BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 02:14 PM

Aw shit. Has the Prozac run out again?

Get outside and get some sunshine, people.

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 03:44 PM

Aw, Cluin, chill, man. It's cool, dude.

Peter, the man was not speaking to God. He was speaking to a conceptual icon, animated version.    There is mucho differencia.

Beauty, too, and love, and many other things can be replaced in the mind with icons which miss their substance, just as gods often are.

Once you step out of the icon dictionary, the planet and even the people on it are worth rejoicing for, by and large.

In my humble opinion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 04:26 PM

He was speaking to somebody's idea of God, I'd say.

Look, a pretty girl is just a female human being. She has arms and legs like you do, and her hair gets greasy if she doesn't wash it. If you were a rabbit, you wouldn't think she was any more special than the average human male, and she isn't. In fact, the anatomical differences between the two are really fairly minor when you get right down to it, but if you want to worship them, go right ahead. God knows, I did for most of my life. Now I look at a beautiful woman and I see a female human being with probably just as many imperfections as myself. If I may quote B.B.King..."the thrill is gone".

And darned right it takes a great deal of courage to stay on the surface! I don't know anyone who's tough enough to do it fulltime.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 04:52 PM

Look, a pretty girl is just a female human being.

Sorry. That won't wash. I have known lots of people who were just female human beings, and plenty who were pretty girls. There is a qualitative difference, I am sure.

Maybe rabbits just aren't tuned in.

THere's an intellectual polysyllabic term for complex logic that looks sound and has no grounding in truth, and if I could remember the goddamn word I would use it on you, LH!! :>) Stay away from my bubble, thou pricker!

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 05:10 PM

"There is a qualitative difference"

That's as may be... but what qualities? Cause I'm certain that what ever you're interested in is most likely NOT what I'm interested in....

Doesn't make either one of us wrong... just different...

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 05:17 PM

Ha! Ha! I thought that would raise some reactions. Believe me, Amos, if I could have heard my own comments about this at an earlier stage in my life I would have been utterly scandalized! I thought pretty girls were airlifted down out of heaven or something like that...

My God, the time and energy I squandered being obsessed with them! I coulda been a contendah! I coulda made sumpin' of myself!

It's all the fault of pretty girls, I say! Curses be upon them! They have filched my considerable potential and turned it into dross, merely by being what they are...a mundane but unexpectedly expensive book with a marvelous cover.

I wants me money back!!!! (spoken in the voice of Popeye) :-)

I think I'll be a girl next time just to get even. I've had enough.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:00 PM

Clinton:

Aside from seeing the plug pulled in general I dunno what interests you; but I need to make a distinction -- I see pretty girls in women of all types and ages. The pretty girl is the one that twinkles out at you even when she's 70 and wearing purple. In fact she's wearing purple and laughiong up her sleeve. There's a pretty girl. It's a female body being operated with full intent by a gal being who is enjoying it. That's my definition and I'm sticking to it!

LH, I am sorry to hear you are going to be a girl just to "get even"; it indicates to me you will be getting even on BOTH sides of the ledger and will probably find putting up with guys like you is pretty hard time, and balances the other direction out pretty well! :>))

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:01 PM

Oh, come on. It could be a Ming vase, or a haiku, something that strikes you as beautiful, a handsome man, a melody, a meadow in the spring wind. I happen to find beautiful women beautiful, so sue me. Leigh Hunt's poem about Jenny is about a moment in time, when he was kissed by a pretty girl. She was definitely imperfect (Carlyle's wife); and yet in that moment, there was something imperishable to him, made his life worthwhile. Is that an illusion: the imperishable part?

Delusional. And yet....

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:09 PM

No, goddammit. Not delusional. Just a little bit too true for the world, is all. VIVE la difference.


A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 06:48 PM

Aw, you're too smart for me, Amos! :-) As for you, Peter, yes I appreciate your point...well taken. We all appreciate those magic moments, and I can remember a few of them.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 07:11 PM

I knew you weren't THAT surfacy, Peter, but the further explanation makes it much clearer. Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 01:45 AM

The beings that boggle my mind is the little ones. The little girls with their round faces and satiny arms, and standing on practically four inch legs, the little boys with their wiry bodies with the swagger already built in and evident by age 10 months, the babies with arms and legs jointed just so, ending in absolutely perfect fingers and toes. I don't think they used to be so astonishingly beautiful.

