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I used to have a grand time at Shalom Place with the variety of topics available. I also made some good connections with a few people branching out as email pen-pals. I left because of Phil's final word on things, his faith which I respect, but do not fully agree with. Also w.c. put down many people with an arrogance which was uncalled for. Never figured out as to why Phil allowed such atrocious conduct.

Brad was always consistent in his views, and not at any time did what he said on Shalom Place disagree with what was said on thalo.net. Brad and I had some good exchanges on Shalom Place which I hope is a carry over to this forum.

I do hope that you will all allow me the opportunity to try and be part of this forum. Since we are all communicating with the mind, it should not matter that I am a woman. I believe that with my courage to give it a try, we may find that there really is no separate masculine or feminine mind, but an integration of both within us. Hopefully we can all benefit from this adventure.

Thanks, Freebird. I must say that I always enjoyed and appreciated your civility and your seeming desire to put people above any differences of opinion that you might have with them. That is actually quite refreshing. And even though you and I have some profound difference of opinion about many things, I never got the impression that I had to think a certain way "or else" you would no longer talk to me or (hopefully) vice versa, although I am so incredibly opinionated and dogmatic about certain things, and I'm not likely to ever swallow the truth in order to just get along (at least not long-term), that I don't ever expect anyone to like me for long. And actually that's a huge improvement for me because people-pleasing sucks and is the ultimate quagmire. I know. So if someone doesn't like me and wants to tell me to go to hell, I think I can live with that much better these days.

Sometimes I'm magnanimous and generous. But just as often I get pissed off, but then that's just a part of life. And although I'm all for trying to be civil, one of the things that one will see is that truth, creativity, and free expression are the first causalities of civility. The myth out there is that "civility at all costs" is a good thing. Well, I think there are inherent rewards to being civil, but we should probably also keep in mind the often tremendous costs of people-pleasing, trying to get along, not creating any waves, looking for approval, sucking up to people, etc., etc. And I speak from experience! No, I really do. And so when I say such things it's not a plea for people to be uncivil. It's more a plea that perhaps they consider how ultimately uncivil it can be not speak the truth because one is afraid of offending. Shall we make a list of the world's evils that stem from this? I think perhaps we should compile that list just as a reminder. It's often about nothing but self-deception. We can easily enough convince ourselves that we are being good, polite, and respectful by not speaking of things which we know damn well will likely offend people and will thus perhaps get us into some trouble as well. So it's all to easy to thrown personal integrity out the window and go-along to get-along. And like I said, perhaps we should make a fairly long and complete list of the atrocities of the world that can be attributed to that.

But anyway, must more blabbering. I enjoyed by time at Shalom Place because it introduced me to so many new ideas, opinions, and authors. But obviously when dealing with religion there is a line that you don't cross. And let me perhaps paint a picture of that by quote from the book, "The Book," by Alan Watts: Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon segregating the "saved" from the "damned," the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group. Even religious liberals play the game of "we're-more-tolerant-than-you." Furthermore, as systems of doctrine, symbolism, and behavior, religions harden into institutions that must command loyalty, be defended and kept "pure," and—because all belief is fervent hope, and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty—religions must make converts. The more people who agree with us, the less nagging insecurity about our position. In the end one is committed to being a Christian or a Buddhist come what may in the form of new knowledge. New and indigestible ideas have to be wangled into the religious tradition, however inconsistent with its original doctrines, so that the believer can still take his stand and assert, "I am first and foremost a follower of Christ/Mohammed/Buddha, or whomever." Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness – an act of trust in the unknown.

I would be inclined to amend that, and to say that all human ventures, projects, institutions, belief system, ideas, politics, or whatever, are subject to the same dynamics to some degree. Thalo generally takes the tact that some of these bad behaviors are unique to religion, and if not unique, they are expressed with an unmatched pathology. But I say it doesn't take but a glance at Stalin or Saddam Hussein to see that things are not nearly so cut-and-dried. At the base of things are human egos and the will to survive (including, and especially, our ideas about things). But I will more than concede that ideas not very well grounded in reality tend to produce over-reactions and worse. But my schtick is that the world outside of religion is chock full of ideas not very well grounded in reality, and I see the same lashing out types of behavior.

