[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@ wrote: Thanks for the clarification. And IMO the Not Knowing, Not believing is also another kind of belief even though you might not state is as such. And to me this Not knowing belief system is like a kitty playing with a ball of yarn, a circular logic that leads nowhere, where one is stuck in the intellect forever and hence my remark. I'm not sure I stuck in the intellect anymore than you are Ravi. It is one of our channels of cognition. In my artistic life I probably live more on the side of emotion. But on a philosophical board obviously it will be my mind that is most up front. That spirituality is about belief is also a wrong concept, belief may be the starting point of spirituality, I would agree that it is not only about belief. But they are there. Even with mystical experience we still need to evaluate what they mean. You are not correct to assume that I have not had what is called spiritual experience. I have. But I think of them with different meaning than you seem to. the end is just a innocent pristine trust, just like a child does in his parents. You can't say child believes in his parents, he just loves and trusts. They may love him or punish him, they may buy him candy or not, but he just trusts, accepts and adapts, they may push him away but he just clings on, a question of any other alternative doesn't even arise. I'm not sure what the object is of your trust. But to ride your analogy a bit further, the relationship I have with my Dad is so much richer since I grew up, got off the innocence wagon of childhood, and relate to him as a flawed human just like me. Our relationship has been vastly improved since I stopped being innocent at the beginning of one of his Fox News rants and cut him off with a Dad we both know this is not going to go anywhere pleasant. Can we get back to talking about fly-fishing? I don't take spiritual statements literally, these are beautiful metaphors, Agreed. in fact I was thinking of the 72 virgins statement just a few days back. The amount of bliss I feel out of that oneness with the existence is akin to having sex with 72 virgins so that statement to describe heaven seems so apt. Since its such a highly subjective hard to describe state, I feel at home describing that bliss in terms of metaphors such as a sexual orgasm, a drunk or a forlorn lover. Being in eternity then makes total sense to me, only when applied to the inner world and has no significance to the outer at all. You must be a fan of Rumi poems too. I can dig it. Personally I think the subjective bliss of spiritual experience is overrated. But I still enjoy the experience so I can relate. The outer continues to display its amazingly dazzling dizzying array of changes, in a perfect beautiful contrast to the inner eternity. I know it feels like eternity, or more accurately the poetry of that word seems to feel right when discussing it. But I'm pretty sure that it will end when the brain stops. Try this. Go to a Doctor and have him put you under with Propofol. Have someone in the room read from some book they select from random. If you can come out and tell us what book it was you may have the beginnings of a case. Like they say the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. If that is what you mean by eternity then I am on board. And I react when I see people turning into fanatics by taking statements literally, both pro such as the religious extremists and con, like posters here at FFL. I'm not sure we are anymore fanatical than you are Ravi. You and I are both enthusiastic advocates of our opinions. That is the part of you I can relate to best. Thanks for your comments Curtis - I don't necessarily agree with all of your statements but I appreciate you taking the time to articulate your feelings and thoughts.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@... wrote: Thanks for your comments Curtis - I don't necessarily agree with all of your statements but I appreciate you taking the time to articulate your feelings and thoughts. Much appreciated Ravi. It is a civilized man who knows how to agree to disagree! Enjoy your day. feelings and thoughts. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@ wrote: Thanks for the clarification. And IMO the Not Knowing, Not believing is also another kind of belief even though you might not state is as such. And to me this Not knowing belief system is like a kitty playing with a ball of yarn, a circular logic that leads nowhere, where one is stuck in the intellect forever and hence my remark. I'm not sure I stuck in the intellect anymore than you are Ravi. It is one of our channels of cognition. In my artistic life I probably live more on the side of emotion. But on a philosophical board obviously it will be my mind that is most up front. That spirituality is about belief is also a wrong concept, belief may be the starting point of spirituality, I would agree that it is not only about belief. But they are there. Even with mystical experience we still need to evaluate what they mean. You are not correct to assume that I have not had what is called spiritual experience. I have. But I think of them with different meaning than you seem to. the end is just a innocent pristine trust, just like a child does in his parents. You can't say child believes in his parents, he just loves and trusts. They may love him or punish him, they may buy him candy or not, but he just trusts, accepts and adapts, they may push him away but he just clings on, a question of any other alternative doesn't even arise. I'm not sure what the object is of your trust. But to ride your analogy a bit further, the relationship I have with my Dad is so much richer since I grew up, got off the innocence wagon of childhood, and relate to him as a flawed human just like me. Our relationship has been vastly improved since I stopped being innocent at the beginning of one of his Fox News rants and cut him off with a Dad we both know this is not going to go anywhere pleasant. Can we get back to talking about fly-fishing? I don't take spiritual statements literally, these are beautiful metaphors, Agreed. in fact I was thinking of the 72 virgins statement just a few days back. The amount of bliss I feel out of that oneness with the existence is akin to having sex with 72 virgins so that statement to describe heaven seems so apt. Since its such a highly subjective hard to describe state, I feel at home describing that bliss in terms of metaphors such as a sexual orgasm, a drunk or a forlorn lover. Being in eternity then makes total sense to me, only when applied to the inner world and has no significance to the outer at all. You must be a fan of Rumi poems too. I can dig it. Personally I think the subjective bliss of spiritual experience is overrated. But I still enjoy the experience so I can relate. The outer continues to display its amazingly dazzling dizzying array of changes, in a perfect beautiful contrast to the inner eternity. I know it feels like eternity, or more accurately the poetry of that word seems to feel right when discussing it. But I'm pretty sure that it will end when the brain stops. Try this. Go to a Doctor and have him put you under with Propofol. Have someone in the room read from some book they select from random. If you can come out and tell us what book it was you may have the beginnings of a case. Like they say the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. If that is what you mean by eternity then I am on board. And I react when I see people turning into fanatics by taking statements literally, both pro such as the religious extremists and con, like posters here at FFL. I'm not sure we are anymore fanatical than you are Ravi. You and I are both enthusiastic advocates of our opinions. That is the part of you I can relate to best. Thanks for your comments Curtis - I don't necessarily agree with all of your statements but I appreciate you taking the time to articulate your feelings and thoughts.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
and ignore and forget the failings of other. Ignore means not to hold them in mind at all - even as a place in memory. First of all I don't accept this as a good idea at all and secondly you are doing exactly this. And it still doesn't amount to me displaying pretensions on the scale of I know what happens after people die. You were previously saying your experience was equal to the practice of monasticism. Thus, you already know this. Remember? I remember they had a lot of bad ideas about life including not hanging out with women. Monastic life is not a model for my life and obviously not yours either since this whole post is about MY failings. So why are you bringing it up? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? . --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@... wrote: Thanks for the clarification. And IMO the Not Knowing, Not believing is also another kind of belief even though you might not state is as such. And to me this Not knowing belief system is like a kitty playing with a ball of yarn, a circular logic that leads nowhere, where one is stuck in the intellect forever and hence my remark. I'm not sure I stuck in the intellect anymore than you are Ravi. It is one of our channels of cognition. In my artistic life I probably live more on the side of emotion. But on a philosophical board obviously it will be my mind that is most up front. That spirituality is about belief is also a wrong concept, belief may be the starting point of spirituality, I would agree that it is not only about belief. But they are there. Even with mystical experience we still need to evaluate what they mean. You are not correct to assume that I have not had what is called spiritual experience. I have. But I think of them with different meaning than you seem to. the end is just a innocent pristine trust, just like a child does in his parents. You can't say child believes in his parents, he just loves and trusts. They may love him or punish him, they may buy him candy or not, but he just trusts, accepts and adapts, they may push him away but he just clings on, a question of any other alternative doesn't even arise. I'm not sure what the object is of your trust. But to ride your analogy a bit further, the relationship I have with my Dad is so much richer since I grew up, got off the innocence wagon of childhood, and relate to him as a flawed human just like me. Our relationship has been vastly improved since I stopped being innocent at the beginning of one of his Fox News rants and cut him off with a Dad we both know this is not going to go anywhere pleasant. Can we get back to talking about fly-fishing? I don't take spiritual statements literally, these are beautiful metaphors, Agreed. in fact I was thinking of the 72 virgins statement just a few days back. The amount of bliss I feel out of that oneness with the existence is akin to having sex with 72 virgins so that statement to describe heaven seems so apt. Since its such a highly subjective hard to describe state, I feel at home describing that bliss in terms of metaphors such as a sexual orgasm, a drunk or a forlorn lover. Being in eternity then makes total sense to me, only when applied to the inner world and has no significance to the outer at all. You must be a fan of Rumi poems too. I can dig it. Personally I think the subjective bliss of spiritual experience is overrated. But I still enjoy the experience so I can relate. The outer continues to display its amazingly dazzling dizzying array of changes, in a perfect beautiful contrast to the inner eternity. I know it feels like eternity, or more accurately the poetry of that word seems to feel right when discussing it. But I'm pretty sure that it will end when the brain stops. Try this. Go to a Doctor and have him put you under with Propofol. Have someone in the room read from some book they select from random. If you can come out and tell us what book it was you may have the beginnings of a case. Like they say the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. If that is what you mean by eternity then I am on board. And I react when I see people turning into fanatics by taking statements literally, both pro such as the religious extremists and con, like posters here at FFL. I'm not sure we are anymore fanatical than you are Ravi. You and I are both enthusiastic advocates of our opinions. That is the part of you I can relate to best. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? I'll take a stab at it, you are like a kitty with a ball of yarn - it's very cute, the writing is awesome, but you spin quite a yarn and end up going nowhere. Thanks for the entertainment though..:-) But I still don't get pretensions out of that. Glad you enjoy anything I write on any level Ravi, back atcha with your own creative work here. But I'm no cute kitty. I am going exactly where I am trying to get to here. But since I am ending up with a claim of NOT knowing, and not buying that others DO know about matters after death, I can see why that seems unsatisfactory. But for me it is. Like Camus suggests, I balance
