Forum V: Archive
Compiled: Sun, Mar 25, 2001 at 10:51:45 (GMT)
From: Mar 18, 2001 To: Mar 24, 2001 Page: 4 Of: 5


Jim -:- Premie as Conehead (from ELK) -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:36:26 (GMT)
__ Sandy -:- Jim, you are totally wrong on this one -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:41:58 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- :) (nt) -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:46:15 (GMT)

thetruth -:- Amaroo is free (except for the smart card) -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:34:38 (GMT)
__ Marianne -:- Fraudulent advertising -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:10:39 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- Indeed -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:39:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- Elan Vital Ltd -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:09:09 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- PR Failure -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:07:55 (GMT)
__ __ Tony Walker -:- PR Failure -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:24:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ TD -:- The fall in Aussie dollar against the greenback... -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:22:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- The fall in Aussie dollar against the greenback... -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:32:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ TD -:- Our dollar is worth 50 US cents today - pathetic -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:22:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- An Enconomy 'standing still' -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:47:14 (GMT)

Richard -:- The Krishna Transport Box -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:12:14 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- Talent is a terrible thing to waste! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 07:40:54 (GMT)
__ __ DECA mole -:- Box holds costume, crown, flute, jewelry -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:57:58 (GMT)
__ Roy -:- Transport Box @www.krishnacasket.com nt -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:55:27 (GMT)
__ __ Richard -:- Hey Roy, how are you? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 06:58:05 (GMT)
__ Tonette -:- Costume Jewelry -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:12:30 (GMT)
__ Bin Liner -:- That's a very low rent pic ...... -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:32:05 (GMT)
__ Luke Pewk -:- The Krishna Transport Box invented by mahatmas -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:23:11 (GMT)
__ __ Mahatma Coat -:- Krishna Crown display is truly a marvelous thing -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:58:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Getting darshan from Rev Rawat's slippers -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 09:17:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Mahatma Coat -:- Darshan from Rev Rawat's slippers - blissful -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:51:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Mahatma Coat ma socks on - golly, so blissful -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 22:30:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- haha mahatma coat !! nt -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 21:01:45 (GMT)
__ la-ex -:- I love the 'flute'holder on top.I'll order two! nt -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:36:11 (GMT)
__ __ Susan -:- that photo made me physically ill -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:41:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ Abi -:- me too. Puke. -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:50:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ cq -:- looks like 'exhibit A' at a trial -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:11:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ Cynthia -:- How can they deny being in a cult? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:46:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ la-ex -:- Can't a man own a 'hat box'?What if it rains? nt -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:29:21 (GMT)
__ Joe -:- Can this pic go on the website? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:51:39 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- It's like the Tower of London -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:26:11 (GMT)
__ __ Kev -:- Love the drawing? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:33:27 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- It's like the Tower of London Crown Jewel Display -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:27:13 (GMT)

Sandy -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:24:49 (GMT)
__ Deputy Dog -:- Hey Sandy! -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:33:50 (GMT)
__ Tonette -:- Hang in there girl -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:45:44 (GMT)
__ __ Tonette -:- Hang in there guy I mean....... -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:58:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Words of wisdom, Tonette -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 08:57:50 (GMT)
__ janet -:- sandy i have always supported you-just you- -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 23:34:59 (GMT)
__ __ Brian Smith -:- You raise a very interesting point janet? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:24:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ such -:- Hung Up maybe bad,but if one So Hung,who cares?(nt -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 07:19:04 (GMT)
__ __ janet -:- sandy-what i see coming. a suggestion: -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 00:38:59 (GMT)
__ Jerry -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 21:19:34 (GMT)
__ Roger eDrek -:- My condolences regarding your turmoil -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:57:24 (GMT)
__ Pat Conlon -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:49:18 (GMT)
__ Tony Walker (Aussi Ji) -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:46:04 (GMT)
__ Cynthia -:- Sandy -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:23:52 (GMT)
__ __ an old friend -:- Sandy -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:27:23 (GMT)
__ such -:- wishing Good Luck to you + the family; deja vu (mt -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:40:45 (GMT)
__ __ Bobby -:- I second that emotion (nt) -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:50:49 (GMT)
__ bill--babies need a lot -:- more than thier breath! And we do too....nt -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:00:19 (GMT)
__ It's not only breath. -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:16:25 (GMT)
__ __ ScottC. -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:54:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Question for you, Scott C. -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:26:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ scott -:- Question for you, Scott C. -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:34:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Scott, we should rent Jimmy Stewart in 'Harvey' -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:08:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Scott, we should rent Jimmy Stewart in 'Harvey' -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:14:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Hey, how about I'll be 'Jim', you can be 'Scott'? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:39:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ scott -:- Hey, how about I'll be 'Jim', you can be 'Scott'? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:59:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- You got an identity crisis or what? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:19:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ scott -:- You got an identity crisis or what? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 14:06:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Hi, Scott. Say Hi to Erika for me -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 19:18:00 (GMT)
__ Gregg -:- Don't drink the Baby's bathwater! -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:14:09 (GMT)
__ __ Bobby -:- Don't drink the Baby's bathwater! -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:05:50 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- But that IS the bathwater -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:18:11 (GMT)
__ __ Sandy -:- There is value and truth in it -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:49:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- You are clearly paying for your stubbornness -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:57:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Sandy -:- Everything has a price -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:52:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ cq -:- Everything has a price - believing nonsense too -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:31:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Katie H -:- If you want to read Dawkins... -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:51:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- If you want to read Dawkins... -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 00:29:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie H. -:- If you want to read Dawkins... -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 18:02:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- If that's your complaint, that ain't nothing -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 01:18:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- Yeah, so what? -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:08:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Oh great, you mean you've got a recpie for that? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:08:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Sandy -:- It's by taste, not rote, like living in the now -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:39:58 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Wrong! -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:46:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Sandy -:- Good ideas are not measured by how long it took to -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:08:58 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Sandy and Jim nice to see you talking reasonably -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 23:20:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- That's not science, that's atheism. -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:07:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- You're partially right -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:22:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- You're partially right -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:43:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Occam's razor, G... -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:39:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Thanks, Nige -- and to G -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:06:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- You are absolutely wrong -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:46:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- I've got a question for you, G -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 12:01:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- I've got a question for you, G -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:20:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- No I'm not. YOU are! Na na na NA NA!!!!! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:13:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- consciousness -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:57:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- The argument from ignorance -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 13:05:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- An argument about ignorance -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 18:34:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Primary experience -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:52:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- ... and secondary reality -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:33:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Reasonable assumptions -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:15:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Reasonable assumptions -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 20:02:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Reasonable assumptions -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:13:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- 'I am, therefore I think...' Amen. nt -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:27:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- 'springing from nothing' -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:09:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Well? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:48:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Well, what? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 13:27:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie H. -:- Nigel, I liked your post -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:59:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Nigel, I liked your post -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 04:47:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- But my dad was an atheist and I'm still rabid -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:35:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- 'journey' territory - Thanks for the glimpse NT -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 08:22:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- my family was mildly religious and I'm neither -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:47:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- But my dad was an atheist and I'm still rabid -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 06:14:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- I see you've yet to join the Friends of C.Darwin,G -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:37:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- I've already seen it, and congratulations. (nt) -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:46:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Thanks! Go on - get your bumper sticker... (nt) -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 06:40:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ janet -:- conversion from potential to actual? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:53:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- conversion from random fluctuations to actual? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 14:20:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- string theory, 100 from 0 -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:43:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- something from nothing -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:23:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- something from nothing -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:47:45 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- you can't say ... -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 20:08:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- my point -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:57:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- your point - prove it -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:28:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ O -:- Zero ('springing from nothing' and intruding) -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:26:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Ooooooh! I enjoyed that. Thanks. NT -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:55:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Occam's razor, I don't buy it. -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:26:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Occam's razor; you can't do science without it -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 21:10:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie H. -:- Occam's razor; you can't do science without it -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 03:08:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Good post, John -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:51:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- axiom = assumption -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:01:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- G multiplies assumptions -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 09:07:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Occam's razor -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:36:47 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Occam's razor is a principle, not a method (sigh) -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 20:29:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- A mode of action, not a basic truth (sigh) -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 23:17:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- It's about weighing probabilities. Try it. (nt.) -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:23:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- As if you know what they are. -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:46:33 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Exactly! -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:12:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Looks like sleazy, manipulative trash to me (nt) -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:21:33 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- But, yes, I have an emoticon for you too, G -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:39:58 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Kelly -:- I know it's only chaos but I like it, nt -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:40:37 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- You're partially right -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:00:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- You're partially right -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:16:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Jim and G ponder: ''Is there a god?'' -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:35:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- My little boy KNOWS God exists! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:02:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Hal -:- My little boy KNOWS God exists! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:49:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Your son is a good kid. I was a heretic -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 19:13:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- 'nothingness' -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:58:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- Pat, that was a *Wonderful* post! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:46:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Cynthia, would love glimpse of winter wonderland -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:50:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- Cynthia, would love glimpse of winter wonderland -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:38:16 (GMT)
__ JHB -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:36:39 (GMT)
__ __ Sandy -:- Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:02:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ Patrick Wilson -:- Sandy, I also felt a wave of sympathy... -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:54:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Sounds good, I think I'll feel that way too -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:16:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ JHB -:- My sympathies are with you -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:00:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Sandy, my sympathies are with you -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:06:00 (GMT)

AJW -:- Has the chain been pulled? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:46:39 (GMT)
__ Tonette -:- One can only hope that is the case. nt -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:05:02 (GMT)
__ Sir Dave -:- The peasants are revolting -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:10:49 (GMT)
__ CW -:- No, because you are smiling at me Mr Hanky -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 13:46:26 (GMT)
__ __ Tony Walker (Aussi Ji) -:- You spend a lot of time on here -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:52:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ Cw -:- You spend a lot of time on here -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:12:16 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- Poor old CW - who does he imagine is listening? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:19:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ Cat -:- I dont bother reading you. Nasty NIGE -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:14:10 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Nige -:- Why the 'nasty'? -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 03:03:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- I dunno but he stole Mr Hanky from me! -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:26:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ CW -:- I dunno but he stole Mr Hanky from me! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:19:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- ** Best of Forum ** (Catweasel uses 4 sentences... -:- Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:41:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Were you expecting original thought? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:47:52 (GMT)
__ __ The Original Des Perado!! -:- Did someone say what's goin' on??? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:33:48 (GMT)
__ __ JohnT -:- Hey! Sh*t for brains -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:26:37 (GMT)
__ __ __ CW -:- All that intellect -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:32:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Nice way to spread that K, CW, so loving -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:45:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- A friend of mine in Oz has told me that Catweasle -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:15:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ CW -:- A friend of mine in Oz has told me that Catweasle -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:29:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Hi, Catweasle. I always thought Paul was a phoney -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:54:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ CW -:- Hi, Catweasle. I always thought Paul was a phoney -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:19:36 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat Conlon -:- Hi, Catweasle, thanks for that -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 08:52:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Safe to say Cat has a few problems? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:59:15 (GMT)

Thelma the Secretary -:- Monday Memo; in re mandatory usage of emotikons -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 10:25:49 (GMT)
__ Richard -:- Here's a great one G made up -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:22:41 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- alternate version -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:56:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ Thelma -:- Yes, G, he does have short legs and a big torso -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:34:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ janet -:- ok that does it--now i try! here! -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:17:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ janet -:- server ruined it. again: -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:37:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- good work, looks Picassoesque (nt) -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 19:53:09 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- That settles it. Patrick needs to exercise more -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:32:21 (GMT)
__ __ Thelma -:- Jim, I blame it on the past week's Love Fest on FV -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:25:58 (GMT)
__ woolfy -:- sing a song -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:54:57 (GMT)
__ __ Pat Conlon -:- woolfy, pretty song - did you hear Rawat's song? -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:19:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ woolfy -:- woolfy, pretty song - did you hear Rawat's song? -:- Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 11:33:12 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- Thelma, -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:52:47 (GMT)
__ __ Thelma -:- You must be tripping Anth -:- Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:30:49 (GMT)


Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:36:26 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Premie as Conehead (from ELK)
Message:
Can you imagine?:

'To Portland with love

Now, it will be my gift to be a student in Portland.
It will be my pleasure to be in Portland learning
something very important for me, my heart and my life.
I am grateful to accept this chance of joy.
It is my fortune to go to Portland to be with it.

Ivete Belfort Mattos
Sao Paolo, Brazil'

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:41:58 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim, you are totally wrong on this one
Message:
You said she was a conehead and everyone knows that coneheads are from France, not Brazil.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:46:15 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: :) (nt)
Message:
fffffff
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:34:38 (GMT)
From: thetruth
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Amaroo is free (except for the smart card)
Message:
The Amaroo event rego form has a price (a big one) but as you would all know the event is open to all even if you cannot contribute to the running costs.
In my opinion the Amaroo 2001 rego form is a PR failure.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:10:39 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: thetruth
Subject: Fraudulent advertising
Message:
If the event is free, why doesn't the brochure advertising it say so? If it is actually free, all the people who paid to get in should demand their money back. If they don't get it, they ought to seek legal advice about whether they can sue EV for consumer fraud, false advertising, something like that.

Whatsamatter? Getting nervous down under?

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:39:29 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: Indeed
Message:
Legalistically speaking - in the sense that
1) they legally cannot charge because they are officially a charity and
2) they advertise as such on their web site
it might free. But they are not telling the PWKs that. They are doing all they can to create the impression that the PWKs must pay.
Which brings up a good question, given that they are a church and charity, are they legally entitled to use wording like 'fee', 'charge', 'price', 'cost', etc.? There is also the issue of Evan Vital Ltd., which is the company the PWKs are contracting with to attend Amaroo. Hopefully more on that later.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:09:09 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: Elan Vital Ltd
Message:
Here is some information about Elan Vital Ltd. from www.companieshouse.gov.uk:

Results of a search on 'Elan Vital':

02289543 ELAN VITAL LIMITED
04149956 ELAN VITALE COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED
NI034698 ELAN VITAL NORTHERN IRELAND
04046670 ELAN VITAL (UK) LIMITED

Here are some details, further details can be purchased:

1)

Name & Registered Office :
ELAN VITAL LIMITED
3 THE DRIVE
HOVE
EAST SUSSEX
BN3 3JE
Status : Active

Company No. : 02289543
Date of Incorporation : 24/08/1988
Country of Origin : United Kingdom

Company Type: Private Limited Company
Nature Of Business (SIC(92)): 7484 - other business activities

Accounting Reference Date : 31/03
Last Accounts Made Up To : 31/03/2000 (FULL)
Next Accounts Due : 31/01/2002
Last Return Made Up To : 23/02/2000
Next Return Due : 23/03/2001

Last Members List : 23/02/2000
Fiche Weeded On : 17/03/1998

Previous Names
Date of Change: 18/11/1988
Previous Name: W. B. STORES LIMITED

Branch Details
There are no branches associated with this company.

Oversea Company Information
There are no Oversea Details associated with this company.

2)

Name & Registered Office :
ELAN VITAL (UK) LIMITED
BISHOP YARDS
PENRITH
CUMBRIA CA11 7XS
Status : Active

Company No. : 04046670
Date of Incorporation : 03/08/2000
Country of Origin : United Kingdom

Company Type: Private Limited Company
Nature Of Business (SIC(92)):
None registered

Accounting Reference Date : 31/07
Last Accounts Made Up To :
Next Accounts Due : 31/05/2002
Last Return Made Up To :
Next Return Due : 31/08/2001

Previous Names
Date of Change :
Previous Name :
15/09/2000
ELAN VITALE (UK) LIMITED

Branch Details
There are no branches associated with this company.

Oversea Company Information
There are no Oversea Details associated with this company.

3)

Company No. : NI034698
Company Name : ELAN VITAL NORTHERN IRELAND
Status :
Company Incorporated in Northern Irleand
For further information please contact:
Belfast Registry
Registrar of Companies House
I D B House
64 Chichester Street
Belfast BT1 4JX
Tel: 01232 234488

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:07:55 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: thetruth
Subject: PR Failure
Message:
Hi thetruth,

I think the real PR failure is Captain Rawat. One minute he's the Lord of the Universe giving 'agya', the next minute he's not. One minute he's having people crown him on a throne, dressed up as Krishna, the next he's pretending he's Captain Rawat the Airline Pilot (sounds like a good idea for a kids TV series, with puppets). Is he the Perfect Master of the Age or isn't he?

Then there's the cult that he heads. That's not such good PR either. It stifles opinion, criticism, freedom of information. It sucks money from it's members relentlessly. It makes intelligent people talk and believe complete bullshit.

Then there's the cult sponsored paedophile, Jagdeo, I don't think he's been very good for PR either.

And there's the Captain's expensive lawyers trying to close down the Ex-premie websites. That was bad PR.

Then there's the Captain's divine theory on how to deal with a serious road accident. The sexual abuse of devotees. His insatiable material desires etc.

By blaming the Amaroo registration form, you're missing the mark a bit thetruth.

By the way, do you know how many premies have registered yet?

