The joy of religion - part xxxxxxxxx

[shira]

As I said, I do not believe, I know through experience. God is within you, one could say, vibrating on a different octave, or on a different plane. He is the ground of your being, what is left when the sense of a personal self recedes. Ones perceptions speed up burning the energy of need causing time to slow to down to pulses. Consciousness attaches itself as a witness to creation as the universe comes into being, moment by moment according to conscious will. Where the self was a hole in the fabric of the universe appears. You step out and God steps in to manifest His love in your location in time and space.

Naturally there are distortions in this descriptions because the eye with which you see God is the same eye with which he sees you. So whe you see the unity of the universe through two eyes that are one you can't really tell if you are talking about one eye or the other.

You may also note that none of what I said will be of any importance unless you see it for yourself. As I have said many times, God only fills an empty cup.. Best you just forget everything I just said.

So you've described the God you know in terms of what you've experienced. But you haven't said anything about what type of influence - if any - this God exerts.

So my follow-up question is: Do you believe that the God you know exerts any influence. And if so, what is the extent of that influence?

 

[OutHouse]

Find me someone doing a horrific act in the name of atheism and I'll be pretty surprised. I still bet I can find more people killing in the name of any given religion than ever have in the name of atheism. Hell, Christianity has a lot to make up for after the Holocaust.

Chris harper-mercer

 

[realibrad]

Chris harper-mercer

Hmm. I was under the impression he disliked religion, but considered himself spiritual.

Also, I don't remember reading he did it in the name of atheism.

You were asked to provide someone who did it in the name of atheism, and I am not sure that the person you listed would count.

Also, I feel like this post helps explains things.

The question is a bit flawed though. Did Dahmer do what he did because he also did not believe in Santa? For his justification to be atheism, it would then logically follow that not believing in anything would be justification for those actions. So, not believing in Santa, the Easter Bunny, Tom Brady not being a cheater ect. Anything he did not believe in would seem to then be a justification, and I bet you do not believe that.

So, why would his non-belief in God be a justification any more than his non belief in Santa?

 

[Moonbeam]

So you've described the God you know in terms of what you've experienced. But you haven't said anything about what type of influence - if any - this God exerts.

So my follow-up question is: Do you believe that the God you know exerts any influence. And if so, what is the extent of that influence?

I did. That God is at cause. Through the tear in the fabric in time His divine love manifests and creates the nature of the local time and space. This can effect local neural nets. All sorts of psychic phenomenon can occur as the result of love's radiance.

 

[bshole]

I did. That God is at cause. Through the tear in the fabric in time His divine love manifests and creates the nature of the local time and space. This can effect local neural nets. All sorts of psychic phenomenon can occur as the result of love's radiance.

Like flying planes into the world trade center, like cancer, like mental illness, like natural disasters, like genocide, like war, like mortality and if you are lucky living long enough to see everybody you love die..... yea he created a real garden of eden here on earth.

 

[Moonbeam]

Shira, try to teach a lizard empathy. You can't until it evolves a mammalian brain. Conditioning can beat empathy out of a person and reprogramming bring it back. The major problem that I see in the area of spirituality is conditioning, assuming that we know something, believing in or not believing in gods that don't exist. Both sides need reprogramming. The natural position of the God switch in a deprogrammed person in my opinion is on.

 

[shira]

I did. That God is at cause. Through the tear in the fabric in time His divine love manifests and creates the nature of the local time and space. This can effect local neural nets. All sorts of psychic phenomenon can occur as the result of love's radiance.

Could you be a little more concrete? For example, does the God you know prevent bad things from happening to good people or good things from happening to bad people? Did the God you know create the physical universe? Did the God you know create mankind? Is the God you know omniscient? Omnipotent? Infinite? Eternal? Is the God you know the same God that everyone else who is earnest about knowing God knows? Is the God you know the same as the God of the Christians? Of the Jews? Of Islam? Of the Hindus?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The only sensible God is the pantheist God -- The God of Spinoza and Einstein: All That Is. When you begin to examine the descriptors of classical god-concepts as attempts to apprehend the vastness of All That Is, they can actually make a bit of sense, albeit in a sorta new-agey, hippie pseudo-Buddhist kind of way.

 

[Moonbeam]

The only sensible God is the pantheist God -- The God of Spinoza and Einstein: All That Is. When you begin to examine the descriptors of classical god-concepts as attempts to apprehend the vastness of All That Is, they can actually make a bit of sense, albeit in a sorta new-agey, hippie pseudo-Buddhist kind of way.

That is how it looks to a person of reason. The Buddha, at least, collapsed the state of duality and saw from a third perspective, the result of a transformation of consciousness itself. New Agey, is just reason trying to categorize something that can't be grasped by reason alone. Sometimes new Agey is seen as a threat so it may be used pejoratively.

