[kj] o/t Please sign the petition - it's too late

[Brendan]

Perhaps Karma is getting yourself killed in retribution for torturing and
killing an innocent kid? Basically without that retributive and protective
instinct, we never would have survived as a species. However the issue is
that now, we perhaps regard ourselves as having transcended our primal
early stage...but we haven't, we're in transition, and it's very early
days. (Maybe we're not even in transition, you could certainly make that
argument.) But a lot of the instinctual hard-wired responses we have can
be viewed as either not necessary or negative.

Those primal instincts will still kick in as soon as you need them, unless
you completely smother them...you all probably know people who you can't
imagine being able to defend themselves at all if they had to, even if
their lives depended on it. So I believe in keeping them around, but under
control. From time to time let yourself get angry, learn how to fight,
give people shit when they deserve it, etc. As long as it's always
controlled. That's my credo at least. The band we're all supposed to be
talking about would probably agree :)

If those instincts are ever needed it is vital to be able to kick them
into gear instantly and not be overwhelmed by adrenal dump (fight fright
or flight response)...fully committed attack with the aim to do as much
damage as possible and keep fighting until death. I'd certainly use it to
defend myself, if there was the need...all of my thousands of ancestors
did and it worked to get me here, it's just an adaptation to life on
earth. We may not be the strongest or fastest or toughest, but we are
certainly the most versatile organism on the planet, we can win or survive
from practically anywhere. We can' run at 80km / hour and rip a water
buffalo to pieces, but we can, as a species, lift 200kg overhead, dive to
a hundred meters underwater, climb Everest, do an Ironman, throw a javelin
80 meters or so, program a computer, design a weapon that will kill
practically anything etc...nothing comes close to the range of physical
adaptations and skills we possess, let alone when aided by technology.

Karma...that's a funny old one innit? Did that idea lead to cambodian
buddhists allowing themselves to be slaughtered? Does your own life not
count if you throw it away, isn't that murder of a sort? Don't you have
the karma of throwing away (or not fighting to protect) your own life?! If
that idea of followed to it's logical conclusion, then intellifent life in
the universe will never develop past this level we're at, because as soon
as it reaches this level the most spiritually developed of us will
capitulate to the more violent and thus ensure that the species develops
in that direction. That's a crime against life as I see it. (This is kinda
OT OT at this stage I know).

And is that really what karma means? I just thought it means consequences,
basically, as opposed to some kind of inherent balance in the forces of
good and evil in the universe, everyone getting their just deserts, as it
seems to be perceived by some...I don't think that's what it was ever
intended to mean. But I may be wrong.

Perhaps it was the idea of an afterlife and the continuation of
consequences earned in this life that led those people to allow themselves
to be slaughtered...so the idea of karma taken to it's (il)logical
conculsion when merged with the idea that life is a continuous cycle of
death and rebirth. I.e buddhism can be approached philosophically as well
as religiously, you don't need to buy into the religious elements, perhaps
if you do it changes the way you treat life...as Nietzsche said, it takes
the centre of gravity out of your own life and puts it into some idea of
an afterlife...

Just one of many angles that I attribute some weight to, I'm not at all
black and white about any of this. I'm a utopian so I wish that things
were different, but the realist in me doesn't see things that way...yet.

Peace!



> On Dec 19, 2007 7:13 AM, jon chapman <jonniespatula at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

>>

>> just 30 years each,no hanging no chair.......!  not 8. that's fair isnt

>> it?

>> but if it was my lad they killed,i probably wouldnt handle it too well

>> and

>> either slowly go insane,or i'd seek revenge big time,and before u say

>> anything yes i know thats wrong. but i'm always wrong!

>>

>

>

> if you think its right to kill, then it is right! (no one can

> logically argue against the things that i believe!)

> just be prepared for the consequences...

> the laws of karma are infallible and patient!

>

>

>

>

>

> --

>

>

> "due to a lack of trained trumpeters, the end of the world has been

> postponed indefinitely..."

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