Anth the PR Failure.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:24:00 (GMT)
From: Tony Walker
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: PR Failure
Message:
G'day Anth,
The rego count must still be low as Ev is requesting premies come forward ASAP to get smart cards ect so as to prevent a last minute bottleneck.

Cheers Tony.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:22:00 (GMT)
From: TD
Email: None
To: Tony Walker
Subject: The fall in Aussie dollar against the greenback...
Message:
...must be even more of a setback for EV, as the fact that Amaroo's priced in US dollars, means that on a daily basis the event is becoming more and more expensive for Aussie premies.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:32:38 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: TD
Subject: The fall in Aussie dollar against the greenback...
Message:
TD, what is the exchange rate now? Yeah, if the Aussie dollar is falling v. the US dollar, and there isn't corresponding inflation in Oz, the Aussies are going to have to pay even more than the outrageous prices already being required.

BTW, what's causing the decline in the Aussie dollar?

The US economy is in a weird state at the moment. Record low unemployment, sluggish growth and a stock market, especially the NASDAQ, that is dropping like lead.

Here in 'dot.com land' there are lots of twentysometing former millionaires, who never worked as waiters, leaving very small tips. The BMW and Mercedes dealerships are worried.

Commercial rents in SOMA are falling weekly, maybe even daily, from the stratosphere, to just outrageous, and houses that used to sell for $1 million, now sell for $950K, with only 20 offers over the asking price, instead of 30! ::))

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:22:28 (GMT)
From: TD
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Our dollar is worth 50 US cents today - pathetic
Message:
....used to be around the 60 cent mark. In 1980 it was about 78cents....

Interesting what you say about the US economy, as everyone here talks about the strength of the US economy. I think the tech-stock crash brought quite a few Gen Y millionaires crashing down. I know one guy who was 25 who bought a $900,000 harbourside apartment coz of stock portfolio. Dunno if he's still got it, but I doubt it....

Oz will continue to slide, as economically we're fucked - despite any temporary upsides. Our foreign debt is horrendous, we've sold of most of our wealth-earning companies to offshore interests (about 80% of Oz companies are foreign owned), we get porked by many countries quotas and restrictions on our agricultural exports - but hell, if we're gonna live in a Banana Republic, at least we can lie in the sun, drink great wine and eat good seafood, watch sport on the telly.... our politicians who got on to the economic rationalist globalisation nonsense have so much to answer for.

Nah, I listen to economic commentators sprout all sorts of abstract nonsense about why our economy is fucked, but it's quite simple - if you spend more than you earn as a country and you're constantly losing any potentially capital creating wealth to overseas interests, then the only way is down.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:47:14 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: TD
Subject: An Enconomy 'standing still'
Message:
I think the US economy is probably still pretty strong, but people have gotten so used to constant expansion, growth and an expanding economy, that they have come to expect it, and don't think there is such a thing as a normal business cycle.

And lots of people made lots of money in the internet craze, betting on companies that were just never going to make it. There is a kind of 'gold rush' mentality around here, and now everyone is looking for the next one. It's kind of exciting, really. Lots of creativity, but there's risk involved. But even with the dot.com closings and layoffs, there has been such a worker shortage in the high tech industry, that most of those people have easily gotten other jobs. I think the unemployment rate in the Bay Area is under 2%.

Yes, globalization and multinational corporations are a big problem. The problem for the US is this idea that American consumers are supposed to buy everything everyone else makes. So far, they seem to be doing it.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:12:14 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: The Krishna Transport Box
Message:
A former DECA participant forwarded me these rather interesting documents.
Krishna Transport Box

All I know about this is these notes:

Here's some 'lost' images that I thought you and others would find interesting. This is one of many projects that DECA worked on for GMJ.

The purpose of this box was to transport M's Krishna regalia on his airplane.

This was probably finished in time for the first flight of the B707, and may still be in use today -- just a guess. I think 1980 was when it was completed.

Personally, I think it was the confused Indians that forced M to ask for this. - R

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 07:40:54 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Talent is a terrible thing to waste!
Message:
I can't believe the amazing things premies did. The good part is that many of us had marketable skills which served us well when we bailed, or the ashrams folded, or the walls came a tumbin' down.

Wow! I wonder what the costume box looked like.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:57:58 (GMT)
From: DECA mole
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Box holds costume, crown, flute, jewelry
Message:
There are compartments for the entire ensemble.

The very skilled craftsperson who fabricated box is possibly the same one who made a display case for the infamous watch collection.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:55:27 (GMT)
From: Roy
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Transport Box @www.krishnacasket.com nt
Message:
zz
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 06:58:05 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: post@rmi.net
To: Roy
Subject: Hey Roy, how are you?
Message:
I've been neglecting Varieties or Religious Experience in favor of varieties of forum experiences of which there have been many. Hope you are well. Email if you feel so inclined.

Richard

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:12:30 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Costume Jewelry
Message:
Remember when Durga Ji gave the sicky sweet satsang about how she wished the jewels on M's crown were real? She was really into the CROWN thing wasn't she?

I wonder how many family heirlooms ended up on that heinious crown. How the donation money must of flowed after her appeal!!

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:32:05 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: That's a very low rent pic ......
Message:

...has your contributor got any more ?
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:23:11 (GMT)
From: Luke Pewk
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: The Krishna Transport Box invented by mahatmas
Message:
All that Hindu nonsense was invented by the mahatmas and Maharaji just did it to humor them.

Yes, Luke, and I have got a bridge in Brooklyn...

It would make a nice holder for my vintage ports. Any idea if it's for sale?

Pat, who hates snakes and loves the little people.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:58:15 (GMT)
From: Mahatma Coat
Email: None
To: Luke Pewk
Subject: Krishna Crown display is truly a marvelous thing
Message:
By His Grace, I have just come back from a very special and most holy pilgramage to see just this thing you are showing here. The Darshan Experience Project is most lovely indeed and I am totally blissing out. For only 4,000 rupees I had the most fortunate opportunity to pass in front of this very Krishna Crown that is precisely the one Balyogeshwar Speaker Ji has been wearing all over the world dancing for his millions of followers.

There is a, how you say, blue tunnel with carpet soft as Rahda's tushy leading to The Darshan Experience Room. Very special instrumental arti is playing over sound system and when I saw the Krishna crown in this most Holy transport case, I began weeping and almost forgot to kiss the pillow in front.

New additions to The Darshan Experience Project wil include, what you call, Jumbo Tron so thousands can receive most Holy DVD Knowledge, by His Grace.

Synchronization Participation and Gratitude Ki Jai!

Mahatma Coat

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 09:17:31 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Mahatma Coat
Subject: Getting darshan from Rev Rawat's slippers
Message:
Are you from the Punjab? Your accent sounds Punjabi! What a hoot Mahatma Ji!

In Durban the Indian premies had a pair of slippers the Rev Rawat wore when he first went there in 73. Once a year they were pulled out and put on the altar in the satsang room of the ashram and every body would file by and kiss them.

It was always my biggest fund-raising event as CC.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:51:53 (GMT)
From: Mahatma Coat
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Darshan from Rev Rawat's slippers - blissful
Message:
Oh, by golly by gum. I am most blissful to be hearing of such story as you have just be telling to me. I am weeping with joy for the good fortune of those people. The slippers of Balyog are most holy indeed. At EDP - Experience Darshan Project, we only were able to be kissing a pillow that was - how you say - replica of pillow that one Indian premie was most fortunate to remember having seen in divine video.

I don't remember if I am from Punjab or not. Maybe so. I walked to a most holy festival with the Sat Guru years ago and after it finished I did not choose to be going home and after some time has passed, old Mahatma Ji is not recalling where he walked from. Oh, it is such lila - or maybe it is grace. Either way I am so very happy to have, by His Infinite Grace, been finding this Cyber-Chai Stall.

Mahatma Coat

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 22:30:08 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Mahatma Coat
Subject: Mahatma Coat ma socks on - golly, so blissful
Message:
Your satsang is truly blissful, Mahatma Ji. Gosh, golly, gee whiz and gee whillikers.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 21:01:45 (GMT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Mahatma Coat
Subject: haha mahatma coat !! nt
Message:
zzzz
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:36:11 (GMT)
From: la-ex
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: I love the 'flute'holder on top.I'll order two! nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:41:25 (GMT)
From: Susan
Email: None
To: la-ex
Subject: that photo made me physically ill
Message:
I had a really bad response to it....I became very nauseated....seriously.

Major creeps.

Like Joe said, now how on earth do they deny being a cult?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:50:12 (GMT)
From: Abi
Email: None
To: Susan
Subject: me too. Puke.
Message:
Me too. It was as though it became a thing, a sort of dead thing. A corrupt and nasty thing. YUK.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:11:53 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Abi
Subject: looks like 'exhibit A' at a trial
Message:
what trial?

the one he'll never get, if we don't do something about it.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:46:59 (GMT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Susan
Subject: How can they deny being in a cult?
Message:
Hi Susan,

It's really weird, isn't it? No we're not a cult! My ass! Why did I respond so much to that shit? I do have to give ample kudos to the designer, though, whoever. M has never skimped on his use of talented folks.

I am amazed that I actually believed he was, well, what he said he was, you know!??!!

Geeze, Louise!

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:29:21 (GMT)
From: la-ex
Email: None
To: Susan
Subject: Can't a man own a 'hat box'?What if it rains? nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:51:39 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Can this pic go on the website?
Message:
Wow. His own hand-drawing. At one time, premies would have kissed that, or made love to it or something, from the hand of the living god.

DECA seemed to be doing these things all the time. I remember they were working on his Rolls Royces, making furniture for the res and for Claudia, etc. Maharaji's desires were endless and forutnately for him, he had some very talented devotees, willing to disregard their own selves and health to fulfill his every whim.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:26:11 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: It's like the Tower of London
Message:
I feel like I'm touring the torture chamber in the Tower of London (there is one, isn't there?). No, this isn't a cult, is it?

CreePY!

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:33:27 (GMT)
From: Kev
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: Love the drawing?
Message:
I bet his mummy was really proud of him. I wonder how many crayons he used.

'Ah bless him the little love, here M let me stick that drawing of yours on fridge for you, so that everyone can see what a clever little boy you are'

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:27:13 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: It's like the Tower of London Crown Jewel Display
Message:
Actually the whole Tower of London is one big torture chamber, a monument to the cruelty and viciousness of the Brit royalty cult. It made me physically ill to see the crown jewels in a room close to where hundreds were beheaded and the little princes were buried alive. I had to step outside and smoke a joint to take away the nausea.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:24:49 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
Whether one has rejected Maharaji as the messenger or not, I still believe that the message he carries of the breath being most precious, life being the greatest gift, to know one's self being the pinnacle of human achievement is a very valid message.
Having said that, I can totally understand and empathize with those who have rejected him as the messenger, based on his personal conduct and the way so many premies were mistreated by him and his authorized representatives over the years, as documented in your archives. I cannot stand by and say that I am not involved or affected because nothing bad ever happened to me, if it happened to any of my fellow human beings.

My head has been copped almost 24/7 by this whole thing since I first came upon this site a few years ago. I have found it difficult to function on an everyday basis, just doing everyday things. It has felt like trying to swim through molasses. I don't think Maharaji is 'controlling' me, I just feel like my own use of my own faculties has been jammed up by my own thinking. I have accepted information into myself from this site that directly contradicts information I have accepted as true and real for over twenty years. That caused a real mess inside which I am digging out of every day, little by little. It's getting better.
To further complicate matters, my spouse is still gung-ho and regards me as having been 'brainwashed' by all you 'wacko troublemakers' here on the ex-site. That has not helped the already troubled times we are going through after almost 20 years of marriage. Our two teenage sons think we are both nuts for ever believing that Maharaji was God or belonging to anything like DLM or EV. So when I come here and post, there is more going on than meets the eye. My entire life is being turned on end. I have no problem with that if a greater truth is then discovered in the process and I will have a more fulfilling life as a result.

I am rediscovering the 'me' that existed before I was married, before I received Knowledge, before I was in a monestary....the 'me' who just wants to be happy without all the concepts and words. That 'me' has been cowering in a deep cavern in my heart, where it can still feel the comforting heartbeat and the warmth of life itself, without all the concepts, personalities, and contradictions that have been tearing at my reasoning processes and my once wonderful brain, which has been tied in knots over this.

I am writing to you here because I want to be straight with you collectively, as fellow human beings who were on the same ride I was on and got thrown off somehow, or just got off. I do not want to get into little personality scrapes with anyone here.
We all have bigger fish to fry.

Sandy

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:33:50 (GMT)
From: Deputy Dog
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Hey Sandy!
Message:
In the famous words of Bob Marley, 'Stand firm and give Jah concentration!'
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:45:44 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: netguest42@yahoo.com
To: Sandy
Subject: Hang in there girl
Message:
It's okay. Yes, very confronting but something that you will be able to sort out.

I too had a husband who thought Maharaji was something 'special.' Geez, some of the shit he did to 'get to the feet.' It was as if he believed if he didn't get his yearly dose of a program he would stop experiencing anything in his meditation. No, it was actually worse than that. He felt he OWED it to Maharaji. Meanwhile I had known for years M was full of shit. But he is a good father and we had two young children and I still loved him for who he was not that it didn't create some very interesting 'discussions.' I can totally relate to your situation.

Just don't press the issue. I would recommend if you are having a hard time yourself to seek counseling. You haven't blown anything. Just a wrong turn you made, a misdirection, a mistake. Happens to all of us and you don't even need to be in a cult! This too shall pass and under no circumstances should you let it ruin your marriage!!!!!! Please don't let Maharaji have that as a sacrifice. That would be a most unfortunate thing. Have patience, hold your tongue.

As for M's message......do you really need someone to point out how beautiful life can be? What message? Mostly his message is about how you need him, the Master, to have a valid experience of who you are. What kind of nonsense is that? Sounds like a cult message to me. He and his message are way off track. Fucked up, if you will pardon my language.

Most people are kind here but I will add some caution. Remember, the forum is, after all, cyberspace and essentially a chat room. Sometimes this forum lacks some basic sensitivity.

Feel free to email me if you ever want to talk.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:58:46 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: Tonette
Subject: Hang in there guy I mean.......
Message:
Sandy, you have been here too long not to have made a decision by now.

I would really encourage you to seek exit/grief counseling.

This forum is not gonna fix it for you I think. I didn't know it was you SHP when I orginally replied to your post but I would still say the same thing.

I can't believe you think there is anything spiritual about M or his message. M is one of the world's best shake down artists next to Jesse Jackson.

Kind regards,
Tonette

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 08:57:50 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Tonette
Subject: Words of wisdom, Tonette
Message:
Good advice from someone who has been there.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 23:34:59 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: sandy i have always supported you-just you-
Message:
and i have watched as you struggled with that cage of concepts around you. there will never be another you. when your kids, your wife, your mom and dad, your neighbors, your pets are with you, they just want you--- and look to you to be with them, its just you they want. not maharaji. not concepts. not religion. some some other guy's words and beliefs. they just want to hang out with you, for who you are, for the way you are. Nobody can take your place with them.
They don't ask for any more than that.

you will live just fine, even if you never heard or read any of these things that have you so tied up in knots. look around you at all the life forms that do so. they don't have to know anything more than what they're up to right now. the trees, the grass, the insects, the birds, the cats and dogs, the babies and children...they don't know about any of this ridiculous byzantine thinking and reasoning and arguing. and they do fine.

do you have to think about it when you walk down a flight of steps? or chew gum? wash your hands? lie down to sleep? eat a peach? laugh out loud??

hell no, sandy.
it never needs to be any more complicated than that.
i'm serious. what ever you do, it's fine. it's ok. if it works, that's all that matters.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:24:35 (GMT)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: You raise a very interesting point janet?
Message:
Why is it that man the only is the only form of life that questions his existence? What the hell is the big deal about a purpose anyway? Could it be that after all of our agonizing and endless questing in search of the big reason for our being here It simply was our sperm cell swam faster than the others.

Sure I appreciate breathing, heartbeats and all of the other related phsyical mechanics of this conscious experience called life. As you know I just recently got rid of m and and right now I am sorting through the space and questions left and lately I have been pondering this exact same dilemmia about a supposed purpose.

All other life forms on this planet seem to exist just fine being what they are, dogs are dogs, cows are content with cowing, elephants go about doing elephant things, fleas bite and flowers bloom etc. without wondering or engaging in endless discussions of why?

Maybe there is a lot more to be learned from the birds and the bees regarding the facts of life than old Dad told me.

At least I am open to having new babies and changing the old bathwater these days. For a long time I was quite stuck and stagnant and could not progress in my thinking because of my enslavement and emotional attachment to the cult and m.

I am now open to an entire world of new experiences and understanding and challenging my beliefs.

The biggest thing that I sacrificed when I bought into this thing was my free will and ability to inquire and investigate into new realms and explore fresh avenues of thought.

I know now not to get hung up, I have reserved the freedom to take take what I need and dump the shit. After this experience with the cult, I now have the wisdom to know the difference. And I am not afraid of being wrong, I can look at all angles with an inquiring mind.


