04-12-05 12:52 am

M: I cannot prove to you or anyone else that Christ is real

You should seriously consider what it means for something to be real.

One of the universal qualities of anything real is its physical extention. From photons to black holes, real things exist as physical, observable and distinct objects.

To say christ is real is to imply that he can come by for tea and have a chat.

What you are telling me is that you have a subject experience you relate to as christ. I've had numerous such subjective experiences. Some people never have such subjective experiences. They are intimately private to the person. Impossible to share objectively and totally insubstancial. I.e. they aren't real.

While the term has been badly misused in the past, what you are discribing is your "christ consciousness." And I sincerly applaud your ability to manifest it in a positive manner for your life.

This may seem nit picky and in this case it may well be, but when poeple misunderstand their inner experience for what is actual and real and then inforce their vision as the one, only and true or you are damned vision for all, then very bad things happen.

I don't have access to your vision so there is no real way for me do argue against it. Because it is a vision, anything real will seem pale against its imagined perfection. Because you create it, it will always tell you what you truly wish it to. Such as heathens are better off tortured or dead than unbelievers.

Take a serious look at the inquisition is you want to see where such madness leads. Many of those people performed brutal, heinous and unthinkable acts in the name of your christ all the time thinking themselves the most pious and faithful of god's servants.

We are already turning down that road and if christ is your savior you should be asking where your actual loyalties lie.

Is christ worried about loyalty to a church, riches, political power or the inforcement of the right's ideas of morality?

Or is he worried about kindness to the poor, speaking the real truth whatever it may be, loving all your fellow men and women, and being a caring and kind steward of this home you live in?

We all have a choice. That choice is not John 3:13. The choice is to stand for the truth and do what is good and right or to fall into darkness and madness.




04-11-05 12:12 am

i was wondering is the celebacy important? and how (howcome) is it important?

Like so many things in buddhism it takes a bit to get out of the black-and-white prohibitionist mindset of the Judeo-xtians.

The precepts are more along the line of guidelines set down by people who have seen certain mistakes screw people up over and over.

If you go around killing, lying, stealing, boozing and having unsafe and inappropriate sex, you are going to get into serious trouble eventually.

So the precepts are there to help keep your head straight while you have a chance to figure things out.

As a lay practitioner there is nothing wrong with appropriate sex in a loving relationship. I have just such a relationship and two wonderful kids and it suits my practice perfectly.

If you want to be a nun then you will face a decision about celebacy, but I strongly discourage any one becoming a monk or nun before age fifty.

As for what's appropriate? Every one has their opinions but I suspect it isn't that hard for you to make your own decision on that.




04-11-05 11:11 pm

a: Are the entity god and the universe mutually exclusive?

If one uses any intelligable definition of "entity," yes.

But if you want to equate the two then you have Naturalism and there really is no point in using the "god" term at all.

a: Our understanding of an unknown entity is limited to our probing capabilities.

We can see across billions of years into the earliest and farthest reaches of the universe.

We can look down at individual atoms and probe within them to examine their component parts.

We can examine the entire spectrum and capture particles so elusive they pass through planets.

We have traced our own existence back to the begining of life on our planet and are unraveling the code of our very existence.

We can light the fire of stars, hold the vacuum of space, even leave the planet itself.

There is not one shread of evidence that any such entity is even remotely possible.

Instead when ever something wonderful is noticed people start giving this non-existant entity credit, instead of realizing the universe itself is wonderful beyond imagination.




04-10-05 10:10 pm

F: Why do some of you work so hard to disprove something in which billions of people believe?

Because it is both dead wrong and causing untold harm.

F: Fortunately, we all live in a place where we can believe what we want to.

There is no where in the universe where you can just believe what you want to. There are physical constraints which apply to all. Luckily most whacky beliefs have little direct conscequence. Unfortunately xtianity no longer falls into that catagory.

F: What state in the matter do you have that compells you to dig up all these tired arguments?

I like the truth. I like freedom and science. I like a green and healthy planet. I don't want to see us fall back into the dark ages. I don't like minds so twisted that they cannot tell true from false or right from wrong.