I admit to being a bit naïve as well. To me it just seems completely obvious that god cannot be owned by any one religion. It just doesn't even begin to occur to me that it could be any other way. Yes, I know people are often devoted to their belief systems, but in most of these belief systems there is at least lip-service given to things such as doubt and questioning. And I'm a bit naïve too about the whole concept of god. For me, if you hit the realization of just how incredible and big a thing that you're talking about, then all of our little human ideas of religion seem so comic-bookish, stilted, invented, and fake. For me, spirituality is all about noticing what is, and then having some kind of spiritual or mystical experience because we will have overcome our rote habituation to the incredibleness of life and existence. It's not about adding on layer after layer of artificial and superstitious crap in order that we might feel something. Yes, all of this crap can be cleverly devised to move one's emotions and sometimes make us feel things that are quite profound. But so will a Broadway play. And that's fine. But few people mistake a Broadway play for god – or would want to.

I have a pastor I know and, ironically, he says he doesn't like religion either. And I understand what may be his quandary. And if it is not his exact quandary, it is no doubt someone else's: How does one pay proper homage to the mystery of existence? How does one, in the midst of such horror and suffering, find a safe path through the chaos and make some sense of it all? How does one, if one truly wished to improve himself, go about doing so? Religion is the easiest thing to pull off the shelf and get involved in. It promises all those things and tries, sometimes, to address all those things. But what inevitably happens is that we mistake the symbols for the thing we're reaching for. I've never had much of a heated argument with anyone about god. Heck, just to address the subject of god, even if one has a different understanding, is somewhat supportive rather than threatening. Even if one argues that there is no god is not, at least in my experience, seen as particularly threatening. Oh, but have I gotten into some scrapes over the symbols.

Brad, when I first appeared on Shalom Place, I was pretty much set in my spiritual belief, which gradually through a miraculous metaphorphosis changed into a great love for all of humanity who followed other religions and spiritual belief systems as well, allowing me to finally embrace God without religion. This has brought me great joy and an inner peace, that I never knew before in my set defined spiritual life.

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....although I am so incredibly opinionated and dogmatic about certain things, and I am not likely to ever swallow the truth in order to get along.....
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That is just an admirable trait that I do see in you, Brad; this inner strength that will stay true to what you believe is true, and not what another declares as the final word as a messenger.

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To me it just seems completely obvious that god cannot be owned by any one religion.
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Yes, Brad, here it is in a nutshell as to why I did leave my set religion, my love for all of humanity and God's love for all.

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Religion is the easiest thing to pull of the shelf and get involved in. It promises all those things and tries sometimes to address all those things.
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Absolutely. A smorgasboard table awaits; let us dine and be merry in knowing the certainty of our lives to come. I choose wisdom over the banquet, indeed.

As I recall, according to Phil, I was the devil incarnate.

I always enjoyed debating with him, and had absolutely nothing against the guy personally. But his normally civil demeanor would somehow collapse completely when it came to me. I never could figure that out. In the end I assumed that the whole idea of truly free and open discourse was impossible for him, because his bedrock was decorum, where mine was freedom of expression.

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This has brought me great joy and an inner peace, that I never knew before in my set defined spiritual life.

Inner peace? You have inner peace?

Get out. NOW! Run for you life! This is thalo.net!!!

That was a joke, by the way.

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Yes, Brad, here it is in a nutshell as to why I did leave my set religion, my love for all of humanity and God's love for all.

