Re: Interesting essay
Tang Huyen
Love wrote:
> kim@bonfils:
>
> >Oh yeah, there are religions that don't require
> >God, you say? Not any major ones - except
> >(some readings of) Buddhism. But, you know,
> >the four noble truths aren't exactly the apex of
> >falsifiability, either.
>
> Falsifiability shmalsifiability.
>
> Religion is not science and doesn't have to live
> up or down to the standards of science any more
> than fiction novels have to live up or down to the
> standards of history and archeology.
>
> Don't put your cigarettes in my toilet and I won't
> shit in your ashtray...it's that kind of thing.
Spiritual experiences are going to be personal
and anecdotal at best, and subjectively, at least
to me (though I don't pretend to climb past the
bare bottom), the higher they go, the airier,
looser, fluffier and fuzzier they get. Actually
that is what Buddhist scriptures say also, as
against those of theistic religions, where the
higher the attainments are, the firmer and surer
they get. In Buddhism, the higher they go, the
less mooring they have and the more baseless
they become. When they get wholly baseless,
it means full awakening, because awakening
has no reference, except that such a proposition
is self-contradictory, because if something is
baseless and has no reference, how are you
going to base yourself on it and take it as
reference to do anything, like making a
judgement? Buddhist propositions are
self-defeating, and for good measure, so that
people don't attach to them. If they do their job,
they also get obliterated at the same time. Poor
them.
In Buddhism, the effectiveness of a method
(dharma) has nothing to do with its factual truth.
The contemplation of the unclean is one instance
where the object of contemplation is unreal: one
contemplates for example the whole world as a
skeleton. Of course the whole world is not a
skeleton, but one contemplates it as a skeleton, in
order to cut lust. Now it may or may not work,
and it is well-known that people can kill themselves
in this kind of (apparently morbid) contemplation,
but it does work for some people, that is, it helps
them end their suffering.
So to contemplate the tears that one has shed in
past lives may or may not help one end one's
suffering, but even if it works, it needs not muster
any factual truth to it. If it works, it works. When
it works, it *merely* works, and needs not imply
anything about its factual truth, beyond its working.
Some exercises, like the totalisations (which
include the Four Divine Abodes, friendliness,
compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity), are
pure fictions and big imaginations that attempt to
encompass the whole universe. In the totalisation
of air (or earth, or fire, or water, or green, or red,
or a skeleton, etc.), one imagines that the whole
universe is air and nothing but air, in the
totalisation of equanimity one imagines that the
whole universe is equanimity and nothing but
equanimity. One thinks up something abstract
(like the above, but there are more) and spreads it
to the whole universe. It is only a subjective feeling,
and the universe remains untouched by it.
However Nirvana is similar in that it is only a
change of the way one deals with the world, not a
change in the world itself; the change is only a
change in manner, not a change in matter. The
difference resides in the fact that the totalisations
are pure impositions on the world whilst Nirvana is
total openness to the world without any imposition.
Other than that they are subjective attitudes and
nothing more. But in that openness the world
becomes different, as the absence of imposition
allows the world to light up on its own and
transform itself from the Kingdom of Nature to the
Kingdom of Grace, in place and for free.
That said, today the Boston Globe has an article
about the relationship between religion and
economics, "Satan, the great motivator. The
curious economic effects of religion", by
Michael Fitzgerald.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/
2009/11/15/the_curious_economic_effects_of_religion/
?page=full
<<On a larger scale, religious denominations
affect economics by creating bonds of trust and
shared commitment among small groups, both
necessary qualities for lending and trade. In the
Middle Ages, studies show, monk-run estates
outperformed those that used serfs, thanks to
religiously inspired cooperation and frugality.
The Quakers of 18th-century Britain, renowned
for their scrupulous honesty, came to dominate
British finance. Ultra-orthodox Jews similarly
dominate New York�s diamond trade because of
levels of trust based on religion. Modern religious
kibbutzim on average outperform their secular
rivals, in part because of trust built through
engaging in communal religious rituals.>>
<<The two [Robert Barro, a renowned economist
at Harvard, and his wife, Rachel McCleary, a
researcher at Harvard�s Taubman Center]
collected data from 59 countries where a majority
of the population followed one of the four major
religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or
Buddhism. They ran this data - which covered
slices of years from 1981 to 2000, measuring
things like levels of belief in God, afterlife beliefs,
and worship attendance - through statistical
models. Their results show a strong correlation
between economic growth and certain shifts in
beliefs, though only in developing countries. Most
strikingly, if belief in hell jumps up sharply while
actual church attendance stays flat, it correlates
with economic growth. Belief in heaven also has
a similar effect, though less pronounced. Mere
belief in God has no effect one way or the other.
