mental states aren't necessarily to be cured.  depending on how you see this world, there
is extremely little meaning to it.  in the absence of the divine, life doesn't matter.  so
if life matters not and it bores or harms you, why live it?

you have no right to tell those people they're wrong, diseased, or any less guaranteed
freedom from their pain than people who are just suffering from some illness or another.

"mental states aren't necessarily to be cured.  depending on how you see this world, there
is extremely little meaning to it.  in the absence of the divine, life doesn't matter.  so"


in your own reality paradigm life isn't worth living "in the absence of the divine." but what gives you the right to 
tell people their lives are meaningless without a god/gods/higher power? and mental states can in fact be 
"cured." read as below.


"if life matters not and it bores or harms you, why live it?

you have no right to tell those people they're wrong, diseased, or any less guaranteed
freedom from their pain than people who are just suffering from some illness or another."

you're totally missing the point. i'm not "telling" anyone anything. if people want to suffer, fine, they have the 
right to suffer. but if they want help, the law should allow physicians to help them end their suffering. you're 
also failing to recognize that many people become totally irrational in the face of severe, acute stress, traumatic 
events, or other sources of altered mental status (drug intoxication, severe infections, cancer, electrolyte 
imbalances, neurologic conditions etc). in such cases, preventing suicide is often in their own best interest 
when they are not able to control their own actions, and **especially if the underlying source can be medically 
corrected**. of the many people i've spoken with on psych services who'd attempted suicide, very few people 
ever said they regretted failing. given enough time, most suicidal thoughts pass. the trick is giving the people 
enough time. but ultimately, if someone wants to die, then they'll die. doesn't mean i won't be there offering 
help if they change their minds.

I'd love to see a show up here in Alaska!

pinar, yes, I KNOW that people can change their minds, I'm not an idiot.  I'm saying that
isn't always the case, nor can you say such.  So either suicide should be ok for all or
none, I don't see how it should be ok and not ok.

also, without something greater than nature, life becomes merely something that is. 
explain the grand meaning of that, hot shot, when all that is going to happen in a no
greater than a few billion years is the complete annihilation of this planet.  something
isn't meaningful just for the fact that it exists.

frog queen,

i won't have my hometown of portland disparraged.  it's clean, cultural, and really 
really beautiful.

where you gonna be at, OHSU?

why can't something be meaningful just for the fact that it exists? meaning has to come 
from somewhere, yes, but can't that meaning come from existence? 

looks like my question about your time in oregon Pinar has sparked off a huge debate. 
sorry. *apologetic shrug*

on a lighter note, i've started my architectural history course. i'm surrounded by 
already qualified architects wanting to soak up some theory to help them in their 
practices, so i'm feeling like a very out of depth young lit student with alterior 
motives.it's very interesting. but the reading is hard, and tiring, so i'm off to bed 
now. 

Herbie xx

p.s - Pinar, i spoke to my mum yesterday and was telling her about the possibility of 
Jeremy touring solo in the states and she practically insisted i look into flights 
immediately. so our NY reunion might not be a far off dream! xx 

herb-ert, yay!!!!! and don't worry about this debate crap. garrett and i do nothing but argue. observe...

"pinar, yes, I KNOW that people can change their minds, I'm not an idiot.  I'm saying that
isn't always the case, nor can you say such.  So either suicide should be ok for all or
none, I don't see how it should be ok and not ok."

garrett, suicide should only be ok for people who have the capacity for rational thought and are in situations 
that will NEVER change within the rest of the course of their natural lives, ie there is no way in hell things will 
get better for them and they really ARE hopeless and want to end it, ie terminal illness... also, i agree with herb. 
existence in and of itself creates the concept of "meaning." now if you want to debate what "existence" is, then 
whatever. i'm ending it here. but i can tell you that plenty religious people i know question their purpose in life, 
ie what god has planned for them, indeed they seem anxious about it despite their faith. and plenty atheists i 
know are perfectly happy just stopping and smelling the roses. i myself am not a particularly spiritual creature, 
probably defined as an "agnostic" if not "atheist" by most. but i find meaning in the little things in my day to day 
existence, such as my interactions with others, the unearthly colors of a summer sunset, or the urge to dance to 
a paganini caprice. these things in and of themselves are enough "meaning" for me.
                                                
tangential rose hill baby!!! you're back!!!!!!! <3

rhodes_scholar, indeed, i will be at ohsu for a month. oct 22nd-ish through nov 19th-ish. i'll try my best not to 
corrupt the hippie locals, but i make no promises. ;)

xoxo,
your royal travesty

what the fuck happened to this thread??????


hey fire theft, fuck atlanta, play san diego now. atlanta no longer matters now that i'm 
not there anymore haha

AAAAACK! you derailed my thread hijacking!!! back to the off topic forum with thee!!!


ps: apologies to jeremy for ruining his one and only post on this messageboard. he should post again to bring 
this thread back on topic. ;)

not to interrupt this discussion, but to say there's no meaning without a higher power is
the most ridiculous and depressing thing I've ever heard. I wish I could aid those in that
belief. 

What about love? What about happiness  and other people? There's so much you're missing!

Life is beautiful, amazing, fascinating, wonderful, and that's all without the idea that
maybe some guy in the sky is looking dowmn giving you thumbs up.

And garrett, don't reply to this.  I already know what you're going to say, and I don't care.

