I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Hubris
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I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Hubris » Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:35 pm

I am new to these forums, and I would like to get to know the people here a bit. I don't care what your name is, what sex you are etc. because in a society like this one, it doesn't matter (some might argue that femininity would have a bearing on someone in a forum of enlightenment, and I'm sure that that issue has arisen quite a few times already, but I personally don't believe that it has any effect on the search for enlightenment, seeing as someone feminine might see enlightenment differently than I do). Anyway... :)

What I want to know is what you believe in, in one sentence. A persons beliefs, to the highest degree of certainty dictates what they do or say, given a set of circumstances. I'll go first.

I believe that each and every person does what they do and says what they say, and the only thing that is up to me is to find what I believe to be the truth, and decide my course of action from then on.

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average
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by average » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:07 pm

I believe we are already dead.

welcome, and have fun!

sapincher
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by sapincher » Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:20 pm

I too believe that we are all dead because I can't get to sleep and plus I have a random cut on my forehead that I can only assume to be placed under supernatural circumstances.
my iq is higher than yo's

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average
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by average » Mon Dec 03, 2007 6:40 pm

sapincher wrote:I too believe that we are all dead because I can't get to sleep and plus I have a random cut on my forehead that I can only assume to be placed under supernatural circumstances.

you sound schizo

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Dan Rowden
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Dan Rowden » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:01 pm

I believe that children are our future, treat them well and let them lead the way.

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Shahrazad
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Shahrazad » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:19 pm

Is Hubris a minor?

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Dan Rowden
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Dan Rowden » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:40 pm

Crime, you mean?

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Shahrazad
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Shahrazad » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:51 pm

No, I mean a kiddo.

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Dan Rowden
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Dan Rowden » Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:23 am

I don't believe so. But "his" opening question is a bit tough to answer as I don't really have any core belief.

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daybrown
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by daybrown » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:34 pm

Whatever I believe, looking at a lot of history and prehistory, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, the thing to do is promote a faith in the Great Mother Goddess. Nobody hardly goes to war in the name of the Virgin Mary, a common avatar.

Its easy to see how much trouble a demagogue would have trying to rile up a mob or an army by claiming that he speaks in HER name.

Atheism mite be nice in theory, but in practice what we've seen are cults of personality like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and that jackass now running North Korea.

Confucianism focused on civil order, and given how much violence and anarchy seen in the long history of China, that certainly makes sense. But Roman sen. Seneca, referring to fame, said "Why should we care what future generations think? Wont they be just as foolish and stupid as the men we now see?" So, with ancestor veneration, only idealizes earlier generations of fools. However, nobody went around with a genealogy in hand telling folks to worship their ancestors like the patriarchs in the Bible.

Taoism is nice, but its pretty much limited to those who can deal with the allegory of poetry. Course, really early Taoism was real big on what we'd call Tantric sex, which mite today, lead to some progress. But that's up to the women.

Buddhism again, is good for the adept, but after generations of taking talented men out of the gene pools to park their asses in monastaries to chant mantras has not had the hoped for result for the rest of the world, but only left more jackasses to do the breeding for them.

Islam is the epitome of appeal to jackasses. I mean, would you follow a prophet with a 9 year old wife? Or believe him when he tells the Jihadim that they get to spend eternity fucking 12 year old virgins. Is it any wonder then that these jackasses invented an excuse for clitorectomies? Hello?

Christianity is most revealed for what it is by the archaeolgists examinations of the slave graves before and after the conversion of the empire. After Jesus took over, slave nutrition went down. The women were so malnourished they were infertile. The empire was loosing population. Course, if you look at it from the standpoint of the slave driver, well, if Jesus was going to reward the slaves in heaven, there wasnt any need to do that here. Is there anywhere, an indigeneous population that was better off after it converted to Christianity?

As for Judaism; well thank Jehovah for circumcision. That has kept a lotta men looking for some other path. Noteworthy too, that the whole thing got going when Joshua did to the land of Canaan what we now call genocide. Maybe there's some kind of spirit in the "Holy Land" that genocide has so often been practiced there, and they are still at it.