Meanwhile, if church attendance actually rises, it
slows growth in developing economies.>>
<<Belief�s influence on our economic behavior
might even reflect biology. The special motivational
power of hell, for instance, may lie deep in the
human psyche. Ara Norenzayan, a psychologist at
the University of British Columbia, and his graduate
student Azim Shariff set up an experiment that
would make it easy for people to cheat on a difficult
math test. They found that people who believed in
an omniscient, vengeful God typically chose
short-term suffering - that is, facing the test without
the crutch of cheating - over possible eternal
suffering. �Those who believed in a punishing God
cheated less,� Norenzayan said in an e-mail. He
considers his findings to be consistent with Barro
and McCleary�s research.>>
Tang Huyen
chingang
And are you back from Nivana, Mr Bodhisattva? You sure you know what
it looks like from those postcards. Suffering isn't the same for
everyone. How can one speak for all? Buddhism is individualism taken
to the extreme and supposes alot in the process. What is
enlightenment? Don't give me poetic limmericks, brain teasers or
attainment. Just let it be. Let it lie where it fell. How can a
Buddhist claim anything other than self-indulgence disguised as
altruism? Go work in the fields and labor until your body has fatiqued
and then preach the gospel according to your hard labor and effort to
exist instead of taking time like poets who muse, while the peasants
toil. Are you any better off today than you were before you were born?
How would anybody know? The IMAGINATION! What did the big Buddha say
about imaginations? What do the great philosophers say about
imaginations? Surely they had to use theirs to construct elaborate
theories on their own thinking? So it all rests with our imaginations.
Dream of a good life and imagine its here. Who says you can't?
Oh the Say So Guys don't say so? What makes it so? They make it so.
Men agree with other men and they see this as truth but its only
accordance. How do we get out of these long over-used ruts that people
keep professing to be the Way?
Eat your rice, evacuate your bowels and sweep the floor, who needs
more? Now, are you satisfied? Mild contentment is the greatest of
satisfaction, have you not heard?
Tang Huyen
chingang wrote:
> And are you back from Nivana, Mr Bodhisattva? You sure you know what
> it looks like from those postcards. Suffering isn't the same for
> everyone. How can one speak for all? Buddhism is individualism taken
> to the extreme and supposes alot in the process. What is
> enlightenment? Don't give me poetic limmericks, brain teasers or
> attainment. Just let it be. Let it lie where it fell. How can a
> Buddhist claim anything other than self-indulgence disguised as
> altruism? Go work in the fields and labor until your body has fatiqued
> and then preach the gospel according to your hard labor and effort to
> exist instead of taking time like poets who muse, while the peasants
> toil. Are you any better off today than you were before you were born?
> How would anybody know? The IMAGINATION! What did the big Buddha say
> about imaginations? What do the great philosophers say about
> imaginations? Surely they had to use theirs to construct elaborate
> theories on their own thinking? So it all rests with our imaginations.
> Dream of a good life and imagine its here. Who says you can't?
> Oh the Say So Guys don't say so? What makes it so? They make it so.
> Men agree with other men and they see this as truth but its only
> accordance. How do we get out of these long over-used ruts that people
> keep professing to be the Way?
> Eat your rice, evacuate your bowels and sweep the floor, who needs
> more? Now, are you satisfied? Mild contentment is the greatest of
> satisfaction, have you not heard?
<<What is enlightenment?>>
<<Just let it be. Let it lie where it fell.>>
You answer your own question very well. I have
no experience of awakening, and only speculate
about it, and if I understand it aright, it is simply
a state (not a reality, not a substance) where one
takes everything "as is" and leaves everything "as
is". It is an attitude of non-resistance and
non-interference. The Buddha says: "Nirvana is
peaceful". One dumbly takes everything as it
comes and leaves everything as it leaves, intact,
without referring anything to anything. That
would be profound peace, if I was to experience
it.
Tang Huyen
Charles E Hardwidge
news:ZemdneREBNoZo5zW...@supernews.com...
>
> <<Just let it be. Let it lie where it fell.>>
>
> You answer your own question very well. I have
> no experience of awakening, and only speculate
> about it, and if I understand it aright, it is simply
> a state (not a reality, not a substance) where one
> takes everything "as is" and leaves everything "as
> is". It is an attitude of non-resistance and
> non-interference. The Buddha says: "Nirvana is
> peaceful". One dumbly takes everything as it
> comes and leaves everything as it leaves, intact,
> without referring anything to anything. That
> would be profound peace, if I was to experience
> it.
