Life after death

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Life after death

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Kevin,
It could happen that, tomorrow, someone discovers that what you thought was "empty space" is in fact teeming with previously undetected and extremely small particles. That would blow your ideas about "empty space" out of the water.
Have you ever wondered why you’re so attached to materialist thinking?
Everything happens by cause and effect, so there's nothing "queer" about our Universe, not even in the quantum realm.


Causality is necessary to understand the world of interacting things, but if the ‘thing’ at its most fundamental level has no concrete essence or substance, then that is very queer… Have you ever wondered why so many quantum physicists were naturally attracted to subjects such as mysticism, Epistemology, and other philosophical concepts after their research?

It’s probably because if you dive down that rabbit hole far enough, the entire foundation of materialist assumptions about the nature of reality is ripped into pieces…

Moreover, the atheist secularist community refuses to go there because if they do, they must also face the possibility that the materialist ideology that they so firmly subscribe to could be a falsehood. My concern is that an ideology severs ones connection from the infinite, from emptiness, and it doesn’t matter what type of ideology it is…If you fully subscribe to it with all your heart, there is a danger there - a danger of dulling ones sharpness of perception with a filter of belief.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Life after death

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Alexander,
Alex J wrote: When one has a very developed intellect, it is the intellect that mediates the perception of one's existential relationship, and the 'doctrines' that come out of that carry with them and express all the modern angles of description, but I guess I wonder what they really reveal to us.
I wonder that too. But I do not mediate at all using my "developed intellect". Actually I use it so rarely these days, only when needed that I have to train it like the body, with exercises and games.

I'm afraid it's you who has clearly the superior intellect and not allowing much of another interface, although you're hinting at other modes - they are in my view not other-worldly enough, meaning: they are plain worldly. Of course there is no other world, I hasten to add. That's only a figure of speech, it means just "non-worldly" in the ancient dualism world-spirit.
I have found that what lies underneath it is somewhat universal, quite subjective and mythological, and seems to place one more in an arena of theism than that of a rational atheism.
Personally I do not care much for rational atheism and your theism doesn't impress me either. It's too hands off for me, a detached type of worshiping, bleh, if you want to get to Deo than do it properly: grovel, speak in tongues, sing your psalms, enter that ecstasy! But what you do know?
To refer to fructifying 'unseen beings' that operate in our background, or in our substrata, may seem to you to be 'exoteric' or simply run-of-the-mill, but it could be that it is more a description of a factual, holistic, psycho-spiritual 'truth'.
That's what it is, like I jested before: some henid of a simple and deep psycho-spiritual truth.
You opt to act as an apologist for the Quinn and Solway
Yes, in a way, but do you know why exactly? Probably not. It's not that esoteric or secretive as you suggest at times. Once you see what they do and what drives them, it becomes only natural to support them. It goes way beyond some minor limitations one might find with them.
Nevertheless a similar 'story' is there, and the 'story' functions, provides guidelines, a structure to hang things on.
Yes, thinking, reasoning, sensing, observing: they all revolve around structures to hang things on. The game of meaning giving is always played you say. But the challenge is to play it well, to find the story that in the context of the age, the people, the illusions is the most illuminating. For you this story doesn't seem to hit home anywhere and that's fair enough. Still you're driven to make sense of it. There's something you want to lie you finger on, something there. Some disorder, some disjoint, some disease that if not to be healed you want at least to be able to describe.
But I do not at all see you-plural as being in such a desirable place, to tell the truth, and I certainly don't want to imitate you.
That's correct, it certainly is not desirable. But understanding truth doesn't mean sudden graduation and positions of authority. It looks to me more like a slow process of surrender, of pacing, shaping oneself to the way truth works. The proof is always in the ears of others and what they might do with it. It should not be important who said it although practically people are wired to screen words through status and trust filters. If someone is regarded as deep and knowledgeable, qualified, the words are interpreted that way and getting a way more serious charge.

