Damien Hinds thinks we are a christian country

Depends on what you mean by celebrate Christmas.
And FWIW Christmas is the 25th December to the 5th January.

Both Christmas and Easter were both originally pagan anyway. The Christians amuse me. In their eyes that is all there is and all there ever has been. But when you are deluded enough to believe that kind of stuff then nothing is off limits. All an accident of birth and upbringing. Nothing whatsoever to do with rational thinking and evidence. This is proved by the fact that if they'd been born in a particular area of India they'd be Hindus and if they were born in Saudi they'd be Muslims - worshipping different gods but still as convinced that what they have been told is correct, although it is not compatible with what they claim to be correct currently.

I don't know how many gods have been invented by humans over the years. I've studied the subject in a fair amount of depth and can certainly recall several tens of gods. Let's declare 50 - I'm sure it's more - but 50 will do to make the point.

Christians aren't so far away from the default, rational position where we all start from, which is atheism. They're only one god away. So in that respect they're better than the ancient Romans or Greeks.... but still deluded.
 
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Both Christmas and Easter were both originally pagan anyway. The Christians amuse me. In their eyes that is all there is and all there ever has been. But when you are deluded enough to believe that kind of stuff then nothing is off limits. All an accident of birth and upbringing. Nothing whatsoever to do with rational thinking and evidence. This is proved by the fact that if they'd been born in a particular area of India they'd be Hindus and if they were born in Saudi they'd be Muslims - worshipping different gods but still as convinced that what they have been told is correct, although it is not compatible with what they claim to be correct currently.

I don't know how many gods have been invented by humans over the years. I've studied the subject in a fair amount of depth and can certainly recall several tens of gods. Let's declare 50 - I'm sure it's more - but 50 will do to make the point.

Christians aren't so far away from the default, rational position where we all start from, which is atheism. They're only one god away. So in that respect they're better than the ancient Romans or Greeks.... but still deluded.

The Gods on Discworld make more sense
@Some Random Guy may agree/disagree
 
The Gods on Discworld make more sense
@Some Random Guy may agree/disagree

They certainly make as much sense (i.e. none).

Joking aside I had a fascinating conversation with my 7 year old. Adult happy clappers get offended when it is pointed out they are deluded. I described the concept of The Flying Spaghetti Monster to him. I raised the points that there is as much evidence for his existence (i.e. none) as there is for any of the other gods. I noted that he is written about in a book that has sold many copies. I told him how many people follow him religiously.

I asked him why it was different to any of the other gods. He thought for ages and just answered "because it's silly".

I found that a fascinating reply. I didn't go into "why aren't the other gods silly?" and perhaps I should have done, but I'd never want to be accused by happy clappers of indoctrinating my children into what to believe or not believe. I just encourage them to question things and ask for evidence.

The difference is of course that the followers of the FSM are taking the piss and showing how stupid supernatural beliefs are. Whereas the happy clappers are deluded and actually believe all the shit they spout and have been told is true by their elders. (NB. What is worse are the Flat Earthers who surely cannot believe the shit they spout but do it just for attention).
 
Interesting points. Personally, I would hope that the humanistic message of Jesus survives and that we strive to find meaning in our inherent humanity, our true nature, with each individual trying to experience their full potential as human beings. The problem with material atheism is that it so willingly throws the baby out with the bathwater.

What do you mean by this?

As a nihilistic scientific (yet artistic) atheist I see phrases like "find meaning in our inherent humanity, our true nature" and "full potential as human beings" and cringe, as at first glance it sounds so close to my own philosophy yet it is worded in such a flowery ambiguous way that it could mean pretty much anything.
 
What do you mean by this?

As a nihilistic scientific (yet artistic) atheist I see phrases like "find meaning in our inherent humanity, our true nature" and "full potential as human beings" and cringe, as at first glance it sounds so close to my own philosophy yet it is worded in such a flowery ambiguous way that it could mean pretty much anything.
:lol::lol:
 
Truth is a cognitive experience and understanding. It appears we have entered a post-truth era in more general terms. What we perceive to be the truth as an individual is what seems to matter whether that is absolute and universal or not. Our own experiences are dismissed as simply subjective by scientific rationalists whereas it is our interpretation of that experience rather than the actual experience which is limited. There is a paradox that results. Mathematics is rational and deductive. Scientific method is empirical and inductive which creates the problem that any 'truth' is simply relative and never absolute. Such a perspective has made us vulnerable to being deceived. We tend to fall back on our own experiences by default to maintain stability but people are telling us those experiences are not reliable. We become even more vulnerable to manipulation by anyone who claims expertise when in reality it is simply someone else's interpretation rather than Truth which is a cognitive realisation.

