The more random than that other thread thread

[HeadInAnotherGalaxy]

Ah dinnae e'en read ze nevz. Ze mozt Ah get iz from zin'z Ah've o'er'eard or o'erread (Iz zat a vord? Vell Ah'm uzin' it) und come acrozz on petition zoitez. Ah didnae e'en read ze rezt o' yer pozt aboot it after Ah zav ze vord Nevz und zen ze genre o' 'muzic' zat Ah am really nae a fan o'. Frankly Ah juzt gae on tae zummat more intereztin', loike vot ze next Doctor Vho zeriez iz gaein' tae be. Alzae Pokemon...

[Cornflower MM]

Honestly same, minus the Pokemon. I'm on season 2 of the rebooted series. Between Tennant and Eccleston, I prefer Eccleston's Doctor.

[The Skarzs]

Oh yeah? I kinda liked David Tennant more.
What do you like about Eccleston?

[Cornflower MM]

Really? Huh. Lemme find how I put it to Jet earlier. . . .

Tennant plays the character more. . . Humanly. Eccleston had a bit more of the "not quite human and crazy" vibe, even in the later episodes where I feel like dynamics were changing.

Not saying Tennant's a bad Doctor, he's good, I just prefer the way Eccleston played him better. Just too human. The Doctor is [/i]not[/i] human, and I never forgot that in the first season, he was just slightly "other" in a really good way. I've nearly forgotten the Doctor isn't human in season 2 a few times, I don't really like that.

[The Skarzs]

True, that. Maybe that's what I kind of liked about Tennant. . .

[Maudie]

Peoples' faces when you tell them that you're not graduating high school and you're not going to college for at least the next 3 years because you're earning money and then going on a Mormon mission:

[The Skarzs]

People are weird. They think it's necessary to go to college.
Like, it's normal to spend four or more years racking up debt trying to find the field you want only to risk the possibility that you won't get that job?
Honestly, if anyone would look around at the most successful people out there, it's not about their education. It's about their ability to deal with people. Bill Gates isn't incredibly smart. He just knew how to put together a team who knew how to do what he wanted to get done. Same with Steve Jobs, though in a different dynamic. The owner of McDonald's didn't invent those burgers. He had an idea that used the McDonald brothers recipes to create an empire.

Anyhow. . . Fun fact! It is estimated that by 2030, a college four year degree will cost $300,000.

[Maudie]

That is a fun fact.

[Jukka the Sling]

You aren't graduating?

[Delthion]

She shall forever be an unlearned heretic!

[The Skarzs]

Go against the grain. Find out what people who don't have the life you want are doing, and pretty much do the opposite. Better yet, find out what the people who model the life you want are doing, and copy their example.

[Jetthebinturong]

I just read an essay on Gnosticism and it's relation to Homestuck, and how the aspect of Light (symbolic of knowledge, clarity of vision, and good fortune) is linked to romantic relationships, and I am fascinated. I really want to learn more about Gnosticism. It seems more like a philosophical parable than an actual religion (though I'm not saying it isn't one).

[The Skarzs]

Forgive my ignorance, but it sounds similar to some things I have heard are in Mormonism. Probably wrong, of course. @Wylder Treejumper may have more insight on both, as he is pretty knowledgeable.

[Jetthebinturong]

This is literally all I know of Gnosticism, copy and pasted from that essay:

Spoiler

The Gnostic creation myth goes like this: In the realm of nothingness, where all that exists is ideas, there existed pairs of concepts called Aeons meant to create reality by working together. Sophia, the Aeon of Wisdom, wished to "know that which could not be known" by the formless ideas, and so interacted with the Material World without her partner Aeon.

In doing so, she creates the Demiurge--also known as Yaldabaoth, this is described as a sightless God because he cannot perceive the realm of ideas that created him in the first place.

Seeing nothing around but himself in the Material world, Yaldabaoth declares himself God and sets about creating humanity and the contents of reality–explaining why pain and suffering exist: The physical world is a product of a being of evil.

Feeling sympathy for the plight of us mortals subjected to suffering, Sophia Descends from the plane of ideas into the physical realm, imbuing in us the power of her Light, also described as Pleroma, granting us the power to perceive the world of Ideas...and thus, climb endlessly upwards to achieve Enlightenment.

...

Abraxas, meanwhile [in contrast to Yaldabaoth], is described as the Great Unseen, the hidden invisible God beyond Good and Evil who combines all opposites into one being.

[close]

Wait most of the stuff on Abraxas comes from a different essay, as well as expounding on Yaldabaoth.

Spoiler

The primary traits of the Demiurge are:

An inability to grasp the world of ideas
The flawed power to shape and create the entire physical world
A degree of evil, or at least arrogance bordering on cruel hubris
So the Demiurge is the God who creates the whole universe — but can't really think, and is kind of a bad artist. As a result, the world is full of pain and suffering.

...

Yaldabaoth is a God with absolute power over physical reality. Abraxas presides over reality in its totality, but his true home, origin, and source of power is the realm of thought — the World of Ideas.

...

...In Gnostic Myth, Christ isn't an envoy of the God from the Old Testament, since that was entity was represented by Yoobieboobie [sic. (he means Yaldabaoth. Calling Yaldabaoth something else is a running gag in Homestuck)].

Instead, Christ was an Aeon (an Idea-God, sort of like an angel that only exists as a concept in its natural state)— the original partner to Sophia, the spirit of Wisdom, in fact — sent to Earth by Abraxas to save humanity from Yadlenadle's [sic. (again, Yaldabaoth)] malicious will.

But even that doesn't capture the full scope of the deity. Abraxas is described as the embodiment of the duality of all things — it's not so much that it created existence, as that the experience of existence itself is a symptom of Abraxas' relentless self-expansion.

Abraxas is itself, but it is also every Aeon, and every idea and thought in the world of ideas, and every manifestation of those ideas as they're expressed in the world of matter. It is a being of married opposites and duality, and that means Yaldabaoth is an just another facet of it's being, too.

Abraxas. Is. Everything.

[close]

While the mythos itself is fascinating, its relation to Homestuck is infinitely moreso (to me), explaining Caliborn as Demiurge, Homestuck as slave to Caliborn (as Demiurge he controls the physical reality of the comic), Jake and Karkat as champions of Abraxas, and Karkat specifically as Second Coming of Christ (a motif that was obvious even from a mainstream Christian perspective, but made a whole lot deeper when taken as the Gnostic presentation of Christ).

Homestuck is a deeply philosophical, humanistic work that deserves to be studied academically, not just by passionate fans on the internet.

[Søren]