Posts by Harold James9

swiftcobra15 said:Before the era of democratic revolutions, freedom was reserved for the nobility and the clergy. Everyone else was left with nothing but duties and obligations. Rousseau noted that man is born free, only to spend his entire life in chains. His friend and chess rival, Diderot, once remarked that true freedom would arrive only when the last king is strangled by the guts of the last priest. Why mention this? Because even today, the church hasn't quite grasped that kings are nothing more than historical relics, and the clergy—by embracing democracy and exercising their right to vote—have become part of the general citizenry. This lack of understanding shows in the way they still reserve the reward of virtue solely for the clergy by declaring them saints, while focusing almost exclusively on the sins of everyone else—sins which, mind you, are generously forgiven.

If they focused on promoting virtue instead of obsessing over sin, we would see positive change within the church. Until then, I doubt it. 🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

There really is only one true "virtue": Piety. And that manifests itself through humility and submission to the Church authorities.😁
Everything else is just window dressing—mere empty platitudes, like putting flowers on a heavy chain. 👎
That means there is the exhausting task of modernizing the list of virtues ahead. 😁

🙂🙂🙂

steelridge58 said:You know, 🙂 I honestly have such a soft spot for those little little snippets you put in your titles, like when you write things like "Mary walks through the countryside..." and it’s just like this time. 🙂 It always makes me chuckle, and once I start laughing, all that heavy seriousness just evaporates, which actually makes it so much easier for me to see how being relaxed and lighthearted feels far more natural and beautiful than trying to carry around a heavy, serious attitude all the time. 🙂

But alright, let's get serious for a second...

That brings us to the question of how the church, or religion in general, relates to its members—whether they claim the faith or not, since, as you pointed out, you can't really measure someone's level of piety—and how that relates to the core values being championed, which ultimately leads to the question of the institution's relationship with itself.
That brings us to the question of how the church, or religion in general, relates to its members—whether they claim the faith or not, since, as you pointed out, you can't really measure someone's level of piety—and how that relates to the core values being championed, which ultimately leads to the question of the institution's relationship with itself.
That brings us to the question of how the church, or religion in general, relates to its members—whether they claim the faith or not, since, as you pointed out, you can't really measure someone's level of piety—and how that relates to the core values being championed, which ultimately leads to the question of the institution's relationship with itself.
Before the era of democratic revolutions, freedom was reserved for the nobility and the clergy. Everyone else was left with nothing but duties and obligations. Rousseau noted that man is born free, only to spend his entire life in chains. His friend and chess rival, Diderot, once remarked that true freedom would arrive only when the last king is strangled by the guts of the last priest. Why mention this? Because even today, the church hasn't quite grasped that kings are nothing more than historical relics, and the clergy—by embracing democracy and exercising their right to vote—have become part of the general citizenry. This lack of understanding shows in the way they still reserve the reward of virtue solely for the clergy by declaring them saints, while focusing almost exclusively on the sins of everyone else—sins which, mind you, are generously forgiven.

If they focused on promoting virtue instead of obsessing over sin, we would see positive change within the church. Until then, I doubt it. 🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

swiftcobra15 said:It’s a sobering reality that Americans hold several unfortunate global records, including one for incarceration rates.
Currently, one in thirty white people and one in nine Black people are behind bars. The number of men incarcerated is ten times higher than that of women.

Americans hold several infamous global records, including an unprecedented incarceration rate.
One in thirty white people and one in nine Black people are currently behind bars. Men outnumber women in prison ten to one.

The total number of incarcerated individuals stands at 2.3 million.

It makes me wonder why a nation where believers hold positions across all government institutions—from administration and the judiciary to education—ranks as one of the most repressive in the world.

Without getting too deep into sociology or philosophy, I would say this society's morality is lagging far behind modern ethics. Is faith acting as a brake on this behavior, or has imperialist policy blinded us to the welfare of our own people? I suspect it's the latter.

