Re: Never Love A Poet by Caducus	Ranger 62.252.32.15	19-Mar-06/2:31 PM
This just popped up on the random cycle, at last a decent poem to arrive through it! Ordinarily I'd read but not comment, but this has so many grand lines in...'I must feel seen' is quite astonishing even in its relative simplicity. And I can't really say how awesome I think stanza 3 is. I just can't. Superb.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	Dovina 12.72.24.204	19-Mar-06/2:07 PM
No? Since we have already agreed on "God or not God" (settled that, I thought) it seemed appropriate to find out if we only agree on the existance of a word, or maybe something more solid.
Re: The Cracks in my Wall by Richard	Jeremi B. Handrinos 24.130.62.63	19-Mar-06/1:23 PM
Drop the soap.
Re: Dashboard Jesus by wilco	Jeremi B. Handrinos 24.130.62.63	19-Mar-06/1:21 PM
into
Re: Mid-July by Ranger	Jeremi B. Handrinos 24.130.62.63	19-Mar-06/1:20 PM
I unctiously clutched my eggs. I could tell Jesu was hungry and telepathically searching for burrows of yolk and peeps... Boulders would roll. He was hung, and ALIVE!
Re: The Peccadillary by -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I.	Jeremi B. Handrinos 24.130.62.63	19-Mar-06/1:17 PM
Mark Twaint.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	19-Mar-06/12:09 PM
You see, the preconception I've acquired is that love, if it exists, is entirely infallible - and so it's difficult for me to think of love as being terrible. It's equally difficult for me to accept that a relationship which fails can have truly been love. Relationships which last to the grave are the closest to proof I can find. But these don't define love. I disagree with the idea that feeling love doesn't equate to defining it. I think that love (if it exists) cannot be defined linguistically, but experience is in itself a non-linguistic definition. The problem is that it can only be a definition to the recipient of that experience. Similarly, I believe that an experience - again, if such an occurrence happens - of God (particularly an ecstatic revelation) is a definition of God (or a part of God). Again, this is something which language cannot capture, nor can it be used to ferry proof to another individual. I think I do understand what you mean, but it's a proper bugger to express. And yes, God is a great comfort at times.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/11:34 AM
By simply seeing what love does for other people you could conclude that love is a glorious thing. You might also descide it's a horrible thing. Even alot of people who have been in love think it's a horrible thing. If you're saying that love by the chemical definition or other scientifically provable ways exists then yes you can say it definitely exists but that can be shown to you without you having to be the one in love. If you say I know for sure that love exists because I've felt it, it's not defining love and so it is not proof(except maybe to the one feeling it). Just like saying I know for sure God exists because I feel God's presence doesn't prove that God exists(except maybe to the one feeling it). Are you seeing the connection I'm trying to make now. Having God in your life can make the world more lovely.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	19-Mar-06/11:09 AM
'Does not love ask for your faith?' - I don't know; the nearest I've got is college romance which I sincerely doubt was love (and if it was, well then love really isn't all it's cracked up to be...) I was sort of hoping that love would be pretty much evident and not need too much faith for certainty. 'Does not art need that at least for the moment a little part of you believes in what you're seeing?' - I'm not sure I get your drift here. I assume you mean that, for example, when you see a tragic play you believe that the play was reality, that the events actually happened. In which case...yes and no. It requires that you forget the realities of this world, forget who you are, forget that you're in a theatre etc. It requires imagination - the mental creation of another world (this could veer off into modal logic which I'm not one hundred percent up to scratch with...) in which the characters are real people, the setting is a real setting, and the history is a real history. But I don't think this is faith - at least, not in a religious sense. If the play's crap, no amount of faith will make it seem real because it just won't fire up the imagination enough to create the necessary world. I still think this is different from religious faith though. Spot on with the quote though.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/11:07 AM
Don't forget Dovina and Zodiac's bickering. If watching those to drive each other nuts doesn't make life worthwhile then I don't know what does. You may be young Ranger, but you trump us in many areas with your wisdom.
Re: Louwanda by Jeremi B. Handrinos	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/10:59 AM
I once saw a girl I was in love with get date raped by a jock at a party. I couldn't fight my way through the crowd of cheering onlookers to stop it. So I yelled "The cops are here!" and everyone scattered. Once the jock found out, he wanted to beat me to a pulp but my friend stepped in and he got beat into a bloody mess in my place. This poem of yours made me think of that. Ya'know, 'cause it's funny stuff.
