Tears Roll Down

A place for discussions that don't fit elsewhere.
Goblinboy
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Re: deleted.........

Postby Goblinboy » Wed May 17, 2006 11:33 pm

ross nolan wrote:Note Celia's "response" has been deleted in the last few minutes -- my last lines in particular will not be understood in their absence.


Ross, to put it politely, your postings are hard to understand regardless of context.

The Ravesis have gone, citing your repeated attacks on them as the reason.

Moreover, they have deleted their posts. Regardless of your opinion of their beliefs, they made a valuable contribution to the board, - it's rare to have ex-SES/SOP members with their profile and experience participating.

Now that legacy has vanished.

You, by contrast, have filled the board with a lot of words that don't seem to add up to anything very much. Moreover, you don't seem to comprehend effect of your posts on others.

If I sound disgusted, it's because I am.

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a different guest
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Postby a different guest » Wed May 17, 2006 11:56 pm

Ross ... The Ravesis have gone, citing your repeated attacks on them as the reason.


Surely his troll-like behaviour has gone too far if this is the result? But if you need another black mark against him, I believe Mike put an edict on him a while ago to never mention Aboriginal issues on these boards ever, ever again.
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Goblinboy
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Postby Goblinboy » Thu May 18, 2006 12:07 am

bella wrote:Ranting and raving will only get so far - Celia and Anton genuinely tried to express themselves here without overly antagonising anyone, despite being told they were not allowed to. If they've been run off the boards by egomaniacal ideas of "worth", the instigators should be ashamed


I agree.

bella wrote:... as should the Ravesis for being so easily cowed.


I don't agree.

I don't think any of us can readily understand what the Ravesis have been through. I believe that their candid and generous participation without anonymity was brave. Their experiences of commitment to and then leaving the SES/SOP and its effect on themselves, their family, their relationship with their community and their beliefs must be extremely hard to comprehend for anybody who has not shared those circumstances.

We all have varying levels of vulnerability. It's easy to be anonymous. It's easy to disclose your identity if you have no real connection with the SES/SOP. It's another matter to disclose your identity as an ex-SES/SOP senior member who has left.

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bonsai
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Re: deleted.........

Postby bonsai » Thu May 18, 2006 9:11 am

Goblinboy wrote:The Ravesis have gone, citing your repeated attacks on them as the reason.


I am saddened to hear that the Ravesis have left the site. It will remain a mystery to me why they were attacked in the way that they were.

I am grateful for their participation on this board as well as their extraordinary role in exposing the SES during the 80's. Without their contributions I doubt we would be making our own cases against the SES so effectively.

Bonsai

leon
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Postby leon » Thu May 18, 2006 9:13 am

ross nolan wrote:
I do not know the motivation of the Khmer Rouge - I suspect there is some sort of animism or Shinto like ancestor worship (or worship of the "ancient ways") that they admired and wanted to return to -- hence year zero.


Best not to guess.

ross nolan wrote:North Korea is definitely ancestor worship,animism and the cult of the great leader -- the leader is 'divine' which begins to look like a religion-- Buddhism is probably the most harm-less religion by leaving out most of the hallmarks of religions -- it is the closest to humanism


This may have been true regarding animism many decades ago, but not now. It is debatable if Sung is considered actually divine, and therefore more than a dictator.

Stalin killed millions of people because he "felt oppressed" ? I just can't begin to ansewer that one.

What you not getting is that religious beliefs and churches can help a lot of people.
As a quick example, you mentioned Seventh day Adventists a while back. Yes they have many questionable beliefs, and have a mode of practice I do not agree with. Yet the church provided a social focus for the many caribbean workers who came over to england in the 60's and 70's and helped keep famalies together in a very hostile climate.
You also mentioned Wittgenstein. Do you not find it striking that the writer of the Tractatus was sympathetic to religion?
Last edited by leon on Thu May 18, 2006 7:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: 'preserving knowledge'

Postby leon » Thu May 18, 2006 9:18 am

ross nolan wrote:Bella, I don't even have Discovery channel -- do you ridicule their documentaries ?

Your "preservation of knowledge" in monastries is only very partially true -- a lot of the transcription of Biblical texts was carried out on parchment previously preserved from earlier times and carrying really priceless treatises on geometry and mathematics from the Greeks .



No it's not partially true, it is true. What has copying biblical passages got to do with it?

