Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	20-Mar-06/12:09 AM
I don't know. Juneau?
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	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 REM Sleep by mystic enoch	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	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	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: REM Sleep by mystic enoch	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: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	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	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	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	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?
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/5:50 PM
I am certain about the nature of God. That's my point, believing in God is natural.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/5:37 PM
I'm really not trying to poke holes in your beliefs and I haven't the time to poke holes in your statement. How much must it suck to think that love is nothing but a chemical addiction or that art is essentially impractical and frivolous entertainment. How narrow a path is it that does not make room for the euphoria of believing in God. By the way Da Vinci was very athletic. It's been said that he could leap over a man from a standstill and he was incredibly strong. His nickname was L'Uomo Universale (The universal man) in which all skills reside.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/4:40 PM
See, I thought you were just talking genetics. I suppose we all have a "god gene". After all, he is our father.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/9:38 AM
So really God is just a focal point for you to point your morality at. Godliness is your goal. It's what motivates you to be good, to better yourself. Love also motivates us to be greater, as does art. These types of things are very important to human evolution and probably have more to do than anything else with the huge and incredibly quick leaps we've taken in increasing our abilities since we first stood up straight.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/9:13 AM
There is also allegedly a gene, which increases the likelihood of the individual jumping off the Statue of Liberty's head holding a Strawberry Shortcake umbrella and singing "It's Raining Men" on the way down. Yes, genes play a part in the things that we do. So?
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/9:06 AM
You're kinda dodging now. Where did you learn morality? From others and experience maybe? Why does God need to be connected to morality as if morality can't exist without God? You do bad, you get punished, you learn to know better. No god is needed. So why believe in God? If you never grew wings and flew but you saw people who did fly and Shakespeare wrote a great play about it that you saw also wouldn't you think growing wings and flying would be awesome and wouldn't you believe it existed. So those who haven't felt love can still believe it exists and think it's awesome. Would you say DaVinci and Michael Jordan are gifted? If so, where did the gift come from? Aren't they both divine in that they seem at times to transcend us mere mortals. Why bother with art if it's so impractical? When people ask me why do I believe in God and more specifically Jesus my answer at this point is for the same reason you might believe in the wonderment and magic of love or the importance of art.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/7:51 AM
If by mystical you mean beyond ordinary understanding then absolutely.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/7:48 AM
Are you saying that those who believe in God don't somehow feel his presence, that they believe in him because someone else said so and why not believe, it all seems so logical? Are you saying that someone who hasn't been in love couldn't see Romeo and Juliet and think "Yes, love is a mysterious and wonderous thing that certainly exists"? Tell me please, briefly what and why do you believe in love or art? In reply to Kempis' quote: Why not say I would rather know God than know how to define him? Love is to faith as art is to God.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	18-Mar-06/7:18 AM
It's all mysticism. Just done to different degrees.
Re: Mid-July by Ranger	18-Mar-06/7:12 AM
Poe often rewrote his poems even after publishing them. He was THAT anal about them. Good stuff but these are the kind of poems you'll keep messing with.