Very right. This business of describing what we want of a partner is a bit ridiculous. For things like wanting a girl who leaves close or doesn't smoke, for example, I understand...but personalities are so complex. People saying things like, "I want a guy who makes me laugh and knows how to have a good time," is just ridiculous.

But...I guess people are ridiculous. ;-)

It makes me happy to know that you watch or have watched Star Trek, Jeanniebean.

Sexual Desire - Yes, this is exactly the conclusion I've come to thus far. Love is love. What has been termed "romantic love," in my view, is but Love + Sexual Desire.

I'd be interested to hear other logical arguments for a complicated picture of things. Since I came to the opinion I expressed above, I haven't seen a better description of Love, hence my posing the question to you guys.


Krisma -

As for what you wrote about not having sex with relative...
I agree with what you've written, however one of my professors in 2007 claimed that the dangers of inbreeding are just a stereotype. He claimed that inbreeding is a taboo so sacred to most societies that this stereotype evolved naturally. I'm not sure if he was just screwing with us though. ;-)

Yet another professor of a Genetics class mentioned that the scent we give off contains markers that suggest our genetic makeup. Certain other people smell nice to us because our sense of smell picks up from their scent that they are genetically different from us. Thus, we are programmed to be more attracted (at least in a small way) to people who introduce genetic variation to our gene pool. Interesting, huh?

Nothingness is Form and Form is Nothingness.

Buddhist philosophy also mentions this sort of principle. Quantum Mechanics also has found this to be true on a subatomic level: virtual particles spontaneously come into existence then are annihilated. Well, that may sound fantastical, but this understanding has allowed us to explain many things. Anyway...

String Theory tells us that matter/energy can be thought as strings vibrating in a higher dimension. In that sense, we don't quite exist, do we? At least not in the way we think we do. Yet we perceive ourselves and we perceive our surroundings. In actuality, what we experience are just symbols that we can interpret that only represent reality.

...but for all points and purposes, what we experience *is* reality...at least somewhat.

In short, the answer to your question is a pretty big mindf*ck.

Another way of looking at things is to realize that the vast majority of space contained within the boundary of every atom is emptiness. Thus, quite literally, we are principally made of empty space.

O_o



Very strange indeed. Perhaps your mind and your humanity were playing tricks on your heart. ^_^

Another possibility is to take your experience literally. We were forged in the bellies of stars and we are the children of the heavens. Perhaps there is some residual mark of the birthplace of the atoms that compose you, and perhaps your mind has somehow interpreted this mark as an engram within your memories. O_O

Sounds pretty far fetched, if you ask me, but it's a very romantic idea, isn't it?

That bit about your little brother is sort of creepy, but way cool. What a strange question from a child.

Oh, did you think I got someone pregnant? No, not yet anyways... And hopefully not for a while!



lmao...good for me it doesn't work like that else I would've been aborted at 13!

Actually, I fully support Family Planning Policies like the one China enforces. If China hadn't created the policy, everyone would be starving over there just like in India.

Of course, I don't support a One Child Policy, but neither does China. ;-) That's just a rumor over here in the west. A One Child Policy, I feel, doesn't quite account for the complexity of the situation...

Granted, there are some women who use abortion as a casual form of birth control, but those women number very few. Abortion is a serious thing for the majority of people.

I believe in the government protecting its citizens. However, although you are destroying a potential life, there is something else to gain as well. One gains an opportunity to postpone having a child until that child's quality of life can be much better.

Who is to say what will happen in a child's life, that the child would have been better off born now versus four years later? We cannot say for certain, but we can make a good argument that the life of a child of a poor 16 year old might not be as good as the life of a child born to the same mother, but 10 years later when she has an education and some money.




I know this might be a strange standpoint, but if my mother had aborted me, she might have had another child at a less stressful time. That child might have been able to spend more time with her parents, might have been taught more things by her father, what have you. In short, perhaps it would have been better if my mother had aborted. Am I crazy to admit that? No, nor do I see that as a self-hating statement. I'm a realist and I try to do the best with what I've got. ;-) And I don't have such a big pride to admit that someone else might have had a better life than me had they been born in my place, but 4 years later.

A citizen should have no gender in the eyes of the law, I believe. At least in general. ;-)

A citizen should have no gender in the eyes of the law, I believe. At least in general. ;-)

If we were really smart, it'd be us helping Iran out, and not the Russians. Imagine if we were the ones supervising the project, working with Iran, helping Iran deal with its future oil shortage? Irani-US relations would be fantastic and this business of being afraid of nukes would be non-existent. In fact, if our countries were good friends, you'd imagine that Iran would help us out if **** ever went down.

Sure, more power to them, perhaps, but then I'd also have to say to Iran: "More power to you guys if you can make nukes too!"

You may say Iran is a crazy radical government, but I'd reply that we ought to examine our friend Israel a bit. Israel hasn't shown itself to be much better than Iran. This Israeli-Palestinian impasse has gone on for how long now? How long has Israel lived outside the scope of international law? Decades --

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. However...

