--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Susan" <wayback71@> wrote: > > > > Great idea, but way too logical and alarmingly measurable. Hopefully, the > > folks from the inner circle who scan these posts will hear of this. > > > > Here's another idea - open up a separate place in Ffld to do Program > > (Probation Hall) for all those banned people who would really like to > > meditate in the Domes. Let them meditate and contribute to world peace > > etc, but without contaminating the people in the regular Domes. And if you > > attend Probation Hall programs regularly, swear to your purity, OR make a > > large donation, you can absolve your sins and work your way into the big > > Domes. Problem solved. > > > > I do see from Buck's point of view how frustrating this whole situation is. > > There is no way to get forgiveness on this issue. > > Susan, Doug Hamilton has been on this from the earliest posts to this forum, > long, long before I came on here. Post #6 and post #13: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/6 > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/13 > > He seems genuinely concerned about this disruption of community. As spiritual > movements degenerate into religion (belief as opposed to direct experience) I > suspect the resistance to testing the metaphysical underpinnings of the > enterprise becomes more intense. There are many metaphysical ideas which have > testable physical consequences because they are supposed to have a result in > the world. > > For example global warming does appear to be increasing. The Church of the > Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://www.venganza.org/) claims this is because > the number of pirates in the world is declining: > > http://www.venganza.org/images/PiratesVsTemp.png
A graph! Aha. That proves it. Thanks:-) > > However the number of pirates on the high seas seems to have increased in the > past couple of decades from something like 100 to perhaps 3000, largely > because of Somalia. This is a serious theological threat to the Church of the > Flying Spaghetti Monster (COTFSM) because the number of pirates is > increasing, but global temperatures continue to rise. And there are of course > online pirates that have increased significantly to, although, strictly > speaking, the COTFSM is referring specifically to pirates on the high seas. > > The Church here referred to is of course a parody of religious thought, but > it is exactly the kind of thinking the TMO expects people to have. Anyone > here on this forum who has a spiritual bent, not excluding me either, has > probably fallen into the ridiculous logic promoted by this way of thinking > one time or another, even without realising it. What we see here on the forum > is people that are in various stages of breaking away from that misguided > logic, and trying to come to terms with existence as it is, not as we think > it ought to be, or more particularly, as someone else thinks we ought to > think it to be. > Very well said..I too am in that process and it is interesting and not always comfortable at all. Sometimes I miss the fairy tale mentality and the feeling that I am pretty certain about things. For example, I wish I still believed in reincarnation, but am now not so sure at all about that. Also, it seems more and more likely that awakening is just a brain state that we encourage thru various practices. It results in the death of the ego, so those who are awakened in this way have, in a sense, already died. Of course, they are also seeing things more for the way they really are, which is good - I think. So they don't really care about life after death since there is no I anyway. I ramble...... and am not thinking so clearly, but you get it.
