--- In [email protected], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Turq, > > Here we go again with another "God" discussion.
Last night, bone tired from a long hike in the Cevennes, this line almost put me to sleep on the spot. This morning, with a cuppa good Illy coffee in me, it has a similar effect, but I'll play anyway, just because you're you, and you put so much heart into these God discussions. :-) > To me a saint is not a do gooder, but is instead a > "do-whateverer-for-God. My first take on this is to remember all of the horrors that have been perpetrated upon the world by people who justified them as "doing whatever for God." Ever heard of *Saint* Domenic? He got his sainthood by founding the Inquisition. > (Oh, take those fingers out of your ears and > stop saying la la la la la non-stop, I think I can win you > over on this. Not likely. :-) > And if not, probably your withering return fusillade will be > ecstatically painful, and hey, I'm up for a purifying lashing. > Sudden thought: I bet we could form a religion for S&M-ers by > showing them that their fetishistic attachments are, spiritually > speaking, merely a tad shy of being acts of eschewing materiality. Gesundheit. Didn't your mother teach you to cover your nose when you eschew? > We could have windfall profits on yagya blessed whips, for > instance.) It's probably been done. > Krishna told Arjuna to kill. And killing is always a sin, but > upholding dharmic morals is a higher goal -- that's the loop > hole of all religions when they must authorize social slaughter: > "God wants it this way instead." But you're skipping over three more common denominators of all religions that do this: 1) that God exists, 2) that God knows what he's doing, and 3) that *we* (the religionists who are telling their flock to go out and kill) are so cool that we "know" what God is doing, and can tell you the things that would put you "in tune" with that. Right? The only way that Krishna's advice in the Gita can be seen as valuable and sane is *if he knows what he is talking about*. (And please remember, in any raps about the Gita and the Mahabharata that I consider them not scripture but religious fiction, created to strengthen and preserve the ruling classes/castes of the time, which were being challenged by more populist religions and belief systems.) What if the Big Blue Guy had no more idea what was what than the chariot driver he was talking to? What does that do to the validity of his advice? That's where I'm comin' from in these "God discussions." I do not accept that those in history who claim to know What God Wants really knew a damned thing. It changes the value that one places upon their advice. > So, Arjuna is told, "Whence this fainthearted blemish? Probably from eating chocolate. My Mom always told me that if I ate too much chocolate that I'm break out in blemishes. > Pick up that broken chariot wheel, an unsanctified weapon, > and while your twin brother, Karna, is not looking, with a > dastardly ungentlemanly show of poor sportsmanship, smite > this cancer of your caste on the back of his head before he > remembers that mantra Brahma gave him and he nukes the entire > battlefield with a Sanskrit poem." In other words, do something that you *know* is inherently wrong (killing another human being) because I SAY SO, and I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Just as something for your frontal lobes to chew on, what if he didn't? What if NONE of them in history who claimed to know what God was thinking and what he wanted done has ever "known?" > God cheats Himself, cuz that's the only way to pull a fast > one on One's self when One is omniscient, omnipotent, omni- > present, omnivorous, omniomanipadme, you know, all the OM's. Good line, with the OM's and all, but kinda wasted on me, given my beliefs. > The essence of drama is knowing one's lines but saying them like > they had never been thought of until just when spoken, but when > the drama grinds to a halt, God has to break the rules -- i.e. > write new lines on the spot -- so that evolution can take place. Assumption Alert!!! You are assuming that there is a script, and behind that, a screenwriter. Not that there is anything wrong with that :-), but do remember that you're engaging in these discussions with someone who doesn't believe that. I honestly do believe that the movie is scriptless, and that it has been making itself, without a script and without a director, rather successfully, for eternity, and that it shall continue to do so, for eternity. > This is the three-body problem restated in that EVEN GOD doesn't > have the math to get from A to B in the gravitational presence > of C, but must do course corrections along the way. Another Assumption Alert!!! You're assuming not only the presence of God, but that he/she/it has the ability to *make* "course corrections," that is, interfere with Creation. Again, to quote Saint Seinfeld, "Not that there is anything wrong with that," it's just that I do not share that assumption. Therefore it's a little difficult for me to "play along" and go very far with discussions that do assume that. > God gets the drama's characters into "absolute corners" with > no wiggle room left -- here's Arjuna facing his equally endowed > brother who additionally has that end-everything mantra, and > there is just no way for Arjuna to best Karna, and yet that is > what must happen if the story's plot is to move forward. So > like all authors, arbitrary willy nilly capricious serendipity > and SINNING is a tool for God. Otherwise, everything