What do you believe in

[rayheinrich]

Sure, a unicorn seems fine enough. But the reality is they have
a nasty habit of goring people. Also their shit is toxic and when
you muck the stall you smell like it for weeks. Nasty beasts, I'll
never get one again.

[Erthona]

My understanding of existential nihilist (as I was one until I grew up) is that their obsession with themselves eventually causes severe depression which generally results in suicide. Unfortunately the process takes awhile, and they have usually passed on their genes before it does.

Actually unicorn shit makes a fairly useful weapon when compressed and fired from a trebuchet. In terms of temperament they remind me of emus, who will take nearly any opportunity to gut you. They are also not all that pretty, as they are half reptilian, and have a kind of a Stygian smell to them. More stubborn than a mule, and dumber than a horse. If we're talking liminal entities, give me a Centaur any day. You can reason with them, although it is best done from a good distance!

[billy]

Sure, a unicorn seems fine enough. But the reality is they have
a nasty habit of goring people. Also their shit is toxic and when
you muck the stall you smell like it for weeks. Nasty beasts, I'll
never get one again.

i suppose that could be the case for those who believe in unicorns.

i do believe that we all (most of us) make the same mistakes. though i can't name any. maybe not committing suicide

[rayheinrich]

       CATS!     I believe in cats.

They are worse than unicorns in several respects. I live with a few,
of course, but they're only for filling the tubes of the internets.
(I only believe in internets that contain non-trivial prime numbers of cats.)

Cyoot Kitteh of teh Day: Plz 2 Stawp Wiff teh Hitler Jokez:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2012/02/04...ke-hitler/

An den teh doggie said will u share ur cheezburgerz
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/02/28...om=recMap2

[srijantje]

the worst about centaurs is they have bad breath and pee like dogs,not the kind to commit hara kiri around

[Wildcard]

Very entertaining stuff here- I'm just catching up.

I wish that I could be so confident the way you guys are about what you believe. I just don't know what to believe. I was raised to believe that God created the world in 7 days and for 6,000 years his chosen people (the Jews) roamed around Asia and meanwhile this pure Bloodline was carried on from Adam to Jesus Christ. After all those years of sacrificing animals to the One True God- now God had a new plan: Jesus would die once and it would atone for all the sins.

Now I'm just not sure about anything. I see holes in all the theories- so what can I believe in?

Even though I have my doubts deep inside somewhere is this compulsion to pray that I have never been able to shake. I can not logically justify a God, but I am too superstitious to disavow God without proof either. I try to just do the best I can and search for enlightenment. If I'm shown or can see that I'm wrong- then that's what I'll believe.

[abu nuwas]

Very entertaining stuff here- I'm just catching up.

I wish that I could be so confident the way you guys are about what you believe. I just don't know what to believe. I was raised to believe that God created the world in 7 days and for 6,000 years his chosen people (the Jews) roamed around Asia and meanwhile this pure Bloodline was carried on from Adam to Jesus Christ. After all those years of sacrificing animals to the One True God- now God had a new plan: Jesus would die once and it would atone for all the sins.

Now I'm just not sure about anything. I see holes in all the theories- so what can I believe in?

Even though I have my doubts deep inside somewhere is this compulsion to pray that I have never been able to shake. I can not logically justify a God, but I am too superstitious to disavow God without proof either. I try to just do the best I can and search for enlightenment. If I'm shown or can see that I'm wrong- then that's what I'll believe.

Mark --- I do not see how a person can fail to be guided by their reason, even if, in fact, it is flawed. It provides a base-line. But apart of that,for me, includes speculating on the apparently impossible, on the possibility that things are not at all the way we think they are. The quite bizarre findings of science would have bewildered our ancestors -- indeed, they fill me with wonderment.

I worry a bit over people, or groups, who make huge assumptions: 'Religion is just fairy-tales', 'we're all agnostics/atheists', and so on. The Nazis also indulged in that kind of group certainty, and so do various sets politically. There are places I go, full of media types, where centre-left is the only stance-- and these are journalists who, you might think, were always anxious to get to the heart of things, comfortable or not.

