Lol, this is rich. I can easily concede, that because life was harder, the average person needed vastly more everyday/reality skills just to exist in ancient times, even that because they had to use them , martial skills may have been so ingrained, and practised, as to maybe eclipse modern "masters". But due to meditation? I read somewhere, this guy was a master of the double axe. What kind of nutcase is a double axe specialist? Still, maybe he did meditate........i dont know, it's a long bow to draw is all i'm saying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_III_of_Norway
You have no grounds for suggesting primitives or ancients were generally any more superior , or even good story tellers. One look at the Bible confirms they were not. Nor that they were any more at one with reality, unless you consider having to survive by living in a tent or a desert to be so by default. I would suggest it's no more than wishful thinking leading you to believe long ago, practitioners of the martial arts held any better or different mysterious powers than they would today. Perhaps the David Carradine syndome would be an appropriate name for that . And it's clear, there are enough masters and / or nutters around now who would be more than happy and capable to show an ancient master a thing or two . No mysterious guru was operating in what you submit to be a "higher level". People such as Einstein operated at a higher level demonstrably. People who study story telling and become authoritative in it, can hardly be thought of as operating on a level to Aristotle, Newton and Einstein. You merely describe mysterious folk lore shrouded in illusionary concepts. In comparison Einstein was more at one with the Universe than any Master Po could dream of being.
Here is an example of a "book of knowledge" that is not really knowledge. It offers scientific pointers which must be developed faithfully to potentially benefit from possible results. None of this really leads to Self, so it is obsolete for purposes of salvation. It is a continuation of the *Genesis* kaballah. This "YHWH" is not our Father. Likewise, the "Holy Bible" is not a truly holy book for what it holds out as *real*. What either describes as real is really not real, not knowledge, and not holy. Jesus
What. You mean to say the things you describe as real are not real, not knowledge, and not holy? The thing called God, or the thing you call our Father, or salvation, are not real. Jesus. You duplicitous bastard you! (like err, no offence dude )
I am not talking about the Middle Ages. The Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires were not primitive. And I referred to the great among the ancients that had plenty of time to develop themselves and delve deeply into various matters. Advanced martial art forms are primarily meditative in nature. Remember what you see on TV and in the movies in regards to the martial arts is primarily there for entertainment. It is not the real thing. The quest in the martial arts is not to become a double ax master or double ax murderer. That may be the quest of someone like Osama bin Ladin or Zawahiri, but what they practice is not martial arts, but devil worship. It is a quest for self perfection which requires great introspection on the part of the person pursuing this quest, and control over all desires in order to achieve harmonious balance hence the need for great meditative skill. Why were the ancients greater in the area of meditation? Because there are just too many distractions in modern life, and they had a totally different weltanschaung. This can be seen on the value they placed on serving their gods. Most were misguided just like most followers of traditional religions now are off base, but those who made it to the top were not. Aristotle was one, and he is reachable to the modern mind. The founding fathers of the US were also solid Bible scholars. Science is rooted in four dimensions. Religion is beyond or to be more precise outside of dimensions. Many people on this topic as I can see have made science a religion so now we have the religion of scientism which is patently absurd.
"It [martial art] is a quest for self perfection which requires great introspection on the part of the person pursuing this quest, and control over all desires in order to achieve harmonious balance hence the need for great meditative skill." That, Bernard, is also known as navel gazing and is not Aristotelian by any stretch "Most were misguided just like most followers of traditional religions now are off base, but those who made it to the top were not. Aristotle was one, and he is reachable to the modern mind. Science is rooted in four dimensions. Religion is beyond or to be more precise outside of dimensions." Then obviously according to such ideas of beyond dimension, René Descartes was not such a one. Do you like to just pick and choose your great philosophers and mathematicians to suit your personal weltanschauung.
What is navel gazing Stu? Is that similar to star gazing or crystal ball gazing? I know when I have met someone who is definitely a superior person, and especially to me, and you are it Stu so what more do you want me to tell you? You are the man Stu!!!
actually it was probably more like this: Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997 http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously. If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when he composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the Gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses or storytellers.