In other words we can know Truth through direct experience and cognitive realisation. Any concepts that result are simply interpretation and limited.

PS: Fuck me. Reading that back sounds complex but I hope you can grasp the gist of what I'm trying to say.

So much of what you say sounds like nihilism, yet you claim to come from the opposite angle completely.


:confused:
 
What do you mean by this?

As a nihilistic scientific (yet artistic) atheist I see phrases like "find meaning in our inherent humanity, our true nature" and "full potential as human beings" and cringe, as at first glance it sounds so close to my own philosophy yet it is worded in such a flowery ambiguous way that it could mean pretty much anything.

It's all just words. Talking around an issue. For example, no matter what words and descriptions I may use, they can never give you the experience that you have of simply being alive and taking a breath. So words and therefore the concepts that are expressed are limited.

I must say that I am atheist. Describe any of the gods from the entire spectrum, as Kent refers to above, and I will not accept that as real. Many can be explained such as nature gods, personifications of cosmic powers, reflections of the human psyche and some as simply nothing more than fantasy. I am existentialist in the sense that I believe any meaning we give to life is something we have superimposed onto reality. As an example people may even say that God is within but they then pray to an external deity.

Kent says that we are all born atheist but and I can see what he means but if atheist is non-theist then it is a response to theism so I would say that we are all born neither theist nor atheist, the entire concept is non-existent. We are born as human beings. That is our true nature. What follows is nurture and the main effect of that nurture is how it shapes our mind. People talk about the nature-nurture debate in psychology but what psychology is about is the mind. So the debate is really a nature-mind debate.

People take the Christian concepts for example and reject them in their entirety. It's good to get rid of the dirty bathwater of other people's concepts and interpretations. However, Jesus as an example, talks more about our humanity that we were born with. To practice the surrender to the experience within revealed through Baptism with Spirit, to practice mindfulness and to perform actions while conscious of that experience. It's a very humanistic message at heart and while it may sound flowery, it could be called for simplicity, a practice of the heart versus the mind. If we throw that away as well as the bathwater we are being unfair to ourselves.

It's not that we could return to being babies, that would be ridiculous, but we could allow that innocence we were born with but which has been obscured by the clouds of the mind as we grew up, to re-emerge. That nature would be our true inherent humanity and to realise that, make it real, would be to reach our full potential as human beings.

And who knows there could be some surprising experiences along the way.

We accept some scientific ideas as if they are fact. For example, the idea that we live in a multiverse in which there are an infinite number of every possible outcome existing in parallel. This is put forward as an explanation of why this universe is the way it is and capable of sustaining life despite the incredible odds against. Is there any evidence of that or is it judge a fudge to explain the odds. There may be infinite possibilities but it seems to me that each moment those possibilities collapse and the universe selects one based on continuity and consistency. The multiverse theory is just science of the gaps and no more valid than the God of the gaps.

We are told that space is expanding. Not that matter is expanding outward as after an explosion but that space itself is expanding. Expanding into what? How do we know that space is not finite but in fact it is matter that is contracting into itself within finite space. It's all relative so how would we know that difference? If space itself is expanding then the big bang occurred everywhere at the same time rather than at at any specific point anyway. Yet people imagine a singularity at a single point that has exploded.

Maybe it all came from nothing but even that doesn't make sense. You can do some fancy mathematics that establishes all of the forces added together are equal to that of gravity and say that equals nothing but maybe nothing is not the right label and maybe that nothing had infinite potential and the universe self-actualised.
 
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Our head of state is Christian.

We’re a Christian country. A multi cultural one with a very healthy mix of race, religion and cultures but were a Christian country nonetheless.
This
we've ditched a lot of the bits where you have to show up etc but we still follow the various festivals etc
Christmas and easter are a big part of out year ,with or without pretend people
 
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It's all just words. Talking around an issue. For example, no matter what words and descriptions I may use, they can never give you the experience that you have of simply being alive and taking a breath. So words and therefore the concepts that are expressed are limited.

