Dear Tony,

Agreed - There's no mystical energy field that controls your destiny.
To the extent that destiny exists, you are its sole master.

<<I've seen a lot of strange stuff>>

Have you directly seen your own ears?

There is no way one could ever see God because one can only see that which stands apart from himself/herself.

What it takes to know God, is to know yourself.
What it takes to know yourself, is to cease looking outward for indirect sensual perception.

//There is no way one could ever see God because one can only see that which stands apart from himself/herself.

What it takes to know God, is to know yourself.
What it takes to know yourself, is to cease looking outward for indirect sensual perception.//

You're talking nonsense again and way off-topic as usual. Give it a rest. And watch Star Wars. It's good for you.

Toni Lavis,
Have you really seen life? You have seen the effects of the living, have you seen the substance of their motivation? You might have seen the chemical activity of the brain, but have you seen the reasoning? You have only seen the out-workings of a persons reasoning. No two persons reason the same for their actions based on their percepthe message.tions.

Do words or ideas have a physicality? They only have a physicality when applied in reality. One plus one equal two is an idea but only when one object is added to another are there two objects in reality. Have you seen the physicality of words floating in the air to the ear of another? Yes there is a vibration caused in the air, but only the mind can determine the message and the motivation of the speaker. Animals can hear the same message and their brain receive but do they understand? It takes more than chemistry and physics to communicate an idea, they are just the wires to transfer the idea.

And you're off topic ON YOUR OWN THREAD. Perhaps all the armchair philosophers who are going to solve the great materialism/spiritualism question once and for all could start a new thread and carry on with their navel gazing over there, and try to stay on topic on this thread?

The Bishop of Cloyne's theory of Immaterialism shall not interfere with the enjoyment derived from the concept of my pet unicorn!

"No two persons reason the same for their actions based on their perceptions."

Now... try to correlate that positional statement with the point of your thread topic which is to interfere with the actions of others for reasons sufficient to them and having no apparent consequence to you, Josephus.

Dear Tony,

Please allow me to explain why spirituality is most relevant to this topic:

The "Kids Help" group, encourage children to make a big deal of their gender and sexual-preferences, to the extent that they claim that "sexuality is about ... who you are".

This is the materialistic paradigm, based on the ridiculous assumption that we are bodies, hence our good lies in fulfilling the desires of those bodies. Those who follow this paradigm are destined for a life of frustration on the chase, constantly believing, all the way to their graves, that "I'm not sexually satisfied yet, but the failure of my last encounter was just an accident and the next sexual encounter will surely fulfil me".

Spirituality counters that approach and teaches that we are not bodies, hence we need not become slaves to their instinctual desires and suffer the ensuing misery.