I don’t go back and re-read posts on any sort of systematic basis, though I often re-read long ones that I’m going to reply to. Perhaps I should more often.
Indeed, I don’t like humidity at all, and it closes me off. The winter is cleaner, fresher, and more open.
I don’t think it’s necessary to re-read to find out if they’ve been edited. Very few are. If I know you don’t go back then I’ll just add the edit to the new post.
I’m the opposite. I love the warmth. I’m very sensitive to the cold. It makes me feel fluey and sick. Mind you, I don’t like humidity either but I don’t get that where I live but I understand where you’re coming from.
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I’ve been blessed with very good health, and hardly ever get ill, touch wood. Another thing about the winter is that the places I go are often completely deserted. Few people like camping out in winter, it seems. I’ve spent night alone at stone circles, for example, and other places of great power.
How do you travel to the places you camp out alone? How do you manage to traverse the land? I mean you could come to the edge of a cliff (or the edge of the world). You’re much braver than me. LOL.
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By train, preferably, or if not, by bus. And then I walk. I have a GPS tracker, among other things, that reads out locations from Google maps. We learnt a lot of orientation skills like this at school.
I would know if a cliff, or indeed an obstacle, was ahead of me by echo-location, that is, by clicking my tongue and listening to the echo.
Awesome. It’s lucky you don’t have the snake or bear problem hikers in other countries have.
One time when my girlfriend and I were push biking around the country, we set up our tent on a river bank at night. It was very dark and hard to see anything. Later that night a weird man/boy came up to our tent and said “I wouldn’t stay here if I were you.” and then walked away. He looked like someone out of the movie Deliverance – an inbred country boy. He gave us the creeps so we only had light naps frightened he might come back with a rifle or axe. Then, a few hours later we heard a rush sound a long way up the river. We couldn’t make out what it was then we found the river was rapidly rising and had just about reached out tent. We scrambled in the dark to save as much as we could and let the river swallow up anything left behind. If it wasn’t for that boy, we would have slept like babies and possibly been washed away. In the pitch black night you have no idea where the shore is so it would have been a terrifying way to go.
I have lots of scary stories from my travels which makes me respect your solo adventure even more. I’'ll leave it at that for tonight. I’m going to meditate and crash out – hopefully in that order. Catch you later, Maia.
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Um excuse me chakra but if that kid was shooting light beams out of his hands, u need to go ahead and figure out who u need to call to get that kid - now an adult - into a lab and under scientific investigation.
Ur gonna start getting calls from various people claiming to work for government weapons programs, but ignore those calls until we know what we’re working with. There could be a lot of money here.
If u can’t find the dude, I’ve some some people who can assist u.
That would indeed be scary, to have dangerous snakes or bears. The UK does have a poisonous snake, the adder, but it’s not particularly dangerous to humans.
The weirdest experience I’ve had was at the Malvern Hills, where there’s a number of ancient remains, including a hill fort. I was sitting on the ground in front of my tent one night and began to hear strange, ethereal music, and smelt something like flowers or incense on the breeze, when there definitely shouldn’t have been any, since it was the middle of winter. And then, out of nowhere, I heard a woman’s voice talking to me, as if she was sitting near me, but I also knew that no one was there (I know where people are by echo-location). This went on for quite some time, but strangely, I can’t remember anything specific about what she was saying, except that it seemed very banal. After this I just went to bed as if everything was normal. It definitely wasn’t scary or anything.
Goodnight then.
Yes, in regard to encountering strange entities, it’s inherently problematic. Lots and lots of variables that might never even have occurred to you. But if you have yourself experienced them and they are now of great interest to you, all you can do is to ask yourself and others how best to go about “capturing” the experience such that it might be demonstrable to others beyond how you now remember the experience “in your head”.
After all, what else is there? There’s what you think is true and there’s your capacity to show the world why what you think is true they themselves ought perhaps to think is true as well. Especially regarding human ghosts because that is connected to one of the biggest imponderables of them all: you die, then what?
Here’s the thing though: the mind can play tricks on you. I’ve had a few experiences myself I would swear happened to me…only it turned out that they did not happen at all. I merely remembered them happening as they did. Why? Damned if I know.
Okay, but in regard to any number of human-all-too-human contexts, what you might construe as doing harm, others might construe as doing good. Nature itself brings about consequences that are good for some but bad for others. Only with nature it’s all about the either/or world. With us, good and bad is, in my view, rooted subjectively in the lives that we live. We become predisposed existentially to think certain things are good only because our lives did not unfold such that, instead, we would have come to think them bad. It’s just that some ignore this part. They become convinced through one or another font – God, religion, philosophy, ideology, nature – that their own moral/political/spiritual values reflect the optimal or even the only rational frame of mind.
