: > Religions too, would insist that there are absolute ethics,
: > the Ten Commandments for example. The Ten Commandments can
: > be disposed of easily as an example of hypocrisy when one
: > examines the actions of cultures claiming to follow them.
:
: You mean the Ten Suggestions.
I like that!
: Their are a couple of ways of reading that.
:
: Thou shalt not kill, for example, may not mean that once
: you've killed you are no longer "seen" in god's eyes.
: It says that to kill is affront to God. If you kill,
: expect a punishment.
:
: Karma says the same thing.
:
: The religious (I hope) read these "rules" in a manner
: that promotes their own moral responsibility, not to be
: guided like children who have no choice but to obey.
:
: The sacriment of confession in the Catholic church is
: similar.
Well, there's what's written and how people interpret what's
written. Here's three different rules for killing, from three
different religions:
The Bible
Thou Shalt Not Kill
The Koran
You shall not kill any man whom God has forbidden you to kill,
execpt for a just cause.
Zero Truths, The Holy Book Of Zero
The Child says "Kill" and thou shalt.
The words are pretty clear. How people interpret them is
unpredictable.
> Perhaps, as long as reproduction is a fundamental element of the
> universe, we will constantly be rewriting our memes and our ways of
> living.
I hope so.
> Is there an opposite in the religion of Homo Deus?
The opposite of Homo Deus is Homo Vocare:
The counterpart of Homo Deus, this is a person who sees
God as something other than himself. This definition
includes both the Pope and Atheists. He is known as Homo
Vocare, Empty Man. The full name of Homo Vocare is Homo
Sapien Sapien Vocare. The Child exists in Homo Vocare,
but he does not recognize it.
But I think what you meant is a "What's beyond life/death".
"Zero Truths" provides:
-------------------------------------------
Heaven and Hell
Heaven and Hell are None.
Upon your death you shall
Become one with Heaven and with Hell.
-------------------------------------------
When you die, your gone. And:
-------------------------------------------
Reincarnation
Each man has but one life. This life is infinite in three ways.
The body mingles with the body of the world, for you are a part of all things.
The seed mingles with the seed of the world, for you are a part of all things.
The mind mingles with the mind of the world, for you are a part of all things.
-------------------------------------------
When you die, your physical body is reused, you DNA continues
through sex and your memes continue through the people
you've affected. And:
-------------------------------------------
The Void
Let the terrible secret be known:
There is a God and a Goddess who are Not
And who's Names are said to be Null and Oblivion.
Together they are the Void.
The Void is the womb from which
All things, even the Child, come.
The Void is the grave to which
All things, even the Child, go.
Holy Ones have seen the Void
And called it "Heaven"
And called it "Hell",
But the Void is nought.
Thus does the Child howl and scream.
Thus does the Child howl and scream.
-------------------------------------------
When you die, you disolve into the Void. You
are Null. You are Oblivion. You are Not.
When you die, you create potential for the
living. The Void provides the potential
needed to create the Child. Through your
death you provide the potential for new Gods
to be created. In this sense, death is like
sex.
For a more in depth discussion of this, see
http://home1.gte.net/dleeper/HBook.html
and
http://home1.gte.net/dleeper/Elements.html
-- David Leeper dleeper@gte.net Homo Deus http://home1.gte.net/dleeper/index.htm 1 + 1 != 2 http://home1.gte.net/dleeper/CMath.html