From: ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic)
Subject: Part of a reply to Rodney - more later re: the dark side
Keywords: way long
Organization: TRW Financial Systems
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 09:29:50 GMT

"Rodney Adams" <RADAMS@BNR.CA> writes [in shuffled order]:
>As I said, this is not the thread I intended to pursue.  I was primarily
>interested in seeing how Eric thinks we should go about ridding the ills
>of our society.  How about it, Eric?

Rodney - and the others in this thread - I'm sorry, I'm up to my eyeballs
in backlog. (feels guilty hacking this now too.)

I'll jump into this at length later. I told people in rec.nude to look here
as I will post under the thread "A New General Theory of Human and Social
Behavior", when I finally get cranked up to do that - I might actually have
to sit down and organize my thoughts for a change, instead of doing 1st-draft
writing, because the subject is so complex.

That thread will address the ills of society in great depth.

Suffice it to say a few words. (1) Society is not structured to fulfill
the needs of the individual, in fact rather the reverse. (2) The 'big three'
religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as 'authorized' by their
institutions, and practiced by their adherents, reflect neither spiritual
reality, nor human reality. (3) The vast majority of people are consumers
of a worldview (whatever it is) which they did not participate in defining.
(4) Much of human history has been written by Fear and Greed, neither of
which are any longer necessary in-the-large. (5) We have never seen a large
society based on true values. Such a society integrates individual and social
values in a mutually reinforcing way. Visionaries have explored such societies,
but humankind is only now reaching a state of global awareness sufficient to
produce one. ["we have never seen" is based more on my ignorance of history,
than knowing this for a fact. My psyche says that we (I) do not need to know
much about the past, because that is not needed for our (my) work - that what
tools I need, I will encounter. She hopes I will recognize them as they arrive,
for each time I haven't jumped on the situation, it has cost me a two-year
delay.]

Rodney:
>The reason for my original comment to Eric is that, while I can understand
>the biologically-determined, sexual orientation of homosexuals, why would a 
>bisexual person "choose" to be bisexual?  Or is this, too, biologically
>determined?  Unless you personally are homosexual or bisexual, I don't see 
>that you can give me the insight I seek.

You said you figured I was bisexual, posting to soc.bi. I declared there
that I was bisexual, a decision I made about mid-September. A *decision*.

I wish I had my fingers on past posts, it would save typing. The chain of
reasoning is:

(1) I male. Walk down street. Ahead: woman with nice hair and nice ass.
I come alongside to see her face. Oops! *He*'s wearing a mustache and beard;
it's a he; boy, am I embarrassed. Cancel all sexual feelings.
Answer: wrong. If he had a nice ass before I knew it was a him, he still has
a nice ass now. Moral: recognize that sexual affect is attached-to-gender by
an agent other than that which has the perception.
(2) Woman performs fellatio on me, not well either. Not surprising; it's not her
equipment. Thought occurs: could I do better, starting out? Would I know
better, how to do it, if I tried to do it? Answer: seems so; it's my equipment,
at least I know what I like. Is this a permissible thought? Well, I've already
had it. Next step: recall sex-play with other boys, playing with our penises.
Can I imagine to engage in a homosexual act, without there being a 'stain'?
When I imagine to be in a usual interpersonal context, no. Because the external
culture disapproves, and the other person shares the image of guilt. Next step:
why do I have these thoughts? Am I depraved? Oh My God, am I a - homosexual?
No. No way. 99.997% of my images concern women; I look at my affectional
nature, and it's bound into the idea of a satisfying relationship with a woman.
So why do I persist in wondering what it might be like to perform fellatio?
Gee - Because I'm *Curious*. End of analysis: It will be okay to do this, since
I will not try to form an affectional bond with the male. Bravery and
trepidation - have to find the right person and right context - then okay.
Just fun, and I like to give pleasure.
(3) I'm now stopped at the point of saying I can engage in a sexual act with
a male. But imagine to kiss him on the mouth? Conditioning comes in again,
says no, yukko. But now I explore this question further: have I not felt love
and affection for men? I have. What is my attraction to women? I want a
love/sex relationship with her. Oops; if I can love a man, and have sex with
a man, why can't I have a love/sex relationship with a man? Answer: that's
not my preference. At this point something I have long known about myself
comes into play: whatever the imagination produces, the psyche *lazily*
presumes will be true for all time to come. I.e., if I imagine stepping into
a relationship with a man, that's where I will stay. False. I know better.
I want a family, I'd like to have children. My preference for a partner is
that she be a female, 99997 to 3. Any relationship I would have with a man
would not last as my primary relationship. This gives me the freedom to
explore without risk of entrapment into a situation I do not want. Next:
that kiss. What man can I imagine kissing? Well, someone who reminds me of
the type of partner I want - someone nice and gentle, with a good sense of
humor - so a more feminine type of man. Look around, who do I know? Aha -
I've found one I can imagine being close with. I only need to find one
example, you see - to prove the experience is available to me when I would
reach out to it. That kiss - what's in a kiss? When I kiss a woman with my
eyes closed, the physical experience - do I know she's female? Only because
I knew that in advance. The one last thing that stops this person and me
from kissing is: shame. Whose shame? My shame? His shame? Nope. Shame we
were taught by other people. Had we not been brought up to believe such a
thing was wrong, we wouldn't believe it was wrong. Women are much more
physical and affectionate with each other in casual ways, than men have been
allowed to be with being shamed by society. So I have to say it the way I
believe it: That's Not My Problem. I will feel ashamed if I feel I should -
when I violate MY principles. Sharing physical and emotional pleasure with
another human being does not violate my principles. So I have some extirpating
to do - uproot other people's values and get them the Hell Out Of My Life.
I have to *unlearn* some of society's precious values before I will be
comfortable doing various natural things without looking back. I don't have
to consult any book to know what I think is pleasant or natural. I knew those
things when I was born, and I had them systematically beaten out of me by
other people's values, other people's religions, other people's fear.

