Stop doing this.
[FAIL]
Stop doing that.
[FAIL]
Congratulations!
You have successfully completed the Free Will examination. You will survive another day to explore new worlds, where no Man has gone before.
Please complete the exit link below:
freewill astrology.com
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Why are you still there?
I’ve recommended Prof. Guarnaschelli’s talks in the past and continue to find these valuable. This only perhaps relevant to the issue of “free will”.
https://youtu.be/DAXpMKdlwKQ
Chris,
First of all, ewww, wolf spiders are creepy and no wonder you had that reaction.
Regarding the topic at hand, when you talk about preferences for temperature and humidity, I hear you naming that the conditions we as humans need for basic survival are indeed hard-wired. I can’t do anything about my inability to live for very long without water.
The spider case is more interesting. I suggest that what happened there is a shock trauma where your sympathetic nervous system took over and you were able to flee the spiders. Yes, it takes seconds for the stress system to activate and substantially longer after the threat is over for us to return to our baseline state. I actually think it’s theoretically possible for you to work with this experience with Somatic Experiencing and get to a place where you are more at choice about those little hairy things and it’s an interesting question about how far we can take presence.
For me, nothing relational is hard-wired. For example, a lot of people think that things like being a loner or being an introvert are hard-wired into our biology. I actually challenge that notion because often those are things we have come to believe about ourselves due to early experiences. I think the question of whether or not to address such things depends on what we most want for ourselves. If we tend towards being a loner and it’s interfering with our desire to be in an intimate relationship, then there’s an opportunity to get curious about it. If we are content with who we are, so be it.
In a recent article Chris talked about the song “I sold my soul to the company store” people who worked for a company also used the company store and housing and ultimately ended up deeply in debt to the company. Eventually they were slaves. Often people had few to no other choices. The practice was immoral.
Fast forward to today. Very small cottage crafters, artists and makers found an outlet for their wares in Etsy. Hand-crafted, unique, and creative items. Well Etsy has decided the sellers should offer “free” shipping on anything over about $30. But it’s okay because they can ROLL the shipping costs into their product price! (free my ass) If they “choose” not to participate they will be excluded from the optimal searches. (buried). Also the makers business names have somehow disappeared in the searches. Just the commodities show up.
This “coercion” is appalling to many of the makers. I find the the greed, apathy and lack of morals by Etsy disgusting!!!
I hope someone will come on and explain to me and you how Etsy isn’t screwing the backbone of its site and I am mistaken. Please explain how those with paper thin margins aren’t being screwed! And, burying them from searches because the don’t choose to comply is moral.
I for one, plan to boycott Etsy! No doubt the lawyers are saying “well it’s their choice” yep and we the customers can take our business elsewhere!
Pissed Off Granny
According to the Queensland Museum, two Wolf spider species are known to be predators of cane toads. Lycosa lapidosa will take small toads and frogs while L. obscuroides has been noted biting and killing a large toad within one hour. SourceCane toads are an introduced feral pest, poisonous, highly destructive to our wildlife. Governments won't fund research into their control. Go wolf spiders!
Agreed about the wolf spiders… not everyone is up for cane toad cricket anyway.
The sense I got from my readings suggested that the deified emperors (Divus) were more like Heroes than actual Gods (Deus) in the pantheon. It felt more like: “hey, this guy kicked ass, you should remember him”, rather than elevating him to Godlike status. I’m not an expert in the field, that’s just how things felt when I read the material.
Amusingly, Catholics do something similar too. They call it “sainthood”, but consider: the organization in charge confers a status of “eternal respect” for someone who has passed away. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, given how closely tied the Church was to the Roman state. Change the name, but the process remains the same.
We celebrate Washington’s Birthday for much the same reason. He is - basically - Deified George, and we also have Deified Abe. Minus the animal sacrifices, of course. We just get a holiday. Martin Luther King has also, more recently, been deified in much the same way.
I will agree that requiring someone else to sacrifice an animal to your Hero does seem kinda lame, and in violation of the Republic’s basic tenet of not unduly disturbing the natives over something that’s basically unimportant - one of the critical principles and why the Republic did so very well. I guess the emperors just got too powerful, and too full of themselves. Another vote in favor of the Republicans.