goes > poof in a Shiva heartbeat. > > But wait, I was supposed to be talking about saints. Yup. > A saint is someone who is, since sainthood, in the audience -- > not on the stage. The saint is viewing all the characters on > the stage knowing that once she-he thought her-himself to be > merely ONE of the role players -- not the NON-UN-GRASPABLE > behind them all. > > A saint sees the drama's characters with the same clarity that > Valentine Michael Smith (Stranger in a Strange Land) had when > he watched the monkeys in the zoo beating up each other and > moving the shit downhill. He started laughing. He was suddenly > free of any desire for the monkeys to act otherwise. Why? He > suddenly understood Krishna's words: "Unfathomable are the > ways of Karma, oh Arjun." Nice fantasy. Very elegant, and self-consistent. But, since it's based on assumptions I do not hold, I can't very well riff on it, can I? I mean, what am I supposed to do, *pretend* that I believe that there is a God and that He has a "script" for all this and that we're all nothing but actors mouthing His words, just so we can have a discussion? I really don't believe any of those things, so it's difficult for me to play the game. It's not that it's not a really *fun* game -- I can see that it is, for you. It's just that it's a little irrelevant for me. > A saint cannot be found on the stage. Point at Ramana Maharshi > and yell SAINT SAINT SAINT as loudly as you might, and the > Ramana body will say, "Ain't no one here that answers to that > name, try asking at then next ashram." Is this like shouting "Movie!" in a crowded fire department station? Should it be made illegal? :-) > There's that joke about the jungle explorer who is told by a local > priest not to wipe off the Foo Bird's droppings that had just landed > on his head. The explorer scoffs, wipes, and then is struck dead by > lightning. The priest says, "If the Foo shits, wear it." > > Well, saints understand that. The character on stage will do > whatever the author's written no matter the consequences. Funny > thing is that the other characters cannot do otherwise, but they're > written AS IF they have free will. And, as far as I can tell, they have it. I can appreciate the wordsmithing with which you paint a picture of a universe in which no one has free will, but that's not the universe I live in, man. That's all I'm trying to convey here. I am *not* trying to S&M you into submission and convince you of the "rightness" of my view; I have no interest in such things. I'm just sayin' that sometimes it's difficult for me to play in the universes you create here because they're just so DIFFERENT from the one I live in. :-) > The saint character merely has the knowledge that the author > is speaking extemporaneously through her-him, doing course > corrections on the plot donchaknow, cuz the other characters, > being like algorithms, have no karmic flexibility. Yup. Just like "Saint" Domenic was being a mouthpiece for God when he designed the Inquisition. He was just clueing in the other actors to the latest script revisions. "Guys...you know that bit that God told us a while back about killing being a sin? Well, I've been in touch with Him and that's been revised. It's now A-OK to kill heretics, and we're doing them a FAVOR by doing it. Now go forth and do God's will." > A saintly act is grease for the cogs, white out for God's typing, a > cattle prod used by Jack Baur on his BEST friend when Jack has the > slightest thought that that BEST friend knows something that could > allow Jack to thwart a terrorist. Exactly. Jack is assuming that he knows better than anyone else what's "right." And he does it. I "get" you linking him to "saints." It's just that I don't believe that either Jack or Saint Jack knows jack shit about what's "right." > Like that, God's saints are doing improv. They're in on THE JOKE > OF GOD. Was that the one about "How many Gods does it take to change a light bulb?" > (Yoke of God?) And like all comedy, it hurts when the laughter is > deepest. > > I say, "Let's all give up being good -- for Lent." For forty days, > let's all wear the Foo Shit." > > Stop the buck, wear the guck, fuck the luck, love that muck, and > have a yuck being a puck. Let God whack you across the ice through > Satan's legs and into the net. > > Something like that. A Sunday morning thingy. And this is a Monday morning quarterback reply. I can see that within the universe you envision, you've got "good game." It's just that you're playing football on your field and I'm over here playing Calvinball. I do really "get" and appreciate the poetry you put into these God raps and explanations of how actors should just lighten up and let the screenwriter (who knows best, after all) do all the work. But that's just not the movie I'm in. In mine, we all get to write all of our own lines. These were mine. God had nothing whatsoever to do with writing them. :-) > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> wrote: > > > > > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <rick@> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > From: [email protected] > > > > > > > > > > > It all comes down to whether we see him as a Saint or not. If > > > > > > not, > > > > > > his motives are crass and selfish, or at best well intentioned > > > > > > fumbling, and everything he does clicks into place with that > > > > > > perspective. On the other hand, if we see him as a Saint it > > > > > > all > > > > > > clicks into place also. > > > > > > > > > > I see him as a man who is sometimes crass