if our sun explodes, i hope it happens at night and we have at least a couple of minutes warning...i would grab my whole family together in a big hug and tell them not to worry, that i never wanted more than i had right there and that i really never thought i would have so much to love, that i never thought i would be so happy and have so much joy...that i was happy with every minute i spent with them and i was so happy to spend those last moments together...cuz, in the end, that is my religion and my faith...family and love....and in the end that is what is going to keep me strong and keep he happy and keep me sane even as i trudge slowly to my end...family and love...that i can accept, that i can understand, that i can cherish
Damn I love the way you talk about your family g. I actually shed a tear there (and I'm not much of a crier). I think, what a nice man. What a lucky bunch of gals. What a lucky guy - but he knows it! Rather unusual. Seems you already know the answers to the questions that really count.
Damn g, that's quite the essay. What I was wondering, well I wondered a LOT while reading that , was that since you mentioned the theory with everything recreating itself, can you not find it at all possible that what ever makes up life, not a soul, or you or me, but life, is also recreated like the universe, matter, energy, etc. ?
I go for 'eternal recurrence' - that is on death you are born again to the same parents in the same place in the same year and live your life in exactly the same way till you die at the same time.....over and over and over.....
That's why you get deja vu - you really have done it all before, it is not a signifier of reincarnation and makes no sense as such.
The theory is an old one (Gnostic Christian and earlier) and was taken up and expanded in the nineteenth century by Nietzsche.
I read an interesting 'proof' of this recently btw. It runs: all we are is atoms. The atoms interchanging their positions on the subatomic level is what produces the 'changes' we perceive in the everyday world - ie me at 40 years old will be merely a conglomeration of atoms in a certain relationship to each other and as they change then so do I (ie ageing). We know atoms are finite. Therefore a changing group of finite atoms will invariably arrive back at positions they have been in before - therefore the atom position that makes up me MUST recur in an infinite universe - ergo we will live again !
Or something.....
This is actually very interesting....one of the theories I would actually be more inclined to believe may exist. Especially with the atoms interchanging positions....so maybe the whole universe is like a reversible path????
Personally....I find it hard to grasp the concept of an afterlife heaven/hell situation, and I'm not religious in the least bit. Now, this may offend a lot of christians on this board and I dont intend to, but I really believe the phrase "Christians made up the concept of heaven in order to ignore the fact that they will die". I mean...when you think about it we cant "exist" unless we are existing here on earth can we, UNLESS there is such thing as a spiritual world...something that exists beyond matter. Its scary to think ....damn that's it? I mean how will we feel nothing after we already exist?
The biggest truth to an afterlife/spiritual experience after death I think are any scientific/personal observations and evidence of the supernatural occurences....such as people moving into a very old house or something and actually seeing ghosts or what not. That's the only way I think it exists. I dont think there is a "hell" ...if there is a place we all go to after death, it's the same place...its not a heaven or a hell. Maybe its our own spiritual world individually.
Then there's stuff like "fate" and what not...like you were put purposely here to do something or by "fate" something happened to you or you met somebody. Sometimes I'm like "Hmm...in my heart somewhere it's telling me I was put here to make music" yet on the other hand I can say a lot of this "fate" happening is total BS. Why? Well....say you end up talking to a girl or somethin and you guys eventually end up together. Is it really fate doing that? No.....you just physically got up the nerve to approach this woman and things happen. And ....does God really choose when you are dead? I mean...for instance why would it be "meant to happen" that my friend gets shot? If the person who fired that gun was stopped beforehand it would never have happened. Why would it be meant to happen for someone to die? Or get in an accident....or kill themselves due to severe depression. That's something I can't grasp...we are all making choices for ourself and doing it PHYSICALLY OURSELVES.
I just can't believe religion because it's flawed.....religion is fictional stories made up to me. That's it.
