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On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:55:39 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The right claims that there are people on the left that think he is like
> a messiah. The left, exaggerates, but only slightly, the behavior of the
> right, which has literally called him everything from a socialist, to
> the anti-christ, to merely, "The worst president ever".
Oh, you missed the best one, Patrick....
The lady who asked Rick Santorum (Aside to Andy: He's one of the
Republican candidates trying to get the nomination. While I often
suggest that you google stuff, googling "Santorum" is something you
should NOT do from work. Seriously, wait until you're home. Dan Savage
- a columnist here in the US - Google-bombed his name to mean something
that you're probably better off not knowing.) a question and stated that
Obama isn't our legitimate president because he's an avowed Muslim, etc,
etc, etc - and Santorum didn't correct one thing, later using the excuse
"well, she's an old lady and she was leaning on a cane" as if that had
any relevance to it. Stephen Colbert did an awesome send-up of that
response on Tuesday's Colbert Report.
Jim
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On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:35:37 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
>>> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
>>> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
>>> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
>>> which one to believe.
>>
>> It's subjective.
>>
>> You could probably learn a lot by reading his Wikipedia entry.
>
> Yeah, but... it's subjective. ;-)
Wikipedia is often a starting point rather than an ending point.
> The other day, I read about something called "the church of
> scientology". From what Wikipedia said, this is /obviously/ a criminal
> organisation that should be shut down immediately. And yet, various
> national governments have investigated it and decided either to take no
> action, or to officially recognise it as legit. So clearly Wikipedia
> isn't presenting the full picture here.
CoS is an interesting organisation because of how closely they try to
protect their identity and information, to the point of making it
difficult for anyone to objectively write about them.
They're classified as a religion. "Cult" is probably much more apt a
description, and a cult with some very high-profile members. But what
I've read on the history of it, apparently L. Ron Hubbard (the author)
had a bet with his son that he could create a religion and get people to
donate lots of money to it.
> I imagine the same can be said about any topic which people are likely
> to have strong opinions about.
Certainly.
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On 1/26/2012 10:10 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:35:37 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>
>>>> I've noticed that some people regard Obama was the Messiah, the most
>>>> wonderful thing ever to happen in American history. And others regard
>>>> him as pure, liquid evil. Clearly these two viewpoints cannot both be
>>>> correct. Having no clue what Obama has actually done, I have no idea
>>>> which one to believe.
>>>
>>> It's subjective.
>>>
>>> You could probably learn a lot by reading his Wikipedia entry.
>>
>> Yeah, but... it's subjective. ;-)
>
> Wikipedia is often a starting point rather than an ending point.
>
>> The other day, I read about something called "the church of
>> scientology". From what Wikipedia said, this is /obviously/ a criminal
>> organisation that should be shut down immediately. And yet, various
>> national governments have investigated it and decided either to take no
>> action, or to officially recognise it as legit. So clearly Wikipedia
>> isn't presenting the full picture here.
>
> CoS is an interesting organisation because of how closely they try to
> protect their identity and information, to the point of making it
> difficult for anyone to objectively write about them.
>
> They're classified as a religion. "Cult" is probably much more apt a
> description, and a cult with some very high-profile members. But what
> I've read on the history of it, apparently L. Ron Hubbard (the author)
> had a bet with his son that he could create a religion and get people to
> donate lots of money to it.
>
Part of the issue is that, due to the secrecy, and other factors, most
of the "its a church" decisions where made *prior* to a full
understanding of what went on in it. Its now undergoing "reform", what
ever the hell that actually means. But, a lot of the stuff it does, like
requiring people to shell out huge swaths of money to them for bullshit,
or locking people into the religion, etc., are not *that* terribly
different than some Christian cults do. Some of those flat out try to
require their members to "never" associate, if possible, on a
family/social level, with anyone that isn't in the same cult. Though,
they don't usually manage to get by with locking people up, and
preventing them leaving, the way CoS was doing.
But, basically, its sort of a toss up. If you can get by with declaring
"only" it criminal, while excusing nearly identical insanity in other
cults, great, if you can't... the uncomfortable situation arises where
the person trying to ban gets asked, "Yes, but group X, and Y do the
same thing, why are they not illegal too?" And, the only answer anyone
can give is, "Well, they are Christian!" The problem doesn't come up
with Islam, or Hindu, simply because in the former case, everyone is
against the extremist versions that do crazy shit anyway, in the
countries that accept CoS, and in the later case, almost no westerner
has a single damn clue what Karma actually is, the abuses it supports,
or the long list of caste distinctions, and silly restrictions, that
arise out of them.
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On 26/01/2012 8:10 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> and in the later case, almost no westerner has a single damn clue what
> Karma actually is, the abuses it supports, or the long list of caste
> distinctions, and silly restrictions, that arise out of them.
You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
--
Regards
Stephen
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BTW, as clarification. My understanding of the "real" meaning behind
Karma would be more or less these rules:
1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a
*prior* life.
2. Its karma that determines if you are lucky/unlucky, born rich, or
poor, gain in business, of fail, and everything else.
