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  • Karma

    Kamma or the Law of Moral Causation

    We are faced with a totally ill-balanced world. We perceive the inequalities and manifold destinies of men and the numerous grades of beings that exist in the universe. We see one born into a condition of affluence, endowed with fine mental, moral and physical qualities and another into a condition of abject poverty and wretchedness. Here is a man virtuous and holy, but, contrary to his expectation, ill-luck is ever ready to greet him. The wicked world runs counter to his ambitions and desires. He is poor and miserable in spite of his honest dealings and piety. There is another vicious and foolish, but accounted to be fortune's darling. He is rewarded with all forms of favors, despite his shortcomings and evil modes of life.


    Why, it may be questioned, should one be an inferior and another a superior? Why should one be wrested from the hands of a fond mother when he has scarcely seen a few summers, and another should perish in the flower of manhood, or at the ripe age of eighty or hundred? Why should one be sick and infirm, and another strong and healthy? Why should one be handsome, and another ugly and hideous, repulsive to all? Why should one be brought up in the lap of luxury, and another in absolute poverty, steeped in misery? Why should one be born a millionaire and another a pauper? Why should one be born with saintly characteristics, and another with criminal tendencies? Why should some be linguists, artists, mathematicians or musicians from the very cradle? Why should some be congenitally blind, deaf and deformed? Why should some be blessed and others cursed from their birth?


    These are some problems that perplex the minds of all thinking men. How are we to account for all this unevenness of the world, this inequality of mankind? Is it due to the work of blind chance or accident?


    There is nothing in this world that happens by blind chance or accident. To say that anything happens by chance, is no more true than that this book has come here of itself. Strictly speaking, nothing happens to man that he does not deserve for some reason or another.


    Could this be the fiat of an irresponsible Creator?


    Huxley writes: "If we are to assume that anybody has designedly set this wonderful universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he is no more entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the words, than that he is malevolent and unjust."


    According to Einstein: "If this being (God) is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also his work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an Almighty Being.


    "In giving out punishments and rewards, he would to a certain extent be passing judgement on himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to him."


    "According to the theological principles man is created arbitrarily and without his desire and at the moment of his creation is either blessed or damned eternally. Hence man is either good or evil, fortunate or unfortunate, noble or depraved, from the first step in the process of his physical creation to the moment of his last breath, regardless of his individual desires, hopes, ambitions, struggles or devoted prayers. Such is theological fatalism." - Spencer Lewis


    As Charles Bradlaugh says: "The existence of evil is a terrible stumbling block to the theist. Pain, misery, crime, poverty confront the advocate of eternal goodness and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of Deity as all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful."


    In the words of Schopenhauer: "Whoever regards himself as having become out of nothing must also think that he will again become nothing; for an eternity has passed before he was, and then a second eternity had begun, through which he will never cease to be, is a monstrous thought.


    "If birth is the absolute beginning, then death must be his absolute end; and the assumption that man is made out of nothing leads necessarily to the assumption that death is his absolute end."


    Commenting on human sufferings and God, Prof. J.B.S. Haldane writes: "Either suffering is needed to perfect human character, or God is not Almighty. The former theory is disproved by the fact that some people who have suffered very little but have been fortunate in their ancestry and education have very fine characters. The objection to the second is that it is only in connection with the universe as a whole that there is any intellectual gap to be filled by the postulation of a deity. And a creator could presumably create whatever he or it wanted."


    Lord Russell states: "The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before he created the world he foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain. He is therefore responsible for all of it. it is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, he was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when he decided to create man."


    In "Despair," a poem of his old age, Lord Tennyson thus boldly attacks God, who, as recorded in Isaiah, says, "I make peace and create evil." (Isaiah, xiv. 7.)


    "What! I should call on that infinite love that has served us so well?/ Infinite cruelty, rather, that made everlasting hell./ Made us, foreknew us, foredoomed us, and does what he will with his own./ Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan."