But for me, truth is learned from everyone and everything, It lies on the street and it's often spoken by undesirable, shady characters. If this forum is the absolute philosophical gutter of the Internet, where the 'low lives', the whores and money changers are hanging out, then that's exactly the place where some fruit might be found. I seek deserts and desperation, complete infertile wastelands, the opposite what you seem to look for. It's only here that sanity might be restored, now and again. It's all very imperfect, to say the least.
Iolaus
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Re: Life after death

Post by Iolaus »

Ryan,
No, brother universes do not have to have the same configuration as this universe. Each would be slightly different in a causal sense, resulting in different outcomes...do you think a brother universe would take on the exact shape of our universe, when the causes that created it would have been much different than the causes that created this universe?
It's difficult to imagine that one universe would have a different cause than another universe. This is like saying that there is more than one cause to existence. Just coming up with one plausible cause to existence is problem enough!
And btw, Alex, there are no unseen beings cultivating through you in indescribable ways, snap out of it,
You don't know that. And you who entertain at least the possibility of a consciousness that survives bodily death! If there is such a thing, then why shouldn't there be beings that are disembodied?
The problem is that you believe in these things for emotional reasons, reality as it is isn’t enough for you, you gotta sugar coat it with all these little spirit friends of yours.
Very presumptuous of you, no? Perhaps he believes it because that is what he has experienced, and I have never thought that reality was found wanting by Mr. Alex.
Moreover, I cannot disprove that their isn't beings from another dimension that exist, but guess what? if they exist, they don’t care about you in the sense that they'd be going about their daily business,
Oh, wow, it gets better. So they might exist, but you somehow know what they do and care about, how they occupy themselves.
they don’t care anymore than any other sentient being on this planet.
Ah! But some sentient beings on this planet care very much, even give their lives for it. So now you have revealed yourself: you were projecting when you said Alex believed it for emotional reasons. You intellectually have no defense against his idea, but emotionally, you find it loathsome.

Why is that?
You are rejecting 'what is' in favor of something much more magical...How do people treat each other in this world? mundane interaction.. that's all, so deeper dimensions would be more of the same if they in fact exist, which cannot be proven or disproven.
As for me, I do not see mundane interaction among ordinary people. I see glowing, loving interactions of total kindness and support, everywhere. That you do not see it, well, perhaps it is a delusion?

Causality is necessary to understand the world of interacting things, but if the ‘thing’ at its most fundamental level has no concrete essence or substance, then that is very queer… Have you ever wondered why so many quantum physicists were naturally attracted to subjects such as mysticism, Epistemology, and other philosophical concepts after their research?
At any rate, Ryan, you make many good points which seem completely incongruous with the above ones, and I have been enjoying your contributions to this thread immensely.
Truth is a pathless land.
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Alex Jacob
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Re: Life after death

Post by Alex Jacob »

Diebert wrote:

"But for me, truth is learned from everyone and everything, It lies on the street and it's often spoken by undesirable, shady characters. If this forum is the absolute philosophical gutter of the Internet, where the 'low lives', the whores and money changers are hanging out, then that's exactly the place where some fruit might be found. I seek deserts and desperation, complete infertile wastelands, the opposite what you seem to look for. It's only here that sanity might be restored, now and again. It's all very imperfect, to say the least."

No one here is acting a role comparable to that, or living out a wastrel's life as 'whores' and 'money-changers'. First, I respect QRS (and I won't, of course, include the tired jab that I do even though 'I suspect they might be gay') their seriousness, their constant focus, their willingness to take a stand for what they believe, and to take steps---concrete, earthly steps---to put their material out there so that people will grapple with it. I emulate those things, and I as a religionist also strongly believe that it is important to contribute to, to sponsor, to contribute time, energy and money to what one believes in. No matter how 'pure' or 'perfect' the teaching, when it is handled by people it will always get sullied, muddied, infused and will show some warts, but still you simply have to do something now don't you? For a 'simple Christian', someone who feels he has received some grace that has improved his life, the next step is service. What has been given to you, give to others. If a burden has been taken off of you, help to take the burden off of someone else. If you received some help, give some help. The better part of the human spirit is often expressed in this way, a receiving and a giving. I can only assume that the 'enlightenment' that David speaks about is so valuable to him that he will stake his life---in the sense of dedicate his life---in service to the possibility of bringing that realization to other people.

