Thought of the Day

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Ero-Sennin, Nov 27, 2012.

  1. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Grand entrances take time. Can't please err'body. I feel like my tag isn't appropriate anymore in the metoo era. What should I change it to?
     
  2. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Poorly skilled Peeper?
     
  3. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I think the peeping bit is the issue. I should just change it to "observer." : P.
     
  4. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I wonder if Revelations, the final book in The Bible, isn't a story of the end of times as much as it is a story of rebirth that is insanely specific towards human society. If I assume it's a story of rebirth, not the end of times, I think this explains why people pre-emptively think the world is going to end because they see the signs, when in fact there are simply major changes that occur along a similar pattern.

    So for example the "Mark of the Beast" isn't a tattoo or chip or other weird thing, it's just something that causes a clear split between people that causes "othering" of people. Obviously things don't pan out the same in real life, as there's been no intentional "you must get this or you will not be allowed to participate in society" as of yet. I wouldn't follow those laws myself, that's just too much in any context and I wouldn't want to live in that society so hell with it. So where would I fall with the "MoB" but not being down for the division? Stories as metaphors/prophecy obviously cast a large net that hold a lot of ridiculous stuff in it, but I wonder just how much wisdom we might find if we stop stomping around grandstanding about how horrible past people were and start trying to pay attention to what they noticed, what they developed, what it says about us, and how we can use this to better ourselves.
     
  5. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Maybe the book of revelations is just a story, and we should leave it in the past with the rest of our superstitions.

    Just like Harry potter novels and phrenology textbooks.
     
  6. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Thank you for your contribution.
     
    Dead_pool likes this.
  7. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I have literally no idea why I posted that. Hahaha.
     
  8. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    I'm a big fan of scientific progress and updating our beliefs to match current knowledge. I see no need for literal belief in religion given our understanding of science.

    At the same time, metaphor and imagery can be an important way of understanding human existence, and texts from Gilgamesh onwards contain moments of truth encapsulated in them. There is an undeniable power there.

    I have always found this passage from Wasteland intensely powerful.
    "What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
    Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
    You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
    A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
    And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
    And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
    There is shadow under this red rock,
    (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
    And I will show you something different from either
    Your shadow at morning striding behind you
    Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
    I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

    It contains Christian and Arthurian imagery, amongst others, neither of which I subscribe to as a belief system. But as they underpin much of my culture, they resonate anyway.

    To go back to your point @Ero-Sennin, I don't know Revelations well enough, beyond the intro to Number of the Beast obviously, but I wouldn't be surprised to find it packed with ideas that resonate now and make some sense when considered properly.
     
  9. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    That's a good point, Stories that have existed for a long time, have been selected for survival through popularity, of they are/were popular they they must of held value for the people exposed to them,

    What is this value though?

    Humans like stories, and the most Popular stories have reoccurring elements, experts such as Jung and Dan Harmon have attempted to distil these down to the constitute cycles.

    Now whilst these might be psychologically attractive to large groups of people, it's a stretch to think they've encoded great wisdom. And if that was true, the more popular something was/is, the more value/wisdom it must have.

    Which makes the MCU one of the most cultural important forms of media we have!

    Dan Harmon, The Hero’s Journey, and the Circle Theory of Story

    Archetypes In Storytelling — 42courses.com
     
  10. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    There are texts older than Revelation that still underpin modern understanding; in philosophy, mathematics, logic and the like.

    The difference with texts like Revelation is their abstract and mystic nature. Interpretations vary wildly and we will never know the intent of the authors.

    This leaves them acting as a dark mirror. It's not about what the authors noticed, it's about what you notice, what it is in your mind that you see reflected in the text.
     
    Dead_pool likes this.
  11. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I was force fed Christianity as a child and had some abusive things done to me. There were times I was told I felt sick because I was sinning, and I had to sit on my bed for hours because God said you have to obey your parents. They're some of my first memories! Around the time I joined the Marine Corps and went from a small county to seeing different areas of the world, mostly very extreme areas, I got to witness how much what was shoved down my throat did not line up with the way the world works. Without going the militant atheist route, I pretty much rejected any and all religion (not spirituality, I've remained agnostic). I also have a strong mistrust for authority figures that's rooted in all this, and anyone who thinks they can tell me what to do (military was a great choice for me right? xD).

    I know a lot about Christianity, and I've been through the Bible in my past quite a bit. I do not subscribe to any form of religion because all of them have significant cultural and political bias in them. The major spiritual growth aspects seem to be pretty similar across most religions though (at their root, so things like "forgive others"). That's usually where my interest in religion now rests, along with fascination at why these people thought these things and how they came to these conclusions.

    The Bible is literally a book of Memes.

    What if in 10,000 years from now humans really do have super powers and they are split off into religious orders based on the MCU characters? When they were writing about the Tower of Babel to tell everyone that "even when you have a shared goal, the reasons you are after that goal may still be different and that will cause so many rifts in communication that you wont succeed in accomplishing your task," they had no idea what it would turn into. To make it stick in people's head, they brought it to the extreme to where it creates literal other tribes and nations (because we remember the crazy stuff). The use of "God" in the story is meant as a way to relay that "this is how we are as human beings, this is our nature, it cannot be changed but we can be aware about it and change it, which is what 'created in God's image'" means. If we brought them back to the future and they saw how we interpreted it they would probably laugh their butt off.

    Or maybe not. Maybe they were psycho, high on mushroom apes that were also slowly dying from lead poisoning.

