Iraq, like the rest of us, needs liberty.
- Thread starter RDWYTruckDriver
- Start date
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
OT - It seems that in Britain you can be jailed for using racist language.
BBC
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
OT - It seems that in Britain you can be jailed for using racist language.
BBC
IIRC in the US and Canada you can be jailed for using certain types of language too. This is nothing new.
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
OT - It seems that in Britain you can be jailed for using racist language.
BBC
IIRC in the US and Canada you can be jailed for using certain types of language too. This is nothing new.
Maybe in Canada, I've never heard of anyone being put in jail in the US for that.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
OT - It seems that in Britain you can be jailed for using racist language.
BBC
IIRC in the US and Canada you can be jailed for using certain types of language too. This is nothing new.
Maybe in Canada, I've never heard of anyone being put in jail in the US for that.
Jail for racist comments? maybe not, but I do know of city ordinaces regarding language - mainly profanity.
CkG
RDW, thanks for an illuminating link. There is within Islam, in addition to the Wahabi radicalism, another ancient and relatively hidden tradition. It is the mystical tradition of Sufism, and from it our the Founding Fathers derived their inspiration, even if they may not have directly known it.
The author mentions Ibn Tufayl In the following quote from his worlk we can clearly see the Sufi Mystic:
2. Ibn Tufayl's introduction to Hayy Ibn Yaqzan
In the introduction the author presents some of the views of his predecessors, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali and Ibn Bajja. Al-Farabi is strongly criticized for what is said to be his inconsistent view concerning the afterlife. No criticism of Ibn Sina is given; on the contrary, it is said that Ibn Sina's oriental wisdom will be expounded in the rest of the work. Ibn Bajja's views are said to be incomplete, mentioning the highest speculative state but not the state above it, that of 'witnessing' or mystical experience (see Ibn Bajja). While al-Ghazali's mystical experience is not in doubt (see al-Ghazali), none of his works on mystical knowledge are said to have reached the author. The introduction is intended to announce the author's intention, namely the elaboration of Ibn Sina's oriental wisdom and to show how the work differs from those of his predecessors.
3. Hayy's birth and rational progress
The story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan takes place on an equatorial island uninhabited by human beings. There Hayy is found alone as an infant. Philosophers were of the opinion that he was born spontaneously when the mixture of elements reached an equilibrium state, making it possible for this mixture to receive a human soul from the divine world. Traditionalists believed that he was the son of a woman who chose to keep her marriage to her relative, Yaqzan, secret from her brother who ruled a neighbouring island and did not find any man qualified to marry his sister. After breastfeeding Hayy well, she put him in a box and threw it into the waters, which took him to the uninhabited island.
A deer who had just lost her son and was still experiencing the feelings of motherhood heard Hayy's cries. She suckled him, protected him from harmful things and took care of him until she died when he was seven years of age. By then he had learned to imitate other animals in speech, and he covered parts of his body with leaves after noticing that those animal parts are covered with hair or feathers. The deer's death transformed Hayy's life from one of dependency to one of exploration and discovery.
In an effort to find out the reason for the deer's death, a reason which he could not locate by observing her appearance, he dissected her with sharp stones and dry reeds. Noticing that every bodily organ has a proper function and that the left cavity of her heart was empty, he concluded that the source of life must have been in this cavity, and must have abandoned it. He reflected on the nature of this vital thing, its link to the body, its source, the place to which it has departed, the manner of its departure and so on. He realized that it was not the body but this vital entity that was the deer and the source of its actions. With this realization he lost interest in the deer's body, which he then viewed as a mere instrument. While he could not decipher the nature of this vital thing, he observed that the shape of all deer was similar to that of his mother. From this he concluded that all deer were managed by something similar to the vital thing that managed his mother's life.
After his discovery of life, he came across a fire. He noticed that, contrary to other natural objects, which move downward, fire moves upward. This indicated to him that the essence of fire is other than that of natural things. He continued to investigate other parts of nature: animal organs, their arrangement, number, size and position, as well as the qualities that animals, plants and inanimate things have in common and those that are proper to each of them. Through continued reasoning he grasped the concepts of matter and form, cause and effect, unity and multiplicity, as well as other general concepts concerning the earth and the heavens. Concluding that the universe is one in spite of its multiple objects, he moved on to consider whether it is created or eternal. Through highly sophisticated reasoning, he found that neither the idea of creation nor that of eternity is immune to objection. Though he could not rationally decide whether the universe is created or eternal, he concluded that it must have a cause on which it remains dependent and that this cause or necessary being is non-physical and above it in essence, even if not in time.
He also concluded that the thing in him which knew this cause must also be non-physical. The more detached this non-physical thing in him was from sensory perceptions, the clearer was its vision of this cause, a vision that gave the highest joy. Even though sensations obstructed this vision, he felt obliged to imitate animals by experiencing sensations to preserve his animal soul, which would enable him to imitate the heavenly bodies. Imitating the heavenly bodies by doing things like circular movement provided him with continuous but impure vision, for attention in this type of imitation is still paid to the self.
