Re: Pillar of Salt

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/14/2017 4:19 AM, Sentiment Bri wrote:

> I'm thinking the "pillar of salt" that Lot's wife turned into was
> just an expression meaning she cried a lot. "Cried so much
> her tears dried and she turned into a pillar of salt."
>
> She looked back, meaning she pined for the past...which
> made her cry...
>
> I'll have to go back and look at it some more.

Madame Guyon piles on this story. Like the late Hal Hesse,
she teaches to look forward only and never back, never to
turn one's gaze backward and inward to check on oneself.
Any turning back of one's mind to check on itself is an
obstacle to being in Unity with God, meaning the Stoic God
who is the whole before the fragmentation. She and Hal
essentially teach the opposite of "turning one's light to
shine on oneself" hui guang fan zhao 迴光返照 (eko hensho
in Dogen) of Chinese Chan.

O excessive bonté de Dieu à récompenser une âme sitôt
qu’elle se quitte en quelque chose pour l’amour de lui! Avec
quelle tendresse parle-t-il à Abraham après qu’il s’est séparé
de Lot! Une bonne chose qui nous sert d’appui et de
compagnie, empêche la communication de Dieu, et arrête le
cours de ses grâces. Ces promesses, réitérées à Abraham,
ne s’accomplirent que quatre cents ans après qu’elles lui
eurent été faites selon la lettre, et après de sanglantes
batailles entre le peuple de Dieu et ses ennemis; pour nous
apprendre à ne donner ni sens, ni temps, mi manière, ni rien
de déterminé aux paroles intérieures qui se disent dans le
cœur des serviteurs de Dieu.

Vous êtes trop multiplié: mais jusqu’à ce que vous retourniez
à cet état simple dont vous vous êtes retiré par vous-même,
vous ne serez point en la place où Dieu vous veut. Prenez
courage je vous en prie, et laissez-vous là comme une chose
qui ne vous appartient plus, et dont vous ne devez plus vous
mêler du tout, ni même vous souvenir si cela se pouvait. Plût
à Dieu que vous fussiez si bien perdu dans votre Etre original,
que vous ne vous vissiez plus vous-même! Mais vous faites
comme la femme de Lot, qui fut changée en statue de sel: Ce
qui nous fait voir que c’est la fausse sagesse, ou la peur, qui
font retourner l’homme sur lui-même, et regarder derrière lui.
C’est pourquoi Jésus-Christ dit, que celui qui ayant mis la
main à la charrue regarde derrière foi, n’est pas propre pour
le Royaume de Dieu, c’est-à-dire, pour que Dieu règne
absolument en lui.

<<ne donner ni sens, ni temps, mi manière, ni rien de
déterminé aux paroles intérieures qui se disent dans le
cœur des serviteurs de Dieu>> not to give meaning, time,
manner/mode, or anything determined to the inner speech
which says itself in the heart of the servants of God.

<<Mais vous faites comme la femme de Lot, qui fut changée
en statue de sel: Ce qui nous fait voir que c’est la fausse
sagesse, ou la peur, qui font retourner l’homme sur
lui-même, et regarder derrière lui. C’est pourquoi
Jésus-Christ dit, que celui qui ayant mis la main à la charrue
regarde derrière foi, n’est pas propre pour le Royaume de
Dieu, c’est-à-dire, pour que Dieu règne absolument en lui.>>
But you do as Lot's wife, who was changed into a statue of
salt: which makes us see that it is false wisdom, or fear, that
make man to return on himself and look behind him. It is why
Jesus Christ says that the one who having put his hand on
the plow, looks behind him, is not good for the Kingdom of
God, i. e., so that God reigns absolutely in him.

Tang Huyen

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/15/2017 8:29 AM, Sentiment Bri wrote:

> Tang Huyen:

>> O excessive bonté de Dieu à récompenser une âme sitôt
>> qu’elle se quitte en quelque chose pour l’amour de lui! Avec
>> quelle tendresse parle-t-il à Abraham après qu’il s’est séparé
>> de Lot! Une bonne chose qui nous sert d’appui et de
>> compagnie, empêche la communication de Dieu, et arrête le
>> cours de ses grâces. Ces promesses, réitérées à Abraham,
>> ne s’accomplirent que quatre cents ans après qu’elles lui
>> eurent été faites selon la lettre, et après de sanglantes
>> batailles entre le peuple de Dieu et ses ennemis; pour nous
>> apprendre à ne donner ni sens, ni temps, mi manière, ni rien
>> de déterminé aux paroles intérieures qui se disent dans le
>> cœur des serviteurs de Dieu.

