Occult Discussions

[ne1GotZardoz]

For the uninitiated few, Occult means hidden, secret or beyond human understanding.
Whats interesting is that many people hear the word and think, "Devil Worship".
The Book of Revelations contains Occult Knowlege but not because it speaks of evil.
The teachings of Jesus were Occult teachings because most people could not truly understand what he was talking about.
Even today, people are at odds over much of the meaning in the bible.
Thats why there are so many different denominations.
Confusion.
Chaos.
Satan is the author of confusion.

Hmm...Well...If you want to be technical, the Bible has caused alot of confusion and when two different religious sects debate it, chaos can, and often does, occur.

Lets not be technical here.
Lets be realistic.

Mankind is falible. We were made that way on purpose, whatever that purpose may be.
We were not meant to KNOW anything.
If we were, we would.
All of us.
No need for debate.
So we have to be satisfied with Belief.
Here's mine,

A God who could create a universe would not need a book to explain his existance.
Nor would he care if his creation believed he existed.
That would be vanity and I don't believe God is vain.
So the book was mankind's creation as an attempt to explain the unexplainable.
To those who say the Bible was inspired by God...Yes...You are correct.
It was most certainly inspired by God. There can be no debate.
Just as several Robin Williams scripts were inspired by Shakespeare.
But Shakespeare didn't write the scripts, and he didn't tell Robin what to write.
Occult means hidden.
Most often, that means we hide ourselves from it.
The veil that rests across some peoples eyes, is self inflicted due to their own fear.
Fear of what?
Fear of finding out that what they were led to believe their whole lives, was a lie.
Its not easy to give up the reality you've grown comfortable with.
Some people would rather kill the messenger than listen to his words.
Look at what happened to Jesus.
You are not so innocent yourself.

Peace

[tianup]

Very interesting topic - loosely linked to bookworld through your reference of the bible, huh? I will wait a bit before I reply I think.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by tianup@13 May 2003 - 22:28
Very interesting topic - loosely linked to bookworld through your reference of the bible, huh? I will wait a bit before I reply I think.
Actually, there is an abundance of books on various occult subjects.
The Bible is just the one I started off with because its one of the more prominent ones and pretty much the only one that its followers will defend violently at times.
So many people are so intent on learning this hidden knowlege that no-one can learn.
I find myself occasionally going the route of Eclesiastes in my thoughts.
At the end of his book, he says that writing books and studying is a weariness of the flesh.
He sums everything up by saying that the only real duty of man is to love God and keep his commandments.

Of course, I prefer the Tibetan philosophy that we get what our souls desire. If we live in misery, it's because our souls need misery.
Something that person needs to learn.
I see people who get a stubbed toe and whimper for a week about it, and people suffering manngled limbs who can laugh through the pain.
I do not feel sorry for either one.
Any more than I expect anyone to feel sorry for me.
That doesn't help my soul.
I guess I realized that eventually and thats when I changed.

The Tibetans realize something that is touched in the Bible quite often, but most christians fail to fully understand.
This body is only going to last until the day I die.
It is only a vessel for my soul to travel in in this lifetime.
It is only a means for me to experience life.
It is not me, nor does it define me.
I will not waste my life worrying about it.

Peace

[ShareActor]

I think:

LIFE is!
GOD is a name we gave it.
The Bible is a very nice story book written by some smart people.
Believe whatever you want, but respect everything that lives and grows.
All life feels pain! Remember that!

Just respect IT! ;)

[tianup]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz+14 May 2003 - 11:23--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ne1GotZardoz @ 14 May 2003 - 11:23)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--tianup@13 May 2003 - 22:28
Very interesting topic - loosely linked to bookworld through your reference of the bible, huh?&nbsp; I will wait a bit before I reply I think.
Actually, there is an abundance of books on various occult subjects.

[/b][/quote]
Dude, I have a whole library of books on the occult. I was referring to the reason why this is posted in bookworld. B)

You&#39;ve made some interesting points, but I have to say that ShareActor has put it best for what I agree with (not that I disagree with your statements).

Life IS. Whether you believe it was created by God or Buddha or Brigid is really irrelevant. We all know there is something magical and unexplainable about our lives and our world, and as humans, seem to have an irrepressible need to give it a name and make everyone else believe in it. So we make up our figurehead and rules and write a book about it, and now we can fight with other people who believe in the same thing, but call it by a different name and have a different face and rules for it. The real problem isn&#39;t even so much this, as the fact that people seem to have to look outside to books and other people to find their beliefs (this has been cultivated of course), instead of looking inside themselves, which is the ONLY place you will ever find it.

I personally believe in everything. I think that if you believe in anything strongly enough, then it exists, at least for you. I believe that everything is connected, and that the spiritual power of humans is virtually untapped, because we have been taught to have faith in everything but ourselves. I may sound like a hippie (maybe I am?&#33;? :blink: ), but I believe that our existence is about three things; Love, Peace, and Joy. You could probably throw a little Survival in there too :rolleyes: . There are fundamental laws of the universe that we all know in our hearts and souls, but choose to ignore. You can call it karma or retribution or whatever you want, but any negative energy you put out there will come back to you in some form, the same as positive energy. That&#39;s just the way it is.

Anyway, I&#39;ve also experienced things that people generally don&#39;t believe in, and they&#39;ve all been positive experiences - ghosts, spontaneous regression, astral travelling, etc.. I think this is because I&#39;m not afraid of them, and I think that is the key. If you can unabashedly embrace your life and all you true instincts (follow your heart/gut) then you will undoubtedly live an incredible life that you can feel good about when your time is up.


@ne1GotZardoz - you also said [QUOTE]The Bible is just the one I started off with because its one of the more prominent ones and pretty much the only one that its followers will defend violently at times. [QUOTE]

Everything else you&#39;ve said sounds well researched and correct but this. Have you heard of the Koran? Many wars have been fought over books, especially religious - but you are correct in that the bible is definitely the most prominent.

Based on this discussion, I&#39;m also curious as to how you feel about death.

[hobbes]

Life is difficult, even for the healthy, wealthy and wise.
We created religions as painkillers, to ease this burden.
Everything will be alright in the end, see it says so right here.

When we die, we are dead.
Our "spirit" is nothing more than a complex of charged synapses storing lifes data.

As a single molecule of wood is not a chair, the arrangement and aggregation of billions of these molecules is. A unique propery is created, not possessed by the individual components. This is how the brain relates to the mind.

When the plug is pulled, the system discharges into randomness.
We are no more, in spirit or in flesh.

So we are left with: Life IS, treat it well.


I envy those who truly believe in their religions,
those who can listen to criticism and contradiction about what they hold true,
and simply smile sadly and lower their heads mourning your fate.

For the rest of us, well, we drink beer.




Analogy of mind/brain stolen from Jean Paul Sartre- I couldn&#39;t think of my own on the fly :( .

[tianup]

Originally posted by hobbes@14 May 2003 - 20:07
Life is difficult, even for the healthy, wealthy and wise.
We created religions as painkillers, to ease this burden.
Everything will be alright in the end, see it says so right here.<snip>

So we are left with: Life IS, treat it well.<snip>

For the rest of us, well, we drink beer.


Cheers, hobbes. ;) Well said. Though I agree about almost everything you&#39;ve said, your take on death ignores any accounting for the unsolicited (or solicited) extra-spiritual experiences that some people have - you don&#39;t sound like someone who discounts these entirely. Just curious.

[hobbes]

Originally posted by tianup+14 May 2003 - 21:32--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (tianup @ 14 May 2003 - 21:32)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--hobbes@14 May 2003 - 20:07
Life is difficult, even for the healthy, wealthy and wise.
We created religions as painkillers, to ease this burden.
Everything will be alright in the end, see it says so right here.<snip>

So we are left with: Life IS, treat it well.<snip>

For the rest of us, well, we drink beer.


Cheers, hobbes. ;) Well said. Though I agree about almost everything you&#39;ve said, your take on death ignores any accounting for the unsolicited (or solicited) extra-spiritual experiences that some people have - you don&#39;t sound like someone who discounts these entirely. Just curious. [/b][/quote]
Do you have an example for me? Then I can ponder it and respond. For now, I am going to live life....poolside. Cheers.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by tianup@14 May 2003 - 13:13
@ne1GotZardoz - you also said [QUOTE]The Bible is just the one I started off with because its one of the more prominent ones and pretty much the only one that its followers will defend violently at times. [QUOTE]

Everything else you&#39;ve said sounds well researched and correct but this. Have you heard of the Koran? Many wars have been fought over books, especially religious - but you are correct in that the bible is definitely the most prominent.

Based on this discussion, I&#39;m also curious as to how you feel about death.
Honestly I don&#39;t know what I was thinking when I wrote that part.
After I had posted it, I reallized my goof but I had to get my son and myself ready to head out the door. I think I had my mind on the Crusades at that point.

As to you question about my take on death...Well, my mom died almost 3 years ago now, and about a year and a half ago, I found out that I have emphasema, which put me in a good position to verify my feelings on death and they are this:

I miss my mom. There is an emptiness where she once was.
I visit her grave for the benifit of my son only.
She is not there and never was.
Only the ashes of her mortal shell.
As for my recognition of my own mortality, we are all going to die.
What is the Hell Raisers motto? Born to Die?
I see people every day who expend so much of their energy, time and money on youth products.
Things to keep them alive longer, things to make them look younger.
In the end, the only things that will matter are how you made others feel and how you felt yourself.
I just don&#39;t see how someone who lives in constant fear of growing old and dieing can be happy with themselves.
It seems like a self defeating mind frame and I will have nothing of it.
I enjoy my life, my time, my son.
I teach him to enjoy himself but never at the expense of others.
I hope he&#39;ll live seriously but not too seriously that he misses the whole point of life.
Its a simple one really.

To live.

Or were you asking about my feelings of after-death?

[Rat Faced]

ShareActor, your a witch.....you just dont know it ;)


In the true meaning of the word, not the &#39;evil hag&#39;, &#39;devil worshipper&#39; meaning put about by most orthodox religions.

Witch means &#39;wise&#39; and was originaly a priest/priestess of Wicca; a Pagan religion revolving around nature.




PS

I dont mean the current &#39;Wicca&#39; fad going around the US.

These days Wicca has been corrupted by certain &#39;sects&#39; that claim a lot, and then publish things like &#39;The Book of Shadows&#39;........which just goes to show that nothing is pure anymore :(

[ShareActor]

Originally posted by Rat Faced@14 May 2003 - 23:43
ShareActor, your a witch.....you just dont know it ;)


In the true meaning of the word, not the &#39;evil hag&#39;, &#39;devil worshipper&#39; meaning put about by most orthodox religions.

