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My signature explained and other matters of interest
#26

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(04-11-2023, 05:27 AM)Cavebear Wrote:
(04-11-2023, 04:13 AM)Rubaiyyat Wrote: Hi Cavebear! Haven't been around lately, since something went awry with the formatting of my book that was suppose to be released a week ago and I've been busy fixing that. But I just read your comment, liked it if only because I used to think that way, and figured you deserved an explanation.

I'm an atheist to the bone, and have been since my teens (I'm now 85). I believe in no god, nor any religion. But I do love philosophy, especially eastern philosophy, to which I gravitated at an early age; and when I hear you say that I'm very fond of eastern theisms, I have to wonder just how much you happen to know about eastern reasoning when it comes to religion. Buddhism, for instance, has no theism, no god, as any Buddhist will be happy to tell you. Which isn't to say that some folks calling themselves Buddhist without ever really understanding it don't worship all kinds of made-up gods for the same reasons that Christians have made up theirs; but it IS to say that the real, historical flesh-and-blood Indian prince Gautama, who came to be called 'the Buddha' because of certain philosophical beliefs, practices, and achievements--including the ultimate one of taking control of his own ego, or sense of 'I', and utterly destroying it so as to end all possibility of suffering, which ultimately launched Buddhism--didn't believe in gods, certainly never thought of himself as one, and was every bit as atheistic as you or I. Yes, others who needed theism in their lives because otherwise they weren't able to make sense of the world without it have since brought all kinds of gods into Buddhism, but no true Buddhist worships them. if you walked up to a Zen master and asked him about god, he might slap away your hand as you go to introduce yourself or hit you with his cane before quickly chasing you away as but another of the world's hopeless nitwits, OR he just might try to help you understand the truth by giving you a 'koan' to think about, such as "What is the sound of one had clapping?" Because the answer, you see--although you're supposed to figure it out for yourself, is that it makes no sound because it takes two hands to do that; and to the Zen master contemplating the world, the fact is that there's absolutely nothing that's 'other' in or about it--no god, especially. There's just you and the illusion of otherness that causes uncritical thinkers to reason about life in twos, or fall into the trap of dualistic reasoning. To a true Buddhist, the mind's creation of a god in order to satisfy its need to think dualistically is nothing but a child's brain-fart.

That said, I must tell you that I'm not a Buddhist; I just understand and appreciate Zen Buddhist reasoning--and consider it the highest form of Buddhism. If you wanted to put a label on me, you might call me an Advaita Vedantist, which is a form of Hinduism that as with Zen, philosophically arrives at the conclusion that there is no god, no 'otherness', but only an ultimate oneness about life. Brahmanic Hinduism, which is highly cerebral and philosophical whereas 'folk Hinduism is reasoning at the level of worshipping snakes and cows, allows that there are three basic forms of reasoning about the world. Two of them, known as Dvaita Vedanta and Qualified Dvaita, are dualistic in their reasoning; with the first believing that there's 'another' somewhere outside humanity's everyday world, a Creator to whom people may pray, make sacrifices to, expect occasional miracles from, and so forth; while the second sees the same duality about the world, but holds that this 'other', the Creator, no longer has anything to do with his creation, since when he created people, he instilled in them everything that they would ever need to take care of themselves, and so assuming that he's even still alive, he doesn't hear prayers, do miracles and all that.

The third is Advaita Vedanta, which loosely translates as 'non-dualism', or what we in the west would simply call 'monism' In Advaita thought, there's only the universe that has evolved into multiple forms, including us humans, and is continuing to evolve even as we're talking about it, and will continue to do so long after we're gone. And the reason that we humans can't understand what appears to be going on is that reason doesn't work outside a dual context, while the universe or whatever's going on is beyond duality. 

But I'm tired now and have to go to bed. See you around.

I have a couple comparative religion books. So I know something about most religions including Eastern Asian ones.  Given that, I don't buy the general arguments of most eastern Asian religions as "not theist".  Some promote higher authorities just less in organization.  And yes, I understand that some beliefs there are more philosophical.  I sometimes think that Buddhists casually think of Buddha as "godlike".

I include Hinduism as "an Eastern Asian" theism.  They have specific deities.    