> I'm just thinking that no connection has been made between
> "salt in tears" and "salt in pillars". Nothing in my google
> searches has made this connection.
>
> So...the idea that sprung in my head does not seem to have
> occurred to anyone else...The idea has no utility but still...I
> want to be acknowledged for the discovery...
>
> Also just discovered that I prefer to separate many of my c
> lauses with ellipses.
>
> The "discovery" part...

dar used to end sentences with commas, lots of them, and
MasterBaiter used ellipses, after every two or three words.

<<Une bonne chose qui nous sert d’appui et de compagnie,
empêche la communication de Dieu, et arrête le cours de
ses grâces>>

Here Madame Guyon says something very Buddhistic,
right inside a text that looks very Jewish mythologish:
a good thing which serves as our support and company,
prevents the communication of God and stops the course
of his graces. Buddhism from the Buddha on down has
warned against taking any sign of blessing, like peace,
calm, visions, apparitions, etc. as something positive to
stand on and stop at. It has inveighed against taking any
such sign seriously, and has instead advised to keep
detached and equable, in disregard to it. The whole
Perfection of Wisdom scriptures are built on such caution.

This, regardless whether you look back on yourself and
check yourself, or only look forward. Even such method
(dharma) should be taken lightly and not clung to.

Tang Huyen

[brian mitchell]

Tang Huyen wrote:

>On 6/14/2017 4:19 AM, Sentiment Bri wrote:
>
>> I'm thinking the "pillar of salt" that Lot's wife turned into was
>> just an expression meaning she cried a lot. "Cried so much
>> her tears dried and she turned into a pillar of salt."
>>
>> She looked back, meaning she pined for the past...which
>> made her cry...
>>
>> I'll have to go back and look at it some more.
>
>Madame Guyon piles on this story. Like the late Hal Hesse,
>she teaches to look forward only and never back, never to
>turn one's gaze backward and inward to check on oneself.
>Any turning back of one's mind to check on itself is an
>obstacle to being in Unity with God, meaning the Stoic God
>who is the whole before the fragmentation. She and Hal
>essentially teach the opposite of "turning one's light to

>shine on oneself" hui guang fan zhao ???? (eko hensho

>in Dogen) of Chinese Chan.

This is an unresolvable catch-22 situation which no decision or
intention can break through. I suspect Hal Hesse saw this, which would
have been why he took the "no checking the mind" position. Turning
one's light back on oneself is not a process of introspection; it has
no psychological content or purpose at all. Such introspection may be
a useful practice but it deals only with the content of thought and
feeling, it doesn't touch the nature of mind without thought.

The turning in the seat of consciousness (a variant on turning one's
light back) doesn't *lead* to awakening, it IS awakening. Mind knowing
mind directly is mind awakening to its own --or true-- nature. No
intermediate step involved.

That does leave the question of how the turning in the seat of
consciousness occurs, if never by intention? Under what circumstance
or condition does mind know itself directly? There may be no answer,
no condition, no intermediate step. I imagine it would only be by
intense watchfulness, yet even that would have to be a peripheral
vision, a non-watching in which the mind naturally and spontaneously
returns to itself.

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/15/2017 12:49 PM, Sentiment Bri wrote:

> Recently you wrote:
>
> "This is where I insert myself, namely in the discovery of
> the rails that produces philosophical theories, be they
> obfuscations. I don't need to bust the obfuscations, but
> only want to expose the rails that produce them, in
> prescinding from the obfuscations themselves in content. "
>
> The discovery part...

I fail to see the relevance of my above statement to
the present discussion. The discovery, or presumable
such, is in ferreting out the rails that help produce
philosophical theories, be they true or false. It does
not subserve liberation, more precisely liberation from
mentation, but it helps me reintuit and recompose how
philosophical theories are produced, in disregard to
their (presumable) truth or untruth. It also helps others
who get the same rails to understand how philosophical
theories are produced.

Of course this reintuition of the rails of philosophical
thinking must depend on turning back my mind to
check on the simulation of producing such theories by
such and such rails, but liberation from mentation is
not the aim here. Merely looking forward would not
help extracting/abstracting the form from philosophical
content.

My reproach to some famous, probably most famous,
philosophers is that they produce brilliant theories but
have scarcely any consciousness of how they do so.
One prime example is Heidegger.

Tang Huyen

[Ned Ludd]

"brian mitchell" <brai...@fishing.net> wrote in message
news:gok5kc5lcpsv6142n...@4ax.com...

