Posts by Gerald Jackson48

The question assumes people consciously chose a path of division, conflict, and constant competition. I think that’s a flawed premise for at least two reasons. First off, maybe we didn't actually choose this. It might have been forced on us—either through raw biological drives or by being subtly manipulated by various political ideologies. Second, I see plenty of examples pointing in the opposite direction. There's a lot of unity, cooperation, and genuine community out there. It's definitely not as black and white as it looks.

After thinking it through, experience finally spoke up. It’s all about the data. 🧐

I won't be hanging out on the forum as much lately, so don't expect me to drop massive walls of text, but I agree—it feels like things have really lost their edge.

I think I still have my old DVD somewhere, probably picked it up at a Best Buy back in the early 2000s. It’s one of those cult classics that honestly transcends its genre and the era it was made in. You get a healthy dose of Horror, some dark humor, and a bit of drama and social commentary, all wrapped up in those psychedelic colors of the free-love era. It really lifts the movie above the usual intellectual low bar set by your typical zombie flick.

Anyway, I had a moment recently that totally captured the vibe of the film, so I wanted to share it with you guys. 😁

I walked into my local grocery store during the day, and it was eerily empty for this time of year. I was the only customer in the whole place. Now, I’m not talking about a massive Walmart here, but it wasn't just some tiny corner bodega either. There were just two cashiers standing there, both staring intensely at their phones. They didn't even look up or acknowledge me, even though I walked right past them and the door chime definitely went off. The only sound was the low hum of the refrigerators and the ceiling fan. I cleared my throat and said hello, but nothing. Not a single glance from either of them. As I kept walking deeper into the empty aisles, I couldn't help but think of the movie and how maybe it’s time for a remake—one where the zombies are distracted by their phone screens instead.

mistybison said:The philosophy section needs some moderation. 🙂 :

[/I]

It turns out it wasn't even that unique after all. Philosophers really do need a firm hand guiding them.

gentlerider7 said:If I’m remembering correctly, he also thought the Prussian monarchy was the absolute peak of that whole "freedom consciousness" thing instead of Jacobin France—and look, Hegel actually backed the revolutionary spirit, he just couldn't stomach the terror part.

I read somewhere that before 1796, he was totally hyped about the ideals of the French Revolution. But later on, he got disillusioned and pivoted toward reactionary state absolutism. For instance, when Napoleon marched into Jena, he wrote this about him:

"I saw the Emperor—this world soul; it truly is a magnificent feeling to witness such a person who, concentrated right here in one spot while sitting on his horse, spreads himself across the globe and dominates it."

https://www.the-philosophy.com/napoleon-quotes

Sandra Murphy33 said:What I am pointing out, and what everyone seems to be ignoring, is that in that period, he couldn't have been anything other than a Christian.
An American in the late 18th or early 19th century was defined by that social fabric in the same way a citizen is defined by their contemporary society...
And that is fundamentally different from being a Christian today.

His "alternative view of God" is functionally identical to someone today proposing an "alternative view" where God isn't the Christian God, but rather something like the Field, or Consciousness, or some other morphological concept.

To put it bluntly, the gap between his reasoning and actual Christian thought is much like the modern gap between Christianity and so-called pseudoscience.

That is my assessment.

As for his philosophy: if we strictly decouple it from his persona and his life—much like how modern science attempts to separate "personal belief" from professional expertise—then the two published works mentioned by Sigmund don't actually engage with theology at all.
Though, one could certainly debate just how feasible such a rigid separation really is.

I’m not sure how you define "Christian thinking" regarding God, especially when it comes to His essence (or Her essence? There was a debate about gender once, though I can't remember if anyone brought up gender identity 😁), but it really isn't as one-size-fits-all as you seem to think. Whether it's the idea that God is separate from the material world or somehow involved in it through "revelation and action," or how much He is anthropomorphized versus being incomprehensible to the human mind—it's not like Hegel just popped out of nowhere with a totally alien concept of God that had never been touched by institutional or non-institutional Christianity or any other global spiritual tradition. Sure, you can talk about Hegel's original ideas, but he built a lot of it on top of predecessors and contemporaries like Spinoza and Boehme. Besides, the whole notion that humans created God (instead of the other way around), along with all the skepticism and philosophical debates about the true nature of the Divine, goes all the way back to ancient Greece. Those questions about the nature of "God" have popped up throughout the entire history of Christianity, Judaism, various Eastern traditions, and pretty much everything else.

Paper can take a lot of abuse, but hermeneutics? That takes it to a whole new level.

Sandra Murphy33 said:I would argue he was a believer who carried a seed of doubt in his heart—a doubt that ultimately served as the foundation for his entire philosophy. 🙂

We pulled that particular quote, along with several others, from ZL, where he offers various critiques of Christian theology.
As for his assertion that philosophy is theology, I actually went ahead and bolded and somewhat exaggerated that point in my previous post regarding 😬
In reality, what he is doing is replacing Christian theology with philosophy itself.

