Soulfire

PS: Okay, not nit-picking, this is an important distinction: you call me a New Ager and I am NOT a New Ager. I'm a Pantheist. Trust me when I say that those are very different things. New Age is all about crystal healing and those shitty self help books, which, as George Carlin (PBUH) famously said, are redundant because if you could help yourself you wouldn't need a self help book. I've read shit like "The Secret" and it didn't agree with me at all. It was terrible. New Age sees God as the source of everything, and, thankfully, does see God as a force rather than an entity, but that's all it has going for it. Pantheism states that everything really is God, rather than God just being the origin, and Pantheism doesn't say anything about that jabber-blabber about the so-called secret. We also don't believe in crystal healing because, cool though that may be, would you ever honestly trust a crystal to, say, reduce the size of your father's massive chest tumor? Not if you're smart. I do believe in the placebo effect's usability but not for the sake of actually removing an illness. It can just change your mind to minimize your symptoms. So yes, all of that is...well...let's say that Pantheism is to New Age as red is to pink. Pink is watered down red. But then you might also throw some brown in there or something because New Age is a perversion of Pantheism, and I'm not sure whether I agree with that. I'm all for religious offshoots but not when they only exist for the sake of selling useless garbage, namely crystals and false ideas. PSS: Can you tell that I get uppity about this? LOL.

Now, now, don't you go using my oxytocin high against me as part of your argument. So I found a bloke who makes me happy. Is that an issue...? Also stepping a little baby toe across the ad homonym line, but I'm in a good mood so I don't give a feck. No, I never said anything about the soldiers themselves. They were brave, of course, and still are. They are guiltless in that they would have been murdered by the real snakes if they had refused to go to war, or else incarcerated and labeled as treasonous. Don't you see the double-bind here? Either go to war in the name of your masters (the politicians, also known as the serial killers I was talking about), and kill or be killed, with is highly detrimental to the soul and the psyche and the body, and to your present and your future, regardless of the outcome of whatever war you fight in, OR, as your second option, you become a pacifist or conscientious objector and you get thrown in jail or else shot by your own side because you refused to play the game, the creation of which you had no part in, and the continuation of which you are forced to take part in. It's a barbaric and exceptionally outdated system because it goes to show, once again, that any who have power become like animals, desperate for one more scrap.

Lovely to see you, Miss Donna! I'm all happy right now because I'm young and in love and he's not even RICH! So yay for me not being a gold digger! He took me out for a LOVELY night last night and I'm still kind of high on oxytocin, even the day after. God alive though is he ever smart, and pretty, and articulate, and brilliant, and...okay, I'm ranting now, but still, YAY! Now then... Subjectively that may be true, but you have to think of it from the objective standpoint. I might not think that there is any such thing as, say, an objective purpose to life, but many, many other people do: the religious ones say it's to serve God in whatever way that means, the Atheists might say it's for the sake of breeding the next generation, and so on and so forth. However, because of this illusion of objectivity in the world, an illusion into which many people buy, I think it's fair to say that society would see it as wrong for parents to bring their kids up for the sake of killing other people. However, it is society itself that creates the serial killer phenomenon, because, as I said, it's the dominance genes and the fear of being dominated (very animalistic) that society instills in us that has the potential to turn so many heads. All politicians and all generals and all warlords who have ever called a war or participated in a war are serial killers, of course. I know we never really think of it that way but it's true: war is sanctioned serial murder, nothing more. Most politicians have issues with narcissism (Trump himself has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder; again, not uncommon in politicians but since he's now the big boy on the playground I just thought I'd point that out), and things like that always come from fear. Narcissism, just as one example, is not heightened self love, but is in fact an inferiority complex in a very poor disguise.