I don't have any problem with that, and 'birds of a feather flock together', so you can see how their 'idea-structures' attract various mirror-images of themselves, likenesses anyway, and some who are diametrically opposed. And if you mean to imply that they are like 'philosophical gutters' or 'whores' or 'money-changers' (money-changers doesn't apply since no one is out to make a buck, I would rather imagine 'Pharisees' and 'Scribes', and no one here is sophisticated enough to operate as a Sadducee, but we have a few Essenes and a Gnostic or two), like dregs of the Earth who even still can utter truths, some of the truths are uttered despite themselves, if you know what I mean.

"But the challenge is to play it well, to find the story that in the context of the age, the people, the illusions is the most illuminating. For you this story doesn't seem to hit home anywhere and that's fair enough. Still you're driven to make sense of it."

Now what's this? This cannot situate itself within the QRS canon, you yourself are toying with post-modernism. Tut tut old boy. Truth is a single thing! There is truth and there is non-truth! You must decide, son!

It is not at all that their 'story' does not sit well with me, it is that tendentious aspects of it do not strike me as true. Some of this is a gross as a slug sitting on the end of a nose, and some of it is fine and requires a special comb, like mother removing lice from the fine hair of her dearly beloved child: something she must do right away, now, and certainly can't wait till tomorrow. (Did I tell you I have sewed three little blue suits for the QRS? Their Sunday Best, when they promise not to burn their churches).

"I'm afraid it's you who has clearly the superior intellect and not allowing much of another interface, although you're hinting at other modes - they are in my view not other-worldly enough, meaning: they are plain worldly. Of course there is no other world, I hasten to add. That's only a figure of speech, it means just "non-worldly" in the ancient dualism world-spirit."

You always, I repeat always, interpose yourself between me and the QRS, have you ever wondered why you do that? You cause me to argue with you, who is not QRS and doesn't at all seem to function like them, who does not close himself off so definitively, and it is as if you actually think that you are presenting arguments that they would, or even could ever, formulate. Then, I have to remember that I don't have an argument with you, one because you so rarely reveal any definite, bold thing you actually believe, and two because you so rarely reveal any definite, bold thing you actually believe...

But then there is always this rehearsal of a complex spirit-dance that you weave in your posts, a danse de la fée, all very delightful of course.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Life after death

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Iolaus,
It's difficult to imagine that one universe would have a different cause than another universe. This is like saying that there is more than one cause to existence. Just coming up with one plausible cause to existence is problem enough!
One present theory out there is that a singularity (black hole caused by an imploding star) is the cause of the birth of a new universe. As it is the only phenomena that exhibits the following characteristics - zero volume, but infinite density, which to my mind means that it doesn’t exist in this universe, but wherever it does exist, it is infinite. Moreover, since, every singularity occurs under unique casual conditions, we can expect the birth of every new universe to be totally unique as well. Furthermore, It seems rather unimaginative to me to believe that every universe is exactly the same with an infinite number of earths, with the exact same events happening simultaneously. How very odd is such a theory! It clearly contradicts the idea of infinity altogether.
You don't know that. And you who entertain at least the possibility of a consciousness that survives bodily death! If there is such a thing, then why shouldn't there be beings that are disembodied?
It doesn’t make subjective sense to me based on how I perceive the world. To my mind, we are always ourselves, and we are always guided by the quality of our own minds. However, any super-sensitive and heightened awareness states are simply the conscious mind becoming increasingly conscious, I highly doubt such heightened awareness is the result of entities helping, guiding or messing around.
Very presumptuous of you, no? Perhaps he believes it because that is what he has experienced, and I have never thought that reality was found wanting by Mr. Alex.
Its probably just his imagination. Do you know people who believe in ghosts actually see ghosts because they want to see them so badly that they actually see them. The mind is a powerful instrument, it can create false forms if you believe strongly enough.
Oh, wow, it gets better. So they might exist, but you somehow know what they do and care about, how they occupy themselves.
I just use reason – meaning that enlightened behavior is this world is a clear indication of what enlightened behavior would be in the next, if such a world even exists, which cannot be proven or disproven.
Ah! But some sentient beings on this planet care very much, even give their lives for it. So now you have revealed yourself: you were projecting when you said Alex believed it for emotional reasons. You intellectually have no defense against his idea, but emotionally, you find it loathsome.
As I have said, I’m using enlightened behavior to speculate, not animal behavior.
As for me, I do not see mundane interaction among ordinary people. I see glowing, loving interactions of total kindness and support, everywhere. That you do not see it, well, perhaps it is a delusion?