Well what about the mirror test? It's generally accepted
as a valid test of self-awareness...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

And I would prefer you not quibble about "intense watchfulness'
not being what these animals are perceiving. Are they "aware",
yes or no?

Ned

[dagnabit]

"Ned Ludd" wrote in message
news:4OqdndyvOdqYvtnE...@earthlink.com...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaMylwohL14

[Ned Ludd]

"dagnabit" <meanmr...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:oi19p1$1mj$1...@dont-email.me...

Charming, yes. But technically not the 'Mirror Test'.

Ned

[brian mitchell]

Yet, sadly, quibble I must.
Creatures with distributed nervous systems seem to have internal
self-models of their particular forms relative to their environment.
They can judge distance, size, where the leg has to go to scratch an
itch, how big a hole they can fit in, and so on, but this model and
its data is instinctive and not conscious. What seems to happen with
those that pass the mirror test is that the body's self-model becomes
an object of consciousness among all the other objects, seen as
distinct (which is what consciousness does). How much they know it as
THEIR body --ie., have a concomitant self of self-being-- is uncertain
and perhaps undeterminable.

If looking in a mirror was sufficient means for mind to realize its
true nature, all human beings would be awakened in the Buddhist sense.
Our self-model includes many of the operations of thought and memory,
imagination and whatever other aspects of mindedness we have, the
psyche generally as well as the body, but this all lies in the realm
of variable content.

[Ned Ludd]

"brian mitchell" <brai...@fishing.net> wrote in message

news:euq8kcp2ks3ididug...@4ax.com...

Aware. Self aware. Aware of self. That's all Buddha said
"awakened in the Buddhist sense" was. Bodhi. Awake or
aware. It was the latter discriminating bean-counters that
added the bells and whistles that made it annutara-samyak-
sambodhi, or something more than just "aware".

It's not just seeing yourself in a mirror. It's seeing yourself,
knowing yourself enough to know what you look like (from
repeated observations), and noticing that you don't look like
that any more, and examining the things that are different.

Your argument seems to be that, yes, they can do all those
things, but they don't REALLY "know it as THEIR body".

'Cause why? Because only Humans can do that? You gotta
be a Human to really know your body's your body?

What's the word I'm looking for? - Anthropomorphiliast?
You know, almost every time we've gone to wall on proving
that humans are different than animals, we've lost?

Ned

[dagnabit]

"brian mitchell" wrote in message
news:euq8kcp2ks3ididug...@4ax.com...
>

and may need a little physical assistance because among
other uses cats and other animals use their whiskers to
judge an opening they are thinking of exploring because
the whiskers are oftentimes the animal's width, but there
probably isn't anything instinctive or subconscious about it.

[brian mitchell]

That the possibilities of abstraction and thought are more developed
in human beings than in any other known organism is just unarguably
so. You seem to run the other danger of universalising your particular
experience to assert a false equivalence. There are many reports,
mostly from war zones or similarly catastrophic situations, of someone
hearing a person screaming in terrible pain without realizing that it
is themself. A saving mental dissociation has taken place. The
relationship of consciousness to sensation is not a fixed one. The
further function of identity with experience also variable.

But I am from the School of Bells and Whistles. Just being physically
awake and in conscious relation to one's environment --in the widest
sense of environment-- is not, in my view, to have realized
self-nature as Buddha did. To think that, I would call making a
mole-hill out of a mountain.

[Ned Ludd]

"brian mitchell" <brai...@fishing.net> wrote in message

news:gmv8kc5hkseothaac...@4ax.com...

You don't know that about dolphins. Great apes, corvids and parrots,
and octopodes show intelligence, and the ability to "figure things out".

> You seem to run the other danger of universalising your particular
> experience to assert a false equivalence. There are many reports,
> mostly from war zones or similarly catastrophic situations, of someone
> hearing a person screaming in terrible pain without realizing that it
> is themself. A saving mental dissociation has taken place. The
> relationship of consciousness to sensation is not a fixed one. The
> further function of identity with experience also variable.
> But I am from the School of Bells and Whistles. Just being physically
> awake and in conscious relation to one's environment --in the widest
> sense of environment-- is not, in my view, to have realized
> self-nature as Buddha did. To think that, I would call making a
> mole-hill out of a mountain.
>

Most of man's work - like 99% - is glorifying man. Often this
is accompanied by denigrating other species with respect to
man. And when that is done, then it is accompanied by
denigrating women with respect to men.

