Posts by bluemason3

On just a few of the forums I frequent, I’ve seen at least three instances—that's all I can recall right now—where a moderator was actually removed. It does happen. Then again, with about 70% of people being generally difficult, and 100% of moderators dealing with folks constantly hunting for sensitive PDFs, you shouldn't expect them to just jump at every little complaint someone makes.

feralranger said:Not necessarily, because believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible where the Earth is a flat disc only about 6,000 years old is patently bizarre.

Regarding evolution, one could maintain a rational perspective that while evolution is indeed a fact, it isn't the "whole story" and doesn't explain everything—much like how Newton's physics doesn't account for every single nuance of motion; reducing everything to Newton's physics would be an oversimplification and ultimately inaccurate, even if it remains approximately correct and useful for everyday applications.

Materialistic beliefs (held by a significant portion of atheists) often lean toward the idea that the universe emerged ex nihilo or similar concepts. There are various religious positions held by both theists and atheists alike.

In the context of evolution, believing in a single original pair and original sin feels bizarre, but those are fixed dogmas within the Catholic Church, so I'm not sure how much room there actually is for symbolic interpretation.

feralranger said:I suppose nothing actually prevents a Pope from blessing any old charlatan, so why shouldn't he bless someone like Elvis Presley or Milton Petrović, or whoever else claims to possess such "knowledge"? The Church doesn't deny science or evolution; even the Pope’s blessing included serious scientists who study evolution.

Well, I suppose the agitated atheists can all rejoice at having various Elvis Presleys to point to, since individuals like that serve as perfect fuel for ridiculing the Church...
As for me, I honestly don't know what else to say other than this is—quite frankly—bizarre.

On the other hand, setting aside the aliens for a moment, young creationists seem more internally consistent to me than Christian evolutionists. I posted about this earlier in the Catholic Q&A section, and honestly, the answers didn't impress me much. Not to be biased, but who am I to judge? They clearly see things differently.

To be honest, I find it pretty tough to connect the dots between the exclusively human (though not animal) souls of Adam and Eve—as they are dogmatically defined and therefore unchangeable—and Original Sin, alongside evolution. It feels like you have to stretch rationalizations quite far to bridge that cognitive dissonance. With creationists, the alignment between their religious myth and theological foundations seems much clearer.

Of course, that approach completely ignores scientific facts and common sense, which would shrink and radicalize the flock. So, it’s in everyone's interest to play a little dumb. But even so, the logic of Christian evolutionism still feels "internally" strained if we are talking about full-blown scientific evolution rather than some repackaged version with a hidden agenda.

David Vaughn75 said:What kind of theories are you guys even cooking up here? A guy asks about thieves and killers, not some deep dive into social revolutions or the philosophical definitions of crime 😵
So, what’s the play—do we lock up ten murderers along with one innocent person, or just let the whole lot of them walk?

Aristotle said it ages ago: it's better to let a hundred guilty people go free than to throw a single innocent soul behind bars, and honestly, I couldn't agree more.

I disagree.

This feels like empty, academic theorizing from people who don't actually hold any power or responsibility.

It's impossible to be 100% certain that every single conviction is wrong. If we followed that logic, the entire legal system would collapse, laws would become meaningless, and anyone could commit crimes without consequence.

Real decision-making isn't about picking a perfect option; it's about choosing the lesser of two evils when both have downsides.

While individuals will inevitably suffer mistakes within the system, society as a whole—and far more people—would suffer much worse without a judicial and law enforcement apparatus.

If we were talking about a purely theoretical 10:1 ratio rather than unpredictable, real-world errors, the answer would depend on the context. Specifically, what kind of killers are we talking about? Are they career criminals likely to strike again, or did they end up in this mess by pure accident?
In the first case, I'd be willing to send myself or someone else to prison alongside them.

Sam Martinez9 said:That’s a sharp definition.

Now, certain criminals certainly belong behind bars. But others? Those who break the status quo and defy the social norms that hold progress back—those are the people who actually deserve a reward.

