Flabberghasted...

Old Earth Why Not

So... dragons existed. Hmm.
Must be true if the Christians say it is...
I really would like to believe, but...

 This is the Chinese dragon fossil

Eckhard Tolle: The New Earth, rest of it

I have been thinking that perhaps this ego-babble is due to the fear of death... a thing I have never understood.
I don't want to die, but I'm not afraid of dying either. To me Death is Sleep's big brother and kind and gentle deity. It is a sleep you never wake up from. Probably also a sleep without dreams. Deep sleep... Nothing to be afraid of.

And the idea of that one day there will be no Ketutar in the world... big deal. Right now there is a Ketutar. That's me. Right now I am responsible for the life and adventures of Ketutar, of the experience and memory of Ketutar... when I'm dead, it's too late to do anything about that :-D And then it doesn't matter at all ;-)

Anyway, back to Eckhart. The more I read, the more perplexed I get. Are these things really so important to people and so hard to comprehend?

I am not my earthly possessions. What I have has nothing to do with who I am.
I do not identify myself with what I have, my status, in comparison to others, as right or wrong, as better or worse, as more or less.
I identify myself as a human being, equal with all the other human beings of this world. ALL.
I identify myself as part of the creation, and as such equal to every other part of the creation. EVERY part.
I am very aware of my existence as a cell in this huge organism called life.
But still I am also aware of my unique, personal self. It is *I* who think these thoughts *I* write down... It is not Eckhart Tolle or Sarah Jones. It's me. Ketutar Jensen.

"For many people, their sense of selfworth is intimately bound up with their physical strength, good looks, fitness, and external appearance. Many feel a diminished sense of selfworth because they perceive their body as ugly or imperfect."

Yeah... which came first, the hen or the egg?

Many people feel ugly because they are told all the time they are ugly. Not because they themselves would compare themselves to others and deem their looks objectively less appealing.
Being told all the time you are less worth makes you believe it. It is very hard to speak against the "public opinion", especially in modern world, which is full of information. You couldn't avoid hearing the messages.
This is just a way for the "powers that be" to keep you quiet and occupied with secondary matters, so that you will be easier to control, and, boy, doesn't it work!

So - when it seems you are getting loss from the hunt for perfect body and physical image, let's exchange it with hunt of ego... This whole crap reminds me of a ingenius short story by Agatha Christie... How a "person" managed to persuade a man to give up his skeleton...

You see, I'm back to copyleft. Eckhart Tolle is still exploiting your wish of becoming a better person, and selling books, CDs and DVDs, cards, calendars, "talks, intensives and retreats", and everything possible... he's selling words...
"Words... ...can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you", he says...
He is full of crap and knows nothing, he tells you this, over and over again, and you praise him and pay him for telling you nothing you don't already know.

I don't get this. I really don't get this.


"If you are not familiar with “inner body” awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don't ask your mind. It will say, “I can't feel anything.” Probably it will also say, “Give me something more interesting to think about.” So instead of asking your mind, go to the hands directly. By this I mean become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it. you may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify. Some people won't even have to close their eyes. They will be able to feel their “inner hands” at the same times as they read this..."

Er... Yeah... my mind is a powerful tool.

I don't know... perhaps I don't get this thing with ego because I don't have it. Nothing in this sounds familiar or true to me.
I have never had any problems with mindfulness, being in the moment, "inner body awareness" and other such things.
I have never had any problems with emptying my mind and meditating.
I have never had any problems with connecting with the Highest and feeling, sensing, experiencing, being the Unity, Gaia consciousness or what ever you call it.

I am still me, I, the personal, unique, special, individual I. Ego.

---

Poor, stupid Descartes and Sartre... if they only had been as wise as Tolle!

---

"The suppression of the feminine principle especially over the past two thousand years has enabled the ego to gain absolute supremacy in the collective human psyche. Although women have egos, of course, the ego can take root and grow more easily in the male form than in the female. this is because women are less mindidentified than men. They are more in touch with the inner body and the intelligence of the organism where the intuitive faculties originate. The female form is less rigidly encapsulated than the male, has greater openness and sensitivity toward other lifeforms, and is more attuned to the natural world."

Oh, Goddess, what bull!

a) there is no difference in women's and men's minds. Claiming anything else is sexism.
b) the idea of that women are closer to nature is nothing but misogyny. It's the base to the treatment of women as mindless children, in need of being taken care and governed by adult men.

"Nobody knows the exact figure because records were not kept, but it sees certain that during a three hundred year period between three and five million women were tortured and killed by the “Holy Inquisition“

Highly overestimated, considering that the realistic and rational estimates put the victims (male and female) of inquisition to 3000-10000 - thousands, not millions.

"It was enough for a woman to show a love for animals, walk alone in the fields or woods, or gather medicinal plants to be branded a witch"
No, it wasn't.

"The sacred feminine was declared demonic, and an entire dimension largely disappeared form human experience."
*sigh* No, it didn't. But, perhaps you truly believe people couldn't keep their secrets back some hundreds of years ago. In Italy - where the Catholic inquisition had quite an influence - they kept the Strega alive.

"Males who denied the feminine even within themselves where now running the world..."
"...this fear of the feminine that could only be described as acute collective paranoia"


"But then why in many ancient preChristian civilizations such as the Sumerian, Egyptian, and Celtic were women respected and the feminine principle not feared but revered?"

The appreciation and treatment of women was not especially different in the Hebrew and Sumerian societies. The Greek society was horribly misogynist. Celts weren't especially appreciative of women either. The same about Roman society or the Indian society, the cradle of Hinduism and Buddhism, and the main body of the "Eastern Wisdoms" now so revered by the Western spiritual world. It doesn't matter that Goddess was worshiped in the society.

"What is it that suddenly made men feel threatened by the female? The evolving ego in them. It knew it could gain full control of our planet only through the male form, and to do so, it had to render the female powerless."

Oh, crap!

"The sacred feminine, because it is suppressed, is felt by many women as emotional pain. In fact, it has become part of their painbody, together with the accumulated pain suffered by women over millennia through childbirth, rape, slavery, torture and violent death."

This is such crap! But I'm sure all the so-called feminists lap this up...
 
"Certain countries in which many acts of collective violence were suffered or perpetrated have a heavier collective painbody than others. This is why older nations tend to have stronger painbodies. It is also why younger countries, such as Canada or Australia, and those that have remained more sheltered from the surrounding madness, such as Switzerland, tend to have lighter collective painbodies."