I don't believe that societal reproduction through nurture is essential to the survival of humanity. For example, if I ever have children, I fully intend to raise them as Pantheists with the knowledge that they and the Universe are entirely, and irrevocably, one, thereby instilling the values of universal love, as well as compassion and pacifism. There is no universal human nature, which is an idea that I could aid in reinforcing by raising my children to not value the bullshit that society values in terms of dominance, hedonism, and hate of the so-called "other". Unfortunately, serial killers are MADE, not BORN, and I believe that it is an overload of the negative aspects of society that make them, those being the aforementioned dominance, hedonism, and hate, all of which stem from fear, even if an unconscious fear. Fear of loss is the greatest human fear. A serial killer's mind may be so highly perverted by fear that they believe that murder is a gain, reinforcing the animalistic sense of dominance that comes from our lower nature, from when we were still animals, living in a kill-or-be-killed environment. There is no UNIVERSAL human nature, no, but as animals are much less diverse and complex, if one gives into the instincts that still pervade from our long-passed ancestral lineage, then that person in turn becomes as simple and fearful as an animal. Animals work on instinct alone, and that is what causes a serial killer to do as they do. I can't say why a serial killer SHOULDN'T do as they do, because in their case there is no "should" or "shouldn't" involved. After all, would you hold a wolf culpable for eating a rabbit?

In this case, Donna, as in the case of any species, procreation and survival are essentially equal to one another. How can we survive, after all, without breeding? Or, rather, without creating a younger generation, as IVF is a thing, but at any rate, we need to propagate the species in order for it to survive. That's why the survival and the sex instincts are so basic in the hierarchy of needs. In large part, they go together. And alright, you don't have to make that concession so long as you don't get me to say "man" in place of "human". We can work together that way. I don't really care much. Like I said, moderate, not militant. I think serial killers are made, not born. I do believe in John Locke's idea of "tabula rasa", but I also believe that, aside from the mind being a blank slate, the soul is intrinsically good, so all things are born intrinsically good. Since I'm a Pantheist that also applies to animals and plants and such. I mean, the Bible is one HELL of a flawed set of books, but even in the Genesis myths there, at every stage of "creation", God sees that everything is good. Like I say, flawed set of books but I do like the authors' logic in that particular case. So in terms of serial killers, is it not the case that they are corrupted into such a form by uncaring individuals who raise them and spend time with them? This isn't a gender-biased thing either--both the mother and father, or the absence thereof, can screw a kid up. But in terms of the whole serial killer argument, in short, I think they have to be made into that, rather than being born with such a purpose. Besides, I don't believe we're BORN with an intrinsic purpose. Like I say, we have to make our purpose, but our surroundings can either help or hinder us in the creation thereof. Also, Richard, this point here is directed at you and not Donna, but I appreciate that quote. Like, when my hydrocephalus used to act up, it wasn't because my body is evil and out to get me. It was what it was, without intention or sentience. So no evil or good there. But in terms of people causing other people pain, the same principle applies: there has to be a negative intention present for it to be evil, I think. That's the Buddhist point of view, anyway, though the Jains would say something different: that to cause pain is evil, either intentionally or unintentionally, because even if it's not intentional, you're guilty of being careless (i.e. stepping on a bug you didn't know was underfoot, that sort of thing).

Newspeak? Double-plus ungood analogy, comrade! Kidding, but I LOVE that book. I've read "1984", like, ten times, and it wasn't until my freaking FIFTH reading that I realized that there had been a nuclear war. You learn and hear something new every time you read that book. I understand what you mean by political correctness, of course, because, if taken to extremes, it gets REALLY annoying, REALLY fast. I'm just asking for a bit of gender equality in the language is all because I'm a moderate feminist. Note, though: moderate. Not extreme or militant. I don't really believe in taking a militant stance on anything except for love, which of its nature is powerful, but not violent. What we were "created" to do is a little more subjective than that, I think. If it weren't, once we had bred, we would die, because our genetic purpose had been lived out and there would be no more use for us. If our sole purpose on Earth is to be fruitful and multiply, well, that's awfully boring. One need not bother with thinking and feeling so much as with f*cking, which is fun in the moment I'm sure, but boring in the grand scheme of things. I'm more than just a baby maker, and so are you, and so is everything else on this planet that has the potential to bear offspring in whatever way that means for that species. I mean, even trees don't die the moment their acorns fall or the moment their keys spread, you know? I think the purpose of life is to make your own damn purpose in life, and to live that purpose. For me, personally, my highest happiness comes from one of two things: 1. Spending time with the people I love 2. Helping others I'm not seeing anything about procreation in there, unless you count my time spent with my boyfriend merely a "dance towards procreation", shall we say. You'll notice, though, that thought I am not interested in living forever, nor would I wish that curse upon anyone decent, I'm not an indecent person, intent upon drugging myself to oblivion or else ruining the lives of others. I know you weren't talking about me specifically, and that you weren't trying to make a blanket statement either, but it was a bit reductionist what you said, no offense. PS: Speaking from a purely medical standpoint, narcotics are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too good to be good for you. You be careful around that kind of shit.

