Tsukino_Rei

http://www.how-to-meditate.org/ http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22- free guided meditations http://www.meditainment.com/the-secret-garden/ Seeing lights and other objects; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1338300/Seeing-squiggles-Flashing-lights-The-eye-danger-signs-afford-ignore.html

As an adopted girl I went through a phase where I wondered if the lives of ancestors I didn't even know could have a negative spiritual effect on me. I reached the conclusion that I am an independent being with my own power and I am who I choose to be. There is certainly an element of nature and nurture. I have had negative experiences in my life. Modern science is proving that things that have happened to our genetic forerunners do have an effect on us, not just our development in the womb but ancient experiences translate into modern phobias. Fascinating, really. But I digress. We don't have control over how others have nurtured us. We don't have control over many biological constraints. But what we do have control over is how we choose to respond to those experiences. We can choose to build great stores of internal strength, compassion, and wisdom from the worst experiences. If we choose bitterness and anger then we spread bitterness and anger. If we choose compassion and wisdom then we spread healing. We all carry injuries of varying cause and degree. That doesn't have to make us into harmful people. You can guide your internal dialogue through prayer and meditation to refocus your intentions.

The most evil book I ever read was in the Trinity College Library in Dublin. It was an instructional book of torture methods used at the height of the protestant catholic civil war. I only saw two pages of it because it was behind glass, alongside various news papers of the day open to reports of torture and violence from either side of the conflict. There is no violence on television or in movies or in video games that comes close to that reality of THAT imagery. Even Game of Thrones. As to Dungeons and Dragons being evil, no. Of course it isn't. RPG's are just another form of story-telling. They are a form of story telling in which the reader creates a character to take part in the story. This makes them an excellent tool for imagination as in part the reader may also become the writer - but it's no more evil then any other medium of story telling. When I was a girl I was raised in fundamentalism. There was a period of time in which a Sunday School teacher leant me a book, she knew I loved to read, about the evil satanic new age movement and how it was infiltrating today's youth (me) - through Care Bears, My Little Ponies, Smurfs, and the Muppets. I ** you not. These things were banned in my home for a time based on a fear mongeror who made a small fortune and the tele-evangelists who made an even bigger fortune by telling parents that all the evils in todays youth came from the dark guidance of Papa Smurf. No amount of reasoning could convince the grownups around me that they were being ridiculous. So, as you can imagine, when the same group of people came along to warn me of the Satanic driving force behind Dungeons and Dragons I rolled my eyes and walked the other way.

Fairness in the philosophical sense I equate with justice. I recently attended a Bahai group meeting in which the topic was Justice, and there were readings from many religions and philosophers on the topic. The common thread in these readings was the idea that Justice, what is fair to our fellow man, is that we desire for them the best of what we desire for ourselves. Understanding, love, compassion, caring, and uplifting - these are the ultimate spiritual justice. This idea seems to be supported by recent studies of primate behaviour where-in the monkeys become upset when the best food isn't shared equally among them, or when one member of the group doesn't uplift the needs of the others. The instinct for fairness is a survival trait within social species which have evolved to survive through group strength and group support rather than individually. As an agnostic I tend to consider both the spiritual and scientific explanations for a given reality.

I have a keyboard and a piano.

Every time we cook peas to go with a meal I think my hamsters who have passed, especially the most recently passed, Jasparr. I always set a few aside for them. When I clean and cook any vegetable I feel a little sad, but especially when I cook peas. Heh, Chewbacca is outside my office door. He's made a game of tossing his toy birdy down the stairs, chasing after it, then bringing it up and doing it again!

I'm sorry for your losses. And I agree, Cryzme. I've always felt a strong sense of responsibility to make sure my furry companions have as happy and comfortable a life as possible, probably because I started with raising hamsters and they have such short lifespans! My living room became a hamster spa.

We've left our now 6 month old kitty, Chewbacca, with good friends while we house hunt in Canada. A couple of days ago he woke our dear friends at 3am by jumping on their keyboard until itunes started playing, then somehow finding the volume key and turning it up to maximum. They sent me a picture of him looking very smug ... and just a little bit evil.

I hope this doesn't become a legal fore-runner to normalising step-parents and foster parents grooming youths to marry them when they come of age.

I do agree that a dictatorship of the majority is something to be avoided and I am in favour of all members of society having a voice and the protection of certain rights and freedoms that should be shared by all people. And certainly, not all rich people take advantage of the tax evasion methods available to them, but for me the issue in discussion here is not how individuals behave, or even how a large group of individuals behave, but rather how the perceptions, rules and norms of society as a whole have been shaped to find certain behaviours either acceptable or undesirable depending upon the income level of the individuals performing the same basic behaviours. In the same way that it has been observed in the past that men sleeping around got feathers in their caps, while women sleeping around get to be called **s. There is an incongruency.

