Religion is Man- Made

[Immanuel Can]

Blah blah blah…. There are no winners. Nothing to profit. Nothing to learn, and nothing to understand.

Well, that may be: but it's entirely up to the participants whether or not that's how it goes. And as I say, what it signals is that they've both stopped learning, stopped listening, and started to aim at a "win" instead of getting smarter.

Sure, people do that. I just don't recommend it.

[Dubious]

A thought is an actual event. One definition of God is Divine Mind. The thought of God necessitates God exists as thought. So when the atheist tries to refute the existence of God they must first acknowledge God exists as thought thus leading to a contradiction.

There's god existing and there's the thought of god existing. The contradiction is your conflating of the two as if they were somehow equivalent. Most of what happens in the mind never happens externally.

False all our interactions occur through memory of empirical events. We react with the world through thought. The thought of God guides peoples actions.

If you say so!

BTW, thought of god is not an empirical event, or you don't know what empirical means.

[Dubious]

Funny coincidence .. I was just having the exact same thoughts the other day.

The mind boggles, that perfectly decent, articulate, and gentle men still believe in invisible people. I happen to get the vibe Ic is nice person, but the beliefs ...

.

The bible was written based on a very old and long defunct view of the world. It piles contradiction on contradiction. No true biblical scholar would accept the idea of the bible as written being a dependable story except for what history and archeology confirms.

To think that Jesus, a back alley preacher, is the son of the OT god who created the universe with its hundreds of billions of galaxies containing many billions of stars and even more planets but decided to elect his Chosen People here on earth somewhere in the Middle East is no-longer simply ridiculous but crosses the border into insanity.

Also in equal measure is the disgusting idea that only belief in Jesus can save your soul. The rest are write-offs regardless of their belief in some other divinity or divinities whose name wasn't Jesus; if that were true, one might as well have been an atheist.

I questioned IC on this kind of extreme incongruity, but he never once deigned to reply, the reason for which is simple: admitting it makes Jesus look like an unjust asshole OR negate it and his entire belief system falls to ashes. No wonder there was never a response, in spite of claiming to have three of them.

The only way to defend that kind of distorted belief system is through more distortions, lies, deceit, and a really shameless hypocrisy, all of which IC is past master at. He only responds in a normal manner when the subject is not about religion. Considering what religion has done to the human mind, Hitchen's statement that it poisons everything is 100% accurate...especially the kind which forces belief on ONE deity for redemption.

It goes to show some minds are much more easily poisoned than others.

Did Jesus say he was the begotten son ,or the 'son' like I might say I am a 'daughter' of the enlightenment?
When Jesus said you can approach God only via Jesus , Jesus meant that God is beyond man's understanding. J was a good Jew, and presumably recognised only Judaism. Can't you interpret the theme without stumbling among the details?

Thank you for interpreting what Jesus meant since he didn't leave any explanations behind. So nice of you to clarify!

[Eodnhoj7]

There's god existing and there's the thought of god existing. The contradiction is your conflating of the two as if they were somehow equivalent. Most of what happens in the mind never happens externally.

False all our interactions occur through memory of empirical events. We react with the world through thought. The thought of God guides peoples actions.

If you say so!

BTW, thought of god is not an empirical event, or you don't know what empirical means.

The thought of God guides empirical actions thus reflects itself empirically. God exists empirically through these actions.

[AlexW]

I get what you are saying. But what you are pointing to is all based on the knowledge of conceptual understanding via association with meaning based on human belief systems that have been artificially formed over decades and decades of mental conditioning and programming that are past on from generation to generation.. All of which is nothing more than a fiction upon the real world which is without any concept or story about it. That's the real world, the real world is the world prior to any artificially imposed story about it.

Yes, sure all of what I am saying is a solution to problems that exist only in (and as) thought - all problems only exist once we start thinking about them (as such create them).
Yet, stating that its all just "fictional story" (and reality is not actually touched by these stories) is fair enough (and even true), but it doesn't solve the problem that you still suffer from these stories...
Your story goes like this: reality for sentient creature is gross, barbaric and crude, it's a pointless, mindless battle for survival
This story makes you suffer, simply because it is a very negative view of reality (but reality itself couldn't care less).

Please don't get me wrong, this world as it operates today seems very "barbaric and crude" - its the message we receive from TV, internet and all sorts of media - but thats simply how the world works... predators eat their prey, big/strong overcomes small/weak etc etc and only thinking that this is not fair, that everyone should be equal, everyone should operate on the same level playing field is just wishful thinking - its simply not how the word/universe works.