    My way of thinking about it has helped me make substantial gains in my recovery from some of my own mental health issues, so writing it off the way you did in your initial response wasn't something I could add much to. Bouncing ideas off of religious concepts is one of many different things I do to explore myself and society and my place in it. To give you a current example I've been going over how cynical and distrustful of others I am to the point that I have issues with paranoia that I need to keep in check. My paranoia comes with legitimate events in my life, so it's extra hard to combat and I try to stay aware of it. I'm trying to make some moves in my personal life that requires me to start building relationships with other people. This is extraordinarily difficult for me to do as a person, and especially after how I've processed some of the things I've been through. A lot of the times I ask myself "why even try to put effort into others when they're just going to screw me over?" and something in the back of my head just whispers, "have faith." And then I think of all the times I read in the Bible, or even other stories from cultural or religious texts in which the protagonist is told to "have faith" with the theme generally being that if you put your efforts towards good things, it's very likely those goods things will come to fruition.

    So in the words of Nike, "just do it" because you really don't know what can happen. If you fail you learn, if you succeed then great. This is life.

    But then the same holds true for putting your efforts towards bad things right? What's good and bad anyways?

    We need a thread to rename things in different ways for current society.

    The Bible should be: "The Dark Book of Memes" xD xD xD
     
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  12. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    RANDOM THOUGHT

    I try my best on social media and forums like MAP to not use the "react" functions. I try to make it a point to respond if I thought something was interesting or it made me think of something in another light. Then you have situations like this thread where somebody like @Mitch explains something clearer to help further discussion and I can't think of a way to show those things through a post that doesn't come close to the line of spam posting. "Thank you for your contribution" shouldn't be 10,000 of your posts right?!

    I find it difficult to maintain fighting the urge to use react functions. I do it for the obvious reasons of how it removes human interaction, but I also try to do it because it forces me to interact with others, which causes me to think, which causes my brain to be used which I have a big interest in using since mine is more likely to degrade quicker in old age due to incurred injuries in my life so far.

    Anyone else share these kinds of difficulties? Maybe not for the same reasons exactly but in the same spirit? If so how are you managing using "react" features on social media sites and forums? Obviously if you don't think this is an important thing to deal with in society (if I'm in a stint of developing our property where I'm in the woods all day every day, it certainly doesn't matter to me either!) don't feel a need to tell us how we should just get away from it and live a simpler life : P. We already know. We are trying to build a cabin in the woods on MARS MAN. Gonna' require some higher levels of coordination.
     
  13. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Reading about who wrote old texts and what they were based upon is really interesting.

    Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE | PBS

    But you don't need old books to give you faith in yourself, you got that, not dusty old gods, not tricksy priests with their mold eaten prayer books, just you, and the people you interact with.

     
  14. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    I'm not sure I wrote my post very clearly.

    I'm gonna try again

    Memes are information that are appealing,that make us feel good, which has absolutely no baring in if they are true or not.

    If anything memes are less trustworthy then other sources of information because the selectional bias isn't on their truthfulness, but on how good they make us feel.

    ccc.jpg
     
  15. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I do not believe you need to be exposed to religion to become agnostic, and I think God cares about what we define as spiritual growth and development from our experiences in life. It's hard to explain this, but things like suffering, joy, hardship, quality of life . . . these things don't even matter to you if you're extremely goal oriented towards something. They only matter if you're focusing on yourself and your plight. I think you have to have a balance of self growth processing the difficulties of life, and ignoring your experience for the furthering of life and humanity in general.

    If there is a God, then that's just the way it is. You can't deny that, and I don't think claiming something like "there is no god!"(atheism) while you try your best to live a good life is something a literal God that cares about spiritual development and growth would care about. Try your best to be a good person. A good person takes care of themsevles so they aren't a burden to others, and helps take care of others when they are not able to take care of themselves. It's a rotation, not a permeant status in life. We will all need help at some point, and we will all need to be strong for others too. I ain't go no answers, I just have what works for me and maybe it works for somebody else too.

    I'll give that link a go when I have time to sit and watch! I've been thinking of revisiting reading the Bible and some other religious texts (mostly Eastern religion/philosophy, some African) to see how differently I process them. Sort of like when you go back and re-watch a movie as an adult and it's COMPLETELY different.
     
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  16. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    We are going to have a disagreement on what memes are if you follow that path.

    I define memes as massive amounts of information based on a prior understanding of events surrounding a pop culture event.

    So you write, "How to explain how complex Humans are to aliens" and you would put the text "MANKIND" on top of a photo with different religious texts.

    The definition of what a Meme is seems to support how I define it. Just because you use it for humor all the time and that's your experience with it, and just because that's how most everyone else uses it too, doesn't mean that's where its strength of purpose is.

    I'll die on this hill.

    ::draws internet sword::
     
    Simon likes this.
  17. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Brought a tear to my eye that. Don't think I've ever seen my basic world view so succinctly put.
     
  18. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    I personally think God is a continuation of the brain architecture that knows your parents are watching over you, as a child, and can see everything.

    As an adult it's an unnecessary addition to life.

    When (Groucho?) Marx said religion is the opium of the masses, the context is that opium was a common medication you could buy without a prescription, that eased your immediate difficulties, but long term wasn't good for the population.
     
  19. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award


    People who are a permanent burden to people can still be good people.

    Paraplegics arnt bad people because they need looking after.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2021
  20. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    A meme is any information that is passed from person to person, a mental gene if you will.


    But the popular/successful memes, are ones that make people feel good, that's the selection bias.

    So the Bible is a whole collection of memes.

    "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture Memes (discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on) are to culture what genes are to life."
     

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