    Surely "the doctrine that all men are sinners and have the essential sin of Adam is a challenge to justice, mercy, love and omnipotent fairness."


    Some writers of old authoritatively declared that God created man in his own image. Some modern thinkers state, on the contrary, that man created God in his own image. With the growth of civilization man's concept of God also became more and more refined.


    It is, however, impossible to conceive of such a being either in or outside the universe.


    Could this variation in human beings then be due to heredity and environment? One must admit that all such chemico-physical phenomena revealed by scientists, are partly instrumental, but they cannot be solely responsible for the subtle distinctions and vast differences that exist amongst individuals. Yet why should identical twins who are physically alike, inheriting like genes, enjoying the same privilege of upbringing, be very often temperamentally, morally and intellectually totally different?


    Heredity alone cannot account for these vast differences. Strictly speaking, it accounts more plausibly for their similarities than for most of the differences. The infinitesimally minute chemico-physical germ, which is about 30 millionth part of an inch across, inherited from parents, explains only a portion of man, his physical foundation. With regard to the more complex and subtle mental, intellectual and moral differences we need more enlightenment. The theory of heredity cannot give a satisfactory explanation for the birth of a criminal in a long line of honourable ancestors, the birth of a saint or a noble man in a family of evil repute, for the arising of infant prodigies, men of genius and great religious teachers.


    According to Buddhism this variation is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture," but also to our own kamma, or in other words, to the result of our own inherited past actions and our present deeds. We ourselves are responsible for our own deeds, happiness and misery. We build our own hells. We create our own heavens. We are the architects of our own fate. In short we ourselves are our own kamma.


    On one occasion[9] a certain young man named Subha approached the Buddha, and questioned why and wherefore it was that among human beings there are the low and high states.


    "For," said he, "we find amongst mankind those of brief life and those of long life, the hale and the ailing, the good looking and the ill-looking, the powerful and the powerless, the poor and the rich, the low-born and the high-born, the ignorant and the intelligent."


    The Buddha briefly replied: "Every living being has kamma as its own, its inheritance, its cause, its kinsman, its refuge. Kamma is that which differentiates all living beings into low and high states."


    He then explained the cause of such differences in accordance with the law of moral causation.


    Thus from a Buddhist standpoint, our present mental, intellectual, moral and temperamental differences are mainly due to our own actions and tendencies, both past the present.


    Kamma, literally, means action; but, in its ultimate sense, it means the meritorious and demeritorious volition (kusala akusala cetana). Kamma constitutes both good and evil. Good gets good. Evil gets evil. Like attracts like. This is the law of Kamma.


    As some Westerners prefer to say Kamma is "action-influence."


    We reap what we have sown. What we sow we reap somewhere or some when. In one sense we are the result of what we were; we will be the result of what we are. In another sense, we are not totally the result of what we were and we will not absolutely be the result of what we are. For instance, a criminal today may be a saint tomorrow.


    Buddhism attributes this variation to kamma, but it does not assert that everything is due to kamma.


    If everything were due to kamma, a man must ever be bad, for it is his kamma to be bad. One need not consult a physician to be cured of a disease, for if one's kamma is such one will be cured.


    According to Buddhism, there are five orders or processes (niyamas) which operate in the physical and mental realms:


    i. Kamma niyama, order of act and result, e.g., desirable and undesirable acts produce corresponding good and bad results.
    ii. Utu niyama, physical (inorganic) order, e.g., seasonal phenomena of winds and rains.
    iii. Bija niyama, order of germs or seeds (physical organic order); e.g., rice produced from rice-seed, sugary taste from sugar cane or honey, etc. The scientific theory of cells and genes and the physical similarity of twins may be ascribed to this order.
    iv. Citta niyama, order of mind or psychic law, e.g., processes of consciousness (citta vithi), power of mind, etc.
    v. Dhamma niyama, order of the norm, e.g., the natural phenomena occurring at the advent of a Bodhisatta in his last birth, gravitation, etc.

