Buddhism, Hindus, God, Fate and Khukuris

Originally posted by Ferrous Wheel
..I was sure you'd respond to this post and comment on the Ginnungagap comment I made earlier in the thread! I didn;t even get in to Ymir, or Authumla the galactic cow....heehe!

Keith
En Ferro Veritas
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HEHE... well I was tempted to. I have made the same idea as you about the Ginnungagap. But lateley I have also realized that much of my earlier knowledge about Norse mythology has detoriated severly since my younger days. In my years from 16 and up to 18-20 I used to read a lot and make a lot of philosophy in this area. I read buddhism, Christianity and Norse, and a lot of science. But now for the last years I have been a student (I am 27) and I experience that as my knowledge in biology increases my knowledge and wisdom in other fields decreases. So I need to finish my education now and get back to the forest and rediscover myself again and become myself again. I will be better for discussions then.
 
I think humans are inferior if anything - put yourself against any wild animal without some from of weapon for protection - tickets !!!

I think it's man's duty to protect the earth but instead we are totally destroying it !!
 
Dont sweat it Eik. Youll find that when you come out the other side, it all goes together, hand in hand. Science is just another way to explain our condition and habitat.

"man's duty to protect the earth but instead we are totally destroying it !!"--Brendan
Correction, we're destroying ouselves, and perhaps a few other forms of life. We will never destroy our true mother, she will jsut take out the trash and start anew. If the Giant lizards hadnt bought it, there would have been no space in the ecosystem for us lowly mammals (that or stone-age man would have discovered the RPG before fire). If we overstep our bounds in the current ecosystem, guess who buys it- Thats right, Us! It is Hubris to think that man can even put a hole thru the crust of the earth, let alone 'blow it up'. We're a dusty layer of dirt on a seed in space, and can be cleaned off appropriately in the next galactic neighborhood cleansing...whenever that is.

Keith
En Ferro Veritas
 
Thanks a lot for your encouragement Ferrous. I say the same to myself so I can make some sense out of this all.

And a correction to Brendan from me too. The human animal has evolved as a tool user. So putting us up tool-less against an animal is like taking the claws and fangs away from an animal and ask him to hunt. For us it is natural to make and use tools.

The deep subject you are talking about Ferrous Wheel is something that touches me deeply. I must say that even if we might end up exterminating ourselves and life arises once again after us, then let us hope it does not happen. The thing is that if we go extinct, there is no guarantee that intelligent life capable of exploring space will arise again. Remember that life existed for quite a long time without something like us evolving. And even if something like us should evolve again there is no guarantee that they will evolve a technological culture. We have had many great human cultures on this earth of equal value, only one accidentally discovered how to produce high technology.

And why is this so important? Well, maybe it is not. But for Mother Nature it would be a shame if She did not manage to seed life on other planets. Because one day our sun will devour our planet, and all life here will die.

So I hope for no extinction, and I hope for seeding life so that Mother Earth can bear children in other planets.

Enough for tonight from me, I need to go to bed.

But I leave this forum with a deep challenge:
You are all good people here. Showing the will to understand eachother's points of views, showing the will to help a man with a medical problem living far away in Nepal. Well, how about taking your good philosophies one step further? What is good life philosophy really without some action? So I make a challenge. Do something! Personally I am a member of http://www.panda.org/
and I am a soon to be activist too. But there are many other organizations to join also. I think your kids would like it.

Good night, best wishes from a supporter of Deep Ecology (http://schumachercollege.gn.apc.org/articles/stephan2.htm)and an activist
 
Point taken - I might not be able to put it so eloquently but I agree. I wish we were'nt so technologically advanced and still had to actually put in effort for things like making fire, building homes etc. I think we would appreciate life more !!
 
I just met some Norweigans in my village and they are lovely people - I believe you get something like 24hours daylight in the summer in the North - freaky !!
 
Thanks for nice words about Norwegians. In the north of Norway we have sunlight 24 hours a day, yeah (or should I say "ja" (=yes) for the Norwegian touch). I used to live in Tromsø and study at the university there before I changed university. And that 24 hours sun fooled me into walking to the food store in the middle of the night one time because I was sure it was dinner time!

But I must say I understand your message on the high tech man thing versus defensless wild animals. I can't quite dig it why we should go hunting animals with rifles. Might as well go to a butcher and enjoy slaughtering some oxes with electricity. The amount of calories spent by you is the same, just push that button.

I would love to pick up hunting one day, but it will be a bow and arrow for me. Seems more fair and true hunting.

And I agree to with your back to nature approach. Our lives are too easy for us today. It makes us loose ourselves and become decadent. And do you know what Brendan? If you surf a bit on internet you will discover here and there you find people advertizing for people like you. They wish to buy a farm and make a small community of several families living together in a better way. Without any 68-generation Flower Power ideas though :)
 
But I must say I understand your message on the high tech man thing versus defensless wild animals. I can't quite dig it why we should go hunting animals with rifles. Might as well go to a butcher and enjoy slaughtering some oxes with electricity. The amount of calories spent by you is the same, just push that button. >> Eikerverang to Ferrous

I don't understand this. This seems very naive to me. Have you ever hunted, and was it just like pushing a button, with the same amount of calories expended finding the game at the right time and place? Afterwards, did the button clean your animal, dress it out, carry it home and butcher it before throwing the wrapped meat helpless into the deep freeze? Looking at this from another perspective, isn't it in everyone's best interest the animal die humanely and quickly? A spear might do that, but not as well or as often.
And another consideration: how many wild animals die of starvation, injury and disease? Or is death by wolf pack preferable, as they rip and swallow the entrails while the animal is still alive?

If your response is you have hunted and it was no more effort than pushing a button my hat is off to you and I suggest you use a butter knife for 'sport' next time.

Sarcasm aside, and yes, it is time for it to be layed aside, I do know many people who in their hunting lifetimes adopt increasingly primitive methods of take. They make the choice to do this and it is hoped their experience is equal to their enthusiasum. Most of the time it is. They usually have learned the hard way, which included making mistakes with a push button rifle. The man armed with a rifle who takes his game cleanly is heads above a citizen who does not understand nature and reality and thinks indeed food come magically from a buther's hand. They call this a Big Mac.

munk
 
Ah hell..I'm just too damn mean..I'm sorry Eikerverang, the thread was happily going until munk had to throw a push button bolt action rifle into the works... I'll leave that glory for entertainment purposes and to answer any lingering doubt about me being a wise, buddhist type guy. I'm not.
But I do like this thread, as all of them, having a life of its own.

munk
 
I am feeling ok with things, you saying you are sorry is a nice gesture, thanks. So just forget about it.

My statement might have been somewhat off topic, sure, so I won't answer your arguments since it would not be a discussion for this thread. I only wish to say, to avoid any misunderstandings from other readers, that it was not calories spent that was my point, I was merely trying to illustrate how easy the very kill in itself is with our high tech weapons and how little a wild animal has to counter it with. Well, is stuff for another thread!

Hey Munk, and everybody else, forgive me for being an environmentalist by heart, but I think this thread seems to be going towards environmentalist issues anyway, so I will continue on that in this post.

It is not so strange that a discussion of religion, faith and philosophies of life end up dealing with environmental issues. What is happening to Mother Earth today is indeed an insult to all religions of good, faiths of good and philosophies of good. If not action is taken to help Mother Earth by all of us, then all our religions, faiths and philosophies are nothing but self centered belly button watching, just a selfish need to try to make sense out of our own insignificant little lives! Without action our religions, faiths and philosophies are not worth a dime! So I hope all good people start waking up from the coma, and start participating in some environmental organization. Just being a quiet supportive member is enough, it is cheap and nobody asks you to do anything except let your voice count when they do lobbying in the government. If not for the environment, then do it for your children. Because they will have to pay the costs of cleaning up after us in the future, and the the bill will be much higher to pay than it is if we do it today.

Men!!! Grab your khukuris and do something!
 
Just watch the solutions don't become more costly and damaging than the damage they were errected to fix, like roadless acess wilderness and bans on responsible logging, which contribute mightily to the kind of wildfires which detroy seed stock.
If you're really into the environmental movement, as all hunters are, then you've probably seen those projections of loss of species in the next few hundred years, No Matter Which Direction or Plan We Take.

I am also very cautious about good intentions with saving mother nature being used for political agendas of the extremists.