Re: Dashboard Jesus by wilco	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/10:45 AM
*NEW, from the people who brought you Dashboard Confessional.* Sorry man, I'm just in one of those smartass moods.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	Ranger 62.252.32.15	19-Mar-06/10:43 AM
Life would be so much more boring without you, ALChemy!
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	19-Mar-06/10:40 AM
Certainly your parallel with love and lions is to an extent accurate, although I'd contest that you wouldn't have to actually be a lion to know what it is (if you are only going to count introspective knowledge as certain knowledge, then the parallel only works if you accept that to know love, I'd actually have to be love). There's a difference, though, between seeing something solid, tactile, like a lion and encountering something 'mystical' like love. You can stand on a savannah and see the lions, you can hear them, you can smell them, if you're brave/foolish you can touch them and if you were really that determined, you could taste them. This is knowledge not coming from introspection. The nearest you can get to non-introspective knowledge of love, however, is seeing couples together. But what can you actually say you experience in this situation? This is not conclusive proof that such a thing as 'love' exists. I'm more than willing to accept that you can say 'Love almost certainly exists, from what I've seen' - but not 'Love definitely exists, from what I've seen'. And no, I don't think I've ever directly experienced God. I've experienced what is probably the work of God (the beauty of nature), but while I think that it almost certainly is the creation of a higher being, I can't say that it definitely is.
Re: REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/10:36 AM
When I was a kid I suffered from Night Terrors aka Sleep Terror Disorder aka Pavor Nocturnus. It is probably the most intense and scary kind of nightmare known to man and it doesn't go away after you wake up for another 10 or 20 minutes. Sometimes it helped if I went pee. So now I choose to do most of my dreaming while I'm awake and most of my peeing while I'm asleep. I guess dreams really do want to make my life better.
Re: REM Sleep by mystic enoch	Ranger 62.252.32.15	19-Mar-06/9:58 AM
Interesting concept, and not as maudlin as many 'dream' poems.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/8:11 AM
You forgot: "Love is a many splendored thing" "Love is all around you, love is knocking outside your door" "Love is all you need" "Love is just a four letter word" "Love is a battlefield" "Love is in the air" etc. etc. -And those are just a list of songs, which leads a Foreigner like me to sing the question "I wanna know what love is?" I hope you didn't take that wrong. I just wanted to show you that love's grown into many definitions, mainly because of the mystique that seems to go with it.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/7:43 AM
I don't think I said art was frivolous but it seems the next step for those who feel God believing is a waste of time. We once lived without art. It was a long time ago and life was pretty exciting back then, you know, running away from Sabertooth tigers and all that. Art and religion almost popped up hand in hand. Back then we understood love as an act of nature. It wasn't until we started philosiphizing about what it meant that we started adding all these mystical qualities to it. Sure you can say "I don't find love mystical at all" but then whatever kind of love poems would you write? Once they came up with a religion they had to represent it somehow so they invented stories and drew pictures and later on made statues. That's not the connection I'm really talking about. I'm talking about how most people romanticize about art, love and of course God. Does not love ask for your faith?(at least your faith that it's love) Does not art need that at least for the moment a little part of you believes in what you're seeing? The art you seek is abundant. You just seem to be looking in the wrong place. The stuff you're "ranting" about is just a bunch of experimenters trying to be original and almost always failing horribly. I think you said it best when you said life would get incredibly tedious if we didn't indulge in the fantastical and mystical impulses we have to make things better than what they really they are. Let our dreams be our blueprints. "The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, 'tis the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -Edgar Allan Poe
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/6:13 AM
No. To be God, or not to be God; That is the question, for he is the ideal.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	19-Mar-06/6:05 AM
But all you're really experiencing is a chemical cocktail in your body. "love" itself is just a word you use to represent it. Saying you don't know about love if you haven't loved is like saying you don't know about lions if you haven't been a lion. Sure you're likely to know lions better if you've been one but you can know enough about them while never being one to say for instance "I know they are an impressive creature". I'm not saying you can know everthing about love by reading Shakespeare but you also won't likely know everything about love by being in love either. The fact that you're saying that things like love and unicorns can't be believed in without direct experience leads me to believe that you really don't believe in God - or did you experience him directly?