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. Curtis, you obviously have great talent for writing! :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. Exactly. She's just riding the same wave trying to get a paycheck for herself, hoping that the Wuss Backlash Factor (These poor people who gave away all their money and houses and everything because some guy told them the world was ending and they alone would be saved are being SO ABUSED in the press) will keep her in writing material for a while. These forwarded URLs are SO predictable. The prob- lem that Judy sees with the failed end of the world prophecies is that people with strong beliefs were *made fun of* for holding those beliefs. NOT that the beliefs involved being so special that they and only they would be saved while everyone who didn't believe the same things they did would burn in eternal hellfire, after having endured a few months of earthly hellfire until October, but that people were laughing at them. Sounds to me a little like someone who is a bit sensitive about believing that bouncing around on her fat butt will save the world resents being laughed at herself. snip But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. Absolutely. Just a due date on the bill and cosmic bill collectors knocking at the door... that's the only difference. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? Well, I think so, but then I think that people who believe that the impact of their butt on foam several times a day is causing world peace to happen, and that it's their day job to do this as long as some rich guy can be conned into paying for it are pretty fuckin' dysfunctional, too. And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. As narcissistic as that fantasy may be. The world *has* to change, to be more like the way *I* want it to be. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! Just think what they imagine being done to the rest of your body. And they're not alone among religious fanatics in believing that Bad Things will happen to those who don't believe the same things they do. Or have you forgotten Nabby's and Ravi's smug assertions of the horrible things that will happen to those who diss saints, or Tom Pall's TM TB (at the time) gloating over Katrina and what all those New Orleans sinners deserved? :-) I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief... Got to pause here to savor the phrase malicious arrogance. That's really it -- the essence of the exclusionary afterlife. ...so we want a little payback. Not me. That would lower me to their level. I just want to exercise my Constitutional right to laugh at such people the way they should be laughed at. They want me burning in eternal hellfire. I just want to laugh at them. Big difference. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. Or just laugh at them, as the dweebs in need of an apocalypse fantasy to get them through the day that they are. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese- food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! Not to mention their fantasies about Hell. Doncha get the feeling that the walls of these True Believers are lined with Hieronymous Bosch paint- ings of Hell and what'll happen to Everybody But Them? So I get it that spiking the ball is too much... I don't agree. I think that spiking the ball is both
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Yea agreed-- big, big, big difference between the evangelical crowd and other Christians. This idea expressed by evangelicals that you are damned unless you accept Christ as your savior is antithetical to most Christians. Also the idea popular among evangelicals that all you need to do is click your heels together three times...oh wait, wrong fantasy...all you need to do is accept Jesus as your savior and all your past, present, and future wrongdoing is absolved is also not accepted by mainstream Christianity. Evangelicals often treat their religion as an eternal Get Out Of Jail Free and I Am Better Than You card, whereas serious Christians see Christ as an inspirational and humbling teacher. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: I enjoyed reading this, Curtis, but I'm working on a deadline and have very little time to comment. Wanted to make two main points: --All Christians are taught the Second Coming, but the Rapture belief isn't universal by any means. Maybe that isn't what you meant to suggest by mainstream? It's primarily a belief of Evangelicals. The fringe nature of the recent hoop-te-do had more to do with the idea that it could be so specifically predicted. And even among Evangelicals, there's dizzying variety of understandings about exactly how it all falls out. Some Christian denominations really don't deal with eschatology at all beyond the idea that it's gonna happen some day. --You paint with *way* too broad a brush in suggesting that all Christians hope you go to hell. That kind of malice is actually quite rare, even among the May 21ers. Most of 'em want to *save* you from going to hell. You make some good points, but you miss the boat on these two. Again, I wish I had more time to comment. Oh, and an addendum--for how to remove label residue, see this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2023764_remove-sticky-residue.html Also try lighter fluid. There are also products you can buy that are designed to do the job. One is called Goo Gone: http://www.googone.com/GG-Browse-Products --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Thanks Card, I hope it made you laugh a little. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. Curtis, you obviously have great talent for writing! :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. Exactly. She's just riding the same wave trying to get a paycheck for herself, hoping that the Wuss Backlash Factor (These poor people who gave away all their money and houses and everything because some guy told them the world was ending and they alone would be saved are being SO ABUSED in the press) will keep her in writing material for a while. Uh, no. She's on staff of the magazine, not a freelancer. She'd been assigned by the editor to do a story for which she'd sit around with believers and chronicle their disappointment, but she chose not to and wrote this instead. These forwarded URLs Forwarded URLs?? are SO predictable. belly laugh The prob- lem that Judy sees with the failed end of the world prophecies is that people with strong beliefs were *made fun of* for holding those beliefs. Ooops. Barry's hallucinating that I expressed an opinion on the subject. NOT that the beliefs involved being so special that they and only they would be saved while everyone who didn't believe the same things they did would burn in eternal hellfire, after having endured a few months of earthly hellfire until October, but that people were laughing at them. Your psychic powers have failed you once again, Barry. Sounds to me a little like someone who is a bit sensitive about believing that bouncing around on her fat butt will save the world resents being laughed at herself. Uh, no. Better sharpen up that mind-reading siddhi. snip And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. As narcissistic as that fantasy may be. The world *has* to change, to be more like the way *I* want it to be. Right, world peace, an end to suffering, how narcissistic! snip ...so we want a little payback. Not me. That would lower me to their level. I just want to exercise my Constitutional right to laugh at such people the way they should be laughed at. Uh, laughing at them is what Curtis means by payback. Funny how Barry brings in the Constitution, as if he were being *denied* his right to laugh. Makes him sound so much more Important, don't it? As if he were being, well, persecuted. snip I don't agree. I think that spiking the ball is both appropriate and warranted. If people made more fun, not less, of those who have been sold a deluded self- importance fantasy for big bucks, fewer charlatans would be able to sell such fantasies. Au contraire. The more they feel they're persecuted, the more firmly they'll believe. ...and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And who feel that they deserve respect for believing this. There was nothing in either piece I posted about their deserving respect for believing in the Rapture. Barry hallucinated that as well. snip While Harold Camping is nowhere to be found, probably carrying with him the 72 million or so he raked in from stoking such self importance fantasies. Tax free. Since his group is a nonprofit, if he absconds with the funds, he'll be in very big legal trouble. snip You're a better man than I, Curtis. Yes, he is a better man than Barry. But that's not saying much.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@... wrote: Yea agreed-- big, big, big difference between the evangelical crowd and other Christians. This idea expressed by evangelicals that you are damned unless you accept Christ as your savior is antithetical to most Christians. Also the idea popular among evangelicals that all you need to do is click your heels together three times...oh wait, wrong fantasy...all you need to do is accept Jesus as your savior and all your past, present, and future wrongdoing is absolved is also not accepted by mainstream Christianity. Evangelicals often treat their religion as an eternal Get Out Of Jail Free and I Am Better Than You card, whereas serious Christians see Christ as an inspirational and humbling teacher. Actually, as the other piece I posted pointed out, many Evangelicals do their best to live up to Christ's teaching by devoting themselves to serving the poor and the sick and the oppressed. They are also increasingly taking up the cause of environmentalism. As the writer notes: It is true that some evangelical theologians focus upon the Armageddon to the neglect of immediate, material problems. But many more have preached that Jesus would prefer to return to a world that deserved himThe threat of Armageddon is not, as the Guardian suggests, the fundamentalist Christian equivalent of the last helicopter out of Saigon. Rather it is a spur to action: a reminder that God is watching what you are doing and that He expects results.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of the commandments to honor your father and your mother? What if your parents are Muslim or Atheists and want the same for you? So if you are turning your back on these people for ETERNITY then I don't want any part of this unfair, provincial, ethno-centric, just plain mean charade! I don't see that. Now the kindlier Hindus don't raise a fuss if I don't get enlightened. They just send me back here to work on some more guitar licks. I can dig that. And their hell is reserved by level according to deeds with the lowest one, Patalla (SP?) with the worst suffering reserved for people who insult the guru... Ruh Roh! as Scooby-doo would say. Damn, I am s screwed! And it isn't like I can computer hack my way into the akashic records and erase that little bit about Guru Dev being a homeless guy who won the lottery. And I don't even think I could find and delete all the times I depicted Maharishi rutting his way through his devotees like a rock star's backstage at the Fillmore. How long is eternity again? Anyone here gunna rappel down and give me a hand if it turns out that way? I mean I was really kinda begging for it, wasn't I? So even though if you ask a specific person who doesn't already hate my guts but who believes in some system where the eternal future is guided by our beliefs here on earth, and they say that really is too bad about Curtis, in most religions they are gunna just move on when they get my singed post cards with the shot of Beelzebub reclined on a bed of maidens snuffing his Schwarzenegger sized Cuban (like he is gunna respect the import sanctions!) on my poor ol' head. I had an interesting moment when I was around 10 or 12 and going through the confirmation process. It was the point when you had to understand all the beliefs and accept them. A moment of reckoning whose effects were eternal. I asked a Monsignor a question my class teacher had dodged. She sent me to him to ask it: Does everyone who is not born in a country that is Christan go to hell when they die? All the all the Muslims, and all the Hindus who had never heard of Christ? He was wearing a purple accented robe that Liberace wouldn't have have turned down and was very tall with tiny spectacles balanced on his nose like a professor at Harry Potter's Hogwarts. Yes he said. All of them? I asked with rising incredulity. Yes it is one of the mysteries of our faith. They have to find a way to accept Jesus, 'nobody gets to the father except by me', he quoted the damming line. And billions of camels around the world aren't getting through that needle. I wasn't strong enough to yank off his
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Still way too many generalizations, Curtis, where Protestantism is concerned--different ideas about what it means not to be saved (the no-AC section is only one option); different ideas about what it takes to be saved; different ideas about who's going to be (or has been) saved; different ideas about what it means to be saved. Many Christians are people who think deeply about their beliefs, not people who just swallow them and parrot them back. Generally speaking, which flavor of Christianity you follow is more a matter of what kind of person you are. People don't tend to stick with denominations whose beliefs they find personally repugnant. (And tangentially, while we all love your humor, sometimes there's so much of it that I find it hard to figure out what serious points you're making. Or maybe it's that an excess of humor tends to rob your serious points of nuance, and it begins to feel more like repeatedly being hit over the head than a real discussion. Just a personal reaction.) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of the commandments to honor your father and your mother? What if your parents are Muslim or Atheists and want the same for you? So if you are turning your back on these people for ETERNITY then I don't want any part of this unfair, provincial, ethno-centric, just plain mean charade! I don't see that. Now the kindlier Hindus don't raise a fuss if I don't get enlightened. They just send me back here to work on some more guitar licks. I can dig that. And their hell is reserved by level according to deeds with the lowest one, Patalla (SP?) with the worst suffering reserved for people who insult the guru... Ruh Roh! as Scooby-doo would say. Damn, I am s screwed! And it isn't like I can computer hack my way into the akashic records and erase that little bit about Guru Dev being a homeless guy who won the lottery. And I don't even think I could find and delete all the times I depicted Maharishi rutting his way through his devotees like a rock star's backstage at the Fillmore. How long is eternity again? Anyone here gunna rappel down and give me a hand if it turns out that way? I mean I was really kinda begging for it, wasn't I? So even though if you ask a specific person who doesn't already hate my guts but who believes in some system where the eternal future is guided by our beliefs here on earth, and they say that really is too bad about Curtis, in most religions they are gunna just move on when they get my singed post cards with the shot of Beelzebub reclined on a
