Introducing...Epicureanism—the Materialist

In this new series I'll be summarizing various religions and philosophical systems in the simplest way possible.  It should be quick and easy to read allowing us to compare and contrast .  I'll only focus on their views of the following aspects:

• Nature of the cosmos and our place within it
• God?
• Evil?
• How should we live?

First up, Epicureanism

Two Videos on Mirror Neurons

Just watch them; will ya?






The RSA Animate speaker talks about how we are able to associate ourselves as one family by bloodlines, to religions, to nation states, to nations; he seems to suggest that our sense of empathy has been expanding and progressing through time. I don't know if that is an accurate description. The sense of belonging is often caused by the discoveries of other bloodlines, religions, etc. We associate with our own bloodline, religion, race as one family only in the face of a common enemy. Therefore, I think our sense of empathy in the current stage largely sprung from the notion of otherization, the "us VS them" ideology. When do students in the same class see themselves as one? When they are competing with other class. I had this thought when I was watching the last Olympics. During the regular ATP tour (men's tennis), players represent themselves and there are no flags next to their names; win or lose, it's just another day in the office. However during the Olympics, all of a sudden it's Spain VS Swiss; and they're competing for the pride of their respective countries. We identify ourselves as different groups in different times. Sometimes, especially during the time of solitude, we do not even empathize with ourselves. I remember there were times where I would have conflicts within myself and it felt as if there were multiple selves inside me, fighting to become the authority.

Another circumstance that leads us see ourselves as one is in a time of extreme crisis.  But it's relatively harder to bring about unity comparing to the "common enemy" circumstance because the threat of such crisis may not be as apparent and immediate.

The last thing I want to hear is the word "patriotic" being thrown around because that to me indicates a time of war or crisis. 

It's certainly possible to see ourselves as one biosphere, but do we need an "other" or a catastrophic crisis as a precondition?  I sincerely hope not.  As the speaker of the RSA Animate puts it, we are softwired to be empathic.  That to me suggests that we have a choice to be empathic or not.  During a time of war or crisis, it's easier to choose the former.  But to be empathic with everything there is during a time of peace almost seems impossible.  The Buddha did it; Jesus did it as well; but can we?

About romantic relationship

A romantic relationship is not more special than say love between friends or mother's love of her children.  Love is love. When you feel love, you feel complete.  It does not matter if it's from a scenery, pet, iPhone, or sushi.  Love is love.  If anything, most marriages are nothing but misery because the couple thinks they have to stick with each other without knowing exactly why.  Therefore, it seems as if you always have to sacrifice freedom for marriage.  It's your marriage, you don't have to follow the rules made by god-knows-who.  Create your own house rules and have fun.  It's all made up anyways.

Bible = Truth? Depends on how you read it

When you read the Bible literally, it makes little to no sense.  It's quite obvious shown by the examples below,

• God created everything in the universe in 6 days (148 hours)?! 
• God created one sole couple, Adam and Eve, to populate the Earth?!  (Meaning their children had to...)
• Snakes could talk?!
• In John 14:10, Jesus said "...I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me" (What?!  How's that possible?  It would make more sense if it's the mother, before he was born...)

Family gathering out of body

Continuing from my previous post, I'll be describing the OBE that I had last night; occurred from around 3:15 AM to 4:05 AM on 06/22/11.

I would say I only remember 50-60% of the details.  In OBEs, it's all about focusing my attention enough to be able to perceive anything.  I have to constantly reinforce my concentration or everything would become fuzzy and turn into a dream.  And if I think about my physical body or move it, I will snap back immediately.  During the OBE last night, I was constantly interpreting what I was seeing.  I did too much 'thinking' and not enough 'observing'.  So there were quite a few of jumps here and there but I'll try my hardest not to fill in the gaps on my own while I write this.  Take this as a translation of a translation of a translation.  Nevertheless, it's still interesting enough (for me).

OBE and me

I started having sleep paralysis problems at the age of 14 (10 years from now).  Usually I would feel an intense vibrating sensation and hear loud buzzing sounds.  And then I would feel a force pushing me down anywhere from my head to my chest.  I seriously thought I was being haunted by demons or ghosts (two incidents are incredibly creepy).  I would then be scared as hell (panic attack) and struggle to move my finger because I could break free once my finger moves.  And then one time I just gave up fighting it as it takes one hell of an effort to break free and woah la! I didn't die.  Yes, it gave me a feeling of death (actually I was quite right to feel that way).  It is also during that time that I started to be able to control my dreams occasionally (lucid dreaming).  Most of the time, I fly around town in my lucid dreams.

A few years later, I figured that I could sit up after a while of experiencing the vibrating sensation.  That is, to get out of my body (the so called "out-of-body experience" as I later discovered).  I could not see at all during those early experiences.  The only sense I had was touch.  I would usually tried to discover something that I'd never notice before to confirm the experience.  However, it never worked; either I had it wrong or my memories faded.  Sometimes I would try to make noise during OBE's (knocking on the wall and stuff) to see if others noticed.  That, too, never worked.  Sometimes I couldn't even control my body at all (would just be flowing above my bed).  Last year, I started flying upwards during OBE's.  I did the flying upwards thing four times, and in two of those times I could feel an enormous amount of energy in my head as I flew up.  The further I went, the more intense the sensation became up to the point where I felt like exploding into pieces.  Without a better way to describe it, I would say it felt quite good.

A few months earlier, I read Adventures Beyond the Body that teaches you how to experience OBEs or astral projection or whatever the hell you call it.  It seemed like I was reading about my own experience in the first few chapters.  But the author dove deeper into the matter than I'd ever imagined possible, clarifying so many questions that I had with OBEs.  The author introduces many techniques to induce more OBEs but since they are all too time-consuming for me, I never tried them out.  The biggest thing I got from this book is the ability to improve my visual perception during OBEs.  As my energy body is incredibly thought sensitive, I can actually command my energy body to see and all kinds of crazy stuff.  Finally, I can see (somewhat) during my OBEs.

What led me to write all of this is the amazing OBE I had last night.  Sharing next post.

Cult and religion? "Original sin" of a religion?

As a follow up of my previous post, I'll trace back a bit and look at how a religion is formed. By looking into the difference between a religion and a cult, we see a critical problem of a religion.

religions? Religion?

When people found out my major as religion, they often asked me: Which religion are you studying? After I've told them that I study all kinds of religions, they would then follow up with this question: Do you believe in God? I don't think most of them were satisfied by my answer. Maybe this is what they were looking for.

Which way is the right way?

When you ask a corporate CEO, the corporate CEO would say:

the most profitable way

When you ask a Christian, the Christian would say:

Jesus' way

When you ask a Buddhist, the Buddhist would say:

the middle way

When you ask an atheist, the atheist would say:

the logical way

When you ask a philosopher, the philosopher would say:

I don't know

When you ask a scientist, the scientist would say:

the scientific method

When you ask an enlightened person, the enlightened person would say:

Any way

When you ask God, God would say:

No way

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Something I wrote a while ago.  Interpret it as you will.