re intolerance eternal life etc i apologize if this article is slightly confusing and late the origonal draft didn t make it through the moderators quote screens so i did violence to it but if you remember the article i am responding to it should still make sence in article geneva rutgers edu jsledd ssdc sas upenn edu james sledd writes hi xian netters god bless you what no hello for heathan netters i feel all left out now deletia table of content intro homosexuality incredibly chopped up post deletia incorrect attributions uh you have your attributions wrong you were responding to my article so dan johnson should be the st one in article athos rutgers edu jayne mmalt guild org jayne kulikauskas writes deletia no free gifts speil nuked by moderator fiat i find that i am dissatisfied with the little purposes that we can manufacture for ourselves little in the cosmic sense ah in the cosmic sence but who lives in the cosmic sence not me cosmicly we don t even exist for all practical purposes i can hardly use the cosmic sence of stuff as a guide to life it would just say don t bother luckily for mortals there are many sences of scale you can talk about in a human sence you can have big purposes even the greatest of the great pharos are long gone the pyramids historical oddities being worn down by the wind eventually to be turned into dust but the influence of aristotle confucious alexander ceasar and countless others is still with us although their works have perished but they have changed to course of history and while humanity exists their deeds cannot be said to have come to nothing even if they are utterly forgotten mankind itself will one day perish one day surely well unless you believe in the second coming which i do not but in that time we can make a difference without some interconnectedness that transcends the physical without god it is all pointless in the end in the end but it must be the end until then there is all the point you can muster and when that end comes there will be nobody to ask gee i don t think james sledd s deeds are gonna make much of a difference ulitmately ya know but they will have already have made a difference great or small before the end why must your ends be eternal to be worthwhile most people are able to live with that and for them little purposes success money power effecting change helping others suffice little is in the eye of the beholder of course i suppose they never think about the cosmic scale or are at least able to put it out of their minds i don t doubt it but i have thought about the cosmic scale and it does not seem to mean much to us here today to me it is comforting to know that reality is an illusion i would not find this comforting but perhaps it is merely my definitions here s what i think the relevant terms are reality that which is real illusion that which is not real but seems to be real objectively existing for reality to be an illusion would mean then that which is real is not real but seems to be or that which objectively exists does not objectively exist but does seem to objectively exist from which we can conclude that unless you want to get a contradiction that no things objectively exist but i have a problem with this because i would like to say that i objectively exist if nothing else cogito ergo sum and all that perhaps you do not mean all that but rather mean objective reality is unreachable by humans which is not so bad and so far as i know is true that the true reality underneath the the physical is spirit have on if reality is an illusion isn t true reality an illusion too and if true reality is spirit doens t that make spirit an illusion as well if i am not distinctly confused this is getting positively buddhist that this world is a school of sorts where we learn and grow and our souls mature that is one hell of a statement although perhaps true do you mean to imply that it was intended to be so if so please show that this is true if not please explain how this can give a purpose to anything that gives a purpose to my little purposes how does it do that wouldn t the world school w intent idea make the world a preparation for some greater purpose rather than a purpose in itself and takes some of the pressure off what pressure it s not so necessary to make this life a success in human terms if you re really just here to learn it is not necessary to be a success in human terms unless your goals either include doing so or require doing so before they themselves can be achived indeed many people have set goals for themselves that do not include success in human terms as i understand it check out yer buddhist monk type guy out for nirvana which is not at all the same thing it s more important to progress grow persist to learn to love yourself and others and to express your love especially when it s dificult to do so honest effort is rewarded by god he knows our limitations why is learning to love a goal what happens if you fail in this goal to you to god to the mysterious purpose deletia question about immortailty and my answer deleted because it was mostly quote two serious questions invitations to discussion what is the nature of eternal life how can we as mortals locked into space time conceive of it possible answer for the best we can do is metaphor analogy question a what is the best metaphor i ll have a crack at that the nature of eternal life is neatly described by its name it is the concept of life without death life without end no we can put together word to describe it but we cannot imagine it a no metaphor is adequate next to eternity if it were we could not understand it either or so i suspect dan johnson and god said jeeze this is dull and it was dull genesis these opinions probably show what i know