I'm reading a fascinating book called "The Evolution of Beauty".
Turns out that Darwin's SECOND book, "The Descent of Man"
proposed an equally powerful force to natural selection, an
independent force that can run counter to natural selection,
and evolves independently of it. It is the force of autonomous
sexual selection - usually by females - and it accounts for the
adoption of a vast array of 'ornamentation' in all kinds of
species on the planet, ie. Beauty. This theory of Darwin's was
widely trounced by his Victorian critics when he proposed it,
and is still marginalized in the evolutionary community. They
could not accept that "vicious" and fickle women could be
responsible for such an important and powerful force. But if
correct, it proposes that human conceptions of aesthetics and
beauty evolved in all species preceding man, and also in
mankind, over billions and hundreds of millions of years,
driven primarily by the process of female mate selection.

Ned

[liaM]

Extinction is the ultimate stage of perfection in the Buddhist canon
and well might that be, Hypnos and Thanatos hand in hand leading
humanity down the garden path, gays and transgender who do not adopt,
couples who forswear procreation: how else is humanity to evolve past
the barrier that separates it from what's behind the veil ?

Tell Darwin :)

[liaM]

Some Zen and taoist people point to making a mole-hill out of a
mole-hill as the ultimate state of being for disciples who sought
enlightenment :)

Check out Shunryu Suzuki.

[liaM]

Just like humans, animals often go around seeing things that don't
exist or that are not what they seem. This, in fact, is proof
that animals are aware of what's around them, even when they see
mental artifacts instead of real objects. This learned comment of
mine comes directly from observation of my jack russell, who goes
around jumping up and snapping at imaginary flying insects and
often starts barking at something she sees on a TV screen, but totally
un-identifiable for humans looking at the same screen.

Awareness is consciousness of mental objects which may or may not
have objective correlatives. But you knew that, didn't you?

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/16/2017 11:43 PM, Ned Ludd wrote:

> Most of man's work - like 99% - is glorifying man. Often this
> is accompanied by denigrating other species with respect to
> man. And when that is done, then it is accompanied by
> denigrating women with respect to men.
>
> I'm reading a fascinating book called "The Evolution of Beauty".
> Turns out that Darwin's SECOND book, "The Descent of Man"
> proposed an equally powerful force to natural selection, an
> independent force that can run counter to natural selection,
> and evolves independently of it. It is the force of autonomous
> sexual selection - usually by females - and it accounts for the
> adoption of a vast array of 'ornamentation' in all kinds of
> species on the planet, ie. Beauty. This theory of Darwin's was
> widely trounced by his Victorian critics when he proposed it,
> and is still marginalized in the evolutionary community. They
> could not accept that "vicious" and fickle women could be
> responsible for such an important and powerful force. But if
> correct, it proposes that human conceptions of aesthetics and
> beauty evolved in all species preceding man, and also in
> mankind, over billions and hundreds of millions of years,
> driven primarily by the process of female mate selection.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/science/evolution-of-beauty-richard-prum-darwin-sexual-selection.html>


"Challenging Mainstream Thought About Beauty’s Big Hand
in Evolution

Are aesthetic judgments about mates invariably tied to traits
we see as adaptive and worth passing on? Or, does beauty
just ‘happen’?"

<<But one particular aspect of his argument is his distress at
the idea that almost all evolutionary change is assumed to be
adaptive, contributing to fitness. In other words, if a fish is blue,
it must be blue for a reason. The color must help it escape
predators or sneak up on prey, or be otherwise useful in some
way. Beauty, therefore, must be adaptive, or a sign of
underlying qualities that are adaptive. Pick a behavior or an
ornament or a physical trait, and it is useful until proven
otherwise.
That’s backward, says Dr. Prum. Take beauty. Since animals
have aesthetic preferences and make choices, beauty will
inevitably appear. “Beauty happens,” as he puts it, and it
should be taken as nonadaptive until proven otherwise.
In proposing this so-called “null hypothesis,” he draws on the
work of Mark A. Kirkpatrick at the University of Texas, Austin,
who studies population genetics, genomics and evolutionary
theory and had read parts of “The Evolution of Beauty.”
“I’m very impressed that Rick is taking on this crusade,” Dr.
Kirkpatrick said. He is not convinced that all aspects of sexual
selection are based on arbitrary choices for perceived beauty,
but, he said, if Dr. Prum can convince some other scientists to
question their assumptions, “he will do a great service.”
For Dr. Prum, at least, there is a partial answer to the question
posed by Dr. Prakash. Why are birds beautiful?
“Birds are beautiful because they’re beautiful to themselves.”>>

Self-serving self-reference, in a circle of mutual stroking, eh?

Tang Huyen

[Ned Ludd]

"liaM" <cud...@mindless.com> wrote in message
news:oi2kk1$m0o$1...@dont-email.me...