F: There is a reason why some people can believe in something totally illogical and without precedent. It's called "faith."

It is more correctly called being insanely wrong.

When you are right you don't need faith.

F: So why pick on Christianity?

I don't just pick on them, but...

1) They just happen to be plentiful here.
2) They are actively trying to distroy the country where I live and drag the world as a whole into a new dark age.

Shintoism certainly has its own quaint ideas but last I checked they weren't shoving them down any one's throats.




04-09-05 4:09 pm

S: so is any religion

No, not just any religion, that is part of the lie.

S: we all know the...

We all know there are jerks in any social group. The question is are they contain or even reformed; or, are the given a TV show or elected president?

We also know that you can look at a group's history and compare that to their current actions and see if they have reformed. Little things like the surpression of science, crusades in the middle east, the surpression of civil rights, bombing health clinics, assassinating doctors, putting bounties on judges, etc.

Sure it hurts to be human. It also feels pretty darn cool at times.

We are the force which created us. Small blobs of protien goop that made the grade, lucked out and learned how to build bodies and brains. Something so wonderous that instead of accepting the preponderance amount of evidence, people would rather invent some god to blame it on so they have a scapegoat.

The very DNA in your body was there at the beginning and has kept the flame alive through almost 4 billion years of continuous life. Building new body after new body. Improving slowly but surely until it can work the very stuff of stars, leap into space, peer into the farthest reaches of time and look into the very heart of atoms.

What more do you want?




04-09-05 4:09 pm

Do you perceive a spirit, and if so what is it?
Do you believe in spirits, and if so what are they?

I don't. I don't even have an image of what they would be if they existed. Guess I'm missing that gene.


I think part of the problem is you are trying to apply the nonsensical theist definition to what I'm trying to say and that is naturally confusing.

Theists treat spirit/soul as an independent substance.

I see the universe as a choas space and people as complex patterns.

Mind is a pattern within the pattern. Spirit/soul is yet another pattern within that.

Spirit/soul is a resonant relationship between emotion, intelllect and action with allows intention, meaning and action to exist in harmony and style.

You can see this manifest as what makes really great art work. This is why people say such art has soul.

Spirituality is the practice which focuses on the development of spirit.

Unfortunately such development is to a significant degree unique to each person and it is something which requires direct experience and actual practice. This makes it a bit frustrating at times to talk about. Not only do words often miss the essence, it is easy to end up considering the individual aspects and miss the whole of the pattern.

Spirit/soul is the art of expressing yourself as a being.




04-04-05 4:04 pm

How do you practice Zen?

First you must realize that a practice is extremely personal to who you are and what your own hang ups are. It would be like asking how I take a piss when what you need is to pee yourself. It really doesn't matter what hand I hold it in, does it?

There are some areas you may have down that I lack and areas that I don't even consider that have you cold.

Finally there is the language barrier. This stuff isn't really effable so I will pile words around my meaning and hope you can dig it out.

1) Practice is understanding.

I can't emphasis that enough. Anything and everything you practice brings you closer as you refine that practice. It is only through practice that there is understanding.

2) Pay attention.

Pay attention to what is around you. Pay attention to what is within you. Pay attention to others. Pay attention to your self. Pay attention to your task. Pay attention to the moment. The more you pay, the more you get.

3) Abide in stillness.

This is hard to convey because its not about how you are moving. It is more a spiritual quietness. Some might call it equinimity. It is like the instant before the strike. Empty of motion, unperturbed no matter what you face.

4) Care deeply and without fear.

Ask for nothing in return and offer everything you can.

5) Sit on your butt quietly for a while each day and do nothing.

As those come together there is an "in the moment" feel to existence. But I can't tell you how to have that zen in the moment, I can only show you my zen in the moment.

If you look at how you have come to have these questions, you will be dancing around the fundimental function of mind. When you abide in it instead of searching for it, you have zen in the moment. Paradoxically the answer you are looking for is also the source of all your questions.

It is also something you already do a lot without realizing it. Really most of the trick is to be aware so you don't fall into second guessing yourself.

The when you are aware of it on the fly, it doesn't slips away into stopping to think about it.