I looked up"Advaita Vedantist".  As far as I understand, the idea is that there is "illusoriness of the phenomenal world".  Which suggests that the world id not real.  And that seems somewhat theistic to me.  If the world seems sensate to me, but yet something causes sensations to me, them "something" is causing it outside of me and that would have to be a deity.  Which I don't expect exists.  So I think "reality" exists that I can sense.

I did not apply the label "Advaita Vedantist" to you, you did.  But still, if you believe in anything that depends on some higher power (and semi-mystical counts.  you are not atheist as I understand the term.

But I loved your thoughtful and detailed post!
There never was a false god, unless you consider a child a false person. - Max Müeller (1823-1900)



Reply
#27

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(04-11-2023, 05:27 AM)Cavebear Wrote:
(04-11-2023, 04:13 AM)Rubaiyyat Wrote: Hi Cavebear! Haven't been around lately, since something went awry with the formatting of my book that was suppose to be released a week ago and I've been busy fixing that. But I just read your comment, liked it if only because I used to think that way, and figured you deserved an explanation.

I'm an atheist to the bone, and have been since my teens (I'm now 85). I believe in no god, nor any religion. But I do love philosophy, especially eastern philosophy, to which I gravitated at an early age; and when I hear you say that I'm very fond of eastern theisms, I have to wonder just how much you happen to know about eastern reasoning when it comes to religion. Buddhism, for instance, has no theism, no god, as any Buddhist will be happy to tell you. Which isn't to say that some folks calling themselves Buddhist without ever really understanding it don't worship all kinds of made-up gods for the same reasons that Christians have made up theirs; but it IS to say that the real, historical flesh-and-blood Indian prince Gautama, who came to be called 'the Buddha' because of certain philosophical beliefs, practices, and achievements--including the ultimate one of taking control of his own ego, or sense of 'I', and utterly destroying it so as to end all possibility of suffering, which ultimately launched Buddhism--didn't believe in gods, certainly never thought of himself as one, and was every bit as atheistic as you or I. Yes, others who needed theism in their lives because otherwise they weren't able to make sense of the world without it have since brought all kinds of gods into Buddhism, but no true Buddhist worships them. if you walked up to a Zen master and asked him about god, he might slap away your hand as you go to introduce yourself or hit you with his cane before quickly chasing you away as but another of the world's hopeless nitwits, OR he just might try to help you understand the truth by giving you a 'koan' to think about, such as "What is the sound of one had clapping?" Because the answer, you see--although you're supposed to figure it out for yourself, is that it makes no sound because it takes two hands to do that; and to the Zen master contemplating the world, the fact is that there's absolutely nothing that's 'other' in or about it--no god, especially. There's just you and the illusion of otherness that causes uncritical thinkers to reason about life in twos, or fall into the trap of dualistic reasoning. To a true Buddhist, the mind's creation of a god in order to satisfy its need to think dualistically is nothing but a child's brain-fart.

That said, I must tell you that I'm not a Buddhist; I just understand and appreciate Zen Buddhist reasoning--and consider it the highest form of Buddhism. If you wanted to put a label on me, you might call me an Advaita Vedantist, which is a form of Hinduism that as with Zen, philosophically arrives at the conclusion that there is no god, no 'otherness', but only an ultimate oneness about life. Brahmanic Hinduism, which is highly cerebral and philosophical whereas 'folk Hinduism is reasoning at the level of worshipping snakes and cows, allows that there are three basic forms of reasoning about the world. Two of them, known as Dvaita Vedanta and Qualified Dvaita, are dualistic in their reasoning; with the first believing that there's 'another' somewhere outside humanity's everyday world, a Creator to whom people may pray, make sacrifices to, expect occasional miracles from, and so forth; while the second sees the same duality about the world, but holds that this 'other', the Creator, no longer has anything to do with his creation, since when he created people, he instilled in them everything that they would ever need to take care of themselves, and so assuming that he's even still alive, he doesn't hear prayers, do miracles and all that.

The third is Advaita Vedanta, which loosely translates as 'non-dualism', or what we in the west would simply call 'monism' In Advaita thought, there's only the universe that has evolved into multiple forms, including us humans, and is continuing to evolve even as we're talking about it, and will continue to do so long after we're gone. And the reason that we humans can't understand what appears to be going on is that reason doesn't work outside a dual context, while the universe or whatever's going on is beyond duality. 