I understand that you are worried about, for example, animal welfare...
But how many animals do you think you kill when you take a walk in the park?
How many ants and other critters die under the soles of your shoes?
Are you also sorry for them? Or only for a specific few, larger animals?
(don't get me wrong, this is not an attack - just trying to offer a different perspective - not better or worse, just different)

The real world doesn't need a language to interpret it ...

Yet, there is one...
The world doesn't need a hammer so we can hammer in nails - yet hammers exist... and if you use them for good (eg to build a house) or for bad (eg to kill your neighbour) it's not the hammers fault.
One simply has to understand what a tool is made for and how it should be used.

The dinosaur period is still here, nothing has changed in the nature of nature, just because humans have showed up, in fact nature has gotten a whole lot worse because of humanity, not better.

Sure, nature is still the same and why wouldn't it?
Just because humans can reflect about nature and label parts of it good and others bad doesn't change the workings of nature/life itself.

So even the idea that we can just disassociate with our sensation and thoughts and feelings, and know they are like passing ships in the night with no significant significance, because they have no impact on the awareness that is aware of them, is not helpful.

Agree, it is not helpful at all.
What is helpful is to actually see - and I mean: really see and be aware of - these "passing ships" and understand if they are pirate ships approaching to plunder and burn or if they are "regular" boats offering all sorts of new experiences...
All ships have a certain impact, they all are significant, the more significant they are the more they will make themselves felt as sensations one can actually feel in the body. I found that these sensations work similar to a smoke detector - they can warn you from what is to come and allow you to act before it is too late. Its simply a way to live more happily... don't we all want that?

There really is no hope for conscious sentient life

Good

I used to think like you, I used to think like IC...but something happened to me, I realised once and for all that I was just pretending, I was living a pretentious life. And that is when I decided to stop living a pretentious life, and live in the real world, and to my delight, I discovered I was ok with that.

Yet, the things that you write seem to point to the opposite - you seem to be not OK with many things that happen in this crude, barbaric world...
I think its perfectly fine to not be OK with certain things, but when it results in being constantly worried about these things, when one actually suffers from the way things are (or rather: seem to be), then one should either act or forget.
Act and do something about the things that worry you or, if there is nothing you can do, then forget. Why worry about stuff all the time if all you can do is keep this worry going for no other reason than becoming a good worrier?

Bobby McFerrin sang:
Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy now

[Dubious]

False all our interactions occur through memory of empirical events. We react with the world through thought. The thought of God guides peoples actions.

If you say so!

BTW, thought of god is not an empirical event, or you don't know what empirical means.

The thought of God guides empirical actions thus reflects itself empirically. God exists empirically through these actions.

As I said before...whatever you say.

[AlexW]

But this internal awareness - like anything else - can be practised and it can be integrated into how one functions - and over time it becomes the new normal (on looking back: this has been one of the best things ever happening to me).

This sounds like a rational exit from hell.

Are there obstacles to the method?

Every method has obstacles
Its like learning to ride a bike - one will fall off multiple times until, somewhen, you find the balance and all is well.

Ok.. a bit more info:
I found it to be a multistep process, first learning how to actually be aware of (observe) ones own thoughts, then understanding how they interact with the physical body - it seems that thoughts, a bit similar to reflexology, trigger (or rather arise together with) certain specific sensations in the body. This makes it possible to either catch the thought (when actually actively observing thought) or otherwise catch the physical sensation and follow it back to the thought (when a mosquito bites you, you automatically swipe it away, right? the idea is, that it has to become an automated process like that...)
The process works similar to a smoke detector - once the smoke (negative thoughts) is detected and clearly seen/observed (but not fuelled by jumping onto the train of thought) it will automatically loose steam and dissolve.
One has to practice this process multiple, most likely many times in a "controlled situation" (similar to when meditating), but somewhen this practice pays off, the behaviour is internalised and works without artificial effort.
Thats it in a nutshell - guess there is much more to say about it, especially how to practise, but this would turn out to be more text than just a simple post in this forum.

[Dontaskme]

Blah blah blah…. There are no winners. Nothing to profit. Nothing to learn, and nothing to understand.

Well, that may be: but it's entirely up to the participants whether or not that's how it goes. And as I say, what it signals is that they've both stopped learning, stopped listening, and started to aim at a "win" instead of getting smarter.

Sure, people do that. I just don't recommend it.

Ok, then lets all just play the game of pretending we are learning something here instead, well won't that be fun. Look everyone, I'm learning something, aren't I amazing. Lets all learn how to be. . won't that be a fun thing to do.
The only species on the planet that built their own human zoo. Humans competing with other humans. Hey everyone, come see and look at what I've learnt, what do you think of me now, clever or what, huh!