Damn g, that's quite the essay. What I was wondering, well I wondered a LOT while reading that , was that since you mentioned the theory with everything recreating itself, can you not find it at all possible that what ever makes up life, not a soul, or you or me, but life, is also recreated like the universe, matter, energy, etc. ?
actually this is the one therory i like...big bang, matter moves, life evolves, matter winds down, matter contracts, one big black hole at the center and back to big bang, matter moves, life evolves...over and over...what, maybe ever 50 billion years, 100 billion...who knows...and who knows how many times it has already done it's yo-yo thing...
the problem with re-incarnation for me is not only the vanity thing, but also the "what good is re-incarnation" if i don't remember my past life...does no good for a control freak like me...
the problem with re-incarnation for me is not only the vanity thing, but also the "what good is re-incarnation" if i don't remember my past life...does no good for a control freak like me...
that gives you the level select menu for Sonic the Hedgehog. lol.
No, seriously, though. I'm not sure what to thing about this afterlife thing. I was raised Christian, and even though I don't agree with every single thing I was taught, I still think that an intelligent person could believe in the afterlife.
I haven't died yet, so I don't know, lol. I would like to say that the human spirit (in some form, energy?) lives on, or is too strong to be snuffed out. I believe that even after we die, if we have children, a part of ourselves lives on in them. So there ya go, a little bit of Christianity mixed in with a little Zen and Buddhhism, lol.
actually this is the one therory i like...big bang, matter moves, life evolves, matter winds down, matter contracts, one big black hole at the center and back to big bang, matter moves, life evolves...over and over...what, maybe ever 50 billion years, 100 billion...who knows...and who knows how many times it has already done it's yo-yo thing...
the problem with re-incarnation for me is not only the vanity thing, but also the "what good is re-incarnation" if i don't remember my past life...does no good for a control freak like me...
g
Sometimes I wonder about this; what if life energy was the same way? Populations increase and decrease as time goes on, the 'collective pool' of life energy spreading thin at the peak of high population, and then contracting back again when it nears another recreation cycle. We don't exist again as the same soul, and we never know it happened as ourselves as a being, but the matter that makes up the physical world we live in has no ties to where it came from. I don't know, it's weird. I just blew my own mind thinking about all this again.
"In Green Hill Zone (Act 3), there is a 1-Up at the very bottom of the level. Collect it along with enough rings to make 100 for a second life. Next, grab the 1-Up at the top of the loop-de-loop and die. Repeat until you have enough lives."
the thought of not exisiting depresses me too. but i think there must be something more.
can you explain the angel that visited me? or that i should be dead right now? i've been in 7 near accidents and never been hurt.
i almost died on 2 other occasions. both times when i was very ill. the first time i felt although i was being pulled upward. the second time i was in a weird place/space, i don't know to explain it. i had to pull myself back both times. these where diffrent feelings than when i was put out during my double lung transplant(!) .
if there is no afterlife. what are ghosts? i believe in ghosts
the first time i thought of death outside of what my religion had told me, it scared the shit out of me. i remember it quite distinctly. i was just outside my apartment, walking to [catholic] school. the idea of nothingness can be overwhelming. well rather, teh idea that i might be not be conscious on any level, no stimuli, no thoughts, no-- nothing. eventually, my religion subsided, and i've come to accept the potential for nothingness beyond this life. consciousness, I believe, is a mesh of "thoughts" flowing through the brain. thoughts merely being interpretations our brains have on various chemical movements wishwashing around in our heads. when our bodies cease to provide our brain with nutrients and facilities to process these chemicals, that consciousness ceases.
but, the really interesting ideas on the subject, i think, come to me while properly dosed. some times, like while shrooming, i don't firmly believe that this life here and now exists, thus reducing the significance (and scare factor) of the nothingness beyond. what is this conscious entity [me] if this whole life doesn't really exist? well, clearly, it is beyond my own comprehension as a toy in this fake world. it's nice to take a temporary vacation from norm, to think outside what consciousness seems to be, and into what it could be independant of rational "thought" or empirical evidence.
