If your children aren't taught the state's official curriculum by a state-certified teacher, they'll be taken from you.

[zach0624]

I think that the parents should have a right to choose a private school(or home school them) that teachs a curriculm based on their religion. As long as the children are being educated I am fine with that. As to the point of evolution being tought in schools I am totally down with that. I am a christian but find creation and evolution fairly similar. I mean if you knew the history of the world back in 10BC do you think it would be easier to say the world (which had just figured out how to make roads and get fresh water) was made in seven days by god rather than 6 billion years during which time the earth was bombarded with meteors, covered in volcanoes, populated by giant lizards and frozen several times. Not to mention explaining how the rest of the universe came to be. Even today we probably wouldn't understand some stuff.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
V: Your "whole" merely gives some individual the power to do so. Whereas a system of individual equality prevents any individual from having such power.

M: Ah but it is precisely because the individual can't have that power that he seeks it via control of the state. It is self hate and cunning that create evil.

So you admit that control of the state is an attractive method for those who wish to do evil. How can the state be both the problem and the solution?

I think the evil done by people intending to do evil is far less than the evil done by folks thinking they are doing good. I believe we were made to be good by violence and believe violence is useful in inculcating good. But what violence inculcates is fearful conformity and a need to control so that one should never be exposed to anything that can awaken suppressed memories where we learned self hate. But us hating the evil we feel we are won't make us good. It makes us egotistical in our claims that we are, while our inner violence leaks our all over the place. Real good, I think, arises out of self love and that is egoless. Here there is no need for law or state because love flows in ones whole being. Without an repressed unconscious the self is whole and united. Here there can be no back handed evil.

So the real problem, I think, is not the state as such, but the belief in a good that is evil. I see no theoretical problem with a state that acts and those acts are good.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
V: Your "whole" merely gives some individual the power to do so. Whereas a system of individual equality prevents any individual from having such power.

M: Ah but it is precisely because the individual can't have that power that he seeks it via control of the state. It is self hate and cunning that create evil.

So you admit that control of the state is an attractive method for those who wish to do evil. How can the state be both the problem and the solution?

I think the evil done by people intending to do evil is far less than the evil done by folks thinking they are doing good. I believe we were made to be good by violence and believe violence is useful in inculcating good. But what violence inculcates is fearful conformity and a need to control so that one should never be exposed to anything that can awaken suppressed memories where we learned self hate. But us hating the evil we feel we are won't make us good. It makes us egotistical in our claims that we are, while our inner violence leaks our all over the place. Real good, I think, arises out of self love and that is egoless. Here there is no need for law or state because love flows in ones whole being. Without an repressed unconscious the self is whole and united. Here there can be no back handed evil.

So the real problem, I think, is not the state as such, but the belief in a good that is evil. I see no theoretical problem with a state that acts and those acts are good.

So your answer is still to get all those self-hating, evil-seeking people together and give them the power of violence over their fellow man (the state) and somehow good acts will just happen.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
V: Your "whole" merely gives some individual the power to do so. Whereas a system of individual equality prevents any individual from having such power.

M: Ah but it is precisely because the individual can't have that power that he seeks it via control of the state. It is self hate and cunning that create evil.

So you admit that control of the state is an attractive method for those who wish to do evil. How can the state be both the problem and the solution?

I think the evil done by people intending to do evil is far less than the evil done by folks thinking they are doing good. I believe we were made to be good by violence and believe violence is useful in inculcating good. But what violence inculcates is fearful conformity and a need to control so that one should never be exposed to anything that can awaken suppressed memories where we learned self hate. But us hating the evil we feel we are won't make us good. It makes us egotistical in our claims that we are, while our inner violence leaks our all over the place. Real good, I think, arises out of self love and that is egoless. Here there is no need for law or state because love flows in ones whole being. Without an repressed unconscious the self is whole and united. Here there can be no back handed evil.

So the real problem, I think, is not the state as such, but the belief in a good that is evil. I see no theoretical problem with a state that acts and those acts are good.

So your answer is still to get all those self-hating, evil-seeking people together and give them the power of violence over their fellow man (the state) and somehow good acts will just happen.

Not at all. I am pushing a vision that says that because the level of consciousness expressed by the state in a democratic society is a function of the level of consciousness of its voting members, the only way a person can better the state is to evolve personally. The state will always represent a danger if you yourself are dangerous to your self via your own self hate. I am saying that the state is dangerous because, and really only because, people seek change out there, that their self hate, unconscious though it be, informs them that any hope for their own personal change is useless and that they must make others change. They want to go to heaven but they don't want to die so to speak.

I am saying that the war to be fought is with the self. The struggle is to separate what is unconscious self-motivatedly good for the ego from what is the real good.

Now, given that we see the terrible danger represented by fundamentalism on the left or the right, when fundamentalist ideas and ideals gain power, that they are essentially represent a form of violent, coercive conformity, how do we handle matters of common sense, where we are persuaded organically that we can see some truth in some matter that involve defining the limits of persona vs community rights?

