When was your awakening? or are you still asleep?

[greenfrog]

I remember the day i had my awakening. It was in May of 1994. I was fed up with life, comtemplating suicide, had actually tried it and at the time felt a cold hand like power cover my heart and decided noway was any cold hand getting my heart!.

I remember a phrase from my childhood " in the name of christ get behind me satan". I said that out loud, I was flooded with a light and warmth that was so powerful it moved me to tears. at that moment i woke up and started to live and stopped dying.

I had started smoking weed a year before because it helped to ease the pain of life, the experience so startled me and i wanted to know if it was real or imagined i didn't smoke for a week and the warmth and healing i felt stayed with me for 7 days. Weird, made a beleiver out of me! I am still visited by that power occasionaly, it trips me out but also comforts.

Tell me your awakening experience 8)

[ermitonto]

My awakening happened when I was in my early teens. I had a paper route, and was contemplating the existence of souls. I realized that all the evidence points toward the brain as the origin of consciousness, and decided there was no rational way I could justify to myself the existence of non-matter non-energy soul stuff that somehow controls all that neural activity. How could things which are not made of measurable amounts of matter and energy affect things that are? Surely that would violate some fundamental laws of physics. Around the same time I realized that if there really is a God, he must not think very highly of me if he doesn't bother to provide any proof of his existence. Surely he would know I was the skeptical type, and I couldn't be expected to believe in something for which there was no proof. If there really was a loving God, he would reveal the true nature of the universe to mankind. To allow all this murderous quabbling over religion would be cruel and heartless when it could easily be prevented by coming out and saying "all right guys, this is how the universe really works". And even then I knew that the Bible was full of such wacky things as witches, demons, ghosts, pregnant virgins, talking animals, worldwide floods for which there is no geological evidence, etc. which could not possibly have existed, and which no rational person could reasonably believe in without extraordinary proof. From that day forward I have been the definer of my own life, knowing that I am not subject to the whims of some tyrannical dictator of the universe. I was no longer confined to the dogmatic assumptions of past generations, and I began my life anew as a free atheist.

[beachguy in thongs]

Ermontito, you have no spirit. Don't you want a soul? It's up to you.

[ermitonto]

What is a soul? If by soul you mean the capacity to think and make free decisions, then I already have one, only I call it a mind. I don't desire anything more than that.

[lemonboy]

Good read ermitonto, thanks.

[beachguy in thongs]

What is a soul? If by soul you mean the capacity to think and make free decisions, then I already have one, only I call it a mind. I don't desire anything more than that.

Soul is seperate from mind and body. It is the energy you feel. It's where your thoughts and actions get all their meaning from. Did you ever hear of the expression "To be at peace with your Mind, Body, and Soul"...it means, then we won't need anything else, but what we already have.

[ermitonto]

"Energy"? I don't understand. If such "energy" exists, it must be measurable, like energy always is. Energy is a very concrete phenomenon. Everything in the universe is made out of matter and energy, including me, so all the energy inside me is part of my mind or body (the mind is actually a subset of the body). If it is not measurable then there's no reason to call it energy. And if it isn't measurable, how can we say it exists at all? How can something we can't measure or detect in any way have any influence on the physical universe which contains my body and mind? I just don't get the idea that there are things in this universe which we can know of and are not made out of matter and energy (in the scientific, physical sense of the word). People seem to think these "souls" exist in some sort of undetectable parallel universe, a kind of transcendental la-la land which there just isn't any evidence for.

As Thomas Jefferson put it:

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise ... without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

[Stoner Shadow Wolf]

there are many awakenings one will undergo... just how awakened are you?

[P.E.N.G.U.I.N.]

Energy and matter are the same thing...

2
E=MC

[WalkaWalka]

i awakened when i realized all the evil shit that man has done in the name of religion

[CocaCola]

Energy is beyond the material world. Apperently.

[Euphoric]

I am awake.
a soul
using a flesh body
in the
3rd dimension

[Sentinel]

Earth is a story being unfolded... we are working our way to perfection. From a massive rock to trees to bacteria to mammals to conscious human beings... we are just taking steps toward "it". Quantum physics, anyone?

[CocaCola]

Hopefully we don't all get crushed before "it" happens, eh?

[P.E.N.G.U.I.N.]

There is no such thing as Matter or Energy.
Those are all just ideas able to be perceived with the senses this body is meant to perceive with.
As Stoner Shadow Wolf said, there are many small awakenings along the way.
Once you awaken fully and can leave your body and return to your bodiless state at will, you are truly awake.
That's a big step so you might as well start small.
Perfection cannot be achieved if perfection is your goal...
think about it

[CocaCola]

Now tremble before me, as I have a huge font!

[Polymirize]

apparently some of you think yelling will get your point across. fools.

