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Post by Chuckie on Jul 6, 2020 10:07:25 GMT -5
... hasn't been on EITHER site since June 20th. Hope all is well...
CHEERS! Chuckie
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Post by bluelotus65 on Jul 6, 2020 12:24:37 GMT -5
I see that communication and mutual support has really dropped off during these difficult times. Sending out loving vibes!!
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Pooka
Jul 6, 2020 16:37:48 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 6, 2020 16:37:48 GMT -5
I know many people who have taken a break from social media lately. With everything going on in the world today sometimes a person needs to tune out and regain their equilibrium. I hope that is the case and he’s not sick.
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Pooka
Jul 16, 2020 0:19:42 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by dwayner2 on Jul 16, 2020 0:19:42 GMT -5
Same here. I’ll dig out my old contact list and see if I have his number. Hell, when I headed down to Mom’s in late March I completely forgot all about checking my email for 2 months. Maybe the same is up with Pooka, just busy dealing with all this pandemic stuff and craziness in the streets.
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Post by pooka on Jul 16, 2020 3:07:29 GMT -5
I'm indestructible, mostly. My computer died weeks ago, so I just said the heck with it all for a while. It's forced decompression. The only way I'm writing this now is I borrowed a tower from my brother to do a few things. I have to see if I can retrieve off of my dead computer all my files, bookmarks, usernames & passwords. You can never remember them all. I have a connector I bought some time ago to hook a hard drive up like an external drive. You just plug it into a USB. The only username & password I have memorized it my email I've had for more than twenty years. I rarely use it unless I'm ordering something. I've been known to not check it for weeks sometimes. I have another email account from my cable/net/phone company I never used. I'm not even sure how to get in their system to get new username & password. I've had that same account for more than twenty years too. I canceled the cable a while ago, so now it's just net/phone.
I've never really joined the constantly being connected world. I have a dumb phone that I spend more time charging it than I do using it, but I try to keep it with me. I have a home phone that has a rotary dial, although I do have some touch tone ones too. But the one I mostly answer is an old rotary dial trim-line. When I'm home, you can call me or knock on the door. If I'm not home, I might get a cell call or not. My ringer get turned down sometimes in my pocket. It get turned off on it's own too, so cell calls are a hit & miss.
Most know I mostly like being left alone. I venture out now & again in the real world. The internet is the ultimate "What" box. I little of everything to explore. Pick a subject, & follow the rabbit hole.
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Pooka
Jul 16, 2020 10:27:05 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by dwayner2 on Jul 16, 2020 10:27:05 GMT -5
Your alive!!!! Glad to see you back. 😃👍
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Pooka
Jul 17, 2020 15:23:39 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 17, 2020 15:23:39 GMT -5
I am that voice in the dark who's mostly ignored, because I sound like a bit of a nut.
Many years ago I turn my back on all my few friends & my past up till then, because it was no longer healthy for me to go on participating with what the associations had become. I had to close that book & start anew. Even though as in the Blanche DuBois line from "A Streetcar Named Desire", "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.", I'm still overly independent & self reliant. I look at the world around me & wonder, has it always been so full of idiots & sheep & the generally mad lunatics. For me, I have no friends, because I have an overly high standard for that definition. There are those I am favorably associated with, but not friends. I have turned in on myself, living mostly as a hermit. In my travels in life, I try to be a good egg & try to be a force for wisdom & thoughtful contemplation, & aid my fellow travelers in life. But in many way, I'm selfish to a fault. I live my life to please myself without being a burden to others. My mother sat me down once to tell me she was setting up a deal to buy my grandmother's house so I would always have a place to be, because she knew I would always be alone. I think I know what she way thinking, but it's a bit more complicated than I'll go into now. In the Eagles song Desperado, one of my favorites, it says,
"Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy She'll beat you if she's able. You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.
Now, it seems to me some fine things Have been laid upon your table.
But you only want the ones that you can't get".
Later it says,
"And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone". So in some ways for me, life is a prison to be enured. I can't shut out the bad & ignore it as so many can. The poison always leaks in, spoiling what joy I try to enjoy. I find it tough to content in a world full of pain & suffering. I will never be happy as long as I'm a thinking being. I will revel in the nuggets of joy I find as I separate the wheat from the chaff of life, but the roller coaster is wearing me thin. Death will be my only relief, although it's not something I seek. I've already lived past my "best if used by date". I just take life one day at a time. As in the first lines from the song, "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one But I know that you got your reasons These things that are pleasin' you Can hurt you somehow". The world hurts me incessantly. Sometimes I wish I could turn off the contemplative part of my brain, & only let the utilitarian part take over. I think too much, & it hurts.
