Nothing New To Say But Still...

[Sip]

Sip

I am not joking but this is far the best sharpest comment I read on God.Like it a lot.

 

Glad you thought so

[Arpa]

I did something at work which I should of had done and I came home saying to myself "please God let me not get fired" h@?

Now that's coming from an atheist.

Weird ,very weird.I came close to dying twice in accidents and both times I also prayed for my life.Pathetic! There is something wrong here.One can't be an athist and remember God in crises or maybe its normal?Like last resort,hope etc.YeahYeahYeah but I could of prayed in front of my bicycle but didn't.

Sometimes we ourselves don't even know the answers.I simply don't know and can't explain my experiences of praying in crises.

I had written this a few days ago, but decided to sit on it hoping that this debate and its likes woud subside.

=====

This is ironically comical.

What does “atheist” mean? Is that not, by the mere invocation of “theo-god” an admission in itself that a concept of a god, be it Astuats, Jehovah, Allah and so on? There are a-theists who claim to reject the existence and there are anti-theists who are against. Yet, neither of them, be deniers or anti-s can shake off the concept . Did not, don’t they still, the communists, the most virulent atheists and anti-theists use such terms as “god-willing/”տէրը կամի, “god forbid/աստուածմի արասցէ” etc?.

The most ironic is that this thread is running parallel to the ones below.

Are not those who claim to be “atheists” in fact deniers of theology turned into politics and sectarianism turned into factionalism?

Contrary to the prevailing popular wisdom that “god created man in His image. Is it not that “man created god in his own image”? Look at all these “gods” created by people to fit their own agenda. .When some are talking about ecumenism, meaning communion with the likes of the Pope, the Anglican Bishop, the Rabbis and the Islamic Imams, the Coptic Bishop, the Hindu and the Buddhist, when they ignore the fact that our most holy bishops of one see don’t even say hello to the bishops of the other see (primacy-prelacy/). Of all the gods above, the Armenian god/astuats seems to be the most submissively “meek”, bowing to Allah and His butchers.. Extend our necks and wait to be decapitated .

Who is the primate and who the prelate? Which of them is the real heirs of the Apostles? Which of them just came back from a conference with God, Jesus and the Apostles? You mean to say that there were two Jesus-es and He had two separate sets of Apostles?

Here are at least two other parallel threads where the writers seem to know everything and more about the subject. Of course we know how.

Ecumenical;

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17007&hl=

Apostolic Succession;

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=16968&hl=

There seems to be among us those who are so BOLD /ՀԱՄԱՐՁԱԿ to try and convince us that they have just come back from a conference with God, and that they know more about Jesus that He Himself did not know.

Speaking of which. Jesus himself was not so bold to contend that He knew everything. Look what He said;

Matt.5

[5] Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Երանի հեզերուն, վասնզի անոնք պիտի ժառանգեն երկիրը:

Did He mean that we cannot so bold to know everything, and that only the “meek” who profess to not know everything shall “inherit the earth”?

What did He mean by “meek”? Was He referring to Himself?

Did He have me in mind. Me, who is full of questions and very few, if any answers at all?

Then again. Why would I have any questions when I know that tomorrow the Sun will rise again !!

Who designed the Solar System?

Ask again!!!

Who/what made the sun?

Why spoil the fun on a gorgeous day at the beach wondering rather than enjoying the light and the warmth!!!

 

 

[DominO123]

Anytime I think about the Universe I end up realizing that "significance_of_humanity == 0". I find it strange that those who want to claim "God" created the Universe and the humans are also trying to make the case that God somehow has any interest in what we humans do.

 

If God created the Universe in all its vastness, he or she will not give a damn about something sooooooooooooooo utterly irrelevant and insignificant (in the big picture) as "humanity". We mean NOTHING in the scale of the Universe (let alone multiverse ).

 

That's the thing, I spoke about feeling, you spoke about thinking. While we can measure the significance of humanity by its size compared to the multiverse, it is not the only way. Compare the significance of the first computer by its size compared with the most power laptop, is it a fair comparaison?

 

Just consider that you simulate a universe in your computer with in it intelligent beings, where will you be checking more? Obiously if there is countless numbers of intelligent beings you will miss most when checking in your computer. From a gods interest, we become significant only if some of our specificity, enters in that gods parametters of interest and significance.

 

Comming to your thinking, Sip, in the wild far from light polution, are you telling me that you felt nothing when watching the sky with all those thousands of starts and our galaxy? I am not asking you what you were thinking, just an impression a fealing.