and selfish, and > > > > > sometimes a saint with compassionate and magnanimous motives. > > > > > Both ordinary and extraordinary. > > > > > > > > It is the limitation of some people that they > > > > cannot conceive of those they have put up on > > > > pedestals of being capable of being both crass > > > > *and* saints, at the same time. In their minds, > > > > a being can only be one or the other. Their > > > > limitations in this respect should not prevent > > > > those of us who have *no problem* conceiving > > > > of such a thing from doing so. > > > > > > > I think it really comes down to what we consider "a Saint". True, > > > humans are capable of the entire spectrum of behavior, from near > > > complete purity to abhorrent evil, and everything in between, as you > > > mention above for example, partly crass, partly pure. > > > > Jim, you nailed the issue IMO by using the > > phrase "what *we* consider a saint." I've > > never met a "saint" who considered himself > > or herself one. But I've met quite a few > > humans whose followers consider them "saints." > > > > It's a projection process -- what the onlookers > > project *onto* the person and their actions -- > > that determines "sainthood," as that term is > > used on this planet. > > > > In my opinion humans have an inherent tendency > > to look for perfection and project it onto the > > people and things in which they hope it resides. > > But the people and things themselves are just > > people and things -- multifaceted, each of them > > containing as many "imperfect" sides as they do > > "perfect" ones. > > > > Have you ever read any of the words written > > *by* the so-called "saints?" They're often > > revealing, especially when compared to the > > words written *about* them by their followers. > > Saint Francis of Asissi was regarded as a > > saint by some people of his time (and today), > > but if you read *his* writings, he thought > > that he was essentially a slimeball. All that > > he could see about himself were the last few > > "imperfections" that he was working on trying > > to get rid of. You can find the same thing in > > many of the writings of Eastern "saints." > > > > In other words, *they* don't delude themselves > > into thinking that they're "perfect." Only their > > followers do that. For the "saints" themselves, > > they're just trying to get through the day, and > > do as much good as they can, while doing as > > little harm as they can. And enlightenment does > > not necessarily make that process of discernment > > any easier, as far as I can tell. These people > > whose followers call them saints are *human*, > > and make human mistakes, just as any other > > human does. > > > > That's one of the main reasons I don't like the > > word "saint," and rarely use it. It implies that > > the person you attach the label to is no longer > > going through the daily struggle to keep their > > thoughts and their actions "clean," and has > > somehow "risen above" the need to do so. Me, I > > don't think humans *ever* get to that place. > > > > And that's just FINE with me. I don't need > > "saints" or even the idea of them to make me > > feel good about someone when they do something > > selfless. If they do something selfish the > > next day, that doesn't detract from the selfless > > thing they did yesterday. > > > > > However there are those few precious individuals on the planet > > > who are completely sinless. > > > > Well, I'd have to agree with this one, but that's > > because I don't believe that there is any such > > thing as "sin." It's a human-invented concept, > > and a bad concept at that, one that has caused > > more suffering in the people who have come to > > believe in it than their supposed "sins" have > > ever caused. "Sin," as used in modern society, > > is synonymous with "doing something that you have > > been convinced there is a need to feel guilty about." > > That's a concept that is pretty much foreign and > > meaningless to a Tantric, one who views every action > > one could perform in the world as equally holy. It's > > not the action per se; it's the state of attention > > and intent and joy that one brings to the action > > that makes the difference. > > > > > It is a very very small group... > > > > Again, we agree. I think its membership is zero. > > > > And that's OK. Far better to be a human being who > > is trying to do the little things of his or her life > > in as positive a fashion as possible than to be some > > fictional character in someone's fantasy who does > > *everything* positively. > > > > In other words, although you are welcome to your > > ideas about "saints" and how "sinless" and "perfect" > > they are, I have to regard these ideas as your > > projected fantasies. That doesn't mean that I don't > > think you are perfectly entitled to believe what you > > believe, or that I think your beliefs are "lesser" > > than mine. I'm just making the point that (yet again), > > you are making some assumptions about the nature of > > the universe that you seem to assume that everyone > > else agrees with and "buys into" to the same degree > > that you do. > > > > In this case, it's the existence of "saints." You > > believe they exist, and that belief inspires you. > > I believe that they do not exist, and that belief > > inspires me. For me it's far nobler to be actively > > trying to lead a good life than to spontaneously do > > so because one has no choice, because one is a > > "saint" and that's just how saints are. > > > > Different strokes for different folks. That's all... > > >