I've read a summary of the Unabomber's manifesto again. A great deal of the
argument is reasonable even if one may disagree with some details and
the methods he used to promote it.
The world can look hard and bleak from some perspectives but power and money
are ephemeral. Indeed, I'd cite the recent troubles of the music industry
and changing markets as evidence.
As the great sage Freddie Mercury said: "Don't try so hard".
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Beerlet Dhiblang
wrote:
> "Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
And "Who wants to live forever?"
/l
Keynes
To place awakening into the irrelevance of a psychological
property still affirms the previous unawakened view of
'what the world actually is'. It's an impossible contortion.
One can't serve two masters - both bondage and release.
Matter-only folks call buddhism just a psychology, saying
"Let me lose my bad self, and keep my good self, then all will
be well for me." But it is the self-ish notion of good and bad
that will forever confine such people in bondage to self under
circumstances that can't be controlled by any means. One can't
control the world, and even less can anyone control a self.
We don't know what we think until we think it.
We don't know what we say until we say it.
We don't know what we do until we do it.
But modern popular superstition denies this categorically.
Without any proof. It's a religion.
What -is- the self in the world? Nobody actually knows,
but all the popular views are samsara, separation, faring on in
discontent, seeking one knows not what and never finding relief.
There can be no relief in that direction. The harder one tries, the
more struggle, meaning the less success. Isn't this obvious?
World views are all mistaken. We can't comprehend either
a beginning or no-beginning of the world, the only two rational
propositions. Rational mind is plainly limited, and the more it
proliferates and branches and delves, the more limits constrict
experience, shape it, and poison it. The more of this and that,
the farther one roams from plain old reality that's always right
in our face, complete in itself, needing no reasonable explanation.
Take it on it's own terms or miss it entirely.
Abstraction creates entities out of nothing, things unobserved
and unobservable like 'truth, justice, and the american way',
'nirvana-samsara', 'cause and effect', 'gain and loss', 'life and death',
and all the woo-woo pantheon of the desperately thoughtful but
blind-unobservant. Spooks and irrelevancies haunt the realm
of samsara. But many claim to see them and worship them.
How primitive. How pitiful.
There is no rational certainty to cling to, no haven of perfect
protection. Fortunately no one has ever needed such a thing.
It's all just a bad dream. Wake up, and it all vanishes since
it has never been from the first.
DharmaTroll
> It's all just a bad dream. Wake up, and it all vanishes since
> it has never been from the first.
Um, that's actually "The Wizard of Oz", not Buddhism.
Don't forget to click your heels three times, Nutter-Dude.
--DharmaTroll
Keynes
wrote:
It's all way over your pointy little meat head, isn't it?
Nothing to say but, "NO NO NO!"
How 'reasonable' can you get?
possum
wrote:
i find it difficult to believe you haven't.
possum
Déjà Flu
Think I should send him a pic of Tangette?
--
Ubi dubium ibi libertas
Déjà Flu
> That said, today the Boston Globe has an article
> about the relationship between religion and
> economics, "Satan, the great motivator. The
> curious economic effects of religion", by
> Michael Fitzgerald.
"Michael Fitzgerald is a freelance writer in Millis.
He researched this while a Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow."
He's a shill for the Templeton Foundation and the
"research" isn't even worthy of the name "research".
It's an unpublished, unreviewed, sewage leak. It's
same very sneaky, very subtle, propaganda that ID is
notorious for.
Look at this stuff:
"Similarly, literacy seems clearly connected with economic
development, and mass literacy is a Protestant invention,
says Robert D. Woodberry, a sociologist at University of Texas
at Austin. He has mapped how missionaries spread literacy,
technology, and civic institutions, and finds that those correlate
strongly with economic growth. He argues in part that this helps
explain why the once-poor but largely Protestant United States
surpassed rich, Catholic Mexico after 1800."
"Rich, Catholic, Mexico" never existed. The Catholic Church
destroyed all of Mexican "civilization", took the wealth
to Spain and left it as they found it - a dust-bowl with
a population dependent on a new priesthood and a new
language - Spanish - yet in total ignorance. "Economic growth"
is double-speak for exploitation - Woodberry needs to go back
to school.
Today, these "missionaries" are spreading ignorance and
dependence, disease and death in Africa, Asia and (still)
South America.
If you want a real hoot, check out another twit who conflates
biology with archeology and uses his conflation to make
all kinds of apologies for religion:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=1
The number of unsupported assertions in that essay is huge,
yet people will read it and take it as gospel.
