What is that you need so badly?

Agreed.

 

It's true and I have examined this issue well ( the pairs of opposites) One example:

Winter is cold and summer is hot.
Some-- or most people, love summer and hate winter, but others (fewer) have come love both- and find activities more suited for each season, and welcome with open arms the contrasting change when it comes, because there are rewards in both, if we have a variety of interests, because this change brings balance, and actually, it is a more joyous experience to enjoy two contrasting pairs than only one.

This can be applied to various issues like: Losing or findings things, being alone or with many people, having a mate or a period with no one, undergoing a great creative period or an empty one, being full of energy or drained of it.

The key is to love both sides equally and seeing them as a constructive pair.

To see first, how one makes the other more real, and how one exists so that we can be grateful for the other, that one IS so that the other can BE, also.

The Pairs can be countless, but the essential principle will always be the same.

I believe that life itself teaches us that we are not here to lament constantly, but to rejoice and be at peace with ourselves, and the many changes that are part of life in general;and if we miss this important point, then we will miserable constantly instead of satisfied constantly.

 

For the most part I agree, regarding such things as summer and winter, day and night, it's most often a choice to see it in a positive light or a negative one. But when it comes to things such as the loss of a loved one or other excruciating emotional or physical pain, trying to look at it in a positive light has, in my experience been fairly ineffective and to not react to those things under the conditions that cause them hardly seems human.

I suffer from chronic depression...some components are my mental cognitions toward what I experience, but a large part of it seems to just happen on it's own as the way my body chemistry works. The outward symptoms, such as low motivation, crying, being quiet and withdrawn those things I have little control over.

But on a deep inner level I seem to be slowly learning to disassociate...or maybe transcend is a better word. It has to do with letting go of the concept of the separate self (which is ultimately an illusion of the mind).

The identification with this self that resists pain and seeks pleasure is what makes the real pain in life so unbearable. But the more I can defocus on that notion of a me that is experiencing the pain and, in a way, become one with the pain, the experience changes.

Slowly I am beginning to understand a passage in the Tao Te Ching that says something to the effect that one who becomes one with loss does not experience it. And another, slightly metaphorical passage that states "misfortune comes from having a body...without a body, how can their be misfortune?"

I don't think it's the body it's self, but the perception of such that it speaks of not having. In reality, one's body is the whole universe, but such is our experience in life that causes us to think of our skin as the outer boundry of ourselves when really it's only the perception that makes it seem true.

So when I find myself really hurting, I work on disolving that sense of being a self and begin to shift into a different mode....I call it minusmode, which to me means minus self. It doesn't illiminate all the outward symptoms than mostly are body reactions, but it has been a long time since my depression has brought me to a state of becomming suicidal or requiring hospitalization.

Well it's interesting food for thought anyway.

 

It's a complicated belief, that's for sure. I believe we can only understand parts of the afterlife. The only being that can understand the afterlife is God, just as the only being that can create all life and end all life is God. I don't profess to understand it at all, but I do believe that there is a heaven and hell.

What I believe in is not the typical Western view of heaven or hell, nor is it any of the Eastern views on them. It is plain to see that in this life, not all good behaviour gets rewarded, and not all bad behavior is punished. Karma balances out a lot with rewards and punishments, but the afterlife is the ultimate result of our desicions here on Earth. Every choice we make is a test God has put there for us, and He knows what decision we will make even though he did not make the decision for us.

Here's were things start to really get complex. If what I just said is true, then God knows who will go to hell, and he allows it to happen. This is an aenigma that I haven't figured out yet, and I believe no one ever will but God himself. No one deserves an eternity of punishment, but none of us deserve an eternity of pleasure either. But we as humans are not meant to understand the afterlife, it will be a permanent dead end of thought. That's the point of religion, the point of beliefs. You must make a leap into the unknown.

My philosophy is that if you go through life living as morally as possible, then you can't lose. If there isn't an afterlife, then what have you lost? If there is an afterlife and a heaven, then look at what you have gained! You have to trust in God, however you interpret him, to take care of you. Maybe those who go to hell don't spend an eternity there, maybe the afterlife is completely different to what we think it is. But in the end, does it matter what happens after we die? Does it help us to know what happens? No, it doesn't. As humans we are curious about the afterlife and desire to know what happens. We shouldn't worry about it, it's not our duty to know. We are here to live, love, and spread life and love.

