Build your own religion

[Borachio]

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by G-Max

1. Lieutenant Ellen Ripley is our one true lord and savior. She died on Fury 161 for our sins, and was resurrected with acid blood and other superpowers.
2. Optimus Prime is our other one true lord and savior. He has died for our sins at least 4 times, and has been resurrected each time, though usually without superpowers.
3. Robocop is our other, other one true lord and savior. He died, but not for our sins, and was resurrected as a cyborg, pre-programmed with the Threefold Path: "Protect the Innocent", "Serve the Public Trust", and "Uphold the Law".
4. After much meditation, and excellent adventure, and a bogus journey (during which they died and were resurrected), Bill and Ted achieved enlightenment, and handed to us the Twofold Path: "Be excellent to each other" and "party on, dudes".
5. Spock is our other, other, other one true lord and savior. He gave us the Onefold Path, "live long and prosper", before dying and being resurrected.

Excellent, indeed!

Originally Posted by Gorakshanat

I have been lately reading a lot from Aurobindo: http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/works/index.php

Thanks for the link. I shall look into it.

edit: Sri Aurobindo has said, “...we do not found ourselves on faith alone, but on a great ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane.”

This appears to be genuine stuff, to me.

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Originally Posted by Whiskey_Lord

The human brain can only process happiness for short amounts of time. So yeah, eternal bliss is rather impossible.

Another Aurobindo:

What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter.
The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities. Because
this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility,
therefore the Eternal created it out of His being.
Impossibility is only a sum of greater unrealised possibles. It
veils an advanced stage and a yet unaccomplished journey.

[Borachio]

This is evidently fine stuff. I believe it would take me time to fully appreciate it. I'm afraid that my head has been full of Shakespeare for some years, and the rhythms of the two languages is completely different. Would you like to see some? BTW how's your Sanskrit?

[Joecoolyo]

Originally Posted by Whiskey_Lord

“Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to %@#&ing work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of %@#&ing list! ”
― Denis Leary

Don't cynics just suck the air out of the room?

[Borachio]

Originally Posted by Joecoolyo

Don't cynics just suck the air out of the room?

No, they don't.
Check out Diogenes on Wiki.

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Originally Posted by Borachio

This is evidently fine stuff. I believe it would take me time to fully appreciate it. I'm afraid that my head has been full of Shakespeare for some years, and the rhythms of the two languages is completely different. Would you like to see some? BTW how's your Sanskrit?

Oh, yeah bring it on. I have just finnished Othelo the other day (Czech translation- and not a very good one...)
I do not find the need for sanskrit atm.

Edit: I have found this interesting comparison:

The World’s Greatest Poets
Goethe certainly goes much deeper than Shakespeare; he had
an incomparably greater intellect than the English poet and
sounded problems of life and thought Shakespeare had no
means of approaching even. But he was certainly not a greater
poet; I do not find myself very ready to admit either that he was
Shakespeare’s equal. He wrote out of a high poetic intelligence,
but his style and movement nowhere come near the poetic
power, the magic, the sovereign expression and profound or
subtle rhythms of Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a supreme
poet and, one might almost say, nothing else; Goethe was by
far the greater man and the greater brain, but he was a poet
by choice, his mind’s choice among its many high and effulgent
possibilities, rather than by the very necessity of his being. He
wrote his poetry, as he did everything else, with a great skill
and effective genius and an inspired subtlety of language, but
it was only part of his genius and not the whole. There is too
a touch mostly wanting in spite of his strength and excellence,
—the touch of an absolute, an intensely inspired or revealing
inevitability; few quite supreme poets have that in abundance,
in others it comes only by occasional jets or flashes.
When I said there were no greater poets than Homer and
Shakespeare, I was thinking of their essential poetic force and
beauty—not of the scope of their work as a whole, for there are
poets greater in their range......

[Whiskey_Lord]

I face life and death on their own terms. I don't believe in blowing sunshine up anyone's ass just to make them feel that life has some transcendent meaning. I stand by my point that eternal bliss would quickly turn into eternal boredom, even if it takes millions of years to become bored. The more I think about it, the more I realize that heaven/nirvana/whatever is an utterly childish fantasy and a cheap sales pitch.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by Borachio

Do you ever feel happy? Would you like to feel happier more often?