Edited November 12, 2007 by Domino

[DominO123]

Ok I sat through the whole 7 minutes. What's the point of that video? The guy spent 7 minutes trying to argue that the universe must have had a beginning. Should I file this in the "well, duh!" folder?

 

By the way, the Big Bang theorists do a MUCH better job at making a case for the "finite universe" than the line of reasoning this guy was trying to pursue with this "infinite hotel" talk. Also, mathematically, he made some very questionable statements in my opinion.

 

For example, if x is infinite and y is infinite, he was making it sound like you can then conclude x and y are the same quantity which I think is a very dangerous (and wrong) way of thinking about infinity.

 

Actually, eithere there is infinit number of universes, or the universe is infinitly big. It can not be one finit universe, or finit number of finit universe, or finit number of infinit universe. The finit has no place in ''everything there is.'' It defies logic unless someone believes that a god created everything, which push the problem elsewhere.

 

If the universe just appeared alone, then there is no reason that a universe can not appear alone. If it was because of the existance of certain parameters, there is not reason that those parameters could not exist again. If it happen again, there is no reason it won't happen again, again and over again for eternity... there is no reason there is any limit in the left neither the right side. Infinit..., either one infinit universe with various different bigbangs OR infinit numbers of universes.

 

BTW, the guy is misinterpreting Hilberg, the infinity notion presented there is similair to the one of Cantor, if you remember correctly, you were the one having submitted it. This infinity notion works when you have infinit numbers of thing in a finit space. Since 1/n = 2/n = 3/n... when n approches inf, no matter how big as long as it is finit it will be able to contain the same amount as another even bigger but still finit. This concept does not fit for a set in a boundless line (universe or whatever).

[Armat]

I had written this a few days ago, but decided to sit on it hoping that this debate and its likes woud subside.

=====

This is ironically comical.

What does “atheist” mean? Is that not, by the mere invocation of “theo-god” an admission in itself that a concept of a god, be it Astuats, Jehovah, Allah and so on? There are a-theists who claim to reject the existence and there are anti-theists who are against. Yet, neither of them, be deniers or anti-s can shake off the concept . Did not, don’t they still, the communists, the most virulent atheists and anti-theists use such terms as “god-willing/”տէրը կամի, “god forbid/աստուածմի արասցէ” etc?.

The most ironic is that this thread is running parallel to the ones below.

Are not those who claim to be “atheists” in fact deniers of theology turned into politics and sectarianism turned into factionalism?

Contrary to the prevailing popular wisdom that “god created man in His image. Is it not that “man created god in his own image”? Look at all these “gods” created by people to fit their own agenda. .When some are talking about ecumenism, meaning communion with the likes of the Pope, the Anglican Bishop, the Rabbis and the Islamic Imams, the Coptic Bishop, the Hindu and the Buddhist, when they ignore the fact that our most holy bishops of one see don’t even say hello to the bishops of the other see (primacy-prelacy/). Of all the gods above, the Armenian god/astuats seems to be the most submissively “meek”, bowing to Allah and His butchers.. Extend our necks and wait to be decapitated .

Who is the primate and who the prelate? Which of them is the real heirs of the Apostles? Which of them just came back from a conference with God, Jesus and the Apostles? You mean to say that there were two Jesus-es and He had two separate sets of Apostles?

Here are at least two other parallel threads where the writers seem to know everything and more about the subject. Of course we know how.

Ecumenical;

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17007&hl=

Apostolic Succession;

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=16968&hl=

There seems to be among us those who are so BOLD /ՀԱՄԱՐՁԱԿ to try and convince us that they have just come back from a conference with God, and that they know more about Jesus that He Himself did not know.

Speaking of which. Jesus himself was not so bold to contend that He knew everything. Look what He said;

Matt.5

[5] Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Երանի հեզերուն, վասնզի անոնք պիտի ժառանգեն երկիրը:

Did He mean that we cannot so bold to know everything, and that only the “meek” who profess to not know everything shall “inherit the earth”?

What did He mean by “meek”? Was He referring to Himself?

Did He have me in mind. Me, who is full of questions and very few, if any answers at all?

Then again. Why would I have any questions when I know that tomorrow the Sun will rise again !!

Who designed the Solar System?

Ask again!!!

Who/what made the sun?

Why spoil the fun on a gorgeous day at the beach wondering rather than enjoying the light and the warmth!!!

Arpa great post.

I will get into it more time allowing.I sense that by rejecting the fables and myths one possibly is closer to God?By saying I am athist it seems closer then people on TV trying to convert thousands by religious indoctrination.