How can it be perfectly fine if the moral stance of one Pagan [derived from her personal experiences with nature] comes into conflict with the moral stance of another community member [derived from her personal experiences with nature] such that they see each others behaviors as immoral?
I would have to be in a Pagan community and note how “for all practical purpose” they work thinks out. Through “moderation, negotiation and compromise”? Can you note specific example of this that you are aware of?
Anyway, these things are important to me because “here and now” “I” am still fractured and fragmented. And I’m still convinced that death = oblivion.
I’m here at ILP to sustain those win/win assumptions I make regarding exchanges of this sort.
Either someone is able make points that allow me to come up out of the hole I have dug myself down into philosophically or my points convince them to come down into the hole with me. If I get up out of it, I’m closer to objective morality and the possibility of life beyond the grave. If they come down into it with me I have someone to empathize with.
Up out of the hole, the objectivists have comfort and consolation, but their behaviors are “locked” into their font of choice. Down in the hole, there is little comfort and consolation in regard to morality/immortality, but your behavioral options can increase dramatically because they don’t have to be weighted down by the dogmas embedded in one or another font.
+++Yes, in regard to encountering strange entities, it’s inherently problematic. Lots and lots of variables that might never even have occurred to you. But if you have yourself experienced them and they are now of great interest to you, all you can do is to ask yourself and others how best to go about “capturing” the experience such that it might be demonstrable to others beyond how you now remember the experience “in your head”.
After all, what else is there? There’s what you think is true and there’s your capacity to show the world why what you think is true they themselves ought perhaps to think is true as well. Especially regarding human ghosts because that is connected to one of the biggest imponderables of them all: you die, then what?+++
Well, if you’re genuinely interested, I’ll give the camera idea some more thought, and have a word with my brother too, in case he has any suggestions. One thing I’m pretty certain of, though, is that nothing will happen unless I’m alone, so I can’t bring anyone else along to take a photo, for example.
+++Here’s the thing though: the mind can play tricks on you. I’ve had a few experiences myself I would swear happened to me…only it turned out that they did not happen at all. I merely remembered them happening as they did. Why? Damned if I know.+++
What were they?
This is something I’m well aware of, of course, and fully accept that my experiences might be entirely subjective. For me, though, this doesn’t lessen their significance in any way.
+++Okay, but in regard to any number of human-all-too-human contexts, what you might construe as doing harm, others might construe as doing good. Nature itself brings about consequences that are good for some but bad for others. Only with nature it’s all about the either/or world. With us, good and bad is, in my view, rooted subjectively in the lives that we live. We become predisposed existentially to think certain things are good only because our lives did not unfold such that, instead, we would have come to think them bad. It’s just that some ignore this part. They become convinced through one or another font – God, religion, philosophy, ideology, nature – that their own moral/political/spiritual values reflect the optimal or even the only rational frame of mind.+++
Yes, everyone’s views are different.
+++How can it be perfectly fine if the moral stance of one Pagan [derived from her personal experiences with nature] comes into conflict with the moral stance of another community member [derived from her personal experiences with nature] such that they see each others behaviors as immoral?
I would have to be in a Pagan community and note how “for all practical purpose” they work thinks out. Through “moderation, negotiation and compromise”? Can you note specific example of this that you are aware of?+++
Pagans are people, and people, as noted above, are all different. We can either learn to live with this fact, or not. Most of us, that is, most people, have learnt to live with this, and accept that others have different views. And this is the case with Pagans too. Indeed, with regard to Pagans, it couldn’t possibly be otherwise, as there is no central authority, no fount of knowledge or wisdom, that can impose its will on the whole of the community. And this very fact is what makes Paganism so appealing to many, it’s lack of dogma or hierarchy.
It’s only when you get down to the small scale, to individual groups, such as a Wiccan coven or Druidic grove, that there is any sort of authority, as such groups tend to be run by a single individual. Each will have their own rules, and people can be asked to leave if they break them (or not, it’s entirely up to the person in charge). For example, in the Wiccan group I was in, one of the new prospective members who had come along to some open meetings was banned from coming again when the leader of the group found out that she had previously had an abortion.
+++Anyway, these things are important to me because “here and now” “I” am still fractured and fragmented. And I’m still convinced that death = oblivion.
I’m here at ILP to sustain those win/win assumptions I make regarding exchanges of this sort.
Either someone is able make points that allow me to come up out of the hole I have dug myself down into philosophically or my points convince them to come down into the hole with me. If I get up out of it, I’m closer to objective morality and the possibility of life beyond the grave. If they come down into it with me I have someone to empathize with.