I don't quite have a love for all of humanity. I don't really hate the French, even though I make jokes about them all the time. And I love the Germans because I'm basically one of them. The English, of course. You've got to love the English just because they planted many of us here in America. Love the Japanese as well, except for that whole Pearl Harbor thing. My current relationship with Canadians is a bit strained because they're sort of a bunch of weenies and cry-babies. Gotta love the Australians. If I was ever in a fight, I would want a couple Aussies by my side. The Chinese? I love the Yellow River. And there's some beautiful country in China. I love South Korea even though they are going a bit socialist, and North Korea is on probation at the moment. But a mother's love can never be squelched.

I don't like Islam. Maybe I like some of the people, but any religion that steals the hearts and souls of people bothers me. Same with Catholicism. It's just too much religion, not enough respect for the individual. Buddhist are okay, although some of them seem a few precepts shy of a load.

I'm not making fun of your blanket statement that you have love for all of humanity, it just made me realize that my love (probably like everyone else's) is quite selective. Oh, in theory I want to love everyone. Hating people is such a bitter and draining experience. It's no fun. It just drags you down into the quicksand. My dad loved to carry a grudge though. He was a master at it. He could remember a little slight from thirty years ago like it had just happened yesterday.

In regards to religion, this is how I figure it: In just about any other human endeavor we need a middle-man. If you want to be a brain surgeon, you've got to go to medical school and learn some skills. If you want to be an engineer, same thing. There are mathematics to learn and all kinds of other stuff. But no middle-man is needed to learn about existence because we are all basically steeped in it. A teacher here or there, or some guides. Great. We all have things to learn (and probably to unlearn). But it just seems silly for anyone to throw themselves over to a whole concocted system when reality is right there on the shelf for anyone to take off and look at. Same thing regarding our consciousness. Getting involved with anyone but a guide whose only interest is to set you free (especially from the need for further guidance from him or her) is just asking for trouble.

Happy New Year to everyone!.
thalo, you made me laugh since Phil's image of you as the devil incarnate brought back a memory of a personal email exchange I had with him regarding a most beautiful sacred spiritual experience I was having (which I am too reluctant to share here on the forum, at this time anyway). Phil reminded me of a saint who also shared same experience, and what she was told by the superiors: "Yes, the experience is most likely from God, but we certainly cannot rule out the possibility of the evil one's involvement". He certainly made my day with this question mark?.

All kidding aside, I did like Phil and still do.

we certainly cannot rule out the possibility of the evil one's involvement

Hillary Clinton?

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she was told by the superiors: "Yes, the experience is most likely from God, but we certainly cannot rule out the possibility of the evil one's involvement".

What a buzz-kill. It SO encapsulates the religious experience.
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Thanks Markle .

I never doubted and knew the graces where given from God. . Not at any time did I have torturous thoughts, only great compassion for the departed saint who suffered greatly due to the ignorant superior's remarks.

The devil is basically the fall guy for all the stuff we don't like. I keep bringing up things such as burning epileptics at the stake because I think we can see this vector that goes from superstition --------------------> to a better view of things. I say "a better view of things" rather than "absolute fact" because our views are always changing. Who knows, maybe we'll find out that epilepsy is some mutation planted inside us by the devil. Perhaps there really is some cosmic war going on that we don't now see directly. But for now, the devil has to take a few paces into the background while other explanations take its place. And the propensity in this day and age is to say that because we see this vector going from superstition --------------------> to better explanations that the original superstitions had no basis and are just waiting for humanity to eventually one day wipe them out completely. This may indeed be what happens. It may even what many people want to happen. But I think the rational mind just has to notice that superstition is being supplanted by other explanations and to wonder what might supplant some of our own explanations some day. And one might wonder how many of the things that we believe today will be looked on by later people as superstitions.

But in the case of the devil, you've got one, big, whoppin' logical problem on your hands there. You're basically saying that there was an all-loving god who came first, who was the first cause. Nothing came before him and nothing was created without his magic wand. And so if your theology contains devils and demons, they cannot contain an all-loving god. No matter how hard you want to try to make this happen, it's not going to happen. However, if you are a god (or force, or entity, or whatever), and you create the possibility of both life and death, pleasure and pain, compassion and cruelty, and you sort of mix these things all up in a big bowl of contingent and unpredictable evolutionary soup, then it is inevitable that cruel and painful acts will be performed. You've set up the universe that way. The universe is a place for things to happen -- to act. And you've also set up the parameters for the results of those actions, including pain and death.