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Pooka
Jul 17, 2020 18:43:41 GMT -5
Post by mach12 on Jul 17, 2020 18:43:41 GMT -5
Man Pooka, I can't imagine anyone thinking of you as a bit of a nut as you say. I like how you think outside of the box. You've got a good head on your shoulders and you put it to good use, plus you are always so willing to help others. I'm glad to hear you're okay!
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Pooka
Jul 18, 2020 2:33:19 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 18, 2020 2:33:19 GMT -5
Let's say I'm one with uncommon intellect & definite well thought out opinions from an early age that may vary from the accepted norms. I have an indefinable scope of interests that excludes sports for the most part. Sorry, I just never saw the fascination beyond a kind of tribal ritual mock warfare. Too often, toxic masculinity. I guess I didn't inherit any competitive genes. The winning, losing dynamic never clicked with me. There's a kind of built in arrogance of superiority thing going on there. A kind of I'm better than you that's just sour to me. I don't begrudge it for anyone else. I just don't care.
I can clearly remember thinking in first, second & third grade at St. Joseph's catholic school that we were being taught to think, but then we go to church every morning & are being fed the hocus pocus of the bible as if it were any more credible than Santa Claus or the Easter bunny or any other pagan mythology. I'm sorry if that offends anyone. The nuns were non to thrilled with my absolute boredom & disinterest in church. I shouldn't even go into Sister Mary Alfred, the principle, but she favored pulling hair & pinching cheeks as two of her forms of torture for the disobedient & disrespectful. I failed those three grades, but my parent insisted I be pass to the next grade twice. At the third fail, they had me tested by a physiologist at the local collage. I tell this story more often than I should. When we went for the report, me, mom & dad went into the office, & the first thing that happened was I said, "hey dad, look that's a self portrait of Vincent van Goth" as I pointed to a print hanging on the wall behind the physiologist. The gist of the report was that I was of above average intellect. It was the school that wasn't engaging me, & not me. So I started fourth grade at Vogel Elementary School, which was closer to home. Four short blocks & two long blocks. I did fine, though not stellar. School was never of great interest to me. It was something I endured as best I could. Perhaps today I might be judged learning impaired, put on drugs to focus my attention span, & given more individual teaching, but that all water under the bridge now.
I'm now what you get. I used to describe my self as a curmudgeon, but a while back I got a book at the thrift store called "2107 Curious Words, Sayings & Expression From White Elephant To Song & Dance". There was most of a page on that word. From it's first being defined through the second who's author had totally misread the first, then later finding an earlier form from Roman times, which meaning was very different. The first define it as having an evil, or avaricious heart. The Roman usage was basically meant a corn hider to avoid paying taxes on grain. Fun fact, before what we know as corn came to the old world from north America, wheat & barley were called corn. Well I don't think there's anything evil, or avaricious about my heart, so I won't use that term anymore unless it fits. Avaricious meaning having or showing an extreme greed for wealth or material gain is definitely not me.
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Pooka
Jul 18, 2020 8:36:50 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 18, 2020 8:36:50 GMT -5
It isn’t a bad thing that there really is not a word that pigeonholes you. You seem to know and understand yourself pretty well—and it would be good if more people could say the same about themselves. Look how much trouble is caused in the world by people pretending to be something they’re not, and pretending to know something they don’t. I think you just are who you are, and there is no guile in you, so you don’t try to outwardly conform to make others feel comfortable. And you don’t have to. We all like you just they way you are on here!
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Pooka
Jul 18, 2020 12:34:15 GMT -5
nana likes this
Post by pooka on Jul 18, 2020 12:34:15 GMT -5
I struggled for years with not calling myself any smarter than anyone else. Too many smart people laud themselves above common ignorant folk as if it's some sort of wealth they have that the lower class lacks. There's a line from George Carlin were he says, "Think about how smart the average person is, then think that half of them are dumber than that". I've come to realize there's all kinds in this world. There are some educated people that seem dumb as a post. Then there's others with little or no education, or at least formal education that seem wiser than their station in life. I've come to the conclusion that there's all kinds of talents in the spectrum of human kind. Some we seem to value more highly than others. I guess that's from many millennia of hierarchical tinkering by those who feel the need place people on a sliding scale from village idiot through the average laborer up to leaders & kings. A kind of social ranking that's really about keeping people in their place. A kind of human pecking order if you will. That's just how societies naturally function. It isn't about being fair or not. It's about how we rank ourselves to function as a group.
