Let's see, where were we? Oh yeah, we were talking about “Reality”.
Although my mind has been expanded by thinking about all of the possibilities that Einstein presented to the world, I still question the benefit of me worrying about the tree that fell in the forest unobserved. In my reality it made a noise, because it meets all of the criteria of my “hammer test”, where I know that it is real if I can hit it with a hammer.
I beg to differ with Steven that proclaimed my world to be black and white because I'm not religious. My reality is filled with all the vivid colors of the rainbow. Not only is it filled with color, it is filled with the birds and the bees, the does and the fawns, the snakes and the creepy crawlies, the rivers and the seas, and the skies and the forests. I'm comfortable in my world, because it all passes my hammer test. I like the three dimensional walls of confinement that hold my reality together, and I like the time that keeps me there. My box of -place and time- is a comfy home that I have snuggled into.
The ancient mariners worried about sailing past their limitations and make up stories about sailing off the edge of the earth, because in their superstitious beliefs, the world was flat, because “God and the church told them so”. The church branded people that dared to try to prove reality as heretics and hanged them, or burned then at the stake for daring to believe in reality, the things that you could hit with a hammer. People like Galileo and Columbus said, “no, the world is round.” Although both became famous in history, they were much maligned in their times. Superstitious realities change with the times, the things that you can hit with a hammer never does.
Just because we haven't discovered the limits of our universe doesn't mean that it can never be known, or how it all works, and we should never quit the voyage of discovery for fear of the unknown. But, I think that it is important that we not engage in making up myths to satisfy our superstitions. I think that it is important to feel and recognize only reality, the things that you can hit with a hammer. Just like Einstein (If I might be so bold) I feel that when we figure reality all out, it will relate to one grand formula, and you can hit it with a hammer, because it will be real. Not superstition, and not myth. I guess that reality is my “God”.
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Ernie, you forget all about the scientific method when it comes to "reality"? I mean how many thousands of times do you atheists have to hear that millions of human beings have spiritual experiences before you credit human beings vs. your own closed mind? Just because you haven't experienced spiritual reality doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I was an atheist until age 35 before I was awakened. You can't take a hammer to everything without hitting your thumb once and while. Find out why it hurts your sense of reality for others to believe there's more to life than meets the eye.
Ernie has always struck me as an open-minded person. He may not agree with me, but he expresses himself clearly and welcomes the views of others. I can't say the same for Stephen.
Ernie, I respect your right to belive in your reality and your freedom to espouse the 'hit it with a hammer' doctrine... Suzy has no problem with that as long as you don't try to claim that yours is the one and only true reality.
Point: I wouldn't consider myself to be an “atheist“. I don’t deny the existence of God. I do say that the way most religions around the world describe God fits most of the descriptions of insanity. I wouldn’t say that I’m an agnostic either. Agnostics say that God is “Unknowable”. What I would say is that I’m a “realist”, I believe like Einstein, the whole physical universe, and how it works, comes down to one basic, all telling, formula.
Someday mankind may become intelligent enough to understand that formula. After that, we won’t have to tolerate the persecution of those who are willing to kill us over their sick, warped, idea of what “God” is. People have actually died over saying the world is round. I can’t believe that I would be proud of believing in anything that blindly.
I do however honor peoples beliefs, whether I agree with them or not. I see religion giving some people great comfort, I also see religion doing great harm, to themselves and the people around the religious. so much harm that you could hit it with a hammer.
Tell that one to those who lived under atheist domination, Ernie. Fact is, atheists have established one hell of a hideous record for intolerance of most any non-politically correct (Marxist) ideas. No, they didn't burn them at the stake. They lined them up and shot them or sent them off to die in the Gulags by the millions.
The thing is, atheists, (I'm not buying your spiritual fence-sitting for one moment, Ernie--those who do not know God are without God, i.e. "a-theists") seem highly prone to believing as much as any fundamentalist religionist that what they believe to be true is true for everybody. Sound familiar? Atheism is a religious mindset that can only be kept in place by refusal to look seriously at the human record of spiritual encounters and why they occur and never stop.
There's not much return in trying to define another person's spirituality. You said "I think that it is important to feel and recognize only reality".