    Every mental or physical phenomenon could be explained by these all-embracing five orders or processes which are laws in themselves. Kamma is, therefore, only one of the five orders that prevail in the universe. It is a law in itself, but it does not thereby follow that there should be a law-giver. Ordinary laws of nature, like gravitation, need no law-giver. It operates in its own field without the intervention of an external independent ruling agency.


    Nobody, for instance, has decreed that fire should burn. Nobody has commanded that water should seek its own level. No scientist has ordered that water should consist of H2O, and that coldness should be one of its properties. These are their intrinsic characteristics. Kamma is neither fate nor predestination imposed upon us by some mysterious unknown power to which we must helplessly submit ourselves. It is one's own doing reacting on oneself, and so one has the possibility to divert the course of kamma to some extent. How far one diverts it depends on oneself.


    It must also be said that such phraseology as rewards and punishments should not be allowed to enter into discussions concerning the problem of kamma. For Buddhism does not recognize an Almighty Being who rules his subjects and rewards and punishes them accordingly. Buddhists, on the contrary, believe that sorrow and happiness one experiences are the natural outcome of one's own good and bad actions. It should be stated that kamma has both the continuative and the retributive principle.


    Inherent in kamma is the potentiality of producing its due effect. The cause produces the effect; the effect explains the cause. Seed produces the fruit; the fruit explains the seed as both are inter-related. Even so kamma and its effect are inter-related; "the effect already blooms in the cause."


    A Buddhist who is fully convinced of the doctrine of kamma does not pray to another to be saved but confidently relies on himself for his purification because it teaches individual responsibility.


    It is this doctrine of kamma that gives him consolation, hope, self reliance and moral courage. It is this belief in kamma "that validates his effort, kindles his enthusiasm," makes him ever kind, tolerant and considerate. It is also this firm belief in kamma that prompts him to refrain from evil, do good and be good without being frightened of any punishment or tempted by any reward.


    It is this doctrine of kamma that can explain the problem of suffering, the mystery of so-called fate or predestination of other religions, and above all the inequality of mankind.

    Kamma and rebirth are accepted as axiomatic.

  • #2
    OK, that was a lot to take in all at once. Excellent post. I certainly do believe that we're faced with an ill balanced world, but other than that, I have some trouble accepting that we can alter our destiny, to the degee that this concept decrees.

    Interesting stuff nonetheless.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

    (more comments in my User Profile)
    russbo.com


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    • #3
      Yes this is an Ill ballanced world, and it will always be that way, their are people that try to make it better and their are people who try to make it worse but it will and it must be somewhere in the middle.
      I just try to Balance the world out, since their aren't enough good people, I'm a good person.
      Also all the Wishing for World Peace will not do anything,That is an Impossoble wish, the circle of life, peace and war will continue for ever, it is out destiny. But while were hear we can still hope for the best.

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      • #4
        Great post, but one minor thing which I feel I must nitpick.

        In sanskrit, the word "karma" indeed means work, or action

        However, the sanskrit word "kamma" or "kama" means desire, not action.

        It is said that kama determines karma and karma determines samsara. In other words, your desires determine which actions you take and the actions you take determine your rebirth.

        If you can learn not to desire, you can learn not to work. If you can learn not to work, you can learn to stop being reborn. This was often a goal of many hindu and theravada buddhist sects.

        It has also been said samsara is nirvana, and that "beneath the fury of the world, all is secretly well."
        Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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        • #5
          I'm going to have to work on this "learn not to desire" part....
          Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

          "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

          (more comments in my User Profile)
          russbo.com


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          • #6
            If I understood this correctly, it still doesn't address the point of Who or What runs the karma. Fine, we may form it, but who runs it? In which you return to the original question of why does a Supreme Being allow so much suffering?

            Everything - everything has to have a Source...

