What do you REALLY believe?

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I'm actually a believer of the Hellenistic Pantheon.

[bones]

Sweet.

Just checking.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I prefer the sumeroakkadian pantheon. For obvious reasons. *points to nick*

[Dead Kennedy]

I went with the Buddhist/Taoist option, primarily because I see Erisian thought as an Americanized melange of Eastern philosophy underlined by a presumption of a Christian context for the adherent.

The original Discordian thought obviously draws strongly from the Orientalism of sixties radicalism, the partially understood Taoism and Buddhism popularized by Alan Watts, but it is also an quintessentially American artifact.  A proper Taoist text would have no need to undermine and attack Christian assumptions of spirituality, but the Principia does just this, and necessarily so -- the near total domination of Christianity in the West means even the atheist's thought is influenced by Christian assumptions.  The humor and anti-professionalism of the Principia also challenges these assumptions -- the "nobility" of spiritual teachers in this case -- in a way the slick and propagandistic packaging of Buddhism and other Eastern thought categorically does not.  No one confuses Greg Hill with Discordianism, not the way Westerners conflate the hero-worship of the Dalai Lama with Buddhism in the exact same way Catholics conflate the hero-worship of the Pope with Christian piety.

As a Westerner raised in a Christian dominated culture by formerly-Catholic atheists, I've long held that it would be disingenuous of me to pretend to be an adherent of an Eastern spiritual philosophy when I really have no understanding of the role of those beliefs in the context of life as lived by its adherents.  Hence I am a Discordian, as I can understand Discordianism -- it is accessible in a way the Tao te Ching never will be.

Also I'm new.  Please don't kill me.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I like you, DK.

Welcome abroad.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Well, dang.

Hell of good start there, Dead Kennedy. I don't even feel like telling you to fuck off. Welcome to PD.com.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I went with the Buddhist/Taoist option, primarily because I see Erisian thought as an Americanized melange of Eastern philosophy underlined by a presumption of a Christian context for the adherent.

The original Discordian thought obviously draws strongly from the Orientalism of sixties radicalism, the partially understood Taoism and Buddhism popularized by Alan Watts, but it is also an quintessentially American artifact.  A proper Taoist text would have no need to undermine and attack Christian assumptions of spirituality, but the Principia does just this, and necessarily so -- the near total domination of Christianity in the West means even the atheist's thought is influenced by Christian assumptions.  The humor and anti-professionalism of the Principia also challenges these assumptions -- the "nobility" of spiritual teachers in this case -- in a way the slick and propagandistic packaging of Buddhism and other Eastern thought categorically does not.  No one confuses Greg Hill with Discordianism, not the way Westerners conflate the hero-worship of the Dalai Lama with Buddhism in the exact same way Catholics conflate the hero-worship of the Pope with Christian piety.

As a Westerner raised in a Christian dominated culture by formerly-Catholic atheists, I've long held that it would be disingenuous of me to pretend to be an adherent of an Eastern spiritual philosophy when I really have no understanding of the role of those beliefs in the context of life as lived by its adherents.  Hence I am a Discordian, as I can understand Discordianism -- it is accessible in a way the Tao te Ching never will be.

Also I'm new.  Please don't kill me.

I give this n00b 5 Internets and mittens.

[Bu🤠ns]

yeah, seriously.

[Golden Applesauce]

for the sake of brevity, and because it's close enough to what I feel in my bones.....I believe in The Force.

yeah....like on Star Wars.

Let's clarify that. You believe that living beings with Will (or just human Minds?) have the ability to directly influence Reality thru use of said Will?

Any anecdotes/experiences/hallucinations/fnords that you hae experienced while using this Model to parse Universe?

OK, maybe NOT just like on Star Wars....

defining one's beliefs thru cinematic analogy is always fraught with peril.

I guess what I really mean is that I believe there is a positive force and a negative force within all of us.  I don't really go in for external deities so much. 

