Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Talking Ass
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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fiat mihi
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Bob Michael
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Talking Ass wrote:Hank Williams singing When God Dips His Love in my Heart.
Such a thing has become a rare occurrence in these last days. And the sole cause of all the ills of the world.

Bob M.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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"Man and woman have forgotten how to make real love. This is the greatest tragedy on earth." (Barry Long)

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Carl G
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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"Love: a temporary insanity, curable by marriage." (Ambrose Bierce)

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Talking Ass
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Now Carl, you just stop that. If you don't I will kick you smack in the teeth with my powerful hind legs.

Talking A.

(I don't know if I'd rely on Ambrose Bierce for too much else than excellent short stories of a definitievly dark nature).
fiat mihi
syzygy
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Bob Michael wrote:Hi Carl,

Before the Light of Love and Truth finally comes into the world and sets it ablaze with the glory of the Infinite. Perhaps you might wish to check it out further in the very back of the good book.

Bob M.

It's already fully ablaze my friend, for those who have eyes to see!
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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syzygy wrote:It's already fully ablaze my friend, for those who have eyes to see!
Paradoxically speaking you may be correct my friend. However the human lovelessness, ignorance, and darkness continue to overwhelmingly prevail everywhere!

According to Joseph Chilton Pearce in his book 'Evolution's End' human beings are now in grave biological jeopardy due to five common practices that have given rise to rampant violence, child suicide,and deteriorating family and social structures.

[Hospital childbirth] - interferes with the natural bonding process between infant and mother, which in turn impedes the potential for all future bonds: with parents, friends, spouse, and society.

[Daycare] - takes the child even further from its mother, increasing the inability to bond and implanting a lifelong sense of alienation and isolation.

[Television] - damages the brain, not because of its content, but because its mechanical effect cripples a child's ability to learn.

[Premature attempts at formal education] - prevent development of the imagination - children without such development tend towards violence and are often uneducable.

[Synthetic growth hormones] - used in meat, dairy, and poultry products accumulate in children and accelerate physical and sexual development, while psychological and intellectual maturation is radically impaired.

"A human nurtured instead of shamed, and loved instead of driven by fear, develops a different brain and therefore a different mind. He will not act against the well-being of another nor against his larger body, the living Earth.......As our damaged children grow up and become the parents and teachers, DAMAGE WILL BE THE NORM, the way of life. We will habituate to damage. Nothing else will be known. How can you miss something you can't even recognize, SOMETHING YOU NEVER HAD?" [Joseph Chilton Pearce]

Bob M.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Bob Michael wrote:
syzygy wrote:It's already fully ablaze my friend, for those who have eyes to see!
Paradoxically speaking you may be correct my friend. However the human lovelessness, ignorance, and darkness continue to overwhelmingly prevail everywhere!

According to Joseph Chilton Pearce in his book 'Evolution's End' human beings are now in grave biological jeopardy due to five common practices that have given rise to rampant violence, child suicide,and deteriorating family and social structures.

[Hospital childbirth] - interferes with the natural bonding process between infant and mother, which in turn impedes the potential for all future bonds: with parents, friends, spouse, and society.

[Daycare] - takes the child even further from its mother, increasing the inability to bond and implanting a lifelong sense of alienation and isolation.

[Television] - damages the brain, not because of its content, but because its mechanical effect cripples a child's ability to learn.

[Premature attempts at formal education] - prevent development of the imagination - children without such development tend towards violence and are often uneducable.

[Synthetic growth hormones] - used in meat, dairy, and poultry products accumulate in children and accelerate physical and sexual development, while psychological and intellectual maturation is radically impaired.

"A human nurtured instead of shamed, and loved instead of driven by fear, develops a different brain and therefore a different mind. He will not act against the well-being of another nor against his larger body, the living Earth.......As our damaged children grow up and become the parents and teachers, DAMAGE WILL BE THE NORM, the way of life. We will habituate to damage. Nothing else will be known. How can you miss something you can't even recognize, SOMETHING YOU NEVER HAD?" [Joseph Chilton Pearce]

Bob M.
In terms of the blazing Light of the Infinite, by definition, it is everywhere. Infinity does not have boundary, in Truth. The boundary exists in the fragmented ego-mind, which creates and sees separation and boundary. Therefore, once such fallacy is revealed and the Light shines within, unimpeded, the Truth of the Infinite is revealed in it's blazing glory. Again, hinging on the eyes which see. The Infinite Is, infinitely.