Have any of the foregoing really delivered the peace promised from their pulpits? The Goddess didnt use pulpits. You havta kinda read between the lines, but at "fertility rites" the usual trip was to invite all the men in all the other villages to a ritual orgy, each village taking a turn on every moon. That this produced peace is easy to understand when you consider the reaction of the men when a war chief proposes a raid. The dudes respond with all the enthusiasm of going to burn down a whorehouse.

The witches across the Danube used to send girls into the Roman camps to fuck the officers, and invite the solders to their fertility rites across the river. And somehow, the witches always knew when the Roman legions were coming. The Romans tried to conquer Dacia for hundreds of years, and barely had any control over it for 50. Caesar could go wherever he wanted in Transylvania... if he had enuf of an armed escort. And even then, no doubt he and the men remembered what happened to Roman general Varus with three legion in the Teutoburg forest.

We all know how Americans were traumatized when gen Custer lost 148 men on the Little Big Horn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... urg_Forest
Varus lost his ass and 12,000 men, including the sons who expected to become Ceasars and sons of the Senators. There was hardly a family in the capitol that did not loose sons and husbands in that forest. And yet the Romans had the balls to repeatedly go back into the Transylvanian and Black Forests.

There were places where the witches held enormous power, and they are rising in power again. Aint gonna be no more witch burnings. The jackasses from these other religious traditions will be put on meds and sent home to their mommas. What I believe dont matter. Its upta them, and the witches I know worship the Goddess. I even saw them host a ritual orgy last year.
Goddess made sex for company.

Hubris
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Hubris » Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:25 pm

I'm not a minor. I've actually been talking to average about this, and she says the same thing. But doesn't the non-belief or denial of belief imply a belief system in itself?

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Dan Rowden
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Dan Rowden » Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:32 pm

Not necessarily. Why do you think it would?

Hubris
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Hubris » Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:59 pm

Honestly Dan, I'm not sure exactly.

It seems impossible for someone to completely lack in beliefs.

But I think my biggest problem her is the fact that there are two general kinds of beliefs.
There are the things that you believe, and the the things that you believe in.

If you think why most people would choose to say they have no beliefs, it is usually because they believe in the fact that theses beliefs are corrupt. thats just one example, but do you see what I'm saying?

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Dan Rowden
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Dan Rowden » Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:06 pm

Sure. As far as I'm concerned only an enlightened person is actually without beliefs. Of course, I'm not talking about "beliefs" that we all function with, such as the belief that the cars stopped at the red light won't spontaneously run you down as you cross the street. Everyone has those. One might call those natural expectations based on prior experience.

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Shahrazad
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Shahrazad » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:06 pm

I can't think of any beliefs that I have either. I usually neither believe or disbelieve in anything. I'm basically apathetic to all spiritual beliefs, like the existence of gods / godesses. They are for the young and unexperienced.

If you must believe in something, try believing in yourself. At least it might inspire you to something good.

-

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DHodges
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Atheism

Post by DHodges » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:03 am

daybrown wrote:Atheism mite be nice in theory, but in practice what we've seen are cults of personality like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and that jackass now running North Korea.
I don't think this is fair to atheism.
First off, Hitler was not an atheist.

These dictators were all authoritarian control freaks. That they called themselves socialist or communist was a bullshit cover for their main aim. They needed to control what other people were allowed to think. As you said, they wanted a cult of personality. They wanted to be worshipped. Like Jehovah, they said, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Communism also often shares many traits with religion.

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daybrown
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Re: Atheism

Post by daybrown » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:59 am

DHodges wrote:
daybrown wrote:Atheism mite be nice in theory, but in practice what we've seen are cults of personality like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and that jackass now running North Korea.
I don't think this is fair to atheism.
First off, Hitler was not an atheist.

These dictators were all authoritarian control freaks. That they called themselves socialist or communist was a bullshit cover for their main aim. They needed to control what other people were allowed to think. As you said, they wanted a cult of personality. They wanted to be worshipped. Like Jehovah, they said, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Communism also often shares many traits with religion.
Yes, but people are sheeple. Atheism may work for you, but when you try it on a mass scale, what you get is a personality cult. People have an instinctive need to believe in something. now, if you wanna drag all the dumb fucks like that to the gas chambers, I dont have a problem with it. But until then, you need to come up with a cosmology that has less risk to your own welfare, and atheism is not it.