In terms of species survival, my argument still stands, just extended. How do we know that it is in the best interest of the bigger picture for us to cling, as a species, to life? Besides, we're still changing and branching off via evolution. Have you heard any of the odd theories going around about how humans will look in thousands of years? Odd things, like enlarged eyes and shrunken toes, our height increasing dramatically, or even such stranger things as splitting into two subspecies, with the "superior" being extremely tall, caramel-skinned beauties, and the "inferior" being shrunken and simian, as if going backwards in evolution. As a general rule, I'm not a huge supporter of cultural traditions. More family traditions, that's what's important to me. It's just that, if we keep holding onto the past, we can't move forward to the future. There has to be a balance of reflecting on and learning from the past, while looking and working forward to the future. But in reality there is no past, no future, only the eternal "now".

Man and woman, dear, man and woman. Sorry, just "man" as the default has always kind of bugged me, and no, I'm not a feminist in the militant sense. Just a moderate. Anyway... You assume that survival is the best thing for us, then? If that were the case, then nature would not have made it so that we should all of us one day die. I think that people have a habit of clinging to that which is in fact worse, not better. I mean, would you really like to live for a thousand years, or even five hundred, one hundred? I don't want to live forever, personally. You'd get bored of it after a while, you know? No matter how spectacular ice cream is, if you ate only ice cream, you'd get bored of it. I'm sticking to that analogy because ice cream is awesome. I'm not afraid to die either, so it's all good. That's not a self-destructive mind set, or at least I don't think it is. It's more an acceptance of the fact that I'm mortal, fallible, and all that good stuff that makes me a human being. I want to be a human, not a goddess. And that means that I'm going to die. I mean, I don't want to die NOW, but I'm just not going to shy away from the fact that it's going to happen. And if there's an afterlife, sweet. If not, then I won't know the difference anyway, so who cares? I honestly used to think that that view was cynical, but it really isn't. However, if eternal life is something towards which you personally strive, I wish you the best, and all power to you! Many will thank you if you can find the way to avoid death. No, by the way, I'm actually not being sarcastic.

TxDeluxe, I just took a half-course on Islam (only three months long), and though it is MUCH more vast than this, it can largely, in terms of its theology, be boiled down to the Five Pillars. 1. The absolute singularity of God: God has no equal, nothing can be compared to God, God is beyond human understanding entirely 2. The pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, wherein the Prophet (PBUH) established the House of God around the Black Stone at the Ka'ba 3. Five daily prayers, facing towards the Ka'ba 4. Almsgiving (2.5% of surplus income throughout the year to be given to the poor) 5. Fasting (from sunup to sundown) during the month of Ramadan, the holiest month on the Islamic calendar If you can remove the faith from all of the politics, as I highly suggest you attempt to do, those are the absolute bare-boned basics.

It may be relative in the grand scheme. We don't know what's beyond our own perspective: that's the whole problem. Also, don't get snippy with me, eh? It's a complicated issue. But think of it in the sense that the bad guys don't see themselves as bad guys. They think that what they are doing is right for them and for others. An extreme example would be Hitler but I don't want to go there, for obvious reasons. Mind you, how do either you or I know what is really evil and what is really good? I would assume that you and I don't have the exact same code or morality, and I can only assume that you would agree with that. So, from your perspective, what is good, and what is evil? I mean your personal perspective.

