Yeah if you met me in public you would have no idea what I do for a living or that I am even into geeky technology. Here are some reasons why.

1) I hate star trek - its lame

2) I like to drink beer and whiskey, see live music, chase women, and be out of control a lot of times

3) I do play video games but hate LAN parties and the like, and every other type of party that lacks liquor and women

4) Don't play D&D and any other type of role playing game, though I do find some of the D&D jokes online to be funny. In fact I may even use the D&D jokes from time to time. I do kind of like the role playing video games that I have played over the years...so well not sure how I stand on that one

5) I don't have nor do I watch cable TV

6) I don't drink mountain dew

7) I hate all MMORPG video games, they are all lame


I think of myself of one of those people who you can't immediately try to fit into any one stereotype at all because I am in to just about everything and like to get into everything.

Also, there are tons of reasons I can be labeled as a "computer geek" I mean for one I have over 5,000 posts on this forum.:rolleyes:

that'll work. Foucault is edging you into critical theory (though to my mind he's a bit of a drama queen - lol), and the Asian focus works well. you might want to branch out from Japanese buddhism a bit - its take on buddhist philosophy is... interesting... but only one voice among many in the buddhist realm (there's actually a fascinating paper to be written about the impact of buddhist thought on cultures and cultures on Buddhist thought as it spread east from India...)

sorry, not jargon or specialized terminology; just my own laziness with speech. by 'straight history' I just mean conventional, empirical history - a kind of archeology applied to historical objects and events. straight historians are people who seek out the letters, diaries, official records, and other written material of people directly (or tangentially) related to significant events to try to build a more accurate picture of those events. for example, people who study the various revisions Jefferson made of the Declaration of Independence are straight historians, as are the people who study the extra-marital affairs Jefferson had with his slaves. the only problem with straight history, really, is that straight historians are implicitly engaged in an act of story-telling which they don't like to admit to. they prefer to think of their work as scientific and objective.

c'est la vie... :)

don't they still flog you for that in Kansas City??? :)

really, you ask me, what computer geeks have in common is that they love to solve problems, but don't like to waste time. computers give all of the joys of conquest of your average crossword or Sudoku puzzle, in a form that actually has some functional purpose. makes my ticker tick...

by the way, does Hegel's Phenomenology count as Science Fiction?
(bad, obscure philosopher joke, there, sorry. ;))

Or at least not waste time more then once. I can spend hours on scripting something that would have taken 30 minutes to do by hand the first time.


Completely agree.

hehe nope in Kansas city they encourage it, there is not much else to do!

Seeking God is a lot like following current events. If you rely on only a single source, you get a distorted view of things. For the greatest understanding, one must examine as many sources as possible. "Truth is like a great mirror, shattered by time into a hundred thousand pieces, allowing all who possess a small fragment to claim, 'my religion is the true one.'"

Or, put another way, God is like the summit of a mountain. The summit cares not which path the climber takes to reach it. If a climber is ascending a path up the mountain, he has no opportunity to convince others who have chosen a different path that his path is better without leaving his own path.

There exists a Sufi proverb, "Love the water more and the pitcher less."

I think too many people get WAYYY too caught up in religious metaphors instead of the religious message. All of the greatest teachers have offered the same message, they have just each used different metaphors that they felt their audience could most easily relate to. I think when people believe their (established) religion is substantially different from someone else's, they lack understanding of either their own, the other person's, or both.

Finding spiritual enlightenment is not a competition. Religions are not teams. I find it rather frustrating that so many people view them as such.

I couldn't agree more J Christopher, well spoken!

Just for a good example, I can turn your own mountain analogy on it's ear :). In ancient Daoism it was believed that one should not be proud like a mountain but humble like a lake (even in referring to "God"). The reason? If one is a teacher, and one's students are like water (molding to their instructors teachings), then it is apparent! Water cannot, on it's own, attain the highest peak. Rather, water flows down into the valley, forming into a lake.

Thus, in this analogy, one needs to be humble like the valley to attain God (or peace in Daoism, as God in the western sense was not really present), not proud like the mountain.

Yet, it is still the same exact idea as your mountain analogy. Both describe ways to get to God. The subtle difference, I conject, is in the separate religions understanding of the individual's purpose and how they come to their understanding of an individuals role towards God. At that time in China, it was believed that truth and happiness are easily attained, and that complexities were merely a result of society. Of course at the time society was just forming, and people were afraid of it. It only makes sense in context. So the idea of wandering down a hill towards happiness sounds wonderful compared to the confusing, violent mess that was Chinese society around 600 BC.

