Naturalistic philosophy denies life?

[Alex Jacob]

You are pretty confusing, Kevin. Your philosophy stems from a naturalistic model, yet you define a kind of asceticism. I don't see a place for this asceticism in a naturalistic model. And really, it is not omly women who should logically avoid intimacy with a man who refuses to participate in the economy of life---and I seem to remember reading that you (plural) were getting checks from the government, and did not earn you own money, which also indicates it is likely that in other stages of your life you will be wards of the state---but without some level of financial development, many possibilities are reduced, there are all sorts of things one cannot do. Someone wrote that theology and economy are two extremes where the realities of life are expressed. Just as one needs and benefits from a developed theology, so one needs a developed economy. One enables 'spiritual' movement, the other physical movement.

It seems that you have opted significantly not to participate in life, to will yourself out of it, and yet your will is still functioning: to convince others to do what you have done, to find value in that.

The odd thing about your revelations is that they do not connect with life, they do not work on the context of life, and lead only to a sort of contempt for life.

[skipair]

Alex,

I'm sure Kevin can speak for himself, but I'm a little surprised that you keep coming from this angle and seem to be stuck where you are. I see you've taken some time to write on that cui bono thread. I haven't read it much because frankly I have next to zero interest in those things. But I probably would if I was brought up jewish. There are things about being a jew that I simply have no idea about, just as there are things about living a philosophic life like Kevin's that I have no idea about. I don't really think it is more complicated than that.

Instead of coming from the same perspective and butting heads against someone with another, you gotta put in the effort to change your own perspective to find out if it has any validity. And to be honest, it looks like you've put in next to no effort. Maybe you do all the thinking off the board and then leave no trace when you come back on and write up your doubt-report, but it doesn't seem likely. I can sympathize GREATLY with doubt alone, and I think one would be crazy not to have it, but without effort to confirm it, there is only laziness. Pesonally, I would rather work hard to really confirm my own ideas (not with feelings, but with reason) and prove they in fact were the lazy ones. But to be honest with myself, I haven't really done that. Have you?

[Alex Jacob]

The reason that I do 'butt heads' (although I wouldn't describe it like that) is because I think I DO understand a great deal about the position, or at least I think I do. While I would never describe myself as a 'sage', for a long time I think I would have articulated some values and views similar to those of Kevin and others here, I think they are a part of youth and immaturity as opposed to that of 'age' and maturity. To be truthful, in many ways, some of these attitudes and activities have become habits of my life, and in some areas I feel I have lost or sacrificed a great deal bacause of these 'mistaken attitudes'. Does that change the way you view my position?

The origin of Buddhism and so much of 'eastern religion' has a root in the vedas, and the early vedas share an interesting similarity to some of the root and core ideas of early Judaism. The vedas, at least in my reading of them, are not 'transcendental' in the way it later evolved, but have to do with living life in the here and now, in a magical world, with tremendous potencies that surround or inform the world.

Making oneself weaker, limiting oneself because of pet positions in the mind, avoiding, if you will, the responsibility of a man in creating something tangible in this earth-plane, and discovering the right way to live, and a way to relate to the rest of humanity that struggles on these paths, that is what it means to 'be a man'. I say that these values represented by Kevin and others seem to me like 'false values' or values of negation, and that is why I question them, or poke at them.

What is your position?

[Laird]

Alex,

This post is just a quickie to let you know that I think that you're nailing it really well and that I very much agree with what you write of the QRS approach, which is fundamentally an attitude of denial: denial of the value of women; denial of the role of the ego; denial of the importance of engaging in life; denial of the importance of engaging with others; denial of the value and role of emotion... the list of denialisms is pretty much endless. That is why in the thread "The distress of rape" I charged Dan with being in denial of his humanity.

Laird

[Kelly Jones]

The vedas, at least in my reading of them, are not 'transcendental' in the way it later evolved, but have to do with living life in the here and now, in a magical world, with tremendous potencies that surround or inform the world.

Yajnavalkya is credited with authorship of the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, one of the older, "primary" Upanishads. Apparently, it's one of the old (if not the oldest) texts of the Upanishad corpus, dating to roughly the 8th to 7th centuries BCE.