No, I haven't, but only because I myself, as a "good" person, see no particular reason to be evil. I wouldn't personally find that fun, and so it's more or less beyond my experience to be able to say whether it would be. However, consider the Jain parable: a king found a small bird and saved it from a swooping hawk. Animals can talk in this story, so bear with me here. The hawk said to the king that, in saving the life of the little bird, the king was denying the hawk life, in that hawks are hunters and require meat. The king offered the hawk vegetarian food from off of his own plate (Jains are STRICTEST vegetarians), but the hawk, again, being a predator, required meat. So the king said that he would give his own flesh, equal to the weight of the small bird, to the hawk as food, which he did. Note the ambivalence here, though. If the king wanted to save the bird, he would have denied the hawk life. The point, other than the fact that the good king gave his own flesh, may be to say that you can't save everyone or everything. But God dammit if I'm not going to try. But it also speaks about the ambivalence of evil: what the little bird would have seen as evil, being eaten by the hawk, the hawk would see as good, as the instinct to consume flesh is just that of a hunter. Is it evil? Not necessarily. Is it good? Not necessarily. "Good" and "evil" may just be labels, really, all depending on perspective. So, is there any point in judging the hawk? No, I don't see that. Ambivalence like that can be found in many of the stories from the East: consider the war at Kurukshetra in which my Lord Krishna instructed the Pandavas to use any means necessary to defeat the Kauravas. And the Lord is unquestionably good, so...who knows what is good or bad?

You know what's funny is that I hardly talk to anyone on here other than you, Miss Donna. To answer your question though, how about being good is just more fun, eh? For me. But I can't judge of that for others. The Daoists say there has to be that contrast, and always will be, but I can dream of utopia, eh? Philosophers have been dreaming of it for millennia, after all. But I'm also here to TRY for utopia: to bring it nearer. And the only way anyone can do that is to extend the field of consciousness just that little, little bit more until, eventually, we'll reach critical mass and then BAM! Utopia. Brilliant, eh baby?

Well, with all respect intended, have you not noticed that people DO do terrible things to one another? Such is life, for the moment. But, as God is the Eternal Now, who knows how it will be now...now...now...now...fifty thousand "nows" from now? It all has to go with the flow, I think, but as for myself, I'm more the giver type than the taker type, so I prefer to live with the "good" side of things. Shit happens, obviously, and plenty of it has happened to me and my family over the years, of course, just like with any other, but at the same time, you'll find that normal, bland existence will always reestablish itself. What do you think the function of the "good guy" is, after all? Nothing but to reassert normalcy. Somewhat boring but such is the pattern of life. Again, for now.

Well yes, I mean in terms of not preferring me over you, or a tulip over a daisy, or even a slug over a worm, and so forth. God isn't subjective like we are. God is the objective Truth of everything. How can objectivity have a preference? At the same time, you get God's subjective side (as God is everything) incarnated in things that DO have preferences, like us, for example. But God doesn't even care if a branch of Itself dies, because God is eternal. So, when I kick the bucket, and someone else is born after I die, then that's just God being recycled as always. Think of the Universe(s) as one giant recycling plant. It's very efficient.

It's not just great suffering, you know. It's great beauty too. There's a Yin and a Yang to everything and God is both, while at the same time experiencing both. So, God is also the Great Hedonist, you might say.

