Personally, I agree with Leo Tolstoy that all government obtains its power from the threat of bodily violence, and that governments protect the power structure and the interests and well-being of the most wealthy.

I also agree with him (see his book"The Kingdom of God is within you" online here:
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) that revolution does little more than remove one oppressive power and insert another in its place.

As such, Tolstoy was a kind of"Christian Anarchist," who believed that the purpose of Christianity was to teach men to obey the laws of Love and Righteousness within them, and that this is the Kingdom of God; that external governments are oppressive in nature, and that all men know that the laws of love and respect ("love thy neighbor as thyself") and non-violence"resist not evil" that were preached by Jesus Christ are the highest moral challenges to mankind. -Yet mankind is still not ready to live it out to its fullest. But the time is nearing..


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I'd love to hear your thoughts! __{{emoticon}}__

brian

Dude, in my life time. I have learned that people and systems live in fear.

I love it when someone tells me live, or on the internet,"I'm not prejudiced! But you sound like you are!"

I usually without calling them out as a"liar", that they are just not aware of their prejudices. Which to me is
the"Crux of the Biscuit" when it comes to any evil done in the world by people and govts.
Every human being on this planet except for maybe isolated unknown tribes undiscovered yet are
prejudiced in one way or another.

It covers races, languages,religions, political view points, status in life (incomes), clothes, customs, you name it. I think
Hate is the only thing in life not prejudiced. It takes all comers.
I'll hear someone say they are not prejudiced about 1 thing which makes them think they are free thinkers and tolerant
souls. Then watch them turn right around and form a negative opinion because they don't like what the stranger did or say or wear or whatever from any of the things I listed above.
Prejudice to me is born from fear and is taught to every human being from child hood. Fear of the stranger. We are
hardwired for that. So I will be dead before I see a society that I have espoused and wish to see come about on this forum from time to time. Since you are new and don't know what my previous sentence refers to. This is my dream.

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Usually when I talk like this. I get the peter pan or airy fairy response or they say,"But what about meeeeeeeeeeee!"
Unfortunately, things have to get way worse to the point of annihilation before people will wake up and treat each other better.

Or, maybe we will get lucky and the gods will land in their spaceships and bitch slap us back into being human beings again.

rokytnji wrote: Unfortunately, things have to get way worse to the point of annihilation before people will wake up and treat each other better.

I believe you are quite correct in your assessment Rok. It is doubtful I will see lasting positive change in my lifetime. That doesn't mean that I can't try to make a better world for the generations to folllow me. My socialistic beliefs may take a different approach to achieving this than you (Zietgest) but I believe our primary goal is the same.
Peace...

good perspective on life roky. as for the changes of life, there are too many humans that do and live as others instructs them to live. so we are a mere minority in the global society. as for major changes, they will not happened ever. try telling the conglomerate that has 10.000 billions annual capital (i don't remember its name) that you want the zeitgeist approach from the documentary. i see the world as being in the same state and adapting it self in the final faze of a problem not at the beginning that is what keeps us from evolving in a rapid way. changes at the current rate happen only when the man give us a bone, and we are under the illusion that we are the ones responsible for the change. i hope i didn't said the same idea in 3 different ways i have a tendency to do that __{{emoticon}}__

as for religion it didn't work for as long that we know why it should be different now. if you have a book (or other material thing) and tell people that this are the RULES from god you can manipulate the weak (read a majority of stupid people) to do and act like you need them to act.

a philosopher has to think in the mind of others, not in his mind, because his mind is already opened to everything. don't think that if we do something life changing, others are willing to do the same.

I think we all agree that religion as we have always known it, is not capable of bringing peace among men. I think this is because when authority is man-made, it leads to control and oppression. It's part of human nature.
To me, true religion is simply knowing that there is a power that is greater than us, and I believe that power is Love.
This world still runs according to base powers, such as physical strength, violence, greed.. But I believe someday the"greatest" people will be those who are loving, humble, caring.
For now, people who are loving are seen as"weak" and"unimportant." But I think man is getting tired of trying to live by force and oppression. The"beast" is running out of energy.
I was looking over the zeitgeist.com website. I see that they had a conference recently in Israel on world peace. And I noticed that the conference was sold out! So there's hope. People are demanding more from each other in terms of right living. The world is getting smaller. And our beastly ways have got to go..

Rambling a bit..

brian

Maybe you need to read"God - The Original Fascist" to correct your thinking:


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How can a being who demands total obediance allow anarchy i.e self-ownership?


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Alanarchy wrote:Maybe you need to read"God - The Original Fascist" to correct your thinking:


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How can a being who demands total obediance allow anarchy i.e self-ownership?