There are a few gems in it, that have nothing to do with a magical world. For instance, it talks of the Atman (the true Self):

This, which is nearer to us than anything, this Self, is dearer than a son, dearer than wealth, dearer than all else.

And if one were to say to one who declares another than the Self dear, that he will lose what is dear to him, very likely it would be so. Let him worship the Self alone as dear. He who worships the Self alone as dear, the object of his love will never perish

That's pretty darn clear, wouldn't you say? A magical world can perish, as it is an appearance only, but the Self that is present in all worlds and appearances, cannot perish.


Here the famous notion of "neti, neti" (not this, not this) is first found:

Next follows the teaching (of Brahman) by No, no! for there is nothing else higher than this (if one says): 'It is not so.' Then comes the name 'the True of the True,' the senses being the True, and he (the Brahman) the True of them.

Of course, "neti, neti" doesn't mean, nothing or nothingness is True. He means, any appearance is not the Atman. One must keep rejecting appearances ruthlessly, to see the True.


Kelly

[Alex Jacob]

No part of what I wrote negates that these Vedas referred to the Atman or an imperishable core, and in no sense am I denying that, or setting up a polarization as against the paths of that level of realization, which seem the paths of sanyasis, complete renunciants, and not necesarily internet connected university students, or Australian dharma bums, readers of Weininger and Nietzsche, and other odd types that gravitate to this truly odd site for illuminating conversation, and to represent their crystal doctrines to the ignorant.

But the mood of the Vedas, or one of the moods that can be identified, is one of a simple, childlike wonder at the world, a looking on the world and simply being overawed and deeply inspired by what one sees. Another mood is looking at the fate of all living beings, but especially the fate of conscious humans, and simply being horrified in the way that all things end, in terrible and merciless death, in a sort of futility in the face of the wonder of creation.

It is out of a huge assortment of different 'moods' or thoughts (realizations) that the religious and spiritual propositions arose, the ritual recommendations, the ethical recommendations, the conceptions that gave birth to the structure of sacrificial offering, ways of articulating divinity and divine potentials, systems of ethics devised or divined for different groups of people within society (it is a complete folly to assume that all people should be or can be sanyasis or renunciants, or even that they have the time, interest or disposition to delve into some of the outer mysteries of life).

And additionally, and I think importantly, these Vedas engendered ideas about political and social structure and sought to order human life in a cohesive way, so that different parts would best serve their function, and that their was a general flow of energy toward, a contribution to, the 'higher' and better elements within society, and with the renunciant and the one capable of this realization as perhaps the highest expression.

But there were many different levels articulated, not just one level, and not just one realization, and not just one path, and not just one dharma. And there is a branch of realization, if you will, or an articulation of realization, which does not at all negate 'the world', or constructing within the world, or achieving and managing wealth within the world, or marrying, or having a family, or engaging with society.

The effect of the hindu gurus and teachers, and maybe for so many of the different teachings that have been dropped on the West, have come, I submit, as incomplete portions of whole traditions, and have more often than not attracted extremist practitioners or those with extremist tendencies, and it is really rather difficult for a mere portion of a whole to gain a root that makes any sense, that is not escapist or separatist, or reactionary or regressive, or that potentially leads not to wholeness but to fragmentation, not to well-being but to something else. There has been a long and rather strange dalliance with the Eastern ideas which has had a rather strange overall effect, don't you think? What is one to make of Westerners who seek to take up residence within imlanted, foreign traditions? (I think I can say at least something about this since my own family up and went to live in India when I was 13-14).

What I was trying to point out about the early Vedas is that some of these 'seers' or 'rishis' proposed sensible, balanced means of living life while one also pursued or honored the divine, and sought to create a social order that had 'the sacrificial fire' at the center, and that nurtured human life and the human spirit. I hear nothing of this here, and see evidence of unbalanced young men, principally, who think they know a great deal and are sort of high on themselves...

How does that fit in with what you think?
________________________________

Cheers Laird, thank you for the acknowledgement!