Now, granted, I'm not saying we don't have at least some free choice to act one way or another. But that's not the issue. The issue isn't whether or not we can act like a devil, but whether or not there is an actual devil. Yes, in our superstitions there is a devil, just as there is a god. But in our facts there is just people acting in ways that we characterize as evil and cruel. And if the devil made them do it then it's not their fault anyway. They're not really being evil or bad. And if the devil is the devil, and he was made that way by god, then it's not the devil's fault either. He's not really being evil or bad.

If there isn't some intrinsic "evilness" to things then we just have to say that evil is not a thing but an event, an action. If humans can be evil then it is we who must be responsible for that evil, not the devil, for if the devil is responsible, then it means that people are not. So why do we need this idea of the devil?

All we're doing with our inventions of demons and devils is to try to put some plausible distance between god and evil acts. And none of these machinations work. They fall apart. If you say that there is evil in the world because of the devil, then you're saying that humans aren't responsible for their actions. And if you say that evil is the result of free-will making bad choices, then no devil is needed, for if there is a devil bollixing up our free will, then it isn't us who is being bad.

One quickly sees that a devil isn't needed to explain anything. There is no need for this fictitious middle-man. It's all a ruse to try to keep god's hands untainted and to give us some kind of an explanation for why people do some the really horrible things that they do. But people do these things because they can do them. They are making some of the choices that are available to be made. The world is an entire smorgasbord of possible choices. Goodness is not doing some of those horrendous things. Badness is doing them. But we're talking about actions, not extra-ontological states of being. If the blame goes anywhere, it is on the people committing those acts. And if we must go higher up, then it is god's fault. A devil makes little sense and is merely the product of imaginative and fearful minds (and manipulative religions).

Do good. Act well. Honor truth. And start to wipe away such outrageous stone age superstition.

Herring farts. No kidding.

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Some Fish Pass Wind to Communicate

"Cutting the cheese." "Breaking wind." Whatever the expression, people have long been taught that passing wind in groups is rude.

But for herring, a type of fish, group "tooting" sessions may be an important way of communicating.

A research team, led by marine biologist Ben Wilson of the Bamfield Marine Science Centre in Canada, recently did the first ever study that says these fish talk to each other by breaking wind.

Wilson and his team studied herring from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The team caught fish and put them in large tanks to watch their behavior.

"It turns out that herring make unusual farting sounds at night," explained Wilson.

Wilson and his team named the noise Fast Repetitive Tick (FRT).

Can anyone translate this video?

Man, brother, that is a funny clip. I can’t stop watching it.

Would that this had really happened, but unfortunately, it’s art: a comedy sketch from Belgian television. See here. Scroll down for a link to the video with English subtitles.

“Boemerang” is actually a (very lame) Dutch tv show.

I read that the actor who plays Erik Hartman is famous for his laugh.

There’s one big mistake in the translation: “Suddenly the whole network and I were fired”. In fact, “Hartman” says that big shots of the network were waiting behind the stage, and fired him on the spot when the program was over.

Man, brother, that is a funny clip. I can’t stop watching it.

I'm with you on that sentiment, brother.

Would that this had really happened, but unfortunately, it’s art: a comedy sketch from Belgian television. See here. Scroll down for a link to the video with English subtitles.

Well, I definitely thank you for setting me straight on that. I had my suspicions because if you watch the audience, there is no sign of anyone taking offense. That seemed quite odd. And the other thing is that I thought it was odd that the host of the show, at the first sign that he had uncontrollable giggles, didn't invent some excuse to leave the sound stage, on whatever pretense, so that he wouldn't create a scene. (He could have faked a bad cough or something. That's what I would have done.) The third strike was the way that segment had been filmed. They seemed to cut and transition at just the right moments for maximum humorous effect. But still, it seemed plausible that of the thousands of Joe Schmoe moderators in all the Podunk small towns and community access cable channels of the world that something like this would happen somewhere.