Witch means &#39;wise&#39; and was originaly a priest/priestess of Wicca; a Pagan religion revolving around nature.




PS

I dont mean the current &#39;Wicca&#39; fad going around the US.

These days Wicca has been corrupted by certain &#39;sects&#39; that claim a lot, and then publish things like &#39;The Book of Shadows&#39;........which just goes to show that nothing is pure anymore :(
Rat Faced...

Hehehee.. you are right&#33;
I am a WITCH&#33; I know i am... Well.., in the old day&#39;s people would have burned me., on the stakes...

And you are wrong about purity, PURE is still around&#33; You just have to learn again where to look for it.. ;)

[tianup]

hobbes - I&#39;m talking about spontaneous regression where you suddenly lapse into a previous life (generally at a parallel point to what you are experiencing in the present, sometimes traumatic), or astral travelling (most people think they were dreaming, but know on some level that it was real), or spiritual experiences with ghost or other beings, or knowing things you couldn&#39;t possibly know, or unexplainable gifts, or psychic abilities...




ne1GotZardoz - your response almost made me cry dude. I&#39;m not exactly sure why, but it sounded so sad. I think I understand, cause I feel the same way about the graves of those I love (though I haven&#39;t lost a parent - my sympathies to you :unsure: ), and about my little girl, and life in general. I was asking you about your feelings to do with death because for some reason, I get the feeling that you have no fear of it, regardless of what your conscious response is. I personally have no fear of death, and am kind of excited about it. Not to die, but to find out what happens. Noone ever believes me when I say that, but it&#39;s true. I love life, and I experience it so much more than most people that I know, and I want to live it as long and as well as I can. But for some reason I think there are some answers on the other side. Maybe I&#39;m crazy, but it&#39;s a feeling that I&#39;ve had since I was a kid, and all my other feelings, though they went against everything that everyone else believed, have turned out to be very right. I thought maybe you had some light to shed on that. BTW - One of my mentors, Bill Eakins ( a kick ass bass player) had an extremely bad case of emphesema. He fought and lived to be the oldest person in history with the condition, and enjoyed every moment of his life making music, teaching, and spending time with his kids and wife. Just thought I&#39;d mention it. Peace.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by tianup@15 May 2003 - 01:28
ne1GotZardoz - your response almost made me cry dude. I&#39;m not exactly sure why, but it sounded so sad. I think I understand, cause I feel the same way about the graves of those I love (though I haven&#39;t lost a parent - my sympathies to you :unsure: ), and about my little girl, and life in general. I was asking you about your feelings to do with death because for some reason, I get the feeling that you have no fear of it, regardless of what your conscious response is. I personally have no fear of death, and am kind of excited about it. Not to die, but to find out what happens. Noone ever believes me when I say that, but it&#39;s true. I love life, and I experience it so much more than most people that I know, and I want to live it as long and as well as I can. But for some reason I think there are some answers on the other side. Maybe I&#39;m crazy, but it&#39;s a feeling that I&#39;ve had since I was a kid, and all my other feelings, though they went against everything that everyone else believed, have turned out to be very right. I thought maybe you had some light to shed on that. BTW - One of my mentors, Bill Eakins ( a kick ass bass player) had an extremely bad case of emphesema. He fought and lived to be the oldest person in history with the condition, and enjoyed every moment of his life making music, teaching, and spending time with his kids and wife. Just thought I&#39;d mention it. Peace.
My feelings on what happens after death are not very original really.

Did you ever see the movie, Jacob&#39;s Ladder with Tim Robbins?

That is my feeling on what happens when you die.

We go through a self-inflicted hell for awhile, until we are able to let go of the life we left behind.

The biggest reason for that is because its hard to let go of the reality we lived with for so long.

I believe that in that personal hell, there will be some who are never able to let go.

I can think of two reasons why. One is that they cannot admit that they are dead. Another is that they think because they are in hell, they are not worthy of anything more, and they simply remain there, waiting for eternity.

I don&#39;t expect there will be many who stay forever though. I think most souls will be able to cross over easily enough after a short stop in hell.

I call it hell because of my bible upbringing.
I don&#39;t think the bible explains it very well though.

I&#39;ve been trying to get hold of the english translation of a book by Meister Ekhart. His writings were mentioned in the movie and I&#39;m curious. :)

Peace back atcha

[ne1GotZardoz]

Well, I found some selected writings of Meister Eckhart and also learned that I may be a panthiest.
I need to study into that a bit more.
In any event, here is what I have found so far...I&#39;ll start putting these together as I find more and post a doccument on kazaa when I&#39;m done.

God is one.

God is pure oneness, being free of any accretive multiplicity of distinction even at a conceptual level. [Divine Consolation]
There is neither distinction in God nor in the Persons of the Trinity according to the unity of their nature. The divine nature is one, and each Person is both One and the same One as God&#39;s nature. [On the Noble Man]


God is in everything.

God is infinite in his simplicity and simple in his infinity. Therefore he is everywhere and is everywhere complete. He is everywhere on account of his infinity, and is everywhere complete on account of his simplicity. Only God flows into all things, their very essences. Nothing else flows into something else. God is in the innermost part of each and every thing, only in its innermost part. [Sermon LW XXIX]
The One descends into everything and into each single things, yet remaining the One that unites what is distinct. [Sermon LW XXIX]

God . . . is the being of all beings. [Sermon LW XXIX]


All creatures are one with God.

All things are contained in the One, by virtue of the fact that it is one. for all multiplicity is one, and is one thing, and is in and through the One. . . The One is not distinct from all things. Therefore all things in the fullness of being are in the One by virtue of its indistinction and unity. [Sermon LW XXIX]
When we know creatures in God, then that is called a `morning knowledge,&#39; and in this way we see creatures without any distinctions, stripped of images and likeness in the Oneness which God himself is. [On the Noble Man]
All creatures are the utterance of God. If my mouth speaks and declares God, so too does the being of a stone. [Sermon DW 53]



However, to unite with God we must reject the world and ourselves.

When we turn away from ourselves and from all created things, to that extent we are united and sanctified in the soul&#39;s spark, which is untouched by either space or time. This spark is opposed to all creatures and desires nothing but God. [Sermon DW 48]
If we are to dwell in him . . . we should take leave of ourselves and of all things and be attached to nothing external which acts upon the senses within. [Sermon DW 40]

When the soul enters the light that is pure, she falls so far from her own created somethingness into her nothingness that in this nothingness she can no longer return to that created somethingness by her own power. [Sermon DW1]


Mystical union with God.

The sixth [and highest] stage comes when we are stripped of our own form and are transformed by God&#39;s eternity, becoming wholly oblivious to all transient and temporal life, drawn into and changed into an image of the divine, and have become God&#39;s son. [On the Noble Man]
Blessedness consists primarily in the fact that the soul sees God in herself . . . Only in God&#39;s knowledge does she become wholly still. There she knows nothing but essence and God. [On the Noble Man]

Between that person and God there is no distinction, and they are one. . . Their knowing is one with God&#39;s knowing, their activity with God&#39;s activity and their understanding with God&#39;s understanding. [Sermon DW 40]

Therefore it is in Oneness that God is found and they who would find God must themselves become One. . . And truly, if you are properly One, then you shall remain One in the midst of distinction, and the multifold will be One for you and shall not be able to impeded you in any way. [On the Noble Man]

When the soul is united with God, then it perfectly possesses in him all that is something. The soul forgets itself there, as it is in itself, and all things, knowing itself in God as divine, in so far as God is in it. [Sermon DW 58].


God is outside time.

Nothing is as opposed to God as time. . . There is no process of becoming in God, but only a present moment, that is a becoming without a becoming, a becoming-new without renewal. . . All that is in God is an eternal present- time without renewal. [Sermon DW 50]
God is thought.

God alone truly is, and . . he is intellect or thought, and . . he is thought alone to which no other being is added. [Sermon LW XXIX].
Beyond God.

I have occasionally spoken of a light in the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable. . . . This light is not satisfied with the simple, still and divine being which neither gives nor takes, but rather it desires to know from where this being comes. It wants to penetrate to the simple ground, to the still desert, into which distinction never peeped, neither Father, Son nor Holy Spirit. There, in that most inward place, where everyone is a stranger, the light is satisfied, and there it is more inward than it is in itself, for this ground is a simple stillness which is immovable in itself. But all things are moved by this immovability and all the forms of life are conceived by it which, possessing the light of reason, live of themselves. [Sermon DW 48]


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SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM
is the belief that the universe and nature are divine.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for nature.
It provides the most realistic concept of life after death,
and the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.
For an outline, see Basic principles of scientific pantheism. Top.
If you would like to spread the message of scientific pantheism please include a link to Pantheist pages in your pages, or mirror the page at your site by saving this and other pages.

[ShareActor]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz@15 May 2003 - 11:27
God is one.

God is in everything.

God . . . is the being of all beings.

All creatures are one with God.


Well.... read my reply again... it&#39;s the same&#33; ;)

[ilw]

Everyone seems very spiritual here, so because I&#39;m bored I&#39;d like to make the case for the &#39;other&#39; side. You all seem to have drawn a line where science ends and spirituality begins. Where do u draw this line? Why is death anything special? Its just the point at which your brain cells stop functioning and your synapses stop firing. I was reading a book on the way that the brain works (this all comes from studies of people who&#39;s brains have been damaged in some way) and it made some very interesting points on the way religion is practically hard coded into our brains. eg people who experience frontal lobe epilepsy will experience intense and (for them) incontrovertible religious (and not other types of) &#39;visions&#39; and also various other damaged parts of the brain can lead to strong beliefs in God. Obviously I&#39;m not saying everyone religious is brain damaged :P I just thought it was interesting that parts of the brain seem to be strongly linked to spirituality.
In my personal opinion life itself isn&#39;t anything special, but we are inately programmed to treasure it (evolution over millions of years does that to u)
Would be interested in anyone elses thoughts on where they draw the line between science and spirituality
eg life after death, evolution, parallel/multiple universes, other dimensions, the meaning of consciousness & life (I think those are the main ones where people start to waiver)

PS what is the scientific aspect of Pantheism? I looked into the Eckhart guy a little bit, but everything was purely spiritual.

[tianup]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz@15 May 2003 - 12:27
SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM

is the belief that the universe and nature are divine.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for nature.
It provides the most realistic concept of life after death,
and the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.

