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Basilides
Servent ofWisdom


Registered: 02/10/06
Posts: 7,059
Loc: Crown and Heart
Last seen: 12 years, 8 months
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Just how rare is a human birth?
#5911146 - 07/29/06 03:59 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I've wondered this. There are billions of people on this planet, every day we see around us people being born and people dying, some of them dying shortly after being born, some dying after 100+ of life. God only knows how many animals, fish, and birds are currently existing right now. It's often said, "You could have been born as field mouse" (or some other creature that passes through existence in the blink of an eye). A tortoise or a lake sturgeon might live beyond human years, some of them getting up to 130+ years of age. So, just how rare is a human birth?
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    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Basilides]
#5911615 - 07/29/06 10:32 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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A human birth is more rare than the incident of a sea turtle swimming to the surface of the sea once every hundred years, and happening to surface with his head inside of a wooden yoke that has been floating around for years.
A human Enlightenment occurs at the rate at which a bird with a piece of ribbon in his beak, dragging the ribbon over a mountain once every hundred years, finally wears the mountain into a plain
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Basilides]
#5911628 - 07/29/06 10:38 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Obviously it seems, human birth is not rare. Not even an important question IMO. Your birth, as your personality is rare. What will you do with it?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

Registered: 07/22/06
Posts: 640
Last seen: 17 years, 4 months
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Basilides]
#5911659 - 07/29/06 10:47 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I bet there is actually a way to calculate the probability of the necessary elements coming together in the necessary pattern for a human being. However, that sounds like an incredible waste of time.
As Ice says, it's about what you do with what you've got. You're here now, so might as well live fully here and now, right?
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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David_vs_Goliath
Informer


Registered: 04/01/06
Posts: 208
Loc: Chicago
Last seen: 14 years, 18 days
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Fractalated]
#5911733 - 07/29/06 11:10 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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there are millions of sperm in every "load" of semen. think about that. your personality and conciousness was 1 of those sperm. you won the race!
-------------------- "People living deeply have no fear of death." "Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love." "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
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Mourningdove
Stranger
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 399
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A human birth is no better or worse that the birth of a monitor lizard. Our place in this world is amazing yet insignificant in the big picture...
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Mourningdove]
#5912219 - 07/29/06 02:27 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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...if one goes through life as a nihilist in a perpetual state of 'mourning' for the death of meaning.
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Fractalated
There's no onehome up there...

Registered: 07/22/06
Posts: 640
Last seen: 17 years, 4 months
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Meaning seems to be a rather subjective phenomenon. Objectively, the only meaning there seems to be is simply to be, to live. The journey is the goal.
-------------------- "Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Mourningdove]
#5912273 - 07/29/06 02:50 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mourningdove said: A human birth is no better or worse that the birth of a monitor lizard. Our place in this world is amazing yet insignificant in the big picture...
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Droz
Love of Life


Registered: 10/15/00
Posts: 2,746
Loc: Floorida
Last seen: 8 years, 5 months
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Icelander]
#5912560 - 07/29/06 04:49 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Yet we build houses, chat on computers and destroy the world with our love of life.
-------------------- Evolution of Time.
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Just how rare is a human birth? [Re: Mourningdove]
#5912566 - 07/29/06 04:52 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mourningdove said: A human birth is no better or worse that the birth of a monitor lizard. Our place in this world is amazing yet insignificant in the big picture...
You know, I heard from someone about how entropy explains evolution. The more complex the organism, the more efficiently they convert higher states of energy(from food and sunlight, for example) into lower states of energy(such as mechanical and heat energy). And since nature, in a sense, "wants" to convert higher states of energy into lower states, that makes humans more important for such purposes.
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Kerbouchard
Stranger


Registered: 03/18/06
Posts: 9,823
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
A human Enlightenment occurs once every hundred years, finally wearing the mountain into a plain
Why do we have to be a human for "100 years" to move mountains by faith, or make resounding symbols in our fate.
-------------------- "War Doesn't Decide Who's Right... It Decides Who's Left."
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant


Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
...if one goes through life as a nihilist in a perpetual state of 'mourning' for the death of meaning.
possibly the notion that everything is equally expressive of the Tao isn't such a bad one, particularly when humans that believe themselves better than the rest of the world have the tendency to unconsciously trample all over it.
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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