Notes on Religion
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church.”
~Thomas Paine
“Not only Christianity with its symbols of salvation,” writes Jung “but all religions, including the primitive with their magical rituals are forms of psychotherapy which treat and heal the suffering of the soul, and the suffering of the body caused by the soul.”
~Carl Jung
“God speaks to us today, in our langauge, as well as God ever spoke to peole in faraway lands in the distant past. The soul discerns what is true, independent of any tradition, institution, or book. Our religions, are storehouses of secondhand insights, useful for inspiration but harmful when substituted for firtnand communion with the divine soul.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Living from the Soul
“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”
~Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
“Without God, anything is permitted’”
~ “Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Two kinds of fools - those who take religion literally, and those who think it has no value."
~Naval Ravikant
For the true believer, those with unmitigated faith, we live in a moral universe in which the stakes are not life and death but heaven and hell. These folks are few and far between in this day and age.
I've never been comfortable with other people's dogma. I'm an eclectic: I take what makes sense to me from wherever I find it.
Some people cling to dogma because it enables them to get through their day with some peace of mind. Anyone who questions this dogma becomes an automatic threat and therefore a target for attack or ridicule.
Show the most religions and science actually agree.
The same content presented in a different context.
Buddhism and quantum mechanics for example. They are saying the same thing at the core.
Every mythology, every religion, is true in the sense that it metaphorically represents the human and cosmic mystery.
Teachers like Buddah, Mohammed and Jesus have been telling us the same thing in different ways for centuries.
William James saw great overlap between spirituality and psychology. He thought that uses of differing language distracts from the considerable common ground. In theological discussion we refer to the spirit or soul whereas in psychological discussion we speak of emotion, unconscious, and psyche.
-Add comparisons of philosophy
The Perennial Philosophy has spoken almost all the languages of Asia and Europe and has made use of the terminology and traditions of every one of the higher religions. But under all this confusion of tongues and myths, of local histories and particularist doctrines, there remains a Highest Common Factor, which is the Perennial Philosophy in what may be called its chemically pure state... It is only the act of contemplation, when words and even personality are transcended, that the pure state of the Perennial Philosophy can actually be known. The records left by those who have known it in this way make it abundantly clear that all of them, whether Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, Taoist, Christian or Mohammedan, were attempting to describe the same essentially indescribable Fact.
~ Aldous Huxley
“I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them…
~ Mahatma Gandhi
There is one vibratory field that is the common root of all religions and universal energy that unifies all forces in physics, the golden key that unifies all the mysteries of the universe the source of the logos, the primordial Om, the mind of god.
Write in every joe language. Do not disparage or attempt to convince. Just explore the concepts, sims and diffs
If you truly believe in something then it is absolutely real to you. Thus God is real to those that believe in God unconditionally.
Is there a god?
Since god is an ambiguous word, it is important to start with a clear definition.
Well first you must define what you mean by god. An old man with a flowing white beard who knows all? A force responsible for all that we know?
Define God and define religion to assist in context of understanding
In the end is it irrelevant? God or no God, is it all just mental gymnastics and philosophical conjecture.
"If you point out something that you don't think makes any logical sense in the Bible to a Christian, they might respond to you by saying: 'Yes, but perhaps that was just a metaphorical expression!' Well, what if God was just a metaphorical expression?"
~ Alan Watts
God is a metaphor for that which cannot be known.
Myths as well are metaphors for the same according to Joseph Campbell.
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you
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The Stoics had another metaphor for what they called the logos or the universal guiding force of the universe.
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Apply Occam’s Razor to religion?
Occam's razor (also Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; Latin: lex parsimoniae "law of parsimony") is the problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the one that makes the fewest assumptions.
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Working Title:
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
The Idea of the Perennial Philosophy
How they all religions are really the same at the core…. including atheism.
There is a case to be made that, in a very real sense, atheism is a religion
Define religion
Review : https://strangenotions.com/is-atheism-a-religion/
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Summarize each major religion into a concise paragraph.
Even better ask the same questions of each religion i.e.
Who
What
Where
When
Why
How
Also summarize the major arguments for creationism, intelligent design and atheism.
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In the Garden of Eden myth, humans are punished for their curiosity and for their wish to gain knowledge. God expels them from paradise.
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Previous 80000 years?
Archaic hunter gatherers – animist – humans are just another spcies of animal – worship nature
Previous 2500 years
Agricultural revolution farmer – theist – humans are the apex of creation – worship gods
Previous 500 years
Technical revolution – humanist – humans upgrade themselves to gods – worship humans
Organized religions are philosophical shell games meant to control not to enlighten.
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We are searching for lost knowledge instead of new knowledge.chr
Scientific Method
Science can’t prove anything…. Nor does it try to.
Science disproves …. Or attempts to disprove ideas.
Ideas that fail to be disproven… like Cell Theory (we’ve never found any organism not made of cells) or Evolution (populations do change through time) are accepted as true.
We (science) accept ideas… until they are disproven… then we don’t consider them true anymore.
As odd as it sounds, in science there is no such thing as proof — there are only conclusions drawn from facts and observations. Scientists cannot prove a hypothesis, but they can collect evidence that points to its being true.
Sir Karl Popper wrote that the nature of scientific thought is that we could never be sure of anything. The only way to test the validity of any theory was to prove it wrong, a process he labeled falsification.
Must be falsifiable
Must be reproducible, if the theory fails just one time…it is wrong
The modern scientific enterprise operates under the principle of falsification: A method is termed scientific if it can be stated in such a way that a certain defined result would cause it to be proved false. Pseudo-knowledge and pseudo-science operate and propagate by being unfalsifiable – as with astrology, we are unable to prove them either correct or incorrect because the conditions under which they would be shown false are never stated. Define idea/theory/hypothesis/scientific method to show that science does not actually disagree with core religious principles
A good hypothesis is one that is testable by experimentation and deductive reasoning and fosters predictions that consider one variable at a time.