I understand and have compassion for felt pain and suffering. And given the Infinite Light which embraces all, and shines within all, including pain and suffering, I, following such lead, also embrace felt pain/suffering, in Infinite Light.

The logical constructs, perceptions and ego views which block us from the Truth, once cleared, brings one back into warm embrace with the ever present Truth.
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Bob Michael
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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syzygy wrote:In terms of the blazing Light of the Infinite, by definition, it is everywhere. Infinity does not have boundary, in Truth. The boundary exists in the fragmented ego-mind, which creates and sees separation and boundary. Therefore, once such fallacy is revealed and the Light shines within, unimpeded, the Truth of the Infinite is revealed in it's blazing glory. Again, hinging on the eyes which see. The Infinite Is, infinitely.

I understand and have compassion for felt pain and suffering. And given the Infinite Light which embraces all, and shines within all, including pain and suffering, I, following such lead, also embrace felt pain/suffering, in Infinite Light.

The logical constructs, perceptions and ego views which block us from the Truth, once cleared, brings one back into warm embrace with the ever present Truth.
I've experienced and enjoyed being on many pink clouds over the past 32 years or so. Now, at last, I think I'm finally approaching the mountaintop. And what a terrible sight I see from up here. Man everywhere has lost the vital link between his head and his heart. And only a very few have what it takes to make the connection again.

Bob M.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Bob Michael wrote:
syzygy wrote:In terms of the blazing Light of the Infinite, by definition, it is everywhere. Infinity does not have boundary, in Truth. The boundary exists in the fragmented ego-mind, which creates and sees separation and boundary. Therefore, once such fallacy is revealed and the Light shines within, unimpeded, the Truth of the Infinite is revealed in it's blazing glory. Again, hinging on the eyes which see. The Infinite Is, infinitely.

I understand and have compassion for felt pain and suffering. And given the Infinite Light which embraces all, and shines within all, including pain and suffering, I, following such lead, also embrace felt pain/suffering, in Infinite Light.

The logical constructs, perceptions and ego views which block us from the Truth, once cleared, brings one back into warm embrace with the ever present Truth.
I've experienced and enjoyed being on many pink clouds over the past 32 years or so. Now, at last, I think I'm finally approaching the mountaintop. And what a terrible sight I see from up here. Man everywhere has lost the vital link between his head and his heart. And only a very few have what it takes to make the connection again.

Bob M.
I agree wholeheartedly that humans do not, for the most part, have that vital link between head and heart, and subsequently, imbalance is acted out everywhere. Also that all of our human-made structures are evolutionarily set to crumble, as they are based on imbalance. This vital link you speak of is absolutely necessary for human realization of the truth. And still the Truth continues to shine, Infinitely.

The deck is always stacked in favour of the Infinite.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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syzygy wrote:I agree wholeheartedly that humans do not, for the most part, have that vital link between head and heart, and subsequently, imbalance is acted out everywhere. Also that all of our human-made structures are evolutionarily set to crumble, as they are based on imbalance. This vital link you speak of is absolutely necessary for human realization of the truth. And still the Truth continues to shine, Infinitely.

The deck is always stacked in favour of the Infinite.
But "imbalance" (resulting, as I see it, from deep and irreparable, in most cases, brain damage) has become the norm, the standard everywhere. So how do you suppose any of the relatively few, that are not so affected, are ever going to be able to make the connection, find balance, or approach the Infinite?

Bob M.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Bob Michael wrote:
syzygy wrote:I agree wholeheartedly that humans do not, for the most part, have that vital link between head and heart, and subsequently, imbalance is acted out everywhere. Also that all of our human-made structures are evolutionarily set to crumble, as they are based on imbalance. This vital link you speak of is absolutely necessary for human realization of the truth. And still the Truth continues to shine, Infinitely.

The deck is always stacked in favour of the Infinite.
But "imbalance" (resulting, as I see it, from deep and irreparable, in most cases, brain damage) has become the norm, the standard everywhere. So how do you suppose any of the relatively few, that are not so affected, are ever going to be able to make the connection, find balance, or approach the Infinite?

Bob M.
clearing up the illusion of "deep irreparable brain damage" is a good place to start. Let's get rid of using thought, distorted by fear, as a way of speaking to the Infinite. It's just not accurate.