By knowledge of the necessary being, Hayy sought to imitate this being's positive attributes; by an attempt to transcend the physical world, he sought to imitate the negative ones. Imitation of the necessary being for the sake of this being involved no attention to the self and hence provided him with pure vision. Not only was Hayy's self or essence obliterated in this state, but so also was everything other than the necessary being. No human sight, hearing or speech could grasp this state, as it lies beyond the world of nature and sense experience. Therefore no explanation of necessary being can be given, only mere signs, as Ibn Sina contends in al-Isharat wa-'l-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions). One who seeks an explanation of this state is like one who seeks 'the taste of colours inasmuch as they are colours'. Verification requires direct experience. Using human language, which is described as an inadequate instrument, to hint at the truth Hayy is said to have witnessed in this state, the necessary being is said to pervade the universe as sunlight pervades the physical world. Trying to express the inexpressible, the author says that Hayy realized in this state that the whole is one, even though unity and multiplicity, like other contraries, exist only for sense perception.
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Here is a facinating discourse on a primary influence:
AL-FARABI
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It is very difficult to know what God is because of the limitation of our intellect and its union with matter. Just as light is the principle by which colours become visible, in like manner it would seem logical to say that a perfect light should produce a perfect vision. Instead, the very opposite occurs. A perfect light dazzles the vision. The same is true of God. The imperfect knowledge we have of God is due to the fact that He is infinitely perfect. That explains why His infinitely perfect being bewilders our mind. But if we could strip our nature of all that we call 'matter', then certainly our knowledge of His being would be quite perfect.
Al-Siyasat al-Madaniyyah AL-FARABI
When Islam rushed like fire born of lightning across the Arabian peninsula, through Egypt and the whole of North Africa, spreading into the eastern and western ends of Europe and into Persia and India, the world it transformed seemed to be ready for burning like dry, ripe grass. Byzantium had inherited the Gordian knot of Graeco-Persian hostility, and behind the masks of imperial splendour both sides were psychically and economically vulnerable. With the collapse of Rome, northern Africa, more exploited than nurtured by its Mediterranean master, fragmented into petty kingdoms which fought with one another and clung to vestiges of Greek and Roman glory remembered with ambiguous feelings. Christian sectarianism weakened the will and eroded the social norms of these peoples, producing a moral and social vacuum which resulted in a cycle of competitive conflict and enormous malaise. The vastly different geographical and political areas which succumbed so quickly to Islamic expansion shared one feature in common: they were acclimatized to sophisticated social structures which had ceased to function. Whilst a cosmopolitan, cohesive social spirit was present, available vehicles for its expression were missing. Under the guidance of Muhammad and his successors, Islam became a religious movement which combined simplicity and fervency of faith with pervasive social order, an alchemical alloy that was a therapeutic tonic for the peoples who first received it.
Islam brought together theological openness and straightforward public profession in a way that stressed social and political order as a manifestation of human solidarity, whilst allowing for a rich diversity of inward spiritual experience free from the pressures of public opinion. Whilst imams offered social and religious guidance, manipulative priestcraft was banished from the Muslim community. The flexibility and confidence of the nomadic tribesman, generated by centuries of learning in dealing with the unexpected, imbued Muslims with a sense of awe and insight into possibilities whilst they moved amongst the decaying remnants of the classical world. They did not feel the loss of a glorified and romanticized past; they saw ways to express the vital impulse surging within them. Renaissance followed conquest. The new social and spiritual order assimilated and transformed ancient inheritances, and during its golden age Islam flourished and encouraged cultural revivals amongst the Jews, Persians and Egyptians, whilst giving greater life to the recently migrating peoples of Spain, Tunisia and Libya, and even creating new forms of art and culture in India. Muslim thinkers wholeheartedly absorbed the lore of the Nile, Greek philosophy and Persian art. Reflective questions began to arise in the new culture, and the heritage of half the world was available to answer them.
Within a century and a half, Arabic, the language of commerce and the Qur'an, became a sublime philosophical tongue. The caliph al-Ma'mun al-Rashid established the House of Wisdom early in the ninth century to translate Hellenistic writings from Syriac into Arabic. Within a few decades Prince Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi set forth the foundations of the Mu'tazila school, arguing that the human will is free, that Deity is transcendent, and that reason can show the difference between right and wrong, whilst revelation confirms it. The Mu'tazilites would eventually be routed by Sunnah orthodoxy, but not before they gave rise to the greatest philosopher of reason to appear in Islam and in his time ? al-Farabi, a universal spirit who came to be called 'the second Teacher' after Aristotle, who was the first.
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi was born around A.D. 878 at Farab in Transoxiana (now Otrar in Turkistan). Though he was a prolific writer, he recorded no biographical details and little is known of his life. Al-Farabi was of Turkic origin but he learnt Arabic whilst still young. His first tutor was Yuhanna ben Hailan, a Nestorian Christian philosopher whose knowledge of Alexandrian thought was great. When his father joined the Caliph's court in Baghdad, al-Farabi accompanied him to the heart of Islamic government and the centre of Greek philosophy and science. Nothing is known of his activity in Baghdad save that he declined to serve in government, lived an ascetic life, and devoted himself to strenuous study in mathematics, medicine, music and philosophy. By the time he had matured, he was a philosopher second to none. In addition, he became an accomplished musician and wrote several books on music which profoundly affected musical developments in Arabic courts, medieval Europe and even India. Perhaps his musical abilities more than his philosophical acumen attracted the attention of the Hamdanid prince Saif al-Dawlah of Aleppo. Upon the prince's invitation al-Farabi entered the court of Aleppo and remained there until his death. There he found a congenial atmosphere in which to work. In about 950 he travelled with the prince to Damascus, where he died in December of that year.
By the time he died, al-Farabi had written more treatises and commentaries than can be gathered into a convenient list. Besides commentaries on Aristotle's works and books on logic, he developed a rational psychology through essays on the soul and its powers, on unity and the One, on intelligence and the intelligible, and set out a metaphysical conception of the world in works on substance, time, space, measure, wisdom and knowledge of Deity. He outlined a broad view of ethics, elaborated musical theory and classified the sciences. Perhaps his most original thought is found in his writings on political theory. Something of his influence can be sensed in the fate of his Ibsa' al-'Ulum (Enumeration of the Sciences). The eleventh century Arabic scholar Sa'id ibn Ahmad called it "an indispensable guide to studies in the sciences", and a century later Moses ibn Ezra used it in Jewish schools. John of Seville translated it into Latin about the same time, and as De Scientiis it remained an important part of education until the sixteenth century. As a handbook it inspired a tradition of aphoristic compendia that spread from Europe to Persia. Even though the philosophical standpoint al-Farabi espoused was eventually rejected by Islamic orthodoxy, ibn Khallikan called him "the greatest philosopher the Muslims ever had", and Moses Maimonides declared that he alone was worth reading on logic, for "all that he wrote is as fine flour".
Al-Farabi thought of himself as an Aristotelian in the tradition of the Mu'tazilites and al-Kindi. When Muslim thinkers immersed themselves in Greek philosophy and science, they drew upon the traditions preserved in the Levant and in Alexandria, where the original divergence of perspective represented by the Academy and the Lyceum had given way before the doctrine of essential unity taught by Ammonius Saccas and the theurgic conjunction of reason and experience embodied in Iamblichus. The powerful deductive method set forth in the Posterior Analytics had become an adjunct to the elusive dialectic of the Republic, both having been subsumed in the threefold criterion for knowledge taught by Plotinus. For al-Farabi, knowledge results from agreement of reason, intuition and experience.
The order of the world reflects an emanative creation which arises between God and matter. Whilst reason can show that God exists, a fact confirmed by revelation, neither can say what God is in essence. An imperfect knowledge is possible through the methods of removing all limiting qualities and asserting perfections, but these approaches at best allow one to say that God is simple, infinite, immutable, intelligent, a unity, the truth and life itself. Attributes which restrict by stripping away imperfections and which expand by imagining perfections are nothing more than negative and positive extensions of what is commonly known in the emanated world of ordinary experience. They do not really discover the self-subsistent nature of Deity.
God is knowable and unknowable, evident and hidden, and the best knowledge of Him is to know that He is something the human mind cannot thoroughly understand.
God is the creator of the world, as all 'religions of the Book' attest, but this should not be understood in any crude or mechanistic sense. Images of a potter giving form to clay or of a being breathing into moulded shells are only graphic analogies which underscore limitations of human intellect.
God is the highest One of neo-Platonic philosophy and Aristotle's supreme First Cause. All attributes of Deity, including the power of creation, are identical with his essence, and that is why all analogies comprehensible to the human mind fall short of strict truth. The One thinks Itself ? God contemplates Himself ? and this eternal act of self-examining reflection instantaneously gives rise to an intellect which is also an archangel. This intellect-being, the first emanation (which is not an emanation in the same sense as subsequent emanations), has a dual nature which manifests on its own level as a material sphere and an active intelligence. This dual emanation gives rise to a second emanation, also a sphere and an intelligence, and the process continues until there are nine emanated spheres and intelligences. The spheres, beginning with the invisible all-encompassing field, include the spheres of the fixed stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. The lunar sphere is associated on the spiritual side with the Agent Intellect, which is also the Angel Gabriel. Gabriel first conveyed the Qur'anic revelation to Muhammad and presides over the realm of Platonic archetypes.
This perspective is reminiscent of the Kabbalistic Sephirothal Tree of Lights, whose ten luminaries are both material realms and angelic hosts. The ninefold emanation is ceaseless in respect to time, for it is a timeless necessity deriving from God's Self-contemplation. It constitutes the whole transcendental realm of Being as contrasted with the terrestrial realm of becoming. Being, as distinct from becoming, is spiritual existence, consisting of six immutable principles, the aeviternal elaboration of the primal act. God is the first principle of Being. His emanative Self-contemplation down through the Agent Intellect, together with the nine spheres, is the second principle. The active intellect which flows from the Moon and enters the sublunary world and man is the third principle, whilst eternal souls constitute the fourth. Matter and form are the fifth and sixth principles of Being, closing the series of spiritual existences. Only the first principle, God, represents total unity, the other five depicting the potentialities of plurality, and only the first three are absolutely spiritual, since the last three, spiritual in themselves, are associated with bodies. Corresponding to the six eternal principles of Being and embodying the last three ? soul, form, matter ? are six kinds of bodies: celestial, rational animal, irrational animal, vegetal, mineral and the four elements, called fire, earth, air and water. The six principles and six kinds of bodies together compose the universe.
Al-Farabi well understood that Hellenistic philosophy pointed to the eternity of the world, holding that both spirit and matter were uncreated, ex nihilo nihil fit, whilst the Semitic religions taught that the world was created initially out of nothing, creatio mundi ex nihilo. He resolved this glaring contradiction by deploying the Aristotelian technique of distinguishing the sense in which words are used.
