The movie with a Manichean Point

[not_exactly_a_lightweight]

So this popped into my inbox:

Word of the Day for Friday, June 4, 2010
Manichean \man-i-KEE-uhn\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to a strongly dualistic worldview.
2. Of or pertaining to the Manicheans or their doctrines.

noun:
1. An adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark.

So I thought neat, a Religion Cafeteria, drop in- say a few prayers, or not, take what ever parts of the religion that appeal to you and what have you. Then it occurred to me that the Dude, and TBL really are saying take what you need:
...Take any rug in the house....
...Look Jefferey, I don't want a partner... (As Maude takes Dude's sperm -only)

So that means, do a little tai chi, a little yoga or what ever that is, you know abide, Nihilists sleep in the day("light") and eat at night(dark), like in the dark when Donny died or in the dark "they finally killed my car",  so it's like ..what was I saying? D'you have any Kahlua?

[forumdude]

that's interesting, that's fucking interesting man. but i think manicheaism is quite a bit different. it was primarily influenced by zoroastrianism which is where the whole western concept of good and evil came from (most notably, in the bible - the hebrews brought it back with them when they were in captivity in babylon, and it grew in importance down through the ages, via christianity).

the yin yang notion of dark and light has more to do with the idea that light and dark wax and wane into each other, that they're not distinct, but rather facets of the other. buddhism didn't start out believing in good and evil, but later adopted these ideas too, probably most evident in tibetan (aka tantric) buddhism. the tibetans are big into heaven and hell.

taoism (and by extension dudeism) is pretty far from the manichean idea of the world being divided into dark and light, good and evil, devas (from which we get "devil")and ahuras (good gods). taoism seems to suggest that bad things (from the human perspective, there is no inherently "bad thing" in nature) are a result of not following a path in harmony with nature and the flux of dark into light, and vice versa.

holy shit, i'm being a regular mrs. jamtoss here aren't i? anyway, maybe some smarter fellers than myself have something to say about this...

[not_exactly_a_lightweight]

Are you trying to say there isn't any connection to Vietnam?


by the way what is a jamtoss?