Yes, I see glowing behavior everywhere too – I’m just floating away – how nice – lets explore a few examples shall we -


A baby boomer couple habitually watches outdated 70s talk shows and sitcoms laughing at predetermined laugh tracks and feeling the animal excitement of the winners of the game shows.

A construction worker does the same toil day in and day out, making the same crude jokes, fantasizing about the same crude hedonism on the weekend, never getting tired of myself.

A man forces his girlfriend to her knees, and she gives him oral sex, he forces her to look at him, and he ejaculates on her face, and then they cuddle up together, he happy to be the dominant man, and she happy to be the submissive woman. How nice.

An older senior woman sits alone in a mall cafeteria spending all her deceased husband’s retirement money on $2 scratch lottery tickets. Her husband was a construction worker by the way. Nice bloke, heavy drunker though, he used to beat her a bit, force her to give him anal sex once and awhile when he was drunk. You know, the loving stuff…

A teenage girl cannot handle the emotional pressures of motherhood, and so she shakes her baby in an angry rage, and the baby suffers brain damage. A life long learning disability, curiosity of mother’s love. So beautiful to watch….

A male driver cuts off another driver, and he becomes angry, giving vulgar hand gestures, a chase ensues, and both stop, getting in a fistfight, resulting in first man getting stabbed with a pocket knife by the second man. Afraid, he flees the scene without calling for police or an ambulance. The man passes out unconscious and bleeds to death because paramedics didn’t arrive on the scene quick enough. Just radiant love.

An Iraqi US soldier patrols the streets of Baghdad with a comrade that he just met, as both just formed a new unit together. Both are very stressed and neurotic as all the soldiers in their old units were blasted to shreds by IEDS. They leave their unit in search of a drink of alcohol to calm their nerves. A lone Iraqi woman approaches them, and starts screaming, she is hysterical. They follow her into her home, where her entire family has been killed by missile fire through their front picture window. The soldiers seem uninterested, they are desensitized to death. They start opening her cabinets looking for alcohol, when she becomes indignant, hitting, screaming and calling for help. They smash her over the head with the butt of their weapon, rape her unconscious for some stress relief, shoot her in the head, and then return to their unit. How glowing!

“……..I see trees of green, red roses too, I see them bloom, for me and you, and I think to myself….. What a wonderful world…”
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Shahrazad
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Re: Life after death

Post by Shahrazad »

Alex,
I respect QRS (and I won't, of course, include the tired jab that I do even though 'I suspect they might be gay')
Do I have to remind you that in the Footholds thread Sue started, in the first few pages, you came to the conclusion that Dan is not gay? You learned something and you forgot to remove the erroneous belief from your brain?

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David Quinn
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Re: Life after death

Post by David Quinn »

None of us are gay. That should be obvious from the way we respect the power of woman and its various traps and dangers.

Not that it really matters. Gays are in the same boat as straights, as far as acquiring wisdom is concerned.

Some of the best thinkers in history have been gay - e.g. Socrates and Oscar Wilde. And some have been straight.

Alex is just trying to muddy the waters again.

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Iolaus
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Re: Life after death

Post by Iolaus »

