I just had a though about Heaven's Gate and other suicide cults.
 

So I was reading about Heaven's Gate and I had a though: The followers have no idea that they were wrong about their ideas, as they are dead. It's a little hard to describe what I mean, but what I'm trying to say is that as they died believing they would be taken up to a UFO, there's absolutely no way they could have known it was all bullshit, even after they killed themselves. Let me know if you kinda get what I'm saying. I'll try and think of a better way to phrase it.

That's a pretty nifty pic.

I took it last Saturday and didn't see the ufo in it until tonight, so it seemed rather appropriate.

That's a raindrop.

Looks like it could be an obese bird.

Misidentified is still unidentified in my book.

whatever rocks your boat.

Zero people all want to believe certain things in order to fit in, it is just a normal process of human beings.

I agree with you there, two symbols. Granted when it gets to the point where you kill yourself then that is totally retarded.

curses on yr missing commas and mathematical names!!!!!1112323580680

Well yeah, but by then most people are deluded, and their cognitive skills have gone down the drain. You know look at the Spanish Inquisitions, or more modern Islamist Fascist, or American religious right.

Yeah, I spose it's a bit similar to suicide bombers, isn't it?

Grammar nazi.

No grammar for you!

Pssht I am indie.

i almost posted "learn to math," cause i thought you were saying

Zero (the number) people all want to....

















...i guess that would make me a math nazi, huh?

Yes, liiike 'otally.

one year?

Yeah

I like how you changed your sig, NAZI!!!!


This is directed at mirror dash.

Yeah I noticed that too haha.

I still love that nazi mirror dash.

Edit- I just realized there are missing comas, so fuck you.

this was a cool topic and it was ruined by prince

Go on msn, Dan.

???

symbol guy

Just don't forget your Nike's.

lets twist this whole thing on its head. if they drank the koolaid (which has ironically become part of the english language) they knew that they weren't going to physically walk onto some sort of space ship. however, religious people, myself included, tend to believe in supranatural, metaphysical, spiritual realms and existences, where the physical is irrelevant. that being said, who is to say these people were so deceived, in the sense of, who is to say they were looking to board some sort of physical space craft to begin with? further, they not being here to explain, who is to say they did not make it such a space craft, even if only in some sort of spiritual sense. after all, billions of people live and die believing there is much more to it all, and could we as the human race in general, be that wrong?

sometimes it is not always to fit in, many millions of people believe in things that are quite socially unacceptable, or that no one else quite shares their specific interpretations...

i don't believe in nothin except the recuperative powers of rock n roll

Did I ever tell ya that this here jacket represents a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom?

but which kind of rock and roll? chuck berry? fats domino? Megadeath? music can be more divisive then religion sometimes.

I just want to point out that at Jonestown the koolaid was drunk with machine guns pointed at theirs and their childrens heads. Children and infants were given injections. It was not "suicide". It was not voluntary. They practiced drinking the koolaid several times. It always reminds me of how the US Govt had their children practice duck and cover. Practice for mass murder.

THIS IS A SNAKESKIN JACKET! And for me it's a symbol of mah individuality, and mah belief...







in personal freedom.

We all will die thinking something will or will not happen.

Have you read The Death of Ivan Ilyich?

not if you die by surprise

oh yes, I am well aware of the violence at Jonestown, though I am slightly skeptical of the testimonies of the "survivors" who ran off in the woods to watch their families die from a better vantage point (ie, they might have embelleshed the amount of coercion in order to exonerate their own senses of guilt and despair), I was referring to the Heavens gate people.

I have always had this theory.

HUmans perception of the flow of time can be altered by many many things, frfrom personal body chemistry to drugs to meditation etc.

when one is happy and enjoying something time flies, and when one is suffering or bored time trickles.

well, I think that all of mystical teaching and religious teaching and wisdom is always guided to having the individual lead a good life so that they feel certain that they will go to a "heaven" f some sort, or achieve nirvana or enlightenment etc.
opposite of that is the instruction and indoctrination that if life is led badly, and without shame or forgiveness or redemption, then you will either go to a "hell" or just be forbiden from the grace of god or enlightenment or nirvana, whatever the individual teaching is does not matter.

Having said this, the statements "on earth as it is in heaven" makes sense. The afterlife is what you believe it will be, but not because it is real and actual, but because as you die, as your life is extinguished, time dilates in an exponentially increasing manner, so the last thought of a human as they pass is extended infninitely.

a person who believes in heaven and honestly feels they have led a good life can die without fear, without doubts weighing on their conscience. This "bliss" is experienced exponentially as everlasting grace, or oneness with god/universe, or entering heaven, or achieving nirvana.

If one believs, as the Hebrew fatih does, that after death comes an eternal dreamles slumber, then as one dies,one expects to do this and the death becomes an infnite falling into sleep, which for most people is quite pleasant, if not ecstatic.

If one believes that they have not achieved redemption, or if they know that they ave led a wicked life, with miore bad than good, and are weighed by guilt and such feelings, negative feelings, or anger, etc., then the last seconds of life are an exponetial infinity of that emotion, thereby feeling like eternal "hell" or eternal damnation or eternal separation from the grace of a god or gods.

this would probably apply to death by disease, or in old age, or by accident as in "life flashing before your eyes" as well, and if that life is joyous, with minimal harm aimed at anyone with maximum good directed at the world and at people then....


i don;t know how else to put it. I have thought about it a lot. i think i will write it all down.

Sorry, I made this thread from an Atheist point of view. Hope I didn't offend or anything.

Rob, If I weren't having breakfast, I'd read what you just wrote.

not at all, I was just trying to give a little perspective from the people who killed themselves... after all, it seems they believed it, and what is important sometimes in understanding events, is not what the truth was, but what people believed to be the truth. for example, millions of people live everyday believing in the so-called American dream, even though we can historically and stastically prove that it is a full myth, and yet, it is the motivation for millions to participate in the American system every day, simply because they continue to believe. belief is a very powerful force, much more so then accuracy.