Looking-Glass Selves

The world is in need of consolidation, as in Ruhi, but the world is also in need of deepening and understanding the Valley of Wonderment.

I really wish that American journalists were not so polite with American politicians. No, let me rephrase that. I wish that journalists were not so formal with American politicians. We should all try, when possible, to be polite with everyone. Really, most journalists are being two-faced. Off camera, most of them, with some notable exceptions, call many of those politicians, except for the president, by their first names. I am not blaming them, since I recognize that, in most cases, they are simply following policies. However, that does not make the situation any better. The United States is not a monarchy. Politicians are public servants, not duchesses or dukes. When people wanted to make George Washington into a king and to address him as your majesty , he refused. Instead, he asked them to simply call him Mr. President . Well, the 21s ˢᵗ -century equivalent of Mr. President is to simply address the president and all politicians by their first names. Is that such a radical pro...

Natural rights is a social fiction. The problem is that I define freedom as emancipation (freedom) from oppression. You define it as did Aleister Crowley: Do as thou wilt is the whole of the law. We are both using the same word, but we are not in the same ballpark. I try to avoid waxing religious, but I see no alternative. I believe we have God-given rights, not natural rights. Our rights are based solely on God's Will, not on nature. Natural rights originated in Ancient Greek philosophy. Somewhere along the line, it got picked up, and adapted, by certain theists. God is the Innermost Essence of reality. Nature is God's creation. Natural rights is a Peripatetic first principle or, perhaps, a Kantian postulate. It is either accepted, or it is not. As a first principle, you cannot deduce a belief in natural rights from another axiom. Arguing for the interchangeability of rights coming from a Deity or from nature says, in effect, that it makes no difference whether rights are t...

Roy Bhaskar certainly developed dialectical materialism in his work, particularly focusing on different moments of the dialectic. For instance, in dialectical critical realism, he described transformation like this: absence→absenting the absence→transformation. However, in his philosophy of metaReality, which he first proposed in 2001, he began exploring the nondual ground state which, he said, underlies everything. Is that ground state material? I don't know. I would say it is natural, assuming that the term "nature" is broadened to accommodate what he called the cosmic envelope. Also, in 2000, Bhaskar indicated that he also believed in something like reincarnation. Roy went through a personal transformation beginning with his transcendental dialectical critical realism in 2000. He also spent some time in his father's homeland of India.

It should be pointed out that Wiccans do not believe in a devil. Most Wiccans accept at least two deities - the Goddess Diana and the Green Man. Some use other names. Others view these deities as parts of nature (or of ourselves). No Wiccan trads, that I am aware of, have a concept of Satan. The human tendency, I suppose, is to project our own beliefs on others that we meet. For instance, because I support interfaith activities, I have been called an ecumenist. However, ecumenism is a Christian movement, and I am not a Christian. Because my parents are Jewish, I have run into some Orthodox Jews who have said I need to "return" to Orthodox Judaism. Well, only about 3% of Jews are Orthodox. Most are secular and do not even belong to a temple. (My own family, growing up, was like that.) So, what would I be returning to? If we want to understand the beliefs of others, we need to listen to their voices without judgment.

Please sign the Earth Proclamation on this page . Personal Commitment I, the undersigned, aware that human activities are seriously endangering the fragile ecosystems of our planet, aware of the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, aware of the need to redirect my energies to protect and restore the global Web of Life, decide to begin right now to rethink my ways and values, and change what needs to be changed in myself and around me. I want to contribute to the local and global efforts now underway to create a better world based on equality, justice and a sustainable planet - a world in which Peace on Earth prevails. Understanding that we are all individually responsible for the kind of future we will create for our children and for countless generations to come, I will participate in initiatives, locally and globally, to transform our world and protect this Jewel of Life we call Earth. I agree with this Earth Proclamation and personally commit myself to ...