🙂🙂🙂

rustymaker5 said:I don't have much else to add at this point, since I’ve already made my case that war isn't some inherent part of the human condition, nor does nature trigger it, and it certainly doesn't serve any natural purpose... And bringing Bo into this? That's just not an option for me. 🙄
Looking for some grand, ultimate cause—some "cause of all causes"—is really just a way for people to turn a blind eye and shift the blame onto someone or something else...
It’s just humans, specifically those small-minded, malicious individuals driven by nothing but their own selfish, purely materialistic desires, who are the sole reason we fight. 🙂

At the end of the day, wars are completely unnecessary for us, but until humanity actually wraps its head around that, a lot of time is going to pass and a whole lot of water will flow under the Arlington Memorial Bridge...

Unshakeable optimist.
You don't really think the Mississippi will flow that long, do you?🤣

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Edward Green said:didn't mean a damn thing. 😁

If that were true, then forcing someone to perform oral sex shouldn't be treated as any worse than forcing someone to go buy you a pack of Marlboros. And a slap should carry a heavier sentence than sexual assault. By that logic, child masturbation wouldn't even be a crime because there's no physical pain involved, just pleasure. Even prostitution would be on par with light manual labor. Honestly? That sounds absolutely insane to me.

I have to disagree.🧐

His farewell speech regarding Christine is just the tip of the iceberg. It needs to be viewed through the lens of how the Church treats women as a whole. In that framework, sexual violence isn't treated as a crime. Even the sanctity of marriage is undermined if a woman refuses to submit to assault. The expectation is that her role is strictly procreation, not intimacy, and certainly not choosing abortion.

That is the foundation of what Edward Green was saying. And it won't change anytime soon.

🙂🙂🙂

Linda Kelly51 said:No one becomes wise simply by reading books or watching movies.
We understand things on a much more profound level when we actually live through them, rather than just reading about them.

Information gathered from the outside is merely knowledge; true wisdom is what is cultivated from within.
The former is cold, while the latter is warm. The former is dead, while the latter is alive.

"The water I give is living water; whoever drinks it will never thirst again." These words of Jesus' carry deep significance. In esoteric correspondences, "living water" represents wisdom.

I suppose being the smartest person in a small town doesn't require an education, but I doubt even Borges wouldn't be hailed as a genius in a place like that.🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

bluebison70 said:If someone is truly a philosopher, they can't be a nationalist; and if they're a nationalist, then I suppose they aren't really a philosopher. That’s just how Taylor Swift and I see things, I guess.

Why do you both act like philosophers aren't human? People naturally group themselves together, and once you join a group, you inevitably adopt its specific "-isms."

Or do you disagree?🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

volver said:p.s. I finally figured out how to copy and paste images on this forum. 🙂

👍

We’re finally moving toward clarity. These few images from the Book of Words should help clarify things.

🙂 🙂 🙂

Jonathan Brooks8 said:What does the word "You" in the title *Life* actually signify?

You're starting from scratch.So, we're looking at zero hour, t=0.

A collection of science fiction short stories.

Italo Calvino in a passage from Zero:

...
If we take a moment to think this through, here are the possibilities:
Or perhaps the spacetime lines followed during the universe's various pulsing phases align perfectly at every single point.
They might align on a few exceptional points, like the single second I’m currently living through, but they diverge everywhere else.

If this final assumption holds true, then from my current spacetime coordinates, a spectrum of possibilities begins to unfold. As these paths move further into the future, they diverge more sharply into entirely different realities.

🙂 🙂 🙂

steelridge58 said:I felt like I could actually see the core of it, that brilliant little spark right at the very center.

Here is how I would choose 🙂:



P.S. It brings Italo Calvino and his book Zero to mind.🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

Jonathan Brooks8 said:🙂
Even if we're looking at a pattern, that doesn't mean we're dealing with monotony... there's really no reason to fear it. A true pattern actually encompasses every single possibility within itself...

Besides, don't you think communication becomes impossible without some level of uniformity? A watch loses its purpose if the hands aren't in the same positions across an agreed-upon part of the world. Words without shared meanings are just as useless. Concepts like happiness, love, or freedom are hard to fit into universal templates. Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's being violated everywhere without hesitation or consequence. That's an example of a pattern that holds all possibilities. Communication in this case happens while someone's hand is in their pocket, so naturally, it leads nowhere.