When people say that God created the world, they simply mean that God produced the world out of matter by clothing it with a determinate form. The world is certainly God's work, and though it comes after Him as a world-form, yet it is equal to Him in time and eternity, for He could not begin to work on it in time. God is to the world as cause is to effect. But here cause is inseparable from effect, for if it were otherwise, during the time God was creating the world, He would be working towards a goal, and this implies imperfection. This, of course, is incompatible with the absolute perfection of God.
From the standpoint of time, the creation of the world must appear to be instantaneous, for the creation of the world is the initial motion which signals the beginning of time. Every element of the world is the effect of divine action, and the idea that evil can be separated off from God is as impossible for al-Farabi as it had been for the prophet Isaiah.
God's providence is exercised over all things. Whatever happens in the world is not to be attributed to chance. Evil is under divine guidance and is united to corruptible things. The fact that evil exists in the world is good in an accidental sense, because if it did not exist, much of the good in the world would never come about.
The power to think is man's closest link with the Divine. In his analysis of Aristotle's psychology, al-Farabi concluded that intellect exists in four senses. There is the faculty in the human soul that thinks, and this is potential intellect. When this power operates to extract the Platonic archetypes from material substances, it becomes actual intellect. In addition, it can come to think of archetypes themselves and thus of itself, and this is acquired intellect. Such changes require an efficient cause, which is the Agent Intellect, the lowest self-existent intellect of the lunar sphere, directly connected through emanation with the first intellect, the eternal divine act of Self-contemplation. Since the Agent Intellect is the intellective activity which generates the temporal world, man is the culmination of this process, a fully organized body on the material side and a rational soul on the spiritual.
For al-Farabi, the only proper goal of any human being is the nurture and development of the rational power by use of the will. The wise individual will reach falsafa (philosophy), recognition and contemplation of the principles of Being. One who tarries in the confusing mental wasteland of becoming remains undeveloped as a rational soul. Though one may find the sensual life of the tellurian caravanserai pleasant and appealing, it contains the greatest danger: one in whom the rational intellect is not nurtured will not experience the immortality of the soul after death of the body. By becoming self-consciously immortal in life, the end of all true philosophy, one remains self-consciously immortal at death, which is the dropping away of the perishable vesture that embodied one's spiritual nature.
The only thing that survives the dissolution of the body is the active intellect, the given form which is incorruptible.
It is necessary to identify with what is imperishable in oneself, and this must be done not only theoretically by strong and consistent mental affirmation but also practically through the way in which one lives in society. The social order is therefore essential to all spiritual attainment, and it is on this foundation that the human community is based.
The cohesive spirit and moral guidance of society is provided by the prophet. Since human bliss is known only to one whose active intellect has become the vehicle of the Agent Intellect, as matter is the vehicle of form, the prophet is not arbitrarily selected to communicate the divine command. The prophet possesses all the human perfections, possessing a healthy constitution, all the moral and intellectual virtues and a powerful imagination. The true philosopher and the authentic prophet are identical, and as the guide of developing souls, the prophet will also be a statesman. He leads by civic guidance and moral example, and since he cares for the common good, he rules through just laws. The ordinary citizen will not share the prophet's blissful experience and cannot make philosophical sense of it. He may easily misunderstand the prophetic example or the prophet's reluctance to lead, believing that the prophet is impractical or lacking in capacity to govern. Since ordinary citizens may ascribe familiar motives to the prophet, he uses his imagination to persuade them. All religions revealed by prophets are thus collections of extended metaphors which, whilst not literally true, provide the means for growth in all aspects of human virtue and intellectual contemplation.
The ra'is, leader, of an ideal state guides others without their guidance. Thus the structure of the state reflects and corresponds to the structure of the universe, with total unity at the top, the principles of plurality in the middle, followed by manifest existence. The ra'is, philosopher and prophet, has at his right hand a second leader, whose virtues are concentrated in executive powers. Where no second leader can be found, his functions may be exercised by a body of individuals, just as the principles of plurality are themselves plural. The overarching rule of the ideal society is such that each citizen fulfils those tasks for which he is best fitted. The intellectual governing elite consists of those who can understand the transcendental demonstrations of the prophet-philosopher. Such understanding is marked by their ability to put into practice instantly what they hear and understand. For al-Farabi as for Pythagoras and Plato, an intellect divorced from daily application is useless and at root false. Under the intellectual élite are the masses of ordinary citizens who cannot grasp transcendent abstractions but who may be inspired by persuasive arguments. Each class improves itself and the whole by attending to those responsibilities suitable to it. Where this system of shared and mutual responsibility breaks down, society is degraded, the people languish spiritually, and the false coin of transitory pleasures is sought in place of the gold of supreme bliss. Where the élite exploit or abuse the masses, or where the masses shirk their responsibility to support and follow the guidance of the élite, society ceases to be good. Depending on the case, an imperfect society may be ignorant, misguided or retarded. None of these, of course, are worthy of having a prophet at their head.
Religion is the cohesive principle of any society, and just as societies may be corrupt and imperfect, so can religions, and both degrade their members. True religion is nothing other than the highest philosophy, known to the individual who has perfected what it is to be human through developing the active intellect to the point of becoming a pure channel of the Agent Intellect. Since the average person has not attained this lofty end, the religions that proliferate in the world are images, more or less true, of essential religion. As congeries of persuasive arguments and metaphors, each has its imperfections. Many are helpful, though a few are demonic and necromantic. Al-Farabi thought that Islam was close to the true religion of philosophical insight and eternal wisdom, but he insisted there were others. He refused, however, to name them, for he wanted his point to be understood and avoided engaging in sectarian squabbles.