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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 07:19:04 (GMT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Hung Up maybe bad,but if one So Hung,who cares?(nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 00:38:59 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: sandy-what i see coming. a suggestion:
Message:
sandy it looks to me, from here, as if you now have three people in your family who can see life irrespective of maharaji without threat. your two kids, and yourself. Your wife has/is the problem. I don't know how old your kids are, how near to graduating from their home of birth and going out into life to make their own ways, but they have a better perspactive on this than either you or your wife have. I suggest you ask them to tell you both freely what they see and think and feel about it. Ask them what they would think if you reached a point of no return where you had to say goodbye to your wife because of her inability to hear you, and by extension, to hear them, and 'get it' that they really mean what they say to you both.

I am not trying to break up your marriage. but i do see it coming, if your wife keeps on with her cult clutching. she has made a choice, and keeps making it, to put what she thinks she has with maharaji, foremost, ahead of you, and your kids, and her marriage and everything. in effect, she isn't married to you. she's married to IT. She's married to maharaji. You guys are just props in her fantasy of acting that out. She is not seeing you as real people. She is not seeing the impact her choices are having on all of you.

If your kid's words over time don't reach her, nor yours, I gently suggest you tell her you are taking the kids and leaving her, because your family doesnt have a real mother anymore, they have a cartoon character, incapable of relating and reacting and interacting with all of you as a real mom would.
tell her the kids see the real world as it is, and you are beginning to again, and being there in the real world for your kids is more important to you than suffering, with all of you trying to talk to her and being shut out. you would be within your rights to confront her and tell her that she doesn't love you for you, and isn't married to you at all, that she's married to a fantasy, or a pretense, or something other than the real you and your kids.

there will be grief sandy. there will be mourning. there will be bitter tears. but you can't break her out of something she doesnt want to be broken out of. you can, however, leave her where she is, in it, by her choice, and go with your kids to a more honest, real, personal place. The three of you are getting saner every day. Mom is delusional, cut off from reality, unreachable. And it is not your fault.

i can truthfully tell you that, with my son's father, that all the years we were declared premies, we had endless rancor and friction and dislike and antipathy for each other. he ex'ed 2 years ago. I ex'ed last october. and since then, for the first time, we can actually hear and see each other as real human beings, and for the first time in our lives, we are discovering we actually have rather high regard for one another, --respect, admiration, concern, care, affection--all the things we couldnt have as premies.

we aren't going to get married after 23 years, but the competition is gone. the one upmanship is gone. the false, fakey, phoney premie way of relating is gone. I commented to him, a year back, that we have known one another for 26 years, raised a son together, but we really don't know anything about one another, outside of the cult. That's sad! That's also WEIRD. We have never told each other about our childhoods, or shared confidences about our secrets, or in any other way acknowledged one another as just ordinary people! Being 'premies' precluded that. Such talk was dismissed. That isn't normal!

So sandy, i see a divide coming, and i think you ought to take your kids and let mom continue in her refusal to see. maybe after you go, she'll pay attention for the first time. leave the door open for her to follow later.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 21:19:34 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
Our two teenage sons think we are both nuts for ever believing that Maharaji was God or belonging to anything like DLM or EV.

Well, you can at least be thankful for that. At least your kids can see through it clearly enough. Try seeing it through their eyes. Like I told you once before, you cant see the forest for the trees. You're just too deep in it. But step back from it, see it with your sons' eyes, and it won't look so big anymore. It will look just like what it is, a mind trip we all got caught up in that it's been our good fortune to get back out of.

I am rediscovering the 'me' that existed before I was married, before I received Knowledge, before I was in a monestary....the 'me' who just wants to be happy without all the concepts and words.

Well, that can't be bad, can it? That 'me' was probably the most sensible you've ever been.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:57:24 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: Sandy
Subject: My condolences regarding your turmoil
Message:
It's a tough go. And your situation with your family makes it even more complicated.

Good luck and hang in there.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:49:18 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
You and I could have a long discussion about this topic. I'm also glad you mentioned that your wife was still gungho. There are several people here in the same position and quite a few of us have friends we've know for 30 years who are still into it. It's a tricky situation.

I think I've told you before that I still like the meditation too but I also know that it is only bathwater and that other bathwaters are just as good. K isn't the only way. It is a tried and trusted Hindu way but there are also tried and trusted western ways for becoming concentrated and focussed enough to be able to smell the roses and not get caught up in worries and woes. K is not some magic thing. The magic is what we bring to it.

But as I say we could have long discussions about this. All I want to say is I do understand that you enjoy meditating and so do I just as long as you know that I do not now think Rawat is or ever was divine. He's a preacher in the guru tradition and Hinduism has not got a monpoly on meditation. It actually is not nearly as developed as some western religions and is, as we have seen, quite amoral and solipsistic compared with our western ideals such as neighborly kindness and forgiveness.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:46:04 (GMT)
From: Tony Walker (Aussi Ji)
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
G'day Sandy,
Hang in there ol' mate,there are better times comin'.Keep going with the rediscovery of the 'me'.That will help sort you out.It has sorted my head out over my exing period.I have alsays tried to keep that 'me'.unfortunately it almost got covered permanently after 26 years of detour.I agree with you that you cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater.I have learnt heaps about myself from being in a cult.Who knows where my life would've ended if i did'nt.I reckon I would be dead.So I have got a lot to be grateful for.
So Sandy keep searching within youself for 'you'
By the way I am married to a gung ho premie and she has got to the stage where she won't talk about this site.Hey that is cool,one day she will see the light when the cult folds,and it WILL.

Cheers Tony.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:23:52 (GMT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Sandy
Message:
Sandy,

I've been having a difficult time with my ''Magical Thinking'' lately. Magical thinking is what a child has mostly in early developmental stages....the world revolves around me, etc...

In the context of M and K, magical thinking prevails, because the process of indoctrination is so intense, as well as subtle, especially when one has been following M for many years. There is so much magical thinking that was instilled in us and there is a truckload of that bullshit to unload. It's not easy, and I don't pretend it is.

Denial is the word for what premies go through who can't let go of M, which is understandable considering his ability to manipulate people. In my life, my love for Maharaji was great, yet he betrayed me and that's very difficult piece of the puzzle to process.

I don't worry about whether or not God exists. On F5, I believe it's important to accept where everyone is. I don't know exactly what I believe today, but as a human, I continue to grow, as do you. But, I don't worry about my breath being owned by M anymore. If I feel anxious, I take a deep breath, but I no longer attribute the relaxed feeling to M.

Sometimes I'll catch myself thinking untrue thoughts like: ''I'm having nightmares because I left M, and he's really paying me back'' or, like my most recent bout with paranoia right here: ''I can't get my messages to post because M is angry with me and everyone hates me.''

I have reached a point where I can recognize these thoughts as magical or the indoctrination of M in the cult. The most important things to me are not science, Darwinism, eastern religions, nor techniques of meditation and M. Do you remember how M and initiators used to say, (a paraphrase): 'we are not a cult, but we are being programmed by Maharaji, we're being brainwashed.' Or, our minds need washing by this K, and nothing else and nobody but M can do it. That's magical thinking. It's cult thinking and damned hard to shake.

I was often told that 'this is not a cult,' but our ''minds'' our ''system of beliefs as they relate to the world around us'' all needed re-programming because we lived in an illusion before reaching M's world. Sandy, it's all untrue. It was/is Maharaji that's the illusion. My worship of him, and his so-called Knowledge was all fake. It's very hard to swallow.

Working through all this shit is very difficult and painful. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to deal with a premie spouse, too, and I hope you can work it out (however it does work out).

This is a confusing time for you and your family and I wish you the best in your process.

Cynthia

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:27:23 (GMT)
From: an old friend
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Sandy
Message:
I live in Portland and I went to the program somewhat relunctantly but as part of my process of leaving. I did not relish being in the midst of so many people who cheered and clapped for their master, their 'you know who'. It wasn't that bad. The hall was a pretty place. He was a bit funny from time to time, but mostly told inside jokes or made expressions that everyone on the inside understands and most find so charming.

I could probably still make it down to see whatever new videos or spontaneous event might happen today...that he alluded to last night. But I really don't want to. I think I'll go out in the sunshine (temporary) and prune my roses or powerwash the chicken manure off the patio instead.

I wish you well, Sandy, and encourage you to find your real self, your basic humanity, your own natural attributes and abilities and strength.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:40:45 (GMT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: wishing Good Luck to you + the family; deja vu (mt
Message:
mt
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:50:49 (GMT)
From: Bobby
Email: None
To: such
Subject: I second that emotion (nt)
Message:
xxx==:)
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:00:19 (GMT)
From: bill--babies need a lot
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: more than thier breath! And we do too....nt
Message:
sdfh
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:16:25 (GMT)
From: It's not only breath.
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
Hi Sandy,

It's not only breath that's precious. These things are just as precious:

Blood.
Skin.
Heart.
Brain.
Nerves.
Human Contact.
Food.
Water.
A safe place to live.
Music.
Communication.
Love.
Cheese and Pickle sandwiches.
Hoegaarden Beer.
TV
Bed.
Books.
Children.
Sunshine.
Sleep.
Stomachs.
Baths with babies in.

Anth the Pickled Bathwater.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:54:07 (GMT)
From: ScottC.
Email: None
To: It's not only breath.
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
You're absotively right. we could add to this list....until we stop breathing,at that point it's going to cramp the process..any alternatives you can recommend.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:26:17 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: ScottC.
Subject: Question for you, Scott C.
Message:
Do you actually believe that there's some entity called 'breath' that is conscious in any way, shape or form?
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:34:53 (GMT)
From: scott
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Question for you, Scott C.
Message:
...I feel a debate set up here Jim.Are we revving our engines yet. if by entity you mean like Casper the friendly ghost..No. i know from experience though that if you remove all the things that were listed as precious, not the smarmy precious but the 'really valuable' precious I'd take breath any day. And I don't mean the stuff that smells bad when you exhale. Hey, I'm now expert on the science of life like you are, i just know that when I've felt it leaving...I have, I'd trade anything to get it back. And no, that is not a borrowed quote from M.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:08:52 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: scott
Subject: Scott, we should rent Jimmy Stewart in 'Harvey'
Message:
Scott,

You seem like a smart guy so let's get serious here. There's one big problem going on here that no one born after, say, 1820, should get wrong. It's a classic cause-and-effect problem, isn't it? Sure your breath is precious but not anymore so than your blood. So you want to quibble over which one's loss causes the fastest death? Well, I've got news for you. Neither one wins. The fastest death you can have, save from being simply blown to bits, is one from some sort of fast nervous freakout like a heart that begins fibrillating out of control. That'll beat loss of breath any day of the week.

Really, though, isn't this so silly? You say you're not up on the 'science of life'. Well, I've got news for you. Neither were all the hindus who made up this breath shit to begin with. If they were, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I swear, you just have to begin to think about what breath really is -- and isn't -- to see how stupid Maharajism is.

Our breath is with us throughout our lives. So this funny, pre-scientific philosophy takes a leap and states, wtih nothing but so-called revelations to support it, that that must mean that the breath is RESPONSIBLE for our life. It could have been the pulse but, don't forget, back when they made this nonsense up they didn't even know what the pulse is!

Anyway, so then it starts. The breath becomes this lifelong 'friend'. And isn't that charming. What other friend can you count on to always be there, to not steal your smokes or your women, to laugh with you, not at you .... you get the idea. It's Imaginary Friend time, isn't it? Maharaji turned us all into a bunch of Jimmy Stewarts madly talking with our invisible Harveys. Only in this case, HE wants us to think of himself as the Imaginary Friend. My, how cute.

My favorite part, though, is how this dumbest of ideas deals with death. The whole idea was that the Imaginary Friend is looking after you, right? Sure. So what about when you die? Well, I guess that just happens to be the moment your Imaginary Friend decides to split. Only out of love, of course.

Scott, the whole thing is fucking ridiculous. Yes, maybe you should learn a little something about the science of life. You'd give this stuff up fast, if you did.

Jim
The Real Life Premie's Friend

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:14:26 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Scott, we should rent Jimmy Stewart in 'Harvey'
Message:
.....the science of life journals are very clear about the benefits of 'calm' and the connection to ones breath. It's not a hindu thing, but a scientific precempt that has been firmly established for decades. But, hey, forget about that. what FEELS good. Your pov carries weight in the annals of personal opinion and nothing more. Sorry.enjoy the sources of your choices. Railing against an individuals options for enjoyment will only bury you in rhetoric and conjecture. you've got better things to do w/ your time. I hope. S.C.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:39:05 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Hey, how about I'll be 'Jim', you can be 'Scott'?
Message:
Scott,

What you're saying completely flies off the subject. Zing! Like, what WERE we talking about anyway? Oh, I know. We were talking about whether or not the breath is a conscious force giving you life or, rather, a function of your life no more mystical than your blood. We WEREN'T talking about whether or not it feels good to meditate upon or even if doing so is calming.

You use the word 'scientific' but I wonder why. I don't recognize the usage and I hope you're not doing that on MY account. Hell, Scott, you don't have to do that. I'm your friend, remember?

So, anyway, what happened? Did you get bored with the issue? see, I think this is one of THE key issues in all things Maharaji. Either the breath is conscious and science is stupid or Maharaji is teaching some whack, whack shit. Do you agree with that or do you see some other possible explanation?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:59:16 (GMT)
From: scott
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Hey, how about I'll be 'Jim', you can be 'Scott'?
Message:
....You're my friend..since when? I've never met you, seen you or had the opportunity to enjoy or be put off by your company...don't patronize me...please. your references to the superiority of science are too prevalent to deny. are you whack or what. You DO have a law degree i presume!Like you Jim, my life is made up of moment to moment experiences with my wife, my kids, my clients, my friends, the clerks and others that provide the snapshots of the day. throughout, I have a chance to feel various things: complacency, engagement, disinterest, curiosity etc. i like to be aware of the rhythm of life passing through me, the viseral impact of which is felt by being aware of my breath. What's the argument. Relax.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:19:07 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: scott
Subject: You got an identity crisis or what?
Message:
Like you Jim, my life is made up of moment to moment experiences with my wife

First you use my name. Then you start with this shit. Look, Scott, hate to disappoint you but my life is NOT made up of moment to moment experiences with your wife. I'm not putting her down or anything but, hell, Scott. I mean, you only started posting here last week. One breath at a time, huh?

Jim
The Highly Misunderstood Premie's Friend

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 14:06:39 (GMT)
From: scott
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You got an identity crisis or what?
Message:
..touche' the emphasis was intended to be on the'moment to moment' thingy. Actually, you did have some moment to moment experiences w/ my wife- Erika. Hope you found them enjoyable, it sounds like you did. She actually managed to garner your trust and respect. I know that's difficult to give to pwk's, but you listened and were open. And yes , I do lapse into periods of 'identity crisis' you're very perceptive.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 19:18:00 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: scott
Subject: Hi, Scott. Say Hi to Erika for me
Message:
That was a good answer. Now I'll have to go back and read all your other posts with fresh eyes. Welcome.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:14:09 (GMT)
From: Gregg
Email: binduesque@yahoo.com
To: Sandy
Subject: Don't drink the Baby's bathwater!
Message:
Nice segue, huh...given how we once would have felt blessed by the opportunity to drink His bathwater.

Sounds to me like you're doing fine, Sandy. I don't mean that your life sounds pain-free, but it sounds as if you're facing reality and trying to stay in touch with Life itself.

As you know, many of us exes still meditate, although not many of us (here, anyway) use those four techniques. Techniques don't really matter, though.

Good luck with your marriage woes...I don't know what I'd do, except just not talk about it, which is probably your strategy most of the time.

Let me know how it works out.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:05:50 (GMT)
From: Bobby
Email: None
To: Gregg
Subject: Don't drink the Baby's bathwater!
Message:
Baby's bathwater..... good one Greg.

I agree with you. I think Sandy's doing fine and yes, sorting it all out can be difficult and painful. Coming to terms with 'reality' seems to me is an ongoing process.

Maharaji seems to me to be a total materialist, only using some of the valid teachings to enhance his personal kingdom. He seems to embody one of the very difficult points of the contemporary spiritual path, the guru problem.

Rich and authentic spiritual practice certainly does survive the Maharaji problem.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:18:11 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: But that IS the bathwater
Message:
I still believe that the message he carries of the breath being most precious, life being the greatest gift, to know one's self being the pinnacle of human achievement is a very valid message.

That's the viral junk right there, Sandy. You're going to have to deconstruct this 'message' a bit more than that if you want to get your fist out of the jar. Your breath is no more conscious than your blood. To think otherwise is to completely fall for a bullshit hindu superstition. Really, the idea that your breath is somehow breathing YOU is so absurd that I can't help but shiver in anticipated embarrassment as I contemplate anyone outside the cult knowing I'm actually discussing this. Please, you won't tell anyone, will you?

But then it gets better! Not only do we have that initial hindu nonsense, completely ungrounded in science, indeed it flies in the face of science a thousand and one ways and that's without really looking, but there's that silliest of ideas that the breath is somehow taking care of you until, of course, it doesn't. Sheer idiots we were to fall for this. Past generations might have been excused for doing so. Poorly-educated people world-wide might be as well. But people like you and me? In the 21st century? Hardly.