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            • #7
              damn cows...

              cows gots to have small brains....

              why does everything have to have a source?

              and what does that mean anyway? as we understand it? a begining and an end as we interpret it?

              how about this "supreme being" you refer to

              or how "someone" or "something" is making decisions on where or what karma is to be done with

              it would be more comfortable to believe that good merits and bad would be judged by an all knowing master of the universe now wouldnt it, itd be alot easier to accept, deny, or mock wouldnt it?

              things dont come easy, even if you do understand the intellectual concept of karma you cant fully understand it whole heartedly if you dont understand what you are

              thats how i feel anyway, i dont think it matters how karma works, it works, its obvious

              instead of asking why and seeking answers from without, i think it would be better to meditate on the subject and seek your own answers from within

              ...now go forth grasshopper, and mow my lawn..

              o.O
              "did you ask me to consider dick with you??" blooming tianshi lotus

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              • #8
                why does everything have to have a source?
                Because it is inconceivable and irrational that anything doesn't. Nothing creates itself. Everything comes from a single Creator.


                thats how i feel anyway, i dont think it matters how karma works, it works, its obvious
                Lol, glad you can make that call. You're way too set with your philosophical points - nothing's obvious at this point.


                it would be more comfortable to believe that good merits and bad would be judged by an all knowing master of the universe now wouldnt it, itd be alot easier to accept, deny, or mock wouldnt it? things dont come easy, even if you do understand the intellectual concept of karma you cant fully understand it whole heartedly if you dont understand what you are

                I'm not getting what you're trying to say here.


                instead of asking why and seeking answers from without, i think it would be better to meditate on the subject and seek your own answers from within
                I don't have any questions. All I was saying is that the article didn't actually satisfy it's own question of why so much suffering is allowed.

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                • #9
                  oh my sand

                  "Lol, glad you can make that call. You're way too set with your philosophical points - nothing's obvious at this point."

                  what comes around goes around, ive been convinced this is a universal truth since i was in my early teens..it just does

                  and after studying the i ching i only feel more confident in my assumptions about karma/change/interactions of heaven-earth ingeneral

                  it just seems to make sense..and i havent even been studying that long

                  but like i say..i feel this is true, doesnt make it so, just makes sense to me

                  but, on the subject of karma ingeneral..

                  what comes around..really goes around

                  positive of that one
                  "did you ask me to consider dick with you??" blooming tianshi lotus

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                  • #10
                    Because it is inconceivable and irrational that anything doesn't. Nothing creates itself. Everything comes from a single Creator.
                    Why?

                    Is this a genuine belief based upon some sort of facts, or, beliefs based upon what was drilled into our heads during childhood???

                    Just curious. Personally, I don't have an answer to this.
                    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                    (more comments in my User Profile)
                    russbo.com


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                    • #11
                      impossiblity of nature my good sir

                      the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round

                      the wheels on the bus go round and round..all through the town...
                      "did you ask me to consider dick with you??" blooming tianshi lotus

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                      • #12
                        Oh, god, it's a metaphysical daoist rant......... head for the hills.

                        Ok, so I'm going to venture a radical statement here and say that it's a typical anthropocentric human response to assume that everything must have a creator and things must have a begining and an end. As such, this view is predominantly metaphysical hogwash packaged in a solution of snake oil.

                        It is also a typical human assumption that there has to be some "supreme being" behind it all, many of us can't possibly cope with the idea that we are not in any way superior to any other form of life on earth. And for that matter, we arent even superior to the nonliving stuff on earth. Is it really so hard to admit and understand that life just IS? Is it so hard to understand and accept that things change and there is no such thing as an end or a begining or superior or inferior? Is it so hard to grasp the principle that being and non-being are inherently the same?

                        What do we mean when we say something comes to an "end"? Is "ending" even something that actually happens or is it a made up concept which we fabricated in the creation of verbal language? Is it simply a made up concept used to attempt to describe the way things cease to be in the form we once knew them in? If this is the case, and I really beleive that it is, don't we delude ourselves with the idea that the object in question actually "ended"? Didn't it really just change forms?

                        And what in the hell do we mean to say when we say something "began"? I've encountered many events, ranging from the onset of a storm to the birth of a child, which many people would call "beginings" but did anything actually start that wasn't there before this "begining"? No. In my brief life in this current form, I've seen nothing come into being which did not manifest itself from energy that was already there.

                        To summarize. Life and death are one and the same. Every moment of your life you are constantly dying and being born anew on a cellular level. Even the neurons in the adult brain are replaced occasionally (contrary to a slightly archaic though widely held medical belief, if you need medical evidence for this statement, go hunt through medical journals online, it was realized in the past 5 years). Life and death are but illusions, we (and by we I mean every organism, and every inorganic piece of matter on this planet, as well as every gust of wind, etc.) are but complex fields of energy. We who call ourselves human are simply extremely complex, self-perpetuating, self-aware electromagnetic fields. Matter is only a form which energy takes. What most call "death" is merely that energy changing into a different form. What most call "birth" is the exact same thing, energy changing forms. If I think well of my life I must therefore think well of my death.

                        As for suffering...................

                        Read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

                        You can stop suffering on an individual level anytime you want to. The only thing which can allow an outside force to harm your mind is your mind itself. Mental anguish is permitted by the mind and can only be alleviated by the mind which created it. Accept death, accept your limitations, accept your pain, and learn from it. Free yourself from desire and you free yourself from the ability to suffer. After all, what is the source of pain? It derives from being denied that which we desire. And what do we desire? Life, knowledge, happiness, and love. If you stop looking for these things in the outside world, and learn to free yourself from the bonds of desire, you will find them within your own spirit.
                        Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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                        • #13
                          Because it is inconceivable and irrational that anything doesn't. Nothing creates itself. Everything comes from a single Creator.
                          gosh, sorry to beat this quote over the head, but there's a lot of logical and philosophical viewpoints that will say this is wrong. now, i used to think this way, not nessasarily a Creator (capital C), but a point of origin. but then a field trip to a Jain temple changed all this. and though jainism came before buddhism, they are still within the realm of what i call upanishadic speculation. them, along with the materialists, the nihlists, the ascetics, among others, where the schools of thought that pretty much smashed vedic religion to bits. okay, now onto this whole creator/origin business....the guy at the jain temple explained to me that if the universe had a definite beginning and end, then there would be plenty of room for an Ultimate Creator God, or whatever you wish to call it. But there's two big holes in this idea. First, we define the universe as a set which includes everything...both known and unknown. If there is a Creator or Origin, it must exist as an element outside the set called the universe, either through time (before the set was created, an Origin must exist in order to create it later on), or space (the Origin cannot have created itself, and thus cannot be in the set) . We can therefore define a superset, which includes the original set and this so-called Origin.....so, it kind of negates the idea of the first set containing everything, doesn't it? and since every set needs a creator, we could be making supersets till our eyes bleed, and we would still not be satisfied. and this leads into the second big point.....if everything comes from a single creator, then, well, what creates the creator? of course you could make an exemption for the creator and give it special powers, like, the ability not to be created...haha. of course, special exemptions for no reason than other to make your argument work is hogwash and highly illogical.

                          according to jains, there was never a point of creation and there will never be an end, that the universe has been going through a cycle of creation and destruction forever. while the idea might be mind-blowing if you think about it too long, its actually way more simpler than dealing with a so-called creator God. and while the idea of God in Jainism and parts of Hinduism and Buddhism still exists, they dont see it a separate personality, that God is the sum of the universe, that God is simply our primitive and human-like way of accepting Dharma.

                          now, i have no idea how buddhism deals with issues such as these, since 1) it really has little bearing on attaining enlightenment (look up buddha's answers dealing questions of the self or atman, you'll see what i mean) and 2) i imagine there would be no real consensus among buddhists. but....this is good for looking at things like karma and dharma, and maybe freeing your mind from constraints of customary thinking.
                          -Jesse Pasleytm
                          "How do I know? Because my sensei told me!"

