Heavy

[tire iron]

Human nature and spirituality are incompatible.

[xerx]

Human nature and spirituality are incompatible.

Isn't spirituality mostly about a recognition of human nature?

[tire iron]

I'd say it's about belief in some enlightened state.

I'm depraved until the day I die.

And so isn't everybody else. Some are more depraved than others.

There's the depraved and then the not so depraved, but nobody is enlightened.

[xerx]

I'd say it's about belief in some enlightened state.

I'm depraved until the day I die.

And so isn't everybody else. Some are more depraved than others.

There's the depraved and then the not so depraved, but nobody is enlightened.

I would argue that the desire for enlightenment is as much a vector of human nature. And that spirituality can encompass the recognition of one's failure to find enlightenment, much like what you just did there.

[tire iron]

It's more like a conviction I have about myself and human nature.

I've never had the desire to try and find spirituality, because that would be like turning on my self.

But I do think being able to transcend depravity is fundamental to spirituality.

[xerx]

It's more like a conviction I have about myself and human nature.

I've never had the desire to try and find spirituality, because that would be like turning on my self.

But I do think being able to transcend depravity is fundamental to spirituality.

So nihilism as the opposite of spirituality?

[silverchris9]

Man is both irredeemably depraved and irreducibly brilliant. Unlike Satan, we have made no hole in the ground; we at most can only fall to the barren stubble. Will the ground open up and swallow us? I don't know.
I feel the light of the Imago Dei, though I know it to be only a reflection, as dependent on the original for existence as an instance on a form, or as an imag(in)e in the mirror. And even then I feel myself as less than what I am, and therefore nothing.
In other words, you have two horses, which one do you feed? They will both pull you inexorably forward, one will tug to the left, one will tug to the right. Will you be more like God or the Devil? Falstaff or Hamlet in Heaven?
Me? Well, to be honest, though I shall hate to give an account of this at Judgment, I feel like I feed both, which keeps me right where I am, unchanging (which means I am going down down down down down).
But do not lie on us. We are as incredibly blessed with the power of the angels as we are depraved, the disease-ridden spawn of the devils, with stench to the highest of heavens.
Both are insurmountable. Neither can be surpassed and neither destroyed. So by what might of miracle, might or miracle shall we be transfigured? And by what unforeseen horror fully and finally depraved?
Young man, let Jesus Christ into your life. The hottest scourge of unknown and unforeseen fire shall break your body. And oh how clean are they who are bathed in light.

In other news, you can die as easily of presence as of absence. To see God face to face would kill as quick the unprepared soul who cannot send a sunrise from himself (that's not the solution, but dazzling/tremendous, Whitman said; or rather is it that the sunrise is the image of the self, the second mirror, and the heart prepared?) as to be locked in the tremendousness devil's jail.

I've been reading Paradise (Lost) all night.

[tire iron]

I'll rephrase it this way.

The desire is not incompatible with human nature. Obviously people desire it!

But the spiritually enlightened state is incompatible.

That is to say, human beings are too depraved low greasy brutish fallen and corrupted.

That goes for the buddha, the pope, me, or anybody else.

[tire iron]

So nihilism as the opposite of spirituality?

I think my life has the meaning I decide for it.

I don't know if that makes me a nihilist.

[silverchris9]

No it's not! And yes it is.

Human nature as it is now is incompatible with the fullest of recognitions. That is what Walt Whitman means when he says "Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,/If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me." But could we not be remade and retooled to be so magnificently changed interiorly, in our interiority, as we are knit together in our mother's womb and again out side it, that we could prove the substance of our soul by sending sunrise from our fingertips and peeing silver photons? I believe that I'll pee photons. And shit red dwarf stars. One day. One day. One day.

[tire iron]

Man is both irredeemably depraved and irreducibly brilliant. Unlike Satan, we have made no hole in the ground; we at most can only fall to the barren stubble. Will the ground open up and swallow us? I don't know.
I feel the light of the Imago Dei, though I know it to be only a reflection, as dependent on the original for existence as an instance on a form, or as an imag(in)e in the mirror. And even then I feel myself as less than what I am, and therefore nothing.
In other words, you have two horses, which one do you feed? They will both pull you inexorably forward, one will tug to the left, one will tug to the right. Will you be more like God or the Devil? Falstaff or Hamlet in Heaven?
Me? Well, to be honest, though I shall hate to give an account of this at Judgment, I feel like I feed both, which keeps me right where I am, unchanging (which means I am going down down down down down).
But do not lie on us. We are as incredibly blessed with the power of the angels as we are depraved, the disease-ridden spawn of the devils, with stench to the highest of heavens.
Both are insurmountable. Neither can be surpassed and neither destroyed. So by what might of miracle, might or miracle shall we be transfigured? And by what unforeseen horror fully and finally depraved?
Young man, let Jesus Christ into your life. The hottest scourge of unknown and unforeseen fire shall break your body. And oh how clean are they who are bathed in light.

In other news, you can die as easily of presence as of absence. To see God face to face would kill as quick the unprepared soul who cannot send a sunrise from himself (that's not the solution, but dazzling/tremendous, Whitman said; or rather is it that the sunrise is the image of the self, the second mirror, and the heart prepared?) as to be locked in the tremendousness devil's jail.

I've been reading Paradise (Lost) all night.

That was pretty good.

[silverchris9]

That was pretty good.

Thanks. The best part was about peeing photons and shitting stars. That was probably the best thing I've ever written. But I'm really, really, really, REALLY torn about whether or not I should change "peeing" to "pissing". Darn you poetry!

I was serious about letting Jesus into your heart (and about reading Milton).

...now if only I could figure out how to do it!

[munenori2]

pissing is more symmetrical.

[silverchris9]

pissing is more symmetrical.

Yeah. It is prettier, it fits better, but I kind of want it to be asymmetrical? Don't want to go too pretty with it. Shrug. It's a judgment call, either way is perfectly valid. And... eh, I mean it's such a subtle difference. I'm going to leave it as it is.

[tire iron]

Pissing has a more depraved ring to it than Peeing.

[Creepy-male]

Pissing has a more depraved ring to it than Peeing.

Embarassment:
A poem

Pissing and missing, the fleeting bleating.
Boy I feel sheepish now, I really do.

EDIT

Go nuts, Chris

[silverchris9]

Pissing has a more depraved ring to it than Peeing.

Also true. But I don't want it to be that hard. I want it to retain a tang of innocence. Peeing is... I dunno, it's like a kiddy word. It's definitely peeing. It's lighter. It has to be very light.

[DirectorAbbie]

Human nature and spirituality are incompatible.

Define.

[Brilliand]

Definition problem, I agree.

Humans, in their quest for perfection, have defined spirituality beyond what is practically attainable. But really, it is not strictly unattainable - just unfeasible to obtain. Indeed, I suspect that the furthest extreme of spirituality results in a person not actually capable of surviving (because it would mean the brain not being able to contain anything else).

Elaborating on that a bit, the strict maximum of spirituality would result in the strict maximum of "so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good," due to the total absence of any way to interact with mundane reality.

[tire iron]

Come on. Relax with the definition thing.

Definitions are bullshit. They don't mean anything.

Depravity is set in motion from birth to death.