Hey Ryan,
One present theory out there is that a singularity (black hole caused by an imploding star) is the cause of the birth of a new universe. As it is the only phenomena that exhibits the following characteristics - zero volume, but infinite density,
i don't think black hole theory has been proven, not that it matters, but I am skeptical of the idea that the density there is infinite.
Moreover, since, every singularity occurs under unique casual conditions, we can expect the birth of every new universe to be totally unique as well.
Unique causal conditions? You just said a black hole from an imploding star - nothing unique. Of course each one is slightly different.You must have a different definition of the word 'unique' than I do.
Furthermore, It seems rather unimaginative to me to believe that every universe is exactly the same with an infinite number of earths, with the exact same events happening simultaneously. How very odd is such a theory! It clearly contradicts the idea of infinity altogether.
What? Who ever proposed such a thing! It's absurd.
However, any super-sensitive and heightened awareness states are simply the conscious mind becoming increasingly conscious, I highly doubt such heightened awareness is the result of entities helping, guiding or messing around.
I would agree that this happens, and that it might feel subjectively like guidance from an other, but I don't think that is the explanation for all of it.
Do you know people who believe in ghosts actually see ghosts because they want to see them so badly that they actually see them.
I don't know where you've come up with this. Ghosts have never interested me, but I have seen some quite good documentaries about them, and the people were not looking for it.
I just use reason – meaning that enlightened behavior is this world is a clear indication of what enlightened behavior would be in the next, if such a world even exists, which cannot be proven or disproven.
Well, I do not think that you know much about enlightened behavior in this world in any statistically large sense, nor do I know why you think the enlightened don't care about anyone. It seems that they tend to take an interest in spreading wisdom...and who says these beings are even similar to an enlightened human?
But some sentient beings on this planet care very much, even give their lives for it. So now you have revealed yourself: you were projecting when you said Alex believed it for emotional reasons. You intellectually have no defense against his idea, but emotionally, you find it loathsome.

As I have said, I’m using enlightened behavior to speculate, not animal behavior.
Animal behavior? Oh, come now! With this phrase you simply reinforce what I have already noted - you have made several comments now and it is clearly a repulsion you feel for the idea of other beings in any way contacting us mentally or helping or being involved - not sure quite what it is that bugs you. What is it? If you can't answer, you lack introspection!

As to your examples of human abuse, I do not deny them, but neither are they but a small minority of human interaction. What I am saying is that in what would be considered mundane interactions, I can see a higher level or deeper level. I didn't used to be able to see it, and I would not have been able to relate to it if someone had told me. So I don't know what is the use...

But why the bitter focus upon the negative? Don't you think that you will reinforce what you focus upon?
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Oh, and, I don't think AJ was hinting that QRS are gay. Rather, that he does not think so.
Truth is a pathless land.
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Alex Jacob
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Re: Life after death

Post by Alex Jacob »

David wites:

"Not that it really matters. Gays are in the same boat as straights, as far as acquiring wisdom is concerned. "

The King of the Hare Krishnas, Srila Prabhupada, said something similar. When a gay devotee came for his blessing he, being very humble, of course gave it. When he'd left the other devotees asked him what he thought of his sexual orientation---and vaishnavas are rather anti-homosexual---and he said 'If you're chained with a silver chain or chained with a chain of gold, you are still chained'.

"Some of the best thinkers in history have been gay - e.g. Socrates and Oscar Wilde. And some have been straight."

In respect to Socrates, well, not as gay as you might think. He was married after all, and I think he had children. He was bisexual in that unique, Athenian way. There is a dialogue though where he confesses looking into some dude's toga and 'taking the flame' (getting an erection), but he spurned Alcibiade's overtures, and Alcibiades was a virile and good-looking man.

Oscar Wilde is in truth one of the shallowest thinkers of the fin de siecle, and all of his opus is vain and a waste of time. He only began to write anything of depth and value after his fall, such as De Profundis, but he was so collapsed and broken that he died. It seems very strange that you emulate him, I'm trying to think of what in particular you could admire.

You never cease to amaze me, David.

"Alex is just trying to muddy the waters again."

Down here with the lepers, the tax-collectors, the whores, the outcasts and the low-lifes, all I can do is purify and heal, and purification and healing is my only goal.

The Sons of Light have no other motive...

;-)
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Kevin Solway
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Re: Life after death

Post by Kevin Solway »

Alex Jacob wrote:Oscar Wilde is in truth one of the shallowest thinkers of the fin de siecle
That's the traditional line that people are taught in school, yet a single line of Oscar Wilde has more depth than entire books written by the vast majority of so-called "thinkers."
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Re: Life after death

Post by Kevin Solway »

Ryan Rudolph wrote:
It could happen that, tomorrow, someone discovers that what you thought was "empty space" is in fact teeming with previously undetected and extremely small particles. That would blow your ideas about "empty space" out of the water.
Have you ever wondered why you’re so attached to materialist thinking?
You're the one who is basing their argument upon the empirical materialists notion of empty space between and within atoms, etc. I'm only advising you against taking that path.
Everything happens by cause and effect, so there's nothing "queer" about our Universe, not even in the quantum realm.