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
On May 22, 2011, at 10:18 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! Well said Curtis. Not to mention that at the bottom of these deep beliefs is almost inevitably the exact same scenario: Johnny didn't get as big an ice cream bar as Jimmie did when they were five. Boo-hoo. Case closed. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Great rap, Curtis. I've often theorized that many of the Hindu-wannabees who swung behind the idea of reincarnation did so just so they wouldn't be forced to live with the Judeo-Christian notion of Heaven. I mean, you've got to be *nice* to the other people in Heaven and treat them as your equals, right? If there is no Heaven and the worst that can happen to you is that you get reincarnated into another life, no harm, no foul. You can continue to look down on other people and treat them as badly as you have been doing in this life. Even better, if you buy Maharishi's rap about CC and what happens afterwards, you don't have to worry about other people, period. There is not even a you to be nice to when you Die Enlightened, let alone other people or a manifest universe to be nice to. You're just a drop having merged with the big, cosmic ocean. Oceans don't have to be nice. :-) I've toyed in the past with writing a story about what the Rapture would be like for the people who believe in it. There they'd be, still as uptight as ever, naked as a jaybird around another bunch of equally uptight naked people. And looking around, the Saved will notice that some of these naked guys and gals are the ones they still hate because one Sunday they took their parking place in the Church parking lot. They've seen some of the Saved actually coming out of liquor stores carrying brown sacks full of bottles, and now they're supposed to treat them like their EQUALS? Not gonna happen. It would take less than a week for the Saved to start acting as nasty towards their fellow Saved as they did back on Earth. After a month of this, having to pretend that some of the other Saved are really their equals and not being able to look down on them, many of the Saved would start investigating Maharishi's brand of Hinduism, because the idea of the total annihilation of both self and the manifest world would start to appeal to them. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of the commandments to honor your father and your mother? What if your parents are Muslim or Atheists and want the same for you? So if you are turning your back on these people for ETERNITY then I don't want any part of this unfair, provincial, ethno-centric, just plain mean charade! I don't see that. Now the kindlier Hindus don't raise a fuss if I don't get enlightened. They just send me back here to work on some more guitar licks. I can dig that. And their hell is reserved by level according to deeds with the lowest one, Patalla (SP?) with the worst suffering reserved for
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
I think Camus already did a pretty good job with your idea in No Exit. Hell is other people! I have always thought that this whole getting off the cycle of birth and death deal is kind of life denying. It makes a lot more sense for someone born in Calcutta than someone born in North East Pennsylvania! I would much rather take another crack at life than end up in some bliss state that has more in common with the state they put me in when they did my colonoscopy than how I feel when someone comes up to me after a set and tells me they dig my music. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: Great rap, Curtis. I've often theorized that many of the Hindu-wannabees who swung behind the idea of reincarnation did so just so they wouldn't be forced to live with the Judeo-Christian notion of Heaven. I mean, you've got to be *nice* to the other people in Heaven and treat them as your equals, right? If there is no Heaven and the worst that can happen to you is that you get reincarnated into another life, no harm, no foul. You can continue to look down on other people and treat them as badly as you have been doing in this life. Even better, if you buy Maharishi's rap about CC and what happens afterwards, you don't have to worry about other people, period. There is not even a you to be nice to when you Die Enlightened, let alone other people or a manifest universe to be nice to. You're just a drop having merged with the big, cosmic ocean. Oceans don't have to be nice. :-) I've toyed in the past with writing a story about what the Rapture would be like for the people who believe in it. There they'd be, still as uptight as ever, naked as a jaybird around another bunch of equally uptight naked people. And looking around, the Saved will notice that some of these naked guys and gals are the ones they still hate because one Sunday they took their parking place in the Church parking lot. They've seen some of the Saved actually coming out of liquor stores carrying brown sacks full of bottles, and now they're supposed to treat them like their EQUALS? Not gonna happen. It would take less than a week for the Saved to start acting as nasty towards their fellow Saved as they did back on Earth. After a month of this, having to pretend that some of the other Saved are really their equals and not being able to look down on them, many of the Saved would start investigating Maharishi's brand of Hinduism, because the idea of the total annihilation of both self and the manifest world would start to appeal to them. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second,
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Just very quickly, because you missed my point (I'll get back to the rest later): --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: snip I believe that juxtaposing humor into serious discussions is a form of art's integration that engages more neurology. Oh, I agree. I'm in favor of this, and you often do it very well. What I'm saying is that *sometimes* you get so focused on the humor that it obscures your serious points. On those occasions it feels a bit strained and self-conscious: See how funny I am! It becomes about your ability to do shtick, and the integration you're aiming for gets lost. I understand and approve of what you're trying to do, but it isn't always successful, IMHO, because you sometimes get wrapped up in the humor at the expense of the serious component.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Well I'm sure that is true. Sometimes it is a hard balance to strike, especially on a first draft. I appreciate the feedback especially considering the field you are in! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: Just very quickly, because you missed my point (I'll get back to the rest later): --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: snip I believe that juxtaposing humor into serious discussions is a form of art's integration that engages more neurology. Oh, I agree. I'm in favor of this, and you often do it very well. What I'm saying is that *sometimes* you get so focused on the humor that it obscures your serious points. On those occasions it feels a bit strained and self-conscious: See how funny I am! It becomes about your ability to do shtick, and the integration you're aiming for gets lost. I understand and approve of what you're trying to do, but it isn't always successful, IMHO, because you sometimes get wrapped up in the humor at the expense of the serious component.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Well I'm sure that is true. Sometimes it is a hard balance to strike, especially on a first draft. I appreciate the feedback especially considering the field you are in! I come up against this in my school shows often. I learn more in every show I do. I had a bit that I used to do where I have a stack of really big pictures of the blues men and women on an easel so the kids can see whose songs I am playing. On the top is a caricature drawing of me done by a really fine artist so it is more portrait than caricature. I used to do a bit where I would go up to my picture covering the others and say who is that handsome man? the kids would scream it's you! It worked so well I started using it as a running gag where I would announce that I was showing them a picture of Memphis Minnie and then I would shuffle the pictures so my face was on top again. Again with the who is... Even bigger reaction. Then the humbling blowback. When I held up Memphis Minnie's picture they would laugh at her too! I had trained them to laugh at the pictures so instead of paying homage to my heroes in the blues I was training them to goof on their appearance! Shit! Recalibrate. Now I get the first laugh and then drop the routine so they can pay respect to the picture of the artists I love. So I get your point and it is a good one to keep in mind. I will always be in some stage of going too far and pulling back according to feedback. It is part of the humbling process. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: Just very quickly, because you missed my point (I'll get back to the rest later): --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: snip I believe that juxtaposing humor into serious discussions is a form of art's integration that engages more neurology. Oh, I agree. I'm in favor of this, and you often do it very well. What I'm saying is that *sometimes* you get so focused on the humor that it obscures your serious points. On those occasions it feels a bit strained and self-conscious: See how funny I am! It becomes about your ability to do shtick, and the integration you're aiming for gets lost. I understand and approve of what you're trying to do, but it isn't always successful, IMHO, because you sometimes get wrapped up in the humor at the expense of the serious component.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards...! Sal: Well said Curtis Don't you just hate those Milanarians and dooms-day fanatics! Less than 10 years. That, Gore warns, is all the time that leading scientists say we may have before we cross a point of no return -- unless we make a really good start toward dramatic changes to combat global warming http://tinyurl.com/3gpt9aq In politics, millenarianism is often, but by no means always, linked to radical ideologies that share a similar belief in a transformation of society. These can be based in secular or religious ideas. In this way millenarianism is closely linked to Apocalypticism... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenarianism
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: Still way too many generalizations, Curtis, where Protestantism is concerned--different ideas about what it means not to be saved (the no-AC section is only one option); different ideas about what it takes to be saved; different ideas about who's going to be (or has been) saved; different ideas about what it means to be saved. Many Christians are people who think deeply about their beliefs, not people who just swallow them and parrot them back. By the numbers, I'll bet there is more consensus than disagreement about what happens to unsaved people, however they define it. Catholics are the largest group with 1.2 billion. I don't know what group you are talking about with no hell for unbelievers but I'll bet it is in the extreme minority. And although there are certainly some Christians who think deeply about their beliefs it has not been in my experience that they are in the majority. Without the tools of philosophical thinking being taught in schools, most people's ability to discuss ideas is pretty limited. It becomes an emotional, personal thing pretty quickly for most people. Look at how many of discussions here degrade into that, and this crew is a lot more philosophical than most people I meet. Generally speaking, which flavor of Christianity you follow is more a matter of what kind of person you are. People don't tend to stick with denominations whose beliefs they find personally repugnant. Most Catholics were born that way. It has a lot to do with what you were brought up with. But more people are swapping religions these days, 44% by one estimation. Most people just ignore the parts of religion they oppose. Just look at the gay issue. Although a very high number of people are not against it politically, how few churches allow openly gay priests? So they support discrimination in their religion even when in their lives they don't support it. (And tangentially, while we all love your humor, I already know you are not a fan! sometimes there's so much of it that I find it hard to figure out what serious points you're making. That surprises me, but I'll take your word for it. Or maybe it's that an excess of humor tends to rob your serious points of nuance, and it begins to feel more like repeatedly being hit over the head than a real discussion. Just a personal reaction.) Well as we have discussed before, you and I don't really connect on a humor level. I don't write that for you. I am writing it for other people who are more interested in that than the philosophy. For me the humor is actually intertwined with the philosophy. It is how my creativity flows when discussing ideas. That it is disrupts the seriousness of a discussion for you, I understand that. It has more to do with the nature of who reads what we write here. If we were discussing this in an email I would curtail the shenanigans. (And would probably lose interest pretty soon.) I am always aware that I am not just speaking to you. Believe it or not I spend part of each day writing educational ventriloquist dialogues (it sounds like a Woody Allen joke but it is actually true!) so my brain is constantly looking for ways to twist my language into comedy. I am constantly looking for more ways to help my mind be more creative with humor and FFL is a great place for that. But I understand, not for you! I believe that juxtaposing humor into serious discussions is a form of art's integration that engages more neurology. It has a deeper value for my educational shows than getting a laugh. It turns on the right brain which opens up creativity. So it isn't just a lark for me, it is closer to my religion! Seriously. Sorry it doesn't work for you, I hope you can see beyond it to the degree the ideas shared are interesting for you. I consider myself an entertainer first and a musician and writer second. So my personal mix will probably always not be your preference. I do enjoy the opportunity though so I hope there is enough to interest you to continue discussions. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Well I'm sure that is true. Sometimes it is a hard balance to strike, especially on a first draft. Not surprising. Humor can be tricky, especially in the context of a sensitive subject. Just for one thing, I'd imagine the humor part is more fun to write, which could lead to shortchanging the serious parts, or just not making them as clear. The reader may even get the sense, if the humor is laid on too thick, that you're resorting to humor because you're uncomfortable dealing with the serious stuff. Also have to balance the degree of nuance. If the humor is very broad, it's more difficult to get across nuance in the serious parts. I appreciate the feedback especially considering the field you are in! I'm glad the redo came across more clearly. I think my saying it was a personal reaction threw you off, because it was really as much an editorial perception as a personal one. I come up against this in my school shows often. I learn more in every show I do. I had a bit that I used to do where I have a stack of really big pictures of the blues men and women on an easel so the kids can see whose songs I am playing. On the top is a caricature drawing of me done by a really fine artist so it is more portrait than caricature. I used to do a bit where I would go up to my picture covering the others and say who is that handsome man? the kids would scream it's you! It worked so well I started using it as a running gag where I would announce that I was showing them a picture of Memphis Minnie and then I would shuffle the pictures so my face was on top again. Again with the who is... Even bigger reaction. Then the humbling blowback. When I held up Memphis Minnie's picture they would laugh at her too! I had trained them to laugh at the pictures so instead of paying homage to my heroes in the blues I was training them to goof on their appearance! Shit! Recalibrate. Now I get the first laugh and then drop the routine so they can pay respect to the picture of the artists I love. So I get your point and it is a good one to keep in mind. I will always be in some stage of going too far and pulling back according to feedback. It is part of the humbling process. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Just very quickly, because you missed my point (I'll get back to the rest later): --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: snip I believe that juxtaposing humor into serious discussions is a form of art's integration that engages more neurology. Oh, I agree. I'm in favor of this, and you often do it very well. What I'm saying is that *sometimes* you get so focused on the humor that it obscures your serious points. On those occasions it feels a bit strained and self-conscious: See how funny I am! It becomes about your ability to do shtick, and the integration you're aiming for gets lost. I understand and approve of what you're trying to do, but it isn't always successful, IMHO, because you sometimes get wrapped up in the humor at the expense of the serious component.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Glad to hear it - I am working off a small sample from experience only, transforming that into a bias. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: Yea agreed-- big, big, big difference between the evangelical crowd and other Christians. This idea expressed by evangelicals that you are damned unless you accept Christ as your savior is antithetical to most Christians. Also the idea popular among evangelicals that all you need to do is click your heels together three times...oh wait, wrong fantasy...all you need to do is accept Jesus as your savior and all your past, present, and future wrongdoing is absolved is also not accepted by mainstream Christianity. Evangelicals often treat their religion as an eternal Get Out Of Jail Free and I Am Better Than You card, whereas serious Christians see Christ as an inspirational and humbling teacher. Actually, as the other piece I posted pointed out, many Evangelicals do their best to live up to Christ's teaching by devoting themselves to serving the poor and the sick and the oppressed. They are also increasingly taking up the cause of environmentalism. As the writer notes: It is true that some evangelical theologians focus upon the Armageddon to the neglect of immediate, material problems. But many more have preached that Jesus would prefer to return to a world that deserved himThe threat of Armageddon is not, as the Guardian suggests, the fundamentalist Christian equivalent of the last helicopter out of Saigon. Rather it is a spur to action: a reminder that God is watching what you are doing and that He expects results.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
I recognize that I was stating some pretty wide assumptions. I also understand 1)there is no one size that fits all, and 2) no one gets out of here alive. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of the commandments to honor your father and your mother? What if your parents are Muslim or Atheists and want the same for you? So if you are turning your back on these people for ETERNITY then I don't want any part of this unfair, provincial, ethno-centric, just plain mean charade! I don't see that. Now the kindlier Hindus don't raise a fuss if I don't get enlightened. They just send me back here to work on some more guitar licks. I can dig that. And their hell is reserved by level according to deeds with the lowest one, Patalla (SP?) with the worst suffering reserved for people who insult the guru... Ruh Roh! as Scooby-doo would say. Damn, I am s screwed! And it isn't like I can computer hack my way into the akashic records and erase that little bit about Guru Dev being a homeless guy who won the lottery. And I don't even think I could find and delete all the times I depicted Maharishi rutting his way through his devotees like a rock star's backstage at the Fillmore. How long is eternity again? Anyone here gunna rappel down and give me a hand if it turns out that way? I mean I was really kinda begging for it, wasn't I? So even though if you ask a specific person who doesn't already hate my guts but who believes in some system where the eternal future is guided by our beliefs here on earth, and they say that really is too bad about Curtis, in most religions they are gunna just move on when they get my singed post cards with the shot of Beelzebub reclined on a bed of maidens snuffing his Schwarzenegger sized Cuban (like he is gunna respect the import sanctions!) on my poor ol' head. I had an interesting moment when I was around 10 or 12 and going through the confirmation process. It was the point when you had to understand all the beliefs and accept them. A moment of reckoning whose effects were eternal. I asked a Monsignor a question my class teacher had dodged. She sent me to him to ask it: Does everyone who is not born in a country that is Christan go to hell when they die? All the all the Muslims, and all the Hindus who had never heard of Christ? He was wearing a purple accented robe that Liberace wouldn't have have turned down and was very tall with tiny spectacles balanced on his nose like a professor at Harry Potter's Hogwarts. Yes he said. All of them? I
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Reincarnation and heaven are not realities opposed to each other. Its just the fantasy that one spends one's afterlife in either heaven or hell *eternally* that is opposed to reincarnation. Also, the self and manifest world don't vanish with Self Realization. Maharishi said the EXACT OPPOSITE to that - A person lives 200% of life; 100% relative and 100% absolute. You taught TM so I am curious how you got this so screwed up in your mind? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: Great rap, Curtis. I've often theorized that many of the Hindu-wannabees who swung behind the idea of reincarnation did so just so they wouldn't be forced to live with the Judeo-Christian notion of Heaven. I mean, you've got to be *nice* to the other people in Heaven and treat them as your equals, right? If there is no Heaven and the worst that can happen to you is that you get reincarnated into another life, no harm, no foul. You can continue to look down on other people and treat them as badly as you have been doing in this life. Even better, if you buy Maharishi's rap about CC and what happens afterwards, you don't have to worry about other people, period. There is not even a you to be nice to when you Die Enlightened, let alone other people or a manifest universe to be nice to. You're just a drop having merged with the big, cosmic ocean. Oceans don't have to be nice. :-) I've toyed in the past with writing a story about what the Rapture would be like for the people who believe in it. There they'd be, still as uptight as ever, naked as a jaybird around another bunch of equally uptight naked people. And looking around, the Saved will notice that some of these naked guys and gals are the ones they still hate because one Sunday they took their parking place in the Church parking lot. They've seen some of the Saved actually coming out of liquor stores carrying brown sacks full of bottles, and now they're supposed to treat them like their EQUALS? Not gonna happen. It would take less than a week for the Saved to start acting as nasty towards their fellow Saved as they did back on Earth. After a month of this, having to pretend that some of the other Saved are really their equals and not being able to look down on them, many of the Saved would start investigating Maharishi's brand of Hinduism, because the idea of the total annihilation of both self and the manifest world would start to appeal to them. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And some of them are making political/ecological decisions about our custodianship of a planet that they believe is their launching pad, and disposable. So for me, it is a virtue to call BS on such claims when we can. I only wish the media could grow a pair and connect this with all the other slo-mo rapture believers. In fact I would like to see an article pointing out that while this small fringe was eating their crow (here is a case where that crappy cheese might help the taste) millions of Christians had re-affirmed their faith that morning in churches, believing equally nutty things about their own specialness. And they don't get a pass because they think it will all happen after we die. They still want me to have an eternity tying to use my thumb to get off that sticky crap that every sticker leaves on every damn kitchen item we buy today. I use my nail and I scratch the surface, I use my finger back and forth and it leaves that weird square film. God help you if you break
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Comes from Jerry Jarvis. (statement to me in 1973, I was in his office one day when he said emphatically that after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. ... I'm planning on writing Jerry, asking him about this dogma. ... Yes, it seems to contradict the 200% of life orientation, doesn't it? Looks like Jerry has some explaining to do, imo. http://www.fantasygallery.net/caldwell/art_4_cc03.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@... wrote: Reincarnation and heaven are not realities opposed to each other. Its just the fantasy that one spends one's afterlife in either heaven or hell *eternally* that is opposed to reincarnation. Also, the self and manifest world don't vanish with Self Realization. Maharishi said the EXACT OPPOSITE to that - A person lives 200% of life; 100% relative and 100% absolute. You taught TM so I am curious how you got this so screwed up in your mind? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: Great rap, Curtis. I've often theorized that many of the Hindu-wannabees who swung behind the idea of reincarnation did so just so they wouldn't be forced to live with the Judeo-Christian notion of Heaven. I mean, you've got to be *nice* to the other people in Heaven and treat them as your equals, right? If there is no Heaven and the worst that can happen to you is that you get reincarnated into another life, no harm, no foul. You can continue to look down on other people and treat them as badly as you have been doing in this life. Even better, if you buy Maharishi's rap about CC and what happens afterwards, you don't have to worry about other people, period. There is not even a you to be nice to when you Die Enlightened, let alone other people or a manifest universe to be nice to. You're just a drop having merged with the big, cosmic ocean. Oceans don't have to be nice. :-) I've toyed in the past with writing a story about what the Rapture would be like for the people who believe in it. There they'd be, still as uptight as ever, naked as a jaybird around another bunch of equally uptight naked people. And looking around, the Saved will notice that some of these naked guys and gals are the ones they still hate because one Sunday they took their parking place in the Church parking lot. They've seen some of the Saved actually coming out of liquor stores carrying brown sacks full of bottles, and now they're supposed to treat them like their EQUALS? Not gonna happen. It would take less than a week for the Saved to start acting as nasty towards their fellow Saved as they did back on Earth. After a month of this, having to pretend that some of the other Saved are really their equals and not being able to look down on them, many of the Saved would start investigating Maharishi's brand of Hinduism, because the idea of the total annihilation of both self and the manifest world would start to appeal to them. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right?
