₦airaland Forum

Toneyb and Krayola -

What does this image drawn by the man who is in my opinion the greatest mind that ever lived (Leornardo Da vinci) mean to you -

Imhotep! You will not be allowed to escape with another mysterious and cryptic answer!

Ok, let's make it easy and start with this - do you subscribe to any religion? Or are you an adherent of a amovement such as The Grail Movement, Eckankar, The Rosicrucuain Order, or any other philosophy?

Toney you are yet to respond to this. You said -

Don't get me wrong? Private thoughts that are presented as something of value should be measured in one way or the other else it deserves to be in the dust bin,

And i asked -

Thus if your private thoughts are not measured in one way or the other, they are not a thng of value?

Yes? ? ?

^^^ Toney - In reference to your last post, i hope the above shows what i mean?

The question was about what association the spirit has with the body, and i am sure it is clear that intangible emotions have a a neurological association with the body especially going by the very fact you posted about chemicals affecting all parts of the body.

The trigger for the release of those chemicals may be the sight of a beautiful woman or a painful memory.

Certainly, the association cannot be denied.

Krayola:
@ deepsight. . .  there are explanations for these things. I'm not a biologist but I think there are chemicals secreted when certain emotions are felt that affect how certain organs function. Those are side effects of the emotion we feel, and not an indication that those organs are responsible for generating the emotions. Like I said I'm no biologist and I don't like to comment on stuff i know little of, but, for example, I know when we feel stress we secrete cortisol, which may affect our appetite, amongst other things, and make us feel crappy.

I honestly don't understand what u are trying to argue here to be honest. Are you saying that I feel courage in my testicles? wouldn't that make courage an exclusively masculine trait?

I think you are diverting us from the questions I raised, If you don't want to answer that is fine, but u saying you will answer only when i have given you answers (that, it seems, you must agree with) on another set of questions is kinda counter-productive, IMO.

No do not misunderstand me please: the actions of chemicals and hormones is well understood by everybody.

What is clear is that DIFFERENT FEELINGS AFFECT DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE BODY. We can see that the brain may cause the release of chemicals which may affect the gut, when a person feels fear. This shows that there is a neurological relationship between Fear, the brain, the chemicals it releases, and the gut.

An association is therefore conclusive.

Again a person may have a burning feeling in his chest when he is feeling strong love. This will be the result of specific chemicals which the brain has caused to be released which affect the heart in a certain way, yes?  This shows that there is a neurological relationship between the emotion felt, the brain, the chemicals it releases, and the heart.

Going by observable biochemistry as you pointed out, we can empirically conclude that  - THERE IS A NEUROLOGICAL LINK BETWEEN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE BODY AND THE CHEMICALS THAT AFFECT THEM BASED ON DIFFERENT THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS.

Why does this observable neurological link exist?

You asked me what association the spirit may have with the body.

Spiritual experiences are intangible experiences just like emotions, and are indeed in their intangibility interwoven with and inseparable from such emotions.

Although hormones are physical, Love itself is not a hormone, even if it can be argued that the feeling is caused by a hormone. Love is thus not a physical thing, nor is hatred or jealously.

However as shown above, all these things definitely have a neurological connection to different parts of the body.

I am sure I have shown that those experiences have “an association” with different parts of the body, which is what you asked.

Still waiting on this -

When you feel fear, why do you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach - why not in your head, since that's where the brain is?

When you feel love or hatred, why do you feel that burning feeling in your chest - why not in the head, since that's where the brain is?

Because you asked me about the association of the spirit to the body.

AND UNDENIABLY DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE BODY ARE AFFECTED BY DIFFERENT TYPES OF FEELINGS.

WHAT CAUSES THIS?

DOES THIS NOT SHOW THAT THE BODY IS A COMPOUND REPRESENTATION OF THE INNER EMOTIONAL MAN - AND THAT THE FEELINGS AND QUALITIES THAT EMERGE FROM THE MIND HAVE A NEUROLOGICAL CONNECTION TO DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE BODY?

Krayola:
They are not, in my opinion, "associated" with the heart. Those are "clichés" in popular culture. The associations are in the language we use, and not in the actual biological processes in our body.

Hopefully you respond further now. . .

Where did the cliches come from? What universal perceptions advised such cliches?

