Reality

[shagdrum]

Excerpt from here:

People, it appears, mostly think Reality is a human creation. By people, I mean leftists. Although many conservatives subscribe to the same very muddy, shallow thinking. This must be a human failing, to kick God out of his throne, sit themselves down in His place, and proceed to demand things be as they desire them to be.

To hear Christians speak of God, is often to witness the utter absurdity of such thinking.
The Christian God needs people to serve Him. Fight for Him. Worship Him. And if they don’t do that, to His specification, then He rages and exacts terrible vengeance.

It should be quite clear, really, that such people are actually describing themselves, when they speak of God. If God were really like that, what sort of a God would He be? The sort, clearly, that atheists currently seek to eradicate, once and for all.
But the atheists, are, if anything, even worse.

By denying, completely, anything like a God, atheists have no baseline from which to operate. They exist in a vacuum, lacking any context. This is why they can be such hypocrites, such liars, and make so little sense. Lacking context, any word means anything, any behaviour is equal to any other. And nothing, but nothing, leads anywhere but to chaos.

To deny a baseline, is to be, to all intents and purposes, insane.
If you don’t know where you stand, then how can you know where you are?
If you don’t know where you are, how can you know where you are going?
If you don’t know where you’re going, can you really ever say where you’ve been?
Ah! No. And so whatever experiences may have crossed paths with you, along the way, you will be unable to learn from any of them, because, lacking context, there can be no understanding.​

 

[cammerfe]

Very well said!

KS

 

[foxpaws]

Shag - I am always fascinated by your narrow world view when you approach belief - You seem to create this narrative (or in this case cut and paste) where you limit your overall perspective to an 'American Christian' mindset.

Why?

 

[04SCTLS]

Religion hates sex for pleasure even too much pleasure in general and to exert control seeks to deny the true human condition which believers are subconsciously self loathing about.

It's the faithful that are screwed up not the hedonists

Some people (Ted Haggert for instance)who hate homosexuals are really projecting a self loathing and hatred of themselves when they see an open expression of their own repressed selves.

 

[TheDude]

Religion hates sex for pleasure

Then why are so many religious figureheads caught with their hand* in the cookie-jar*?

*By hand I mean pen!s and by cookie-jar I mean someone's mouth, vagina and/or anus.

 

[04SCTLS]

Hypocracy is part of human contradiction.
It's the tribute vice pays to virtue.
We all like pleasure but religion wants to use it to control us by manufacuring fake guilt and shame over that which is natural with the threat of not gaining everlasting life, an Oxymoron, wishful thinking at best.

Immature celibate men in funny dresses and hats are the authorities on human relations.
How ridiculous and contradictory is that.

Pervo Priest should be an oxymoron but it's a product of the unhealthy confusion of the mind that religious doctrine promotes.

Represssion of sex leads to heinous actions in some.

Some of these people that have taken the unnatural vow of celibacy find the repression and denial of their sexuality and natural urges causes them to break out and become twisted frustrados in their secret forbidden world who pursue those who can easily be exploited without discovery or penalty.

They are products and examples of the poison to the mind and spirit religious self loathing denial of the human condition repression thinking encourages and produces.

 

[cammerfe]

...products and examples of the poison to the mind and spirit religious self loathing denial of the human condition repression thinking encourages and produces.

One more time, very well said!

KS

 

[shagdrum]

Shag - I am always fascinated by your narrow world view when you approach belief - You seem to create this narrative (or in this case cut and paste) where you limit your overall perspective to an 'American Christian' mindset.

What is so narrow about noting that faith in a higher being at least gives you a point of reference with which to understand reality? If you read the full post that was drawn from, you will see that God, at least as the author is using it, is essentially a proxy for (and attempt to grasp) reality.

Love: Service to something that is not obviously yourself. Although it actually is.

God: That concept, created by men, to signify something so far beyond them, and their own capabilities, that there is no other word, or words, to express it.

Reality: The thing that the term ‘God’ actually attempts to describe. What-is. What-always-was. What-always-will-be. Everything and nothing. Context. The framework underlying everything that exists.

Note the order of mention; Love first. This is actually something we are capable of, but so seldom exhibit. Most often this is a word used to signify desire, or need. And it’s all downhill from there.

God, second. Beyond us completely, at least until we grasp what the term “Created in God’s image” might actually mean. We can be, and really are, although almost nobody knows it, God-like, in our rather limited way. We can create, although most of us don’t.