Causality is necessary to understand the world of interacting things, but if the ‘thing’ at its most fundamental level has no concrete essence or substance, then that is very queer…
It might be if you're not used to it and don't understand it. But since I'm used to it and understand it, it's perfectly ordinary.
Have you ever wondered why so many quantum physicists were naturally attracted to subjects such as mysticism, Epistemology, and other philosophical concepts after their research?
For the most part they are attracted to nonsense. This is because their rationality, courage, and character is sorely lacking.
It’s probably because if you dive down that rabbit hole far enough, the entire foundation of materialist assumptions about the nature of reality is ripped into pieces…
You don't have to go into quantum physics for our idea of things to be ripped to pieces. If you examine anything at all, the same thing happens.
Moreover, the atheist secularist community refuses to go there . . .
They do. But part of the reason they don't want to go there is that the people they see going there end up losing their minds, in a bad way, and becoming very stupid people, little different to new-age floozies. There are few good role models to encourage these secular atheists into becoming real thinkers.
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David Quinn
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Re: Life after death

Post by David Quinn »

Alex Jacob wrote: Oscar Wilde is in truth one of the shallowest thinkers of the fin de siecle, and all of his opus is vain and a waste of time. He only began to write anything of depth and value after his fall, such as De Profundis, but he was so collapsed and broken that he died. It seems very strange that you emulate him, I'm trying to think of what in particular you could admire.
He wasn't an earth-shattering demon of the Infinite by any means, but I liked the twisted nature of his thought. The way he could casually overturn entire edifices of conventional thinking with a simple aphorism.

I actually think he became shallow after he went to prison and degenerated into a dreary, old Christian-type. He lost his mojo.

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Blair
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Re: Life after death

Post by Blair »

I think it's pretty clear that Alex is in fact, gay, and is having a hard time dealing with it.
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tek0
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Re: Life after death

Post by tek0 »

They smash her over the head with the butt of their weapon, rape her unconscious for some stress relief, shoot her in the head, and then return to their unit. How glowing!

Civilians "can" in the world afford the elitist option of modern armor be it dragon skin or some other worldly set of options.




Warnng syntax on your brain.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 215022.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2005 ... helmet.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pnbX94k_UY



To summarize: All things are dependent on other things for their existence, and a thing cannot arise without its past causes. However, all things are empty in their fundamental essence, which implies that all matter is fundamentally empty too. There is nothing concrete there. The mind that abides in an unknowing state of emptiness creates a sane window to the world, but the world itself is fundamentally empty, like the mind, and that is why life remains mysterious in a certain context because we don’t know much about what this emptiness is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAp9BKosZXs
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Life after death

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Iolaus,
but I am skeptical of the idea that the density there is infinite.
Well, that is what hawkin’s calculus confirmed to him, after his own intuitive guess. So since you’re a reputable astronomist with a PhD, I suppose I should trust your skepticism over Hawkin’s life work. … ; )
I do not think that you know much about enlightened behavior in this world in any statistically large sense, nor do I know why you think the enlightened don't care about anyone.
The highest quality thinkers on this forum are a microcosm of the larger macrocosm.
you have made several comments now and it is clearly a repulsion you feel for the idea of other beings in any way contacting us mentally or helping or being involved
That view is way too motherly. Motherly behavior may work in the animal world to raise up infants to adulthood, but as far as spiritual matters are concerned, direct communication is all that is needed. Direct attack through reasoning is what matures individuals, not motherly babysitters.
I can see a higher level or deeper level.
Mundane people are still violent and spiritually ill for the most part.


Kevin,
It might be if you're not used to it and don't understand it. But since I'm used to it and understand it, it's perfectly ordinary.
Its not ordinary in the sense that logic doesn’t give you any concrete answers, it just gives you a consistent tool to analyze the world. However, at the most deepest level of subjective experience, there is still an unknowing emptiness, and that isn’t ordinary in the sense that knowledge cannot satisfy it.
For the most part they are attracted to nonsense. This is because their rationality, courage, and character is sorely lacking.
I would say that some are attracted to the inability of science to give them any concrete answers about existence. After the quantum world blows away all their knowledge, they are left with uncertainty, and skepticism as to what matter actually is. And it is very healthy in my opinion to lose ones materialist assumptions and go searching. It’s not much better than the complacency of many of the atheist secularists who seem fairly satisfied with attacking organized religion as their main target. Such attacks are almost cliché. Basically, all one has to do to be an intellectual these days in bash a priest… perhaps we should continue to raise the bar higher.