Anyways, my point to Ermitonto would be this:

You're right. There is no scientific evidence for there being more than what our senses can tell us. But our senses do in fact deceive us. We don't see half of whats out there and yet we think we can construct the entire picture from what we do infer. Think of the human visual spectrum for example. Such a relatively insignificant portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. You can't even hear the same sounds that the majority of the animal kingdom can. You have no sense for the electromagnetic fields that can guide birds south during migration... etc.
Scientifically, we know there's more to life than just what we can rationally describe. But, in order to live life, we have to have beliefs concerning the rest.
So then, choosing to believe there's nothing is fine... But it's just as much a leap of faith as to choose God.

I think some people on these boards have had experiences which demonstrate some of what's out there that hasn't been quantified. It gets worded differently everytime, and some people call it god, other people call it energy or prana, chi, etc. But there does seem to be some sort of experience in life which we simply lack the language to describe in a materialist (physical) language... Haven't you ever had such an experience?

[beachguy in thongs]

"Energy"? I don't understand. If such "energy" exists, it must be measurable, like energy always is. Energy is a very concrete phenomenon. Everything in the universe is made out of matter and energy, including me, so all the energy inside me is part of my mind or body (the mind is actually a subset of the body). If it is not measurable then there's no reason to call it energy. And if it isn't measurable, how can we say it exists at all? How can something we can't measure or detect in any way have any influence on the physical universe which contains my body and mind? I just don't get the idea that there are things in this universe which we can know of and are not made out of matter and energy (in the scientific, physical sense of the word). People seem to think these "souls" exist in some sort of undetectable parallel universe, a kind of transcendental la-la land which there just isn't any evidence for.

As Thomas Jefferson put it:

I just started reading...this energy is measurable. It all starts in your Brain.
People can read energy measures in an empty space, I don't know how. This whole Universe is made up of energy that we can't measure, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Okay, just kept on reading it, and seeing how you're referencing my post...hold on.

Ok, where do you get the energy to process your thoughts into a "post", amino acids?

How do we have any energy to synthesize amino acids?

Everything has a gravitational pull. EVERYTHING. We can't just go up to someone and measure their gravity. Of course, a fatter person would have a greater gravitational pull. Moisture rises and falls over the Atlantic, and when the fronts make their way across the United States, they combine with the Moisture Patterns over the Atlantic because "water attracts water". If you place a drop of water near another, they will attract each other and it's an unmeasureably energy that causes them to attract (unmeasurable by my standards, anyway). I'm still asleep.

T. J. was a "Confederate" President. No? I'm not into American History, besides what I've learned in Elementary School.

[beachguy in thongs]

This is true. All men are made up of snakes and snails, and puppy-dog tails and women are made up of sugar and spice, and everything nice.

[beachguy in thongs]

My goal is to be perfect at the "free-throw" line and when I hit 10 out of 10, guess what, Perfection Achieved!!!

[Oneironaut]

apparently some of you think yelling will get your point across. fools.

Anyways, my point to Ermitonto would be this:

You're right. There is no scientific evidence for there being more than what our senses can tell us. But our senses do in fact deceive us. We don't see half of whats out there and yet we think we can construct the entire picture from what we do infer. Think of the human visual spectrum for example. Such a relatively insignificant portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. You can't even hear the same sounds that the majority of the animal kingdom can. You have no sense for the electromagnetic fields that can guide birds south during migration... etc.
Scientifically, we know there's more to life than just what we can rationally describe. But, in order to live life, we have to have beliefs concerning the rest.
But we do have scientific evidence for the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum, for sounds outside the range of our sensory organs, for magnetic fields which guide birds. But that doesn't make such things "beliefs concerning the rest". It's facts concerning the rest. Cold, hard facts which can be proven. However, we haven't the slightest shred of evidence that there's some transcendental thing controlling our thought patterns. On the other hand, we do have more cold, hard facts concerning this sort of thing, namely that our thought patterns are determined by the neural networks inside our brains.

So then, choosing to believe there's nothing is fine... But it's just as much a leap of faith as to choose God.
Huh? How is it a leap of faith to not concern yourself with things that there isn't any evidence for like souls or angels or leprechauns? I'm not saying there aren't things out there we can't detect. For all we know there could be an infinite number of universes outside our own. Or there could just be this one. It's just that if there are things we can't detect, they have no impact on my life and there's no use concerning myself with them. It's no more a leap of faith to not assume that my brain's neural network is controlled by some soul thing in a parallel universe than it is to not assume that my computer is actually run by an invisible turtle living on Jupiter.

