If it *were* a fact, it's still insulting and should have been left to
the messenging system and not the public forum.

Regardless, it's not true. If it were, I never would have found the
faith I belong to. It's not like I were born into a practicing family or
anything. Hell, I think my family's religion would be under the catagory
of "don't give a damn quasi-christian".

Poetnartist wrote:
“If it *were* a fact, it's still insulting and should have been left to
the messenging system and not the public forum.”

No one insulted you. I merely pointed out the fact that your arguments
are indeed faith-based. Which you even freely admit.

Being faith-based is to think in a box. That’s a fact, not a judgmental
opinion. All dogmatic religious views necessarily amount to thinking in
a box. That’s the very nature of what they are and why they are called
‘faith-based’. If you are insulted by that that’s your problem not
mine.

I was merely pointing out the FACT that you decide what the truth will
be FIRST and then all your arguments are geared toward supporting that
conclusion. You aren’t interested in searching for truth, you claim to
already have it.

That’s not an insult. That just an observation of precisely what you
are doing.

It was also in response to your post where you said, “I'm listening with
an open mind”

But you’re not. You admit that you’re not. You have a preconceived
faith-based truth that you must support at all costs and everything you
take in must be conformed to your fundamental faith-based truth. That’s
not having an open mind.

So this has nothing at all to do with any attempt to ‘insult’ you. I’m
merely pointing out that your claim to have an open mind is not true.
Based on your very own admission that your core beliefs are faith-based.

So if you are insulted that’s your own problem. I was just addressing
the issues that YOU brought up. And showing why they aren’t true.
There’s no intent on my part to insult you. I have no desire to insult
anyone. But I’m not going to baby you either. I’ll tell you like it
is. It’s up to you to handle that without being insulted by it.

I said my *spiritual* views were faith based. As yours are. That's part
of the definitional function of the spiritual world- we lack enough
information to draw any conclusions with scientific accuracy.


But my *pragmatic* views are, well, pragmatism. No more or less
"biased" than my opinion that being able to do things better, easier, or
faster makes something "superior" to a less capable model or design. If
you produced a car that was cheaper, more durable, safer and/or better
fuel efficiency- but was otherwise identical in every way to another
car. Your design would be the superior one.

And I've said repeatedly, that other than a few points in the beginning
(which really, only you've tried to challenge on any level)- I haven't
been using my spiritual beliefs at all.

you are only superior when the concept of this question serves no
meaning.....and you have a million offspring and all other opposing
males/female lay dead and broken......or something like that.... i think
its stated on page 34,675 paragraph 5,732 line 962. in the book "the
laws of nature"

Wait!! hold your weapons over your heads & chant!!

WE ARE & WILL ALWAYS BE, THE SUPERIOR NATION!!

Hello Lisa..

In following your post earlier Voil, I found something of interest, that
sparked a thought, (so to speak),

Not a direct quote, but a train of thought, in essence...

With the human condition requiring separation, as an observer, of
themselves, and the desire to define themselves as separate...it sparked
a memory, and an observation, which I had posted in another thread, and
wanted to share..


"I had spent every day of my childhood, as soon as I could escape the
house, from five years old, out in nature, in the bushland, alone, with
all the native bugs, birds and creatures that resided there.
I didn't see, nor speak to humans, until I wandered into the house
looking for food.

I was far from introverted, but extremely reflective by nature, and
spent hours learning, and understanding how each part of the bushland,
fit and complimented the all, until I could not find a beginning and an
ending...(and this is also from a very young age, from what I recall,
six, maybe seven years old, I had a 'big picture',a 'light bulb' moment,
and saw the 'details in the All, but saw the All within the details'..)"

Interesting, in the context of your discussion points, I didn't then,
nor do I now, see me separate. I did see nature doing it's thing quite
happily without me, I was not integral to it's happenings, but nor
separate from...almost insignificant.

I was observing, as such, and by my observations, saw where I fit, where
humans fit, however ungainly, into the weave of the planet's life...and
although not integral, somehow, almost an attachment, within the scheme
of ecology and evolution..almost a misfire.

I find your train of thought and direction of discussion refreshing, and
another perspective to consider...trying to see the relevance between
the structures of the brain, and how each part of the brain works, their
independence from each part, and how humans perceive...