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Ben W
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Message to the Ravesi's

Postby Ben W » Thu May 18, 2006 11:46 am

Hi Anton and Celia,

I have enjoyed and valued your contribution to this site. You have withstood sustained attacks and coped with them. You telegraphed your intention to leave and have now done so.

Thank you for your conttribution. Please keep watching, and please PLEASE keep an open mind about contributing in the future.

I wish the you the best of luck going forward and hope that you leave, with an overall positive feeling about your contribution and the response you have received.

I have PM'd you both and would very much appreciate a reply.

Best wishes
Ben
Child member of SES from around 1967 to around 1977; Strongly involved in Sunday Schools ; Five brothers and sisters went to ST V and St J in the worst years

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Free Thinker
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Postby Free Thinker » Thu May 18, 2006 3:06 pm

I suggest that we try to keep things on topic and not go off on tangents about religion that will never be satisfyingly finished. When people who don't know what they are talking about start debates about those topics, it's never pretty. Having already engaged in discussions with such people and sworn never to again, I assure you that you are wasting your time.

I am also ashamed that our board should have caused two fine, contributing members to leave, and to delete their posts at that. I don't blame them at all - if that is how they felt, they have every right to do so. But their contribution to our information and healing was priceless and I doubt we will ever have anyone else like that again.

Thank you so much, Anton and Celia, for what you did here. You know that the rest of us really appreciated and valued it and do not in any way condone how you were treated by a VERY small minority.

I think some things have really gone too far at this point.

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bonsai
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Postby bonsai » Thu May 18, 2006 3:44 pm

Free Thinker wrote:I am also ashamed that our board should have caused two fine, contributing members to leave, and to delete their posts at that. I don't blame them at all - if that is how they felt, they have every right to do so. But their contribution to our information and healing was priceless and I doubt we will ever have anyone else like that again.

Thank you so much, Anton and Celia, for what you did here. You know that the rest of us really appreciated and valued it and do not in any way condone how you were treated by a VERY small minority.


Here here and far more eloquently put than I managed.

Bonsai

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Thu May 18, 2006 6:53 pm

I also want to thank Celia and Anton for their very valuable contributions. I hope they'll be back.

I personally think that 'sensitive' topics such as religion, communism, etc. can be satisfyingly discussed here. Strong opinions can and should be expressed on this forum but they can and should be expressed politely. We should not feel bad about disagreeing with people's opinions but there is absolutely no need to make personal attacks against the people expressing them. Please, let's try to afford everyone here (whether we agree with them or not) a basic minimum of common courtesy.

Tom

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Postby daska » Fri May 19, 2006 6:48 am

I cannot better what Free Thinker has said. Thank you Celia and Anton, you will be missed.

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misguided empathy?

Postby ross nolan » Mon May 22, 2006 2:55 am

Does anyone notice that Shout! has left or that Justice! and a number of others have (quietly) departed ? (after similar episodes of 'politically correct' group behaviour where they have been turned on )

It seems that the same sort of "stoning mob" is congregating again .

Shout was reacting to Anton's (in particular) seeming indifference to the traumas caused to him by his having been, involuntarily , subjected to the warped practices that Anton and Celia both, willingly, subscribed to for some years and teached and endorsed.

It seemed that those practices were agreed to have been damaging and deceptive,misinformed, callous, brutal even fanatical etc on the basis of the testimony of the respondents to this forum (and elsewise )

Therefore Shout (or anyone else) would have been justified in condeming the practices of the SES and, by extension, the support by anyone else of those same practices.
(this is not the same as condeming the PERSON -- just the ACT of supporting the SES 'dogma', based on Vedic texts and Gurdieffian teachings, -- Shout did not refer to any personal characteristic in his criticism , just the adherence to, or failure of, Anton to dissociate himself from , the dogma and it's effects )

It was never clear whether Anton in fact denounced the practices and teachings of the SES at all. Shout obviously concluded that he continued to believe in the whole dogma (and reacted accordingly), I could not see any clear evidence or statement that indicated he had 'reformed' but did try to find out by asking directly .

Having deleted his postings it is not now possible to review Anton's own words -- I recall his being put out that the 'wrong man' was promoted to be in charge and a number of criticisms of Leon McLaren and various others (Mavro in particular) on the basis of being too strict mainly .


