I said:
Do not use terms in response to my image generation requests like ‘our’ and ‘we’ll’ that infer ChatGPT is a person or sentient being. This is not the first time I have instructed this.
ChatGPT said:
… Continue readingUnderstood. Future responses to image generation requests will be phrased without implying personhood, sentience, or collective identity. Let me know what you’d like generated next.
What if victims are really neither children or any type of vulnerable person but ancient beings who have done it all (almost all) many times before? And while they may themselves presently be identifying self in victim terms, and onlookers see them in terms of their present bodily situation, they are all actually eternal souls expressing and exploring divinity by choice? …
Continue readingIn this connection the reference sanskrit words are nitya-baddha (eternally conditioned) and anadi (beginningless).
Firstly, our experience of life here makes it difficult to think outside the box of cause and effect – where everything has a beginning and end in time. However that is precisely the eternal arena that the words nitya-baddha and anadi are dealing with. This difficulty is perhaps the reason that even sanskrit scholars and/or dharma-tradition religionists who accept the situation in the material world for the conditioned soul is anadi, beginningless, sometimes prescribe remedies as if suffering here is actually caused by poor attitude toward God of historic origin. …
Continue readingMaybe sin is not an actual thing.
More a way of explaining why we are here, and at the same time not blaming God for the suffering of the world.
Needed by those who doubt good reason for God’s creation.
An attempt to distance God from what appears to be unworthy … incompatible with an all-beautiful, all-perfect, all-powerful God.
Personally, given (my) conviction that not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Lord, I find the ‘sin’ explanation fails to convincingly separate the situation here from God. …
Continue readingSo long as a believer characterises this world as primarily a place of ignorance and suffering they have a problem in connecting it closely with God. Especially if they also embrace the idea that not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the lord. And God is all powerful and all loving. I believe it is for this reason that the majority of religions seek, through various means, to separate God from the goings on here. …
Continue readingNo disrespect intended, but I am not a fan of comebacks like ‘Don’t worry about why you are here … just worry about how you are going to get out’ or ‘You don’t need to know why you are here, you should simply focus on how you are going to get out’.
The main problem with these types of non-answers, these deflections, is the presumption that we are not here for good reason(s). …
Continue readingI propose that the jiva (individual soul) is never at odds with God but is always functioning exactly as intended. It cannot be otherwise. It is a perfect arrangement befitting a Perfect God. That we are fallen souls, or for that matter identify ourselves in any other way whatsoever, is simply a construct which facilitates, provides a stage for, a particular flavour of our joint lila. …
Continue readingI’d argue it’s not religion
It’s lust for certainty where problems begin.
Faith is belief in something unknown. Something you choose to believe. Denying you don’t really know, and surrounding yourself only with like-minded people, doesn’t make something known. Why should it? How can it? That self-deception may be cosy for a while. But it easily leads to demonising of anyone does not embrace the party line. …
Continue readingGiven the context that an individual has already freely chosen to embark on the spiritual quest to understand self and God, it may be in the initial stages that their motivation for perseverance comes mainly from fear of failure. And therefore enlightened teachers may speak that language for the sake of helping such neophyte practitioners stay with the plan. And that such preaching may justify the use of white lies because it serves the neophyte in relation to their chosen objective. …
Continue readingThe Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix documentary)
… Continue readingWhen Norwegian gamer Mats Steen died at age 25, his parents mourned what they thought was an isolated life. It was only once they had access to his blog that they discovered the deep friendships he created virtually before passing away from a degenerative muscular disease. They were unaware that Mats had long been leading a vibrant digital life that had left a profound impact on a community of fellow gamers.