Alex,

Oscar Wilde had some fairly witty quotes. I think your assessment of his early life is incorrect. Here is a link, some are quite profound –
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/autho ... wilde.html
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Re: Life after death

Post by Kevin Solway »

Ryan Rudolph wrote:
It might be if you're not used to it and don't understand it. But since I'm used to it and understand it, it's perfectly ordinary.
Its not ordinary in the sense that logic doesn’t give you any concrete answers
The answers that logic provides are always concrete, even when the answer is "I don't know", such as not knowing what the future will hold.
At the most deepest level of subjective experience, there is still an unknowing emptiness, and that isn’t ordinary in the sense that knowledge cannot satisfy it.

You still haven't defined exactly what it is you mean by "emptiness," so I have no way of knowing what you're talking about here.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Life after death

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Kevin,
The answers that logic provides are always concrete, even when the answer is "I don't know," such as not knowing what the future will hold.
But the answer I don’t know leaves you with absolutely nothing. How is being left with nothing concrete?
You still haven't defined exactly what it is you mean by "emptiness," so I have no way of knowing what you're talking about here.
You can talk about what prevents emptiness from emerging, but it is very difficult to use definitions to point to it. It is a state beyond definition, belief, and knowledge altogether. It would be an insult to define it, and expect the definition to be the representation of the thing itself.
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Re: Life after death

Post by Kevin Solway »

Ryan Rudolph wrote:
The answers that logic provides are always concrete, even when the answer is "I don't know," such as not knowing what the future will hold.
But the answer I don’t know leaves you with absolutely nothing. How is being left with nothing concrete?
You can be absolutely certain that you don't know, as opposed to being unsure that you know, or thinking that you do know. So it's something very definite, or concrete.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Life after death

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Kevin,
You can be absolutely certain that you don't know, as opposed to being unsure that you know, or thinking that you do know. So it's something very definite, or concrete
.

Being certain of your own unknowing is a definite thing, I agree. However, the state that you are left with is not a state that has all the answers. And not having all the answers is not a concrete position, my point. For instance: Often times, the materialist fools himself into believing that he has all the answers, and he is no different than the Christian or the Hindu who both derive false certainty and false knowing from beliefs and assumptions.

Moreover, to take the materialist stance is to buy into the assumption that we can be certain that matter is a concrete thing, made of substance that can be isolated, and reduced to some meat that we can sink our teeth into…but such conviction is not justifiable.
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Re: Life after death

Post by mikiel »

Kelly Jones wrote:A thought on Ataraxia's point about Jesus' writings.

The whole problem in communicating about wisdom is the attachment to concepts and the things they create as if they are really, quite literally there. For instance, when a wise man says, "I", most people would think he is talking about his human organism's self. So he has to use a dialectic, to show that he's talking about his true self. Thus, "my heavenly self", or "the all", or "the essence of Mind", or "the eternal soul". Unfortunately, people take these concepts to literally mean inherently existing things in alternative planes of existence, metaphysical realities somewhere else than right here and now. They turn them into poetic realities.

I think a skilled communicator should be able to exploit any form, any medium, in order to talk about the Infinite. Poetry, parable, satire, science fiction, music, prose, standup comedy, whatever - so as to confound those who wish to turn the Truth into something.

Mikiel's notion of consciousness is an example of an alternative plane of existence, separate to things. He is one of those rigidly-fixed minds incapable of perceiving the eternal formlessness of all that surrounds us. He is stuck with a word "consciousness" and cannot conceive of alternative meanings.
Kelly,
You totally misunderstand me.
Re: your statement in bold above...
My teacher's teacher, Dr. Franklin Merrell-Wolff wrote his masterpiece on the subject. "The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object." I have referred to it many times on these boards.
This directly addresses the misrepresentation expressed in your last paragraph.
There is nothing "alternative plane" about the existence of consciousness as transcending the objects (concepts) which arise *in* consciousness.
Any seasoned meditator knows the difference between the Witness and that which is witnessed... Awareness, and that which we are aware of... gross material objects to subtile concepts. The former is "eternaly formless" and the latter are constantly changing form.

You totally miss this very basic point, as does the Trio, consistently.
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Re: Videos and criticisms

Post by mikiel »

Kevin Solway wrote:
mikiel wrote:Consciousness is eternal.
Does this "consciousness" of which you speak exist when there is no conscious being in the Universe?
The Universe *IS* One eternal being. Its body, cosmos is constantly changing form, while its consciousness eternally transcends all form, never changing.

You propose an absurd hypothetical. There has never been and will never be a case when there "is no conscious being"... the Universe ItSelf.
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Re: Videos and criticisms

Post by Kevin Solway »

mikiel wrote:There has never been and will never be a case when there "is no conscious being"... the Universe ItSelf.
I reject your definition of "consciousness", since it's not conscious.
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Re: Videos and criticisms

Post by mikiel »

Kevin Solway wrote:
mikiel wrote:There has never been and will never be a case when there "is no conscious being"... the Universe ItSelf.
I reject your definition of "consciousness", since it's not conscious.
How so?
Aside from the content of my post, who read it and replied to it? The locus of Omnipresent Consciousness known as Kevin Solway.

Turn your attention from the content to the awareness itself. That awareness, *transcending what it is aware of* is the consciousness of which I speak.
Gotta go again... for a few more days. (Sorry... I'd really rather hang out and try to clarifiy this with you... but "duty calls" once again. I am just "in town" changing vehicles.)
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Re: Videos and criticisms

Post by Kevin Solway »

mikiel wrote:The locus of Omnipresent Consciousness known as Kevin Solway.
Two points:
1. If there are no loci of consciousness, then there is no consciousness.
2. Consciousness requires something other than itself to be conscious of. That's why the Universe can't be conscious.
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Re: Life after death

Post by Alex Jacob »

Now this is an interesting turn of events...

Kevin, it was not school that instructed me to have those opinions of Wilde, and I don't really care how he is viewed in that circle, my opinions were formed by growing tired of reading him. He is formulaic, and given his core constitution---shallow and artificial---all that he ever wrote, except De Profundis and a few lines of poems, fell vastly short of what 'great art' or great intellect can be. What is remembered of Wilde, for those who haven't looked into his personal excesses, is the witticism of his epigrams, and though they are revealing on one level, that level remains always shallow, and lacks moral backbone. For aphorisms I think La Rochefoucauld is infinitely deeper, and there is moral strength there.

Maybe people, especially the gays, don't want to make moral judgments of him, but what destroyed him was his profligate sexual life. When his social context took a vicious interest in him and set out to destroy him, which it did, he seemed to have a spiritual (ethical and moral) awakening after suffering in prison, and you might have though he would have chosen a more spiritual life---but he ended up going to Paris instead, to give the rest of his life over to even more severe sexual excesses.

But I guess it doesn't surprise me that y'all hold him in esteem, but not for the only worthwhile thing he wrote, since y'all in most ways are also very shallow in your understanding of people, and life itself. It may happen too that in your own way, like Wilde, you will squander your own lives in irrelevancies until the final moment when there is an awakening, but when the habits are too establsihed to change.

I see more clearly why I do not trust you fellows. Something is missing, some essential piece. Oh but I forget: the Lamp of Holy Enlightenment. Yes. Right. You never talk about what it is or what it does, but I agree, it is a thrillingly beautiful crown to wear...

You have your 'enlightenment' to hole-up in, like Wilde holed-up in his aesthetics, this Value of all Values which supercedes everything else that could have value, and high on that dirty drug---naturally---how could you ever even see anything that really had value? The damnedest funniest thing is that with Wilde you have your first literary reference, the first 'admired figure' you've ever mentioned, and he is transparent, and what lies under that transparency is ugliness, wastefulness, and not beauty.

Ah, but I forget, beauty, nobility and purity are 'deluded' values.
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