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You shouldn't confuse religion, man's interpretations of it etc. with the philosophical nature of spirituality which is in the core of the religious principle.
God, or the creative principle, is 'inside' each one of us. It's our consciousness, which believe you or not is the sovereign of our world.

That doesn't mean you're wrong. On the contrary, you're always right. But by understanding that the world 'outside' is a mirror of ourselves, that separability is an illusion, so to speak, you'll raise your point of view to an essential place that includes everything.

LOL. I was just trying to point out that the term"Christian Anarchism" is somewhat of an oxymoron. A Christian, by default, worships OT god and Anarchism recognises no authority at all. And OT god is definately the original fascist __{{emoticon}}__


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brian wrote:[...] religion as we have always known it, is not capable of bringing peace among men. I think this is because when authority is man-made, it leads to control and oppression. It's part of human nature. To me, true religion is simply knowing that there is a power that is greater than us, and I believe that power is Love.

I completely agree with you here but I doubt that everyone would agree.

I think you've hit on the crux of the problem. Religions are human-made institutions and as such they tend to get corrupted by power structures. I'm reminded of a portion of Plato's description of the fall of Atlantis:

... when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see, grew visibly debased, for they were losing their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.

I think you've hit on the crux of the problem. Religions are human-made institutions and as such they tend to get corrupted by power structures. I'm reminded of a portion of Plato's description of the fall of Atlantis:

When Plato wrote that he was part of the power structures of the time, and the story of the fall of Atlantis is much like the story of the fall in the garden of Eden story. The powers that be would have us believe that we are in some kind of imperfect state which we need rescuing from by some"Saviour".

Do you buy that? Have you ever considered getting counselling for this inferiority complex you suffer from?

Alanarchy wrote:When Plato wrote that he was part of the power structures of the time, and the story of the fall of Atlantis is much like the story of the fall in the garden of Eden story.

I agree there are similarities between those two stories. It is strange that you would think these similarities would discount the credibility or importance of Plato's description of the fall of Atlantis. There is a large amount of archaeological evidence that supports the idea that Plato was retelling an Egyptian account of the explosion of the island of Thera around 1500 BC. I got the Plato quote from James Mavor's book Voyage to Atlantis about an archaeological expedition to Thera (now called Santorini).

The powers that be would have us believe that we are in some kind of imperfect state which we need rescuing from by some"Saviour".

I believe everyone is imperfect but more to the point, I believe the imperfections alluded to in both these stories are real. Everyone gets these extra imperfections when they become conscious; they acquire an ego and the illusion of separateness. The most obvious form the complications of becoming conscious show up as is hubris where one does not have a clear view of one's own limited viewpoint.

Do you buy that?

Not only do I believe it, I believe it is the fundamental problem facing humanity. I believe most legitimate forms of spirituality encompass techniques for taming the self-referential (ego) problems that are an integral part of becoming self-aware. There is a remarkable similarity between these techniques and the techniques developed by Zermelo (and many others) that were used to tame the self-referential problems that occur in the foundations of mathematics.

The only two fully self-referential systems that I am aware of are human consciousness and self-referential mathematics (elucidated in Gödel's theorems). Both systems encounter similar problems and both have similar solutions to those problems. This similarity opens up a powerful pathway for science-oriented people (with open minds) to grasp the true purpose and function of spirituality. This is the basis of a book I am writing called:

• A Picture-Book Guide to Spirituality
  (for Scientists and Engineers)

Have you ever considered getting counselling for this inferiority complex you suffer from?

My loving aunt once warned me about the danger of following false prophets. I told her not to worry, with my ego and arrogance and my disdain for authority, I'm much more likely to become a false prophet than to follow one.

I think we are in agreement that religious institutions often get corrupted and turned into mechanisms for exerting power over others. This is a serious problem. I believe it is made worse when people don't appreciate that the spiritual basis for most religions is valid.

The situation is similar to the sickle cell trait. In areas where malaria is endemic, the sickle cell trait provides a significant survival advantage even though it brings along the lesser survival disadvantage of the risk of sickle cell anaemia. Many religious institutions are corrupt and this makes them disadvantageous to the survival of our species. The only reason these institutions continue to exist and proliferate is because they also provide a survival advantage that outweighs their obvious disadvantages: they broadcast and spread techniques that help humans deal with the self-referential problems of being conscious.

Ah, the first prerequisite for writing such a book is to understand that the word"Philosopy" comes from the Greek word"philosophia" which means"Love of Sophia". Hence, before one can start to philosophise one has to know who and what Sophia is.

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So Plato loved Sophia and seeing as Christ supposedly wasn't born at that time this precludes any Christian influences on Plato, despite the claims in the current entry under"Sophia" in Wikipedia. Plus Plato regarded anybody not loving Sophia as living like"Shadows in a Cave", which of course, would include Christians, cos they only love OT god __{{emoticon}}__