This statement makes sense to me in many ways, however, there seems to be a major conflict between this and everything else in your post about Pantheism. The statement agrees with most of the "God is the name we&#39;ve (some of us) given to LIFE or EVERYTHING" premises we&#39;ve talked about, but then it carries on to speak about"God" in terms of a being with specific qualities and rules (though not nearly as tangible as the ones most of us know), and the writings still seem to convey a strong religious "God will save your soul....believe in the Almighty" king of thing, which disagrees entirely with the statement SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM. :unsure:

Also - your statement about death is similar to what I believe is the natural progression of souls. As you achieve enlightenment on earth, your joy increases as your knowledge and understanding and peace and acceptance progress. This is a spiritual pursuit, which is required to evolve as a human being. Why would the pursuit of your actual spirit be any different. It&#39;s natural state is the pursuit of enlightenment and revelation - understanding and acceptance. The definition of hell to me would be a world of denial and fear - a choice and condition as opposed to a punishment or test, available to those on earth AND beyond.


@ShareActor - It sounds the same, but I don&#39;t think you said exactly the same thing. I guess it depends on your true perspective, as your post was quite short. I got the impression you meant that God is the name some of us give to the "force" we are aware of which is everything, but not God or any type of being, just LIFE. I have many friends, however, who believe in the same idea, but still insist on calling it God. So I call it God around them, but to me the idea we&#39;re talking about defies any accepted definition of God that I&#39;ve heard... :blink:

@ian_l_williams - I agree with you about some of the scientific aspects of death, however, are you aware that SCIENCE can now actually see, measure, and follow the spirit or soul leaving the body at death (and in astral travelling)? That to me should at least have people who don&#39;t believe in the soul or spirit asking some questions.

I would imagine that the brain damage you are talking about is not that different from extreme social/psychological conditioning, where the person in question is taught a specific belief, which they are then unable to question or doubt, let alone release themselves from.

Personally, I think science and spirituality are the same thing, or maybe two halves of a whole. I think they get closer and closer all the time, and I think you would be hard pressed to find many who still believe that they are opposites that contradict each other. Every day, science proves that something once thought purely spiritual speculation is true and real, and vice versa for the spiritualists. And I think that is the only way we will survive, let alone evolve. It&#39;s all the pursuit of enlightenment, and regardless of what you believe in, that&#39;s what we are here for. :unsure: :blink: :D

[bravehart_70_2000]

Very Interesting topic. For many years I have researched into the topic of the " occult".
Lots of interesting ideas presented here.

Like so many of us I also started out with the Bile as a reference into my search for the unknown and hidden. The Bible for what it is worth gives us many clues and obscure refrences to follow for knowledge that is in fact OLDER.

Look especially at the book of Genesis... So many references are to older texts ( Sumerian, etc...)

But there are many other biblical texts out there to look into. Remember not existing texts were included in the current bible as it is printed today.

But in the end what the occult boils down to is this.....

Do you believe in a higher power than yourself?

Personally I do believe in the Lord God and in Christ. EVERYTHING in this universe as we can percieve it is to logical and orderly to be the product of chaos and natural selection.

As we as a species mature we are finding more and more order in the universe not the chaos we were taught to believe in school( based on darwins theroy).

There is a mind in control of creation, and we are only the pots not the potter. We may not be able to see everything as clearly but if we try we can see eventulally.

This is just my point of view when looking at the Bible but in its sum it is a PERSON.
Everything that a person would live and can live is in there. It is the summation of a human being, traced back from the line of Adam going into the distant future to the coming of Christ( or the second Adam).


The Bible is humanity in its essence. True understanding comes from understanding the fact that we are ALL a splintered part of God, we are given a part of His essence apoun creation.

We are all gods if you want to look at it like that.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Tianup,

That post was a direct copy from a web site that I was hoping would link, since there were links to it in the post itself.
When I&#39;m looking at it though, All I see is the text that was blue underlined on the page, so I&#39;ll put the link in here:

Meister Eckhart (http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/eckhart.htm)

As I&#39;ve been researching his life, it seems he was accused of heresy during the inquisition and only escaped death due to his notoriety and his "admission" that he may have been mistaken on a few points.

Much of his work was destroyed or lost.

One main thing to understand is that he was a priest and much of what remains of his writings, is in the form of sermons to his congregation.
But he was a highly inteligent and inquisitive man, and questioned everything. He got very deeply into his religion and was not afraid to study doctrines that seemed to oppose it.
I believe I saw a post somewhere that he wrote about the Koran. I&#39;m curious to read that and get his take on it.
His understanding was constantly evolving as you can tell from the writings on that page.
As he got older, (as is true of everyone), his understanding changed. And so his teachings changed.
I&#39;m going to be looking into this for a little while. I&#39;ll try to be as thorough as I can and I&#39;ll post the doc file when I&#39;m through.

[tianup]

Interesting site - I&#39;ll dig in when I get a little more time. You&#39;re right, I had a very different impression from reading your post without the links. Out of curiousity, have you read Thus Spoke Zarathustra (by another german, Friedrich Nietzche - you can download the text or e-book for free at http://www.textlibrary.com/TITLE/thus-spa/ ). It&#39;s one of my favorite pieces of literature, and perhaps my favorite philosophical work. His life sounds very much like Meister Eckhart&#39;s. Nietzche penned the phrase and philosophy "God is dead, long live the Superman", suggesting that our species had evolved to the point of putting away our need for Deity&#39;s, as we were becoming (and in reality, always were) God (in essence). Very interesting book, written very much like the bible, in terms of parables, hardships, journeys and challeges. If you haven&#39;t read it, consider it a MUST for someone like yourself - the search for enlightenment....

[hobbes]

[QUOTE=bravehart_70_2000,15 May 2003 - 22:47]

But in the end what the occult boils down to is this.....

Do you believe in a higher power than yourself?


<No, but I do hope there is one.>


Personally I do believe in the Lord God and in Christ. EVERYTHING in this universe as we can percieve it is to logical and orderly to be the product of chaos and natural selection.

<I have two points for you:

1. How did you decide on Christianity over the 1000s of other Religions? The big problem with Christianity is that you must accept Christ into your heart to be your savior or you go to hell. Most people who have ever existed, have never even heard of Christ, so they all went to hell?

2. To me, creating God to explain our existence simply differs the question. The question then becomes, who created God?

I&#39;ve heard the answer before, "he has always been and will always be, he is outside of time". Whatever. You either believe that or you don&#39;t, you can&#39;t discuss it any further. I call this "the black box".

So for me, by creating God, we explain a complex situation, by creating a more complex one.>


As we as a species mature we are finding more and more order in the universe not the chaos we were taught to believe in school( based on darwins theroy).

<Darwins theory has nothing to do with chaos in the universe.

To put it succinctly, the theory of evolution describes the rules which dictate the diversification of living matter. Usable energy comes in many forms and each living form tries to find its own way to utilize this energy( a niche).

Within a population natural selection occurs by the survival of the fittest.

Within a species, diversification occurs when common ancestors are separated geographically and are subject to different environmental conditions, selecting for different genes. The longer the separation and the more divergent the environments, the greater the alteration from the common parent organism.


I think you are referring to the 2nd law of thermodynamics which states that with every "event" chaos (random energy) increases.

To me, evolution kind of breaks down when it comes to first creation, and it almost takes as much faith to take this jump as does any religion. This is too complex to explain here.

In the end, I see both evolution and creation to be mutually exclusive and can therefore live together happily.

Evolution (adaptation to change in environment over time to create diversification) is etched in stone solid fact.>

I have plenty left to say, but this is enoughto chew on for now.

[hobbes]

Originally posted by tianup@15 May 2003 - 07:28
hobbes - I&#39;m talking about spontaneous regression where you suddenly lapse into a previous life (generally at a parallel point to what you are experiencing in the present, sometimes traumatic), or astral travelling (most people think they were dreaming, but know on some level that it was real), or spiritual experiences with ghost or other beings, or knowing things you couldn&#39;t possibly know, or unexplainable gifts, or psychic abilities...





To be blunt, I believe in none of these things.

I do believe that there are people who will testify to the sincerity of their experiences, but I think these people are seeing what they want to see.

Human minds have different "susceptibilities" to suggestion. Ever seen a hypnotist at a comedy club. As the selected victims head to the stage, he looks at each one, says a few words, and with this he sends the rejects (those who cannot be hypnotized) back into the audience.



I honestly would love to believe, the possibilty of life or existence after physical death would be the greatest thing ever. I live my life under this philosophy, "If my mother could see me now, would she be proud of how I am conducting myself?". So I think any reasonable God would give the thumbs up, or at least a second chance.


I an agnostic, I just don&#39;t know. All I do is post on forums and look for insight from others that will be an epiphany. I am an evolving work in progress.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@15 May 2003 - 18:49
I am an evolving work in progress.
Aren&#39;t we all?

As for your posts on Chaos, here is my take on it...

Morality, legality, normality, these are all interpretations of a society.
We have laws and morals and an idea of what is "normal", to protect society from itself.

Chaos is what happens when you remove all the stops.

Chaos is not wrong on the grander scale.
Its only wrong on a societal scale because it tends to weaken or even negate social order.

Chaos is every man for himself.

The truest form of survival of the fittest.

Social order attempts to protect the weaker members of the population against the natural order of things.

It is man&#39;s attempt to overcome his own nature.

Is one, more correct than the other? I don&#39;t know.

There are certain aspects of each that are appealing.
The true freedom of chaos (if you aren&#39;t killed) versus the (sometimes false) security and protection of society.

Where do you draw the line? :)

To Tianup,

Thanks for the Neitzche link, thanks. Every since I heard the quote, "What doesn&#39;t destroy me makes me stronger", I&#39;ve wanted to read some of his writings but never got around to looking for them.

I&#39;ll have to check that link out this weekend.

Tomorrow, I&#39;m taking my son to see Matrix Reloaded. :)

Looking forward to it.

We watched the first one again tonight to gear up for it.

Peace

[hobbes]

I don&#39;t understand your post.

The chaos I am referring to is about ENERGY. Every chemical reaction is at best 40% efficient, so 60% is lost as heat or random thermal energy.

So, in the context of the post by Braveheart, I was explaining to him the difference between Darwin&#39;s theories and those of thermodynamics.

But in a societal sense, the collaring of chaos has lead to devolution in man.

Why?

Being the only organisms who have an awareness of our ultimate demise and our own mortality, we have generated laws and created law enforcement to protect the weak.

Why? Because we are all weak in some facet, we can all extrapolate to "what if that poor soul were me", so we all support this system.

From an evolutionary standpoint we are propagating the weak with the strong.

We are, through humanity, propaging all of the genetic frailities in the gene pool.

Eventually we will have a race totally dependent upon society to support them, meaning that, if society is disrupted, we will all have some fatal flaw which will make us unable to support ourselves (diabetes, myopia, heart dz, etc.).

An individual, dependent upon society for survival is de-evolved.

We can fix this, but only by fixing the genetic code, not to some ideal human, but rather to one who is self suffiecient once the amenities of society have been stripped away.

