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In the 1950s at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, Solomon Asch conducted experiments into conformity, which demonstrated that, in simple tests comparing three vertical lines, most people would rather give an obviously wrong answer that kept them in a group than a correct answer that would make them outsiders.
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. David Brin quotes
Socrates– “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
Einstein said: "As I have said so many times, God doesn't play dice with the world."
Suddenly you're awake. But where are you? Everywhere you look there's white. White walls hug and confine you, stretching deeper and deeper, marking the boundaries of a straight, narrow, featureless hallway. You're bewildered, but who wouldn't be? Finally you stand and look behind you. All white, everything, going back to where it all vanishes. You push against the hard white floor, swaying and almost losing your balance because you've been asleep so long. Looking ahead, you realize the hallway is not exactly like it was behind you. Almost the same, but not quite. Way, way in the distance you can see some specks. And, reasoning that specks are better than nothing, you begin walking toward them. It takes a long time, but then the specks grow and define themselves. They have become signs, gold in color and arrow-shaped. They hang at the end of the hallway, and you can see lettering on them. Closer and closer you walk, until you can see that there's a second hallway perpendicular to the this one. One arrow points left and reads: "Casino." The other points right and reads: "Life." It's decisions like this that make you cry out for your mommy. Let me help. Turn right toward the real world, and I'll give you some advice as you're walking. In the future I'll provide plenty of strategy for winning at formal gambling, including some tips that will help you fare better inside the casino. But there's something you have to understand today. Gambling games are formalized, simplified ways of experiencing the same risks we experience in everyday life. If you're alive you gamble. Formally or informally, you gamble. Poker Without Cards. By the way, I absolutely never use any manipulative tactics that I teach against people I respect. Why? Because, having heard me lecture about these strategies, people would feel uncomfortable dealing with me. So, I deal with all friendly associates in a completely straightforward manner. I have to. You don't. Now here are some useful examples of gambling tips and philosophies I hope you'll successfully be able to adapt to the world around you.
1 The cards probably won't break even--not in gin rummy, not in poker, and not in real life. There's a common misconception that if you play poker long enough the cards will break even. Fat chance!
2 If you're a winner--in formal gambling or in life--you should never try to get even "for the night."
3 Never make anything worse
4 What you've already invested doesn't matter
5 Never seek sympathy
6 Keep your hand secret One of life's most important goals is to gain as much useful information from others as possible, while guarding your own secrets wisely.
7 Don't humiliate your opponents
8 Don't even the score In life you don't need to get even with the person who did you wrong
9 Act last
10 Save your fancy moves for when you're running good
11 Cheer for your friends
12 Don't fret over each injustice
Let me know if they work for you. "America's Mad Genius" Mike Caro
OLBERS’ PARADOX And I heard the learned astronomer whose name was Heinrich Olbers speaking to us across the centuries about how he observed with naked eye how in the sky there were some few stars close up and the further away he looked the more of them there were with infinite numbers of clusters of stars in myriad Milky Ways & myriad nebulae So that from this we can deduce that in the infinite distances there must be a place there must be a place where all is light and that the light from that high place Where all is light simply hasn’t got here yet which is why we still have night But when at last that light arrives when at last it does get here the part of day we now call Night will have a white sky little black dots in it little black holes where once were stars And then in that symbolic so poetic place which will be ours we’ll be our own true shadows and our own illumination on a sunset earth -Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Hopi legend tells that the current earth is the Fourth World to be inhabited by Tawa's creations. The story essentially states that in each previous world, the people, though originally happy, became disobedient and lived contrary to Tawa's plan; they engaged in sexual promiscuity, fought one another and would not live in harmony. Thus, the most obedient were led (usually by Spider Woman) to the next higher world, with physical changes occurring both in the people in the course of their journey, and in the environment of the next world. In some stories, these former worlds were then destroyed along with their wicked inhabitants, whereas in others the good people were simply led away from the chaos which had been created by their actions.
Within Blavatsky's complex cosmology, which includes seven "Root Races", Lemuria was occupied by the "Third Root Race", described as about 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, sexually hermaphroditic, egg-laying, mentally undeveloped and spiritually more pure than the following "Root Races". Before the coming of the Lemurians, the second "Root Race" is said to have dwelled in Hyperborea. After the subsequent creation of mammals, Mme Blavatsky revealed to her readers, some Lemurians turned to bestiality. The gods, aghast at the behavior of these "mindless" men, sank Lemuria into the ocean and created a "Fourth Root Race" – endowed with intellect – on Atlantis.
Originally posted by Dasher
reply to post by IblisLucifer
You're misunderstanding the division/balancing/reconciling of what some understand to be "duality." It is not as plain as dualism makes it, however, it is not as disoriented as anti-dualism makes it. While I appreciate the things you are looking upon, I am certain that you are injecting the very beliefs that your words claim to rail against.
For instance, you claim individual will is inverse to "Satan," but it is not the inverse, it is the beginnings of communion with "Satan." The true inverse to that entire branch of thought is communion and selflessness while striving for greater, it is not a personal declaration unto glory. Yes, many of those who "look directly into the light" are blinded, but that is because they do not have eyes to see. Just as those who are in darkness do not have eyes to see.
The issue that should remain in our understandings is seeing, not believing. I realize that you may take that to mean that expressing "good" conduct is more important than understanding it, but I am not saying that. I am saying particularly that we must understand AND express. That does not change that all things are a gift. We come from a place in which we had, more so, we were, nothing. So then, what is it that we have that is our own? Not even our will.
So, to properly reconcile understanding and also the expressing of such, it is, first, a requirement to have spiritual eyes, and that is a gift. So long as one takes ownership of such a thing, he is a thief and a liar. So long as one disclaims ownership of such a thing, he is truthfully blind. So long as we wear our priestly garments (understand our place), and thus express godly/civil conduct (grow up and out of our place), we can be sure that the life/way/truth that we imitate will take us into communion just as they brought us into existence in the first place.
Likewise, Atheists, Scientists who despise God - We both agree that Order is here and made us all. We both agree that we can conduct ourselves by a better Charity and that is can "take a life of it's own" in good works and human progress. However, you believe that Order is built upon Chaos and Charity upon your own doings. No, friends, we were built upon Chaos by Order and Charity works in us despite our decaying nature.