For example, do we call the police to try to save somebody who whats to jump from a bridge, do we intervene and catch him if we can. Here we are left only with whatever our level of consciousness actually is. I do not know in any final way whether my opinion on any one case would be the right one or not, but I am still compelled to act.

And this is my real point. I will decide such issues not on the fixed notion that the state is always evil or always good, but my individual assessment of the morality of the particular issue. I believe the state has the authority to prevent suicide that is the result of temporary depression, growing pains, loss, etc. but that the state should not prevent it at the end of live when people chose to die to escape real suffering, etc. In short, it is the morality of the particular issue that is important to me and not a fixed notion that always favors either the state or the individual. It is against this fixed adherence to abstractions like the state is evil, etc, that I caution.

Strive for God Consciousness so you act like God but in such a way that you don't become a victim of your ego.

 

[BoberFett]

Your last statement about your "individual assessment of the morality of the particular issue" is the entire problem. Morality being as subjective as it is the basis for the left/right struggle. Here on this very forum you see the left and right calling each other evil, oblivious to the potential to do evil in their own intentions. You believe the state should stop suicide at some times, but not others. What qualifies you to make that decision for another individual? As you struggle internally yourself, what gives you the right to dismiss another's internal struggle? Under your vision of the state, Christians have every right, nay, the duty to convert everyone to Christianity and make it a state enforced belief. After all, their internal struggle has led them to Christianity and bringing others into the fold is simply for their own good. In their eyes, converting someone to Christianity is the same as preventing them from committing suicide. The same ego-driven decision you make to prevent suicide is no different than the one to make drugs illegal or require teaching the bible in school. I'd think you of all people would recognize that.

As for blanket statements that the state is evil, you're right. The state is not inherently evil. What is undeniable is that the state's capacity for evil is exactly equal to it's capacity for good. And given the type of people that strive to hold positions of power in the state, I'd say it uses the former ability far more than the latter.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Your last statement about your "individual assessment of the morality of the particular issue" is the entire problem. Morality being as subjective as it is the basis for the left/right struggle. Here on this very forum you see the left and right calling each other evil, oblivious to the potential to do evil in their own intentions. You believe the state should stop suicide at some times, but not others. What qualifies you to make that decision for another individual? As you struggle internally yourself, what gives you the right to dismiss another's internal struggle? Under your vision of the state, Christians have every right, nay, the duty to convert everyone to Christianity and make it a state enforced belief. After all, their internal struggle has led them to Christianity and bringing others into the fold is simply for their own good. In their eyes, converting someone to Christianity is the same as preventing them from committing suicide. The same ego-driven decision you make to prevent suicide is no different than the one to make drugs illegal or require teaching the bible in school. I'd think you of all people would recognize that.

As for blanket statements that the state is evil, you're right. The state is not inherently evil. What is undeniable is that the state's capacity for evil is exactly equal to it's capacity for good. And given the type of people that strive to hold positions of power in the state, I'd say it uses the former ability far more than the latter.

Yes I recognize this. It is what I am saying. It is why I said it is the real issue, not the problem of the individual vs the state. The question is whether, because there is a subjective range of opinion on what morality is, is there, then, any such thing as objective morality. Vic seems to imply so in his definition of good and bad. I would tend to agree. I am saying this too:

People are unconsciously motivated by self hate and are, therefore, unconscious of how they feel and how those feelings unconsciously bias their opinions. But they can know that this is in fact the case. To know this is better than not to know it because it immediately introduces a bit of circumspection or distance or suspicion toward whatever ones opinions may be. One can begin to distance oneself from certainty, the fanatical aspect of fundamentalism. One can observe what one thinks, how one reacts, without attachment to it. And it is possible, with a great deal of work, to become conscious of what one feels, say via psychotherapy, real psychotherapy, by feeling it. The more one feels what one really does feel, the sooner one will be reliving and re-experiencing early traumatic experiences where self hate took root. I say there is the occasional person who can dig deep enough to experience transformation, a fundamental or deep shift in awareness, a feeling of real understanding that one, at the deepest layer is OK. Such a person awakens as if from a dream.

There are those also, who via say the love of God, total surrender, deep meditation, etc etc etc. also experience such a transformation.

I believe that such people leave the ego behind and enter into an experience of oceanic love, a loss of self and an awakening into deep consciousness and presence in the now. I think it is possible to enter into perfect being and those who do are sort of perfect beings. They are the living objectification of love, truth, and morality. They are awake and know who they are. They have removed the wall that divided them into a contemptuous self they couldn't stand and pretended not to be and and a fragment of their totality into which they conform, an ego starved of self love but radiating egomaniacal hubris.

I believe, therefore, that at his deepest level, man is good, that his true self is the image out of which he created God, and that, therefore, all that he believes about God is at a fundamental level his deepest reality. There is an absolute truth that arises out of a state of wholeness of being, the actions of a person who has awakened, and that humanity is evolving toward such understanding while also still acting out its self hate.

I guess the difference between me and a Christian then is that I am talking to you, telling you what I believe to be true. I guess I KNOW I'm right and so I don't need to convince you or save you. I trust my case stands on its own merits, that he who will feel will know.

Who said, "Everybody is enlightened, it would be nice to know it."?