I Think Its A Mistake People Make To Assume

it seems like a lot of people have this idea, that if you aren't a follower of one particular belief or another, and sometimes only of one they've heard of, and sometimes only of whatever one they claim as their own, that it somehow follows, that must hate all belief.

now a fanatic is someone who makes this mistake deliberately. but i've also known of otherwise well meaning people who make this mistake without being aware of doing so.

well hating, is not my position at all. preferring to avoid deceiving myself is.

i may have been hugged by one god, or many of them, but i'm pretty sure i've never read a word that was written by any of them.
and i've read quite a number of sacred writings, including but not limited to those of christianity.

 

believe has a lie in it..

 

I don't hear it, Ori. I do hear 'belle' though

 

What does this even mean without some type of written work to fall back on to relate to your experiences?

How do you know you are not deceiving yourself and the "god (s)" you experience are merely hallucinatory phantasm(s)?

 

I think it simply means he is comfortable with his beliefs, whatever other people has written down in the name of god(s). It is ok to not get overly specific when we feel we can't be, and acknowledge we are not 100% certain, and it seems by saying 'i may have been' he's doing just that. Themnax, you may correct me if I'm misinterpreting things or taking it out of context some way!

 

I'd prefer he respond for himself anyways...

 

Me too, I did not mean to speak for him (as I even bothered to point out ), just shared my thought.

 

written works are written by humans, not gods. there's nothing magical about writing then insures truth. publishers print what people will buy. this has nothing to do with insuring truth either.

Of course I believe there can be one non-physical thing more powerful then all others, but I don't believe that means the non-physical constitute a single hierarchy, that every non-physical thing that does not subscribe to and participate it, is thus somehow harmfully wrong.

But then every thing people think the know about it, is something other people, not gods, have made up themselves. And for their own reasons having nothing to do with any real non-physical thing.

How do I know what non-physical is real and what isn't? I don't. But I know the ego's refusal to accept not knowing everything there is to be known, and that there are more things to be known, then can be known.

i don't call what i experience gods. even that is a word people have made up for their own reasons. i merely accept that if gods are what people want to call the unknown non-physical, one name is as good as another.

even their wanting to be worshiped is something WE have made up. why would they? because WE have egos?

 

The impression that I get, mostly from reading Greek Philosophy and the likes of Thomas Aquinas among other Philosophy of Religion, is that there is a divine inspiration in sacred myths and texts. While God(s) didn't literally come down and write the bible or sacred texts, it is written from a sense of divine inspiration. That is they believe that God somehow permeates through their minds to allow for structured rational thinking, supposedly supplying the basis for foundational ways of living and experience (spirituality, morality, society, etc.) Perhaps that would be reason enough to worship. I'm pretty certain this is a concept I've discussed with you before.

While there are some who take literalist interpretations of the Bible, I'm not going to focus on that. Many believers on this site seem to view the Bible as an amalgamation of Spirituality, mythology and crude historical depictions from what I gather. It seems to be a source to relate personal spiritual experiences to and inform many individuals sense of the divine.

If for a minute we remove sacred texts and mythology to fall back on, then where do loaded words and phrases of experience such as "powerful non-physical thing" or "hugged by a god" get their basis from?

I understand the perceptions are resultant from your direct experience but the concepts seem less than coherent without any spiritual context. Maybe it's a limitation in language describing the ineffable.

The only experiences of sentiences I have experienced beyond objective reality is from psychedelics. I refer to the intelligences I have encountered as entities, while I don't ascribe to all of the notions of entities or entheogenic based deities, I do find solace in being able to relate my experiences with others both contemporarily and throughout the history which entheogens have been used as sacraments, as these notions are not embraced by mainstream Western Society.

 

while this is not inconceivable, even non-physical things choosing the individuals who started religion to be channeled by, the evidence is not compelling either way.
what is compelling is the entirely human motivations, for people wanting other people to believe in ways that 'benefit' themselves materially.

solace i find in the immunity of the universe beyond human society, to human belligerence and intimidation.

you seem to be another one who thinks a picture of a cat is a cat. do you really believe you could experience nothing, without having been told about it or reading about it in a book?

as an infant i had coherent dreams, from before birth. from my first moments of consciousness in this body. long before i was even beginning to be able to decipher human language.

nothing against philosophers, but try getting some direct impressions from things like trees and rocks. or the earth beneath your feet. these things are real.
words are really words. but they're still words.

the universe contains them. they do not contain it.

 

All those things as far I can gather are physical, so you fail to answer the question...

You are wrong, I definitely do not conflate a cat picture with actually being the cat, however pictures often do provide a representation of the object in question. (Although with a lot of media ads it's pushing it)

Where I do perhaps take things at face value is to assume that if I saw a cat I would assume the animal to have a brain and the accompaning organs which I would usually rely on a book or authority to provide the information with. I think that is reasonable as none of us have the time to go around dissecting (dead) cats to verify that they are composed of all the components which make up a cat. Even you, who suggests to dismiss particular depictions of God from the Bible is conceding that you're still reliant on others conceptions of "God."

