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  • #16
    Well that's the point Vince, I'm not looking to convert anyone to my views. I just wrote that I'm not looking for answers. I'm just presenting my views and reading others'. Out of INTEREST.

    READ THE GODDAMN ****IN WORDS YOU BRAINLESS TWAT.

    God, I hate it when you come up with this arrogant bullshit Vince. "Maybe his mind will change in time." Well excuse me sir, I love the way you think your views are automatically more legitimate than mine. I know you think that I don't, but I really [really really] do understand your problems with my mode of rationale and thought. I think I've already established in a God thread we had a while ago that we have two completely different modes of thought. That's why when you read my stuff it just seems like confused bullshit to you. The reason for this stems from a single simple point. There are two viewpoints of existence - the pragmatic view and the realist view. We occupy opposite ends. This is why you never seem to be able to pick up [on the point of] what I'm saying and why you think I can never truly understand what you're saying.

    If you're not aware of the definition of pragmatic and realist viewpoints of existence, look it up. If you can't find anything I'll explain what they mean.

    And please point out my flaws.


    (deep breath) Peace bro...
    Last edited by Lipster; 06-16-2003, 06:50 PM.

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    • #17
      And I really don't know why I get so wound up when you lay on this shit...I shouldn't...

      You have a talent Vince...

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      • #18
        Maybe we should go for this little scrap Doc suggested...

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        • #19
          Brainless twat.

          OH MY GOD. (If you do exist...). That's ****ing funny!

          Yes, Vince does have talent. Sometimes a little misdirected at times, but still there. We have to help him nurture it.
          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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          • #20
            Perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough

            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...
            I don't think the "issue of a creator" needs to be addressed. The consciousness which is "myself" was not present at the creation of the universe, and therefore I would be a fool to speculate on how the universe was created. Furthermore, I have no reasoning or evidence which would lead me to beleive that the universe was even created in the first place. Maybe you were present for the creation of the universe and you have relevent evidence to address the "issue of the creator". Frankly I have no reason to beleive there is a creator, or that the universe was even created at all. This is not to say that I have reason to disbelieve these things, that would be equally silly of me. The point is, I wasn't there, it's not my place to spout meaningless conjecture about something I can't really ever know anything about.

            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.
            Take a look at an ecosystem. I'm going to drastically oversimplify here, and say we have a robin, a hawk, and a bunch of worms. The robin eats worms, the hawk eats robins, and when they die they both get eaten by worms. Is the hawk superior to the robin? Is the robin superior to the worm? Is the worm superior to both? Or is it simply that there is no such thing as superiority? Isn't "superiority" yet another example of something WHICH DOES NOT EXIST outside of the human linguistic dialectic? Superior is just a word, it's not something which is present in reality. Anyway though, I'd love to see you present some evidence for the philosophical argument that "If there aren't different levels of superiority then the same purpose would have been acheived through a single form of existance." Because quite frankly, it's a completely unsupported argument and a teleological one at that. If one does not accept the unspoken premise that there is a supreme creator who has in mind a purpose for all forms of life, then the argument is not only unsupported but nonsensical as well.

            I'm not trying to question anyone's beleifs, I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should and should not do with their lives, I'm just trying to offer others the oppurtunity to see through the lies we've all been taught. I had the oppurtunity and, though it took me 20 years, I have just now begun to sieze it. So I'm just trying to offer you that same oppurtunity. Do with it what you will.
            Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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            • #21
              lol

              lol

              man..thats some funny shit

              yea..anyway its not that im not reading your posts more i think i have a hard time wording what i mean, i just think that if you do spend more time thinking on the subject lipster that your views may change, i was saying maybe youd get a better understanding of your own belief, or youd atleast be able to accept the possible validity of others

              i know you said you wanted to here others ideas etc, but what i was saying is maybe in time youd learn to accept that their ideas may be possibilities aswell

              because you obviously do not have that frame of mind at the moment, you said it in your own words...