[Carl G]

Alex and Laird,

QRS are ascetics. It is a viable path. Leave them alone.

[daybrown]

There is increasingly ongoing work digging in Central Asia, which some of us realize was the source of the Vedas. i have a copy of the privately published: "Did the Proto-Indo-European Priesthood Commit Treason in the Era of PIE Unity?"

Could use a catchier title. But this thin volume is a masterful piece of scholarship showing phrases, rituals, wardrobe, and customs that are shared by the clerics in India, Germany, Rome, Greece, & the Norse.

The common source for all these traditions started out in the Danube delta over 7000 years ago, but then, with the domestication of the horse, spread out into Central Asia 6000 years ago. They are starting to find cities abandoned to the Kara Kum desert before the Egyptian Pyramids.

There's a reason the Vedas make reference to such long time spans. Their civilization had been around a couple thousand years before the Egyptians, Sumerians, or Indians knew anything about them. The Magi came from the "East". This is that East. Only by the time of Jesus, it'd already moved even further east, all the way to the Jade Gate.

In any case, now that we know where the Vedas were written, we are learning something of their cowboy lifestyle, the round ups they had, and their own versions of Dodge city 5000 years ago. Mostly it was all about sex, drugs, rock & roll. But sometimes the altered state of consciousness produced spiritual insights.

Vatsyayana spends some time advising the Shakti to maintain contact with a man's family so that the cost of her services dont create financial hardship. This would seem to bear on why so many of the women dug up from this era were so rich. They didnt need to rely on just one man.

[David Quinn]

QRS are ascetics.

Only with respect to illusions.

-

[David Quinn]

Alex,

This post is just a quickie to let you know that I think that you're nailing it really well and that I very much agree with what you write of the QRS approach, which is fundamentally an attitude of denial: denial of the value of women; denial of the role of the ego; denial of the importance of engaging in life; denial of the importance of engaging with others; denial of the value and role of emotion... the list of denialisms is pretty much endless.

Our openness to truth is also endless.

The denial of truth is a far greater sin than the ones you listed.

-

[David Quinn]

The reason that I do 'butt heads' (although I wouldn't describe it like that) is because I think I DO understand a great deal about the position, or at least I think I do.

You are pretty confusing, Kevin.

This does not compute.

-

[Carl G]

The common source for all these traditions started out in the Danube delta over 7000 years ago, but then, with the domestication of the horse, spread out into Central Asia 6000 years ago. They are starting to find cities abandoned to the Kara Kum desert before the Egyptian Pyramids.

The domestication of the horse rapidly precipitated the inventions of the bathroom and the giant flush toilet. People quickly learned that he who has horses around the house better have an efficient way of dealing with their bodily waste.

In any case, now that we know where the Vedas were written, we are learning something of their cowboy lifestyle, the round ups they had, and their own versions of Dodge city 5000 years ago. Mostly it was all about sex, drugs, rock & roll. But sometimes the altered state of consciousness produced spiritual insights.

George Lucas tapped into this history when he created that strange cafe in space in the first Star Wars movie, and named his main character Darth Veda.

Vatsyayana spends some time advising the Shakti to maintain contact with a man's family so that the cost of her services dont create financial hardship. This would seem to bear on why so many of the women dug up from this era were so rich. They didnt need to rely on just one man.

Yes, and this where we got the phrase (Dude to other dude, "I have a new girlfriend, she's ugly but rich"), "Wow, where'd you dig her up?"

[Kevin Solway]

You are pretty confusing, Kevin. Your philosophy stems from a naturalistic model, yet you define a kind of asceticism. I don't see a place for this asceticism in a naturalistic model.

It is natural that some people want to live free of illusions, so it is still naturalistic.

And really, it is not only women who should logically avoid intimacy with a man who refuses to participate in the economy of life

Does a spiritual man not participate in the economy of life?

If a person contributes to the spiritual well-being of his fellow man then I regard that to be a contribution to the economy - even when nobody is willing to pay anything for it in a free market.