Some of the diatribes against belief make me despair. "Does anyone seriously believe that there is a man up there with a long white beard, whom they can pray to, and he'll answer?" Much laughter, and embarrassment on the part of the pathetic believer. Yet-- it is quite possible to keep an eye on a child, and give it sweets when it asks, or refuse. But underlying the argument, is that there are so many of us: that must overwhelm the old man with the white beard. A being of infinite -infinite - power, intelligence etc, why would it be the least troubled by a handful of people? A simple failure to get near the concept of 'infinite'. Now, the white beard-- yes, seriously!

Is it not perfectly reasonable to suppose the an infinite being might by its nature experience itself by creating or dreaming, or being everything that could be? Including being a mouldy little human, suffering etc-- or being a man with a long white beard? Do I believe that--no, but not for any sensible reason.

[Erthona]

The truth is that science has disproved one interpretation of text, that is at best a summery of a far older text. That non-scholars decided to take as literal and accurate the lineage in the Bible, count it up, and assert that the earth started at that point is not surprising any more than it is inaccurate.

I have always found fear to be a poor basis for making decisions. I find it an equally dubious to decide if one should kowtow to a deity. There are more than enough examples that when people have what Bryant defined as a religious experience, it can cause a total and lasting change to the personality. This is a well documented fact by Jung and many others. On the other hand when one allows a religion to be the absolute arbitrator of behavior we have many bloody examples to show how that works as well. Obviously there is a positive outcome for individuals and society as a whole by not excluding the idea of spirituality as a valid aspect of our lives, at the same time there is also a cautionary tale for it's abuses. Science as currently practiced is not so far removed from religion as some would wish to believe, and as with religion it can be either a blessing or a bane.

Until recently science had ridiculed the idea of a historical Troy, right up until the time it was discovered. It would behoove both the scientist and the religionist to remember that neither side has a lock on the truth, and that pride goes before a fall.

[rayheinrich]

My dad used to say that religion was largely irrelevant as the
number of faiths was so vast as to guarantee that people of any
moral persuasion (good, evil, ambivalent, indifferent,
entrepreneurial, ...) could find one that supported their views.

Religion was an effect, not a cause.

He thought it was just fine to believe in any religion you wanted
as this didn't have much of an effect on your already established
morals/character. (i.e. Apply that old adage about judging people
by how they treated you, not by what they said they believed
[or didn't].)

... I'm a scientific atheist who thinks that the probability of
"external" god(s) is vanishingly small. If god(s) really do exist,
they are acting in a manner so random as to preclude any proof of
their existence (at least so far).

BTW, I say "external" because there's convincing psychological proof
that god(s) internal to individuals/groups really do exist. (See
separate discussion thread on cybernetics and cybernetics-of-cybernetics.)

[popeye]

Sometimes I think we try to take on too much information at once, the simple quote below is basically my belief, cheers and may you all find your own happiness.



''So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.''

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

[Leanne]

Socrates had a daimon that lived on his shoulder. Considering Socrates died around 2400 years ago and we're still talking about him now, it's probably fair to say that his daimon helped him ascend to a higher plane whereupon he attained eternal life.

The tragedy is, of course, that these days all that anti-dandruff shampoo has killed off the daimons. Nothing can exist on shoulders except chips.

[popeye]

LOL, sad but true, much better to have Lamia astride!

[srijantje]

amen to that Jiminy

[rayheinrich]

Since most of the population of the world doesn't use
anti-dandruff shampoo (can't afford it), it stands
to reason that there must be a few left. For instance:
My wife can't use it (specifically the ones with
selenium compounds). If she does, she gets these
tiny bright red bumps that slowly grow in size until
they meet and she is bright red all over. Truly amazing
to look at. But since it itches and might cause death
she tries not to do it very often.