 

Well, I like you, bigblondafro and hope you don't get pissed at me like another guy on hipforums did. I liked him too, still do, but I get down on christianity a lot....I guess you could say I have issues....he got pissed. Not that I lost sleep, but I felt bad that he saw things in such a way as to percieve my attacking his religion as attacking him.

It seems to be hard to make it clear that hating Christianity is not the same as hating Christians.

At least you recognise that no one deserves to suffer unendingly for ever, that is my biggest beef with Christianity.

But , I think it is a beautiful thing for a Christian, or a person of any religion to just live thier life trusting that life is ultimately good and trying to be part of the goodness as much as they can, as long as they don't think that that involves hurting children with guilt and shame or using thier beliefs as a basis for hate.

 

No way man, you're on of the good guys on these forums. I like to explain my beliefs to people and it doesn't offend me at all if someone believes different. Now I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a Christian, while I do identify with a lot of the beliefs from that religions. The Christian religion suffers HEAVILY from human corruption and to really get to the meat of what the Bible really says, you have to sort through a lot of manmade garbage made for profit.


The Catholic church in its original form was as underground and taboo as the hippy movement, but as it gained popularity, many people saw an oppurtunity for profit. The modern Catholic church and the modern concept of the Christian religion is an absolute joke as compared to what I believe reality is. Needless rituals, the selling of pardons, holier-than-thou attitudes, the rich control the church (and the church controls many governments), and brainwashing of the youth and many others are just a few problems that plaque the modern church.

But this isn't to say that the core beliefs of the Christian church are wrong. The core beliefs of nearly all religions in the world have very solid information involved, and to know your own religion well, you must learn as much as you can about every religion out there. (I dunno about satanism though, that is idol worship as far as I'm concerned).

Many Eastern religions have a lot to teach us about how to live our lives and go much more in depth than Christianity . If you combine the core beliefs of Christianity with the life philosophies of many Eastern religions, you really get an idea of how God wants all of us to live.

 

I look at all religions as the creations of institutions established for the control of populations. These institutions make gods of wise teachers of the past and use their ideas and add thier own embellishments....they use what's true and right to create elaborate belief structures that are not so much true and right as designed to make people behave themselves and do what the institution tells them.

Blind faith, a core value of Christianity, which is basically hog-tying rationality with the belief that you are neither capable of understanding nor meant to understand, is the tool with which the institution of Christianity sells the masses a whole, largely nonsensical, belief structure which has some beautiful aspects, but some very ugly and harmfull ones, too.

My concept of faith is not accepting a belief structure from a book or institution that is supposedly holy.
My concept of faith is simply observing life and nature and accepting it as being what it is simply because that's what it is. Relative explanations always call for further relative explanations. For every answer to every question why?, there is another question why?....unless you just accept that it simply is.

So I am simply because it is the nature of being for me to be, not because another being decided to create me. I am kind to others because it's in my nature to care about them. Not because I will be rewarded or punished in an afterlife.
Accepting nature as simply being what it is and trusting it to do what it does is all the faith anyone really needs.

Unless one wants to use and control others. Then one needs religion.

 

Yeah I understand you, I've had similar thoughts in my life, and believe, I don't act morally simply for the reward. If you do good deeds and such not, it does in fact make everyone happier who is around you.


I often wonder whether or not my beliefs or religion are from being forcefed it as a child. But if I took your approach and made my beliefs from what I observed around me, I believe that I would come up with the exact same conclusion.

I believe in adaptation, not in evolution. The fundamental thought of evolution just makes no sense to me. They want you to believe that back before life on Earth, it was an environment harsher than the barren surface of mars. And out of all this, a series of millions of chemicals just so happened to assemble and bond into a living bacteria. Bacteria in and of themselves are so very complex that to say it would spontaneously assemble is just as unlikely and impossible as taking a one million piece jigsaw puzzle, dumping it on the ground, and having it assemble itself just by how the pieces fell. Now I don't care how many billions of years you repeat this, the puzzle isn't going to fit together without someone putting it together.

This is why I believe in a God figure, something had to have assemble all that we see and all that we are. The concept of infinity is also in my opinion, proof of a God. In math, no one can count all the numbers. If the universe is infact infinite in its bounds, then it is proof of God.

