(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

I took this from wijsgeer because I like this kind of thing. Why do people so seldom ask me these really interesting questions?

1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?

Poverty: Because there is unequal distribution of wealth. It is possible that if all wealth were distributed equally in the world, there would not be enough to go around still, because there are too many people.

Suffering: Because people are imperfect, at the mercy of their health, their environment, their body chemistry. Because they make bad judgements. Because shit happens.

2. What is the relationship between science and religion?

Both are ways of explaining existence.

3. Why are so many people depressed?

Body chemistry is flexible. There are too many factors affecting any brain: stress, fear, health issues, pollution, nutritional lacks, any number of things. Besides: shit happens. There is only so much any given individual can bear. Broken hearts and broken body chemistry.

4. What are we all so afraid of?

Uh... I'm not sure we are all afraid. If we are afraid, no two people are necessarily afraid of the same thing. I'd say we are primarily afraid of loss of life, loss of face, and loss of selfhood. Afraid of loss. Afraid of pain. Afraid of fear.

5. When is war justifiable?

Never.

6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?

Your god, your choice. I can't answer for other people's gods. If the question can be re-translated to, "What is the best response to aggression and terrorism?" I would say: international cooperation on a global scale to say to the violent, This is unacceptable.

7. How does one obtain true peace?

Know yourself, accept yourself, become what you believe you should be. The only true peace is inner peace.

8. What does it mean to live in the present moment?

Is this a trick question? It means not dwelling on the past or anticipating the future in order to choose present actions.

9. What is our greatest distraction?

Distraction from what? I am not distracted. This makes me think of John Lennon's phrase, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans".

10. Is current religion serving its purpose?

No. This presupposes anyone has a notion of the 'purpose' of religion, but the purpose is different in each different faith. I would say religion is, generally speaking, doing a good job of perpetuating war, bigotry and divisions between groups of people. If the purpose of religion is the psychological comfort of those who practise that religion, I'd say religion totally fails to serve its purpose, even on an individual basis.

11. What happens to you after you die?

Is this another trick question? I don't think there is an answer, either subjective or objective. The living cannot, by definition, answer this. Our bodies transmute into the physical universe around us. As for our souls or minds - I don't think there needs to be any given answer. I think there are good arguments for reincarnation, for an afterlife, for oblivion, and so on through all the imaginable theories. Pick your favourite. Or none.

12. Describe Heaven and how to get there.

Isn't there a stairway? Dante got there by going down through the circles of hell and then cutting through purgatory and up the mountain of heaven. I love his description of heaven:

instinct and intellect balanced equally,
as in a sphere whose motion nothing jars,
by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

So nicely pantheistic!

I also like Tolkien's image of Iluvatar surrounded by creative song.

13. What is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is for each of us to find and create our own meaning in it. Our greatest purpose is to make things better by our existence - and by 'better' I mean, ease suffering, increase happiness. On an ongoing basis.

14. Describe God.

The conceptualization of the inconceivable.

15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?

Perception and understanding.

16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?

Health deficiencies, circumstances, fear, lack of love, lack of self-love, lack of motivation, lack of understanding.

17. Non-verbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.

The world is as it has always been. The best of times, the worst of times. Perhaps the gesture would be a shrug and an affectionate smile?

18. What is your one wish for the world?

Better values than we now have.

19. What is wisdom, and how do we gain it?

Wisdom is the ability to recognize what is true, and to recognize the best choices to make. We gain it by observing and thinking.

20. Are we all One?

The question is a moot point. We are all similar, we are all different. Are you asking if I believe in a metaphysical noosphere that connects us all? ...Do I believe there are psychic levels at which humanity is linked? Yes. Do I believe we can achieve union with the universe? We already have it, but can we recognize it, and can we experience it at will? Let me get back to you on that in a few decades.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Hm... Looks to me as if some kind of god-botherer devised this meme. I like most of your answers, anyway. I disagree on some, though:

3. I can only speak personally on this, but lack of money and material insecurity come top of my list.
5. Yes; to prevent worse forms of aggression and destruction.
10. In that it foments hatred, or numbs people's minds, probably.
11. Decomposition. if you're lucky, people may remember you as you were. If you are unlucky, they will remember you as you weren't. Being forgotten may be the happy medium.
12. A fictional concept.
13. Meaning? There isn't one. Why should there be?
14. Another fictional concept, generally favoured by the emotionally retarded or socially dysfunctional.
15. Intelligence, courage, and a sense of humour.
20. No, thankfully.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

but lack of money and material insecurity come top of my list.

On mine too, though I suppose at the moment it's 'fear of lack of money and material insecurity' - since, currently, I have enough to eat, I push the more long-term problems to the back of my mind.

Re 10: I think we're pretty much agreed on this one.

I like your answer to 15.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

for me, I have been depressed so often. feeling hurt and unwanted, fear of going crazy, just being me, all wars, life, other people, fear of the laws of nature, of the stuff I see.

Never actually of poverty. I've not been bothered to much by poverty so far in my life, just being to depressed, it seems obvious I will just stop living when the money is gone.