Anyway, I think I rambled afield. I just love this whole topic.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@15 May 2003 - 21:22
I don&#39;t understand your post.

The chaos I am referring to is about ENERGY. Every chemical reaction is at best 40% efficient, so 60% is lost as heat or random thermal energy.

So, in the context of the post by Braveheart, I was explaining to him the difference between Darwin&#39;s theories and those of thermodynamics.

Then I totally missunderstood you.

I am still a bit confused.

I think I understand what you are saying about lost energy during any action/reaction event, but I&#39;m not seeing the chaos connection.

Of course, if I understand universal laws sufficiently, nothing is lost anyway.
The energy is still there, somewhere. Its just converted to a different form.
Light/heat/matter/any forms of energy that may not yet be recognized.

And yes, I enjoy this type of discussion too. :)

[Rat Faced]

1. How did you decide on Christianity over the 1000s of other Religions? The big problem with Christianity is that you must accept Christ into your heart to be your savior or you go to hell. Most people who have ever existed, have never even heard of Christ, so they all went to hell?


In my opinion..........and I dont mean to upset anyone here.


The big problem with Christianity is the Bible.

There is an Old Testament and a New Testament.

Reading them both, I cant see how they are both the same God.

The Old Testament, he&#39;s a bit of a Bastard (no offence intended, this is my opinion) that sends Death and Deistruction down on people for the slightest thing.

Thats not the same God, IMO as the New Testament Guy, who is all Love and Forgiveness.

In fact you could spend your whole life Killing people and as long as you repent during the last few seconds of your life you are saved. Alternatively, you could spend your whole life doing good works; and if the last thing is "Jesus Christ&#33;" as the car hits you, your damned.

Hmm. What are the words of the Lords prayer again? "Thy WILL be done".........I think they&#39;re trying to tell us something there.......

[hobbes]

Maybe God decided that he could make more friends with sugar rather than vinegar.

[Rat Faced]

But isnt he Omni-everything?

That implies he makes mistakes.......


This is now due in the lounge, where we can debate it with our beers ;)

[ToraBoraDweller]

Very first line in this topic : Occult spelled with a capital means in my book Dark
in the satanistic way &#33; :o
In the same line you address &#39;uninitiated&#39;.
Wow, that rings some bells with me&#33; :unsure:

(Only sideways mention of bible and Tibetan book of the dead so indeed to lounge) ;)

[Rat Faced]

Well, i nearly got &#39;em to mention the Book of Shadows, but they never took the hint ;)

[ToraBoraDweller]

@Rat Faced :you also still want to promote your anar*hy c00kb00k?

(why did I remember that?)

[tianup]

Originally posted by hobbes@16 May 2003 - 03:22


But in a societal sense, the collaring of chaos has lead to devolution in man.

Why?

Being the only organisms who have an awareness of our ultimate demise and our own mortality, we have generated laws and created law enforcement to protect the weak.&nbsp;

Why?&nbsp; Because we are all weak in some facet, we can all extrapolate to "what if that poor soul were me", so we all support this system.

From an evolutionary standpoint we are propagating the weak with the strong.

We are, through humanity, propaging all of the genetic frailities in the gene pool.

Eventually we will have a race totally dependent upon society to support them, meaning that, if society is disrupted, we will all have some fatal flaw which will make us unable to support ourselves (diabetes, myopia, heart dz, etc.).&nbsp;

An individual, dependent upon society for survival is de-evolved.

We can fix this, but only by fixing the genetic code, not to some ideal human, but rather to one who is self suffiecient once the amenities of society have been stripped away.


Interesting points. In terms of chaos and order, which you present in a kind of "good vs. evil" relationship, I see it the other way. Chaos and Order are the two required opposites, or the Yin and Yang of energy forces in our universe, and our bodies and spirituality. Without one, the other cannot exist, and they both have necessary qualities for ALL life to exist, and ALL energy (which IS all life) to flow. These are just two more names for the polarities that have been noted by the wise and spiritual for millenia.


But in a sense, you are right, as an inbalance COULD create problems in the universe. I just don&#39;t believe that it&#39;s the one you are describing. Humans only survive by their wits, our VERY evolved minds are what have kept us alive for, not just the last hundred years, but for the last several thousand years. I agree to some extent that we propagate the weak, however, many of the weak bodies are the strongest minds which have taught, and will continue to teach us invaluable lessons which perpetuate our survival (or extinction in some cases). There are also many weak minded who protect us, and our invaluable resources, with their strength.

Making the decisions about who and what gets protected is the most difficult part, obviously, but make no mistake; human beings are, and always have been a species that depends on it&#39;s society and civilization for survival. Where we have come, and where we are going present many problems, but the human race and every other species have always had problems - these problems are bound to change over time and with evolution. We are a race of mental and spiritual giants, and we have all of the problems that come with that. As a race we are evolving, and the only solution to our growing problems is to work together. This is not something that can be "fixed". We are not devolving, we are continuing on our path to growth and enlightenment, but with greater rewards come greater challenges.

To be honest, the final sentence from the quote above frightens me (not trying to make accusations here... :unsure: ); but "We can fix this, but only by fixing the genetic code, not to some ideal human, but rather to one who is self suffiecient once the amenities of society have been stripped away." is pretty much a statement of selective genocide, basing the selection on choices of specific genetic qualities, instead of genetic ethnicity. WTF? Perhaps you meant it in a different way?

Anyway, I make these statements as person who has survived for months at a time by myself in the wild, and also survived for months at a time with others in one of the largest, most technologically advanced North American cities, and I for one, can attest to the fact that our survival and our evolution is not based on genetic code. It is based on the things we teach ourselves, and the things we teach each other. It is based on the way we CHOOSE to survive, and CHOOSE to evolve. WE are responsible for the things we teach each other, and our children. WE are responsible for the way we treat each other, and our children. WE are reponsible for our own evolution and survival. Not genetic code. IMHO. Peace.

[Rat Faced]

Originally posted by ToraBoraDweller@16 May 2003 - 18:27
@Rat Faced :you also still want to promote your anar*hy c00kb00k?

(why did I remember that?)
I have The An**chists Cookbook.

It scares me.

I only use it when someone REALLY upsets me ;)




Now I havent mentioned that in months.........someones been reading very old posts :P

[hobbes]

Originally posted by Rat Faced@16 May 2003 - 18:50
But isnt he Omni-everything?

That implies he makes mistakes.......


This is now due in the lounge, where we can debate it with our beers ;)
Of course he makes mistakes, remember that little "incident" when he destroyed everyone on the planet but Noah and his homies.

Kind of hit the reset button there&#33;


Now one thing about Jesus that I want some input on.


I attended this very Christain summer camp (Kanakuk in Branson, MO) and they kept telling me that "For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son to die for our sins". I must; therefore, accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in order to be admitted to Heavan.

Here&#39;s my issue, so what?

So Christ is God embodied in human form (or imbibed with his Spirit- which left him on the cross- "Why hast thou forsaken me?")
His human form is killed, but only after delivering Gods message (Christianity still going strong).

Now here is the question?

Where did Jesus go when he died?

If he returned to Heavan with God, then God made no sacrifice, period. What is a mortal life, when Jesus is given eternity in Heavan.

So, in order to make this a "sacrifice" on God&#39;s part, Jesus is accepting the responsibility for all our sins, and must; therefore, be in Hell, taking our punishment for us. Now that would be a sacrifice.

How many Christians think that Jesus is in Hell?

[ToraBoraDweller]

You are going from the assumption that Jesus is a manifestation of God :they are in other words the same person.(This belief is part of the so-called the holy trinity)
Many christians hold also other beliefs ;that is to say : they are separate and unique persons.
It boils down (again) on HOW you read your bible.

(Scares me being in such a camp ,does make me think a little of a brainwashing technique)

[Rat Faced]

You can prove anything in the Bible, thats why there are so many different &#39;churches&#39;.

Its all open to interpretation.



I think that we&#39;re all gonna be Latter Day Saints anyway, as i hear they baptise us into that church after our deaths, using members as &#39;stand ins&#39; for our physical bodies. :rolleyes:

[hobbes]

Originally posted by tianup@16 May 2003 - 19:52


To be honest, the final sentence from the quote above frightens me (not trying to make accusations here... :unsure: ); but "We can fix this, but only by fixing the genetic code, not to some ideal human, but rather to one who is self suffiecient once the amenities of society have been stripped away." is pretty much a statement of selective genocide, basing the selection on choices of specific genetic qualities, instead of genetic ethnicity.&nbsp; WTF?&nbsp; Perhaps you meant it in a different way?

Anyway, I make these statements as person who has survived for months at a time by myself in the wild, and also survived for months at a time with others in one of the largest, most technologically advanced North American cities, and I for one, can attest to the fact that our survival and our evolution is not based on genetic code.&nbsp; It is based on the things we teach ourselves, and the things we teach each other.&nbsp; It is based on the way we CHOOSE to survive, and CHOOSE to evolve.&nbsp; WE are responsible for the things we teach each other, and our children.&nbsp; WE are responsible for the way we treat each other, and our children.&nbsp; WE are reponsible for our own evolution and survival.&nbsp; Not genetic code.&nbsp; IMHO.&nbsp; Peace.
Ok, this thread has become unraveled due to the variable ways in which the word "Chaos" is intended.

Chaos to me means randomness, it does not imply good nor evil

In answering NE1, I was using his definition in that post, which was, "everyman for himself".

So I was discussing how the creation of societies and its protective umbrella helps to protect the individual from this situation.



As time is short for me now, let me address the remaining quote.

I specifically stated that the goal was not to create a master race, but a race capable of surviving if the amenities of society were stripped.

Best examples are Diabetes and Cystic Fibrosis. In the past all these people died, keeping the prevalence in the gene pool low. Now many survive to reproduce, propaging this genetic weakness and increasing it&#39;s prevalence in the gene pool.

You create a situation where insulin (for diabetics) is taken away, they all die. So I claimed that the only way to fix this is to find and correct the genetic code, which makes these people susceptable to the disease. So when a disaster strikes, no worries, as all the diabetics have ben genetically fixed.

Pick your favorite lethal disease and add it to the list.


Now as for evolution, what matters? All that matters is that you reproduce. Who reproduces more, the intelligent people with good jobs and the means to support their offspring, or those who are uneducated and living on welfare.

So in this sense, those least able to provide for their young and propagate the species are doing the majority of the reproduction. Devolution. This type of devolution is held in check by all those poor inner city kids shooting each other.

So in conclusion, we are devolving by propaging lethal gene traits, and by letting those lest able to support their young, doing the majority of the reproduction.


Remember, evolution has no "purpose", but rather it is an adaptation to a changing environment.

[hobbes]

Originally posted by ToraBoraDweller@16 May 2003 - 20:18
You are going from the assumption that Jesus is a manifestation of God :they are in other words the same person.(This belief is part of the so-called the holy trinity)
Many christians hold also other beliefs ;that is to say : they are separate and unique persons.
It boils down (again) on HOW you read your bible.

(Scares me being in such a camp ,does make me think a little of a brainwashing technique)
Actually, I am not going on the assumption at all.

The post is about "sacrifice"

It seems obvious that Jesus and God are not one in the same. Jesus on the cross said, "Why hast thou forsaken me?". Indicating that the spirit of God had left his body, leaving him an average mortal.

But, it really doesn&#39;t matter the precise relationship between the two.

Christianity heavily relies on this great "sacrifice" to demonstrate Gods love for us, I was just asking, "Where&#39;s the sacrifice, is Jesus in Hell, or something?"


PS: This is a response to a prior post, you need to read my prior post to understand this on. Meaning, don&#39;t respond to this post in isolation.

[ToraBoraDweller]

I have The An**chists Cookbook.

I knew you were a religious man&#33;
The partaking of human flesh is practized by animists.
(believed by many to be very primitive ppl :rolleyes: )

(I remembered that book because someone mentioned it recently in a thread about the F*B.I,
I can&#39;t even find my own old posts more than 10 ago)

[tianup]

Originally posted by hobbes@16 May 2003 - 20:38

Ok, this thread has become unraveled due to the variable ways in which the word "Chaos" is intended.

Chaos to me means randomness, it does not imply good nor evil

In answering NE1, I was using his definition in that post, which was, "everyman for himself".

So I was discussing how the creation of societies and its protective umbrella helps to protect the individual from this situation.



As time is short for me now, let me address the remaining quote.

I specifically stated that the goal was not to create a master race, but a race capable of surviving if the amenities of society were stripped.

Best examples are Diabetes and Cystic Fibrosis.&nbsp; In the past all these people died, keeping the prevalence in the gene pool low.&nbsp; Now many survive to reproduce, propaging this genetic weakness and increasing it&#39;s prevalence in the gene pool.

You create a situation where insulin (for diabetics) is taken away, they all die.&nbsp; So I claimed that the only way to fix this is to find and correct the genetic code, which makes these people susceptable to the disease.&nbsp; So when a disaster strikes, no worries, as all the diabetics have ben genetically fixed.&nbsp;

Pick your favorite lethal disease and add it to the list.


Now as for evolution, what matters?&nbsp; All that matters is that you reproduce.&nbsp; Who reproduces more, the intelligent people with good jobs and the means to support their offspring, or those who are uneducated and living on welfare.

So in this sense, those least able to provide for their young and propagate the species are doing the majority of the reproduction.&nbsp; Devolution.&nbsp; This type of devolution is held in check by all those poor inner city kids shooting each other.

So in conclusion, we are devolving by propaging lethal gene traits, and by letting those lest able to support their young, doing the majority of the reproduction.


Remember, evolution has no "purpose", but rather it is an adaptation to a changing environment.
I think perhaps the thread has become unravelled due to some other factors as well.....but, anyway, Chaos IS randomness, confusion, etc. The points I was talking about pertain to exactly that:


Interesting points. In terms of chaos and order, which you present in a kind of "good vs. evil" relationship, I see it the other way. Chaos and Order are the two required opposites, or the Yin and Yang of energy forces in our universe, and our bodies and spirituality. Without one, the other cannot exist, and they both have necessary qualities for ALL life to exist, and ALL energy (which IS all life) to flow. These are just two more names for the polarities that have been noted by the wise and spiritual for millenia.


I do agree with many of your points about the cut-and-dry science of genetics and evolution (adaptation), however, the thing we often fail to take into consideration is that our environment is doing the same thing we are. If you remove the genetic defects that nature has programmed due to over-population, toxification, poor nutrition, etc., nature, as it has shown us MANY times, will simply create a more powerful genetic weakness, or virus, or natural disaster for that matter, to take care of the imbalance. This is what we were discussing before. I don&#39;t know if I agree that it is a form of natural population control


So in this sense, those least able to provide for their young and propagate the species are doing the majority of the reproduction.&nbsp; Devolution.&nbsp; This type of devolution is held in check by all those poor inner city kids shooting each other.

but I do agree that it is at least a symptom. If you can see this corelation, then you must be able to see what happens when medical science solves these "genetic defects". We receive "evolved" defects. It&#39;s the same with viruses (the ones nature created), and other natural "predators".

So, I agree with you in theory. But I believe the only way to achieve this balance is to earn it through creating a healthy environment which will cause this adaptation naturally. Fixing genetic code is short term and will cause more problems in the long run than we&#39;ve even dreamed of. As much as it would be nice to believe, you cannot fool nature.

I don&#39;t say this out of religious or any type of spiritual belief like "you can&#39;t mess with nature, man...", but because I&#39;ve been researching, discussing, and watching the patterns of this "science" since I was old enough to comprehend it, as my family, my friends and myself have, and will always be affected by it, and this is what I see every day in my personal life, in the local news, and on a global scale. I wish it was as easy as fixing genetic code.

Just MHO. ;)

[hobbes]

Originally posted by tianup@16 May 2003 - 23:04
If you remove the genetic defects that nature has programmed due to over-population, toxification, poor nutrition, etc., nature, as it has shown us MANY times, will simply create a more powerful genetic weakness, or virus, or natural disaster for that matter, to take care of the imbalance.&nbsp; This is what we were discussing before.&nbsp; I don&#39;t know if I agree that it is a form of natural population control

but I do agree that it is at least a symptom.&nbsp; If you can see this corelation, then you must be able to see what happens when medical science solves these "genetic defects".&nbsp; We receive "evolved" defects.&nbsp; It&#39;s the same with viruses (the ones nature created), and other natural "predators".

So, I agree with you in theory.&nbsp; But I believe the only way to achieve this balance is to earn it through creating a healthy environment which will cause this adaptation naturally.&nbsp; Fixing genetic code is short term and will cause more problems in the long run than we&#39;ve even dreamed of.&nbsp; As much as it would be nice to believe, you cannot fool nature.



Just MHO. ;)
You seem to be saying that if we correct genetic defects, this will increase survival and lead to over population, a poisoned environment, and poor nutrition.


That is true, that for every silver-lining there is a cloud.

I was just pointing out that the more sophisticated the society, the more vulnerable it would be to a man-made or natural disaster, becasue it has the ability to allow those with genetic frailities to survive and reproduce.

Look at the people of Iraq, all living in hard times, those who have survived are tough, all those with birth defects, metabolic illnesses, endocrine disaese, etc are dead. Those surviving people have the genetics to function independent of technology.

I just find it ironic that the greater our science becomes the weaker we as individuals are. If an equal disaster were to occur worldwide, all the high-tech people would be wiped out, leaving the primitive dwellers behind.

So, I was just pointing out that the only way to combine living in a technologically advanced world with maintaining a resilent genome is through gene therapy.

You are absolutely right in concluding that we would just disrupt balance by overpopulating the planet, or in some other way. This is a shame though, since we as humans could control overpopulation voluntarily, but we wouldn&#39;t. Alas.

I think you should have to pass a test in order to be issued gonads.

[tianup]

Originally posted by hobbes@16 May 2003 - 23:54


I think you should have to pass a test in order to be issued gonads.
Agreed, as well as ovaries. ;)

I think you might be underestimating the number of people in the world that would be quite able to survive without modern technology. I used to think the other way around, because I grew up in the woods, and was trained in survival skills my whole childhood and early adulthood, but I&#39;ve been in situations with people who you would least expect to survive on their own, and they&#39;ve proven themselves quite capable, even invaluable members of the team. I don&#39;t think the human spirit and will to survive has been bred out of that many of us.

All I can hear right now is "I Will Survive&#33;..." :blink: :D

[hobbes]

Originally posted by tianup+17 May 2003 - 00:14--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (tianup @ 17 May 2003 - 00:14)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--hobbes@16 May 2003 - 23:54


I think you should have to pass a test in order to be issued gonads.
Agreed, as well as ovaries. ;)

I think you might be underestimating the number of people in the world that would be quite able to survive without modern technology. I used to think the other way around, because I grew up in the woods, and was trained in survival skills my whole childhood and early adulthood, but I&#39;ve been in situations with people who you would least expect to survive on their own, and they&#39;ve proven themselves quite capable, even invaluable members of the team. I don&#39;t think the human spirit and will to survive has been bred out of that many of us.

All I can hear right now is "I Will Survive&#33;..." :blink: :D[/b][/quote]
Well sure, adversity brings out the fight in us all.

But, I was talking about in the future when everyone was either taking insulin for diabetes, or pancreatic enzymes for cystic fibrosis, or transfusions for sickle cell (and the list goes on).

No amount of toughness can help these people. I would be unable to do anything because of nearsightness, which is fully corrected in our high-tech world.

Anyway, the discussion was fun.

PS: Gonads applies to testicles and ovaries. It is gender neutral. So you can kick a girl in the &#39;nads if you want, you just need to have better aim and will probably have to kick her twice. (Hobbes is not endorsing this.)

[ne1GotZardoz]

To the sub-plot that has developed around the whole devolution theme, I present SARS and HIV.

I am reminded of a Mad Magazine, (book tie-in here) comic talking about scientific experiments with rats.
You remember...Force feeding a rat tobacco to see how long it took it to die of cancer...injecting it with red dye #7, etc.

It said that eliminating all the things that cause cancer in rats will create more robust, healthy rats.

My eyesight has gotten pretty bad over the past few years. I know I&#39;m getting older but thats not it.

And I use to think it was from sitting in front of the computer screen so much, but recently I&#39;m realizing it goes beyond that.

What tipped me off was sunglasses.
100% UV protection sunglasses.

I no longer have eyestrain.
My eyes don&#39;t bother me at all.
My sight isn&#39;t improving but its also not getting worse.

Those same UV rays that burn your skin, burn your eyes even when you don&#39;t notice it.
Your eyes try to protect from it and thats why you have to squint in the sun.
But the first time I put on 100% UV protection sunglasses, (the cheap ones too), no more squinting.
I can be looking almost directly at the sun with no pain.
(Not that I&#39;m advising you try it of course).

UV radiation.

An increase of Radioactive Strontium90 in the soil, probably the result of UV activity on greenhouse gases.

And now we have SARS and HIV and science finally admitting that harmless organisms can mutate into potentially deadly ones.

It would make a marvelous scifi movie don&#39;t you think?

Nature doesn&#39;t have to kill us off...We&#39;re taking care of just fine on our own.:)

Peace

[Rocktron]

I read all (well i attempted) to read all of this, but it&#39;s all to much copy & paste for me sorry&#33;
The big question of all is... who are we and what are we doing here? Right?

Just do the best you can and don&#39;t hurt anyone or anything that lives and breathes.
Believe that there is something BIGGER than you, and respect life as it comes.
The theory&#39;s and believes that people fabricate are sincere but ungrounded..

Respect your life and be aware of other breathing beings that are going through the same hard times as you...
No one is different .. we are the same&#33; Just souls with the same BIG question.. right?

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by ToraBoraDweller@16 May 2003 - 14:48

I have The An**chists Cookbook.

I knew you were a religious man&#33;
The partaking of human flesh is practized by animists.
(believed by many to be very primitive ppl :rolleyes: )

(I remembered that book because someone mentioned it recently in a thread about the F*B.I,
I can&#39;t even find my own old posts more than 10 ago)
LOL I hope you were joking.

If not, I&#39;m curious to know how you got &#39;Animist&#39; from &#39;An**chist&#39;.

:)

Peace

[hobbes]

Now NE1,

Let us not start paranoia.

The destruction of the ozone layer allows more energy from the sun, in the form of UV waves, to penetrate our atmosphere. The greenhouse gases, of which you speak, absorb this UV energy as it is reflected away from the earth back towards space. This absorbed energy increases the thermal energy of the gas (makes it warmer). Were it not for these gases, the Earth would be uninhabitably cold.

The concern is that the production of excessive greenhouse gases and the degradation of the ozone layer will lead to global warming. Too much UV let in, too much trapped as heat in the atmosphere.

All UV light does to our environment is make it warmer.

The decay of Strontium is based on nuclear instability and is not effected by ambient temperature. Even if it did, Strontium 90 decays in such a way that it would kill rather than mutate any organism close to it. Anyway, the organisms that attack us don&#39;t live deep in the soil.

Anyway, I&#39;ve just ruined a totally good plot, sorry.


Science has never disputed that mutations can cause an organism to be lethal. Look at the Influenza pandemic of 1918 which killed 40 million people. This is why we get flu shots (Influenza) http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/ every year based on the strain in China the previous year.

SARS, really just a mutation of a different virus, normally innocuous, now potentially lethal. Lethal plagues tend to recur at 75 year intervals to help the Earth clear out excess population.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@16 May 2003 - 21:55
Now NE1,

Let us not start paranoia.

The destruction of the ozone layer allows more energy from the sun, in the form of UV waves, to penetrate our atmosphere. The greenhouse gases, of which you speak, absorb this UV energy as it is reflected away from the earth back towards space. This absorbed energy increases the thermal energy of the gas (makes it warmer). Were it not for these gases, the Earth would be uninhabitably cold.

The concern is that the production of excessive greenhouse gases and the degradation of the ozone layer will lead to global warming. Too much UV let in, too much trapped as heat in the atmosphere.

All UV light does to our environment is make it warmer.

The decay of Strontium is based on nuclear instability and is not effected by ambient temperature. Even if it did, Strontium 90 decays in such a way that it would kill rather than mutate any organism close to it. Anyway, the organisms that attack us don&#39;t live deep in the soil.

Anyway, I&#39;ve just ruined a totally good plot, sorry.


Science has never disputed that mutations can cause an organism to be lethal. Look at the Influenza pandemic of 1918 which killed 40 million people. This is why we get flu shots (Influenza) http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/ every year based on the strain in China the previous year.

SARS, really just a mutation of a different virus, normally innocuous, now potentially lethal. Lethal plagues tend to recur at 75 year intervals to help the Earth clear out excess population.
Ok...Then how about this:

I&#39;ve been systematically poisoning the Dinosaurs&#39; water supply and in ten million years they will be totally extinct.


Try and stop me. ;)

However, radiation does cause mutation. DNA is still so little understood and small changes, (the right link knocked out of place), could have devastating results.

Look what happens to skin after just a few years of overexposure to sunlight.
Skin cancer.

Something is changed on the genetic level.
You can call it cancer but its a mutation of the dna of certain cells.

Strontium90 may kill organisms close to it, but what is the effect a medium distance from a source?
Virii do exist in the soil.
SARS is believed to have been the result of a melding of two harmless virii.
Farm animals were believed to be the source.
Greenhouse gases do keep the earth from being too cold at night and too hot in the daytime.
Strontium90 is the result of the decay of something else and the concentrations are higher recently.
Could be the decay of that haze I see in big cities due to the effect of UV radiation on Fossil Fuel Emissions. Since more UV rays are now allowed in due to a reduced Ozone layer, that would mean more skin cancer, more eye damage, more Strontium90 and an increase in the mutation rate of simple organisms.
More mutations would mean more deadly mutations too.

Of course, it could also just be that we are more aware now thanks to science of things that have been happening at the same rate the whole time.

Still a great idea for a book though.:)

Peace

I don&#39;t know...

[hobbes]

Bastard&#33; :D

It is Friday night and I refuse to piss on anyones parade, run with it&#33;&#33;&#33;

My chest feels so tight right now, probably nothing. Cough&#33;

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@16 May 2003 - 23:04
Bastard&#33; :D

It is Friday night and I refuse to piss on anyones parade, run with it&#33;&#33;&#33;

My chest feels so tight right now, probably nothing. Cough&#33;
Awe come&#39;on dude...Its no fun if you don&#39;t point out the fatal flaws in my logic. Someone could actually believe it. :unsure:

Since you won&#39;t, I&#39;ll do it myself. (I did some research) :)

Strontium90 is a byproduct of nuclear fission of Uranium and Plutonium. (I always want to capitalize important words for some reason)

It was never found in the environment prior to the nuclear age.

There is no research on whether it could result from any other sources.

EPA Strontium 90 Information (http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/strontium.htm)

Strontium90, (or any radioactive material for that matter), does cause genetic mutation and there have been unexpected increases in its levels over the past few years. Especially around areas of nuclear disasters and testing.
Haven&#39;t we recently learned of 3rd world countries having nuclear testing facilities?
Nuclear Testing Tally (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1998_05/ffmy98.asp)
The environmental impact of the Iraqi underground nuclear facility and whatever has been happening in Korea, India, Pakistan, China, who knows, with their nuclear testing, will not be truly realized for decades or more.

So I was WAY wrong about the source, but the effect is still the same.

Oh...and UV rays still cause their own forms of mutation and celular damage.

In any event, its not good and until we get the world under control, it will get worse.

Here&#39;s a good general source of info on the Ozone problem.

Global Warming (http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/sallen/Bio152/152chap18.pdf)

[ne1GotZardoz]

Can we get back to discussion of the Occult now? :)

I read an auto-bio of Crowley once.
Very smart man. Unusual character.

He tried so many different religions.
He even went on a Buddha binge once. Started to look like a Buddha too.

People accused him of being a satanist among other things.

He wasn&#39;t and he regreted not refuting the alegations after he was older.

He was an explorer basically.
He didn&#39;t take anything for granted. He studied ancient manuscripts and different religions trying to find the source. God, if you will.
He performed ancient rituals, (Very similar to the rituals performed by several saints and even by King Solomon himself), in an attempt to SEE something tangible that would prove to him that there was a world beyond the physical.
To prove that there was a Source for this reality.
To prove God.
But because people didn&#39;t understand, they accused him of devil worship and branded him a beast.

At the time, he enjoyed the privacy that gave him. Morons stay away from you if they think you&#39;ll curse their first-born son. But in his later life that privacy pretty much became exile for him.

He died a very sad and lonely man who had lived a most remarkable life.

Most people have a hard time grasping God through a single religion. He approached the Source from several paths.
Looking for the &#39;one&#39;.

I hope he found it.

I believe he did.

Peace

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@15 May 2003 - 18:33
To me, creating God to explain our existence simply differs the question. The question then becomes, who created God?

I&#39;ve heard the answer before, "he has always been and will always be, he is outside of time". Whatever. You either believe that or you don&#39;t, you can&#39;t discuss it any further. I call this "the black box".

So for me, by creating God, we explain a complex situation, by creating a more complex one.>


[/b]
I remember that argument. :)

I was 14 at the time. I was having problems believing in a God in any form so I was attempting to prove that we could exist without some controlling force.

I had created a mental model of the known universe and was pushing out away from it to see how far my mind would allow me to get.
Whenever I came upon a mental wall, I would try to imagine something beyond it.

What I came to believe is that we know absolutely nothing about reality.

We only know the reality we are given.

I mean Come&#39;on&#33;&#33;&#33;

The Universe was just Always here??? Always in motion???

Does anyone in here really understand what &#39;Always&#39; really means?

If Newtons laws of motion were right, then the Universe had to be Always in motion because it just could not have kick-started itself.

Chemical reactions do not occur if there is no motion at the molecular level.

Gases don&#39;t just float around in space and then suddenly come together and explode.

They had to come from somewhere.

If you believe that our reality is true reality and that the universe has been here...forever...why is God so hard to believe?

If the Universe HAS been here forever then I find it silly to believe that a God-form could not have evolved in all that End-less time.

And if the Universe has Not been here forever, something had to put it here.

Either way, I consider it inconceivable that there is not some greater controlling force out there.

I mean, does anyone really understand what Infinity is?
Lets do a small math quiz here for those who never really thought about it before...

What is half of Infinity?

What is 1/10th of Infinity?

What is 1/1000th of Infinity?

What is one, one millionth of 1% of Infinity?

The answer of course, in each of those questions, is &#39;Infinity&#39;.

So for me, Its very hard to believe that there is not a God in some form since the reality we are given cannot exist solely in and of itself.

But if the reality we are given to know, is true, I have to go back to the typewriting monkey syndrome and say simply that in an infinity of time, (just one small infinity of time), such a force would eventually evolve that could control it all.
Even if its only a universal consciousness. ;)

Peace

[Rat Faced]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz+17 May 2003 - 02:49--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ne1GotZardoz @ 17 May 2003 - 02:49)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--ToraBoraDweller@16 May 2003 - 14:48

I have The An**chists Cookbook.

I knew you were a religious man&#33;
The partaking of human flesh is practized by animists.
(believed by many to be very primitive ppl :rolleyes: )

(I remembered that book because someone mentioned it recently in a thread about the F*B.I,
I can&#39;t even find my own old posts more than 10 ago)
LOL I hope you were joking.

If not, I&#39;m curious to know how you got &#39;Animist&#39; from &#39;An**chist&#39;.

:)

Peace [/b][/quote]
I think he&#39;s thinking of a different type of book.