I will, for sure. Next time I see him.

Ned

[Ned Ludd]

"Tang Huyen" <tang...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e779d68b-8cb2-69c0...@gmail.com...

Thanks for the link, and yes, I'm beginning to accept the
argument. 'Ornamentation' is so massively pervasive across
SO many species, from shrimp to peacocks, and so difficult
to fit into any accepted idea of natural selection, that it does
appear to be an independent evolutionary force.

Darwin wrote to a friend that every time he sees a peacock
tail it makes him "sick". He was sickened by the fact that
after a lifetime of studying species across the whole world,
he couldn't fit such an ungainly, cumbersome adaptation
into any conceivable mechanism of natural selection/survival
of the fittest.

And here it is interesting to see how his critics responded.
Their arguments fall into a couple or three categories, but the
biggest is, in essence, an act of FAITH. A large group of critics
say that even though they can't posit any conceivable mechanism
for a certain ornamental adaptation to contribute to the vigor
or fitness of an organism, it MUST do that, because it MUST be
part of the natural selection process. And they go so far as to
say they are the TRUE Darwinists, and that Darwin was wrong
to propose this theory.

When the book was given to me, I naturally assumed it was
stupid. Aesthetics and Beauty are subjective, and couldn't
possibly be a factor, a primary driving factor, in evolution. They
couldn't, imo, even be measured, in any agreed-upon scientific
sense.

Well, they don't have to be. There is no standard or universal
aesthetic or beauty. They are unique to each species and evolve
under their own dynamic within each species.

BUT, and here's were it gets really interesting, if it is true that
there is a primary, driving, evolutionary force, as strong and even
sometimes STRONGER than natural selection, and that this
force is autonomous sexual selection by (primarily) females,
then it means that 'Beauty' has been determined and selected
by the females of species through essentially all evolutionary
history.

Not just us. Not just hominids. But for billions of years of
evolution in the sea, and hundreds of millions of years of
evolution on land, the females were picking mates on the basis
of ornamentation and what THEY thought was worthy of mating
with, up through the primates and apes and mankind.

And that's where beauty came from.

Ned

[Tang Huyen]

I accept the argument. Even trees, plants and flowers seek
their own beauty and ways to enhance it, so that all sentient
existents benefit, perhaps rocks and water and air benefit too.

And other than physical beauty, there is the phenomenon,
much commented on and sought after, that is call coherence,
accord, harmony, in art, music, literature and philosophy. It
pulls everything into perspective and makes everything snap
together, in one single vision. Mental culture, to me, is just
this yearning but brought out all the way.

Which is why I don't condemn totally the famous mass
murderers like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. Perhaps they
see something beautiful in their respective utopias, however
bloodily they implement it. Hitler is an artist, Mao writes
poems, etc. They have something good about them, however
much it pales in front of their atrocities.

To me, we never get to know for sure what is good and what
is evil. They flow into each other.

萬古長空 An eternity of endless space:
一朝風月 A day of wind and moon.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

Stalin the bad poet, Hitler the mediocre artist, PolPot the failed
social philosopher, totally uncaring of the suffering they caused..
Even you, poor Tang Huyen, by your own words, you and your Ninja Stars,
inexcusably fall in with that bunch of ego driven manipulative and
calculating creeps.

[liaM]

Beauty, yes. But not poetry.

[Ned Ludd]

"liaM" <cud...@mindless.com> wrote in message

news:oi3l06$qsm$2...@dont-email.me...

Well, obviously. Everybody knows that poetry came
from Odin giving his right eye to Mimir, so he could take
one sip from Mimir's well, to gain the wisdom to make
mead, and thereby to write poetry.

Ned

[brian mitchell]

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with, eh?

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/17/2017 11:49 AM, brian mitchell wrote:

> If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with, eh?

If you're with one of the famous mass murderers,
like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, are you going to
practice your preaching? By the way, it is admirable.

Tang Huyen

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/17/2017 9:24 AM, liaM wrote:

> Stalin the bad poet, Hitler the mediocre artist, PolPot the failed
> social philosopher, totally uncaring of the suffering they caused.. Even
> you, poor Tang Huyen, by your own words, you and your Ninja Stars,
> inexcusably fall in with that bunch of ego driven manipulative and
> calculating creeps.

Most mosques refuse to perform funeral rites
for jihadists who have carried out terrorist acts.
From the social-political viewpoint, they are
wise to avoid the guilt by association.