Hypotheses that cannot be tested are useless to science – it may be good philosophy – but not good science. A theory that can’t be tested is a death sentence in science, a dead end.
Hypothesis cannot be proven to be correct – they may be tested and believed accurate to a probability and they may be proven to be incorrect but can never be proven to be true or confirmed with absolute certainty.
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” — Albert Einstein
In science a theory is a tested, well substantiated, unifying explanation for set of verified proven factors.
All I can do is develop an optimal theory hypothesis guess which is the best that can be done in the face of questions with unknowable answers.
No ideas are a completely different matter.
Science can’t prove anything…. Nor does it try to.
Science disproves …. Or attempts to disprove ideas.
Ideas that fail to be disproven… like Cell Theory (we’ve never found any organism not made of cells) or Evolution (populations do change through time) are accepted as true. Natural selection?
We (science) accept ideas… until they are disproven… then we don’t consider them true anymore]
There's no indication for "heaven" existing, so there's no reason to assume it does.
It doesn't support it or rule it out.
The question is whether there's necessary consequences of something like that existing that we could test for, something that we would necessarily have to see if the proposition was true.
If anything we measure gives no indication either way it's not a scientific question (ie if you propose something exists which we can't notice in any way whatsoever).
For example You can’t know if there’s a God or not in any scientific sense because a supernatural entity is, by definition, outside of nature, so the natural sciences cannot detect it/him. If this entity reaches in to stir the particles (say, to cure cancer or some other miracle), then that God—or at least his actions—should be detectable, and to date no detection has been made.
That said, the late physicist Victor Stenger argues persuasively (in God: The Failed Hypothesis) that if there was such a deity the world should have certain characteristics (e.g., miracles, or violations of natural law), which it doesn’t have (law and chance explain events), and other features like natural evil (earthquakes, tsunamis, cancer) that would seem to negate God’s existence (theodicy, or the problem of evil). In this line of reasoning I agree that it would be reasonable and rational to conclude that there is no God inasmuch as the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
Are there indirect ways to gather evidence of god or consciousness?
Like reincarnation accounts for example.
Popularized by Nassim Taleb, a Black Swan is a rare and highly consequential event that is invisible to a given observer ahead of time. It is a result of applied epistemology: If you have seen only white swans, you cannot categorically state that there are no black swans, but the inverse is not true: seeing one black swan is enough for you to state that there are black swans. Black Swan events are necessarily unpredictable to the observer (as Taleb likes to say, Thanksgiving is a Black Swan for the turkey, not the butcher) and thus must be dealt with by addressing the fragility-robustness-antifragility spectrum rather than through better methods of prediction.
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Aldous Huxley called the perennial philosophy, that all religious traditions at bottom are the same, with slightly different imagery and symbolism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy
No religions are wrong and there are more similarities than differences. They may use different nomenclature, adhere to different rituals, disagree over historical events but ultimately, God, Yahweh, Shaddai, Jehovah, Allah, Brahman, Abraxus, the holy spirit, the Tao, Nirvana, the life force, divine consciousness, elan vital, divine power, divine unity, supreme truth, supreme ultimate, limitless consciousness, supreme consciousness, ultimate reality, source energy, pleroma, the will to power, the will to life, etc. are the same universal energy/universal consciousness.
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“You can’t really study psychedelics without considering some big, existential questions. “I don’t think of myself as a spiritual person. In fact, I’m kind of spiritually retarded. But I am at a period in life when you start thinking about some of these issues.
The first thing you learn about consciousness is that nobody knows shit about consciousness. It could be any number of things. Physicists speculate that it’s a property of the universe like matter and energy. This is a pretty wild idea. But they also believe there are seven other dimensions that we’re not aware of, occupying our universe right alongside this one.
I am stone-cold materialist on any question, so for me to talk to people who are convinced that consciousness is not something that only happens inside your skull, but is a prop of the universe and the brain is more of a radio tuner than a generator of consciousness—this is pretty out there for me. But I’m trying to keep an open mind.”
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Intelligent Power that is ever standing by, ready to solve our problems, manifest our dreams and keep us in a constant state of physical, emotional, and spiritual balance and harmony.
The “enlightened” person is one who has been “born again, one who experiences his or her interdependence with all beings.
that religion is generally determined by accident of birth. If you are born to Hindu parents in Delhi, or to Jewish parents in Tel Aviv, guess which religion you grow up to embrace?
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
-- Thomas Paine from his book "The Age of Reason"
Religion. Is there a God? If so, what is His (Her) nature? These are questions for which the answers are unknowable, or at least I have found them so. But if they are unknowable, they nevertheless deserve continuing reflection. And the answers that others believe they have found deserve our respect, no matter how unpersuasive we may find them.
As far as a divine being, or deity I just can’t buy it.
See green highlights from “The Joy of Living” for different definitions of the unknowable!
Indefineable
Incompletely knowable
The self cannot be defined, only experienced in its “emptiness” – as defined in TJOL pg. 60
Do you believe in God?
In my own way, Yes.
Agnosticism
The term “Agnostic” was coined in 1869 by T.H. Huxley, and not as a description, but as a creed: “to follow reason as far as it can take you, but then, when you have established as much as you can, frankly and honestly to recognize the limits of your knowledge.”
The main debating question of many scholars being, "Is the universe self-contained or does it require something beyond itself to explain its existence and internal function?"
Is all of life due to random and blind natural means, or is there something supernatural involved?
After philosophizing for many years, I don’t know.
What do I believe? I believe we don’t know.
Some people maintain that belief has to be on one side or the other.