Thanks for the inside scoop on that. I didn't know what language they were speaking but was fairly confident that if might be one of the ones that you knew.

I wasn’t sure the video was real or not either. I thought the public inanely starting to applaud was a nice touch. One can imagine the producer of the show hitting the applause button in order to end the show, the applause-sign lights up, and the audience obeys.

By a nice coincidence, just a couple of weeks ago another very funny video from these comedians was aired on Dutch television in a show about awkward moments on television. The makers of that Dutch show thought it was a clip from real life, and presented it as such. Seeing it at the time, I thought it was real too. After seeing the Boemerang video, I for some reason remembered that other clip, and searched and found it on You Tube.

Here’s a familiar fable: The Scorpion and the Frog.

Here’s an interesting analysis of it. The punchline of this essay (which I think is worth reading in full) is:

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Game theory does not really take scorpions into account. It holds that people will defect because that is in their best interest--because the future has no shadow. Game theory fails as a tool when we are dealing with sociopathology or extreme denial. The human dilemma is that all progress ultimately fails or at least slides back, that anything once proven must be proven again a myriad of times, that there is nothing so well established that a fundamentalist (of any religion or stripe) cannot be found to deny it, and suffer the consequences, and then deny that he suffered the consequences.

The scorpion and the frog is a story I absolutely love . It also reminded me as to how often I was shafted in doing good for others, yet somehow I lived through it all. Fate was kind, for I did not sink into the sea, but the others drowned instead.

It also reminded me as to how often I was shafted in doing good for others, yet somehow I lived through it all.

Any person who believes in some higher perspective does not see the shafting as the be-all, end-all of the situation. If one is expecting some kind of trade of services (I give you this, you give me that), then that is not a higher perspective. That's not true (or the highest type) of altruism. That's just trading one thing for another, even though we'll often think of our motives as being altruistic. We like thinking good thoughts about ourselves, especially when they can be so cheaply and easily obtained by just a mere thought. But a situation like that would be normal life, and it is a part of life we have to learn to deal with. And we might indeed call it at least Stage One Altruism if we make a bargain with someone and then keep that bargain. But it's highly conditional altruism, analogous to the idea of conditional love (as opposed to unconditional love).

Maybe we could say that Stage Two Altruism is where the frog gives the scorpion a ride across the river even though the frog knows full well there is a large risk of being stung by the scorpion. But the frog is motivated by Stage Two Altruism and thus helps the scorpion merely because the scorpion needs help.

Another type of altruism we could call Stage One Pseudo-Altruism. It applies to those cases when we are involved in a "this-for-that" trading of services (Stage One Altruism), and then if we are betrayed, in order to cushion the blow, we then rationalize a different motive for ourselves by instantaneously promoting our Stage One Altruism to Stage Two Altruism. We rationalize that we had intended all along to help the scorpion for the scorpion's sake, not ours. And by doing so we thus create the Stage A Martyr.

I know for a fact I've done the Stage A Martyr thing a number of times. And the general theory I have rolling around my head is that unless and until we get a grip on the facts of the game (which is that we almost always are doing something because of what is in it for ourselves) that we will never, ever likely reach a stage of altruism where we are really giving to the other simply because the other is in need. We have to dig up all these rather unpleasant facts about life and ourselves because otherwise our rationalizations can quickly have us twisting our motivations and believing things that just aren't true. And if we're confused about our motivations, you can be darned sure that the effects of our actions are going to have similar ambiguous results. Very often we'll be doing little more than acting from a martyr complex. Or our "generosity" will be hidden in expectations that others act a certain way. The frog who knows about the rules of the game of life, and who knows about the danger of scorpions, has none of this mental baggage and none of the confusion.