I must say that I am atheist. Describe any of the gods from the entire spectrum, as Kent refers to above, and I will not accept that as real. Many can be explained such as nature gods, personifications of cosmic powers, reflections of the human psyche and some as simply nothing more than fantasy. I am existentialist in the sense that I believe any meaning we give to life is something we have superimposed onto reality. As an example people may even say that God is within but they then pray to an external deity.

That is the key tenet of nihilism though; that there is nothing in life that has inherent meaning, so we must superimpose our own meaning onto it in order to gain any kind of joy from life. It's straight out of Nietszche.

Kent says that we are all born atheist but and I can see what he means but if atheist is non-theist then it is a response to theism so I would say that we are all born neither theist nor atheist, the entire concept is non-existent. We are born as human beings. That is our true nature. What follows is nurture and the main effect of that nurture is how it shapes our mind. People talk about the nature-nurture debate in psychology but what psychology is about is the mind. So the debate is really a nature-mind debate.

Interesting differentiation there, whether atheism is a belief in a lack of gods or a lack of belief in gods. Obviously a child has no knowledge of gods and so has a lack of belief in gods as oppose to a belief in a lack of gods, whereas an adult atheist has come to a conclusion about it and so has a belief in a lack of gods. I've never questioned the "everyone is born an atheist" line before now. Is it even a differentiation that deserves note? Both don't believe in gods, it's just one is aware that some people believe in gods whereas the other doesn't.

Whether we are "born human beings" comes down to the definition of what makes a human being. To many people, being a human being is something that puts us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, so perhaps it would be more truthful to say that we are born an ape and gradually become a human being. Well, some people do anyway. I've met plenty that barely qualify.

Dammit, I've been called down for my tea. I'll have to pick up here later as I want to address more of your very interresting post. Back in a bit...

[/quote]People take the Christian concepts for example and reject them in their entirety. It's good to get rid of the dirty bathwater of other people's concepts and interpretations. However, Jesus as an example, talks more about our humanity that we were born with. To practice the surrender to the experience within revealed through Baptism with Spirit, to practice mindfulness and to perform actions while conscious of that experience. It's a very humanistic message at heart and while it may sound flowery, it could be called for simplicity, a practice of the heart versus the mind. If we throw that away as well as the bathwater we are being unfair to ourselves.

It's not that we could return to being babies, that would be ridiculous, but we could allow that innocence we were born with but which has been obscured by the clouds of the mind as we grew up, to re-emerge. That nature would be our true inherent humanity and to realise that, make it real, would be to reach our full potential as human beings.

And who knows there could be some surprising experiences along the way.

We accept some scientific ideas as if they are fact. For example, the idea that we live in a multiverse in which there are an infinite number of every possible outcome existing in parallel. This is put forward as an explanation of why this universe is the way it is and capable of sustaining life despite the incredible odds against. Is there any evidence of that or is it judge a fudge to explain the odds. There may be infinite possibilities but it seems to me that each moment those possibilities collapse and the universe selects one based on continuity and consistency. The multiverse theory is just science of the gaps and no more valid than the God of the gaps.

We are told that space is expanding. Not that matter is expanding outward as after an explosion but that space itself is expanding. Expanding into what? How do we know that space is not finite but in fact it is matter that is contracting into itself within finite space. It's all relative so how would we know that difference? If space itself is expanding then the big bang occurred everywhere at the same time rather than at at any specific point anyway. Yet people imagine a singularity at a single point that has exploded.

Maybe it all came from nothing but even that doesn't make sense. You can do some fancy mathematics that establishes all of the forces added together are equal to that of gravity and say that equals nothing but maybe nothing is not the right label and maybe that nothing had infinite potential and the universe self-actualised.[/QUOTE]

TBC
 
That is the key tenet of nihilism though; that there is nothing in life that has inherent meaning, so we must superimpose our own meaning onto it in order to gain any kind of joy from life. It's straight out of Nietszche.