This is the "Intelligent Ignorance" - fitting itself into the
gap between science and common thought, via public media -
that I was talking about. It may be deliberate, it may not,
but it is surely destructive.
possum
yes! definitely! i just said as much in an e-mail before i saw
this! lol.
tang! you have a second god-kitteh. she is such a sweetie.
possum
ps i could send a photo of little tang. it's uncanny how alike they
are, same colouring, semi-feral and fluffy ... : )
Déjà Flu
...
>> Think I should send him a pic of Tangette?
> yes! definitely! i just said as much in an e-mail before i saw
> this! lol.
> tang! you have a second god-kitteh. she is such a sweetie.
> ps i could send a photo of little tang. it's uncanny how alike they
> are, same colouring, semi-feral and fluffy ... : )
done.
sent Little Tang's green-eyed piccie along, too.
Les Kitteh's Tang! Uber-fluffers!
:)
zenworm
'Affectionate immortality' has been achieved,
when name jumps the species barrier.
ZN :D
absolute permanent perfection overflowing without action
possum
there were any number of dead giveaways in the article - eg
"The Quakers of 18th-century Britain, renowned
for their scrupulous honesty, came to dominate
British finance." no. they came to dominate british chocolate
making.
and the non-cheating, god fearing believers - how is belief measured
objectively?
do the examinees tick a questionnaire - 1. hardly believe at
all....... 5. believe strongly etc, or answer a set of questions as
measurements? but how does one objectively get around the
subjectivity of belief, or that the examinees' answers may well be the
answers of deludeds...how scientific is that.
it's a good job it was on 'these boards', where, of course, we are all
discerning, particularly about the links we make. i agree with your
point about public media, filling in gaps between science (or any
specialized subject) and common thought. it can be destructive. i
sent a link from the express and star newspaper on another thread -
it's not a newspaper i choose to read, nor one i would recommend,
being 'proprietor agenda' driven. local and regional news has all
but been wiped out in terms of fulfilling a public service of
providing unbiased news reporting, or investigative journalism.
i think tang provides these articles to provoke thought, and at least
presents them 'blankly', without commentary, for people to comment as
they will, or make what links they choose. i am not as enlightened as
tang, and indicated my opinion in the link i sent to DT, who is even
more opinionated than i am, on a porpoise. of course, that context
was political not religious, but being theologically challenged, and a
sometimes political animal like you fu, i work things out on that
level. i see links between religion and politics. i run the risk of
being destructive, because i don't know everything that's under the
ice-berg, but can one be paralyzed into inaction and silenced by
unknown risks and live a life?
politics and alliances are in a major state of flux, and i have to do
stuff, even if i crash. so i challenged dear DT, regardless, i used
the express and star rag, regardless, and all i've got to go on is my
special relationship with ducks, and my extensive and personal head-
banging experience of junior bureaucracy. truthfully, that's not all,
but it's enough for me right now...lol!
herbzet
possum wrote:
> i find it difficult to believe you haven't.
Tangster is a tricky guy. I wouldn't necessarily
believe everything he says.
--
hz
herbzet
possum
well he's a bloke, as mike would say...in his 'that covers it all'
tone of voice.
possum
Déjà Flu
Actually, the only part I caught was the ducks. I like ducks.
Both live and pan-roasted with some rosemary, basil, and sesame oil.
and I should prolly pay more zentention or they'll vote me out
of the pub...er...club...oh, wait...I'm already out...
The theomemes are on the verge of replacing the economemes.
I suspect mutation and cross breeding will produce new ones.
They always have.
The Vietnamese children who know what's happening call themselves
the bui' doi - dust of life. The west doesn't yet have an equivalent,
but it will.
We were out today and, as I made a turn, I noticed a kid sitting
at the side of the road, behind us - a black boy with some plastic
bags beside him. Looked like clothing. He didn't look as though
he expected anyone or anything. Maybe just waiting for Godot.
I didn't turn around, but he's still with me. Maybe next time
I'll have the courage to go back. After all, how often do you
have the opportunity to invite such complete uncertainty into
your life?
Déjà Flu
Not that I know of. And if you practice the same kind of
deliberate ignorance that Tang and Keynes preach, you wouldn't
need it anyway. Everything would be as true as everything else.
But there seem to be some feedback loops beginning
to operate where inaccuracies are echoing back and forth
between the net and the public media, making things even
more cloudy. The net makes dubious claims even more accessible,
and helps them multiply more rapidly and appear more authoritative
(see Tang's gurgles on religion+happiness). It's a memetic
sewer (I would have said zoo, but there's no keeper other
than your own reason) and you are the processing plant.