Reality: Number three. That state that advises all of existence, including the non-existing. The clockwork that runs the whole show. Non-negotiable, non-flexible. Certainly non-human. The Chinese call this “Tao”, The Great Mother. Lao Tzu said “It Is Older Than God.” And of course, it is, since it gives rise to everything else, including the man-made concept of God.

So the first two are really manifestations of the third. Reality is what concerns us, here.​

Also, if you look at the authors blog on Easter, it is questionable whether the guy is a Christian or simply an agnostic/atheist that doesn't have a hostility toward faith nor blindly assumes materialism.

Then why are so many religious figureheads caught with their hand* in the cookie-jar*?

*By hand I mean pen!s and by cookie-jar I mean someone's mouth, vagina and/or anus.

Cute.

Christianity, at it's best, preaches to humans failings and inspires believers to improve themselves.

Just because some fail to live up to the moral standard does not mean that moral standard is illegitimate.

 

[04SCTLS]

Cute.

Christianity, at it's best, preaches to humans failings and inspires believers to improve themselves.

Just because some fail to live up to the moral standard does not mean that moral standard is illegitimate.

God may be divine but religion is man made and flawed like man.
Religion only talks of God and Man on Earth while we are but the tiniest spec in the Universe.
What about the rest of his creation?
Why is it there?
It's the structure itself of religion that is subconciously unhealthy.
IMO it is immature men and celibacy,desire for control and power, denial and loathing of the natural human condition as some sort of virtue! and the lower regard for women as submissive by these men in funny hats and dresses that fosters religious sex crimes against children.

As always the answer for a man to be truly happy is to get a girlfriend! (or boyfriend)

The world remains the same, you'll never change it, as sure as the stars shine above.
You're nobody till somebody loves you, so get yourself somebody, somebody to love.

Judy Garland

 

[04SCTLS]

One more time, very well said!

KS

Hey KS, you're usually on the other side of my arguments

I may believe in the possibility of creation and hope there is an afterlife
but have never been comfortable with organized religion here on Earth.

 

[shagdrum]

What about insights into reality from religion? the whole notion of Natural Law is derived from religion. It is not so much religion trying to "recreate" the world into some moral utopia (though there are certainly Christians that do that). It is more a recognition of what reality is. Certain behavior is inherently destructive to one's self and society in general and certain behavior is conductive to both. If it weren't for the religious connection to a lot of these observations, they would be more accurately recognized as simply anthropological in nature.

Dismissing faith (and anything even remotely attached to it) is an easy way of dismissing reality.

 

[04SCTLS]

I think you have it backwards in that Natural Law came out of Christianity or was religiously inspired.
Christianity incorporated Natural Law which predated it going all the way back to Plato.

Kind of like taking Winter Solstice and turning it into Christmas.
______________________________________________________________

Some early Church Fathers, especially those in the West, sought to incorporate natural law into Christianity. The most notable among these was Augustine of Hippo, who equated natural law with man's prelapsarian state; as such, a life according to nature was no longer possible and men needed instead to seek salvation through the divine law and grace of Jesus Christ.
In the Twelfth Century, Gratian equated the natural law with divine law. A century later, St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae I-II qq. 90-106, restored Natural Law to its independent state, asserting natural law as the rational creature's participation in the eternal law. Yet, since human reason could not fully comprehend the Eternal law, it needed to be supplemented by revealed Divine law.

 

[cammerfe]

Hey KS, you're usually on the other side of my arguments

I may believe in the possibility of creation and hope there is an afterlife
but have never been comfortable with organized religion here on Earth.

I strongly believe in a tri-partite God, but I look at much of Man's attempts in that direction as being ONLY of and by Man and having little to do with God. Coming from men, it tends to be about power.

KS

 

[shagdrum]

Many of Plato's ideas were precursors to Natural Law. Kind of like Rousseau's ideas were a precursor to socialism. the Catholic Priest, Thomas Aquinas is to Natural Law what Marx was to socialism. The wikipedia link you cite even notes, "Aristotle's association with natural law is due largely to the interpretation given to his works by Thomas Aquinas."

The original point was the recognition of an objective natural order with physical as well as metaphysical implications. The notion of God and of natural law is rooted in some such objective truth. Especially in the postmodern era, secularism is rooted in an explicit rejection of any such objective truth (or at least in our ability to know it), instead emphasizing emotion and will as determinate of "reality". All point of reference to objective truth is destroyed. Hence this passage:

By denying, completely, anything like a God, atheists have no baseline from which to operate. They exist in a vacuum, lacking any context. This is why they can be such hypocrites, such liars, and make so little sense. Lacking context, any word means anything, any behaviour is equal to any other. And nothing, but nothing, leads anywhere but to chaos.