To anyone else out there that thinks the same......Im not into human flesh (unless its female and I dont have to digest it ;) )

[hobbes]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz+17 May 2003 - 11:54--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ne1GotZardoz @ 17 May 2003 - 11:54)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--hobbes@15 May 2003 - 18:33
To me, creating God to explain our existence simply differs the question.&nbsp; The question then becomes, who created God?

I&#39;ve heard the answer before, "he has always been and will always be, he is outside of time".&nbsp; Whatever.&nbsp; You either believe that or you don&#39;t, you can&#39;t discuss it any further.&nbsp; I call this "the black box".

So for me, by creating God, we explain a complex situation, by creating a more complex one.>


[/b]
What I came to believe is that we know absolutely nothing about reality.

We only know the reality we are given.

I mean Come&#39;on&#33;&#33;&#33;


They had to come from somewhere.

If you believe that our reality is true reality and that the universe has been here...forever...why is God so hard to believe?

If the Universe HAS been here forever then I find it silly to believe that a God-form could not have evolved in all that End-less time.

And if the Universe has Not been here forever, something had to put it here.

Either way, I consider it inconceivable that there is not some greater controlling force out there.


So for me, Its very hard to believe that there is not a God in some form since the reality we are given cannot exist solely in and of itself.

Peace[/b][/quote]

You have basically stated that the origin of the universe is unknown.
How could all of this just arisen from nothing.
The scope is so huge that it hard to fathom.

I say, "man this is hard to explain, maybe science in time will reveal the clues, as of now this is a mystery" Look at the progress made in the last 200 years. We hadn&#39;t even discovered microrganisms then and blamed illnesses on sin and tried to cure the body by blood letting. Now we genetically program these organisms to serve mankind. That is just the tip of the scientific iceberg. All fields of science have grown as exponentially in that time period. So, on the chance we don&#39;t kill ourselves first, imagine the knowledge we will have in 1 million years. 1 million years is nothing, as you say, in the scale of infinity.


You just threw your hands up and said, "C&#39;mon, this is some crazy shit here. How could it just be and always have been?" Sure, this may suggest a higher power, but PROVES nothing, except that we don&#39;t understand. Creating God is called EJECTING from the process of thought. Makes everything all better.

So by creating God, you prove nothing and explain a complex situation by creating a more complex one. Can you fathom the Theory of Relativity? Me neither, but it works. God is a default, not an answer. Where did matter come from, well where did God come from?




Unfortunately, OUR universe is not eternal. The Earth can only exist because of our Sun. We use the energy it sends us to propagate life. The Sun is a finite object and will eventually extinquish or explode. In fact the entire Universe is in a process of converting potential energy (that which can perform work) into thermal heat. Eventually, all energy will be dissipated and all work(life) will cease.

So even if there were a God, his plan would necessarilty include the destruction of the Earth at some point, which is very early in the concept of infinity, even if it is 200 trillion years away. Yeah, I know, the second coming of Christ will intervene before this time. Don&#39;t even get me started on organized Religion which believes that God wrote a book for them.

Stephen Hawking sort of sums up the universe this way (I&#39;m skipping the quark/anti-quark part):

1) We start as an object of infinite mass and infinite density. At some point the repulsive forces of the matter outweigh the attractive forces and it explodes, dispersing matter into the universe.

2) Currently the universe is expanding, astronomers claim they know this by the "red shift" of the stars they view.

3) Eventually the repulsive forces will become balanced with the attractive forces and the Universe will cease to expand. As the attrative forces start to dominate the universe will begin to contract.

4) This will eventually lead to the creation of the object of infinite mass and density (and the obligate destruction of Earth in this process).

5) The cycle repeats.

Kind of fits nicely into the theme of infinity. Like a coiled spring, the universe expands and contracts over and over.


There is so much that I do not understand and science cannot explain, this; however, does not prove that a God exists. Could he, sure. I can&#39;t disprove it. In fact, if he does exist, I would be elated.

[hobbes]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz@17 May 2003 - 10:40

Strontium90 is a byproduct of nuclear fission of Uranium and Plutonium. (I always want to capitalize important words for some reason)

It was never found in the environment prior to the nuclear age.


Strontium90, (or any radioactive material for that matter), does cause genetic mutation and there have been unexpected increases in its levels over the past few years. Especially around areas of nuclear disasters and testing.
Haven&#39;t we recently learned of 3rd world countries having nuclear testing facilities?
Nuclear Testing Tally (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1998_05/ffmy98.asp)


So I was WAY wrong about the source, but the effect is still the same.

Oh...and UV rays still cause their own forms of mutation and celular damage.



Global Warming (http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/sallen/Bio152/152chap18.pdf)
As this is a forum, I try to keep my posts readable and not too long, so I try to stay away from details when possible. This can lead to vagarity and confusion.


You were playing with the idea that viruses exposed to Strontium90, might be mutated into lethal variants (HIV, SARS). Simple organisms of this type are going to be destroyed by the radiation, rather than mutated. In fact, radiation is used commercially to sterilize materials, specifically to kill viruses. In more complex organisms Strontium can cause mutations, just like any other source of ionizing radiation.

Strontium can only harm you if you come into contact with it. It only travels a few cm in the air before it&#39;s energy is absorbed. So you really have to be holding the stuff to have any effect. Almost all of that effect will be on the skin.

Now if it got into your water and you drank it, you would die, so don&#39;t do that, ok.


As for UV light, I was referring to the atmosphere, not humans, when I stated that all it does is warm things up. Guess I got a little sloppy.

You are right, UV light, when absorbed by the skin, causes certain specific molecules to form unwanted bonds which can lead to mutation and cancer. Just use sunscreen.

Just remember that UV light and Sr90 are very different in amount of energy they can impart. It is like comparing feathers to bunker busters. Anyway, that is a different , but interesting story.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@17 May 2003 - 10:14
You have basically stated that the origin of the universe is unknown.
How could all of this just arisen from nothing.
The scope is so huge that it hard to fathom.


:)

Ok...You&#39;re suggesting a Cirtical Mass thing. As everything falls back to the center of the universe, it builds up a mass that cannot support its own weight and begins collapsing, much like a black hole which was a star that collapsed under its own weight.

A Super Vortex perhaps?

Sucking everything in faster and faster as its gravitational field becomes so powerful that it reaches to the farthest edges of the Universe, (where are these edges at I wonder), until it builds up such as mass that matter and energy are one. But the process isn&#39;t over because matter and energy are still falling into it. At some point, another collapse occurs, this one resulting in the greatest event of all time. Not the big bang. Thats what spawned our solar system.

Not even the Bigger Bang.

That was our Galaxy.

This one was the biggest bang of all...The Gang Bang&#33;&#33;&#33;

Every star, planet, galaxy, cloud of gas, all joining together in one final moment of universal harmony as the cycle begins again.


Oh...And Relativity is easy enough.

Its just Einstein&#39;s way of explaining the relationship of two objects moving at different rates of speed in a slow moving universe.

If I am on earth and I wave my hands at exactly 5pm on Tuesday, and then I hop into my space ship and accelerate to Warp 3 for 1 minute, when I turn around and take out my pocket telescope and look back at earth, I will see myself heading up the hill to the spaceship, turn, look up at the stars, wave my hand then hop in my spaceship and accelerate at warp 3 toward myself.

Time and speed are relative to the observer.

If I&#39;m in a spaceship travelling at warp 3 and my son hops in his spaceship and travels at warp 5, (you know kids these days), then relative to me, he&#39;s traveling at warp two, and relative to him, I&#39;m travelling backwards at warp two.

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@17 May 2003 - 10:42
You were playing with the idea that viruses exposed to Strontium90, might be mutated into lethal variants (HIV, SARS). Simple organisms of this type are going to be destroyed by the radiation, rather than mutated. In fact, radiation is used commercially to sterilize materials, specifically to kill viruses.&nbsp; In more complex organisms Strontium can cause mutations, just like any other source of ionizing radiation.

Strontium can only harm you if you come into contact with it.&nbsp; It only travels a few cm in the air before it&#39;s energy is absorbed.&nbsp; So you really have to be holding the stuff to have any effect.&nbsp; Almost all of that effect will be on the skin.


This is just theory of course on my part, but if you have potentially trillions of bacteria and virii being attacked daily by radioactive isotopes including Sr90 and UV, (I know its not an isotope but it does have an effect), isn&#39;t it realistic to assume that a fraction of a percent result in mutation instead of destruction?

And of that fraction of a percent, isn&#39;t it possible that, oh, every 75 years or so, a mutation occurs that is exceptionally destructive to other organisms?

We did an experiment in grade school science class once with pond water and a very powerful microscope.
The experiment was to prove that boiling the water would kill any organisms in it.

First we looked at the sample to see all the little critters swimming happily around.
Then we boiled it and looked at it again.
Everything was dead except for one unexpectedly hardy little critter. He wasn&#39;t very active but he was definately still alive.

There are exceptions to every rule.

Mutations do occur.:)

As for Sr90, it works its way up the food chain according to those links I posted earlier.

Our body sees it the same as calcium and parks it in our bones where it affects our bones, teeth, blood.

I would guess that high concentrations could kill rather quickly. Fortunately those levels are not common and its half-life is 29 years.

At the low levels it exists in humans, it causes genetic defects in children and cancers or tumors in adults.


Peace

[hobbes]

C&#39;mon now, give me a little credit, I understand what the theory implies. I&#39;m just saying that if I had a paper and pencil, I would never be able to derive that time was not a constant.

His theory sort of messed with people minds it was so revolutionary. Here we had something we thought was understood and was constant (TIME) and he turned us on our ears.

Talk about confidence, his theory was not scientifically validated until many years after his death.

Don&#39;t be dissin&#39; ol&#39; Einstein with "Relativity is easy enough", you disrespect him. B)



As far as the other stuff, sure, anything is possible. It is even possible that some God waved his hand and created the whole universe.

People just tend to get a little hystrical when it comes to "radioactivity". The link gives you a breakdown of your radiation exposure sources. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/gl...y/exposure.html (http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/exposure.html) Sr90 is sort of in the 0.3% category.

The amusing thing is that when you go to the hospital and your doctor decides to get x-rays and CT scans of your body, he is subjecting you to much more radiation than you will ever get from SR90.

Maybe SARS came from someone with normal pneumonia who got a chest x-ray, which mutated it into SARS.
How about them apples?



So anyway, you were talking about Crowley? All I know about him is that Led Zepplin rented a house he lived in to write an album. Not much else.

Crowley, like many people, seems to have spent his life looking for the "holy grail".

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@17 May 2003 - 12:37
So anyway, you were talking about Crowley? All I know about him is that Led Zepplin rented a house he lived in to write an album. Not much else.

Crowley, like many people, seems to have spent his life looking for the "holy grail".
You sir, are a very interesting person.