I don’t believe natural science ultimately provides all the answers any more than the belief in supernatural intelligence.
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Organized Religion:
Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people/s minds.
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
-- Thomas Pain from his book "The Age of Reason"
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On God
Apatheism is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of god(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system.
An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist. The existence of god(s) is not rejected, but may be designated irrelevant.
Apatheism is an alternative to positions such as theism, atheism, and agnosticism, with implications that have been overlooked in modern philosophical discussions
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God is a loaded term and means different things to different people.
I submit that God, Logos, Yahweh, Brahma, Shaddai, Jehovah, Allah, Primordial Om, the holy spirit, the Tao, Nirvana, the life force, divine consciousness, elan vital (vital force) etc. are all different interpretations of the same universal energy.
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God is in fact neither perfect nor imperfect…duality is an invention of a human mind.
God can't be evaluated or understood using a human measure. We are not the focus or goal of creation. We are in fact a tiny part of it. We imagine ourselves to be special. We are not.
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Everything has spirit which is simply another way of saying everything is connected to the one vibratory source. There is one consciousness, one field, one force that moves through all. This field is not happening around you, it is happening THOUGH you and happening AS you. You are the “U” (you) in universe. You are the eyes through which creation sees itself. When you awake from a dream you realize that everything in the dream was you. You were creating it. So called real life is no different. Everyone and everything is you. The one consciousness looking out of every eye, under every rock, within every particle.
Researchers at Cern found the Higg’s boson, the god particle proves that an invisible energy field fills the vacuum of space.
Replace ‘god’ with:
An invisible nervous system that runs throughout the universe connecting all things
The fabric of the universe is woven together
The etheric feel that extends throughout all things
The embedded intelligence of the matrix of time space
The universe is vibration
The vibratory field of energy
The primordial ohm
Akasha
Indra’s net of jewels
The link between our inner and outer worlds
The divine animating principle pervading the universe
That out of which the unmanifest becomes manifest
‘life force’
‘universal energy’
‘cosmic force’
‘source of all things’
‘intelligence of the universe’
‘”the name that cannot be spoken”
and replace ‘prayer’ with ‘meditation’ in religious dogma, ceremonies, writings and teachings.
i.e.
replace judgement with karma
replace prayer with meditation
replace god with yahweh, jehova, life force, allah, mother nature, the great spirit, etc...
include other examples from Aldous
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The animating principle of the universe is described in every major religion using words that reflect the understanding of that time in history. In the language of the Incas,
The Dalai
My religion is very simple.
My religion is kindness.
-14th Dalai Lama
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. He is the spiritual leader of Tibet. He was born on 6 July 1935, to a farming family, in a small hamlet located in Taktser, Amdo, northeastern Tibet. At the very young age of two, the child who was named Lhamo Dhondup at that time, was recognized as the reincarnation of the previous 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.
The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are believed to be enlightened beings who have postponed their own nirvana and chosen to take rebirth in order to serve humanity.
Indigenous/Shamanism
Some Religious leaders/shamans are analogous to self-improvement gurus
Reincarnation:
One of the things we notice about the natural world is cycles. We see all kinds of cycles in nature: day and night, seasons, lunar cycles… the examples go on and on. Cycles are also abundantly present in things too big and too small for our unaided senses. When we look through the telescope, we see celestial cycles in astronomy; when we look through the microscope, we see life cycles in microbiology. Cycles seem to be an intrinsic part of reality, at every level of existence.
This being the case, it may not be so far-fetched to believe that our consciousness also goes through the cycles of life and death. After all, human consciousness is part of nature, not apart from it, so it must have characteristics that are consistent with all other aspects of the natural world.
Another observation about nature, related to the myriad cycles great and small, is that nothing goes to waste. Everywhere we look, everything is endlessly recycled and transformed. Not one bit of it is wasted — ever.
The efficiency of Wu Wei is like that of water flowing over and around rocks in its path, not the mechanical, straight-line approach that usually ends up shortcutting natural laws, but one that evolves from an inner sensitivity to the natural rhythm of things.
If we examine human life in light of the above, we really have to question the notion that there is absolutely nothing beyond death. If it really is the final stop, the ultimate oblivion, then wouldn’t that be a tremendous waste of a lifetime’s worth of accumulated experience and wisdom? How can we explain that as the one exception that flies in the face of what we know about reality?
Thus, while I cannot claim to understand how reincarnation works, I also cannot dismiss it outright. It is not the fear of non-existence that leads me to this perspective. Rather, it is the reasoning process that compels me.
Islam:
Mohammed wrote an open letter to Christians that declared their right to self-governance, protection for churches and monasteries, and the freedom to practice their religion openly in Muslim controlled areas. Muslims are commanded to follow this until the end of time.
Atheism:
The "original factory settings" of a human being.
You don’t "become" atheist, you "become" religious.
Religions are human created mythology and the god of every version of the bible is pretty fucking mean.
Religion is not hated. Some minds and societies benefit from a disciplined religious practice and true belief/faith (brainwashing?) in a cause. There's been a lot of interesting studies into these acts, faith healing, and just general suggestibility of the human brain, even to this extent of genuine physical reactions.
Buddhism
The Four Noble Truths are the foundation of the Buddhist teaching.
The truth of suffering (dukkha)
The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)
These are the truths of suffering, its origin, the possibility of cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering.
There are eight attitudes or paths you must follow to find freedom from suffering:
1. Right view
2. Right intention
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration
http://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-meditate-thich-nhat-hanh-on-walking-meditation/
Buddhism, the answer—broadly speaking—is to minimize, and if possible, eliminate desire. Not just the desire of vices, but also the desire that leads to the unending process of seeking.
Many spent their whole lives seeking enlightenment, but it wasn’t until they simply stopped looking that they found it.