Interesting differentiation there, whether atheism is a belief in a lack of gods or a lack of belief in gods. Obviously a child has no knowledge of gods and so has a lack of belief in gods as oppose to a belief in a lack of gods, whereas an adult atheist has come to a conclusion about it and so has a belief in a lack of gods. I've never questioned the "everyone is born an atheist" line before now. Is it even a differentiation that deserves note? Both don't believe in gods, it's just one is aware that some people believe in gods whereas the other doesn't.

Whether we are "born human beings" comes down to the definition of what makes a human being. To many people, being a human being is something that puts us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, so perhaps it would be more truthful to say that we are born an ape and gradually become a human being. Well, some people do anyway. I've met plenty that barely qualify.

Dammit, I've been called down for my tea. I'll have to pick up here later as I want to address more of your very interresting post. Back in a bit...
People take the Christian concepts for example and reject them in their entirety. It's good to get rid of the dirty bathwater of other people's concepts and interpretations. However, Jesus as an example, talks more about our humanity that we were born with. To practice the surrender to the experience within revealed through Baptism with Spirit, to practice mindfulness and to perform actions while conscious of that experience. It's a very humanistic message at heart and while it may sound flowery, it could be called for simplicity, a practice of the heart versus the mind. If we throw that away as well as the bathwater we are being unfair to ourselves.

It's not that we could return to being babies, that would be ridiculous, but we could allow that innocence we were born with but which has been obscured by the clouds of the mind as we grew up, to re-emerge. That nature would be our true inherent humanity and to realise that, make it real, would be to reach our full potential as human beings.

And who knows there could be some surprising experiences along the way.

We accept some scientific ideas as if they are fact. For example, the idea that we live in a multiverse in which there are an infinite number of every possible outcome existing in parallel. This is put forward as an explanation of why this universe is the way it is and capable of sustaining life despite the incredible odds against. Is there any evidence of that or is it judge a fudge to explain the odds. There may be infinite possibilities but it seems to me that each moment those possibilities collapse and the universe selects one based on continuity and consistency. The multiverse theory is just science of the gaps and no more valid than the God of the gaps.

We are told that space is expanding. Not that matter is expanding outward as after an explosion but that space itself is expanding. Expanding into what? How do we know that space is not finite but in fact it is matter that is contracting into itself within finite space. It's all relative so how would we know that difference? If space itself is expanding then the big bang occurred everywhere at the same time rather than at at any specific point anyway. Yet people imagine a singularity at a single point that has exploded.

Maybe it all came from nothing but even that doesn't make sense. You can do some fancy mathematics that establishes all of the forces added together are equal to that of gravity and say that equals nothing but maybe nothing is not the right label and maybe that nothing had infinite potential and the universe self-actualised.[/QUOTE]

TBC[/QUOTE]
'Called down for my tea'- nihilism in action. :lol:
 
She's Head of the Church by default. Our PM is Christian daughter of a vicar, but you'd struggle to believe that.

If anything we need more separation of church and state, not paving the way for more faith schools.
Let children make up their own minds about what they believe in.
Our kids are as thick as fuck, leave them to think for themselves and the country will be fucked.
 
(Via Humanists)
Damian Hinds has made some extremely divisive remarks this morning in an attempt to justify faith schools, unlimited religious selection in admissions, and the Christian establishment generally: 'This is a Christian country.'

Well frankly Damien, we're not. We may have been predominantly at some point, when having the wrong religion was punishable by death, but we're not "A Christian Country" now.

Over half of British adults are non-religious. 71% of 18-25s are non-religious, and only 3% of them are Church of England. How then can the claim that we are a 'Christian country' be used to justify favouritism towards Christianity in law and policy?

The UK is a country which Christians, Humanists, Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Sikh, Atheists, Pagans (et al) live in.
The country was here long before people decided to impose their beliefs in it and on it.

Should you wish, you can tell Mr Hinds where to stick it.

Tell Damian Hinds: Not in my name! We are not a 'Christian country'.

Would you say we're a Christian Country?
Christian values.
 
Dammit I cocked up the quotes in my haste for lamb chops.