I think some people on these boards have had experiences which demonstrate some of what's out there that hasn't been quantified. It gets worded differently everytime, and some people call it god, other people call it energy or prana, chi, etc. But there does seem to be some sort of experience in life which we simply lack the language to describe in a materialist (physical) language... Haven't you ever had such an experience?
No.

I just started reading...this energy is measurable. It all starts in your Brain.
People can read energy measures in an empty space, I don't know how. This whole Universe is made up of energy that we can't measure, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
If we can't measure it, then it has no interaction with our physical universe, and there's no use speculating about it. How could something interact with our physical universe (like my brain's neural network) and not be measurable?

Okay, just kept on reading it, and seeing how you're referencing my post...hold on.

Ok, where do you get the energy to process your thoughts into a "post", amino acids?

How do we have any energy to synthesize amino acids?
Food and water.

Everything has a gravitational pull. EVERYTHING. We can't just go up to someone and measure their gravity. Of course, a fatter person would have a greater gravitational pull. Moisture rises and falls over the Atlantic, and when the fronts make their way across the United States, they combine with the Moisture Patterns over the Atlantic because "water attracts water". If you place a drop of water near another, they will attract each other and it's an unmeasureably energy that causes them to attract (unmeasurable by my standards, anyway). I'm still asleep.
But we can prove to the satisfaction of the scientific community that all things have gravitational pull, that water attracts water. These are physical phenomena that can't be denied, because we have empirical evidence for them. But no matter how much research goes into the human brain, there just doesn't seem to be an invisible source of "energy" directing its actions (which you claim isn't actual physical energy but a different kind of "energy" that you can't define which has nothing to do with reality).

T. J. was a "Confederate" President. No? I'm not into American History, besides what I've learned in Elementary School.
You're thinking of Jefferson Davis. Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States, after Washington and Adams.

[beachguy in thongs]

Jefferson Davis and Thomas Jefferson were from Virginia, the first president from anywhere besides N.Y. or VA. was from Mississippi.

I wasn't asking about the biological process concerning amino acids, I was talking about the energy we need to convert food to potential-energy.

[Oneironaut]

What do you mean by converting food to potential-energy without biological processes? Are you implying that this "soul" is behind digestion too? As far as we can tell, the energy that we get from food is extracted through biological processes. We can explain digestion pretty well without postulating the existence of parallel universes of invisible "soul stuff".

[mrdevious]

In buddhist philosophy, there is no permanent, unchangable soul, and the nature of all existence is that everything is impermanent. just a little tid-bit I thought I'd throw in. :)


Personally, I think the concept of "soul" was a primitive idea designed to explain consciousness. From what I've observed, all religions involving god(s) use such concepts and many more to give a simplistic explanation to the complex mysteries of existence. After all, what's more appealing than having all the answers to all the questions, all the solutions to all your worries, neatly wrapped up in a simple package?

[Oneironaut]

Indeed, I have found Eastern philosophies to contain much more wisdom regarding the nature of reality than the monotheistic religions ever could. They don't teach that we need to bow down to the whims of some totalitarian dictator of the universe, but rather that we need to define our own existence. Recently I've been intrigued by Taoist philosophy in particular, which like Buddhism teaches that everything is temporary and that the path to happiness is self-cultivation rather than unquestioning submission.

[Monkey4Sale]

I awaken every morning around the same time, somewhere from 8-10am. On a spiritual level, I don't believe in God, or any of the other ideas. We are just animals on a planet, like the rest of the animals on the plant.

[mrdevious]

Indeed, I have found Eastern philosophies to contain much more wisdom regarding the nature of reality than the monotheistic religions ever could.
They don't teach that we need to bow down to the whims of some totalitarian dictator of the universe, but rather that we need to define our own existence. Recently I've been intrigued by Taoist philosophy in particular, which like Buddhism teaches that everything is temporary and that the path to happiness is self-cultivation rather than unquestioning submission.

monotheistic or polytheistic for that matter, though the monotheistic religions have certainly done a super job of jading our views on religion in general.

I totally agree with that analysis anyway, a "totalitarian dictator of the universe" is what it all comes down to. and considering the neglect of the people and numerous human rights violations, I think it's time for america to invade heaven now ;) . time to restore democracy to the universe! ;)

[UnViaje]

i have my own philosophies derived from my own experiences as well as everything i have learned from the lives others have lead. the mind does contol everything to me, even "heart", also the way we make ourself feel when we meditate n subconsciously have the paradigm that 'this' is sprituality. its pure brain power, a sort of universal transceiver. understanding & using the capabilty of ur own subconscience is spirtuality to me. i've also had my own "awakenings" but nothing that compared to the moment i was in salvia's trance. since then i've been more apperceptive to the world and universe and been able to dive deeper into my own mental realm of whats what

[Polymirize]

Where does this amazing sense of self-importance come from? To think that the entire universe in all it's complexity should limit itself so as to not go outside of your understanding?

