Imago said:

Hey... I wouldn't be complaining if I was INVITED places!!!!!

pardonme4livin said:

:blameKaren&Carrie:

Imago said:

Hey... I wouldn't be complaining if I was INVITED places!!!!!

pardonme4livin said:

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

EverSoulicious said:

You obviously didn't read my post on the other thread...

pardonme4livin said:

yes I did and I responded and I'm sorry but that is too funny, let it go Ken lol.

EverSoulicious said:

HereToRockYourWorld said:

I'm sensin I'll only find out about the trip after it's taken place

That's a party.

So, what did the Scientologists have to say about the dangers of dogmatic thinking?

Finally, his wife, sensing that this conversation would probably not end any time soon...

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Well, it's a moral/ethical issue I've struggled with for awhile. If there were more places like this restaurant though, I'd be able to at pursue a 5-day-on/2-day off Vegan schedule
[Edited 10/28/07 9:13am]
[Edited 10/28/07 9:14am]

I planned on this being a solitary lunch so that I could connect with the complexity of myself--

okay here is my serious advice. attach a webcam to your head and live-blog these adventures of yours.

i would pay cash to have been there with you during that conversation

Stax said:

ROFLMAO! I am throwing that into my sig!

CarrieMpls said:

Come back and we'll eat our way around town some more.

HereToRockYourWorld said:

I may have to take you up on that!

CarrieMpls said:

I would love that.

Muse2NOPharaoh said:

but I'm serious. I want to know what they said.

Stax said:

ok, boo

Since you're making me relive this mess, I might as well try to summerize it to the best of my recollection.


After a long ass diatribe about how it takes some dozen times the amount of corn to feed a cow as it would to feed a human, etc. etc. or some shit like that, the conversation went from responsible actions for the world, to 'auditing training' to solve one's own problems.
Being that I'm vaguely familiar with their auditing process, I went for the jugular, and asked them:

1) What is the spiritual goal of scientology
2) Can one practice these principles on a mundane level with pursuing such spiritual goals
3) Please tell me this in one paragraph's worth of words

Well, they didn't get too far into their explaination before somehow the conversation went to what is the spiritual goal of Budhism--what is the essence of Budhism.
I told them that it all revolves around the understanding of Dependent Origination (for those of you who don't know what that is, you can google it, or pull up my brilliant Vida Guerra thread that breaks it down, yet somehow got it's ass moved into this forum ).
Anyways, I have no clue how those fuckers got me rambling, but I tried to explain that the jewish Philospher, Spinoza, in his work, "Ethics", tried to explain objects in relation to each other and thus God, and how each of these relationships went on to infinity, etc. etc. Anyways, I related it to the fact that he was actually confirming a principle of Dependent Origination from the other side of the looking glass, as ultimately the concept revolves around how there are infinite "things", but that the infinity of dependencies proves there is no actually "thing" to grasp.
Anyways, I then cut myself off and said that the foundations for the Holy 8-fold path are based on Dependent Origination. But that they are not doctrinal imperatives--they are merely training principles.

Then they said that their practices aren't doctrinal either, but training principles. That is, that no foundations upon what they believe are not tenets agreed upon by authoritative bodies and handed down... rather that each person has to determine what it is that is plagueing them, and they are guided to discover what it is that they need to do to adress them.

This somehow went into a anti-Catholic diatribe, glazed over with the usual politically correct, "I'm not saying that's wrong--just a different way of thinking" rhetoric.

They then went on to say that this doctrinal imperatives have a negative residual effect of causing people to close their minds to other's who do not share the same principles. (this is were a brilliant 15 minute long conversation about sweating, toxins, etc. came into play. Apparently, scientologist believe that sweat can remove toxins from the body that cause serius ailments, and they have prescribed methods for doing this). But they looped it back to how even though these methods have been proven to work on coal minors/firemen in Kazikstan(sp?), because it is attached to L. Ron Hubbard's name, it gets shunned here. People, I'm not clever enough to make this shit up

Anyways, I did sympathize with them, as when Richard Gere says something stupid, it's never projected to be indicative of what all other Buddhists think. But when Tom Cruise fucks up, well, when scientology is brought up, Tom Cruises is always roped in. I swear, I think they got teary eyed hearing me speak about this with so much compassion


oh lawd, I'm a really really bad, vain, person.




[Edited 10/28/07 18:59pm]

Imago said:

thanks for taking the time to write that up. it sounds like a refreshing conversation.



So, did you ask them if Church's alien sex rituals are hard on their relationship?

Stax said:

What do I look like? Whitely Strieber with slanted eyes?





no, don't answer that.

Imago said:

Whitely Striber? Was she a character on A Different World?

HereToRockYourWorld said:

How hedonistic would it be to go to Seattle and do nothing but eat for 4 days? Even if I'm eating vegan?

CarrieMpls said:

Well, shit. What is it that we do in MPLS? I guess we interrupt our eating with periods of drinking and sleeping and dancing. We'll just skip the dancing, and maybe the drinking. Eating and sleeping? That's just survival. You can come to Seattle and survive with me for a few days.