Fair point. Norms are subjective, too—but I suppose that’s just part of making things better.

neongull93 said:So, here’s the old ethical dilemma for you—is it better to have ten criminals and one innocent person sitting in a cell, or absolutely zero innocent people behind bars?
Basically, if you let an innocent person walk free, you might be letting ten guilty ones slide right through your fingers... but if you don't, you've got those ten bad actors chilling in a cell right alongside someone who didn't do anything wrong at all.

One innocent person in jail.

Sam Martinez9 said:But how are we defining a "criminal" here?

Someone who breaks social norms—whether those are unwritten rules or official laws passed by the government.

Elizabeth Jackson said:Daniel Davis40 and Gregory Ramirez2, I think you both hit the nail on the head. 🙂

I feel quite certain, even from the very first post in this thread, that the admins are just going to tune us out. They’ll either dodge giving a straight answer or they'll just shut the whole topic down—which, if we're being honest, is what's happened a few times already. And yet, we still don't have any moderators in sight... who knows how much longer this will drag on... regardless of all that "intense effort" supposedly being poured into finding someone....

So, if I may be so bold as to ask— what kind of impossible standards does someone actually have to meet to alternative moderate this place properly and follow the rules of the Forum and its sub-sections?
I’m really not trying to be difficult here; I am genuinely curious since we haven't had any moderation for nearly a year now 🤦 and I believe we have a democratic right as users to expect the admins or supermods to actually give us a direct answer. I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering about these criteria.

The reason I'm asking is that I simply can't wrap my head around it. How is it possible that in ten months, they haven't found a single genius among the hundreds of thousands of registered users? Out of the dozens of active, on-topic members who have gone years without so much as a single warning, people who actually enjoy and understand the discussions in the PDFs and would likely moderate with high quality and integrity—even as volunteers?
It seems statistically impossible that such people don't exist.

Given that this search for a moderator has been going on for so long (it’s probably a record for any online community globally), I suppose you're looking for someone who is essentially flawless—someone whom absolutely no one could ever find a single thing to complain about.
As someone who is very active in the alternative section, I would truly love nothing more than for that to be the case.

To wrap things up, I have one very pointed question:
- What is the justification for not sanctioning any of the posts our colleague linked , when every single one of them represents the most blatant insults imaginable?
Please, just don't tell me we were supposed to report them by clicking the little icon and then wait... because we all know there are no moderators to see them, making clicking that button about as useful as barking at the moon....

Just two things. They have to want to moderate the alternative section, and they need to be at least somewhat mentally stable.

An oxymoron, obviously. So, nothing's happening there.

feralranger said:And why on earth would one bother excluding wars? If we are witnessing mass slaughter on a global scale during mega-conflicts, are we really expected to find solace in the fact that people are killing each other "in smaller amounts" during peacetime?

While modern technology has gifted us with high-definition cameras and advanced DNA forensics—tools that certainly give many a reason to hesitate before committing a solitary murder—it has simultaneously handed us devastating bombs and automated killing machines, which make it all too easy to "balance out" these statistics and far exceed them in a single stroke...

It’s not a stretch to say that WW2 was essentially an anomaly. When you look at the entire timeline of human history—from our earliest beginnings through the long stretches of peace followed by various smaller conflicts—those two wars stand out as massive outliers. If you follow your own logic and look at the bigger picture over much longer periods, they’re just statistical deviations.

Even if we brought them into the equation, I’m not sure it would change much. For instance, during WW2, only about 3% of the population was lost. Compare that to the Stone Age—some archaeological findings suggest violent deaths consistently hit double digits, sometimes even topping 50%.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/h...western-europe

Data here excludes war-related figures (though some reconstructions and extrapolations were used)

Edit: I’ll try to be civil and avoid getting sucked into an argument about why potatoes aren't irons.

a) I'm not familiar with the term you used, though "contradiction" is probably the closest thing I can think of.

b) Ambiguity is an existing concept where a word or phrase refers to something else entirely, and etymologically, it aligns much more closely with that than with your usage. It describes a word or expression that can have multiple meanings or interpretations, which don't necessarily imply a logical opposition.
For instance, the phrase "master philosopher" could be interpreted ambiguously as a master of philosophy (a more precise term) or a master of some other trade (like a baker or a carpenter) who happens to dabble in philosophy (plus, there's the colloquial layer where "philosophy" might just mean someone likes to ramble aimlessly, adding another level of ambiguity). So, the phrase is ambiguous or polysemous, but it isn't paradoxical.
On the other hand, a phrase like "anti-philosophical philosopher" isn't really ambiguous; it would be considered paradoxical.