What you need to do is to read some science. Something. Anything. Get grounded in some real study of life and get out of your vague, wooly spiritual crap.

As for your wife, too bad. That's a tough one.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:49:48 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: There is value and truth in it
Message:
I still believe that the message he carries of the breath being most precious, life being the greatest gift, to know one's self being the pinnacle of human achievement is a very valid message.
-Sandy

That's the viral junk right there, Sandy. You're going to have to deconstruct this 'message' a bit more than that if you want to get your fist out of the jar. Your breath is no more conscious than your blood. To think otherwise is to completely fall for a
bullshit hindu superstition. -Jim

To focus on one's breath is not a bad thing to do to relax, concentrate and focus on one's lifeforce. It works. -Sandy

Really, the idea that your breath is somehow breathing YOU is so absurd that I can't help but shiver in anticipated embarrassment as I contemplate anyone outside the cult knowing I'm actually discussing this. Please, you won't tell anyone, will you? -Jim

No, I won't tell anyone. But as for the millions of folks who can tune into the net, that is your problem. Not only are we being breathed, but I believe that we are being lived in all ways
by an intelligence who is working on building earth vehicles which can operate and function in accordance with the laws of nature and life. So far, it does not seem to have worked out very well in the big picture, with only small pockets of people here and there really making effort to live according to how it was set up to be originally. -Sandy

But then it gets better! Not only do we have that initial hindu nonsense, completely ungrounded in science, indeed it flies in the face of science a thousand and one ways and that's without really looking, but there's that silliest of ideas that the breath is somehow taking care of you until, of course, it doesn't. Sheer idiots we were to fall for this. Past generations might have been excused for doing so. Poorly-educated people
world-wide might be as well. But people like you and me? In the 21st century? Hardly. -Jim

My understanding of Knowledge and the breath is that we were seeking to connect with the power BEHIND it, which is the same power that kept all our other functions going too. The breath was just a touchstone to get to the power behind it all. -Sandy

What you need to do is to read some science. Something. Anything. Get grounded in some real study of life and get out of your vague, wooly spiritual crap. -Jim

And I suggest that you hold onto some belief in something greater than your own brain and reasoning powers, for that alone will not make it either. -Sandy

And thank you for not cracking on my personal situation. That has not made it very easy to deal here or anywhere else for that matter from a very strong place inside.

Sandy

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:57:51 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: You are clearly paying for your stubbornness
Message:
Not only are we being breathed, but I believe that we are being lived in all ways by an intelligence who is working on building earth vehicles which can operate and function in accordance with the laws of nature and life.

Sounds like this illusion is destroying your life. What's it going to take before you realize that? As I said to you a couple of years ago already, your kids think you're a joke. Your wife is in even deeper so you can't talk with her about this and hope for any rational feedback. And yet you just cling and cling and cling to this entirely misguided and, in your case at least, destructive idea.

Sandy, when I suggested that you read some science I really, honestly mean it. It could help. Would you allow me to buy you a copy of The Blind Watchmaker on Amazon? Would you read it? I swear, man, that science can break this dilemna for you. I can't imagine anyone reading a book like that and walking away unaffected. I'm serious. Would you read it?

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:52:25 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Everything has a price
Message:
Thanks for the title, perhaps I will check it out at the library.
I do believe there is a God and that faith is more than bullshit, however both make things grow. In that way they are similar.

Illusions are not destroying my life. I am peeling away illusions until I reach the one I can comfortably live with for as long as I happen to be living in the illusion called life on earth in a human body. This one goes too and it gets destroyed quite completely. Until then, I am shopping around, which is cool. Earth is a free will zone for us souls to learn and discover just such things, I believe. I liked the one I used to have of just eating what the earth provides and having a job that has a most minimal negative impact on people and the environment, and living the Golden Rule. That was fun and it can be reconstituted with some effort.

You are not your body, Jim. You are soul and spirit. Weigh a living person, then weigh them right after they die. The weight is the same. What makes our bodies alive is weightless - WE are weightless and spirit and soul, come here to learn Love. That's it, I think.

Sandy

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:31:44 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Everything has a price - believing nonsense too
Message:
and nonsense - as in not known - means not science (from the Latin: scio=I know)

Well, that's alienated you from reading any more hasn't it? (and don't tell me I'm not learning from Jim)...
.
.
.
Seriously though,

Faith is all things to those who need it, Sandy.

for those who prefer to look a little deeper, however ...

you say you're peeling away illusions - yes, but bear in mind that layers hide further layers, and the one you're just uncovering may be hiding further layers beyond.

Looking at the world from the inside of the onion is not the same as looking at the onion from the outside world (whether you need glasses or not).

Life on earth you call an illusion. Well, I'd say, wait until you accept the possibility that it's not, before you go belittling the opportunities it's giving you.
,
,
,
,

P.S. some studies say the body loses about 3 ounces at the moment of death. Doesn't make life less worth living, does it?

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:51:49 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: If you want to read Dawkins...
Message:
...check out 'River Out of Eden. It's short and accessible. I take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt, but he writes reasonably well, and the book is a good explanation of his philosophy. Jim bought about 100 copies a few years ago :) - maybe he still has some.

I'm really sorry, Sandy, to hear about the situation with your wife. (Your kids thinking both of you are nuts happens to a lot of parents...although I'm sure that's not easy either.) I have known two ex-premie women who were successfully married to quite devoted premies - both the women became ex-premies during the marriage, and it was a severe strain on both marriages. It takes a LOT of mutual acceptance - and each partner has to be willing to let the other partner talk about how they feel about M (or, as Gregg said, not talk about M at all) which can be very difficult. The two women did connect with each other through this forum, which helped quite a bit - neither of them posts here now though.

Anyway, it's a tough situation, and I am sorry you have to go through it.

BTW, I do not think you have to be an atheist to be an ex-premie :) - although, as you know, you do have to examine some deeply cherished beliefs.

Take care -
Love,
Katie

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 00:29:41 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Katie H
Subject: If you want to read Dawkins...
Message:
I take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt

Which?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 18:02:35 (GMT)
From: Katie H.
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: If you want to read Dawkins...
Message:
Jim, I read the book over two years ago. I did take issue with some of the interpretations he made of other people's research - further interpretations that the original researchers did not make. Of course, he's entitled to do this, but I disagreed with some of his examples. However, I cannot remember any specific examples.

My biggest issue (and the reason I take Dawkins with a grain of salt) is that I have 'issues' (snicker) with people who think they know THE truth. He tends to preach as if HE has the truth, and that is annoying. His work would be more approachable if he was a bit more humble (JMO, of course).

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 01:18:22 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Katie H.
Subject: If that's your complaint, that ain't nothing
Message:
My biggest issue (and the reason I take Dawkins with a grain of salt) is that I have 'issues' (snicker) with people who think they know THE truth. He tends to preach as if HE has the truth, and that is annoying. His work would be more approachable if he was a bit more humble (JMO, of course).

If, after all that he talks about in that book, your biggest issue with him is his confidence level, no problem. I guess you could say that's 'complimenting with faint criticism' or something.

Jim
The Evolution Scientist's Friend

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:08:00 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yeah, so what?
Message:
Obligatory belligerent answer

As a scientist, I prefer to see other scientists have a bit more humility, that's all. If you really DO science on a day to day basis, you tend to realize how little we really know about the simplest things. Methinks Dawkins needs to get back to doing a bit of lab or field work to temper his statements.

But yeah, that was my problem - apart from the other problem I mentioned.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:08:23 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Oh great, you mean you've got a recpie for that?
Message:
You are not your body, Jim. You are soul and spirit. Weigh a living person, then weigh them right after they die. The weight is the same. What makes our bodies alive is weightless - WE are weightless and spirit and soul, come here to learn Love. That's it, I think.

Sandy, what are you doing lecturing me about life when, moments before you're telling us that even you can see you can't think straight right now?

Here, remember?:

My head has been copped almost 24/7 by this whole thing since I first came upon this site a few years ago. I have found it difficult to function on an everyday basis, just doing everyday things. It has felt like trying to swim through molasses. I don't think Maharaji is 'controlling' me, I just feel like my own use of my own faculties has been jammed up by my own thinking. I have accepted information into myself from this site that directly contradicts information I have accepted as true and real for over twenty years. That caused a real mess inside which I am digging out of every day, little by little. It's getting better.

I mean, wouldn't I have to be fucking crazy to go to your church, father?

Jim
The Premie's Friend

Honestly, after all this time, please avail yourself of some good, old-fashioned evolution stuff. If not Dawkins, something in the field. You owe it to yourself. You know I'm not kidding. I've been where you're at, Sandy. Near by, at least. You've never been here, though.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:39:58 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: It's by taste, not rote, like living in the now
Message:
You are not your body, Jim. You are soul and spirit. Weigh a living person, then weigh them right after they die. The weight is the same. What makes our bodies alive is weightless - WE are weightless and spirit and soul, come here to learn Love. That's it, I think. -Sandy

Sandy, what are you doing lecturing me about life when, moments before you're telling us that even you can see you can't think straight right now? Here, remember?:

'My head has been copped almost 24/7 by this whole thing since I first came upon this site a few years ago. I have found it difficult to function on an everyday basis, just doing everyday things. It has felt like trying to swim through molasses. I don't think Maharaji is 'controlling' me, I just feel like my own use of my own faculties has been jammed up by my own thinking. I have accepted information into myself from this site that directly contradicts information I have accepted as true and real for over twenty years. That caused a real mess inside which I am
digging out of every day, little by little. It's getting better.'

I mean, wouldn't I have to be fucking crazy to go to your church, father? Jim The Premie's Friend

What I hear you saying here, Jim, is 'Your Honor, based on the previous testimony of the witness, I move that he be deemed mentally incompetent and that his testimony be either stricken completely or totally at the mercy of my personal judgement.' That is how you read it, like a good lawyer building a case. And you know as well as I do that a good case can win and the truth can lose at the same time. You read way too much into what I said and are using it to your advantage in this conversation. And I see now that it is not malice, but out of habit due to your profession. And I can have compassion on you as I feel you are trying to have on me. Definitely a higher vibe. -Sandy

Honestly, after all this time, please avail yourself of some good, old-fashioned evolution stuff. If not Dawkins, something in the field. You owe it to yourself. You know I'm not kidding. -Jim

I don't think that Adam and Eve were created like it is described in Genesis. I rather believe that they were two highly evolved monkeys who had reached a nearer-to-what-we-call-human DNA and looked around at the rest of their herd that looked real primitive to them, and they looked at each other and got third eye telepathic and said to each other 'Let's get the hell out of here', so they took off and hooked up with others coming out of other herds and then it took off to become Adam and Eve. Maybe an Obiwan/Melchedizek type of being came to the one we know as Adam and dropped some skills on him and Eve and that's when they started counting. Who the fuck knows. Dawkin's opinion is worth the same as the guy at the bar who did his research with vodka and came up with his own theories. Who decides what is valid, who claims the right to that seat? The brain is not the only way something can be measured, yet you claim its ultimate supremecy.
Things have weight, color, density, texture, dimension..and so do lives and experiences. -Sandy

I've been where you're at, Sandy. Near by, at least. You've never been here, though. -Jim

Got to San Francisco in '89. Never made it to Vancouver, although I'd like to go there sometime. Heard its nice. Got a friend in Portland area (non-premie) growing shiitakes. Is that an invitation? -Sandy

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:46:05 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Wrong!
Message:
Dawkin's opinion is worth the same as the guy at the bar...

That's not true. Science is accumulated knowledge.

Jim
The Premie's Friend Who's Running Late!

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:08:58 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Good ideas are not measured by how long it took to
Message:
come up with them or by what means they were reached. A good idea is a good idea, by research or by a flash of insight or by sitting on the crapper.

And by the way, I gotta go and do some very important stuff that I have been ignoring and coming here instead, that's how important this has been to me. But now I have to take care of some business that may keep me away for a bit. Not ignoring or skirting any issues, just some very pressing matters. This place is like potato chips, can't just have a few.

So later.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 23:20:09 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Sandy and Jim nice to see you talking reasonably
Message:
A big part of Sandy's problem is that his wife is a premie. He does not have someone to talk to to help him deconstruct and demystify the ''magical thinking'' (I hope you read Cynthia's post twice Sandy.) Also it is psychological and political in so far as Sandy has to compromise with his wife and cannot make a clean break. I am very glad that Sandy told us this because it helps me to understand him MUCH better.

As Rawat said yesterday in Portland; ''You cannot recognize the Master without bhakti which is affection.'' As long as Sandy is living with a devotee there will difficulties as he will be reminded of that affection and it simply keeps on digging up old conflicts. The magic spell is broken when you see that Rawat is another televangelist.

Sandy try meditating without using the techniques. I'm sure you will find that the value lies in the effort not in the techniques. The breath, as Jim said, is not some magical power as the Hindus believe. Patanjali, who invented the techniques, wrote: ''Meditating on the breath is simply a way of attaining serenity of thought so that thoughts do not smash us around like waves smash a boat in a stornm at sea. It is a way of slowing us down so that we can become mindful of the beauty that surrounds us.''

As for the rest of Sandy's cosmology - who am I to criticise - I get darshan from my dogs.

Pat, the old fogey agnostic christian hippie Hindu armchair yogi.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:07:28 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: That's not science, that's atheism.
Message:
'Sandy, when I suggested that you read some science I really, honestly mean it. It could help. Would you allow me to buy you a copy of The Blind Watchmaker on Amazon?'

That book is an atheistic rant.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:22:42 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: You're partially right
Message:
I concede, G, that Dawkins goes further than science alone takes him. In particular, he extrapolates to a conclusion that God does not exist which science could never actually prove. After all, how can one ever prove the nonexistance of anything (outside of math or any similarly closed system)? Can't be done. I understand that.

However, Dawkins uses tons and tons of science to establish the foundation for his atheism. Rejecting the overwhelming evidence for evolution is just an act of faith, that's all. And faith is bullshit.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:43:25 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You're partially right
Message:
Sure there's plenty of evidence for evolution, but by 'evolution' I mean that species evolve via mutations to DNA. This does not mean there is no God, it does mean that Adam and Eve is just a myth.

Here's a question, you do think the material universe created itself from nothing? Do you agree with Dennett that 'nothingness' is the foundation of reality?

What about consciousness, do you think you've got that figured out?

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:39:02 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Occam's razor, G...
Message:
If you think Darwinians have a problem explaining consciousness, how much bigger an explanation would you need to hypothesize a Creator capable of designing a conscious organism?

(And if a universe springing from nothing is a problem, how about a Creator springing from nothing? Anyway, the existence of the universe is a different order of discussion, ie. it doesn't NEED explaining for natural selection to provide an accurate account of life on Earth.)

As to whether science will crack consciousness - I think it is only a matter of time and unbelievable strides have been made in the last twenty or thirty years. Certain conclusions seem inevitable to me, expecially with regard to what consciousness is NOT (eg. some Cartesian 'ghost in the machine' hovering in the vicinity of the pineal gland).

The following is an extract of an earlier post I made here, with minor adjustments:
>
There seem to be four essential ingredients that determine whether or not consciousness will be present in an organism at any given moment.

(1) The right evolution

All the evidence suggests that creatures only show signs of possessing any kind of consciousness once they have acquired a highly-developed nervous system. For the kind of consciousness a human possesses, a large cerebral cortex appears crucial. Unlike in the case of many evolutionary debates, there is no shortage of evidence for the consciousness/neural complexity correlation, since many (most, in fact) living creatures haven't budged an inch in their structural complexity for hundreds of thousands of years. Those whose nervous sysems have acquired greater complexity show correspondingly greater conscious awareness of themeselves and their surroundings.

(2) Adequate structural development

No-one knows for sure at what point a baby becomes fully conscious, but an adult chimp probably has more in the way of consciousness than a new-born human. The acquisition of consciousness - and with it memory, language, and a concept of 'self' - happens in tandem with rapid development of the internal structuring of the brain.

(3) The right brain processes

Consciousness is cyclic; whether we like it or not, we can't stay awake all the time. In order to simply achieve and maintain a waking state, the brain must guzzle up vast quantities of proteins, representing a large proportion of the body's energy reserves.

Physical brain damage can prevent consciousness happening, sometimes leaving people permanently in a coma. The idea of a universal, eternal consciousness transcending our mortality is belied by the fact we do not retain even partial consciousness during deep sleep (as opposed to REM or other sleep states).

(4) The right chemistry

I used to work in a drugs agency where the clients who stagger through the front door will - depending on their taste in illicit substances - demonstrate anything from speed-crazed hypermania to semi-comatose smack-head zombiedom, and all through the ingestion or injection of comparatively small quanities of psychoactive agent.

How, if consciousness were independent of our biological selves, could a doctor's anaesthetic knock us out in five seconds flat - or at all?

Consciousness doesn't just exist, it has to be created by all of these neurobiological phenomena. The potential for consciousness is created first by our evolution. It must then be realised in the developing brain, then re-created every time we wake up (or sober up!) A few physical or chemical changes here and there can have enormous effects of the quality and quantity of consciousness we experience.