Why? Give me one good reason to limit the scope of all that is, to that which I can understand...

[MyAntiDrugIsAmy]

Where does this amazing sense of self-importance come from? To think that the entire universe in all it's complexity should limit itself so as to not go outside of your understanding?

Why? Give me one good reason to limit the scope of all that is, to that which I can understand...
nicely put

[mrdevious]

the majority of religions are based on one thing involving the human race:


EGO

[beachguy in thongs]

So let's start a religion that doesn't involve Our ego.

Become the majority through cold-calling.

And we'll elect our own neo-pope.

[UnViaje]

fukk that, no more religion

self importance n arrogance are a real burden on one's spirituality. i've always practiced to conceive many universal paradigms shedding light on a broader scale everytime i meditate. i like goin crazy trippin out on myself, even more when i'm on something

[Oneironaut]

Where does this amazing sense of self-importance come from? To think that the entire universe in all it's complexity should limit itself so as to not go outside of your understanding?

Why? Give me one good reason to limit the scope of all that is, to that which I can understand...
Give me one good reason to expand the scope of all that is to things we have no evidence of. If we have no proof that something exists, why should we concern ourselves with it? Why speculate on the details of unicorns, leprechauns, Santa Claus, souls or gods if there is nothing that suggests they are even real? Certainly there are things in this universe we don't fully understand, like quantum mechanics, black holes and human cognition, but that does not mean we should postulate the existence of things which no one has been able to muster up the slightest bit of objective evidence for. If there is something out there we can't even detect, then clearly it has no effect at all on our lives and any speculation about it is useless.

"If God is, man is a slave; now man can and must be free; thus God does not exist." —Mikhail Bakunin

[beachguy in thongs]

Ermontito, you speculate a lot about something you don't believe in. More than me, and I have faith, you don't.

[Oneironaut]

Huh? What I meant is that pretending you know something to exist, and pretending to know how it works, is pointless when it is by its very nature undetectable. This "faith" you speak of, i.e. believing something which there is no evidence for, is illogical.

[MyAntiDrugIsAmy]

Give me one good reason to expand the scope of all that is to things we have no evidence of.
if you expand the scope of everything, and make room for possibilty outside of what we understand, you find evidence. the reason we've had scientific breakthroughs is because people think outside the box to try to prove things like gravity, medicinal cures, and paranormal. we have no fucking clue about a lot more than you think.

[MyAntiDrugIsAmy]

Huh? What I meant is that pretending you know something to exist, and pretending to know how it works, is pointless when it is by its very nature undetectable. This "faith" you speak of, i.e. believing something which there is no evidence for, is illogical.
so why not think there's probably some other reason why he has faith. if it's illogical, then why would he feel that way? there's something more that you probably aren't aware of.

[Euphoric]

Experience will teach you very quickly about the existance of a soul.
Out Of Body Experiences, Astral Projection, Ghosts. These can be readily experienced from this plane of existance.
Look into the eyes of a newborn or into the eyes of a lover. Into the eyes of a beloved pet or even just a stranger. There is more there. If you know how to look.
When you're dead, floating around, still existing...you owe me $5.

[Oneironaut]

if you expand the scope of everything, and make room for possibilty outside of what we understand, you find evidence. the reason we've had scientific breakthroughs is because people think outside the box to try to prove things like gravity, medicinal cures, and paranormal. we have no fucking clue about a lot more than you think.
Scientific breakthroughs have happened when there vas something we observe that we just didn't know how to explain, and upon closer examination we were able to determine its origin. In every case in all of history, this origin has been something very real, some kind of matter and/or energy which has been shown to cause whatever physical phenomenon we were previously unable to explain. However, there isn't the slightest shred of evidence for things like leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, Santa Claus, souls or gods, and there just isn't anything that we can observe that would necessitate their existence. That is to say, there is no phenomenon in the universe which we can't explain but that we could if we postulated the existence of such creatures. Why believe in leprechauns, unicorns, souls or gods if there is no reason to?


so why not think there's probably some other reason why he has faith. if it's illogical, then why would he feel that way? there's something more that you probably aren't aware of.
You know very well that people don't always operate logically. Often people choose to believe in something because it is comforting to them, or because the idea has been drilled in their minds from birth, and they later come up with rationalizations for why they believe it even when there was no original logical reason for believing in it. The reason so many people have faith is pretty simple to see, when you consider why children almost always have the same religion as their parents or their culture. Most people just accept whatever beliefs their parents had or whatever their society believes, which explains, for example, why nearly all Iranians are Muslims but practically nobody in Hawaii is.