Regarding the topic—that very possibility of ambiguity is exactly why serious engagement with any intellectual or scientific field usually involves developing a specific internal terminology. This creates a way of expressing things that is clearer and more precise than everyday speech, specifically to prevent misinterpretations.
(It's also one reason why math is so vital in K-12 education; at that stage, it's the closest students get to the linguistic precision required by science.)

In contrast, you have spiritualists and New Age types who, perhaps more than any other group, intentionally (though not always consciously) rely on poorly defined, multi-purpose terms (like spirituality or enlightenment). These allow people to easily project their own mental baggage onto them and create (subjective) illusions of meaning.

In short, it makes sense that obscurantism leans toward vague language, while analytical thinking aims to build a more unambiguous system of communication.

hiddenpuma75 said:And then there’s this guy, a walking masterclass in bad teaching.

He’s busy criticizing things without actually explaining what's wrong or offering a single correct solution.🙄

It reminds me of something > once said:

They won't enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, but they sure love lecturing everyone else who wants to! 🧐

(By the way, hiddenpuma75 claims the Gospels are just mythology.🙄
What an absurd take. To most people, myths are just boring old stories that don't mean much anymore. I mean, does anyone actually care what Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster had to say?

But look at the Gospels—they are incredibly engaging, universally applicable, and deeply profound lessons for life.🙂
Myths just don't carry that kind of weight or literary merit.
Why?

Because myths are products of the imagination—even if that imagination is deep and inspiring—whereas the events in the Gospels actually happened. It’s as simple as that.

You're completely off base. Totally wide of the mark.

hiddenpuma75 said:I just had a little epiphany that maybe our best way to describe a paradox would be
AMBIGUITY, and I really felt compelled to share that thought with you all 🙂

Not really. Ambiguity and paradox aren't even in the same ballpark.

Pleasure isn't just about satisfying a thesis. It's also about maintaining control over your environment—one of our most primal urges—and acquiring knowledge.

Ultimately, pleasure serves the thesis by aiding survival and reproduction. It’s essentially just a reward mechanism designed to reinforce behaviors that help us stay alive and pass on our genes.

In much the same way as psychoactive substances, spiritual practices can become escapist. They allow people to flee from natural behavior, triggering unhealthy, self-contained neural manipulations that are little more than mental masturbation.

I’d say the topic is a bit more niche than that and doesn't really encompass those types of communities.

There are similarities, sure, but plenty of differences too.

Ashrams are a pretty loosely defined phenomenon; they're basically just places where people gather around certain spiritual ideals, but they lack a rigid structure. A lot of them operate on commercial programs where most residents are actually just transient guests providing revenue through fees and donations. Very few actually sustain themselves through some kind of self-sufficient industry, so comparing them to the communes we're discussing here feels a bit off.

Most religious communes have a heavy ideological backbone—often involving strict hierarchies (sometimes with shady cult-like dynamics), intense discipline, and so on. On the other hand, so-called eco-communes are essentially a modern spin on the hippie movement, attracting groups of people who tend to be anti-establishment.

I wouldn't include monasteries or ashrams in this conversation at all, even if they happen to have some production or economic independence. Given how strictly they are organized, it's a completely different ballgame. Living in a brotherhood that functions as a surrogate family, or living with your own biological family, brings in the need to secure a future for children (which leads to the automatic accumulation of capital, right? 😁). Then you have multi-generational dynamics that can totally shift the original ideals (since kids aren't there because they share the ideology; they're brought into it by "force" and might hold very different modern views), plus schooling needs, and the broader requirements of monastic or religious communities, etc.

Back when I was young, naive, and completely out of sync with the world, I actually thought about ditching the monastery life to run off to join some commune.