The first thing to know about the effects of our religious heritage on human
values is that the religions want you to give your body and your emotions over
into bondage to them. People cannot be owned. Every soldier who took up a gun
against the people in the name of the King's decrees was a traitor to the human
race - saved himself in preference to saving everyone else - a basic human
instinct, which has been extorted since the dawn of man. We value as heroes
those who gave their lives for the greater good - but we still don't
understand two things: (1) *Each* of us should be encouraged to decide when the
line would be crossed, where the person would decide that others, or a
principle, was important enough to die for. If the answer is Never, then the
human race shall ever be in bondage. (2) *Nobody* should give their energy to
a system which suppresses any group of others. None of us is free, until we
are all free. That sounds like a cliche - hey, I'm free over here, so who
cares about over there? The answer is you know better. I will not interfere
with any individual who willingly and knowingly submits themself to another
person. In Any Other Case, my sense of justice demands that those who put
others in their thrall *must* be challenged. Gregory Kingsley (divorced his
parents) stands as an important symbol: NO ONE can own another person, to
treat them as they see fit. The entire social structure is a series of
compacts, which must be based on fair exchange. Mrs. Kingsley violated her
end of her compact with Gregory, and justly lost custody of him.

Rodney:
>I have also heard of a tribe in Africa that has a practice of rubbing 
>fresh dung in their hair.  This is also repulsive to me, and something
>which I do not wish to try to find out if I have changed my mind about 
>it.  However, I do not hate these people; on the contrary, I am rather
>curious to find out why in the world these people would do such a thing.

The first thing to notice is that they get away with it without evident harm.
There is a certain species of cockroach they prize as a delicacy in China,
which I think I will never try. Nor grasshoppers, crunch crunch. But when
I watch my Chinese friend eat one - whose squeamishness is it? Mine. That's
all I have to know - there he is, eating a cockroach, and he says mm mm good.
It's only my lack of bravery that prevents me from attempting the experience.

Rodney:
>Christianity teaches that homosexual acts are morally wrong.  While I
>count myself among the believers in a divinity, I do not excuse my 
>religion from questioning, and I have tried to overcome any biases I 
>have by trying to understand those who do not "conform" to my own
>moral code.  If I have offended others in my endeavors, as seems to be
>the case, I apologize.

I believe in God, and I admire and espouse numbers of Christian values.
But I also roundly attack Christianity itself, because it is a religion
which substitutes an External authority in place of one's own. I now know
for a fact, for myself, that to do this is false. It disables people from
determining their own spiritual identity. All you have to do, is take any
one thing that "the Bible" says is wrong, go out and find someone who does
it and has an ordinarily happy life, to see this. "the Bible" is wrong,
because the Bible says that the Bible is true and that nothing else is true.
Then you look at Islam, and Buddhism, and Hinduism, And Zoroastrianism (sp?),
and Thelema (Crowley, et. al.) - and well hey, all the rest of humankind
is doomed to go down the toilet!! What nonsense!! According to religions
which make this claim to exclusivity, all we have to do is duke it out in
endless flows of blood, until we ALL believe the SAME thing. Fucking ABSURD.
You take a little rule - God says believe this One Thing - put forth to
enforce social cohesion in a small group, and generalize it to 5,500,000,000
people. No Fucking Way. The VERY FACT that Islam hangs around thumbing its
nose at Christianity - and they say of themselves, mind you, that they do NOT
claim to be exclusive of other faiths - says reality is already in two camps.
I'm not going to kill 800,000,000 or more people to prove my moral superiority.
Jesus himself would be the first person to say "live and let live". My Faith,
as I call it, says that God is a God of Love. He/She/It/They would not kill
anyone for anything; they have infinite compassion; they need have no fear of
little humans who don't believe in them; they have no need to compel tributes
or belief. My Faith says "know yourself" and "to thine own self be true".
If I am denying others or denying myself, then I am denying reality.