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                          • #14
                            Jess,

                            If there is a Creator or Origin, it must exist as an element outside the set called the universe, either through time (before the set was created, an Origin must exist in order to create it later on), or space (the Origin cannot have created itself, and thus cannot be in the set).
                            If I am understanding this correctly, I think I can stop you there. This is where the concept of restriction comes in. You don't need sets. The first act of creation was not an act of building, but an act of carving out. For the simple reason that we're dealing with an infinite Being. Well, when we have an infinite being, there is no place where this being is absent. True infinity is true perfection. So where is there room for imperfection? It can't exist because the Creator is infinite - He's in every conceivable place possible. You have to take the concept of infinity seriously.

                            So now there's a problem - a creator wants to create, but there's no place to put it because He is already everywhere. If you're in a room which is shaped exactly to match the contours of your body, how are you going to bring something else into that room? [This does not imply that the creator is limited though, the 'space' may be infinite, but so is the being.] Well the only thing to do is to suck in your gut. And that's what had to happen; this Being could no longer fill up all of infinity. He had to create some space where something besides himself could exist. And that's the basic concept of restriction; a Kabbalistical perspective on the creation of existence. The actual formation of existence is the next step, but it's long....


                            There don't have to be sets; [one view holds] we are contained in the Creator Itself.

                            Does this make any sense to you?


                            and this leads into the second big point.....if everything comes from a single creator, then, well, what creates the creator? of course you could make an exemption for the creator and give it special powers, like, the ability not to be created...haha. of course, special exemptions for no reason than other to make your argument work is hogwash and highly illogical.
                            Again, if we're dealing with a infinite and omnipotent Creator this question is redundant. The nature of this being is infinity. Stop thinking in anthropomorphic terms. This Being is being, existence, matter, time, space itself. It is what is. You can't ask what was before or what created 'being' [the Creator]. The answer is, it was being! [the Creator, Source.] Before that? The same! The concept of time and anthropomorphic principles make this subject very evasive. Difficult to grasp because the human mind is not fashioned to comprehend certain things such as no time and no space.


                            What do we mean when we say something comes to an "end"? Is "ending" even something that actually happens or is it a made up concept which we fabricated in the creation of verbal language? Is it simply a made up concept used to attempt to describe the way things cease to be in the form we once knew them in? If this is the case, and I really believe that it is, don't we delude ourselves with the idea that the object in question actually "ended"? Didn't it really just change forms?
                            Dao, this still doesn't address the issue of a Creator! So it's a cycle! So it changed form! It doesn't answer the question of where this 'energy' that forms matter originally [way back, if you want] came from...


                            It is also a typical human assumption that there has to be some "supreme being" behind it all, many of us can't possibly cope with the idea that we are not in any way superior to any other form of life on earth. And for that matter, we aren’t even superior to the nonliving stuff on earth.
                            So could you tell me the reason why there are different forms of existence? If everything is the same, nothing is ultimately superior, why different forms in the first place? If there aren't different levels of superiority then the same purpose would have been achieved through a single form of existence.


                            Oh and whoever's gonna tell me to look from the answers within again; I'm not looking for enlightenment, I'm looking for discussion.

                            Peace guys...

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                            • #15
                              lol

                              lol when people ask borderline satori questions i like to give answers like that because its the best way for them to find their answers..

                              really it doesnt matter what anyone says, its not like were gonna convince lipster of what we believe is right..

                              he obviously believes in "the alpha and the omega"

                              well maybe his mind will change in time, maybe not

                              but lipster, what your talking about has obvious flaws and contradictions, your own words im talkin about here

                              but it really doesnt matter, maybe your having a hard time explaining what you feel, who cares..the point is you believe it, its your beliefs not ours..i doubt anyone here is gonna change the way you feel with a few well placed words and such

                              so whats the point of arguing beliefs when they arent really gonna be radically changed by anyone..at best we can only make each other think things over etc
                              "did you ask me to consider dick with you??" blooming tianshi lotus

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