, is that he probably resisted for several weeks, until one day he had heard enough and said: "Here, take your damned apple!".

Personally, I like apples....to use them as bait, seems just plain mean. Why would God want to be mean? It probably wasn't his idea....he probably resisted putting the apple there for several weeks until one day he had heard enough....

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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

Ignoring the second sentence (which is pretty sharp!), your unstated assumption is that there is only one way that things maybe "known" and everything else is something else. Would you say that is an accurate characterization?

B

Known to me means that there is some soft of proof. Faith to me is the exact opposite of that. You accept it to be true without formal proof.

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Are there not some things that you accept to be true, though you do not "know" from personal experience that they are true?

B

That would fall under faith, wouldn't it? Accepting something as true even without formal proof?

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

I have never been to the Moon (or London) but I accept that the Moon (and London) is real. Is that faith? I don't think so since I have a whole series of logical reasons for believing that the existence of the Moon (and London) is real. But I do not have concrete, sensory proof of the existence of either (as I teeter on the brink of solipsism).

So maybe the difference (for me) between faithful truth and factual truth is the amount of evidence supporting factual truth? I'm not sure about this, just trying it out.

B

Credibility is also an enormous factor -- specifically, the type of credibility determined by experience.

If by experience, you mean having sensed something's existence, that suggests that only the sensual world exists?

Is there no there method, other than sensory stimulation, to determine whether something is "real"?

B

Religion based on faith is a very modern phenomena which occurs once traditional religious knowledge found in written scriptures runs up against new knowledge from astronomy, physics, biology, psychology etc. Most humans never conceived the possibility that religion might require faith since religion was a part of their knowledge systems.
Religion still doesn't require faith. It's completely possible to have a naturalistic religion rooted in an empirical epistemology.
Two groups dislike this possibility. People who think religion is for the superstitous and ignorant, and people interrested in maintaining religious ideas from the pre-modern era.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

If your friend tells you he saw a cat on the way over to your house, it would never occur to you to request evidence. Now substitute "seal" for "cat"... In coastal California, the scene plays differently, each based upon credibility.

Also agreed, mostly. And I certainly didn't mean to imply that you abuse women. I dunno about evil being an invention. Evil might be the systematic commission of "wrong" with pleasure taken from it. Think Saddam's and Ooday's rape rooms, Hitler, Stalin, etc.

The whole sexual dynamic is a tricky one. I think one reason the Buddha would go on about 'desire being the cause of all suffering' is not because pleasure is bad, but because the excessive focus on wanting pleasure gets in the way of a healthy enjoyment of pleasure.

I've tripped myself up more than once by being too much in my head about wanting sex rather than being in the moment with a woman and the full range of her being.

Elsewhere in the Buddhist lore they speak of the darkness of craving. I've met guys who had it way worse than me, and the look they would get on their face when they were focused on bedding their prey was a trip. They just didn't get that they were shooting themselves in the foot.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

The bible mentioned something about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Apple or any other fruit name is actually never mentioned. It's an interesting puzzle. Lower animals, presumably, don't know good from evil -- they know mealtime and mating time. A lion doesn't sin when he kills for his meals, rather he keeps the grass eaters numbers in check and spurs their eons of evolution as fast runners.

But we humans entered pandora's box land when we passed into a higher type of thinking, somewhere, somehow.

Was it a magic bolt from the blue, an added ingredient to the mechanics of evolution from the master garderner? Who knows?

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K