Subject: Re: A religion for cyborgs
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 23:08:54 +0800


Eric,

Sign me up.

Glen.

PS I found the below very interesting. My driving style (amongst other
things) leads to many instances of Ataraxia:)...

> Coming to shore, you are aware of a different feel.  While in the water,
> you knew only fear, panic and terror.  Now we know a kind of quiet joy.
> I is a very different pleasure than those found in eating and drinking
> and making love, but it is complete and whole and perfectly satisfying.
> Through the grace of chance, you are alive.
> It is said that when Epicurus was young and survived a shipwreck and
> some have speculated that this is the source of his sublime and ethical
> notion of happiness.
> For in the ethics of Epicurus, it is stated that all pleasure is a good,
> but not all pleasure is desirable because it may merely lead to greater
> pain and suffering (consider the case of smoking above). Instead it is
> possible to achieve another state in which the pleasure is abiding and
> constant and it is sublime condition we should seek.  He called it
> Ataraxia or tranquillity and it is characterized by absence of pain in
> the body and absence of anxiety in the mind.
> What I also find interesting about this is that the state is exactly
> like the one identified in various religions as the state of the
> blessed.  It is typically realized by various means such as prayer and
> fasting, yoga and meditation, contemplation.