Milky Jade

Geranium

Before the storm

Both

Freshly mowed grass, new parchment and spearmint toothpaste

They have lives too their may be a few harsh parts but they do it for their own life and I expect that and I don't think moths do that stuff anyway their may be cruel parts of nature but hey you could say man is the most cruel of all kinds we have killed many things which once lived I like insects yes germs and stuff like that do not think like full on animals  I do not support barbarism or so on on that mine but I support animals and the actual nature around us yes their are dark parts but too light everything has light you just need to find it but yes there is things which can harm but also things which are good but as I said we are pretty much the worst in some cases....

 

I do not mind humanity in fact I like it but even we have a dark side I will say that...

Okay, if I got any of that

Let it just be put to record that the only important distinction is between consciousness, or not. Implicit in this is the ability to make a choice. If you do not have an alternative, then your action cannot be regarded as good, or bad. There is no light or dark, therefore.

It can only be regarded as for or against sth.

The crucial difference between humans and other animals is that we do not submit to nature like they do, and adapt to our surroundings, but we change our surroundings to fit us.

If humans generally started behaving like certain other animals, you would realise why we're strictly better off the way we are now, even if it isn't intuitive. How about killing your husband after he impregnated you? Or eating their face after mating?

Or how about having your children eat you alive to nurture them?

Nature is a self-contained system. Sans our species, everything behaves in accordance to its surroundings, and that's just the way it works.

I can make a statement about it, I can observe, but I can also regard certain things in nature as against humans, or cruel, vile, I can go down the line.. the important thing is to recognize that not even nature is above reproach. We can try to defend ourselves from it, we can meet it with certain dislike, apprehension, and sometimes even aggression.

And that's good.

Sometimes I have to except I'm the only Fluttershy here which ADORES all animals and hate non  to be exact nature is beautiful and most of my day I am out in it moths are beautiful just like all animals to me I would not call them (undead)

I find nature harsh, often fascinating, but even more often very cruel and NOPE-worthy.

Just think of the whole genus of parasitical creatures. Especially the kind that eats helpless creatures from the inside to grow up, or those that will nest in your eyeballs, or those that leave you with fatal diseases almost certainly?

I don't think this is what beauty is about. There is a subtle.. barbarism in nature, and natural selection. It is what *makes* it natural, but I don't have to approve of every species indefinitely and indiscriminately. That'd be dumb.

To be fair, I have a phobia of most insects (including some species of moth).

 

Especially crane flies. *shudders*

 

Spiders also sucks.

Yeah, they're kind of grody

Except for very small eensy teensy eetsy beetsy spider babies that tickle you scuttling about on your hand

I try to coexist with them, for they eat mosquitos, which are objectively worse than spiders.

I had a moth in the face well face it I love animals and always will moths rats whatever still love all animals in their own way...

If by "in their own way" you mean "I try to avoid visual and physical contact with most of them because most animals are hella disgusting and/or scary", then I agree

NAPTIME

I love moths too undead butterflies? really? I find them pretty precious...

Moths are just misunderstood because they're like pimp butteries... they come out at night with their furry jackets.

But they're sweethearts really.

I think either you both dabbled in the province of internet experience pertaining to moths, or you just like to neglect what it means to have an irrational fear. It just takes you one bumbling moth in the face to hate their entire existence.

They can be as fluffy as you want. So are sodding SPIDERS. I don't see you fawning over THOSE.

Moths are beautiful in every way. <3

They're like.... undead.... butterflies. Just thinking about them gives me goosebumps. See? It's all over my skin.

I'm awfully afraid of moths, and willing to drop anything valuable I am currently carrying so that I may escape faster than otherwise when a moth begins to terrorise me with its presence.

There. Now you know.

We get it, he's a psychopath

What's the point of asking these questions as if it concerned non-psychopaths?

I want a Tarsier! They are adorable little... things... seriously they have gollums hands on a gerbil body, with owl eyes. I love them!

Owls are also cool

And cats

And budgies

Squirrel monkeys and capuchins

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

NOT THE MOTHS

GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY

since when has it been impossible to baleet posts

Mimic octupi are cool but does it have adorable babies?

 

Who needs snuggles when you have exo-skeletons and tentacles? Wow that sentence sounds like the synopsis for a crappy fanfic... I'm probably going to write it now...

I just remembered, screw Okapi, Tarsiers are my favorite mammals!

Absolutely, yes

Octopodes are intelligent, cute, and the mimic octopus is very mimic-y

I want to have my own..

Sorry I spelt that wrong.

Yeah I'm aware

It's my painful duty to inform you, however, that my Mimic Octopus trumps your puny cuttlefish by far!

Favorite animal... hhhmmm let's break it into categories.

 

Fish: Mola Mola

Mammal: Okapi

Reptile: Chuckwalla

Bird: Californian Quail

Dinosaur: Ankylosaurus

Mollusc: Cuddle Fish

Athropoda: Millipede or Whip Scorpion

Mythological creature: Hodag (Go Wisconsin!)

Alien species: Acklay

LEGO: Unikitty

 

Okay I'm just getting facetious now. 

Cuddle fish?

You wish

We wish

We all wish

The mimic octopus. Always has been and always will be...

Its mimicry is just too awesome. So awesome, in fact, you cannot find yourself able to behold it.

Chosen at gunpoint, BK

Otherwise, subway or gtfo

An economics 101 for all people wishing for infinite money

What are the rules on "removing the lack of something" or "the nonexistence of something"?

I'd probably choose stupidity, but idk

afaic, stupidity is a deficiency

And so is hunger

unhappiness

etc. etc.

Sorry for the delayed response. Dental surgery ... fun stuff.

 

Why not? - in response to the purpose of life isn't to be happy -  Emerson was a strange man in many ways. What he meant by this can be interpreted many ways, but how I take it and what I apply it to is this: Happiness is never my goal I set out for. For me, doing that is a gateway to selfishness. Compassion and practical living within a civil society is important to me. Happiness is often a byproduct and not the motivation. I also love this quote since the usefulness aspect is applicable to natural selection, and Emerson was nothing if not versatile with his words. 

Don't worry about it.

So basically you're saying: You can't be really (morally) happy unless you're unselfishly happy.

You reply to this contradiction beautifully below, if I may say:

If someone loves the feeling they get from being helpful and compassionate then how much of the motivation is selfless? Is compassion (not empathy) still an altruistic act?

And whenever faced with a contradiction, review your premises.

The premise that altruism is good must be therefore wrong. Do we agree?

Now, let me explain: Happiness is your own, personal reward for achievement.

The fact that you and I get happy over different things can only mean that your personal happiness is directly integrated in your personal values.

If your personal value is to be a charity worker, then by doing charity work, you achieve your values, and happiness is the reward.

If there would be no such reward, you would have nothing to win or to lose. It'd be absolutely ghastly. (It's not good)

I know why people try to circumvent selfish happiness. They can't wrap their heads around the fact that happiness is selfish by default.

But we already established that selfishness is bad, mkay?

Again: we face a contradiction. Happiness is good. Selfishness is bad. But happiness is selfish.

Therefore the premise that selfishness is bad, must be wrong.

But if selfishness is encouraged, we'd face decadence, worldwide depredations and anarchy!

Good point. The thing about selfishness is, that you can be rationally selfish.

Selfishness is to act in accordance to your values, and with the goal to achieve them.

If you put stock in pilferage, murder and slavery, you're not being rationally selfish.

The system that allows us to be rationally selfish in the first place does not condone the initiation of force.

Rational selfishness is only possible when your achieved values are not for others to be claimed. That includes your life, property and freedom.

Bottom line, you can be constructively selfish, or destructively selfish. This idea is completely alien and often unacceptable to people, because I don't even know. They probably eat their cake unselfishly, I guess.

Our lives on this planet are fleeting. The HUGE majority of the 113 billion or so that have walked this Earth are forgotten, so the chances that I discover or create something that will echo through the ages is pretty low. HOWEVER ... that doesn't mean my existence is meaningless or has no significance. The most immediate impact we have is through our interpersonal connections. Our family and friends. That is how we start to leave an impact while we live, and after we are gone.  

 

Difference to whom? To everything around you.

Yeah they are

I think the response to this fact is two-, perhaps threefold.

One faction says "I'm going to die, so I'll enjoy life while I can"

The other says "I'm going to leave my mark on this planet for reasons I'm not too sure about"

And others don't even think they're going to be dead permanently.

If you recall some of the above, a little addendum: we can have values because we're alive. Life is the source of all values.

When you are dead, you cannot have any values anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't insure that your tombstone has a witty epitaph and that your grandchildren will profit from your death monetarily, or your body goes to scientific research, and so on.

A question: Why do you care for what happens after you die? Except for the off-chance that you might have an afterlife?

An anwer: Well, it doesn't really cost me much, and the current generation profited from *their* dying grandparents, as did science. It's a virtually costless tradition that is actually constructive. Except for the tombstone business, or tombstones at all.

Graveyards are not a profitable business. You can't invest in graveyards.

And people keep dying.

God help them, they keep dying. The graveyards are getting fuller and fuller because everyone wants their witty epitaph to shine through the forsaken stone forests. The maintenance has to be paid, the gardening has to be paid, the caretaking and paperwork, all for a non-profitable business. All hobbed upon the tax-payer.

Moving on from this transgression, I think the whole deal about "making a difference" is the burnishing of your regular trophies with a different shine. The difference you made lies within the things you wanted to do. Did you want to do them to make a difference, or did you make a difference by wanting to do them? 

I ought think you can now tell by yourself in which directions things traverse.

