LOL no theres nothing delusional about it, and I am well aware I am not God and fully competent. It's not anymore any kind of "power" than you have over children in being more coordinated and having a more developed brain. Theres nothing "super human" about it Like I said, I don't talk about it. Some of you guys will already have an idea of what I'm talking about. I had a few drinks with friends last night, so I said too much already, too late to delete it as it's been quoted. It's not too often that someone so psychotic as to think they have super powers has any kind of basis in reality to where their philosophies of life make sense from any rational standpoint. Usually they're ranting and raving lunatics, they are not calm. I think Hermes/Thoth said it best thousands of years ago. "People in the future will deny the Mysteries"
i do the right things(most of the time) because it feels good and i enjoy it i think that is far better than doing it to avoid eternal punishment sorry what i meant to say was...if there is a supreme being how do you know what our purpose is?
To clear up fear. From an instinctive perspective, we as individuals of a species need to survive in order to reproduce, that is where the instinctive fear is from. From an emotional perspective, we are attached to this planet through a varied spectrum of emotions. This is the fear of change a poster was talking about, on an emotional level we do not want to sever the connection to that which grants us the positive feelings we're dependent on. On an intellectual level, what is fear but the lack of knowledge? You fear that which you do not know, the unknown; death fits into this category for many, but not all. This is the fear of the unknown a poster was talking about. If I'm not mistaken, Trismegistus is saying that there are planes or levels higher than the ones aforementioned, that is all.
Our human consciousness will cease to exist, and therefore our person hood, but our atoms will continue to exist and build other consciousnesses in the future. It will not be you, but you make it possible by dying for another life to experience consciousness. Sure, death is the end of all events and is not an event itself because we are dead and not able to experience death itself. There's an anxiety with being born. You are thrown into this world with the responsibility to love and care for others and even create new life. Most people do not want to be born, but once born, people do not wanna die because they do not want to leave the love, care, and even brutality that comes with being born. Life has no intrinsic meaning, you make your life with all the learning and growing your experience and maybe people do not wanna die because they have devoted so much effort to their lives. Not because life has meaning in and of itself, but because they have worked so hard to build such a life with meaning. You are thrown into this world without your choice, now it's your responsibility to make your life meaningful.
"I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again." -Achilles, Troy- There is nothing to fear, live each day like it was your last, live in the moment not in the past. When we die we move on, the Gods can't.
Well the problem is you're assuming there has to be a meaning to life. No other animal (that we can tell) ponders existential questions. With the advent of intellectual reasoning, we decided that there should be a meaning - most likely out of comfort and of ignorance. As I'm sure, you already know my stance on morals being tied biologically so I'm not gonna beat that dead horse.
That is because animals can not understand beauty. How did "beauty" even evolved into our minds? Is the beauty that many of us think beauty at all?
So you believe doing things that make other people feel good is tied to us biologically? I mean obviously it would be easy to take that stance, but do you really believe it? So are the mean-spirited selfish people just "defects" or "mutations"? How do people with two nice, kind-spirited parents end up to be rude/disgusting/unlawful? If you believe behavior and every thought you have is solely based on your genetics then I'm rather flabergasted. He's not talking about young people fearing getting in a car accident, or getting shot, or a shark attacking them when they go to the beach. That's paranoia. He's talking about the fear of death that people experience on their death bed who are uncertain about what things may come. They've reproduced (or haven't), they've said their good byes, as far as earthly matters are concerned everything is at peace, they have no more business here in this life. And yet so many of these people literally go crazy in anticipation of what's to come. Could this be because they believe they're going to just slip out of existence? Sure. But I'm curious, have you ever seen someone die? Right before they go, it's almost as if a wave of peace comes over them, as if they are finally seeing something they've waited their whole lives to see. And Tris, I attempted to meditate last night as I was falling asleep. The room was pitch black, there was no sounds at all, I was completely alone. I crossed my legs, folded my arms, and cleared my mind. I tried to focus on my past life (although it was difficult) and my mind began to swim. I felt very strange, and my heart began to race. Then out of nowhere I heard a loud bang in my ears, like a fire cracker went off right next to my head. I jerked up and turned the light on, I was seriously so shaken I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Perhaps there's a reason the Brotherhood you speak of takes a vow of silence? Perhaps I wasn't ready yet to experience my past life. I really don't know, thoughts?