I wrote this yesterday. It's a rather weak essay, but I thought I'd share it all the same:

Sometimes it's just nice to do what Supertramp says and take the long way home. Sometimes it's nice just to have the time to think. If one spends most of one's day in and around cement and buildings, it's nice to take a drive in the country. One place is hard-edged. The other is rolling. It's not magic. The magic is all back in the city where things are constructed in such a way as to allow industry and thousands to exist where otherwise they could not naturally. That's magic. The country is just real.

Driving down the road you see a partial portrait of people's lives by looking at the houses they live in, the cars they have parked in their driveways, and just the overall scenery and landscape. One imagines that those (like me) who live in apartments are living in the equivalent of zoo cages while those living on expansive plots of ground in the country are living as if on a different planet. And yet the view is always better from the road, from one's car. To whoosh by so much scenery has its advantages. As pretty as some places look from a distance, I’m not always sure I'd want to be stuck in that scenery. Yeah, that farm looks the epitome of bucolic, but that's a hell of a lot of grass to mow every other day.

And that got me to thinking that everyone has their place. Shake and shuffle a bucket full of rocks and the particles, large or small, round or smooth, will tend to sift into their place. They don't need much nudging. They just naturally fall there. Destiny may be like that. It may not exist in any sort of real way other than as a description of where you are, where you've been, and where you will go. But when you paste all that into a scrap book, the pictures tell what looks like a story.

And that's where the essay ended. I didn't have an ending. Something was missing. It may have been up to Battlestar Galactica standards (dig, dig), but it wasn't up to mine. And yet that makes sense. We all try to tidy up life into neat little stories that make sense, but that's not the way our ongoing story looks or works from our perspective. It's chaotic and unpredictable. We see where we might want to go, but there is no definite path engraved in the road ahead to make this plain. And if we knew how things would turn out after we made some decision we would go back and try something different. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how we would all be quickly stuck in Bill Murray's "Groundhog Day" if we had this power. So a certain amount of fatalism is required. That's not necessarily sloughing off responsibility for our lives. It's just a recognition of limits. Control freaks, after all, are annoying for a very good reason. They are closet groundhogs.

What one can try to do is be awake and not just be a nerve that fires blindly and automatically. And that's one reason for taking the long way home.

Let me recommend a valuable website in case you need to check out someone's criminal record.
This is a free public service and extremely reliable. You can also join up for a reasonable fee as an individual or as an employer of a small or large business for group investigations.

http://www.criminalcheck.com/

I wish I would have known of this service a few years ago when I had hired a young man, a handy man, to help with outside work now and than. After using this man several times, I felt extremely uncomfortable around him and my intuition told me that things were not quite right with him. I paid attention to my feelings and never called him again to work for me.

I went to the website a few days ago to check up on another person and found that my former handy man was also on the list as a high risk sex offender. This man had come highly recommended and, of course, appearances can be deceiving.

If you have children, this site is a needed tool in checking out child care workers, teachers, and neighbors, as well as the family members of their friends.

Just a quick reminder before you do a search on my name, I was bothered for years by calls from the Sheriff's department, collection agencies, and others who were looking for someone with my exact name but with a different middle initial.

I'm not that guy. He's wanted in probably five states. I'm wanted only in three. Just something to keep in mind.

And what would everyone's threshold be for ex-criminal behavior? Certainly if I had children around the house, I wouldn't want my gardener to be a sexual offender. But even here I would want to know the details because (and I might be mistaken on this), it seems to me that they're playing a little fast and loose these days with the term "sexual offender." A nineteen year old boy who has sex with a seventeen year old girl could be labeled a "sexual offender." But that's much different from a true child molester. I'm just making this point because it would be so easy to creep small step by small step into an Orwellian nightmare world.

I think another thing that should be said is that a LOT of people have had some kind of brush with the law. Now, this can mean one of two things, that they are inherently criminal and can strike again at any time or that they have learned a lesson and become an even more solid citizen.