History is ironic because it is bound to time and temperament. Orthodox Muslim intellectuals rejected the Mu'tazilite doctrine that revelation could be confirmed by reason as a test of its authenticity. Misunderstanding al-Farabi's exalted and spiritual conception of reason, the Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jama'ah banished al-Farabi's teaching from the history of Islamic thought. Not recognizing that, despite his rationalistic argumentation, his philosophical thought was based on his own mystical experiences, the orthodox banned his works and ignored his teachings. This belligerent attitude helped to bring al-Farabi's writings to the attention of European scholastics, who incorporated many of his ideas into the late medieval schools, thence to find their way into the Renaissance. Thus the philosopher from Turkistan, who never travelled from the Middle East, became one of the most influential philosophers in Europe. At the same time, his teachings were welcomed into Sufi circles, where sublime mysticism is at home with rigorous reason. For the Sufi companions, as for many who have not heard of his name, al-Farabi remains 'the second Teacher'.
Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
OT - It seems that in Britain you can be jailed for using racist language.
BBC
IIRC in the US and Canada you can be jailed for using certain types of language too. This is nothing new.
Maybe in Canada, I've never heard of anyone being put in jail in the US for that.
Jail for racist comments? maybe not, but I do know of city ordinaces regarding language - mainly profanity.
CkG
I dunno about "hate crime" laws in either Canada or the US, but I was talking of general limits on speech - inciting revolt, yelling "fire" in a threatre etc etc.
My point is, comparing England under Blair to Iraq under Hussein makes about as much sense as comparing America under Bush to Germany under Hitler.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
Originally posted by: Ultra Quiet
Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
yeah, because people in france, germany and britain don't have the right to own property or speak freely.
In any case, Iraqis themselves do not value freedom very much. None except the Kurds were willing to fight (and die) for it.
OT - It seems that in Britain you can be jailed for using racist language.
BBC
IIRC in the US and Canada you can be jailed for using certain types of language too. This is nothing new.
Maybe in Canada, I've never heard of anyone being put in jail in the US for that.
Jail for racist comments? maybe not, but I do know of city ordinaces regarding language - mainly profanity.
CkG
I dunno about "hate crime" laws in either Canada or the US, but I was talking of general limits on speech - inciting revolt, yelling "fire" in a threatre etc etc.
My point is, comparing England under Blair to Iraq under Hussein makes about as much sense as comparing America under Bush to Germany under Hitler.
I wasn't questioning your position
It was to point out that we do infact have laws/ordinaces in the US that do limit some speach.CkG
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
Moonbeam,
Re: your lengthy post...
******************
This imperishable is the soul, the empty part of the deer's heart. It seems that the all thinking mentioned in the post is dependent on the acceptance of this intangible. The insistence of "the social order" as being essential to spiritual attainment would suggest a break down in it eliminates that potential... a notion to which I disagree. Logic for instance, depends on the premise the propounder stands on. This statement " God is knowable and unknowable, evident and hidden, and the best knowledge of Him is to know that He is something the human mind cannot thoroughly understand." Presupposes the acceptance of the soul and its burden, the matter containing it .. the body. But, if one accepts Jesus as being God one might argue the best evidence of Jesus (God) is found in the witness to his deeds and the recording of them. To say "... the human mind cannot thoroughly understand" to me suggests, a link of the mind and the soul and the burden... the body. Eliminate the body and the mind and soul, both intangibles, would then meld as one and understand because this is what God is... He created us in his image. The burden of the body eliminated is God's image. Unlike the squirrel, who also thinks but, not made in God's image. It seems all tangible items of matter are constrained by the limits God placed on them... for instance, nothing can exceed the velocity of light. If it attempts to achieve this it and all the universe self destruct... we can gain entrance to heaven one way.. as mass approaches C it becomes more and more massive until is it the total mass of the universe.. ... into the square root of 1 - V2/C2..
What I think is true; is that Social order has bad out of necessity... to show good. That good exists despite bad and that good follows a natural order consistent with what God said good is and if all the universe was populated by good we'd still not attain spiritual enlightenment because of our burden which precludes the meld of soul and mind into what God intended after this existence... and in his image.
The many religions of the world here on earth are each in search of folks to further their individual concept of God. God is God and we ain't. This is obvious as well as perfect in an environment with infinity as the criteria is not attainable. God is perfect and we ain't. So to be as God's image ... perfect... we must rid the potential of the burden... and become the image of God. This then is where the good and bad come in... the choice to live good and move on when the time comes (and not before) or bad and trash the potential.. (Hell).. hell may well be absence of the transition..
Again the premise of the propounder is the criteria upon which the logic is supported..
edit:
To go beyond this simplistic look see seems a journey not needed. Good, by definition, is not altered by the acts which result in bad they are their own acts.. likewise Bad is not altered by the claim of good no matter how noble the claim... they too are their own acts. Bad is bad and good is good ... God said.
Re: your lengthy post...