Oh, yeah! We don't give a shit about all the aborigins who have been abused by their European overlords! Of course the history before the REAL, official, Western history doesn't matter! In Switzerland the inquisition had quite a heavy toll, it's one of the most racist countries in the world and the Western country where women received their voting rights last, but - hey, it was neutral during both world wars, who cares about the rest? Never mind hunger and cold winters and tribal wars and other such insignificant things, it's not that such things have an effect on the "painbody" :-D

This guy is really unbelievable... and yet so many believe everything he says and thinks it's wise and profound...`

I give up on this book.

The painbody part of the book is more interesting, even though I'm quite fed up with this guy.

I call this "painbody" shadows.

Also, angels feel your emotions as physical. "Negative" emotions are like physical violence, "positive" emotions like caressing. I have no difficulties in thinking it works so with our angel-souls as well. So the idea of our "positive" attitude spreading like ripples in water to heal and comfort others' pain sounds like a good idea. At least, it will keep me calm and serene, so that at least one person is ok.
Besides, pets react on your emotions, why wouldn't people?

Eckhard Tolle: The New Earth, chapter II

"Words... ...can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You... ...believ[e] that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is... ...because it has unfathomable depth"

So do the words, Eckhard. That's one of the rules of magic. Even Kabbalah, the "more enlightened form of Judaism" is built upon the magic and power of words, letters, numbers. The words include the depth, the oneness, the fact that a stone is a bird is a tree is a star.

I really don't think Vincent looked and looked and looked at the chair and sensed the Beingness of it, to then paint it. I also doubt that Vincent van Gogh's chair would sell for a couple of dollars. I also think that a painting by someone else of the same chair, with the exact same expression of "beingness" would not cost millions of dollars.
But that's just me. What do I know, I'm just a mediocre artist. How would I know how a great artist like van Gogh thought? You, Eckhard, most certainly must understand that better, because... Because what?
Do you paint? No...
So actually you are expressing yourself as the childless woman who gives parents advice on how to bring up their children. You think an artist must see the beingness of things, otherwise they wouldn't be able to create art.

"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness."
- Eckhard Tolle, "Power of Now"

You have an interesting way of express your subjective opinions as if they were objective facts... "Whether they know it or not" - So effectively killing all opposition. I cannot say I don't create from a place of no-mind, because you say that I do, I just don't know it. You are saying you know me better than I do. I say you're a sanctimonious toad.

"you need to disentangle your sense of I, of Beingness..."

Sense of I is sense of beingness - I is being, my essence. I. Ego. *sigh*
Considering that you are so against words and "labeling", you used darn many to express nothing.

"...reality, the miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you."

Excuse me...? This "miracle of life" is maya, the illusion, Buddha's suffering.

"Of course we have to use words and thoughts"

Why? Just sit and allow the existence to "silently communicate itself to you, reflecting your own essence back to you", in "the awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought – or the emotion or sense perception – happens".

It would have been better if you had allowed the trees that were cut to be made into paper your books were printed on, it would have been better if you had not enslaved the energy in uranium, coal, water, wind, or what ever sort of electricity you used to power your computer or printing press. And what is this ink used to print your words?

"Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u."

Which language? There are over 30 sounds produced by the vocal cords in human languages, and the letters a, e, i, o and u are used to denote several of the sounds, even in English. "A cat falls" is a quick example of this.

"Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?"

Yes. That's the magic of words, Eckhard.

Albert Einstein is said to have said:
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

I haven't been able to verify this. Did he? When, why, in which context? And even if he did, so what? He too is the child of his environment and his opinions are just that. Opinions.

"If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves."

Ah. So you haven't yet recognized the illusion as illusion, even though you have created books and sites and tons of merchandise on the denial of the reality of this world, life and existence... you're still here, aren't you? Eckhard is still around, hasn't dissolved anywhere. You're still not me.

"When “my” toy breaks or is taken away, intense suffering arises... ...because of the thought of “mine”. The toy became part of the child’s developing sense of self, of “I.”

No. The "intense suffering" is due to the realization of the ultimate definity of things. The child realizes that he/she is part of the Universe, and also that everything else is part of him/her. He/she doesn't classify people higher than animals higher than plants higher than inanimate objects. To him/her it's all the same, just as real as he/she is.

"And so in many cases you are not buying a product but an “identity enhancer.”"

Mmm... like a book that promises to awaken you and save the world from the unawakened people.

"Of course, in this physical dimension that our surface selves inhabit, things are a necessary and inescapable part of our lives. We need housing, clothes, furniture, tools, transportation."

Housing, perhaps, and some tools, but most of the earthly possessions are not a need but a want. There's this guy in Stockholm, who has nothing on but a pair of shorts and shoes. Winter, summer, rain, storm, blizzard, night, day, he walks through life wearing nothing but that. Furniture? Totally unnecessary. Remember Diogenes.

The Greek philosopher Diogenes adiscarded all his possessions except a cloak, purse and wooden bowl, and made his home in a barrel. When he saw a boy drinking from his hands, he threw out the bowl as well.
It is told that Alexander the Great once met Diogenes, then a very old man. The powerful young conqueror, having heard much about the old philosopher, asked if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes replied, “Stand out of my sunshine.”

"We need to honor the world of things, not despise it. Each thing has Beingness, is a temporary form that has its origin within the formless one Life, the source of all things, all bodies, all forms."

Ah. So perhaps the child is not crying for the ego, but mourning a death of a thing's Beingness?

This world and everything in it, how ever beautiful, delightful, lovely, is just an illusion, if you listen to the Buddhist and Christian teachings. If you think this world is more than an illusion, partly beautiful, partly horrifying, then you shouldn't be yapping about the misery teachings of Buddhism and Christianity. Neither honors the world of things, Eckhard.

"In most ancient cultures, people believed that everything, even so called inanimate objects, had an indwelling spirit, and in this respect they were closer to the truth than we are today."

Ha. But still you claim that Christianity is one of the most improved versions of spirituality, in all its hatred of "earthly things".

*sigh* Eckhard, Eckhard... you are so confused you don't even understand what you are saying yourself.

Your ego is part of you. Accept it, acknowledge it, embrace it as part of you, and part of this world, and part of this universe. Don't get too attached to it, but don't try to get rid of it either. Everything in this world has a purpose, even your ego.

"The unchecked striving for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and a disease."

And what is an effort to evolve, grow spiritually, tranform into a higher spiritual being more than striving for endless growth?

‘If someone takes your shirt, let him have your coat as well.’”
"“It doesn’t mean you should never lock your door."