Universe is mysterious and it just could be that our brains are incapable to grasp its essence although I did practice Zen and I suspect the enlighten state comes closest for realization of God.Interesting in Zen practice one must renounce his ego as important.I felt this many times that our personality,likes,dislikes,thoughts are insignificant in front of these powerful force.

I will get into your other comments later

 

Not much sun today

[Armat]

Dear Armat, I've missed your posts on Hyeforum. Maybe because the old gang of you, Sasun, Domino, Eve, Edward, etc. are not around so much anymore, or have stopped posting altogether, visiting the forum is not the same anymore. I think we used to have many meaningful discussions (and some silly ones too, I admit!).

 

Your comment about Khachaturian's music prompted me to listen to one of his works - "Nocturne" from Masquerade. It's gorgeous.

Hi baby!!I missed this forum as well.I still love Aram even more.Weird I find his music powerful by every year I get older.Sometimes it takes time to appreciate great music.

Check this young girl playing Aram Khachaturian Sonatina 1959 one of my faves.She is unreal for her age.

 

Have a great day

 

[Arpa]

Arpa great post.

I will get into it more time allowing.I sense that by rejecting the fables and myths one possibly is closer to God?By saying I am athist it seems closer then people on TV trying to convert thousands by religious indoctrination.

Universe is mysterious and it just could be that our brains are incapable to grasp its essence although I did practice Zen and I suspect the enlighten state comes closest for realization of God.Interesting in Zen practice one must renounce his ego as important.I felt this many times that our personality,likes,dislikes,thoughts are insignificant in front of these powerful force.

I will get into your other comments later

 

Not much sun today

Aha!

Finally the mask comes off.

You are as much an A-theist as I am A-rmenian.

I have known all along that your rejection of the "theo" was in fact what our so called churches, be they Apostolic, Orthodox, Cathlic or Protestant have made of HIM to fit their particular agenda and politics.

If, as you say you are an "atheist" why would you still look for HIM in places like Zen and other Zndans**?

** Whatever language it may be "zndan" means dungeon, tanjaran/darcharan, a dark place for punishment much like Khor Virap.

Edited November 6, 2007 by Arpa

[Anoushik]

Hi baby!!I missed this forum as well.I still love Aram even more.Weird I find his music powerful by every year I get older.Sometimes it takes time to appreciate great music.

Check this young girl playing Aram Khachaturian Sonatina 1959 one of my faves.She is unreal for her age.

 

Have a great day

That Sonatina is such a fun piece. She's doing a good job!

[Anoushik]

Yes...Why?? Late again...??

Dear Ani, it was just the nostalgia talking. I practically matured with Hyeforum so looking back at those years is bittersweet. But that doesn't mean that we can't start creating new, meaningful, current discussions!

[Ani]

Dear Ani, it was just the nostalgia talking. I practically matured with Hyeforum so looking back at those years is bittersweet. But that doesn't mean that we can't start creating new, meaningful, current discussions!

 

 

[hagopn]

Ethnicity as a social club.

 

Trouble is, Armenian ethnicity is rather like an exclusive golfing club, with the main preoccupation of its members being not actually playing golf, but working out ways of excluding potentual new members, expelling other members for not being pure-bred golfers, and looking down ones noses at those fellow members who do not wear the designated clothing, or use the correct putters, or act like the clubhouse rules say a proper golfer should act.

 

Always knocking nationalism as a sport in this day and age. God is knocked, and all religious sages have been dumped into the trash can. This level of arrogance is probably what gets people and their society disintegrated and destroyed.

 

come to think of it, we no longer are in possession of most of our lands! "ding! ding!"

[hagopn]

Aha!

Finally the mask comes off.

You are as much an A-theist as I am A-rmenian.

I have known all along that your rejection of the "theo" was in fact what our so called churches, be they Apostolic, Orthodox, Cathlic or Protestant have made of HIM to fit their particular agenda and politics.

If, as you say you are an "atheist" why would you still look for HIM in places like Zen and other Zndans**?

** Whatever language it may be "zndan" means dungeon, tanjaran/darcharan, a dark place for punishment much like Khor Virap.

 

This is an old quote from Armat:

 

"The transcendent is unknowable and unknown. God is transcendent, finally, of anything like the name "God." God is beyond names and forms . . . . The mystery of life is beyond all human conception . . . . We always think in terms of opposites. But God, the ultimate, is beyond the pairs of opposites . . . . Eternity is beyond all categories of thought . . . . God is a thought. God is a name. God is an idea. But its reference is to something that transcends all thinking. The ultimate mystery of being is beyond all categories of thought.