When you feel fear, why do you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach - why not in your head, since that's where the brain is?

When you feel love or hatred, why do you feel that burning feeling in your chest - why not in the head, since that's where the brain is?

toneyb:
Let me come in here.

Actually these emotions are associated with the brain not the heart. The heart is just a blood pumping machine.

There are hormones like adrenaline that help project this emotions or feelings. What exactly are you trying to get at?

No doubt we all know this. I asked to be told why those emotions are associated with the heart? I ask this in response to a specific question. Why is it said throughout history - "a man feels this or that in his heart". . . "the heart of man is wicked. . ." . . ."A man lacked the guts to do this or that. . ."

Please indulge me, for i have a reason for asking this seemingly silly question.

toneyb:
Don't get me wrong? Private thoughts that are presented as something of value should be measured in one way or the other else it deserves to be in the dust bin,

Thus if your private thoughts are not measured in one way or the other, they are not a thng of value?

It is of no use or value to any body other than you because that is what your heart alone feels.

Of course. It's meant for each individual to experience himself. We are born alone, we die alone.

So the supernatural has now been reduced to something that the heart alone detects eh?

Did you expect your feet to detect it?

Krayola:
But I think we can associate thoughts with a physical organ in the human body. . . so how does your co-relation work? what physical part of the human body do you associate "spiritual experiences" with, if, as you say, they are not necessarily thoughts?

Tell me why LOVE, ANGER, HATRED AND OTHER EMOTIONS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE HEART?

Tell me why COURAGE AND SPUNK are associated with the GUTS?

Tell me these first, before i respond further

Krayola:
@ deepsight. In your opinion, are "spiritual experiences" thoughts? Cause it kinda seems that is what u may be implying. . .

No, not necessarily - i am drawing a co-relation between thoughts - which are intangible - and spirituality - which is intangible -

- and trying to show that it does not make sense to request that intangible things should be observed by physical means.

toneyb:
No body needs to believe any thing I claim my mind alone can detect because I can formulate and lie about anything I want to. Any thing that the mind alone claims it can detect deserves to be thrown into the dust bin in my opinion because people are very well known for making up different types of things for different reasons.

Very well, then, so you are saying to me that all your private thoughts deserve to be thrown into the dust bin.

No problem, i will go purchase a dustbin for you.

It's either that, or since you are atheist i can join your approach and state that your private thoughts do not exist.

toneyb:
I asked you to explain your encounter wıth the spiritual realm and all you can come up with is this? Why should any body respect or believe subjective experiences or encounters that ONLY the mind alone feels it detects?

Why should anybody respect or believe the fact that you have thoughts in your mind since they are subjective experiences that only your mind detects?

Notice i had different responses for Toneyb and akered - they said diffrerent things. LOOK AGAIN.

akered:
Please explain to us how YOU measure spiritual things!!!!!!! I think I have an idea!! - Suspend the use of your brains, then believe what you are told without question and obey!!!!! Very easy isnt it?

Clearly you have NEVER read any of my posts or you would never suggest that i suspend the use of my brains, or that i believe what i am told without question. I can thus see no reason to respond further to you.

toneyb:
How do you observe the spiritual? Have you ever observed any spiritual being? How was your encounter with this spiritual entity? Did you hear him or her speak? How can it be true when it is something that the mind alone think it detects?

How can your thoughts be true, when they are only heard by your inner ear?

Can you prove to me that you have thoughts that you hear in your mind?

When you think in your mind, notice that you can clearly discern those thoughts - for example, you can say to yourself in your mind "Deep Sight is an idio.t" - AND you can clearly discern that you said that within your mind.

But -

1. It was not audible to any physical ears, not even yours  - and - 

2. You can never prove that it was said in your mind to ANYBODY BY ANY MEANS.

And what is the reason for this? Simply because thoughts are intangible.

Capisce?

There's no reason, in theory, why god's presence couldn't be measured or detected in some objective way. The only reason that believers claim that god can't be objectively detected in this way is because god isn't detected, and so a vast and intricate rationale has to be devised to explain this vast, loving, eternal, all-powerful "something" which is, in every external, objective respect, indistinguishable from nothing. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining.

-Douglas Adams

Does it make any sense to expect a spiritual thing to be physically observable?

imhotep:
Well, I don't reject reincarnation. But I prefer to think of myself as a WOUNDED HEALER . . .

