Stosh

It may be basic dualistic language , and You can take your pick on the use of the word gnostic , but if the Gnostic tradition is theist , or if the gnostic tradition is also theist , then the two pairs are not distinct. and so youre back to having only the three choices of either believing in god , not believing in god , or not being able to make up your mind for some reason. Yes there is a fourth possibility , which is the group who has never heard of or considered deities, but then , they couldnt weigh in, now could they? so they arent a choice.

But THIS 1. pertaining to knowledge. 2. possessing knowledge, especially esoteric knowledge of spiritual matters. Is not presenting another position, gnostic, in addition to the other three. Still wrong.

Fine, thats true , but Im paying attention now, whats your different meaning.

Wikipedia says Lao was agnostic. Chloris Leachman too !

Your carpet anemone was intelligent? Ummm , no, IMO insectivore as I use in my context will be bird that must have insects as their main source of food. I see they are trained for singing competitions, interesting hobby.

Im reading that the original Gnostic tradition or ontosophy, declares the universe was a situation of unity, which became split into a plurality, they include several divine beings, which are distinguished from regular men. since the·ism ˈTHēˌizəm/ noun belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures. gnosticism is therefore theistic- as a matter of intellectual fact, and its not just my personal whim or perception leading me to say so. You were just... wrong.

Tsk tsk

Ok thats reasonable prove it Whos ? .. what?

Still has supreme deity, Monad ergo theism , No?

True, all Im saying is that the experiment isnt conclusive on the concept of zero, I think its saying something else which is more interesting. To me it suggests preconscious and imagination. What exactly was the insectivore. A shrew ?

I narrowly approached the word personality , to probe what exactly was intending to be inferred if a critter was said to have one. One possibility is that folks may think they are 'just like us" or that they have 'rights' . Such an attitude, I am describing as them being considered 'little hairy humans'. No he doesn't. ( on a functioning level ) nor do you or I for that matter, our brains are more abstract. Who cares about being of topic? If Shanlung really wants it to stay on point , he can mediate. If he wanders off to do something more important , he can fix it when he is done with that. Its not like he is waiting for an answer so he can figure out how to regard his parrot, he isnt a helpless idiot. When I was a kid I thought wild animals as pets , was a cool idea. It seemed feasible. After having Sophie for several years , I think I would have been making a poor choice. Domesticated animals are improved versions, in the domestic situation. Suet Isnt Mom is creating some headache for herself if she isnt accepting of the hawk along with the songbirds. Does she know that squirrels eat baby birds, I saw one eat a cardinal chick , ate im like a burrito. Personally Id rather have the hawk around. A bobcat once seemed to show off her ' kill ' to me. She seemed rather pleased with herself and goofed around quite a while with it.. but I wasnt there so I am not even sure the hawk did as described with the described intent. Demon? The semantics was intended to find what the heart of the question was, the word personality is too broad IMO

Hmmm, I have seen this before. Ill be waing to see what the heck this has to do with injustice though. It looks more like he lost track of his best spiritual interests ,and felt guilty. Social mores dont seem to be significant here.

Agreed, instinct, the cat does what its programming tells it. Thats just what it is. Is this the personality we should be recognizing in this thread, or should we be considering them like little hairy humans. If they are little persons, well they are really horrendous. If they are non person animals , we can claim them innocent and free of our judgement since they dont have our awareness. I love my cat, to me she is the sweetest little kitty in the world, but she is A CAT . In this, she actually has a highly favored status, I certainly wouldnt allow some murderous freeloader to hang around my apartment, groomed fed cared for etc. Frankly, she is far easier to get along with than people, she even has a sense of what looks like decorum ,restraint, dignity. But she isnt a human.

Im not familiar with this story, will it be in your other thread ?

Back then, im pretty sure discriminations made based on sex age race and status were considered fine and natural. According to the texts ,what is unjust?

Great! then the brilliance is all mine

So anyone , who fears their own mortality or has a sense of awe , must not be sm(a)ug on some level . Brilliant solution.

I just want to know who is not smug, That should be easy.

Heist motivation ? , heißt motivation? second person singular tense in German of motivation? Vas ist das ?

Yeah some generalizations are fine, but saying other folks are smug is unkind. Its lumping all the humble theists , with folks like me. and one of us may be offended.

Well I really pretty much do disagree with Spotless here, not trying to be contrarian to your point , Its the overall point of making the statement itself which negates the 'caricature defense' Why spend time describing what one felt to be gross exaggeration? ex, Some people, when misrepresented , appear to be smug. Other people , also misrepresented , also seem smug but for a slightly different reason. But Im not going to draw a caricature of the people who , when grossly misrepresented , do not appear smug. Because , in doing so , I would have to be characterizing their superior nature as a mis-characterization as well.

So who is not smug? pray tell.

If the cat is full , and doesnt properly recognize food... Do you own or have a reasonable amount of exposure to a cat that acts normally? Im not talking about shanlungs cat , or strange oddballs that get stuck on you tube for the precise reason that they ARE abnormal Im just talking about a normal cat, ,, then you know what its instincts are,,

I was sort-of aiming those questions as refinements of Shanlungs original version, but its fine for you to stand in. Agreed, thats a very difficult question to answer in whatever version chosen. Out of the 8.7 million or so species on earth we collectively are probably responsible in some way for about 322 species. Some of those are probably due to our introduction of cats pigs and rats to new places, so they share in the blame for those 322, but they ,other animals probably figure very prominently ,additionally in all the rest of those extinctions. We call it survival of the fittest and they were doing it a long time before we showed up. Yes definitely loaded when considered broadly. Fine , lets call us animals too , fine lets say they have some kind of intelligence and consciousness , OK so what? My cat will still eat me after all I have done for her. She doesnt care about my consciousness. Agreed , aint she sweet? if she did? or is she an amoral murderess.

Ok,ok,they dont act identical, but you didnt really answer my question about my cat eating me. Why not? Im thinking you know that the answer is contrary to the angle you wish to project. Avoidance of the mountain indicates you see it too. Tsk tsk. Shanlung asks whether animals have PERSONALITY, this is also a specfically chosen word, I used it narrowly to draw out why he chose that term. Im thinking that he too sees an obstacle. How else might one ask the question nearer and dearer to ones heart? Do they have Buddha nature? Perhaps? Should they be considered as important as people? Maybe? Are they reincarnations of people? Even. Ultimately for an answer to be important, it has to get to the issue of what we are to do going foward. Having variability in behavior , could be applied to weather, but the question of whether the planet has weather , seems to be addressing something else rather than how we should consider organic fuzzies.