I think it's exactly what it means.
Come on, now, Eckhard! Nothing is yours. Not your possessions, not your home, not the clothes on your back, not your life or your body. So what is it to you what happens to them? Nothing that can happen to any of the things - your body and life included - will not diminish you in any way.
Why should you try to avoid things you try to avoid by locking the door?
Perhaps the thief needs your possessions more than you do - who don't need anything, really. Perhaps the rapist needs your body more than you do. Perhaps the murderer needs your life. Besides, it's all an illusion.
Also, if you are me am a star is a bird, the one who enters to "your" home is you. If something is stolen, if your child is kidnapped, if you are raped, or murdered, it's you who did it. It's you who dreamed it into the illusion you think you are living. It really didn't happen at all.
Besides, most people never experience anything like this, even when they live in houses with no doors to lock. You should learn to trust the humanity more. But I suppose... I suppose you don't really, really, REALLY believe in all the words you spout.

"Is it wrong then to be proud of one’s possessions or to feel resentful toward people to have more than you? Not at all."

Not at all. It's just evil.

I'm so tired with this egobabble. Blah blah blah...

The question remains: why isn't The New Earth published in copyleft and anonymously?

Eckhard Tolle: The New Earth, chapter I

I came by a review of this book at Wicca Spirituality, and decided to read it myself, to know what it is all about.

"A New Earth is one of the 5 books that I believe are not to be missed in anyone's lifetime. I'd give it more than 5 stars. It deserves a sky-full."

I am very suspicious about this book. It feels to me like one of the New Age Bibles, that is, badly disguised Indo-European spirituality. I know I have had enough of that, thank you.

I am going to share my reading notes with you.

---------------------------------

So, if flowers are the enlightenment of plants, crystals/jewels the enlightenment of rocks and birds enlightenment of reptilians... what does he suggest the enlightened form of humans is?
None what so ever... because the human enlightenment doesn't change your outer essence, just the inner one. >:->

"Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?"

Why isn't Eckhard Tolle's book published in copyleft? Why isn't it published anonymously?

I'm sorry, Eckhard, you're full of it. Your first step to enlightenment would be to practice the two steps program:

Step 1) I realize I'm full of crap and know nothing
Step 2) whenever I feel like I'm not full of crap, whenever I feel like I know something, I need to take step 1 again.
Then just repeat these steps until you realize that writing books is futile and useless.

Jesus was one of the great wises and messengers... You know, the guy who said: "*I* am He", "*I* am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through *Me*...", "*I* am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved", "*I* am the resurrection and the life."
You should really let go of your ego and be like Jesus... >:->

"their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted."

Oh? And you know this... how? I assume you "know" it because you "know" Jesus was something exceptional and amazing and true and wise, because "everyone" says so, so if his message doesn't sound exceptional, amazing, true and wise to you, it must be because someone misunderstood and distorted it.
Bull.

"As you read, a shift takes place within you."
"This book’s main purpose is... ...to awaken."

I see... You know what, Eckhard. I hate people who tell me I'm not awake, because I don't think the way they do.

"It can only awaken those who are ready"

ROTFLMAO
So, I'm not "ready" to be "awaken" yet... >:->

If I have objections, critique, if I disagree, it's only because I'm a lower spiritual lifeform. Are you even aware that that is a logical fallacy called Argumentum ad hominem? You are insulting your opponent as a substitute to meet and refute their arguments... in a book that is supposed to help the human kind to be more "enlightened", make your spirit glow more beautiful than all the flowers, jewels and birds in the world, make your spirit glow so that it can be seen from outside as your face and whole being shines... Good one, Eckhard :-D

"For some, [initiation of the awakening process] will come... ...through reading "The Power of Now"[, a] spiritually alive and therefore transformational book"

You wrote "The Power of Now". You really think you're all that... you write "spiritually alive" books. People who write books expressing different opinion write books that are "spiritually dead".

Illusion and delusion are not exact synonyms.
An illusion is a false conception of something real. Delusion is the belief of the false conception one refuses to accept as a false conception.
Maya is a dream so vivid, so real, you experience it as real. It's not a delusion, it's an illusion.
It is either not a "dysfunction", "madness" or "collective mental illness". Using words like that of a normal human function is not only derogative, it's insulting and inconsiderate to all the people who fight every day with a real dysfunction or mental illness. Islamophobia that spread over USA like a wild fire after 9/11 is a wordborne "collective mental illness". The dream called life is not.

The life as we know it is an illusion, a dream. When you, Eckhard, finally understand this, really understand, really wake up, there will be no Eckhard. Enlightenment, waking up from the dream that is maya, means that you stop existing as you.

"Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence."

The word used in the Greek Scriptures that has been translated in English as "sin", is hamartia. Hamartia is a Greek concept that comes from the word hamartánein, to err, to miss the mark. In the Greek dramaturgy, hamartia is the character flaw which leads to the downfall of the protagonist. This is the meaning the people who wrote the Greek Scriptures used the word in, not "missing the point of human existence".

But - there are 33 words for 'sin' in general in the Greek Scriptures, and three in the Hebrew Scriptures. Let's talk about "chata'" - to miss. Yes, miss the mark, miss the point, but also miss the meeting, miss the chance, miss someone... The word "miss" means to fail, to err, to lose, to lack. To draw the conclusions that it must mean "missing the point of human existence" is presumptuous and illogical. (I think the logical fallacy is called begging the question... when conclusions are drawn from arbitrary interpretation of facts, or when inadequate facts are interpreted to support one's conclusions. The facts are assumed to mean something, that supports the argument.)

Eckhard, you are not to strip the words their "cultural baggage". Language is what carries the culture, and if you remove them from the culture, you will misinterpret the words.

You claim "...underneath the many  surface differences [of the humanity’s ancient religions and spiritual traditions] there are two core insights that most of them agree on", and then you give examples of three: Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. Which all are practically the same; Indoeuropean imperialist religions, based on the idea of that the world, life, human existence, is intrinsically bad, suffering due to our ignorance, something to get rid of. The idea of that there must be something more than this, that life in itself is not amazing, wonderful, glorious and worthwhile experience, that there were no other reasons for humans and life and the world to exist, but that... what? Our souls in their great egotism chose to start believing the illusion rather than the bright and light existence of enlightened Unity?

I believe we live for a reason.
I believe we live to experience.
I believe we are here to enjoy the sensory input, and I cannot imagine an existence better for that purpose.

I think it is you, Eckhard, who misses the point of human existence. Your sin is to be unsatisfied with what you have, to live in now ;-> and to enjoy what is enjoyable in this world or dream, if you'd rather use that word. I think you are too focused in suffering, so you will experience suffering. If you let go of your fixation with suffering and this world being a bad place, you would be much happier, and stop sinning and stop suffering.

"Humans suffered more at the hands of each other than through natural disasters."

Er... Have you ever heard of a thing called "Great Famine"? It was caused by a volcanic eruption on the other side of the world, and killed millions at the time the world population - WORLD population was about the same as the USA population today.
What about "Year Without a Summer"?