 

[Moonbeam]

Could you be a little more concrete? For example, does the God you know prevent bad things from happening to good people or good things from happening to bad people? Did the God you know create the physical universe? Did the God you know create mankind? Is the God you know omniscient? Omnipotent? Infinite? Eternal? Is the God you know the same God that everyone else who is earnest about knowing God knows? Is the God you know the same as the God of the Christians? Of the Jews? Of Islam? Of the Hindus?

It probably depends on the inherent capacities of the body of the host. An eighty year old grandmother killed a tiger that attacked her with her bare hands. Are you still trying to see if I believe in the God you know can't exist?

 

[Moonbeam]

Like flying planes into the world trade center, like cancer, like mental illness, like natural disasters, like genocide, like war, like mortality and if you are lucky living long enough to see everybody you love die..... yea he created a real garden of eden here on earth.

All the evil that you see and fear was created by people that ate from the Tree of Knowledge. God consciousness is pre snake seeing.

If you want to end evil in the world you can do two things. You can bring enlightenment to everybody, or you can achieve it yourself. When you hate evil with the passion you do, you feed it because we are the cause of evil. We create evil as a product of duality. This is the suffering of surrender, tender love in the face of overwhelming misery. Forgiveness! Do you see how we cling to, love, and nurture our hate. Do you see how much you want to share it with me. I died from that pain. But my understanding is tiny and I can still feel it at times. I just don't buy into it as valid.

 

[shira]

It probably depends on the inherent capacities of the body of the host. An eighty year old grandmother killed a tiger that attacked her with her bare hands. Are you still trying to see if I believe in the God you know can't exist?

A tiger attacked an 80-year-old grandmother with its bare hands? I'm not at all surprised that the grandmother was able to kill it; tigers are much more effective predators when they use their paws.

But assuming you meant that an old woman who was attacked by a tiger was able to kill it without any special weapons, I don't see why you consider that incident to be compelling evidence for the existence of the God you believe in. I mean, contrary to your assertion that I don't believe that the God you believe in can exist, I want to state very clearly what I do believe: it's certainly POSSIBLE that the God you believe in intervened there; but even you must acknowledge that there are also a multitude of non-supernatural explanations that would account for this incident.

 

[Moonbeam]

A tiger attacked an 80-year-old grandmother with its bare hands? I'm not at all surprised that the grandmother was able to kill it; tigers are much more effective predators when they use their paws.

But assuming you meant that an old woman who was attacked by a tiger was able to kill it without any special weapons, I don't see why you consider that incident to be compelling evidence for the existence of the God you believe in. I mean, contrary to your assertion that I don't believe that the God you believe in can exist, I want to state very clearly what I do believe: it's certainly POSSIBLE that the God you believe in intervened there; but even you must acknowledge that there are also a multitude of non-supernatural explanations that would account for this incident.

I could be wrong but that interpretation should have been voided by tha grandmother being a her and the tiger an it. The thought that crossed my mind was hat the tiger may have been weak from starvation. I do remember a time when Mulla Nasrudin went to a rich man and asked him for money and the rich man told him to pray to my God for it. The Mulla told him he already did and He told me to ask you. It may be that those who are God conscious have more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[maluckey]

If you are a follower of any of the major religions, you are taking a stance on some people being wrong. The Christian god is the thing that created everything. The fact that god is a creator is mutually exclusive to religions where there is not a creator god. Further, the story of how god created everything is mutually exclusive to other beliefs. By saying you believe in the Christian god, you are indirectly saying you think the others are wrong in their stories.

You dont have to explicitly say you think someone is wrong, but its the logical conclusion. I have had this discussion with my GF who is a Catholic. She also made the same point that she did not feel she was qualified to say what is wrong or right.

By saying you believe one thing, you are believing that thing over another. That is to say that you believe that one thing is right, which would make the other mutually exclusive things incorrect.

Yet you love your girlfriend and she loves you, despite the differences...remember that she is giving up everything to be with you, while you only give up ....

Since your girlfriend is Catholic, I'll stick with that and say that they have zero issues with science. Some incredibly great scientists were Catholic Priests and monks. They are also aware that science cannot be used to prove everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_cleric-scientists

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists


As for choosing one thing over the other...There are dozens of ways to get to my favorite coffee bar in the city, all of which will get me there in an acceptable manner and time. Which is wrong? Is one route invalidated by my choice of another?

Similarly, if you send a hand-written letter to your girlfriend telling her how wonderful she is and how much she means to you, then her best girlfriend tells her the same thing, then takes her out for drinks, do you think she ignores your thoughtful and heart-felt letter? Does one negate the other?

I am not qualified to judge, and I'd wager neither would you be qualified to tell me if my path to the coffee bar was THE right way. I also assume that only your girlfriend would truly know how she felt about you or her best girlfrinds gift to her.