I think that if I was not informed about objective reality, life would be a much more turbulent experience.

An example with cats, if I was not informed in the least I would likely think that a sphynx cat and a persian cat were different species.

 

which question am i failing to answer?

of course i use physical examples. you know of some other kind? that don't begin in words and end in words?

 

No... Can't say I know of any. So how do you respond to these notions of yours I paraphrased?

 

from experiencing them.

printing may take more skill and craft than talking, but it doesn't confer any more authority. there is none.

 

I don't follow how you reconcile the paradox of there being "only physical examples" then go on to say you experience "non-physical things." It is revealing in some of the troubles I have understanding your arguments at times though.

Authority in the context I am using it is basically synonymous with expert. As in the people who spend their time observing cat behavior, dissecting them to know their internal composition, sequencing the cat genome, organizing them in taxonomic classifications so that people like you and I don't have to be concerned that an animal we come across in the pet store or walking out and about which is labelled, or we identify as cat is going to shoot fireballs from it's mouth as we approach it.

 

I.e. Authority and Language helps us understand this picture is not real

 

I've been coming across a whole lot more open-minded people, increasing steadily in the last few years. Now, I'm not saying "only stupid people believe in God or a higher power" or that "Aetheists are super duper holy cow smart like dolphins" or anything... but it seems to me that intelligence and 'knowing' has a lot to do with personal beliefs. It's like some people read the Bible or listen to scriptures of their beliefs and one day just go "Wait a minute... this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make any sense either. None of this makes any sense!" Maybe not as prolific or funny sounding, as I'm sort of making it sound, being confused on what you believe in is a very serious and sometimes life-altering matter.

I do believe that religion is man-made and that once you cross that horrible media barrier and consider it merely being spiritual, that is a key to happiness. I force this on no one. Change of you belief system should never ever be forced under any circumstances. There is a fine line though between being "religious" and being "spiritual." Something I still don't quite understand yet and maybe I never will, but it doesn't really matter to me much. I believe in whatever my heart, soul, aura, whatever you want to call it draws me to. Which just so happens to be a little bit of everything.

Am I confused? You bet I am, but it's the journey that matters. Figuring it out for myself is exciting, enlightening, scary at times, as is life. I don't believe God would wish bad things upon anyone for choosing to believe in what they believe in, as long as you're a kind and just person... or at least make an effort to be. Send out a few thoughts every now and then and ask what you can do, ask for guidance from "above" and all should be good I think. But what do I know? I am merely a man.

An old quote I like,,,
What if you believed in Jesus all your life, went to church every Sunday, prayed to him every night, but when you got to heaven Buddha's waiting at the front gates?

 

I can't even comprehend hate. I guess the only time I would hate an ideology would be if its proponents were so bent on hate that they were killing non-believers. Even then, though...they'd have to be pretty damned nefarious to get me so worked up that I would hate them. I don't think even the Sith are that good...the Jedi resist the dark side, after all.

 

It generally comes from fear and a lack of understanding/ignorance. It is easier to hate an ideology when one is ignorant of all the aspects of it and is only shown or focussing on the negative traits for example.

 

humans invent religions, gods invent themselves. completely different things. religions are invented for a combination of reasons, some good, some not, but still know nothing of what they pretend to. i love that there are things we know nothing about. that the real universe is more diverse then our petty egos can ever imagine.

the way people make this world, is more visible to me, then people themselves. not because i have any real dislike for them, just that they're less interesting to me.
my problem is with the collective human ego, thinking its the universe, when the real universe is the one that begins beyond us, not what begins and ends with us.

i'm still annoyed with people equating christianity with somehow all of religion. even christianity, judaism and islam together. it is among the things that most annoy me, along with those who equate aggressiveness with freedom, or the idea that morality comes from hierarchy, when there is nothing that hates real morality more, then hierarchy of anything. what i most don't believe in at all, is this idea that christianity and islam have, that every nonphysical thing, is either part of one great hierarchy, or somehow bad, wrong, harmful, if its not.

i really see that latter as being the most extremely unlikely. certainly if diversity being the observable nature of reality is any indication.
i like to believe, the non-physical is nothing at all like christianity depicts it, and not at war, either within itself, nor with anything else either.

no devils, demons nor psycophantic angels. just non-physical people, places and things, one of which might happen to be more powerful then others, but that is all. no hell. no banishing to be tormented everything that doesn't kiss its ass. and even very possibly no desire to be worshiped. the whole idea of anything wanting to be worshiped sounds too much like something the human ego would come up with itself.

just things there, we know nothing about. maybe not incapable of harm, but certainly not intending it. that's my "religion", belief, faith, whatever you want to call it. that and diversity being the nature of existence. and that however annoyingly inconvenient that might be, however much pain it might occasionally bring, that very diversity itself, being the one eternal source of hope.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I.e. Authority and Language helps us understand this picture is not real" that is simply a completely false statement.

the avoidance of self deception alone enables us to recognize the falsity of self conflict.
"authority" (i.e. hierarchy), and to lesser degree, language, are the very things that enable, create, and encourage self deception.