Up out of the hole, the objectivists have comfort and consolation, but their behaviors are “locked” into their font of choice. Down in the hole, there is little comfort and consolation in regard to morality/immortality, but your behavioral options can increase dramatically because they don’t have to be weighted down by the dogmas embedded in one or another font.+++
If you want to change your opinions, it has to be by your own efforts and experiences. No one will change them for you. In other words, you have the freedom to choose. And this, in my opinion, is why life is so interesting and rewarding.
It’s a bit of a hassle sorting out a camera and stuff, and since you are evidently not particularly interested, I’m not going to bother.
Okay, that sounds good. And, if it pertains to human ghosts, you won’t find many more eager than me to be convinced that they may well exist. Better perhaps to be a ghost than for “I” to be obliterated for all of eternity on its way back to “star stuff”.
Without going into great detail, I’ll start with the first. Whenever I would get into discussions about death with others, I would often bring up the memory of my first close encounter with it. I was a boy crossing a train trestle with my cousin Bobby and a friend Ed. At the end of it I slipped and fell over the edge. I managed to grab onto a shrub and held on for dear life. And that is because if I fell I would tumble way, way down into a stream filled with jagged boulders. I would either suffer horrific injury or die. So my cousin ran to my Uncle John’s house [close by] and got him. He returns with a rope, lowers it, I grab onto it and he pulls me up. I’m saved.
I would often have dreams about it.
But…
One day, years later, my Granny died. My sister drove us up to the funeral. After the burial, I am in the local bar with my cousin, Eddie and others. The discussion got around to all of our adventures as kids. That’s when I mentioned the trestle. Well, my cousin and Eddie looked at me bewildered. They insisted that never happened at all. I was adamant that it did and back and forth we went. Finally, they took me to the trestle. Even if I had fallen off it the drop was no where near as steep as I imagined. And the “boulders” never existed. Just small stones and pebbles in a creek. At worst, I might have sprained my ankle.
Bottom line: I went to see Aunt Mary. My Uncle John had died but I knew there was no way he would have kept a life and death incident like that from her. But, no, he hadn’t told her of any such thing. So, I left Miners Mills the next day realizing that I was absolutely certain about something in my past that in fact had not happened.
So, what else in my memory was in part or wholly fabricated by my brain?
In fact, there’s a documentary series on Showtime – sho.com/buried – that explores the mysteries of memory. Buried memories, repressed memories, false memories, faked memories. The mystery of minds themselves.
Okay, but how many people are willing to explore their own views as the existential embodiment of dasein? How many people are willing to risk coming to the conclusion that their own value judgments are not derived from God or “categorical imperatives” or political ideology or nature, but from what is ultimately a fractured and fragmented “I” given the assumptions that I make?
Not many that I’ve come across. Here or elsewhere. At least not out in the deep end of the philosophical pool.
So, then you are basically suggesting that within an actual Pagan community, they practive “moderation, negotiation and compromise”. If, in interacting with nature, they come to embody their own personal sense of being a “moral person” then in regard to issues like abortion or animal rights or gun ownership or Brexit or vaccination or gender roles or social justice or the role of government etc., the “might makes right” or “right makes might” approach to the actual “rules of behavior” in the community is rejected They all come together instead to work out a kind of “best of all possible worlds” approach to community interactions?
And the part where I root value judgments existentially, in dasein, in the lives we live…that just never comes up?
A classic example of the right makes might community. It is thought by those who lead the community that only particular behaviors are allowed. And this is derived from their own particular objectivist font. On the other hand, this sort of community can be become indistinguishable from the might makes right community. Certain behaviors are either prescribed or proscribed but largely because those in power have the final say on what they are.
Either way, these communities appeal to many because they are generally authoritarian. Everyone has a place in the community and everyone had best know their place in the community. A rigid and ritualized order is established so that the members can anchor “I” to the One True Path.
Here we will have to just agree to disagree. I root personal opinions in dasein, in contingency, chance and change, in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts. I recognize that I can only experience a tiny slice of all that can be experienced by human beings
And, in regard to things like “strange entities”, the more I can seek out the experiences that others have, the more likely it is that I will gain a more sophisticated understanding of them.
Is this addressed to me?
+++Okay, that sounds good. And, if it pertains to human ghosts, you won’t find many more eager than me to be convinced that they may well exist. Better perhaps to be a ghost than for “I” to be obliterated for all of eternity on its way back to “star stuff”.+++
Well, to be honest, you didn’t seem all that bothered, so I feel disinclined to put myself out trying to organise it. If you want to experience something, you’ll have to go out and experience it for yourself. I’m always happy to offer advice and suggestions about that.