He wasn't the first Christian to think outside the box, and he certainly won't be the last. There have always been people who looked at how institutions interpret the mind of God and decided to push back. You see it all the time with reformers, reconstructionists, and those unorthodox movements that just refuse to follow the status quo. People have always challenged the establishment.

@Amanda Jackson5

It’s really not your place to weigh in on how the mods do their jobs.

Terry Martinez10 said:These quotes come straight from Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. The whole work centers on the nature of art... specifically his search for a definition of true beauty, which leads him into a deep dive attempting to define truth itself.
He’s talking about pure, unadulterated truth—the kind untouched by human oversight or subjective interpretation—and he weaves the concept of beauty right into that same framework.

Honestly, it blows my mind to think about how individuals would attempt to censor this kind of thought or strip away freedom of speech if they actually had the chance.

Don't sweat it too much. The left wing of Hegelianism has its own way of looking at Hegel and God, while the right wing has theirs. They rarely see eye to eye. You've just got your own take based on what you read, and that's perfectly fine.

After Hegel passed away, the focus shifted from political philosophy to intense debates over the philosophy of religion. People were arguing about theistic ideas regarding God, personal immortality, and Christ's divinity, which basically split the school into left and right wings. His direct students, known as the Old Hegelians, wanted to bridge philosophically grounded theology with orthodox religious doctrine. On the other side, you had the younger generation of philosophers who didn't follow Hegel's lead, called the Young Hegelians. d. F. Strauss and B. Bauer pushed a pantheistic view of God, while L. Feuerbach took an atheist turn and developed a critique of religion based on anthropology. These "left" and "right" labels really stem from the political and social stances held back in the 1840s.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hegelianism

Just chilling on vacation out in Georgia, picking hazelnuts, when I stumble onto an idea. It isn't just catchy, either. It’s logically sound, perfectly argued, and backed up by hard facts.

Living a good life really comes down to following virtues. Or at least some of them, anyway. It’s not like we’re running low on them; it’s more about how much we actually live by them.

Here’s a great quote from Amanda Flores88. I love the way she put this.

"They're everywhere. All around us and inside us. Virtues aren't missing; you just have to learn how to see them."

I'm jumping in here to join all the positive vibes and praise. This thread is really well-run. 👍

Honestly, I’m actually kind of glad Bon Jovi didn't do any better. They're basically just music for immature teenagers and girls going through puberty, and I'm pretty sure we've all moved past that stage by now. I can tell you who suggested most of the other tracks, but how Bon Jovi even made the list is a total mystery to me.

Mark Cruz15 said:That’s exactly what was just said above.

I've listened to this Tool album already, though probably not enough times to actually memorize it. Honestly, they were starting to get a bit stale for me because every track felt identical, but this might be the exception since the songs have such great energy.

For me, Lateralus is one of their least interesting records. This is where they really veered away from that sense of humor and self-deprecation that made their early stuff so good, opting instead to go full-blown esoteric. “Saturn ascends, choose one or ten...” If I actually wanted to learn about my astrological profile, I’d just read the collected works of Baba Vanga or listen to, I don't know, Blind Guardian.

But hey, by the time they hit 10,000 Days, they're trying to fix it with lyrics like “I shit the bed” in some smoke-filled outlet. Though even that album has its issues, likely because they ditched Bottrill as producer.

I was voting on my phone and accidentally hit ‘vote now’ instead of adding an extra vote for Sakamoto. If anyone can swing it, please toss one more his way.

👍

Donuts is such a gorgeous, warm record. It’s packed with emotional beats and tiny little details. It might seem a bit fragmented at first glance, but honestly, that’s probably just because it's your first listen. Once you realize how perfectly all the pieces fit together, it’s like a donut—everything works to complete the whole cycle of life.

There's this one specific moment where the music just cuts out for a split second right after that soulful vocal repeats, "you better stop... and think what you're doing." It hits hard.

Stop

The guy is a total genius with samples. Plus, nobody has ever quite managed to beat that organic drum swing he pulls off.

J Dilla - Donuts (2006)

Tracklist:

Jason is better than Trujillo, but honestly, Cliff still kills them all. 🎉

analogbear40 said:.....let me take a quick look at that poll that was just posted......

Gerald Jackson48 - voting for all the suggested albums, except for the one he covered himself......

🤔

.....if everyone voted like that, we'd all end up with the same amount of votes and there'd never be a winner......or rather, everyone would be a winner......which pretty much defeats the whole point of having a vote in the first place......

.....maybe that's exactly what WW was trying to get at......sending us some kind of symbolic message......and given how things have been going lately, I actually kind of agree with him......

😁

There's no deep meaning here, I just didn't have the time to write a whole thread. 😁

Besides, Baumann will win regardless of my vote if people find it interesting enough, and if they don't, they won't.