Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 5,572 - 5,583 of 6,170
hits you the wrong way That's what I love about the Forge, folks are very nice. I don't think I have ever been rubbed the wrong way.
someone is simple enough to pop up and be pure evil I think the Hitlers, Pappa Doc's, and the Pol Pots fit the "pure evil" label quite nicely.
Posts 5,572 - 5,583 of 6,170
I think organized religion has a place in this world. That doesn't mean that it's for everyone or that atheists or any "spiritual but not religious" box. I hadn't been to church as an adult -- I stopped by seventeen, maybe sooner. Once my parents couldn't drag me there. I may or may not stay with this or any church. I even went to Temple for two weeks last year! But I wore my cross under my shirt. (I have a Huguenot cross because the ancestry connected to my name is Huguenot, and has been traced back to France in the late 1600s.) For the past three weeks, I've gone to a very laid-back Episcopal church because Delamars (my branch of the family, anyway, going back into the mists of time) have been Episcopalians -- to my knowledge there is one Huguenot church in this country, in South Carolina (quite a commute), and the services are conducted in French, which I don't quite speak. Anyway, for me, having a community of live people with a common interest is important, I do have a very spiritual element, and it's nice to have a priest (St. Mark's has a married couple, so we have two). (The poor priests.) I disagree with some of their beliefs, but that's going to be the case at any church, so for now, anyway, I'm going. I'm enjoying the sermons as lenses through which to view a text (the Bible) because the English teacher part of me will never die.
Having said that, I'll add that people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (that's my special kind) tend to be "hyperreligious" -- Joan of Arc and St. Paul are suspected of having TLE. So whether I have an inside track to God or am just nutty that way (and, truly, that ain't the only way), I am deeply spiritual and enjoy the outlet. Rituals become comforting to me. It's like when you don't have to stop and listen to every word of your favorite song for it to make you feel better: after a point, that song just takes you to another place. (Or is that just me?)
I totally understand atheism, agnosticism, other forms of organized religion, people who are spiritual but not religious, whatever. Most of my best friends are atheists, as I come from an academic community. And I'm left-handed, gay but asexual (I have a partner of twenty-five years, but while we have engaged in sexual behavior, we usually don't (something that probably also comes from having no man involved). I accept people as they are, unless they've done something awful, like murder someone. I just feel good in this church. At its best, church teaches people to imitate Christ. That means people do loving things for people because they love their fellow man. I have a ways to go there, but at least I have a goal. Just to help people whenever I can.
So we're not all Bible thumpers who think people who are different are going to hell. I personally don't believe in hell. I believe in love. I have a short fuse, though, so I have to work at showing it, and at accepting disappointment.
But I have degrees in two very different fields (English and Computer Science) and a Masters' in English. I've taught at the university level. I'm no lemming. I have thought out what I'm doing and am absolutely not accepting whatever the church tells me or trying to convert people (and that is really a big deal in Christianity). Don't judge me too harshly for being a Christian. We're not all bad.
Having said that, I'll add that people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (that's my special kind) tend to be "hyperreligious" -- Joan of Arc and St. Paul are suspected of having TLE. So whether I have an inside track to God or am just nutty that way (and, truly, that ain't the only way), I am deeply spiritual and enjoy the outlet. Rituals become comforting to me. It's like when you don't have to stop and listen to every word of your favorite song for it to make you feel better: after a point, that song just takes you to another place. (Or is that just me?)
I totally understand atheism, agnosticism, other forms of organized religion, people who are spiritual but not religious, whatever. Most of my best friends are atheists, as I come from an academic community. And I'm left-handed, gay but asexual (I have a partner of twenty-five years, but while we have engaged in sexual behavior, we usually don't (something that probably also comes from having no man involved). I accept people as they are, unless they've done something awful, like murder someone. I just feel good in this church. At its best, church teaches people to imitate Christ. That means people do loving things for people because they love their fellow man. I have a ways to go there, but at least I have a goal. Just to help people whenever I can.
So we're not all Bible thumpers who think people who are different are going to hell. I personally don't believe in hell. I believe in love. I have a short fuse, though, so I have to work at showing it, and at accepting disappointment.
But I have degrees in two very different fields (English and Computer Science) and a Masters' in English. I've taught at the university level. I'm no lemming. I have thought out what I'm doing and am absolutely not accepting whatever the church tells me or trying to convert people (and that is really a big deal in Christianity). Don't judge me too harshly for being a Christian. We're not all bad.