In my observations as a child, I was mostly watching my older brother
when we were out in the woods, was that man has the ability to destroy
or to preserve. My brother was, and in a way still is, a destroyer. When
I asked him why, just as an example, he would destroy an anthill, he
used to answer that ants bite and sting. I had a pleasure in watching
ants, gathering dirt, cadavers and pine needles for their hills, and
to feed the young, didn't understand by then that it happened for a
purpose, that ants were called at home the police of the woods because
they kept the woods clean in many ways. The only thing I understood was,
that the woods wouldn't be the same without ants.
Men still have the ability and the choice to destroy or preserve, sadly
most have chosen to destroy in one way or the other, does that not make
us rather inferior, the not understanding of the ways of nature that
every animal knows by instinct?

Maybe I should have said

Understanding the way of nature and not acting on it, wouldn't that make
us inferior?

Sorry

I had similar observations, Invisible, (give it time, I will get used to
it, is hard, when I can see you..)

I saw the way water flowed over rock, the grooves worn,the 'give' in the
granite, the way fallen leaves decomposed, and became soil, the insects
who existed in the decomposition, and accelerated it.. the trees
providing sanctuary to many, many diverse creatures, and also materials
to make their homes, within the trees...th co-existing of all of nature,
from the ants, through to the eagles...and the pythons who when given
opportunity ate the eagles eggs, or the crows...

Was the python destructive? No, it was just the natural order, the
balance of things.

All existed through each other, down to the earth worms aerating the
soil, and added their casts, which nourished the trees, all of it,
interdependent, and none superior...

That is right, but man destroys this flow of things, disturbs it,
even thought he has the choice not to, doesn't that make it different?

Yes, I believe it does...in my opinion, as a then six/seven year old,
and to this day, I feel the natural order is interrupted, and changed,
by humankind,( I don't want to use gender...I prefer species)...it is
how I arrived at perceiving humans to be the misfit it the evolutionary
chain, not the superior one.

And yet we have to be a link in the chain, a fairly weak one, but a link
as we have the ability to preserve also?

I am unclear by what you mean preserve....

Would you explain the train of thought please?

I am curious to understand it...

Riveting!!!

I think this is SOFT 'razor's edge' kind of presence! Not a science, not
a belief, just a sort of intuitive practice that doesn't fight, doesn't
worry, simply let's things be 'in a given moment'!

Very interesting that you should convey with such ease, and from your
own experience, what is for me the essential paradox for human beings to
be present to 'life'.

**************************************************************
YOU SAID:

" Interesting, in the context of your discussion points,

I didn't then, nor do I now, see me separate.

I did see nature doing it's thing quite happily without me, I was not
integral to it's happenings, but nor separate from...almost
insignificant. "


" I was observing, as such, and by my observations,

saw where I fit, where humans fit, however ungainly, into the weave of
the planet's life

...and although not integral, somehow, almost an attachment, within the
scheme of ecology and evolution..almost a misfire. "

************************************************************


A read that is fascinating and speaks to that dimension you're evoking
here JESS, is
"Jacques Chavalier, The History of Human Thouhght",
depicts the evolution and transmission, from generation to generation,
of this universal 'knowledge' through thought, transmitted in our genes
to our 'primitive brain'.

He points to this 'invisible reality', hidden behind the illusions, or
representations of reality our brain and thought process make-up.
He speaks of a perception 'gap' between what we 'see', then 'perceive',
then 'call', and 'what is', as the imperative 'drive' of all human
search: trying 'impossibly' to bridge the 'GAP'.

Kind of meets with the piece I mentionned earlier from 'Lachelier'.
How the world occurs for humans:

"... THE WORLD AS AN UNTHINKABLE THOUGHT, SUSPENDED TO A THOUGHT THAT
THINKS ITSELF."

Sorry people!!!

I am referring to Jess's earlier post in the above thread.

Preserve as in leaving things going their natural way instead of
interfering and destroying.
All our life long the way before us forks constantly and each time we
have the choice. I can choose the way of destruction or the way of
preservation. Humankind as a whole has chosen the way of destruction by
building weapons, huge powerstations and things like that. Only a
minority chooses preservation, they are called dreamers or given other
names.
If we as a whole would choose preservation, would try to make things
more in accordance with nature, would that make us a stronger link in
the chain, or would we just be the same?

Oh, that brings back a term, a thought, an understanding, although not
my words, but I suspect 'adopted' as mine through it's appropriateness
to me..."I am but a dreamer, dreaming, in this dream called Life."

Invisible,

YOU SAID:

" I can choose the way of destruction or the way of
preservation "


In the way you put it,
... does it tie to the notion of conducting ourselves as 'CARETAKERS of
the planet' (respectful) vs 'OWNERS' (abusers)?
Or, is there more to it then that?