******************
This imperishable is the soul, the empty part of the deer's heart. It seems that the all thinking mentioned in the post is dependent on the acceptance of this intangible. The insistence of "the social order" as being essential to spiritual attainment would suggest a break down in it eliminates that potential... a notion to which I disagree. Logic for instance, depends on the premise the propounder stands on. This statement " God is knowable and unknowable, evident and hidden, and the best knowledge of Him is to know that He is something the human mind cannot thoroughly understand." Presupposes the acceptance of the soul and its burden, the matter containing it .. the body. But, if one accepts Jesus as being God one might argue the best evidence of Jesus (God) is found in the witness to his deeds and the recording of them. To say "... the human mind cannot thoroughly understand" to me suggests, a link of the mind and the soul and the burden... the body. Eliminate the body and the mind and soul, both intangibles, would then meld as one and understand because this is what God is... He created us in his image. The burden of the body eliminated is God's image. Unlike the squirrel, who also thinks but, not made in God's image. It seems all tangible items of matter are constrained by the limits God placed on them... for instance, nothing can exceed the velocity of light. If it attempts to achieve this it and all the universe self destruct... we can gain entrance to heaven one way.. as mass approaches C it becomes more and more massive until is it the total mass of the universe.. ... into the square root of 1 - V2/C2..
What I think is true; is that Social order has bad out of necessity... to show good. That good exists despite bad and that good follows a natural order consistent with what God said good is and if all the universe was populated by good we'd still not attain spiritual enlightenment because of our burden which precludes the meld of soul and mind into what God intended after this existence... and in his image.
The many religions of the world here on earth are each in search of folks to further their individual concept of God. God is God and we ain't. This is obvious as well as perfect in an environment with infinity as the criteria is not attainable. God is perfect and we ain't. So to be as God's image ... perfect... we must rid the potential of the burden... and become the image of God. This then is where the good and bad come in... the choice to live good and move on when the time comes (and not before) or bad and trash the potential.. (Hell).. hell may well be absence of the transition..
Again the premise of the propounder is the criteria upon which the logic is supported..
edit:
To go beyond this simplistic look see seems a journey not needed. Good, by definition, is not altered by the acts which result in bad they are their own acts.. likewise Bad is not altered by the claim of good no matter how noble the claim... they too are their own acts. Bad is bad and good is good ... God said.
It's Sunday morning kirk, don't you think you should lay off the booze until at least after noon?
This imperishable is the soul, the empty part of the deer's heart. (This is referred to as the discovery of 'life') It seems that the all thinking mentioned in the post is dependent on the acceptance of this intangible. (I agree. The implication seems to be that this life is the same for all dear and that it reflects the notion that an ideal of deer life, to which every deer owes its existence in that it is created from in that image. The life of a deer is that absolute essential being of deerness. This notion seems to arise out of the search for truth, a notion that behind forms is an absolute form, an irreducible beingness of that form. The absolute nature of form. I myself am not persuaded, particularly by this notion as it seems to me to be an artifice of thought, more than any absolute necessity of reality.) The insistence of "the social order" as being essential to spiritual attainment would suggest a break down in it eliminates that potential(I am not sure what potential you refer to here so I don't see your point. I felt this notion flowed from the nature of knowledge as Farabi defined it, a triune, "...threefold criterion for knowledge taught by Plotinus. For al-Farabi, knowledge results from agreement of reason, intuition and experience." This experience can only be had in a social context.)... a notion to which I disagree. (I don't know then, since I'm not sure about your point, if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with what you say) Logic for instance, depends on the premise the propounder stands on. (I don't know what Farabi would define as logic, so I don't know if you are arguing with him on the same plane)This statement " God is knowable and unknowable, evident and hidden, and the best knowledge of Him is to know that He is something the human mind cannot thoroughly understand." (I believe this may flow from the ecstatic union with God that mystics speak of, the notion that only those who taste can know.) Presupposes the acceptance of the soul and its burden, the matter containing it .. the body. But, if one accepts Jesus as being God one might argue the best evidence of Jesus (God) is found in the witness to his deeds and the recording of them. (I would say the experience of being reborn would supply the proper and personal evidence of this. He who dies in My name....and so on.) To say "... the human mind cannot thoroughly understand" to me suggests, a link of the mind and the soul and the burden... the body. Eliminate the body and the mind and soul, both intangibles, would then meld as one and understand because this is what God is... He created us in his image. The burden of the body eliminated is God's image. (Rather than the body here, I would substitute the notion of the normal, untransformed, unregenerate nature of man as we find him, man identified with and attached to externals, man who has not analyzed the empty heart) Unlike the squirrel, who also thinks but, not made in God's image. It seems all tangible items of matter are constrained by the limits God placed on them... for instance, nothing can exceed the velocity of light. If it attempts to achieve this it and all the universe self destruct... we can gain entrance to heaven one way.. as mass approaches C it becomes more and more massive until is it the total mass of the universe.. ... into the square root of 1 - V2/C2.. (The squirrel never leaves its identity with God, its manifests perfectly its nature, where as man can be separated from God and be rejoined. Thus for man there is the opportunity to realize he was created in the image of something transcendent to his prior limited box, the oceanic God of infinity.)
What I think is true; is that Social order has bad out of necessity... to show good. That good exists despite bad and that good follows a natural order consistent with what God said good is and if all the universe was populated by good we'd still not attain spiritual enlightenment because of our burden which precludes the meld of soul and mind into what God intended after this existence... and in his image. (My own opinion is that the mind has struggled with the notion of good and evil for centuries because the notion of God creates logical paradoxes that need rationalization. Modern day psychotherapy, it seems to me, tells us that evil is the product of identification with what is false within us, the self that arose to suppress pain. The reason that there is no evil is because it arises from something that is illusion.)
