Religion and scuba

[doctormike]

I wasn't here 10,000 years ago or 4 billion, and neither were any of the other currently living people regardless of their opinions.

I wasn't here in 1916, but I believe that World War I happened. I guess that's just my opinion, though. No more valid than anyone else's

But I'm saying that whatever injustice may have been done to the baby God will make it right and whole again... In this life or the next.

Those babies & children will grow up to sin, if they survive. It's in their nature.

In my father's words: "You know, you may be right!"

 

[Diver0001]

If this is the wrong place please have an admin delete or move this post.


Preface: I am by no means trying to start an argument and am asking everyone to please please be civil. Lets please do this in the name of academia and everyone respect each other. no name calling, no rudeness, no belittling, no hatefulness, etc. please, I'm doing this in the name of research

I love it when a thread starts with a long disclaimer.... LOL

Well... this thread probably should be in the pub, tucked away from Google search, but for now I'll just act like a normal user and answer the questions:

Prose:
I have been studying the religions of the world and have come to an observation. It seems to me that the majority of Scuba divers choose to consider themselves agnostic or atheistic. I'm just curious as to the majortiy of Scuba divers in correlation with religion.

I don't normally speak with people about their religious beliefs but my impression is that diving attracts a fairly homogeneous cross section of the population. I wouldn't expect to see the population of divers showing a statistically significant deviation from the population as a whole.

Question:
What religous or non religous camp do you take camp in and can you nicely, and respectfully give me a short reason why you choose said option.

I'm fairly open minded. What I think is that the likelihood of the universe being void of a "higher" intelligence, perhaps even an incorporeal one, is slim. Could that be construed as a God as opposed to just another life form? Possibly. Does it correspond closely to the descriptions of God being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent AND singularly interested in the most detailed machinations of the human condition? In my opinion, no.

Religion has a function that science can not yet fulfill. Science can give us the "rules" of the game, but religion, in the human context, provides a moral guidance. Think of life like a gun. Science can describe the gun. What it's made of, it's dimensions, it's mass, how it works, etc. But religion tries, for better or worse, to give people a grasp of what it's purpose is, when to use it, when not to.... etc.

To me, we can give a proper balanced direction to our lives when we understand the "rules" AND we understand the "reasons".... even if those reasons are things we created ourselves to help us along.

Am I religious? No. My mother is protestant, my father is agnostic, many of my friends are Christian, Muslim or atheist. Me? I'm neutral to it because I don't believe I need "ritual" to structure my life, but I have a high degree of respect for the role religion plays in people's lives and I'm happy for anyone who has found religion to be helpful in leading a happy life.

In my own case I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist but I engage in Buddhist meditation because it helps me move through this life in a balanced way. As a result I've learned a lot about Buddhism and *if* I were to "find religion, then Buddhism would be the obvious one for me".

R..

 

[phoenix31tt]

Well, one of my favourite passages is https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+30:37-39&version=KJV
Do you think that this really works? Or could ever work? Or do you feel compelled to explain it away, perhaps dismiss it due to "lack of understanding?"

Thought you would've given me something more challenging... the scarlet ibis (our national bird) turns red because of their diet... humans turn yellow when they have Jaundice... is it so hard for you to believe that cattle drinking water polluted with some concoction can get spots?... come on bro

No, they did calculations based on what it says. It is what it is. It also says that the earth is flat. But yeah, this is another thing that you can try to explain away or ignore. See above.

and God created the universe in 7 days too... how can you possibly calculate how old the earth is based on what the bible says? between creation and now there is no one thread to calculate that. There are other things which can be calculated, which WERE calculated based on carbon dating etc... but there is nothing in the bible that allows one to realistically calculate the time from the 1st day to the 7th day nor from the 7th day to now... what i believe you are referring to is people attempted to calculate from the time of the Patriarchs to now... which still, isn't an exact science... but at least it's more feasible

 

[Freewillow]

so silly... i looked at this post and was like... whattttt lol...

if you really have an understanding of the bible... or maybe even studied it yourself with an open mind... not one that says... let me scrummage through this and find all the inconsistencies... you would know a thing or two...

Well, you would be surprised. I most likelly have studied the bible much more than you did. My father was a Jehova witness and I can tell you that they know the bible and I heard about it for 25+ years. For your information, I have offered them to explain the correlation between the genesis ( written by Moses.... ) and what we know today about the universe. NOBODY from them ever came back.

So yes, something is silly, but not me.


With an open - but not blind nor uneducated - mind I read in the genesis that - among other things - light and darkness - and the earth - were created before sun and moon and the stars (?). That the plants and trees baring fruits were created before the sun. That fish and birds, then insects and mammals ( some say herds, so cows ) were created afterwards. Funny that plants could bare fruits without bees in order to pollinate their flowers. Funny that you had days and nights before the sun was created.