There are two types of imprisonment on this planet. 1: Animals confined to a zoo for our pleasure and entertainment, and 2: the human zoo for our pleasure and entertainment. Yes, humans even built their own zoo, because not only do they like eyeballing animals, they too love to be admired, and adored. They invented mirrors so they could admire themselves even more. The self they worship and adore enough to keep having more of them.

Thankfully, they were smart enough to draw the line when it came to decisions about eating animals, for them, it was perfectly ok to eat pig meat sandwiches, or cow meat sandwiches, because pigs and cows are just not important, and deserve no life. Only people have that privilege, and that's why we choose not to eat human meat sandwiches because we became narcissists.


Some people are just too intelligent to play this dumb pretense of a game call humanity, but those same people have no choice but to play the game because someone else decided it was a game worth playing, so their life was imposed upon them against their will and consent, all because someone decided they loved being thrown upside down and round and round on this sick inducing roller-coaster.

Yeah, this is such a fun ride, a really a good game, this playing God business, all just so we get to enjoy watching everything we impose upon reality grow old, get horrible physical and mental diseases, suffer excrutiating dibilitating chronic pain, while slowly watching the bodies of all our relatives and friends and pets, slowly decay in the most unsightly and undignified way possible, we even go that extra mile by attempting to prolong their agonies for just one more little day because we cannot bear to let them go....and we do all this just to die at the end.

I'll not even mention all the exploitation that humans have to endure by the rich people who have only gotten there by screwing others over, or they have inherited their wealth and haven't had to do a days grafting in their entire life. Yeah, sounds like a really great idea.

.

[Dontaskme]

*picayune, child-like, over-reactions; hyperbole; narcissism; and nihilism ain't philosophy

**not as an adult

***that, currently, is the entirety of you

Your phobia, not mine.

to the audience...

Note how she cycles thru lil self-comfortin' catch-phrases (your phobia, not mine and smell your own shit).

She unconsciously telegraphs her state of mind (fear) and her self-assessment (shit).

She's sittin' on a fence's edge...interestin' to watch the balancing act...will be even more so to see which way she finally falls.

Your so full of pointless platitudes and worn out clichés.

You seem to be more at pains with my philosophy on life, than I am.

Oh well, and what happened to the ignore list idea?

Oh wait..!!

You can't ignore me can you, you just can't get enough of the truth, it's too magnetic.

Just try letting go of the air while you are falling, it's very liberating.

Stay tuned for more truth.

.

[Dontaskme]

Yet, the things that you write seem to point to the opposite - you seem to be not OK with many things that happen in this crude, barbaric world...
I think its perfectly fine to not be OK with certain things, but when it results in being constantly worried about these things, when one actually suffers from the way things are (or rather: seem to be), then one should either act or forget.
Act and do something about the things that worry you or, if there is nothing you can do, then forget. Why worry about stuff all the time if all you can do is keep this worry going for no other reason than becoming a good worrier?

I'm not ok with many things. And it's perfectly ok to not be ok in my opinion.

I'm not worried about it, for what can I do about it...nothing, I'm stuck here because someone else thought it was ok to impose it on me.
I'm having to live a game that someone else made. It's not my game.

If humans have decided that pain and suffering is worth the experience, then there's nothing that can be done about that. I happen to think there is something we can do about it, but then until everyone makes the same choice to stop it, then it will continue to continue.

It doesn't seem to occur to people that a cute little lion cub inside a crocodiles jaw, while it's poor mommy looks on in despair, is really not a good idea, it really isn't, but as long as that horror is not happening to them, then it seems to be ok. And that sucks.
You will die one day, some don't have the luxury of a good death, some die horribly over years and years of pain and torment.

What if that baby lion cub inside the crocodile was you, how would you think that would feel for you?

Life is totally distgusting and can only be the work of crude barbaric mindless dark forces. Humans are in denial of what is really happening here, they fear the truth. That's why they invented imaginary escape routes from the horror, through the ideas of NONDUALITY and the BIBLE

Just watch the video on youtube of the mother lion with half her mouth torn to shreds hanging down from her body flopping and dripping pieces of flesh and blood, imagine the agony she has to endure all because she tried in vain to fight off the croc and save her cub.
And we're supposed to just say, hey, lets make more of this carnage.



.

[Dontaskme]

But this internal awareness - like anything else - can be practised and it can be integrated into how one functions - and over time it becomes the new normal (on looking back: this has been one of the best things ever happening to me).