Humans are just a mixed bag. A collection of tendencies, behaviors & hereditary evolutionary traits gathered since we crawled out of the primordial soup. In many ways, we make no sense at all. In other ways, we are perfectly explainable. So I'm just a guy who knows some stuff, & I don't mind sharing. I'm not a social climber or really into mixing in much. If you like me, fine, if you don't, fine. I am who I am with no apologies. I do my best to be agreeable & helpful, because I hope we all are. The old golden rule idea.
So many speak of their freedom, as if it's an excuse to do anything they want, & everyone else be damned. They confuse freedom from liberty. Liberty is freedom with limits of functioning as a group. I learned very early that my freedom ends where your nose begins. I have the right to swing my arms, but not if your nose is in the way. In all our endeavors in life in our pursuit for happiness, we always have to think of the next guy. You may think you have the right to shout from your rooftop, but if I'm your neighbor, I have the right to not have to listen to you If I don't want to. Liberty is about finding a happy middle ground so we can stand to live together as a group in some kind of harmony.
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Pooka
Jul 19, 2020 13:07:34 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 19, 2020 13:07:34 GMT -5
For some people, position in life is everything. It’s interesting to me that you used the phrase “pecking order”, because I recently got to see the real thing in action. I had 4 chickens killed by what we think was either a raccoon or fisher cat. (My neighbor lost 6!) Whatever predator it was, was nocturnal and the killing spree was ended by us keeping our chickens cooped up and not letting them out until later in the morning when people were up and about, but I was down to only seven and in need of some more chickens to keep me and my family in the egg style to which we’ve become accustomed. A friend of a friend had a big flock of about 30 or more chickens and was looking to downsize, so I went over and we snagged four replacement chickens.
As luck would have it, one of the random ones I managed to grab must have been his Chicken #1, because when I released them into the run MY Chicken #1 instantly recognized the threat to her position and did they ever go at it! The feathers literally flew. It was a real battle, but I guess mine had the home field advantage and won out. The loser retired to a corner of the coop to figuratively lick her wounds. I watched the other three chickens for a bit, but although there was some kerfuffle and pecking going on, they seemed content enough and after two days you would never know they hadn’t been here all their lives. I think it’s likely they were say, Chickens #24, 25, and 26 in their old coop, so becoming Chickens 8, 9, and 10 in my coop was like coming up in the world for them.
But the erstwhile top chicken that got her butt kicked? She was so sad and I have to say depressed by her experience that it was like her spirit had been broken. Her tail was droopy, her posture sagged and she didn’t leave the coop to go out in the yard at all for three days, and every time I’d go check on her she would look at me and literally moan. It was like she had lost her will to live. I called the guy and asked if I could bring her back and swap her for a different one, because it was too sad to see her like that. He said sure, so I went to get her to put her in the cat carrier. She didn’t put up even token resistance. Her whole demeanor was that of a chicken who no longer cared what happened to her.
But when we opened up the cat carrier on her home farm and took her out? For a few seconds she huddled miserably on the ground waiting for whatever death was surely coming. Then as she looked around you could see it dawn on her that she was home. She stood up straight. Her tail raised up. Her chest puffed out. She began to gaze imperiously around. Some of the other chickens (who had probably been glad to see her go) came over and one tried to give her a peck and was immediately sent packing, and then she started striding around, pecking anyone who didn’t deferentially scurry out of her way fast enough—Big Mama was back. The transformation was amazing.
I spent a few moments being a little more observant than I was the first time, and grabbed two chickens that seemed sufficiently low on the totem pole, thanked the guy for not thinking I was insane, and took them back to my chicken run, where the three others from before seemed to recognize them and welcome them into the flock. Peace reigns once more in Nana’s chicken yard, and I’m back up now to an even dozen, a good number.
The point of this long story though, is how you can relate it to humans, like you mentioned, Pooka. That chicken could probably have easily made herself Chicken #2 or 3 in my yard without too much trouble, but it seems it was all or nothing with her, just as some people seem to need the adulation of others and to be the one with the most money, or the biggest house, and to feel they are above everyone else. Sadly, if that position gets taken away, they don’t just lose the money or the house, but their sense of self. And maintaining that place above others necessitates keeping others down, which is the source of a lot of human misery in this world. So much better, in my view, for everyone to find that happy middle ground you spoke of and live together in harmony as a group, like the other chickens who fit themselves into the flock and are living happy chicken lives without fuss. We’d all be better off without the human versions of Chicken #1 throwing their weight around, wouldn’t we...
