Tribal societies frequently engage in warfare that is dramatically different than modern warfare. This tribal or endemic warfare is highly ritualized and almost playful or sport-like. Fatalities are rare and injuries are significantly less common. These ritualized wars serve the purpose of allowing warriors to show their courage and allowing tribes to sort out minor disagreements without major loss of life. But Tribal societies do also engage in true warfare when necessary.
Such conflict inevitably puts huge stresses on warriors, and tribal cultures have discovered that there are several factors that help reduce trauma from war. First, social sanction from the tribe helps warriors cope with their actions in war time. Second, purification rituals which ceremonially cleanse the warrior of their sins. Third, transformation into a warrior state that can be left behind through another transformation at the end of war time.
Having a separate language for warriors in war time, such as the 'clipped speech' of the (admittedly fictional) Klingon Military allows for a dramatic transformation on the part of the warrior. According to the Sapir-Wharf Hypothosis, what we are able think about and how we are able to think at all is mediated by the language in which we speak and think. By giving warriors a different language to communicate in, we create a different culture and with luck a different persona for the warrior to wear on the battlefield. With luck this persona will be one that can then be put aside when the battle is over.
There are other parts of this, such as purification rituals and transformation rituals and public support for warriors and their actions. And all of these are important. War is a traumatizing and demoralizing event. War can break warriors by the boatload, even for those who come safe home. And having that different language creates break between peace and war, warrior and enemy, and warrior and civilian.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
What does it mean to immerse rather than transcend?
Answer:
Modern religion and pop psychology loves to talk about enlightenment and trascending the everyday. The idea is typically visualized as a meditating figure floating into the heavens. The idea of heaven as being above the earth stems from the mythology of many modern religions which casts the earth as an unworthy place that people should escape. Buddhists consider it an illusion that causes suffering, and attempt to see through it. Christians and most Abrahamic religions see the earth as a sinful place that acts as a test of faith. In both cases, the earth is not where humans were meant to be. Earth is bad, the good stuff comes after you die.
Freepathers feel that this mythology, which casts the earth as an intrinsically sinful place where one is meant to suffer while one waits for entrance into the perfect heaven above, is dangerous to life on earth and ecosystem itself given humankind's ability to affect the ecosystem. People who think the world is meant to be suffering do not think things are strange when the ecosystem is so damaged that everything depending upon it suffers from said damage. People who think the earth is a sinful place, may see less reason to avoiding damaging things- just as one would not see a problem in kicking the fence of a crack house. People who see the earth as a waiting room for heaven, are not likely to see a pressing need to keep the earth in working order far into the future.
Freepathers therefore look in the opposite direction. Rather than idealizing the heaven image, freepathers look for understanding and epiphany in the moist black wormy earth below them. While Christians hope to ascend to heaven on the wings of angels, Freepaths prefer the metaphors of sinking roots deep into the land. Learning more through a deeper connection, one that also strengthens the land itself.
Modern religion and pop psychology loves to talk about enlightenment and trascending the everyday. The idea is typically visualized as a meditating figure floating into the heavens. The idea of heaven as being above the earth stems from the mythology of many modern religions which casts the earth as an unworthy place that people should escape. Buddhists consider it an illusion that causes suffering, and attempt to see through it. Christians and most Abrahamic religions see the earth as a sinful place that acts as a test of faith. In both cases, the earth is not where humans were meant to be. Earth is bad, the good stuff comes after you die.
Freepathers feel that this mythology, which casts the earth as an intrinsically sinful place where one is meant to suffer while one waits for entrance into the perfect heaven above, is dangerous to life on earth and ecosystem itself given humankind's ability to affect the ecosystem. People who think the world is meant to be suffering do not think things are strange when the ecosystem is so damaged that everything depending upon it suffers from said damage. People who think the earth is a sinful place, may see less reason to avoiding damaging things- just as one would not see a problem in kicking the fence of a crack house. People who see the earth as a waiting room for heaven, are not likely to see a pressing need to keep the earth in working order far into the future.
Freepathers therefore look in the opposite direction. Rather than idealizing the heaven image, freepathers look for understanding and epiphany in the moist black wormy earth below them. While Christians hope to ascend to heaven on the wings of angels, Freepaths prefer the metaphors of sinking roots deep into the land. Learning more through a deeper connection, one that also strengthens the land itself.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Should be Afraid of the Possibility of God? A Question of Sim City
We now have computers advanced enough to run simulations where people go about their lives in virtual worlds, and those people seem to make their own choices based upon the rules built into the simulation.
If we could communicate with these virtual people, how likely is it that they would be aware of their status as program sub-routines with no autonomy not mediated by their underlying program code?
How likely is it that these VR people would reject the truth, because their code tells them they are autonomous?
How likely is it that they would see us as God, if we were able to explain our own relationship to them?
How likely is it that they would create a religion based around attempting to understand our motives and actions towards them?
Now stop, and look up and ask yourself this: If this is true of us, if we are the Virtual Persons who only think they have free will, how likely is it that being we call God is a cosmic twelve year old boy playing a higher dimensional version of Sim City?
And how many times have you sent the Godzilla monster rampaging across your own Sim City just because it looks cool to watch the cities burn?
What is the Solstice and Equinox? How are they useful?
Answer:
The Winter Solstice generally marks the end of the lunisolar year. The Winter solstice occurs on the shortest day of the year. The Summer Solstice by contrast occurs on the longest day of the year and is generally used to mark the midpoint in the year. The Equinoxes, spring and autumn, are the two days of the year when the day and the night are of equal length.
The solstices and equinoxes are powerful time keeping devices for the year, and have been used for centuries are markers for when to plant (the Spring Equinox), and when to harvest (the Autumn Equinox). The Summer Solstice marks the midway point in the fertile part of the year, while the Winter Solstice marks the midway point across the dark and cold parts of the year.
Winter Solstice is generally a celebratory time, used to mark the turning point of winter and to bring light to a cold and dark time of the year. Likewise the Spring Equinox is generally used to celebrate the arrival of spring, and the Autumn Equinox is used to celebrate the good harvest.
Celebrating and following these year markers helps to tie a Freepather back into the natural rhythms of the land.
The Winter Solstice generally marks the end of the lunisolar year. The Winter solstice occurs on the shortest day of the year. The Summer Solstice by contrast occurs on the longest day of the year and is generally used to mark the midpoint in the year. The Equinoxes, spring and autumn, are the two days of the year when the day and the night are of equal length.
The solstices and equinoxes are powerful time keeping devices for the year, and have been used for centuries are markers for when to plant (the Spring Equinox), and when to harvest (the Autumn Equinox). The Summer Solstice marks the midway point in the fertile part of the year, while the Winter Solstice marks the midway point across the dark and cold parts of the year.
Winter Solstice is generally a celebratory time, used to mark the turning point of winter and to bring light to a cold and dark time of the year. Likewise the Spring Equinox is generally used to celebrate the arrival of spring, and the Autumn Equinox is used to celebrate the good harvest.
Celebrating and following these year markers helps to tie a Freepather back into the natural rhythms of the land.
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