Positive, negative... you're falling into the same trap as those blind "Jedi."  Don't call something "negative" just because your narrow little dualistic mind can't cope!  There is only Power, and the only divisions of it are "more" and "less."

[Cramulus]

for the sake of brevity, and because it's close enough to what I feel in my bones.....I believe in The Force.

yeah....like on Star Wars.

Let's clarify that. You believe that living beings with Will (or just human Minds?) have the ability to directly influence Reality thru use of said Will?

Any anecdotes/experiences/hallucinations/fnords that you hae experienced while using this Model to parse Universe?

OK, maybe NOT just like on Star Wars....

defining one's beliefs thru cinematic analogy is always fraught with peril.

I guess what I really mean is that I believe there is a positive force and a negative force within all of us.  I don't really go in for external deities so much. 

Positive, negative... you're falling into the same trap as those blind "Jedi."  Don't call something "negative" just because your narrow little dualistic mind can't cope!  There is only Power, and the only divisions of it are "more" and "less."

     THAT'S SITH TALK!!
           /               \



also: welcome, DK! & great answer

[Cain]

Despite my aforementioned agnosticism, if I had to choose a Pantheon to follow, it would be the Greeks.  Most kickass mythology ever.  The figurehead is a do as I say not as I do womanizer who overthrew his father and imprisoned him in hell, who also gave birth to two of his children.  And that's just Zeus.  Ares got put on trial for murder, and made his cultists in Sparta sacrafice puppies in his name (a real life case of kicking the dog). Hermes, by contrast was such an accomplished thief he once stole Apollo's cattle...and such a smooth talker he essentially talked his way into being an Olympian when hauled before Zeus for his crime.

And so on and so forth.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

for the sake of brevity, and because it's close enough to what I feel in my bones.....I believe in The Force.

yeah....like on Star Wars.

Let's clarify that. You believe that living beings with Will (or just human Minds?) have the ability to directly influence Reality thru use of said Will?

Any anecdotes/experiences/hallucinations/fnords that you hae experienced while using this Model to parse Universe?

OK, maybe NOT just like on Star Wars....

defining one's beliefs thru cinematic analogy is always fraught with peril.

I guess what I really mean is that I believe there is a positive force and a negative force within all of us.  I don't really go in for external deities so much. 

Positive, negative... you're falling into the same trap as those blind "Jedi."  Don't call something "negative" just because your narrow little dualistic mind can't cope!  There is only Power, and the only divisions of it are "more" and "less."

I don't even think there's power. There's just will, and the only divisions of it are executed and repressed.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

for the sake of brevity, and because it's close enough to what I feel in my bones.....I believe in The Force.

yeah....like on Star Wars.

Let's clarify that. You believe that living beings with Will (or just human Minds?) have the ability to directly influence Reality thru use of said Will?

Any anecdotes/experiences/hallucinations/fnords that you hae experienced while using this Model to parse Universe?

OK, maybe NOT just like on Star Wars....

defining one's beliefs thru cinematic analogy is always fraught with peril.

I guess what I really mean is that I believe there is a positive force and a negative force within all of us.  I don't really go in for external deities so much. 

Positive, negative... you're falling into the same trap as those blind "Jedi."  Don't call something "negative" just because your narrow little dualistic mind can't cope!  There is only Power, and the only divisions of it are "more" and "less."

Unless positive and negative are used in the sense of polarity, rather than value judgments.

Antero Alli uses a model in Angel Tech that uses the polarity concept. He ties each of the four basic circuits to gears.

First Gear - Baby - First Grade - Biosurvival
Second Gear - Child - Second Grade - Territory/Winning Games/Who's the Leader/Who's the Follower/Who's the Kid Picked Last
Third Gear - Student - Semantics - learning new models and maps
Fourth Gear - Big Kid or Adult - Social/Sexual

He then discusses how our imprints can charge the gears either positively or negatively, thus  they would turn forward, for positive polarity and backward for negative.

I kinda like that model.

[LMNO]

Define "harm".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Define "harm".

"Anal"?