This sounds like a rational exit from hell.

Are there obstacles to the method?

Every method has obstacles
Its like learning to ride a bike - one will fall off multiple times until, somewhen, you find the balance and all is well.

Ok.. a bit more info:
I found it to be a multistep process, first learning how to actually be aware of (observe) ones own thoughts, then understanding how they interact with the physical body - it seems that thoughts, a bit similar to reflexology, trigger (or rather arise together with) certain specific sensations in the body. This makes it possible to either catch the thought (when actually actively observing thought) or otherwise catch the physical sensation and follow it back to the thought (when a mosquito bites you, you automatically swipe it away, right? the idea is, that it has to become an automated process like that...)
The process works similar to a smoke detector - once the smoke (negative thoughts) is detected and clearly seen/observed (but not fuelled by jumping onto the train of thought) it will automatically loose steam and dissolve.
One has to practice this process multiple, most likely many times in a "controlled situation" (similar to when meditating), but somewhen this practice pays off, the behaviour is internalised and works without artificial effort.
Thats it in a nutshell - guess there is much more to say about it, especially how to practise, but this would turn out to be more text than just a simple post in this forum.

Try lying inside a wooden box buried deep underground with only a breathing tube leading up from the box to the surface, so you can at least breathe, and maybe have a bottle of water with you, just enough to keep you alive for as long as you are able to endure the condition. Lets see how long you can endure remaining in a perfect state of detachment. It shouldn't be that difficult to do applying the method you've described in the above post. You'll need assistance setting up the experiement of course, but once it's set up, it's just you and your non-detachment. How long do you think you will last before you are wanting attachment again?

.

[Dontaskme]

Thank you for interpreting what Jesus meant since he didn't leave any explanations behind. So nice of you to clarify!

People are desperate for meaning for their otherwise, not-knowing, meaningless lives. Their longing for meaning, is all just reflexive behavior, in the sense that the absence of pain or any bad situation apparently gives birth to the illusion that good exists, because they are not bad. If there was just good in the world, then there would be no reason to long for God. But there is an obvious longing for God.
It never occurs to them that the road to good cannot be paved with bad, and vice versa. So they are stuck with their knowledge, but never use it to see there is always a way out of their displeasure for pain. They do not have to wait for God to end pain. For God is the pain.

Life is pain, but in knowledge of pain, the pain can be stopped by not making more of it through procreation. No DNA molecule is able to tell itself it is the divine manifestation of a loving creator God. Argh!!

Religious kooks appear to be in denial they are trapped in some kind of psychological Stockholm syndrome, a scenario where they have self inflicted upon them selves a slave mentality that pretends to like it's master. Never knowing that the master is the slave, and the slave is the master, all imagined to be real inside their minds.

On the other hand, the sensation of Pain is real, it's not imagined. Pain is not a good idea or the work of a loving master. A broken leg is a bad situation. We are forced to live in a broken world that cannot be fixed. If it could be fixed then there would be no broken world.

Broken people making more broken, the madness never ends.




.

[AlexW]

This sounds like a rational exit from hell.

Are there obstacles to the method?

Every method has obstacles
Its like learning to ride a bike - one will fall off multiple times until, somewhen, you find the balance and all is well.

Ok.. a bit more info:
I found it to be a multistep process, first learning how to actually be aware of (observe) ones own thoughts, then understanding how they interact with the physical body - it seems that thoughts, a bit similar to reflexology, trigger (or rather arise together with) certain specific sensations in the body. This makes it possible to either catch the thought (when actually actively observing thought) or otherwise catch the physical sensation and follow it back to the thought (when a mosquito bites you, you automatically swipe it away, right? the idea is, that it has to become an automated process like that...)
The process works similar to a smoke detector - once the smoke (negative thoughts) is detected and clearly seen/observed (but not fuelled by jumping onto the train of thought) it will automatically loose steam and dissolve.
One has to practice this process multiple, most likely many times in a "controlled situation" (similar to when meditating), but somewhen this practice pays off, the behaviour is internalised and works without artificial effort.
Thats it in a nutshell - guess there is much more to say about it, especially how to practise, but this would turn out to be more text than just a simple post in this forum.

Try lying inside a wooden box buried deep underground with only a breathing tube leading up from the box to the surface, so you can at least breathe, and maybe have a bottle of water with you, just enough to keep you alive for as long as you are able to endure the condition. Lets see how long you can endure remaining in a perfect state of detachment. It shouldn't be that difficult to do applying the method you've described in the above post. You'll need assistance setting up the experiement of course, but once it's set up, it's just you and your non-detachment. How long do you think you will last before you are wanting attachment again?