Siddhartha Gautama
sounds like: Seedarta Gotama sounds like
http://www.pronounceitright.com/pronunciation/siddhartha-gautama-7399
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Budai (Chinese:布袋) or Budai Luohan, pronounced Hotei in Japanese, also known as the Laughing Buddha
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Reincarnation
And in fact, some leading scientists in the past, like Max Planck, who's the father of quantum theory, said that he viewed consciousness as fundamental and that matter was derived from it. So in that case, it would mean that consciousness would not necessarily be dependent on a physical brain in order to survive, and could continue after the physical brain and after the body dies.
University of Virginia
Dr. Tucker joins us from the Virginia Foundation
Book : Return to Life
Example: James Leineger
https://www.near-death.com/reincarnation/research/ian-stevenson.html
The most frequently occurring event or common denominator relating to rebirth is probably that of a child remembering a past life. Children usually begin to talk about their memories between the ages of two and four. Such infantile memories gradually dwindle when the child is between four and seven years old. There are of course always some exceptions, such as a child continuing to remember its previous life but not speaking about it for various reasons.
Most of the children talk about their previous identity with great intensity and feeling. Often they cannot decide for themselves which world is real and which one is not. They often experience a kind of double existence where at times one life is more prominent, and at times the other life takes over. This is why they usually speak of their past life in the present tense saying things like, "I have a husband and two children who live in Jaipur." Almost all of them are able to tell us about the events leading up to their death.
Many of these children with past-life memories show abilities or talents that they had in their previous lives. Often children who were members of the opposite sex in their previous life show difficulty in adjusting to the new sex. These problems relating to the 'sex change' can lead to homosexuality later on in their lives. Former girls who were reborn as boys may wish to dress as girls or prefer to play with girls rather than boys.
Our brains are conduits for consciousness which is created somewhere else
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There are many qualities of aging gracefully, including wisdom, patience, gratitude, love, kindness, humor, and resilience. You cultivate them by training the mind and heart. The first way to do this is with meditation practice, prayer, or some other form of contemplative exercise that you then extend into working with your thoughts, emotions, speech and action in daily life. It helps to have teachers to guide you.
In Buddhist terms these work out to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. But every spiritual tradition has a version of this triumvirate. Three’s!
Thich Nhat Hanh describes them this way:
impermanence, (everything is always changing)
no self (nothing has a solid core or soul)
selflessness
we are all one
there is no enduring self that separates anything from anything else
nirvana (peace is freedom from fixed concepts).
These are known as the “three marks of existence.”
http://www.lionsroar.com/what-makes-you-a-buddhist/
In order to be a Buddhist, you must accept that all compounded phenomena are impermanent, all emotions are pain, all things have no inherent existence, and enlightenment is beyond concepts.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche describes these truths in, alternatively, four points, known as “the four seals.”
The message of the four seals is meant to be understood literally, not metaphorically or mystically—and meant to be taken seriously.
not to be confused with Buddhism’s four noble truths, which pertain solely to aspects of suffering.
Siddhartha himself said that the best way to worship is by simply remembering the principle of impermanence, the suffering of emotions, that phenomena have no inherent existence, and that nirvana is beyond concepts.
One is a Buddhist if he or she accepts the following four truths:
All compounded things are impermanent.
we see everything as transitory and without value
We don’t necessarily have to give it all away, but we have no clinging to it
generosity is already practically accomplished
“easy come easy go”
use whatever techniques or practices help you to transform your habit of thinking that things are solid into the habit of seeing them as compounded, interdependent, and impermanent
Life is challenging because everything is always changing and we continually need to adjust to new circumstances.
If one knows that everything is impermanent, one does not grasp, and if one does not grasp, one will not think in terms of having or lacking, and therefore one lives fully.
All emotions are pain.
We suffer, not because there’s anything inherently wrong with us but simply because we misunderstand the nature of reality.
We suffer because of ignorance of the truth
Adding struggle to challenge creates suffering. Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.
All things have no inherent existence.
Peace is possible. In the middle of a complicated life, the mind can remain at ease.
Nirvana is beyond concepts.
The path for developing this kind of mind involves attention to ethical behavior, to disciplining the habits of mind through meditation, and to ardent intention.
Fundamentally it is not the act of leaving behind the material world that Buddhists cherish but the ability to see the habitual clinging to this world and ourselves and to renounce the clinging.
As we begin to understand the four views, we don’t necessarily discard things; we begin instead to change our attitude toward them, thereby changing their value
How are you?’ I always answer, ‘I couldn’t be better. Because, I couldn’t!’” It’s true. We couldn’t, any of us, be better. In our most out-of-sorts days, we couldn’t be better. If we could, we would. Suffering happens, but no “one” decides to suffer.
http://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism-z-basic-buddhist-library/
http://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-meditate-thich-nhat-hanh-on-walking-meditation/
Zen, practiced over time, reverses the mentality of searching for something else. It reminds us that what we’re searching for is already inside each of us. You already have everything you could want or need, but the searching mind can’t admit this to itself. The thing that would allow you to feel happy with a billion dollars or 3 kids or a professorship is already inside you. You’re the one making you happy; you simply convince yourself that things outside yourself are catalysts.
On Taoism:
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” – Chapter 1, Tao Te Ching
Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophical tradition whose origins extend back to 3000 B.C. and were attributed to the legendary Taoist sage, Lao Tzu, author of The Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Power). The word Tao itself translates as the Way, or Path.
Taoism’s central principle is that all life, all manifestation, is part of an inseparable whole, an interconnected organic unity which arises from a deep, mysterious, and essentially unexplainable source which is the Tao itself. Taoism views the Universe and all of its manifestations as operating according to a set of unchanging natural laws. Human beings can gain knowledge of these laws and become attuned to them. By aligning ourselves with these principles we can attain a universal perspective and live in harmony with the Tao
Taoism and Buddhism have fundamentally opposing aims in that Taoism seeks the salvation of the individual and Buddhism in contrast seeks an escape from the cycle of personal existence.