And like I said, I would rather believe in a God and be wrong than not believe in God and be right. One of the saving points of religion is that at the end of the day, you have hope. You know the future is brighter than you can possibly imagine and it helps you live life with a smile. If there were no God and we just were, when we died we just ceased to be, if everything is just here by chance, then where is the hope? Even if my religion is a foolish mind control ploy, well at least I have something to take solace in at the time being.

PS: If I come off as defensive or angry, I'm not. This is enjoyable for me and I've had many debates similar to this, so don't feel like you are offending me. Have a good weekend! I'm off to touch the sky!

 

I miss ignorance and the feeling not to care and not to know!

 

Yeah, one guy got mad a while back because of things I said about ​

Christianity, but you seem to be someone who can just enjoy the discussion. I know a lot

of people feel that without the explanation of a creator, the development of living

organisms can only be explained by some miraculous coincidence.

I believe there are two different kinds of causes in the universe:
​

relative, and absolute. Relative causes are things that happen because of something

else, while absolute causes are things being what they are just because it is the nature

of being it's self for them to be that way.

When kids go through thier inquisitive stage they like to repeat the​

question "Why?" If you keep answering their questions, you will run through relative

explanation after relative explanation, but eventually you run out of whys. That's when

you have taken the relative explanation bus all the way to the end of the line. The end

of the line is the absolute.

You can't see the absolute. I's existence is like the existence of
​

mathamatical laws. They don't have their own body (so to speak) that says "Hi I'm

2+2=4." But you know that these laws exists somehow because all that you can see

follows them without fail. True existence is pure essence which can not be percieved by

the senses. All that can be sensed is the expression of this essense which comes about

by the absolute nature of what essense is, just as 2+2=4 not because there is

something visible making it so, it just is because it is.

But humans think in relative terms and this concept of the absolute ​

essense of all things is one that runs contrary to that mode of thought, so it's hard for

most people to understand. It makes sense, though, when you realise that if everything

has to be explained in terms of something else, it has to stop somewhere!

I don't believe in death as the end of anyone's existence, because​

there is nothing but existence so there is nowhere for anyone to really go. It is only the

visible expression of existence that undergoes the change we call death. People die and

babies are born, and some call it reincarnation, but I just think of it as all one being

constantly renewing it's self through the process of death and birth.

 

Well that relative and absolute idea is a very good one! To take that idea with my opinion, the relative causes all obey certain rules or laws (laws of physics, mathematics, etc) and where did these rules come from? The answer to that question is an absolute cause, in your terms. In my view, there is only ONE absolute cause, which is the final question of: And why does it have to be that way? Why does 2+2=4? Why does the mass of an object increase as it nears the speed of light? Why do I think the way I do? What is infinity? These are all the same question. And the answer in my opinion, is that the God being made it to be that way. Of course, you either believe that, or you believe what you do, that it is because it is.


And on life and death, I believe there are different dimensions in which life can exist. To explain what one of these dimensions is like to someone who hasn't experienced it would be like trying to explain to a cartoon what 3 dimensions is like, they just wouldn't understand. I have experienced a few of these other places on my journey with psychedelics and in my dreams, and it feels very wierd to be in a place that doesn't follow the same rules we see from second to second. Places where gravity isn't a concept, places where there is no such thing as empty space (in other words, there is matter everywhere, but it is all different, if you follow), places where everything is a white arch, and so on an so forth.

Birth and death aren't starts or stops in existence as much as they are entrances and exits into this life. I think birth is the actually start of a being, and that all being start by being born here on this plane of reality. From there, the human ego develops and grows as the body too develops and grows. After this the body starts to deteriorate, but the mind will continue to wisen if it is kept healthy. The next step is that the body can no longer function, so the ego leaves and goes onto another plane of reality, another dimensions. Maybe the afterlife consists of these different planes? Maybe Hell is one or many or even infinite planes that are full of suffering or unpleasentness and Heaven is just the opposite? Maybe there is no such thing as either, and depending upon the strength of the ego, the being can move to whichever plane they wish? To use the same analogy as before, for us to understand the afterlife, it would be as a cartoon understanding three dimensions.

I can see we have quite opposing views on these matters haha. You believe in one human being, I believe in many, you believe in the 'it is because it is' philosophy, I believe in a God. But I'm glad we can still understand where we each come from.