So, all in all I have come to the conclusion that vulnerabillity of the brain (no matter how that has come about) is (for me) the most important factor, and everything and nothing can seem to be a triggering factor.

Note, I am officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it might well be different for people who have just 1 or 2 depressions during their life whereby the trigger played a stronger role.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

feeling hurt and unwanted

I think that's a big one for me. It's hard to fight. Knowing it's common doesn't help much.

My depression was fairly simple and straightforward but devastating enough. The only good thing about it was that it didn't last forever - it just felt like it. (A few years? I don't even know, and don't want to try to remember too much.)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I just have comparatively mild levels of it, but I know the cause, and it's purely reactive to being unemployed, poor, and feeling that my talents are unappreciated and under-used. I know I could have accomplished great things in life - I always wanted to dazzle - but kept getting rejected for job after job, and when I did get a post, it was a fixed-term contract, and not really in my field. So now I live vicariously through rather more successfully dazzling dead people.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm okay now, as far as depression goes (touch wood). For me, the root trigger - other than illness - is loneliness. That sort of segues into the rest of it - feeling unappreciated and under-used, indeed, and realizing that no one cares about my passion for history. Yet.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I'm okay now, as far as depression goes

keep on going my dear! Glad the new meds aperently don't seem to have psych-side-effects.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you. The new meds seem just fine - tho' I forgot to take the pill yesterday, ulp. So far so good.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

realizing that no one cares about my passion for history. Yet.

Some of us do! You can't imagine how thrilled I was to find you!
(And do check in at oltramar - some anniversary posts!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Okay - will do!

Suffering and how to act

[idiotgrrl.livejournal.com]

There was a spoiled rich Hindu kid once upon a time who set out to solve that problem and came up with some rather interesting answers. Of course, his answer was to get rid of cravings, addictions, and attachments to things and people and walk lightly in the world.

COme to think of it, that was a major strain of thought in the Hindu world anyway. But for those so inclined, it's a set of answers that seems to have led to peace and good deeds.

Re: Suffering and how to act

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

How appallingly dull life would be without attachments!
To live passionlessly isn't life, it's merely existence. Without suffering, how do we measure delight?

Re: Suffering and how to act

[idiotgrrl.livejournal.com]

My thoughts at first,too. But then - look at someone like the Dalai Lama and tell me *he's* a passionless robot. It's very plain that the usual interpretation of this philosophy and what's being asked of is might have some flaws. Or at least, there's soemthing there I, for one, am not getting but can visibly see is there.

Re: Suffering and how to act

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The monasteries take small kids and bring them up that way...
I don't think it's healthy. I generally find that amiable people who are religious are so as much in spite of their religion as because of it.

But it seems to me so very negative. I detest any philosophy that makes a virtue of denial.

Re: Suffering and how to act

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I would say so, but those believing in enlightment don't and assume you need to journey a bit farther along the road of existence before you reach their benighted stage.

I don't know if you read scifi as well as history but a recurring theme is that of an alien race that has "passed", that became en messe disinterested in the matters of body and left the physical excistence behind, just staying somehow as a collective mind somewhere in the universe.

I don't think you and me have to worry that such a thing would happen to the human race during our life time.

Lo gai saber

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I read a little fantasy, but not really science fiction, but I know exactly what you mean.

It sounds dreadful. I prefer joi e deport as a basic philosophy: "joy and delight". Pretz, valor e cortesia. The courtly virtues.

I love art, music, literature, good food, good wine, truth, beauty, and impossible emotional attachments to dead people. I owe no allegiance to any country, but to my friends, who are an international network of fun and interesting people. I am suspicious of flag-wavers of all kinds.

I regard ascetics with suspicion: all too often, it's a kind of one-upmanship of self-imposed hardship, getting off on feeling morally superior to others to make up for depriving themselves of things they'd like. I suspect they basically hate themselves, are punishing themselves for some peculiar reason, but want to be admired for it. And if they inconvenience other people in the process, well, that makes them feel even more superior.

Re: Lo gai saber

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of this, but I can see, in some ways, a certain joy in asceticism - such as the current joy I am taking in not overeating. Or the joy I was taking a year ago, when I gave away, or otherwise disposed of, one item every day. I am not a great fan of materialism, or owning a lot of things. This of course is a self-contradiction in a person with fannish passions who loves collecting comic books.

But generally speaking, I am in favour of 'joy and delight' and even hedonism: a passionate pleasure in life itself.

Re: Lo gai saber

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

"Not over-doing something" isn't the same as deliberately under-doing or renouncing something, though.

I get very pissed off with vegans and some vegetarians who take great pleasure in putting other people out to cater for their fads, and think it makes them morally superior. I have a few friends who, due to illnesses, have to avoid various foods, which is distressing to them, so I think for healthy people to be so picky, and use it as a stick to beat others, is... somehow ungrateful to their naturally omnivorous bodies.