Are your instincts real? Ever have a hunch? Is fear real? What is reality, anyway?
oh yeah. Anything you can hit with a hammer. it's cool.
Even a hunch is something probably based on past experience, or a past reality.
Steve wants to brand me as an atheist, thereby proving what I've said, that if I don't believe in their God” that I'm an atheist. Most of the religions of the world believe in some different definition of who or what God is. I believe that God will be found in knowledge and reality. Thank God Steve doesn't want to boil me in oil, burn me at the stake, or nail me to a cross. All of that is proof to me that we are getting closer and closer to accepting reality.
The “hammer” is simply a euphanism of checking for reality. A rainbow can hardly be hit by a hammer, indeed the reality of a rainbow predicts that it can't be caught, thus the promise of a pot of gold and the end of it. We know so much about the reality of rainbows that we all “get” the joke about the pot of gold.
I think that an open mind and a scientific attitude will find more answers than fingers in our ears while hollering la, la, la, I don't want to know, because I believe in God. No true God will be damaged by scientific reality. So, go ahead and believe what you want.
Poor Stephen. It sounds as though he's suffering under the heavy yoke of the agnostics and the atheists.
The ranger got it right, Ernie - you are more accurately defined as an agnostic. Many agnostics are actually religious people, it's just that they don't believe the lore and dogma. Others don't consider themselves religious.
As to the hammer theme, you should try Nordic paganism so you could worship Thor, the god of thunder. He had a really cool hammer.
Stephen could worship Loki, the god of mischief.
Ernie Ernie Ernie, as Suzy has already explained in the previous thread, the narrow world view of peeps like you is a very immature form of god worship. You call your god Reality, but He's obviously more clearly named Modern Science with His Son --Technology, and His saints, Einstein etc.
It's ironic that certain people, like you Ernie, call themselves 'realists' as they don't have a clue as to what it's all about when it comes the deeper reality! And probably never will, no matter how many times it is pointed out to them, so I wont bother to repeat what ive already said in so many previous threads except to again point out that the cult of Modern Science worship, or taking Reality as your god, or the dawning of the sign of The Big Hammer, or whatever crude way of putting it you folks can come up with next, is ... like i said, a very immature form god worship which is now at the narcissistic stage. And the followers, the true believers, like Ernie, are perhaps best defined as Narcissists. Like infants they cling to the comfort of their narrow 3dimensional time/space worldview that the cult of Modern Science teaches them in school, keeping them feeling secure and safe from experiencing a wider more comprehensive understanding of the universe, which some of us have experienced by non-conformist forms of study, which is to them, cuz of their being conditioned and formed by societies hammer and anvil, a terror that they run from in fear. And this is wherein lies the danger, as narcissists running in fear they form a sort of 'group narcissism' that as it gains power in numbers and is impatient with and intolerant of other points of view tends to invent defense mechanisms that have come to the stage of threatening the continuation of human life on the planet. A big baby who has barely yet learned to talk with a nuke in his crib to play with.
Praise 'Reality'.
Stephen, its a shame, but there's not much one can do but share some humor, honor their ignorant point of view, and let them continue praising their false god and idols as we organize against them to carry on with the 'real' work of the Spirit.
"The child at the narcissistic stage of development believes that there is only one reality, the reality he himself experiences."
Sigmund Freud
Chris it's funny that you would say that. If you look at the hammer head it clearly says "Thor" right on it. I thought about using "maxwell's Silver Hammer", but that was more of a violent reality than I wanted to depict.
Suzy, that's me, sweet and innocent, only believing in my reality. I haven't yet learned how to chastise those that disagree with me.
I once thought about joining the Reverend Leroy and the Church of What's Happenin' Now. That sounds like something that I could believe in.
"Thank God Steve doesn't want to boil me in oil, burn me at the stake, or nail me to a cross." Wishful thinking again, Ernie? Actually, I'll let Suzy eviscerate your puny atheist mindset since she's up for the job and good at it.
Now lookit. I know agnostics want to "believe" themselves open to God but REALITY is that if you don't have God in your life and are convinced this is all there is, what you see is what you get, then that, my friend, is atheism, i.e., being "without God". I too in my atheist days thought I was an agnostic and open to spiritual truth if any existed but I tell you truthfully that after God does enter your life, there's no way you can ever go back to thinking God and spiritual reality doesn't exist. The experience of God overwhelms and forever erases that doubt.