But looking back after enough time has passed—and having seen enough of what happens behind the polished PR facades—it all feels pretty "meh." There isn't some perfect escapist fix for every personal or social mess we deal with, though I suppose one lifestyle might suit certain people better than others.

darkbadger8 said:Thanks...
From what I understand, the goal of zen meditation (at least during that samurai phase) is to awaken perception regarding material reality—including the perception of one's own body and mind—all for the sake of better warrior performance, if that makes sense. Constant awareness of your surroundings...
Do other schools of meditation have different goals, and if so, what would they be?
I know that's a massive question, but if you could just write something up purely for information's sake...

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a "samurai phase" in zen. Generally speaking, linking zen directly to martial arts is more of a modern literary trope than a historical reality. While there was certainly some overlap among certain Japanese classes and monasteries that maintained fighting traditions (but that wasn't unique to zen or Buddhism—you saw similar vibes in Christianity during the era of the Templars, in Islam, or Hinduism... just the spirit of the times),
it wasn't a defining feature.
The core aim of zen (chana, seona) is like any other Buddhist tradition: ultimately, it's about gaining insight into the nature of reality (impermanence, conditionality, emptiness, etc.).

darkbadger8 said:I find it hard to believe it's inherently part of the language... though I suppose it's not entirely impossible.
If we assume it actually is inherent, then the advantage goes to whoever knows Sanskrit and truly understands the mantras.
I knew someone who tried TM or some similar "pay-to-play" spirituality program.
The instructor supposedly created a custom mantra just for him, in Sanskrit... his own personal one.
He wasn't told what it meant, and the guy was even told, "Think of the Mantra like a drill. You don't need to know how it works, just repeat it every day and let it drill."🤦
But what if that guru is just some prankster? What if my friend is sitting there repeating his expensive little mantra, only for the translation from Sanskrit to be something like, "I am a fool throwing money away"?

Nah, they just use the standard bija mantras. They pick them based on your birth year.Looking back at how this movement evolved, the selection process hasn't stayed static. It’s changed quite a bit over the years.All of that, all together...Just like checking.Honestly, they’re just mystifying the whole thing and keeping the actual process under wraps.

It seems like you might have cut off mid-sentence. What was on your mind?The roots.Mantras show up all over the place in various Hindu and Tibetan traditions, but you rarely see them used entirely on their own. Even Maharishi's teacher didn't really go that route. While "Om" is the big one everyone knows, there are plenty of others tucked into longer chants. Usually, they function as building blocks within more complex, meaningful mantras. They might not have a direct literal definition, but they’re almost always tied to specific deities.

In higher levels of TM initiation, you also get more mantras, which expand upon the traditional ones.

Take one of the popular mantras dedicated to the goddess Saraswati, for example: "om Aim Saraswatyai Namaha." Aim...om Aim Saraswatyai Namaha, technically speaking.There was a mantra used there that was connected to that goddess.

In TM, Aim will be one of the mantras used, though there won't be much discussion regarding its connection to Saraswati.

With more advanced techniques, you'll eventually expand into Sri Aim Namaha.In various iterations through different stages.).
"Namaha" is your classic Hindu mantra closer, basically meaning "I pay my respects" or "I bow down." As for "Sri," that's just a term used to show reverence.

It matters because if the effect is built directly into the language itself, then it’s universal—it doesn't care what you believe. But if it’s just a placebo, then everything becomes much more subjective and individual.

swiftdrifter4 said:Hmm... I actually thought there was some kind of inherent power tied to ancient Sanskrit...

People love to mystify ancient languages, especially when they're used for religious texts. Hindus hype up Sanskrit, Muslims lean into Arabic, and Christians were stuck with Latin for ages.

Just myths.

Unlike praying in your own language, using Sanskrit usually means you lack a direct grasp of the meaning. You miss out on the instinctive cultural context, the symbolism, and the iconography—which probably means you aren't even truly "involved" in the moment.

On the other hand, if someone believes the nonsense (stuff that's either unfalsifiable or just plain wrong) about Sanskrit being the "most ancient," the "most complete" language with "perfectly precise sounds" or "highest vibrations," then a placebo effect might actually work. In that case, it could genuinely feel special.

swiftdrifter4 said:But are Hindu mantras actually "more powerful" than ones you just pick out yourself?

Not really.