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This Existence Is A DREAM: Awakening To Your True Self & Exploring Nonduality...
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once. Milarepa “Just as it is known t hat an image of one's face is seen d epending on a mirror b ut does not really exist as a face, s o the conception of "I" exist d ependent on mind and body, b ut like the image of a face t he "I" does not at all exist as its own reality." Nagarjuna "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Nagarjuna
Sadhguru's Transformative Teachings - How to Achieve for Mind, Body & Soul"...
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once. Milarepa “Just as it is known t hat an image of one's face is seen d epending on a mirror b ut does not really exist as a face, s o the conception of "I" exist d ependent on mind and body, b ut like the image of a face t he "I" does not at all exist as its own reality." Nagarjuna "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Nagarjuna
AI, Humanity & Purpose - Matthew McConaughey, Jane Goodall DBE & Sadhguru at Dreamforce 2024...
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once. Milarepa “Just as it is known t hat an image of one's face is seen d epending on a mirror b ut does not really exist as a face, s o the conception of "I" exist d ependent on mind and body, b ut like the image of a face t he "I" does not at all exist as its own reality." Nagarjuna "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Nagarjuna
Are You REALLY FREE? - Nagarjuna & The MIDDLE WAY..
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once. Milarepa “Just as it is known t hat an image of one's face is seen d epending on a mirror b ut does not really exist as a face, s o the conception of "I" exist d ependent on mind and body, b ut like the image of a face t he "I" does not at all exist as its own reality." Nagarjuna "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Nagarjuna
Super Brain, Epigenetics & More: Bernard Carr, Christof Koch, Rudy Tanzi, Deepak Chopra & Sadhguru...
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once. Milarepa “Just as it is known t hat an image of one's face is seen d epending on a mirror b ut does not really exist as a face, s o the conception of "I" exist d ependent on mind and body, b ut like the image of a face t he "I" does not at all exist as its own reality." Nagarjuna "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Nagarjuna
Stand Up For America...
Our Biggest Creditor {China} Tells Us "The good old days of borrowing are over"
by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Birthplace o Independent Conservatism Liberty -vs- Tyranny As the chickens come home to roast... Unbelievable we have been this stupid. ( Reuters ) - Global leaders on Saturday arranged a round of emergency calls to discuss the twin debt crises in Europe and the United States that are causing turmoil in financial markets . After a week that saw $2.5 trillion wiped off global stock markets, they are under pressure to show political leadership and reassure markets that Western governments have both the will and ability to reduce their huge and growing public debt loads. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the G7/G20 group of leading economies, conferred with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of a call planned for this weekend by G7 finance ministers and central bankers. "They discussed the euro area and the U.S. debt downgrade. Both agreed the importance of working together, monitoring the situation closely ...
Thoughts On the Civil War and What Precipitated It...
by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Over at Contra O'Reilly Will Hart has been running a interesting series on the Civil War and what the primary causes were. Historians continue to disagree with the root, or primary causes. However it is generally accepted among knowledgeable and unbiased experts that slavery had very little to do with the onset of the War Between the States. Causes were primarily economic and constitutional. Will, in his posts has done a good job of pointing this out with supporting documentation. This site offers the following, a July 2013 article by David Hirsch in support of Will Hart's arguments. Arguments this site wholly concurs with. Arthur Hirsch's recent article about the Battle of Gettysburg reveals a disturbing ignorance of the political dynamics that brought this nation to a war that 150 years later remains the most cataclysmic event in our history ("A defining day relived," July 2). It accepts the sh...
When and How Will it End?
by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Birthplace of Independent Conservatism This is America. We are an English speaking nation. We have distinct and traditional American cultural values. We have some Americans in our population who have difficulty speaking a coherent sentence. We have many who cannot construct a complete and proper sentence. Yet we find the time and the money to educate youth in Arabic and Arabic culture. Mind you this is a Federal Grant program and limited to only five select school districts. At least for now. At a cost of 1.3 millions dollars students on these select district will be required, you heard {read} right, required as mandatory part of their curriculum to learn Arabic. This is a blatant abuse of taxpayer money, and it is indicative of the future course our nation has embarked upon under the fuzzy, misguided, and incredibly deceitful anti leade...
I say this.