The many religions of the world here on earth are each in search of folks to further their individual concept of God. God is God and we ain't. This is obvious as well as perfect in an environment with infinity as the criteria is not attainable. God is perfect and we ain't. So to be as God's image ... perfect... we must rid the potential of the burden... and become the image of God. This then is where the good and bad come in... the choice to live good and move on when the time comes (and not before) or bad and trash the potential.. (Hell).. hell may well be absence of the transition..
Again the premise of the propounder is the criteria upon which the logic is supported.. (Of course that same psychoanalytic tradition opens for me the possibility that what we call God is our true self. For me man does become God when he becomes real. Religion to me is about transcending the false by dying in Gods name. But the validity of all religious experience around the world is there because in all of them the aim is the death of the false self.)
edit:
To go beyond this simplistic look see seems a journey not needed. Good, by definition, is not altered by the acts which result in bad they are their own acts.. likewise Bad is not altered by the claim of good no matter how noble the claim... they too are their own acts. Bad is bad and good is good ... God said.
What I think is true; is that Social order has bad out of necessity... to show good. That good exists despite bad and that good follows a natural order consistent with what God said good is and if all the universe was populated by good we'd still not attain spiritual enlightenment because of our burden which precludes the meld of soul and mind into what God intended after this existence... and in his image. (My own opinion is that the mind has struggled with the notion of good and evil for centuries because the notion of God creates logical paradoxes that need rationalization. Modern day psychotherapy, it seems to me, tells us that evil is the product of identification with what is false within us, the self that arose to suppress pain. The reason that there is no evil is because it arises from something that is illusion.)
The many religions of the world here on earth are each in search of folks to further their individual concept of God. God is God and we ain't. This is obvious as well as perfect in an environment with infinity as the criteria is not attainable. God is perfect and we ain't. So to be as God's image ... perfect... we must rid the potential of the burden... and become the image of God. This then is where the good and bad come in... the choice to live good and move on when the time comes (and not before) or bad and trash the potential.. (Hell).. hell may well be absence of the transition..
Again the premise of the propounder is the criteria upon which the logic is supported.. (Of course that same psychoanalytic tradition opens for me the possibility that what we call God is our true self. For me man does become God when he becomes real. Religion to me is about transcending the false by dying in Gods name. But the validity of all religious experience around the world is there because in all of them the aim is the death of the false self.)
edit:
To go beyond this simplistic look see seems a journey not needed. Good, by definition, is not altered by the acts which result in bad they are their own acts.. likewise Bad is not altered by the claim of good no matter how noble the claim... they too are their own acts. Bad is bad and good is good ... God said.
To bad Iraqi's have still not had a chance to vote for their OWN leaders instead of having them appointed for them by someone else.
Firstly, it's "too," not "to." Secondly, they have waited more than 30 years, so another year won't kill them...as Bush put it, "We didn't expect Thomas Jefferson to appear in 90-days."
If you really think through your stupid sentence, wait, forget it...if the shoe fits, ...
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
Moonbeam,
said..
(Of course that same psychoanalytic tradition opens for me the possibility that what we call God is our true self. For me man does become God when he becomes real. Religion to me is about transcending the false by dying in Gods name. But the validity of all religious experience around the world is there because in all of them the aim is the death of the false self.)
Somehow the existence of Soul (a container independent of body) and Mind can exist apart and independent IMO and can and ought to exist as one. It seems to me that this is how God exists. How time, matter, etc.. the things that constrain humankind do not affect God and this condition enables God to do as God does.
It (anything) is either true or not. The mind, it seems to me, was not born with the full knowledge of the universe.. (all truth in existence) this must be assimilated over time. Further, the mind is questing for input (it don't know truth from false, initially)... as the mind becomes sated with knowledge it does not determine truth or untruth just that it has gained knowledge of some sort. It adds and ages adds and ages then at some point and depending on what knowledge it added it starts to sort all this out. (the analogy?) The fellow who spoke to his mother, the deer and other deers knew what he had assimilated and his truth and knowledge were thereby limited. He sought answers and with the stones and sharp stuff cut open and looked at the perfection he saw with the organs.. and the heart and the left side vacant... all conclusions based on his "rationalization" of what he saw. Had he never spoke to any animal or understood the uttering of anything alive he would have been armed with his truths but, these may have been untrue to some extent. And here is where I find the mind gets in trouble. I think when a trusted source tell the mind anything that trust embeds some kind of link to the intake and somehow that intake is accepted as truth with out any further analysis. The self developed truths can easily be reconciled as mistakes and rejected but the trusted 'truths' cannot.. not easily.. be discarded. There develops an internal conflict that knows a false exists in the mind but the 'link of truth' overwhelms this analysis... To rid the conflict one must first break the link... disavow all that has entered outside the self determined truths.. and relearn the truth. With this done the mind and soul are at peace but still burdened by the life process. Good is truth and always at peace no matter the facts.. bad is truth too and never at peace with each other.. but bad is not always, if ever, false. We are somehow enabled with some sort of " conscience device" that allows peace of mind when truth is involved and discernment that false is bad and non peace of mind. The Psychobabbilation that seeks to rid the human of false and bad and arrive at truth and good must delve into the linkage of the false in the mind from whence it came.. the other false and bad are of no consequence.. So the Hayy person can be analogy of God's design and a foundation for philosophical argument but, the truth that comes with 'trust links' attached must be analyzed from within first and before it is incorporated into the philosophy..
said..