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Pooka
Jul 19, 2020 15:13:32 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 19, 2020 15:13:32 GMT -5
Your observations in the chicken yard is a real life study in animal behavior. We humans are just another animal, despite trying to rank us above the rest of the animal kingdom. Every time they've set a bar as the mark that separates us from the rest, later study finds other creature show those traits. As I remember, tool making & use was the first one. We are so arrogant as humans, we feel we must be the top beast. Daily news proves we can be more beastly than anything else that creeps, crawls, swims or fly's. If anything, we are a plague on the land, consuming & destroying everything in our path. Other creatures live in a balanced harmony with their environment. We have lost that in our progress & advancement. We are killing the planet
Logic & reason are our only hope to moderate our destructive primitive traits. Some other animals may demonstrate those two processes, but not in way we've yet observed that I know of. It seems most creature can live in a kind of harmony in smaller to moderate sized groups. But when we get into large & huge groups, bad traits can more easily creep in & even flourish. It's the same with big bureaucracies. The bigger they are, the more chance of thing getting out of hand or corrupted. With too many balls in the air, you can't watch them all.
If you've ever seen the film Pascali's Island, staring Ben Kingsley, he plays a spy for the old Ottoman Empire in 1908 on a small obscure Greek island. He's one of many all over the Empire. He get paid & sends in his reports, but no one is reading these reports anymore. They just get filed away by clerks like a boulder rolling down a hill. A whole network of spy's, pay masters & file clerks. Put in place then forgotten. A useless arm of the government burning through money to no end. A waste. Bureaucracy gone wrong
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Pooka
Jul 20, 2020 7:11:37 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 20, 2020 7:11:37 GMT -5
I bet there’s a lot of that kind of waste going on in governments both large and small. Often things are done simply because that’s the way they’ve always been done and no one has stopped to question if there’s any reason to change them. It’s good to question, but so often, in our country at least, when things do get questioned, instead of thoughtful analysis and planning, we get big pendulum swings of action and reaction: “Government programs are wasteful! Let’s get rid of functioning government!!” “Oh no, there’s a problem! Let’s throw money at it willy nilly and see what happens!”
We humans can be so shortsighted and emotional, and neither trait lends itself to effective problem solving. For instance, I read once that the cheapest way for governments to solve the problem of homelessness is to give the homeless an apartment to live in. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but a decent roof over their head and a place to cook meals. No restrictions on eligibility; alcoholics, drug addicts and mentally ill people in addition to those who are just down on their luck. Just give them a place to live. But that “feels” wrong to most of us. “Why should they get something for nothing? I work hard to pay for my house and they should too. I don’t want my taxes going to some freeloaders!” That’s how we think, so we refuse to do the simple thing and so we end up paying far more in emergency room treatments and policing and lost productivity and probably a bunch of other costs that I can’t even think of related to homelessness. It’s just that the paying is spread out and not going directly to solve the problem, so we tend not to “feel” that it’s related. And they’re all still homeless anyway.
Would some people game the system? Probably. We’d have to be OK with a certain amount of that. Make the apartments spartan enough that most people who are able to get back on their feet would want to move on to a bigger, better place as soon as they can. But for the chronically homeless the solution isn’t shelters, or job training or a revolving door in and out of jails and hospitals. It’s give them a home. It would be cheaper to society, and certainly more humane. But just try running for office on that platform and see how far you get.
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Pooka
Jul 22, 2020 1:10:53 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 22, 2020 1:10:53 GMT -5
In George Washington's Farewell Address as president of United States, he urged Americans to avoid excessive political party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances with other nations, so partisan politics that is our bane has been with us since nearly our founding. In more recent times, it's become a blood sport with nearly no holds barred. Politicians tell us whatever they think they can get away with to enlist our support for their side. They lie, cheat & steal so they can to win at all cost. It's become about winning for their team more than good governing. The top tactic is to use fear to appeal to our lowest & most primitive traits to garner our support. They then do what ever pleases their big donors & supporters rather than what objectively good for all. They use wedge issues to divide & conquer. They pander to what ever group they think they need to win, then mostly only give lip service.