@Mercia Blackcat

People take the Christian concepts for example and reject them in their entirety. It's good to get rid of the dirty bathwater of other people's concepts and interpretations. However, Jesus as an example, talks more about our humanity that we were born with. To practice the surrender to the experience within revealed through Baptism with Spirit, to practice mindfulness and to perform actions while conscious of that experience. It's a very humanistic message at heart and while it may sound flowery, it could be called for simplicity, a practice of the heart versus the mind. If we throw that away as well as the bathwater we are being unfair to ourselves.

In the case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater of Christianity, I don't see it as being a bad thing. We can get moral lessons from within ourselves, from our peers, our society, and be mindful of our experiences without necessarily needing The Bible or any other "holy" book to teach us how to do those things.

And frankly, if I wanted to teach someone to be mindful, religious texts are the last place I'd send them to learn those lessons. It's not that those lessons couldn't be found there if you search hard enough but where you do manage to find them they're surrounded by the opposite lesson being taught ad nauseum: "don't think for yourself, think like this or you won't get into heaven!" in the case of The Bible.

The types of surrendering that I found in The Bible back when i was "saved" weren't surrender to your own experiences, they were surrender to our rules or you don't get to be in our club.

Whether that's just the modern interpretation after a couple of thousand years of manipulation of the texts is immaterial. You can learn the same lessons elsewhere without having to chore through all the bullshit that comes along with it, and the accompanying teachers are less likely to say "my way or the highway (to hell!)" when you question the teachings.

It's not that we could return to being babies, that would be ridiculous, but we could allow that innocence we were born with but which has been obscured by the clouds of the mind as we grew up, to re-emerge. That nature would be our true inherent humanity and to realise that, make it real, would be to reach our full potential as human beings.

And who knows there could be some surprising experiences along the way.

Are we born with innocence or with ignorance? If two babies are lying together and one gets his hands on a surgical scalpel and butchers the other one, not out of malice but just because it doesn't know any better, has no concept of the "clouds of the mind" like morality or mortality, is that really a mindset we should aspire to?

I argued earlier that we're not born human beings at all, but apes. Humanity is thrust upon us by experience among humans. It is not innate. It has been created, adapted, learned, expanded upon and passed on for a hundred thousand years. It is very different now for us in the developed world than it was when it first began to develop. Even now humanity is different depending on where you're born and how you're raised. It's all just learned as we grow up.

As such, who is to say that it is better to be human than to be ape? Should we not aspire to be animal rather than human, seeing as it is a more pure and unclouded state of mind? Yeshua won't have known we came from apes, won't have had the scientific or philosophical knowledge we now have at our fingertips, so even assuming any of his teachings made it into The Bible unchanged (which is unlikely in itself), why should those teachings be important for anything other than being historically interesting in the way the natural sciences of Plato are? We now know there's no such thing as an Ideal Horse that all horses unconsciously try to grow up to be, but reading about it is fun as it paved the way for the scientific ideas we now think to be more accurate. Fun as it may be, we shouldn't take it as fact.

The lesson to learn from it is that knowledge builds upon knowledge and you don't necessarily need to know the steps in the journey to understand the current state of it. You don't need to know that people once worshipped the sun and moon in order to know that some people now worship Jesus for example. It's fun to know but it's not essential to the lesson. You can learn that it's worthwhile to be good to other people without needing to know that Yeshua felt the same way.

We accept some scientific ideas as if they are fact. For example, the idea that we live in a multiverse in which there are an infinite number of every possible outcome existing in parallel. This is put forward as an explanation of why this universe is the way it is and capable of sustaining life despite the incredible odds against. Is there any evidence of that or is it judge a fudge to explain the odds.

Whoah there, Nelly. If we're being truly scientific then we don't accept anything as fact that can't be proven and repeated by other people. The many worlds multiverse interpretation of quantum physics that you describe is nothing more than a hypothesis based on maths. It isn't universally accepted as fact in the scientific community and is only one way to interpret the data. You're also getting it muddled up with the anthropic principle: it's not a coincidence that this universe is capable of sustaining life despite the incredible odds because if it wasn't then we wouldn't be here to observe it and discuss it. The latter is a logical truism, the many worlds interpretation is pure speculation.

There may be infinite possibilities but it seems to me that each moment those possibilities collapse and the universe selects one based on continuity and consistency.

This could well be true, but it's as much a speculation as the many worlds interpretation.