The Tao Te Ching confounds people because every other line contradicts itself. The point Lao Tzu is trying to make is that the nature of the universe is contradiction.
The way to be one with existence requires you to be aware of the mysteries, but to also be aware of yourself. Go with the flow of yourself, and allow yourself to just be. You have to find a way to perceive the oneness of the universe without losing yourself, or you miss part of the picture.
A major part of life is that every individual person contains a whole perception of the universe, almost like a whole universe itself. Western religion calls this a "spark of Godliness", but eastern shamanism isn't about higher consciousness nor our relationship to it. It is about embracing the illusion and illumination of embodied existence, how what we perceive of as real is only real for us.
The universe is both probabilistic and deterministic. We are all separate and individual, and yet also one. There is illusion in our day to day existence, and yet, we must still abide by the physical laws of our world.
So, to understand his point, you must embrace contradiction. Live with desire and yet not desire, act with non-action, and teach without teaching. Then you will be one with the Tao.
"The truth is one and the same everywhere and I must say that Taoism is one of the most perfect formulations of it I ever became acquainted with" - Carl Jung.
Add other notes…
When you speak, the Tao is silent. When you are silent the Tao speaks.
Wu Wei
literally meaning non-action or non-doing
Spontaneous, effortless action
Subconscious flow
Spontaneity
Going with the flow
Practically speaking, it means without meddlesome, combative or egotistical effort.
Acting without desire
Wu wei as an ideal can be more easily understood from the polarities we observe in life. Taoist sages have noted how fools or amateurs struggle mightily toward a particular goal but achieve little, while masters of any discipline seem to practice their craft effortlessly and achieve outstanding results. Why is that?
True martial arts masters understand wu wei as “spontaneous action” or “effortless flow”. You may know that Bruce Lee founded Jeet Kune Do, a style that, like the man himself, is imbued with an emphasis on speed and power. But you may not know that he also founded Wu Wei Gung Fu, a fighting art that expressed his ultimate philosophy: “Learn technique. Practice technique. Forget technique.” At the highest level of this discipline (as well as other martial arts), the warrior becomes one with the flow of reality around him. In that state of oneness, he is able to act without the necessity of volition. To the bystanders, he doesn’t seem to do much, and yet he delivers the exact minimum of impact at the exact right time to accomplish what needs to be done and not one iota more.
The concept of wu wei isn’t limited to Kung Fu. Every creative individual has experienced a certain “flow” at one time or another. It may be most evident when you paint or play a musical instrument, because these activities make it quite easy, indeed natural, to slip into this non-physical river of energy we are trying to describe. When you are immersed in the flow, you experienced timelessness and you let go of the idea of “self.” Your awareness expands to encompass all aspects of the activity you are engaged in, and your hands seem to develop a mind of their own, no longer requiring your conscious direction. You can even settle back in your mind, enjoy being a spectator for a while and marvel at this work that seems to be coming out of nowhere. Much later, long after the experience is over, you may realize that while within the flow, you were suffused with a pure bliss. This is all part of the power of wu wei.
Wu wei is a state in which one is relaxed, free yet focused. It is the antithesis of strife and struggle. We only struggle to do things when we are emotionally attached to the outcome. Wu wei is all about effort without attachment. In this light we can easily see how it applies not only to martial arts and creative endeavors, but also to I-Kuan Tao’s interpretation of giving without expectations. When you give of yourself by going with the flow, you benefit others according to whatever comes naturally and feel absolutely no need for rewards or any sort of peer approval. In this realm of true altruism (which the cynical among us would argue does not exist), there is no room for concern about what other people may think. You let go of any desire to be seen as a Good Samaritan or a philanthropist, and this frees you to focus on doing the right thing.
Occasionally I could glimpse, or even be one with, the effortless grace of wu wei for a few fleeting moments, but I couldn’t even come close to being able to call upon it consistently. That would require a level of mastery well beyond my grasp.
Wu wei is all about approaching oneness with the flow of reality. That flow is omnipresent; it exists everywhere and everywhen. We define it as the underlying current of existence, thus by definition reality cannot function without it.
The seeming paradox was that you could tap into it only when you weren’t trying to tap into it.
So it is not essentially inaction. It is action without action.
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
Be like water:
Adaptability, flow to the path of least resistance
Trust your future self to be where you are supposed to be, a river does not worry about its destination as it knows it will get to where it is supposed to be.
Stay moving and stay fresh, stop moving and stagnate
Wu wei is the cultivation of a mental state in which our actions are quite effortlessly in alignment with the flow of life.
This means that we do the right thing effortlessly and spontaneously, without trying.
But the moment we actively think about what we are doing, this states seems to get compromised. This state is clearly above thinking/consciousness.
In sports many call it The Zone, when you are so focused that you become one with what you do in the moment . Time vanishes. It is like we totally forget anything around us. In that state we are most effective and that surprisingly without too much effort.
On Meditation:
The breathing is a continuous process while one is alive and for that reason a very convenient subject on which to meditate.
Concentrating on the warm and cool sensations in the nostrils as the air flows through while breathing in (cool) and breathing out (warm).
https://buddhismnow.com/2013/07/05/first-steps-buddhist-meditation/
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Spirituality connects us with a reality of the highest order, the reality of truth itself. It cannot be conveyed through thought or language. It must be directly experienced. There’s no need for fancy schools, doctrines, or traditions. There is only one commandment: go meditate.
