teknix

I think that is how zen works too. (but i'm probably wrong technically)

I would say the answer is relative to each individual scenario. Whatever the answer, it says about you.

Do You expect me to answer the question?

Are you open to compromise in all things or are there things set in stone?

To be humble is to swallow your pride, using humility as an invisible guide, looking from anothers perspective, in an attempt to acheive compromise. With too much pride on either side there could never be a compromise.

"The relationship between fungi and humans has been interconnected since time immemorial. Our associations with these organisms go deep into our genetic history. Perhaps the most fundamental of all mushroom uses is the use of them as mediators to the Gods. It is this very aspect that trumps all other mushroom potential in human culture. It is the essence of the spiritual link of man to nature and the Mother Earth Goddess. How can a mushroom become intregral part of humanity's existance? What new perspectives can be gained when one firmly puts their belief in the hands of a small growing organism emerging from the fertile soil of the Earth? Figure 1. Tassili rock painting 5000 B.C.E. Deep in the Sahara Desert of southern Algeria is a plateau known as Tassili-n-Ajjer. It is a rocky badlands filled with boulders, cliffs, and caves. On one of these rock faces in a painting of a shaman with a head of a bee, holding mushrooms in his hand, all the while mushrooms sprout out of his body (Figure 1). Dating back at least five thousand years before the rise of Christianity and long before the rise of the modern monotheistic cult on Earth, this painting represents perhaps the spiritual lifestyle of our archaic ancestors. Elsewhere in these badlands is a rock painting of mushroom men running in ecstasy amidst geometric shapes (Figure 2). http://www.goa-shoom.net/ethnomycology/psychoactive.html

The closest experience I had that could be misconstrued by others as "god" is eating magic mushrooms. It is the most euphoric I had felt at the time, but now the bliss I felt then is under direct control. Nothing to do with god, unless I am god . .

I personally don't find it rational to write off an unexplanable experience as god. What if it is actually you doing it and nothing to do with the people or place? I think it is you doing it, and you psyche yourself out, can't explain it, so claim it must be god. That's the thing about subscribing to religious beliefs and traditions, is the bias that comes with interpretation of any percieved mystical events. For instance if two people experience the exact same thing, the interpretation of the experienmce is going to depend on what they believe and have been told and accept as truth, a buddhist would say it was enlightenment and christian would say it was the holy spirit, etc . .

Why do you think it is god rather than something else?

It's like putting a nike symbol on your shoes. (Shoes sold separately.)

Hypothetically, If spirits are conscious entities, then should they have the same rights that other conscious beings have? What determines a spirits nature or what is a spirits nature? What does it require to live and be a spirit?

Ones own fullfillment? To what extent?

Do You think of ghost, spirits, and demons as the personified psyche?

How did you learn / find out about all this?

I like that you guys post what you know and think about spirits, thanks! *Goes back to taking notes*

So sentient means to me that it can feel pain / emotions, does a spirit feel like that?

What if they use the offering of good will to suck your life-force if that is their food and need to survive? Like a parasite living inside you, does it have a right to live there or do you have the right to eliminate it, both, neither?

P.S. It's not to argue, just to see your guys perspective.

I still own your spirits. ^.^

Go figure, obv is obv.

Haha, what a brown noser, I guess they had those way back when too! eheheh.

I said that I would argue that, but it doesn't mean I'm going too . .

Sure!

It's a good argument, but I would counter that it doesn't cost anything.