If we reject a biological basis for consciousness, we end up instead with those 'ghost in the machine' type arguments, where an independent conscious self somehow inhabits the body without being dependent upon it. I think just the four arguments I have made here support the view that consciousness is very much dependent on our biology. These, at least, are the main reasons I can't accept any mystical theories of consciousness, or of the soul.

We may not yet have an adequate language to descibe the phenomenology of consciousness, but the noose is tightening and it is the neuropsychologists and neurologists providing the evidence for the necessary 'components' of a conscious experience. I see no plausible explanations coming from the animistic, 'elan vital' camp. Not one.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:06:50 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Thanks, Nige -- and to G
Message:
So well put. All of it, Nige. Good post.

One thing that bugs me about G's approach to all this is how he never concedes science's progress. All of his supposed 'A Ha!' questions assume that science has ground to a standstill and worse, that it's done so without fulfilling it's mandate. It's left a bunch of unanswered questions and we're going to have to look elsewhere if we're serious about answers. That, to me, is spurious. Who ever said that science knows everything there is to know about consciousness? No one. Yet G's questions implicitly assume that's how we think. Otherwise, what's the relevance? It's not as if science suggests some spiritual causation that hasn't quite come into clear view yet. Far from it.

But then isn't G just doing what Behe and the other creationists are doing? Siezing on any still-uncharted scientific territory and saying that, yes, God might be there, you never know? They'll be able to play that game forever because we'll always have unexplored frontiers of knowledge. Right now, the creationists have siezed on their 'complexity' argument. Forget the fact that biologists see no merit in it but rather know of all sorts of mechanisms for complex interdependency without resort to 'intelligent design'. Creationists like it even if the scientific establishment doesn't. But they're not trying to understand the world so much as fighting for their pet, imaginary silent client: God.

Occam's Razor is exactly what it's about because it incorporates the notion of probablity. Yes, the more complex explanation might be true but, ceteris paribus, it just pays to bet on the simpler version. G doesn't like that because he's all about possibility. It will always be possible that God exists and as long as the universe holds any mystery for us, we know that people who like believing in God will place him at the heart of those mysteries. I mean, after all, he's got to be somewhere, doesn't he?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:46:35 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You are absolutely wrong
Message:
You don't have any answers to my questions, so you attack with false accusations. How typical of you. How about answering the questions? How can something come from nothing? Isn't it obvious to you that this is impossible?

'One thing that bugs me about G's approach to all this is how he never concedes science's progress.'

Here there is an implication that I am against science. That is totally false. Science has made tremendous progress, and I think that's great. I've probably studied more science than you have. 'concede' is not an appropriate word because I'm not fighting science. Your 'atheism' and science are not at all the same.

'All of his supposed 'A Ha!' questions ...'

You can't deal with them, so you try to dismiss them with 'A Ha!'. Sorry, doesn't work. You are being dishonest.

'... assume that science has ground to a standstill and worse, that it's done so without fulfilling it's mandate.'

That's absolutely false. The rest of your post is similar trash. You've learned some sleazy manipulative tactics.

Now, try answering the questions.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 12:01:32 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: G
Subject: I've got a question for you, G
Message:
You say it's impossible for something to come from nothing. That may be so, but how do you know it came from God? It's plain that you believe in God, but what's your scientific basis for believing so? There is none as far as I can see.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:20:07 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: I've got a question for you, G
Message:
I don't know.

It depends on what you mean by 'God'. It seems very reasonable to think it came from 'something'. I'm certainly no authority on what the 'something' (which I think is 'the Whole') is like. As to scientific evidence of something like 'design', consider the physical constants, if they were slightly different, life would not have evolved. Sure, there are other possible explanations, like the many-universes theory (which doesn't necessarily prove no design), but it is something to consider. We've discussed this, I've posted about the various types of evidence before.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:13:32 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: No I'm not. YOU are! Na na na NA NA!!!!!
Message:
You don't have any answers to my questions, so you attack with false accusations. How typical of you. How about answering the questions?

I did.

How can something come from nothing?

I said I don't know.

Isn't it obvious to you that this is impossible?

No. What's obvious to me is that 'something' and 'nothing' become very interesting concepts to wrestle with beyond the world of our daily lives. But hell, G, what do I know?

See, my position's so, so much easier than yours. I trust science, I trust the process and I trust, mainly, that sooner or later mistakes and blind spots get routed out IN that process. Scientific history's all about that or do you think otherwise?

'One thing that bugs me about G's approach to all this is how he never concedes science's progress.'

Here there is an implication that I am against science. That is totally false. Science has made tremendous progress, and I think that's great. I've probably studied more science than you have. 'concede' is not an appropriate word because I'm not fighting science. Your 'atheism' and science are not at all the same.

Do you or do you not reject the established scientific views on evolution and its implications? We've been here before, I recall, and, after lots of argument and select bon mots on both our parts, you did concede that you don't trust the 'mainstream' (i.e. non-creationist) guys. Or am I wrong? Should we search the archives together?

But my point above was that, by implication, like I said, you seem to be saying that science didn't -- not 'hasn't yet' -- answer[ed] certain juicy mysteries about consciousness, thus let's look elsewhere.

'All of his supposed 'A Ha!' questions ...'

You can't deal with them, so you try to dismiss them with 'A Ha!'. Sorry, doesn't work. You are being dishonest.

If 'deal with them' means 'answer them', you're right. Shoot me. I cannot answer them. Maybe it's because I know so little about these issues (unlike you, of course) or maybe it's because NO ONE knows the answers. But my point about your 'A Ha!' questions maintains. At least I think so. I think that you ask them as if to say 'look, if we don't know why we see the colour yellow, how cna you say there isn't intelligent design?' Honestly, aren't you doing that? If not, why ask in the first place?

'... assume that science has ground to a standstill and worse, that it's done so without fulfilling it's mandate.'

That's absolutely false. The rest of your post is similar trash. You've learned some sleazy manipulative tactics.

Yes, I know. Thanks for reminding me.

Now, try answering the questions.

Again?

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:57:53 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: consciousness
Message:
'Cartesian 'ghost in the machine' hovering in the vicinity of the pineal gland'

I don't believe in Cartesian duality nor that a ghost hovers near the pineal gland.

'in a coma', 'deep sleep'

You don't know whether people in comas have awareness or not. I'm not limiting consciousness to mean being awake, aware of the physical world. Ditto for deep sleep. How do you know whether you experience something during deep sleep? Simply because you don't remember? Suppose someone suffers amnesia and doesn't remember what happened the previous day? Does that mean they had no awareness? Second, even if people in comas or deep sleep are totally devoid of awareness (their awareness skips over physical time), that doesn't imply that consciousness is material. Are you assuming that awareness exists within physical space and time?

'How, if consciousness were independent of our biological selves, could a doctor's anaesthetic knock us out in five seconds flat - or at all?'

It's waking consciousness that gets knocked out. I didn't say that the state of our consciousness is independent of biology, drugs, etc. It obviously isn't. I don't know why you're even bringing this up. You seem to believe there must be a dichotomy between Cartesian duality and what you believe.

'consciousness is very much dependent on our biology'

I would say that the state, the quality of our consciousness is very much affected by our biology.

How do you explain the experience of red, and the awareness of it, in material terms? I have yet to hear an explanation from anyone.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 13:05:24 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: The argument from ignorance
Message:
G: How do you explain the experience of red, and the awareness of it, in material terms? I have yet to hear an explanation from anyone.

Why would I want to do such a thing? Can I not accept it as a given, an axiom of my experience? Why do you insist that my experience of existence is NOT taken as primary, but reduced to other things from which it can be 'explained'? Are you selling something, perhaps some 'explanation' to fill a void I do not in fact feel?

But supposing I did experience that urge (to explain my own awareness) and was unable to give an explanation that satisfied you, what would that prove? Something about the world, the universe we all share; something about me and my abilities; or something about you and the way you wish to understand things?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 18:34:13 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: An argument about ignorance
Message:
Oh, I'm not saying that the experience of red can be reduced to something else. I'm not selling anything, I'm not leading up to some 'explanation' for it. I don't have a clue, all I know is that I experience it and can't explain it. Rather, I'm posing the question to illustrate how little we understand consciousness, and that there is more to consciousness than just brain mechanics.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:52:43 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Primary experience
Message:
Why do you insist that my experience of existence is NOT taken as primary, but reduced to other things from which it can be 'explained'?

Why don't you say that to a child that's just asked you where babies come from? See how much water it holds. It seems to me that people who want to look at their conscious experience as a 'primary' one have settled for a non-answer as to where things come from. If you're satisfied with the explanation that consciousness is an irreducible, primary experience, fine, but on what grounds do you see it as that?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:33:34 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: ... and secondary reality
Message:
Jerry: If you're satisfied with the explanation that consciousness is an irreducible, primary experience, fine, but on what grounds do you see it as that?

Practical grounds, Jerry. If a God-botherer is dancing about saying Well, you don't know this, that and the other, so there must be a God, heck, I just don't want to know. The argument from ignorance is just not worth bothering with, whether it's used by Sandy to excuse his residual belief in Rawat's 'specialness' or whether it's used to justify belief in some other putative deity.

When that argument is applied to mind and consciousness, one has a pretty easy way out. It is simply to observe that as far as our own minds are concerned, experience is primary and the rest, well, the rest is just some kind of story that there is something behind our sensations. So from the philosophical position of Radical Doubt (roughly, the only thing that is certain is our own existence, as in Cogito ergo sum) it is sensation and consciousness itself that is primary. The stories that there is something real that corresponds to those sensations, those stories are derivative.

So one can tell the God botherers to fuck off and stop trying to make mind and consciousness out to be a mystery. They are not a mystery at all. They are rather the essential prerequisite of all other mysteries, such as the existence of a world beyond our senses and independant of them.

From an engineering and scientific point of view, of course, one would rather start at the other end. That is, as practical people rather than mystics, we assume the existence of a real world. Then, indeed, consciousness looks like a problem to be explained.

What It looks like depends on how you slice it. That's all.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:15:26 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Reasonable assumptions
Message:
JohnT,

Actually, I think you and G are on the same page with this, but I'm not. Just because our experience requires consciousness does not make that same consciousness 'primary'. It very well could come from somewhere and is dependent on that. I myself believe this. Consciousness is a phenomena of evolution. It exists only because we do. If we had not evolved into the creatures we have, with the biological structure we posess, I don't think consciousness ever would have been. While this can't be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, I think there is enough evidence to support this view above all others.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 20:02:22 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Reasonable assumptions
Message:
Quite so. It will prove very fruitful, I imagine, to enquire how evolution has shaped the way we perceive the world.

Of course, the 'brain' is a very complicated idea, and an idea is something a mind has. The ideas of 'evolution', 'chance' and 'information' are not of a complex artifact like we imagine 'brain', but they are none the less highly obscure notions, one discovers. So mind is conjuring all this stuff to make sense of a world which confronts it as an alien Other, and independant of our imaginings.

Is this stuff we have conjured real (in the sense that we can -- effortlessly -- imagine there is a real world)? Have we gained knowledge of ourselves in the real world, as a result of entertaining these notions? Of course. That is I should say it doesn't seem hard to contrive an operational definition of real, so we can make sense of the question. And that done, yes.

Have I forgotten the question? No, it just doesn't make sense to me. One can of course stand the problem on its head and study the levers and pulleys and wheels which lie behind the dance of the real of which we are a part. That is a great delight to me, in fact. My trade is to contrive softmachines - I am an engineer, a programmer. The success of reason as applied to reality is a marvel.

Each side of this coin is somehow held to invalidate the other - but I don't get that. Is there any observation that would show one side of the coin is the true side? I think not. One view seems of mind within itself that copes with, shapes and changes an outside world -- the other seems a dance of the real, with mind the helplessly following partner.

And so the argument about the primacy of mind or matter, logos or praxis continues with people chosing to argue the toss for thier preferred side of the coin. Yet it seems to me that each view is true; and consequently I expect that no experiment could decide between the points of view.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:13:30 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Reasonable assumptions
Message:
Have we gained knowledge of ourselves in the real world, as a result of entertaining these notions?.

I think so. It's very zen to say that 'brain' is just an idea, a thing of the mind that has no bearing in reality which, supposedly, is consciousness itself which needs no help from mind when it comes to discerning reality. Just observe, right? Don't label. That only disjoints reality. Lets just be conscious of, as G calls it, 'The Whole'.

But really, aren't we avoiding reality by doing that? We DO have minds, and we DO label and contemplate things with them. If anything is imaginary, it's this belief that consciousness, void of mind, is the true reality. People just don't exist like that. Even when you do enter an altered state where you see things as a 'Whole', you still need the mind to appreciate and grasp the fact that you've done that.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:27:11 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: 'I am, therefore I think...' Amen. nt
Message:
nt.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:09:03 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: 'springing from nothing'
Message:
'And if a universe springing from nothing is a problem, how about a Creator springing from nothing?'

Do you think anything can spring from nothing? If so, how?

I don't believe that anything springs from nothing. I think it's a stupid concept.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:48:28 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel and Jim
Subject: Well?
Message:
How can something come from nothing?
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 13:27:15 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Well, what?
Message:
I never said something comes from nothing any more than you said God can come from nothing - a position no easier to justify.

Perhaps there never was nothing. It may be, for all I know, that there may be some fundamental 'essence of everything' (for want of a better word) whose nature is always to exist independently of time and therefore has no need to come from nothing.

But what, without evidence, would that have to do with consciousness?

What, without evidence, would that have to do with God?

And even if there were such an entity, I can't any reason to suppose that it has foresight or intention, that it is guiding evolution. And if it were, I think you'd have a job insisting it has anybody's interests at heart. (Try explaining mean genetic conditions which kill babies after a short life of extreme pain...) The debris of evolution would suggest a cruel experimenter insensitive to the outcomes of his/her/its directions. For me, that would be a truly ugly universe and I'm glad I can't believe in it.

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:59:04 (GMT)
From: Katie H.
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Nigel, I liked your post
Message:
You wrote:
Perhaps there never was nothing. It may be, for all I know, that there may be some fundamental 'essence of everything' (for want of a better word) whose nature is always to exist independently of time and therefore has no need to come from nothing.

This is somewhat akin to something I believe (I AM an agnostic, after all - although maybe not the dictionary definition of the word - I just prefer the 'don't know' part.)

You also wrote:
And even if there were such an entity, I can't any reason to suppose that it has foresight or intention, that it is guiding evolution. And if it were, I think you'd have a job insisting it has anybody's interests at heart. (Try explaining mean genetic conditions which kill babies after a short life of extreme pain...) The debris of evolution would suggest a cruel experimenter insensitive to the outcomes of his/her/its directions. For me, that would be a truly ugly universe and I'm glad I can't believe in it.

I have never found an explanation which satisfies me for the truly horrible things that happen in this world. (And I've read 'When Bad Things Happen to Good People' and books like that and gotten no comfort.) The only answer which makes me feel any better is that I just 'don't know'. I also liked Kurt Vonnegut's 'The Church of God the Totally Indifferent' - and his writing about the guy who was some of the mud who got to sit up and look around. Those rang true to me.

That said, I'm of the opinion that atheism is just another way of people saying that they 'know' THE answer. As I said to Jim above, I'm somewhat allergic to anyone saying they 'know' THE answer - even if the answer is that there is no higher power. I don't think the evidence either way is overwhelming, and that's how I prefer to leave it. As I also said to Jim, the more I learn, the more I realize how much human beings really do NOT know.

I have noticed on this forum that atheism seems to be particularly attractive to people who grew up with or otherwise experienced intense religious conditioning. I did not (thankfully) - my dad was an avowed agnostic, and even though my mother took me to church, I knew it was because she felt I should have some religious training (know how to say the Lord's prayer and so forth) in order to live in a Christian society. Brian, on the other hand, was subjected to strong programming about GOD and Jesus and what they wanted (usually negative) - and atheism almost comes as a relief after that.

Frankly, I believe that atheism is yet another 'belief system'. However, it seems to be very helpful and to bring great comfort to those who were subjected to strong religious indoctrination. I hope this doesn't offend you - but I have really observed this on the forum - and that in the words of you-know-who (actually, it was Phil Lesh), you can 'believe if you need it; if you don't just pass it on'. (He wrote that song to someone who was dying.)

Take care, Nigel -
Love,
Katie

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 04:47:57 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Katie H.
Subject: Nigel, I liked your post
Message:
Hi Katie - your post probably deserves more of a reply than I'm going to manage right now. (I'm a big Vonnegut fan, too, BTW) but I'd like to pick up on one point: I don't see atheism as a 'belief system', ie., it doesn't require me to believe in anything that isn't readily apparent and hence faith is not required. (Faith being crucial ingredient, in my book.)

I mean, supposing there were a word for a person who doesn't believe in unicorns. That label would fit me to the ground. (You could also have a unicorn-agnostic category who remains to be convinced one way or the other...)

