jst2laws

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Posts by jst2laws

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  34

  Did you ever drink at the hall?

  by kid-A in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  or show up half-sloshed???

  or even a really bad hang-over??

  lol..... at the pique of my "rebellious" phase when i was about 16-18, i often smuggled in a small mickey of drambuie or baileys then snuck off into the library for .

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  jst2laws

  Auldsoul,

  Hey, I'm being real bad tonight. Yep. I'm skipping class.

  Steve
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  34

  Did you ever drink at the hall?

  by kid-A in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  or show up half-sloshed???

  or even a really bad hang-over??

  lol..... at the pique of my "rebellious" phase when i was about 16-18, i often smuggled in a small mickey of drambuie or baileys then snuck off into the library for .

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  jst2laws

  Yes, I used to drink at the KH but didn't get away with it. I was PO at the Marrietta Georgia KH and often tried to take a drink in the back of the hall but the refrigerant pump on the cooler would come on as soon as you pressed the water handle and combined with the my sasquatch slurping everyone knew I was sneaking a drink.

  WHAT?

  Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  Narkissos,

  Mysticism, as art, is sitting on the shore of language, facing the waves of the unnamed

  You are the poet, dude. And the true mystic might applaud the phrase "facing the waves of the unnamed". I'm told the mystic gets into trouble when trying to apply words to his ineffable experience. FrankieS,

  color does not really exist concretely in light and is only a mind interpetation. Light comes in a big spectrum of frequency, and only a very small portion of it has the mind assigned visible interpetation to, we are essentially blind to the rest, we only know of them through instruments we have made.We can't even imagine how the world would appear to us if we were able to see the whole spectrum of lightwave frequency, and the type of colors or visual sensations the mind would have to some how invent to make a picture in our imagination. I think if you think about these thing for a while you start see how our view of the world is not that accurate, and the mind effort to correlate the data from the 5 senses, to which it makes a picture in our imagination, which is not really accurated in its entirety. So as with the color red, and so much of or world view I think it correct to say it is "illusion" being that it come from mind interpretation.

  Good point about color. It is a WAVE, (perhaps HS's green) that our eye can perceive ONLY by the LENGTH OF THE WAVE (because the photon is NOT a partical, it's a wave, and has no mass), which is converted to an electro/chemical signal sent to the brain which INTERPRETS this signal to an image. The image is our interpretation of input only remotely resembling what produced it resulting in our perception of what we imagine to be "out there". But is it an illusion? Since it is consistent, shared by fellow observers, and it is the only reality we know, it will not be taken easily as an illusion. Perhaps if we say the reality is not made up of the stuff we perceive it to be, it may fit the definition of an illusion' but will still raise controversy. BTW, for fun I like to refer to the objects in the objective reality as "STUFF" Borrowing from George Carlin, stuff is really important to us humans. It's our stuff, our only stuff, and it is the important components of our world. In my mythic level, redneck reality my world consists of STUFF such as: "My world is my pickup truck, my truck is a GMC, my truck is RED. God bless America and don't mess with my stuff." How's that Narcissos for a mythic level poetic expression of our shared reality. I'm counting on you to improve on it. HS, You have raised some valid issues. I have not read that book but if you will defend it's position I'm sure we can discuss it here. Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  Didier,

  HS,

  LOL. We'll have to compare our colour-books when I meet Ross

  When you "meet Ross" can I come too? I have met Ross, but it would be fun to see both of you. I can do this, really!

