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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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 Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:57 pm Post subject: |
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From a nonmaterialistic perspective, really intelligent people are those who accept authoritative knowledge from the infinitely intelligent Supreme Person, after using their own discrimination to discern what is authentic scripture and who is a bona fide representative.
You can argue that no Supreme Person exists, but there are certainly many intelligent persons who would strongly argue otherwise.
Of course there are different conceptions of God according to different interactions of the material modes of nature: goodness, passion, and
ignorance.
By Vedic devotional culture (which I think is alluded to and illustrated to some extent in Avatar) one can become a pure soul and see the spiritual basis of all living beings.
I don't profess to follow any sectarian religion, but I accept the Vedic principles of bhakti yoga as being philosophically sound and universally true.
Of course, a hard-core materialist like "mindmetoo" - er "Fox" (the "U.S". version of the same guy from Canada) - is full of different ideas.
Interestingly, in the film the same analogy that Krishna conscious preachers use is spoken by the lead female character when she expresses how difficult it is to teach basic spiritual values to someone who is completely absorbed in material conceptions - it's like trying to add something to a cup that is already full. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
I generally read until he just falls back to mindlessly repeating things his cult brainwashers taught him. Sometimes it's the first paragraph, sometimes it's the whole post.
| Rteacher wrote: |
| From a nonmaterialistic perspective, really intelligent people are those who accept authoritative knowledge from the infinitely intelligent Supreme Person, after using their own discrimination to discern what is authentic scripture and who is a bona fide representative. |
No, I'm sorry, that's wrong; it's just more nonsense your indoctrinators fed you so you could feel intelligent while accepting their mythology. That's not what intelligence is. Whether you're a materialist or a spiritualist, intelligence is still the same thing: using your mental faculties to reason, deduce, infer, solve problems, and so forth. Even if your invisible, magical man exists, this definition of intelligence doesn't change. It might be wise to accept his knowledge, but it's got nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence and knowledge are unrelated (though the intelligent often pursue knowledge).
| Rteacher wrote: |
| You can argue that no Supreme Person exists, but there are certainly many intelligent persons who would strongly argue otherwise. |
No, there are people who would claim otherwise. To date, there are precisely zero logically sound arguments in favor of a "Supreme Person". Zero.
| Rteacher wrote: |
| Of course there are different conceptions of God ... |
And guess what sunshine? Most of them -- the overwhelming majority of them -- aren't yours. I understand you like to believe, "Oh, but they're secretly mine, just in some misunderstood, dumbed down sense," because it allows you to believe your cult isn't some ridiculous fringe movement. But no, they aren't yours. The vast majority of the religious want nothing to do with your cult, don't believe in your cult, and would say your beliefs are pure mythology.
| Rteacher wrote: |
| Interestingly, in the film the same analogy that Krishna conscious preachers use is spoken by the lead female character when she expresses how difficult it is to teach basic spiritual values to someone who is completely absorbed in material conceptions - it's like trying to add something to a cup that is already full. |
Indeed, how interesting that a movie script and dedicated con artists might use the same trite, obvious analogy. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:47 pm Post subject: |
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Rteacher, sorry about the digs on your claims/beliefs. I'm not looking to offend anyone here.
I take it that you give the movie two thumbs up? Did you see it in 3D?
I heard that it's really long. I'm worried about seeing it in the cinema because I usually fall asleep during the boring parts of a flick and I wake up when people are filing out. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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It's a very entertaining, visually stunning film - especially in 3D. I haven't seen it in IMAX yet, but will eventually.
We've been over the intelligence-knowledge issue before, and I agree that intelligence always should be utilized, but at a certain point of progressive realization and development of steady faith (which logically occurs by following a bona fide process) material intelligence becomes transformed into spiritual intelligence - and doubts about the ultimate goal of life are completely dissipated.
The highest conception of Absolute Truth is most logically the Supreme Person - the ultimate owner, enjoyer, and benefactor of everything - since there is absolutely no evidence of any person ever coming from a non-person.
We are obviously limited persons - and have a tendency to forget - so it's very hard to conceive of an unlimited person who has always existed and never forgets.
It's no more logical to assume that we can find the Supreme Person by our own material experimentation and speculation than it is to try to find the sun at night with a small flashlight. The sun will reveal itself in due time as will God - if we're not blinded by the cataracts of material attachments.
"Fox" has made reference to my own apparent preference for materialistic things - and I obviously have shortcomings - but it's not always apparent what is spiritual and what is material. Anything that can somehow be an impetus for reviving our dormant love for the Supreme Person becomes spiritual - even (to some extent) a sci-fi movie.
