# Spirituality and Religion... help and/or hurt



## bright23

Since a major component of DP is obsessive ruminations about the ultimate nature of reality, what place do you think spirituality and religion have in all of this, if any. Does it help you to cope, or do you think its another human scam/wish fantasy designed to keep us robots moving along blissful and ignorant? Or perhaps a little of both?

Do you think there's a difference between spirituality and religion?

In general, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING ON IN THIS CRAZY UNIVERSE?


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## rainboteers

Most of the time it helps me, but sometimes it doesn't. I love talking about this stuff, and when I have more time I will give my viewpoint on what is happening in the universe.


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## Guest

Religion and spirituality can be a good topic for philosophical debate and exegesis. However, it is more of an analgesic than a cure.


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## Brainsilence02

XEPER said:


> Religion and spirituality can be a good topic for philosophical debate and exegesis. However, it is more of an analgesic than a cure.


Well... I am not sure if I have DP, but if DP is what I have, then one of the things that got into it was when I realized that I will stop to exist one day. Apparently religion was gone from inside me. The pain was great, and I sunk into nothingness. That was around 2000-2002.

I am irreligious (apparently, you have already understood that), that has brought some trouble, but it saved me from other. Eventually, I will head to where Nietzsche poins (well, not exactly, but something like that).

I agree about the alalgesic (painkiller) as for Christendom. I had the chanse to study a bit the Asian religions and they were great. If I ever decide to get back to religion, that is if I start to feel bad again, I think I will prefer one Asian religion, or even tweak one to fit my appeal... Nothing like an pre-defined illusion! 

Religion is a wonderful thing. Don't get me wrong because of that topic/thread (you know what I mean). It's just that most religion implementations I saw in action had very bad involvements.


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## Sojourner

Brain,

I got a chuckle upon reading your tag line just now. I hadn't noticed this before (I don't know why I didn't catch it earlier), but there is a typo that I am certain you will want to fix:

Instead of "idioms," you have "idiotisms," which I hope you will laugh at as well! :wink:

Too bad I didn't notice it earlier!! I could have used it in that other conversation. :lol:


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## Brainsilence02

Sojourner said:


> Brain,
> 
> I got a chuckle upon reading your tag line just now. I hadn't noticed this before (I don't know why I didn't catch it earlier), but there is a typo that I am certain you will want to fix:
> 
> Instead of "idioms," you have "idiotisms," which I hope you will laugh at as well! :wink:
> 
> Too bad I didn't notice it earlier!! I could have used it in that other conversation. :lol:


Thanks 

That's weird, my dictionary has both "idiom" and "idiotism". So idiom is more proper than idiotism?


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## Sojourner

See http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?b ... a=idiotism


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## Sojourner

Today, "idiotism" is used to mean "the practice of being an idiot" -- Google for the word and you will see by the items found.


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## Ben

It's my belief that religion has done more harm on me than help; to go much deeper would surely start a completely different debate on this thread and it's probably not worth it.

Suffice it to say, religion has done enough to me and I'm happy to finally be without it.


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## rainboteers

To me spirtuality is completely different from religion. Religion involves dogma, fear, being hypocrtical, being judgemental, worst of all that hellfire and brimstone talk.

My spirtual beliefs involve love, acceptance, purpose, and a sense of peace. It is a wonderful sense of comfort in my life, and I have little fear of death (the only fear is that it would hurt those who care about me).

What do you think will happen when you die? Just curious.


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## Ben

....nothing will happen when I die; I simply die and consciousness is gone. That's what my interpretation of life is all about - I'm here for a while and then I'm gone. To me the world seems much more beautiful and sensical this way - it doesn't have some kind of "spooky" correspondence to my personal wishes and desires - it just IS without my preferences coming into play. Any other way of looking at the world seems much more personal and more prone to insanity or inflated self-importance (there are lot of people who suffer severe mental disorders who believe they have some kind of religious or spiritual tie with the universe or have an "insight" into things). But, that's my opinion, and you asked for it....


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## Brainsilence02

apparently that was my mistake:



Merriam-Webster Online said:


> Main Entry: 1id?i?o?tism
> Pronunciation: 'i-dE-&-"ti-z&m
> Function: noun
> Etymology: Middle French idiotisme, from Latin idiotismus common speech, from *Greek idiOtismos*, from idiOtEs


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## Brainsilence02

Ben said:


> ....nothing will happen when I die; I simply die and consciousness is gone. That's what my interpretation of life is all about - I'm here for a while and then I'm gone. To me the world seems much more beautiful and sensical this way - it doesn't have some kind of "spooky" correspondence to my personal wishes and desires - it just IS without my preferences coming into play. Any other way of looking at the world seems much more personal and more prone to insanity or inflated self-importance (there are lot of people who suffer severe mental disorders who believe they have some kind of religious or spiritual tie with the universe or have an "insight" into things). But, that's my opinion, and you asked for it....


i am there with you Ben. Well, not quite there, but on my way. I had a shock when I had to cook a chicken: it was cold (took it from the fridge), I touched it's skin and I realised that there was no difference between me and it.