I seem to remember reading that you (plural) were getting checks from the government, and did not earn you own money, which also indicates it is likely that in other stages of your life you will be wards of the state

Personally I've been earning a small income from computer software for the last ten years or so, but that's only because I'm able to do it with very little work.

--but without some level of financial development, many possibilities are reduced, there are all sorts of things one cannot do.

There are also a great many things a person cannot do if they are working for their whole life, and have to conform, to some extent, to the expectations of others.

Haven't you heard that a genius is one who can do anything except make a living?

The odd thing about your revelations is that they do not connect with life, they do not work on the context of life, and lead only to a sort of contempt for life.

I don't have contempt for my own life, or for the life of the Buddha, or Jesus, or for the life of a child or an animal. I only have contempt for lies, dishonesty, hypocrisy, narrow-mindedness, etc.

The responsibility of a man in creating something tangible in this earth-plane, and discovering the right way to live, and a way to relate to the rest of humanity that struggles on these paths, that is what it means to 'be a man'.

Take Jesus and the Buddha as an example, and assuming they were wise. Was what they created tangible or intangible?

Intangible I would say. But the intangible creates the tangible.

[Laird]

QRS are ascetics.

I can't speak of David because I don't know much of his situation. I do know that Dan drinks a reasonable amount of alcohol and lives with a woman. This is not the behaviour of an ascetic. Kevin enjoys a game of golf, travels, enjoys good food and indulges occasionally in the odd drop of alcohol. Neither is this the behaviour of an ascetic.

Leave them alone.

QRS chose to make themselves public figures. I disagree strongly with a lot of their teachings and I believe that they have an unhealthy effect on many of the troubled souls who come seeking at this forum. They are fair game.

[Kelly Jones]

No part of what I wrote negates that these Vedas referred to the Atman or an imperishable core, and in no sense am I denying that, or setting up a polarization as against the paths of that level of realization,

Atman isn't an "imperishable core". It doesn't have an inner and an outer, because it is everything.

Again, from the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad:

As the spider comes out with its thread, or as small sparks come forth from fire, thus do all senses, all worlds, all Devas, all beings come forth from that Self. The Upanishad (the true name and doctrine) of that Self is 'the True of the True.' Verily the senses are the true, and he is the true of the true.

He says "the senses are the true". Meaning, they are manifestations of the Atman. The Atman's imperishability is present there.

It is out of a huge assortment of different 'moods' or thoughts (realizations) that the religious and spiritual propositions arose, the ritual recommendations, the ethical recommendations, the conceptions that gave birth to the structure of sacrificial offering, ways of articulating divinity and divine potentials, systems of ethics devised or divined for different groups of people within society (it is a complete folly to assume that all people should be or can be sanyasis or renunciants, or even that they have the time, interest or disposition to delve into some of the outer mysteries of life).

Let's break this down.

It is out of a huge assortment of different 'moods' or thoughts (realizations) that the religious and spiritual propositions arose

That may be. But a mood or thought is perishable, so it is not the Atman.

the ritual recommendations, the ethical recommendations, the conceptions that gave birth to the structure of sacrificial offering, ways of articulating divinity and divine potentials,

All perishable things are manifestations of the imperishable divine, such as a mood, or a behaviour.

But one must first know the divine, and only then will one's behaviour be "royal".

The method has to be right. If we focus on the Relative, we will not find the Absolute.

systems of ethics devised or divined for different groups of people within society

I think it's likely that almost every scripture in existence has been contaminated by these 'moods' of cowardly monks. Either that, or a wise man slyly slipped in a nugget, where the majority of cowards would overlook it !

Sadly, that is what I believe we're seeing in the Upanishads. It is mostly jam-packed with human morality, boring prescriptions, and so on. It might be that generations of cowardly monks thought, "It is not for me, the life of a Man of Truth", and created all kinds of devious holes to hide in.

But who am I to accuse Nature?

But there were many different levels articulated, not just one level, and not just one realization, and not just one path, and not just one dharma.

There is only one Atman.

And there is a branch of realization, if you will, or an articulation of realization, which does not at all negate 'the world',

Is this world imperishable? Is it the same as the Atman ?