What is very sad is while the debate for the public mind rages, there are real steps we could take, like stop bleaching paper white! The US govt is one of the biggest buyer of bleached paper inthe world. There is no eartly reason for it- off white, natural gray paper would suit 90% or so of applications.


munk
 
Want a good reason to stop pollution and the overuse of chemicals in the food we eat/products we use?

Go to the children's cancer ward.

Chemicals cause cancer. Period. They're not the only cause, but many of them do cause cancer. If not right away then over time.

Many of my views are conservative (views on crime and punishment for example, gun ownership/rights) but I don't understand the people who stick offensive labels on people who want to stop companies from polluting our land and water and food. (I am NOT referring to anyone here on on this thread by the way). Why is someone (to use the words of Rush) an "environmental wacko" just because they don't want to "SH*T where they eat", so to speak.

Should logging be banned--of course not. Should it be regulated and forced to operate in an evironmetally friendly way or be shut down--of course!

IMO all big comanies who pollute should be given REAL penalties, like having their CEO's put in prison for willfully putting things like Dioxin into our water supply, instead of silly monetary fines. Lets face it big business has proven timea and time again that they do NOT care about harming the planet or our families. Just look at the auto companies like Ford. Who coninued to manufacture Pintos for YEARS after they knew the cars blew up and incinerated people in accidents. Why? cause they figured out it was cheaper to pay settlement claims than to retool the factory and redesign the car:barf: :mad:

Hunting is fine by me and should be an individual's choice providing that it doesn't do any harm to the environment. And I believe it has been proven that it doesn't and in fact can serve as a type of land stewardship. Case in point--deer overpopulation. We took away the deer's habitat and their natural predators (by poisoning trapping and habitat destruction/reduction) so they multiply out of control, starve, and are eventually disease ridden. We caused it, we fix it. simple.
 
...Good discussions indeed. Very perceptive, Eik, to tie society, religion, philosophy, and conservation together.

Munk, as a hunter, I understand your comments and clarifications. I also prefer bow to gun, unless you're hunting birds on the wing. Bow is quieter, makes you feel less like you're just pushing a button, to quote Eik. Hunting takes skill, period.

I read an article in an old Discove mag about ice-age net huntinmg done by women. Interesting stuff, and sensible.

Man is still in his infancy, woth a mere (approx.) 30,000 years under the belt. Yes, we have evolved with our tech, it is what got us to the top of the chain. Will mankind show restraint against himself, or will he murder himself with as much gusto as the other organisms he consumes? Even if we did off ourselves as a race, the corpse-eatin' bugs will have a heyday! The planet will certainly not go untended...

Keith
EN Ferro Veritas
 
I totally support all the things you said. You speak the truth as it is. Wonderful to read your post!

The cancer in children is one thing, another thing is the increasing rate of malformations in the external sexual organs of new born babies. This is also caused by harmful chemicals in our food and water. The sad thing is that we might have to scare people into acccepting a change in their lives, since people have a problem understanding that we must all show some moderation in our lifestyles in order to turn things around.

One thing I can't understand is how companies can continue their production of poisonous products. Who the hell are these people? Psychopaths...? Or can we just blame their lack of attitudes on the spirit of capitalism? Or does this reveal something about human nature all in all? After all, ordinary people aren't making the biggest efforts to turn things around either...

According to my professor it is human nature which is to blame. If anybody wish to read a report on the human animal and why it so far has failed to end the destruction of Earth, then you can download a pdf-file at The Research Council of Norway at http://program.forskningsradet.no/biomangfold/nedlasting/
There are several reports to download there, you must download "Managing the Environment Requires Managing Human Nature". It is a report on how the nature of the human animal must be taken into consideration in order to improve the environmental situation of the world today. This is the only report of it's kind in the world to touch the environmental subjects in this way. So here is a golden opportunity for you all to get your hands on the newest within scientific and rational environmentalism.

About hunting MauiRob and all others. We have the same situation in Norway too: predators extinguished, so we must hunt to control the moose population. But in my country we have enough space to have predators roaming free and do their jobs. Now they are reestablishing themselves after almost being hunted to extinction. Only problem is that the farmers and hunters claim that the wolf is not a natural part of the fauna here... and therefor they walk around with rifles and kill bear, wolf, lynx and wolverine at sight!
Wow! All I can say is WOW! And this leads me to the following question: In order to IQ test Norwegian farmers and hunters... should we use kindergarden IQ tests or monkey tests from zoos?
(Ok ok, I know not all the farmers/hunters think like this, but a lot of them do. And I know it has nothing to do with stupidity but more with fear leading to a farmer/hunter culture of predator hatred).