I like our approach better; everyone gets Washington’s Birthday as a holiday (or, in today’s world, “President’s day”), but there’s no need for any sort of required animal sacrifice. 
Dave wrote,
I like our approach better; everyone gets Washington’s Birthday as a holiday (or, in today’s world, “President’s day”), but there’s no need for any sort of required animal sacrifice.I've watched over the decades in Oz as commercialism has grown and grown. Used to be that apart from essential services (e.g. electricity) everyone got a public holiday. Public. Holiday. Holiday for the Public. But now only some of the public get the holiday. Shop assistants and shop owners certainly don't. Public holidays really should be labelled shopping holidays. A form of human sacrifice perhaps.
Forgot to mention that when I were a lad, there was almost no trading on a Sunday, little worship of Mammon. A very few shops were permitted to trade, mostly cafés and milkbars. Every Sunday was in effect a public holiday. Add in the regular public holidays and people got a fair amount of time off. Some compensation I suppose for the rather onerous working conditions.
That’s a really good point. Way back when (the 70s?), Sunday really was an enforced holiday - it was against the law to open your shop and sell things on Sunday, which meant employees really all did get a day off. Straight out of the bible, that was:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.Even the cattle got a day off. And the servants too. God (or whoever wrote this bit - take your pick) wasn't kidding around. "No loopholes." Sunday is a holiday. Thinking about it - this was probably a good thing. An ancient bit of labor market reform. I don't think we're better off having "outgrown" it. Probably the retail lobby at work.
Even the cattle got a day off. And the servants too. God (or whoever wrote this bit – take your pick) wasn’t kidding around. “No loopholes.” Sunday is a holiday.According to the creation narrative that precedes your quote, even "God" got a day off, so to speak. Yes, the sabbath was indeed a holyday.
2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.Genesis 2:2-3 Speaking of "God," this came through my news channels today:
Survey of subjective "God encounter experiences": Comparisons among naturally occurring experiences and those occasioned by the classic psychedelics psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, or DMT (April 23, 2019)Newsy Summary Study And, just to clarify from our earlier conversation. You said
I get the sense that this subject matter is not so interesting to you, since you’ve delegated all this detail to your higher power. That works for you.I am vague about my specific beliefs because I don't want to violate the community standards. But I can safely say that I while I don't believe in free will, I do believe that we are free moral agents. There is a difference there for me. And actually, I find the intersection of matter and spirit, decision and determinism utterly fascinating.
I acknowledge that efarmer may well be trying to keep to community standards; and as such, cannot speak on the topic of religion. As such, it is wrong and unfair for others to speak to it.
But that, issues of religion are issues of belief – they cut to the core of who we are, what we are, and are foundational to our daily decisions and the rest of our dialogue. In that sense, the community standards are going to limit the effectiveness of discussion; management here has decided that the benefit (less depth in discussion, more depth in discussion) vs cost (possible complete derailment of the website) is not justified.
Not arguing with that. But for myself, I can say that my beliefs are not where they were twenty years ago, nor are they where I’d like them to be. And if there was anyone who could lead me out of the tunnel where I am, to where my views were good, and rational, and appropriate, and above all consistent with truth, yet also I was at peace with it… I wouldn’t be disappointed.
I have tried to discuss with others, who were willing, both officially religious and not, and so far have no good answers.
So to that extent, I could wish there was a way, on our personal info page, we could post about who we are, what we are… and control the top level (the declaration), and then open up to discussion any aspect below… and others could discuss… all on private channel, with announcements to only the two people – the person whose page it was, and the commenter.
aaaahh… wishlist.
The Scorpion and the Frog
One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river. The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back. Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream. "Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?" "Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly. "Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!" Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!" "This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!" "Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog. "Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!" So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current. Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs. "You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?" The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back. "I could not help myself. It is my nature." Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river. Self destruction - "Its my Nature", said the Scorpion...efarmer-
Sure I understand about “moral agency.” My question is, as always: who constructs the moral regime in which one gets to have “agency”, and what’s in it for them?
Related: who wrote the Patriot Act, and why? What was in it for them?
I’m glad we can both be fascinated by the discussion!
MR-
It sounds like you are definitely searching for the path. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I think if you search hard enough, you will find it - or something approximating it. I saw my Mom do this for her entire life. I do believe she found what she needed in her last years. She seemed to be much more at peace anyway.
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