If it isn't, I don't want to know about it.

it is really rather difficult for a mere portion of a whole to gain a root that makes any sense, that is not escapist or separatist, or reactionary or regressive, or that potentially leads not to wholeness but to fragmentation, not to well-being but to something else.

I agree fervently.



Kelly

[Alex Jacob]

Looks pretty awesome, daybrown. Makes me want to go. Is it like that all year round? ;-) http://www.aboutromania.com/danube00.html
_________________________________________________

Hi Kevin, you wrote:

"Take Jesus and the Buddha as an example, and assuming they were wise. Was what they created tangible or intangible?

It is very hard for me, and I don't see how anyone really can, respond to 'Jesus' of the Gospels as if he were a real person. He is a character in a play. Pretty serious scholarship indicates that only a small percentage of what is attributed to Jesus was likely actually spoken by him, and of that what is most likely is the short, terse phrases ('be gentle as doves and cunning as snakes'), or the parables, which are easily memorized and were likely a part of his sermonizing shtik. No mention of a divine mission that would end in sacrifice, and no god of resurrection. No taking a mission to the ends of the earth. He was a Jew, in a Jewish context, preaching through Jewish irony to Jews. The horribly strange thing is that this divine character was really a creation of some of the people around him, but after him, and some who may have had the strongest influence in creating 'Jesus' and his mission, might not ever have seen or talked to him. Might the modern era be defined as the one where a whole religious enterprise was...fabricated from the dust? (That it was Jewish project is also ironical, to my way of seeing things).

So, what part of Jesus is 'wise'? The part (of the story) that indicates the best way to have a relationship with God...is to commit suicide while you recite celestial poetry and teach impracticable values? Ever read Aldous Huxley's essays on some of the early Christians? Christianity inspired, in the early days as well as through the centuries, some of the most outrageous excesses, as I see things. You take issue with some one like Father Bowes because you think he does not rise close enough to Truth, but what exactly are you emulating in the life of Jesus or in any specific thing he said or did? What specific thing do you want people to do? How do you reconcile, for example, Nietzsche's interpretations of the mediocrity of the milktoast of Jesus and the Christians and reconcile it with his 'wisdom'? What exactly are you talking about?

Buddha is in another completely distinct category, and everything I have read attributed to Buddha I have liked, but what specifically is so valuable and important to you? Can you provide something, some quote, or some idea? 'Instruct me for thou knowest...' I would be willing to wager that the man Buddha, the actual person, was someone who could and did take into consideration all the different levels that are found in people. But even Buddhism is quite prone to mere mechanical following, not so different from blind Christianity, and in what was does Buddha or Buddhism lead to or provoke real excellence and singularity of the spirit?

"Intangible I would say. But the intangible creates the tangible."

This is a neo-platonic idea if ever I saw one! You are a naturalist, someone who gives priority to nature and all that is before us, and of which we are composed, and yet you seem to believe that it is an intangible that creates the tangible? I really don't see how you can do this.

[Alex Jacob]

Kelly, I think you ensconce yourself within word-games, and in that play games, but the experience of that which you allude to, is an experience that one can actually have, and when it happens, it occurs within the matrix of here and now and you and me, and it becomes something different than a group of words or some algebraic formulation pulled from an ancient text. I personally have no use at all for these sorts of formulations, and the only thing that interests me is Kelly the person, the knowable human being. What I will say is lets come back and revisit you in 20 or 30 years, and discover what these doctrines have done with you, what you think and do, who you love, and what you dedicate yourself to. I think that is the only real criterion.

Atman-shhmatman is therefor my response...

;-)

[Carl G]

Carl G: QRS are ascetics.

Laird: I can't speak of David because I don't know much of his situation. I do know that Dan drinks a reasonable amount of alcohol and lives with a woman. This is not the behaviour of an ascetic. Kevin enjoys a game of golf, travels, enjoys good food and indulges occasionally in the odd drop of alcohol. Neither is this the behaviour of an ascetic.