.

The method I was describing is not a magic trick that will turn you into some kind of superhero. But what it can do, and did for me, is that it reduces the “normal” amount of dark and worryful thoughts substantially. If that is not good enough for you, fine, I am not asking you to try it. I simply reported what I have done and what the result has been so far… still, not sure if I’m ready for your wooden box experiment:-)

[Immanuel Can]

Blah blah blah…. There are no winners. Nothing to profit. Nothing to learn, and nothing to understand.

Well, that may be: but it's entirely up to the participants whether or not that's how it goes. And as I say, what it signals is that they've both stopped learning, stopped listening, and started to aim at a "win" instead of getting smarter.

Sure, people do that. I just don't recommend it.

Ok, then lets all just play the game of pretending we are learning something here instead,

Whether it's a reality or just a "game" is up to the participants. Personally, I'm too old for "games."

Some people are just too intelligent to play this dumb pretense of a game call humanity, but those same people have no choice but to play the game because someone else decided it was a game worth playing,

Who was that? Who so "decided"?

Yeah, this is such a fun ride, a really a good game, this playing God business, all just so we get to enjoy watching everything we impose upon reality grow old, get horrible physical and mental diseases, suffer excrutiating dibilitating chronic pain, while slowly watching the bodies of all our relatives and friends and pets, slowly decay in the most unsightly and undignified way possible, we even go that extra mile by attempting to prolong their agonies for just one more little day because we cannot bear to let them go....and we do all this just to die at the end.

I don't disagree that such a pattern would be awful...but I would hardly call it a "game." Usually, in a "game," somebody's having fun.

I think the better question might be this: if this pattern is what we have in life, and if it's an abomination that life goes this way -- so granting all you say at the start -- why are things this way?

If the answer is, "It was simply the roll of the cosmic dice," as in "An indifferent universe evolved us into this situation," then I think fatalism is all you can turn to. Accept that this is how it is, stop lamenting, and "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" (to borrow a quotation). For why should you lament something that IS, and cannot be otherwise? There is nothing in the universe to care that you are sad; so anaesthetize yourself by whatever means you can, and ride it out. You'll be dead soon enough, and the universe will likely generate enough sorrow and pain along the way without you adding to it, right?

So that makes sense. Forget your unhappiness. Get over it.

But what if that's not how it is? What if your intuition that things ought not to be as they are is not merely indulgence, not self-pity or some kind of mental "game" played against reality, but instead an intuiting of the profound fact that things in this world are not right, are out of joint, are messed up, and are not as they should be at all? What if that's not wrong? What if you're right?

Then, you have to ask yourself why things are not as they ought to be. What does it signal? How did things end up this way? And is there anything that can be done about it? It is this kind of question that "religion," (whatever the heck that is) tries to answer. Different "religions" answer it differently; but they all try to make some accounting of it. And you can weigh their various answers by the facts you know, the experiences you are having, and the intuition that's making you so upset, and see what makes sense....if anything.

So pick your path. Be a Materialist, a Physicalist, an Atheist of some kind, and "suck it up, Chuck." In these, there will be no answers for you; so give up asking the questions, pacify yourself as best you can, and wait for death.

Or... realize that the answers from those ideologies are dusty on all this. Decide they don't "answer the bell." They have nothing to tell you about your intuition, except that it's pointless. Maybe turn around and consider what answers from "religion" may be possible. Sift them. See which one of them, if any, might answer your question in a way that helps you come to grips with your unhappiness.

As I see it, those are your choices.

[henry quirk]

Your phobia, not mine.

to the audience...

Note how she cycles thru lil self-comfortin' catch-phrases (your phobia, not mine and smell your own shit).

She unconsciously telegraphs her state of mind (fear) and her self-assessment (shit).

She's sittin' on a fence's edge...interestin' to watch the balancing act...will be even more so to see which way she finally falls.

Your so full of pointless platitudes and worn out clichés.

You seem to be more at pains with my philosophy on life, than I am.

*Oh well, and what happened to the ignore list idea?

Oh wait..!!

You can't ignore me can you, you just can't get enough of the truth, it's too magnetic.

Just try letting go of the air while you are falling, it's very liberating.

Stay tuned for more truth.

.

*In other words: please, stop turnin' a spotlight on me!

As I say...

I gotta a large problem with liars. And, no, your lunacy doesn't exempt you. So: as I like, I will oppose you and miseries like you. I have no interest in savin' your soul (that's between you and the Creator): but I will meet your garbage with truth at every turn. You're a bad person and you should be countered.