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Indeed. I've talked of this with a couple of other members. I know or have met a number of people who have an absolute disdain for 'religion' but in whom an absolutely blind faith in the scientific method, and what amounts to obedience to scientific doctrine, is quite apparent. More dogma, blind faith, obedience. So yes, I agree that "we humans have an innate tendency for religion."

Odd thing to say from a close friend of David Cameron (career politician & current Prime Minister) ..but I agree with the premise

<< I like circles

How about...being open to the likelihood that certain dogmas are unavoidable, and potentially harmless, but with a general tendency to avoid dogma wherever possible (as it usually isn't harmless) ?

Yes.. wisdom is found in most religions. But in my opinion religion (and any particular religious teaching) is defined by dogma, blind faith, and obedience, and so wisdom (and any particular wise teaching) is separated from religion by at least these 3 conditions. In other words: I have a disdain for dogma, blind faith, and obedience, and this is why I could never follow a religion; and if I recognize wisdom in a religious teaching it is not because it is a religious teaching, but despite that. As far as Mr Zhuang... well, however one wants to define 'religion', I think we can mostly agree that his writing is not a passionate defence of dogma, blind faith, or obedience. And whether or not there is such a thing as 'Religious Taoism'; and whether or not we can, in this so-called 'Religious Taoism', recognize any of the 3 aforementioned conditions; and whether or not Mr Zhuang would have recognized it as such; I do believe that he would hold a certain disdain for any teaching that required dogma, blind faith, or obedience. Please ignore the hypocrisy inherent in the fact that my anti-dogma stance is itself dogmatic..;p

When I'm not in Active Discovery mode, I do enjoy reading these conversations

Well.. Firstly, this isn't what I would call a 'real' democracy. The system is rigged -- in practice only the same 2 parties can ever come into power. That's 2 groups of people in (partial) control of the education and health care and many other aspects of the lives of 80 million people. So there is that. Secondly, I'd say that protest, and being allowed to hurl abuse at those in power, lie near the core of a 'real' democracy. Not everyone can 'win', perhaps, but everyone can/should have a voice. If one believes in having and participating in a political system at all, and the idea of the contemporary political system is that the whole population are allowed to have a say, and then because of a faulty system a party that only represents and benefits a relatively small proportion of the people is able to gain power...well, the other people are at the very least entitled to walk down the street and point out their disappointment, no? I've never participated in a protest, and don't plan to, but... I respect their energy..

What about some Batman buttons? ..

I got caught up in the frenzy.. the idea that something different might actually happen this time around. Hah!

Yes, I'd love to know what you're alluding to Brian.. Our definitions of 'conservative' are quite different... And it's worth noting that conservative is different to Conservative, right? In my dictionary, -- a conservative doesn't like change. He holds on to 'traditional values' as if just because they're traditional they are worth something.. -- a Conservative (in theory) likes free enterprise, private property, limited government control, etc. Where I see it going wrong is [a] when people take free enterprise too far (corporations being able to do whatever it takes to make money); when 'limited government control' extends to the government only helping the rich to maintain their wealth; [c] when people think that because they believe in Conservative free enterprise they must also believe in a conservative aversion to change.

It's not taboo, it's just not real He's certainly talking about being reincarnated as a horse. Firstly, let's get one thing outta the way: 偉哉！夫造物者 How great is the creator! (making me all crookedy..) -- literally 'creator', 'that which creates', which is not specified as being a "He" or any other personification, as Legge and Watson translate it, and seems more likely to be the forces of the universe (yin,yang) Secondly, "Why no, what would I resent? If the process continues, perhaps in time he'll transform my left arm into a rooster. In that case I'll keep watch on the night. Or perhaps in time he'll transform my right arm into a crossbow pellet and I'll shoot down an owl for roasting. Or perhaps in time he'll transform my buttocks into cartwheels. Then, with my spirit for a horse, I'll climb up and go for a ride. What need will I ever have for a carriage again?" Do any of these things sound like ZZ is being particularly serious? That he believes they're really plausible?? Yes, it's reincarnation. But no, it's not serious.

Apparently

People have voted Conservative, at least in part, because of scare tactics, yes. This is hardly deniable. Every flyer put through my door recently has been "Vote Conservative or you'll be responsible for Labour forming a coalition with the SNP and the kingdom falling apart" and "Labour was solely responsible for the recession, Cameron has been solely responsible for economic recovery, so vote blue." The first of these is a bizarre imaginary concoction that they could not possibly know. The second is pure nonsense. All the major papers have been full of it. The Times, The Daily Mail (the largest paper in the world, btw), The Sun, The Telegraph.. even The Independent -- yes, in theory an independent, non-partisan paper -- backed the Conservatives at the last minute. Lib Dems lost a huge number of seats. I saw a woman interviewed on TV in an area where Lib Dems have reigned for 23 years: "In this formerly Lib Dem majority area, why have so many switched to Conservative?" "Well, Lib Dems formed the coalition with the Conservatives, which wasn't good." So you voted for the party you object to them forming the coalition with??! Is that logical?? I was watching the news with a friend who voted Conservative. Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) appeared, saying that Scotland had clearly voted for an end to austerity, and that Cameron needed to listen. My friend said, "What's austerity?" How the fuck are you going to vote for a party without even knowing their main platform?? Their major claim has been that they saved the economy with austerity measures! You voted for them because the Murdoch media told you how great they've been doing, didn't you, you bloody fool? This offers an overview of the economic stuff which actually relies on figures rather than propaganda: http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/05/02/britain-for-the-love-of-god-please-stop-david-cameron/ I don't believe in Labour any more than Conservative, but this is a decent argument for why Cameron should have been stopped this time around. What about the banks? Why has this become all about Labour's (supposed) fuck ups? Scare tactics + propaganda. If people voted for 'progressive' parties (Lib Dem, Green -- neither of which did well at all) it would have been out of a mixture of naivety and, yes, a healthy belief that some things could actually change for the better. That we could slow the tide of big business and xenophobia, improve life for the poorest, stop the bankers from fucking things up so much, etc..