I hate to say it, but too much, religion has been used as a ploy to confuse us to vote against our best interests. Thomas Paine said, I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. [ The Age of Reason]
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. [The Age of Reason] Also,
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. [The Age of Reason]
Science is the true theology. [Thomas Paine quoted in Emerson, The Mind on Fire p. 153]
. . . to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead. [The Crisis, quoted in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p.127] All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. [The Age of Reason]
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion, but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. [The Age of Reason]
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter. [The Age of Reason]
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most destructive to the peace of man since man began to exist. Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses, who gave an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and then rape the daughters. One of the most horrible atrocities found in the literature of any nation. I would not dishonor my Creator's name by attaching it to this filthy book. [The Age of Reason] You might think I'm anti religion, but I'm not. I just think it has no place in government or to rule the public sphere. Unfortunately we elect our leader mostly by our "feels" as you put it. Religion shapes those "feels". Con men & politicians use this to manipulate us to their ends. False faith is the oldest con there is. As Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute". We seem to practice that old Protestant idea that if you work hard, you'll do OK, but if you're on hard times, it's your fault, & god is punishing you for something. It doesn't seem to matter that the game is fixed against many of us from the get go by those in power to funnel all gains to the top. Those at the bottom become expendable. It doesn't matter that reforms in almost every facet of our lives makes good fiscal sense as a whole, but we let our biases throw the game. We pick sides & do battle, & nobody ever really wins. We just get incessant chaos, & everyone claims the moral high ground. Money & power win, & the rest of us are out of luck.
I don't have an answer to our collective madness, but logic & reason rather than fanatical partisanship would be a start. I fear we are doomed to our tribal squabbles though. If we don't act in a united way, sooner or later we can be led down a path of no return. If we are not all equal, we become dominoes to knock down on the road to hell.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You can plug in any number of groups into that & it works the same way. There are always "in" & "out" groups battling it out like a colossal game of king of the hill. It becomes a game of winner take all, when it should be sharing fairly. The good of all. I will always remember J. Robert Oppenheimer comment of recalling the quote " I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." when witnessing the first atom bomb test. Nuclear annihilation used to be our big fear, but now we've discovered we're destroying the globe in slow motion & all we do is fight among ourselves for scraps. As John Cleese said at least once. "I'd like to write a book called There Is No Hope". He says it in jest, at least mostly. Just be a good person or neighbor. Be kind to all, & try to do good in the world around you. Live & let live. There's plenty enough for all. If we can't live in harmony, we're all doomed sooner or later.
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Pooka
Jul 23, 2020 7:48:53 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 23, 2020 7:48:53 GMT -5
Sorry for these screeds. I must sound like a mad prophet howling in the wilderness. Maybe it's the isolation & social kerfuffles going on now that's set me off on a tirade. I'm disheartened by the state of the world. It's no wonder so many chose to turn a blind eye, & go through life wearing blinders to the ugly sides of humanity. I think on the words of Hamlet.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them.
I'm too weary for a fight.
Again Hamlet,
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all....
Since this is nearly my only outlet for expression due to my hermit ways, the turmoil in my head spills out onto the page. My inward contemplation go beyond thought & become realized on the screen. I suppose it helps to vent the turbulence of my mind. I am disheartened as often as I gratified. I try to look beyond tomorrow, but my view of today obscures my line of sight. I look for the stars, but they are obscured by clouds.
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Pooka
Jul 23, 2020 8:47:23 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 23, 2020 8:47:23 GMT -5
Go ahead and spill. I find your screeds, as you call them, educational and interesting. And perhaps someone will read your words and will recognize some of that mental infidelity Thomas Paine spoke of in themselves and start on the path of using reason instead of emotional habits to view the world. That would be a good thing. You could maybe write letters to the editor of your local paper. You never know when a person’s mind may open a crack and let some fresh air and light in!
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Pooka
Jul 26, 2020 13:11:15 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 26, 2020 13:11:15 GMT -5
I have survived life mostly by keeping a low profile, or by not being noticed, all the while watching, observing the world I live in. Literally a fly on the wall. I'm not a letter writer, or a rebel rouser. All I ever wanted was to live in peace with all things. Universal harmony if you will.
The human condition is so filled with flaws as to confound any reckoning. Virtually all faiths or collective ways of thinking seem to get cooped by those in power as in the words of John Paine are " human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." Each seem to teach their each brand was the only true path, & all others were somehow evil, & a path to some kind of damnation. Though most preach a good game. They all seemed rotten at their core, or wholly corrupted. Each faith, though having many who mean well, but in the end, each are fatally flawed, despite good intentions. They all seem to have that us against the rest kind of view. They seemed to have been each cultures way of understanding things they couldn't know, or unifying groups into a common front. In the end, they either pass away on their own, or become a reason for conflict. A call to war over different way of thinking. Very uncivilized if you ask me.