The multiverse theory is just science of the gaps and no more valid than the God of the gaps.

Indeed it is, and nobody with any scientific credibility would ever tell you that it is a fact.

We are told that space is expanding. Not that matter is expanding outward as after an explosion but that space itself is expanding. Expanding into what?
You're reaching the limits of my knowledge on the subject but as far as I'm aware, supposedly it is expanding into nothingness: somewhere that space and time don't exist at all. It's difficult for me to describe as like I said this is getting towards my knowledge limits but as far as I've managed to gather, the entire concept of there being anything for it to expand into is a flawed mental image of what's supposedly happening. It's not like when you inflate a balloon with the universe inside the balloon while the whole thing is expanding into the space outside the balloon, it's more that the actual dimensions of spacetime don't exist at all outside the universe - or rather, the universe does not exist within spacetime, spacetime is a result of the universe.


How do we know that space is not finite but in fact it is matter that is contracting into itself within finite space. It's all relative so how would we know that difference?

That would one for the maths boys to answer. There may well be an answer to do with the mass of subatomic particles or the energy of quarks or the universal constant but this is a level above me. As interesting a question as it is, is this relevant to our conversation anyway?

I can't help feeling we're straying from the point somewhat. :lol:

If space itself is expanding then the big bang occurred everywhere at the same time rather than at at any specific point anyway.

Yes, this is correct as far as I understand it.

Yet people imagine a singularity at a single point that has exploded.

Yes, a singularity that contained all of building blocks that would become all of the matter and energy in the universe as the expansion happened. It was a single point within which "everywhere" was contained.

Maybe it all came from nothing but even that doesn't make sense.

Well, I used to think that too, but after reading and watching various basic introductions to quantum mechanics, it seems that "something from nothing" actually happens all around us all the time, just at a level so small that we can't observe it with our naked eyes. There are even much stranger things going on down at that level than this. Once you've had a glimpse into it, "something from nothing" happening on a macro scale given enough time to achieve it actually seems downright plausible.

You can do some fancy mathematics that establishes all of the forces added together are equal to that of gravity and say that equals nothing but maybe nothing is not the right label and maybe that nothing had infinite potential and the universe self-actualised.

:lol: Perhaps so. Even if it sounds like the universe was visiting some kind of self-help pyramid scheme seminar in your description. :lol:

'Called down for my tea'- nihilism in action. :lol:

Sounds like you don't understand nihilism. ;)
 
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......In the case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater of Christianity, I don't see it as being a bad thing. We can get moral lessons from within ourselves, from our peers, our society, and be mindful of our experiences without necessarily needing The Bible or any other "holy" book to teach us how to do those things.

And frankly, if I wanted to teach someone to be mindful, religious texts are the last place I'd send them to learn those lessons. It's not that those lessons couldn't be found there if you search hard enough but where you do manage to find them they're surrounded by the opposite lesson being taught ad nauseum: "don't think for yourself, think like this or you won't get into heaven!" in the case of The Bible.

I'm not suggesting you become a Christian. I was just pointing out that throwing out the supernatural concepts does not mean that the universal message of Jesus should be dismissed as irrelevant. Practice remaining in the experience of Baptism with Spirit, practice mindfulness and perform action from within that experience. Human beings are still the same today as they were then even if we have surrounded ourselves with gadgets. We still act selfish, act with hate, greed and lust. We still harm others for our own gratification, sexual or otherwise. We still crave for power, wealth and dominion over others. Is that human nature or is what we have learned from nurture and the mind. To replace need with greed.

The types of surrendering that I found in The Bible back when i was "saved" weren't surrender to your own experiences, they were surrender to our rules or you don't get to be in our club.

Whether that's just the modern interpretation after a couple of thousand years of manipulation of the texts is immaterial. You can learn the same lessons elsewhere without having to chore through all the bullshit that comes along with it, and the accompanying teachers are less likely to say "my way or the highway (to hell!)" when you question the teachings.

Well there you go. By surrender I mean to let go and merge with the experience within. Neutralise the mind and achieve equivalence of thought. What remains is consciousness without distract or disturbance. We have to let go and surrender in the end, nothing wrong with the practice of that while alive.

