We Are All The Same

[_random_]

Forget God...for he is dead....

Nietzsche was so right and I believe everyone should read his great works...if you trust in god...avoid the sun that is Nietzsche he burns through that trust and shows you the truth....

he said that we cannot stop..we must continue to evolve...not conform but evolve...do not let boundaries or limits stop you!




but thats the best stuff....

I'm not looking to become an atheist, but I might be interested in reading some Nietzche. What works would you recommend?

Also, what the hell has this to do with anything?

 

[Ajidica]

But seriously, find a dealer you can trust so you don't wind up buying laced weed again.

Still better than him robotripping, there is that.

 

[King Kalmah]

I'm not looking to become an atheist, but I might be interested in reading some Nietzche. What works would you recommend?

Also, what the hell has this to do with anything?

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is to be avoided...I was once Catholic...now I see...

hmmm...his early stuff is pretty good,but his later stuff is about the death of god and how we are to evolve and better ourselves...to become the Overman...many Germans misunderstood this...

As far as to what my statement has to do with being human?

EVERYTHING it has to do with being human...first step is to cast off religion...next step is to become philosophical and find why you are who you are...

search your being...don't be told who you are....

I think the Buddhists were on to something...

McChris knows about ROBO tripping...as do I...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqUmMCb4r-U

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

That sounds cool and stuff. What basis do you have at all for thinking that this is a truth of the universe?

It is the consciousness which determines everything. You just observe how things work on Earth. We observe evolution of species but what it realy is is a manifestation of Spirit and Consciousness.

 

[Borachio]

Well there's a good chance you're not - not in the usual sense, anyway.

If we try to come up with clear and precise rules for drawing the boundaries between one "thing" and the "next", we always seem to come to the conclusion that there is exactly one "thing" in the universe. It's called "the universe".

There is a way out of that conclusion, of course: to have unclear rules for drawing boundaries. Rules that are vague and arbitrary and convention-bound and that change in the middle of the game. Which then raises the puzzling question: why would anyone much care about which verdict those kind of rules delivered?

And just look at the price of that book!!

Doesn't matter how enlightening it is, at that price I'm going to stay in the pigsty.

We are all part of the whole.

Well, kind of obviously.

 

[civver_764]

Really? I bet you're wrong on this one.

Energy can neither be created or destroyed my friend We've always been and always will be.

It's not a fundamental truth if no one agrees with you and you thought it up during a weird trip.

Calling it a weird trip is bit disingenuous don't you think? Some substances are better described as keys to our minds than drugs.

And this isn't something I thought up, it's something which we all know but our minds have forgotten. I know now that it's true. There is no other, there is only us and we are one.

So what isn't remembered in the past never happened and didn't exist?

Hmm?

Once again, while thought-provoking, nothing you're saying seems to be grounded in anything useful, nor does there seem to be any reason to even make such statements of "truth" except for Conspiracy Keanu value.

This is something which Philosophers, Physicists, Spiritual Teachers, and other people have been saying for a long time. What we identify to be ourselves is actually just an illusion, a story created by us to explain what we experience. In fact the only thing that's really there is the pure experience, the very essence of "being", and it is from that that the universe comes.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah that's exactly how I used to justify everything to myself, but actually you are identifying objective meaning in whatever you consider to be undesirable with this moment. Why else would you care about it?

I don't really follow. Why does attributing meaning to something imply that I believe this meaning to be absolute and universal? Above all when the majority of instances in which I attribute meaning are instances in which that meaning only makes sense subjectively; I attribute my laptop the meaning of being in front of me, but that hardly implies that I think it's in front of everyone. So if you're willing to accept the existence of subjective meanings in that instance, as I presume you are, why isn't that refused simply because we move to a higher level of abstraction?

Life is a just story we all made up. There is no reason to take it seriously at all, it's just an illusion. "Subjective meaning" is you admitting that without wanting to take in the full implications of it.

"Cheer up, guys, it's just an illusion"?

I'm being flippant, obviously, but none the less it raises an important point. To declare life a mere "illusion", an irrational pass-time that we simply need to remove ourselves from, you accept complacence in the face of the most brutal oppressions. Why protest the Holocaust if nothing really matters? People live, people die, whatever. Caring would be objectivistic. For all the hippy-dippy clothing that we may care to dress it in, such an outlook is fundamentally nihilistic.

Amazing, and exactly true.

Why do you think people willingly imagine and then bow to a God as ruthless as cruel as Yahweh? The scariest thing of all is also the most obvious: Sh*t happens, then you die.

Exactwise. There is, perversely, more ready comfort to be found in the idea that we suffer at the whims of a psychotic space-wizard than in the idea that we suffer for no reason whatsoever.

 

[Borachio]

Energy can neither be created or destroyed my friend We've always been and always will be.

Only in a strictly defined sense can this be true. Think of a candle flame. Are you saying that when you blow it out it continues to exist? Supposing a human life is like that flame. It comes to an end, now doesn't it?

If on the other hand you're saying that "I am you and you are me" as in that song by who was it? then I'm happy to go along with the idea and say "Hello me. How am I?"

Calling it a weird trip is bit disingenuous don't you think? Some substances are better described as keys to our minds than drugs.

Now I really want to know the answer to this: What substance are you talking about here? MDMA perhaps?

And this isn't something I thought up, it's something which we all know but our minds have forgotten. I know now that it's true. There is no other, there is only us and we are one.