Mind you, I still like to look at the bigger bodies all around me too. :)

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 02:25 PM

Yes, the "newness" and physical beauty of young children is pretty amazing allright. I really noticed it down in Trinidad where I was helping my friend David coach a bunch of the local kids for the Christmas pageant. They were really very beautiful. You see all that potential and wonder what is going to happen with it as the years go by.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 02:38 PM

It turns into me LH... that's what happens to all that potential!

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 02:43 PM

Yeah, I know! That's what gives me chills, and probably led to my decision not to have children. :-)

I'm gonna see if you posted any photos on Mudcat, Clinton. I feel a need to see "the face of my enemy". (grin)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 03:30 PM

There are all kinds of pics of me all ove rthe net...

:-)

Or you just just hit - My Web Site -

heh

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:04 PM

Ah. Nice website. The page on meade is interesting. So, Ah sees yer one o' them there bearded varmints! Ah might've figgered that. Yer ilk usually has beards or else them droopy kind of mustaches that Mex banditos favors, but most generally the whole dang beard. Wal, if'n Ah ever gits down to Windsor area (not too likely) Ah'll listen in on a set or two at one o' yer gigs. Ah've heard thet Windsor is a hellhole, but Ah'm sure it beats Blind River, leastways...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:26 PM

PM sent to cut down on the spam in this thread...

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 07:49 AM

I think the word your looking for Amos is Bollox, and boy, there's been a lot of that on this thread.
There is only Now, and then Nothing.
No jam tomorrow never never land,
No self-obsessed wish fulfilling come again Carousel.
Just non-existence.
Yet am I sad?
No. Life is good, and the fact that I will make dust inevitable.
No life without death.
Leave these arrogant childish fantasies behind, accept the gift no mater how temporary and live in the moment.
PP

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: GUEST,DEATH
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 08:32 AM

I AM INVETIABLE, NOTHING ELSE IS. SO ENJOY WHAT YOU HAVE NOW BECAUSE ONLY I KNOW FOR CERTAIN WHAT COMES AFTER - THE REST IS FAITH.

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 08:45 AM

Death, quiet down and learn how to spell. (The scythe, bring on the scythe)..... yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 08:46 AM

Dear loud mouth:

Being "invetiable", as you put it, is curable.

You're not half as scary as you knock yourself up to be.

And others have been there and know it as well as you, so chill out.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: GUEST,DEATH
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 09:41 AM

SORRY, SPELLING CHANGES ITS SO HARD TO KEEP TRACK...... I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SCARY (I'M JUST A MISUNDERSTOOD PUBLIC SERVICE) ITS YOU LOT THAT HAVE MADE ME SCARY. AFTER ALL I AM MEARLEY AN ANTHROPOMOPHIC PERSONIFICATION. I MEAN HAVE YOU EVER TRIED EATING A CURRY WITHOUT HAVING ANYWHERE TO PUT IT AND THAT BLOODY HORSE, THE HAY KEEPS FALLING OUT. IT MAKES A REAL MESS I'M TELLING YOU!

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: JenEllen
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:14 AM

Mearley Anthropomophic? YOU? Never! ---Perhaps a greater public service would be an adequate spell-checker?

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:20 AM

"...accept the gift no mater how temporary.
PP

And the gift, Pied Piper, is from what or whom? Doesn't 'gift' imply a giver?

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:29 AM

Pied Piper:

Well, I think you're in for a few surprises, perhaps. Of course, you tend to get what your beliefs call for, so if you deeply hold the dust theory to your bosom, not merely as an intellectual postulate, then you might find your next life is indeed being dust. But it's optional.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:41 AM

Mearley Anthro-Pomophic strode angrily through the morning mists toward the stable, slapping his high polished boots with a riding crop and muttering under his breath. Why couldn't people learnt o treat him like an aristocrat? After all, he was one, ny all rights -- indisputably!! How irksome!! All these "hiya"'s and "Yo, Mearly"'s just about drove him to distraction, and that's the truth....