Caveat emptor, as usual.
possum
ducks are the only worthwhile part... : )
> Both live and pan-roasted with some rosemary, basil, and sesame oil.
> and I should prolly pay more zentention or they'll vote me out
> of the pub...er...club...oh, wait...I'm already out...
there's always golf...
>
> The theomemes are on the verge of replacing the economemes.
> I suspect mutation and cross breeding will produce new ones.
> They always have.
it might get very accelerated, now we have t'internet and mobies...
i'll never catch up...
>
> The Vietnamese children who know what's happening call themselves
> the bui' doi - dust of life.
dust of life... that's very poignant, fu...
>The west doesn't yet have an equivalent,
> but it will.
it's probably in the laws of thermodynamics...not that i'd know
really. i still don't understand electricity...and it has been
explained to me several times...
i get a lot of static in my hair, i know that much...
>
> We were out today and, as I made a turn, I noticed a kid sitting
> at the side of the road, behind us - a black boy with some plastic
> bags beside him. Looked like clothing. He didn't look as though
> he expected anyone or anything. Maybe just waiting for Godot.
>
> I didn't turn around, but he's still with me. Maybe next time
> I'll have the courage to go back. After all, how often do you
> have the opportunity to invite such complete uncertainty into
> your life?
i don't know, fu... i only can hear a harmonica in my head that i
can't play...
possum
possum
> herbzet wrote:
oobi doobi doo... - the black chicks sing the live version... cuts
out the words...all god's chill'n got soul...
don't worry... i don't think it means what you think it means... : )
i googled some lyrics for you...i played dick gaughan's 'redwood
cathedral' up and down the M1 today, his version is on it.. and yes, i
got lost twice, and missed my exit on the way back, took the scenic
route, kind of, in the dark...
http://ippc2.orst.edu/coopl/pancho_and.txt
possum
Déjà Flu
Harmonica was the first thing I ever played. I can't say I learned
it, since I play it backwards (bass to the right). In 4th grade
I would sit under this old tree by the school and play tunes
and even gave a school concert. I've had a hundred harmonicas and
I'm down to my last three. I'm almost breathless...
possum
: ) : )
Déjà Flu
> oobi doobi doo... - the black chicks sing the live version... cuts
> out the words...all god's chill'n got soul...
>
> don't worry... i don't think it means what you think it means... : )
I think you know very well what I think you think I think it means...
> i googled some lyrics for you...i played dick gaughan's 'redwood
> cathedral' up and down the M1 today, his version is on it.. and yes, i
> got lost twice, and missed my exit on the way back, took the scenic
> route, kind of, in the dark...
We TOLD you to take the GPS along and you wouldn't listen...
http://ippc2.orst.edu/coopl/pancho_and.txt
I'll try it.
> possum
Like to tease me, don'cha? Nasty little girl, you are...
Go chase Tang around the block for a few laps. He could
use the exercise.
possum
oh noooo....lol!
>
> http://ippc2.orst.edu/coopl/pancho_and.txt
>
> I'll try it.
>
> > possum
>
> Like to tease me, don'cha? Nasty little girl, you are...
> Go chase Tang around the block for a few laps. He could
> use the exercise.
i just did! what's happenin'!?! hee!
Lee Rudolph
>Harmonica was the first thing I ever played. I can't say I learned
>it, since I play it backwards (bass to the right).
You're not playing it backwards, you're playing it upside-down.
Lee Rudolph
Keynes
wrote:
Apparently Fu is left-headed.
Déjà Flu
Even if I was behind it?
How about standing on my head?
(under water doesn't count except in ice-capades)
^@%>---*=#**
"Lee Rudolph" <lrud...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:hdvkrv$cg6$1...@reader1.panix.com...
then get him to stop
standing on his head.
Tang Huyen
"^@%>---*=#**" wrote:
> "Lee Rudolph"
>
> > D�j� Flu:
>
> >>Harmonica was the first thing I ever played.
> >>I can't say I learned it, since I play it
> >>backwards (bass to the right).
>
> > You're not playing it backwards, you're
> > playing it upside-down.
>
> then get him to stop
> standing on his head.
It is the only way he can stand. It's from
the covenant between God and him. It's
all bass ackwards.
Tang Huyen
^@%>---*=#**
"Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
news:Sd2dnWaI1NTgcp7W...@supernews.com...
somebody was just greening him
when he went for harmonica lessons.
the head pillow on the floor should
have been a dead giveaway.