Remember this:
A fanatic is an idealist whom you disagree with, an idealist is a fanatic whom you agree with...
 
.
I totally support all the things you said. You speak the truth as it is. Wonderful to read your post!
Click to expand...

Thank you:)


One thing I can't understand is how companies can continue their production of poisonous products. Who the hell are these people? Psychopaths...? Or can we just blame their lack of attitudes on the spirit of capitalism? Or does this reveal something about human nature all in all? After all, ordinary people aren't making the biggest efforts to turn things around either...
Click to expand...

Excellent question! Some claim that the science that asserts that the chemicals are carcinogenic (or at the least harmful) is flawed or corrupt. Note, this is what the cigarrette companies said too when told that cigs cause cancer and other deadly diseases... But if you look at the chemical I mentioned called Dioxin there is NO gray area this stuff is a lethal carcinogen and yet paper companies and others dump it into the environment knowing this. Anyone who knowingly does something like this ought to be shot. period. The crazy thing is people will do things like this unless we stop them. How bizzare!

I think that alot of the resistance and apathy comes from a feeling of helplessness. The average citizen thinks "what the hell can I do about all this?!?!" and gets discouraged. I totally understand and sympathize. I don't use all environmentally friendly products like I should, and I don't always buy organic food for my daughter like I should either.

What's the solution? I don't know. But it would sure help if instead of everyone fighting with each other (in the world at large) we could all just agree that its bad to dump poison into the air,land, and water, period. THen I think alot of our problems would be minimized. We can choose to eat healthy or not thanks to organic food growers and producers, but we can't realistically run around with repirators on to purify the air etc...

Another bad guy in this story are the environmentalists who use this argument to unfairly get EVERYTHING that they want. We have to all live here and compromises must be made.


Here's a story about a situation we had on Maui. The main agricultural product on Maui was sugarcane. Maui is the only island to still burn the cane in the harvesting process. Problem? When they burn the fields they don't bother to pick up the miles and miles of PVC and other plastic tubing that lines the fields. Also they dump tons and tons of pesticides on the stuff while its growing which also goes up in smoke. The directional trade winds blow the same way with little variation day to day which means that if you're downwind you get smoked out big time!! Ash and smoke fill the air and people with breathing problems and disease have a really hard time. PLUS, the rate of asthma and other lung disease is WAY higher on Maui because of the cane burning. So, why do they do it? Answer: "cause that's the way we do it. Don't like it? Move back to the mainland!" It doesn't help that the sugar companies own or have major interests in the media (newspapers,radio and tv)and many, many of the companies that operate on the island.

Now you've got to wonder. Local families love their family members as much as anyone I've ever seen or heard of. Why would they want to expose them to such risks when they could convert to the green harvesting all the other islands use? I don't know, but I think somewhere in this little story is a partial answer to your question
 
MauiRob you have good points. It doesn't help how much an ordinary citizen wishes for changes, we still have to wait for our politicians to set the rules differently.

Your story from that island Maui is a classic example of 3. world problems I think. I don't know where Maui is or what part of the world it belongs to, but I have seen the same in Chile in South America. With a different kind of pollution and different local economy though but the same kind of game being played. I blame it on ignorance in the local people plus private coorporations being too allmighty and telling lies to the average citizen, being corrupt (the coorporations), paying for the election campaign of local politicians (securing political protection), and some times even forcing single individuals into silence.

My studies in human behaviour have taught me to look at things the following way:

The human animal, has a brain designed by natural selection to optimize resource aquisition. So we put everything we do in our lives in a benefit and cost analysis. So this is why we have progress, but also why we have a problem dealing with pollution because it seems to conflict with our priority number one: aquire resources. The costs of ending pollution are simply higher than the benefits experienced by each single individual. That is why people are unwilling to cut down on their own consumption. Natural selection from the Paleolithic Age still fully operating within us.