              i dunno why you want to keep discussing the subject which is set in stone for you, but its not matter

              the matter is, is that most people here have given you their beliefs or explanations of what they currently believe and youve just knocked them, instead of just saying..ok i understand where your coming from..its possible bla bla

              because they related to yours..didnt knock your beliefs they just related to yours

              you on the other hand just continued to knock the others in that post of yours, and what i was trying to come across as saying was just maybe in time youll be able to sit back and say..yes, its possible

              thats actually all i was trying to say in the begining

              but its funny as hell reading your response..truly it is

              and btw about the jk2 duel we were supposed to have for so long..im gonna try and make it happen , my comp is still messed up, im just ultra busy with alot of other stuff, havent even gotten my comp looked at, my vid card has been out of my comp for like a month or more now, and now that im starting a new job(pays double my old one YAAAAAAAAAAAA) im gonna be even busier..but just wanted to let you know without sending you a pm or something that sooner or later ill get around to that death match

              peace heheheheh
              "did you ask me to consider dick with you??" blooming tianshi lotus

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              • #22
                lipster,
                yeah, i think in someways we are agreeing on some major issues, just explaining it different ways (of course, there are lots of issues that i'm wholeheartedly disagreeing with, especially in your god idea post...i'll get to those later). at least from this post i'm understanding that take on god and universe is essentially monistic, that is, God and universe are one. or it could be monist-dualist....well, i'm doubting that because the only philosophical form that i've heard that considers itself that is a sect of advaita-vedanta, one that most people aren't all that exposed to. i suppose i was trying to explain to you in terms as if were arguing against a dualist, more specifically, a popular dualist in the semetic tradition (judaism, christianity, islam). my main point was that a separate creator, in the way people think a being, creating, and existing as a separate entity, is a flawed and primitive arguement. and though my arguement was anthropocentric in a way, there's a great deal of that in your arguement. ideas such as creation, intelligence, etc are all being thrown around in your posts, and i'm really wanting to know what your definitions are of such things.

                anyways, i'm gonna continue this argument over on the god idea thread (which, yes lipster, has tons to do with karma)

                cheers,
                jesse
                -Jesse Pasleytm
                "How do I know? Because my sensei told me!"

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                • #23
                  karma...

                  well.

                  what can I say? Lots to think about here but as to karma, well...

                  I have some problems with karma. Like the idea that it occurs over lifetimes you don't remember. How shitty is that. Where do "I" go anyway, to some karmic judging station? Who set this system up? Is karma on some kind of autopilot, just something that the universe developed over time, or built in like gravity? Why does the population increase then? How does karma address the origin of life? What is highest on the scale? There has to be an order of superiority for karma to work. So I stepped on a worm who was my uncle ten lifetimes ago and that is why I bought a bunk ticket to Jane's Addiction. I mean I'm being simplistic but explaining karma to a rape victim or someone who's had a heart attack, it seems that the issue being addressed by these systems, karma or otherwise, is that life can suck, and it tries to explain or help people cope with that. I guess where I disagree with that is where you pin the blame. I don't see how karma solves the why of life possibly sucking any differently than a God/Creator premise. Just because there is no personification to karma does not mean the same faults applicable to a God don't stick to it either. I mean if you are reborn as an amoeba, that really sucks because how do you ever gain anything from that life. How do you do good as an amoeba to be born up? Do you not absorb that euglena, waving it's pathetic little flagella, into your outstretched pseudpods, hoping your cell membrane might eventually burst so you can come back as a hydra? And please don't tell me that a human is the same thing as an amoeba- if it were, then we would never rise above protozoas. In any case, Shi Yan Ming once said we say 'amitabha' to show respect- respect for everything- like all the little creatures we kill by standing up, or all the creatures that die so we can train our gong fu. I thought that was a very interesting thing to say. So much for non violence.

                  Back to our little protozoa friend. Can you even make a decision if you are born an amoeba? Ummm...I mean if you divide? If you can't make a decision to do good as an amoeba, if you can even figure out what being a good amoeba is, then what, you are stuck being an amoeba or some other protozoa until some random act you do or don't do the universe is programmed to accept as good? How do good amoebas act, how do they tell other amoebas, hey, listen, watch that psuedopod...And what if you are so evil, how far down the scale do you go? To the so called primordial broth? I mean I'm not a creationist but I'm not sure how I feel about abiogenesis.

                  I'd rather think that there is the appearance of karma, the perception perhaps is the same thing if you live that way. Lord knows things do come around and go around, and I have to be honest sometimes I don't mind being the one who brings it around if you get my drift.

                  Like I will enjoy being the instrument of the universe's retribution when either I or any of the people looking for him, see that little shit who sold me the bunk ticket.