+++Without going into great detail, I’ll start with the first. Whenever I would get into discussions about death with others, I would often bring up the memory of my first close encounter with it. I was a boy crossing a train trestle with my cousin Bobby and a friend Ed. At the end of it I slipped and fell over the edge. I managed to grab onto a shrub and held on for dear life. And that is because if I fell I would tumble way, way down into a stream filled with jagged boulders. I would either suffer horrific injury or die. So my cousin ran to my Uncle John’s house [close by] and got him. He returns with a rope, lowers it, I grab onto it and he pulls me up. I’m saved.
I would often have dreams about it.
But…
One day, years later, my Granny died. My sister drove us up to the funeral. After the burial, I am in the local bar with my cousin, Eddie and others. The discussion got around to all of our adventures as kids. That’s when I mentioned the trestle. Well, my cousin and Eddie looked at me bewildered. They insisted that never happened at all. I was adamant that it did and back and forth we went. Finally, they took me to the trestle. Even if I had fallen off it the drop was no where near as steep as I imagined. And the “boulders” never existed. Just small stones and pebbles in a creek. At worst, I might have sprained my ankle.
Bottom line: I went to see Aunt Mary. My Uncle John had died but I knew there was no way he would have kept a life and death incident like that from her. But, no, he hadn’t told her of any such thing. So, I left Miners Mills the next day realizing that I was absolutely certain about something in my past that in fact had not happened.
So, what else in my memory was in part or wholly fabricated by my brain?+++
Sounds like it might have been a dream you had when you were little, which you later remembered as something real. I have some very early memories that I’m not really sure if they were dreams or not.
+++Okay, but how many people are willing to explore their own views as the existential embodiment of dasein? How many people are willing to risk coming to the conclusion that their own value judgments are not derived from God or “categorical imperatives” or political ideology or nature, but from what is ultimately a fractured and fragmented “I” given the assumptions that I make?
Not many that I’ve come across. Here or elsewhere. At least not out in the deep end of the philosophical pool.+++
It’s obvious that everyone’s views are based on their life experiences.
+++So, then you are basically suggesting that within an actual Pagan community, they practive “moderation, negotiation and compromise”. If, in interacting with nature, they come to embody their own personal sense of being a “moral person” then in regard to issues like abortion or animal rights or gun ownership or Brexit or vaccination or gender roles or social justice or the role of government etc., the “might makes right” or “right makes might” approach to the actual “rules of behavior” in the community is rejected They all come together instead to work out a kind of “best of all possible worlds” approach to community interactions?
And the part where I root value judgments existentially, in dasein, in the lives we live…that just never comes up?+++
There is no “moderation, negotiation and compromise” and no one comes together to work out any value judgments. When Pagans organise events its not for the purpose of talking, but rather, of doing things. There are no “rules of behaviour” in the Pagan community as a whole, and I can safely say that the subject of “dasein” never, ever comes up.
+++A classic example of the right makes might community. It is thought by those who lead the community that only particular behaviors are allowed. And this is derived from their own particular objectivist font. On the other hand, this sort of community can be become indistinguishable from the might makes right community. Certain behaviors are either prescribed or proscribed but largely because those in power have the final say on what they are.
Either way, these communities appeal to many because they are generally authoritarian. Everyone has a place in the community and everyone had best know their place in the community. A rigid and ritualized order is established so that the members can anchor “I” to the One True Path.+++
If a particular Pagan group doesn’t want you, you can join another, or set up your own.
+++And, in regard to things like “strange entities”, the more I can seek out the experiences that others have, the more likely it is that I will gain a more sophisticated understanding of them.+++
You will not gain any genuine understanding of them simply by listening to others describe them, of that I’m sure.
+++Is this addressed to me?+++
Yes.
Yes, I saw a strange entity…
She has red hair and posts on ILP a lot.
That’s entirely up to you. I am particularly intrigued with anyone here able to provide me with evidence that human ghosts exist. For all the reasons I noted. So, if you ever do go down that road and find something especially intriguing, please let me know about it. As for focusing only on your own experiences here, we’ve discussed that in turn. Besides, given my current circumstances – remember my world being “imploded”? – that’s not really much of an option for me.
Maybe. It’s not something that I attempted to explore further. Shrink wise. All I know is that even to this day I still find it very, very difficult to believe my brain made it up. And, as well, why?
But then why is it not obvious to most that their moral and political and spiritual value judgments are derived in turn from their own unique existential trajectory? Instead, most cling to one or another transcending font: religion, ideology, deontology, nature.
You note that you are not an objectivist here. But: You acknowledge that your value judgments are derived from your past experiences; and that had those experiences been different your values might have been different; that you might not have ever encountered Paganism at all. In turn, you acknowledge that given new experiences or relationships or access to information and knowledge, you may well reject what you believe now.