God also has an unlimited impersonal feature, and the cosmic manifestation rests on that energy, but the highest pleasure is enjoyment of pure loving personal relationships in the spiritual universes, where Vishnu expansions of the original Supreme Person are manifest on every planet. |
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ReeseDog
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:24 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
It's not just you. I just remind myself that he's on the pipe and carry on. |
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Jeonmunka
Joined: 05 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:27 pm Post subject: |
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A 'hidden' message will be Sigourney Weaver's smoking.
Sylvester Stallone was given 500.000 dollars to smoke in one of his films.
Tobacco companies target these actors and movie producers to keep producing young cigarette addicts.
That's the only message I saw in that disappointing movie. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 10:31 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
I usually read them if I am not pressed for time.
I consider myself a scientist and have a strong bias towards wanting to have evidence and documentation of claims. Yet, I realize that science cannot explain everything.
Hasn't anyone ever had a supernatural experience? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Hasn't anyone ever had a supernatural experience? |
Frankly, no. But then, the way people experience things are often colored by their perspectives. People who have "supernatural" experiences are often the ones who deep down are looking to have them, and are thus inclined to interpret things as supernatural. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:12 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
Not just him, but also Fox when he gets on one of his secular rants. Its all the same, really. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:31 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
I skip them. They are like listening to Tom Tuttle from Tacoma, post-Chinese captivity, if you know what I mean... |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 3:15 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Hasn't anyone ever had a supernatural experience? |
I had two experiences that were possibly supernatural.
The first one happened when I was 16. My twin brother went to the high school prom and I went to my girlfriend's house instead. She and I had been having a good time for several hours until I suddenly had a bad feeling come over me and I was worried if my brother was okay because I had a 99% sure gut feeling that he had just been in a car accident. I thought I was crazy or something and was trying not to think about it. After about a half hour, my girlfriend asked me, "Reggie, is something wrong?" I was too embarrassed to tell her that I thought my brother had been in an accident because I knew it would make me look silly and nutty if it ended up that he hadn't, so I told her that I thought I had left my curling iron on and needed to call my parents to have them turn it off. I knew I had unplugged it, but I needed an excuse to call mom and dad. When I called, the first thing I asked them was if they had heard from my brother. They said he had just called them and had been in a car accident a little while ago, but that he was okay.
The second one happened when I was 18. One of my cousins and I were into smoking tobacco that we had personally grown, but had branched off into smoking pipe tobacco since we agreed that it smelled great. We had bought two cheap corncob pipes and a baggie of cherry flavored tobacco at Walgreens. One night, I was at my parents' house and wanted to smoke some pipe and I had my tobacco in my backpack, but had left my pipe in my dorm room in Knoxville. My grandfather had been a chain smoker of pipes, cigars, and cigarettes and died of lung cancer in 1978, and I remembered there were pipes in his bedroom. When I got one out of the desk drawer, the light in the bedroom slowly dimmed until it was off and slowly lit back up. It's not unheard of for the lights to go out at my parents' house, especially if a tree falls on a line or someone wrecks into a pole, but they usually go out suddenly for anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours and suddenly come back on. So, I put the pipe back into the drawer.
I think the first one was probably supernatural and the second one was probably just a coincidence. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 3:46 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| caniff wrote: |
I'm sorry to butt in again, but can we get a sampling of how many folks here bother to read Rteacher's Vedic stuff?
Does anyone else skip over his posts when he waxes Hari Krishna, or is it just me? |
Not just him, but also Fox when he gets on one of his secular rants. Its all the same, really. |
Indeed, making the case that secularism is better for society and pointing out that no evidence exists for the existence of God is "all the same" as insisting God exists and that we should live by religious codes because of it. Totally the same.
That said, people who have no interest in the topic should, of course, skip over said posts. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:02 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Hasn't anyone ever had a supernatural experience? |
I had my first ever one in mid-January. I was staying at a hotel in Riyadh (alone) and woke up one morning. In the bathroom, one of the taps turned itself on - FULL BLAST! I was scared out of my wits, because I assumed there was a human being in there. The tap then turned itself off. I was too scared to go and see if anyone was in there, but after a moment I got up to see and, of course, there was no-one there. I'm sure there was a rational explanation, but boy did that creep me out. Fortunantely, I was leaving that morning, so packed my gear and got the hell out.
(On-topic: I think Avatar is rubbish) |
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