Relative to most others they are ascetic, in that they are not part of regular society, because of their thinking and their non-employment; they have largely eschewed society. Yes many others might qualify under this definition, and if spiritually motivated, they would be, by my modern definition. However, I'm not going to argue a term QRS themselves would probably disavow.

Dan drinks a reasonable amount of alcohol

And right he should, being a man of reason. Funny.

Carl: Leave them alone.

Laird: QRS chose to make themselves public figures. I disagree strongly with a lot of their teachings and...They are fair game.

Actually I'm fine with that. I was mainly defending asceticism, but you make a decent point, that they are purveying on a public forum.

I believe that they have an unhealthy effect on many of the troubled souls who come seeking at this forum.

I don't agree. Most of the 'troubled souls' are already unhealthy. I don't think they are becoming more troubled or less so, by posting. Some come with questions, but they are not students of philosophy or Enlightenment. They do not listen to what is said. They do not understand. What they seek and do is to vent their craziness.

Myself a believer in the Law of Attraction, I do wonder why so many dysfunctional individuals are drawn here.

[daybrown]

<Looks pretty awesome, daybrown. Makes me want to go. Is it like that all year round? ;-) http://www.aboutromania.com/danube00.html>
There are records of, for instance, when the Danube froze over, and barbarians marched in such numbers the Romans could not deal with it.

But with global warming, you may not live long enuf to see it freeze over again. I would not look for palm trees however. But like living in the Southern US, you dont havta go to Florida. Just wait a few days, the cold snap will be over, and the temps will be comfortable outside again. For a tourist, on a schedule, that can be a bummer.

I dunno who the Buddha was talking to. But asceticism is like being a teetotaler, whereas a reasonable man, which the Stoics agree, can indulge his passions from time to time, but more like a gourmet rather than a glutton. Course, Buddha may have only known men who lacked the self control to do that. I for instance, still smoke a few cigarettes a day. But knowing how dangerous higher consumption, of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, or any other compound is, determine what a reasonable level of pleasure is....

Taking a moment to sip from my nightly shot of rum. The Orient seems to run to different extremes. If the sages were wiser, the tyrants were more brutal. China achieved greatness thru uniformity, while the diversity of Europe permitted genius to emerge. I dont recall anything in the writings of the East about freedom and tolerance. Buddha produced the Eight fold Path like it was the only route.

I remember an Iranian mullah interviewed on TV discussing the Koran. When the translator posed a question about diverse views and tolerance, the Mullah went on in Arabic citing scripture, but when he had to actually refer to the idea of "tolerance", he had to use the English word. That spoke volumes to me about where these ragheads are coming from.

They can go on about the nobility of asceticism, but to me it just demonstrates their own lack of self control.

[Kelly Jones]

I think you ensconce yourself within word-games, and in that play games, but the experience of that which you allude to, is an experience that one can actually have, and when it happens, it occurs within the matrix of here and now and you and me, and it becomes something different than a group of words or some algebraic formulation pulled from an ancient text.

No, I don't play games or word-games.

I thought your interpretation of vedic scriptures as suggesting enlightenment is existence in a "magical world" was wrong, that's all.

It failed to see them pointing at what is true for any and all experiences.

Isn't that more important than "playing in backworlds" and "disengaging from life"?

I personally have no use at all for these sorts of formulations, and the only thing that interests me is Kelly the person, the knowable human being.

Even if it is constantly "perishing" each moment, and the only thing that remains the same is the name? Why not look at what it really is, which doesn't change?

What I will say is lets come back and revisit you in 20 or 30 years, and discover what these doctrines have done with you, what you think and do, who you love, and what you dedicate yourself to.

Yes, it'd be interesting, for sure.

But back to you. Something tells me you cannot see anything satisfying in a life of Truth.

Can you say why, if that's true?

I think that is the only real criterion.

Criterion for what?



By the way, I'd like your permission to use the phrase "Australian dharma bums" for a movie. Great phrase! Fits me to a "T".


Kelly

[David Quinn]

Laird,

DQ: Our openness to truth is also endless.

Laird: Those phenomena that you deny and that I listed are a part of truth. Your denial of them proves that your openness to truth is far from endless.