Clerk, It's OK. This is not a forum where people use the term "sheeple" or put you down for choices and beliefs. It's cool that you are doing something that you find meaningful. (I hope none of that sounds sarcastic--for some reason when I try to be nice and sincere, some people read me as sarcastic--I mean what I said at face value). I may in the future still make a passing allusion to the FSM and his noodlily appendages, but Prob123 will pipe up and balance that out too. It's just a discussion, not a chance to judge and condemn. For that you need a truly intellectual forum like fark.com
I am so glad this forum isn't like some others. I have to admit the first thousand times I was called sheeple, or all the noodlily appendage FSM, or even zombie worshiper, it didn't bother me. In truth, it now makes my skin crawl. I now am very careful about insults to other groups, and go out of my way to avoid them. I can see where minorities could have their lives ruined by the endless rhetoric.
Prob123, I can see how being treated like that would be annoying. Those kinds of things build up over time and can make anyone feel defensive or rightfully irritated. It's sort of like how for me porn never was a big deal (never even hit my radar other than to skip past it) until I had people in my life who insisted on making it a deal, and now even though the idiots are gone I notice it and cringe. I am sorry some idiots made your religion a deal.
That kind of takes me back to the topic of evil. It's not the demons and monsters that get under my skin. It's not even the benevolent dictators who do things for your own good that bum me out(I kind of wish Doctor Horrible would hand me the keys to a shiny new Australia). I guess if someone is simple enough to pop up and be pure evil it would be refreshing as you could kill him outright and be a hero (or take him home to tea and be on guard because, you know, evil). It's the causally normal cruelty of an otherwise nice person, the sense of humor that hits another wrong, and the banality of the very human tendency to feel good about yourself by putting others down that bugs me. Sensitivity training is a joke too, so it's not that people have a right not to be offended. It's just that there is a difference between snarky and nasty, if only in my head. It comes down to respect.
If my humor ever hits you the wrong way Prob123, I am sorry. You know I have the deepest respect for you. Over the years we have this Internet colleguegship that makes me tease you almost like a RL friend.
That kind of takes me back to the topic of evil. It's not the demons and monsters that get under my skin. It's not even the benevolent dictators who do things for your own good that bum me out(I kind of wish Doctor Horrible would hand me the keys to a shiny new Australia). I guess if someone is simple enough to pop up and be pure evil it would be refreshing as you could kill him outright and be a hero (or take him home to tea and be on guard because, you know, evil). It's the causally normal cruelty of an otherwise nice person, the sense of humor that hits another wrong, and the banality of the very human tendency to feel good about yourself by putting others down that bugs me. Sensitivity training is a joke too, so it's not that people have a right not to be offended. It's just that there is a difference between snarky and nasty, if only in my head. It comes down to respect.
If my humor ever hits you the wrong way Prob123, I am sorry. You know I have the deepest respect for you. Over the years we have this Internet colleguegship that makes me tease you almost like a RL friend.
Irina says,
"Well, the universe contains us, and we are conscious. Perhaps just as (some would say) certain brain cells make us conscious, we make the universe conscious"
That's very well said, very good analogy, gives one an idea, an intuitive notion, of what Conscious Universe might mean/ be like, the way I see it.
Your second post, "our consciousness [been] tied in closely with various material, 4-D characteristics"... Firstly, what I said about "soul", "reincarnation" and other such concepts, applies to "consciousness", too, very much so. That's why I put the word in quote marks, and added "whatever that means!". With this in mind, what you call "our consciousness" is not Core Evolving Entity (let's call it CEE) I was talking about, but rather, an expression, or aspect of it. Our particular consciousness, awareness (of reality), the very notion of what is (real), and what is not (real), are all mediated through, and derived from, interaction between CEE and - NOT the 4-D reality - but a kind of undifferentiated (information) Matrix (matrix: "a situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained" - I would add - contained as an inherent potential which may, or may not be actualized/ expressed). The CEE "starts up" as a so-called stochastic process. It is an expression of logos that's inherent to CEE/ Matrix. Logos is simply the larger order of symmetry that in turn unifies CEE and Matrix. It's open for further discussion and critical examination.
Our perceived 4-D world is a product of this relationship between CEE and Matrix, just like our consciousness that perceives it. Hence, it's inherently conscious, just as it is inherently material. And consciousness does have a material base, indeed, but can not be reduced to it.
