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Nice story Rev- and it has the ring of truth about it. And from what I have read of your philosophies on line, I think that you would have enjoyed the outcome. You seem to have had a full and interesting life, and still a long way to go!

TT. I am female, not that that makes any difference to the pleasure I would have greeting Rev,( who would be shouting "you were wrong"), in the afterlife.

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Quote:
TT. I am female, not that that makes any difference to the pleasure I would have greeting Rev,( who would be shouting "you were wrong"), in the afterlife.


But if you don't believe in the afterlife, why make a statement to this affect.
And I'm not wrong. wink

Also, what exactly was the inspiration for telling me you are female?


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Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
Quote:
TT. I am female, not that that makes any difference to the pleasure I would have greeting Rev,( who would be shouting "you were wrong"), in the afterlife.


But if you don't believe in the afterlife, why make a statement to this affect.

While awaiting Ellis' reply, let me take a stab at the answer. I think there are actually two answers. Firstly, Ellis, said 'would', not 'will'; but I think we turn to this kind of communication when an argument is sufficiently academic, and where, like it not, there's nothing anyone can do or say to prove whatever the truth may be, nor to change it. Bearing that in mind, we're sometimes wise enough to take a breath, put aside the clever arguments and philosophising, and just be good to each other. smile


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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I was making a joke---!!! A pleasantry!!! Some banter!!!

Thank you rede for the coherent explanation regarding the technique of discussing sensitive things without descending into name-calling. As you say, neither side in this discussion can prove the truth of their belief, but we can remain civil, friendly and continue dialogue.

TT --As you used the male pronoun-he- to refer to me in an earlier post I corrected you, as I have found that people prefer to know a person's gender and feel foolish if they do not. Also while my gender may be of absolutely no interest to you (and why should it?) I find it is very important to me.


Last edited by Ellis; 06/24/08 03:40 AM. Reason: further information
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Well I don't feel foolish in using he, since I didn't know. And since I now know it has some importance to you, I will bear in mind that fact in future reference to your posts.

I do have a question tho. Why are people so sensitive to what others feel? Wouldn't it be enough to allow anyone to express their thoughts and feelings, just as you would allow yourself to express thoughts and feelings without trying to make it personal?

Where do we lose the scope of generosity to allow freedom of expression without making it inappropriate to do so? Is it when someone decides to make it personal that the rule is made for everyone?
Is dialogue reduced to pleasant truth rather than being direct? I have to say, I never have felt any aggression in any of the posts I have made, and I do believe in letting it all out regardless of personal stresses.
If you try to hold anything back the less clear you are about what you have to say, and then opinions can get emotional and reactive.
Why are people so afraid of their own feelings and especially the feelings of others?


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TT- You leap from claiming the right to be as offensive as you wish , to assuming that others who do not are 'afraid of their own feelings". I think that is not so. A careful reading of my posts will leave you in no doubt as to my feelings on a variety of topics. Civility does not indicate cowardice.

Also- further to the gender thing. The assumption that is usually made is that a poster is male (unless they have a very girly logo). I, for instance, do not know if you are a lady turtle or a gentleman one. This of course does not matter, and whichever I assume, I will be 50% right. So that's all good isn't it, as you don't seem to mind!

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No I don't claim the right to be offensive. I claim the right to recognize (as anyone can) the nature of the being behind the feelings and the language. Sometimes people become passionate about their topics, their beliefs, and some are very direct in their expression.
I have had people call me names and utter obscenities and I have not reacted by doing the same but have offered them the opportunity to express themselves so that they can get beyond the feelings, and to the heart of the matter. But few are willing to go that far. They come to a crashing halt when they hit the emotional walls of egoic stress.
People take offense at topics that are not offensive or intended to be offensive.
People react to subject matter because of association to stress in their nervous system.
Relative truths sometimes trigger sensitivity in those who have an association to words or feelings that make them uncomfortable.
Choice or free will to react is within the power of each individual. Yet those who would argue that someone can reach inside of them and flip the switches to their emotions insist that he or she made them angry, this or that made them angry, because they aren't taking responsibility for their power of observance or their intelligence to be objective. Intelligence often gives way to emotional puppet strings.
Everything becomes subjective and censorship becomes a way of life so that everyone that lives subjectively can no longer be disturbed.
We lock our doors, put up fences and hide out from any possible threat, hoping that the powers that be will protect us from any threats, and I'm not talking physical fences or doors.