I believe the conscious mind that I am consciously aware of (memories, thoughts, identity, etc.) dies with my body, because it's basically my hard drive, my brain, which we know dies and decays and all that. As for whether "I" continue to exist in some identifiable way, probably not, but no one knows. Such conjecture is futile, in my book, so I just live my life focusing on the here and now, and I'll worry about the "next life" when I get there, if I get there.
the thought of not exisiting depresses me too. but i think there must be something more.
can you explain the angel that visited me? or that i should be dead right now? i've been in 7 near accidents and never been hurt.
i almost died on 2 other occasions. both times when i was very ill. the first time i felt although i was being pulled upward. the second time i was in a weird place/space, i don't know to explain it. i had to pull myself back both times. these where diffrent feelings than when i was put out during my double lung transplant(!) .
if there is no afterlife. what are ghosts? i believe in ghosts
lucky bastard
don't mix near death experience with just being out of your body .. they are different. and you can learn to do astral travelling, getting out of your body when you want.
is there life after death? well, is there life before conception or birth then? we go to where we came from. home.
i am not worried of dieing, it's the life that bugs me. i don't no way want an eternal life, i want to be free.
if you believe there is no life after, obviously you dont have any memories further your this life childhood, and you'll educate your kids to not "invent" things. ask them who they were, where they came from, what did they do .. what if many diseases a nd fears etc are simply a 'shadow' of what has happened a long time ago? why are people afraid of things like flying, high or low places, water even when living on seaside, bugs etc, if there is no reason for it in this life? why people who e.g. were killed with a sword on chest or with a guillotine get easier asthma..? etc
I go for 'eternal recurrence' - that is on death you are born again to the same parents in the same place in the same year and live your life in exactly the same way till you die at the same time.....over and over and over.....
That's why you get deja vu - you really have done it all before, it is not a signifier of reincarnation and makes no sense as such.
The theory is an old one (Gnostic Christian and earlier) and was taken up and expanded in the nineteenth century by Nietzsche.
For Nietszche the Eternal Recurrance is both a truth and a test:
The truth part is easy enough
but to understand what it means to our relationship to the present is a true test:
For Nietszche we live in perpetual ressentiment (French term he left untranslated so as to keep a meaning that the German (and English counldn't get) which means that we live with a mind set, and 'essential' Identity that is wrapped up in a morality of resenting the passing of time and the resultant hatred of this world in favor of an after life: he blames Xtianity:
"see, this life is meaningless because the source of our values comes from another world . .
which transformed over time and with rationalism into:
"there is no value in this world . . . and also the next world is an illusory and empty value ("God is Dead")"
Why does this make the Eternal Recurrance a test?
Because, for Nietszche, if one could look at its possibility: to see that every tedious moment, every waiting for the better life is to repeat over and over for ever and to accept it with a joyous Yes as opposed to a horror then you can take the weight of the world.
The thing is is that for Nietzsche, to understand it is not an easy thing: it means knowing that every moment will be eternal . . . including the fever dreams of childhood as well as the first loving kiss . . .
He who can handle the fact that there is no outside to escape to, no way 'out-of-this-place' has still to learn the next step
Which is, for Nietzsche the highest and most difficult thing: and that is Amor Fati -or: love of your fate!
That means love of everything that culminates in and as you in every instance . . . not looking for a great escape beyond . . . which thereby denigrates this world for NOT being there
That means love of everything that culminates in and as you in every instance . . . not looking for a great escape beyond . . . which thereby denigrates this world for NOT being there
That means that you don't simply love 'yourself' but you love your fate: which, since everything culminates as your experiencing of every instance, it means that YOU LOVE EVERYTHING in the world: all past, present and future . .
and I want to say that soon I will post my thoughts on death . .
We're all part of nature, after you die, your body decomposes, but it doesn't just disappear, atoms are transformed into other things, you never really die, just change form, it's all matter, re-shaped, re-built, different, you can be a tree, a stone a thousand other things, or rather your atoms will be used to "buid" other things, just like you're "build" right now. Same goes for "life energy" or soul, or however you call it, i believe that it does exist and just because we can't touch it it doesn't mean it does not exist. It gets transformed as well. Same idea.
Comments
Originally posted by thegelding
if our sun explodes, i hope it happens at night and we have at least a couple of minutes warning...i would grab my whole family together in a big hug and tell them not to worry, that i never wanted more than i had right there and that i really never thought i would have so much to love, that i never thought i would be so happy and have so much joy...that i was happy with every minute i spent with them and i was so happy to spend those last moments together...cuz, in the end, that is my religion and my faith...family and love....and in the end that is what is going to keep me strong and keep he happy and keep me sane even as i trudge slowly to my end...family and love...that i can accept, that i can understand, that i can cherish
Damn I love the way you talk about your family g. I actually shed a tear there (and I'm not much of a crier). I think, what a nice man. What a lucky bunch of gals. What a lucky guy - but he knows it! Rather unusual. Seems you already know the answers to the questions that really count.
Originally posted by segovius
I go for 'eternal recurrence' - that is on death you are born again to the same parents in the same place in the same year and live your life in exactly the same way till you die at the same time.....over and over and over.....
That's why you get deja vu - you really have done it all before, it is not a signifier of reincarnation and makes no sense as such.
The theory is an old one (Gnostic Christian and earlier) and was taken up and expanded in the nineteenth century by Nietzsche.
I read an interesting 'proof' of this recently btw. It runs: all we are is atoms. The atoms interchanging their positions on the subatomic level is what produces the 'changes' we perceive in the everyday world - ie me at 40 years old will be merely a conglomeration of atoms in a certain relationship to each other and as they change then so do I (ie ageing). We know atoms are finite. Therefore a changing group of finite atoms will invariably arrive back at positions they have been in before - therefore the atom position that makes up me MUST recur in an infinite universe - ergo we will live again !
Or something.....
This is actually very interesting....one of the theories I would actually be more inclined to believe may exist. Especially with the atoms interchanging positions....so maybe the whole universe is like a reversible path????
Personally....I find it hard to grasp the concept of an afterlife heaven/hell situation, and I'm not religious in the least bit. Now, this may offend a lot of christians on this board and I dont intend to, but I really believe the phrase "Christians made up the concept of heaven in order to ignore the fact that they will die". I mean...when you think about it we cant "exist" unless we are existing here on earth can we, UNLESS there is such thing as a spiritual world...something that exists beyond matter. Its scary to think ....damn that's it? I mean how will we feel nothing after we already exist?
The biggest truth to an afterlife/spiritual experience after death I think are any scientific/personal observations and evidence of the supernatural occurences....such as people moving into a very old house or something and actually seeing ghosts or what not. That's the only way I think it exists. I dont think there is a "hell" ...if there is a place we all go to after death, it's the same place...its not a heaven or a hell. Maybe its our own spiritual world individually.
Then there's stuff like "fate" and what not...like you were put purposely here to do something or by "fate" something happened to you or you met somebody. Sometimes I'm like "Hmm...in my heart somewhere it's telling me I was put here to make music" yet on the other hand I can say a lot of this "fate" happening is total BS. Why? Well....say you end up talking to a girl or somethin and you guys eventually end up together. Is it really fate doing that? No.....you just physically got up the nerve to approach this woman and things happen. And ....does God really choose when you are dead? I mean...for instance why would it be "meant to happen" that my friend gets shot? If the person who fired that gun was stopped beforehand it would never have happened. Why would it be meant to happen for someone to die? Or get in an accident....or kill themselves due to severe depression. That's something I can't grasp...we are all making choices for ourself and doing it PHYSICALLY OURSELVES.
I just can't believe religion because it's flawed.....religion is fictional stories made up to me. That's it.