Thoughts of stop to exist at death moment are still freaking me out. I will have to face them ultimately.


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## rainboteers

interesting... I believe in reincarnation, but not the kind where you come back as a fish or a bird, I think you are always the same soul just in different circumstances. Oh well, to each their own.


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## Sojourner

I think your mistake was not seeing "obsolete" and/or understanding what that word means in the context of an English dictionary:

obsolete : IDIOM 1
2 : IDIOM 2


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## Sojourner

One approach to this subject considers:

- Signs of an intelligence behind the laws humans have discovered that govern the behavior of matter.

- The existence of a universal moral law that appears in all cultures and that is written on the human heart.

- The existence of the human conscience.

- Evidence that meeting the needs that humans have for survival is something that occurs with regard to food, shelter, love, bodily integrity over time, and others; the suggestion is that why one ever-present human need would NOT be met. The conclusion of some people is that all human needs are, in fact, met, but that some humans reject the answer because they cannot conceive of anything greater than themselves.


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## Brainsilence02

Sojourner said:


> I think your mistake was not seeing "obsolete" and/or understanding what that word means in the context of an English dictionary:
> 
> obsolete : IDIOM 1
> 2 : IDIOM 2


...I just wrote with latin characters the greek word "idiomatismos" 

Yes, I didn't even noticed. That was because I just learned what "obselete" means!


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## Ben

Oh no...here goes.....



> Signs of an intelligence behind the laws humans have discovered that govern the behavior of matter.


It's interesting, because one often looks at the universe this way: that is, here we are a part of this thing and that everything is harmonious and makes sense and, therefore, there ought to be some kind of universal being that created it as it is so aesthetically appealing to us (the order, etc.). However, it's important to think that it's appealing to us because we are a construct of it - not the other way around, in other words, our minds are part and parcel with the constructs of the universe, and so things that make "sense" to us are those things which pan out in the world. Think about your definition of the word "intelligent" for a minute - and realize that intelligence, as often defined by us humans, is the ability to grasp the world about you in a effective and constructive way; not the other way around - in other words, intelligence is dealing with the universe and its laws WELL. It seems natural that we, then, would see intelligence in the universe as it constantly pushes forward with the laws we try to graple with in order to make ourselves intelligent. It doesn't make much sense for a being of a universe to find NOT dealing with that universe as intelligent. Our reasoning was built upon IT, not seperate, and so to say that the universe is intelligent is basically rather obvious as it defines what we mean as intelligent. If the universal laws were completely different, then a being would see THAT as intelligent, or a universe with no laws, potentially. I think we often see ourselves as something seperate and partial, and something capable of juding the "intellect" of nature - but we are nature, and so it makes sense it it seems beautiful to us.



> The existence of a universal moral law that appears in all cultures and that is written on the human heart.


The basic principles are the same for the human species - we eat, we procreate, we sleep, we die; and it makes sense, then, that morals (or the rules that we see as socially and personally acceptable) would be very similar. We all have two eyes, right? We all have two arms, right? Why would it not make sense for the constructs of our brains (and the results of those constructs being apparent in thought) be also similar.



> The existence of the human conscience.


This is a wonderful mystery, but a mystery is all - not evidence, at least in my mind, of a supernatural being or something existential. We find our own thinking miraculous because we can see ourselves and see ourselves thinking, and see ourselves seeing ourselves thinking. We are the only judges of our thinking - so why not make it wonderful, eh?



> The conclusion of some people is that all human needs are, in fact, met, but that some humans reject the answer because they cannot conceive of anything greater than themselves.


I'm not sure as thought I really understand what you're saying by this, but I THINK I do...correct me if I'm wrong.....

I will argue that I have a deeper and more dramatic feeling of a greater reality than most people who have a religion because I see that realities that fail to make sense to us do so not because there is some kind of secret plan that persists in nature, but simply because it extends SO MUCH FURTHER than our own consciousness can fathom. I argue that the feelings of religiosity persist in me deeper than someone who follows a definite religion as too much time is spent in those religions projecting human desires onto the universe, when, in all actuality, that's quite the insult to whatever greater reality lays beneath.


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## Sojourner

Brain,

Put a comma after "syntax" in the following statement in your tag line:

I am usually having difficulties with phrasal and syntax language idioms, and scientific terminology.


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## Sojourner

Brain,

Actually, change that whole phrase to "with phrasing and syntax," -- sorry I missed "phrasal," which isn't correct for the meaning you want.


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## Brainsilence02

damnit!

Sojourner, write the whole signature of mine by changing what is necessary to be correct.

And I take your responses here as "it's ok" from that.. other thread


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## Sojourner

I do not speak English natively, so you might see typographic, syntax, or phrasal mistakes; or I may sound like a 5-year-old child in an effort to be clear. I am usually having difficulties with phrasal and syntax language idioms, and scientific terminology.

English is not my first language, so you might see grammatical or other errors in my posts. I am always trying to perfect my English, and your patience is greatly appreciated.