Panpariel, Brother Kamen, you guys are both agreeing that the very terms 'the rich', and 'the poor' are divisive and falsely imply that all people within these categories are the same, which in turn agrees with my statement that societal philosophies regarding 'the rich' and 'the poor' are to be questioned. I do think that the comparison to 'the Jews' is inappropriate, and again implies that questioning inequalities in the way our society applies the law within the class divide is in any way comparative to historic acts of ethnic cleansing and 'racial purification'.

Does that really happen often? Isn't 'class warfare' just a catchy shorthand for people who want to end discussions about inequality and legal jiggery pokery by claiming that even suggesting that the poor are being treated comparatively unfairly is an aggressive act bordering on hate crime? When poor people look for ways to reduce their taxes and effectively increase their income from the government it gets called benefit fraud and leaching off the system. When rich people do it the government loses even more money, but that's just good business. I see nothing wrong with challenging the perceptions of society on matters such as this. If challenging predominant societal philosophies regarding the rich and the poor is class warfare, then so be it.

Thank you Atwater.

When my kitten wants his breakfast he eats my nose! I have sometimes woken up with my entire nose inside his mouth. It's just a quick gentle nip. Then he sits on my chest and looks innocent. If I close my eyes again, he eats my nose again! WHYYYYYY!? Do your pets have any special ways of waking you up?

R.I.P Jasparr. He took good care of me.

Just googled Mormon Underpants for my own curiosity. The symbolism is actually quite neat, and some of the designs of the Temple Garments (as they are called by the Church of Latter Day Saints) are quite beautiful. http://store.lds.org...52_-1_Y_image_0 If I had any personal complaint it would be that were I Mormon living in a hot climate I'd want MUCH skimpier garments if I was going to wear them under my clothes all the time! But I'm not, so to each their own.

http://www.hogueprophecy.com/2009/05/is-ray-mabus-nostradamus-mabus/ The dude in the link above suggests that Ray Mabus could be the Mabus indicated in the prophecy. I wonder if that topic comes up at White House dinner parties!

It seems a bit cruel to 'veil' a doctrine that salvation supposedly depends upon. I guess it boils down to whether one buys into the idea that true, redemption-dependant knowledge of god was progressively revealed to politicians, torturers, and murderers throughout history. Personally, I smell rotten fruit. http://en.wikipedia....in_Christianity http://en.wikipedia....ntrinitarianism I see nothing wrong with believing in a Trinity, per se. Multiple interesting religions do. But to claim that it is a requirement for salvation, a requirement to call oneself a follower of Christ, to enforce it using the state, or to torture or put to death those who disagree is, for me, full of problems and, from my own understand when I read the book, not at all supported by the Christian Bible. My interpretation instructs me that there should be some internal alarm bells going off at that point.

If Trinitarianism is valid pre-requisite to Christianity then none of the disciples were Christian, nor were their followers http://www.yrm.org/t...act-fiction.htm Trinitarian doctrine, whether it be the belief in three Persons so perfectly united in purpose as to be One (Trinitarianism) or three manifestation of a single being, each manifestation so perfect and complete as to like three Persons (Unitarianism), they find their roots in Babylonian theology. Not in Judaism or the teachings of Christ.

These discussions always give me pause to wonder if the United States practical national religion might be one of ancestral veneration.

Ditto! I'm eating this up! I'm just quiet because the things that are being discussed are things I don't know about, so I'm learning from all of your input and looking up stuff as I read along.

Faf-nicide is an unfortunate last name. Particular to those of us who sometimes like to faf around.

Thank you Windwalker! Yes, it is very sad. I think that, depending on how they are used, these things have the power to bring as much good as they have evil. Religion, when used correctly, is a tool of philosophical growth and personal enlightenment, teaching us to better know and love ourselves so that we are empowered to better know and love our neighbours. At its best, politics is people coming together as a community and working towards the common goals of building and maintaining happy lives, working out how we can best keep each other safe and trade our resources for individual and common good. This is completely fascinating. I can tell I'm going to spend a lot of time on this! I am particularly intrigued by the levels of soul.

True. the 'Dark Ages' were a period of specifically European history. It's notable that Ethiopia, one of the happiest and most successful civilizations on earth if the reports are to be believed, was also a predominantly Christian civilization. This could be taken as evidence that the religion was not to be blamed, but rather how some people chose to use the religion. Given political interests, class divide, and mores of the day in Europe I think it's probable that the 'Dark Ages' and the atrocities committed by the Church would have happened with or without it.

Are we forgetting about war elephants, camels, various relatives of the goat, cattle since 8000 BC, all in Africa. Desert horses have been bred in Africa since the 8th century. The african ostrich has been used for meat, eggs, feathers, leather, fat, oil, as a mount, and for racing. Methods of irrigation, a relatively recent development in western farming, was in use in ancient Egypt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation Ancient African Civilizations were some of the most advanced in the world, with long distance trade, great architecture, plumbing, irrigation, writing, art, schools, and great wealth. That's not even counting Egypt. Ethiopia was building stone castles a thousand years before Europeans, they were the third most advanced civilization on earth, in their day they were more advanced than China. Their armies defeated the Romans, the Greeks, and the Persians.