Originally posted by iBrowse
Damn g, that's quite the essay. What I was wondering, well I wondered a LOT while reading that
actually this is the one therory i like...big bang, matter moves, life evolves, matter winds down, matter contracts, one big black hole at the center and back to big bang, matter moves, life evolves...over and over...what, maybe ever 50 billion years, 100 billion...who knows...and who knows how many times it has already done it's yo-yo thing...
the problem with re-incarnation for me is not only the vanity thing, but also the "what good is re-incarnation" if i don't remember my past life...does no good for a control freak like me...
g
Originally posted by thegelding
the problem with re-incarnation for me is not only the vanity thing, but also the "what good is re-incarnation" if i don't remember my past life...does no good for a control freak like me...
g
Yeah...
Originally posted by BR
I believe that it is uncertain and I accept that I will likely never know until it happens.
Good angle.
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
*up* *up* *down* *down* *left* *right* *left* *right*
(activate immortality)
beat that biotchs!
No, its down, up, left, left, A, right, down
that gives you the level select menu for Sonic the Hedgehog. lol.
No, seriously, though. I'm not sure what to thing about this afterlife thing. I was raised Christian, and even though I don't agree with every single thing I was taught, I still think that an intelligent person could believe in the afterlife.
I haven't died yet, so I don't know, lol. I would like to say that the human spirit (in some form, energy?) lives on, or is too strong to be snuffed out. I believe that even after we die, if we have children, a part of ourselves lives on in them. So there ya go, a little bit of Christianity mixed in with a little Zen and Buddhhism, lol.
Originally posted by blackbird
No, its down, up, left, left, A, right, down
that gives you the level select menu for Sonic the Hedgehog. lol.
l.
But I didn't want level select I wanted immortality
Originally posted by thegelding
actually this is the one therory i like...big bang, matter moves, life evolves, matter winds down, matter contracts, one big black hole at the center and back to big bang, matter moves, life evolves...over and over...what, maybe ever 50 billion years, 100 billion...who knows...and who knows how many times it has already done it's yo-yo thing...
the problem with re-incarnation for me is not only the vanity thing, but also the "what good is re-incarnation" if i don't remember my past life...does no good for a control freak like me...
g
Sometimes I wonder about this; what if life energy was the same way? Populations increase and decrease as time goes on, the 'collective pool' of life energy spreading thin at the peak of high population, and then contracting back again when it nears another recreation cycle. We don't exist again as the same soul, and we never know it happened as ourselves as a being, but the matter that makes up the physical world we live in has no ties to where it came from. I don't know, it's weird. I just blew my own mind thinking about all this again.
the air we breath today was once hydrogen in the center of a long lost sun. that is astounding in its own right...
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
But I didn't want level select I wanted immortality
Couldn't find immortality, but I did find extra lives / invincibility.
From: http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/genes...hedgehog_a.txt
Extra lives:
"In Green Hill Zone (Act 3), there is a 1-Up at the very bottom of the level. Collect it along with enough rings to make 100 for a second life. Next, grab the 1-Up at the top of the loop-de-loop and die. Repeat until you have enough lives."
Invincibility (Game Genie needed):
"AJRT-CA8R or AE0T-AEBA"
can you explain the angel that visited me? or that i should be dead right now? i've been in 7 near accidents and never been hurt.
i almost died on 2 other occasions. both times when i was very ill. the first time i felt although i was being pulled upward. the second time i was in a weird place/space, i don't know to explain it. i had to pull myself back both times. these where diffrent feelings than when i was put out during my double lung transplant(!) .
if there is no afterlife. what are ghosts? i believe in ghosts
but, the really interesting ideas on the subject, i think, come to me while properly dosed. some times, like while shrooming, i don't firmly believe that this life here and now exists, thus reducing the significance (and scare factor) of the nothingness beyond. what is this conscious entity [me] if this whole life doesn't really exist? well, clearly, it is beyond my own comprehension as a toy in this fake world. it's nice to take a temporary vacation from norm, to think outside what consciousness seems to be, and into what it could be independant of rational "thought" or empirical evidence.