Yet from my frame of mind there is a part of you that clearly construes this differently than I do. The part that sees Paganism and Nature and the Goddess as the equivalent of the One True Path. So, for all practical purposes, here and now, from my frame of mind, you might just as well be an objectivist.
Only I have to flat out acknowledge here that I am basing all of this given the gap between how I think about you and how you think about yourself. I scarcely know you at all when push comes to shove. That’s why I was once hoping we would become “virtual friends”…to close that gap.
Now, however, that doesn’t seem nearly as plausible to me. I think when I’m being honest with myself, my inclination is more in the way of bringing you down into the philosophical hole that I am in rather than in imaging you can perhaps succeed in bringing me up out of it spiritually.
This makes no sense to me. If John impregnates Jane in a Pagan community and, in communing with nature, he deems that a “moral person” should oppose abortion as unethical, while Jane, communing with nature, concludes that a “moral person” should accept abortion as ethical, what then unfolds in the community? Same with all the other moral issues embedded in conflicting goods.
Either someone in the community has the power to determine whether there will be a birth or an abortion, or someone in the community has the capacity to determine which is most ethical option or, one way or another, John and Jane work something out. Maybe abort this fetus but give birth to the next when things change for Jane and she wants to give birth.
Thus:
Okay, but that doesn’t make my point above go away. Just because you join another community doesn’t make the conflicting goods go away. Jane joins a new community, gets pregnant but this time the new man also wants to shred the unborn fetus into oblivion? Okay, but then Jane is a staunch believer in the right to bear arms and her new man is a fierce opponent of it. And there are dozens and dozens of potential conflicts in any community.
Indeed, that’s why I am so adamant about going beyond mere description of strange entities and making every possible effort to actually demonstrate them to others. But since so many different people can experience them in so many different ways, going beyond the narrow parameters of your own life would seem to the more reasonable approach.
What on earth did I do to make you think that I was not interested?
+++That’s entirely up to you. I am particularly intrigued with anyone here able to provide me with evidence that human ghosts exist. For all the reasons I noted. So, if you ever do go down that road and find something especially intriguing, please let me know about it. As for focusing only on your own experiences here, we’ve discussed that in turn. Besides, given my current circumstances – remember my world being “imploded”? – that’s not really much of an option for me.+++
If you want evidence, you’ll need to go out and experience it yourself. That’s the bottom line, really. Whether you choose to or not is entirely up to you.
+++But then why is it not obvious to most that their moral and political and spiritual value judgments are derived in turn from their own unique existential trajectory? Instead, most cling to one or another transcending font: religion, ideology, deontology, nature.
You note that you are not an objectivist here. But: You acknowledge that your value judgments are derived from your past experiences; and that had those experiences been different your values might have been different; that you might not have ever encountered Paganism at all. In turn, you acknowledge that given new experiences or relationships or access to information and knowledge, you may well reject what you believe now.
Yet from my frame of mind there is a part of you that clearly construes this differently than I do. The part that sees Paganism and Nature and the Goddess as the equivalent of the One True Path. So, for all practical purposes, here and now, from my frame of mind, you might just as well be an objectivist.+++
I don’t regard my own particular path as a one true path. In fact, the concept of a one true path is explicitly contradicted by my opinion that everyone has their own path, which I’ve stated many times. And one’s own path meanders around in all sorts of ways. I think you’re assuming that just because I have a different opinion to you on these matters, then I must be an objectivist.
+++Only I have to flat out acknowledge here that I am basing all of this given the gap between how I think about you and how you think about yourself. I scarcely know you at all when push comes to shove. That’s why I was once hoping we would become “virtual friends”…to close that gap.
Now, however, that doesn’t seem nearly as plausible to me. I think when I’m being honest with myself, my inclination is more in the way of bringing you down into the philosophical hole that I am in rather than in imaging you can perhaps succeed in bringing me up out of it spiritually.+++
Repeatedly and angrily accusing someone of not wanting to talk to you will tend to do that. But, you know, I’m not perfect, and I do have a quick temper at times.
As for dragging me down into your hole, let me assure you that it’s not going to happen.
+++This makes no sense to me. If John impregnates Jane in a Pagan community and, in communing with nature, he deems that a “moral person” should oppose abortion as unethical, while Jane, communing with nature, concludes that a “moral person” should accept abortion as ethical, what then unfolds in the community? Same with all the other moral issues embedded in conflicting goods.
