On Sep 13, 1:04Â am, AZ Nomad
PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:> On Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:28:15 -0500, Day Brown
daybrown.org> wrote:>>AZ Nomad wrote:
>>>> You took a lot of acid when you were young, didn't you?
>
>>> Worse. Â It sounds like he got religion when he was young.
>>No, when I was in my mid twenties, I took a couple years to read the
>>Bible cover to cover. That eliminated any doubt I had as to whether it
>>was not, in fact, a propaganda piece.
>>Wasson, and now more recently, other anthropologists have gone into the
>>sacred space, at the sacred time, and accepted the sacred potion from
>>the shaman. And out of that, have had spiritual enlightenment, which,
>>however, makes it abundantly clear how useless force is to compel others
>>to think or believe a religion.
>>They dont go to war in the name of Jesus or anyone else. They dont hold
>>heresy trials, much less inquisitions, and the usual arguments of
>>atheism do not work with them either.
>>If you take 200 micrograms of LSD and dont directly experience the
>>divine, I dont have a problem with it. But, as the Marsh Chapel study
>>done at Harvard with pscilocybin suggests, that is a common reaction.
>>If you lack the balls to try manipulating your synapese in this way, I
>>do not have a problem with it, but to expound on the altered state of
>>consciousness without having tried a sacred potion is like listening to
>>a virgin try to define sex.
>
> Been there done that. Â Didn't see any fucking spooks.
>
> There's no divine to experience. Â You've simply deluded yourself.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Amid all this parade of substance-using I feel the need to parade my
original posting,amplified somewhat. I'm really quite a boring
person.
What I'm saying is:
What is essential about humans is the sum of their capabilities, both
emotional and intellectual.
What is enduring about human history is the gradual discovery of
these capabilties and the gradual construction - possibly wrong word
-
of an infrastructure to foster and faciliate them; to wit, the
accumulation of knowledge, the colonisation of the planet, the
discovery of "agriculture", the advance of technology, the
development
of transport and communication.
The jewels in the human crown, religion, morality etc, are no more
than constructs to tide us over until knowledge was sufficient in
itself. All other creatures are sufficiently "moral" not to slaughter
each other. Life - the life we know on this planet - is so successful
that morality is built in to it.
Politics is, of course, necessary. We need to live together and to
learn to live in endlessly changing circumstances and numbers. Our
history to date, tho, involves much construction of the obscenity of
servitude and now the excitement of freedom. We seem to think freedom
is the culmination of our time on earth. In reality, it is - or
should
be -,only the beginning of our intelligent time on earth.
We are entering a time of global crisis. Climate, food, fuel,
migration, water etc etc will exercise huge sway. Now, more than ever
we need to recognise our situation and draw emotional and
intellectual
guidance and coherence from it. Once that is done - if it is done -
we
can go on to discover and act upon our unique position in nature and
possibly in the universe.
Joseph Humming