I am not afraid of patterns—I honestly can't imagine life without them (like a clock)—but I am afraid of having no choice in which patterns to follow.

P.S. Jonathan Brooks8, I really dig the fractal in your selection.🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

steelridge58 said:Maybe we missed the mark here, Harold James9, specifically regarding which patterns Jonathan Brooks8 was actually talking about. I realized last night that I might have misinterpreted things; it isn't really about forcing everything into neat little boxes, but rather about uncovering the patterns that are already there, which feels like a totally different concept altogether. I suppose once we manage to unearth those underlying laws or models—if you want to call them patterns—we might finally get a clearer sense of the currents we're caught in, the ones that sometimes sweep us off toward places we never intended to go (and I’m thinking specifically of what Jonathan Brooks8 wrote: " that pattern can be seen in every variable we observe—in life, in history, in nature... and it serves as the fixed point from which all change originates, that singular explosion from the essence. ") so perhaps the act of discovery itself is what leads to understanding why things behave the way they do, why we are somehow predestined to see a pattern begin to show its face through certain external manifestations and reflections, and why things shift the way they do, or why the current just carries us away...

It just occurred to me that I should mention something I've heard a thousand times before: "The only constant is change." But if everything is shifting, what exactly is the constant that remains steady through all that flux? Or, as a famous poet once put it: "The whole stood in its place, while the details moved along their designated tracks."

Well, steelridge58, that poet was pointing out how impossible it is to reduce segments of a whole into mere patterns. Every individual—you, Jonathan Brooks8, myself—is on a separate track, sharing nothing but a single point of origin. We belong to the same whole, yet our histories, presents, and futures are distinct. Our tracks don't touch; they have nothing in common. Understanding this is the foundation of friendship. Every attempt to force uniformity has only led to hostility and tragedy.

It reminds me of when we talked about reading the Antichrist together. Instead of actually grasping Nietzsche—a true genius—everyone tried to squeeze his ideas into pre-existing patterns they already accepted. I stepped away from it.

🙂 🙂 🙂

Superskeptik said:Apparently, someone once asked Bohr what he thought might serve as a complement to truth—this was after he framed Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as a complementary system, where you can't simultaneously pin down both a particle's position and its momentum. Basically, the more you know about one, the less you know about the other.

Bohr replied: Clarity.

Bohr said exactly what he meant. Having a clear vision is what matters. Everything else is just detail.

I view "opening through grinding" as a lifting of the veil. This veil consists of countless peripheral events and phenomena that flicker in and out of existence—an explosion originating from the core. The more we focus on this external movement in an attempt to explain it, the more the essence remains hidden or blurred. That outward motion distracts the eye from true clarity. To see clearly, we must achieve alignment: our perception must become as still as the truth itself.
A segment defined by its borders loses its focus on the stationary once those boundaries vanish. These limits exist only to facilitate our movement. Therefore, within every segment, we see the dissolution of both isolation and limitation.

What becomes of us? Will we, too, lose ourselves as a segment of reality, or does this not apply to our kind?😉

steelridge58 said:How does one actually get there? Is it through uncovering patterns that act as fixed points, or by finding the true origin of everything we observe?

It’s better to leave things alone. If you view me as the headwaters feeding this forum, don't try to fit me into a category. It would be far more interesting and honest that way. I can't think of a single mold that would suit steelridge58 or Jonathan Brooks8, and frankly, I can't think of any categories for the rest of you either.

I just wanted to say that I find the whole idea of the Matrix repulsive. I have no desire to be part of some fractal; if it comes down to it, I’d much rather live in a comfortable delusion. 🙂

🙂 🙂 🙂

Jonathan Brooks8 said:[/B]

[/B]

friendly suggestions, helpful insights that happen to challenge my existing biases or misconceptions, and so on.

[/B]

Oh, you hair-splitters...
What can one really do when unsolicited advice and friendly guidance look so much alike? It's easy to lose one's way.😁

friendly suggestions, helpful insights that happen to challenge my existing biases or misconceptions, and so on.

