¤ milky moon ¤

I was thinking, "Fair enough!" until that last post. What is that, Hippocratic medicine? You're not a doctor, are you?

I know what you mean about obscuration of the heart, though: I don't know what to do. I'm always in the dark. I'm living in a powder keg and giving off sparks. I really need someone tonight. Forever's going to start tonight.

Once upon a time there was light in my life; now there's only love in the dark. There's nothing I can say.

There are dozens of sincerely held belief-systems, and at their most devoutly held, they are not mere beliefs, but are absolute truths. The problem is, many of them contradict one another!

Humanism attempts to distill a limited number of self-evident morals common to all belief-systems / religions, but even this is problematic. Some may find justifications for acts other find abhorrent, and even within a single religion, mores can change over time, so that which was unacceptable in the times of the Inquisition would be criminal and scandalous now, and vice versa.

I think this is a good argument for the division of "church and state" (substituting whatever symbol of the local religion applies). State can then pass agreed laws of behaviour common to all inhabitants of the state, affecting conduct between ANY members of that state, whilst Church can adhere to its own rules, governing personal behaviour and interactions only within membership of the religion, which in any case remains optional.

there is corruption in every form of governance because of the "human" element, the same corruption that takes a moral compass designed for personal guidance and turns it into a cudgel against all. freedom is just that: freedom to be duped, conned and wrong, the price of freedom is vigilance. Any method of governance that denies this is no longer free and is unsuitable to be master of all. (your mileage may vary)(this way there be dragons)
Qug self immolation as an avatar, hardly aids your line of reasoning.

NobodyfromNowhere wrote:What can the rest of us do but try to internally secure our vital connection with the vertical? If we can successfully do that, we can survive any temporary autophagous chaos in the external world.

So? What about everyone else? Isn't that fairly solipsistic - "Let the world burn, so long as I have my inner peace"?

But you speak about surviving 'any temporary autophagous chaos': not preventing, not correcting, merely surviving. I'm not jumping to conclusions; I'm reading what's in front of me - the concern in the statement is not for the victims of that chaos but for the first person; not with the situation itself, but with its impact on the self. Nor has connectedness alone ever sustained a starving child.

You imply that it's somehow necessary that someone who enjoys rude comedians, pornography, sex toys, video games and/or candy cares not a fig for their fellow man. You confuse consolation and diversion for substitution and in doing so unfairly condemn most of your peers - how can you castigate people for taking their pleasures where they find them when you're every bit as indulgent, in many ways? Your pleasures are different, not better. Intellectual masturbation is still masturbation. It's still so much fruitless spillage.

When we let ourselves indulge, we seek reprieve from the horror of existence. Mindless or mindful or heartless or heartfelt or whatever; it's all the same. Sophistry and good intentions are just as escapist as the most gleefully violent blockbuster.

As for your comment about the mistakes any religion ever wrought: for most of the history of western civilisation it has been illegal for me to be me on pain of death, because of a couple of phrases in a stupid old book. I don't need to tell you about the horrors that have been wrought in the name of religion. Nor will I pretend that secular ideologies and worldly concerns have yielded better behaviour overall. Just don't pretend they've yielded worse. Scarcity is our curse and in our desperation to endure it and to justify what it compels us to do we clutch at straws; some of them are god-shaped.

what say u on Snowden's little NSA/Prism drop? hero or traitor? real problem or real solution? slippery slope or needed intrusion? freedom or no freedom? methinks this is a real issue that requires real effort to grok and decide on. while this is a US issue at the time don't even think other governments aren't doing exactly the same things....

I am enjoying this exchange between some of our most well-read members, even if huge chunks of it are going right over my head. I hope, though, that it will continue as an intellectual argument, and never become personal.

NobodyfromNowhere said

Indulgence in pleasure as a panacea to the horrors of existence is a deceptive undertaking. (Something like taking an aspirin, or maybe a placebo pill!, to cure cancer, maybe, or better yet-- to resuscitate a corpse.) And actually, in many cases, it can unwittingly exacerbate those horrors and lead only to further horrors and prolonged agony.

But is indulgence in pleasure nothing but a panacea? I’d argue that the most rounded members of society, those most likely to make sensible judgements, are those who are able successfully to mix business and pleasure, whereas those who eschew the latter inhabit the long tail of the bell curve whose opposite extension is populated by those who devote themselves entirely to pleasure.

And then he introduces a very thought-provoking concept:

a nuclear power plant cannot legally dump radioactive waste materials in a haphazard manner because of the known effects that this would have on the ecosystem. What perhaps may not be as recognized today, but in my view is clearly true, is that there is a psychic ecology to our world whose balance is just as important to maintain as that of the land, skies, and oceans.

... whereas Jordan~ commented

for most of the history of western civilisation it has been illegal for me to be me on pain of death

Psychic ecology is a very seductive notion, but I think it contradicts the freedom to which Jordan~ alludes. In the era of persecution, the persecutors claimed the ‘moral high ground’, whilst today, those who tolerate or embrace lay claim to that same territory. But why does either camp need to globalise his or her personal preference? So long as what’s done is done willingly and without coercion, and does not interfere with anyone else’s life, then those actions should not be for anyone else to judge. As for censuring someone else’s inner feelings, that goes even beyond Big Brother and should not be the domain of legislation or dogma (whether religious, secular, social, or even familial). Where undue interest is shown in what others do, that’s a prurience that says more about the observer than the observed.

Anyway, that’s what I think (so by definition it must be the correct opinion – right?)

(Frustratingly, I’ve had to type this more than once, as our website seems suddenly to be suffering from sudden and total drop-outs: why is it always that ones previous attempt seemed so much better than the latest?)

thought this was yer "cave"