Either someone in the community has the power to determine whether there will be a birth or an abortion, or someone in the community has the capacity to determine which is most ethical option or, one way or another, John and Jane work something out. Maybe abort this fetus but give birth to the next when things change for Jane and she wants to give birth.+++
No one in the Pagan community as a whole has that power. If John and Jane can’t work something out between themselves, then the most likely scenario is that Jane will have the abortion whether John wants her to or not, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
+++Okay, but that doesn’t make my point above go away. Just because you join another community doesn’t make the conflicting goods go away. Jane joins a new community, gets pregnant but this time the new man also wants to shred the unborn fetus into oblivion? Okay, but then Jane is a staunch believer in the right to bear arms and her new man is a fierce opponent of it. And there are dozens and dozens of potential conflicts in any community.+++
And countless different groups to join. Or if not, you can practice on your own.
+++Indeed, that’s why I am so adamant about going beyond mere description of strange entities and making every possible effort to actually demonstrate them to others. But since so many different people can experience them in so many different ways, going beyond the narrow parameters of your own life would seem to the more reasonable approach.
What on earth did I do to make you think that I was not interested?+++
Your enthusiasm seemed a bit underwhelming.
So, what, if we do have a personal experience with ghosts, it wouldn’t be the experiences of others, so why share our experiences at all? The bottom line is obviously intertwining both frames of mind and aiding and abetting each other in getting a fully picture.
And here you are not able to see what you experience and so dependent on others who can to add that element to your own understanding.
When someone speaks to me of encountering a Goddess in nature that enables them to become a moral person, I bring up the points I raise above. What would interest me is a more deep-seated attempt on your part to square your own understanding of being a “moral person” on a path that is profoundly personal, existential, subjective, subjunctive etc., while acknowledging that the only reason you are on this path does revolve around the points I make in regard to the past, the present and the future.
You accept that your moral values are derived largely from the your own particular past…a past that brought you into contact with Paganism but might not have. And if it’s a path that you might fall off of given new experiences, what does it really mean to speak of morality here for all practical purposes.
I’m trying to imagine you raising the points I make with other Pagans and pondering their reactions.
While accepting this:
That’s your assessment of what is going on between us. It’s certainly not mine. I’m trying to draw you down deeper into what I construe to be the philosophical pool. And it is because I respect both your intelligence and your curiosity about the world we live in that I hold out at least some hope of you bringing me up out of the hole or me bringing you down into it.
Then here you are contradicting yourself. You acknowledged before that given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge you might come to change your mind about either Paganism or my own philosophical assumptions. But now you are insisting that’s not true at all. You just know that will never happen. Just as I once knew that I would never stop being a Christian or a Marxist or a social-democrat or an existentialist. Or that I just knew I could never be a moral nihilist.
Perhaps you should just sever contact with me once and for all. Why take chances when you are on a spiritual path that does provide you with so much comfort and consolation as a Pagan.
I’ll understand that.
On, and let me add this…
I don’t construe myself as “dragging you down” into the hole I’m in. Instead, I attempt to offer reasons why being down in the hole seems reasonable to me in a No God world. Though, admittedly, as a natural born polemicist, I do have a tendency toward provocative exchanges.
So, Jane draws her moral convictions from nature and kills the unborn fetus. Ethically. John draws his moral convictions from nature and insist that is unethical. But with no leader around to either enforce a might makes right or a right makes might resolution, Jane exercises the power all her own and flushes both the fetus and John’s own moral conviction down the toilet.
i would of course be curious if you would take my objections above to other Pagans that you interact with. Garner their own reactions.
Okay, but, again, that doesn’t make my points above go away. And in my own personal opinion you are not really addressing them in depth.
Or, sure, just agree to disagree. You’re right from your side, I’m right from mine.
Based on what? The responses I give to the points your raise seem [to me] considerably more drawn out than the responses that you give to mine.
+++So, what, if we do have a personal experience with ghosts, it wouldn’t be the experiences of others, so why share our experiences at all? The bottom line is obviously intertwining both frames of mind and aiding and abetting each other in getting a fully picture.
And here you are not able to see what you experience and so dependent on others who can to add that element to your own understanding.+++
Talking about these experiences and sharing them, and sharing ideas about them, is clearly a good thing. But just talking about them, without experiencing them, will not be very productive.
+++When someone speaks to me of encountering a Goddess in nature that enables them to become a moral person, I bring up the points I raise above. What would interest me is a more deep-seated attempt on your part to square your own understanding of being a “moral person” on a path that is profoundly personal, existential, subjective, subjunctive etc., while acknowledging that the only reason you are on this path does revolve around the points I make in regard to the past, the present and the future.
You accept that your moral values are derived largely from the your own particular past…a past that brought you into contact with Paganism but might not have. And if it’s a path that you might fall off of given new experiences, what does it really mean to speak of morality here for all practical purposes.