So, do not call me silly. Do not use what Jesus has supposedly said, when you take your information from a book that is not credible from page one.

I respect your opinion. I am pretty sure that you need jesus in order to feel that you are a responsible man. But please refrain from telling me that I am silly. You make me think about these two phrases:

Matthew 7:4
How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

Luke 6:41
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

Final question: do you believe in creationism or not? If you believe in it, this is the end of the discussion, on my part.

 

[dfx]

Thought you would've given me something more challenging... the scarlet ibis (our national bird) turns red because of their diet... humans turn yellow when they have Jaundice... is it so hard for you to believe that cattle drinking water polluted with some concoction can get spots?... come on bro

Read that again. It's talking about their offspring. And they're not drinking anything, they're mating in front of carved branches. Here, perhaps an illustration makes it easier for you.



But hey, you're well on your way! Keep squaring that circle!

and God created the universe in 7 days too... how can you possibly calculate how old the earth is based on what the bible says? between creation and now there is no one thread to calculate that. There are other things which can be calculated, which WERE calculated based on carbon dating etc... but there is nothing in the bible that allows one to realistically calculate the time from the 1st day to the 7th day nor from the 7th day to now... what i believe you are referring to is people attempted to calculate from the time of the Patriarchs to now... which still, isn't an exact science... but at least it's more feasible

And once again you demonstrate how little you know about your own holy book. The calculation is done on the lineages described in the books, from Adam down to some event with a known date, using the respective ages of the characters given. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_Bible

 

[phoenix31tt]

your post is silly... I did not attack you... but if you feel to take it personal then so be it...

from your post you do not have an understanding of the way the bible works... and many divers have been diving for way more years than i have... does that mean they are a better diver? no necessarily...

but if you want to play that game... i have been hearing about the bible for 30 years and 2 months...

I just said a couple posts ago that Moses wrote the Genesis based on visions from God and his narrative... so he wrote according to his own understanding... what was the catalyst to create life on earth... was it our sun... was it another? Was the sun different... could it be that moses saw the light but not the sun and only saw the sun when God said he will make it for seasons etc...?

Think about it... do not try to literalise it (yes I think i just made up a word)

 

[Diver0001]

dfx....and phoenix

I thought this thread posed the question if you were religious or not.

I don't believe the premise was to debate who was right and who was wrong with respect to certain biblical stories.

I just joined this thread, but if this is what it's boiled down to then I would say we have drifted a long way from what the OP was asking.

R..

 

[phoenix31tt]

Read that again. It's talking about their offspring. And they're not drinking anything, they're mating in front of carved branches. Here, perhaps an illustration makes it easier for you.

View attachment 212780

But hey, you're well on your way! Keep squaring that circle!


And once again you demonstrate how little you know about your own holy book. The calculation is done on the lineages described in the books, from Adam down to some event with a known date, using the respective ages of the characters given. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_Bible

dfx... you are reading it wrong.. you need to read where "And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink."

you are thinking that means they watched it and conceived and therefor cause their children to become specled... no... it was IN their watering hole and they drank etc etc and they conceived and their children came out like that... it's even easier to explain that it was their children... Jacob was probably the first person to do genetic modification!!!

and i will use your own wiki link:

1 AM

Creation (Adam)

From Creation to Abraham, time is calculated by adding the ages of the Patriarchs when their first child is born.[18] It seems possible that the period of the Flood is not meant to be included in the count[19] – for example, Shem, born 100 years before the Flood, "begot" his first son two years after it, which should make him 102, but Genesis 11:10-11 specifies that he is only 100, suggesting that time has been suspended.

as i said.. you cannot use those books literally to calculate time

 

[dfx]

dfx... you are reading it wrong.. you need to read where "And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink."

you are thinking that means they watched it and conceived and therefor cause their children to become specled... no... it was IN their watering hole and they drank etc etc and they conceived and their children came out like that... it's even easier to explain that it was their children... Jacob was probably the first person to do genetic modification!!!

And this is exactly what I was talking about. Critical thinking goes out the window so that the preexisting belief can be preserved.

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

My church is 250 feet deep in the Nantucket waters. It takes a whole afternoon and an overnight sleep on the boat followed by an early morning breakfast and a very long descent. I have only been there four times and it's usually for 20 minutes at a time. The return to the boat is usually a tiring 58 minutes and so I don't plan to go there ever again as I get older. But I think of her, my church in the deep cold waters of the Atlantic very often as I give praise every week to my Scuba goddess and her saints Hollis, Poseidon, Trimix, Heliox, Apeks, Oxigen and let's not forget King Neptune for allowing me to return safe to my family after a great adventure in Gods many creations beneath the sea.

Peter