But would non-belief in unicorns qualify as a 'belief system' or, rather, a sensible baseline assumption? I think the latter, and ditto about God - since I see no more reason to believe in God than in unicorns.

You're almost certainly right suggesting atheists with a strong religious upbringing will express their viewpoint more forcibly than other atheists - but, I think, only after having reached that position, usually with difficulty. Probably a well-founded social/emotional factor which shouldn't be confused with their rationale for atheism (if that makes any sense?)

Best,
Nige

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:35:03 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: But my dad was an atheist and I'm still rabid
Message:
I agree with you so much, Nige. Accusing atheists of having just another 'belief system' reduces the distinction between faith in God and the rejection of same to an absurd level. Frankly, it reminds me of the senseless premie accusation that we ex's have merely created our own cult. Yeah, right!

I also agree with the point you mention but which I first came upon in Dawkins that faith in God is likely a memetic infection, passed on from one generation to the next. That burdensome legacy is reflected in the way theists argue that belief is just as reasonable a starting point in considering the question of God's existence as disbelief. That wouldn't be happening with unicorns.

My dad, however, was an unwavering atheist. He grew up the son of a good-hearted but unsuccessful immigrant pedlar who opened a small men's store before the war. My grandfather was an extremely religious guy. I remember the one time he took me to his tiny shul where he prayed with a small minion of other guys. They all wrapped tfilin -- those jewish leather and wood block straps Orthodox jews put on their arms and foreheads with their prayer shawls. I used to break into the rich, purple velvet bag he kept that stuff in to check it out and play with it.

Anyway, my grandfather never had my dad's respect and the latter spurned spiritualty of any kind and glibly announced himself as a practising hedonist at every opportunity. So much so that I grew fascinated in my late teens with spirituality and, well, now we're into 'journey' territory. Nothing unusual, just a child of my times. All this was just to say that the pattern broke with me. Brought up by an atheist, I wandered a bit but now, I can safely say, the prodigal son has returned. To nothingness, I imagine but home all the same.

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 08:22:59 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: 'journey' territory - Thanks for the glimpse NT
Message:
j
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:47:51 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: my family was mildly religious and I'm neither
Message:
... though I was once saved by Billy Graham, I mostly went to Quaker Sunday School as a child.

These conversations seems important for some people. But surely most people are atheists when they do engineering and suchlike? And surely these same folk find themselves at their prayers when they face death?

(can't do any harm then, I suppose...)

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 06:14:24 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: But my dad was an atheist and I'm still rabid
Message:
Fascinating stuff, the background Jim - and well put too re. memes and unicorns. Hey - why not write a proper journey one of these days?

I didn't realise 'minions' was a Jewish (Yiddish?) word - when you talk about so-and-so, the hamster maybe, and his minions - is that the same thing?

BTW: I know I was probably pissed (or worse) during Latvian phone call but wasn't kidding about BC visit. Will email.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:37:03 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: I see you've yet to join the Friends of C.Darwin,G
Message:
I'm disappointed. I know Jim is belaboured with too many doubts about it all to expect his support, even when there's a free bumper sticker to be won....

(read all about our triumphant campaign to place Darwin on a British banknote at The Friends of Charles Darwin)

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:46:28 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: I've already seen it, and congratulations. (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 06:40:01 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Thanks! Go on - get your bumper sticker... (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:53:56 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: G
Subject: conversion from potential to actual?
Message:
E=mc²??

if all things are energy, and energy has no mass, in and of itself...if all that we encounter is not in fact 'solid' but arrangements of energy, attracted or repelled, bound, in patterns, that can be severed and liberate energy again--and those bonds of attraction are what we call mass--

look gentlemen--you can fight all day over this. in the end, you eat and piss and shit the same way as men all over the world do, and animals all over the world do, and insects the world over, do. and quarrel too, i might add. listen to two birds bitching at each other. or two dogs barking at each other. or two mice quarrelling. they sound exactly the same as you two do. I don't think the language matters at all. I don't even think the concepts matter. I think you are carrying on like two territorial egos, vying for dominance, and that's all.
'i say this is the argument room!'
'And I say It's NOT!'

JIm, the snake doesnt shed its skin until a new one is growing in. You can't just take a rough stone to a snake and think you'll relieve it of that old skin when the mood or obsession grips you.You will simply skin the snake alive and leave it bleeding unto death. People shed their beliefs when they have grown to the point where their old ones are in tatters and can't hold up anymore, and they have to have better ones. that comes from the inside out, not the outside in.

what is the harm if people choose to lump everything they feel is unknown and beyond their power and wondrous to them, and call it 'God'? what is wrong with that humility and recognition of their limits of understanding? they know what they know something about, and they know what they don't know about, and that's a pretty healthy assessment of their place in the scheme of things. that's being honest to one and all. what is wrong with faith, of having a reassured sense that everything is going to turn out well, although you can't see the end from the present or say how it will happen?

it's interesting that the people who take life by these guidelines have more respect and humanity for those who pursue the Great Questions--scientists, philosophers, mathmaticians, etc--than the Learned People have for them in return. The so-called Lerned Ones look down on such people, scorn them, cast aspersions, avoid association, etc.

so which one missed the point of being alive while they lived?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 14:20:29 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: conversion from random fluctuations to actual?
Message:
Nice one Janet,

For what it's worth (and my own view is that science can gives us models and intriguing insights, but is presently not at all able to grok experience as such - for reasons of Radical Doubt, as espoused by Descartes), not only is matter just energy, and far too insubstantial a stick with which to belabour mind, but matter may indeed (according to contemporary science) spontaneously emerge from the void.

Well, not exactly from nothing at all, but empty space is held to be full of random quantum fluctuations and very occasionally these quantum fluctuations give rise to a particle and its antiparticle. They usually recombine immediately, but sometimes go their different ways.

Prior to the theory of spontaneous quantum fluctuations, there was the 'Steady State Theory' as propounded by Fred Hoyle and that Indian chap whose name I can't spell ('Chandranyica' sp?). This held that the expanding universe would not thin out into the heat death, as very occasionally a proton would pop into existence to keep the density of the expanded universe constant.

Hard for some to imagine, perhaps, but I do find myself coming into existence from time to time. When I was just six or seven, I remember being freaked out at finding myself at the top of a flight of stairs, with no recollection of having climbed them! My consciousness and my sensations come and go; my hungers; thoughts; even loves are first fierce, and later not in existence at all.

When I die, my consciousness may go to where the extinguished flames of candles go; fade away like a quenched thirst. Certainly I see and hear my Mother fade into nothing, become thinner and less substantial each time we meet or talk, as that awful, filthy Alzeimer's seems to leach away her very soul from before my swimming eyes.

I came from nothing (as far as I can recall) and I should not be suprised to find myself returning to that same place. But it's not a NoThing like an absense...

When we close our eyes, or gaze into the dark we see the absense, the anihilating nothingness. But a person born blind does not see that black void. Such a person has no visual space in which to see nothing. They see what we feel, when we think of the space behind our heads. Not a blackness; not an absense; not a void filled with black. There's just nothing there. Not even an absense!

Can something last forever? Or must something come from nothing? Can we not still love and grieve, whatever the theologians would have us believe...

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:43:23 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: string theory, 100 from 0
Message:
There's also string theory, which says that when a 'string' (conceived of as a 1-dimensional vibrating loop) vibrates at a certain frequency, a particular type of particle manifests.

Regarding something from nothing (as in absolute nothingness, zero complexity):

In math, suppose you start with 0 and nothing else. How would you get the number 100 from it? You can't. This is how I think about the notion of something coming from nothing, why I think it is impossible.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:23:02 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: something from nothing
Message:
G: In math, suppose you start with 0 and nothing else. How would you get the number 100 from it?

Like this, G. First define a set that has no members. That's OK as you have nothing -- OK so far?

Now, you have two things. Your original nothing, and the empty set. So you can define the set which contains the empty set, plus the original nothing... You can continue defining an heirarchy of sets in this way, and you will find that the operations of set union corresponds to addition. You are motoring.

Mike Finch can help out on the details. But the basic idea is that a set is a more primitive notion than number. Consequently mathematicians worked hard (successfully) to derive number from set theory.

Ex nihil, nihil fit? Nope, not in math.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:47:45 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: something from nothing
Message:
Now we're getting heady!

I said 'start with 0 and nothing else'. Set union is something, it is an operation on sets.

'a set that has no members', i.e. the null set, is not the same as 0 nor is it the same as 'nothing'. There's the concept of a set involved, that's something. There's also the action of creating a set, here with no members.

Then, without set union, which is something, you can't continue the process.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 20:08:38 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: you can't say ...
Message:
'start with 0 and nothing else'.

If I started with nothing, I couldn't understand you! The point is that number is not a primitive concept, and zero almost less so!

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:57:23 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: my point
Message:
My point is that it takes at least some complexity to generate further complexity. With zero complexity, nothing would happen. In your example, you had to have a set union operation, a sequence of operations, and the formation of the null set, you didn't just have 'nothing'.
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:28:25 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: your point - prove it
Message:
G: My point is that it takes at least some complexity to generate further complexity.

Go on then, prove it.

Or are you assuming this so as to be able to 'prove' something complicated gave rise to what Is?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:26:07 (GMT)
From: O
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Zero ('springing from nothing' and intruding)
Message:
Steppingstone to the Stars - How the Zero was Discovered

In the backwaters of time, before Hammurabi compiled his Code or Akhenaton renounced the Ruling Lord of Thebes, in a region known for its heat and abundance of humankind, a man whose name perhaps will never be pronounced was working hard and long upon a treatise that had come to him from Mesopotamia.

The man was weary from long hours of concentration. The curious numeration of the Sumerians, cuneiform in construction, was uncommonly hard to decipher; it had taken its toll. He put down his dustboard and repaired to the shade of a mustard tree for a short nap. Sleep came grudgingly; this was not unusual for an old man. Yet it was during this fitful sleep that he dreamt a dream.

In this dream he saw what no man had seen before. It appeared to him as the Eye of God. And this was possessed of a voice, in that it spoke to him:

'I am Nothingness. I can be united to something and only that something remains. I can be taken away in like manner. I am Void, yet, if something is multiplied or divided by Myself, only I shall remain.

In time, learned men will come to say that the Earth, itself, revolves upon Me. I am Emptiness. I will be worshipped as a secret symbol. My name will be whispered and uttered only in select company and darkened rooms.

I am Nothing, it is true, but I am also the steppingstone to the stars and the key to the secrets of the atom. I shall be called an Integer and described as Real. I am Rational. And, most importantly, I am Good.'

Upon awakening, the unknown Hindu set down his dustboard and drew upon it the Eye of God.

Thus did the Zero intrude itself upon the Universe.

from http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/flonta/DP,1,1,95/ABCDE.html

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:55:56 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: O
Subject: Ooooooh! I enjoyed that. Thanks. NT
Message:
j
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:26:13 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Occam's razor, I don't buy it.
Message:
I don't have time to respond to your entire post now, but basically, I don't buy using 'Occam's razor' as if it's some kind of principle, the 'principle of parsimony'. Prove to me that such a principle exists, further that it always holds. What evidence do you have that it applies to the big picture?

Consider another 'principle', the 'principle of complexity', things are often far more complex than we think. The specks of light in the sky? Who would have thought that some of them could galaxies? Cells? People thought they were just simple blobs. Now we know that have astounding complexity. Atoms? People thought they were utterly simple. Now, the more we look, the more complex our models become. Now they are saying that protons and electrons have structure.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 21:10:13 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Occam's razor; you can't do science without it
Message:
... for the rather simple reason that if one can arbitrarily multiply entities, one cannot then rationally make a choice between two theories, one of which involves a lot of assumptions and the other, fewer or none. And of course, for any phenomenon, an arbitrary number of theories can be devised, of arbitrary (and unnecessary) complexity.

Occam's razer (the principle of economy) saves people from the cult, when the burgeoning complexities of cult victims's explanations about their own and their Master's behaviour becomes too absurd to sustain.

One cannot prove the principle of economy, because it is a principle of rational discourse. It is an axiom, if you like, of rational discourse and scientific enquiry alike.

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 03:08:25 (GMT)
From: Katie H.
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Occam's razor; you can't do science without it
Message:
JohnT, I agree with the title of your post, and you are correct that you can't 'do science' without using Occam's razor (IMHO, anyway). I have worked with enough scientists who look for far-out explanations for data when I personally knew that their lab technician was not good at running accurate lab analyses to know that :).

However, I believe that Occam's razor is a TOOL, rather than a statement which is provable or true. Y'all may have covered this in your discussion, but I got a bit lost in the semantics! I liken Occam's razor to using common sense. In other words, look for the simplest explanation first (and acknowledge it), but don't discount the fact that there may be a more complex answer.

As far as Occam's razor saving people from the cult, I don't disagree at all. However, more is known about the cult (it is a simpler system) than about many scientific processes, and there have been many cases in science where the principle of parsimony was just not true - because scientists didn't have all the necessary facts (and we STILL don't).

Take care,
Katie H.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 01:51:24 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Good post, John
Message:
I don't know about proving Occam's Razor but I sure think we'd be lost without it. Plus, I would think that statistically the preference for simpler explanations would be more fruitful just because there's less to get wrong, less to go wrong.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:01:41 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: axiom = assumption
Message:
You are assuming there is no God, then using that assumption in an argument that there is no God.

'Occam's razer (the principle of economy) saves people from the cult...'

I'm not saying that it isn't useful. I'm not discussing cult explanations of cult behavior, but whether material monism is correct.

'arbitrarily multiply entities'

I'm not arbitrarily doing that, I have good reasons.

'assumptions and the other, fewer or none'

Are you implying that your theory involves no assumptions? Your theory does indeed involve assumptions.

Occam's razor is more of a guideline than an axiom or a principle, it is NOT a principle of logic, and it doesn't guarantee that your choice will be correct. A major part of it is the wording 'without necessity'. I disagree with you regarding necessity in the issue of whether the material universe is all there is, which is a belief that many 'atheists' hold. In fact, this belief defines what many people mean by 'atheism'. Something can't come from nothing. If you think something can come from nothing, I'd like to hear your explanation of how that can happen.

Also, our experience of qualia, such as seeing red and blue at the same time, does not operate in the same way that the material world of particles operates (as we conceive it). Can you explain the experience of red, and what is aware of red, in terms of particles? Let's hear it. I've never heard of 'red' being a property of matter.

Now Dennett says that we should just ignore qualia. I say that's deluded thinking. Everyone experiences qualia, so why should we? I know the experience of yellow (for example) is real, and so do you, you're seeing it right now, aren't you? A comprehensive theory of consciousness MUST NOT ignore qualia. To do so is similar to the spiritual concept that the material world is an illusion. You can't explain something? Call it an illusion! It's a cop out.

Besides that, things are often more complicated than we think they are. I'd say that has been the trend in our understanding of things.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 09:07:22 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: G multiplies assumptions
Message:
JohnT: Occam's razer (the principle of economy) saves people from the cult, when the burgeoning complexities of cult victims's explanations about their own and their Master's behaviour becomes too absurd to sustain.

One cannot prove the principle of economy, because it is a principle of rational discourse. It is an axiom, if you like, of rational discourse and scientific enquiry alike.

G responded: You are assuming there is no God, then using that assumption in an argument that there is no God.

NO!

G, I was discussing not God, but William of Ockham and his Principle of Economy. You made the bit about God up. Please do not misrepresent my very straightforward point - God wouldn't want you to do that, surely?
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 16:36:47 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Occam's razor
Message:
What I am saying is that, when people invoke 'Occam's razor' when arguing that there is no God, what they are really doing is starting with the assumption that there is no God, then using that assumption in an argument against God. They are using 'Occam's razor' as a cloaking device. We WERE talking about 'God' in this thread.

Occam's razor is a method, a guideline. It suggests that when you have theory A and theory B, start with the theory that you consider to be the one with less unnecessary complexity, then check it out, see if it is true. It does not mean that your choice, the theory that you prefer, will turn out to be correct. It does not mean that that the big picture is simple. It is a method, not a principle of rational thought. So you can't correctly say 'By Occam's razor, theory A is true.'

What constitutes 'unnecessary complexity' is open to debate.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 20:29:43 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Occam's razor is a principle, not a method (sigh)
Message:
It's a METHOD you say! Why?!

What method is the Principle of Economy?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 23:17:19 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: A mode of action, not a basic truth (sigh)
Message:
'principle' can mean

1) 'a basic truth, law' or
2) 'a rule or standard' or
3) 'a fixed or predetermined policy or mode of action' or
4) 'A rule or law concerning the functioning of natural phenomena or mechanical processes'.

Here we talking about a standard, a policy, a mode of action,
in other words, a method or guideline,

not a basic truth about the way things are,
not a law concerning natural phenomena.

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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:23:20 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: It's about weighing probabilities. Try it. (nt.)
Message:
nt
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:46:33 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: As if you know what they are.
Message:
You don't know what the probabilities are, your 'weighing' of the probabilities is just your opinion.
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 07:12:03 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Exactly!
Message:
We're talking probabilities, since certainties are rarely available - that's why they're probabilities (which at least carry more weight than mere possibilities). Bookies give odds without knowing precise probabilities, but offer informed guesses and tend to make money. 'On the Origin of Species' delivered such a powerful, informed argument it raised the probablity of later discoveries confirming its main premises to odds-on. Mendelian genetics and the unlocking of the DNA molecule sealed the bet for scientists not belonging to The Institute of Creation Science.

