God is a He because he wears the pants in His household. Or, his wife "fell down a set of stairs" after her kids were born and this has been kept a secret.

The kids still wonder, if God is like a man, why did he make women? Are they the less favored of the natural binary?

Schadenfreude may emerge from a frustrating envy or a frustrating desire for retribution. There is an possible psychological connection between the two in the way envy-induced resentment might actuate violence in some direction (ex. up or down the social hierarchy). To feel good that a bad actor got their comeuppance by some kind of incidental or intentional harm is an example of schadenfreude. Case example: Reddit's Karmic Justice.

I will now warm my soul by the internal blazing hellfire of envy for what lies on the other side of the proverbial fence.

The shaman is like the hunter-gatherer counterpart to the priest/medicine man of a more complex hierarchical society. Both might interpret dreams in prophetic way that might guide individual/collective action in community for weal or woe.

The impression is that they were/are medicine doctors of premodern polytheistic societies. Perhaps there was no separation between spiritual sickness and physical illness in societies which attributed causes and effects to spirits (flights of imagination that work within a mythic system).

Today religious priests, medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists probably carry out a comparable function of shamans in early cultures.

Within his study of the subject, Eliade proposed several different definitions of the word "shamanism". The first of these was that shamanism simply constituted a "technique of ecstasy", and in Eliade's opinion, this was the "least hazardous" definition. — Wikipedia: Mircea Eliade's Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy

Millennial Shaman New Age Dream Surfers:

"Whoa! dude, what if shamans are like dream surfers, if the dream world were a legitimate domain of experience. Like what if the waves of this world and the waves of the dream world were intermixed or one in the same. Whoa! bro, in that case, let's go ride the waves of our dreams." :P

Topping the thread.

One agent's undesired output is another agent's desired input.

Symbionts, commensals and parasites are all relative qualifications/valuations from an agent's point of view.

They are all on the wrong path, every single one of them. — Sir2u

Here's hoping that the separation of church state remains in religious folks' interest, insofar as they don't want to be subsumed/subordinate to the authoritarian governance of any one particular one brand. Can't speak for what it is like in your neck of the woods.

Right now we are suffering the effects of the tropical storm Eta. We have had 4 solid days of rain, There are floods all over the place. Rivers have over run, houses, roads and bridges have been destroyed. And what are the people doing? Praying for the rain to stop. — Sir2u

Prayer might help folks psychologically stabilize when they perceive to have very little control over their lives. Just watched a mini doc about kids growing up in the gang ridden districts of Honduras. Faith makes more sense to me in such situations because the most people can do is hope for good outcomes in the face of senseless violence and poverty.

The Quick End

The child (non)hero, afflicted by a curse causa sui (?), comes to the threshold of the labyrinth of illusion, the temple of the 10,000 aquatic reflections (Sahul).

B enters a hall of mirrors, after taking refreshment at the in-temple cafe, and he is assaulted with his own mental contents as apophenic projection.

The multiples of B are disconcerting. He sees himself as the cloaked woman who served him a piece of cake just moments ago, her copies fading into distance. The reflections of being other than himself in grand play of mirrored morphing figures dizzies him. In one scene he was cat in the lap of an obese orange-haired boy king. In another, he was a mummy-wrapped leper, shorn of limbs, laying sideways on a dusty street. In another, just a morning dove sitting beside its kin.

"I'm obviously not those, now." Said a mirror image of himself. The sound multiplied and echoed as much as the image.

"Ha!" The figure appeared, a golden shinning mask evocative of the sun with two black eyes, hanging in the billowing robes of a dark veil. "We've got you!"

"If you had been helped by fortune of other gods as authors, others would have warned you that this is the crucible of Nil, a house that turns the wayward aimless into its own disciples, who all share in the weals and woe of their god. You, soft clay cup, will carry the waters of Sahul."

B. stood still, and the anxiety fled out of him as if his own bowels had gone with it.

"Now brace yourself for the fixing transformation. The hall will be purified with fire and you'll be serving up tea in no time."

<-------(The End, The Middle or The Beginning?) ------->

All of the monotheists believe that they and only they worship the one true god, the rest are devil worshippers, pagans, savages and so on. — Sir2u

I always like to hear such things from those who profess to believe.

From the standpoint of Plumb's faith and or personal beliefs, are the Mormons headed for a reward in the afterlife as much as the Jehova's Witnesses insofar as any are righteous exemplars of their faith? Or are other Christians on the wrong path?

God exists and the proof is there but until you see Him with your eyes then He is not there. — david plumb

Guessing you're not a pantheist, in which any agents of any pantheon could be representative/symbolic aspects of a divine unity.

I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me. (Isaiah 45:5. ESV) — Bible

I got this quote from Jehovah Witness at my door. They asked me to read a passage out-loud with them and this part was included.