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 11:23 AM

So you go to where you believe you go.
So if you don't believe in reincarnation you don't get reincarnated.
Now as the Buddha famously said "life is suffering".
He seems to have missed an easy root to escape the wheel of Karma.
It is difficult to explain that your glad to be alive, and that you appreciate the process that gave rise to it, without using teleologicaly-weighted words. Human language is full of anthropomorphic implications because it evolved socially and the belief in other people's psychological reality is a fundamental and intrinsic assumption. When we try to talk about inanimate objects like this it leads to problems.
PP

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: PeteBoom
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 12:02 PM

You can be whatever you want as far as I'm concerned. Just quit yelling. Yer giving me a headache... you wouldn't like it when I get a headache. I'm not nice at all...

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 12:56 PM

Wise point, PP. Them semantically-induced teleologies can be a real bear!! Flush them out!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 01:10 PM

Pied Piper - You are absolutely right..."There is only Now"!!!

And that Now will still be around after what you term as "death" occurs, and won't you be surprised. It's your body that's going to turn to dust, buddy, but for you there is no such easy way out.

The past happened, and the future will happen, but for all intents and purposes they are bothan illusion. Experientially there is only NOW. And it always shall be.

The only way to escape it is in deep sleep or a coma, so if it bugs you, take a short nap.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Pied Piper
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 08:06 AM

I like being alive, and endeavour to be as NOW as possible. As you rightly observed consciousness is necessary to be in the NOW; so why is death a conscious state, and a coma not? In order to be conscious you need a brain to do it, when the brain stops being conscious in coma or death or sleep there is no consciousness; simple.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 08:52 AM

I think I have found the bug, PP. "In order to be conscious you need a brain to do it" is analagous to a primitive person believing that the telephone   is where communication comes from. Easy mistake -- it's terrib;y complex, hard to aalyze as an object and when you connect to it it starts talking. Obviously, it's either an organic life form that speaks many languages, or the humans have invented very very advanced artificvial intelligence.

A brain is not a prerequisite to consciousness. It is more of an amplifier for operations in certain arenas...and a spam blocker!


A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 09:31 AM

If you ever find that "easy root" you just let us know, y'hear? yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Pied Piper
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 11:25 AM

What a completely fatuous analogy.
PP

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 11:29 AM

A scintillating analysis, PP -- as persuasive as almost anything -- well, almost. Your rebuttal is as fatuous, meretricious and specious, not to mention off the subject.

Anyway, you think brain cells can be a source of thought and a creator of communication, you go ahead with that and see what you find. I certainly do not want to dissuade you of your chosen beliefs.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 08:45 PM

He's making a statement of pure faith, Amos, and people will defend their faith with utter tenacity, be assured! :-)

Amos is correct, PP. The brain is analagous to a radio transmitter, your ears and other senses are analogous to the antennas and receiving mechanisms, and your mouth and typing fingers are analogous to the speakers through which the program is beamed at the audience (other people, animals, and so on who happen to be aware of you). None of these is the original source of the message, however. The source of the message is pure intelligence (or awareness)...a completely non-physical form of energy. It existed prior to the body, it built the body cell by cell using magnificent intelligence, and it goes on existing long after the body ceases to be useful in any way whatsoever.

And Amos is the least fatuous person I've ever encountered on this forum.

You're just of a different religion, that's all, so you don't get it. Your religion has been called reductionism by some, mundanity by others, scientific objectivity by others...but be assured, it is just another religion with its own blind spots, taboos, and sweeping assumptions about existence. It's pure faith that determines your viewpoint, and faith is said (with little exaggeration) to be capable of moving mountains. Don't make the mistake of interpreting that literally, however, or you will miss the point entirely. The mountains that get moved are mountains of perception. When your faith changes significantly in some way...they move!

Separate a brain from the living intelligence that courses through it and you will have nothing but a soggy heap of rapidly decaying cells. The brain is NOT the source of the intelligence...it's the mechanism through which the intelligence communicates with and directs the rest of the physical body.