Whenever you call unnecessary entities into your argument (eg. a director of evolution or the existence of a unicorn) you are raising the odds against your being right. When you rely purely on what the evidence requires you to believe, and no more, you improve the odds in your favour - or that's what the history of science suggests to me.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:21:33 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Looks like sleazy, manipulative trash to me (nt)
Message:
ddddddd
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:39:58 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: But, yes, I have an emoticon for you too, G
Message:
Here it is, bud:

:)

Just a simple little smiley face. From me to G.

Jim
The Theists' Friend

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 22:40:37 (GMT)
From: Kelly
Email: None
To: G
Subject: I know it's only chaos but I like it, nt
Message:
emtee kayos
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:00:35 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: You're partially right
Message:
Sure there's plenty of evidence for evolution, but by 'evolution' I mean that species evolve via mutations to DNA. This does not mean there is no God, it does mean that Adam and Eve is just a myth.

No, it doesn't mean that there is no God. It just obviates the need for one and shoots down the teleological argument to pieces. But is there a God notwithstanding all that? Notwithstanding the only reason we even know the word, God, is because our ancestors thought they saw his/its/their handiwork everywhere because they didn't know any better, sure, there may be.

Is there any evidence that God exists? No. Was there ever? No. Are there any real parameters to the very term 'God' such that the concept actually means anything? No. Is any of that going to stop us from being religious some time soon? No.

Here's a question, you do think the material universe created itself from nothing? Do you agree with Dennett that 'nothingness' is the foundation of reality?

First, I didn't know he said that. Second, I don't understand what he meant by it if he did. Third, I really have no idea. Do you?

What about consciousness, do you think you've got that figured out?

Partially. Enough to be confident that it's a property exclusively dependent upon a central nervous system of some kind, preferably a brain. No brain, no consciousness. That part I'm certain of. I'm also strongly certain that consciousness, like other human characteristics, has evolved over time. That's about it.

How about you?

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 18:16:44 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You're partially right
Message:
'It just obviates the need for one and shoots down the teleological argument to pieces.'

First, that depends on whether it all just happened by chance. I think there's plenty of evidence that that's not the case, for one thing, life starting in the first place and the necessary conditions for that to occur. Does chance have anything at all to do with it? Perhaps, but I don't know. I don't think it's clear whether chance is an absolute. Chance might simply be a concept that comes from our limited perspective.
Second, it depends on what you mean by God. If you mean a God who performs miracles, violates the 'laws' of physics to get it done, maybe it does, I don't know.

Dennett, in one of his books, has a diagram in which he places 'nothingness' as the lowest level of a heirarchy, the issue being reality. He does have some concept about 'nothingness'. The problem is this: How can you get something from nothing? How can you get complexity out of zero complexity? Is there even such a thing as 'nothingness'? I have doubts about that. I think 'nothing' is simply a relative term.
Besides that, how can you get the complexity of this universe from a simple imbalance? Some people thing all you need to start with is a simple imbalance. I don't buy it. Suppose you have a simple imbalance, then what's the next step? It seems to me that a lot more than that is required to generate complexity. Take fractals for example, the generative process is really not that simple.

Briefly about consciousness, I don't think I've got it figured out, I don't think anyone does. Why do you say you're certain that no brain means no consciousness?

I'll have to respond to other points later.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:35:28 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Jim and G ponder: ''Is there a god?''
Message:
Nice tapestry you guys have woven this thread into during your philosophy bee.

G asked: Here's a question, you do think the material universe created itself from nothing? Do you agree with Dennett that 'nothingness' is the foundation of reality?

Jim answered: First, I didn't know he said that. Second, I don't understand what he meant by it if he did. Third, I really have no idea. Do you?

Is there any evidence that God exists? No. Was there ever? No. Are there any real parameters to the very term 'God' such that the concept actually means anything? No. Is any of that going to stop us from being religious some time soon? No.

Pat says: I don't know if there WAS an original source of the universe. To know that I would have to have been there. Do G and Dennett use the word ''nothingness' to mean EXACTLY that? Or do you G (and Dennett?) feel it could also mean ''void'' ''emptiness'' ''peace'' ''calm'' ''stillness.''

May I be permitted to use two sanskrit words? I know that you all know what they mean whereas, if I were talking to an audience who had not studied Hinduism or Buddhism (which is deistic, agnostic or atheistic Hinduism - the Protestant church of Hinduism) I would have to write a paragraph to define them.
Those words are nirvana and samadhi? (Yes scoff, Jim, but they are very difficult to translate. I have not yet found English words that don't require a paragraph to define them.)

I have experience a state of mind which closely resembles descriptions of samadhi or nirvana by others who, admittedly, have often mixed it up with impenetrable pantheist and polytheist myth, poetry and plain mumbo-jumbo. That state of mind is to be fully alert, wide awake, clear as a bell, calm, quiet and watchful. To be conscious of the mind itself.

It also includes having a clear conscience. The word dhyana not only translates as meditation but also mind and conscience. This state of mind is described in Judaism and Christianity but it is achieved differently. The word yoga can be quite accurately translated as union, tying or religion (to bind) and simply means being true to oneself, speaking the truth and being honest. No more. All the other stuff is guess-work.

Funny how the uneducated and overly self-confident Chubster picked that particular English word to describe what he thought was the opposite of nirvana. The pure, clear, clean mind is nirvana. But the chubster is no Patanjali or Buddha. He relies, as he said yesterday, on that old bhakti juju (''affection for you know who'' - did you read old friend's post?) Bhakti-gurus are for peasants and modern television-serfs.

Now Rev Rawat calls it ''wild imagination'' ''concepts'' or ''the doubtmaker.'' All this is voodoo. It smacks of hidden dangers and the need for faith. Faith in what? There is nothing to have faith in and no need for it. Self-confidence, yes. Faith smacks off beliefs in things which cannot be seen: invisible gods, reincarnation, life after death. Why bother to have faith in those things? Because as Jim said in another post, ''We were seeking immortality.''

That's the oldest story that is extant in writing and Gilgamesh failed to find it. Instead he returned to Uruk ''wise, beyond his years, joyful and contented to rebuild his city and rule over his subjects.''

In the end I have to say that I don't know about anything like god for sure. I take guesses, but don't we all. I'll settle for not knowing until it happens whatever that is and, being an optimist, hope it is good. The world sure is beautiful so whatever its cause is must be too.

I used to suscribe to the Hindu idea that the world was created from our desires and that what we see is what we wanted to see but I wonder how come we all seem to see the same thing. Is there an uber-mind? Haven't got a clue. I hope it's friendly.
Is my consciuosness just a drop of that uber-mind? Don't know. Wouldn't mind knowing but who would believe me anyway? Look what happens to people who make that claim. They crucified Jesus and we're pillorying Rev Rawat. It's a totalitarian claim that is anathema to smart people. To each his own.

That is why I am a liberal agnostic. I can see all possibilities and discount only those which seem anti-social or psychopathic.

My hunch is that my consciousness will dissolve with my dying body but I don't know. I'm not looking for immortality anymore. But I am looking knowledge. No, not THAT kind (which Sir Dave aptly called ''pidgin English'') but the kind that I just got now from reading your posts. Thank you.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 17:02:20 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: My little boy KNOWS God exists!
Message:
Seven years old, and has no doubts.

The other week he said 'Daddy, I know God exists.'

'How do you know that?' I asked.

'Because if he didn't exist we wouldn't have to say prayers to him at school'.

Smart kid - can't fault the logic.

Problem: do I teach him to doubt everything his schoolteachers tell him?

Or do I remove him from school activities involving religious worship - at the cost of making him the odd-one-out and a figure of ridicule among peers?

I am reluctant to do the former and wouldn't do the latter - nor would most parents, if they even cared - and that's what makes the brainwashing so pernicious.

Q: would anyone believe in God had they not been presented with the God-concept by influential others at an impressionable time in their lives?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 21:49:05 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: My little boy KNOWS God exists!
Message:
Hi Nigel,

They do come out with some great stuff don't they - bless 'em.

My son at aged 12 when hearing of some atrocity on the news said ' If there is a God he must be a complete asshole

Steve

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 19:13:53 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Your son is a good kid. I was a heretic
Message:
When I was four I went on holiday to the beach for the first time and found a tidal pool full of anemones and hermit crabs and lots of other wonders. I spent a day playing with them in heaven.

Next morning went back - no pool. The tide had come in and covered it. I threw a tantrum. ''WHY, why?'' I screamed. Mom tried to soothe me by telling me that God had done it.

I said: ''Well, then I hate God!''

Guess I'll never be a good boy.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:58:05 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: 'nothingness'
Message:
'Do G and Dennett use the word 'nothingness' to mean EXACTLY that? Or do you G (and Dennett?) feel it could also mean 'void' 'emptiness' 'peace' 'calm' 'stillness.''

I believe that Dennett uses the word 'nothingness' to mean EXACTLY that. In this context, that is the way I'm using it. Yes, it is also used to mean 'emptiness', etc.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:46:06 (GMT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Pat, that was a *Wonderful* post!
Message:
You said:

The world sure is beautiful so whatever its cause is must be
too.

Pat, I get frustrated, mad, sad, lonely and cabin-fevered out, then I look out the window and see such untouched beauty I have to hope. I loved your post.

Love to you and yours,
Cynthia

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:50:21 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Cynthia, would love glimpse of winter wonderland
Message:
It's 75 degs here and another perfect day in paradise as us smug San Franciscans say. Of course a Scorpion would like a bull's sensuous appreciation of life.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:38:16 (GMT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Cynthia, would love glimpse of winter wonderland
Message:
Pat,

Are you kidding? We've had so much snow everyone is about to go bonkers from cabin fever and it's only March 19th!

You're welcome to visit anytime, but summer's the best.

But it is so beautiful. And easy to get around, too. They'll clear any path for those skiers, the ''out-a-staters,'' to get here to spend money. Out slogan is ''Welcome to Vermont, Now Go Home!'' I will never be considered a Vermonter. One has to be BORN here. I'm hooked on the nature though, it brings the best out of me, rain, sleet, snow, sunny summer days at my swimming hole, it all makes me happy.

It's gorgeous. Now it's sugaring season. And mud season to boot! I don't take my 1987 Saab (regionally called Snaabs) on a back road these days.

Tomorrows officially spring! And we're expecting snow! It is pretty, but enough is fucking enough! I want green grass, wild flowers, leaves on trees, and happy kitties (mine are climbing the walls because they don't like to put their delicate feet on anything white and cold!).

Miles, Clara and Nina, what a crew of cats! Pussies all!

Love,
Cynthia

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:36:39 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
Sandy,

How does your wife respond to the information about Maharaji here?

John.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:02:57 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Don't throw out the bathwater with the baby
Message:
Sandy,

How does your wife respond to the information about Maharaji here? -John

John,

When I first came across this site a few years ago, I showed her the stuff about Susan and Abi. She listened briefly and then shut down. She did not want to hear anything that even faintly resembled negativity being cast in the direction of Maharaji, whether it was true or not. She saw it all as one thing, just a bunch of wackos or malcontents trying to make trouble for him.
I could not reason with her in any way or talk about any of it.

Needless to say, it broke my heart doubly to hear the bad news about Maharaji and then not to be able to communicate with my wife openly about it in an objective way. Once in a great while I will print out a particularly strong post from here and leave it for her to read, but she has expressed to me very strongly that she does not want to hear any more about it. She has accepted him unquestioningly, at least on the outside. This has become another big brick in the wall between us. The few times she has let me talk to her about any of this, her span of attention and objectivity goes out the window in under a minute.
We have not had any conversation about this for months. She is not open to anything from here at all, period.

We met at a program doing service and alot of our life together was based on Maharaji and practicing Knowledge, so much to her that we cannot talk freely about anything that would put him in any question. Sad but true. This has further torn us apart, aside from the change-o-lire stuff that folks in their late 40's and early 50's go through anyway.

But you know what, JHB? I'm still determined to be happy in this lifetime and get past whatever is keeping me from that, whether it's something inside me or on the outside.

Sandy

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:54:42 (GMT)
From: Patrick Wilson
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Sandy, I also felt a wave of sympathy...
Message:
...when I read your post.
I am blessed with a happy relationship based on love, respect and communication and I hope it stays that way. Posts like yours remind me how difficult it is for some premies to take their heads out of the sand and how destructive that can be to their human relationships. I am truly sorry for you about this hardship. But I applaud your determination to be happy and to not compromise yourself in matters of truth. I feel exactly the same way.
Warm regards
Patrick
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:16:16 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Patrick Wilson
Subject: Sounds good, I think I'll feel that way too
Message:
Sandy,

It has to be said that your problem troubles me too. Don't know what to say but wanted you to know that I'm not inured to your difficulty.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 17:00:17 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: My sympathies are with you
Message:
Sandy,

I know we haven't always communicated amicably, but I really feel for you at the moment. I was also married to a premie, but we separated, and then she died before I became an ex. After separating we were still good friends, and I often wonder how she would have taken the information about Maharaji here. I like to think she would have accepted it, but I'll never know.

Good luck in your struggles.

John.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 03:06:00 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Sandy, my sympathies are with you
Message:
If I put myself in your shoes I would say to myself: ''Rev Rawat is my wife's preacher just like Jim Bakker was the PTL preacher. That's her religion and don't criticize it. It's not my business to tell her what to think. She may not even be thinking about the Rev the way I do or used to.''

Plenty of husbands and wives have different religions but it isn't easy. Why - I'm married to two born-again christian republicans. Just kidding but, if they hadn't married me 19 and 8 years ago respectively, that's probably what they would have become judging by their conservative personalities.

And they're stuck with an aging Hindu hippie agnostic christian old fogey armchair yogi.

It's harder for you in that there is all that bhakti juju involved and isn't just an intellectual thing. What's the bet that if you both start to study western platonic thought that she will soon get bored with the Reverend's platitudes.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:46:39 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Has the chain been pulled?
Message:
What's happening out there?

Hardly anyone turns up at Portland. There's talk of leaving every other chair empty, to try and fool Captain Rawat into thinking the hall is full, but there's not even enough bums to do that.

Registrations for Amaroo are abysmally low. The Aussie premies are in open revolt at the financial demands being put on them. Even Mr Fanatic himself, Catweazle, says he's hoping for a late rush in registrations. It doesn't look like anyone's bothering to come from anywhere else.

It's DISASTER TIME for the cult.

They are going crazy for money at the moment to keep up the payments on the Captain's luxury items, so essential for World Peace.

They are calling meetings of the few premies still around with any money left, trying to wring the last few cents out of everyone.

I bet they're asking people to take out big loans and give them the money.

The cult is falling apart before our eyes.

I wonder what's going to happen next?

Anth the lying, cheating, shit-stirring, trying to cause panic amongst the premies, Latvian propagandist, possesed by Satan, broken into a thousand pieces and stinking of rotten vegetables.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:05:02 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: One can only hope that is the case. nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:10:49 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: sirdavid12@hotmail.com
To: AJW
Subject: The peasants are revolting
Message:
Maharaji has abused the only resource he ever had - the people who received his knowledge. He has now turned things over to dry, management consultants who have absolutley no idea of why the devotees originally came to Maharaji.

So it's guaranteed to fail now. The gentle, idealistic people who came to Maharaji in the seventies have been totally abused by the wordly, money grabbing 'perfect master'.

The lovers of freedom and peace are now shown some utterly boring and sterile 'materials' about 'perfermance developement' and 'information on tools available to support propagation'. yawn, yawn etc etc.

Who does Maharaji think he is addressing? What kind of idiots does Maharaji think the premies are? The fact is, premies are not idiots and never have been. Very sincere people, yes. Idealistic and caring people, yes. Vey loving and devoted people, certainly!

So Maharaji will fail to see why his cult crashes because he has never stopped to understand the kind of people who were his devotees. The devotees stuck with him because they were of the above qualities.

Maharaji mistook the above qualities for stupidity and sheepishness. He may never know why people turned against him. To him, the peasants are revolting. That is the way he will see it now.

.. Dave

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 13:46:26 (GMT)
From: CW
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: No, because you are smiling at me Mr Hanky
Message:
Poor old Anth. Who do you think your kidding?
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:52:26 (GMT)
From: Tony Walker (Aussi Ji)
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: You spend a lot of time on here
Message:
You should be off somewhere meditating should'nt you puss.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:12:16 (GMT)
From: Cw
Email: None
To: Tony Walker (Aussi Ji)
Subject: You spend a lot of time on here
Message:
No , I'm keeping an eye on you . Where do you reckon you'll be in six months. I'd say with Mr Hanky.....Gurgle Gurgle...It's so passe here
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:19:02 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: Poor old CW - who does he imagine is listening?
Message:
Suggestion: if you seek to damage Anth's credibility you might start by establishing some credibility of your own, Mr Anonymous.
Cowardly, threat-making premies do nothing but further damage Rawat's standing by association - surely not your intention(?)