[/B]

Oh, you hair-splitters...
What can one really do when unsolicited advice and friendly guidance look so much alike? It's easy to lose one's way.😁
[/B]

Oh, you hair-splitters...
What can one really do when unsolicited advice and friendly guidance look so much alike? It's easy to lose one's way.😁
😍

Friendly advice: Only give advice to friends, but if you want to keep them, just ignore what they do.

🙂 🙂 🙂

swiftcobra15 said:😕

Once something becomes unspeakable, you can't capture it through speech, writing, music, art, or even a simple whistle. 🙂

And if something is truly unspeakable, you can't say it, write it, play it, paint it, or even whistle it. 🙂 [/INDENT]
I agree with that. However, the core issue here is unsolvable. Every individual is their own universe, which means their version of Truth is unique. Consequently, concepts like freedom, bondage, love, hate, or good and evil in lowlands become incompatible between people. It is impossible to label them as objectively true or false.

The only outcome is that the group I represent will clash with the group I embody evil for, and the stronger side will silence the weaker one for a while.😉

🙂 🙂 🙂

Taylor Alvarez6 said:Now this is a great topic.👍

And Bohr hit the nail right on the head...
clarity is the complement to truth.
a) This makes it obvious that God isn't just a concept, nor can He be contained by one. Instead, God (God-Truth) becomes CLEAR only when we step outside the confines of human concepts.
b) It also follows that any theory or model of reality—whether scientific, religious, or otherwise—is NOT Truth itself. Truth is CLEAR, yet it remains incomprehensible. It is clearly visible, but impossible to fully conceptualize.
c) Our perception of the world is merely an image; we essentially imagine the world as it is. The clear truth is that the world is imagined, and furthermore, this imagined (existing) world is NOT the ultimate reality.
It's also clear that existence and reality aren't the same thing. Just because something exists for us doesn't mean it represents the absolute truth.👋

Yes.👍

Either he skipped over it, or he agreed with mistyfox812's post and chose to stay silent.🙂

If truth is defined by what remains constant,
only the Whole is true. A part cannot be truth.
In terms of cognition, this creates a paradox—an apparent absurdity
where something perfectly clear and exact cannot actually be true.

To put it bluntly, a fact (something precisely established) isn't truth; it's a lie.
Within the confines of language and logic, one can only express, at best,
half of the truth (and usually much less)—
as the other half is merely the negation of the first statement.

If there is a paradox, it lies in the fact that what is true is not equal to Truth. A part is not the whole, which is common sense.

I believe the misunderstanding stems from the limitations of language. Knowledge expands while our vocabulary stays stagnant, meaning we try to express more and more concepts using the same old words. We are heading toward a point where experts from different fields won't even be able to understand one another.

🙂 🙂 🙂

swiftcobra15 said:

"Long live death!" isn't quite as nonsensical as it might seem at first glance.🙂

Hmm.😉

Regardless of biology, life is:

1. unique;
2. unrepeatable.

In memories and records, its endurance can be eternal.

🙂 🙂 🙂

👍

Someone mentioned pessimism somewhere.😁

🙂 🙂 🙂

Elizabeth Ruiz65 said:If the primitive ancestor of man hadn't harbored a sense of compassion for every single one of those millions of beasts
that were actively trying to kill him, would we even be standing here today? Even if it doesn't fit the typical
romanticized mold, it wasn't just affection that brought humanity to this point. It’s more
about an inherent love for existence itself and a fundamental hatred for anyone attempting to extinguish that life.

Where exactly did you get this hatred for creatures trying to survive?😕

As history shows, individual agency has always been the true engine of progress.🙂

Humanity only truly accelerated once we realized that hatred is a dead end.

I'm not saying hate doesn't exist, but it's nothing more than a primitive defense mechanism for the weak. There is no room for hate in true advancement and power.

🙂 🙂 🙂

Anonymous said:🙂 Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, I just have to say—I’m definitely the one who'd fall for this. 🙂

Thanks. 🙂 🙂 🙂

@briskgull27, honestly, beautiful kids are born all the time without love being part of the equation. If the survival of the human race actually depended on love (or "loving," as Jack Wood43 put it), our planet would be a whole lot emptier than it is right now.

True, but they have a much easier time becoming great people when they grow up surrounded by love.

🙂 🙂 🙂