But I'm tired now and have to go to bed. See you around.

I have a couple comparative religion books. So I know something about most religions including Eastern Asian ones.  Given that, I don't buy the general arguments of most eastern Asian religions as "not theist".  Some promote higher authorities just less in organization.  And yes, I understand that some beliefs there are more philosophical.  I sometimes think that Buddhists casually think of Buddha as "godlike".

I include Hinduism as "an Eastern Asian" theism.  They have specific deities.    

I looked up"Advaita Vedantist".  As far as I understand, the idea is that there is "illusoriness of the phenomenal world".  Which suggests that the world id not real.  And that seems somewhat theistic to me.  If the world seems sensate to me, but yet something causes sensations to me, them "something" is causing it outside of me and that would have to be a deity.  Which I don't expect exists.  So I think "reality" exists that I can sense.

I did not apply the label "Advaita Vedantist" to you, you did.  But still, if you believe in anything that depends on some higher power (and semi-mystical counts.  you are not atheist as I understand the term.

But I loved your thoughtful and detailed post!





Hi, just got back from working out a convoluted publishing problem. Itching to respond to your view--admittedly a bit shaky--of Advaita Vedanta. I first encountered AV as a way of reasoning about the gods in some writings by the well-known Hindu scholar, philosopher and Indian college professor, later chair of the Eastern Religions study program at Oxford University in England, and after India finally became a full-fledged state independent of Great Britain, the man who was chosen to lead his new country as its first Vice President and then second President, Sri Rhadakrishnan.

As he explained it, Hinduism in its highest, philosophical form teaches that when people first begin reasoning about the world, they quite naturally view it as something created––and so it follows that there must have been a Creator. This 'dualistic reasoning' Hinduism calls DVAITA (sorry, but no italics available here). In Dvaita reasoning, the created and Created continually interact with each other through prayers, supplications, offerings, miracles, apparitions, and so forth.

But eventually––perhaps after many unanswered prayers and horrendous sufferings--people reason that the Creator must have left them entirely on their own, no doubt having instilled in them the intelligence and strength to deal with their own problems when he created them; and that in fact, he might even be dead now. Of course, this is still a form of dualistic reasoning; and Hinduism has an appropriate name for that too, which isn't important to this discussion but anyway just means 'qualified dualism'.

And then Advaita--which is a word formed by simply sticking an 'A' in front of the aforementioned word Dvaita; same as you and I stick one in front of 'theism' to form 'atheusm'. I mean, the 'a' has the same meaning. Literally, it means 'non-Dualism'; although in English, I prefer the less negative-sounding 'Monism. (I wrote an Independent Study term paper once titled "Monist Thought Systems East and West".) Advaita views the world as 'created' only inasmuch as we ourselves are part of the creative process, which is ongoing even as we speak. There is no second, no 'other'; never was, and never will be. We're IT, period. Not that that's an easy concept or conclusion to reasonably arrive at; but it can be done; and for those who can't get there, well, there's a place for them too in Hinduism and the world-at-large, since it's accepted that many people remain dualistic in their reasoning and as long as they don't try to drag the rest of us down to their level, they're free to happily break out in tongues, worship cows or whatever.
There never was a false god, unless you consider a child a false person. - Max Müeller (1823-1900)



Reply
#28

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(04-11-2023, 05:27 AM)Cavebear Wrote:
(04-11-2023, 04:13 AM)Rubaiyyat Wrote: Hi Cavebear! Haven't been around lately, since something went awry with the formatting of my book that was suppose to be released a week ago and I've been busy fixing that. But I just read your comment, liked it if only because I used to think that way, and figured you deserved an explanation.

