Posts by mistyscout2

I honestly don't get why anyone would have a single issue with Natalie Portman. Beyond the fact that she’s got an incredible voice and seems like such a genuinely sweet person, she's just really easy on the eyes too.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Look, you can totally be a Christian and still feel like the Church, as an institution right now, has completely lost its way.
When someone says "too much politics in the church," they could mean a lot of things... but if it's because the church hierarchy and the government are essentially intertwined—even if not legally—then we've got a massive problem for the church, the country, society, and anyone actually trying to maintain their faith.

But let's be real: practicing faith enters the public sphere—it was never *just* a private matter.
We have to draw a line between the public square (civil society) and actual government institutions.

It really makes you wonder if in reality believers and atheists can actually coexist and function well together? It gets tricky, especially when one side or the other starts trying to push their views onto everyone else's personal liberties. Honestly, both sides have tried to pull that kind of thing throughout history.

Sandra Morales said:👍
I would simply add that wasting time has therapeutic benefits for the ethereal body. 🙂

It really all just comes down to what level we're talking about. The energies of the entities.!

Have you ever been riding on a subway train when it suddenly jolts or rattles hard? If that’s happened to you, then according to my calculations, your astral energy is sitting at a solid 17—while everyone else around you is hovering at a 3. What that actually means is that if you decide to play the Powerball every third Wednesday of the month, there’s a statistically significant chance you could hit the jackpot sometime in the next ten years. Now, I’m not saying it’s a sure thing or a guaranteed windfall, of course. But hey, you can't really know unless you take the leap and try, right? 👍

slypilot6 said:If you don't already have a grasp on what love actually is, I'm not sure anyone could really sit you down and explain it to you.

By the way, do you know what an elephant says when he tosses a lion into the air?
"Lion from the air!"

slypilot6 said:🙂

I think there was just a little misunderstanding because your comment popped up right after bluemason3's, and I hadn't actually hit refresh yet, so I missed yours at first glance. My question was really intended for bluemason3 rather than you, and I didn't quote him specifically because I figured my reply would land immediately under his—I got a bit distracted talking with some friends in RL and didn't realize how much of a delay there might be. But looking back, it was pretty obvious you were addressing me directly, so I totally get it now. Thanks for clarifying.

EDIT: Now that I'm looking closer, it’s only been about two minutes, so it makes total sense why things got a bit jumbled.

No big deal though, let's just move on; I'll make sure to give you a proper response now.

I’m honestly a little lost on which specific post this is supposed to be a reply to.
If you guys think it was aimed at me, I wasn't actually asking for the reasoning behind everything; I was just trying to figure out which local grocery store carries it.

EDIT: This question was actually meant for bluemason3.

slypilot6 said:Nobody is going to respect you if you don't start respecting yourself first, right? In fact, if you’re constantly playing the hero, most people will just assume you have an ulterior motive—which, let's be honest, might actually be true. For some, being helpful isn't about genuine kindness; it's just a calculated way to make everyone else dependent on them.

I mean, what even is "true love," and which aisle in the grocery store can I find it in? Honestly, hearing someone talk about "true love" sounds a bit like reading a pamphlet for LGBTQ+ organizations 🤣.

bluemason3 said:First, you take some wheat and mix it with energized water and Himalayan yeast to bake a loaf of bread right under the sun. Once that bread is ready, you place it at the center of a Mother Earth labyrinth, specifically carved out on an energy ley line. Then, you bring over an animal that matches your inner totem to eat it. That’s how you clear any karmic baggage tied to whatever intention was set during ejaculation.

Now I just need a cat to help me avoid self-sabotaging my life. 🙂

What kind of thread is this? We’re talking about some pretty serious stuff on a serious subforum here.
So, this guy really opened up a heavy topic, didn't he? And you stepped in with that whole zen-like approach, offering him four solid perspectives to chew on. Honestly, he can just pick one that resonates or maybe mix and match them if he feels like it—no harm in that. Each of those four angles actually has quite a few layers to it once you start digging. It’s a massive market in terms of options, mostly because the demand out there is just as huge as the supply.

Ever since we decided we didn't need God anymore, I’ve noticed that this deep-seated need for something higher just keeps resurfacing, popping up in all sorts of strange and unexpected ways.