MEN, YOU ARE TOO MUCH!

That's a beautiful line you dropped there.

We are all wounded, i think, the challenge is to be healers. . .

Now stop ratting about and fess up - who are you - Mahatma Ghandi? The Buddha? The Dalai Lama? If you are not one of these then without a doubt you are definitely Sat Guru Maharaji

What, David! You great Christian Soldier could admit and accept that. . . ok. . .fess up - who and who are the Aphrodites that have been torturing you. . .

Happy New Year David - its's been a while.

With reference to the OP -

I positively challenge any person to assert that sex is unnatural.

If sex is natural, which it evidently is, then abstention from sex is patently and most certainly UNNATURAL.

Mavenb0x:
Deep Sight, i knew you would roll in the direction of sex outside marriage because you already know my stance.

My knowledge of your stance has nothing to do with it. The OP clearly said: “abstinence before or during marriage.” Thus avoiding pre-marital sex was clearly an issue in the OP.

But that is totally off my point on this thread. You said trying to resume a life of celibacy after sexual experience is demonic, and i countered that the same methods are used to deal with other ethical, social, medical and personal issues.

Why did you have to use anti-social examples such as these -

1. Drug & Alcoholism rehab programs
2. Prisons & other Legal correctional institutions like the "juve".
3. Psychotherapy as a medical aid in resolving soul trauma?

- When you are fully aware that none of these may be said to be natural in the sense that sex is? You demanded honesty of me and I will demand no less from you, Maven.

Then you said it does not apply because this is a natural instinct like eating (which begins the off-point journey, because people can break their fast , eat and resume fasting. Your hero, Gandhi, did it often).

This is not honest because the OP talks about abstinence altogether and not systematically and deliberately “fasting” and then “breaking the fast” – which would approximate only to a scenario where I choose to abstain for a short period. Reasons could be medical, whatever. This is totally different from reverting to celibacy in toto, on the imagination that sex is wrong - and YOU KNOW THIS.

I replied meaning that eating will not be a thing we are trying to "correct", so maybe gula (gluttony) or alcoholism may be a more appropriate view.

FALSE AGAIN, because merely having sex (as opposed to abstinence which the OP talked about) cannot by itself be said to amount to an excess. An excess of what? An excess of a natural urge, even if exercised only once a month, for example? Would that be an excess?

I said this because, objectively, why some people will choose to re-maintain a state of celibacy is constituted from their own personal ethics, like the reason why one will choose to stop smoking or doing drugs or eating in excess or something.

Why are you comparing it to eating in excess? Who is talking about sex in excess here? ? ? ? The OP said – “abstinence” – which connotes NO SEX AT ALL. How can having sex, say once, for example, amount to an excess? ? ? Especially when it is a natural urge that our God-made hormones push us towards?

So they all compare in light of the fact that the person sees it as an excess in view of their personal ethics.

THEY ONLY SEE IT AS AN EXCESS BECAUSE THEIR RELIGION HAS CONDITIONED THEM TO PETTY SELF-GUILT OVER NATURAL URGES. OTHERWISE IS THERE ANY SANE REASON IN THE WORLD WHY A CREATURE WITH A SEXUAL URGE WOULD IMAGINE THAT GIVING VENT TO THAT NATURAL URGE (EVEN ONCE) IS “AN EXCESS”? ? ?

DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU, MAVEN? ? ?

My point is, how can you say it is "demonic" (evil, wrong, misguided, improper) to decide to re-maintain? Thats what I was on about and not the excess sexual escapades of others, or the lack thereof.

Anything that is unnatural is what I categorize as wrong or evil.

Sex is natural – manifestly – and neither you nor Albert Einstein can contradict that fact.

Therefore abstention from sex is unnatural.

Therefore abstention from sex is evil.

And even more evil is it for a person to accede to his natural urges and then on account of imported religion begin to imagine that it is wrong for him to have sex.

That’s re-maintenance. That’s evil.

Honesty? You want Honesty? I will give you honesty.

Mavenb0x:
Gluttony is the analogous equivalent of many of the "unmaintained" practices[/color].[/b]

FALSE. Read the OP. This thread is NOT about excesses. It is simply about abstention from sex before marriage or even thereafter. You needn't make the far fetched assumption that everyone having sex outside of marriage is doing so to excess and therefore a sex maniac.