I'm an atheist to the bone, and have been since my teens (I'm now 85). I believe in no god, nor any religion. But I do love philosophy, especially eastern philosophy, to which I gravitated at an early age; and when I hear you say that I'm very fond of eastern theisms, I have to wonder just how much you happen to know about eastern reasoning when it comes to religion. Buddhism, for instance, has no theism, no god, as any Buddhist will be happy to tell you. Which isn't to say that some folks calling themselves Buddhist without ever really understanding it don't worship all kinds of made-up gods for the same reasons that Christians have made up theirs; but it IS to say that the real, historical flesh-and-blood Indian prince Gautama, who came to be called 'the Buddha' because of certain philosophical beliefs, practices, and achievements--including the ultimate one of taking control of his own ego, or sense of 'I', and utterly destroying it so as to end all possibility of suffering, which ultimately launched Buddhism--didn't believe in gods, certainly never thought of himself as one, and was every bit as atheistic as you or I. Yes, others who needed theism in their lives because otherwise they weren't able to make sense of the world without it have since brought all kinds of gods into Buddhism, but no true Buddhist worships them. if you walked up to a Zen master and asked him about god, he might slap away your hand as you go to introduce yourself or hit you with his cane before quickly chasing you away as but another of the world's hopeless nitwits, OR he just might try to help you understand the truth by giving you a 'koan' to think about, such as "What is the sound of one had clapping?" Because the answer, you see--although you're supposed to figure it out for yourself, is that it makes no sound because it takes two hands to do that; and to the Zen master contemplating the world, the fact is that there's absolutely nothing that's 'other' in or about it--no god, especially. There's just you and the illusion of otherness that causes uncritical thinkers to reason about life in twos, or fall into the trap of dualistic reasoning. To a true Buddhist, the mind's creation of a god in order to satisfy its need to think dualistically is nothing but a child's brain-fart.

That said, I must tell you that I'm not a Buddhist; I just understand and appreciate Zen Buddhist reasoning--and consider it the highest form of Buddhism. If you wanted to put a label on me, you might call me an Advaita Vedantist, which is a form of Hinduism that as with Zen, philosophically arrives at the conclusion that there is no god, no 'otherness', but only an ultimate oneness about life. Brahmanic Hinduism, which is highly cerebral and philosophical whereas 'folk Hinduism is reasoning at the level of worshipping snakes and cows, allows that there are three basic forms of reasoning about the world. Two of them, known as Dvaita Vedanta and Qualified Dvaita, are dualistic in their reasoning; with the first believing that there's 'another' somewhere outside humanity's everyday world, a Creator to whom people may pray, make sacrifices to, expect occasional miracles from, and so forth; while the second sees the same duality about the world, but holds that this 'other', the Creator, no longer has anything to do with his creation, since when he created people, he instilled in them everything that they would ever need to take care of themselves, and so assuming that he's even still alive, he doesn't hear prayers, do miracles and all that.

The third is Advaita Vedanta, which loosely translates as 'non-dualism', or what we in the west would simply call 'monism' In Advaita thought, there's only the universe that has evolved into multiple forms, including us humans, and is continuing to evolve even as we're talking about it, and will continue to do so long after we're gone. And the reason that we humans can't understand what appears to be going on is that reason doesn't work outside a dual context, while the universe or whatever's going on is beyond duality. 

But I'm tired now and have to go to bed. See you around.

I have a couple comparative religion books. So I know something about most religions including Eastern Asian ones.  Given that, I don't buy the general arguments of most eastern Asian religions as "not theist".  Some promote higher authorities just less in organization.  And yes, I understand that some beliefs there are more philosophical.  I sometimes think that Buddhists casually think of Buddha as "godlike".

I include Hinduism as "an Eastern Asian" theism.  They have specific deities.    

I looked up"Advaita Vedantist".  As far as I understand, the idea is that there is "illusoriness of the phenomenal world".  Which suggests that the world id not real.  And that seems somewhat theistic to me.  If the world seems sensate to me, but yet something causes sensations to me, them "something" is causing it outside of me and that would have to be a deity.  Which I don't expect exists.  So I think "reality" exists that I can sense.

I did not apply the label "Advaita Vedantist" to you, you did.  But still, if you believe in anything that depends on some higher power (and semi-mystical counts.  you are not atheist as I understand the term.

But I loved your thoughtful and detailed post!