I was really just trying to dig into the technical specs regarding that last offer you laid out. I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details of how it all actually works. To be honest, I was reading this one New Age spiritual guidebook the other day that actually recommended going for a jam-like consistency instead of what you suggested, so I was curious about where you were pulling your information from. It’s totally fine that you learned from different sources, though—we all have our own ways of looking at things. As long as we can still look one another in the eye and treat each other with basic human decency, it really doesn't matter which guru happens to be closer to the truth. And if that really is the case, I guess it’s just one of those things where it's pretty hard to say for sure.

Hey there, brother, hope you're doing well. Namaste.

bluemason3 said:To be honest, this feels more like a psychology lecture than an actual PDF. Self-actualization depends entirely on which crowd you decide to hang out with. In this context:

- Buddhism/Advaita: Who is this "you" experiencing the problem? Where do these issues even originate? None of it—not your ego, nor the stuff happening to it—has any objective or lasting reality. Once you grasp the illusionary, transient nature of existence through a direct insight into reality, everything else just sorts itself out. If you don't have to make things difficult, don't.

- Devotional Religion: A higher power dictates and knows everything. Your best bet is to surrender and let go. Let it happen according to His will and grace. Whether it works out or not, we play by His rules.

- The Dark Path: Stop being a coward. Build yourself up, learn to look out for number one, and quit blaming everyone else for your own weaknesses. Make a fortune, maybe summon a demon in a black hoodie if you feel like it. Do whatever you want. Just make sure you're the one in control when it counts.

- Fluffy New Age Vibes: Calibrate your aura, read some mystical poem about love and wisdom, and pay someone to tell you how special you are. Basically, just get lost in the sauce.

That’s pretty much the long and short of it.

I mean, is he planning on eating it later, or just selling it off to someone else?

I can't help but feel like he looks a little bit like Charles Manson in this shot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

According to Robert Anton Wilson, there are three main reasons why conspiracy theories grab us so effectively:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZjfYKV8C6g

Hey Nick (or whoever else is running the show)!

I was wondering if you could hit me with a two-month ban, ASAP. I’ve honestly gotten a little too hooked on scrolling through bans lately, and I think I really need a Digital detox. Thank you!

The BoardEnzo just cast their votes:

mistyscout2 is officially banned for three months!

(everyone’s cheering, sounds like a celebration over here)

So, we're looking at a three-month starting point, and once things really get moving, we'll see how it all plays out. Anyway, best wishes to everyone.

Is it just me, or is there actually no admin active here yet?
Look, if you haven't noticed me yet, don't feel like you have to go ahead and ban me just to stay on top of things. I'll reach out through the other channels once I've finished running a quick cost-benefit analysis on whether staying on this forum is actually worth my time. Or maybe I won't—honestly, it all depends on what the numbers say.

I’d say let's go with a year. I'm honestly not sure if there's some kind of upper limit we need to worry about, but if such a cap exists and it happens to be shorter than a full year, then just stick to that limit instead. Otherwise, yeah, let's just set it at one year. Once you've figured out what that final timeframe ends up being, just post the number and close out the thread. Thanks so much for the help, everyone!

James Murphy3 said:True philosophers are hard to come by. 🙂

What I was actually getting at is that some questions just don't have answers because they aren't framed correctly to begin with. The kind of answer we end up with really just depends on how we choose to ask things.

I also think that certain questions—the ones that are actually well-constructed—are meant to act more like guides rather than things demanding a straight answer. Sometimes, a question exists just to help us stumble upon even clearer, better questions. In a way, you'll find that the answer is often already tucked away inside the question itself.

James Murphy3 said:Asking yourself a question doesn't make you a philosopher; finding the answer does. Anyone can ask a question, but not everyone can actually find the answer. 😉

The thing is, though, hardly anyone even knows how to ask the right question in the first place.

Jonathan Brooks8 said:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_philosophy

—or, if you prefer, according to certain authors...

http://www.amazon.com/introduction-philosophy/b?node=...

In any case, my advice would be to pick something relatively recent first—something that feels relevant to our current era—and then work your way backward... since almost every modern thinker was inevitably shaped by whoever came before them. From there, you can decide just how deep you want to dive into the rabbit hole...

Is this related to that stuff over on O'Shaughnessy's blog? Hey, Joe Biden, did you actually write this article, or did Wikipedia just scrape it from you (assuming it’s even yours to begin with)?