I can sum up what he has to say: firstly, he says that we have an analogy for God in which It is like a light that is somehow veiled, but he also says that that analogy is false. We are the brilliant light, and to experience "right now" is to experience that light in Its entirety. Again, capitalizing the I on "It" and "Its" because Watts is referring to God. But anyway, Watts says that the "great discovery" is to find out that we are that light, that "we are It" as he puts it. He says that, after we realize that we are It, everything else starts to look like God too, because it is, of course. He says that we grew too cynical about this fact when once we discovered how massive the Universe is, and the fact that we are not all that important in the grand scheme of things after all. He uses the exact words, "God isn't there and doesn't love us after all", but he goes on to say that we shouldn't put ourselves down at all because we have the power to evoke the whole Universe "out of mere quanta". To back up that point, he says that things are only ever hard in relation to our soft skin. Things are only ever sweet or sour in relation to our neutral mouths. Things are only ever loud or quiet when compared to what's going on inside our own heads. And so we evoke the Universe out of our senses, as well as out of our minds and emotions. Now, in terms of our desires (trust me, that discourse was leading somewhere) he says that, because the current state we're in is in fact the Divine State, doing anything to change it, such as meditation, prayer, Yoga, all of the holy practices, to do any of that is the same as not being able to realize that we are It, RIGHT NOW, since we are trying to BECOME It. He says that our desire to become It isn't helpful, because it's like me trying to become short or something: I already am. LOL. But, okay, he goes on to talk about the Buddha, who said that suffering is caused by desire, and so the point of it all is to try and give up suffering, right? Thereby, we have to give up desire, or so we think. But the whole point of what Buddha says is the fact that, eventually, we will start desiring not to desire, and that's just a thing that would chase its own tail, so there's no point to that. All we have to do is wake up and realize that we are okay. We're just fine the way we are, because we're already It. So, basically, stop trying to be what you already are. That's the point of both Watts' and the Buddha's discourse. It's both very easy and very hard, I would say. For me it's hard because I'm a determined little bugger and I'd rather be DOING something, you know? PS: Wow, long message much? You can probably tell that I like Watts. I can eat his lectures up like fudge.

That, in Hinduism, is called the "Leela". The word means "play", and it's used both in the sense of a stage-play and of actual play, like a game, see. So, all of this is the Leela of God. My Lord specifically, Sri Krishna, was always very playful. It's a trait of innocence which we are meant to possess, but also a trait of not taking things too seriously, because, the more seriously we take the Leela, the more trapped in it we become. Have you ever been to a movie or a play where you got so wrapped up in the plot that it could make you laugh and scream and cry and get angry and get happy accordingly? That's what this life is like. But then, there has to be a point at which the play or the movie ends, right? There are two points where this happens in life: upon death, or upon Awakening. Ostensibly, to wake up is the same as saying to yourself, "Wait, why do I care what's hiding in the basement? It's not real!" So, us not "getting it" is God's idea of a joke, a game, a play. I rather appreciate the sense of humour, mind, but at the same time, there has to be a point at which reality hits, just like at the end of a movie or stage-play.

Please define what you mean by "real" philosophy...? And if you say Aristotle, I could just as easily say "Not an argument" to you because I just don't like him. He was a misogynist. And how do we know that he even existed? We have the writings of the Buddha, and we have the writings of Aristotle. We have historical documentation supporting the fact that both men existed. We have the testimony of their students to rely on. We have their actual philosophies to rely on. You and I may actually be equal in terms of the Eastern stuff at any rate, because that's my "bread and butter", shall we say. It's what I've learned best and longest. Find me documentary proof that he didn't exist, eh? Thanks.

We only need to wake up because waking up strips us of need. If once we realize we are God, then everything falls into place. You can't ACT as God or BE as God until you know that you ARE God. See what I mean?

_LiveFree_, with respect to your views, they are, in SOME cases, erroneous. Have you ever heard of the Shramanas? They were--maybe still are: I don't know if they still exist--holy men in India who abstained from every worldly pleasure, and even from keeping themselves safe, in order to deny the body and reach Nirvana. The Buddha himself was a Shramana for around six years. He starved himself in the interest of achieving release from Samsara, and, to hold one of your examples in mind, he did eat his own waste. But the stories say that he only abandoned that path and found the Middle Way when he was so skinny that, if he put his finger in his navel, he could feel his spine on the other side. There was also, to take another one of your examples to heart, a Jain king who nearly killed himself in order to give an eagle enough meat to eat (he sliced off parts of his own flesh), rather than allowing the eagle to eat a smaller bird that would otherwise have been its prey. As for patriarch, I have never, nor will I ever, say that God is a male. God is without gender. Okay, secondly, dude with the cross, we only need to wake up to the realization that we are God. After that, there is nothing to do but for the sake of doing the thing itself. In essence, we are released from our Karmic consequences the moment we wake up, and so doing good by the standards of others is more of an activity or a pastime than a duty. That's why the Buddha taught the Dharma, that's why Mahavira taught the Jain path. Both were awake, but both wanted to help others wake up as well. Does that help at all? PS: Your name is really long. Can I call you Donna? I suppose you're the CHICK with the cross, not the DUDE with the cross, silly me.