Do all Christians have a correct orientation to this one true God, even though they belong to different cults? Which cult is the best cult insofar as it mediates a proper interpretation and obeisance of God's divine will?

Why not comment yourself?

I am sorry, I feel a heart attack is coming on. I can't handle this. Talking to people who immediately turn "write" to "say". — god must be atheist

Don't get all worked up on my account. It's just a silly meme. You are permitted as much as any person to speak and write in Jesus' name.

Says Jesus?

Sounds like Vigano would do well creating comic book propaganda for his 'children of light'.

What letter would Jesus have written?

-deleted-

They’re anti-superhero heroes, essentially. — praxis

Ha!

This inversion is interesting. The superheros as loved by the public are deeply corrupt figures who have a public persona (celebrity) geared toward manipulation in service of their private lives. The outward persona is the public superhero which belies what they actually are, supervillans.

The same relationship is at play. The heros are mortals with exceptional qualities (perseverance, skill, moral sense) who seek to eliminate the unjust tyranny of gods. The Boys (the group) have all been deeply harmed by the powers that be and this motivates their collaboration toward acts of justice.

Maybe your bugaboo is to be made by a parallel of social justice aspect of superheros and this somehow translates to a "dangerous" or misguided activism of a social justice movement now. Superheros might satisfy a power fantasy of those who have little agency. Though one could just as well be anesthetized by the consumer products of television (or any media art) in which the fantasy of superheros (or Fred and Barney) is just escapist entertainment.

Even the North Koreans risk watching Western media via thumb drives. Not sure any amount of superhero movies is gonna make them risk their lives for social change.

I've gone down the Captain Planet rabbit hole because of this thread. Damn 90s cartoons. They got me!

I might now be further corrupted if I read/listen to Murray Bookchin's Social Ecology propaganda. :monkey: Close your eyes, stopper your ears. Too many voices/channels exchanging ideas.

Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory (wikipedia)

Even if the Frankfurt school could be blamed for whatever historical change one dislikes, there are many other contributory forces. Maybe Capitalism itself, insofar as it must forever appeal to consumer demand in an ever increasing turn of cultural innovation, exploits human desire for profits to the point of undermining the authority of religious institutions. Things change in time even though we might love to complain about it.

Any church/government/culture (what/which?) could have outlawed television, radio and internet. Why didn't they. The Amish still don't use these things...(?)

Existential Comics: The Frankfurt Four

A belief is too strong a word to use and can be used to pigeon hole someone. When in discussion with the fundamentalists, rather than those paying lip service to their religion, there seems to be a belief that this life is a spring board to the next. — david plumb

Is it wrong to ask you whether or not you believe in an afterlife given the statements you made in this thread and further that you'd characterize yourself as a man/woman of Christian faith? Perhaps the afterlife is really just what you'll leave behind for your sons and daughters and your neighbor's sons and daughters and your enemy's sons and daughters. In other words, the afterlife is about the lives after (or beside) yours, tribal religious identity notwithstanding.

Bimble dreamnt again, of the shadow that was the anathema of his waking life, and driving him toward a mythic dissolution. It took the form of a raven with a feather beard and purple-tinted eyes, watching from a mossy boulder.

There were two other monstrous agents in this illusion, one red and one blue. The red creature, what came to mind as a proper anthropoid thrull, had immense muscular shoulders joined to a hunched backed spine, its toothy head curving down toward the earth, its body studded with boney protuberances. Its feet were anchored in the earth. Bimble's feet were clasped in the vice grip of its red hands.

The blue agent was ethereal and buoyant, suspended in the sky, very humanoid except for its well proportioned size and stature. It might have well been the combined volume of 10 Bimbles. Its body was emblazoned with a myriad of brands and runes. It held on to a physical chain which was wrapped around Bimble's wrists. It too had an ethereal chain but wrapped around its neck, tensed and terminating in the direction of the noonday sun.

The raven squawked, "Pull!"

Both agents pulled toward their respective poles, blue towards the sky and red downward along the gradients of earth.

Bimble was caught in the middle, tensed as the rope, in a cosmic tug of war.

They decided that the Church ( religion per se ) had control over the masses and set about dismantling the authority of the Church. — david plumb

This sounds conspiratorial as if it was a project of planned intent rather than a historical accident of the spread of ideas. The complexity of factors governing historical change makes this theory sound silly. Maybe if the public didn't know how to read at all the authority of religions (Christianity/Islam?) would still properly mediate moral behavior toward a reward in an afterlife.

Equality doesn't matter in this life as your reward is in the next. — david plumb

For the purpose of trying to make sense of this thread can you say that this quotation is a statement of your own belief? It's somewhat dumbfounding.

So is this thread really about advocating for belief in the monotheistic God of Roman Catholicism, or any comparable Christian faith?

Maybe Christian intolerance/corruption ironically lead to the loss of the Church's (what Church?) cultural/political authority.