Speaking of churches, a year or so before I went through my personal conversion from atheism to Christianity, my ex and me formed the Church of the One Big Foot. Perhaps such a church would interest you, Ernie, although you'd have to restart it yourself these days. I don't go to any churches myself as they are teaching Old Christianity Paul's theology) which is thoroughly out of date now. The Great Knowledge, Advanced Christian theology is available right here in Humboldt County that reveals the identity of God and humanity's role in Creation, why we're here and where we're going.
OK, I'll stop ribbing you, my earnest man but first you got to ask yerself why people have n.d.e's. Oh and forget the "scientific" attempts to discredit n.d.e's as hallucinations of the brain releasing psychedelics to ease the transition to the other side. Who among you knows of anyone having the same set of psychedelic hallucinations, the tunnel, heaven, the golden Light, the Being of Light often met, i.e. the well-known themes of n.d.e's which no psychedelic drug in my experience imparts to the high. Everybody's psychedelic experience is different and yet with n.d.e.'s we get a most definite pattern and one, (this is the killer one for those who can think) which DEFIES the body's first instinct for self-preservation. Why on earth would evolution develop a mechanism in the human brain that erases the fear of death? It's not biologically compatible with the struggle for existence and only makes sense if death is not the end of existence for the human soul.
Stephen, it's not all that simple, ive had the nde type of trip on peyote. I went through the tunnel, experienced 'heaven', i was there for 'eternity' --there's no better way to say it, and it was the most peaceful experience ive ever had. While there i was visited by a being of light who gave me a choice to stay there or return to earth... the image of my boyfriend passed briefly through my mind and i was instantly back on earth. It was similar to the nde reports one reads about but i had never heard of that before this experience. Yes i was on peyote, but NO it was NOT a hallucination, i KNOW it was a real experience. When it happens to you you have no doubt that it's 'real'
LOL! Of course Ernies rolling his eyes reading this but perhaps some of you can understand. For me, it was reality just as real as this keyboard im typing on.
Maybe it was an nde but i dont think so. Yet who knows? Suzy may have died and come back to life, im not sure about the technical details and anyway they dont matter, this isnt a test. But my suspicions are that it was some kind of abduction. cuz right before i went through the tunnel i saw a huge globe of light appear suddenly before me. At first i was awestruck. Then i just sort of, nonchalantly as i could, asked it what the fuck it was doing there. Suddenly, i flew through the tunnel * * * etc. and the rest IS history. What makes me think that it was an abduction is that my friend who was with me said that she saw the globe of light too and then it, as well as Suzy, was GONE! --for several hours. She was totally freaked out and couldn't understand where id disappeared to. She was too stoned to do much about it though and for the most part, just curled up in a ball on the rug listening to cds. Then suddenly to her abasement Suzy appeared on the couch where i was sitting when we saw the bright lihgt... She said i just suddenly was there again! What was really trippy was that the joint i was smoking was still going even though id been away for hours. Just as though id never been away, but several hours had passed, it was afternoon when i flew away and now it was night. And there were cds scattered all over that my friend had listened to when i was gone. She had even taken a shower and made soup during my missing time.
Interesting but proves not a thing and doesn't need to prove anything.
huggles,
s
amazement not abasement, LOL!!! What would Dr Fried say?
Ernie...I cant believe you waded off into this swamp. The old saw about politics and religion holds true. There is nothing to be gained on this rough ground. Its and old fight that has generated a lot of heat but very little light.
Suzy, that's me, sweet and innocent, only believing in my reality. I haven't yet learned how to chastise those that disagree with me.
i know and thats what i like abuot you Ernie, your innocence, i appreciate how much it makes you suffer... Suzy can empathize with the poor sufferer...
You see i had this boyfriend a few years back and when we'd go out like to the Mateel or wherever... on the ride home he liked to tie me up and put me in the trunk ... then he liked to have hot --you know... when we got home. I went for it cuz you know Suzy =she likes to try it all...LOL! -- but one time this cop pulled us over and he heard me moving around in the trunk. He made my boy open it up and... there was Suzy! I had managed to remove the rope that tied me and take the gag out of my mouth so i could talk and give him my name and stuff or whatever i said LOL...