From the religious viewpoint, I don't know about
Islam, but from the Buddhist standpoint, the
Bodhisattva goes to hell to cross over hell
denizens, how else could the latter be crossed
over?

If so, to me the Buddhist temples may risk
popular condemnation to perform funeral rites
(and whatever) for whomever wants it, so that
the beneficiaries might be crossed over. The
more heinous their acts, the more they need
help crossing over. That is when you make
your religious convictions earn their keep.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

Just be. Mirrors are all around us.

[liaM]

For us here, religion is the opium of the people. I hunker
down in this fold with the notion that my Buddhism is
not a religion. Unmarked graves and fire ravaged bunkers are
what destroyed dictators get at their end. Commitment is the
mark of existentialists and Bodhisattvas. "Crossing over" is
just a fiction for creepy-crawly minds defending their dominion
over a supposed after life.

[liaM]

yep :)

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/17/2017 4:07 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:

> For humans, at least, sexual beauty is adaptive in peaceful timed, but
> in war time, it is nonadaptive. Ugliness has the advantage there.
>
> I suspect it is not that birds and flowers are beautiful for a reason,
> it is that we experience them as beautiful for a reason. Existence is
> trouble prone enough without ugly surroundings. Anything that
> encourages us to stick it out with this painful existence is adaptive
> for us. The pain of existence has been moderated by modern medicine
> lately, so the advantage in seeing beauty might not be so important
> these days.

Beauty helps us live, and avoid offing ourselves. Other
than that, it has no utility. Mental culture pushes this
advantage all the way, in offering to us at a minimum
an experience of accord, harmony, flourishing. And it
pushes the absence of utility to an extreme, in that it
does not foster survival. If anything, it makes life fluffy
and ethereal, therefore easier to give up. Many mystics
have explicitly noticed this absence of utility.

Others around them can benefit from their mystical
experience of whatever kind vicariously, and are willing
to support them materially for such fringe benefit. If
they can't get it, at least they can feel good supporting
somebody who can. Nothing material happens, but
everybody feels good. This includes the (materially
impossible) wish to cross over all living beings.

Buddhist temples in China and Vietnam have slogans
written in big characters: "Adorning the Buddha-Land
(zhuangyan guodu 莊嚴國土)." In doing any act of
beauty, like cleaning the ground, one prays for the
purity of one's future Pure Land. It may not bring any
material result, but it purifies one's mind and serves
as example for others.

Like the bumper sticker: Practice random acts of
kindness and perform senseless acts of beauty. Art
for art's sake, beauty for beauty's sake.

Tang Huyen

[Wilson]

The nice thing about not believing in an afterlife is how happy you are
when you learn you're wrong.

Perhaps the help in crossing over mostly goes to the helper, not the dead.

[Ned Ludd]

"Wilson" <absfg_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:oi5sq4$3nm$1...@dont-email.me...

Oh you poor benighted soul. You have NO hope of the beatific vision
without the sacrament of baptism! This was clearly, if circuitously,
enunciated by Pope Ratzinger in 2007.

Press reports to the contrary, you have, at best, "reasons for
prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge" that
your filthy, corrupt and evil soul won't burn in the fires of
perdition through all eternity.

The reason is, that despite mucking around for 2000 years in the
word and revelation of the divine baby Jebus, "There is much that
simply has not been revealed to us. We live by faith and hope in
the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ,
and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy."

So, in the words of the Bishop of Rome, "We haven't a clue." But
never forget: God may cast you into hell at any given moment. And
sinners deserve it! Even here, on earth - at this very moment - you
can suffer a sample of the torments of Hell, because God (in Whose
hand the Wicked now reside) is - at this very moment - as angry with
them as He is with those miserable creatures He is now tormenting
in hell, and who - at this very moment - do feel and bear the fierceness
of His wrath. At any moment God shall permit Satan to fall upon you
(the Wicked) and seize you as his own. If fact, if it were not for God's
benevolence, the souls of wicked men, with hellish principles reigning,
would kindle and flame out into hellfire. And just because you're not
staring Death in the face, you (the Wicked) should not feel secure. All
that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell's pains shall
afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ. God has never
promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ
through the covenant of Grace.

Now, on your knees!

