"... On Apr 15, 4:20 am, Molly Brogan <[email protected]> wrote: ..."
> I liked that movie also. We all have a drive to explain life, and do > so endlessly, from our own viewpoints. I posted the clip as an > example of pre rational mind sets, as an off set to gruff's rational > post. I'm happy you consider me to be rational ... at least sometimes. I might have grasped that meaning had I known what the clip was from ... but my viewing was completely without context. My favorite clip showing that same pre-rational mind set comes at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odessy when the chimp picks up the femur and tilts its head in puzzlement before it begins to club the pile of bones to smithereens. > There are even, I > think, transrational mindsets that allow for this objectification. What is transrational? Why lies beyond rationality? Are you comparing this to a religious state of mind? An enlightened state? Or do you see something else? > My faith, your faith, god is...all express at least a degree of > separation. And separation without the one allows the object. I > bring this up because I don't believe that I truly experienced the > flow of my internal morality until I was able to live from that > position of the one and the many (the ultimate paradox) - God as the > expression of the individual man who collectively express the god > within (whether they are aware of it or not, each perfectly ordered > unto themselves) Until we can realize this paradox, our morality is > an agreed upon notion of the good, and we each live up to it or not, > like the laws that govern our cultures. I disagree, at least from a personal perspective. It is not until your final statement that I think you have stated what to me is the only basis for a real moral foundation: the law. From my own personal perspective, I left belief in God at a fairly young age, notwithstanding the pitiful attempts I made to return to the fold a few time when I got too depressed. But they never worked. They couldn't. I was already transbelief and wandered through this strange world bereft of morals. The only mandate that kept me in line to any degree was fear of the punishment that would attend were I caught. It was not until I got interested in law (not lawyers -- though the ability to manipulate that comes with a knowledge of their ways was what initially drew me in) that I began to develop a set of moral codes to which I still adhere. When I began reading opinions of judges and saw the standards of behavior to which we are held as members of this society, and understood that the only way to have a civil and civilized society is via law, was when a moral passion first arose in me. Yet even those standards are vague. Civil law holds us to the behavior of a reasonable and prudent person. Criminal law is based in common law and the protection of the individual and property from harm. There was shock as well. When a respected jurist and man of letters, Oliver Wendall Holmes, wrote in an opinion upholding the state's right to forcibly sterilize a woman that, "... three generations of idiots are enough." it was like a slap in the face and eventually brought me to an awareness that nothing is perfect and does not need to be. But the grist is that we don't need gods nor religion to rise up and behave in a moral and rational manner. We have all we need within ourselves to do that. We just have to believe. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