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
There is no confusion if the words of Master's aren't taken literally. They create the idea of specialness understanding the greedy goal-oriented nature of the human mind that feels a need to be special. They then promise followers eternal bliss in heaven, and they create a sense of urgency by predicting future doom. Its all a tool to enable seekers to make the leap into the unknown, they ultimately know that it's love and faith that transforms. So when Jesus promises eternal bliss in heaven, it's just a candy to entice, may be Prophet promised 72 virgins in heaven, it was yet another candy or when MMY promised World peace for butt bouncing it was yet another device. Retards confuse candies for sweetness..LOL.. So people who take words too literally miss the point - they either end up as religious fanatics creating institutions around dead Gurus, creating dead scriptures and rituals OR they end up like FFL pimps (intellectuals) who spend rest of their denouncing masters, their teachings and their believers and engaging in meaningless never ending discussions. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of the commandments to honor your father and your mother? What if your parents are Muslim or Atheists and want the same for you? So if you are turning your back on these people for ETERNITY then I don't want any part of this unfair, provincial, ethno-centric, just plain mean charade! I don't see that. Now the kindlier Hindus don't raise a fuss if I don't get enlightened. They just send me back here to work on some more guitar licks. I can dig that. And their hell is reserved by level according to deeds with the lowest one, Patalla (SP?) with the worst suffering reserved for people who insult the guru... Ruh Roh! as Scooby-doo would say. Damn, I am s screwed! And it isn't like I can computer hack my way into the akashic records and erase that little bit about Guru Dev being a homeless guy who won the lottery. And I don't even think I could find and delete all the times I depicted Maharishi rutting his way through his devotees like a rock star's backstage at the Fillmore. How long is eternity again? Anyone here gunna rappel down and give me a hand if it turns out that way? I mean I was really kinda begging for it, wasn't I? So even though if you ask a specific person who doesn't already hate my guts but who believes in some system where the eternal future is guided by our beliefs here on earth, and they say that really is too bad about Curtis, in most religions they are gunna just move on when they get my singed post cards with the shot of Beelzebub reclined on a bed of maidens snuffing his
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@... wrote: There is no confusion if the words of Master's aren't taken literally. They create the idea of specialness understanding the greedy goal-oriented nature of the human mind that feels a need to be special. They then promise followers eternal bliss in heaven, and they create a sense of urgency by predicting future doom. Its all a tool to enable seekers to make the leap into the unknown, they ultimately know that it's love and faith that transforms. So when Jesus promises eternal bliss in heaven, it's just a candy to entice, may be Prophet promised 72 virgins in heaven, it was yet another candy or when MMY promised World peace for butt bouncing it was yet another device. Retards confuse candies for sweetness..LOL.. Oops..that didn't come out right, let's say candy wrappers. So people who take words too literally miss the point - they either end up as religious fanatics creating institutions around dead Gurus, creating dead scriptures and rituals OR they end up like FFL pimps (intellectuals) who spend rest of their denouncing masters, their teachings and their believers and engaging in meaningless never ending discussions. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Judy makes a good distinction between the rapture belief and non evangelical ones, but after death I still get seated in the section with no AC in most (all?) of them. Catholicism is really clear. Even being a Catholic isn't enough, you have to punch a lot of time clocks to make it into eternal first class. (Can the misses and I please have another Mimosa?) I don't know to what degree Protestant religions uphold or renounce the doctrine of hell for non-believers. I'm pretty sure they don't expect to sit next to a Muslim for eternity in the afterlife jet.(Excuse me Miss, I believe there has been a seating mistake, I specifically reserved non hookah seating.) So there is still a dark underbelly beneath the tight smiles and the we really wish you believed as we do. Her second point is also good in that it is wrong to say that they WANT me to go to hell. I know plenty of people who are Christians and super nice people and I'm sure they don't WANT me to spend eternity there. But they are OK if that is how it ends up due to my lack of acceptance of their beliefs. I don't see them petitioning heaven on my behalf. I think it is close to that thing we do when we hear that an acquaintance who is into hard drugs ends up in jail or dead from Hep C. Not being too close to them and figuring that it seemed like a pretty obvious outcome from their behavior, we move one. Pretty quickly. I mean if I am gunna take up an advocacy case it would be one of the innocents, right? There are plenty of those to go around. People getting what they are kinda asking for doesn't give any of our tear ducts too much of a workout, right? So the nice Christians do feel something about my poor choices with regard to their special little savior. They don't want me to reject him, they want me to be just like them. But I am not and that has consequences in their view. And they are OK with that. I don't see them handing their Eternity VIP cards back and saying, If our friend Curtis, who is a decent human despite his lack of godliness can't get his drinks comped while he plays black jack, then we will pay for our drinks too! I don't see them saying Hey wait a second, people who were not born of Christian mothers have a hard time getting down with the JC program. And isn't one of the commandments to honor your father and your mother? What if your parents are Muslim or Atheists and want the same for you? So if you are turning your back on these people for ETERNITY then I don't want any part of this unfair, provincial, ethno-centric, just plain mean charade! I don't see that. Now the kindlier Hindus don't raise a fuss if I don't get enlightened. They just send me back here to work on some more guitar licks. I can dig that. And their hell is reserved by level according to deeds with the lowest one, Patalla (SP?) with the worst suffering reserved for people who insult the guru... Ruh Roh! as Scooby-doo would say. Damn, I am s screwed! And it isn't like I can computer hack my way into the akashic records and erase that little bit about Guru Dev being a homeless guy who won the lottery. And I don't even think I could find and delete all the times I depicted Maharishi rutting his way through his devotees like a rock star's backstage at the Fillmore. How long is eternity again? Anyone here gunna rappel down and give me a hand if it turns out that way? I mean I was really kinda begging for it, wasn't I? So even though if you ask a specific person who doesn't already hate my guts but who believes in some system where the eternal future is guided by our beliefs here on
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
So, evangelicals don't see Christ as an inspirational and humbling teacher? Where did that come from? As I posted to Curtis earlier, Christianity is not the only religion that teaches that you are bound for hell. However, it's the only one that teaches that God became man, lived a perfect life and offered it as a sacrifice for the redemption of sin to keep one out of hell. Is this your real grievance? From: whynotnow7 whynotn...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 6:37:48 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Yea agreed-- big, big, big difference between the evangelical crowd and other Christians. This idea expressed by evangelicals that you are damned unless you accept Christ as your savior is antithetical to most Christians. Also the idea popular among evangelicals that all you need to do is click your heels together three times...oh wait, wrong fantasy...all you need to do is accept Jesus as your savior and all your past, present, and future wrongdoing is absolved is also not accepted by mainstream Christianity. Evangelicals often treat their religion as an eternal Get Out Of Jail Free and I Am Better Than You card, whereas serious Christians see Christ as an inspirational and humbling teacher. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: I enjoyed reading this, Curtis, but I'm working on a deadline and have very little time to comment. Wanted to make two main points: --All Christians are taught the Second Coming, but the Rapture belief isn't universal by any means. Maybe that isn't what you meant to suggest by mainstream? It's primarily a belief of Evangelicals. The fringe nature of the recent hoop-te-do had more to do with the idea that it could be so specifically predicted. And even among Evangelicals, there's dizzying variety of understandings about exactly how it all falls out. Some Christian denominations really don't deal with eschatology at all beyond the idea that it's gonna happen some day. --You paint with *way* too broad a brush in suggesting that all Christians hope you go to hell. That kind of malice is actually quite rare, even among the May 21ers. Most of 'em want to *save* you from going to hell. You make some good points, but you miss the boat on these two. Again, I wish I had more time to comment. Oh, and an addendum--for how to remove label residue, see this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2023764_remove-sticky-residue.html Also try lighter fluid. There are also products you can buy that are designed to do the job. One is called Goo Gone: http://www.googone.com/GG-Browse-Products --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
on getting out of Hell: actually, once one is in Hell according to both Evangelical and Catholicism, there's no provision for getting out. But a Hellish fate (or not) is determined for Evangelicals solely on the basis of one's faith/belief during physical life. Then the judgement. ... otoh, for Catholics, the theology is similar since there's no getting out of Hell. Purgatory is for those not fated for Hell, and allows for a progression and possibility for Heaven. ... Buddhism recognizes the existences of Hell's as realms along the lines of Dante (special ingenious Hells perfectly appropriate for the crimes); apart from the various claims that any non-Enlightenment is a form of Hell. In other words, various Hellish realms. ... However, I see no indication that entities are stuck there forever. On the contrary, various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas proclaim that such entities can be rescued and ultimately resume their progression on the Path to Enlightenenment. ... In view of these considerations, I see the Buddhist options as superior to the all or nothing dismal fate of Hell-bound unbelievers in Jesus. ... http://www.fantasygallery.net/morill/art_3_galadriel.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@... wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. I think you added the part In other words In UC there is no experience of the body as a separate identity as it is experienced prior to that state. It doesn't mean it stops being used as a vehicle for evolution and experience, just that it is no longer identified on the inside as me (of course to pretend such a thing externally only leads to confusion). Nothing odd about that. What IS odd is those here who believe that enlightenment creates more boundaries than it dissolves; can't reincarnate, can't take a body. What a complete and utter misunderstanding. This is the view of enlightenment from ignorance and identification. No wonder Barry got it ass-backwards. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@... wrote: Comes from Jerry Jarvis. (statement to me in 1973, I was in his office one day when he said emphatically that after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. ... I'm planning on writing Jerry, asking him about this dogma. ... Yes, it seems to contradict the 200% of life orientation, doesn't it? Looks like Jerry has some explaining to do, imo. http://www.fantasygallery.net/caldwell/art_4_cc03.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: Reincarnation and heaven are not realities opposed to each other. Its just the fantasy that one spends one's afterlife in either heaven or hell *eternally* that is opposed to reincarnation. Also, the self and manifest world don't vanish with Self Realization. Maharishi said the EXACT OPPOSITE to that - A person lives 200% of life; 100% relative and 100% absolute. You taught TM so I am curious how you got this so screwed up in your mind?
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
below: can't reincarnate, can't take a body; that's because in the MMY/Jarvis model (from Shankara?); there are no bodies. The elements making up those bodies completely disintegrate at death, among those in CC higher; again, with no options. Conventional bodies of course exist, case in point: the cancer that ate up Ramana's arm and extinguished his physical life. ... Jim - I don't believe anybody is faulting you personally (or maybe they are). I'm not anyway...just saying that this model of existence is the official TMO party line. ... wrt the statement ...there is no experience of the body as a separate entity. True; but there is the experience of bodily sensations, conventionally; otherwise Ramana Maharshi would not have commented on the fact that insects scarred his flesh while he was meditating in the Patala Lingam; and also the fact that he was stung by a bee, and then apologized to the bees for stirring them up. ... Nobody is calling into question nonduality. The question pertains solely to maintaining bodies...for some purpose. Not having any would be a no-brainer as far as options go, yes? Ramana said that he maintained 20 of them in different dimensions.. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@... wrote: after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. I think you added the part In other words In UC there is no experience of the body as a separate identity as it is experienced prior to that state. It doesn't mean it stops being used as a vehicle for evolution and experience, just that it is no longer identified on the inside as me (of course to pretend such a thing externally only leads to confusion). Nothing odd about that. What IS odd is those here who believe that enlightenment creates more boundaries than it dissolves; can't reincarnate, can't take a body. What a complete and utter misunderstanding. This is the view of enlightenment from ignorance and identification. No wonder Barry got it ass-backwards. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: Comes from Jerry Jarvis. (statement to me in 1973, I was in his office one day when he said emphatically that after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. ... I'm planning on writing Jerry, asking him about this dogma. ... Yes, it seems to contradict the 200% of life orientation, doesn't it? Looks like Jerry has some explaining to do, imo. http://www.fantasygallery.net/caldwell/art_4_cc03.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: Reincarnation and heaven are not realities opposed to each other. Its just the fantasy that one spends one's afterlife in either heaven or hell *eternally* that is opposed to reincarnation. Also, the self and manifest world don't vanish with Self Realization. Maharishi said the EXACT OPPOSITE to that - A person lives 200% of life; 100% relative and 100% absolute. You taught TM so I am curious how you got this so screwed up in your mind?