Ned


---
On April 20, 2007,[32] the advisory body known as the International
Theological Commission released a document, originally commissioned by Pope
John Paul II, entitled "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without
Being Baptized."[10] After tracing the history of the various opinions that
have been and are held on the eternal fate of unbaptized infants, including
that connected with the theory of the Limbo of Infants, and after examining
the theological arguments, the document stated its conclusion as follows:

Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give
serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants
who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these
are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge.
There is much that simply has not been revealed to us.[33] We live by faith
and hope in the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ,
and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy.[34]

What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the
sacrament of baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as
qualifying the necessity of baptism or justifying delay in administering the
sacrament. Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong
grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do
for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the
faith and life of the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI authorized publication of this document, indicating that
he considers it consistent with the Church's teaching, though it is not an
official expression of that teaching.[32] Media reports that by the document
"the Pope closed Limbo"[35] are thus without foundation. In fact, the
document explicitly states that "the theory of limbo, understood as a state
which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and
without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor
yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any
personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle
Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium. Still,
that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary
teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a
possible theological hypothesis" (second preliminary paragraph); and in
paragraph 41 it repeats that the theory of Limbo "remains a possible
theological opinion". The document thus allows the hypothesis of a limbo of
infants to be held as one of the existing theories about the fate of
children who die without being baptised, a question on which there is "no
explicit answer" from Scripture or tradition.[32] The traditional
theological alternative to Limbo was not Heaven, but rather some degree of
suffering in Hell. At any rate, these theories are not the official teaching
of the Catholic Church, but are only opinions that the Church does not
condemn, permitting them to be held by its members, just as is the theory of
possible salvation for infants dying without baptism.
---

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/18/2017 5:51 AM, Wilson wrote:

> The nice thing about not believing in an afterlife is how happy you are
> when you learn you're wrong.
>
> Perhaps the help in crossing over mostly goes to the helper, not the dead.

I don't know enough to decide whether there is an
afterlife or not.

Religious belief and practice (if the latter exists) by
necessity centre around the believer, and any
(supposed) benefits obviously accrue to such.
Whether the intended recipients get any benefit or
not, or whether they even exist to receive any benefit,
is not up to the believer to decide, but the intention
counts.

We humans extend the realm of influence, beneficial
or otherwise, to make our lives meaningful. Enjoying
no such realm of influence, physical and otherwise,
leads to alienation and atrophy of life. We get what
we give, even if there is no recipients to our giving.
The intention builds up our lives and makes it flourish,
perhaps in closed circle, but hey, we make ourselves
happy or we don't. It costs nothing.

Such meaning-making is religion, whether there is
any factual basis for it or not. The opiate of the
masses, whether the externalities, some of which
may seem irrational, are real and true or not, does
deliver benefits, which may indeed be in excess of
reality. We may build imaginary bridges to walk on,
in thin air so to speak, but that is how we stabilise
our lives, even if mental culture tends to do away
with all such accouterments. But mental culture is for
heroes who want to do away with all (or most) such
accouterments, imaginary pillows to rest their mind
on, and pursue what the masses cannot afford to.

The Chinese Buddhist slogan that I posted yesterday
has another half, which may vary:

"Adorning the Buddha-Land, benefiting living beings
and making them happy (zhuangyan guodu, lile
youqing 莊嚴國土, 利樂有情).

"Adorning the Buddha-Land, maturing living beings
(zhuangyan guodu, chengshou zhongshen 莊嚴國土,
成熟眾生).

The respective second half may or may not happen,
but the intention at least turns around to mature the
believer, benefit such and make such happy, all for
free. We do it to ourselves, for ourselves, whether
there is anybody to receive our giving. It may well be
a magical circle, but something good comes out.

Tang Huyen

[brian mitchell]

As one who has had to devise ingenious strategies to compensate for
deficiencies in the male beauty dept, I can go along with that.

[Ned]

Grow some tail feathers. It's really species-specific, so first figure out
which species you are in. Maybe you need antlers.

Let me know how it goes.

Ned

[daletx]

THERE He is! That's the God I just can't believe in.

DT

[Tang Huyen]

On 6/17/2017 3:02 PM, Tang Huyen wrote:

> Most mosques refuse to perform funeral rites
> for jihadists who have carried out terrorist acts.
> From the social-political viewpoint, they are
> wise to avoid the guilt by association.
>
> From the religious viewpoint, I don't know about
> Islam, but from the Buddhist standpoint, the
> Bodhisattva goes to hell to cross over hell
> denizens, how else could the latter be crossed
> over?
>
> If so, to me the Buddhist temples may risk
> popular condemnation to perform funeral rites
> (and whatever) for whomever wants it, so that
> the beneficiaries might be crossed over. The
> more heinous their acts, the more they need
> help crossing over. That is when you make
> your religious convictions earn their keep.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/opinion/is-your-god-dead.html>

<<My hands are also dirty; I’m guilty of missing the
pportunity to recognize something of the divine in
the face of the Other on the street. I’m pretty sure I
looked away when I caught a glimpse of a homeless
man approaching the other day. How different is this
from those who walked by the beaten and abandoned
man in the parable of the good Samaritan? I failed to
see the homeless man as a neighbor.>>

<<AS A YOUNG BOY, the idea of exempting no one
from redemption tested my mother, who was a Baptist.
One night I asked her if I could pray for the Devil.
Strange, I admit. My mother eventually said yes. So
there I was on my knees,

“Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

God bless my mother, my sister and my friends. And
God bless the Devil.”