[Euphoric]

Scientific breakthroughs have happened when there vas something we observe that we just didn't know how to explain, and upon closer examination we were able to determine its origin. In every case in all of history, this origin has been something very real, some kind of matter and/or energy which has been shown to cause whatever physical phenomenon we were previously unable to explain. However, there isn't the slightest shred of evidence for things like leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, Santa Claus, souls or gods, and there just isn't anything that we can observe that would necessitate their existence. That is to say, there is no phenomenon in the universe which we can't explain but that we could if we postulated the existence of such creatures. Why believe in leprechauns, unicorns, souls or gods if there is no reason to?


You know very well that people don't always operate logically. Often people choose to believe in something because it is comforting to them, or because the idea has been drilled in their minds from birth, and they later come up with rationalizations for why they believe it even when there was no original logical reason for believing in it. The reason so many people have faith is pretty simple to see, when you consider why children almost always have the same religion as their parents or their culture. Most people just accept whatever beliefs their parents had or whatever their society believes, which explains, for example, why nearly all Iranians are Muslims but practically nobody in Hawaii is.


Youre using your brain to think of all that stuff. Good work. Wrong, but it looks nice. :thumbsup:
You should study Wicca. I believe you would have great success with this art. Give it a try. www.ladyoftheearth.com

Your Avatar is very similar to a wiccan symbol. (http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefswiccasymbols.htm)

The pentacle, a pentagram within a circle, is the most recognizable symbol of Wicca. The pentacle represents the integration of body and spirit, and the spiritual mastery of the four elements. The pentacle is used in a number of Wiccan rituals, and as a Grade sign in Gardnerian and other traditions. The pentacle is often worn as a symbol of recognition amongst practitioners, especially those who practice a code of secrecy.

[MyAntiDrugIsAmy]

Scientific breakthroughs happen when there is something we observe that we just can't explain with our current body of knowledge, and upon closer examination we were able to determine its origin. In every case in all of history, this origin has been something very real, some kind of matter and/or energy which has been shown to cause whatever physical phenomenon we were previously unable to explain. However, there isn't the slightest shred of evidence for things like leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, Santa Claus, souls or gods, and there just isn't anything that we can observe that would necessitate their existence. That is to say, there is no phenomenon in the universe which we can't explain but that we could if we postulated the existence of such creatures.


You know very well that people don't always operate logically. Often people choose to believe in something because it is comforting to them, or because the idea has been drilled in their minds from birth, and they later come up with rationalizations for why they believe it even when there was no original logical reason for believing in it. The reason so many people have faith is pretty simple to see, when you consider why children almost always have the same religion as their parents or their culture. Most people just accept whatever beliefs their parents had or whatever their society believes, which explains, for example, why nearly all Iranians are Muslims but practically nobody in Hawaii is.

1. i think you probably copy and paste the same argument in different boards, but the difference between God or a higher power and faeries or santa is that people feel it in their souls. you don't believe in a spirit or soul, but i feel it. i don't see how you can't feel the energy of other people and then deny it because it's referred to as a soul which is connected to religion. i can feel a reaction with people, and a spiritual idea that is much more complex than a creature like a faerie. i'm just trying to figure out who or what exactly God is, but i feel a strong connection that wasn't always there, and you probably don't comprehend.

2. that's everyone's argument against religion. and that argument is good when people are saying their religion is the right one. no fucking shit people make their religious beliefs based on their culture and upbringing, so obviously people will all have different interperatations of spirituality. religion came around when language did, so it was a communication of ideas. but it's not about religion, because i think God or the higher power has ways of connecting us to positive energy which is benefitial to our lives.

[Oneironaut]

Youre using your brain to think of all that stuff. Good work. Wrong, but it looks nice. :thumbsup:
You should study Wicca. I believe you would have great success with this art. Give it a try. www.ladyoftheearth.com
I can't just give a belief system a try. If I'm going to believe in something, I need a reason to. I need some sort of argument for why I should believe in that and nothing else. I couldn't just "give Republicanism a try" or "give Marxism a try" for the same reasons; my beliefs are not just random choices, or a collection of ideas that I would like to be true, but rather knowledge that I have deduced from my various experiences. I have not been able to deduce any reasons why gods or souls or leprechauns have to exist, so I do not believe in them. Wicca doesn't seem to do any better job than Christianity, Islam or Hinduism in proving the existence of its supernatural entities. Even if hypothetically I could get myself to believe in gods or souls without any evidence of them, what reason would there be for choosing Wicca over the other religions out there?