3. In the most extreme case, someone from the absolute top caste could
go nuts, murder someone in the bottom caste, and not be charged (at
least in the old days, though maybe less so now), based on the theory
that the higher status of the offender made it divine justice, and the
low caste of the victim made it karma, for something they did wrong, in
the prior life.
The west has turned this into some idiot version of, 'like calls like',
mysticism, and uses the term to describe the fantastically rare cases
where someone does something bad and suffers a similar reward, almost
immediately, rather than the much more common thing, which is to get by
with it, or the nearly as common result of being hammered by some random
event, that is magnitudes out of proportion to the supposed "crime".
Though, the later is often taken as a "sign" that some sort of justice
was served via karma as well.
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On 1/26/2012 1:20 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 26/01/2012 8:10 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> and in the later case, almost no westerner has a single damn clue what
>> Karma actually is, the abuses it supports, or the long list of caste
>> distinctions, and silly restrictions, that arise out of them.
>
> You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
>
Uh, don't think I have ever heard of it. lol
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On 1/26/2012 10:07 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:55:39 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> The right claims that there are people on the left that think he is like
>> a messiah. The left, exaggerates, but only slightly, the behavior of the
>> right, which has literally called him everything from a socialist, to
>> the anti-christ, to merely, "The worst president ever".
>
> Oh, you missed the best one, Patrick....
>
> The lady who asked Rick Santorum (Aside to Andy: He's one of the
> Republican candidates trying to get the nomination. While I often
> suggest that you google stuff, googling "Santorum" is something you
> should NOT do from work. Seriously, wait until you're home. Dan Savage
> - a columnist here in the US - Google-bombed his name to mean something
> that you're probably better off not knowing.) a question and stated that
> Obama isn't our legitimate president because he's an avowed Muslim, etc,
> etc, etc - and Santorum didn't correct one thing, later using the excuse
> "well, she's an old lady and she was leaning on a cane" as if that had
> any relevance to it. Stephen Colbert did an awesome send-up of that
> response on Tuesday's Colbert Report.
>
> Jim
Uh, yeah, haven't missed *either* of those. Not sure what they think he
is at this point. Its been everything from, I think, Kenyan, to the
illegitimate son of the clone of Hitler, by now. The "tamest" claim of
all of them has probably been that he "somehow" rigged the election,
using the names of dead people. Which is, at least in part, why Dumb and
Dumber, from the Republican party's, "Unaffiliated, so we have no
control over these people, honest!", sideshow, decided to stop posing at
pimps, to take down loan institutions (i.e. Acorn and the like), using
false video footage, and go straight to committing real voter fraud,
using the names of *living* people. The birther movement is alive and
well for some people. Sadly, so is the belief that having an IQ slightly
higher than Sarah Palin and Macheal Bachman combined makes you, "A
political genuis."
Actually, I am being unfair there. I am sure if you combined their IQs,
it would at least reach "average".
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On 26/01/2012 8:24 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>> You're not a fan of "My name is Earl", then?
>>
> Uh, don't think I have ever heard of it. lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Earl
--
Regards
Stephen
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Le 26/01/2012 21:23, Patrick Elliott nous fit lire :
> BTW, as clarification. My understanding of the "real" meaning behind
> Karma would be more or less these rules:
>
> 1. Karma doesn't happen "now", its generally punishment for action in a
> *prior* life.
> 2. Its karma that determines if you are lucky/unlucky, born rich, or
> poor, gain in business, of fail, and everything else.
> 3. In the most extreme case, someone from the absolute top caste could
> go nuts, murder someone in the bottom caste, and not be charged (at
> least in the old days, though maybe less so now), based on the theory
> that the higher status of the offender made it divine justice, and the
> low caste of the victim made it karma, for something they did wrong, in
> the prior life.
>
> The west has turned this into some idiot version of, 'like calls like',
> mysticism, and uses the term to describe the fantastically rare cases
> where someone does something bad and suffers a similar reward, almost
> immediately, rather than the much more common thing, which is to get by
> with it, or the nearly as common result of being hammered by some random
> event, that is magnitudes out of proportion to the supposed "crime".
> Though, the later is often taken as a "sign" that some sort of justice
> was served via karma as well.
Speaking of Karma without raising Darma seems a mooth point...
Same as looking at the worshipers of Shiva (goddess of "destruction")
and not understanding their points.
Karma is a concept... judging a concept by its application is like
looking at the concepts of communism applied to Russia, China, Vietnam
and North Korea. The main issue of communism is that the axiom of
rational people is damn wrong. It's a story for 6 year old children so
far in its theory... used to abuse so many millions of people.
(Capitalism is not better, it's just more reality based about the
human's nature).
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On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:10:16 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Part of the issue is that, due to the secrecy, and other factors, most
> of the "its a church" decisions where made *prior* to a full
> understanding of what went on in it. Its now undergoing "reform", what
> ever the hell that actually means.
Oh, goodie, sects for CoS. :)
Jim
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