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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
#7555739 - 10/24/07 04:25 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I am a proponent of 'subjective fact.' More like Jody Foster in her film 'Contact' than some solipcistic stance. The experience was profound and life-changing in ways that the accounts of mystics have described for millennia, around the globe. It is not all that rare, considering that I belong to a genre of 'psychedelic mystics,' but unlike Heinrich Zimmer who disagreed with the authenticity of psychedelic mysticism because of a mediating 'change agent,' there are those who do affirm authentic psychedelic mysticism. The authenticity of religious experience according to Jung is manifested by the life lived following the experience. If one is not mystically inclined or simply does not believe in the veracity of mystical experience, the discussion simply ends.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Icelander]
#7555824 - 10/24/07 04:41 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I am like all the religious folk. I've had religious experiences.
I did have a profound experience and I have sought to describe it. Perhaps my error is in the attempt to define it, so I hesitate to do so except by analogy to those experiences described in certain religious systems.
You can feel secure in believing that I had some kind of experience since I'm pretty sure that you do not think I am simply fabricating that. That you 'doubt' the Ultimate Nature of 'my' experience is your prerogative. I have explored the duality of doubt-belief, but this duality ONLY refers to my mental definitions of the experience. MY doubt does not extend to the experience itself. If you are merely saying that I am lying and that I never had a life-changing experience, that is a different matter. That is on you, and your accusation constitutes a seriously biased opinion generated by your own mind. Here at least, you have 'evidence' of my words. Even if you doubt the interpretation of my claimed experience, you would at least take it on faith that I am not lying. You may think I'm deceived, deluded, hallucinated - which I can live with and continue to dialogue with you. If you were calling me a liar, no further dialogue would be possible.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Redstorm
Prince of Bugs




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I think you are mistaken in believing selfishness, when defined correctly, and compassion are mutually exclusive.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Redstorm]
#7558029 - 10/25/07 05:28 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Redstorm said: I think you are mistaken in believing selfishness, when defined correctly, and compassion are mutually exclusive.
Being compassionate to oneself is not selfishness, it is treating oneself equally with others. Not being compassionate to oneself, but only to others is pathological, it is co-dependency. Compassion translates well into altruism which is selfless behavior, NOT selfish behavior. Self-ish indicates a bias in favor of one's own mind-body over another's mind-body as I understand it.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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I am a proponent of 'subjective fact.
So are other unnamed Christians here. But of course they are wrong and you are right? 
-------------------- "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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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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You can feel secure in believing that I had some kind of experience since I'm pretty sure that you do not think I am simply fabricating that.
True. I also believe that all the other Christians here had some kind of a conversion "mystical" experience. I only question their interpretation of the experience as I do yours.
-------------------- "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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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly


Registered: 06/13/04
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Loc: On the Border
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Right on!!! No tolerance for those who are intolerant
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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adrug