You are right in saying that it is my brain which came up with all of that stuff. My brain is a kind of analog computer. It takes in input in the form of experiences, and computes output based on what I know from past experiences, what emotions I am feeling, and the structure of my brain (which, in turn, is based on my genes). That output is whatever I choose to do. How does it make more sense to say that I take in this input to my brain, then my brain sends that to a "soul" in a parallel universe which does all the real computation of the most logical choice to make, and then sends it back to my brain which moves my muscles in accordance with the decision? That's two steps more than necessary, and it needs a whole parallel universe of "soul stuff" that nobody can detect to back it up. If there really was such a parallel universe, and it was interacting with physical reality as much as people claim, it would be easily detectable. We would see things happening which the laws of physics just don't predict.


Your Avatar is very similar to a wiccan symbol. (http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefswiccasymbols.htm)

The pentacle, a pentagram within a circle, is the most recognizable symbol of Wicca. The pentacle represents the integration of body and spirit, and the spiritual mastery of the four elements. The pentacle is used in a number of Wiccan rituals, and as a Grade sign in Gardnerian and other traditions. The pentacle is often worn as a symbol of recognition amongst practitioners, especially those who practice a code of secrecy.
My avatar has nothing to do with that religion. It is just a circle with the anarchist black star in it. Like the red star of communism, the five points represent the five inhabited continents of the world, a symbol of humanity. The black is the color of the black flag, which symbolizes the absence of government and borders, as well as being the opposite of the white flag of surrender. The circle-A represents anarchism, and its red color represents socialism. The words in the circle are German for "No God - No State - No Master - No Slave".

1. i think you probably copy and paste the same argument in different boards,
No, I do not just copy and paste things. I am really writing all of this stuff myself. I do express the same ideas in different boards, but I can hardly see what's wrong with expressing the same ideas consistently.

but the difference between God or a higher power and faeries or santa is that people feel it in their souls. you don't believe in a spirit or soul, but i feel it.
Please provide me with evidence of this God or these souls. Do you really expect me to believe something based on the subjective feelings of other people? If the universe is really run by this totalitarian dictator called God, I want some proof of it. Real proof. If this thing is really interacting with things in the physical world, there ought to be some evidence besides your inkling that it is. I certainly don't feel this thing, whatever it is, and cannot see why a God who really loves humanity so much would do such a thorough job of making sure there's no proof of his existence. Couldn't he just come out and say it? It sure would end a lot of the murder and strife on this planet if people didn't have any more religious issues to quabble over. Muslim people "feel" in their "souls" the existence of one deity, but their Hindu neighbors "feel" in their "souls" the existence of many deities, and they're killing each other over this disagreement. If both parties are wrong and your God is the real one, and if he has even the slightest respect for humanity, why doesn't he just come out and stop it all?

i don't see how you can't feel the energy of other people and then deny it because it's referred to as a soul which is connected to religion. i can feel a reaction with people, and a spiritual idea that is much more complex than a creature like a faerie. i'm just trying to figure out who or what exactly God is, but i feel a strong connection that wasn't always there, and you probably don't comprehend.
No, I don't comprehend. If there really is a God, and he's hiding his existence from me, he must not think very highly of me. If he's not just a fantasy, then he must not want me to believe in him since he hasn't given me any of these "feelings" you have that supposedly prove his existence beyond a shadow of a doubt, and he hasn't come out and shown his existence to me through, say, a booming voice from the sky.

2. that's everyone's argument against religion. and that argument is good when people are saying their religion is the right one. no fucking shit people make their religious beliefs based on their culture and upbringing, so obviously people will all have different interperatations of spirituality.
Hey, you're the one who asked me why somebody would believe in a faith if it's illogical. I just gave you the straightforward answer. People have faiths because they're taught to. And since these different faiths cannot possibly all be true, most people must logically be following the wrong faith. It's not just "different interpretations" of the same set of data; these are completely mutually incompatible sets of data. Your God and the Hindu gods cannot co-inhabit the same universe. Most Hindus believe in many gods because they are brought up to believe in many gods, and you probably believe in one God because you were brought up to believe in one God. But all gods do have at least one thing in common: for some reason they are very intent on hiding themselves from humanity, on erasing every tiny shred of evidence that could be used to prove that they exist.

religion came around when language did, so it was a communication of ideas. but it's not about religion, because i think God or the higher power has ways of connecting us to positive energy which is benefitial to our lives.
If there really is such energy out there, why can't all our energy-detecting scientific equipment detect it? If it is not the kind of energy that energy-detecting scientific equipment detects, then how can you call it energy? What the hell IS this stuff? You might be interested in knowing what the word "energy" really means:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/7/2

[Polymirize]

Why do you keep bringing up santa claus and the easter bunny in all your posts? reductio absurdum arguments are for people who can't understand the premises. Grow up a bit. Don't pretend you know it all and you just might find yourself open to different possibilities. I'm sure you believe at this point that you will die an old man anarchist... I don't see it happening, because hopefully you're not done learning.