(just in case Joe Biden wanders back onto the forum and stumbles upon this thread, even if it takes a few months, LOL)

mistyscout2 said:But honestly, why does it have to be that way? Why must a movement possess some ultimate goal or a fixed "good" just to qualify as moving toward something better? Perhaps that's just a leftover from the old Platonic or Aristotelian traditions, and maybe reality actually works in the exact opposite way. 🤷

Furthermore, while a lot of people label Nietzsche as someone who completely "broke away from teleology," whenever I sit down to read him, I feel like there's actually quite a bit of teleology tucked in there. And I'm certainly not the only one who perceives it that way. Even looking at Darwin, and then following through to his spiritual successor Dawkins, the whole thing seems absolutely saturated with implicit teleology. It's rare to find an author who truly dismantles that teleological framework within their ontology, and the one person I've actually seen attempt it is Žižek. Mind you, he doesn't really have a rigid, dogmatic philosophical system of his own (heaven forbid!), but rather, in his arguments, he very consistently follows the logic of eliminating teleology and exploring its truly radical consequences. I read about this quite a while ago and can't recall the exact passage—which isn't surprising given he's a living classic who hasn't quite hit the "canon" status yet, and well, given his writing style—but I'm certain he does it in several places. I wonder if you ever got that same impression? In fact, despite all the various Chomskyan influences, Žižek might be a perfect example, unlike Dawkins and his crowd, of someone who actually follows a philosophical logic all the way to its conclusion. But hey, that's probably a whole different conversation (though everything is ultimately one conversation since Being is one—I think the Heideggerians would say "Being," haha 😛), and everything else is just fragmented or "disjointed," haha...

Fair enough, I get where you're coming from. Nietzsche is basically launching a direct attack against that whole tradition—sometimes he's pretty quiet about it, and other times he's incredibly blunt... So, yeah, I see your point. But if that's the case, then Nietzsche is undoubtedly carving out entirely new ways to understand what "good" even means...
I think I'll need to sit with these ideas and chew on them a bit longer before I really know what I think...

James Lee77 said:Okay, I should probably clear this up. For any movement to actually be heading toward something "better," it’s gotta have a goal, right? Some kind of ultimate good it’s aiming for. Like some kind of peak perfection or completion. But with Nietzsche, there just isn't anything like that. Here’s that bit from his notes I mentioned earlier:

So, basically, when he talks about being "beyond good and evil" at the end there, he isn't really talking about morality or whether something is "good" or "bad." He's talking about the lack of a goal—the idea that there's no perfection or finished state that the will is trying to reach. So, what does "overman" even mean? How is he "over"? I don't think Nietzsche is talking about some future stage of human evolution here. He’s talking to a select few, and not as predecessors to the whole human race, but just to them specifically. To Nietzsche, power is a finite amount; the power of one person means the powerlessness of another. One person's growth means someone else is getting weaker—there's no such thing as progress for everyone. Those of us who can say "yes" to who we are—to the will to power—we grow, while the others (those who hesitate, or barely manage, etc.) fade away. Nietzsche is talking to the first group, not the second. If there is something "better" in Nietzsche's eyes, I guess it just means it's better to be in that first group, the ones growing and increasing their share of power. There's no such thing as "humanity improving" or "society progressing" or whatever.

But honestly, why does it have to be that way? Why must a movement possess some ultimate goal or a fixed "good" just to qualify as moving toward something better? Perhaps that's just a leftover from the old Platonic or Aristotelian traditions, and maybe reality actually works in the exact opposite way. 🤷

Furthermore, while a lot of people label Nietzsche as someone who completely "broke away from teleology," whenever I sit down to read him, I feel like there's actually quite a bit of teleology tucked in there. And I'm certainly not the only one who perceives it that way. Even looking at Darwin, and then following through to his spiritual successor Dawkins, the whole thing seems absolutely saturated with implicit teleology. It's rare to find an author who truly dismantles that teleological framework within their ontology, and the one person I've actually seen attempt it is Žižek. Mind you, he doesn't really have a rigid, dogmatic philosophical system of his own (heaven forbid!), but rather, in his arguments, he very consistently follows the logic of eliminating teleology and exploring its truly radical consequences. I read about this quite a while ago and can't recall the exact passage—which isn't surprising given he's a living classic who hasn't quite hit the "canon" status yet, and well, given his writing style—but I'm certain he does it in several places. I wonder if you ever got that same impression? In fact, despite all the various Chomskyan influences, Žižek might be a perfect example, unlike Dawkins and his crowd, of someone who actually follows a philosophical logic all the way to its conclusion. But hey, that's probably a whole different conversation (though everything is ultimately one conversation since Being is one—I think the Heideggerians would say "Being," haha 😛), and everything else is just fragmented or "disjointed," haha...