FA: Hasn't this Catweasel creep been banned for persistent obnoxious behaviour?

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:14:10 (GMT)
From: Cat
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: I dont bother reading you. Nasty NIGE
Message:
erthwrth
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 03:03:14 (GMT)
From: Nige
Email: None
To: Cat
Subject: Why the 'nasty'?
Message:
Wanna talk about it?
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:26:13 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: I dunno but he stole Mr Hanky from me!
Message:
Less than 12 hours after I make my own bad joke about Mr. Hanky Cat's gotta too. More than anything else, I think that shows he's in a cult. Too much, eh?

But, know what? I feel for the guy. When the cult's soon down to a few smouldering stumps, little woodland creatures like Cat are gonna have to find a new habitat.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:19:23 (GMT)
From: CW
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I dunno but he stole Mr Hanky from me!
Message:
Oh I dunno. I might just turn really feral and eat a few chumps like you that bother straying into my domain. Hannibal Cat!
PS;You be the producer of South Park? Or are you Kenny's long lost Dad?
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Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:41:50 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: ** Best of Forum ** (Catweasel uses 4 sentences...
Message:
...almost of his very own and places them one after the other.)

Unfortunately he also to echo Jim's 'Dunno' from the previous exchange in his first line, which kind of reinforces my earlier belief that the 'Cat' has no thoughts of his own beyond enjoying Mr Rawat's thoughts about things and sod anybody else.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:47:52 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Were you expecting original thought?
Message:
Thought would be a useful start.
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:33:48 (GMT)
From: The Original Des Perado!!
Email: Somewhereovertherainbow.com
To: Everybody.
Subject: Did someone say what's goin' on???
Message:
To qoute Bart Simpson, 'I know nothing, I was'nt there and you can't prove anything.

But if I was a betting man, I would put a dollar each way on the latest syncronised machinations just being M's retirement plan being put in place. And let's face it,he did start his work trip very early in life so what's the problem if he chooses to give it up before he goes to wherever we end up.

As for myself;- :), :), :), :)........

Twiz.
Ps: If anyone is talking
to that AK47 loving lunatic
who lives in my city, ask him
where I can pick up a decent
scanner.But be warned, someone
is 'under my table.'

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 14:26:37 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: Hey! Sh*t for brains
Message:
Yeah, you Catweasel.

The people here were deluded, now they are not. That's how they know it is you that dreams foolish and pathetic dreams. They know what is in your head -- the lies and confusion. The sadness and delusion.

Dream on, Cat, of that idea you have -- your own special loving Lord. Your very own oh!-so-special secret little friend in your head.

Well, Cat, I can dig it. Like, with your evident social skills and flair, well, I guess you need an imaginary friend in your head. Ah! THAT grace!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:32:52 (GMT)
From: CW
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: All that intellect
Message:
From a brain the size of a raisin. You never had it. And you come across just a little bit sad. What a tragedy you really are.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:45:29 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: Nice way to spread that K, CW, so loving
Message:
Guess what you amoral neo-Hindu - John has got a peaceful conscience. Have you?
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 20:15:53 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: A friend of mine in Oz has told me that Catweasle
Message:
is an EV monitor. He (my friend) thinks that CW steps up his attacks whenever a new Aussie exits or comes out as Tony did.

If I were FA I would block him from posting until he sends an email saying that he has understood that Rawat is no more than a Hindu Jim Bakker and EV is headed for a PTL-type scandal.

I'm not FA but I know that the truth always wins in the end and CW will eventually see the light by hanging out here.

I bet a lot of EV monitors end up quitting. Too much straightforward honesty and intelligence here. You have to be really thick or maliciously twisted to not be affected by it.

Or of course hanging on because of having something to lose like a title and 30 years of a belief system in which one has invested heavily.

I just find anonymity cowardly and anonymous threats to be harassment bordering on an offense serious enough to report to the anonymouse's ISP.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:29:12 (GMT)
From: CW
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: A friend of mine in Oz has told me that Catweasle
Message:
Pat you are such a sook! You are very gullible. EV monitors wouldn't dare post .Would they? I mean you've got it all sussed. For the life of me I fail to understand this wail of the endangered species cry every time some-one is challenged here.
One thing I can tell you 100% is that no such animal as Tony Walker exists. You should be asking yourself who or what Tony Walker is and stop worrying what use to be your pretty little head about me and Victoria, Goddess of the South.
Time for you to wake up. It has changed.the rules of engagement are blurred. But you keep on plodding along sweetie. It may well hit you the same way Paul got singed on the road to Damascus!
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:54:57 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: Hi, Catweasle. I always thought Paul was a phoney
Message:
Struck dumb on the way to Damascus. Never met the living lord. Started the Christian religion and made a nice living doing it too just as your living lord does.

To each his own friend. I am not attacking your religion. And I don't have a personal beef with you as I'm new here and haven't bought into all the historical feuds. I just got bored with the new church of elan vital and the church ladies. You don't sound like a church lady. So what is you story?

I don't know anything about you really. I can't believe that your nastiness isn't either a reaction to years of being pilloried by exes here or if you're pulling our legs. Come on fess up and drop that disguise. Thelma came out of the closet. It's time for Victoria to strip and expose her toned bod.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 04:19:36 (GMT)
From: CW
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Hi, Catweasle. I always thought Paul was a phoney
Message:
Church ladies piss us off worldwide. Religion? Makes me puke. Me? I practice K and see M when I can. No drama. I dont envy.
I've got my own life ,however tricky that gets.I dunno the stuff spouted here has never had me.
People can ASK me for money. If I am comfortable it is kosher , I'll give. If not...I dont. There is a fair bit of leg pulling here. But there are also some seriously fucked up people here. Fucked up BEFORE and fucked up after! Pat , I know nearly all the posters here now. How they think, how they communicate,where they live. It hasn't changed my perspective on what I value. I value something quite different to many here.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 08:52:50 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: CW
Subject: Hi, Catweasle, thanks for that
Message:
Did you see my long post to you in the inactive thread - ribbing you a bit- but basically saying I don't buy into groupthink or take sides in old feuds whose history I do not understand? I would have no reservations about you if you were not anonymous but that's your choice.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 15:59:15 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: Safe to say Cat has a few problems?
Message:
And this is from his friend, okay? So don't be giving me any shit about how biased I am or anything. But, really, you have to know what's gone on with this fellow to see how pathetic he is. (FRIEND, Cat. I'm your friend). Right from the very beginning, he's been this two-note pussy with nothing to say but two things: either he'll snarl and spout unfunny, opaque jabs that are always ineffectual or, even worse because it's so bizarre, he'll cry like he's doing here about how no one here has any integrity, we're all sick liars and he has a better way to communicate. I swear, Patrick, it's sick, sick, sick.

I mean, compare him to people like Scott C. or Erika, for instance. They're premies too but they actually behave like human beings. They come here, talk a bit, argue, agree, laugh, frown, whatever. They at least communicate as if they have something to say, their thoughts matter and the like.

But what can you say about Cat? That he's an asshole? I mena, really, what can you say about him?

Here's a thought experiment:

Imagine you were out walking one day, some nice, bright and sunny early spring weekend morning. You stop in to some cafe and run into a couple of friends. They've got a friend with them you're introduced to. His name's Bob and he's visiting from Australia. The conversation meanders here and there and eventually it turns out you realize between the two of you that you know someone in common. Who? Why Catweasel, of course! He's Bob's son!

So what are you going to say about him? That he's this ......

What could you possibly say about him? I know what I'd say. I'd say, 'well guys, it's getting a little late. Gotta go feed the dog. Nice meeting you, Bob .....'

What else COULD you say? That his son's a bilious coward who nonetheless likes to intimidate people if he thinks he can scare them a bit or something? That he's been posting on this bulletin board for three years now and has yet to have anything even close to a real convesation that wasn't about the only topic he will discuss, how everyone supposedly picks on him? That he's one lost cult member among thousands but that what's unique about him, perhaps, is how ugly his personality has become?

I thinhk I'd BUY a dog to get out of that conversation.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 10:25:49 (GMT)
From: Thelma the Secretary
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Monday Memo; in re mandatory usage of emotikons
Message:
Owing to the many misunderstandings that have arisen on this forum we are now instituting a glossary of emotikons which will take the place of body language, pheronomes, facial expressions, shrugs, touches, silent terms of endearment, nudges, winks, hisses, boos, clucks, tuts, tongues in cheeks and other non-verbal strategies of communication.

The use of these emotikons will be enforced rigorously by the Forum Administrators and anyone not adhering to a synchronized usage will be terminated without warning.

:! phooey, raspberry, derision

:@ maternal parent fornicator

:# yeah, you and whose army?

:$ you'd do ANYTHING for money! Whore!

:% take a flying fuck thru a rolling donut

;& censored by FA

:* that's sour, that left a nasty taste in my mouth or let me put my teeth back in first.

:( quasi-friendly fuck off

:) phoney smile

:{ not another root canal!

:} you mean I won't die from this disease and the cure won't kill me but I'll never be able to eat, sleep, have sex, get drunk, stoned or watch Jerry Springer ever again?

:[ not another caesarian!

:] of course I'm HAPPY - didn't I just say so!

:< why kill time when you can kill yourself

:> tip toe thru the tulips

:? Why me? Alternatively - What is the meaning of life and the purpose of men's nipples

:/ Okay, you called my bluff

:a as I was saying about the theory of relativity

:A as I was saying about chaos theory and hybrid philosophies and interdisciplinary eclecticism

:b boy oh boy I need a brewski

:B goofy, Bugs Bunny, Lil Abner

:c crabby

:C cut that out moron

:d did I say that?

:D I really didn't mean it

:e eek!

:E that's eerie - now you're freaking me out

:j tongue in cheek

:J just between you and me, you know what I mean

:k snot technique new style - the possibility of Knowledge

:K snot technique old style a la nectar from the pineal gland and the kundalini thousand petalled lotus

:l sheepish apology

:L eating humble pie

:m yummy

:M mmmmmm, don't stop

:n naughty boy!

:N was that an earthquake?

:o oops

:O Oh my god! Yesus H Yoshua Bar Yoseph Christ and all the angels!

:p phooey

:P ptooey

:q nice try

:Q sticking tongue out, alternatively gag me with a wooden spoon

:r grrrr

:R roar!!!

:s squirm

:S grovel

:t insincere thanks

:T sincere thanks (not applicable in Japanese where there are 40 diffrent ways of saying thank you all of which express resentment - I'm not kidding)

:u you what?

:U you didn't!

:v I'm impressed

:V mine's bigger than yours

:w wow!

:W awesome!

:x a wet kiss

:X a french kiss or other cunning lingual acrobatics

:y why me?

:Y white man speak with forked tongue

:z boring!

:Z what? yes yes, I was listening

:~ who me?

:` moi?

:- kiss left cheek

:_ kiss right cheek

:' air kiss, alternatively - kiss my ass (arse in UK)

:1 I got your joke but it wasn't funny

:2 talking out of side of one's mouth, car salesman's smile

:3 aren't I cute

:4 lick your teeth - you've got something stuck in them

:5 talking out of side of one's mouth, politician's smile, note rivulets at corners of lips for BS to run out

;6 come up and see me sometime

;9 go down on me sometime

;69 don't speak with you mouth full

:7 dismay, embarassment, perplexity, existential angst

;8 wolf whistle

Thank you for taking this Rorsach Test. If you agreed with most of the interpretations of these emotikons could you please call the toll free number at the end of this message and we'll be right over with a straightjacket to pick you up.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:22:41 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Thelma the Secretary
Subject: Here's a great one G made up
Message:
$$$:)->O-<

That's him dancing with his crown. Money makes him so happy. - G

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 16:56:59 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: alternate version
Message:
Original version:

$$$:)->O-<

Alternate version:

$$$:)>O<

Vertical version:


$$
$$
 ..
 =
 v
 O
 ^

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:34:42 (GMT)
From: Thelma
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Yes, G, he does have short legs and a big torso
Message:
just like the vertical version. But for a shorthand version for Rawat we could just use $;)

Or even just the dollar sign by itself.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:17:30 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Thelma
Subject: ok that does it--now i try! here!
Message:
okay that does it. now i got to go to work here.........K....w..._.G._...Y....\/@U@\/........( ø )......../>R<\.........\)U(/..........E.V.......««u’‘u»».i hope this sucker stays in one piece when i post it/notice how it spells 'guru ' down the middle? K for the krown? and EV at his feet? and in his hands, wave with the one and a drink in the other? the damned server converted all my dollar signs to some ridiculous code, so i couldnt use them.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 02:37:01 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: server ruined it. again:
Message:
okay that does it. now i got to go to work here

..........K....
w...._.G._...Y
...\/.@U@.\/..
......( _ø_ )...
....../.>R<.\....
......\.)U(./.....
........E.V.....
...««u'__'u»»...

i hope this sucker stays in one piece when i post it/

notice how it spells 'guru ' down the middle? K for the krown? and EV at his feet? and in his hands, wave with the one and a drink in the other? the damned server converted all my dollar signs to some ridiculous code, so i couldnt use them.
if thiscomes out senseless, blame the server not me . i reworked it over a dozen times before posting it. if it fails, then i give up on this damned server!!! grrr.

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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 19:53:09 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: good work, looks Picassoesque (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 15:32:21 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Thelma the Secretary
Subject: That settles it. Patrick needs to exercise more
Message:
Patrick,

Something's terribly wrong if you've got the time to write this shit and I've got the time to read it. We're all getting joined at the brain and look what we're sending each other? Filler!

Actually, though, some of those were pretty good. Mind you, how can I trust my standards anymore. I'm mushing out. WE'RE mushing out. Only, Joe Whalen, who runs 500 miles a day, Scott Talkington, who rides 5,000 miles a day and Hamzen, who just can't stop moving no how, are immune.

Have a nice day! :)

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:25:58 (GMT)
From: Thelma
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim, I blame it on the past week's Love Fest on FV
Message:
As you can see from the time of the post I've been flying pretty high for days and not getting to bed until it was time to get up. Sleepless highs tend to make me do dumb things. In the cold light of the morning it's like looking at the cosmology one wrote on acid. It makes total sense at the time but looks like the utterings of an idiot or a teenager on speed the next day.

But I feel great and when I do my Irish blood makes me want to dance. That was the closest thing to a dance I could do here given the medium.

The flowers that bloom in the spring tra la have nothing to do with the case tra la.

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:54:57 (GMT)
From: woolfy
Email: None
To: Thelma the Secretary
Subject: sing a song
Message:
Maggie and Milly and Molly and May
went down to the beach to play one day

Maggie diccoverd a shell that sang
so sweetly she could not remember her troubles

Milly befriended a stranded star
who's rays five languid fingers were

Molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raised sideways while blowing bubbles

May came home with a smooth round stone
as small as the world and as large as alone

For whatever we loose (like a you or a me)
it's always ouerselfes we find in the sea

Maggie and Milly and Molly and May
went down to the beach to play one day

it's a poem from e.e. cummings
that describes for me the possibility of the different approaches to M and K ......and now please kill me.....woolfy

)

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:19:21 (GMT)
From: Pat Conlon
Email: None
To: woolfy
Subject: woolfy, pretty song - did you hear Rawat's song?
Message:
If any of you have never heard Rev Rawat singing then you must. I wish I had not thrown that tape out. He sang for 15 minutes with Daya at HJ 99 in Delhi. It was worse than the sounds of a racoon killing a cat which happens in my backyard regularly. He has a strangled monotone - actually tone deaf but of course he could have just been drunk. The fireworks were pretty though.
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Date: Tues, Mar 20, 2001 at 11:33:12 (GMT)
From: woolfy
Email: None
To: Pat Conlon
Subject: woolfy, pretty song - did you hear Rawat's song?
Message:
Have you been there? I was in India 1991. But after 1991 I thougt it's not worthwhile to go there to create such a hard time for myself with just so less result in learnig about life.
My still devoted Premiefriends told me how wonderfull it was to try to sing with M it's an example for their lifes. M sings and we sing with him. For me this is dreaming a romantic dream that never will happen. I wonder how naiv I was, but on this website I meet a lot of nice and intelligent people I share the same experience so at least it' s a little bit easier to forgive myself for being so naive.

I would like to discuss with everyone here, but my time is limted and it's hard for me that I only can epress myself in english in a very limited way, although I don't get all the jokes. So from time to time I will appear and express what's going on. A lot is going on and I like to witness it.

power to the people ........woolfy

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:52:47 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Thelma the Secretary
Subject: Thelma,
Message:
Thelma,

Did you make all those up yourself? That's very good.

:t from :A:N:T:%

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Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 19:30:49 (GMT)
From: Thelma
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: You must be tripping Anth
Message:
To see the world in a grain of sand

And heaven in a wild flower

and significance in a goddamn emotikon!

It must have been the vibe you know that you grokked.

Yes, I made them up in a state of

FEELING FREE WHEE WHEE!

Dispeller of snakes and lover of the little people.

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