For me, as Paine said, "My own mind is my own Church." Also, "Science is the true theology." There are some who want to preach that science is some kind of conspiracy to disprove their faith or want to use it as a trick to prove their faith. The two are very different. One is a striving to know. The other is thinking you can know what you couldn't possibly know. It's all theory without proof that you must accept without question. That may work for the most sheepish of us, but humans are questioning beings. As Shakespeare's line for Hamlet, "there's the rub." Faith must not be questioned. Science is all questions.
Science is a tried & true way of knowing. You observe, formulate theory, & experiment to confirm or disprove your theory, then draw a conclusion. There's no hocus pocus or magic mirrors. It's very rigorous. Scientists love to prove each other wrong. Over time, we've built up a body of knowledge that's been thoroughly vetted to be beyond dispute, but we're always reaching to add to it. It's a never ending quest.
Faith is a whole nother thing. It's all based on tradition & scripture handed down from unknown sources. Then there's the interpretation that then lead to all kinds of circular logic that can be used to say or do anything you want, be it benevolent or horrific. The list of atrocities condoned by faith is endless. The list of good works is equally endless. In my mind, faith is a mental crutch that aids us along as we shoot ourselves in the foot repeatedly. I'm unsure of the net gain. I guess that question will be debated until the end of time.
I'm not calling for any kind of Vulcan logical discipline like Star Trek depicts. We'll never overcome our emotional primitive side completely. But being civilized should mean we're far more civil to one another than we are now. I'd mark our report card with a "N" in effort.
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Pooka
Jul 28, 2020 11:53:28 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 28, 2020 11:53:28 GMT -5
Needs Improvement for sure!
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Pooka
Jul 28, 2020 16:40:47 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 28, 2020 16:40:47 GMT -5
A few days into my posts in this thread, when I was out on break at work, I caught part of this Ted Talk on PBS radio. It was about designing & building the last continental temple for the Bahá'í faith in South America. I had heard about this faith in passing, I never delved into it. They aren't a group that draws much press.
This intrigued enough to look at least a bit further.
The building almost defies description. Nine luminescence petals of an imminence flower budding to the sky, or nine glowing veils billowing from some inner wind inflating them from within. Nine representing completeness in their faith. Their temples are open on all side, because they welcoming those of all faiths & none. They teach that all different faiths are but facets of faith in one god. What a novel idea. We are all of the same faith, but we just haven't realized it. They teach we are all member of one family of humankind. All equal in the eyes of god. Any work done in the spirit of service is a form prayer. If you must believe in a god, here's a faith to believe in. If you're not inclined to believe in god, that OK too. You're still welcome. That's a faith that defies detractors. I can see how they get no press. They don't attract conflicts as they don't exclude anyone. All are welcome. All are one. Some may say it sounds like some hippy dippy nonsense, but everything I read of them seem beyond disputation. If there's any faith that could herald world peace, this is it. It's something to ruminate on anyway. Here's another video on the construction of their North American temple near Chicago. It gives some background to the faiths tenets.
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Pooka
Jul 29, 2020 18:44:30 GMT -5
Post by nana on Jul 29, 2020 18:44:30 GMT -5
I’m going to wait to watch these until August 7, when we will get new internet. Two 12 minute videos would probably not even download, they way our satellite has slowed down. I wonder if I have Adjit Pai and the Trump Administration to thank for that...We can’t watch movies, or stream music or do any of the things people with good internet take for granted. I don’t even think our new internet is going to be so great either, but I hear from other folks who have it that when it’s working it’s at least fast. There’s always a trade-off somewhere. I get to live in a beautiful place, but I have sucky internet. It could be worse.
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Pooka
Jul 29, 2020 19:11:21 GMT -5
Post by pooka on Jul 29, 2020 19:11:21 GMT -5
Yeah, fast internet is a given in most cities of any size, but if you live in many rural areas, it's a hit or miss situation. I've had the same provider for over twenty years with little complaint. They've been bought out by bigger & bigger providers two or three times. The TV selection got to be so worthless & overpriced, I finally dropped it. The phone & internet is still overpriced, but it's a manageable number. I could probably complain, or switch & get it cheaper. I'm just not interested in the hassle.
If it helps in the mean time, the radio version of the Ted Talk at least gives you the audio if it works for you.
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