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@... wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And some of them are making political/ecological decisions about our custodianship of a planet that they believe is their launching pad, and disposable. So for me, it is a virtue to call BS on such claims when we can. I only wish the media could grow a pair and connect this with all the other slo-mo rapture believers. In fact I would like to see an article pointing out that while this small fringe was eating their crow (here is a case where that crappy cheese might help the taste) millions of Christians had re-affirmed their faith that morning in churches, believing equally nutty things about their own specialness. And they don't get a pass because they think it will all happen after
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Go read Shankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutra-s. He says if you want to reside in Brahma-loka you may do so - that is until everything is dissolved at the cosmic pralaya. If you want to play around and enjoy cosmic siddhi-s you may also do that. He also says that you may even be called back after dissolution by Ishvara if he wishes to give you a special adhikara i.e. a mission to do some specific activity or fulfill some specific role. Sometimes the speculation here on FFL is comical. Read it and weep. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@... wrote: below: can't reincarnate, can't take a body; that's because in the MMY/Jarvis model (from Shankara?); there are no bodies. The elements making up those bodies completely disintegrate at death, among those in CC higher; again, with no options. Conventional bodies of course exist, case in point: the cancer that ate up Ramana's arm and extinguished his physical life. ... Jim - I don't believe anybody is faulting you personally (or maybe they are). I'm not anyway...just saying that this model of existence is the official TMO party line. ... wrt the statement ...there is no experience of the body as a separate entity. True; but there is the experience of bodily sensations, conventionally; otherwise Ramana Maharshi would not have commented on the fact that insects scarred his flesh while he was meditating in the Patala Lingam; and also the fact that he was stung by a bee, and then apologized to the bees for stirring them up. ... Nobody is calling into question nonduality. The question pertains solely to maintaining bodies...for some purpose. Not having any would be a no-brainer as far as options go, yes? Ramana said that he maintained 20 of them in different dimensions.. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. I think you added the part In other words In UC there is no experience of the body as a separate identity as it is experienced prior to that state. It doesn't mean it stops being used as a vehicle for evolution and experience, just that it is no longer identified on the inside as me (of course to pretend such a thing externally only leads to confusion). Nothing odd about that. What IS odd is those here who believe that enlightenment creates more boundaries than it dissolves; can't reincarnate, can't take a body. What a complete and utter misunderstanding. This is the view of enlightenment from ignorance and identification. No wonder Barry got it ass-backwards. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: Comes from Jerry Jarvis. (statement to me in 1973, I was in his office one day when he said emphatically that after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. ... I'm planning on writing Jerry, asking him about this dogma. ... Yes, it seems to contradict the 200% of life orientation, doesn't it? Looks like Jerry has some explaining to do, imo. http://www.fantasygallery.net/caldwell/art_4_cc03.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: Reincarnation and heaven are not realities opposed to each other. Its just the fantasy that one spends one's afterlife in either heaven or hell *eternally* that is opposed to reincarnation. Also, the self and manifest world don't vanish with Self Realization. Maharishi said the EXACT OPPOSITE to that - A person lives 200% of life; 100% relative and 100% absolute. You taught TM so I am curious how you got this so screwed up in your mind?
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. . --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And some of them are making political/ecological decisions about our custodianship of a planet that they believe is their launching pad, and disposable. So for me, it is a virtue to call BS on such claims when we can. I only wish the media could grow a pair and connect this with all the other slo-mo rapture believers. In fact I would like to see an article pointing out that while this small fringe was eating their crow (here is a case where that crappy cheese might help the taste) millions of Christians had re-affirmed their faith that morning
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? . --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And some of them are making political/ecological decisions about our custodianship of a planet that they believe is their launching pad, and disposable. So for me, it is a virtue to call BS on such claims when we can. I only wish the media could
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Sometimes the speculation here on FFL is comical. Agreed!...especially what's written underneath Go read Shankara's commentary...; but thanks anyway; I'll pass on Shankara. http://www.fantasygallery.net/beauvais/art_14_Dragon-at-the-Djinn.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote: Go read Shankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutra-s. He says if you want to reside in Brahma-loka you may do so - that is until everything is dissolved at the cosmic pralaya. If you want to play around and enjoy cosmic siddhi-s you may also do that. He also says that you may even be called back after dissolution by Ishvara if he wishes to give you a special adhikara i.e. a mission to do some specific activity or fulfill some specific role. Sometimes the speculation here on FFL is comical. Read it and weep. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: below: can't reincarnate, can't take a body; that's because in the MMY/Jarvis model (from Shankara?); there are no bodies. The elements making up those bodies completely disintegrate at death, among those in CC higher; again, with no options. Conventional bodies of course exist, case in point: the cancer that ate up Ramana's arm and extinguished his physical life. ... Jim - I don't believe anybody is faulting you personally (or maybe they are). I'm not anyway...just saying that this model of existence is the official TMO party line. ... wrt the statement ...there is no experience of the body as a separate entity. True; but there is the experience of bodily sensations, conventionally; otherwise Ramana Maharshi would not have commented on the fact that insects scarred his flesh while he was meditating in the Patala Lingam; and also the fact that he was stung by a bee, and then apologized to the bees for stirring them up. ... Nobody is calling into question nonduality. The question pertains solely to maintaining bodies...for some purpose. Not having any would be a no-brainer as far as options go, yes? Ramana said that he maintained 20 of them in different dimensions.. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. I think you added the part In other words In UC there is no experience of the body as a separate identity as it is experienced prior to that state. It doesn't mean it stops being used as a vehicle for evolution and experience, just that it is no longer identified on the inside as me (of course to pretend such a thing externally only leads to confusion). Nothing odd about that. What IS odd is those here who believe that enlightenment creates more boundaries than it dissolves; can't reincarnate, can't take a body. What a complete and utter misunderstanding. This is the view of enlightenment from ignorance and identification. No wonder Barry got it ass-backwards. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: Comes from Jerry Jarvis. (statement to me in 1973, I was in his office one day when he said emphatically that after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. ... I'm planning on writing Jerry, asking him about this dogma. ... Yes, it seems to contradict the 200% of life orientation, doesn't it? Looks like Jerry has some explaining to do, imo. http://www.fantasygallery.net/caldwell/art_4_cc03.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: Reincarnation and heaven are not realities opposed to each other. Its just the fantasy that one spends one's afterlife in either heaven or hell *eternally* that is opposed to reincarnation. Also, the self and manifest world don't vanish with Self Realization. Maharishi said the EXACT OPPOSITE to that - A person lives 200% of life; 100% relative and 100% absolute. You taught TM so I am curious how you got this so screwed up in your mind?
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Sounds to me as if Maharishi should have read Shankara's commentary. :-) We're very aware that there are different theories about all of this, empt. What you seem unaware of is what MMY's stance was. It was intractable; in the famous talks being referred to here questioners went on for some minutes asking him whether there was some other option other than drop merging with the ocean after dying in CC. He kept saying No. They asked him whether that didn't seem odd to him, because it would mean that the person who died in CC had lost forever the ability to attain GC and UC, and he kept saying, That's just the way it is. Personally I think that MMY was just not a terribly rigor- ous thinker, and probably got this notion into his head early in life and then spouted it out without really thinking it through. But that WAS his stance, and a fundamental part of the TM dogma. I'm not surprised that Jimbo doesn't know this, because he has the intel- lectual depth of a turnip, but I'm surprised you don't know it. As the Judester says from time to time, what we're talking here is not whether Maharishi was right -- I certainly don't think he was -- just what it was that he taught. What he taught was that when you die after CC there is no more incarnation, period. No other option. Somebody here who gives a shit can probably remember the actual name and date of the famous lectures in which he said all this on tape; they're probably still out there somewhere. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote: Go read Shankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutra-s. He says if you want to reside in Brahma-loka you may do so - that is until everything is dissolved at the cosmic pralaya. If you want to play around and enjoy cosmic siddhi-s you may also do that. He also says that you may even be called back after dissolution by Ishvara if he wishes to give you a special adhikara i.e. a mission to do some specific activity or fulfill some specific role. Sometimes the speculation here on FFL is comical. Read it and weep. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: below: can't reincarnate, can't take a body; that's because in the MMY/Jarvis model (from Shankara?); there are no bodies. The elements making up those bodies completely disintegrate at death, among those in CC higher; again, with no options. Conventional bodies of course exist, case in point: the cancer that ate up Ramana's arm and extinguished his physical life. ... Jim - I don't believe anybody is faulting you personally (or maybe they are). I'm not anyway...just saying that this model of existence is the official TMO party line. ... wrt the statement ...there is no experience of the body as a separate entity. True; but there is the experience of bodily sensations, conventionally; otherwise Ramana Maharshi would not have commented on the fact that insects scarred his flesh while he was meditating in the Patala Lingam; and also the fact that he was stung by a bee, and then apologized to the bees for stirring them up. ... Nobody is calling into question nonduality. The question pertains solely to maintaining bodies...for some purpose. Not having any would be a no-brainer as far as options go, yes? Ramana said that he maintained 20 of them in different dimensions.. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to report on that fact. I think you added the part In other words In UC there is no experience of the body as a separate identity as it is experienced prior to that state. It doesn't mean it stops being used as a vehicle for evolution and experience, just that it is no longer identified on the inside as me (of course to pretend such a thing externally only leads to confusion). Nothing odd about that. What IS odd is those here who believe that enlightenment creates more boundaries than it dissolves; can't reincarnate, can't take a body. What a complete and utter misunderstanding. This is the view of enlightenment from ignorance and identification. No wonder Barry got it ass-backwards. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: Comes from Jerry Jarvis. (statement to me in 1973, I was in his office one day when he said emphatically that after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence, relatively speaking; since the supposed purpose of evolution has been fulfilled and there's nothing else to do). In other words, total extinction of all bodies, gross and subtle; but the Self remains, of course, without any bodies able to
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
On May 23, 2011, at 9:10 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? I'd just go ahead and put it in the poopy pants file folder and CC the Divine Catholic Mother over him. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: snip Ignoring the fact that someone who claims to be Maharishi-enlightened is ignorant of one of MMY's most controversial teachings, it's a pretty contro- versial teaching. Yes, one of his most controversial, in fact. giggle I love it when Barry lets his rhetoric get away from him. snip Me, I didn't believe it when I was in the room when Maharishi said it, and I don't believe it now. Wiser teachers have presented more balanced views of the situation. And they certainly should know! snip I completely agree with Curtis that the desire to get off the wheel and no longer incarnate is kinda low vibe and life denying. I think it's something that only someone who has missed the whole *point* of Unity and still lives in duality would think up. How could anyone who has begun to perceive that there is no difference between Absolute and relative in UC come to believe that not reincarnating would be preferable to or higher than just simply reincarnating again. There is no difference between Absolute and relative; where can the concept of better or higher enter into it? Maybe it's not a matter of higher or better but simply that one is done, fully baked, no longer any need to come back. Or, probably more likely, it could be that one who is not in permanent Unity simply has no hope of comprehending the situation and is just uselessly flapping his or her dualistic gums. I think Maharishi didn't think much of life and living. He *always* managed to look down on anything relative as being lower than the transcendent, or the pure subjective experience of the Absolute. Sure, that's why he always talked about 200 percent of life, 100 percent relative and 100 percent Absolute, because he thought only the Absolute 100 percent was worthwhile. Right? Jeez.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? I'll take a stab at it, you are like a kitty with a ball of yarn - it's very cute, the writing is awesome, but you spin quite a yarn and end up going nowhere. Thanks for the entertainment though..:-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@... wrote: On May 23, 2011, at 9:10 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? I'd just go ahead and put it in the poopy pants file folder and CC the Divine Catholic Mother over him. :-) Umm..not funny Uncle Vaj, go back to your choking on the parroted vomit routine, the daily Vakragita discourses, funny and entertaining as hell..LOL..