When you dwell on a thought, it’s like holding in the breath. When you hold your breath for a long time, you become more and more tense until the lack of fresh oxygen in your lungs takes you over. You become stifled and red in the face and have to exhale, otherwise you pass out. Thoughts are the same way. When we hold onto them and expand on them, they drown us and propel us into further delusion. We are suffocated by our own thoughts day after day. When we let our thoughts come and go with the breath during meditation, we learn how to let go in everyday life.
A man who reads nothing of Zen but acts mindfully and diligently every day of his life is more of a practitioner than someone who talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.
"Nothing weaker than water. Nothing stronger than rock. Still, a slow flow of water can cut through mountains." — Zen Proverb
On Taoism:
it embodies some specific aspects at the very basis of the scientific thinking.
"If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich." — Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
The language is enigmatic with multiple layers of meaning ranging from philosophic, to cosmological, to alchemical.
There is no specific doctrine in Taoism. The Tao is just the way the universe is. Faith isn't a part of it. You can believe, or not, and both ways are the Tao.
Axial Age roughly the same time as Greek philosophers and Indian sages, the concepts od Daoism and Confucianism were developed.
Those who advocated individualistic retreat, learning from the natural world and non-interference were called Daoist’s. Those who wished to cultivate their own humanity through disciplined learning, ritual practice humility and active social service were called Confucians.
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Buddhism_vs_Taoism
youtube Watts on Taoism
Scriptures
Daozang, a collection of 1400 texts organized in 3 sections which includes the Tao Te Ching, Zhuang Zi, I Ching, and some others.
Teachers
Lao Tzu, and some other Taoist masters, such as Zhuangzi.
Goal of Philosophy
To gain balance in life.
Most Taoists respect and follow the Buddha's teachings.
“The game of life becomes profoundly easier when you recognize that all the satisfaction you need is within you.”
https://medium.com/@dailyzen/money-doesnt-make-you-happy-you-do-eebeda469b95#.khn5swhq8
obsession with a particular outcome will keep you from attaining your desired results
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Putting your fate in the hands in the lord analogous to Tao concept of “not attempting to control destiny
i.e. Let the world decide, I’m just along for the ride.
Go with the flow
Goals are deceptive – the un-aimed arrow never misses
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Christianity:
There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him--early.
-Twain
The medieval Arab philosopher and skeptic Al-Ma’arri wrote that religion consisted of ancient fables used to exploit the popular masses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%CA%BFarri
Al-Maʿarri taught that religion was a "fable invented by the ancients", worthless except for those who exploit the credulous masses.
December 973 – May 1057
His religious scepticism and positively anti-religious views extended beyond Islam and also toward Judaism and Christianity. Al-Maʿarri remarked that monks in their cloisters or devotees in their mosques were blindly following the beliefs of their locality: if they were born among Magians or Sabians they would have become Magians or Sabians.[21]Encapsulating his view on organized religion, he once stated, "The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains."[22]
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Medieval Pope Gregory IX considered cats to be the ‘incarnation of Satan’. Leading to a mass killing of cats, causing the rat population to swell, quickening the spread of the Black Death
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Myth
Fables
Fairy Tales
Written based on oral stories after hundreds of years and then transcribed and translated...add language issues from notes
cleared of controversial teachings
censored
mistranslated
What can all religions agree on?
Good acts, morals?
Early religions gave it their best shot at explaining the unexplainable as explanations were discovered more rational thought began to grow i.e. Socrates
Religion still deals with the unexplainable today and once/when/if explanations arise people's beliefs will adjust again
The only constant is change
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Believe nothing unless it agrees with your own reason
-Buddhist philosophy
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Abraham’s illegitimate son Ishmael was a bastard.
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Contact with the divine dimension, God, the spirit world, Nirvana etc... can be discovered through certain experiences of revelation ...mystical experience of fusion with nature
The hidden meaning can be found in the Bible, Quran, signs/symbols of nature, psychedelic journeys and other methods.
“God” speaks in many ways
You must open the curtain to your inner reality
Each person experience the exact same situations in different ways as we shape our own reality
That is the magic, the ability to shape our own reality due to the freedom to create our perceptions and reactions to the external
We are all connected to each other via the universal energy, which is also called God. We can tap into this vibratory (for lack of a better term) field and some can make and maintain strong interactions/connections like gurus, shamans, priests, prophets, psychics and other mystics.
This can be found overtly and covertly in all religions and philosophies
Upon death we exit our shells in this dimension and our essence returns to the realm.
Languages don’t provide adequate means to convey this concept, nor in this four dimensional form can most of even begin to comprehend (or care) about the reason we are here.... to experience all...yin and yang, good and bad, black and white...the Tao.
The invisible life is another name for the spirit world
Our life is like a spark, burning short for some and long for others, some dim and some blinding with their luminescence however all eventually burn out to return to the realm, the music fades away but is never gone.
Sacred texts were edited for many reasons especially by the churches themselves
Charges of heresy could bring death
The ‘flow of human awareness’ is a good name for the realm
Gnosticism explains it
The essence of human consciousness
To know god study yourself
We are co-creators
Rosacrucian
No religious motivations, and for sound reasons. One can contrive a religious motivation for virtually any choice of action, from commitment to the highest ideals to support for the most horrendous atrocities. In the sacred texts, we can find uplifting calls for peace, justice and mercy, along with the most genocidal passages in the literary canon. Conscience is our guide, whatever trappings we might choose to clothe it in. -Noam
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That there is no factual or historical evidence to the text in which they believe, but continue to believe it anyway. Say they wholeheartedly believe in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, even though it completely illogical. Then there are some who believe in some of the Old Testament, but choose which stories to believe.
Then there are some who believe only in the New Testament, not understanding that Jesus was preaching his view of the personification which comes entirely from the Old Testament, in which he completely believed in himself to be true.