Just yesterday I saw a little boy rushing toward the door of a store with his mother behind him. The boy fell down and started crying. Immediately the mother picked up the hand of the boy and started kissing it over and over while saying, "Think of the chocolate chip cookie, think of the chocolate chip cookie.."
While she was doing this she was looking at me in total embarrassment of the situation. She was uncomfortable, not because she thought the child was hurt, he wasn't, he was more surprised by it all than he was damaged, in fact he got right back on his feet and bolted for the store entrance.
Parents tell their crying kids to shoosh, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about and they do this because they are uncomfortable with it. Expression is something they are uncomfortable with and they teach their children to be uncomfortable.
Boys don't cry and girls don't fight, these were the rules I was brought up on. Boys were meant to be men and women subservient.

Psychologically humans live in fear of making mistakes, because when they did in school and in front of their peers, they were criticized or laughed at.

Show me where I have been offensive.


Regarding the gender thing. I made the reference to the name Ellis which I did associate as male. My mistake, and your right I don't mind whether you think I'm either male or female.
I'm not insecure about people making mistakes or projecting, and I don't need to be validated for what I already experience.

Since were on the subject of reincarnation lets talk about what creates and how energy has an effect or cause has effect.

Here's an excerpt from 'The Second Coming of Christ" The Ressurrection of the Christ Within You by Paramahansa Yogananda
"Take heed ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven"--Mathew 18:10

"Take care that you do not disdain the simple, humble consciousness of children. Cosmic Vibration, which I feel within me, and the heavenly Cosmic Light, which I behold within me, reveal that astral bodies of children, 'their angels,' who passed on from the earth with no free-will opportunity to acquire wisdom get a chance between incarnations with their simple unworldly consciousness to behold the materialized form of any being or saint in whose face shines the consciousness of God the Father."

"Angels" here refers to the astral bodies or luminous forms of nineteen elements in which souls with the past karmic patterns remain encased after death."
The "Father which is in heaven" signifies the presence of God in the transcendental realm behind the astral light of the finer
causal light of wisdom.
A person identified with his physical body and its material surroundings cannot see that the whole world is light and not matter, and thus cannot be conscious of the underlying presence of God. Saints who through meditation have awakened the superconsciousness can perceive the Heavenly Father hidden behind and transcendent within His dream vibrations of light and consciousness. Also blessed to glimpse the "face of my Father" are children with pure consciousness who die before becoming fully identified with the material body and the sensory consciousness with its ignorance-perpetuating karma.


The typical waking state adult has lost the ability to teach their children of God because they do not have an experience of God (their true nature). So adults teach their children to identify with pain and pleasure and to attempt to control the nature of pain and pleasure. Humans have become distracted by their need to protect themselves from pain and to increase pleasure, so that they live in eternal suffering that is the fear of the world around them.
This is the hell that is spoken of in the bible, not some far off pit of fire as some superstitious traditionalists believe exists in an afterlife of oblivion.
We create a momentum of events (effects), by the thoughts we keep inside of us that is the cause to effect. The beliefs of the world and who we are, are the stories that set the stage of life.
The soul doesn't die like the human body dies, and its consciousness doesn't leave its foundation of omniscience to lose itself in thought and experience as the ego does. Our awareness is ultimately pliable enough to become aware of physical reality and the reality of transcendent being.

The ego identifies with its clothing, yet we can change our clothes easily without being damaged. The soul however in its immersion into the ego takes with it the memories and the identification of the clothes it wears continually treading the path of identification with the physical rather than the eternal, passing from one thought to another without stepping back to become aware of itself.
Only when one stops and turns the attention away from the external senses and habits of belief in the physical body and its feelings does one become witness to the soul and God within everything.
Until then everything is separate, a possible threat, and people become victim to themselves and to God.


The golden rule is meant to be applied in vision to God in everything. Instead the ego applies it according to personal beliefs. I will treat you as I would have you treat me to leave all my illusions and fears intact and undisturbed, and my desires of the ego satisfied.
To the enlightened this means having the blind follow the blind and is not True compassion.