I’m trying to imagine you raising the points I make with other Pagans and pondering their reactions.+++
I tend to respond in the manner that I’m being addressed. So if you ask me some specific questions, I’ll try and answer them. Bear in mind that whenever I’ve told you things about my opinions and what I do, both in relation to Paganism and my life in general, it has been in response to something you’ve asked.
+++That’s your assessment of what is going on between us. It’s certainly not mine. I’m trying to draw you down deeper into what I construe to be the philosophical pool. And it is because I respect both your intelligence and your curiosity about the world we live in that I hold out at least some hope of you bringing me up out of the hole or me bringing you down into it.+++
If you want me to respond more fully and openly, then try and be less antagonistic and accusatory.
+++Then here you are contradicting yourself. You acknowledged before that given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge you might come to change your mind about either Paganism or my own philosophical assumptions. But now you are insisting that’s not true at all. You just know that will never happen. Just as I once knew that I would never stop being a Christian or a Marxist or a social-democrat or an existentialist. Or that I just knew I could never be a moral nihilist.+++
It’s certainly possible that my opinions about this or that aspect of Paganism, or indeed about anything, might evolve and change over my life. After all, they have already. But one thing I can say for sure is that I’ll never become a nihilist. It’s not in my nature. I’m very much a glass half full sort of person, an eternal optimist. Nihilism seems the very antithesis of that. You say that nihilism gives you freedom, but you never tire of complaining about your life being fragmented, and how you’re stuck in your flat all the time never doing anything. This doesn’t sound much like freedom to me.
It’s also worth adding that mere words are very unlikely to change my opinions on anything at all, from the trivial to the profound. Only experience can do that.
+++Perhaps you should just sever contact with me once and for all. Why take chances when you are on a spiritual path that does provide you with so much comfort and consolation as a Pagan.
I’ll understand that.+++
If I ever block you, it won’t be because of your attempts to convert me. The only reason I block people is lack of respect towards me. Having said that, I’ve only ever actually blocked one person, but since he’s the one with the million-and-one accounts, it made no difference.
+++I don’t construe myself as “dragging you down” into the hole I’m in. Instead, I attempt to offer reasons why being down in the hole seems reasonable to me in a No God world. Though, admittedly, as a natural born polemicist, I do have a tendency toward provocative exchanges.+++
Your attempts to convert people to nihilism remind me very much of religious zeal, which is also something that is not in my nature.
I do have a question, though. Does the reason why you considered me a suitable candidate for conversion have anything to do with me being blind? Please be assured that as long as your answer is honest, it won’t offend me.
+++So, Jane draws her moral convictions from nature and kills the unborn fetus. Ethically. John draws his moral convictions from nature and insist that is unethical. But with no leader around to either enforce a might makes right or a right makes might resolution, Jane exercises the power all her own and flushes both the fetus and John’s own moral conviction down the toilet.+++
Correct.
+++i would of course be curious if you would take my objections above to other Pagans that you interact with. Garner their own reactions.+++
Perhaps you should join some Pagan forums and ask them yourself.
+++Okay, but, again, that doesn’t make my points above go away. And in my own personal opinion you are not really addressing them in depth.
Or, sure, just agree to disagree. You’re right from your side, I’m right from mine.+++
Again, you need to be specific in what you’re asking. For ages now you have kept asking me the same question over and over again, namely, how does the Pagan community deal with conflicting ethical opinions (e.g. on abortion), but in response to my answer, that it doesn’t, you keep asking the same question again. If you want a different answer, ask a different question. If you want a longer, detailed answer, ask a more specific, practical question.
+++Based on what? The responses I give to the points your raise seem [to me] considerably more drawn out than the responses that you give to mine.+++
I was referring in particular to your suggestion that I should try and take a photo of any entity that I might encounter. After you first suggested it I told you of the potential issues involved but said that I’d give it more thought, as I found the idea intriguing. And then you pretty much forgot about it, or so it seemed to me, anyway. Since it would be a bit of a hassle to organise it I decided it wasn’t worth the bother.
True, but some of us have more options than others in being able experience certain things. My own in regard to exploring the existence of ghosts, ufo and strange entities is particularly limited. So basically I can only rely on those who do share their experiences and are able to provide me [and others] with an actual accumulation of evidence able to demonstrate that these things exist.
Well, my question is how certain can you be about Paganism when recognizing that there was always the possibility it would never have been a part of your life at all; and in recognizing that new experiences might convince you to abandon it altogether? You can think that it has made you a “moral person” but there are many, many people who are on completely different paths – hundreds of them – who are just as adamant that it is their path which makes someone a moral person.