If there is a heaven, I'm not sure you have to believe in God to get into it. You deserve to go there, babies and children deserve to go there, many people smart and intelligent who just were never relgious deserve to go there. Heaven isn't some exclusive club if it does exist, where is the humanity in that?

 

(special note: after unsuccessfully trying to use the indent code to format my writing and make it more easily readable, I decided to hence forth change color with each paragraph instead. More fun that way anyway.) so...

It's good to know that there are thoughtful christians out there, like yourself, who aren't afraid to question ideas such as heaven and hell.
So many christians seem to be convinced that it's a sin to do so. I know I was told when I was a kid that in the days of the old testement, those who didn't accept the teachings of the church were stoned to death
The fanatic that said this went on to say that it would be better if things were like that today because it would save more people from going to hell for ever. It's easy for me to see how a lot of people are just scared to think for themselves at all.
I guess it occurred to me at some point that if there was a God, he wouldn't have given me a mind if he didn't want me to use it. Then the more I used it the more I came to the conclusion there is no God.
Of course there are many who call what I do believe in "God", but to me, it is a Christian word describing a Christian deity, and it's a person I know I could never bring myself to even like, let alone love as the christians say I am supposed to.
A lot of people say they are "raised catholic" or whatever other denomination, and they say it as though it means they have no choice but to believe that way. As crazy as it seems, I can kind of understand in a way, because, even though my mind knows better, I feel like some part of me still feels like my soul must be black and corrupted now because I have abandoned religion.
Since accepting doctrines that make no sense to me is not an option, I have to find some other way to change that old programming and reclaim the feelling of innocence I had as a child.
Since things that children absorb at a young age are so permanent in ways, I tend to feel it's wrong to put religious ideas into thier young minds.
If those ideas are so right and true, then why not leave them to see them for themselves when the time is right instead of hammering it into them when they are young so they have no choice?
Of course, intelectually they are free to believe what they choose, but those feelings of guilt and shame instilled early on, when a child's mind is still develloping, are not easy to get rid of.

 

To be at home with my fiance and my cattle dog.

 

Yeah I agree with you on that one, telling children what they should or shouldn't believe is a really tough call. If you were the parent, would you want your child to believe what you believe, which in your mind is right, or would you want the child to form his/ her own opinions? Keep in mind that in the modern day and age, with the modern school system, the child would almost definitely come out as a close-minded, aetheistic, democrat with no sense of right or wrong just because that is what is popular at this time.

I personally would choose to tell them what I believe, but educate them on other religions as well. I would give them books and knowledge at a young age, but would not force anything on the child. But in raising a child I would make it of utmost importance to raise an intelligent, independent child who is not concerned about the social ladder or fitting in. This is probably the only way to raise a child who isn't a sheep, although they will probably turn out as a loner, which we discussed earlier.

 

A close minded,atheistic democrat with no sense of right and wrong!!That's rich.Surely you meant to type republican.

 

When my kids asked me if there was a god,I told them that they would have to decide for themselves.

 

My 40 foot catamaran that I was going to sail to the south pacific.

 

Well when was the last time you looked at the average wasteproducts our high schools are turning out? Everyone is an atheist because its 'cool' and because the school douses us with antireligion sentiments. Everyone is a democrat because thats the 'in' thing now. Its fashionable to call the president a stupid incompetent fucktard whether he is or not, and whether he is even responsible for the mess we've gotten into (do NOT turn this into a politcal debate or I will delete my account). The TV and media fuels this trend and kids think they know so much about politics when all they are doing is playing follow the leader. And every single rodent teenager that comes out of the school nowaday without a single original thought in there head has the notion that their opinion is the only one that matters in the entire world and that they deserve to be king.


But yeah, thats a good answer for your children I didn't think of that one. What kind of catamaran do you own? Me and my family are pretty heavy boaters and I'm considering buying a boat to live on after I graduate from college.

 

Yeah, I think that's how I would treat the subject with my kids (if I ever wind up having any). I'd wait till they start asking questions on their own though, which I think is the best time to teach them about sex, or anything else.
I havn't attended school for 24 years, so I wouldn't venture a guess about what they are teaching kids politically. My impression though is that they aren't so much putting particular views into thier heads as just making sure they aren't taught to think for themselves at all.

 

i havent read this whole thread but for me itd be love. I get lonely... And my parents.