To deny a baseline, is to be, to all intents and purposes, insane.
If you don’t know where you stand, then how can you know where you are?
If you don’t know where you are, how can you know where you are going?
If you don’t know where you’re going, can you really ever say where you’ve been?
Ah! No. And so whatever experiences may have crossed paths with you, along the way, you will be unable to learn from any of them, because, lacking context, there can be no understanding.​

 

[04SCTLS]

The truth is that the origins and meaning of life and the Universe are a mystery and that life is relatively short and then we die.
All things end eventually in explosions and matter and energy are reconstituted in a new form.

I'm not denying anything like a God as you put it merely rejecting organized religion as some kind of diety of it's own.
Religion is a human response to add meaning to the fact of death.

Organized religion is IMO contradictory to reality as we see it especially the view of the young earth evangelicals but then that fits in with my pet theory of human contradiction we spoke of previously.

Believe me because I say so doesn't cut it with me.

 

[shagdrum]

The Enlightenment movement emphasized reason over faith but, in a sense, ended in failure because it proved the limits of reason and, in some ways, showed reason to be self-refuting, at least at the margins. However, the postmodernist rejection of reason and objective truth is an overreaction (and more than a little opportunistic)

Faith is at it's best when it picks up where reason leaves off (though faith is rarely, if ever, it's own justification for public policy, especially at the Federal level).

we may not be able to fully understand the natural order, but we can grasp it in part and derive enough sense for policy looking to conform to it, at least in broad terms.

 

[04SCTLS]

The Enlightenment movement emphasized reason over faith but, in a sense, ended in failure because it proved the limits of reason and, in some ways, showed reason to be self-refuting, at least at the margins. However, the postmodernist rejection of reason and objective truth is an overreaction (and more than a little opportunistic)

Faith is at it's best when it picks up where reason leaves off (though faith is rarely, if ever, it's own justification for public policy, especially at the Federal level).

we may not be able to fully understand the natural order, but we can grasp it in part and derive enough sense for policy looking to conform to it, at least in broad terms.

The limits of reason are death so that is why there is faith, to try to find reason in death.
But that is not enough justification for it to be part of public policy for the living.

 

[shagdrum]

The limits of reason are vastly greater than simply "death". Hume ran into a wall when trying to justify empiricism. Materialism itself is essentially based on faith. While a great over reaction, postmodernism's rejection of reason and truth is rather indicative of the huge limitations of reason.

 

[04SCTLS]

The limits of reason are vastly greater than simply "death". Hume ran into a wall when trying to justify empiricism. Materialism itself is essentially based on faith. While a great over reaction, postmodernism's rejection of reason and truth is rather indicative of the huge limitations of reason.

I think the fact of death sums things up succinctly as to our reason shortcomings.

We just don't know about the afterlife if there is one and so make up apparent noble stories with wishful scenarios and fancy promises which are then spoken of as truth instead of truthiness.

What "faith" or religion is materialism based on?
Mans faith in himself?

Reason has limits because people are unreasonable and contradictory in varying degrees.Some are more unreasonable and contradictory than others who's flaws are more minor but it's a quality we all have to some degree.
Like a Balance Sheet argue2 of assets and liabilities of character.

The ethical trinity of

Balance Sheet
Moral Hazard
How Much Sin Can You Live With

is the conceptualization of contradiction in human relations

You may find Cognitive Dissonance (which supports my pet human contradiction theory) an interesting read

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions)

Exerpt

The Belief Disconfirmation Paradigm

Dissonance is aroused when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one's belief, the dissonance can result in misperception or rejection or refutation of the information, seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade others to restore consonance.

An early version of cognitive dissonance theory appeared in Leon Festinger's 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails. This book gave an inside account of the increasing belief that sometimes follows the failure of a cult's prophecy. The believers met at a pre-determined place and time, believing they alone would survive the Earth's destruction. The appointed time came and passed without incident. They faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victim of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in vain? Most members chose to believe something less dissonant: the aliens had given earth a second chance, and the group was now empowered to spread the word: earth-spoiling must stop. The group dramatically increased their proselytism despite the failed prophecy.[

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Reason will never convince the unreasonable 20% of the population that are always against anything whatever it is.