Hi, just got back from working out a convoluted publishing problem. Itching to respond to your view--admittedly a bit shaky--of Advaita Vedanta. I first encountered AV as a way of reasoning about the gods in some writings by the well-known Hindu scholar, philosopher and Indian college professor, later chair of the Eastern Religions study program at Oxford University in England, and after India finally became a full-fledged state independent of Great Britain, the man who was chosen to lead his new country as its first Vice President and then second President, Sri Rhadakrishnan.

As he explained it, Hinduism in its highest, philosophical form teaches that when people first begin reasoning about the world, they quite naturally view it as something created––and so it follows that there must have been a Creator. This 'dualistic reasoning' Hinduism calls DVAITA (sorry, but no italics available here). In Dvaita reasoning, the created and Created continually interact with each other through prayers, supplications, offerings, miracles, apparitions, and so forth.

But eventually––perhaps after many unanswered prayers and horrendous sufferings--people reason that the Creator must have left them entirely on their own, no doubt having instilled in them the intelligence and strength to deal with their own problems when he created them; and that in fact, he might even be dead now. Of course, this is still a form of dualistic reasoning; and Hinduism has an appropriate name for that too, which isn't important to this discussion but anyway just means 'qualified dualism'.

And then Advaita--which is a word formed by simply sticking an 'A' in front of the aforementioned word Dvaita; same as you and I stick one in front of 'theism' to form 'atheusm'. I mean, the 'a' has the same meaning. Literally, it means 'non-Dualism'; although in English, I prefer the less negative-sounding 'Monism. (I wrote an Independent Study term paper once titled "Monist Thought Systems East and West".) Advaita views the world as 'created' only inasmuch as we ourselves are part of the creative process, which is ongoing even as we speak. There is no second, no 'other'; never was, and never will be. We're IT, period. Not that that's an easy concept or conclusion to reasonably arrive at; but it can be done; and for those who can't get there, well, there's a place for them too in Hinduism and the world-at-large, since it's accepted that many people remain dualistic in their reasoning and as long as they don't try to drag the rest of us down to their level, they're free to happily break out in tongues, worship cows or whatever.
There never was a false god, unless you consider a child a false person. - Max Müeller (1823-1900)



Reply
#29

My signature explained and other matters of interest
Italics are most certainly available here.
Maybe it's time to upgrade from your Commodore computer.

Still here pushing your book I see. Facepalm
Test
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#30

My signature explained and other matters of interest
Hello everyone! The ideas in this thread are super interesting, so I'd love to get y'all's participation in a project I'm working on. My name is Rebecca and I am an undergrad psychology student. I am currently collecting research on why different types of people do the right thing (or don't), objectively, and what values people hold. My goal is to get as many responses as possible to improve the power of my study (nerdy psych terms), so please feel free to participate! Thank you so much and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!!!
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#31

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-05-2023, 07:15 PM)rjam099 Wrote: Hello everyone! The ideas in this thread are super interesting, so I'd love to get y'all's participation in a project I'm working on...

Thank you so much and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!!!

Why are you studying psychology and not English?
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#32

My signature explained and other matters of interest
"I have a couple books" ...

Bwahahahahahahaahahaha
That's the best one I've heard in months.
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#33

My signature explained and other matters of interest
Hello everyone! My name is Rebecca and I am an undergrad psychology student. I am currently collecting research on why different types of people do the right thing (or don't), objectively, and what values people hold. My goal is to get as many responses as possible to improve the power of my study (nerdy psych terms), so please feel free to participate! Thank you so much and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!!!

Take the survey here:
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#34

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-05-2023, 09:05 PM)Inkubus Wrote:
(05-05-2023, 07:15 PM)rjam099 Wrote: Hello everyone! The ideas in this thread are super interesting, so I'd love to get y'all's participation in a project I'm working on...

Thank you so much and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!!!

Why are you studying psychology and not English?

A. I am from the south, I like saying y'all
B. I actually love english, but I'm pursuing my doctorate in social psychology to learn how to bend everyone's psyche to my will and take over the world.
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#35

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-08-2023, 04:03 AM)rjam099 Wrote: Hello everyone! My name is Rebecca and I am an undergrad psychology student. I am currently collecting research on why different types of people do the right thing (or don't), objectively, and what values people hold. My goal is to get as many responses as possible to improve the power of my study (nerdy psych terms), so please feel free to participate! Thank you so much and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!!!