I&#39;m curious about your rabbit. Did you draw a rabbits face on the rump of a rabbit or on a picture of the rump of a rabbit?:)

As for Crowley, yes, thats pretty much it.

He founded a few religious orders, probably by accident. The Ordo Templi, which for some reason, I cannot remember right now if it is the same as the Golden Dawn or two separate groups, but they were the main ones.

When they became mired in their own ritualistic dogma, he moved on to other things.

Like I said, he was an explorer. Seeking enlightenment. The quest for Universal truth.

My religious beliefs based on my limited experiences leads me to believe that if anyone could find their way into the light, he would be one who did.

I don&#39;t think he would linger very long in hell.
He was much too restless for that.

Have you ever experienced anything you couldn&#39;t explain? I&#39;m talking about what some would define as supernatural experience?

[hobbes]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz@17 May 2003 - 19:18


I&#39;m curious about your rabbit. Did you draw a rabbits face on the rump of a rabbit or on a picture of the rump of a rabbit?:)


Have you ever experienced anything you couldn&#39;t explain? I&#39;m talking about what some would define as supernatural experience?
Too be honest, I never have. But I must admit to being a horror movie and book fan. I love a good old fashioned haunted house story.

Anyway, keep things stirred up on the forum. Unfortunately, my rabbit http://www.mordenart.com/rabbit.JPG and I are off to work until late. :(

[ToraBoraDweller]

Intermezzo:

Animism : probably the first form of religion;people contribute supernatural powers to
all objects around them mostly trees,mountains,rivers etc.
It&#39;s also known that these people practiced cannibalism : therefor the link.


What is half of Infinity?

What is 1/10th of Infinity?

What is 1/1000th of Infinity?

What is one, one millionth of 1% of Infinity?

The answer of course, in each of those questions, is &#39;Infinity&#39;.

This is a paradox similar to the one of Zeno :about Achilles and the turtle. ;)

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by ToraBoraDweller@17 May 2003 - 14:39

This is a paradox similar to the one of Zeno :about Achilles and the turtle. ;)
Achilles and the turtle?

Not fair dude.

You have to tell us the story now. :)

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes+17 May 2003 - 14:01--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (hobbes @ 17 May 2003 - 14:01)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--ne1GotZardoz@17 May 2003 - 19:18

Have you ever experienced anything you couldn&#39;t explain? I&#39;m talking about what some would define as supernatural experience?

Too be honest, I never have. But I must admit to being a horror movie and book fan. I love a good old fashioned haunted house story.

[/b][/quote]
I don&#39;t mean ghosts, anything like that.

I&#39;m talking about anything that you know it happened, but you&#39;re not sure how or why.

Most people who develop an interest in the Occult do so because of some experience they had.

Something they couldn&#39;t explain but that left them feeling there was some mystery to be solved.
A level of reality that they had gained a momentary glimpse of.

The first book I ever read on the subject of the Occult, was by Colin Wilson and it was aptly titled, &#39;The Occult&#39;.

Reading it gave me the feeling that he was a realist, but his experiences were definately beyond accepted reality.

If you ever get a chance, Its worth reading.

I read it in 1975 or 76. Shortly after my age 14 experiences.

[fallenknight308]

I will just say this:

I have the heart of a pagan, the soul of a poet, and the mind of a warrior&#33;

None of you can truly deny the existence of a creative force in the universe.
As you look around you, take in the wonders of nature, and its magnificent construct&#33;
I have spoken&#33;

[ne1GotZardoz]

Well, there are true psychics, people do have those experiences.

I&#39;m not sure if there is anyone with a level of control over their psychic experiences or not, (I had no control over mine), but I know that there are things that happen that go beyond the explainations of science.

I&#39;ve seen several books on the subject of controlling psychic ability.

I am not convinced that its an ability. I think of it more as a phenomenon.
A window to another reality that we occasionally get a glimpse of.
That the phenomenon most often occur at times of impending doom or, suggests that there may be a controlling mechanism at work to make sure that there is a phenomenon to accompany a major happening.

Of course, it could also be that the phenomenon is only really noticed when there was a memorable event to accompany it.

Edgar Cassey <sp> wrote several books on the subject. I could never get into them though. Any more than I could get into Maddam Blavatski&#39;s Theosophy thing.

Nothing against anyone who is a member of that order, but my information on Blavatski from several books, including Colin Wilson&#39;s &#39;The Occult&#39;, suggests that she had several true experiences but got caught in what I like to call, "James Baker Syndrome". ;)
An ?Indian? mystic she went to study under turned her away, because her focus was on the phenomenon, and not on the attainment of oneness. He said basically, that as you travel the path, the phenomenon will occur, (almost like a side-effect), but if you focus on the phenomenon, you will lose your way. Blavatski&#39;s whole focus was very much on the phenomenon and he could not teach her.
Her account of the incident was a bit different. She said he taught her. And that she was in constant psychic communication with him.

You remember Jim Baker? A very deeply religious man. Strong beliefs. Caught up in the fame and fortune and Tammy Fae&#39;s Eyelashes.
The ultimate fall from grace.

Whatever happened to him? Is he still in jail?

[ToraBoraDweller]

Achilles was challenged to a race with a turtle that got a little headstart.
Now Zeno points out that each time when Achilles reaches the point where the
turtle is , the turtle has moved on so that he never can overtake him. :(

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by ToraBoraDweller@18 May 2003 - 10:41
Achilles was challenged to a race with a turtle that got a little headstart.
Now Zeno points out that each time when Achilles reaches the point where the
turtle is , the turtle has moved on so that he never can overtake him. :(
Maybe instead of running to the point the turtle was at, he should have run to the finish line. :)

Was this race before or after Achilles had his tendon cut?

[hobbes]

Achilles was shot in the ankle by Paris while praying, then he died.

I think it was before this event.

Can you imagine how stupid his mother must have felt?

So you dip your child in the river of immortality, the only thing not protected is the ankle, because that is what you are using to hold the child. Why not just put your hand under water and make him totally immortal? Some people are so stupid, even if they are Gods&#33;

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by hobbes@18 May 2003 - 17:29
Achilles was shot in the ankle by Paris while praying, then he died.

I think it was before this event.

Can you imagine how stupid his mother must have felt?

So you dip your child in the river of immortality, the only thing not protected is the ankle, because that is what you are using to hold the child. Why not just put your hand under water and make him totally immortal? Some people are so stupid, even if they are Gods&#33;
I vaguely remember the story from my school years.

I&#39;m wondering if there is some reason why she could not get her hands in the river.

Still, all she needed to do was throw the kid in.

I mean, its not like he would have drowned since it turned him immortal.:)

And if only his feet were not immortal, why did the rest of him die?

I forget...Was it a poison arrow?

[MagicNakor]

His mother wasn&#39;t a god but a Nereid. But there are two versions: the dipping in the Styx version (which is the later version of the story), and the earlier one, in which Thetis covered him in ambrosia and then put him on a fire to burn away the mortal parts. Would&#39;ve worked, except his father came back in and caught her. This enraged Thetis, so she abandoned Achilles and his father Peleus. ;)


Edit: No, it wasn&#39;t a poison arrow. He died because it was his only weak point.

:ninja:

[ToraBoraDweller]

The theme of immortality with a loophole also shows up in other cultures.
One example in German mythology is Siegfried who took a bath in dragons blood
an oak leaf fell unnoticed on his shoulder thus leaving a vulnerable spot with
as we know dear consequences. :)

[MagicNakor]

Yup, most peoples have similar stories.

:ninja:

[ne1GotZardoz]

Originally posted by MagicNakor@20 May 2003 - 07:20
Yup, most peoples have similar stories.

:ninja:
Kinda suspicious, that.

Makes one wonder if parents were preparing their children for inevitability.
No matter what you do, you&#39;re still gonna die. :)

[tianup]

Originally posted by ne1GotZardoz+24 May 2003 - 03:09--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ne1GotZardoz @ 24 May 2003 - 03:09)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--MagicNakor@20 May 2003 - 07:20
Yup, most peoples have similar stories.

:ninja:
Kinda suspicious, that.

Makes one wonder if parents were preparing their children for inevitability.
No matter what you do, you&#39;re still gonna die. :) [/b][/quote]
At least it&#39;s a fairly imaginative and not so depressing way to teach a fundamental truth....

[ToraBoraDweller]

The &#39;truth&#39; probably would be more likely that in above story Siegfried sat down on a leaf
and it got stuck to his bum &#33; ;)
And so the circle is round again ,we are back to the obscure. :)

[tianup]

Interesting turn this thread has taken - from the occult and the existential dilemna to "leaf stuck to bum". :D :lol: :blink: :D

[ne1GotZardoz]

It is difficult to stay on a single track with such a broad subject as this. :)

Its really not that broad at the end of the story though.

Remember what the blind man said to Cord in "The Silent Flute", AKA, "Circle of Iron"?

"All paths leading to the gate are forgotten once the objective is in sight".

Bruce Lee may not have been a very good actor, but I love his philosophy there.

But then, the cultures of the Orient have been at the whole philosophy thing for a few thousand years more than any of the rest of us.

I feel that the religions of those regions are probably truest to their original form. The rest of the world religions were pretty much destroyed by Christianity.

Hey...What did the Muslims believe before Mohammed?

It seems to me that both Mohammed and Jesus came from the same region to create the two fastest rising root religions on earth.

I don&#39;t consider Christianity to derive from Mosaic law because true Christianity holds the believe that Jesus came to bring us out from under the law into an age of love and forgiveness.

Basically, its a replacement and the Catholic Church through the Crusades, attempted, (and almost succeeded), to supplant all other religions of the world with itself.

Now its the Bible versus the Koran with Oriental mysticism waiting on the sidelines for us to wipe each other out in the much heralded battle of the appocalypse.

[ToraBoraDweller]

Maybe a pragmatic footnote ??
The world has become a smaller place because of technology and mankind can&#39;t
keep up with technological advancement. :(

Now and then I really have to admire the &#39;ancients&#39; they may be
more clever than we are. :unsure:

[tianup]

Interesting.... The Eastern vs. Western philosophies and their many mixtures that exist now are harder to evaluate today, due IMHO, to the fact that so many of us "collect" beliefs and philosophies in the attempt to find something that a) makes sense to us, and b ) that we can impress others with. It&#39;s somewhat ironic, that in this "information age", it is more about the knowledge and appropriation of these philosophies, than the understanding and enlightenment that they can allow us to achieve.

The trend of "bigger, faster, better..." now encompasses every facet of the western, and some of the eastern world. The looking outward for understanding and knowledge, as opposed to the looking inward.

It might have also been Bruce Lee who said something along the lines of "any man can control and understand others, it is the understanding and control of ones self which represents true enlightenment."