Have a listen, hope you see what I see...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY37l4PDsao&feature=related

You don't have to agree, just understand my point of view.

Here's an earlier cover of the item - only performed that once BTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waV9et1AfDo

Thanks JT...

I'm sorry, but to me that song is a manifestation of nihilism, and plays right into the totalitarian game.

Not at all. It expresses a beautiful, if unattainable, dream. Imagine that.

Thankyou for this Pakar. It really was a touching clip, and I am aware of several Emmanuels in the middle east. They are a sad victim of humans who lack a moral education, and I'm not just talking about his blood parents, but I'm also talking about the uneducated (the so called 'religious') people who run the countries in the middle east.

However, what can I do? These things will continue. You know I agree with Lennon. Imagine a world with no religion, seeing what religion has produced in the last 200 years, I would have NO hesitation to do what you did Pakar and give up on God altogether. But that is EXACTLY why I, as a man who does have his senses about him, chose to dedicate my life to the Bahai Faith, together with my fellow community members, we are striving every day to create a world withOUT 'religion'(in the traditional sense)......a new era has dawned my friend, there will be NO misinterpretations of the Bahai Writings, the love that is being created will embrace the whole world and I'm deeply proud to be part of that loving reconstruction.

No free access to heaven. No do as I say, not what I do. No free access to a thousand virgins in the afterlife if you kill the so called infidels. No, I am the way and the only way. Just pure and unadulterated JUSTICE. The guidance is clear, incredibly clear, you put in the hard hours to build loving relationships, build loving neighbourhoods and communities, you get the rewards in this world and the next. I'm proud to be part of a community that recognizes that you don't get something for nothing, but you get more by showing more selflessly servitude to ALL who may cross your path

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

Kam

Woland, I would love to know what you think is a solution to the SAME problems that have plagued humanity since the beginning of time when social cohesion started taking form???

Kam

Does your post assume that there is "a solution"?

I'd like to put out there that the question of whether it would be "better" for the world if there were a God (as some believe) vs. if there were no God (as others believe) has no bearing (as far as I know) on the question of whether or not God actually exists.

Yes it does

Kam

Why?

Why what?

Kam

Why the assumption that there is a solution?

I see it.....I have vision and everything within that vision has come true so far, so I guess it's a good indication that the future vision may well be accurate too. Plus, I live the solution and it's d.a.r.n workable

Kam

I'm sorry, Bob, I think the song expresses a bleak, post-modernist nightmare, not a dream.

I was under the impression that it was about removing the hooks set in the imaginations of others; the promise of heaven (if you do as told) and the threat of hell (if you don't offer satisfactory compliance), the driver of an "afterlife" used to direct behavior in ways that don't serve in the here and now (living for today), national boundaries as used to justify war for the benefit of leaders and disrespect to others (no countries) ...

If I can find the time later, Jonathan, I will go over this depressing lyric line by line with you.

OK, I found a minute. Let's take it stanza by stanza:



That stanza expresses one of the simple appeals of atheism. It posits a world without consequences. The appeal of a world without judgment and without either reward or punishment, is that you can do whatever appeals to you at the moment, without any over-riding moral control. "Nothing is true, everything is permissible." Or as the Marquess de Sade put it, " . . . j'y suis au bout du monde, soustrait à tous les yeux et sans qu'il puisse devenir possible à aucune créature d'arriver à moi; plus de freins, plus de barrières."

"Living for today" means no thought of ethics, morals, but only the hedonistic, libertine pursuit of immediate pleasures.

Next stanza:



This stanza continues the theme of no values, no principles. The eradication of "countries" means the eradication of personal identity. Stripped of all of the particularities of your individuality, your language, your nationality, your cultural traditions, you are just a robot. "Nothing to kill or die for" because there is nothing meaningful, nothing worthwhile, nothing beyond the immediate pleasures of the hedonistic libertine solipsist. Defend your family? Why bother. But as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "“I have a dream! To be free at last! Free at last! Free at last. And if a man has nothing to die for, Then his life is worth nothing." And he also said, “A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”

The Lennonist has nothing to die for because his life is a depressed nihilistic pursuit of pleasure to distract himself from the emptiness of a meaningless existence.

Next stanza:



This is another naive and antinomian inversion. Hunger can only be assuaged when there are possessions, when there is meaningful economic activity. The dream of "no possessions" means in practice, the "tragedy of the commons," with no responsibility for anything. Reducing people to the condition of wild animals will not end greed or hunger. Without hunger, without desire, without greed, there would be no striving, there would be no aspirations, there would be no life. Lennon describes a flat, dead, nihilistic condition of abolute entropy.

This song is really one of the most anti-life, anti-culture, anti-human lyrics ever written. Amazing how the psychopathology of a depressed individual resonates so strongly with the well-meaning and naive.

All that just means freedom.

And that I think is where we differ...

You believe we will destroy ourselves given that freedom.

I believe we will prosper beyond our wildest dreams.

But to you, yours...