For thought and emotion to operate effectively in problem-solving, we must have thought work in concert with and in service of the Infinite (truth). Also, we must feel our fears and own them on a subjective personal level, so that we don't allow them to distort our thinking. When logical and emotional intelligences work together, the result is naturally in service of Truth and that which is Infinite, which cannot be bested by "negative". distortion falls away.

The brain is very responsive to all manner of influences. The rigidity we see in people and in patterns is not our natural state, but represents the illusions we keep buying into, over and over. Anyone can wake up in any moment, in Truth.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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syzygy wrote:Clearing up the illusion of "deep irreparable brain damage" is a good place to start. Let's get rid of using thought, distorted by fear, as a way of speaking to the Infinite. It's just not accurate.

For thought and emotion to operate effectively in problem-solving, we must have thought work in concert with and in service of the Infinite (truth). Also, we must feel our fears and own them on a subjective personal level, so that we don't allow them to distort our thinking. When logical and emotional intelligences work together, the result is naturally in service of Truth and that which is Infinite, which cannot be bested by "negative". distortion falls away.

The brain is very responsive to all manner of influences. The rigidity we see in people and in patterns is not our natural state, but represents the illusions we keep buying into, over and over. Anyone can wake up in any moment, in Truth.
Here's where I must part ways with you my friend. Along with offering you my very best wishes in your journey.

Bob M.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Bob Michael wrote:
syzygy wrote:Clearing up the illusion of "deep irreparable brain damage" is a good place to start. Let's get rid of using thought, distorted by fear, as a way of speaking to the Infinite. It's just not accurate.

For thought and emotion to operate effectively in problem-solving, we must have thought work in concert with and in service of the Infinite (truth). Also, we must feel our fears and own them on a subjective personal level, so that we don't allow them to distort our thinking. When logical and emotional intelligences work together, the result is naturally in service of Truth and that which is Infinite, which cannot be bested by "negative". distortion falls away.

The brain is very responsive to all manner of influences. The rigidity we see in people and in patterns is not our natural state, but represents the illusions we keep buying into, over and over. Anyone can wake up in any moment, in Truth.
Here's where I must part ways with you my friend. Along with offering you my very best wishes in your journey.

Bob M.
Peace and Love to you, my friend.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Peace, love, wonderfulness, and all other sorts of nice stuff to each of you. (But Carl still gets a swift kick with my powerful hind legs. I know that places me in an unredeemable category, but so be it, I am an ass after all).
fiat mihi
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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".....And so I walk the streets, aware of the pervasive ugliness of the people in this most fortunate nation (USA), the lines of hurt and anxiety and greed around their eyes and mouths, the imbalance of their walk, the deformation of their bodies. Oh no it is not genetic. Civilization has twisted and scarred those bodies as surely as it has damaged and tortured the face of the planet. And I consider the subtle hate that often underlies the most casual interchange. And the specific karma we have built up in this country by our specific teatment of blacks and Indians and orientals, the result of which we now suffer and will go on suffering. And the self-righteous hostility among some of those who march for peace ("Peace On You," one of the signs reads). And the bristling animosity in some who would loose their "love" on the world. And the physical and psychic garbage in the dwelling places of some who proclaim the new lifestyles. And the elitism and divisiveness among the theorists and activists who would create a reformed culture. And the growing intranigence of those who would maintain the old culture. And the impersonal greed of the giant corporations and unions and governing bureaucracies. And the weight of the past, the ponderous, ever-pressing, immovable weight, as heavy as the earth itself." (George B. Leonard in 'Transformation')

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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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In the interest of 'balance', you can all go to hell.

Unrest and Hatred,
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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The Necrophilic Character.....