I also happen to be very proud, to have wanted to get rid of beliefs-not-mine
and define my Faith on my own terms - that I would Never submit myself to
someone else's beliefs, not inwardly - for acceptance, for food. If I can't
be alive and aware on my own terms - well - I am not your slave, I would
rather die. Live free or die. Golden Rule, Christian Principle: make it
possible for me to live life on my own terms and I will do the same for you.
Make it impossible for me to live life on my own terms, and I will kill you,
if that's what I need to do, to have my way - for I am not lesser than you.
I offer you - us - a non-zero-sum game; but if you wish only to play a zero-
sum-game, then as you do, I will play to win. I will offer you Martin Luther
King, but if you don't make room at OUR table for me, then I am Malcolm X in
the next breath - and Malcolm X, not MLK, is my hero, for he knew this very
well. Justice cannot wait while people are suffering.

Thank God that I had as little exposure to a religious upbringing as I did;
I will be able to fulfill my spirituality in a much more straightforward way.

And my beliefs, unfortunately, include that I wish to go out and KILL that
which has imprisoned humankind in ignorance for endless centuries: corrupt
religious beliefs. These have hurt me enormously, even with so little direct
exposure; and now they're going to hear from *me*. Would that I can do this
in the nicest possible way: to encourage people to step away from them and
let them DIE. Get a divorce from the abusive Father. Nostradamus predicted
that the 2nd pope after JP-II would be the last. I hope to live to see that
day.

Rodney, again:
>Christianity teaches that homosexual acts are morally wrong.  While I
>count myself among the believers in a divinity, I do not excuse my 
>religion from questioning, and I have tried to overcome any biases I 
>have by trying to understand those who do not "conform" to my own
>moral code.  If I have offended others in my endeavors, as seems to be
>the case, I apologize.

So the final answer about your beliefs, Rodney, is this:
Christianity - at least the evangelical branch, and maybe not even all of it,
has shamelessly judged me for my way of being. The True Christian and I are
not very far apart in most issues: we love life, we love God, we love other
people, we wish to be pure, we wish to do good works. But the Christian and
I must ever stare at each other across a divide: the Christian believes that
Jesus is his savior, and I believe that I am my savior. Jesus was a nice guy,
and I respect him quite a bit - a highly attained being, providing a lot of
good examples of a clean and caring life. He met my notion of a Christian
ideal: live your life true to yourself and make it work, and serve as a model
to others. I would aspire to such purity *sigh*. The Christian believes that
my failure to believe in Jesus as a deity condemns me to a spiritual death.
But I say the same thing: displacing your spiritual responsibility onto an
icon removes you from yourself. I believe in reincarnation, and/or a universe
where there is no ultimate failure - you keep trying until you get it right.
(And what 'right' is, is another whole topic!)
So when the Christian and I look at each other, we each think the other is a
fool and 'damned' in some particular. But if he is a True Christian, he and
I will live in peace, and we will respect each other in all other regards.
This is why Evangelical Christianity MUST DIE. It does not respect me in my
way of being, it passes judgement, it does not Love me, and has no compassion
for me. It in no way that I understand, stands in the image of God. Yet so
long as it leaves me be, and does not try to pass laws against my behavior,
I can coexist with it; but it doesn't offer me that option in return.

The same thing goes for abortion: freedom of choice is the only way.
Drugs, Sex, Culture: freedom of choice is the only way.
THE OPEN AVAILABILITY OF ALL OPTIONS IS THE ONLY WAY.  <== way radical idea!!

Sap that I am, I trust myself and others to be life-positive people. I am,
though I have injured others out of malice and fear - just keep watching that.
Them - I trust them until I see otherwise. Don't trust them enough, still too
afraid of being rejected maybe; but get close and be open, no problem.

Blue hair? Labia piercings? Drugs? Sodomy? Being 'straight'? Being bisexual?
Being monogamous? Being polyamorous? Life is a kaleidoscope, who am I to judge.
If it seems neat, I will try it when I get up the courage.
And I don't know, until I have tried it: walk a mile in the other's shoes.

If thy beliefs offend thee, cast them out. God says it's okay.
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa