I do find Ravi particularly annoying, but I have the choice (in free-will terms) to ignore him. Any power he has over us is largely determined by our response, except in the case of Curtis perhaps because of informational ties to the world outside of this forum, and Curtis seems to be able to modulate his response emotionally so his reaction is not a knee jerk - he seems to have a strategy in mind.
Society always segregates out those that do not go with the general flow of thought. The forum is rather democratic but there are always flaws in the systems of administration that let outliers through. It is difficult to protect oneself from outright falsehoods. It is the opposite of science where instead of having to demonstrate that what you say is true, you have a situation where you have to deny and somehow disprove something never happened which others have come believe in the absence of direct evidence. 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' In a courtroom there is a rule there, in that it was never established that wife beating ever occurred, and the judge will intervene, but in the mind of the public, which is not always that bright, such a ruse might be taken as truth. --- In [email protected], "Buck" <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "Buck" <dhamiltony2k5@> wrote: > > > > > Call it what you like, the good, > > > the fair, the just etc. of antiquity. > > > Yup, but essentially it is > > > virtuous vs. sinful on a > > > spiritual scale of 'life-supporting'. > > > > The opposite of virtue is vice, not sin. A religious person might call vice > > 'sin', but 'sin' is not recognised outside of religious thought. > > > > For example, in the Torah, the tablets of the ten commandments were > > destroyed. God then replaced them. Except the commandments on the new > > tablets were different, e.g., 'Thou shalt not boil a calf in its mothers > > milk' was one of the restored commandments. Few today would call boiling a > > calf this way a sin. Vegetarians and animal lovers maybe. > > > > An atheist might get enlightened, but would not give any value to the word > > sin as he/she moved 'up' on the 'spiritual scale'. 'Spiritual scales' seem > > to be devices by which one can manipulate the emotive behaviour of another > > by comparing them to the scale, relying on such a person's emotional > > immaturity and weakness to nudge or browbeat them into submission. This is > > the opposite of the technique for transcending, which is to gently let go. > > > > The unified field is everything. If you want to know what god wants, just > > watch what happens in the universe at large. Sin is either meaningless as a > > concept or it must be a property of god. > > > > No it need be neither necessarily, people knows it when they sees it too. > Commonly. These rasyannas are fairly universal codes are good examples. And > then you might have some asocial (sinful as we are defining more spiritually) > person come along in the extreme who clearly needs to be banished or > separated off (prison?) from folks in more civic virtue. Like this guy Ravi > here, except that the community here as formed does not have a way to protect > itself without Rick stepping in. Most civil societies separate off the > asocial to protect themselves. This community evidently is being held > hostage by sinful disgrace. > > > Someone once asked Maharishi where bad thoughts came from, presumably since > > thought arises out of the 'field of pure intelligence'. His answer was such > > a thought was 'rotten to the core'. > > > > If you want to bring sin as a concept into the game of enlightenment, you > > have a lose-lose situation especially in the modern Western world where > > traditional religious sentiment is slipping. > > > > Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? > > Then he is not omnipotent. > > Is he able, but not willing? > > Then he is malevolent. > > Is he both able and willing? > > Then whence cometh evil? > > Is he neither able nor willing? > > Then why call him God? > > > > --Epicurius (b.341 BCE) > > >
