water said:
"That's news to me. Where does the Bible go "on and on" about this?"
Ecclesiastes, for example.
Ecclesiastes is about the importance of this life and what gives meaning to it, not how fleeting it is:
"I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
Yes, and all you can think in is these two extremes ...
Matter itself is not evil; evil comes when we identify with the matter.
It's a false dichotomy, I agree. But whether you think you are (or should be)
just spirit or
just body will effect where you look for identity; "there your heart will be".
"I think what you're talking about ..."
You know shit what I think.
I was responding to your reference to the Bible. You
told me that's what you thought it meant.
To remind you: You didn't care about the Gita or about Hinduism until I told you about it and started reading it. It was then that you took up studying it, because "If you are going to go into this, then I might as well, to see what you are doing". Remember?
You are a controlling freak, and you treat me like a little school girl. You came into this thread -- and yes, I want everyone reading here to know this -- just so you would steer me and correct me.
Don't flatter yourself. It's true that I didn't approach it from this specific angle until it became an issue, but I've been talking about religion for much longer than I've known you. I can't steer or correct you or anyone here, I don't have that power. If you take my arguments personally, it's because you identify closely with the position I'm arguing against. You certainly don't complain when I argue for the same point as you. The fact of the matter is: this isn't about you.
]"is where the Bible mentions short-sightedness, people who prefer immediate gratification rather than place their hope for salvation and justification in God"
Yet you just won't trust me that I know this, will you? You won't trust me that I have meant this.
It is just that things must be said your way, or they are no good.
Of course you know this, but that's not what the argument was. In this instance, you quoted "treasures in heaven" as an example of the Bible teaching how fleeting this life is. It
does say beauty is fleeting and possessions decay, but it doesn't undermine the value of life itself.
Have you actually ever sat down with the Bhagavad-Gita? Or do you know it only from internet readings and from what you read at CARM and Wikipedia?
I haven't seen what CARM has to say about it. I've mostly been spending time on Hindu websites and reading scholarly articles to get a broader perspective. I also read Ghandi's biography on wikipedia, which was insightful.
If I'd go by your advice, then I would be bound to think thus: Maybe, in some 20 years, I will begin to live ... But until then, I must hold out, wait patiently, and accumulate knowledge.
...
I must first find the meaning of my life, right? And the Bible can tell me that, right?
If you wait until you've accumulated "enough" knowledge before you begin to live, you'll never get to it. Not I, nor the Bible nor the Gita could ever be a substitute for your decisions. You'll hear many conflicting ideas and opinions, and not just from me. Why should it be more significant when
I disagree with you than anyone else? What you get from me is my perspective, and I try to make it meaningful for everyone who reads it by getting sources to back up my thoughts. Everybody knows I've put my faith in God, and that Christ is the reason why. My beliefs aren't aimed at you personally.
"It is pointless because the answers are already known, and they're part of the question, which is an attempt to understand them. You assume you can distinguish between what is "purely" you and what is "tainted"."
Always assuming to be smarter than me, the good patriarchalist that you are.
If I want to know what I think, I should just ask you, right?
My apologies, I'll rephrase:
People assume [/i]they[/i] can distinguish between what is "purely" them and what is "tainted". The impossibility of dissecting a personality like that is what makes the attempt futile. At most one can identify the origins of beliefs and try to modify them with new insights. It seemed applicable to the questioning you put forward: "What exactly does my mind have to do with me?" and "Whom does my ego belong to?", but I'll address this view to every reader except you, if that will help.
Everneo thinks I'm being self-righteous and you think I'm being patriarchal. What is it about my beliefs that cause such strong reactions? I'm not talking about right and wrong here, I just stand for a perspective among other perspectives. If it happens to challenge some preconceptions, great... otherwise, great.
"You never find out who you are, you become who you are."
Riiiiiight. And you have already become who you are, right? You might not admit so, but you have arrived. And now you can sit back and write your pundit little stories to people!
If you don't think it's true, provide an alternative or let it go. I have many of these little aphorisms, and I think they're true. I have reasons why I think they're true, but that still doesn't mean I think everybody should agree. Most of them I found
because people disagreed. Here's one I thought of this morning: "wanting to be free from desire is also a desire, so it cannot be something you can attain by trying".
Deterministic theories are all based on unhappiness; it is because people were unhappy that they thought up deterministic theories. Determinism is a way to make sense of unhappiness.
That doesn't make them any less valid, does it? It's also a generalization, like saying optimistic philosophies were thought up by happy people. Even if it were all true, the people who study them and follow their logic certainly are neither exclusively happy or exclusively depressed. The attitude makes no difference to the logic. Few serious philosophers put much stock in emotional arguments.
"Life is pointless if it's all there is; a snake biting it's own tail, trying to swallow itself."
This is depression speaking.
Actually, no it isn't. It might lead to depression, but it's an easy enough deduction to make:
If "everything leads to nothing"
then "everything leads to nothing". It's just that people tend to think of the head and the tail separately. "All is one and we must seek unity" the say, without realizing that "one" seeking "unity" is a vicious circle. I said it tries to swallow itself, because it's a problem trying to obviate itself.
The rest of your arguments amount to "...is
not!" Are you trying to provoke a similar reaction?
And if you are hurt by what I said: Good. It is proof that somewhere there, you still have a heart.
I'm hurt by the personal attack in response to a good-natured argument, yes. I understand that religious debates tend to get emotional, so I don't take it too personally. But knowing you as I do, I'm always upset to see you upset.