The officer was like wtf? My boyfiend explained that he had bad tires and that i was back there for extra weight so we could get better traction. The cop just shook his head, you know, theyve seen it all i guess... kinda like firemen i spose.
oxo
Yikes Ernie... This string got really weird. Do I detect Darth Vader?
I can handle wierd, most things are wierd to me. The trick is not to get sucked under.
Dave, it is actually sex, politics and religion. One down, two to go.
I understand what you are saying, that I should have jumped into the abyss without my water wings. But, as you know a belief in a God is almost universal. The most amazing thing to me is the need to convince me that God is real. Are people trying to save me, or convince themselves that they are standing on firm ground, but they fear they aren't?
Without mentioning names, most of these people seem to be extremely intelligent, and on a noncontroversial plane they contribute greatly to the quality of the comments on this blog, and indeed, some of them have contributed greatly to my own person store of knowledge. I don't condemn them for the way they believe, but the proof to me that something is wrong is that they all see and believe in different realities. No matter what I personally believe in, it will make most of the people of the world unhappy. So, I am content to believe only in my reality, but I'm more that happy to allow other people their beliefs. It does rather annoy me when people take up my time uninvited to try to save me. This blog post is different, I invited their opinions.
I always learn something when I delve into “Forbidden” areas. The last time I delved, I discovered that some of the most fabulous modern art and psychedelic paintings were actually depictions of what some people see when they have migraine headaches.
Like Suzy said, some people like to explain away the things that people see in near death experiences. But, most of the people that have them claim that it was very real, and they held firm that they were real against all “proof” of otherwise. I do wish that Suzy would try to take better care of herself. Maybe I can convince her to switch to beer. I've never had a near death experience while on beer. Sometimes the next morning I've wished that I was near death. But, that's another story.
Like I said, most people don't agree with the way that I think, so finding people with different ideas is not all that alien to me. I enjoy hearing different people opinions, I've already heard mine.
I've never had a near death experience while on beer.
= what you had Ernie is called a near-life experience.
Was WhiteThor(n) named that because so many there like to get hammered? There does seem to be a group of beserkers there.
Twenty two years ago a wonderful hebrew friend (may his soul rest in peace)a graduate of NY Yashivah University put into perspective the basic universal query of belief and knowledge and what knowledge does to belief and what belief does to knowledge.
This is the observation as to the perspective he was given by one of his teachers long ago:
Just remember that what you believe is, is. Always respect that what is 'is' for some is not a fact you must believe in, just respect the belief for its knowledge however incorrect to you that knowledge may be because tomorrow a new knowledge may show your knowledge of what 'is' is lacking in the belief of what you knew yesterday.
Way too much Zen from a Levi, but then "what you believe is, is."
"The last time I delved, I discovered that some of the most fabulous modern art and psychedelic paintings were actually depictions of what some people see when they have migraine headaches."
My ex used to get migraines and she never said my paintings looked like what she saw when having an episode. She said she had the oft reported split vision. Psychedelic art is the only art movement in history that was deliberately passed over by gallery owners because they didn't want to be associated with drugs. Consequently the psychedelic art movement never has received its fair share of historical art movement fame. I used to work in the Harksook Inn kitchen with a cook there who was one of the Fillmore poster artists and like me, he too had to do other things to make a living.
Psychedelic art movement was much different from any other modern art movement. The hallucinogenic drugs made it possible for modern Westerners like me to actually SEE the inspiration for the art one sees in ancient Mayan, Hindu, Tibetan paintings and sculptures. To tell the truth, I don't do a lot of art because what some visionaries see behind the eyes is so much more incredibly greater than ANY piece of art work in the real world that the whole idea of originality becomes questionable. The brain either can receive or generate the most astounding images ever to be seen anywhere. Look at my best painting, the Ariel Lome one, and know that to me it is like a Matthew Brady 1960's black and white photo compared to a modern full color 3-D movie in my feeble attempt to reproduce what I saw behind my eyes under LSD and peyote. You find out where colors come from and I believe all art images. I await the Krell machine seen in Forbidden Planet that can reproduce mental imagery. The visionaries who see the psychedelic imagery will be the new artists in our future.
psychedelic art
Make that 1860's Matthew Brady photographs..