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Ah Curtis, strike some balance! You hate them because you think they hate you, and this makes them, more frustrated and determined to save your soul and on and on and on. Brake the cycle. Just *forgive* them for they not not what they do, if that's what you think. Forgive, letting go of the mantra, aren't they the same? Letting go. Don't hang on to toxins.Let them go. Letting go of the mantra is the process of transcending, forgiving is the outward expression of expanding love. One should lead to the other. So getting caught up in contempt should be off your game. But hey, I'm jus sayin' From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 5:00:29 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@... wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
One of the values held by monastics is to maintain vigilant attention upon your own failings and ignore and forget the failings of other. Ignore means not to hold them in mind at all - even as a place in memory. You were previously saying your experience was equal to the practice of monasticism. Thus, you already know this. Remember? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? . --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? I'll take a stab at it, you are like a kitty with a ball of yarn - it's very cute, the writing is awesome, but you spin quite a yarn and end up going nowhere. Thanks for the entertainment though..:-) But I still don't get pretensions out of that. Glad you enjoy anything I write on any level Ravi, back atcha with your own creative work here. But I'm no cute kitty. I am going exactly where I am trying to get to here. But since I am ending up with a claim of NOT knowing, and not buying that others DO know about matters after death, I can see why that seems unsatisfactory. But for me it is. Like Camus suggests, I balance myself at the edge of the void of the absurdity of life. And then choose to create my own meaning for my existence out of that. I'm just not accepting any belief package plans. Even if they promise me eternity. Eternity is just too long. Can you imagine the nagging that we would endure if we do end up with the 72 virgins? 72 versions of how you should improve yourself with all of eternity to implement their plans! I can't imagine any version of eternity that doesn't feel like the last hour of any movie where all the actors are in French court period costumes.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
-- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote: One of the values held by monastics is to maintain vigilant attention upon your own failings and ignore and forget the failings of other. Ignore means not to hold them in mind at all - even as a place in memory. First of all I don't accept this as a good idea at all and secondly you are doing exactly this. And it still doesn't amount to me displaying pretensions on the scale of I know what happens after people die. You were previously saying your experience was equal to the practice of monasticism. Thus, you already know this. Remember? I remember they had a lot of bad ideas about life including not hanging out with women. Monastic life is not a model for my life and obviously not yours either since this whole post is about MY failings. So why are you bringing it up? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? . --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
On the TTC/Fiuggi 1972 course, I listened to him categorically deny the possibility of a fully enlightened person returning to manifestation after the stream of his/her prana merged into the ocean of prana. I knew enough Buddhism (Dr. Alfonso Verdu, 1969-1972) to know this opinion was contradicted by Mahayana. Later I read Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhasya (remember how it was totally useless for us less-than-UC people to read?). Shankara makes the points I listed so I don't need to go to Chaitanya or Longchenpa. However, I remember exiting last lifetime (in a rage) and entering this lifetime to witness the breach birth (but uninvolved with it). I described this to the Lama knowing that the Tibetan bardo teachings hold that we are only like leaves in the karmic winds without the power of directing anything. He listened intently but gave no opinion. He knows I'm just another Joe yet he never said anything. Perhaps he thinks it is only delusion but he seems willing to wait and see, since he does not necessarily accept every yak-yak about the bardo. I haven't explored the in-between simply because we will all be there soon enough anyway. Except Curtis and maybe you. Total annihilation is what some people yearn for in this life. For them death is not enough. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: Sounds to me as if Maharishi should have read Shankara's commentary. :-) We're very aware that there are different theories about all of this, empt. What you seem unaware of is what MMY's stance was. It was intractable; in the famous talks being referred to here questioners went on for some minutes asking him whether there was some other option other than drop merging with the ocean after dying in CC. He kept saying No. They asked him whether that didn't seem odd to him, because it would mean that the person who died in CC had lost forever the ability to attain GC and UC, and he kept saying, That's just the way it is. Personally I think that MMY was just not a terribly rigor- ous thinker, and probably got this notion into his head early in life and then spouted it out without really thinking it through. But that WAS his stance, and a fundamental part of the TM dogma. I'm not surprised that Jimbo doesn't know this, because he has the intel- lectual depth of a turnip, but I'm surprised you don't know it. As the Judester says from time to time, what we're talking here is not whether Maharishi was right -- I certainly don't think he was -- just what it was that he taught. What he taught was that when you die after CC there is no more incarnation, period. No other option. Somebody here who gives a shit can probably remember the actual name and date of the famous lectures in which he said all this on tape; they're probably still out there somewhere. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: Go read Shankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutra-s. He says if you want to reside in Brahma-loka you may do so - that is until everything is dissolved at the cosmic pralaya. If you want to play around and enjoy cosmic siddhi-s you may also do that. He also says that you may even be called back after dissolution by Ishvara if he wishes to give you a special adhikara i.e. a mission to do some specific activity or fulfill some specific role. Sometimes the speculation here on FFL is comical. Read it and weep. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: below: can't reincarnate, can't take a body; that's because in the MMY/Jarvis model (from Shankara?); there are no bodies. The elements making up those bodies completely disintegrate at death, among those in CC higher; again, with no options. Conventional bodies of course exist, case in point: the cancer that ate up Ramana's arm and extinguished his physical life. ... Jim - I don't believe anybody is faulting you personally (or maybe they are). I'm not anyway...just saying that this model of existence is the official TMO party line. ... wrt the statement ...there is no experience of the body as a separate entity. True; but there is the experience of bodily sensations, conventionally; otherwise Ramana Maharshi would not have commented on the fact that insects scarred his flesh while he was meditating in the Patala Lingam; and also the fact that he was stung by a bee, and then apologized to the bees for stirring them up. ... Nobody is calling into question nonduality. The question pertains solely to maintaining bodies...for some purpose. Not having any would be a no-brainer as far as options go, yes? Ramana said that he maintained 20 of them in different dimensions.. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, whynotnow7 whynotnow7@ wrote: after reaching Unity, the only fate is annihiliation of existence,
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Yogi raviyogi@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? I'll take a stab at it, you are like a kitty with a ball of yarn - it's very cute, the writing is awesome, but you spin quite a yarn and end up going nowhere. Thanks for the entertainment though..:-) But I still don't get pretensions out of that. Glad you enjoy anything I write on any level Ravi, back atcha with your own creative work here. But I'm no cute kitty. I am going exactly where I am trying to get to here. But since I am ending up with a claim of NOT knowing, and not buying that others DO know about matters after death, I can see why that seems unsatisfactory. But for me it is. Like Camus suggests, I balance myself at the edge of the void of the absurdity of life. And then choose to create my own meaning for my existence out of that. I'm just not accepting any belief package plans. Even if they promise me eternity. Eternity is just too long. Can you imagine the nagging that we would endure if we do end up with the 72 virgins? 72 versions of how you should improve yourself with all of eternity to implement their plans! I can't imagine any version of eternity that doesn't feel like the last hour of any movie where all the actors are in French court period costumes. Thanks for the clarification. And IMO the Not Knowing, Not believing is also another kind of belief even though you might not state is as such. And to me this Not knowing belief system is like a kitty playing with a ball of yarn, a circular logic that leads nowhere, where one is stuck in the intellect forever and hence my remark. That spirituality is about belief is also a wrong concept, belief may be the starting point of spirituality, the end is just a innocent pristine trust, just like a child does in his parents. You can't say child believes in his parents, he just loves and trusts. They may love him or punish him, they may buy him candy or not, but he just trusts, accepts and adapts, they may push him away but he just clings on, a question of any other alternative doesn't even arise. I don't take spiritual statements literally, these are beautiful metaphors, in fact I was thinking of the 72 virgins statement just a few days back. The amount of bliss I feel out of that oneness with the existence is akin to having sex with 72 virgins so that statement to describe heaven seems so apt. Since its such a highly subjective hard to describe state, I feel at home describing that bliss in terms of metaphors such as a sexual orgasm, a drunk or a forlorn lover. Being in eternity then makes total sense to me, only when applied to the inner world and has no significance to the outer at all. The outer continues to display its amazingly dazzling dizzying array of changes, in a perfect beautiful contrast to the inner eternity. Like they say the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. And I react when I see people turning into fanatics by taking statements literally, both pro such as the religious extremists and con, like posters here at FFL.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
I'm not surprised that Jimbo doesn't know this, because he has the intel-lectual depth of a turnip Self realization has nothing to do with memorizing the words of a Master. After all it hasn't worked for you, has it? Again, you don't know what you are talking about.:-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote: On the TTC/Fiuggi 1972 course, I listened to him categorically deny the possibility of a fully enlightened person returning to manifestation after the stream of his/her prana merged into the ocean of prana. I knew enough Buddhism (Dr. Alfonso Verdu, 1969-1972) to know this opinion was contradicted by Mahayana. Later I read Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhasya (remember how it was totally useless for us less-than-UC people to read?). Shankara makes the points I listed so I don't need to go to Chaitanya or Longchenpa. However, I remember exiting last lifetime (in a rage) and entering this lifetime to witness the breach birth (but uninvolved with it). I described this to the Lama knowing that the Tibetan bardo teachings hold that we are only like leaves in the karmic winds � without the power of directing anything. He listened intently but gave no opinion. He knows I'm just another Joe yet he never said anything. Perhaps he thinks it is only delusion but he seems willing to wait and see, since he does not necessarily accept every yak-yak about the bardo. I haven't explored the in-between simply because we will all be there soon enough anyway. Except Curtis and maybe you. Total annihilation is what some people yearn for in this life. For them death is not enough. ����������������������������� --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: Sounds to me as if Maharishi should have read Shankara's commentary. :-) We're very aware that there are different theories about all of this, empt. What you seem unaware of is what MMY's stance was. It was intractable; in the famous talks being referred to here questioners went on for some minutes asking him whether there was some other option other than drop merging with the ocean after dying in CC. He kept saying No. They asked him whether that didn't seem odd to him, because it would mean that the person who died in CC had lost forever the ability to attain GC and UC, and he kept saying, That's just the way it is. Personally I think that MMY was just not a terribly rigor- ous thinker, and probably got this notion into his head early in life and then spouted it out without really thinking it through. But that WAS his stance, and a fundamental part of the TM dogma. I'm not surprised that Jimbo doesn't know this, because he has the intel- lectual depth of a turnip, but I'm surprised you don't know it. As the Judester says from time to time, what we're talking here is not whether Maharishi was right -- I certainly don't think he was -- just what it was that he taught. What he taught was that when you die after CC there is no more incarnation, period. No other option. Somebody here who gives a shit can probably remember the actual name and date of the famous lectures in which he said all this on tape; they're probably still out there somewhere. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: Go read Shankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutra-s. He says if you want to reside in Brahma-loka you may do so - that is until everything is dissolved at the cosmic pralaya. If you want to play around and enjoy cosmic siddhi-s you may also do that. He also says that you may even be called back after dissolution by Ishvara if he wishes to give you a special adhikara � i.e. a mission to do some specific activity or fulfill some specific role. Sometimes the speculation here on FFL is comical. Read it and weep. ��������������������� --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Yifu yifuxero@ wrote: below: can't reincarnate, can't take a body; that's because in the MMY/Jarvis model (from Shankara?); there are no bodies. The elements making up those bodies completely disintegrate at death, among those in CC higher; again, with no options. Conventional bodies of course exist, case in point: the cancer that ate up Ramana's arm and extinguished his physical life. ... Jim - I don't believe anybody is faulting you personally (or maybe they are). I'm not anyway...just saying that this model of existence is the official TMO party line. ... wrt the statement ...there is no experience of the body as a separate entity. True; but there is the experience of bodily sensations, conventionally; otherwise Ramana Maharshi would not have commented on the fact that insects scarred his flesh while