That depends what you mean by "happy". A Benthamite pleasure, sure, I had a nice cup of coffee this morning. But an Aristotilean eudaimonia? Probably not, if I'm honest with you.

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I really like the terms of the new religion in the OP , and as long as I don't have to do stuff , I'm in .

[Whiskey_Lord]

Honestly, I think the best deal would combine reincarnation with a world without poverty. After all, the only problem with being reincarnated is the high chance of being born into some third world hellhole. Also, a lack of interventionist deities would be nice too.

[Joecoolyo]

Originally Posted by Borachio

No, they don't.
Check out Diogenes on Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicis...ontemporary%29

[Borachio]

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by Whiskey_Lord

I face life and death on their own terms. I don't believe in blowing sunshine up anyone's ass just to make them feel that life has some transcendent meaning. I stand by my point that eternal bliss would quickly turn into eternal boredom, even if it takes millions of years to become bored. The more I think about it, the more I realize that heaven/nirvana/whatever is an utterly childish fantasy and a cheap sales pitch.

Sounds like Diogenes to me, sir. I shall make sure not to come between you and the sun.

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

That depends what you mean by "happy". A Benthamite pleasure, sure, I had a nice cup of coffee this morning. But an Aristotilean eudaimonia? Probably not, if I'm honest with you.

I hope you have a nice cup of coffee tomorrow morning.

Originally Posted by rugbyLEAGUEfan

I really like the terms of the new religion in the OP , and as long as I don't have to do stuff , I'm in .

Are we not all free agents?

Originally Posted by Whiskey_Lord

Honestly, I think the best deal would combine reincarnation with a world without poverty. After all, the only problem with being reincarnated is the high chance of being born into some third world hellhole. Also, a lack of interventionist deities would be nice too.

Yes, I like the idea of reincarnation. What has intrigued me though is why people always think that they will be reincarnated at some future date. Rather than an earlier one(!). I see no reason to suppose it will be either. I have no information about this matter. Do you?

Originally Posted by Joecoolyo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicis...ontemporary%29

Oh, look this is. New Cynics.
edit:

distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society

What did you think of Diogenes?

[Borachio]

Sonnet

Spoiler:

Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.

[Whiskey_Lord]

How does not desiring/caring about an afterlife or religion in general make one a cynic?

[Borachio]

From 714 Things To Be Cynical About

Spoiler:

1. leaders
2. followers
3. outlaws
4. lawyers
5. backstabbers
6. brown-nosers
7. yes-men
8. middlemen
9. alpha males
10. women who try to be alpha males
11. good ol' boys who become president
12. bimbos who become celebrities
13. all other celebrities
14. prima donnas
15. dictators
16. people who take dictation
17. workaholics
18. slackers who pretend to be workaholics
19. hypocrites
20. charlatans
21. MBA's
22. mindless office drones who get promoted to management
23. conformists
24. non-conformists
25. poseurs

and on

714 is only the beginning.

[Borachio]

Originally Posted by Whiskey_Lord

How does not desiring/caring about an afterlife or religion in general make one a cynic?

It doesn't necessarily. How might you best describe yourself? (I don't need to know)

But in any case what's wrong with being a cynic?

[Whiskey_Lord]

I suppose the best label would be material humanist.

[Tycho Brahe]

I just want a place where you can have funerals and weddings. With music. Elvis is nice.

Also pancakes.

[Borachio]

humanism and dualism

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by Whiskey_Lord

I suppose the best label would be material humanist.

Yes. I like the material bit. I have always thought (and this is only my personal view) that the world is essentially only one thing, i.e. I've never taken to any dualistic funny business - for my own use. It simply doesn't work for me. I'm happy with people who say there's nothing but the material. And equally happy with those who say there's nothing but the spiritual. But if you say that there's both I don't see what mechanism could pass information between the two.

On the other hand, if someone is happy thinking along the lines of a dualistic world, I cannot conceive of any reason why they should not do so.

Of humanism, I know virtually nothing. What can you tell me?

Originally Posted by Tycho Brahe

I just want a place where you can have funerals and weddings. With music. Elvis is nice.

Also pancakes.

Right. Funerals. Weddings. Elvis. Silly Hats. Pancakes. (all optional)

[Perfection]

I most certainly am not a member of the self-denying religion.

Did you know that the most important practice of the self-denying religion is denying your own membership?