Look at how many conservatives believe Obama is a Muslim and doubt Obamas birth certificate even after he finally released the long form which he was keeping private because it basically said he was concieved when his white mother was 17 and his father was 24, it probably seemed to Obama to be a less than ideal black or class stereotype.
They (the Birthers) didn't even pick up on this even though it was right there (to me) in plain sight.

Then there's always the crazy reason based on religion instead of reality that we are supposed to respect with a straight face because of religious "freedom".

Religious freedom is the right to hate people different from you because you have been conditioned and programmed to want to.
Also it's the right to make believe and make up unreasonable not supported stuff and be completely wrong and unconvinced by reality and objective observations.

And we are supposed to respect these fancy suppositions.
Other than Christianity what about Mormonism, Scientology, or Islam.
Those are all an even greater suspension of disbelief by an indulgence of fiction and are all purposely unreasonably hard and even tactitly homicidal towards what they define and call deviants and sinners.

In a typical human contradiction of cognitive dissonance religious people will deny reason and ignore results when it contradicts their faith.

They respond protectively out of fear, and as a shield assert that they essentially are proud to be ignorant and dismissive because of the higher power of God (an icon of man made organized religion)

For instance the unwelcome truth is sex education and contraceptives significantly lower teenage pregnancy rates while abstinence does not.

But to the frustrated contradicted moralists it is more important that young people should be miserable and punished for following their natural desires by being forced to risk ignorantly having babies (that are born with a disadvantage parentwise) before aquiring assets instead of enjoying themselves and having fun and planning their life.

Tolerance of homosexuality cuts down on bullying but the "faithful" want to torpedo this real pain for those born different with an exemption from bullying education for the religious or even squashing bully education in general because their beliefs are more important to them than (in their opinion) a few deviants getting beat up and killed and they enjoy fear being spread in the alternative LGBT community.
They secretly feel good about gays getting theirs because in their opinion they are an abomonation and deserve it.

This is reason?
No it's just plain hate and fear from the id.
Vice paying tribute to virtue.

Ignoring reality is a big part of "faith" which is just a thinly disguized prejudice towards the true human condition based on unsubstantiated beliefs in a fictional world that does not exist and an instilled subconscious loathing of one's true self.

 

[04SCTLS]

How about the limits of faith.

For example:

Faith healer parents lose custody of six children after praying while son died of treatable illness

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...son-died-treatable-illness.html#ixzz1sUke0Sra

Of course this type of thing comes up regularly in America but nobody is calling these parents the religious idiots that they are because we put religion on a pedestal like it's off limits to criticize faith, no matter how ridiculous, as having limits.
It's their dim bulb lazy thinking which made them idiots and in this country religion gets a pass when it comes to idiocy over reason.

I have yet to hear any conservatives critical of their religious extremists and primitive ignoramases.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I have not posted much on this forum of late, but reading this thread, one thig caught my eye, so I will quote it here.

QUOTE We just don't know about the afterlife if there is one and so make up apparent noble stories with wishful scenarios and fancy promises which are then spoken of as truth instead of truthiness. QUOTE


Having been involved in studies and experiments concerning the afterlife, I can assure you, there is most definitely an afterlife.
For many years now, this subject has consumed an abundance of my time, and through research, studying some of the greatest scholars in the field, I have no doubts as to my contention concerning the afterlife.
Presently I am involved in discussion on another forum concerning this mostly misunderstood field of existence.
Religion has absolutely nothing to do with the afterlife, and re-incarnation, which is the main focus of afterlife.
Religions have tried to evolve into the process, but with little progress in the realm of spirituality, and the afterlife.
They prescribe to a set or beliefs that could only be described as mis- informed.
I only wish more would get involved in searching for the knowledge regarding the afterlife.
It is a fascinating field of study.
Were they to do so, it would give them and entirely new outlook on our meager existence here on earth.
Out time here on earth is but a blink of the eye compared to the eternity of the spirits.
I could write volumes on the subject, but that would only serve to mirror what I have learned over the years from others.
There are but two lives in the universe, one we live as humans on this planet, and the other, the spirit life which inhabits the rest of the universe.
When I hear, or read comments that "i just don't know about the afterlife, if there is one", I know those comments are expressed from one who has not fully embarked on the realm of spirituality.
It exist, always has, and always will.
Bob.