Most Christians disregard Judaism, even though Christianity was born entirely from Judaism. Also, most Christians do not realize Jesus never intended to create his own religion, and if he were alive today as himself then, would call Christianity heresy.
If we’re to look at the general nature of most Christians, who often preach of the love and generosity of Jesus to follow, tend to be the absolute most judgements humans, and therefore the most hypocritical.
“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
~ Mark Twain
But I guess what irritates me the most is how they interpret the Bible individually to fit THEIR own individual life. This is why there are Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxies, and Protestants, not to mention each of their own denominations.
Disclaimer: I am not a biblical scholar. I found all of this information independently when trying to understand myself as a Christian, before I became a Deist, and then an Atheist.
The Israelites began physically writing their Hebrew Bible anywhere between 700-500 B.C.E, at least the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). This writing is based off an Oral Tradition that has passed down for nearly 600 years, starting between 1312-1280 B.C.E when Moses received the word of God on Mount Sinai.
Before I continue, it helps to understand who the Israelites were during this time. There were nothing more than a Nomadic tribe who travelled the ancient world between Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Babylon. They had no home. They were often unrecognized and even enslaved by these larger civilizations. Keep this in mind for what’s to come...
I’ll first start with God, Noah, and the great flood. Without any research, you would think this story is unique to Christianity. You would be dead wrong. Written in about 2200 B.C.E. In Mesopotamia is the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” which has an alarmingly similar story. Ea, one of their many gods, tells a man that the other gods intend to flood the Earth, so Ea tells this man to build a boat large enough to contain his family and many animals. The Epic of Gilgamesh is physically written on stone tablets in Sumerian language. This far predates anything in the Hebrew texts, and yet the story of Noah is a blatant example of plagiarism in which we are supposed to believe is true. Should an event like the flood have occurred, it was most likely local, not global.
So beginning with Abraham sometime after the world is flooded, in which Judaism is born, God told Abraham he would give him a promised land for his people. But immediately, there is an error. Genesis says Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeans around 2000 B.C.E. However, the Chaldeans didn’t enter Ur until 1000 years later. This is a massive 1000 year error. Furthermore, this was written in 700-500 B.C.E., during the Babylonian Exile, where the Israelites were held captives. Furthermore, there is no concrete physical evidence to Abraham whatsoever. His father’s name, Terah, was found on a cuneiform in Ur. But it’s undetermined if Terah is one man’s name, or a small tribe’s name.
Looking at Moses, who received the word of God after freeing 600,000 Israelite slaves from Egypt, you should know a little of Egyptian history. God, or Yahweh (the Jewish name of God that we refer to), is not the first monotheistic god to be created. The first is Aten, created by the Egyptian King Akhameten, portrayed as the sun. King A. threw all of his priests out of their temples to worship his new God, who was more powerful than all the previous gods together. After King A’s death, we have King Tut, his famous son. But when King Tut was mysterious ill, the priests came back to ask King Tut to return the old gods to the temples, and he did, in which they tried to remove all the history of Aten. It wasn’t uncommon for Egyptians to erase history of their previous rulers in whom they didn’t like.
That being said, let’s go back to Moses. Moses was raised in the royal family of the Pharaoh, and fled Egypt after killing a slavemaster. God comes to Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt. Supposedly he freed 600,000 people. Given Egyptian’s history of erasing history, it would be unlikely they would record such a defeat. But do you find it unusual that the Bible gives no description whatsoever of the Egyptian pyramids? Given the time this happened, isn’t 600,000 people an astounding number? Why did God choose Moses, and why is there no physical evidence of Moses?
This comment is getting far too long, so I won’t begin with Jesus. But when you said we need to trust the ancient texts, what is there to trust? The story of Noah is a blatant example of plagiarism. Abraham and Moses, who legendary figures of the Bible, have no concrete birthplace, no concrete resting place, and are not found outside the texts in which we are supposed to trust. There is just as much evidence that all Roman mythology is true.
And Catholicism is Christianity. It is the first Christian religion. They are not separate in the overall word of “Christianity,” only when you talk of Catholicism and Protestantism. Yes, they are more strict, but they are also the oldest of the Christian religions, so wouldn’t you think they would hold more truth than that of Protestantism? If God were real, why would it matter if his word was strict? It is his word. Who are we to say, “Whoa, this is too strict. I’ll just believe in this, this, and this, and disregard the rest.” How is that being true to God?
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Any question that involves an inherit contradiction is unanswerable. Does this apply to Zen Koans?
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Does the first law of thermodynamics apply to consciousness?
Consciousness is energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed only transformed.
Pro:
That law may not imply immortality, but it does dictate that we cannot be destroyed into oblivion:
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change.” And of course, we are made of atoms— protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. We are pure energy, even our consciousness…..So, that definitely applies to us.
The only real questions we have about this consciousness after death of the vehicle—the human body, is….. does it move on to another place, or does it change energy forms to carry on as something else entirely?
Today, I believe we have enough evidence in to suggest that it simply leaves the body and goes to other places. Research into near-death experiences (NDEs) is very interesting, very common today, and of course, we can accurately measure energy in the human body, especially brain waves via the EEG.
Here would be an interesting experiment. If we were to measure the energy flowing in the brain and note when that energy stopped flowing (the EEG no longer shows any activity—the patient is now brain dead), we would know that this energy of consciousness has left the body.
So, if we could also show that the patient was still conscious, just observing her surroundings from another perspective, outside the body, would we not have uncovered evidence that the consciousness does not really change into another form of energy, it just stays as it has always existed….. and moves on? Yes.
But this happens all the time!
Let’s look at the experience of Pam Reynolds. Pam came down with an inoperable aneurysm buried deep within her brain stem. If they tried to operate on her in that particular area, she would bleed to death.