-Seven

love emanating from merely within ourselves is empty.  love would then be ONLY equal-share
to hate and every other emotion/action we're involved in.

mathematics, science, all philosophy and understanding doesn't allow for us to just draw
from existence and say "behold, we have found meaning."  They require the sake of the
infinite, which could never be grasped our understood with mere nature or existential
experience.  There must be something more.  We are finite beings in finite realms with
finite understanding grasping at the infinite that we should know nothing about.

Man, you just pulled seriously all of that out of your ass.  First define "meaning" THEN 
start making things up.  And last I checked, science tries not to deal in things not of 
our existence as it stands.

Jeremy Enigk, mine son!!! Thou art back to thine musicking!!! Do make a tour stop in Heaven!!!


And Garrett, turn thy cheek. These mere mortals canst not understand the meaning of the infinite 
love we doth share. 

I don't think "finite" is even a word.


How 'bout that Enigk guy? Isn't he swell!?

Main Entry: fi·nite
Pronunciation: 'fI-"nIt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English finit, from Latin finitus, past participle of finire
1 a : having definite or definable limits <finite number of possibilities> b : having a
limited nature or existence <finite beings>

as for meaning, the kind in which we are discussing, I would say that meaning is drawn
from serving the purpose of our existence in relation to absolute truth.  The purpose of
our existence tends to be different for different people, as does the idea of absolute truth.

And bohm...how does the scientific method discover the infinite?  how can you ever TEST
infinity?  You can't.  You live for so long and you die.  Sure, if you include infinity
into equations it works as far as we can tell, but how did anyone ever even THINK to do
so?  Seriously, how did someone ever come up with the concept of infinity?  You CANNOT
experience it and should never have made the conclusion without supernature.  It simply
can't happen.

For example..you look at railroad tracks going off in the distance and you imagine that
they just keep on going, but in your world, in your experience, railroad tracks have NEVER
gone on infinitely, you wouldn't even think that...you would think "I wonder HOW far they
go" or maybe where to.  The ability to ask what if and question nature means we have an
ability to set aside that which we know for something which we suspect--in other words, we
have a gut reaction to super nature...we say to ourselves that even though I've only ever
experienced railroad tracks being constructed and going on to another station....what IF
they just kept going forever?  Well, they don't...nor could they ever and you KNOW
that...so where the hell is that what if coming from?  certainly not science, certainly
not experience...where?

But as for anyone who wants to cling so tightly to our "knowledge" thanks to science--the
only thing you can know for certain is that you exist and the only person you can prove
that to for certain is to yourself.  Everything else takes faith whether you choke at the
notion or not.  Get over it.

Love and happiness come about from fulfilling our purpose, not from merely sitting around.
   Any love that stems from ONLY within you, or only within me, will thereby only be as
good as you or me--essentially, such a love would be pathetic in that it would be limited
and broken, just as we are limited and broken.  If that's how you see love, I'm sorry life
has allowed for such.  

Are you Billy Graham?  Cuz you are making me laugh.

your argument, though well thought out, is crap.

Jeremy could have at least filled out his profile.

this is my first post but i should have been here a long time ago. you guys are far more 
interesting and satisfying than anyone i have conversed with in forever. and there's 
more than one of you.
i used to demand reason and proof but i lost myself. it came down to free will. psych 
101 probly addressed this. 
if science is all you got, then there is no way to conclude free will. without free 
will, life is nothing but an occurance and happenstance. you must believe in that 
interpreter(spell?) between your experience internalized and your synapses.

sorry, that should be philosophy 101.

ah, the strange posts that come out of the woodwork at 3 am on weekends.

an anthropology professor of mine once described the role of science thusly:

there is a rainbow. you see the rainbow and appreciate its spectral beauty. with science, you can explain why 
the rainbow happens. but ultimately, science doesn't keep you from enjoying the rainbow's colors any less.

thus i feel that arguments for "free will" and such are totally moot. would knowing that your actions were fated 
in an unforeseeable future change your day to day life in a significant way? even if you do have "free will," your 
behaviors are still limited by your physical body, location, finances etc. my personal belief is that the human 
brain invents concepts that don't necessarily translate into how reality actually is (frequently in dichotomies 
such as "god vs satan," "good vs evil" etc), artificial polarities that make explaining our existence a lot easier. 
and our brains, for whatever the reason, sleep much better at night with these explanations.

but if all you have is life as is, as you can sense it with all your limited sensing, why
do you need the explanations of anything else?  if the sun is always there when it needs
to be there and you can live and eat just fine either way, what does it matter why?  why
would knowing why it is there help us?  in reality, knowing why the sun is there doesn't
really help us...just knowing that it is there and that we can rely on it is sufficient.

it's the way our species evolved. by knowing how something happens or works, we can manipulate it to our 
advantage. we once thought that man was special in our ability to use tools; however several other animals on 
earth have been shown to use tools (chimps, gorillas, dolphins etc). the presumed difference between them and 
us is our brain mass and our ability to understand (or perhaps create?) abstract relationships and use that 
knowledge to enhance our survival.

so you mean you perceive things beyond natural existence, then?

what the hell do you mean by "natural existence?" the "natural" vs "supernatural' is precisely one of those 
dichotomies i was talking about. all it really means is "stuff our brains can understand right now" vs "stuff our 
brains don't understand right now."