This depends on what is meant by "truth". What do you mean by it?

Any thinking person who sees you make the claim that logic on its own and independently of empiricism can prove anything ultimately and absolutely will likewise recognise this.

How would you know that? Have you now reached some sort of logical, ultimate understanding yourself that you can make claims like this?

Or are you just repeating what other people say?

Laird: I believe that they have an unhealthy effect on many of the troubled souls who come seeking at this forum.

Carl G: I don't agree. Most of the 'troubled souls' are already unhealthy. I don't think they are becoming more troubled or less so, by posting.

Laird: At the very least those troubled souls are (for the most part - there are exceptions) not helped to become healthy in any way. They are not given any holistic guidance as to how to derive real meaning from their lives as loving, switched on, engaged human beings - instead they are told that they should be killing their love, switching on to a deluded fantasy-philosophy and disengaging from life.

I don't normally say this to anyone, but Laid, you really need to go out into the world, find a girlfriend and get laid. Have a proper taste of this lifestyle that you are so fixated upon. Your current hiding away in a vacuum is only making the fixation worse.

-

[Laird]

David,

DQ: Our openness to truth is also endless.

Laird: Those phenomena that you deny and that I listed are a part of truth. Your denial of them proves that your openness to truth is far from endless.

DQ: This depends on what is meant by "truth". What do you mean by it?

In this context by "truth" I mean that which has meaning in life.

Laird: Any thinking person who sees you make the claim that logic on its own and independently of empiricism can prove anything ultimately and absolutely will likewise recognise this.

David: How would you know that?

Because of the nature of logic. Logic is a system of transformation that works upon information. What you get out is only as good as what you put in. You, however, seem to be denying that what you are putting in comes from empirical observation. What you guys really do is construct models that are logically consistent, but there's a difference between "logically consistent" and "true".

I don't normally say this to anyone, but Laid, you really need to go out into the world, find a girlfriend and get laid.

I think that you're probably quite right. My main problems are that I'm coming out of a long period of personal difficulty and have only recently reached the stage where I'm capable of intimate relationships, and that I live in a small town and - as you note - I live in a relative vacuum such that I rarely meet eligible women and when I do I don't get an opportunity to see them again because I don't do anything regular bar go to the shops. It's going to take quite a bit of luck for me to break out of my single lifestyle.

As for getting laid, well, I'm quite conflicted over that one. On one level nothing would please me more; but then I recognise that on another level (almost) all of the opportunities that I've had before to sleep with a woman I've (somewhat inexplicably, although I'm starting to get a better handle on my subconscious motivations) turned down despite it being a preoccupation in my thoughts.

Cyber-sex, on the other hand, I am not so conflicted over. I am presently engaged in a passionate, intimate (and I mean that in every sense of the word, not just the physical...erm, virtual...well, you know what I mean) internet relationship with a wonderful, intelligent and insightful woman and it is very satisfying to both of us. It gives me confidence that what I write on this forum is not merely wishful thinking. The only problem is that our relationship has certain limitations beyond those which are obvious, but I'm not going to go into those publicly.

[Kevin Solway]

Take Jesus and the Buddha as an example, and assuming they were wise. Was what they created tangible or intangible?

It is very hard for me, and I don't see how anyone really can, respond to 'Jesus' of the Gospels

As my question suggested, I'm supposing that they existed and that they were wise - even though they may never have existed.

In short, what they created with their lives can best be described as "intangible", since they are not specially noted for creating bricks and mortar, money, or children. Rather, they created wisdom - or at least, that was their intention.

but what exactly are you emulating in the life of Jesus or in any specific thing he said or did?

Here's a few things I try to embody from the teachings of Jesus:

"First the Kingdom of God"

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

"Those who want to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for me will find it."

"No one can be a slave to two masters."

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—such a person cannot be my disciple"

"What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight."

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

"The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage."

"I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

What specific thing do you want people to do?

I would like people to do at least what I have done, which is to find out what is ultimately true, and then to drop what is false as quickly as one would drop a burning ember.