There are way too many documentaries to watch. :meh: Just as there are way too many KitKats to eat. Ignorance is still bliss.

The Rotten series on Netflix is incredible though there are controversies as to whether some industries are fairly portrayed.



Next time you eat a KitKat bar, remember these folks in Ivory Coast. "The Ivory Coast and Ghana are by far the two largest producers of cocoa, accounting for more than 50 percent of the world´s cocoa.Apr 23, 2020" https://www.statista.com/statistics/263855/cocoa-bean-production-worldwide-by-region/

The male peacock tail was selected because it pleased the ladies of the species. It's no adaptation to nothing out there. At best a beautiful tail implies the male can feed itself decently enough to maintain the huge piece, and may perhaps become a better provider for its female... but it'd be an even better provider without this huge tail slowing it down... — Olivier5

What about the eyes in the peacocks tail? You don't think they use the tail to scare away predators. And do male peacocks sit on eggs? How much "providing" are they doing outside of shooting sperm?

Another word from Herbert's Dune, suborn, means to induce or bribe someone to commit an unlawful act . A more legal definition: suborn means to bribe or induce a witness in the court of law to give false testimony.

The tyrant hold-fast had no need to suborn witnesses against his own blatant depravity and corruption. They served as loyal figures in a mock play of justice, theatrical pawns of a kangaroo court, held in check by an atmosphere of absolute terror.

Live as you like
Everybody dies
Pray if you must
But try to love the ones who loved us

No lies
No blood
We've worried long enough
No lies
No ghosts
The dirt will call us home
x2

Live as you like
It's hard to know what's right
Pray if you want
But try to love the ones who don't

Seems like Penrose has contributed, via studying these patterns, to further discovery (et al like Steinhardt and Levine) of the unique properties of quasicrystals. So there is a practical yield to the wrongness (absurdity) of this kind of rigorous study of science/mathematics.

The concept of quasicrystals — along with the term — was first introduced in 1984 by Steinhardt and Dov Levine, both then at the University of Pennsylvania. — Wikipedia: Icosahedrite

Quasicrystals: The Thrill of the Chase

They realized that by drawing parallel lines on a Penrose tiling, they could prove that the tiles are arranged quasiperiodically, producing five-fold symmetry. This was the breakthrough they needed. The leap to three dimensions produced Steinhardt’s long-imagined icosahedral quasicrystal. — Quasicrystals: The Thrill of the Chase

Yes, please, Longjing or Russian Caravan tea in either the conservatory or in the dinning room.

How does the water get routed/directed from the side of the conservatory against the building? Is it through that grate aside the gutter in the picture with the roof detritus? How do you clean out that side? There MUST be a window nearby for ease of maintenance.

Humans suffer from a negativity bias which helps organisms to survive in nature by paying attention to threats. This is a considerable source of ruminative suffering (eg. what if the economy collapses and my savings is wiped out and my Christian neighbor pulls a gun on me and my parents die of covid and everybody tells me to fuck off and die)

Mindfulness helps people to diminish the suffering caused by their negativity bias and their automatic rumination. A lot of well adjusted folks might have no need to structure their lives by a ritualistic/secular mindfulness practice but at least they may be aware, via the memes of Buddhism, that there are great tools for the amelioration of mental suffering. Mindfulness works if you can make it work for you. Thank you Buddha!

:flower:

Has Noble Dust finally left the thread(?)... I regret posting here to the diminishment of anyone's pleasure. :cry: It's therapeutic if also self-indulgent.

I venture an alternative to "dick waving" in the spirit of British humor. This is a knob turning event... not unlike wine tasting and nothing as uncouth as an American circle jerk.

Two words that I've noticed in my first reading of Frank Herbert's Dune that were unfamiliar: covey (n. a group of birds/people/things) and cozen (v. to trick or deceive).

Once you're addicted to the spice melange (French for mixture/medley) in the Dune universe you're in a bit of a pickle. Withdrawal is fatal.

Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. — unenlightened

The basic fact though is organisms use up scarce resources to sustain themselves and that this adaptive functionality is mediated by genes through natural selection. All creatures are self-conserving insofar as they are living things. How long does one need to live in order to be called "self-interested"? Do we require theory of mind? To be interested in others is to be self-interested insofar as one depends on others to survive or not.

If you were a three headed person and I was one of the heads we might need to coordinate ourselves to go buy a KitKat. It would depend on who controls what and the consequence of a distribution of other traits. Would I have the freedom to eat as many KitKats as I wanted?

If you were a sheep farmer and wolves were eating your sheep you'd shoot the wolves, law permitting. This is not a morally circumscribed action until it becomes one by an outside concern. The interest of other selves come to bear on your lifestyle and you may not take kindly to the hardship it imposes on you.