"...the unprecedented violence that humans are inflicting on other lifeforms and the planet itself"

Yes, let's not talk about the Romans who exported thousands of animals from all over the empire, just to die in circus to entertain people; who burned people as living torches, who enslaved as much of the existing world they could. Let's not talk about the deforestation of British isles. Let's not talk about the thousands of species destroyed before the 20th century. Who gives a dime for some dodos.
And for heaven's sake, let's not discuss about the dinosaurs or other life forms that existed before the human race. Dinosaurs are not even ancient history.

"Humans are born bad" blah blah blah. No, Eckhard. We are not. We are born animals with a normal self-preservation instinct. We were created rather weak and dysfunctional, in survival sense, but we were given something that has made us into one of the strongest species on earth. We had no fur, so we took it from those who had it. We tamed the fire, even though all animals are born with fear of fire. We built us caves when there were none. we are not strong, so we started by using wooden sticks to add to the force, to be able to move stones and to kill for our survival. Our claws and teeth are weak, so we took sticks and stones to be able to dig and mash and carve. We are slow, so we tamed the horses to run for us. But the most magnificent of all our "inventions" was the invention of social conscience and kindness - not only serving ourselves to survive, but helping our neighbors... The survival of the village was not a question of survival of the strongest, but the survival of the fittest - the able-bodied hunted and gathered, protected and worked, and the old and handicapped taught the young and weak, so that they in turn would be able to take care of the able-bodied, when they no longer could do that for themselves, of which they paid by teaching the next generation... This is the miracle of human existence. It is this that gives people like you possibility to waste your time writing "spiritually alive and transformational books".

"A number of spiritual teachings tell us to let go of fear and desire."

Like for example...?

"enlightenment... ...salvation... ...the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening"
Yeah... Indo-European beliefs. Found in one form or another practically ONLY in the Indian and Middle-Eastern spiritual traditions, and spirituality heavily influenced by these.

Not said by Eckhard:

"For Taoism, salvation is not an escape from this world; rather, it is to become perfectly aligned with the natural world and with the cosmic forces that sustain it."

"Early Taoism emphasized Confucian virtues, which encouraged harmonious community living rather than salvation from sin."

It was the Buddhist influence that has caused all the "similarities" you believe to recognize in the "teachings" of "most ancient religions and spiritual traditions".

"It is unlikely, however, that you will be able to perceive it there unless you have at least already had glimpse of that Truth within yourself."

With other words, you will see what you believe to see. You will see the "truth" you believe to be the truth, what ever it is, and thus everything you say and prove with ancient texts, holy scriptures, and what not, becomes just circular argument.

Do I consider myself enlightened? No. I don't give a dime about enlightenment. I am here to live and to experience, to sense and to enjoy, not to get rid of life and senses and experiencing the world.

Do I think Eckhard is more enlightened than I am? No. I think he's so delusional it's painful to read his book. I think he's full of himself and believes to be more enlightened than I and the other "not awakened", "not ready" people >:->

"Through some of those men and women, “schools” or movements developed within all major religions that represented not only a rediscovery, but in some cases an intensification of the light of the original teaching."

Oh! So, Monoteism is "intensified" Polyteism, and Abrahamic religions are "intensified" Paganims... Kabbalah, I suppose Berg's Kabbalah, is "intensified truth" of Judaism. Christianity is "intensified" Judaism, Buddhism is "intensified" Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism...
Yeah. Just throw out everything you cannot understand and that doesn't support your stupid thesis as "archaic" and "obsolete" - something lesser and lower, uneducated, unenlightened, uninformed and un-awakened.
"Well, people were worshiping trees, that's how little they understood God and spirituality!"

You claim to seek to "unity"... but do you know what that is? That's animism and pantheism.
Animism is the belief of God's Breathe in everything, all things, all parts of the world being alive, living, breathing parts of the one singular organism called The Universe.
Pantheism is the belief of everything being part of God, created by God of God, God being in everything...
Animism and pantheism were the original, oldest forms of religion. You are only now, slowly, getting there, after thousands of years of adventures with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and still you have no humility of admitting we knew it all, all of it, long before your "enlightened" religions "intensified the light".

"most of them were viewed with suspicion and often hostility by the established religious hierarchies"

Yeah - because they were emphasizing the individual on the cost of the society. They still are... your precious Buddhist monks live on the kindness of people who they despise and consider being lower spiritual lifeforms. These sanctimonious egocentric hypocrites, Buddhist monks, haven't stopped eating. Hunger is just an illusion, Eckhard. It's your body trying to tell you your mind, your ego, your body, your flesh and blood and soul, are one. That you don't exist without the body. It's absolutely correct, of course, because "you" are an illusion. There is no "you", there is no body either, there is no hunger, and there is no need to eat.
As far as I know, also Gnostics eat, Sufis eat, Dalai Lama eats... Jesus is recorded eating. I am 100% sure of that you, Eckhard, eat too. Don't you think that makes you sanctimonious, egocentric hypocrit as well? I do.

Why? Because you don't live what you teach, Eckhard.

"Unless you believe (think) exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have felt justified in killing you for that."

Yeah... you just despise and pity the people who doesn't believe exactly as you do.

Blah blah blah "Some religious institutions will be open to the new consciousness; others will harden their doctrinal positions and become part of all those other man-made structures through which the collective ego will defend itself and “fight back.” blah blah..

This is so damn offensive! Your whole book is probably nothing but a testimony to your beliefs - BELIEFS, ECKHARD. NOT TRUTHS - and you have the guts of shaming others for believing differently from you. You are trying to manipulate people to join your church by shaming them, by making them feel bad for having own thoughts and beliefs, for thinking for themselves and being the unique individuals God made us.
You make me sick! Your sanctimonious, sugarcoated crap makes me sick!
Of course you will just smile sweetly and tell your followers that it's my ego "fighting back". So enlightened. So kind. So amazingly not egocentric, judgmental, ignorant and dysfunctional...  NOT!

"The dysfunction of the egoic human mind is for the first time threatening the survival of the planet."

And you think this is a problem, because...? This planet is an illusion, Eckhard. It doesn't really exist. Neither does pollution, global warming, genocides and wars, exploitation, extinction... I don't exist, you don't exist, your readers don't really exist. None of us is really doing anything to this planet. It's all just an illusion, just a nightmare. It's not really happening. So why are you acting as if you were worried?

"Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality – and it has a relative, not an absolute, reality – this is also its definition: complete identification with form – physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms."