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
You're right. My mis-apprehension. There is nothing about you that makes you what you are. You are not even tabula-rasa. Pretension is just a word. Your belief that my statement was about just you is your own mis-apprehension. In reality/unreality it is just raw emotion without an owner. There is nothing to know. Death is the end of you, so do whatever now. It is already too late. You're already a dead man walking. We are of Peace. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: One of the values held by monastics is to maintain vigilant attention upon your own failings and ignore and forget the failings of other. Ignore means not to hold them in mind at all - even as a place in memory. First of all I don't accept this as a good idea at all and secondly you are doing exactly this. And it still doesn't amount to me displaying pretensions on the scale of I know what happens after people die. You were previously saying your experience was equal to the practice of monasticism. Thus, you already know this. Remember? I remember they had a lot of bad ideas about life including not hanging out with women. Monastic life is not a model for my life and obviously not yours either since this whole post is about MY failings. So why are you bringing it up? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: It would be more helpful if you would hold your own pretensions in equal contempt. So are you going to list what you think they are or should I put this in my you are a poopy pants file? . --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Does it help that I hold all their pretensions about knowing what happens after death in equal contempt? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@ wrote: Curtis, it's not just Christians that say you're going to hell, it's Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims as well. Christianity is the only one that claims a *get- out of- jail* card. Your beef is not with Christ or his teaching, it's with people who are passionate about their beliefs but can't articulate their point of view any better. The world is evolving, we used to burn heretics and witches at the stake. From: curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sun, May 22, 2011 8:18:30 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite... Â Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Still way too many generalizations, Curtis, where Protestantism is concerned--different ideas about what it means not to be saved (the no-AC section is only one option); different ideas about what it takes to be saved; different ideas about who's going to be (or has been) saved; different ideas about what it means to be saved. Many Christians are people who think deeply about their beliefs, not people who just swallow them and parrot them back. By the numbers, I'll bet there is more consensus than disagreement about what happens to unsaved people, however they define it. Catholics are the largest group with 1.2 billion. Devout, practicing Catholics? I don't know what group you are talking about with no hell for unbelievers but I'll bet it is in the extreme minority. I didn't say anything about no hell for unbelievers, actually, I said there were other options besides the no-AC one. Some think it's just being cut off from God, eternal dreariness rather than eternal torment, for instance. If you read my post about Camping, though, he doesn't believe in hell at all. If you aren't saved, your consciousness simply ceases to function. But I'd be willing to bet most people really don't have a clear idea beyond that it's better to be saved than not. And I'd also bet that most of them aren't nearly as preoccupied with the question as militant unbelievers are. And although there are certainly some Christians who think deeply about their beliefs it has not been in my experience that they are in the majority. The only Christians I've known have been those who thought deeply. They didn't necessarily come to the same conclusions I would, but they weren't just going through the motions. Without the tools of philosophical thinking being taught in schools, most people's ability to discuss ideas is pretty limited. It becomes an emotional, personal thing pretty quickly for most people. Look at how many of discussions here degrade into that, and this crew is a lot more philosophical than most people I meet. Do you really think that if we had all been trained in philosophical thinking, it would be any different? If so, you're dreaming. At any rate, I sure wouldn't want to hang around people whose thinking was so philosophical it was divorced from emotion. That would be degraded, as far as I'm concerned. That's not what being human is about. Generally speaking, which flavor of Christianity you follow is more a matter of what kind of person you are. People don't tend to stick with denominations whose beliefs they find personally repugnant. Most Catholics were born that way. It's harder for born Catholics to switch, granted. But there are more liberal and less liberal versions. It has a lot to do with what you were brought up with. It has to do with who you become as an adult whether you're satisfied with what you were brought up with. But more people are swapping religions these days, 44% by one estimation. Most people just ignore the parts of religion they oppose. Just look at the gay issue. Although a very high number of people are not against it politically, how few churches allow openly gay priests? More and more these days, actually, at least in Protestantism. (Protestants call 'em ministers, except Episcopalians.) So they support discrimination in their religion even when in their lives they don't support it. They may tolerate it, but that doesn't mean they support it. And even tolerance for discrimination in churches is decreasing because folks just don't believe the teaching any longer, or understand it very differently.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And some of them are making political/ecological decisions about our custodianship of a planet that they believe is their launching pad, and disposable. So for me, it is a virtue to call BS on such claims when we can. I only wish the media could grow a pair and connect this with all the other slo-mo rapture believers. In fact I would like to see an article pointing out that while this small fringe was eating their crow (here is a case where that crappy cheese might help the taste) millions of Christians had re-affirmed their faith that morning in churches, believing equally nutty things about their own specialness. And they don't get a pass because they think it will all happen after we die. They still want me to have an eternity tying to use my thumb to get off that sticky crap that every sticker leaves on every damn kitchen item we buy today. I use my nail and I scratch the surface, I use my finger back and forth and it leaves that weird square film. God help you if you break out a scrub pad cuz your new peeler, grater,Italian pasta bowls, or olive pitter (works on cherries too)will forever have hatch-mark scratches from your efforts to remove that sticky crap. (I tried rubbing alcohol and it only works sometimes.) I think they make it out of that cheese they put in my burritos. (I was trying for Dave Barry but I think I just swung perilously close to Andy Rooney on this one.) So I get that we shouldn't gloat too much that this group was dead wrong. But at the core of Christian belief is the extremely uncharitable belief that they are going
[FairfieldLife] Re: And another bite...
I enjoyed reading this, Curtis, but I'm working on a deadline and have very little time to comment. Wanted to make two main points: --All Christians are taught the Second Coming, but the Rapture belief isn't universal by any means. Maybe that isn't what you meant to suggest by mainstream? It's primarily a belief of Evangelicals. The fringe nature of the recent hoop-te-do had more to do with the idea that it could be so specifically predicted. And even among Evangelicals, there's dizzying variety of understandings about exactly how it all falls out. Some Christian denominations really don't deal with eschatology at all beyond the idea that it's gonna happen some day. --You paint with *way* too broad a brush in suggesting that all Christians hope you go to hell. That kind of malice is actually quite rare, even among the May 21ers. Most of 'em want to *save* you from going to hell. You make some good points, but you miss the boat on these two. Again, I wish I had more time to comment. Oh, and an addendum--for how to remove label residue, see this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2023764_remove-sticky-residue.html Also try lighter fluid. There are also products you can buy that are designed to do the job. One is called Goo Gone: http://www.googone.com/GG-Browse-Products --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@... wrote: Excellent find Judy. The follow-up comments are really interesting too. This really made me think about my own emotions about this group. Although she is getting some play from her original take, she is still cashing in on the story like everyone else. But that is not the most interesting thing for me. I remember when I first drove past a van on a street in my neighborhood with this rapture date claim on the side. It got me thinking and I fantasized going to this house with a sign on the day after that said counter-evidence is a bitch isn't it? or something equally snarky. As the days got closer and I saw some media coverage I realized that I didn't need my hat in the ring. I had a private party gig Saturday and considered putting empty clothes in front of my set-up as if someone had raptured in front of me. The party I was playing for was DC, well-off, hip-enough, nice folks who threw in a few references to the time of the event and chuckled a bit. I didn't sense any malice or the kind of put down this writer seems to be objecting to. I'm not sure the press's need for a story really reflects how we all think about it all. Mixed with the snark was some genuine bafflement, how could someone buy in to this? But here is where is gets even more interesting for me. Even though this event was a compressed example put into a falsifiable form, the rapture is not a fringe belief. It is mainstream Christianity. And if you drop the date all the other beliefs are there. So this writer is basically saying that we should all pity all of those Christians who believe all the same stuff without the specific date. Should we think of them as having a dysfunction for such beliefs? And here is where it gets in my craw a bit. More than the belief that sitting in a dome doing Maharishi's sidhis creates world peace, by a long shot. In their fantasy they are not satisfied with creating a ideal society like TMers. Although I bristle a bit when people lay an I am intrinsically more WHATEVER than you are and understand life in a way you cannot this is not even close to what these people are laying on me. They want my head on a pike for eternity! Bastards! I think that is what gets people not in their group pissed, the malicious arrogance of their belief, so we want a little payback. We can't get if from the smug ill-wishing Christians who basically believe the same thing. With this group we get the satisfaction we will never get after death with the mainstream Christians to say, Neeener nner nner. I mean that is not so high on the malicious scale as their wishing I will spend an eternity in a place where whenever I order my burrito alfresco with no cheese in a drive-thru, when I get to where I can stop and eat it, I will always find out that my burrito is slimed with that nasty cheese-food-product that doubles the calories on my already guilty meal while presenting my liver with Martin-molecules of fat that makes my liver make that Homer Simpson sound when it tries to oxidize it: Doh! So I get it that spiking the ball is too much and I believe most people not trying to fill up media space feel that way too. But lets not forget that for every one of these people there are one hundred, (thousand, hundred thousand???) people who basically believe the same thing without the stop-watch. And some of them are making political/ecological decisions about our custodianship of a planet that they believe is their launching pad, and disposable. So for