Registered: 02/04/03
Posts: 15,800
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#7560105 - 10/25/07 05:48 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Huehuecoyotl said: Right on!!! No tolerance for those who are intolerant
yoda Good point-maker, you are. /yoda
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Icelander]
#7560111 - 10/25/07 05:49 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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That is a perfectly respectable cynicism!
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#7560124 - 10/25/07 05:52 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Tolerance yes, acceptability, no. Ghandi protested non-violently, but protest he did. So do I.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Icelander]
#7560186 - 10/25/07 06:14 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Icelander said:
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MushmanTheManic said:
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Wisdom is measured by one's capacity to Be Compassionate.
The older I become the truthier this seems. I view rational self-interest, to use objectivist terminology, as the symptom of a psychologically under-developed person. It seems that many people are selfish merely because they're not strong enough to be compassionate.
I tell you this dude. Rational self interest is compassionate towards others. Irrational self interest is fear driven. It is certainly in my self interest to live in a compassionate world. To gain a bigger piece of the pie to protect myself at all costs is really not in my rational self interest as happiness is for sure a condition of my self interest.
Rational self-interest cannot be compassionate towards others. To a person following Ayn Rand's ethics, compassionate behavior is merely a tool to use for your own selfish end. Doing something for the sake of another at the expense of yourself is considered ethically wrong.
If you want to try incorporating compassion into ethical egoism thats fine with me, but incorporating compassion into objectivist ethics ain't possible. (It's like trying to incorporate anhedonism into Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is already a well estabilished system of ethics, you can't just redefine it to suit your argument.)
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Icelander]
#7560197 - 10/25/07 06:18 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: I am a proponent of 'subjective fact.'
So are other unnamed Christians here. But of course they are wrong and you are right? 
The experience which most effected me could not be deemed 'Christian.' It was a PCE ("Pure Consciousness Event") but if anything, after all these years, it was a living experience symbolized by the Great Mantra of Tibetan Buddhism, OM MANI PADME HUM. That would be a 'best fit' conceptualization of the experience.
I do not get what your comparison is to "other unnamed Christians." If these people had an experience that they then interpreted mentally and rationally along Christian doctrinal lines, then they made a choice to conceptualize their experience thereby affirming a 'belief.' As for me, I am interested in learning about other people's PCEs, but I can not evaluate their experience except insofar as it seems to form the transpersonal core of a renewed personality.
I find it next to impossible now to define (conceptualize) my truest identity to others. I am sipping red wine at this moment and so it would be difficult to convince a Buddhist that I am a Buddhist. I do not hold to any of the doctrinal formulations, orthodox or heterodox, of the nature of Christ, and it would be difficult to convince any type of Christian that I am a Christian. I do adhere to the notion that The Way (to Be) is illustrated by the New Testament's portrayal of Iesus, and I tell Jews that I aspire to be the kind of Jew that Iesus was, which again, makes it difficult to convince a Jew that I am a Jew (unless they define that as one having had a Jewish mother). 
None of this has anything to do with the polarity of who is right or wrong about anything - except by conventional conceptions, none of which truly manifests The-Thing-In-Itself. In the famous words of Popeye the Sailor Man, "I am what I am and I know who I am," I just can't put a label on it!
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backfromthedead
Activated


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Something about christ and gay sex. Gee.

--------------------
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: fireworks_god]
#7560216 - 10/25/07 06:24 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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fireworks_god said:
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MushmanTheManic said: I am not going to explain Objectivism to you.
I didn't ask you to; I asked you to explain the notion that you proposed that rational self-interest is evidence that an individual is not "strong" enough to be compassionate. We aren't talking about "Objectivism" - we are discussing the specific idea that you proposed.
I was clearly talking about Objectivist ethics and I did not state that self-interest is a sign that an individual is not strong enough to be compassionate. Compassion and self-interest can be compatible, but rational self-interest and compassion are antonyms. I stated that I observed a correlation between people who act selfishly and psychological immaturity and weakness.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
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The thingys is markos that you made a statement that something was self evident and it's not. That's my only complaint.
-------------------- "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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Veritas


Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Incorrect. Rational self-interest and self-sacrifice are antonyms.
Quote:
...he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life. Ayn Rand
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Compassion sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it
A sincere desire to alleviate the distress of another would not involve self-sacrifice. In fact, if achieving one's own happiness was jeopardized by this sympathetic consciousness of others' distress, then rational self-interest would require the exercise of compassion.
However, if one acted out of obligation, with no personal desire to alleviate suffering, one would not be exercising compassion at all, but rather performing one's duty.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
#7560287 - 10/25/07 06:45 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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You said doody.:D
-------------------- "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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Veritas


Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Icelander]
#7560289 - 10/25/07 06:46 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I meant it, too, thus the:
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
#7560293 - 10/25/07 06:47 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
In fact, if achieving one's own happiness was jeopardized by this sympathetic consciousness of others' distress, then rational self-interest would require the exercise of compassion.
Well shit... I guess you got me there.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said:
Quote:
In fact, if achieving one's own happiness was jeopardized by this sympathetic consciousness of others' distress, then rational self-interest would require the exercise of compassion.
Well shit... I guess you got me there.
I respect a man that can admit he's wrong.
And a loser.
-------------------- "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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