Ego is Evil. *sigh*
Part of my understanding of spiritual evolution is the understanding of that there is no "original sin". I really cannot see in what way hanging on the medieval ideas invented to force people to accept Christianity as "the only solution" can be seen as "spiritual evolution", improvement or enlightenment, but if a person understand enlightenment and salvation to be the same thing, why not.

"...observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight" to realize "what kind of world do I create, when this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do."

Yes - observe that you are able to observe how humans relate to each other, observe that you know how to read, that there are books about history available to anyone who can read, that you can trust in the facts printed in that book and what they tell you in the news, observe that you have a television, and a home you can sit in and watch television, and what ever you choose to watch in the television, and that there are several broadcasting companies providing you several options. If you don't wish to watch television, you can also read a newspaper, even if you cannot afford to buy or subscribe to one, because there are public libraries that give you the opportunity to read the newspaper... Observe this very carefully, because this is what I create when "this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say and do".

I recognize, acknowledge and respect that you are not me, that you don't think like me, that you don't like the same things I do, and I give you an opportunity to seek out what your heart desires and fulfill your own, individual, specific needs.
It is the social consciousness, that makes us work and grow food, hunt and collect, build shelters, make clothes, that also makes us interested of the rest of the world, and sees a fellow human being, a friend, a sister, a brother in the foreigners being killed in catastrophes, wars, crimes, sees a member of the same human race and care about him/her and his/her faith, and therefore broadcast the misfortune and suffering of our fellow human beings all over the world, several times a day, in all the languages, from many different points of view, in all medias - I don't only care about my spiritual evolution, MY spiritual evolution, MY enlightenment... In my mind telling a stranger, for example the victims of Haiti earthquake, that he/she would not suffer if he/she only could let go of his/her ego, is extremely inconsiderate, egocentric, stupid and, frankly, disgraceful.

"Since human life and human consciousness are intrinsically one with the life of the planet, as the old consciousness dissolves, there are bound to be synchronistic geographic and climatic natural upheavals in many parts of the planet, some of which we are already witnessing now."

So... are they part of the "new earth" or consequences of the inborn wickedness of the humanity? Could you make up your mind?
Besides, who cares, when it's all just an illusion anyway?

Stinking hate troll

Someone posted one of these "Truth about Halloween" posts at Polyvore.
(I have written a longer post about the truth about "the truth" about Halloween)
I commented telling her that it is not "the truth", and quoted a couple of fitting passages from the Bible, but she didn't do anything.
I flagged the post as hate message.
Nothing happened.
I made the set above and posted it to Polyvore's complaint group, with this text

Dear Polyvore,

I love Polyvore, but I am really not comfortable with hate mongers who hide behind "freedom of expression" when they spout their poison. I would really like to be in Polyvore without trolls and flamers who start crusades against freedom of religion and religious tolerance, especially some members of a certain religious group who target Pagans.

If you refuse to remove such attacks on truth, tolerance, peaceful co-existence and decency as for example the so called "truth about halloween", I might believe I am fully entitled to express my opinion about certain people CALLING themselves followers of a certain person long since dead, and publish the truth about their beliefs and traditions, like human worship, belief in human sacrifice and eating human flesh and blood. As in "it's ok as long as you call the human God" :-)  
I might feel entitled to express such opinions like "Jews follow God, some people follow a dead Jew". Or "Certain people don't believe in maths - after all, they claim 1+1+1=1". I think you get the picture.

What irks me most with these people is that they claim the "Golden Rule" to be "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". If you judged by their actions, you'd think they must wish people claim nasty things about them, their religion, beliefs and gods, totally in spite of whether these things are true or not, stubbornly staying by their claims even when corrected and asked to stop, but if you did that to them, they'd start screaming about "X bashing". I call that hypocritical.

Are you hypocritical, Polyvore?

Guess what happened? The "truth about halloween" set was deleted - don't know by whom, but I think it was Polyvore, because the creator was in her Christian group telling people to go and flag my set, because "witches and pagans" don't like about the truth being told... :->
I received some pretty interested comments to the set, telling me among other things that burning Bibles is extremely hateful and so on and so forth. (I suppose they don't think burning Qurans is anything to care about... At least I read no Christian opposing the pastor's intentions this summer...)
I responded by telling that the troll in the picture is the one who made the hate-set NAMING Pagans, and as I am a Pagan, she named ME and accused ME of things I do not do, things no Pagan I know does, things that weren't even true thousands of years ago. That it is SHE who is burning the Bible, God who is love and religious tolerance in the flames of her "crusade", SHE who leaves a path of blood and stinking smoke of everything that is good and holy behind her... That Jesus won't protect hypocritical trolls who say it's okay to lie about the practices of non-Christians, but not about the practices of Christians... and I said I hope the troll can warm by the light of her torch flames, when she huddles outside the Wedding...

I don't know what happened, because this morning when I was going to delete this set - it was a response to her hate set, and I really don't want to discuss my beliefs on someone else's religion, just as little as I want others discuss what they believe to be my beliefs, and as her set was down, it was only fair that mine would go down too.
I found an apology in my message box. I take it as a sincere apology and I responded to her, telling her that I have taken the set down, and that I understand this means a lot to her, and said that it is fine to tell people Halloween is a Pagan tradition and as such something Christians shouldn't participate in, but that should be enough. She doesn't need to paint it with soot and blood, and us Pagans too, to make the point.

A friend of mine celebrates only Sundays, because she says she is not Jewish, so she cannot celebrate the Jewish feasts, and she is not Pagan, so she cannot celebrate the Pagan feasts. The Sundays in her home are lovely. She truly has "Christmas the year around", once a week :-)

Fashion magazines flying their true colors

Thousands of people know everything about this already, I just learned about it today.

Read Josh Shahryar's wonderful article about the ins and outs of this event, to find everything you need, links to posts and so on. He has already said everything there needs to be said, so I just repeat a couple of things, because he's right. We may not allow anyone to be discriminated, mocked, disrespected, ridiculed, bashed aso because of their image, what ever this image is.
In my mind, everyone should know the litany: "age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, religion or disability". Weight should be part of this. All of these are part of your image, and judging you, having prejudices about you, believing you are "this" or "that", because you are a woman, middle-aged, fat, European, white, heterosexual, Social Liberal and Pagan, is xenophobia and - as ageist, weightist, and the other words created to express one special prejudice are simply different words to express the same thing - racism.

Yes, Maura Kelly. You are a racist. The race you are hostile towards, the race you have prejudices against, the race you hate, is the "race" of fat people.
After all, there are no "human races" anyway, only people with different color skin, so why not call people of different shapes and sizes races too, so that you can be called with the word that has all the correct associations and connotations already attached.
"Weightist" or Sizeist" says absolutely nothing. Racist says everything.


Ok, what is this all about?