Funny, Suzy, but the "abasement" comment is what stuck out to me in your whole 8:14 post & I laughed because, well, that Suzy is so clever! Then I read your correction & laughed again because, well, that Suzy is so clever! Then I read the whole in-the-trunk thing & thought maybe it wasn't a Flip (that's short-hand for "Freudian slip" - ha, ha!) after all... & we'd been set up because, well, you know.
Now, about that boyfriend... he was a bass player, right?
Honestly I hope ernie doesn't want to see if I am real. ouch : 0
what would we call someone who believes in god, but doesn't believe that any of the organized religions today truly offer a way for god to enter into ones heart, therefore all the religious folks today are merely godless heathens idly worshiping until they experience their demise.
Now, about that boyfriend... he was a bass player, right?
thumbs up! er, i mean down --on the G string 'o)
back when i was a wee child, i used to think i could fly. i first recognized it in a jim thorpe movie back in the 50's. it was the part when jim, played by burt lancaster as i remember, was running over hill and dale and seemed to be flying across the land. i used to experience the same thing at around 5 years of age when i was one of the fastest kids in school. when i slowed down as i got heavier, i would run down hills to get the same sensation. at the ranch in stinson beach, we had a huge old oak on the side of a hill with big long rope on it that all the big kids swung on. when i was out there by myself, i would swing out as far as i could and let go. we had ropes in the barns hanging from the rafters and we did the same thing into a pile of hay below. the big red barn where they milked the cows had two ropes was the most fun because it was on a hill on the other side of the creek and all the older kids would hang out there at night, smoke cigarettes, makeout and swing on the ropes. the white barn where the horses were had two ropes as well but you didn't fly as far.
when i went back home, i used to climb the redwood tree in the back yard as high as i could and let go backwards, bouncing off limbs all the way down, one time i missed all the limbs for about 20 feet and lost my breath when i hit the ground. also, we used to have a water tower close by that we would climb the cross bars as high as we could and let go.
sometimes we would bounce off the bars on the way down but we never got hurt. one time i was shooting arrows up to the tower platform and one got stuck up there so i was climbing up and jungle jim, the local hunchback, saw me and turned me in for climbing the watertower to a cop driving by. they told me that climbing the water tower was still on my police record over 20 years later.
as i got older, i would keep on trying to fly across waves on surfboards and down hills on skateboards. guys like laird hamilton and the people who ride mavericks say that riding big waves is the biggest rush. but going 50 plus down a hill on a 70's era skateboard was the biggest rush i ever felt and the last one.
i only fly in planes now and limit the waves to 4 feet, but i still believe that i can fly and someday i will again, right now it would take a pretty big umbrella.
"...it is actually sex, politics and religion. One down, two to go."
I think that Suzy already broached the second, so, on to politics?
”Make that 1860's Matthew Brady photographs..”
Yep, did that. Anybody who knows who Mathew Brady was, knew that you meant 1860's ish. Anybody who didn't know who Mathew Brady was... What difference would it make?
Nice art work Steve. But, you and Suzy are scaring me, lay of that funny stuff. Spyrock, I'm glad that you are flying closer to the ground nowadays.
Okay... I guess that I'll move on. This post turned out to but different that I thought...
Honestly I hope ernie doesn't want to see if I am real. ouch : 0
I am with you there!
Ernie is a great guy but if I hear him singing "If I had a Hammer" under his breath, I think I will just move along. The newcomers probably got to him again.
Ernie... Growing up in LA had its positive side. When I was a kid, I hitched out to the desert near 29 Palms to attend George Van Tassel's annual Flying Saucer Convention.
One old guy from Arizona had a booth selling his books. It seems he had been abducted by a saucer full of gorgeous women, residents of a planet in Earth's orbit exactly opposite ours. Their planet being short on men, they performed some pleasant experiments on this fellow and returned him home presumably to his grateful wife. We hope she understood.
My friend engaged him in conversation and he asked if we belonged to an organization. My friend said, "Yes we belong to KLAU. "Ah" replied the space traveler, "and what do you study?" After a pause, my friend said, "Reality." "Really", said the writer, "So do I".
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