"The necrophile takes revenge on life for what it did to him, he allies with death over life. And so we are led to understand that the most terrible form of life-negation is not something that man brings into the world from his heredity, from evolution. It is the result of the life experiences of his organism. How does it come about, what are these experiences? It is impossible to be exact about these things because they deal in the realm of feeling and in the internal experiences of the organism. But existentially we can recapture a feeling for that inner world and psychoanalytically we can sketch an impressionistic landscape of the forces that influences it. It would go something like this: that you cripple the person when you continually repress his spontaneity, his natural appetite, his joy in self-discovery and in the unfolding of his world; when you continually violate his self-protection by imposing your manipulations and your standards; when you make his own body a territory forbidden for him to take pleasure in, to feel at home in. Do his orfices belong to him or to you? Does he experience his own sensations in eating and excreting, or are these acts something that he has to perpetrate on his body? Does he have to be extra-careful, shut out pleasurable and 'filthy' feelings, regard his gastric noises, his own insides as an annoyance or a source of shame? Is he deprived of the experience of the free and full functioning of his genitals, or even the comfort of self-indulgent flatulation of his anus? Is he made to feel mean and small, low in self-esteem compared to those around him - especially to things around him? Is he routinely punished for dirtying a tablecloth, for spilling on the floor, for losing a sock: the message he gets is that he is less valuable than these 'things', that things are truer than subjectivity, that order takes priority over spontaneity, that outsides and surfaces are more vital than insides and depths. Make it impossible or supremely difficult for him to reach out and warmly touch another human being, or melt himself confidently into another's body; relate to him so that he is always a psychological yard or two away from you, cannot touch you or be touched by you emotionally; penetrate him with your own high level of anxiety about life, your fear of experience and newness, your lack of warm relaxedness, of comfortable playfulness: reward him for holding back, for self- control, for orderly arrangement, for taking care of his clothes and his gadgets, for skill in manipulating mechanical things, for not making technical mistakes in the use of figures and language - do these things to a marvelously sensitive creature who needs self- esteem and the experiences of his powers as much as he needs bread, and you create a (Dr.) Strangelove. You create a being who is so deprived, so walled-up and pushed back on himself, so inept at reaching out, so short-circuited, whose nerve fibers are attracted to things hard, angular and cold, whose insides are such an empty echo- chamber of denial, that in order for his organism to sense, in some massively clumsy way, what would for him be a sense of vital expansion, to be psychically healed and begin to walk, it would take nothing less than the destruction of the entire planet."

(Ernest Becker - 'The Birth and Death of Meaning')

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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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"The necrophile takes revenge on life for what it did to him, he allies with death over life. And so we are led to understand that the most terrible form of life-negation is not something that man brings into the world from his heredity, from evolution. It is the result of the life experiences of his organism. How does it come about, what are these experiences? It is impossible to be exact about these things because they deal in the realm of feeling and in the internal experiences of the organism. But existentially we can recapture a feeling for that inner world and psychoanalytically we can sketch an impressionistic landscape of the forces that influences it. It would go something like this: that you cripple the person when you continually repress his spontaneity, his natural appetite, his joy in self-discovery and in the unfolding of his world; when you continually violate his self-protection by imposing your manipulations and your standards; when you make his own body a territory forbidden for him to take pleasure in, to feel at home in. Do his orfices belong to him or to you? Does he experience his own sensations in eating and excreting, or are these acts something that he has to perpetrate on his body? Does he have to be extra-careful, shut out pleasurable and 'filthy' feelings, regard his gastric noises, his own insides as an annoyance or a source of shame? Is he deprived of the experience of the free and full functioning of his genitals, or even the comfort of self-indulgent flatulation of his anus?

Bob M.


Are you in AA or some such organization.?

Don't you have anything original to say??
Don't run to your death
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Hmmmm. What an interesting turn of events.

C'mon, Animus, come near and we'll give you a redeeming, healing hug.

I remember meeting George Leonard. I was quite young, too young to understand him, and not interested in doing so. He seemed ponderous, pedantic, and just too damn tall. He was instructing a friend of mine (daughter of Sam Keen) in Aikido. Why, Bob, why are you reminding me of all this?

".....And so I walk the streets, aware of the pervasive ugliness of the people in this most fortunate nation (USA), the lines of hurt and anxiety and greed around their eyes and mouths, the imbalance of their walk, the deformation of their bodies. Oh no it is not genetic. Civilization has twisted and scarred those bodies as surely as it has damaged and tortured the face of the planet...."

(He should read Steppenwolf and perhaps take a sniff from one of Pablo's mysterious vials...)

I think you have to be careful with all the sentimentalism in his weepy, angry tirade. It is not that there is no sense to it, but it seems to me to come from a typical core of self-contempt, contempt for America and Americans. It's like he had his nose in all the flowers of idealism for too long and there was nowhere left on the Earth to be respected or appreciated. He was a guy selling books and opinions. He was utterly a product of the Marin County scene.