Your analogy comes for a Judea/Christian western background that is heavily influenced by the industrial revolution, one that believes hard work, and to a small extend materialism, are good things. Thus working hard to make societies larger is a virtuous goal, and struggle up a mountain seems like a better analogy for truth than wandering down a hill. But why the difference? In our day society brings us medicine, protection and cable TV. As much as some of us disdain society, we would be lost without it (unless you actually do know how to subsistence farm). As a population we are addicted to society, not that I'm complaining mind you, I like my Mac :).

Point being, the different analogies work in their respective spheres because they take different times, place and understandings into account. Just a little extra evidence for your argument, honestly. Maybe something to chew on as well.

Being an Atheist because of strong religious judgement in my area (The last point J makes in this post), I have to say I agree with your viewpoint on religion. I chose to go Athiest because it seems that if you go one religion around here, two more look down upon you. It's as if they play teams.

On the subject, though, we have lots of people around my area who believe it is their divine duty to annoy the non-believers until they submit to their will. Sure, I'm blowing it a bit out of proportion, but with one of my girlfriends, who expressed slight interest in their religion, they attacked her like a pit bull–once they had her they wouldn't let go, even though she wanted out of it.

Does not the seed of yin lie within yang, and vice versa? To paraphrase Buddha, within everything exists its opposite. :)

The closest English word I've found for this concept is enantiodromia.

God is the summit, and the mountain, and the climber. it's only the narrowness of our own vision that convinces us it has to be one (and hence not the others...). One person climbs to the top and looks down over all the earth, another sits at the bottom and looks up at the stars, a third walks away to build a barn and till the fields, and the only sadness in all that is that each thinks the others are fools.

or so it seems to me. ;)

That's Buddhist if ever there was a buddhist thought. I like it :).

As for J Christopher, yeah, that's all true as well, though the Zen-ness of your comments is infuriating in an enlightening sort of way.

As a point of clarity, the early Yin and Yang model actual did not have one inside of the other, they were merely seperate elements that constituted the beginnings of the Universe when the great Dao split into it's lighter and heavier elements.

But I think you people are too smart for me, I'm slowly becoming content to just listen. Maybe I'll learn something for once...

Out of curiosity, what is it you do for a living J Christopher?

I do like buddhism and some aspects of it as well very much. I do like the idea that everything you see and interpret is an illusion.

.
"I should be content to look at a mountain
for what it is and not as a comment on my life."

-- David Ignatow

Very Universalist of you. Or Buddhist. Or (very early) Christian. Or-- well, you get the idea.

Interesting. I was not aware of that. I think Taoism and Gematria (a subset of Kabbalah) are very similar in their explanations of the "beginning." I've also read Jewish interpretations of Genesis that are very consistent with that explanation of the universe's beginnings.

I'm a student.

Ah yes, the concept of non-being, or the emptyness of being, depending on what sect you are looking at. Actually, the idea that everything is a complete illusion is a relatively new concept. Initially the concept was that all physical objects are devoid of permanent existence (impermanence). Thus, the Mac you are looking at now will not be the same Mac you are looking at in a year. It will have subtly (or perhaps greatly!) changed between now and then. All physical objects are like this.

The greater idea behind this goes back to the four noble truths, or their understanding at least. In essence, life is suffering, and one of the many reasons for that is humans innate ability to become attached to the mundane (physical world). Since we attach our emotions to things that will eventually fade away because of their impermanence, it is inevitable that we will feel sorrow. Such is life :).

What is trippy to me is realizing how impermanence effects our day to day lives. Going back to the Mac in front of you, for example, it contains the essence of prior objects that were themselves impermanent. So all of our computers contain wood from a tree and metal from a mountain. But from whence did those objects come? They are also objects imbued with the essence of prior objects that were impermanent. Honestly though, take a look around you and try to imagine the exact history of all the pieces of every object around you. It's mind blowing.

And yes, I do study Buddhism quite a bit :). The only religions I feel I lack knowledge in right now are Islam and Zoroastrianism. I have a passing familiarity with every other major religion, but know precious little of those two.

Science tells us this, also. What we perceive as solid matter is really empty space in which a lot of energy is concentrated. What we perceive as light/color is just energy escaping that empty space.

Our perceptions are not reality. Our perceptions are how our imaginations interpret reality.

That is why I like it, and that is why I relate to buddhism, it is a religion that seems to actually try to keep itself up to date and not be so dogmatic. Then again every religion has its dogmatic followers, but at least I think (or at least how I understand buddhism) that being that way is kind of going against what it is all about.

lol... which do you want it to be? :D

how about let it be one with everything?:rolleyes: