non-religious (?) messages, comments welcome

[David Dalton]

Tonight I edited the main messages section
http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/messages.html of my Salmon on the
Thorns web page http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html .

I include the list below in case you don't like to
click on links, like me. Editorial and/or content comments
are welcome. I probably will edit it some more after I come
out of the low years, which I hope will be soon.

Some essential messages for my people (the human species globally) are:

1. I don't care what anyone believes as long as they are loving, or
try to be as much as possible within constraints of life.

2. The fundamental is to love; however this can not be always
achieved and so one must at least strive to love. Messages that conflict
with that sentence must be discarded or edited to no longer conflict.

3. Loving behaviour should be both within our species (including to
other nationalities, races, spiritual paths, orientations, genders and
ages, and with no instigation of war) and, though we would give our own
species a "human family" edge, to members of other species and to each
species as a unit and to the environment we are part of.

4. If you communicate with a someone you must know the definition of
that someone. A corollary is that, for non-atheists: if you follow a
deity name (e.g. God) do not use the name blindly but know what it means.

5. There is no someone who is BOTH all-powerful AND perfect (or
perfectly loving).

6. There are many possible paths up a mountain, and many such paths
do in theory meet or exceed these messages and also my suggested
UN/derived messages, partially in place at The United Nations now, e.g.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (but note that I take the
"other status" of Article 2 to include sexual orientation, i.e. sexual
orientation is a form of "other status") already in place.

7. Don't take up a path unless it truly resonates with you, and have
an individual connection with the path and not just blindly follow.

8. There should be an individual responsibility to be a seed of good.

9. Believe anything that there is evidence for (but work to change it
if it is not loving) and don't believe something that there is evidence
against (but try to bring it into existence if it is loving) and feel
free to believe anything you like that is loving (not harmful) and that
has no evidence for or against it but don't shove such theories down
anyone else's throat but feel free to share the beauty of them.

10. We are part of nature and not above nature.

11. There are some similarities between the lives (and in many
cases message overlap to some extent too) of some past major pagan and
major non-pagan figures (including Jesus) and me.

12. Sex between incompatibles is an abomination, sex between
compatibles is not, such as a gay man is compatible with another gay man
but is not compatible with a woman so for him to have sex with a woman
is an abomination but loving consensual compatible sex between gay men
is not. And to have sex with someone while not thinking of that someone
and instead thinking of another is also an abomination. Other forms of
abomination are pedophilia, rape, incest with relatives closer than
second cousin, and bestiality.

--
David Dalton dal...@nfld.com http://www.nfld.com/~dalton (home page)
http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/nf.html Newfoundland&Labrador Travel & Music
http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html Salmon on the Thorns (mystic page)
"Here I go again...back into the flame" (Sarah McLachlan)

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Sat, 02 Mar 2013 02:05:42 -0330
David Dalton <dal...@nfld.com> wrote:

> Tonight I edited the main messages section
> http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/messages.html of my Salmon on the
> Thorns web page http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html .
>
> I include the list below in case you don't like to
> click on links, like me. Editorial and/or content comments
> are welcome. I probably will edit it some more after I come
> out of the low years, which I hope will be soon.

Thanks for posting this. I've added my thoughts below, which I hope
will be of interest to you...

> Some essential messages for my people (the human species globally)
> are:

Human solidarity has no official spokesperson.

> 1. I don't care what anyone believes as long as they are loving,
> or try to be as much as possible within constraints of life.

What if they believe that it's okay to pretend to love another to gain
their trust for the purpose of betraying or hurting them later? This
is one reason why I think it's important to know what others believe.

> 2. The fundamental is to love; however this can not be always
> achieved and so one must at least strive to love. Messages that
> conflict with that sentence must be discarded or edited to no longer
> conflict.

That advocates censorship which is just another form of oppression.

> 3. Loving behaviour should be both within our species (including
> to other nationalities, races, spiritual paths, orientations, genders
> and ages, and with no instigation of war) and, though we would give
> our own species a "human family" edge, to members of other species
> and to each species as a unit and to the environment we are part of.

That suggestion seems reasonable.

> 4. If you communicate with a someone you must know the definition
> of that someone. A corollary is that, for non-atheists: if you follow
> a deity name (e.g. God) do not use the name blindly but know what it
> means.

This contradicts the desire you expressed in point 1 because people
can be defined, at least in part, by what they believe (and also by
what they don't believe).

> 5. There is no someone who is BOTH all-powerful AND perfect (or
> perfectly loving).

Can you prove that? The burden of proof for claims can be satisfied
with L.O.V.E. (Logical, Objective, Verifiable Evidence):

L.O.V.E.: http://www.atheistfrontier.com/glossary/love.pl

> 6. There are many possible paths up a mountain, and many such
> paths do in theory meet or exceed these messages and also my
> suggested UN/derived messages, partially in place at The United
> Nations now, e.g. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (but note
> that I take the "other status" of Article 2 to include sexual
> orientation, i.e. sexual orientation is a form of "other status")
> already in place.

That observation seems reasonable.

> 7. Don't take up a path unless it truly resonates with you, and
> have an individual connection with the path and not just blindly
> follow.

That's not compatible with capitalism, democracy, or survival
instincts, because in life there are many things people must do
regardless of whether they want to -- just ask any parent.

> 8. There should be an individual responsibility to be a seed of
> good.

That's subjective because "good" is subjective, but responsibility is
certainly important in the context of participating in most societies.

> 9. Believe anything that there is evidence for (but work to change
> it if it is not loving) and don't believe something that there is
> evidence against (but try to bring it into existence if it is loving)
> and feel free to believe anything you like that is loving (not
> harmful) and that has no evidence for or against it but don't shove
> such theories down anyone else's throat but feel free to share the
> beauty of them.

That conflicts with skepticism which is free to question anything,
including well-established facts (which can stand objectively on their
own merits assuming at least one flaw has not been discovered).

> 10. We are part of nature and not above nature.

Technological progress seems to contradict that.

> 11. There are some similarities between the lives (and in many
> cases message overlap to some extent too) of some past major pagan
> and major non-pagan figures (including Jesus) and me.

This is a moot point. It's not clear which person named Jesus you're
referring to as you didn't include a last name (many telephone books
feature entries for people who share that name).

> 12. Sex between incompatibles is an abomination, sex between
> compatibles is not, such as a gay man is compatible with another gay
> man but is not compatible with a woman so for him to have sex with a
> woman is an abomination but loving consensual compatible sex between
> gay men is not. And to have sex with someone while not thinking of
> that someone and instead thinking of another is also an abomination.
> Other forms of abomination are pedophilia, rape, incest with
> relatives closer than second cousin, and bestiality.

That conflicts with advocates for "willing consent," and also conflicts
with free thinking (people's thoughts should not be restricted no
matter what activity they're engaged in at the time).

--
Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist
in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
-- Carl Sagan

[David Dalton]

In article <20130301225042.120d...@fidemturbare.com>,

"Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess"

<god...@fidemturbare.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 02 Mar 2013 02:05:42 -0330
> David Dalton <dal...@nfld.com> wrote:
>
> > Tonight I edited the main messages section
> > http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/messages.html of my Salmon on the
> > Thorns web page http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html .
> >
> > I include the list below in case you don't like to
> > click on links, like me. Editorial and/or content comments
> > are welcome. I probably will edit it some more after I come
> > out of the low years, which I hope will be soon.
>
> Thanks for posting this. I've added my thoughts below, which I hope
> will be of interest to you...
>
> > Some essential messages for my people (the human species globally)
> > are:
>
> Human solidarity has no official spokesperson.
>
> > 1. I don't care what anyone believes as long as they are loving,
> > or try to be as much as possible within constraints of life.
>
> What if they believe that it's okay to pretend to love another to gain
> their trust for the purpose of betraying or hurting them later? This
> is one reason why I think it's important to know what others believe.

But "as long as they are loving" implies that what they
believe is loving.

