ralis

Please stay with the OP. The basic human need for wanting to know who we are, where do we come from, where are we going and what is the nature of existence are all questions at the root of human existence. To be quite frank, I don't give a damn about all the Buddhist rants around suffering! Too much emphasis on one facet of life!

After nine pages, the same arguments arise that were posited thousands of years ago. Nothing has changed.

Where is the dividing line that divides? Are we discussing geographical differences? Why not include Native Americans that wandered across the Siberian land bridge whose spirituality may have been influenced by Siberian Shamanism? Hebrew religions which date back to antiquity i.e, Mesopotamia?

Deleting the dichotomy of East and West is a place to start. That has no utility in this discussion. Too many here have posited the idea that Eastern philosophy is somehow superior.

What about a relative answer? That can be flawed as well.

Assumptions which are based on belief systems to an extent but not entirely.

Buddhists, Greeks et al have discussed these monumental questions to no specific conclusions. If these questions were absolutely proven, then discussions such as these would be necessary. As far as pure reasoning, language places a limit on such discourse.

This is an age old argument of myth as opposed to pure reasoning. Neither will arrive at an answer. The hope that an absolute answer will be obtained in this discussion will not occur.

Excellent recommendation. However, very few can even begin to comprehend Einstein's work. What I would recommend is the practice of sky gazing which is a superior way to understand the nature of light and the non separateness of existence/being. From my experience, one can experience stillness. I hesitate to characterize the experience of stillness as absolute given that particular dialectic dates back to antiquity. The absolute/relative discussion continues and will continue to this day and beyond. Is the OP inquiring in regards to being or becoming? Is absolute stillness the archê of all phenomena? That is a tricky discussion.

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This is a very amusing thread. Drunvalo will change his predictions when his followers forget the last prediction. You can count on it.

What he is leaving out is the insanity of the crusades, holy wars and inquisition. Christianity is directly responsible for that. Furthermore, many persons of his persuasion supported the Iraq war.

I didn't state that I am an Obama supporter so quit insinuating that I am! Your ideology is doom and gloom given that you believe that ones opposed to your belief system are going to hell and the earth will be destroyed. That is doom and gloom! I would appreciate it if you would stop the patronizing/condescending remarks. That is how you and others in your particular belief system treat others and far worse.

What you are positing does not even qualify for good debate. Why? Your narrative is based on myth without reason.There is no proof that the world is heading for a doom and gloom scenario as you are preaching it. What you are positing is that an event will take place at some unknown future time because you said so.

Are you a prophet? Your narrative is flawed to the max!

How many times have the leaders of your religion preached the same old worn out doom and gloom over the last two thousand years. Furthermore, blaming Obama for the state affairs by the above characterization is ludicrous. I thought you claimed to be aware.

Anyone can cherry pick scientific papers in an attempt to prove a point. To state that aluminum and other materials are used to dim the planet via chemtrails is a bogus argument which does not hold water. Have you taken any courses in science? What about critical thinking/questioning what you read? The paper is a mishmash of new age conspiracy with world leaders and ET's needing to keep humanity enslaved.

You are basing your narrative on conjecture in that there will be an actual so called shift sometime in the future. Notice that the so called shift has not been given an exact date but could occur over a period of two years. Moreover, the OP blames female energy i.e, the earth, as not having exact dates for the so called shift. Drunvalo, is using emotional hooks to get people to sign up for his expensive workshops. http://www.drunvalo.net/upcoming1.php This is not about being aware but has more to do with being hooked by authoritarian based rhetoric.

These type of so called prophetic utterances have been expressed since humans have evolved here. I don't understand why so many persons place value in anything Drunvalo says. This is another distraction while not paying attention to the myriad problems we as a species face.

I am basically through with this thread for the reason that discussing with ideologues, and persons who are unable to engage in critical thinking/discussion, are only interested in their own feel good belief systems which makes discussion extremely one sided. Libertarian ideology is not based on reason or an understanding of complex societies. To ignore the fact that humans are social beings and are part of complex cultures, for the sake of an illusory so called natural existence unfettered by rules, is irrational. Colin Turnbull states it well in his classic work http://www.amazon.com/Forest-People-Pimlico-Colin-Turnbull-ebook/dp/B009K5GWI0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385341519&sr=8-1&keywords=colin+turnbull+the+forest+people that even primitive tribes that are living a so called natural existence, have rules. Prof. Henry Giroux interviewed by Bill Moyers.

The origin of the egg. I wish the OP would read more science and we would not have these crazy discussions. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2bDetailsoforigin.shtml How did life originate? Living things (even ancient organisms like bacteria) are enormously complex. However, all this complexity did not leap fully-formed from the primordial soup. Instead life almost certainly originated in a series of small steps, each building upon the complexity that evolved previously: Simple organic molecules were formed. Simple organic molecules, similar to the nucleotide shown below, are the building blocks of life and must have been involved in its origin. Experiments suggest that organic molecules could have been synthesized in the atmosphere of early Earth and rained down into the oceans. RNA and DNAmolecules — the genetic material for all life — are just long chains of simple nucleotides. Replicating molecules evolved and began to undergo natural selection. All living things reproduce, copying their genetic material and passing it on to their offspring. Thus, the ability to copy the molecules that encode genetic information is a key step in the origin of life — without it, life could not exist. This ability probably first evolved in the form of an RNA self-replicator — an RNA molecule that could copy itself. Many biologists hypothesize that this step led to an "RNA world" in which RNA did many jobs, storing genetic information, copying itself, and performing basic metabolic functions. Today, these jobs are performed by many different sorts of molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins, mostly), but in the RNA world, RNA did it all. Self-replication opened the door for natural selection. Once a self-replicating molecule formed, some variants of these early replicators would have done a better job of copying themselves than others, producing more "offspring." These super-replicators would have become more common — that is, until one of them was accidentally built in a way that allowed it to be a super-super-replicator — and then, that variant would take over. Through this process of continuous natural selection, small changes in replicating molecules eventually accumulated until a stable, efficient replicating system evolved. Replicating molecules became enclosed within a cell membrane. The evolution of a membrane surrounding the genetic material provided two huge advantages: the products of the genetic material could be kept close by and the internal environment of this proto-cell could be different than the external environment. Cell membranes must have been so advantageous that these encased replicators quickly out-competed "naked" replicators. This breakthrough would have given rise to an organism much like a modern bacterium. Cell membranes enclose the genetic material. Some cells began to evolve modern metabolic processes and out-competed those with older forms of metabolism. Up until this point, life had probably relied on RNA for most jobs (as described in Step 2 above). But everything changed when some cell or group of cells evolved to use different types of molecules for different functions: DNA (which is more stable than RNA) became the genetic material, proteins (which are often more efficient promoters of chemical reactions than RNA) became responsible for basic metabolic reactions in the cell, and RNA was demoted to the role of messenger, carrying information from the DNA to protein-building centers in the cell. Cells incorporating these innovations would have easily out-competed "old-fashioned" cells with RNA-based metabolisms, hailing the end of the RNA world. Multicellularity evolved. As early as two billion years ago, some cells stopped going their separate ways after replicating and evolved specialized functions. They gave rise to Earth's first lineage of multicellular organisms, such as the 1.2 billion year old fossilized red algae in the photo below. These fossils of Bangiomorpha pubescens are 1.2 billion years old. Toward the lower end of the fossil on the left there are cells differentiated for attaching to a substrate. If you look closely at the upper part of the fossil on the right, you can see longitudinal division that has divided disc-shaped cells into a number of radially arranged wedge-shaped cells, as we would see in a modern bangiophyte red alga. • Bangiomorpha pubescens fossil photos provided by Dr. N.J. Butterfield.

The Libertarian party ideology is based on 'Social Darwinism' as opposed to altruism/cooperation. I would recommend reading E.O. Wilson's works on the biology of altruism, in which he discusses the evolutionary advantage of belonging to a group, as opposed to the ideology of selfish individual interests. Individuals do not evolve on their own but the group evolves, which is a natural biological process. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=e.o.%20wilson&sprefix=e.o.+wi%2Cstripbooks&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Ae.o.%20wilson

Bernini conveyed a feeling to his work that leaves me speechless!

I just received a letter from friends of mine who are living in Kathmandu for 10 months. They took jobs to teach ESL (English as a second language). Kathmandu's air is so polluted, that most of the population wears a mask just to conduct everyday errands. Poor sanitation, bad food, high crime rate, very little formal education, as well as little or no medical care. Both of my friends have already been sick twice and have only been there for four weeks. Obviously, there are few to no rules which make for unsafe living conditions. Libertarian values? Seems as though the govt. is not telling people how to live. Libertarians complain that government interference causes social problems but what about this example and many more? Very little government interference in the lives of Nepalese. Why aren't the lives of Nepalese improving?

Quite frankly, your narrative is based on nothing but fantasy and does not correspond to reality. What about sociopathic behavior? Remove the classification/rules and magically the psychopathic person behaves normally and seeks to do the right thing? Your narrative violates reason and fact. Hobbes was correct in that human society needs rules to create order, or as he termed it, a 'social contract', so that communities are safe from natural tendencies i.e, aberrant behavior. Although he proposed ideology that was too severe in terms of punishment for rule breaking. The mistaken idea that the natural person is benevolent is a mistaken view and does not correspond with historical or anthropological accounts of human societies. Historical facts are not on your side.