I’m not so concerned for myself as I am those who do not see it and will be unprepared. This is especially the case for the babies and children of today and those yet to be born.

Let me just say that I agree completely and have the same misgivings with ever psychically doling out my marching orders from anyone, as in I would never give evil assholes the time of day in the first place. I’m reminded by this line from the song “Last Things” by KMFDM:

“The constant realization of dominance results in fear”

I’m intent on doing something about this immutable truth and no, it doesn’t involve stewing in paranoid anguish!

I’m not so paranoid about it anymore either, just realistic.

Ah, the great sign of denial! Your paranoia has become so deep that you simply see it as reality.

This is related to what I was talking about in that parapolitics & whining post. (PS. I’m not trying to pick on you here - just working out the problem out loud)

Anyway, it just seems to me like there is way too big of a victimization complex at work here. And by that I mean, if you decide at the beginning of the game that some other player has more power than you and did you wrong, then you’re going to act like that for the rest of the game, even when you may not really need to.

If you’re going to talk about scripts, then as Robert Anton Wilson says, “paranoia is a Loser script; it defines somebody else as being in charge around here except me.”

I know the response to this is again to point back towards so-called “reality”: somebody else really is in charge! the president, the government, etc. But are they really? Is George W. Bush or Dick Cheney (or one of these anonymous literalists) sitting next to you on your computer right now and smacking your hand with a ruler or poking you in the ribs every time you have a thought they don’t like? Because unless they are and you’re chained to your computer and have a gun in your mouth, you’re simply giving them power voluntarily and willfully. And that’s not on them at all. That’s on you, because that’s a decision you make.

And one more thing, no I do not believe all people are bad — only easily seduced into the scripts of literalism. And with that, I’ll shut up now! ; )

I kinda posted about this just the other day.

I’ve always rode the fence on Madsen, but I guess he’s gone into hiding because he has recieved “credible warning” that his life is now in danger.

Also, not to toot another insignificant horn here, but the one time I ran into Ran Prieur at a Kunstler book signing, one of the first things he asked me was how long I thought the Internet was going to last. In other words a lot of people (at least some) are beginning to wonder how long the Internet is going to last in an age of delusional literalism brought on by powerful forces that do not want their control diluted.

Why do I think literalism isn’t as bad as literalists themselves? Simple, literalists are actors, perhaps even violently so and literalism is just the script. Then again, maybe I don’t know what I’m saying. Which is great, because I for one do not enjoy being negative.

Oh yeah, in some ways I’m not so paranoid about it anymore either, just realistic. Now I’m trying to find the path to a more wholesome future — a way to circumvent and transcend a civilization that for the most part I see as doomed.

I’m a paranoid/metanoid fucking nonstop imaginator and excuse me for saying so: but the literalists are going to come for us in the night while we’re all chatting

Yeah, that is a paranoid view, definitely. I’m not worried about it anymore. I’m not sure where I stopped, but I stopped. Why can’t we come for them and take them away? If you’re going to believe something on faith, you may as well make a decision to give yourself the power in your imagination.

What do you mean about “The End of the Internet”? Do you mean one day we’ll wake up and nobody will be able to get online ever again?

Anyway, I still don’t get why literalists are bad? It seems like saying “literalists are bad, not literalism” is just a cop-out because you can’t explain why literalism is bad. And if it’s literalists who are bad, then that means that it’s simply people who are bad. And if people are just bad, then what’s the point of any of this?

Isn’t it funny how the fruits of secularism have become the vehicle for oppression?

That could get awesomely intense. To explore, as it were, the reason we all believe these things that we do. But maybe, come to think of it, that’d playing with fire.

I don’t have to say much on literalism and that is my point.

We can talk about the literalists and why some people think what they think the way they do. But in the long run, what are we going to do about the literalists? I’m a paranoid/metanoid fucking nonstop imaginator and excuse me for saying so: but the literalists are going to come for us in the night while we’re all chatting, our eyes perfectly adjusted to our warm campfire.

No, I’m not saying “Christians” per se are going to come for us. But mercenaries to the new god, hired to make thinking for one’s self even more difficult. I think they’re springing a trillion leaks though. It should be an interesting decade or two and the ways in which genuine humanity gets around all this. I only wonder how long we’re going to be allowed to experience it for ourselves.

my view on literalism changed a while back, an i even had a post where i was trying to brainstorm a new term. i don’t think literalism is necesarily all that bad anymore; it’s a different way of looking at things. it’s almost a moot point– literalism is all well and good, just as non-literalism is all well and good, until someone from one side starts trying to foist their concepts on someone else.

Is alternative religion and the counter-culture concerned with forging it’s own thing, or with reacting against the things somebody else forged? If it’s about reaction and about critique, how far do you take that? When do you start critiquing the critiquers? What happens when you revolt against the revolution? Is it more revolutionary to dodge the draft or to enlist willingly?

i think there’s a lot to be asked here! now that i think about it, one of the biggest thorns in my toes concerning ‘newagers’ and occultists and whatnot has always been that they’re so reactionary. it’s like, i’ll read a book on paganism or alternative spirituality that’s pretty cool, but then realize that over half of the danged thing is just a reaction against ‘organized religion’ or whatever. it really detracts.

for me, it goes back to the ‘gnosticism is indefensible’ argument. like, as soon as you start trying to defend your ideas against detractors, you’re letting them frame the argument, and you’re not doing *your* thing anymore, you’re doing *theirs*. imho, it’s more effective just to tend your own garden, as it were.

it’s the old ‘all satanists are christians’ canard. you couldn’t be a “satanist” without accepting the concept of satan, which is (in the modern world) a totally christian concept.

Basically, magical thought is based on the desire ‘to get something’ and religious thought is based on the ‘desire to be worthy of something’

This makes me think of the observation made by historians that many Asian despots welcomed, even supported, Buddhism because it made the populace more accepting and easier to manage and abuse. Perhaps this is just another way of saying that when people don’t believe they are worthy of anything, in their currently manifested imperfect states of being, they become ripe for exploitation.

In fact these two modes of thought are the only modes of thought there are, they apply to everything (how’s that for literalist! Heh). Basically, magical thought is based on the ‘desire to get something’ and religious thought is based on the ‘desire to be worthy of something’. Of course in either mode there will come a point where desire must also be transcended but that’s a different story.

Clearly many people who see themselves as religious thinkers are really magical thinkers - they ‘desire to gain paradise’ for example and Tim’s example of wanting to go one further or ‘one-up’ radicals is also essentially an effort to ‘gain’ something.

There is nothing wrong with being either a ‘magical’ or ‘religious’ thinker, it’s everyone’s choice to follow either path but imo, if you are following the ‘religious’ way then literalism is an obstacle on the road.In the ‘magical’ sense, as Tim points out, it is not a problem and may even be an asset - certainly much can be gained by it if gaining is the goal.

Personally, I think believing everything literally in the Bible leads to people saying the earth is 6,500 years old and is about as good as believing in Steven King’s “Insomnia” as a world view.

-tc