My books and dolls and jewellery and and films and music matter very much to me. I only give things away when I need to for space-reasons or have lost interest in them. They matter because I don't have the level of material security a lot of people have, in terms of home, job, & c. Wherever my stuff is, is my home. I don't even have my own furniture.

Re: Lo gai saber

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

on the Bujold list we recently had a discussion of immoortality. Most said they would not be bored, not ever, no maater how long live lasted. I think, if life is trule eternal, not like in silly films like the highlander where immortallity is seen on human scale, but I meaan on the scale of seeing stars being born and die, even whole star systems. You might have been encaged in billions and billions of lifes of humans and possibly or intelligent life forms, you might have gotten unimaginable richess, traveled and overseen fast spaces. An enormity we with our human brain I doubt can grasp and comprehend. Nevertheless I have a strong suspicion that if you would live in such a timescale this would severly influence your attachment to the local and flesh. I wouldn't be surprised that taken from such a perspective it actually makes sense to get disjointed from a physically and involved live. At a certain moment.

Re: Lo gai saber

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Interesting comments. And yes, I was one of the people who said I would enjoy immortality. I was thinking, say, on a scale of the Doctor.... on the scale you mention, yes, transformation is another sort of thing. What, from that perspective, does immortality mean? I'm not sure: my current self is rather attached to this flesh. But that may be largely happenstance. While I'm here, and in this form, I like to think I'm making the most of it - the best of it - as much as possible.

[sparklebutch.livejournal.com]

I really want to answer these, but I'm fairly sure it will be cynical, mean, and rather unhelpful.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, 'cynical and mean' can be interesting too. Don't hold back on my account!

[sparklebutch.livejournal.com]

1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?
Because of PEOPLE.
2. What is the relationship between science and religion?
Sort of, "we hate each other but really should be liek teh OTP, but we're not, because we're so blind to the OMG LOVE"
3. Why are so many people depressed?
For bloody good reasons.
5. When is war justifiable?
When you're the big fat winner.
13. What is the meaning of life?
A Monty Python movie.
6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?
I think God would say, "surprise me."
15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?
Mortality.
16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?
Mortality.
17. Non-verbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.
*flails*
20. Are we all One?
Nope. Just me.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good answers!

My favourite:
13. What is the meaning of life?
A Monty Python movie.

I knew that!

Your answers aren't that much unlike mine.

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

10. Is current religion serving its purpose?

*Dusting off some apparently not entirely useless info from my days as a religion major (Not a Theology major, mind you...I make fun of all traditions equally)* <--The preceeding is a joke, please do not throw anything vaguely scriptural at me, thank you.

Someone, I think it was Clifford Geertz, but I am remembering at a distance of several years, developed a basic definition of religion as any belief system which answers the following three questions:

1. Where does everything ultimately come from??

2. Why am I here / What is my purpose?

3. What is the purpose of evil?

I like this very basic definition because it not only speaks to the basic tenants of every major religion, but it also includes personal belief systems that might not be included in an "organized religion" per se.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

please do not throw anything vaguely scriptural at me

Hee - from me? I don't think so! I wouldn't know scripture if I tripped over it. Well, maybe I would, but only incidentally.

So do you think current religions serve their purposes under those criteria? I'd still say they perhaps try to do so, but do so badly and inadequately.

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

I think it depends heavily on the individual. A large portion of religion, and which is the "right" religion, is personality-based, in my opinion. For a lot of people it's not an "organized religion" in it's entirety that is "right", but some eclectic blend.

My needs in this respect are being met just fine, thanks. Granted, I'm half-Catholic and half-Orthodox, so with that juxtaposition of Western and Eastern religion and a big ol' chunk of mystic tradition I have a lot to choose from. And I think it helps that I have the specialized vocabulary to clarify, at least to myself, beliefs that I might hold that are not included in an "organized religion". Plus I tend to think about these things for fun.

I do have some pretty strange ideas about the purpose of evil, or so I've been told. (If anyone cares, or just needs a diversion, check my "It's not depressing, it's tragic" journal entry from yesterday.)

But I would agree that there are many people whose needs are not being met in this way, either institutionally or personally. And I find that really sad in a way. I don't care if people find a sense of purpose in organized religion, in esoteric beliefs, or in their work, but I think a sense of purpose is a large contributor to personal well-being.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think most religion is probably personality-based, but the mainstream religions are based on personalities not much like mine. I'm all for eclectic blends. But though I have always billed myself as a 'pantheist' I find that current events of recent years (and being influenced by atheistic authors) make me inclined to think of myself more now as a spiritually-inclined atheist. Perhaps I could just call myself a mystic and leave it at that?

If you're curious enough, my comments on my religious beliefs are on my website (http://ca.geocities.com/eholden0916@rogers.com/other/pantheism/pantheism.html). I have of course specific thoughts on evil - will enjoy looking at yours.

I don't care if people find a sense of purpose in organized religion, in esoteric beliefs, or in their work, but I think a sense of purpose is a large contributor to personal well-being.

I think so; and a sense of placement, of relationship with the environment.