"Chats perturbés" means "disturbed cats."

"Perturbé chats" means "cats disturbed" except the adjective doesn't agree with the noun, not to mention the word order is backward.

SO:
"Preuve, il y a des manières multiples de peler mentalement - perturbé chats." Means...PROOF! There are multiple ways to peel it mentally. And P.S. You all are cats, but only one of you is disturbed!

lmao I must just suck at French. >_O


Lol, as for whether the Stimulus Package should include a clause about buying American goods, in particular steel, iron, etc....I think it may be the wrong way to do it.

A perhaps better way to do it would to throw tariffs or something similar on foreign goods so as to give American goods a fighting chance, but not complete superiority in the market. This would encourage more competition between the American industries and the Industries (cough CHINA/INDIA), rather than give American industries a monopoly over the American market. Ultimately, that sort of thing would benefit everyone...

Then again, does anyone know the mechanism by which the government would encourage the sale of domestic goods? Is it a tightening on imports or is it a huge tariff or what?

First, people don't know he's omnipotent. People claim they know, but in reality, they believe. ^_^

Second, if you like, then yes, "Life is but a dream."
However, that is not at all what I was suggesting. I said exactly what I meant. God conjured us out of nothingness with but a thought.

And I do feel that this describes exactly HOW God created us. He thought, "Let there be THIS!" and there was THIS. Tada, that simple. Further specification is irrelevant because no further specification is necessary or possible: As he thought, so it was!

You have an interesting idea though: For a being as powerful as God, perhaps a dream or thought in the mind of God is complex enough that the characters of his dream have their own sentience and free-will. Interesting thought, isn't it?

Personally, I think a giant, intergalactic robot created us. He did it after millenia of cruising about the galaxy chillin' with his homies. His homies were various species that he met up with. Some were sentient, some were not - meaning some were like us in intelligence, and others were like dogs or cats or what have you, except these beings were his homies, not his pets.

Yeah, so one day he sees this ball of rock and says, "Man, I want to make some life!"
So, he sits and he thinks. Finally, he decides on a method: creates the necessary atoms required for life, puts them in a certain area of the earth, and hits the place with electricity until RNA molecules form. The robot cares for the environmental state of the Earth, carefully changing our solar system about so as to create deterrents to asteroids, to create ample warmth, etc. Constantly, he watches the evolution of RNA into single-celled organisms into multi-celled organisms, etc. Finally, there are humans, and whenever we are almost extinct, he steps in a little to push us in the right direction.
Finally, when he saw that we were doing so-so not to bad on our own, he ups and leaves. That was around 200 AD. In his travels through the galaxy, he every once in a while wonders if those beings he saw evolve will still be alive the next time he visits, or if they'll have gone extinct or migrated to some other planet?

The End.

I think that makes more sense than GOD, so I'll go with it. Anyway, what should I call my new religion, guys?

My response:

Sometimes loving a child enough to let him or her go also means abortion. Now, I'm a guy, young and inexperienced, so take what I say lightly, of course. However, sometimes an extra mouth makes life extremely difficult for everyone in the family, especially if you are a single parent. It's difficult to say that a child would have been better off not being been born, but...well, sometimes life hands us the short stick, and sometimes the shorter stick is handed to those who grow up in difficult financial/parenting situations. =\

Again, I'm just a stupid 20 year old guy, but...sometimes, we're too afraid to admit that things will be difficult, that it might be better if we let go of that child we love.

Yeah, I don't feel very good saying these things, but anyhow --

This is terribly silly. If the prosecutors did their research, they'd realize that if this particle smasher does, in fact, create black holes (only one of the theoretical outcomes of this experiment), it would imply that tiny black holes are being generated all the time everywhere, just as new subatomic particles form and disappear all around us due to random collisions.

At least this is my understanding of that particular particle accelerator experiment as explained to me by my physics teacher last semester...

Hardly a cause for alarm.

From the thread in the "Science and Philosophy" section: http://mingle2.com/topic/show/204186

Love --

What is the difference between love that you feel for a friend/relative and love that you feel for someone you are *in love* with?



P.S. I repost this here because the way we think about love is sometimes also heavily affected by our religion.

Love --

What is the difference between love that you feel for a friend/relative and love that you feel for someone you are *in love* with?

Need we say more?

Have you seen any evidence that there isn't a God? I mean, why does a God necessarily have to be the God Judaism/Christianity/Islam describes?






Yes!

Yeah, for the most part, things are taken too seriously and life would be better with more laughter.

However, if someone is really heated up about how thousands of Palestinians are starving out in Gaza, are you going to say..."Well, at least they don't need SlimFast!" ? Some would make a wisecrack like that, which would really piss off some people. I think you'd agree that some things are sensitive and don't need to be made into a joke just yet.
...but even now, you can't joke much about the Holocaust, so maybe somethings are just off-limits.