How do you reconcile, for example, Nietzsche's interpretations of the mediocrity of the milktoast of Jesus and the Christians and reconcile it with his 'wisdom'? What exactly are you talking about?

Nietzsche's powerful Zarathustra is himself very closely modeled on Jesus. The milktoast Jesus is the Jesus that milktoast Christians have created through their insanity. You won't see anything of that milktoast in the quotes I listed above. Christians ignore anything true that Jesus might have said, and are therefore the very first to put him to death.

What Jesus says here applies to Christians themselves:

"Woe to you, because you build the tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them! So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did. They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets shed since the beginning of the world." (Luke 11:47)

Buddha is in another completely distinct category

Not to me. I view both Jesus and the Buddha as being wise men, or "sages".

and everything I have read attributed to Buddha I have liked, but what specifically is so valuable and important to you? Can you provide something, some quote, or some idea?

I like all of the Buddha's teachings. Here are a few choice snippets, in the vein of the above:

"Even as rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind."

"Watchful amongst the unwatchful, awake amongst those who sleep, the wise man like a swift horse runs his race, outrunning those who are slow."

"Better than a hundred years not seeing one's own immortality is one single day of life if one sees one's own immortality."

"Let a man be free from pleasure and let a man be free from pain; for not to have pleasure is sorrow and to have pain is also sorrow."

"He who destroys life, who utters lies, who takes what is not given to him, who goes to the wife of another, who gets drunk with strong drinks - he digs up the very roots of his life."

"So long as lustful desire of a man for a woman, however small, is not destroyed, so long is that man in bondage, like a calf that drinks milk is to its mother."

"Many wear the yellow robe whose life is not pure, who have not self-control. Those evil men through their evil deeds are reborn in a hell of evil."

"I have conquered all; I know all, and my life is pure; I have left all, and I am free from craving. I myself found the way. Whom shall I call Teacher? Whom shall I teach?"

I would be willing to wager that the man Buddha, the actual person, was someone who could and did take into consideration all the different levels that are found in people.

Certainly he did. That's what all the "realms of existence" are all about. Some people are (mentally) in the animal realms, others are "hungry ghosts", and yet others are in various types of heavens.

Only a relative few people are truly "human" and able to make proper use of spiritual teachings. The rest are unable to learn from reasoning, so they must be managed in some other way.

In the case of people who only have small scope, I propose small truths, but never untruths - not in any circumstance.

Literally everything I was ever taught about Christianity while I was growing up was total untruth.

what was does Buddha or Buddhism lead to or provoke real excellence and singularity of the spirit?

It depends entirely on the individual as to what they get out of any spiritual teaching. However, I find that the teachings of Christianity, especially, lend themselves to being badly interpreted.

"Intangible I would say. But the intangible creates the tangible."

This is a neo-platonic idea if ever I saw one! You are a naturalist, someone who gives priority to nature and all that is before us, and of which we are composed, and yet you seem to believe that it is an intangible that creates the tangible? I really don't see how you can do this.

Nature is Infinite, and that's why its essence is intangible. You cannot grasp it, even though it is everywhere around you, and it is you.

[Imadrongo]

It is true.

I don't want to elaborate much right now since I feel like I would just be repeating things that have already been said here by myself and others.

Also QRS have made themselves impervious to what we are saying, so these posts are only for the benefit of those toying with their religion.


* If life abandons you, abandon life. *

[Kelly Jones]

Which life is more life-oriented?

In his book Sex and Character, Weininger argues that all people are composed of a mixture of the male and the female substance, and attempts to support his view scientifically. The male aspect is active, productive, conscious and moral/logical, while the female aspect is passive, unproductive, unconscious and amoral/alogical. Weininger argues that emancipation should be reserved for the "masculine woman", e.g. some lesbians, and that the female life is consumed with the sexual function: both with the act, as a prostitute, and the product, as a mother. Woman is a "matchmaker". By contrast, the duty of the male, or the masculine aspect of personality, is to strive to become a genius, and to forego sexuality for an abstract love of the absolute, God, which he finds within himself.

----- From Sex and Character in Wikipedia.

Kelly