See, you don't HAVE to extend into the unknown, you merely acknowledge its existence outside the borders of human knowledge. If you want to say it will all be understandable by science SOME DAY... fine. I think that's a little naive, but cool. Regardless, people have been attempting to understand the universe since the beginning of mankind, so believe it or not, they've figured out some alternate paths already. Does this really sound so bad to you?

[Euphoric]

geez..

[Euphoric]

Why do you keep bringing up santa claus and the easter bunny in all your posts? reductio absurdum arguments are for people who can't understand the premises. Grow up a bit. Don't pretend you know it all and you just might find yourself open to different possibilities. I'm sure you believe at this point that you will die an old man anarchist... I don't see it happening, because hopefully you're not done learning.

See, you don't HAVE to extend into the unknown, you merely acknowledge its existence outside the borders of human knowledge. If you want to say it will all be understandable by science SOME DAY... fine. I think that's a little naive, but cool. Regardless, people have been attempting to understand the universe since the beginning of mankind, so believe it or not, they've figured out some alternate paths already. Does this really sound so bad to you?

fuckin awesome post. :thumbsup:

[Oneironaut]

Why do you keep bringing up santa claus and the easter bunny in all your posts? reductio absurdum arguments are for people who can't understand the premises. Grow up a bit. Don't pretend you know it all and you just might find yourself open to different possibilities. I'm sure you believe at this point that you will die an old man anarchist... I don't see it happening, because hopefully you're not done learning.
I never claimed I know it all. I'm just saying that I will only believe in things I know to be true, not things which I don't have any evidence for. I only believe in those things which my experience gives me reason to believe.


See, you don't HAVE to extend into the unknown, you merely acknowledge its existence outside the borders of human knowledge. If you want to say it will all be understandable by science SOME DAY... fine. I think that's a little naive, but cool. Regardless, people have been attempting to understand the universe since the beginning of mankind, so believe it or not, they've figured out some alternate paths already. Does this really sound so bad to you?
I'm not saying humanity will ever understand everything. But if I'm going to believe something, I want a reason to believe in it. Is that really such an absurd position to take?

[beachguy in thongs]

Okay, I have no idea what a soul is. Live your life as you see fit. I can talk about the soul but it will have no meaning unless I use it in a song. Therefore, I want it to have meaning, so you must believe in a sould, otherwise I can't rhyme, but then I remember that I'm not really into writing songs, so I say there is an energy that fuels us, and we each have our own energy "field".

[Euphoric]

Once you understand metaphysics from a spiritual perspective you can learn to manipulate it. ;)
Reprogramming the matrix, so to speak. Isnt that reason enough? Mwahah

[Polymirize]

I realize I probably lack the language to explain this in a post, if the language for it even exists at all.
At some point when we want to understand others, we have to actually examine ourselves. Somehow we have the impression that there is some shared human experience. Some sense of being alive that is possessed by all living things (though the argument need not stop there). People express this in all sorts of ways. You brought up 1 deity or 3. You can believe whatever you want. I don't think it really changes anything in the long run. But if you choose not to interpret everything literally don't you see how most mythologies and religions are just like science in that they are explanatory systems. Ways to understand the experience we all find ourself in. We all have this, you can see it being expressed all sorts of ways by different people, but at the same time if you want to understand it, you have look internally.

Maybe someday science will be able to explain all of human experience, but so far human experience seems to go beyond what it's capable of describing, at least in terms of what we've defined as the physical terms. I'm not saying that materialism (physicalism if you wish) is false, but I am affirming that the current Material formulation of the world has left something out. I just think you can get the most out of life by using both sides of your brain, the rational and the imaginative. There are plenty of ways to extend human knowledge beyond the current limits of science. where do you think inspiration comes from? consciousness? "the soul"? The other side?

Don't you realise that science rests on beliefs just as shaky as any other? What's underneath it? What is it trying to explain that everything else is trying to explain as well, whether through socialogical, technological or religious terms?

What explains the commonality between what I see in the world and what I can find inside myself? On any scale from the size of atoms and smaller to the universal scale and beyond? physics or divine? chaos theory or sacred geometry? How you define it doesn't matter. They're all just explanatory systems we employ to make sense of human existence. To create a "reality" in which we exist. But no explainatory system covers all of it. it can't. We all have and are shaped by individual experience, just like every atom in the universe. all outlooks are different but all experiences have a common element...
Now, maybe you've been looking in a different direction and haven't been in on some of the cool stuff thats been going on outside the scientific world. But can science really explain everything for you? Do you think it's giving you capital letter Truth?
Limitations on interpretations only serve as limitations on your understanding. Like any fundamentalist religious interpretation, considering truth to be an absolute and in the possession of one particular outlook or group.
Science advances because people create hypothesi from imagination/inspiration and show how they map to the physical. Are you aware of how funky string theory and quantum mechanics are getting these days? It appears the universe violates all sorts of what we consider to be fundamental laws. So obviously science doesn't explain it all. yet. not that I even think it's possible...