  I haven't had a chance to look at this thread all week-end, and now look what has happened. I hope you all (especially HS, Ross, Didier, and FrankieS) will wait on me to get back to this and respond appropriately

  Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  HS I I have to be careful with the topic quantum physics because I tend to become a little evangelistic. I was an atheist (still am if I have to believe in a sky daddy) when quantum mechanics made my head spin with its matter of fact discoveries that touched my spiritual side. The point I made on another thread was actually a quote from a theoretical physicist who made a basic point about connectivity of all things and remarked on how it might affect us. My interpretation of this reality is once we realize we are all "connected" how can we not love each other. Frankiespeakin, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about and hope you interpret the overall meaning of the experiments the same. Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  Didier,

  The big (collective) paradigm shift imo came with the Enlightenment, which both reduced wisdom to reason and ruled out anything else as pathological and meaningless insanity

  Now your talking my language. Yes, it was good but not all good. It broke us free from ecclesiastical authority, even resulting in democracies that removed church and state, and focused on reason alone. The later was the flaw. Now the western world seems to be realizing, especially with the issues raised by quantum physics, that there is something worthwhile beyond absolute fact deduced by a cold scientific method. Still, we find some VERY intelligent people locked in a mental box because they refuse to broaden out, raise their level of consciousness. This may cause them to be tolerant of, even embrace, some of what they have discarded as "meaningless insanity"

  Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  Hello Didier, I think I may need to give a broader view of this topic before we get off too much into mythology and it's place in our lives. In the context of consciousness we are not dealing with mythology directly but only using the historic dependency on mythological perception of the world compared to, in this case, the rational consciousness. At the rational level, we no longer rely on 'revelation' from God as the more dependable source of information, but we rely more on reason, putting our beliefs to the test of rationality. As individuals many of us chose to do this when we became brave enough to test WT teachings for logical integrity and historical accuracy. As a western society we did this over a period of several hundred years beginning generally with the age of reason. Yet the process continues with some steps backward now and then. As to being just as rational while being in the mythological level, that was not so in my case. I had the potential to be rational but deferred to the "light" revealed either by the GB or the scriptures. This was my superior guide and when logic contradicted the mythic dictates, I forced myself to cede my thoughts to those of the spiritual leaders. I suspect many did not even THINK for themselves but let the WT do their thinking (for example acceptable blood fractions). Yes, we can be rational while yielding our will to Theocratic Rule but what we are talking about is the thinking that causes one to YIELD to theocratic rule in the first place. This is the typical behavior of one with the world view common in what is CALLED the mythical level of consciousness. LT, Nice to have your comment. As I try to explain above, we are talking about our world view and what governs it more that how we individually mix our myths with rationality to modify our "frameworks of belief". Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  A Paduan, This concept of levels of consciousness does not describe a particular belief systems and label it as mythological but rather the mindset or mental perspective of the individual or community. These are stages of mental growth we go through, often punctuated by "aha" moments. In a little while I hope to be able to respond to Narcissos on this point. Big Tex, Good to see you too, Willyloman and Seeker4 Also good to have a few old timers still around Steve
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  123

  Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

  by jst2laws in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

  i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

  have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

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  jst2laws

  Hello Frankiespeakin,

  "We can shift in awareness and shed light on(or become conscious of) more info the mind processes. Ive done it on Ketamine and Ayahuasca. Meditation also is a good aid in this."

  I can see I do not have to convince you that there are levels of consciousness beyond the rational. Yes, meditation is a great tool. I never thought of the orbiting electron/proton concept as a myth. You are absolutely right that it is not that way in actuality. I suspect Neils Bohr, I believe the mind behind the concept, grieved that his illustration was eventually taken as a literal manifestation of what happens inside the atom. That would be fun to talk about some time.

  Hello Narkissos,

  You intimidate me :-). I wouldn't argue that there is no rationality in the mythical, nor mythical in the rational. In fact the present US administration is an example of a basically rational society still dependent on its mythical consciousness. However, we may have to spend some time on your opinion that ancient civilisations were no "less rational than we are".

  I have more to post later on the general history of society's evolution from mythical to rational consciousness as these theorist and philosophers quoted above view it. But I have to head off to a class right now. May be a while before I can catch up to this. Hope you all have fun meanwhile.

  Steve
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  4

  Euro-English

  by belbab in

  1. social
  2. humour

  the european commission has just announced an agreement whereby .

  english will.

  be the official language of the european union rather than german, .

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  jst2laws

  LOL,

  Thanks Belbab and inri. That's a keeper.

  jst2

  ps belbab, how are you? Pretty cold there yet?