 

[04SCTLS]

I can assure you, there is most definitely an afterlife

Bob
As much as I would like to believe in life after death your contribution to the discussion here amounts to

Proof by Assertion

What would you be reincarnated as and what would you do and why.

Is there gender and sex in the afterlife and what happens to gay people and others religious conservatives don't like.

We cannot answer these questions beyond making suppositions.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Bob
As much as I would like to believe in life after death your contribution to the discussion here amounts to

Proof by Assertion

What would you be reincarnated as and what would you do and why.

Is there gender and sex in the afterlife and what happens to gay people and others religious conservatives don't like.

We cannot answer these questions beyond making suppositions.

I all my years of research on this subject, there is one piece of evidence that is far and away the ultimate source for information on the afterlife.
The questions you have asked here are answered in this book.
The title of the book is, "The Spirits' Book" by Allan Kardec.
He amassed the world's greatest wealth of spirit given material ever assembled.
This particular book (which is how it got it's name) was composed by the Spirits through what is known as automatic writing.
In essence, the spirits not only told the author what to write, but in some instances guided the pen in his hand .
It is in a question and answer format for most of the book, and I highly recommend this book for any one who has questions concerning re-incarnation, and the afterlife.
The question you asked here , I can answer, but the book goes into a lot more detail than I could offer here.
If you would like my imput to answer your questions, I would be happy to oblige in any way I can to enlighten your knowledge on the subject.
Bob.

 

[04SCTLS]

Bob

I'm glad you have found something you are comfortable with.
Compared to Scientology it almost seems sensible

I looked up your recommended "The Spirits Book" and it doesn't look to me that it would answer what you would do and why in the spirit life or the dimensions and energy and forces in the spirit world or why spirits were created in the first place to do what they do then reincarnated.
What is the point of achieving perfection and what is it's value in the spirit world used for?
It all seems kind of pointless like cariboo constantly wandering in Alaska and the Yukon for no apparent reason.
Also nothing about spirit gender or sexual orientation and goodness is a subjective term.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirits_Book

Basic concepts
Some aspects of the doctrine contained in the book are:

• Man is a Spirit with a material body, i.e. our truer selves are not material, but spiritual.
• A living person is made of three entities: the spirit, the body and the spiritual body (the perispirit) that binds both. The perispirit is an original word of Spiritism.
• Spirits pre-exist and will survive matter that was created.
• There are not angels or demons as separate orders in the creation, but only good and evil spirits. Even a beastly person will eventually attain perfection.
• All Spirits are created simple and ignorant. They gradually evolve intellectually and morally, so passing from an inferior order to more elevated ones until finally reaching perfection.
• All Spirits preserve their individuality, before, during and after each life (incarnation). However, the amount of memory one retains depends on one's level of spiritual progression.
• The different corporeal existences of the Spirit are progressive and not regressive. The pace of their progress, however, depends on the effort made towards betterment. Spirits can stagnate for so long that it seems to be an eternity and it can even appear that they have retrograded.
• Spirits pertain to various orders, according to the degree of perfection they have attained, in three major categories (with fluid limits and unknown number of subcategories): Pure Spirits, who have attained maximum perfection; Good Spirits, whose desire towards goodness predominates, and Imperfect Spirits, who are characterized by ignorance and evil impulses. The relationship of Spirits with Man is constant and has always existed. The Good Spirits do their best to lead us towards goodness and uphold us during our trials, helping us to support them with courage and resignation. By contrast, the Imperfect Spirits try to incite us toward evil.
• Everyone has their own spirit-protector, otherwise known as a guardian angel, who is entrusted with keeping watch over somebody as a mission or trial for them. Similarly to our incarnation on the earth, this mission for them can be a way of advancing and purifying themselves.
• Jesus is the guide and model for mankind. The Doctrine which he taught and exemplified is the most pure expression of God's Laws. However, most of the traditional doctrine on him being the Christ (Messiah) is seen under a different light. Aspects regarded as keystones of faith by most denominations, like trinitarianism and the virgin birth are not seen as important, while his resurrection is explained in another way. His death also has a different interpretation: instead of a sacrifice to atone for our sins, it is an example of the importance of being coherent and resisting temptation.
• Man has free will, but must face the consequences of his deeds.
• The future life is in accordance to one's behavior and learning needs.

 

[Marcus]

Almost sounds much like the plot of the movie Defending your Life. It has some pretty funny moments but I mostly enjoyed their take on how the afterlife actually works.