[MyAntiDrugIsAmy]

You are right in saying that it is my brain which came up with all of that stuff. My brain is a kind of analog computer. It takes in input in the form of experiences, and computes output based on what I know from past experiences, what emotions I am feeling, and the structure of my brain (which, in turn, is based on my genes). That output is whatever I choose to do. How does it make more sense to say that I take in this input to my brain, then my brain sends that to a "soul" in a parallel universe which does all the real computation of the most logical choice to make, and then sends it back to my brain which moves my muscles in accordance with the decision? That's two steps more than necessary, and it needs a whole parallel universe of "soul stuff" that nobody can detect to back it up. If there really was such a parallel universe, and it was interacting with physical reality as much as people claim, it would be easily detectable. We would see things happening which the laws of physics just don't predict.

i don't know what the fuck your interpretation of a soul is, maybe we're arguing completely different points. i don't think my soul is in a parallel universe, i think it's part of me. ppl sometimes describe it as an aura too.



No, I do not just copy and paste things. I am really writing all of this stuff myself. I do express the same ideas in different boards, but I can hardly see what's wrong with expressing the same ideas consistently.

what i meant was that i think you copy and paste your same posts that you've already written. because you argue the same points everytime, and you use the same examples. it wasn't a literall statement.



Please provide me with evidence of this God or these souls. Do you really expect me to believe something based on the subjective feelings of other people? If the universe is really run by this totalitarian dictator called God, I want some proof of it. Real proof. If this thing is really interacting with things in the physical world, there ought to be some evidence besides your inkling that it is. I certainly don't feel this thing, whatever it is, and cannot see why a God who really loves humanity so much would do such a thorough job of making sure there's no proof of his existence. Couldn't he just come out and say it? It sure would end a lot of the murder and strife on this planet if people didn't have any more religious issues to quabble over. Muslim people "feel" in their "souls" the existence of one deity, but their Hindu neighbors "feel" in their "souls" the existence of many deities, and they're killing each other over this disagreement. If both parties are wrong and your God is the real one, and if he has even the slightest respect for humanity, why doesn't he just come out and stop it all?

i don't give a damn you to believe in anything. i'm just explaining where i'm coming from. and for the millionth time i don't think other parties are wrong, i just fucking explained that in what you quoted from me earlier, i don't see how you quoted it if you didn't read it. you just assume that if i'm talking about God, i'm a self-righteous bitch. thanks.



No, I don't comprehend. If there really is a God, and he's hiding his existence from me, he must not think very highly of me. If he's not just a fantasy, then he must not want me to believe in him since he hasn't given me any of these "feelings" you have that supposedly prove his existence beyond a shadow of a doubt, and he hasn't come out and shown his existence to me through, say, a booming voice from the sky.

just like people can feel a presence of another person around them, or something, that's how i feel it. you don't want to find a higher power, so you probably won't be open to ever assume that that could possibly be an option. and i don't care if that's how you see things. and i didn't say these feelings prove an existence. i don't know that God is how i see him. i know i'm aware of something else in the world, some other force and something paranormal.



Hey, you're the one who asked me why somebody would believe in a faith if it's illogical. I just gave you the straightforward answer. People have faiths because they're taught to. And since these different faiths cannot possibly all be true, most people must logically be following the wrong faith. It's not just "different interpretations" of the same set of data; these are completely mutually incompatible sets of data. Your God and the Hindu gods cannot co-inhabit the same universe. Most Hindus believe in many gods because they are brought up to believe in many gods, and you probably believe in one God because you were brought up to believe in one God. But all gods do have at least one thing in common: for some reason they are very intent on hiding themselves from humanity, on erasing every tiny shred of evidence that could be used to prove that they exist.

i seriously think it's just a different perspective and personal choice. i'm not saying my perspective is right and all others are wrong, because i'm definitly not capable of judging that. but people have faith because they feel something pulling them towards that, the personal perspective of faith is taught to us, but there's something that keeps people there. it's not because of ignorance or unintelligence, but they feel a connection to a higher power and that's their way of making sense of it.



If there really is such energy out there, why can't all our energy-detecting scientific equipment detect it? If it is not the kind of energy that energy-detecting scientific equipment detects, then how can you call it energy? What the hell IS this stuff? You might be interested in knowing what the word "energy" really means:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/7/2
the site is interesting, and thanks i knew a lot of it, but it's cool to see more facts and examples and another explanation. that site shows that energy doesn't have one definite meaning. energy is motion, so the motion of positive force is positive energy.