Setanta wrote:You know, IFF, you babble on about losing the ego to attain a "higher consciousness." I have never met a single one of you spiritual mumbo-jumbo artists who is not a complete ego-centric elitist. There was absolutely nothing in that stream of drivel you posted which refers for a moment to the squalid conditions in which so much of the world is obliged to live, nor how to change that.
What is the is cause of all the poverty in the world? Is it because there is simply not enough resources to support the world's population, or is it it the inequality in the distribution of those resources. It seems likely to me that it is the latter. It is human greed and insensitivity to the suffering of others. What causes people to be greedy and insensitive? It is preoccupation with acquiring more, with identifying your self with possessions and status. If I have more, it makes me somehow better, happier. This is an unenlightened view. Self-realization is the answer. When you get in touch with the source of happiness within you, there is a natural generosity that arises. "Things" and status become less important.
Quote:Suppose you get all six billion people to squat down on prayer rugs and begin contemplating their navels in order to reach a "higher consciousness." Who is going to raise the food we need to sustain ourselves? Who is going to produce the materials we need to build shelter, and who is to build that shelter, without which an indifferent planet can quickly kill us, with earthquake, volcano, fire, flood, storm and tsunami? Who is to care for the children, for the lame, the halt and the blind?
I don't advocate that anyone abdicates their responsibilities. I have worked all my life, yet found the time to engage in regular spiritual practices, attended various spiritual gatherings, even lived in a spiritual community for a period (during which I also worked). If the 6 billion people (or even a small fraction) took a little time out from all their activity to quiet their minds and experience their own inner Self, we would have a much better world.
Quote:You have nothing to offer other than a description of the excellence of being your hyper-aware self.
I have nothing to offer other than a sign pointing to the bliss and freedom of your own inner Self.
IFeelFree wrote:I have nothing to offer other than a sign pointing to the bliss and freedom of your own inner Self.
This is simply arrogant presumption. It presumes that i don't know my own inner self--and yet you know nothing about me, so you are in no position to say. It is also "spiritual elitism," because it presumes that you are in touch with a greater reality which eludes others. Far from "freeing yourself from ego," you are wrapped in ego. You last post bristles with a hedge of "I's"--you have wrapped yourself in a cocoon of your ego, and you are completely out of touch with the real world around you.
You have nothing to offer as a solution for terrorism, war, famine, poverty, disease and ignorance. You just have fuzzy remarks to make to show your superior "spiritual" situation. You can't even describe that which is spiritual as opposed to what constitutes concrete reality. You have nothing to offer but more ego-centric bilge water.
Setanta wrote:IFeelFree wrote:I have nothing to offer other than a sign pointing to the bliss and freedom of your own inner Self.
This is simply arrogant presumption. It presumes that i don't know my own inner self--and yet you know nothing about me, so you are in no position to say. It is also "spiritual elitism," because it presumes that you are in touch with a greater reality which eludes others. Far from "freeing yourself from ego," you are wrapped in ego. You last post bristles with a hedge of "I's"--you have wrapped yourself in a cocoon of your ego, and you are completely out of touch with the real world around you.
You have nothing to offer as a solution for terrorism, war, famine, poverty, disease and ignorance. You just have fuzzy remarks to make to show your superior "spiritual" situation. You can't even describe that which is spiritual as opposed to what constitutes concrete reality. You have nothing to offer but more ego-centric bilge water.
Are you always this cantankerous? *grin* Its easier to burn down a barn then to build one.
Feel Free to tell us how the enlightened self would handle the AIDS epidemic.
The enlightened Self would not have intercourse strippers. :wink:
neologist wrote:Feel Free to tell us how the enlightened self would handle the AIDS epidemic.
I'm not sure how "the enlightened self" would handle the AIDS epidemic, but I suspect that sexual promiscuity is a form of chronic pleasure-seeking, a symptom of compulsive thinking.
Ignoring, for the moment, any other causes of AIDS, how will the enlightened self solve the problem of sexual promiscuity, considering that a large number of people consider sexual promiscuity to be a privilege rather than a problem?
IFeelFree wrote:neologist wrote:Feel Free to tell us how the enlightened self would handle the AIDS epidemic.