                  As to God, or the Creator...well I believed in God in the roman Catholic sense all my life because that is how I was brought up. But man, some ill shit hit home for me concurrently on two experience streams- one I nearly died, like literally as in dead, and the other was a genetics class. The genetics class just blew me away. I mean, so did almost drowning, but in a different way.

                  The fact that all of this exists around us, and the chances of all that just happening randomly- well...this genetics class was a few steps beyond punnit squares and predicting tall pea plants. This was actual genetic manipulation, gene splicing. There are literally thousands of genes made of millions of base pairs of genetic code- amino acids- that make up the DNA sequence of E.Colli. Some of these genes are 'on' and some are 'off.' There are chemicals (enzymes) which cut genes apart, and chemicals which put them back together. You can make your own genes if you know the proper sequence, and the right enzymes. You can then take that gene and splice it into the DNA chain, e.coli have what is called a plasmid, basically a ring of DNA, and you can do this at a SPECIFIC point, and now you can create an E. Colli that is say, resistant to pennicillin. Or one which makes human insulin. E.Colli is a bacteria- everyone has them, and science has embraced this one bacteria. It's considered 'simple' and yet, 'we' could never create an E.Coli- even if we have all of the ingredients necessary. I mean, they've had all the so called ingredients in test tubes and nothing happens. So random chance as the source of life...I dunno...after that class it is tough for me to swallow.
                  "Arhat, I am your father..."
                  -the Dark Lord Cod

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                  • #24
                    Firstly, everyone, just because I don’t specifically keep on saying that you have valid points doesn’t mean that I think you don't. I’m taking all this in, not dismissing it.


                    I don't think the "issue of a creator" needs to be addressed…Furthermore, I have no reasoning or evidence which would lead me to believe that the universe was even created in the first place…Frankly I have no reason to believe there is a creator, or that the universe was even created at all
                    Ah, but there is a reason. This brings me back to pragmatism and realist attitudes of existence. Which one you think is more appropriate is up to you.

                    This should explain what I mean. I’m quoting here:

                    There are two fundamental attitudes towards religion. I believe that they are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, that is to say, that everyone adopts exactly one of these two attitudes. They are called the pragmatic and the realist. Now, what I will try to do in this chapter is to describe to you these two attitudes, and to evaluate whether they are on a par or whether one is more fundamental, more appropriate, or more justified. Then, we will describe how the more fundamental of the two attitudes should be implemented and practiced.

                    The pragmatic attitude starts with the self. I am a person with goals, desires, hopes, fears, projects, scruples and so on. There are various things that I want to accomplish, and I look at the world as a set of resources to accomplish my projects. All of human history and human culture can be seen as a means, or tools which I select to further my goals.

                    This attitude, the pragmatic attitude, can be applied, among other things, to religion. Religion can also be used to serve goals. It can unite society by coordinating activities and creating mutual understanding and support. It can serve personal goals by increasing sensitivity, providing a feeling of oneness with the universe, strengthening courage, and so on. (Sometimes these goals are combined. If someone convinces the rest of his citizens that he is a demi-god, then he will have both a political and a personal benefit!)

                    The pragmatic attitude towards religion leads to the expectation that different cultures, different times, and different periods will have different forms of religious expression because their goals, needs, and values will be quite different - we expect the religions of ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, and modern Los Angeles to differ from one another. Similarly, we expect the religious expression of an individual to vary through his lifetime. The goals and aspirations of a seventeen year old, a thirty-five year old and a sixty year old are usually different.

                    Pragmatic religious expression would likely be eclectic. There is no reason to be bound by any one particular tradition. If a Hindu prayer is inspirational on Tuesdays, and a Moslem ritual on Thursdays, and the Jewish Sabbath on Saturdays, there is no reason not to combine them. Indeed, there is no reason to be bound to tradition at all - religious creativity will be encouraged to develop new forms of expression. And of course the pragmatic attitude includes the ' null' option where no religious expression whatsoever is found relevant to any of one's goals, and therefore religion is abandoned altogether.

                    The second is the realist attitude. The realist wants truth. Every religion has some story to tell. Where did the universe come from? What is its fundamental nature? What forces guide its development? What is the nature of the human being? What will the future be? The realist wants the religion whose story is true.