Indeed! Now you understand me! Good man. We need to re-learn how NOT to have preferences. Only then can we "get off the stage", as it were.

Firstly, Eudaimonic, you're right. I just get uppity about this crap. Philosophy is my BAE (before all else), you see. But yes, I'll try to be good, though that doesn't mean I'm going to let anyone walk on me. Not that he's necessarily trying to. Now then, though, in terms of your Buddhism argument, that's absolutely true: to desire not to have desires is to have a desire, of course. However, fear not! My lovely "guru" (he's dead now, but I listen to his work all the time), Alan Watts, has the solution!

I said "the person" would be more in touch with the Godhead, not "the Godhead would be more in touch with the person". God does have destructive aspects, yes, embodied in such incarnations as Shiv Shankar, but He is not evil, now is He? What I was saying was that the God of the Bible, though not a false God, was falsely interpreted by people who do not understand Its workings properly, and just wanted to get rid of, say, the people of Jericho. Notice that, almost immediately after giving the Decalogue, among which is "Thou shall not kill", God orders the people to destroy everything under the sun in Jericho, down to the livestock and the infants. Now, doesn't that seem a little contradictory to you? That's because God, MY God, wouldn't give such a command as that. Things need to be destroyed for other life to prosper and such is the way of nature, but God embodies preservation and creation as well. My standard of good and evil, by the way, very much contains NOT putting words in God's Mouth for our own ends, especially when they involve mass genocide, rape, infanticide, and the like. God has no preferences in terms of people, of course, but WE have a preference as to what we want to do with our lives and whether we want to have a relationship with the Godhead, which is the same as the Higher Self, and can really only be attained through virtue and knowledge.

I meant no ideas in terms of people to support or not, but I honestly think that the people who are the most in touch with the Godhead are those who do good rather than evil. Look to Mr. Molyneux for the whole "universally preferable behaviour" thing, but he gets his whole system of morals from much, much older systems of law, such as the Hammurabi Code. So does the Bible, for that matter. Just follow the Golden Rule (which literally every religion has in some form): do unto others as you would have them do to you. It's honestly not that hard to be good but this can extend to everything. War? It's bullshit. Murder, rape, theft, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I don't think we should need laws and rules to tell us what to do and how to do it, but since we haven't evolved much beyond the point of our animalistic instincts, I suppose they're still needed for now. Lame. But necessary until we are ready.

Okay, dude with the cross, we get that you're a troll, so screw off, will you? I'm ignoring you from now on so don't bother posting commentary to me again. Now then, Eudaimonic, my dear sir/madam, I like what you have to say, so we can be good to one another, yes? There is most certainly a "you" versus a "me" in terms of our physical bodies and minds, and, since I'm one of "those" types, I'm adding in terms of our souls as well. I think I believe in a soul, anyway. Mind you, I just got out of a four-month course in Buddhism, in which they do NOT believe in a soul, but that is actually where a lot of my argument comes from. If there is no such thing as a soul, then there is no eternal you, no eternal me. Perhaps the knowledge of your own lack of eternality is meant to dispel that sense of "me", because one of the points of Buddhism is to get rid of the individualistic ego: the one that says that what the "I" wants is more important than what any other "I" wants, and therefore will fight the other "I" in order to get the limited resources offered by this planet. One of my major arguments against the "us and them" dichotomy is that it does create those conflicts, as people who are too absorbed in their own individual bodies and minds, and by extension their own desires, will harm others in that pursuit. But I do understand your point: to me I am me, to me you are you, to you, you are you, to you I am "you", as in the separate and "not identified with me" kind of you. That was a very convoluted sentence but I trust you know what I mean. It's all about identification though. And yes, it is true that this is the case for all people: that they are their own subject and everybody else is the object. That's how the ego functions in general. But the fact that everyone sees things in the same way, I believe, aids us in bringing down that dichotomy. The point of Buddhism in particular is to see that, just as we suffer, others suffer in exactly the same way and wish, for the same or similar reasons, to avoid suffering. To see that about others is the root of compassion, which is a virtue that I believe to be particularly lacking in our world today.