Are we born with innocence or with ignorance? If two babies are lying together and one gets his hands on a surgical scalpel and butchers the other one, not out of malice but just because it doesn't know any better, has no concept of the "clouds of the mind" like morality or mortality, is that really a mindset we should aspire to?

I argued earlier that we're not born human beings at all, but apes. Humanity is thrust upon us by experience among humans. It is not innate. It has been created, adapted, learned, expanded upon and passed on for a hundred thousand years. It is very different now for us in the developed world than it was when it first began to develop. Even now humanity is different depending on where you're born and how you're raised. It's all just learned as we grow up.

That's nurture and it can lead us into some of the most unpleasant beliefs and ways to treat people. We are born human beings because of our genetics, that's nature. OK there are some genetics failings resulting in psychopaths who are born, but sociopaths are made, through nurture.

As such, who is to say that it is better to be human than to be ape? Should we not aspire to be animal rather than human, seeing as it is a more pure and unclouded state of mind? Yeshua won't have known we came from apes, won't have had the scientific or philosophical knowledge we now have at our fingertips, so even assuming any of his teachings made it into The Bible unchanged (which is unlikely in itself), why should those teachings be important for anything other than being historically interesting in the way the natural sciences of Plato are? We now know there's no such thing as an Ideal Horse that all horses unconsciously try to grow up to be, but reading about it is fun as it paved the way for the scientific ideas we now think to be more accurate. Fun as it may be, we shouldn't take it as fact.

We should aspire to be human beings because we are human beings. Maybe apes act according to their own nature but we are human and they arte not.

The lesson to learn from it is that knowledge builds upon knowledge and you don't necessarily need to know the steps in the journey to understand the current state of it. You don't need to know that people once worshipped the sun and moon in order to know that some people now worship Jesus for example. It's fun to know but it's not essential to the lesson. You can learn that it's worthwhile to be good to other people without needing to know that Yeshua felt the same way.

That's true and you don't need to know about Nietzsche either. Knowledge (Gnosis) is to know through direct cognitive experience.

I'll try and describe the process differently. Our true nature is what remains when we have neutralised the mind and attained equanimity. We can use the mind again afterwards, it doesn't permanently cease to exist.

But that true nature is love, empathy and compassion.
 
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I'm not suggesting you become a Christian. I was just pointing out that throwing out the supernatural concepts does not mean that the universal message of Jesus should be dismissed as irrelevant. Practice remaining in the experience of Baptism with Spirit, practice mindfulness and perform action from within that experience. Human beings are still the same today as they were then even if we have surrounded ourselves with gadgets. We still act selfish, act with hate, greed and lust. We still harm others for our own gratification, sexual or otherwise. We still crave for power, wealth and dominion over others. Is that human nature or is what we have learned from nurture and the mind. To replace need with greed.



Well there you go. By surrender I mean to let go and merge with the experience within. Neutralise the mind and achieve equivalence of thought. What remains is consciousness without distract or disturbance. We have to let go and surrender in the end, nothing wrong with the practice of that while alive.



That's nurture and it can lead us into some of the most unpleasant beliefs and ways to treat people. We are born human beings because of our genetics, that's nature. OK there are some genetics failings resulting in psychopaths who are born, but sociopaths are made, through nurture.



We should aspire to be human beings because we are human beings. Maybe apes act according to their own nature but we are human and they arte not.



That's true and you don't need to know about Nietzsche either. Knowledge (Gnosis) is to know through direct cognitive experience.

I'll try and describe the process differently. Our true nature is what remains when we have neutralised the mind and attained equanimity. We can use the mind again afterwards, it doesn't permanently cease to exist.

But that true nature is love, empathy and compassion.

Haway man, there's a match on!

I missed the first half an hour typing mine out. I bet you've missed both our goals typing that?!

I'll read this properly in a bit. Possibly tomorrow as I'm a bit tipsy right now and the missus will be reappearing from putting her little lad to bed soon. :)
 
Haway man, there's a match on!

I missed the first half an hour typing mine out. I bet you've missed both our goals typing that?!

I'll read this properly in a bit. Possibly tomorrow as I'm a bit tipsy right now and the missus will be reappearing from putting her little lad to bed soon. :)

I thought we were plying tomorrow.
 

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