                    [I am skirting a difficult problem here: are pragmatism and realism really distinct? One might say that among my goals is to know the truth. Then pragmatism defined as seeking means to achieve my goals will include realism. But it is not obvious that we want truth as a goal. We all appreciate that truth is an indispensable means to my other goals; perhaps this is all we want from truth. In any case, if you think that truth can be a goal, then think of pragmatism as defined to exclude truth, i.e. pragmatism means the assessment of everything as a means to achieving my goals other than acquiring truth. Then the two positions will be distinct.]

                    Now put this way, it is obvious that everyone is a realist and everyone is a pragmatist. Everyone has goals, desires, hopes, and projects, and looks to his culture as means and materials to further those projects. Similarly, everyone has an interest in the truth, since truth is an indispensable means to achieve other goals. When I say that these two attitudes are mutually exclusive, what I mean is what a person will do if he is forced to choose.

                    So, for example, suppose that you are exploring different religions and you come across one which as a pragmatist is ideal - it inspires you, it ennobles you, it increases your sensitivities, and it furthers the social projects in which you are interested. It fits your personality like a glove. It's just that there is no evidence whatsoever that its account of the world is true. In fact, there may be considerable evidence against it. In such a condition you would have to choose between pragmatism which is satisfied, and realism which is not.

                    You could have the same conflict working in the opposite direction. You could come across a religion where there is a complete misfit in pragmatic terms: it dashes your hopes, it violates your scruples, it requires a reorganization of your world view, your goals and your focus. But the evidence seems to indicate that its picture of the world is true. Under those conditions you again have to make a choice between pragmatism and realism, and there the criteria obviously will conflict. So that when it comes to crucial choices of this kind, all people adopt one or the other of these two attitudes: the pragmatist or the realist....


                    So there’s a very valid reason for all this conjecture about stuff you think is irrelevant. *If there is a Creator, then there was a reason for existence. If there is a reason or purpose then it is our responsibility (due to the fact that we exist) to investigate and fulfill it.* I feel it makes more sense to start with the realist attitude – if through your investigations you then come to a dead end it would make sense to switch to pragmatism. But many people start off with pragmatism. That why I think there’s good reason to discuss this topic. Do you agree?

                    I think this is why I seem at odds with a number of folks here in regards to some points. Points that I think are crucial are thought to be irrelevant. Because the realist attitude isn’t really considered much.


                    Vince, I’m not unwilling to accept other’s viewpoints. There are points people make that I find really interesting, just because I don’t say so every time doesn’t mean I’m being hard headed.

                    And I’m not knocking other’s views; if I have a problem with them I’ll say so. And at no point do I think that there is no possibility for their validity.

                    When we eventually get to JKII we should be about even. I haven’t played that game in ages…

                    Peace fellas

                    Last edited by Lipster; 06-17-2003, 02:02 PM.

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                    • #25
                      karma

                      I was just reading over the post that started this thread.... some alarms went off in my head right off the bat.

                      The idea that this world is ill-balanced is the first assumption made in that post. It is apparently ill-balanced from our subjective viewpoints. But I have found evidence of thought processes in most religions that i have investigated that show an understanding that frees our minds from that kind of perception.

                      Even before The Once And Future King was referenced in X-2 (and Knightriders by George Remero starring Ed Harris) I had fallen in love with that book and read it many times cover to cover. I now own copies of the book that are well marked up and written in at the parts I found important upon that read through. Anyway there is one particular story that the author included in the book that I think applies to this discussion. It generally goes like this:

                      The Rabbi Jachanon and Elijah had to make a journey to a city that was quite a ways away. They would be spending two nights on the road. The first day they walked all day and part of the night till they came to a very impoverished farm housel. The farmer and his wife ran out to greet them and invited them in for food and asked them to stay the night. They were fed on the best food the farmers had to offer (which included some dairy as thier greatest wealth was a cow). They were then given the only bed to sleep in while the hosts slept on the floor. In the morning they woke up and saw that the cow had died in the night. The prophet elijah thanked the farmer and his wife very much and gave them his condolences about the cow. They then walked on.