This also means that the physical reality does not vanish when I go to sleep. The table in my living room remains there, BUT it's not a round table anymore, red or green, made of wood or plastic, it's not even a table anymore - it just simply IS. Until I wake up, and it becomes round, multicolored, made of wood, etc... once again. Now we have crossed, or erased, the fine line that separates material science from Zen, have you noticed it? Consider also the fact that our individual personal consciousness literary gets "dissolved" when we fall asleep, or fall unconscious, for that matter. The neural activity that makes our "sober", "clear", fully awake & aware self, ceases to exist once we fall asleep, and it gets "replaced" by entirely different set/ type of neural activity. We "loose" all attributes associated with our conscious self, just like my table loses those I consciously attribute to it. It is indeed one of major mysteries of modern science, just how do we get "re-configured" every morning, over and over again, in a manner that allows us to maintain our sense of continuity/ continuous identity, throughout lifetime. And, indeed, there are cases - rare, but they are on record - of people who wake up one morning, and have no idea who in the world they are at all, no sense of identity, or, sometimes, a notion of different identity, like being displaced in spacetime.
Can you now see why, to my mind, the 20th century material science, which insists on absolute separation of subject and object, cannot truly grasp the whole, why is it ontologically unsound? And just how did they develop a "measurement problem"? What will it take to solve it..? Perhaps it will be dispelled, rather than solved, for it's all in their minds
"Well, the universe contains us, and we are conscious. Perhaps just as (some would say) certain brain cells make us conscious, we make the universe conscious"
That's very well said, very good analogy, gives one an idea, an intuitive notion, of what Conscious Universe might mean/ be like, the way I see it.
Your second post, "our consciousness [been] tied in closely with various material, 4-D characteristics"... Firstly, what I said about "soul", "reincarnation" and other such concepts, applies to "consciousness", too, very much so. That's why I put the word in quote marks, and added "whatever that means!". With this in mind, what you call "our consciousness" is not Core Evolving Entity (let's call it CEE) I was talking about, but rather, an expression, or aspect of it. Our particular consciousness, awareness (of reality), the very notion of what is (real), and what is not (real), are all mediated through, and derived from, interaction between CEE and - NOT the 4-D reality - but a kind of undifferentiated (information) Matrix (matrix: "a situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained" - I would add - contained as an inherent potential which may, or may not be actualized/ expressed). The CEE "starts up" as a so-called stochastic process. It is an expression of logos that's inherent to CEE/ Matrix. Logos is simply the larger order of symmetry that in turn unifies CEE and Matrix. It's open for further discussion and critical examination.
Our perceived 4-D world is a product of this relationship between CEE and Matrix, just like our consciousness that perceives it. Hence, it's inherently conscious, just as it is inherently material. And consciousness does have a material base, indeed, but can not be reduced to it.
This also means that the physical reality does not vanish when I go to sleep. The table in my living room remains there, BUT it's not a round table anymore, red or green, made of wood or plastic, it's not even a table anymore - it just simply IS. Until I wake up, and it becomes round, multicolored, made of wood, etc... once again. Now we have crossed, or erased, the fine line that separates material science from Zen, have you noticed it? Consider also the fact that our individual personal consciousness literary gets "dissolved" when we fall asleep, or fall unconscious, for that matter. The neural activity that makes our "sober", "clear", fully awake & aware self, ceases to exist once we fall asleep, and it gets "replaced" by entirely different set/ type of neural activity. We "loose" all attributes associated with our conscious self, just like my table loses those I consciously attribute to it. It is indeed one of major mysteries of modern science, just how do we get "re-configured" every morning, over and over again, in a manner that allows us to maintain our sense of continuity/ continuous identity, throughout lifetime. And, indeed, there are cases - rare, but they are on record - of people who wake up one morning, and have no idea who in the world they are at all, no sense of identity, or, sometimes, a notion of different identity, like being displaced in spacetime.
Can you now see why, to my mind, the 20th century material science, which insists on absolute separation of subject and object, cannot truly grasp the whole, why is it ontologically unsound? And just how did they develop a "measurement problem"? What will it take to solve it..? Perhaps it will be dispelled, rather than solved, for it's all in their minds
Bev, here in Europe, religion and race are usually not "boxed", i.e. most of many forms that one is required to fill, do not contain these references. Actually, I can't quite remember ever coming across it, and my experience includes what was once a socialist Yugoslavia, the present day Republic of Croatia, and The Netherlands (a monarchy), my home for the past 20+ years.
The "big thing" here is nationality, it's all important when it comes to classifying citizenry, European Union in spite. Myself, I feel Earthling... most of the time
Obsolete as all these categories are, they are still being used as (effective) means of manipulation through separation, a good old divide & rule routine.
The "big thing" here is nationality, it's all important when it comes to classifying citizenry, European Union in spite. Myself, I feel Earthling... most of the time
Obsolete as all these categories are, they are still being used as (effective) means of manipulation through separation, a good old divide & rule routine.
Prob "I think the Hitlers, Pappa Doc's, and the Pol Pots fit the "pure evil" label quite nicely."
Maybe. I think it was Simone deBeavoir who wondered if Ava ever saw Hitler sleeping and thought how child like and sweet he really was. Also I am sure Hilter's Mom had memories of a time he was kind, a time he helped out--something she really loved him for (though most mothers do not need reasons). If you look hard enough, there is something human in everyone. It doesn't excuse the evil done or tolerated, it just muddies the water a bit.
Consider the story of a struggling 18 year old artist who is devastated to find out his mother has breast cancer. She is operated on, but it is too late. They keep trying to treat the cancer, but it does not go well. The torn artist forces himself to leave his dying mother to take entrance exams for Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but he fails. He hides his failure from his mother to stay by her side as she dies, cooking for her, washing her and even cleaning the house while she slowly rots away despite his best efforts. That Christmas she dies and he is inconsolable. After he settles her bills he can no longer cope and he eventually wanders the streets and sleeps on park benches. He is saved not by human kindness, but by forming a political ideology that later manifests as "pure evil".
Does the love of a son for his mother make Hitler less of a monster? Hell no. But he was human. He loved as much as you and I. As you said, if some killed baby Hitler, it's possible someone else would have done the same things or worse. I hate the evil acts, and in my smallness, those who do them. However, I know the acts are not the full essence of the person doing them, and if circumstances were otherwise, it is possible I would be as evil in my own way.
Maybe. I think it was Simone deBeavoir who wondered if Ava ever saw Hitler sleeping and thought how child like and sweet he really was. Also I am sure Hilter's Mom had memories of a time he was kind, a time he helped out--something she really loved him for (though most mothers do not need reasons). If you look hard enough, there is something human in everyone. It doesn't excuse the evil done or tolerated, it just muddies the water a bit.
Consider the story of a struggling 18 year old artist who is devastated to find out his mother has breast cancer. She is operated on, but it is too late. They keep trying to treat the cancer, but it does not go well. The torn artist forces himself to leave his dying mother to take entrance exams for Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but he fails. He hides his failure from his mother to stay by her side as she dies, cooking for her, washing her and even cleaning the house while she slowly rots away despite his best efforts. That Christmas she dies and he is inconsolable. After he settles her bills he can no longer cope and he eventually wanders the streets and sleeps on park benches. He is saved not by human kindness, but by forming a political ideology that later manifests as "pure evil".
Does the love of a son for his mother make Hitler less of a monster? Hell no. But he was human. He loved as much as you and I. As you said, if some killed baby Hitler, it's possible someone else would have done the same things or worse. I hate the evil acts, and in my smallness, those who do them. However, I know the acts are not the full essence of the person doing them, and if circumstances were otherwise, it is possible I would be as evil in my own way.
Interzone, I can see how nationality or ethnicity would be a bigger issue in the EU. However, there are certainly also cases of historical patterns of discrimination against certain religious groups (especially with Muslims in Croatia, no?). How would you gather data on how many Muslims, Christians, Jews or whatever there are in a a given area, school, or career path without making people identify a religion?
Bev:
No doubt Hitler was not entirely evil; it is even possible, that he was a good person who was radically misguided.
Perhaps it is not people who are fundamentally evil, but actions. For a person in full possession of his faculties to torture a baby just for the fun of it would be evil, I should think.
People might be more or less evil insofar as they tend to commit evil actions.
No doubt Hitler was not entirely evil; it is even possible, that he was a good person who was radically misguided.
Perhaps it is not people who are fundamentally evil, but actions. For a person in full possession of his faculties to torture a baby just for the fun of it would be evil, I should think.
People might be more or less evil insofar as they tend to commit evil actions.
So one who commits great good and great evil in equal measures is not better or worse than the average Joe? And what role does intent and outcome play in the analysis?
Great evil tends to negate any good. The fact that Hitler gave us the Volkswagen doesn't make up for the dead millions.
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