Re: Faith
Posted by
Russ Abbott on
Sep 23, 2012; 4:41am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Faith-tp7580633p7580668.html
Thanks, Sarbajit. As I understand it Buddhism does not have a God. Does that mean you would not classify it as a religion?
-- Russ
On Saturday, September 22, 2012, Sarbajit Roy wrote:
Dear Russ
I appreciate your feedback.
As I mentioned to Nick, our religion is Protestant in form and derives
its "ideological" basis from the ancient "Hindu" coda of Vedas and
Upanishads (which are called Vedanta .. or the summation of the
Vedas"). I hasten to mention here that the term "Hindu" is defined in
India's law as everyone who belongs to India and who does not profess
the Islamic, Christian, Zorastrian or Jewish faiths. (Hinduism has no
problem with atheists)
The Vedas were carried forward primarily in the oral tradition for at
least 3 millenia with armies of genetically enforced scholars (located
at numerous scattered centres for learning) who rigorously memorised
the vast contents and ensured their continuation over time.
Inevitably in the process the information got corrupted (by dropouts
or dropins). The droputs were not the problem, but the dropins
(insertions for diverse reasons) caused many internal inconsistencies.
But there were systemic safeguards in place to ensure that by constant
comparison of the main works between data centres the data was
preserved and transmitted as best possible. So, we now say that these
sacred works were correct but are now corrupt, and hence not
authoritative. We extend the same respect to religious works of other
faiths to say that the Bible, Quran, Talmud etc are genuine works (the
author is unimportant) but their authenticity is unprovable and hence
cannot be entered in evidence (in their entireity).
Now to some of your points:-
1) (Unfortunately) to qualify as a religion, the faith needs a "God".
2) Hinduism had 330 million gods and a vast body of sacred works which
take many lifetimes to understand. An army of our own genetic scholars
distilled it down to "One God" (the minimum number to qualify as a
religion) so that even the Islamists could understand it (Trinitarian
Christians still have problems though) ..
http://www.irf.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=146&Itemid=129
(the learned Dr.Naik has borrowed heavily from some of our tracts. )
3) The "One God" artefact on the "homepage" is known in classical
Hinduism as the "MahaKavya" (or Great Phrase) and is from the
Chandogya Upanishad (6:2:1). An exposition is available here
http://personal.carthage.edu/jlochtefeld/texts/IHchandogya6.html
"6.2.1. "In the beginning, dear boy, this world was Being--One only,
without a second. To be sure, some say that in the beginning this
world was only non-Being, one only without a second, and that from
that non-Being Being was born.
2. "But, dear boy, how could this be?" he said, "how could Being be
produced from non-Being? In the beginning there was Being alone, one
only, without a second. "
4) In computer terms, or quantum terms, this simply means that
everything which exists is a dipole having 2 states .."0" or "1" ...
Schrodingers cat .. alive or dead . Being or nonBeing ... human or
zombie .. Schrodingers Cat IS "God".
5) In essence all Religions are only about 2 states "Life" and "Death"
(and the endless
cycles flipping between these states).
7) The "prime principles" are actually very easy once a mental barrier
is crossed.
To cross it, please read this
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/13-TheBalticWarCD/TheBalticWarCD/The%20Cold%20Equations/0743436016___6.htm
Sarbajit
On 9/23/12, Russ Abbott <<a href="javascript:;" onclick="_e(event, 'cvml', 'russ.abbott@gmail.com')">russ.abbott@...> wrote:
> Sarbajit,
>
> I looked at your pointers to your religion's beliefs and rules.
>
> The "Articles of Faith <http://brahmo.org/brahmo-articles-faith.html>" seem
> fairly non-controversial. I wouldn't think of them as requiring faith in
> the sense that most religions use that term--belief in something that
> without faith would be difficult to believe. I doubt that you would find
> many people on this list -- or many most secular westerners in general --
> who
> would disagree with them, even though they are not members of your
> religion. When I looked at the home page <http://brahmo.org/>, though, I
> was surprised to see that the first heading was "One God." Given the
> articles of faith, I didn't expect to find "God" playing such a major role.
>
> I had a difficult time with the "Prime
> Principles<http://brahmo.org/brahmo-prime-principles.html>"
> and was not able to attach any coherent semantics to most of what was
> written.
>
> -- Russ
>
> *-- Russ Abbott*
> *_____________________________________________*
> *** Professor, Computer Science*
> * California State University, Los Angeles*
>
> * My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688*
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>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 9:00 AM, Prof David West
> <<a href="javascript:;" onclick="_e(event, 'cvml', 'profwest@fastmail.fm')">profwest@...>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 20, 2012, at 10:24 AM, glen wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > Here's an honest and personal question to make the ethics concrete:
>> > Should I have intervened?
>> >
>> clearly a tough question - given the state of society, the prevalence of
>> guns and predisposition to use them, and the potential for alcohol or
>> other substance abuse - not an easy decision. The "official" response
>> is no, report it to someone who has the "authority" to intervene. I
>> would have made my silent presence as witness obvious - but would not
>> have actively intervened.
>>
>> dave
>>
>>
>>
>> > ============================================================
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>> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>>
>
--
-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
CS Wiki and the courses I teach
_____________________________________________
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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