I'm not sure how "the enlightened self" would handle the AIDS epidemic, but I suspect that sexual promiscuity is a form of chronic pleasure-seeking, a symptom of compulsive thinking.
Thats not the main issue in Africa, the main problem is lack of education. Some people actually believe that raping a virgin will heal you of aids.
A problem which easily can be solved without an enlightened Self.
Coolwhip wrote:IFeelFree wrote:neologist wrote:Feel Free to tell us how the enlightened self would handle the AIDS epidemic.
I'm not sure how "the enlightened self" would handle the AIDS epidemic, but I suspect that sexual promiscuity is a form of chronic pleasure-seeking, a symptom of compulsive thinking.
Thats not the main issue in Africa, the main problem is lack of education. Some people actually believe that raping a virgin will heal you of aids.
A problem which easily can be solved without an enlightened Self.
Enlighten us on that one, FeelFree
A lot harder when you get down to specifics, eh?
Coolwhip wrote:IFeelFree wrote:neologist wrote:Feel Free to tell us how the enlightened self would handle the AIDS epidemic.
I'm not sure how "the enlightened self" would handle the AIDS epidemic, but I suspect that sexual promiscuity is a form of chronic pleasure-seeking, a symptom of compulsive thinking.
Thats not the main issue in Africa, the main problem is lack of education. Some people actually believe that raping a virgin will heal you of aids.
A problem which easily can be solved without an enlightened Self.
I suspect you are right. I'm not suggesting spiritual practice as the solution to all problems. Education is extremely important. Humans need the basics -- nutrition, shelter, education, companionship, etc. In some areas of the world, education and even nutrition is lacking. Those have to be made available to people. Once people have their basic needs supplied, they begin to think about their higher cognitive and aesthetic needs, and finally self-actualization and self-transcendence, per Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
So how would the enlightened self supply people's basic needs?
War is actually already less common than it was in the past. That there continue to be "brush-fire" wars and insurrections in Africa and Asia is deceptive--there were small wars and insurrections in Africa and Asia five hundred years ago, and in Europe as well. North and South America, since European colonization only usually experienced war because of European rivalries, or in order to steal land from the aboriginal inhabitants. Europe has been largely free of war since 1945--there have been a few insurrections, none recently, and only the break-up of Yugoslavia brought war to Europe since 1945.
Famine is in our times always a product of economic inequity. The history of capitalism does not encourage the belief that anything about that will change in the foreseeable future.
Disease, including HIV/AIDS, had been steadily rolled back as a pandemic killer over the last two centuries. Dealing with AIDS will require precisely the same public health techniques which have almost eliminated smallpox, and which have dramatically reduced the incidence and prevalence of septic diseases such as typhus and typhoid fever, and various forms of dysentary, as well as hepatitis A. Hepatitis B is definitely a public health problem, and as such, can be effectively dealt with--the problems with it are largely problems of poverty and crime (drug abuse).
The question of if and how religion can help is problematic. Religion is an ultimate expression of tribalism, and social problems have historically been solved despite religion and not because of it. The civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, beginning in the 1960s and inspired by the American civil rights movement of the 1960s quickly dissolved into bloody red war precisely because of religion. The Catholic minority, a large minority with a much higher birth rate than the Protestants in the six counties, were denied basic civil rights--which encouraged recruitment in the IRA. Far from doing anything substantive to solve the problem, the English hunkered down to an under siege military mentality, and the news media gave a decidedly one-sided view of the situation, rarely or never mentioning the UDF and other heavily armed Protestant paramilitary organization, downplaying or simply not reporting atrocities by the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary--the long overwhelmingly Protestant police), and focusing on the evil and violent Provos--the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who were all the Catholics had to turn to.
The English finally dealt effectively with the terrorism, and later with the narco-terrorism by attacking the root causes. As long as Catholic working men and women had little or no hope of employment to end their misery, the Provos and other, smaller, more extremely violent Catholic insurrectionary groups had fertile ground to recruit. Drug dealers had plenty of customers. But granting equal civil rights to the Catholics, giving them a share and a stake in government, and taking steps to improve the economic climate for all the Irish of the six counties gradually had its effect. Efforts by American politicians to broker deals may perhaps have been overrated, but it had another effect of reducing drastically the contributions in the United States to Noraid and other front groups who looked for American contributions to bankroll violent Catholic paramilitary groups.