Pollution is dangerous and we realize that but that is not enough. An intelectual understanding of a danger is not enough to make the human animal act. This animal acts not on reason. If we are confronted with a snake, spider or tiger we jump and run for it: the well known "flight or fight response"! Here we have had millions of years of natural selection making us reacting instinctively and successfully taking evasive action. Pollution is a new and different kind of threat. We have been designed to taste non edible food and avoid eating it, but we cannot taste cancerogenics in the food, we have had no natural selection for it so far. The only way to percieve it is by reading statistics... and surely we have had no natural selection designing us to do the "flight or fight response" when reading a newspaper article about cancerogenics in the food.

So this is our situation I think: priority number one; aquire resources, and lacking a proper mechanism to identify and escape the danger of an invisible enemy like pollution.

If we look back in history. When somebody where violating the needs and rights of people, like in mediveal Europe, it ended in a revolution (as in the French revolution). Our naturally selected brain of cost/benefit thinking then percieved that staying subdued meant high costs and low benefits, while making some revolutionary changes would be rewarded with low costs and high benefits. Good business all in all really, percieved by our brain designed by natural selection to react on cost and benefit. But who are doing the violations today? Everybody, including me and you... So who is going to start the revolution...?

:eek: :eek: :eek:

As you can see I don't consider religion as a factor in this and neither a solution. Ok, religion serves a spiritual purpose, but if we look at how we behave ourselves then so far I have not seen religion actively used as anything but a tool for rulers or for single individuals to gain economic benefit or social acceptance. Well religion is good for spiritual purposes, I fully acknowledge that, but we do not act upon it if it conflicts with our economical benefit.

Best wishes
 
If you want to read about something really scary on the subject of pollution just do a search on Google entitled, "Uranium tailings on Indian land" and see what it brings up.
A further search on Google for uranium tailings over the whole world is even scarier.
What most people don't stop to realize is that when a rez road is graveled with uranium tailings that the wind blows the radiation to the ends of the earth.
Eventually it won't be just the ndns who are suffering from higher rates of cancer of all kinds it will be all of the non-ndns as well.
When uranium tailings are used for fill or for roads the radiation is blown into the streams and across the pasture land of the ndns. The sheep or other grazing animals eat the contaminated grass and or drink the contaminated water and then the ndns eat the animals.
A few people care and try to help.
What most people don't stop to realize is that the gubbiments dealings with us ndns hasn't changed one iota from the beginning.
It's just that now the continuing wars are fought in the court rooms across America instead of on the lands such as the **Battle of the Greasy Grass** was fought, at least most of the time.
There are still incidents that call for road blocks and other non-violent means of disagreement.

That was the **Battle of the Little Bighorn** to all of you non-ndns.
 
Damn this indian problem, this sorrow in our hearts and shame of our word and deed. You telling me now there's uranium on RES roads?

It just never ends.... I thought we were getting to an end with the BIA Chief appointment several years ago of the gal who looked at the books and screamed. Seems the trust funds had been pilferred and lost. Little record of how much money, where it went, or how much should be in there now with interest. The US gov makes an offer. The united tribes refuse to take it. And Uncle Sam is going to eat it- which mean everyone is going to eat it.

What bothers me is this woman was the only one to come forward in how long? Decades?

I just spoke to another forumite about this. The lesson of Nazi Germany was not that germans are bad people, the lesson was that any people can be duped or led to behaving unspeakably. The world powers 200 years ago treated all provinces and natives as second class human beings. This is a world shame.

And it still lingers. What is all this 'Rag head' hatred coming from? I hate terrorists, not muslims. Pick your own example. The game is played by dehumanizing the other guy so you can then excuse yourself. It is not always about land or money, we seem to put people down as part of our natures.

When "white seperatist Randy Weaver" was headline, the FBI dished up new rules of engagement, so that their behavior towards Weaver as subhuman suspect, would never happen again. I heard a spokesman from the Burea saying this was a recent abnormality, and that it was now fixed. Well, the new rules of engagement are much like the old rules, and I read them both. Further, the entire US seems to have forgotten the modern Wounded Knee, where the FBI and their invited local rancher guests got to shoot at "injuns' for several weeks with a kind of back alley boys club carte blanche.

I read about the West when I moved into the west. I found the history of the settling to be the usual story of ignorance, greed, blood, corruption, and some courage,(that the World has always known) though where courage comes from in a sea of rat urine is beyond me. Some brave souls keep trying to make things better and actually take a stand.



munk
 
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