Take the survey here:

And as a few suspected...

Quote:Students in this program take classes in Biblical, historical, and theological studies as well as religion and society, philosophy, and ethics. Students will build a foundation for pastoral ministry and become aware of religious experience and expression. They will engage with Scripture and learn about Christian beliefs and heritage.

Nothing to see to see folks. Move along.
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#36

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-08-2023, 04:03 AM)rjam099 Wrote: Hello everyone! My name is Rebecca and I am an undergrad psychology student. I am currently collecting research on why different types of people do the right thing (or don't), objectively, and what values people hold. My goal is to get as many responses as possible to improve the power of my study (nerdy psych terms), so please feel free to participate! Thank you so much and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!!!

Take the survey here:

The "right thing" is not objective, it is relative.
“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. 
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte
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#37

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-08-2023, 04:51 AM)rjam099 Wrote:
(05-05-2023, 09:05 PM)Inkubus Wrote: Why are you studying psychology and not English?

A. I am from the south, I like saying y'all
B. I actually love english, but I'm pursuing my doctorate in social psychology to learn how to bend everyone's psyche to my will and take over the world.

I'm with Rebecca on this. You can approach language from a prescriptive or descriptive viewpoint. The prescriptive approach does hold some value in that it maintains a consistent level of understanding, but holding too firmly to a prescriptive approach will eventually leave you behind. New words are created and added to the popular lexicon daily. "Y'all" has been in use longer than any of us have been alive. Its meaning has been commonly understood just as long, and it has little risk of being confused with another similar sounding word. The usage of "super" as an adverb is a bit more recent, but still dates back over 100 years in print form. I'm certain that every user that read her post understood it clearly.
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#38

My signature explained and other matters of interest
He didn't say y'all, which is perfectly acceptable even to Brits he said y'all's, which is decidedly ugly.
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#39

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-09-2023, 06:15 PM)Inkubus Wrote: He didn't say y'all, which is perfectly acceptable even to Brits he said y'all's, which is decidedly ugly.

Who cares? Do you have a problem with her actual post, or are you just looking to shit on new members?
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#40

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-09-2023, 04:46 PM)isbelldl Wrote:
(05-08-2023, 04:51 AM)rjam099 Wrote: A. I am from the south, I like saying y'all
B. I actually love english, but I'm pursuing my doctorate in social psychology to learn how to bend everyone's psyche to my will and take over the world.

I'm with Rebecca on this. You can approach language from a prescriptive or descriptive viewpoint. The prescriptive approach does hold some value in that it maintains a consistent level of understanding, but holding too firmly to a prescriptive approach will eventually leave you behind. New words are created and added to the popular lexicon daily. "Y'all" has been in use longer than any of us have been alive. Its meaning has been commonly understood just as long, and it has little risk of being confused with another similar sounding word. The usage of "super" as an adverb is a bit more recent, but still dates back over 100 years in print form. I'm certain that every user that read her post understood it clearly.

I agree. I's a very common Southern idiosyncrasy. My friends in Atlanta are well-educated, and around me, they use as many
Southern "idiosyncrasies" / anachronisms / lines from "Gone With the Wind", as they can, as they know they sound *funny* to me, and we're laughing about them all the time.
Test
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#41

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-09-2023, 08:53 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(05-09-2023, 04:46 PM)isbelldl Wrote: I'm with Rebecca on this. You can approach language from a prescriptive or descriptive viewpoint. The prescriptive approach does hold some value in that it maintains a consistent level of understanding, but holding too firmly to a prescriptive approach will eventually leave you behind. New words are created and added to the popular lexicon daily. "Y'all" has been in use longer than any of us have been alive. Its meaning has been commonly understood just as long, and it has little risk of being confused with another similar sounding word. The usage of "super" as an adverb is a bit more recent, but still dates back over 100 years in print form. I'm certain that every user that read her post understood it clearly.

I agree. I's a very common Southern idiosyncrasy. My friends in Atlanta are well-educated, and around me, they use as many
Southern "idiosyncrasies" / anachronisms / lines from "Gone With the Wind", as they can, as they know they sound *funny* to me, and we're laughing about them all the time.