Namaste means I recognize the God in you. In that vain the Golden rule is, that one speaks from God to God and illusions are cut away with the sword of compassion and wisdom.

Gen 27:40 And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.


And as to the attachment of the body and of the love that binds one to flesh.
Luke 12:51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.

53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Last edited by Tutor Turtle; 06/24/08 05:30 PM.

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TT wrote...Show me where I have been offensive.

You haven't. I carefully said that giving people the right to be offensive does not lead to more courageous behaviour. As you admit in your post above people have sometimes replied to you with abuse, taking your perceived offence as permission to be abusive back, a common result, and one which, as you have discovered, precludes further discussion. That is a shame as everyone has a right to be listened to.


TT wrote:
Namaste means I recognize the God in you. In that vain (vein) the Golden rule is, that one speaks from God to God and illusions are cut away with the sword of compassion and wisdom.

I confess to having absolutely no idea what this bit means. I had thought that the Golden Rule is --Treat others as you would have them treat you-- which actually is what I am saying in the rest of this post.


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Quote:

You haven't. I carefully said that giving people the right to be offensive does not lead to more courageous behaviour.

No, actually you said. and I quote:
Quote:
TT- You leap from claiming the right to be as offensive as you wish...
Which I never implied or claimed.
Quote:
As you admit in your post above people have sometimes replied to you with abuse, taking your perceived offence as permission to be abusive back, a common result, and one which, as you have discovered, precludes further discussion.

It doesn't preclude further discussion it only slows things down while they get lost in their emotions. Eventually they either come to their senses or just decide they do not want to talk to me about the subject because it can't be manipulated in the direction they want it to go.
Everyone does have the right to express but it does not mean they have the right to be heard. The result of separation means that people have their own agenda and if that agenda doesn't like anything that doesn't meet the terms of that agenda, then there is no right to demanding someone listen to you. It should be commonly accepted that one be objective enough to allow freedom of expression without someone being invested in what it is that is being said to them.
Abuse is rarely a consequence to acceptance of expression. Generally one becomes abusive when someone or something threatens their freedom of expression and belief. And for someone whose beliefs are as stable as a house of cards, it doesn't take much to upset their fragile sense of self worth.
Those that have become abusive have become sensitized to the boundaries that they believe have been put onto them by the experiences of the past.
People with psychosis are stressed and frustrated with their experience of relationship, and it usually has begun early in childhood.
Quote:

TT wrote:
Namaste means I recognize the God in you. In that vain (vein) the Golden rule is, that one speaks from God to God and illusions are cut away with the sword of compassion and wisdom.

I confess to having absolutely no idea what this bit means. I had thought that the Golden Rule is --Treat others as you would have them treat you-- which actually is what I am saying in the rest of this post.

Yeah, well when Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss" a lot of people thought it meant do what makes you happy. But what do people really want?
Happiness for most is temporary. Relationships, money, things of relative values, lose their luster after time and the search is on for something different.
True happiness comes from the expansion of consciousness where life is appreciated at deeper levels of comprehension and boredom doesn't creep in to corrode the shiny things we attach ourselves to.
What Joseph Campbell really meant was expand your consciousness permanently rather than temporarily, and then again, and again, and again, ad infinitum...
One would have to see the God within themselves to recognize it in another, and the highest one could hold another in is their highest relationship to God.

If you were suffering from a lack of self worth and feared any sign that was pointing to your inferiority even if it were imagined, you might treat others as if they were as paranoid as you were.
Compassion from the standpoint of an adult when dealing with the inexperience of a child is to raise their level of understanding so that they do not fall into the same illusion or hole as they did when they were struggling with the unknown.

The Golden rule was meant to lead one to the highest comprehension of themselves, and that same comprehensive being that is in everyone, The Sons and Daughters of God, equality at the level of the absolute and the soul.
Obviously there are different levels of conscious awareness and levels of perception where one would not treat the ego and its illusions with more illusions.

A simple example is that you would not treat a child with goo goo language in hope that it would treat you the same way. As a responsible adult you would treat a child like it was a real human being with the capacity to realize truth and reality, even if it destroys their illusions of fantasy.( by the way this does not mean taking the imagination out of children, it just means you don't lie to them because you believe they don't have the capacity to understand you)
As such if you become a grown up amongst grown ups. Your psychological approach may be more than their ego will accept and as such they will feel threatened and retaliate with the idea that they are being attacked.

1 Cor 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
This passage actually has to do with evolving from an adult with no spiritual knowledge of the Self/Soul, to Self realization or enlightenment.
In the science of Yoga, or Union of spirit and the manifest, the most gracious thing one can do for someone who lives in a dream is to help them wake up rather than to let them sleep for the duration of their physical lifetime.
If they refuse to awaken then you walk away, but the wisdom of true compassion is not to join one in their suffering when you can see they are suffering from illusions, but to offer them a way out of their suffering.
Generally speaking this invariably gets the ego going and creates emotional expression.


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ABOUT THE GOLDEN RULE--with DAVID KEATING
http://www.goldenruleradical.org/

I have met David Keating and heard him speak, twice. Basically, good stuff. His work is recommended by www.pathwayschurch.ca and by the Family Life Foundation, www.flfcanada.com


G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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Nice Golden Rule video Rev, though I would not include the American oath thing myself as it includes a reference to the Creator. I think the only one to do so. Isn't it amazing that since humans have been able to communicate philosophical thoughts this one idea has had such resonance. It really must seriously mean something basic for all of us. Well, I can hope so!

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The reference to the creator or to God, has a rather huge resonance also.
I think psychologically it becomes more tangible to try and create a harmony within the group idea because everyone desires happiness. In fact that is the basic desire of all humans, to be happy. All relationships are needed to be happy, money is needed to be happy, health is needed to be happy, material things are needed to be happy. Or at least this is the idea when it comes to desire and the fulfillment of desire.
God may not be so easily encapsulated in the thoughts of desire and happiness because of the whole subservient and punishment thing. But God has played a huge role in the history of this planet.
So I would imagine that in the imaginings of most, that to be happy, one would need to include a God that would fit into the whole happiness scheme of things. After all why create a rule if there is no need for the rule. Obviously if there were a God of happiness, there would be a built in tendency to act according to the nature of God's desire to be perfectly happy.
Relatively speaking, to the needs of sensory fulfillment, happiness is the number one thing to the living, and it is projected into the afterlife since humans have no idea what life is like, after life...
Must be the same with the needs etc.

Last edited by Tutor Turtle; 06/26/08 04:58 PM.

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TT The point about leaving out god in this context is that the quotes are describing a human characteristic and range through recorded history. They also encompass many cultures whose religious beliefs differ. But this idea has evolved without the intervention of a deity, or the need to believe in one, because it speaks to us all. Whilst the idea of including reference to a Creator may have resonance for many, it is not universal, and so its message , in this context may be blunted. ( Since you brought this up I would like to say that I also have issue with the concept of the 'pursuit' of happiness as a goal for life. "Whatever turns you on" does not seem to me to be a very sound foundation for nation-building, more a suggestion for hedonistic fun--- but it is a great tag-line!)

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Regardless of religious beliefs, God is the very thing that binds humanity together. That religion or beliefs in God turn people on or off is due to the associative ideas about what God is or isn't.

Over 90% of humanity believes in some sort of God or God presence, never mind that the idea varies mildly or in extremes. Resonance is resonance, there is an underlying spiritual connection in Humanity and it is that connection, that spirituality of humanity, that has created religion.

The golden rule could not apply if we were not equal somehow or some way. Just to say we are human is not enough, for the human ego is not what binds us together, it is something far greater and less destructive than the ego.
The ego might want to treat another well enough but it does it not because it is its nature, the ego gives love to get love. The ego sets conditions.The ego creates differences in humanity and it measures itself against personal agendas and judgment of others. To the ego the golden rule is subjective, it is something that fits into the personal box. If the ego feels violated it does not treat another as it wants to be treated it treats another as it has perceived it has been treated, to get revenge and to obtain satisfaction for something it believes has been taken.
What there is in humanity that gives without conditions is spirit or the heart of humanity, and it makes no conditions of another when it gives. It gives because it expands naturally when it gives even if it gets nothing in return.

Getting to the happiness thing; That is what the ego is all about. Getting something for its efforts.
Most desires are based on fulfillment. But what is relative that is always fulfilling and creates more joy in ones life as one lives?

Who is full enough of love to give love without having to ask for it. Who loves without any conditions?
A dog has more of a capacity and a tendency to give love unconditionally than most humans are willing to.

Last edited by Tutor Turtle; 06/27/08 03:27 AM.

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Quote:
A dog has more of a capacity and a tendency to give love unconditionally than most humans are willing to.
Are you serious? What is the evidence that pets--dogs or cats, etc--will stay with and serve, and forgive, with good will, an abusive owner?

BTW, I would not blame any animal who bit or walked away from an abusive owner.

Last edited by Revlgking; 06/29/08 01:51 AM.

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Have you never owned a dog?

Quote:
I would not blame any animal who bit or walked away from an abusive owner.

Of course you wouldn't but then you don't think like a dog. You think like a human, with judgment, feelings, and an ego all intact.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070817223354AAEOL6x
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071222172514AArEaAd
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070728143248AAkacwc
http://www.physorg.com/news5011.html

By the way, I only put the links there because you seem to be a deterministic kind of person, who believes in facts to back up what you call truth and reality.
Tho these links may not be scientific or should I say established as a rule. I think most dog owners know that dogs give much more than they often receive from their owners.

They don't judge, they don't think about what they do or don't like, and forgiveness for a dog is not an issue, for a dog doesn't live in the past.
This does not mean a dog cannot be conditioned to respond to stimulus. If you beat a dog enough times it will associate your presence with pain as it becomes part of its system of neural imprinting, but it will not wait in anticipation for its next beating as would a human in the same situation.

The closest humans get to living in innocence similar to the way animals do, is when they are children and do not drag the preconceptions that adults do regarding possibility or probability.


Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."

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I ADMIT, THE FOLLOWING IS A VERBOSE POST:
========================================
Erich From, in his book, Man For Himself (1947), wrote: "Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve." Here are some of the problem-solvers:

PAVLOV--his life and research.
About his great experiments, for which he won the Nobel Prize (physiology and neurology) in 1904. BTW, I think he was a devout Orthodox Christian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov
==========
Quote:
Ivan Pavlov was born in Ryazan, Russia. He began his higher education as a student at the Ryazan Ecclesiastical Seminary, but then dropped out and enrolled in the University of Saint Petersburg to study the natural sciences. He received his doctorate in 1879.

In the 1890s, Pavlov was investigating the gastric function of dogs by externalizing a salivary gland so he could collect, measure and analyze the saliva and what response it had to food under different conditions. He noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before food coated with chili powder was actually delivered to their mouths, and set out to investigate this "psychic secretion", as he called it....

===========
Legacy

Pavlov's term "conditional reflex" ("условный рефлекс") was mistranslated from the Russian as "conditioned reflex", and other scientists reading his work concluded that since such reflexes were conditioned, they must be produced by a process called conditioning. As Pavlov's work became known in the West, particularly through the writings of John B. Watson, the idea of "conditioning" as an automatic form of learning became a key concept in the developing specialism of comparative psychology, and the general approach to psychology that underlay it, behaviorism. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell was an enthusiastic advocate of the importance of Pavlov's work for philosophy of mind.

Pavlov's research on conditional reflexes greatly influenced not only science, but also popular culture. The phrase "Pavlov's dog" is often used to describe someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than use critical thinking. Pavlovian conditioning was a major theme in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World, and also to a large degree in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.

It is popularly believed that Pavlov always signaled the occurrence of food by ringing a bell. However, his writings record the use of a wide variety of stimuli, including whistles, metronomes, tuning forks, and a range of visual stimuli, in addition to ringing a bell. Catania cast doubt on whether Pavlov ever actually used a bell in his famous experiments. Littman tentatively attributed the popular imagery to Pavlov’s contemporaries Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev and John B. Watson, until Thomas found several references that unambiguously stated Pavlov did, indeed, use a bell.


In my opinion (IMO)--an expression I am fond of using--Pavlov, probably without really being aware of what he had done, helped clarify the fact that we are human beings and not just animal beings devoid of conscious awareness.