ReplyDeleteLes, you'll never convince rightwing Christians that any other religion comes anywhere near the greatness that is theirs. Theirs is the best, dontcha' know.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Jersey: Pop quiz - which adherents to a particular religion are more prone to violence, extremism and barbarism? Even if it is a fraction of a percent of said adherents?(which I believe it is)
DeleteBuddhists, Christians, followers of Judaism, Hindus, Christians, Catholics or Muslims.
Your bigotry and hate makes wants to scream RIGHT WING CHRISTIANS!!!!
But, unfortunately you are 100% wrong.
Hate isn't a family value, didn't you know that, Jersey?
I don't know what you're talking about. All religion is stupid. But just 70 years ago Christians slaughtered each other in numbers unmatched in all history. Here in America, the most "Christian" nation of them all, we kill each other far more than Muslims kill us - or even each other! So really, you don't know wtf you're talking about.
DeleteJMJ
jmj said... "I don't know what you're talking about. All religion is stupid."
DeleteAgain using your favorite word "stupid" again on this thread, as you've done on many others.
Calling all religion stupid is by extension calling the vast majority of people the world over stupid. For the atheist religion is mystical and therefore by definition lacking in reason. But being religious does not make one stupid. In fact the greatest theologians were all bright individuals and the vast majority of religious people are intelligent as well.
When a person, or an entire religion attempts to impose their brand of religious dogma on others is when our indignation should be made known and they should be brought to task. Even with this it does not make the religion per se or it's practitioners stupid. Those who attempt to impose a certain religious doctrine on others by force are however unethical and immoral, but not necessarily stupid.
jmj said... " But just 70 years ago Christians slaughtered each other in numbers unmatched in all history."
DeleteBy this I shall assume you are referring to W II. If I am correct in my assumption I am puzzled. WW II was the result of unbridled lust for power and world domination. A rather common man possessing a high level of intelligence convinced a nation of it's superiority using race and hatred as catalyst, you know the rest.
The Evil Power of the Axis Nations, and Fascism aligned themselves against the Powers of the Allied Nations to insure the right and freedom that comes with national sovereignty. Then at Potsdam it all fell apart.
BUT, WW II was not about religion or imposing a religious dogma on people. No, it was about the acquisition of unbridled power and the desire for oppressive domination under a POLITICAL ideology. For the atheist every bit as mystical an lacking reason but it sure as hell had nothing to do with religion.
I'll leave you with the Left Coast Rebel...
Left Coast Rebel - Thu Sep 05, 11:09:00 AM EDT
Jersey: Pop quiz - which adherents to a particular religion are more prone to violence, extremism and barbarism? Even if it is a fraction of a percent of said adherents?(which I believe it is)
Buddhists, Christians, followers of Judaism, Hindus, Christians, Catholics or Muslims.
Your bigotry and hate makes wants to scream RIGHT WING CHRISTIANS!!!!
But, unfortunately you are 100% wrong.
Hate isn't a family value, didn't you know that, Jersey?
Jersey also said: " Les, you'll never convince rightwing Christians that any other religion comes anywhere near the greatness that is theirs. Theirs is the best, dontcha' know."
DeleteAnd in another comment, you call all those who do not believe as you do "stupid": exhibiting the exact sort of arrogant attitude about religion that you accuse others of. Jersey, you proved your point not about others, but about yourself...
See Les? As I said, atheism has its supremacist intolerant ayatollahs and Falwells also. We just had a flare-up here.
Les, your favorite political thinker thought the same of religion as I. And to remove Christianity from much of the horror of the Third Reich, the Second World War, and much else of what happened back then would be pretty naive of you.
DeleteI am not intolerant. I'm just pointing out reality. You guys are just defending the stupid - stupid questions, stupid religions.
JMJ
You'll forgive for saying so, but you can be a real jackass sometimes.
DeleteI know more about Ayn Rand than you ever will and am fully aware of her views on religion.
I defend no religion, I am not religous being an atheist. I am however capable of thinking beyond the usual pablum, are you?
You are indeed intolerant jmj, and as they say, stupid is as stupid does.
Les, stupid is those slobs on FOX McCain had to instruct. In fact, FOX is stupid and so is everyone who takes them seriously. I'm sick of it.
DeleteJMJ
Goof for you jersey, good for YOU And, thank you for confirming my point
DeleteRN said: "Goof for you Jersey..."
DeleteGot to love serendipitous typos....
Jersey said: " But just 70 years ago Christians slaughtered each other in numbers unmatched in all history."
ReplyDeleteNice spin there. But truth be told, Nazism wasn't Christian... and besides, the numbers were not only matched, but were exceeded by Stalin's USSR... also not Christian.
Nice try. But if you're going to assert that Christianity had nothing to do with the Holocaust, or that most NAZI's weren't in fact Christians, than you just can't man up to reality.
DeleteJMJ
"...this book represents a scholarly account of the actions and beliefs of the Catholic Church during World War II. Although Goldhagen borrows from Carroll's "Constantine's Sword," Garry Wills, "Papal Sin," and others, he also uses the Church's own Catechism to, in essence, rub the nose of the Catholic Church in the shit it has made of things. The book also includes devastating (to the Catholic Church) photos of nuns and priests giving the Hitler salute and attending Nazi ceremonies.
DeleteBy framing the problem, Daniel Goldhagen charges that "Christianity is a religion that consecrated at its core and, historically, spread throughout its domain a megatherian hatred of one group of people: the Jews." Like Carroll, he connects the Catholic Church, with antisemitism and its effects which led to the Jewish holocaust. Goldhagen found that Pope Pius XII and many of his priests acted without remorse, turned a blind eye, and in some cases, where priests took direct action in the murder of innocent human beings during World War II. In Slovakia, for example, the Catholic Church supported the government and the comprehensive antisemitic laws modeled on the Nazis. President-priest Tiso preached using Nazi antisemitic beliefs that "expelling the Jews was a Christian act." In Croatia, many priests committed mass murder (Croats killed 200,000 Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies).
The Catholic Church served as the first international institution to sign and announce a major agreement with Hitler (the Concordant). The Church aided in the Nazi persecution of Jews by willingly supplying its genealogical records which allowed the Germans to send thousands of Jews to their deaths in concentration camps."
I read both James Carroll's "Constantine's Sword," and Garry Wills's "Papal Sin." Both men are devout Catholics and scholars.
SOURCE
"The Catholic Church served as the first international institution to sign and announce a major agreement with Hitler (the Concordant). The Church aided in the Nazi persecution of Jews by willingly supplying its genealogical records which allowed the Germans to send thousands of Jews to their deaths in concentration camps."
DeleteChalk it up to the Irrational Self Interest of the Church, or was it an act the Church felt was neccessary to Insure it not being persucuted or even eliminated in Nazi Germany? In which case someone (not I) could argue it was in theur Rational Self Interest.
This entire discussion with respect to religion is, to say the least quite intersesting. Religions have had a less than pious and stellar reputation throughout the history of mankind. What I don't get is the progresives targeting Christianity as they do. If you want to discuss religion in general, something this atheist has no intention of doing, why don't one of you progresives do a comparative analysis of the evils perpetrated by ALL religions throughout human history with links to ducumentation supporting your presentation? Then you might want to do a scholarly paper discussing the documents that guide each of the world's major religions to act as they do along with apprpriate corresponding chapter and verse in said document, and linkage of course?
Perhaps it is time to prepare for the next evil onslaught against humanity that is in the name of treligion? I wonder from whence it shall come. Progressives?
"Like Carroll, he connects the Catholic Church, with antisemitism and its effects which led to the Jewish holocaust."
DeleteAntisemitism is common at so many levels. Stalin's regime, not theistic at all, had its own plot to wipe out all Jews.
Sam Harris (not exactly a Christian apologist) on Islam - "The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of Islam.............The truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery at this moment than Christianity has been for a very long time. And we have to point this out.............The refrain that all religions have their extremists is bullshit. All religions don't have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists.............There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident.............We have this single book (the Quran) which is imagined to be the best book on any subject ever written, never to be superseded by any human effort at any point in the future. Now this is a problem because this is a profoundly mediocre book.............Extremism isn't a problem as long as your core beliefs are truly nonviolent.............Was all of this pious mayhem (in response to the Danish cartoon); the burning of embassies, the killing of nuns - was all that some sort of great flowering of spiritual and ethical intelligence? Or was it egregious medieval stupidity? Come to think of it, it was egregious medieval stupidity." Well said, Mr. Harris, well said.