Fair enough. I was short-sighted and did not consider the CF from purification etc. http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/water-and-carbon-footprint-household-food-and-drink-waste-uk-1 This might not apply elsewhere, but for me.. well, I don't drive, I recycle almost everything (metals, plastics, paper/card, glass, 'organics'), I use hot water sparingly, and apparently the CF from local tap water isn't that bad. So at this point I'm still not going to worry a great deal over my cold water use, I'm afraid.

I just can't believe it. Well, I can. Of course I can. But I don't like it. I honestly don't think most people base their decisions on anything other than the mainstream media..which is stupid. Very stupid.

Yes, I think that it can be interpreted specifically or generally. It is the things themselves changing, but as the world of life is made up of those things, it is at the same time the world changing. All one big organism. I'm a little confused as to what everyone else believes the story is saying, but no, this is not my contention at all. He's just dreaming. The dream illustrates what it is to die and/or be born; each creature melts into the Great System, and each emerges from it. We are the same, same but different.

Not so fast! 'A' for effort, but you are quite obviously twisting it.. I put 're' in brackets () because it doesn't explicitly say "die and reborn", it says "transform/die and born", but I wanted to leave the option open. It certainly doesn't say "The ten thousand things die and are reincarnated as the same soul in a different vehicle" If you want to look honestly at the structure, and prove that it is definitely about reincarnation, why not use ctext to find examples like you normally do? From the 易經 I Ching / Yi Jing: (tr. Legge) It's very clearly talking about yin and yang forces coming together to create life....

What is "saving water"? I've never understood some people's preoccupation with this. "Don't flush the toilet unless you take a dump -- we're trying to save water". "Pleas use water sparingly to save the environment." We all understand the water cycle, right? In some places, clean water is scarce, and I get that, but..in any number of 'developed' countries, water shouldn't be a problem...

Yes, I'm not saying ZZ actually came up with the idea of evolution 2000 years before Darwin! Just that his explanation looks closer to the evolutionary process than it does to reincarnation. Most importantly, it looks mostly like an allegorical explanation of how life gives birth to life through a process of decay and growth.

An example of how it is possible for us to interpret it in this way, sure, but not the only way we can interpret it, and certainly not a way that fits in with the majority of what ZZ wrote about. Smallest organisms > coming out of water > more complex > bigger > more complex > ... > man Looks more like evolution than reincarnation.. Well, either way, it's all interpretation. We can't ask him. I'll leave it at that.

Not everything done in government is directly handled by the President... y'know? (Though I wouldn't put it past them) http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 The President doesn't have direct, unbridled control over economics. It's in the hands of everyone. And the more money one has, the more influence. (Chomsky)

Hah, OK you got me. He doesn't even explicitly refer to death. So how can it be about reincarnation?

Yes, it is the important part of both that and the Butterfly Dream. Darkstar, you'll have to forgive me...I tend to need to figure things out through discussion etc, but after all that, I realize that I basically agree with Moeller's premise. Though something tells me others won't be so convinced.. Wuhua is well-translated as "the transformation/changing of things", but yes, refers to the cycle of life and death. Whether or not we want to interpret other mentions of wuhua as reincarnation, in this case I don't think we can go so far as to suggest that Zhuang Zhou is being literally reincarnated as a butterfly when he dreams. That would be a little bizarre even for ZZ. 昔者莊周夢為胡蝶 Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamt of being a butterfly,1 栩栩然胡蝶也 Vividly just that, a butterfly, 自喻適志與 Completely at peace with itself, 不知周也 Unaware of Zhuang Zhou.*1 俄然覺則蘧蘧然周也 Suddenly he awoke, and it gradually dawned on him that he was Zhuang Zhou.2 不知周之夢為胡蝶與 He did not know if Zhuang Zhou had dreamt of being a butterfly,*2 胡蝶之夢為周與 Or the butterfly was dreaming of being Zhuang Zhou. 周與胡蝶則必有分矣 Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly, there must be a difference! 此之謂物化 This is called the Transformation of Things.3 1 It is explicitly Zhou dreaming, once upon a time, of being a butterfly 2 He comes to this realization slowly -- I am assuming that he remembers, at least in part, his dream, and is a little confused *1 The use of 不知 means that the current subject is unaware of the other -- in this case, the butterfly is unaware of ZZ *2 The current subject is unaware/does not know -- in this case, ZZ does not know whether he is a butterfly or vice versa 3 Or, the Inseparability of Things, or the (Life and) Death of Things, etc

Yeah..I've wondered that myself, to be honest. I don't know anyone who owns or rents who needs to be given food. But there are, without a doubt, a lot of poor people. A lot of homeless people. http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/homeless-def-numbers.html So, I mean...fuck it. I dunno. Nothing any of us say or do will actually make a difference...

Your definition of 'explicit' is different to mine... I prefer Watson's translation, just for loyalty: I doubt he's suggesting that all men were leopards in their past lives, or that before that all leopards were plants. That would be a little specific, no? He's just using simple language to illustrate the idea that all creatures were, previously, different parts of the same system. All he's explicitly said, all that is only interpretable in one way, is that living things die and are born, coming out of and going back into the system. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.