Note, Atheism was pretty much invented and promoted in Athens. and what was the prime deity in Athens? Athena. Nobody was punishing atheists in HER name. Even the notorious trial of Socrates, had nothing to do with Her.
Goddess made sex for company.

Hubris
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by Hubris » Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:37 am

I guess the real reason it seems like a person must believe in something, is because I haven't met a person who truly did not believe in ANYTHING. It seems like a persons base actions are usually dictated or greatly affected by these beliefs (exceptions have included parents and husbands and wives, people who have more than themselves to worry about). Plus the simple statement "I don't believe in anything", usually seems like a summed up version of, "I disagree that a person should believe in anything but themselves", which, if it isn't, should be considered a form of belief, or "I disagree with all of the belief systems I've come across so far."

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DHodges
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Re: Atheism

Post by DHodges » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:31 am

daybrown wrote:Yes, but people are sheeple. Atheism may work for you, but when you try it on a mass scale, what you get is a personality cult. People have an instinctive need to believe in something.
Maybe that's why we have that whole "freedom of religion" thing.

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DHodges
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by DHodges » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:32 am

Hubris wrote:I guess the real reason it seems like a person must believe in something, is because I haven't met a person who truly did not believe in ANYTHING.
Well, maybe. I try not to believe in stuff, but it probably happens now and then.

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daybrown
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Re: Atheism

Post by daybrown » Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:24 am

DHodges wrote:
daybrown wrote:Yes, but people are sheeple. Atheism may work for you, but when you try it on a mass scale, what you get is a personality cult. People have an instinctive need to believe in something.
Maybe that's why we have that whole "freedom of religion" thing.
Yes but the problem with that is, that some religions tend to have zealots who use their religion as the excuse for their own psychological instincts for violence, rape, murder, genocide...

The personality cults of atheism were no better in this regard. Its like a power vacuum; you either provide a religion for sheeple that does not empower demagogues, or you will see demagogues use religion for empowerment. Which then has no problem at all dispensing with your freedom of, or from, religion.

If you want to live in peace, then look at the archeological data on the people who been there and done that. One example is Gimbutas, "The Language of the Goddess", with the forward by Joseph Campbell, who closes with:"The message here, is of an actual age of peace and harmony with the creative energies of Nature, which for a spell of some 4000 prehistoric years, anteceded the 5000 of what James Joyce termed the "nightmare" (of contending tribal and national interests) from which it is certainly time for this world to wake up." [his parens]

In this and her other books, Gimbutas shows us hundreds of Chalcolithic artifacts; I looked them over for a few months, something in the back of my mind kept bringing me back to the collection before I realized that it was not what was what they found, but what they did not find. Weapons. No iconography of warriors or violence.
Goddess made sex for company.

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DHodges
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Re: Atheism

Post by DHodges » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:59 pm

daybrown wrote:If you want to live in peace, then look at the archeological data on the people who been there and done that. One example is Gimbutas, "The Language of the Goddess",
While living in peace is a good thing, I am not willing to sacrifice truth to get there. Goddess religions are bullshit, just like male-god religions.

Also, goddess religions are no guarantee of peace. I bet the followers of Kali could find reasons to justify violence on occasion.

In any case, I am not looking for an authoritarian solution. Authoritarianism is the problem, not a solution.

some religions tend to have zealots who use their religion as the excuse for their own psychological instincts for violence, rape, murder, genocide...
Religion is not directly the problem. Religion is just an excuse people use to justify those things. People will continue to make up such justifications when they need them. If not religion, then race, nationality, politics...

brokenhead
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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by brokenhead » Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:54 pm

daybrown wrote:
Course, really early Taoism was real big on what we'd call Tantric sex
What's with this "we" stuff? Did you read that somewhere? I guess there's no reason a Taoist would not engage in Tantric practices. Did you mean early Buddhism?

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Re: I'm new, and I want to get to know you all.

Post by brokenhead » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:02 am

Religion is not directly the problem. Religion is just an excuse people use to justify those things. People will continue to make up such justifications when they need them. If not religion, then race, nationality, politics...
Religion is not the problem even indirectly. People make the mistake of confusing religion with tradition, specifically their own traditions, and with possessions, specifically their own possessions.

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