ReplyDeleteWhile Jersey's comments about religion and WW2 reflect a fourth-grade education (I know he is smarter but sometimes it doesn't show at all when he applies religious labels without veracity), Christians are still capable of such medieval brutality. The Serbian orthodox church in the 1990's was at the forefront leading extremists there in killing over 100,000 Muslim civilians.. something that ranks up with anything Muslim extremists have done in the modern era.
DeleteYou do have a good point on the Amish though.
I guess Christians just can't face the reality that they have behaved just as horrifically as every other peoples on the planet. I got news for you smug idiots - you're not better than anyone.
DeleteJMJ
Smug idiot is as smug idiot does jersey. I know you're working on it. Not being one I mean.
DeleteJersey said: "(1)I guess Christians just can't face the reality that they have behaved just as horrifically as every other peoples on the planet. (2) I got news for you smug idiots - you're not better than anyone."
Delete1) Find where anyone is arguing this here? Are you even reading the comments you are commenting on?
2) Welcome to the real world. This is closed to what we have been arguing: in opposition to your arguments.
-------
And on top of this, it does appear that Jersey thinks that RN is a Christian...
I'm not a smug idiot nor am I a Christian.
DeleteBut I sure as heck know a close-minded intolerant bigot when I see one and Jersey fits the bill perfectly.
I really love that my comment at the top of this thread exposed his true colors ("all religions are stupid," "Nazis were Christians," etc.).
Nuts, just plain nuts. My smart liberal friends would be ashamed to associate themselves with someone as hate-filled as you, Jersey.
LCR: Jersey is at the depths of his grunting hate-filled thug mode. Kind of a mood swing thing perhaps.
DeleteD. Lexmarks Luther [Fri Sep 06, 06:58:00 AM EDT] RN said: "Goof for you Jersey..." Got to love serendipitous typos....
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't a typo, it was a word salad. RN is becoming quite famous for them. You could call him a "Tosser Extraordinaire", no?
Let us also see what actual top Nazis say: " "If the Catholic Christian is convinced that the Pope in infallible in all religious and ethical matters, so we National Socialists declare with the same ardent conviction that for us too the Führer is absolutely infallible in all political and other matters."
ReplyDelete- Herman Goering, referring to the two as entirely different, and in fact implying that this form of socialism was a replacement for Catholicism.
Moving up the Nazi ladder. From Wikipedia: " Various scholars consider Hitler's final religious position to be one of deism." Also: " It was Goebbels' opinion that Hitler was "deeply religious but entirely anti- Christian."
What did Goebbels himself say? Here is one of his quotations: " What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel."
----
It is quite clear, from the men who controlled, defined, and managed Nazism, that this was not a branch of, or compatible with, Christianity.
Great info, DMarks... I recall reading fairly recently in my college course that the Nazis (especially the hierarchy) were followers of the occult. For the life of me, I have no idea how a person could claim that they were Christians. Mind boggling.
DeleteMore thoughts for the bigot Jersey to ponder:
ReplyDeleteEarlier this year my wife enrolled in an RCIA program to become Catholic. To say the least, I was skeptical and wasn't involved, though she wanted me to be.
She wanted our baby to be baptized in the church and it was important to her for me to enter the program - so I did.
After several months of getting to know the priest, deacon and scores of church members and faculty NOT ONCE did I come across a bigot, "stupid" person, or anyone the left would like to characterize (smear) as a "typical" Catholic or Christian for that matter. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- was kind-hearted, compassionate, humble, loving and warm to my wife and I; all the way to the top.
So, Jersey, it's really easy to be bigoted and hate people you have no clue about when in many cases, the scapegoats of your sad upside-down boxed-in worldview are actually kind, decent people who just see the world differently than you do.
I didn't agree with a lot of the Catholic doctrine I became accustomed to but I'm a better person for having experienced it.
And I would have done the same if the religion had been Judaism, Bhuddism, Taosim, etc.
I'm pretty sure Jersey will have nothing to say to this.
Deletejmj usually weighs in late night. He might just surprise.
DeleteWe'll see. I'd like a response that doesn't include name calling and is intellectually honest, but that's asking a lot.
DeleteLong as he doesn't drink the stupid-juice before commenting. He often does have great comments, but he is really out to lunch across the board on this one.
ReplyDelete