Ernst Becker, in my humble opinion, has been drinking too many strange, dark potions, and so wherever he turns his eyes he sees deadly necrophiliacs polluting the Waters of Life with death-wish. We all know all-too-well such things are true: there are pockets of this activity on the planet. They are there now and they will be there in the future. It's like the poor who are with us always. We live in a terrible, divided plane of existence. Hell is right there, always, with Heaven. I feel that syzygy is saying something wise when he points to a transcendental light. That is actually one of the functions of transcendental religion, to provide the terrestrial, Earth-bound human with a point of comparison, and some hope. Like a guiding star. The Earth as Earth will never be perfected. It is an unreal hope. When we no longer really have faith in the transcendental, we tend to get obsessive about all the dark specifics of life, which do not change. To be incarnated is to be in a kind of hell.

On the other hand...there is always a light shining. (But they comprehend it not, etc.)

Bob, it seems to me that you want to redeem what is not redeemable. It is not your will that can redeem (them) in any case. Who are you preaching to? (Aside of course from an unsalvable ass stuck in his stable).
Last edited by Anonymous on Wed Jul 01, 2009 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
fiat mihi
Animus
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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C'mon, Animus, come near and we'll give you a redeeming, healing hug.
No, I'm fine, just balancing out the duality.
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Naw, group hug, GROUP HUG. Forget the swift kicks, and those sweet kiss-offs, too.

Hey, Bob, what's up with the parting of the ways? Do you deny that the head has a role to play in spiritual development (or whatever we wish to call it)? Are you a 100% heart guy, for real? Perhaps I misunderstand your slant on things...
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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FYI guys, the "heart" died with William Harvey as having any thinking capacity at all. There is no network of neurons inside the heart and all of that stuff you 'feel' in your heart is actually experienced in your brain. The heart pumps blood and the brain is not simply an air conditioner for your body as was previously thought. Get with the times! Sheesh :P
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Okay, Animus: Why is it that when one suffers emotional pain, loss or devastation, the pain is acutely felt in the heart and chest? Can you rationally tell me why this is so?
Perhaps I misunderstand your slant on things...
My take? He is testing out ideas, that is one thing. He is looking for commentary from others so that---as fisher of men---he may know what works and what doesn't. He seems to have a smidgin of the preacher in him, and likes to rove around in a kind of psycho-theology. He seems 'wedded' to the Biblical narratives and yet he veers (quite widely) from them. It is sort of 'psychologo-Johannine' if you were to ask me. He has a mission---he describes it as such---but among what crowds will he walk, in what dirty side-streets of what Jerusalem? Unbeknownst to him, he's down among the low of the low, in a dirty Roman stable, conversing with beasts. I'm doing the best I can but we all know what results when an donkey tries to sing...

Here, come gather round little ones and hear a story.
fiat mihi
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Re: Religion: Nothing More Than A Comfort

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Talking Ass wrote:(He should read Steppenwolf and perhaps take a sniff from one of Pablo's mysterious vials...)
"Spiritually and culturally, the twentieth century had always appeared most bleak to Hermann Hesse. Our era was for him one of moral depravity and intellectual mediocrity, of surface glitter, smug comfort, sham conventionality, and foolish optimism. It is a materialistic age where science has become a religion and the final criterion of value is function. Man has lost his soul in this world of money, machines, and distrust. He has exchanged his spiritual peace for physical comfort. With his imagination stunted and his feelings stifled, he no longer appreciates beauty, nor is he capable of real artistic creation. All vital rapport with God and nature has been lost, reason has supplanted faith, and society has forgotten the individual. The middle-class core of our civilization never ceased to be the butt of Hesse's ire. The bourgeous represents all that is negative. A stalwart and stodgy nonentity, he is governed in all his ideals and pursuits solely by the impulse of self-preservation. He fears individuation and deliberately sacrfices the precarious but precious intensities of life for comfort and security. He is the characterless Philistine who epitomizes mediocrity, cowardice, compromise, irresponsibility, and servility. He is the strapping, insensitive physical specimen who enjoys health and wealth but lacks all culture. He has a sound appetite but no taste, a good deal of confidence but no ideals. He possesses a surfeit of zeal and diligence but has no lofty aspirations or worthy goals. It is to him that the world belongs, while the sensitive worshipers of beauty and the earnest seekers after truth and the meaning of life are misfits and outcasts. Hesse and all his heros belong to these outsiders. Testy Harry Haller brooding at the edges of the bourgeous world and scoffing at its idols is no exception."

[From the introduction to Hesse's 'Steppenwolf' by Joseph Mileck]

Bob M.
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