This is something which Philosophers, Physicists, Spiritual Teachers, and other people have been saying for a long time. What we identify to be ourselves is actually just an illusion, a story created by us to explain what we experience. In fact the only thing that's really there is the pure experience, the very essence of "being", and it is from that that the universe comes.

Yes. Well. The trick is to make it stick in my experience. This still looks like an intellectual realization to me. But good luck anyway.

 

[_random_]

first step is to cast off religion

I think the Buddhists were on to something...

Wait what?

 

[Dachs]

I'm not looking to become an atheist, but I might be interested in reading some Nietzche. What works would you recommend?

Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Die Geburt der Tragödie, Götzen-Dämmerung, and Ecce Homo. The first and second are probably the most useful for understanding Nietzsche core concepts like the eternal recurrence and the Overman. The third is a formulation of his Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy. The fourth and fifth are introductions to and reformulations of his previous work. Ecce Homo also contains Nietzsche-style humor, which is kind of fun.

Most importantly, though, read commentaries on Nietzsche. Attempting to parse what he has to say without reference to scholarly opinion is folly. Start with Kaufmann, but note that several other authors and philosophers have further developed Nietzsche interpretation.

Also, what the hell has this to do with anything?

[Intercourse] all.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Exactwise. There is, perversely, more ready comfort to be found in the idea that we suffer at the whims of a psychotic space-wizard than in the idea that we suffer for no reason whatsoever.

I find more comfort in thinking that no matter what the suffering is it cant have the last word in the universal experience. On the other hand infinite indefinable bliss can easily play that role.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Only in a strictly defined sense can this be true. Think of a candle flame. Are you saying that when you blow it out it continues to exist? Supposing a human life is like that flame. It comes to an end, now doesn't it?

If the energy changes the form it is not destroyed the same way you are not when you dress up before going out - you just change your clothes.

 

[Borachio]

If the energy changes the form it is not destroyed the same way you are not when you dress up before going out - you just change your clothes.

Now this is just silly.

Where does the flame go when you snuff it? It goes out. It is no longer there.

There is no flame when the candle is out. It hasn't transformed into another form. It is gone.

The candle has run out of fuel and the flame has ceased to be.

All things come to an end.

 

[Traitorfish]

If the energy changes the form it is not destroyed the same way you are not when you dress up before going out - you just change your clothes.

That analogy rather assumes that you aren't destroyed when you change your clothes, which I'd be ready to claim.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Now this is just silly.

Where does the flame go when you snuff it? It goes out. It is no longer there.

There is no flame when the candle is out. It hasn't transformed into another form. It is gone.

The candle has run out of fuel and the flame has ceased to be.

All things come to an end.

Yes, it has changed its form. You can say that by the law of conservation of energy.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

That analogy rather assumes that you aren't destroyed when you change your clothes, which I'd be ready to claim.

well there may be some exceptions of course...

 

[Murky]

Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Die Geburt der Tragödie, Götzen-Dämmerung, and Ecce Homo. The first and second are probably the most useful for understanding Nietzsche core concepts like the eternal recurrence and the Overman. The third is a formulation of his Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy. The fourth and fifth are introductions to and reformulations of his previous work. Ecce Homo also contains Nietzsche-style humor, which is kind of fun.

Most importantly, though, read commentaries on Nietzsche. Attempting to parse what he has to say without reference to scholarly opinion is folly. Start with Kaufmann, but note that several other authors and philosophers have further developed Nietzsche interpretation.

[Intercourse] all.

You do know that Nietzsche went insane in the end right? I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basketcase.

But seriously, he did have some good ideas. It'd be nice if more philosophers looked at things a bit more rationally and less emotionally.

 

[Borachio]

Yes, it has changed its form. You can say that by the law of conservation of energy.

I don't agree. It's a matter of definition.

An unlit candle shows no flame.

A lit candle has a flame.

A snuffed out candle has no flame.

The flame is not, then it is, then it is not again.


Let's try the analogy of a journey:

I begin a journey at my front door.

The journey continues to my destination, and ends.

 

[duckstab]

EVERYTHING it has to do with being human...first step is to cast off religion...next step is to become philosophical and find why you are who you are...

I think the Buddhists were on to something...

Wait what?

We were having a discussion in my Buddhist meditation group last week and one guy said, "Buddhism isn't a religion, but most Buddhists make a religion out of it."

I think the Buddha's analysis of the human condition was pretty much spot on. I see Buddhism as a time-tested set of methods for rewiring the human brain in a way that allows it to navigate the vicissitudes of existence with more joy and less struggle. And I continue to use those methods because they've worked for me.

Obviously, most people who call themselves Buddhists accept some metaphysical notions for which there is little or no hard evidence: rebirth and karma to start with, but also various mystical beliefs picked up when Buddhism encountered indigenous religions in places like Tibet. It's kind of a hot topic among western Buddhists these days, and I come down firmly in the secularist camp myself.

So is it a religion? I have no issue with the term, though I myself don't profess belief in any aspect of it that I can't at least verify in principle.

 

[Joecoolyo]

We're all made of the same material but it's arranged a bit differently for each individual.

Meh, how far can you really get with that though? I'm made out of the same building blocks as the trash can sitting next to me, so what?

Calling it a weird trip is bit disingenuous don't you think? Some substances are better described as keys to our minds than drugs.

Key to your mind?

What you're experiencing is basically your mind attempting to make sense (and failing to) of a bunch of foreign chemicals dicking around in it. You're not opening the key to your mind as much as you are just screwing with it and experiencing the results.