Originally posted by burningwheel
the thought of not exisiting depresses me too. but i think there must be something more.
can you explain the angel that visited me? or that i should be dead right now? i've been in 7 near accidents and never been hurt.
i almost died on 2 other occasions. both times when i was very ill. the first time i felt although i was being pulled upward. the second time i was in a weird place/space, i don't know to explain it. i had to pull myself back both times. these where diffrent feelings than when i was put out during my double lung transplant(!) .
if there is no afterlife. what are ghosts? i believe in ghosts
lucky bastard
don't mix near death experience with just being out of your body .. they are different. and you can learn to do astral travelling, getting out of your body when you want.
is there life after death? well, is there life before conception or birth then? we go to where we came from. home.
i am not worried of dieing, it's the life that bugs me. i don't no way want an eternal life, i want to be free.
if you believe there is no life after, obviously you dont have any memories further your this life childhood, and you'll educate your kids to not "invent" things. ask them who they were, where they came from, what did they do .. what if many diseases a nd fears etc are simply a 'shadow' of what has happened a long time ago? why are people afraid of things like flying, high or low places, water even when living on seaside, bugs etc, if there is no reason for it in this life? why people who e.g. were killed with a sword on chest or with a guillotine get easier asthma..? etc
Originally posted by segovius
I go for 'eternal recurrence' - that is on death you are born again to the same parents in the same place in the same year and live your life in exactly the same way till you die at the same time.....over and over and over.....
That's why you get deja vu - you really have done it all before, it is not a signifier of reincarnation and makes no sense as such.
The theory is an old one (Gnostic Christian and earlier) and was taken up and expanded in the nineteenth century by Nietzsche.
For Nietszche the Eternal Recurrance is both a truth and a test:
The truth part is easy enough
but to understand what it means to our relationship to the present is a true test:
For Nietszche we live in perpetual ressentiment (French term he left untranslated so as to keep a meaning that the German (and English counldn't get) which means that we live with a mind set, and 'essential' Identity that is wrapped up in a morality of resenting the passing of time and the resultant hatred of this world in favor of an after life: he blames Xtianity:
"see, this life is meaningless because the source of our values comes from another world . .
which transformed over time and with rationalism into:
"there is no value in this world . . . and also the next world is an illusory and empty value ("God is Dead")"
Why does this make the Eternal Recurrance a test?
Because, for Nietszche, if one could look at its possibility: to see that every tedious moment, every waiting for the better life is to repeat over and over for ever and to accept it with a joyous Yes as opposed to a horror then you can take the weight of the world.
The thing is is that for Nietzsche, to understand it is not an easy thing: it means knowing that every moment will be eternal . . . including the fever dreams of childhood as well as the first loving kiss . . .
He who can handle the fact that there is no outside to escape to, no way 'out-of-this-place' has still to learn the next step
Which is, for Nietzsche the highest and most difficult thing: and that is Amor Fati -or: love of your fate!
That means love of everything that culminates in and as you in every instance . . . not looking for a great escape beyond . . . which thereby denigrates this world for NOT being there
That means love of everything that culminates in and as you in every instance . . . not looking for a great escape beyond . . . which thereby denigrates this world for NOT being there
That means that you don't simply love 'yourself' but you love your fate: which, since everything culminates as your experiencing of every instance, it means that YOU LOVE EVERYTHING in the world: all past, present and future . .
and I want to say that soon I will post my thoughts on death . .
as if you cared
She can't accept the fact.
Here's what i believe.
We're all part of nature, after you die, your body decomposes, but it doesn't just disappear, atoms are transformed into other things, you never really die, just change form, it's all matter, re-shaped, re-built, different, you can be a tree, a stone a thousand other things, or rather your atoms will be used to "buid" other things, just like you're "build" right now. Same goes for "life energy" or soul, or however you call it, i believe that it does exist and just because we can't touch it it doesn't mean it does not exist. It gets transformed as well. Same idea.