Natural Selection...its not that hard for species to realize that they need to treat each other with respect in order to survive
Yeah, because alligators and sharks, who have been living millions of years longer than us, treat each other with such great respect?...
... I wans't implying that we should treat other species with respect, I was showing that other species (that are obviously much more adapt for survival) haven't evolved a "mutual respect" for one another, and neither have most humans. Did you honestly not get what I was saying?
sorry, i was addressing fatbluntsyo's post and i figured you were saying the same thing so what exactly do alligators and sharks do to each other?
Not each other, I guess I worded it rather poorly. Alligators don't respect other alligators. Sharks don't respect other sharks. They have been around for millions of years longer than us. So obviously mutual respect is a trait surely not needed for the survival of a species. Neither is love, hate, anger, despair, depression, guilt, etc etc etc. There is no logical reason why these traits would evolve if our only goal was solely continuation of the species. If that were the case we would probably all devolve into cockroaches, now THERE'S a species that's built for survival. It's ludicrous to think we have no greater purpose than to fuck and die, although that'd be nice while it lasted.
lol i understood what you were saying of course complete love and respect isnt needed but most species, especially a young ones, need some sort of morals, caring and respectfulness to survive i mean how can any group survive with them constantly trying to kill and starve each other? then what is our purpose? and do you really think there is human-like supreme father figure giving us a purpose in life?
Of course. Genetics simply gives you these core behaviors. Shaping of behavior due to environmental influence is a widely accepted phenomenon (aka Sociology). Why is most of America Christian and most of Turkey Islamic? Eternal peace feels good.
You're joking right? lol. Species try to kill and starve each other all the time, that's my point. How could any group survive? Simple, they don't all survive, only the STRONGEST, that's what the whole idea of natural selection is based on, the stronger ones weeding out the weaker. You seem to have an extremely basic and limited view of what "God" may be like. And I, like Tris, don't fault you for that. "God" or "The All" as tris calls it, is just that, the spark in everything that allows it to live, to experience the world. Not just exist in it. But as he's said many times, there are some people that just aren't ready to wrap their minds around such vast concepts, that admittedly, cannot yet be proven. Theories regarding the unknown and unprovable will always be considered ridiculous, until something comes along that will cause the masses to open up their minds, to help the ones who aren't able to do it on their own expand their understanding. I'm sure two thousand years ago very few people could wrap their minds around capturing lightning and using it to power lights, computers, cars, planes, etc etc. Some idea's are just "before their time", we haven't even began to figure out everything about the earth we're currently living on, what makes you think we'll be able to develop something to start producing proven, undisputable answers to the questions of the "Unknown" anytime soon? I am by no means as far along in my "progression" as Trismegustus appears to be, but I'm willing to open up my mind to new ideas. I'm sure a lot of his beliefs are based on personal experiences, which of course mean nothing to the scientific world. Does that mean that those experiences should be discarded? Just because we have not developed a way yet for them to be recorded/validated?
fears are an inborn creation we tend to make up when faced with certain things that generally give us bad memories and or future understandings. death=the end, therefor there is nothing after it. this means uncertainty, humans dont like that. hence why we stay on the same path most of our lives, change scares us. as an animal, all animals, have an innate will to live that makes them fight to the last breath... why? i have no clue, its just within us and every other living animal. mix that with our superior brain and you have what we call fear, fear of death, uncertainty and many other things... /thread?
Why would we even evolve those core behaviors to begin with? None of those are particularly beneficial to our survival, and are specific to our species alone. There's no doubt that our environment shapes us, but WHY does our environment shape us so much more than any other species? Why are humans able to sit and admire the scenery, to appreciate what we have been given, and to recognize that it is indeed a gift to exist. Why do we have the desire to do things we know are detrimental to our health/survival, and why do we sometimes give into those desires? Why do some people have a stronger "willpower" than others despite the frailty of their body? If continuation of the species is our sole objective why would we develop religion? Why would we wage wars and kill each other over nothing? A lot of religion is atrocious, and I've been meeting more and more "Theists" who denounce organized religion but still believe in the existence of some sort of "higher consciousness", (The All) that envelopes everything, that is in everything, that is everything. I think there's something more.