And that with Paganism, it’s the same Mother Nature [and maybe the same God/Goddess] resulting in moral convictions that can be very much in conflict. I just have trouble wrapping my head around how you acquire a strong sense of moral rectitude when there are so many variables out there that could have led you, can lead you, might lead you to so many different paths instead.
I can only react to your posts as I do. I don’t think that I am consciously attempting to be antagonistic and accusatory. But there it is: my own spontaneous, subjective reaction to what I construe to be answers from you that don’t seem [to me] to be nearly as thought out as I was hoping for.
Though, sure, if you sincerely believe that my reactions to you is the actual problem here [and it may well be], we may be not be able to move beyond that. Lots of people here have problems with my posts so, yeah, I may well be the obstacle to better communication. But I am also inclined to think that the reaction of others here to a philosophy like mine revolves in turn around their discomfort that my “I” in the is/ought world, may be applicable to them as well.
“In your nature” in the manner in which, say, Satyr might encompass it. That, in fact, genes trump memes and those that do become moral nihilists are somehow contradicting the “natural order of things”?
Is there some genetic predisposition that particular individuals have to eschew nihilism. It’s in your genetic code not to be?
That for you it is simply not possible that new experiences, new relationships or access to new information and knowledge can ever alter the deep down inside Real You?
In other words, you just know this in the same way that you just know that your own personal experience with nature makes you a “moral person”.
Okay, there is certainly no way in which I can argue [let alone demonstrate] that this is not correct. Only the future itself will either bear or not bear this out.
No, I argue that given the arguments I make in the OPs here…
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
…“I” am not anchored to one or another moral font such that I am obligated to ever and always do “the right thing” or risk offending my God or Goddess or guru or comrades or mates or anyone else who is said to show me “the way”. The one true path either to enlightenment on this of the grave or to immortality and salvation on the other side of it.
And I’m “stuck” in my flat for health reasons that are “beyond my control”. And quite the contrary, the things that I do here are hardly “never doing anything”. The things that I do – philosophy, watching films, listening to music, reading books, exchanging emails with my virtual friends etc. – bring me enormous satisfaction.
Someone might just as well say that you are “stuck being blind”.
Okay, I hope it doesn’t come to that. I just know from vast experience over the years that my own philosophy of life often does disturb people. It’s not so much what I believe about identity, value judgments and political economy at particular existential junctures, as it is the concern that they might come to believe the same thing about their own now fully anchored Self. I meeting “I” for the first time and beginning to have doubts about just how solid their own sense of reality is.
Again, that’s your assessment of what I am doing here. My own assessment is considerably more complex and convoluted. And certainly more ambiguous. My “win/win” approach to these exchanges always takes into consideration both sides. Me coming up out of the hole because of something you convey to me or you coming down into it because of something I convey to you. Same with all the others here at ILP that I respect the intelligence of. Those like Bob and Felix and phyllo and pood and peter and zoots and Mr. Reasonable and Ierrellus.
Polemics aside of course.
No, not at all. And certainly not here at ILP. As I note over and again, my interest in philosophy – and ILP is a philosophy venue – revolves around…
1] the question, “how ought one to live [morally] in a world awash in both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change”?
2] connecting the dots between “morality here and now” and “immortality there and then”
3] the truly mysterious “Big Questions”: why something instead of nothing? why this something and not something else? Also things like determinism, solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the actual possibility of a Matrix reality.
Okay, I try to imagine taking “correct” to all of the members of the community, and then noting how “for all practical purposes” their community could sustain itself in regard to all of the many, many moral issues in which each member on his or her own personal path comes to completely conflicting ethical convictions.
Again, what was crucial in the Wicker Man was us against him. What if it becomes us against us?
Okay, would you recommend one. Are you involved with one. That way I could come to them through you…and not as just someone out of the blue.
On the other hand, I’d probably feel uncomfortable interacting with them virtually only in order to question their beliefs. That’s not what most such communities form for. Many are like families and the last thing they want is an interloper among them.
From my frame of mind there is not a human community on the face of the Earth that doesn’t deal with conflicting ethical opinions. And that is because conflicting ethical opinions often lead to conflicting behaviors that bring about very real consequences. To suggest that with Pagans this is somehow different doesn’t really answer my specific question of how this can even be possible.
They have to deal with situations in which members on their own personal paths with nature might come to opposite moral convictions in regard to abortion or gun ownership or gender roles or animal rights or the use of drugs or what constitutes criminal behavior or all the issues that revolve around human sexuality or what to teach kids or capitalism/socialism or where the individual stops and the community begins or issues of immigration…and all of the other moral and political conflagrations we hear about “on the news”.
It would not seem [to me] that Pagans are exempt from the potential for turmoil of this sort.