I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke. — god must be atheist

Yes. Just seemed kind of irreverent, mocking and superfluous.

What's PUI? — god must be atheist

Posting under the influence of alcohol or some other mood altering substance.

But you still are trashing threads no doubt due to your anger. Are you PUI?

The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. — unenlightened

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. :sad:

But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.' — unenlightened

The problem with a collection of self-interested persons or self-conserving structures is that they always seek to conserve their local environments and autonomy (power) at someone/thing else's expense. This works as much in a symbiotic relationship as a parasitic one.

I bite into a KitKat bar with no knowledge of the physical/social monstrosity behind it because to some extent it is irrational to think about with regard to the priorities of self-interest. It is not in my interest to justify what I do. I want a KitKat bar. I want a job at the KitKat bar factory... in the white collar part... so I can buy more KitKat bars.

Pope Francis, in the new Catechism's teaching that capital punishment is evil, has done what he has to do to curb the violence of Christians. Christians are always whinning that they are persecuted, but they are persecuted because they are trolls. — Gregory

They were persecuted but then it appears with this Edict of Thessonalike, that the state began persecuting in the name of Christianity. This violence is just as much "human" violence as it is "Christian".

Have you surveyed the work/thesis of Rene Girard at all? If he becomes a new Church father for any Christian faith in the future, then Jesus is to be interpreted as the Last Sacrifice (the last scapegoat), which amounts to a repudiation by Christians of all violence, the same kind that turned Jesus into a sacrifice. Christians today need to become conscious of what they are doing and not blindly flow in the currents of past dogma or batshit insane political ideology, which is rife with scapegoating ('the devil casting out the devil').

"If it weren't for Christians, I'd be Christian." Ghandi

"Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love... Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding." Martin Luther King Jr.

There will never be a last sacrifice because human beings are competing for power and resources by leveraging belief in the exercise of control (all kinds of subtle violence/violations). How could the meek possibly inherit the Earth? Maybe by the power of someone else's violence visited upon them.

I should never had revived this thread. — Noble Dust

What are you worried about and why are you voicing your disgust? What word ought one to post? Teach your readers a new word. Noblisse oblige.

If pedia is child and encyclius is circularity then the meaning is a child going is circles, as though lost in the woods of knowledge. — praxis

No argument here. Borges motif is as much about being in prison (of infinite space) as it is wandering a labyrinth (library/encyclopedia). We should do/use the word praxis since it has quite the philosophical history. Maybe Noble Dust would like that.

In Ancient Greek the word praxis (πρᾶξις) referred to activity engaged in by free people. — Wikipedia: Praxis

Jerzey Flight wasn't a drama lama. He was a drama unicorn fighting on behalf of us invertebrates and lesser mammals. He luckily escaped God's chosen menagerie on the ark.

Now that he is free from the prison (zoo) that is the PF, he can work on changing the world for the better, by using his magic horn rhetoric to fix human misery by activating philosophers to move. The masses should rise up and take to the streets on the backs of courageous beasts like Jerzey, who are more than just internet writers.

From one cell to the next, pry the locks open with force and let the animals free to scare their masters.

The inveterate masturbations of a pseudo philosopher are still pleasurable even though they might impede growth and development conferred by pursuing more social or practical unions. An orgy of one is quite dull.

The false article in the encyclopedia* of J.L. Borges short story, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, is a cause for nightmares (eg. see power of the spreading meme "fake news" by a nation's figurehead). We are contaminated (or changed) by everything we are exposed to. The fiction we read helps us to read/(mis)interpet the world.

Footnote: * I was so hoping the suffix of pedia related to feet rather than the ancient greek word for child. I was imagining an encyclopedia in line with Borges projection of the world as a library, such that one could wander the realm of knowledge (the encyclopedia) by foot as one can perambulate the actual landscape of the world.

An obituary for the archetype of philosophical Cynicism, Diogenes of Sinope, might be quite fun. But that would take a bit of research.

There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them.[8] — Wikipedia: Cynicism (philosophy)

I'd like to live like a dog for a while, if I could muster the courage to lose my job and learn how to sleep anywhere and eat anything. Sounds like a good skill to have as we face economic insecurity and increasing poverty in the U.S. Street jars (homes) and dogs (friends) for everyone.

Of course it will be like this, nobody wants a life that does not have a perennial meaning, therefore that it is meaningless. — bcccampello

Is a perennial meaning that which is intelligible (or valuable or good) by virtue of participation in perennial forms? Mircea Eliade had this notion of eternity as perennial acts. The past happens again because of practical reenactments. Here the religion would be a reenactment of desired and good as it pertains to philosophical modes or analyses/criticism. Meaning is derived from your participation with your fellow people.


To have perennial meaning is to be perceived as having desirable (or meaningful) meaning in this game of life. Or as the maligned Jordan Peterson would say, to play well in as many "dominance hierarchies" as you can.