( To be consistent when is one of you going to leap to Mavro's defence or McLaren,Boddy etc who seem to be "fair game" for uncontested criticism -- why just leap to the defence of the Ravesis ? Why is their criticism of Mavro etc not also worthy of censure ?)

Apart from some carefully chosen words (relating to his belated awareness of the effect on his own family) Anton treated the SES matter in an "academic" fashion -- certainly none of the palpable hatred for the lies and dishonesty,brutality,unfairness,betrayal etc that Shout conveys so clearly in his reaction.


Do I think Shout! was feigning outrage or disgust ?

No, I do not . I believe he was genuine and his reaction to the Ravesis equivocal and somewhat "scholastic" discussion about the whole mystical Vedic based cult was perfectly understanable (except perhaps if you have no personal experience of loss from exposure to a religious cult or only have financial or other peripheral interest in the matter ; -- that is not to denigrate the issue of abuse of charitable exemptions etc though )

I believe it is legitimate to ask whether the Ravesis still basically endorse the whole SES 'Vedic' teachings --- Anton seems to still support the teachings as such and went on to state that he subscribes to ,seemingly, ANY religion and defends the associated 'approved' conduct like slavery, Jihad was mentioned, the obligation to 'destroy' non believers and so on . (looked like Anton couldn't get enough of that old time religion in fact )

To me this is not enlightened behaviour and will lead to more SESs and "9/11s" and similar descent into backwardness -- in fact the sort of thing that Shout objected to in the first place.

Maybe Shout! just instinctively knows the truth of the old saying "For evil to prosper only requires good men to do nothing" (or to be cowered by mob threat ) -- how MUCH evil you turn a blind eye to is the only question ; these things tend to snowball and can sometimes be unstoppable when you have finally decided to take a stand (if ever)

A few facts in answer to your other criticism;

The "communist" thing arose from Anton's insulting quip to me "I have walked along the Russian border, I suppose this makes me a communist?"

-- overlooking the slur and the later statement that Stalin's killings were inspired by communism (per se) I merely noted that a lot of the purges by Stalin were based on ethnicity -- he was Georgian and distrusted other 'nationalities' .

My point about religious fervour and mass murder is to show how intolerant religions are - per se (NOT some 'misunderstanding' or mis application of a 'loving message' )

Christianity is as guilty as Islam or any Hindu inspired killing -- a recent letter to the editor ,quoted , "Bible also a study of violence" "I turned to my bible . In about 15 minutes I turned up Numbers, Chapter 31, Deuteronomy Chap 20 and Joshua Chap 6,8,10 and 11 in which acts of genocide are perpetrated by the children of Israel under the direction of God.

Numbers 31 describes the fate of the Midianites. They slew all the males and brought the women and children to Moses, who ordered them to kill all the male children and all the women other than the 32000 virgins of whom they got one each." end quote.

Somehow I don't think I need fear Richard Dawkins calling for a mass slaughter of non Darwinists or any other scientist doing so in the name of science.

Of course it is a matter of indifference if you ruin a few childhoods or cause a bit of trauma when you are exorted to hack to death thousands of your 'enemies' because of your Ayatollah,Guru,Patriarch, Tutor etc having been told by God himself to do so and it is in your wise book.

As to ADG chipping in. --- Is this the same ADG who used to PM me time after time and entitled the last one "I'm being a nag again" (?) On that one I agree with you.

I apologized for letting myself "lose control" and suggest that you had made yourself ridiculous and should be given the same arrogant treatment as you took it upon yourself to take up against the young boys from St James "The hole they are digging for themselves...."-- in suggesting ,in exasperation, that you be 'renamed'.

YOU have described yourself as a NAG - with that I do not disagree.

I NEVER repudiated what I had said as FACTS about the true behaviour of "noble savages" , Aboriginal or otherwise, (or "noble" ancient religions ) so extolled by the SES/SOP as examples of how we should behave now.

Goblinboy, Bella, and any other Australian viewer ,or anyone who wanted to look up any of the Australian media sites would find the current ,FRONT PAGE, stories about absolutely horrendous violence and barbaric behaviour by Aboriginals( mostly against women and children ) -- allowed to go on for decades BECAUSE of the "politically correct" (PC) lobby who , LIKE ADG DOES NOW, sought to suppress any public revelation of the truth of such primitive savagery -- the use of the terms "racist" and other perjorative terms ,and lies, succesfully silenced 'bigots' and the supporters of "equality" of cultures, 'native law' , myth and science ,etc etc

Here are a few , sanitized, examples from the front page of the local daily papers -- " Raping children part of men's business" (Simon Kearney Aust)
Aboriginal culture was to blame for endemic levels of sexual violence against children in central Australia, according to a Northern Territory prosecutor who cited a case in which a four year old child was drowned while being anally raped.

Alice Springs prosecutor Nanette Rogers said "men's business" in remote Aboriginal communities often led to males breaking the law and committing apalling crimes" end quote.

Front Page Melb Age 20 May 2006. "Urgent call: send troops now to NT"
"Doctors say 1500 Vulnerable children are at risk of abuse by warring gangs" ..

"Sex abuse 'rife' in NY communities" - prosecutor speaks out on indigenous violence" Nanette Rogers ,crown prosecutor has described in shocking detail an epidemic of sexual abuse and violent death especially among women and young children that pervades indigenous communities throughout central Australia. " Melb Age

It is now becoming undeniable that the policy of removing aboriginal children from their 'traditional' tribal environment was not 'callous, racist etc etc " but gave the few who were saved from traditional violence and incest a chance at education and a way out of the backward poverty and squalor that they otherwise would be subjected to.

The stone age WAS primitive and subject to disease, death from injury,starvation,infanticide,war,murder, rape and terrible ignorance -- on an ongoing and daily basis -- it is absurd to look back to a golden age of a garden of eden either in the stone age or the Indus civilization.

Teaching lies today about such tripe is only going to lead to more misery and turning your back on science is a sure fire route to this sort of thing -- that was my immediate assessment of the SOP and still is. I cannot recant what I hold to be true and I am sick of defending this position.

You are welcome to write what you like about "noble savages" or "ancient wisdom" being preferable to modern science or rationality or to support ADG in her politically correct ignorance -- I have lost interest in trying to put forward a different view.

Probably you who are "ex SES" or otherwise involved have an inclination against the rational modern world in the first place and I am wasting my time (that I can ill afford ) in trying to argue logically against it .

Goblinboy, I PM'd you when I was told that the Royal Society had decided to throw out the SOP from their headquarters and asked if you would support me in contacting the Society to inform them of it's real nature as a religious cult -- you declined to; now I see they advertise again using the same venue -- looks like it is a return to square one or actually a step backward ( I don't know if any of you contacted the Society in support of the SES/SOP ) since I now have to either walk away from the whole thing and leave the field to the likes of ADG and those who have at best a luke warm opposition to backward and unscientific, not even genuine philosophical , teaching and conduct.

I will walk away from this forum at least.

Because of the" PC "intimidation and name calling ,the uninformed 'support' for minorities and denial of the true nature of primitive cultures and quasi religions , untold misery and degrading backwardness has been allowed to fester unchecked.

The AMOUNT of physical brutality, destruction of childhood potential, violence against women and children and midguided tolerance for primtive beliefs caused by denial of the Aboriginal situation would exceed any harm done by the SES thousands of times over .

The same use of verbal intimidation that is used to cower anybody who calls a spade a spade is common to all such things --

Maybe you, ADG, remember your obsequious PM's seeking some help ?

To suggest that "discussing religion" on this website forum is "innappropriate" is astonishing !

I had thought that the fundamental fact of the SES/SOP was that it WAS RELIGIOUS and was therefore misleading and deceptive at least ( a somewhat paradoxical thing for a 'philosophical' body concerned with 'truth' )

Enough already.
Skeptic

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Free Thinker
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Postby Free Thinker » Mon May 22, 2006 5:01 am

Shout didn't leave. He's been temporarily banned.

I didn't say we shouldn't discuss religion. I said those involved should take that discussion to another thread rather than taking over this one with a separate discussion.

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a different guest
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Postby a different guest » Mon May 22, 2006 10:26 pm

I said those involved should take that discussion to another thread rather than taking over this one with a separate discussion.


Given the poignancy of the original post, it's a crying shame that this thread has degenerated into a one-side attack (at time slanderous) on those it is widely known won't be defending themselves.

Perhaps posts could be deleted from where the thread skewed so nastily off-topic?
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Witness
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Shout?

Postby Witness » Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:11 pm

Back to take a look after months of not having visited this board. Have I missed something? How come Shout's messages have vanished?


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