You've got the cart pulling the horse, son. :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 11:21 AM

PP:

Just to resolve one of the confusions, about death versus a coma, both of these states describe the condition of a body. In either case, the owner of the body can be either conscious or less conscious. The degree depends on his/her native endowment of ability and how beat up he is with various tribulations. But even if he is in such a state as to be conscious only of blackness, he registers that. There are case histories on record of people coming back to operational consciousness after being in a coma and reporting on things that happened while they were out of connection. THere are similar reports for states clinically defined as death. Go figger. Point is that like the two simultaneous states of a telephone and its owner, consciousness and the state of the mechaniosm are apparently independent but related variables. They impact each other, for sure, but they aren't absolutely coupled.

Oh... "in my humble opinion".


A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Cluin
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 12:18 PM

How do you explain Alzheimers Disease? Broken telephone or dissipation of the intellect?

I am not being fatuous. I am really interested.

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 01:41 PM

Y'all just way too deep for me.

I haven't croaked but I have been in a coma and I can say that whatever that state is, I don't remember jackshit about it. Matter of fact, I don't remember anything just prior to the event either. So it seems to me that if I had died, I'd be none the wiser unless some grand thing happens to announce it.

Most religions rely on that "grand moment"....the "Pearly Gates" and so on. For me though, even though I was clinically dead at several points, nothing happened. Maybe the Angel of Death just wasn't as quick as the Docs on that day or was off on a vacation or something..........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 01:54 PM

Interestin' state of affairs indeed!! My opinion, FWIW, CLuin, is that the telephone analogy is very nice but way oversimplified; the actual pattern is more of a complex network communication with lots of variables coming together to make the 3D envisionment we consider consciousness.

Mind you I am not saying "unconsciousness" does not happen -- people do black out things under conditions of duress, drugs and the like, but in many cases this information is blacked out but available underneath the blackness. Same thing that happens when you remember some image or conversation from twenty years ago that you hadn't thought about since. Sometimes an unusual smel;l or sound can trigger it, for example. All of a sudden there's a picture you haven't looked at in twenty years, just as if you had remembered it all along.

So we're talking about a volatile thing here, not an on-or-off switch.

Spaw -- the cases where out-of-your-body events are reported in near-death experiences are a minority. The vast majority of cases either don't experience them or say nothing, thinking it was part of the dreamscape, or forgetitng th ewhole thing rapidly. I suspect -- FWIW -- that in the actual event, once you get over the surprise, you'll find yourself aware of things to a remarkable degree. If so, look me up and tell me about it! I'll try to tune in and hear ya!

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 03:16 PM

Uh, no offense here Amos old friend, but on the whole I'd prefer it was you who was trying to contact me if you get my drift...I'd just as soon hang in here as long as possible........Either way, let's look each other up the ol' kazoo.....

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 04:21 PM

It's a deal, pal. If I go first, expect to be woken up at midnight to the strains of "Let's Go Fishin'" played on the 36-string ectoplasm!

A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 11:53 PM

Hmmm--obviously you've never heard me play the ectoplasm, or you'd be more enthusiastic!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: An Open Letter to the Angel of Death
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 12:20 AM

Right on, guys! Count me in for the after-death get-togethers, where we can compare notes on mortality and suchlike, assuming we end up frequenting the same broadcasting band, so to speak. Then there's always the possibility of conspiring together to incarnate in another Earth life and be a royal pain in the butt to some of our erstwhile adversaries on this forum...yet again!

If it's any help, my mother had an out-of-body experience once when very ill and in the hospital. It convinced her that consciousness is not necessarily confined to one's physical body. But I know that second-hand anecdotes are only interesting to believers and simply an annoyance to confirmed skeptics, so why bother?

Either to believe or not believe in a spiritual concept requires faith...and plenty of it. You just gotta pick what you want to have faith in, that's all...and that's what everybody does, according to their own makeup and background. Then they defend that faith with all the passion, logic, and wit they can enlist in its defence.

Patriotism is like that too, not to mention political and religious allegiances of all kinds. In fact, I would contend that politics IS a religion, whether or not your political theory happens to incorporate "God".

- LH