My UNIX computer has deamons, but they won't tell me shit.
And a few of my cats are demons but they won't tell me anything
either except when it's time to eat. Do you think Socrates'
daimon told him when it was time to eat?

(Note absence of famously insensitive Socrates drinking joke.
I promised never to tell it again.)

Oh, yes, the topic: I believe those small chocolates I find on my pillow
are put there by chocolate faeries. (They've never told me anything
either; but chocolate, as they say, is universally sufficient.)

[srijantje]

it's all roo poo to me

[. . . .]

I believe in that we are not alone. Meaning the entity we would call a loving god is not as mean and vindictive and as spiteful as that book dictates. I think the entity is more of a being that gives the universe and its other dimensions its cohesion and order. It is aware of itself, but feels nothing as we do because it has no corporeal body.

(Don't roll your eyes yet)

Since it is known that energy can not be destroyed but only converted and that the soul is energy then where does the soul go? What does it do while tethered to the body?

Why do I think there is a soul? I believe that one can not have intuition w/o a connection of some kind on some level.
Maybe the soul is that connection. An example of the intuitive connection in action;

Many years ago in Tuscon, Arizona I was about 9 years old spending a vacation with my family. One late night we were all fast asleep and my mother woke up screaming "She is dead she is Dead!" and after we got her to calm down she said her aunt had just died and she came to say good bye and that it was her time to move on.
Her aunt in question was in a rest home in Fairfield California and she did in fact die peacefully in her sleep that night within minutes of the time my mom started screaming. When we left her aunt was healthy and alert and aware and full of life so her death was a surprise.

This cant be coincidence. If there is no soul in the mind of a person how could my mother of known of her aunts death with such conviction? Why did she say her aunt came to say good bye? How did she know this or who or what told her?

So there must be a soul and the entity we call a god might be the sheep herder of the souls that collects them and protects them and sends some on to other destiny's while others go back to have a "do-over" because maybe they didn't get it right the previous time.

That is what I believe.

[rayheinrich]

So, you fuckers want to play around with the past?
Papa gotcha covered!

Has my "what do you believe in" changed over these years?
I'm guessing it has but my memory is so bad that I'm not exactly sure
unless I can read my old comments and then I'm still not sure if I was
being serious or just screwing around.

But anyway, I still believe in:

1. Cats, cat shit, and the inevitability of inevitability though endeavoring
to persevere can sometimes change that.

2. The roundness of all root vegetables.

3. The basic decency of 97.5% of all people.
        (So even though it's possible to run across a Charles Manson or a Liz Thatcher, 97.5 to 2.5 are damn good odds.)


I sure do miss not having Billy and Leanne around.



BTW: It turns out that MyBB software updates have turned my old size 11 font
comments into size 1... Everybody's a Critic. So if you should ever want to
read my microscopic comments from the past, ones I haven't edited to increase
their size like I did in this old thread, just hit "reply" to my comment and read it
in the edit box.

[Lizzie]

At the moment, nothing.   

But, I'll play along:

1. I believe that Keats wrote the finest odes. His voice could quiet any demon. 
2. Baking bread with my kids never seemed to make anybody's life worse.
3. Rainy days are the best days, and Jasmine green tea pairs well with the sound of raindrops on the windows. 

So, hedonism, basically.  
Simple pleasures.

"I am certain of nothing 
but of the holiness of the Heart's affections 
and the truth of Imagination---
What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth---
whether it existed before or not---" 
    ~Keats

[Fearful Symmetry]

I thought about my personal beliefs, got depressed, then wrote these to cheer myself up.

1. I believe that the majority of the world’s fish share the same pair of underwear and we call it the ocean.

2. I believe if there were sixteen men on a dead man’s chest that those men were gross — playing Twister all Weekend at Bernie’s style.

3. I believe in celebrating Christmas on Halloween because Jesus was a zombie.

4. I believe that my mother’s autobiographer was right — I am a very handsome boy.

[rowens]

Jesus is a Narcissus zombie compared to the Vital Living Christ. He died then he Lives.