Animal beings, dominated by their instincts, their heredity and environment, their somas and psyches, their nature and nurture seem to be incapable of feeling pride, incapable of saying: I think therefore I am; incapable of feeling moral shame and guilt. In short, animals are incapable of being sinners.

While we are capable of being animal-like beings--I am thinking of psychopaths and sociopaths, incapable of making humane and moral choices--most of us are not just animal beings. We are what I like to call pneuma-psychosomatic beings, capable of being humane, or in-humane, capable of being sinners--feeling shame and guilt when we make sinful and immoral choices.

ABOUT DR.THOMAS SZASZ, PSYCHIATRIST
Check out the work of Thomas Szasz--with whom I corresponded, years ago--a very controversial psychiatrist. He vigorously attacked his own profession--especially the analysts and behaviourists--for its failure to point out the need for people, with the help of science, to take personal responsibility for their mental health.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Mental_Illness
=======================================================
DR. KARL MENNINGER--another important name in this whole field--took a similar point of view. Personal repentance-- changing ones thinking--can help people to have better mental health

http://www.drbilllong.com/EvenMoreWords/UnsinningI.html
Quote:
Unsinning I

Bill Long 1/29/05

John Donne, Sin and the 21st Century

In 1973 the world-renowned psychologist Karl Menninger made headlines by writing the book, Whatever Became of Sin?

It might be more accurate to say that he made "sermon headlines" by this title, since I remember countless preachers from those days making reference to Menninger, even though the reaction of the secular press to the book was tepid. Nevertheless, his point was that public discourse about sin, which was so much a part of our nation's heritage, had seemingly fallen out of vogue, and that this probably contributed to a growing sense of personal irresponsibility in the 1960s and early 1970s.

For example (and this is my example), one could hardly imagine Bill Clinton issuing the following proclamation, which actually was issued by Abraham Lincoln:

"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon."

This kind of sentiment, much less the language, seems out of touch with America. Just to show that I am an equal-opportunity Presidential critic, could one imagine the George Bush of the Presidential debates of 2004, where he couldn't imagine a mistake he had made in the previous four years of governing, saying those bolded words?

Sin in America ...



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TT wrote:
Over 90% of humanity believes in some sort of God or God presence, never mind that the idea varies mildly or in extremes.

In this country the numbers of people putting 'no relgion' on census forms is over 35 %!

Further to the conditioning of humans. It is entirely possible to change behaviour by training. Behaviour modification, using many of the same techniques as animal training can be very successful indeed.

Rev-- The most successful form of conditioning for humans or animals is intermittent reinforcement. It means you do not always reward desired behaviour but do so randomly. It's very effective. It is also, sadly, true that the mere fact of attention from an abuser will be sought by the child, adult or animal being abused as any attention is preferable to being ignored.

We are animals, intelligent ones maybe, but our behaviour and reactions are similar to animals.

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Perhaps we could say that "being ignored" is so painful because it abuses the spirit of the person ignored. It is a form of pneumatological abuse.

Ellis, you comment: "We are animals, intelligent ones maybe, but our behaviour and reactions are similar to animals."

BTW, let come up with list of things which make animals animals, and humans humans. I am most interested in: What makes us humane beings? As are some animals.
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I will start of by complimenting the animals:
1. Animals do not destroy most of the nutrients of their foods by cooking them.


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Quote:
In this country the numbers of people putting 'no relgion' on census forms is over 35 %!

People are not always aware of their tendency to stereotype, but there are a large number of those who believe in a God who also don't consider themselves religious. I would be one of them. The reflection of God in my experience is more consistent than the thoughts that create any beliefs, being that God is part and parcel to the thoughts and experience.
Quote:

Further to the conditioning of humans. It is entirely possible to change behaviour by training. Behaviour modification, using many of the same techniques as animal training can be very successful indeed.
This is true particularly those humans who are less than cognizant of their relationship with the world. However, just as hypnosis requires the consent or availability of the mind in the acceptance of simple ideas, not all are so easily programmed by suggestive commands.
Animals do not have the ability to make the choice to evolve or devolve within their lifetime as humans do. This sets humans apart from the lower animal species.


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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