There is "a sit-com with two fat people falling in love with each other".

I adore Melissa. I love Sookie in Gilmore Girls. I don't know Billy, and I haven't seen one minute of the series, all I've seen is the... uh, what's they're called... I had the word on my tongue... you know, the pictures from a movie or tv show that are not moving... stills? Sounds right. Some stills from the series. Looks cute.
I also like the premise - two fat people meet at OA and find out they really like each other and start dating.

Now, "some viewers aren't comfortable watching intimacy between two plus-sized actors."
Oh? Racists don't like watching their hate object behave like all the other people. Facing them with their prejudices, hatred and bigotry makes them feel uncomfortable. So what? Now, I haven't seen the show, so I don't know what the "fat jokes" are, but sounds to me it's fat people laughing on their own expense, and every fat person (50-60% of the general audience, and probably up to 90% when it comes to this specific show) understands exactly what they are talking about. Frankly, I find it hard to believe Melissa and Billy would agree to do a racist show about fat people. But - as I said, I haven't seen any of it, so I can't tell.

“I didn’t take it as making fun at all, and I think I’m really sensitive to that stuff.”
-- Melissa McCarthy about Mike & Molly

Nevertheless, I don't think anyone is forcing anyone watch anything from tv. If you're not "comfortable" watching something, turn the tv off or change the channel!

Marie Claire's editor, Joanna Coles, read the report and got worried. "Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?" she asked one of her staff members (above mentioned Maura Kelly), who started researching the issue, even though
a) she doesn't watch tv, so her opinion is of no value to anyone, and
b) she is a fat-racist, so she would definitely feel "uncomfortable" to watch "overweight people making out on television".
I wonder if any Marie Claire staff member watches television much, we know that Joanna and Maura don't.

Maura's first reaction was that Melissa and Billy are "obese", "with rolls and rolls of fat". Perhaps she doesn't understand that even when they are playing characters, they are not wearing fat suits. It's their own fat. I wonder if Maura would tell this to Melissa to her face. I hope not. Perhaps Maura is just one of these socially incompetent people without boundaries, who thinks being rude is being honest. Don't know. Don't much care to know either.

Also, a show with a premise of two fat people MEETING AT OVEREATERS ANOMYMOUS cannot possibly be said to PROMOTE obesity. Dear Maura, find out what OA is, go to a couple of meetings (even when it means you would need to sit in a room with "downright obese" people "with rolls and rolls of fat". But it wouldn't bother you, as you're not some sizeist jerk, right?)


So - Maura finds it "aesthetically displeasing" to watch fat people. I find it "aesthetically displeasing" to watch very skinny people, like Callista Flockheart, but I loved Ally McBeal. I didn't watch the series to see "beautiful people" but to enjoy the social situations and to laugh at the comical everyday situations that I am familiar with, even when I am not a lawyer working in Boston.
Did I feel uncomfortable watching Callista's skinny arms and neck? Yes. I cringe every time I see people who are so thin they are barely anything but skin on bones. It cannot be healthy. But then I forgot all about it, because who am I to tell Callista she's too skinny, she must be anorectic, she cannot be healthy and happy, how sad it is that she lets her chase of unrealistic beauty ideals ruin her life, and so on and so forth. After all, I don't know. Maybe she just happens to be skinny. Maybe she is healthy and happy and quite pleased with her life as it is, just as everyone else in the world.


I don't think skinny, anorectic bitches have any right to give "weight loss advice" to fat people, Maura, just as childless people have right to tell anyone how to raise their kids. I know just as much of "nutrition" as you do, and the only weight loss method worth knowing and following is the Swedish 4M - "mer motion, mindre mat". That is "more exercise, less food". It doesn't matter what you eat, just eat less. It doesn't matter how you exercise, just do more of it. No counting of calories, reading labels, learning things like "high fructose corn syrup" and worrying. Simple and effective.

I suppose you could get some points for your "concern" for my well-being, but when I know it's only to save you from the "esthetically unpleasing" sights, you, poor woman, have to see every day, it kind of makes me not care.

For your information, Maura, I weight over 200 pounds and I'm physically perfectly healthy. My mental health problems are due to idiots who think they have "right" to express any prejudiced, hateful crap they think, with no reason to THINK before they open their nasty mouths, and it is people like this that are personally responsible for majority of obesity problems that is "costing your country far more in terms of all the related health problems you are paying for, by way of your insurance". I really wish you'd learn one day that bullying causes the same psychological reaction as torture, and PTSD is costing every country far more in term of all the related health problems than everything else together, as it is one of the main causes in most of them. 90% of all fat people are fat because they are trying to comfort themselves by eating, because food is their only friend and the only luxury they can afford, not because they are lazy gluttons.

Also, Maura, I am married to a man I love, who loves me. How about you, ms "living flirtatiously" since April 2009?

Really, how happy are you? You should be really, really, really happy, because you're not fat, and it's only fat people who are unhappy... or? Don't you think happiness has more to do with your attitudes and thoughts than your image? Even though magazines with "unhealthy obsession of physical perfection", like Marie Claire- which you are a part of - try to make us feel bad for being fat, and succeed too, don't you think the overall happiness doesn't come from your scales, your new handbag or a boyfriend, but from inside you?

I can have compassion to you with your problems with eating disorder, but you don't seem to have any understanding of the eating disorder that hasn't even got a fancy, medical name like anorexia, orthorexia, bulimia (hyperorexia - overeating in Greek is not the name of the eating disorder overeating, but bulimia...). In Marie Claire there are articles about eating disorders - like yours - but to overeaters all you offer is diet and exercise advice. Did that make you stop undereating? Did the understanding that you are damaging yourself make you stop doing it? Did your father's concern stop you? No. You had to be taken in to a closed ward for four months to make you stop, and you STILL after all these years and all that you went through, are only "living sober", a day at a time. You are all the time aware of eating, the weight issue is in your back of your head all the time, you look at people - you yourself included - and value them by their weight. You just ASSUME things about people based on what you think about their weight, and think that justifies your racism? I'm sorry, but ASSUMING people are "damaging their bodies" has nothing to do with aesthetics, and you did say you find fat people "aesthetically displeasing".

Then to Joanna.

Leah Chernikoff, the associate editor of Fashionista, thinks people expressing their feelings about Maura's stupidity are PILLORING her. I didn't know what that is, so I looked it up in the dictionary. My dictionary says: "to expose to public derision,ridicule, or abuse". Abuse? 
I think Maura put herself in the pillory through open expose of her racist ideas, and she really deserves every verbal rotten tomato people throw at her. Really, her intentions might be good and her heart in right place, but all that means nothing, when one is a racist and speaks up for one's racist ideas.


Anyway, NOW Joanna says she is "concerned about a show that makes fun of large people", even though one gets the impression that she was more concerned about people needing to watch large people being human beings in public television. I think she would have reacted if Maura had misquoted her in her blog entry... don't you?

"Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?"
- Joanna Coles, to Maura Kelly

What ever.

BTW, this is me.

P.S. It might be possible that this is just a publicity stunt. *sigh*
Yeah, irk the people, sacrifice a couple of them, most of the people don't give a dime about human rights and civil liberties, and don't kind of understand that even though you HAVE THE RIGHT to say what ever, it might not BE RIGHT to say it, and you also have the RESPONSIBILITY to take the consequences. The consequences for a racist openly blurting her racist opinions are "public pilloring".

Human value of trolls and sock puppets

Trolls and sock puppets are two classes of dehumanized people on-line. Classifying people as either, and treating them accordingly is not good for your soul.

There has been a list of "different breeds of trolls" published on-line, and some even in forums that call themselves "spiritual".
It's worth to note that in these forums there very rarely, if ever, are real trolls, but as one of the commentators mentioned, "some people who we would not see as a troll, but a problematic person" get "dealt with and removed" from the forum... that is, frozen from the community. Ostracized. Bullied with "justification", for being "disruptive", asking uncomfortable questions, pointing out the pink elephant in the middle of the room and the naked emperor, demanding their rights, or even worse, others' rights...
You know these people - usually called "revolutionists", "dissidents" and "civil rights activists"... :->.
They just don't fit well with "normal people", they make noise, rock the boat, shake the tree... you can't ignore them, so you have to get them kicked out. Otherwise they might just change something, and change is no good... no good at all.

People who post things to get attention are not trolls.
One is a troll ONLY when one posts "inflammatory, provocative, extraneous, or off-topic messages" "with the primary intent of... ...disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

So - How to treat "trolls" and "sock puppets"?

People who post "inflammatory, provocative, extraneous, or off-topic messages" are to be ignored. Don't feed the trolls.

BUT... be very careful when trying to recognize trolls. I have seen too many innocent people accused of being trolls, bullied, harassed and ostracized, harmed for no good reason, that I'd rather see one troll get away unpunished than one non-troll being starved to death for the fear of trolls.

People who have created themselves other identities - so what?
I really don't understand what's the problem with people who want to live in a make-believe world. It doesn't matter if they say they are a lawyer when they are not, or a monk, or a witch, or Jesus or the President of USA. Go ahead, have a make-believe day, and play pretend. It doesn't harm anyone, and no-one should listen to one person more than another anyway.
Besides, this is internet. I could just as well be a middle-aged fat lady from Finland as a thin teenager from Guatemala or an old Japanese man, or the President of USA, Jesus or Dalai Lama. How could you really know?

And if someone wants to run a one man's show with ten different identities, go ahead. It's not that majority rules, is it? You are not more right just because you have a lot of fans. Now, if you have problems standing against the majority push... then it's really YOUR problem, isn't it?

Usually people who do this have no life, or they believe their real life isn't worth living, and it might well be so. Isn't it good that they find some reason to live? That they find the life they want to live somewhere? That they can create a wonderful world they want to live in, have a mask from behind they dare to say what they want to say, to express their opinion at least some way?

Who wants a world where everyone agrees? I don't. I don't care if the person who disagrees is a professor or journalist or a politician or a lawyer or tv personality or anything, or pretending to be one. But perhaps I'm just unusually strong with my convictions and faith.

Ok, you're a "liar". So what? As dr. House says, everyone lies. That you have invented yourself a background story shouldn't matter at all, because your background shouldn't matter. Frankly, I think people spent too much time in hunting trolls than discussing what matters. If someone wants to discuss using several different personas, what's it to me? Nothing.

It really is best for you peace of mind, soul, spirituality, quality as a human being, to treat trolls, sock puppets, wolves in sheep's clothing and all the other varieties of internet forum life forms with respect and kindness. That's really the best way of dealing with trolls.

About the "Classic Troll Tactics":

First, I repeat. People who lie, invent stories and friends, and get "temper tantrums" and are "drama queens" are attention seekers, not trolls. Trolls might do what they do to get attention, but their primary intention is to create havoc, sabotage discussions and cause upset feelings, irritation and fights.
If a person invents a background story to make them experts in the topic of discussion,  he/she is not a troll.
If a person talks about the issue at hands, he/she is not a troll.
If a person creates second, third and nth persona, and all of them discuss about the topic, he/she is not a troll.

#1: How does it harm you to let the person think he managed to cheat everyone? The cheater might think you're stupid? So what? You're not the smartest person on the planet anyway, otherwise you wouldn't be on-line...
"Ok, so you made up this elaborate story as a joke? Doesn't seem very funny nor smart to me... don't you think it would be better that you were just yourself and said what you think, in a normal manner? But, sure, you're a joker. Haha. Next issue."

#2: So someone creates a sock puppet account so that there's at least someone on your side. There shouldn't be a need for a sock puppet. A third party, neutral bystander, a friend SHOULD get into the discussion, imaginary, if no real ones are present. Frankly, attacking one person in a group, even if this one person had done something that deserves punishment (which impersonating someone or several someones or lying about one's background - in a debate forum - is IMHO nothing that deserves punishment.
If someone's family and friends create a sock puppet account to defend the "troll"... the atmosphere of the group must be really scary, if people don't dare to defend their family/friends without masks. Really sad, folks. Again, not the troll's problem, actually, but the group's problem.

#3: People do have little brothers. I don't, and my family would not log in as me anyway. But, when me and my husband shared a computer, every now and then we forgot to log out and posted something under the other one's identity. It was rare, but it did happen.
So, again, how is it going to harm you to actually believe the person? In no way what so ever.

#4: A liar can't stop lying. Again, sad, but doesn't make the liar less a human nor less valuable.

#5: I have left groups "for ever". I returned a couple of times, because I was repeatedly asked by my friends. My husband has done this. Several groups I have left "for ever". I am not a member of any group I have left "for ever".
BTW, some people who couldn't separate me from my husband, claimed that I was my husband's sock puppet and accused me of being a troll, because "I" had said I'm going to leave for good this time". It was my husband who left and he did leave for good. I never said anything of the kind, and I didn't leave either. (Except that now I have left the group in practice. I still have an account, but I haven't been there, like for ever ;-))
So - if a person threatens to leave, perhaps they are being serious. Perhaps they have friends who persuade them to reconsider their decision and come back. It really isn't nice to mock them and call them drama queens.

#6: It's not unusual for people to get angry when poked all the time, accused for things they haven't done, mocked, harassed or ignored. It's pretty usual that people who get angry shout and get violent. Call it a "temper tantrum" if you like, but - as no-one can really shout anything at the internet - USING ALL CAPITALS DOESN'T REALLY MAKE MORE NOISE THAN all lower case letters. No-one can really throw anything at you, break your leg or neck, beat you or kill you over the internet. Perhaps you have deserved every expletive thrown at your direction. Frankly, if you write crap like list of trolls and troll techniques and how to bully people you call trolls, you have deserved everything coming your way.

#7: And who are you to decide whether an apology is sincere or insincere?
If someone apologizes, you will accept it. Otherwise you are a rotten egg.
Also, just because someone apologizes, and it was sincere, doesn't mean that the person never again does the thing he/she apologized for. We are all only human, we all make mistakes. There is a lot of psychology behind every troll, sock puppet and every other label people are labeled with. We all have out luggage, shadows, triggers and fears, and sometimes we fall back into the dysfunctional behavior. 99 times out of 100 it can be explained with something else than "he's a troll"; are due to misunderstanding and all in all, petty incidents.

"Virtual Experts" are not trolls. How to deal with those people? Ignore them. Or give them what they want - attention - so that you can continue with the important stuff. These people are usually self-going, so it's enough to post every other day "how interesting", "I'm speechless", "unbelievable", "amazing", or another such thing... expressing exactly what you are thinking, but allowing the attention whore to get what he wants. Attention doesn't cost you much. You don't even need to read what they are writing.

"The emotionally immature person, however, has low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence and consequently feels insecure; to counter these feelings of insecurity they will spend a large proportion of their lives creating situations in which they become the center of attention. It may be that the need for attention is inversely proportional to emotional maturity, therefore anyone indulging in attention-seeking behaviors is telling you how emotionally immature they are."
- Bully on-line

I know I'm not suppose to be anyone's therapist, but I still think everyone deserves to be heard. Even attention seekers. Just remember that anyone can be an attention seeker, even your best internet friend. Don't believe everything people tell you, and never get into fights. Not even to "defend" your friend. Defend him/her by telling her/him to leave the discussion too. If she/he doesn't there might be some attention seeking going on.

"It is important to distinguish between dissenters and actual Contrarian Trolls".
Seeking out forums just to disagree with the people is not a sign of a troll.

Being for socialism, disarmament, believing USonians to be generally ignorant and arrogant people and believing all people "without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status" are equal and worth respect and tolerance, are not signs of trolls.

People who "can be worthwhile forum participants" "when the spirit moves" are not trolls either.

"Philotrolls" are not trolls at all, just people who use Schopenhaueric Techniques, because they don't care about the issues being discussed, all they care about is being right.

Being in love with one and one's brilliant intelligence doesn't make one a troll either. It makes one an egomaniac.

Not being able to express one well in writing doesn't make one a troll either. Some people just talk too much, and even when it's really boring, it's not done with malicious intend to disrupt the flow of the forum.

That you vehemently drive your point in a discussion, even though you could know more - a lot more - about the subject, doesn't make you a troll.

Being very passionate and monomaniac about an issue, even aggressive, doesn't make you a troll.


Being an annoying know-it-all and eager to proof it to every one and all, doesn't make you a troll.


Being delusional, or mythomaniac doesn't make you a troll either. Annoying, sure, but not a troll.


A venue of vultures, a kennel of mutts, a bully and his groupies (so often the bully is male and the groupies females), are not trolls either. Just people behaving badly in groups.
Being a nuisance because you want to be with your idol doesn't make you a troll either.
Being a holier-than-thou "Christian",  judging and condemning everyone around you, doesn't make you a troll either.

Being paranoid and/or envious and criticizing and questioning everything and everyone around you doesn't make you a troll either.

I have witnessed witch hunts - or should I say troll hunts - where innocent people get lynched, because someone decided to make something petty into a Big Thing.
I have myself been the victim of a lying, cheating bitch with vengeance for imaginary crimes.
I have had my membership in forum deleted because I was thought to be a sock puppet's sock puppet.
People have claimed I'm my husband, and he is me, and several other people have been mixed into the soup too. In the end some paranoid individuals didn't believe anyone was who they said they were. That became the whole raison d'etre for these people, trying to figure out who was whose sock puppet and who was a real person and this became the only thing this people ever talked about.

Would the fact that I'm not doing anything trolls do for the reasons trolls do things prove to the people who accuse me of being a troll, that I'm not a troll? Of course not! They have decided that I am a troll, and nothing I say or do will change their minds.

If you don't defend yourself, you are admitting they are right.
If you do defend yourself, you are a sore looser and lying and trying to use the "classic troll tactics" to cover your ass.

Nothing will ever make anyone believe anything they don't want to believe.

P.S. According to this genius, I'm a "YerA Troll": "One of the most ill-tempered of troll species, YerATrolls are characterized by a childish need for attention disguised as cynical nobility and pretensions of being "above it all.""
"whining" and "complaining about the time and energy expended by Troll Bashers on troll-hunting", "pointing fingers at everyone but trolls", "demanding that their opinions be granted the significance the YerA Troll believes they deserve" :-D
"the fact that they're engaging in trolling by picking fights with everyone else"
- that is, trying to get the forum back to what people are supposed to be discussing about and stop discussing about off topic issues, like troll hunts, arbitrary accusations of trolling, speculations on who might be a troll and "exposing" trolls, that is, anyone who disagrees with the troll hunters :-D
Heaven forbid that this Experienced, Venomous, Hateful and Abusive Troll Basher would miss some troll bashing time and well deserved honor, praise and gratitude for his relentless obsession with keeping the forums free from trolls (that is, dissidents, socialists and Europeans. They are all gay and hoplophobic anyway. And they hate USA.)

Just accuse US of "childish need for attention" and being "self-righteous" and "hypocritical" trolls :-D That will surely divert the attention from YOUR trolling and attention seeking, mr Trollhunter Besserwisser Extraordinaire. :-D

P.P.S. It's not "the logical fallacy of appeals to authority", if you ARE an authority in the subject...

P.P.P.S. "Troll Bashers appear to possess an almost pathological hatred for trolls"
I don't remember the quote right now, but it goes something like this: If your enemy makes you angry, you have lost the fight. Emotions make you blind, mr Troll-finder General.

"Troll Bashers expose trolls whenever they see them", that is  they "expose" people they believe to be trolls, usually people who disagree with them, but are not trolls, because according to this long and faulty list of trolls, ANYONE can be classified as troll, even if they are just annoying.

"Troll Bashers believe any amount of retaliatory abuse is justified"
Yeah... "torture is ok, because the object is not a good person. I would never torture a good person, because I am a good person." Abuse is NEVER justified.