In summary, it can be put to record that you will not be here to revel in your fame post-mortem, nor will you be there to enjoy being extolled. But: if your values extend just a little beyond the grave, then you can die happy knowing that you achieved them by dying.

And that's just how it is.

EDIT :

I forgot the other thing I stressed visually in the quote.

Uhm

well, your life gives itself meaning. To not exist means to have no meaning - To exist means to exist, but "meaning" is tantamount to "purpose", and unless you think (and can even show me) that you are the product of purpose, then there is no inherent meaning in your existence.

That is why I say life gives itself meaning. It means something to *you*. Your life is not meaningful and valuable because god or the universe make it so. It's a value to you, and the purpose it serves is as a vehicle to the achievement of other values.

So much as to the meaning of life. It's a really simple question - but people have different expectations of the answer depending on their fundamental convictions.

The humans who died for Christ were either reborn, or they achieved a Christlike enough state for their souls to achieve full Christhood, and more than likely became some of the lucky ones who are able to participate in helping build the new kingdom. I'm not expecting you to believe in what I believe in, but that's my belief. I'm still not quite sure what afterlife will be like myself. One belief, I got from Gnostic Luciferianism where all good people become ascended. Another belief is all who achieve Christhood become ascended. And yet another belief where one simply believes in God, and they can be ascended (although not believing in angels results in being unable to enter the bridal chamber). At any rate, I've pretty much explained my case, so any future posts on this topic will be about the actual conversation.

You seem to have given this a considerable amount of thought. Or the opposite.

Anyway, yeah, I think you made your case clear as day to anybody here.

I said what I wanted to say on the 'actual' topic.

I think I covered it all, albeit tersely, already for everybody else, too.

Yes, many animals died. Who is to say they didn't go to the afterlife? I'm pretty sure that animals are considered innocent by God, since they're incapable of reasoning or having morals for the most part. Then again, the world is filled with the spirits of pets floating all over the place. But maybe they will all be called home.

And so did many humans, in the name of god.

I'll take this as a concession, then

Then again, someone who had 2 NDEs claims there is no Heaven or Hell, just a place for the dead, including departed loved ones and guides. I'm inclined to take the view of someone with experience

You keep bringing things up I can't really settle without sounding like Hitchen's living mouthpiece.

But I - Don't - Care ♪:

Any questions?

Edit: Also, being rewarded for living lives of serving others and being good sounds a lot more credible than believing in a book that was written by man (primarily by kings who have an interest in keeping people ignorant)

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Are these two things correlated? Negatively?

A reward is more credible than a belief? Are beliefs credible? What?

God is not guilty of the atrocities that were credited to him in the OT.

I would tentatively suggest that this is highly convenient, if I may:

The plagues sent by god to devastate egypt were then somehow.. not his handiwork? Did humans rally the locusts, lice and flies to be unleashed on themselves? Transformed rivers to blood and killed their first-borns? Made it rain frogs?

They ordered two bears to kill 42 children?

Among all the exercises of rationalization and confirmatory biases, this has to be the most paltry one. I'm sorry but.. are you for real?

Of course all the manslaughter is said to be sanctioned by god, which is actually isn't, but then why grant that he exists only in order to cherrypick? In order to make of him the best while all the information he have on him come from the bible?

And

Goddess?

 

Also, the reason why Heaven is so interested in affairs on Earth? Do you seriously need to ask this? When God has been with us since the beginning? And we're his children? Of course he would be very interested, and wants us all to ascend, so we can reach the next stage of evolution and become spiritual beings.

I don't think I have to go deeper into this than to quote Hitchens.

Or better yet, I'll defer to him:

Watch all of it, though if you don't want to, the quote starts around 5:25.

I'd advise them to find their inner little girl

The solution is to become the little girl

Anything. Ponifications suck.

For this, you have to assume a different point of view. It's like a mosaic picture that only makes sense if looked at from afar.

And then you can open this can of worms:

Since when has heaven been interested in human affairs, and if so, why is this the way to go about it? A human medium reporting on goldenageofgaia.com?

Why does this article sound like some smart-arse penned it that absolutely sucked at making it sound like he *didn't* converse with himself (read: roleplay?)?

Why aren't the red carpets being rolled out yet?

Why does there exist a perfect record of this conversation, but none that we could have?

THIS THING. http://goldenageofgaia.com/accountability/

So bottom line, what the actual...? If I let this taylor series converge, I would most certainly be landed with Bullshit.

I know this because I've seen many a Bullshit in my time.

Don't buy a pencil from this site's cup.

Way to crush my dreams!

Just kidding. I knew that. I thought this was if those limitations did not exist.

But it's a pretty cool ability

Save for you know, that it's highly inconvenient

AJ: The BossHoss

Fluttershy: Animals as Leaders

Pinkie Pie: BABYMETAL

Rainbow Dash: Ted Nugent

Rarity: Caravan Palace

Twilight Sparkle: Deep Purple

Derpy: Meshuggah

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh