B. U. G. S.

My observations are marked ******

NOT SPAM
NOT SPAM

(1) You need a good definition of wisdom; you are using your own definition, but you haven’t told us what it is;

***** If you will PLEASE note, I try hard to use Wisdom when i mean the opposite of wisdom, and Knowledge when I mean the opposite of knowledge, Turth when I mean the oppoiste of truth and Mercy when I mean the opposite of mercy.

****** As I cautioned Shari, hte quotes around “Christian” are there for a reason. Elizabeth doesn’t need reminding of that.

***** If you don’t assimiate THAT, you cannot understand anything I say about these things.

(2) You need a good definition of faith; it doesn’t mean blind obedience or belief; I think Shari or Elizabeth had a good definition;

******** The term faith means a belief in things unseen.

******* You have a particular faith in mind.

******* Our faith has less use for the faiths that comes out of funny mushrooms or anceint priesthoods than I do.

******* The founder of MY faith said everything he could against the priesthood that he could say without getting stoned onthe spot, and they killed him for it.

(3) Shamans performed empirical religious practices; they journeyed alone and with others to other realms that were at times more real than this one, the journeys were repeatable by others, and they did not have a complete monopoly on going on journeys. The journeys were like drug-trips. The problem was that bad spirits could waylay journeys or give visions and subjective reality could become mixed up with objective. The reminds me of a friend I have whose brother is schizophrenic. She says that most all his hallucinations and ideations are horrific projections of his own fears. However she says about 1% of his visions are true. A primitive shaman was like such a schizophrenic but with better accuracy and less horror.

********* WHAT accuracy? Do you really think Pharoah had to perform rituals to keep the Nile flood in check or the sun coming up each day?

Your statements about elites who do not deserve their position and about elites who use their position, knowledge, wisdom, and practical skills to control others is valid.

It seems you are talking about abuse of authority?

Your test of abuse is practical results. You seem to be saying that if a leader uses others’ belief in his knowledge and wisdom to keep power, but does not deliver results, he is a fraud.

***** You live in the first society in history where what you just said would be understood. You live inthe first society in history which made any disctintion between science and religion.

***** You live in the first society in history where experiment can destroy authority.

****** Historically the only way for truth to progress was for one people follosing the wrong authorities to be destroyed.

What you also seem to be saying is that those who are in power now are there because of connections, etc. They are not in power because of ability. However people think that anyone in power must have special knowledge, skills, or wisdom, so the powerful keep their positions.

******** But in earlier societies, the fact that a person was in authority WAS the final proof.

******** According to my CONJECTURE, ours is the first society where there was a disctinction between impressing people or having a royal blood line and accomplishment.

****** in earlier societies, as in the one Jesus lived in, any change in authority involved bloodshed, not accomplishment.

But if the powerful do not have any special knowledge, skills, or wisdom, then we are in a situation like that in 1776. Then, many of the best in the British army were bitter because jobs and promotions passed over them to those with connections. Some of those best men joined the Continentals who did promote based on results. The rag-tag Continentals won.

So what you are teaching here is for everyone to have more Faith.

****** I hope not, especially with the capital letter. You are using that capital letter as a proper noun. You do not mean faith, you mean a particular faith.

******* Tories had faith in the Blood Royal. The Ameican Rebels saw no reason to believe why that gave somebody in London the right to rule us.

Comment by Pain