I like slang and local dialects. I think it's a great pity that local dialects are dying out due to increased mobility. I think they are fascinating.
[Image: color%5D%5Bcolor=#333333%5D%5Bsize=small%5D%5Bfont=T...ans-Serif%5D]
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#42

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-02-2023, 07:30 PM)Rubaiyyat Wrote:
(04-11-2023, 05:27 AM)Cavebear Wrote: I have a couple comparative religion books. So I know something about most religions including Eastern Asian ones.  Given that, I don't buy the general arguments of most eastern Asian religions as "not theist".  Some promote higher authorities just less in organization.  And yes, I understand that some beliefs there are more philosophical.  I sometimes think that Buddhists casually think of Buddha as "godlike".

I include Hinduism as "an Eastern Asian" theism.  They have specific deities.    

I looked up"Advaita Vedantist".  As far as I understand, the idea is that there is "illusoriness of the phenomenal world".  Which suggests that the world id not real.  And that seems somewhat theistic to me.  If the world seems sensate to me, but yet something causes sensations to me, them "something" is causing it outside of me and that would have to be a deity.  Which I don't expect exists.  So I think "reality" exists that I can sense.

I did not apply the label "Advaita Vedantist" to you, you did.  But still, if you believe in anything that depends on some higher power (and semi-mystical counts.  you are not atheist as I understand the term.

But I loved your thoughtful and detailed post!





Hi, just got back from working out a convoluted publishing problem. Itching to respond to your view--admittedly a bit shaky--of Advaita Vedanta. I first encountered AV as a way of reasoning about the gods in some writings by the well-known Hindu scholar, philosopher and Indian college professor, later chair of the Eastern Religions study program at Oxford University in England, and after India finally became a full-fledged state independent of Great Britain, the man who was chosen to lead his new country as its first Vice President and then second President, Sri Rhadakrishnan.

As he explained it, Hinduism in its highest, philosophical form teaches that when people first begin reasoning about the world, they quite naturally view it as something created––and so it follows that there must have been a Creator. This 'dualistic reasoning' Hinduism calls DVAITA (sorry, but no italics available here). In Dvaita reasoning, the created and Created continually interact with each other through prayers, supplications, offerings, miracles, apparitions, and so forth.

But eventually––perhaps after many unanswered prayers and horrendous sufferings--people reason that the Creator must have left them entirely on their own, no doubt having instilled in them the intelligence and strength to deal with their own problems when he created them; and that in fact, he might even be dead now. Of course, this is still a form of dualistic reasoning; and Hinduism has an appropriate name for that too, which isn't important to this discussion but anyway just means 'qualified dualism'.

And then Advaita--which is a word formed by simply sticking an 'A' in front of the aforementioned word Dvaita; same as you and I stick one in front of 'theism' to form 'atheusm'. I mean, the 'a' has the same meaning. Literally, it means 'non-Dualism'; although in English, I prefer the less negative-sounding 'Monism. (I wrote an Independent Study term paper once titled "Monist Thought Systems East and West".) Advaita views the world as 'created' only inasmuch as we ourselves are part of the creative process, which is ongoing even as we speak. There is no second, no 'other'; never was, and never will be. We're IT, period. Not that that's an easy concept or conclusion to reasonably arrive at; but it can be done; and for those who can't get there, well, there's a place for them too in Hinduism and the world-at-large, since it's accepted that many people remain dualistic in their reasoning and as long as they don't try to drag the rest of us down to their level, they're free to happily break out in tongues, worship cows or whatever.

If you are an atheist, I have to smile at your sig line of "no false god". You can't even hide your beliefs.
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#43

My signature explained and other matters of interest
(05-08-2023, 04:51 AM)rjam099 Wrote:
(05-05-2023, 09:05 PM)Inkubus Wrote: Why are you studying psychology and not English?

A. I am from the south, I like saying y'all
B. I actually love english, but I'm pursuing my doctorate in social psychology to learn how to bend everyone's psyche to my will and take over the world.

Good luck with that. Professional ads don't affect me at all. Regarding taking over the world, see Pinky & The Brain, Dr Doom, Thanos, Hitler, and Dr Doofenshmirtz...
Never try to catch a dropped kitchen knife!
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