Joseph Campbell"

 

Campbell has another good one: He had recalled a colleague of his who had observed that the monks of the Catholic and Buddhist orders seemed understand each other. It ws the clergy of both that antagonized each other. What are the differences between a meditating monk who contemplates the "essence of God" in his meditatiions and the cleric who is a social functionary? Apparently the difference is very big.

 

The meditation of what life and being live, consciousness and what being conscious is is what drove these monks to arrive a agreement and mutual understanding, while the obsession with forms, formalities, literal interpretations, these are things that drove the Clergy to antagonize their counterparts. Therefore the boilerplate of "orthodox, catholic, blah blah, organized religions are bad blah blah" is also an extremist viewpoint that misses some colors in the middle there.

 

This brings us to another more neglected dimension of the cultural and spiritual genocide against Armenians, the loss of our monasteries, and therefore the loss of our meditating sages:

 

The Loss to Armenian Culture Caused by the Destruction of Armenian Monasteries and Churches During 1894-1896 and 1915-1925

 

by Rev Fr Dajad Yardemian

 

(107pp, Mekhitarist Publication, San Lazzaro, Venice, 1995)

 

 

 

This booklet should be compulsory reading. It is about a critical aspect of the 1915 Armenian Genocide that is not always recognised: the cultural destruction by the Ottoman State and the Young Turks. Their anti-Armenian policy was, among other things, informed by an equivalent of Nazi Goering’s infamous statement that whenever he heard the word culture, he reached for his gun. With shocking statistical evidence Dajad Yardemian catalogues the loss represented by the nearly ‘2500 plundered, burnt down or destroyed monasteries, Churches, libraries, refuges, chapels and other holy places (p11).’

 

 

 

Armenian Churches and Monasteries were more than just spiritual centres and places of worship. They constituted the social, cultural, educational and intellectual hub of Armenian life, its very organisational foundation and core. Historically religious establishments functioned also as universities and academies. They were centres of intellectual work by historians, philosophers and poets as well as being workshops for the production of hundreds of thousands of beautifully designed manuscripts and books. Many of their buildings were both architectural monuments and depositories, museums and treasure chests, for thousands of cultural objects. Church were in addition social centres, meeting places and gathering points for popular celebrations. One needs neither to be a Christian nor have any sympathy for the Armenian Church hierarchy to recognise this.

 

 

 

Churches and monasteries were, unsurprisingly, targeted repeatedly by foreign invaders. But none compares to the scale and finality of the 1895-1925 vandalism. In 1898 French lieutenant R Huber registered the existence of 218 Armenian monasteries and 1740 Churches in Ottoman territories. In 1904 an official census registered a higher figure, 228 and 1958 respectively. The figures for the period prior to the 1895-1896 massacres would of course have been even higher, for according to Henri Barbie during the 1895-96 ‘568 Churches and monasteries destroyed or turned into Mosques (p19).’ 1915 delivered the final fatal blow. By 1919 83 Archbishoprics, 1860 Churches and chapels, 229 monastic institutions, 26 secondary schools, 1439 elementary schools and 42 orphanages had been wholly or partially destroyed.

 

 

 

The scale of the cultural and intellectual loss is staggering and horrendous. During 1915-1925 up to 200,000 manuscripts and books, ancient classical literary, philosophic, historical and religious texts that harboured the legacy of centuries of human civilisation were destroyed (p73). The measure of the loss, as Yardemian writes, ‘cannot be established by any material criteria, nor can the loss be replaced by other values.’ ‘How many historians do we know of whose works now have not reached us, and still how many other authors and their works that now remain unknown.’ (p74) Symbolising the savagery and the vandalism is the fate of the Monastery of Narek, home to the greatest Armenian poet, Krikor of Narek, a man of the stature of Dante. In 1896 the monastery was destroyed and in 1915 the manuscript of the poet’s ‘Lamentations’ written in his own hand in the 10th century was burnt.

 

 

 

To the loss of invaluable manuscripts is to be added the loss of vast amounts of gold and silverware, bronze work, jewellery, woodwork, stone etchings, crosses, chalices, Church vestments and decorations, carpets, curtains, cushions and grave stones. Valued at millions upon millions of dollars all this irreplaceable cultural treasure was looted, sold or destroyed.