So, it is reasonable to suggest that such problems, formerly seen as intractable, can be solved, and can be solved despite religion, not because of it. None of these problems can quickly be solved, and surely navel-gazing and self-congratulation about "higher states of consciousness" offer no pragmatic measures to solve the problems of human misery.
neologist wrote:So how would the enlightened self supply people's basic needs?
As I said before, I believe the problem is not a lack of resources, but the uneven distribution of those resources. That, in turn, is caused by greed and insensitivity to the suffering of others. We in the West consume a hugely disproportionate per capita share of the world's natural resources, much of which is wasted. We need to greatly increase energy efficiency, enable greater recycling of materials, conservation, etc., and in general consume less. We need to limit population growth or we will exceed the capacity of the earth to provide the needed resources for everyone. We need to protect the environment. People need to look beyond their own needs and see the bigger picture. That requires a more enlightened perspective.
So how would the enlightened self limit population growth, increase energy efficiency, protect the environment and create a more enlightened perspective, just to name a few.
IFeelFree wrote:neologist wrote:So how would the enlightened self supply people's basic needs?
As I said before, I believe the problem is not a lack of resources, but the uneven distribution of those resources. That, in turn, is caused by greed and insensitivity to the suffering of others. We in the West consume a hugely disproportionate per capita share of the world's natural resources, much of which is wasted. We need to greatly increase energy efficiency, enable greater recycling of materials, conservation, etc., and in general consume less. We need to limit population growth or we will exceed the capacity of the earth to provide the needed resources for everyone. We need to protect the environment. People need to look beyond their own needs and see the bigger picture. That requires a more enlightened perspective.
This has absolutely
nothing to do with enlightenment. What you are referring to is empathy and selflessness. Either that or your definition of an enlightened being fathoms quite widely.
Setanta wrote:
...So, it is reasonable to suggest that such problems, formerly seen as intractable, can be solved, and can be solved despite religion, not because of it. None of these problems can quickly be solved, and surely navel-gazing and self-congratulation about "higher states of consciousness" offer no pragmatic measures to solve the problems of human misery.
I agree that "tribal" religion offers no real solution. However, it is apparent that in spite of the many advances of science and technology that have improved our lives, the basic human problems persist. On TV we witness the violence, the warfare, the horrific suffering that humans inflict on each other. It could even be argued that advances in technology and weaponry threaten humanity's survival. This is the world we create when we are unaware of the source that sustains and connects us all, and instead identify with opinions, judgments, labels and mental positions. The first step toward creating a better world is to open one's awareness to the consciousness that is prior to form, prior even to thought. Then one begins to act in a manner that is more in tune with the whole.
Feel Free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Are you saying that the world's problems can be solved if everyone comes to a stage of self enlightenment?
If so, I wonder if that will be before or after I have to clean pig droppings off my windshield?
Coolwhip wrote:IFeelFree wrote:neologist wrote:So how would the enlightened self supply people's basic needs?
As I said before, I believe the problem is not a lack of resources, but the uneven distribution of those resources. That, in turn, is caused by greed and insensitivity to the suffering of others. We in the West consume a hugely disproportionate per capita share of the world's natural resources, much of which is wasted. We need to greatly increase energy efficiency, enable greater recycling of materials, conservation, etc., and in general consume less. We need to limit population growth or we will exceed the capacity of the earth to provide the needed resources for everyone. We need to protect the environment. People need to look beyond their own needs and see the bigger picture. That requires a more enlightened perspective.
This has absolutely
nothing to do with enlightenment. What you are referring to is empathy and selflessness. Either that or your definition of an enlightened being fathoms quite widely.
I disagree. Greed and selfishness are characteristics of the ego-bound personality. One looks outside for the fulfillment that can only be found within. Enlightenment is a state of connectedness with the higher Self, your true nature beyond form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. You feel a lack, and seek to fulfill yourself in worldly acquisition. That is the basis for greed and selfishness.