The Sexual instinct is a natural instinct. There is evidence that nature did not factor the cultural institution of marriage at all; this evidence is simply the fact that humans become sexually mature (go past puberty) at an age when they are manifestly unsuited for the cultural institution of marriage with its attendant societal strains. Why does nature impose sexual urges so early? If you look in the natural world you will see that nature only imposes urges and unctions where they are fit. . .and also serve a purpose

You also cannot deny that sex aside from reproduction also serves purposes of pleasure: and this is perfectly intended by nature. Notice how all the factors necessary for our survival, nature deliberately makes tempting for us. Thus food is not eaten only to survive: you are fully aware that that Blue Bunny Ice Cream you had last Christmas was bought for pleasure only. This is how nature works out.
This also exposes the fallacy in your position because it amounts to asserting that anyone who eats any food that is not strictly for his survival is thereby indulging in an excess.

Another pointer is the fact that humans are amongst the very few creatures that do not have a "mating season" but rather have sexual urges all year round. This shows very clearly that the human being is designed as a sexual creature with very natural sexual urges.

Religion and Culture are the factors that often stand in the way of the manifestly natural.

I thus repeat; and i am being perfectly honest when i assert that there has never been, nor will there ever be anything even remotely wrong with premarital sex. It falls perfectly into the tandem of nature and I put you to the very strictest proof of the contrary.

Mavenb0x:
@Deepsight: Can I take your opinion that "re-maintenance is demonic since maintenance is dreadful enough" to mean you do not believe, for instance, in
1. Drug & Alcoholism rehab programs
2. Prisons & other Legal correctional institutions like the "juve".
3. Psychotherapy as a medical aid in resolving soul trauma?

Because IMO they employ similar procedures in getting one back to a path he/she deliberately or mistakenly left or was lured into abandoning for the sake of excitement and adventure. What say ye?

Your analogy would have been excellent but for the fatal fact that none of the problems you mentioned are natural to humanity or better put: they do not have a natural role in furthering the species. Sex, on the other hand, is a perfectly natural unction designed to ensure the propagation of the species. Just like hunger ensures you eat, thirst ensures you drink necessary water. Sexual hunger ensures we reproduce. I thus believe there is alot of hypocrisy in mankind's religious approach to sexuality.

imhotep:
FOOD FOR THOUGHT ->

Religion is NOT repressed sexuality. Sexuality is POTENTIAL religion. . .

Your posts really intrigue me. Are you sure you are not like some great oriental sage reincarnated on Nairaland?

Sexuality is potential religion?

What do you think of some of the philosophical exchanges here:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=324109.msg4549308#msg4549308

imhotep:
LOL

@DeepSight
May I inquire as to why you are asking this question?

I have been on NL for about 7 months now and have engaged alot of interesting minds. But the quality of your brief ripostes is astonishing.

Really, confess, you are the reincarnated Siddhatar Gautama the Budda, yes?

There never was, nor will there ever be, anything wrong with eroticism.

Mankind in their petty guilt, demonize all things reeking of the forbidden pot. . .

Let me just add a little slang of mine.

Some ladies have always been virgins. These are called "Maintainers" as they are "maintaining".

Other ladies lose their virginity but at some point decide to start "maintaining" again. This is called "re-maintenance".

Maintenance is dreadful enough, but re-maintenance is absolutely demonic.

Imhotep - are you some sort of enlightened monk?

@Imhotep. . . looks like you're propounding again the Buddha's four noble truths on desire.

@ Topic: each should have his fill. Only when sated, and then tired, and then repulsed, will deisre recede.

APOLOGIES, been chasing money all over the place. . .will be back in a bit. . .

Krayola:
@ deepsight. You saying Hindus worship cows is, IMO, the same as someone saying you worship numbers. That is a gross misrepresentation of the Hindu faith.

Hey - i was just trying to force a point. They do regard cows as absolutely sacred animals and the question was: will their faith that this is the case necessarily mean that cows are in fact special creatures to be revered.

So its not that i do not accept that hinduism is far more than that, i do.

^^^ You do believe in Karma, how do you juxtpose it with puristic materialism.