M

 

[MongGrel]

It probably depends on the inherent capacities of the body of the host. An eighty year old grandmother killed a tiger that attacked her with her bare hands. Are you still trying to see if I believe in the God you know can't exist?

That tiger must have been really old and down to 1 HP.

:biggrin:

 

[shira]

I could be wrong but that interpretation should have been voided by tha grandmother being a her and the tiger an it. The thought that crossed my mind was hat the tiger may have been weak from starvation. I do remember a time when Mulla Nasrudin went to a rich man and asked him for money and the rich man told him to pray to my God for it. The Mulla told him he already did and He told me to ask you. It may be that those who are God conscious have more than one way to skin a cat.

Since even you acknowledge that there are non-supernatural explanations for how an old woman could kill a tiger, why did you give this example in response to the question of whether the God you believe in intervenes?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Since even you acknowledge that there are non-supernatural explanations for how an old woman could kill a tiger, why did you give this example in response to the question of whether the God you believe in intervenes?

your either too funny or a sad person! You keep trying to bait Moonbeam and he keeps cutting your head off and serving it back to you on a silver platter!!

 

[shira]

your either too funny or a sad person! You keep trying to bait Moonbeam and he keeps cutting your head off and serving it back to you on a silver platter!!

Aren't you one of those people who looks at the universe and sees God? Well, I'm one of those people who look at the universe and sees . . . only the universe.

Perhaps this difference in our perceptions of the universe might also explain the difference in our perceptions of what is happening between Moonbeam and me in these posts.

 

[Moonbeam]

Since even you acknowledge that there are non-supernatural explanations for how an old woman could kill a tiger, why did you give this example in response to the question of whether the God you believe in intervenes?

I will give you a getter answer, better. of course, in my opinion. See if it makes a bit of difference to how you are seeing this.

A man falls out of a pickup truck and hits his head. Shortly thereafter he goes into a piano store and is playing at a concert level almost immediately, and playing excellent music he composes on the spot. He says he sees squares move across his field of vision and they tell his fingers what to do. If this had happened in a church he was a member of and they had prayed for an organist, how could we explain what is already nearly impossible to explain.

The important point is that I have no idea what kind of powers to say Tibetans or Sufis might achieve, who do this sort of thing for a living. I have heard there were enlightened samurai that could not be brought down by anything but exhaustion. I am a nobody but I don't assume to know what others may be capable of who can slow time to the point where they cause everything that is.

Perhaps you have had a hungry dog and a sandwich in your hand that the dog will take if you don't pay attention. If you lose attention for a second that sandwich will be gone. The attention of the dog will not break. He and the sandwich are one.

To be present without fear is a powerful thing.

Also you should consider the effect on others that the God Conscious can have on other people. They are aware of what others are asleep to and their interactions are for all intents and purposes from another dimension.

But the thing I like about my God, His power, as it were, is that I know that love is real. That had died when I lost faith. As long as I believed
that the God you don't believe is was necessary for love to exist, I was looking in the wrong place.

 

[bshole]

But the thing I like about my God, His power, as it were, is that I know that love is real. That had died when I lost faith. As long as I believed
that the God you don't believe is was necessary for love to exist, I was looking in the wrong place.

It's real alright, it is a specific chemical sequence in the brain. It will be nice when we can buy love at the local pharmacy.

In an essay in the journal Nature last month, he laid out evidence that scientists may soon be able to tie the emotion “love” to a biochemical chain of events, and might someday even be able to develop drugs that enhance social bonding — in much the same way that pharmaceuticals today can help regulate emotions like anxiety and depression.

 

[Moonbeam]

It's real alright, it is a specific chemical sequence in the brain. It will be nice when we can buy love at the local pharmacy.

But you already can.

You are the pharmacy, the price is everything you believe.

The currency is need, the haggle over price terminated by some external shock that awakens you in the Grace of understanding.

Good bye robotic sleeper, hello God in Heaven.

Chemicals shmecials, it's the aim of the tripper that determines whether feet of clay become wings. There is no pill for aim. His will is when your will is His or your will has surrendered leaving only His. Aim high or die to the self or do both together.

 

[Moonbeam]

So, shira, you began: God's morality is your guide, you just know what the right thing to do is.

My point is that the problem is much much bigger than just a problem with religion, it is a problem with morality itself. If God were morality than it isn't just the religious who worship a morality that is false, but an Atheist alternative that rejects one form of false God without necessarily having any valid alternative. I am saying that the same impulse that drives you to the conclusion that one morality is false is the same force that drives another to believe that it is, an inner sense that some real morality exists. It is this inner surety that there is a real morality somewhere that the religious and the non-religious generally share and that is because the is a real morality out there.

It is not a prescription, a 20 oops 10 Commandment thingi, but a state of consciousness caused by love. If you believe that God is other than love and have no inner sense of what love is, or if you deny there is any truth at all our there, you are on the wrong side of the force, for lack of a better way to say it.

To think that you can eliminate the evil of religion by eliminating religion is silly. The aim of religion, its real aim, is also to eliminate religion. The ego that needs gods or not gods is still all ego. When you attack a person of belief for their belief, you attack not only his hypocrisy, perhaps, but also his faith there is a good. You need to separate the hypocrisy of literalism from the hope for the good. It is wrong, I think, to attack faith in a way that destroys that.

Similarly, I do not think the faithful should despise your doubt because it is based on a lack of faith that the literalism of religion is, in my opinion, a good thing. You believe that there is a good that is better than that and there is. The man who worships a stone, the man who worships gods, the man who worships a god, the man who believes the good is none of those things, they are all the same. They all worship the same god in the only way they know how. It is the love of good without knowledge of what the good really is that drives them. I seek to express the love of the good in a way that includes rather than excludes. To condemn the other is to condemn the self in me that is like them.

 

[soulcougher73]

My point is that the problem is much much bigger than just a problem with religion, it is a problem with morality itself. If God were morality than it isn't just the religious who worship a morality that is false, but an Atheist alternative that rejects one form of false God without necessarily having any valid alternative. I am saying that the same impulse that drives you to the conclusion that one morality is false is the same force that drives another to believe that it is, an inner sense that some real morality exists. It is this inner surety that there is a real morality somewhere that the religious and the non-religious generally share and that is because the is a real morality out there.

You may be right about that. But the 2 sides come to the same morals by different methods. One side just "gets it" and the other side believes some God tells them they need to be this way to get to heaven etc. and that they are some how in sole possession of the morals. Id rather someone know that is not okayto kill instinctively vs. someone who only fears not getting into heaven if they kill.

 

[realibrad]

Yet you love your girlfriend and she loves you, despite the differences...remember that she is giving up everything to be with you, while you only give up ....

Well, considering I moved from CA to FL to be with her at the age of 19, pretty much everything I had. I gave up all of my family, friends and anything that could not fit into my car.

Also, what is she giving up to be with me in terms of religion? I do not tell her not to go to church. I do not tell her not to believe in god. I do not tell her not to do anything in terms of her beliefs. I question them, but I question anything I do not understand, religion or otherwise.

Since your girlfriend is Catholic, I'll stick with that and say that they have zero issues with science. Some incredibly great scientists were Catholic Priests and monks. They are also aware that science cannot be used to prove everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_cleric-scientists

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists

And yet the Catholic church seems to have a bad history with scientists.

Condemnation of 1210-1277

Michael Servetus Put to death by the catholic church

Giordano Bruno Put to death by the catholic church

They made it pretty clear that science was only to further their desires, and not for knowledge. Ill give you that the modern catholic church is nowhere near what it was, but lets not ignore the things it has done and pretend it was for science. It was not.

As for choosing one thing over the other...There are dozens of ways to get to my favorite coffee bar in the city, all of which will get me there in an acceptable manner and time. Which is wrong? Is one route invalidated by my choice of another?

If you choose one path over another, you did not choose other paths over the one you choose. In your coffee situation, no choice is wrong or right in a sense. Your decision on what path is not a claim about reality. If you took path 1 over path 2, and I said you took path 2 I am factually wrong. If you say god created the world in 6 days, and another religion says it was drops of water falling from a sword on a turtles back, both cannot be right. So, if you choose one myth over another, you have to then believe the others are incorrect if yours is mutually exclusive. The world could not have been created on the back of a turtle and by the Christian god as the stories are mutually exclusive.

Similarly, if you send a hand-written letter to your girlfriend telling her how wonderful she is and how much she means to you, then her best girlfriend tells her the same thing, then takes her out for drinks, do you think she ignores your thoughtful and heart-felt letter? Does one negate the other?

Why would my love be mutually exclusive to another person loving her?

I am not qualified to judge, and I'd wager neither would you be qualified to tell me if my path to the coffee bar was THE right way. I also assume that only your girlfriend would truly know how she felt about you or her best girlfrinds gift to her.

M

If you took a path that got you to the coffee you wanted, then it is a way. If you take a path to a coffee shop that does not get you to the shop, its the wrong way.

But, your analogy about all paths leading to the same shop aka god is flawed. Science is not saying there is or is not a god. What the scientific method would lead you to is that there is not evidence for a god and thus belief is unnecessary. Science can look at things that are falsifiable but god is not falsifiable. Your analogy works off the presupposition that there is a shop to get to.

I don't know about you, but if I am going to take a trip which is a sacrifice to a destination, I would want to know that destination is actually there. If you admit there is not evidence for the destination, then why take the trip and sacrifice?

 

[Londo_Jowo]

God is inside Moonbeam therefore Moonbeam is God