But there was a new type of surgery being pioneered in Arizona by Dr. Richard Spetzler. He had become famous in his field as an instrumental contributor to a type of surgery colloquially referred to as standstill surgery, but more formally known as hypothermic cardiac arrest.
Yes, that surgery is very aptly named, because they completely stop the heart, they lower the body temperature down to about 60 deg F, then they drain every ounce of blood from the body. That patient will not bleed to death if there is no blood in the body to do so. And in that state of stone, cold death, the surgical team has maybe an hour and a half to do the difficult surgery, and then the patient will be very slowly brought back to life. Also, during this procedure, the patient flat-lines on the EEG as monitored by the neurosurgeons. The conscious energy just seems to leave the body, it was there, and now it is gone.
But we know it cannot just vanish and go away because of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. So where the heck did it go when Pam Reynolds flat-lined?
Pam would later state that she left her body and hovered over the shoulder of the main doctor doing the surgery. She accurately described every step of the surgery, the equipment used, and told the doctors what conversations they had—what they said to each other. She correctly told them the songs playing over the intercom during the surgery, including Hotel California by the Eagles right before they revived her.
She had initially confided in a member of the surgical team stating that she believed she had been hallucinating during the surgery. The doctor said no. There was no possible way she could have hallucinated anything, she was completely brain-dead.
Two members of the surgical team wrote in their medical reports that there appeared to have been some kind of out-of-body experience during the surgery.
Pam also visited other places during that NDE and talked to dead relatives. They told her it was not her time yet, and she had to go back to her body.
And so she did. Pam Reynolds flat-lined on the EEG, her conscious energy left her body, visited other places, and then returned to the body as shown on the EEG.
Do experiences like this not suggest that we can draw some conclusions? They certainly do to me…..
Con:
Your consciousness does exist as energy within the neuro-grid of which your material biomechanical brain is made. While the energy does in fact always continue, it has no grid to contain itself and without a grid, there is no order or coherence. The energy is incoherent.
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Virtual reality is nothing new, for thousands of years millions of people have found meaning in playing virtual reality games, we just called these games religions.
There are imaginary rules you must follow to get points. If you break them, you lose points. If you have a positive balance when the game is over (life) you go to heaven and get an extra life. Many humans gave been quite happy to play this game for centuries.
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Werner Heisenberg, the father of Quantum Physics, once said: “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting.”
“Broadly speaking, although there are some differences, I think Buddhist philosophy and Quantum Mechanics can shake hands on their view of the world. We can see in these great examples the fruits of human thinking. Regardless of the admiration we feel for these great thinkers, we should not lose sight of the fact that they were human beings just as we are.”
– The Dalai Lama (source)
“30 years ago I began a series of dialogues focusing on cosmology, neurobiology, physics, including Quantum Physics, and psychology. These discussions have been largely of mutual benefit. Scientists have learned more about the mind and emotions, while we have gained a subtler explanation of matter.”
Quantum physics has also shown that the present can change the past, that time is an illusion, and that an after-life exists. Quantum mechanics is essentially the science of consciousness and spirituality, proving just how connected we are to everything in existence, which is all an illusion
Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature. Therefore, if we really want to observe ourselves and find out what we are, we must recognize we are really beings of energy and vibration, radiating our own unique energy signature.
If you observed the composition of an atom with a microscope, you would see a small, invisible tornado-like vortex, with a number of infinitely small energy vortices called quarks and photons. These are what make up the structure of the atom. If you focused in closer on the structure of the atom, you would see nothing, a literal void. The atom has no physical structure, thus we have no physical structure, and physical things really don’t have any physical structure! Atoms are made out of invisible energy, not tangible matter.
From this, scientists have made all sorts of discoveries, including that we create our own realities.
“A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.”
– R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005
We’re now observing a merging of both science and spirituality through quantum physics and the study of consciousness, shattering old thought patterns and putting an end to the previous “tug of war” between the two subjects.
Lanza’s theory implies that if the body generates consciousness, then consciousness dies when the body dies. But if the body receives consciousness in the same way that a cable box receives satellite signals, then of course consciousness does not end at the death of the physical vehicle. This is an example that’s commonly used to describe the enigma of consciousness.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/01/14/quantum-theory-sheds-light-on-life-after-death/
Examining the neurochemical processes in the brain that occur when one is having a subjective experience is important, and does offer certain insights. It tells us that when ‘this’ type of experience is happening, ‘that’ is going on in the brain. But it does not prove that the neurochemical processes are producing the experience. What if the experience itself is producing the neurochemical processes?
Below is a great video from Dr. Gary Schwartz, a professor at the University of Arizona, discussing whether consciousness is the product of the brain or a receiver of it.
Nikola Tesla said it best: “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
Dr. Bruce Greyson
Dr. Gary Schwartz
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The bible is the ultimate ‘fake news’.
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There is wisdom in religion texts, they are just mired in suspicious bullshit.
Humans need community, being part of something bigger than them, moral guidelines (do we need religion to be moral or is inherent to “do the right thing”), help the less fortunate.
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Sometimes its all a matter of definition….people may be saying the same thing!
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Some references:
Terence Mckenna
Alan Watts
Aldous Huxley
Yuval Harari
Ram Dass
Dalai Lama
Eckhart Tolle
Welcome whatever arises and touch the only thing that never changes, the formless consciousness, the universal soul expressing itself as an individual, the essence of sense of identity beyond form.
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The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me.
For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition.
And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people.
As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power.
Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.
-Al Einstein
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I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion.
If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality.
The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination.
It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling.
But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions.
I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way.
What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented.
If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet.
Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones.
They are also much easier to exploit.
Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people.
Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church.
Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly.
That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.
~ Paul Dirac
In 1401 a law in England made burning the penalty for heresy.
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