(Of course that same psychoanalytic tradition opens for me the possibility that what we call God is our true self. For me man does become God when he becomes real. Religion to me is about transcending the false by dying in Gods name. But the validity of all religious experience around the world is there because in all of them the aim is the death of the false self.)
Somehow the existence of Soul (a container independent of body) and Mind can exist apart and independent IMO and can and ought to exist as one. It seems to me that this is how God exists. How time, matter, etc.. the things that constrain humankind do not affect God and this condition enables God to do as God does.
It (anything) is either true or not. The mind, it seems to me, was not born with the full knowledge of the universe.. (all truth in existence) this must be assimilated over time. Further, the mind is questing for input (it don't know truth from false, initially)... as the mind becomes sated with knowledge it does not determine truth or untruth just that it has gained knowledge of some sort. It adds and ages adds and ages then at some point and depending on what knowledge it added it starts to sort all this out. (the analogy?) The fellow who spoke to his mother, the deer and other deers knew what he had assimilated and his truth and knowledge were thereby limited. He sought answers and with the stones and sharp stuff cut open and looked at the perfection he saw with the organs.. and the heart and the left side vacant... all conclusions based on his "rationalization" of what he saw. Had he never spoke to any animal or understood the uttering of anything alive he would have been armed with his truths but, these may have been untrue to some extent. And here is where I find the mind gets in trouble. I think when a trusted source tell the mind anything that trust embeds some kind of link to the intake and somehow that intake is accepted as truth with out any further analysis. The self developed truths can easily be reconciled as mistakes and rejected but the trusted 'truths' cannot.. not easily.. be discarded. There develops an internal conflict that knows a false exists in the mind but the 'link of truth' overwhelms this analysis... To rid the conflict one must first break the link... disavow all that has entered outside the self determined truths.. and relearn the truth. With this done the mind and soul are at peace but still burdened by the life process. Good is truth and always at peace no matter the facts.. bad is truth too and never at peace with each other.. but bad is not always, if ever, false. We are somehow enabled with some sort of " conscience device" that allows peace of mind when truth is involved and discernment that false is bad and non peace of mind. The Psychobabbilation that seeks to rid the human of false and bad and arrive at truth and good must delve into the linkage of the false in the mind from whence it came.. the other false and bad are of no consequence.. So the Hayy person can be analogy of God's design and a foundation for philosophical argument but, the truth that comes with 'trust links' attached must be analyzed from within first and before it is incorporated into the philosophy..
These are very difficult ideas for me to understand. Regarding the existence of the soul let me ask a question. There is the universe and awarness of the universe. What is the one and what is the other? In awareness could this question arise?
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
Moonbeam,
Regarding the existence of the soul let me ask a question. There is the universe and awarness of the universe. What is the one and what is the other? In awareness could this question arise?
********
This question presupposes a truth... that the universe is the universe. We are aware of what we can measure, see, feel etc. and we accept as true these things because we have tested them or accepted them carte blanche. I pose this question: Does the absence of awareness affect the truth of something. For instance; Before science produced evidence of a "Black Hole" was it true that they or it existed? A child having not heard the word of God and therefore not able to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour will surely be in heaven if the child dies before becoming aware of Jesus..
Truth is universal. It exists because all that is is. Awareness of truth is the result of not only being confronted with this truth but also rationalizing it to be truth based on what we are armed with as discernig tools. We may both see an event and both may accept it to be true but to be a different truth.
For instance; an object streaking across the sky zigging and zagging... we see the reflection or light emitted from the object and agree it exists.. a truth.. You the scientist, say it is a craft doing impossible things contrary to the laws of physics and I the philosopher, say it is a craft doing possible things because it did them. Which of us is aware?
Regarding the existence of the soul let me ask a question. There is the universe and awarness of the universe. What is the one and what is the other? In awareness could this question arise?
********
This question presupposes a truth... that the universe is the universe. We are aware of what we can measure, see, feel etc. and we accept as true these things because we have tested them or accepted them carte blanche. I pose this question: Does the absence of awareness affect the truth of something. For instance; Before science produced evidence of a "Black Hole" was it true that they or it existed? A child having not heard the word of God and therefore not able to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour will surely be in heaven if the child dies before becoming aware of Jesus..
Truth is universal. It exists because all that is is. Awareness of truth is the result of not only being confronted with this truth but also rationalizing it to be truth based on what we are armed with as discernig tools. We may both see an event and both may accept it to be true but to be a different truth.
For instance; an object streaking across the sky zigging and zagging... we see the reflection or light emitted from the object and agree it exists.. a truth.. You the scientist, say it is a craft doing impossible things contrary to the laws of physics and I the philosopher, say it is a craft doing possible things because it did them. Which of us is aware?
The reason I asked if in awareness the question could arise is because it seems to me that what you describe are thoughts about awareness past. They arise out of a fragment of awareness commenting on the whole. My real question, I guess, is, is it possible to be totally aware? Is there an awareness in which there is no I and thou? Is there an awareness where a squiggly light is not this or that but something for which one is at cause? The universe is happening according to my will? Is it possible to enter the now, to stop time, to ride upon the flow, to create the universe in the now with Love?
When you read somebody like Rumi, you realize your dealing with somebody who is very excited about things.
When you read somebody like Rumi, you realize your dealing with somebody who is very excited about things.
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