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:43:44 -0330

So does that mean that people who want to hurt you against your will
because they "justify it as an act of love" is something you don't care
to know about?

I've observed that some psychopaths do regard their violent acts as
"loving" despite popular opinion that disagrees.

--

Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect,
and respect only what I at least know."
-- Adolf Hitler

[David Dalton]

In article <20130303103508.8b88...@fidemturbare.com>,

In the "I don't care..." I am assuming that the "loving"
is as defined by me and not as defined by the "anyone".

[Jenny6833A]

I didn't get very far, only far enough to know you hadn't defined 'love' or 'loving.'

Jenny

~~~~~~~~

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Sun, 03 Mar 2013 21:26:05 -0330

It's not clear what you mean. Can you please define "loving?"

--

Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"The moon is not a ball on a string."
-- Duke Earl J. Weber Lebourgeois, American-American (July 9, 2012)

[David Dalton]

In article <f74aa57e-c28e-476b...@googlegroups.com>,

Jenny6833A <Jenny...@aol.com> wrote:

> I didn't get very far, only far enough to know you hadn't defined 'love' or
> 'loving.'

They are defined in lots of dictionaries.

And if I define them for you you can then say, define all
the words you use in the definition, and so on. In the
end it comes down to words you know by example.

Tonight I'm in a bit of a rush but perhaps I will
comment further tomorrow night.

[David Dalton]

In article <20130303221036.c86d...@fidemturbare.com>,

It is defined in lots of dictionaries.

And if I define it for you you can then say, define all

the words you use in the definition, and so on. In the
end it comes down to words you know by example.

Tonight I'm in a bit of a rush but perhaps I will
comment further tomorrow night.

[David Dalton]

In article <dalton-5D555B....@mx05.eternal-september.org>,

David Dalton <dal...@nfld.com> wrote:

> In article <f74aa57e-c28e-476b...@googlegroups.com>,
> Jenny6833A <Jenny...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > I didn't get very far, only far enough to know you hadn't defined 'love' or
> > 'loving.'
>
> They are defined in lots of dictionaries.
>
> And if I define them for you you can then say, define all
> the words you use in the definition, and so on. In the
> end it comes down to words you know by example.

By the above, I mean if I define love as goodness
and loving as good, then you can ask me how I
define good and goodness.

And I guess I do define love as goodness and loving as good.

But my Concise Oxford defines love as

warm affection, attachment, liking, or fondness,
paternal benevolence (esp. of God), affectionate devotion

and loving as

manifesting or proceeding from love.

The definition of love as goodness most closely
matches the dictionary definition of benevolence.
The Concise Oxford defines benevolent (which
would be a definition of loving) as desirous
of doing good, so benevolence is the desire
to do good to others.

So in summary I define love as goodness or benevolence
and loving as good or benevolent. But you could then
ask me to define good, goodness, benevolent,
benevolence and then to define all the words in
those four definitions, and so on. Such a
process can become circular if e.g. the word
love appears in one of the definitions. So
really you have to know the words in a definition,
perhaps by example. (I think I know the words
love and loving as related to spiritual love
waves emanating from my heart chakra and hands,
but that is a bit off-topic for this newsgroup.)

But wait, I have been proceeding as if my message
was still the fundamental is love, where love is
a noun, as above. But I recently edited it to
say the fundamental is to love, using the
verb form of love. That verb form can be
defined as regard with love and act towards with
love, where that noun form of love is defined above.

Maybe I will revert to the noun form, but I wanted
to have strive to love rather than strive for love.

Why do I have this fundamental is to love message
anyway? Because so many so-called fundamentalists
often follow minor messages that conflict with
their major messages.

And a google of define love
produces lots of definitions
including, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love ,

"Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love
is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a
number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers
all" to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". St. Thomas Aquinas,
following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another."[10]
Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as
opposed to relative value.[citation needed] Philosopher Gottfried
Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of
another."[11] Biologist Jeremy Griffith defines love as "unconditional
selflessness".[12]"