My older son recently brought to my attention a Mark
Twain quote: “Who in 18 centuries has had the common
humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it
most … ?”>>

I confess to all the sins listed above. Yet the hypocritical
me can't help hoping the best for the unlucky, especially
the most vicious amongst us humans. The more heinous
their acts are, the more help they need in crossing over.

By they way, in Christian theology, in the west, Augustine
is famous for his cruelty, in declaring (as the Voice of
God) that God has picked out the few to be saved and
the many to be damned, in both cases forever, before
even creating the world, and in the east, Gregory of
Nyssa is famous for his (condemned) theory that all will
be saved.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

Redemption for all is a feature of all life, since all will die
irrespective of what they were during their existence on earth, whether
hyena, lion, or kangaroo.

so why make such a fuss as concern dead torturers and murderers?
Their redemption is exactly as it should be, the same as for all of
us, insects and bacteria included.

[Love]

In article <gok5kc5lcpsv6142n...@4ax.com>,
brai...@fishing.net says...

>That does leave the question of how the turning in the seat of
>consciousness occurs, if never by intention? Under what circumstance
>or condition does mind know itself directly? There may be no answer,
>no condition, no intermediate step. I imagine it would only be by
>intense watchfulness, yet even that would have to be a peripheral
>vision, a non-watching in which the mind naturally and spontaneously
>returns to itself.

Intention plays a role in that one can deliberately set up
circumstances that are so conducive to it, it becomes almost
inevitable. One can learn skills and develop habits that
will click in unbidden when the circumstances are right.

Suicide is that way for some. Unable to perform an
intentional act to kill themselves, they deliberately
live without regard for their own safety, and escalate
that behaviour until something "happens" to them.

--
Have you checked your privilege today?
I've checked mine and it's down a quart.

Love

[Love]

In article <oi493k$1im$1...@dont-email.me>, cud...@mindless.com says...

Let the liquor do the thinking.


--
Love

[Ned Ludd]

"daletx" <dal...@gnusguy.com> wrote in message
news:oi84c...@news6.newsguy.com...

The above illustrates two of the more disagreeable prongs
of the xtian religious pitchfork. The quoted and appended
passages are of course the official Roman Catholic dogma,
and the riffs on the wicked/Satan/hell were almost entirely
cribbed from a true American original, Jonathan Edwards,
and his most famous set of sermons, "Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God".

That pretty much spans the wasteland that was spawned
in the wake of the little brown Jew from Bethlehem.

Ned

[daletx]

What??? Naw, man, we had a picture in Sunday School when I was a kid.
He had long flowing light brown hair. And blue eyes. ;-)

DT

[Ned Ludd]

"daletx" <dal...@gnusguy.com> wrote in message

news:oibml...@news7.newsguy.com...

>>>
>>> THERE He is! That's the God I just can't believe in.
>>> DT
>>
>> The above illustrates two of the more disagreeable prongs
>> of the xtian religious pitchfork. The quoted and appended
>> passages are of course the official Roman Catholic dogma,
>> and the riffs on the wicked/Satan/hell were almost entirely
>> cribbed from a true American original, Jonathan Edwards,
>> and his most famous set of sermons, "Sinners in the Hands
>> of an Angry God".
>> That pretty much spans the wasteland that was spawned
>> in the wake of the little brown Jew from Bethlehem.
>> Ned
>
> What??? Naw, man, we had a picture in Sunday School when I was a kid.
> He had long flowing light brown hair. And blue eyes. ;-)
> DT
>

Oh, you mean this guy?... http://tinyurl.com/y9x87qhs

Or was it this guy?... https://s29.postimg.org/68jpyu5p3/Jesus.jpg

Or this one... http://www.angels-heaven.org/english/img_0000/obr264.jpg

Whoa! - little too vivid!

Ok, then THIS one (He's a real dream-boat - in fact, the URL even
SAYS he's a dream-boat)... http://tinyurl.com/DreamBoatJesus

OK, last one. Here's the Mel Gibson version... http://tinyurl.com/ycjyputb

Ned