 

 

 

Sultan Hamid II’s regime in 1896 and the Young Turks later grasped well the role of Armenian Church and monastic institutions in sustaining Armenian nationhood with its contribution to education, to social and cultural organisation and to creating, protecting and harbouring the Armenian artistic, intellectual and philosophic legacy. So they identified the Church and its monastic establishments as primary targets. Their mobs ‘took their rage out most fiercely on Armenian monasteries, Churches, schools and libraries’ writes Ormanian that brilliant historian of the Armenian Church (p20). The story is repeated with greater savagery in 1915.

 

 

 

Of the vast heritage there once was, today virtually nothing remains. Where Churches were not turned into Mosques, storage depots or dumping grounds, they were demolished, used as military target practice and its stone plundered for local building work. To the crime against humanity represented by the one and a half million dead is the crime of cultural vandalism and barbarism.

 

 

 

But the 1896-1925 attempt to annihilate Armenian culture and society failed, despite the vastness of irreplaceable loss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hagopn]

at 42 years old I find life becoming even more meaningless.Endless rat race,always trying to catch up and no end in sight.I find myself hardly believeing in anything.Religion?Think whatever you want but for me its a nice fairy tale.God? What God? I can't even express myself the void.No I don't need to discover "God" or anything spiritual in it but still part of me is jelous of people who can simply pray and believe without questions.

This is a low point in my life.No denying it...

 

42 is that all mysterious number that means nothing but everything ---:0 since you are a well read sort of chap that seems to be interested in knowing the world around you, i am surprised that you are giving up at an age when the best things begin to happen.

 

Just look at old Wes Montgomery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAtNJdnaEGY "Self taught musician" at age... huh,.... he began at... age 42!! I haven't heard a better and smoother improviser on the guitar.

 

In any case, the 40s are the best, the best years. Trust me. The sutures in your skill finally close. The brain says, "ok, I have arrived, no more swelling into the cranium. Now what can I do seriously?"

 

I personally like it, and quite frankly look forward to developing my brain to granfatherhood, God willing. God willing. Nothing wrong with saying that. It's always been a gamble and a mystery.

 

Each time the Աղոթարան shows its majestic splendor, remember how our ancestors bowed down to it everyt morning, swearing their allegiance and connection with the might creative spirit, whatever it was. They just named it "Ararich," the Creator. The they conjured images of the confusion in his creation and gave each "face" of the ararich its god like metaphor... it made the Physics and Metaphysics lessons to the general public easier, I suppose.

 

Joe Campbell - an author you seem to know well - swears to it as well that it all began on our mountains, that quest for the "Myrstery," as well as Flammarion and his colleagues who concluded through their science that indeed the Armenians were the first to map the skies into the constellations and into their mythology.

 

I still understand what they were doing. Religion has not always been what we think. Religion for our ancestors was about connecting and knowing, not about condemnation and judgement or the contemplation of the "end of days."

 

I have just been reading on the Avesta lately very extensively, and quite frankly the Avesta was rejected in our land by our people precisely because it was the first temporal and moralistic concoction that thought of an "end of days" scenario, thought of a dualist universe where destructive evil equally matched in strength to creative good. The "Hayauni" were condemned in the Avesta because they against and rejected such notions.

 

In our folklore and epic myth evil is merely a mistake, an error in nature, an aberration that is a temporary break in the natural balance. This is who we were, and this is who we are going to have to be, even according to Joe Campbell, who was clearly a biased admirer of the so-called "Bronze Age" cyclic conceptualization of nature.

Edited November 12, 2007 by hagopn

[ED]

In any case, the 40s are the best, the best years. Trust me.

 

wow, finally someone said the right word, and I was scared to death when i would turn 40

so Hagop jan tel us more about the 40's

 

[hagopn]

wow, finally someone said the right word, and I was scared to death when i would turn 40

so Hagop jan tel us more about the 40's

 

Եդուարդ աղբերս, I don't know how else to describe it. The best I can do is say that you reach an age where you are yougn enough to have energy, and olf enough to have wisdom to make calculated yet energetic moves. This then spreads into alll your relations and interactions, family, children, wife, your parents for whom your respect simply grows. It's the age of settling away from the old insecurities, uncertainties, and complexes with enough vitality to build a new and better life, but this time not only for yourself.

[Sip]

... you reach an age where you are yougn enough to have energy, and olf enough to have wisdom to make calculated yet energetic moves...

 

I much rather be yougn than olf

 

[hagopn]

I much rather be yougn than olf

 

OK, let's put a spell checker on this thing--