                      They walked the whole day and eventually (tired and hungry) came to a very wealthy estate. They knocked on the door and asked for food and a place to stay the night. The owner told them they could stay in the barn with the anuimals and eat what was prepared for them as well. They accepted and went to the barn where they scraped some hay together and picked through the slop for some food. In the morning the Prophet Elijah went back to the rich man and thanked him profusely. He told him he wanted to do him a favor because he was so gracious in letting them stay the night. He sent to the nearest town and had some carpentry supplies sent to the barn. He then repaired a section of barn wall that was in disrepair.

                      Soon they were on thier way again. The rabbi could no longer take it. He had been going over the past two days and just could not make the holy mans actions make sense in his mind. Finally he blurted his feelings out. He said," the farmer and his wife were so kind and generous to us and even though thier cow died you did nothing for them! This wealthy man treats us with no respect and you fixed his barn wall?" Elijah tells him that it is not his right to judge the happenings in this world but he would satisfy his curiosity this one time. He goes on to explain that the farmers wife was slated to die that night but because of thier hospitality the cow was taken instead. The wealthy man would have repaired the barn wall himself eventually and found the treasure that had been hidden inside the wall that he did not know about.


                      Buddhists counter act the feeling that the world is ill balanced as soon as they penetrate the heart sutra. How can it be ill balanced when everything needs everything else in order to exist? Name one thing that you would send back to its source and the whole world is changed completely. A person is made up completely of non-person elements. A paper clip is made up of non paper clip elements. Everything is empty of a separate self.

                      Now as far as there being a source to send things back to.... I will have to leave my thoughts on that for another time. My break is over....

                      Peace,
                      Bhodi

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                      • #26
                        Yes...

                        Another analogy of a similar vein is one of a simpleton who enters a big building. He makes his way down the corridors and eventually comes to a door with a small window through which he peers. Before him he sees his brother tied down to a table surrounded by a bunch of swarthy looking men obviously up to no good. There's an assortment of wickedly sharp looking instruments hanging up on a rack on the nearby wall. Calmly, with no qualms, the head honcho goes about selecting the meanest looking tools. Amidst the screams coming from this poor fella on the table the callous workers do their deed. There's an awful mess, the poor fellas entrails are visible, there's screaming from both sides of the door, the lights are glittering off the evil looking steel instruments that are bring used to puncture and mar the poor victims body. The spectator goes absolutely ballistic; there's his brother defenceless at the hands of his merciless mutilators, screaming his lungs out begging, begging the sweet Lord to put him out of his misery. And there's absolutely nothing the spectator can do to help his brother. Imagine the despair.

                        Eventually, along come the men in white coats. They take him aside and slowly explain to him the concepts of surgery. How all this is necessary to uphold his brother's health. On the contrary, if they would not be carrying out these actions, his brother would surely die.

                        Things are not necessarily what they seem. Simply put, you can't view a four dimensional picture with 3-D glasses. We just don't know everything.

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                        • #27
                          Doc, that story bring back any memories of NY back in the day...?

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                          • #28
                            Hey Dao, [didn't know if you were away or something, but now I know you're here] could you let me know whether you agree with my statement about three or four posts back on why certain topics may not necessarily be irrellevant looking at it from the realist point of view.

                            Please don't confuse my pushiness with a demand for you to conform to my views, I just like to elucidate certain points when I discuss things like this; it helps clarify certain points for future debate and formation of opinion. It just gets to me when people drop halfway through a debate or don't answer crucial points to the argument. I mean I understand if people don't want to prattle on forever, I don't either, so if you could just say yes or no...

                            thanks alot

                            Peace

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                            • #29
                              To be quite honest, i still beleive those points were, in essence irrevelant. The reason I didn't say anything was because it is my opinion that almost any set philosophical point of view tends to go awry from the truth ESPECIALLY those points of view which assume the existance of dualities. This is not to say that i beleive there are such things as true and false, don't misunderstand me. Hopefully you get the point. If you beleive every religious experience can be made to fit the realist/pragmatist model then every religious experience which you undergo or perceive will fit that model. Since I thought it was obvious that you beleive differently, and that you were capable of being aggravated by this whole discussion, I simply let the matter rest. Either you will learn what I'm talking about or not, it doesn't matter because if you do learn it, it won't be from me. You'll have to teach yourself, not to say that you havent been doing a fine job of that so far
                              Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

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                              • #30
                                Okay, cheers.

                                Never aggravated though, enthusiastic perhaps, but never aggravated...

                                Peace

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