OR

I am not a native speaker of English, so you might see typographical, grammatical, and spelling errors in my posts. I might even sound like a child because I am attempting to write very clearly and simply -- but errors are unfortunately going to appear. I am usually having difficulty with phrasing, English idiomatic expression, and so forth.

OR

NOTE: English is not my native tongue.


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## Guest

I'm sorry to bother you, Brainsilence02, but if your signature is to have consistent grammar, then "syntax" should be converted to an adjective, i.e. "syntactical."


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## bright23

whoah...


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## Brainsilence02

LOL

Even the signature is full of mistakes! That's the reason that it's there 

Thanks Sojourner and XEPER, I will check to see what will be the more suitable one. I am on a haste right now, so I will do it later.


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## rainboteers

What if you weren't really alone after all? What if you were really a fragment of a great and glorious mind, like an individual wave is part of the magnificant ocean? --just a quote I like :wink:


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## Guest

What if I am alone? Let's assume that reason exists so that we can actually have a coherent arguement; what evidence is there at all that such a large mind exists? After all, a consciousness depends on the interconnected workings of three basic systems: memory retention and recall, information procurement, and synergistic ideatic syncrasis. Only then can thoughts arrive, survive, and derive. However, there must be a hardware system that performs this function. In humans, it is the brain. In the case of artificial intelligence, it is silicon derived chips. In the case of the universe, there is no such device. In addition, there is no evidence that any thought processes occur in the first place; what would make anyone believe that the world was conscious?
To apply a human characteristic to the vastnesses of the life, the universe, and everything betrays the great hubris of humankind; literature has a term for it: personification. What makes you think that something as vast as the universe would be anything like the specks of dust known as humans?
The belief in a god such as the one that Rainboteers described further betrays the deep desire to believe in an absolute bestower of justice, bliss, and immortality. Thus, one cannot accept the harsh truth that life isn't fair, one is too attached to pleasure, and one is too afraid of death.
Besides, the origins of God lie in the savage, cannibalistic and sadistic cults of the Neolithic Period, evolved into misogynistic dealers of a selfish concept of "justice," and then into an excuse for war, savagery, rape, and greed, and finally into an incestuous combination thereof for the modern degenerates that plague this land and use the name of "God" as an excuse for their hedonism, sadism, and general mental anaesthesia.
I once believed in God, probably more strongly than any of you...my faith was absolute. However, it was the result of a psychosis (I seem to have had them often in my "childhood") and the desire for an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent being that was friends and family rolled into one. In the end, I was forced to abandon my faith when that particular psychosis ended (it lasted a long time). Now, I can see no reason to bend my knee to some "necessarily invisible" invention of power hungry perverts and gluttons.
The truth shall set you free, though at first it will bring you pain...

Yours truly,
XEPER

P.S. That being said, know that this is me playing the devil's advocate with just a minute fraction of the arguements I've read and created over the years for and against.

P.P.S Frankly, however, God just really isn't that important of an idea among the vast sea of ideas floating out there...

P.P.P.S. Although, if I were to believe in God, it would probably be an unconscious purification and syncretism of Gnostic, Sufi, and Vedic philosophical thought.


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## rainboteers

No intention to argue or change anyone's mind about God. Just a quote and idea that i like, thought someone else might enjoy it too. I can't argue about this because I just don't have an arguement lol. I just believe, it makes sense to me, and yes it does make me feel better. Maybe the only reason I believe is to make myself feel better, yes I have thought of that, but you know what? I feel so bad these days, I refuse to aplogize for any thought that provides me with the tiniest bit of comfort. I have to hang on somehow you know?


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## Guest

Is it wrong for me to respect the truth more than I indulge in the latent instinct to avoid suffering?


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## rainboteers

Of course not! Please also see that your truth may be different than mine. :wink:


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## Guest

I don't know what the truth is, to be honest. I just have an interest in philosophy and thinking is my favorite passtime (even says so on my college application). However, I don't understand why anyone would believe something for the sole purpose of "feeling better." Do you feel no responsibility towards the potential that you have? Why submit to an analgesic? It may numb the pain, but it also numbs your ability (think of your mouth being numbed for a dentistry operation; you can't feel the pain, but you can't talk, either).

Yours truly,
XEPER

P.S. Thinking is a lost art...


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## rainboteers

One more thing, I don't believe to aviod suffering. I really just believe like I said it just makes sense to me. It does help me cope though.

I respect your opinion, but I don't agree with it.


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## Guest

How does it make sense? Have you anything to support your unwarrantedly optimistic appraisal of the situation?


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## rainboteers

I do... but it is personal and it wouldn't mean anything to anyone else. Understand?


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## Guest

Of course...


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## Guest

> However, I don't understand why anyone would believe something for the sole purpose of "feeling better."


Why not? Thats smart! It WORKS!


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## Guest

Obviously, Wendy, our systems of semiotics are quite diverse. We place values on different things, and we have different sets of criteria for evaluating the "truth," whatever the hell that is...


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## bright23

What about this...

According to Hindu religion ? the whole universe is but the dream of a single cosmic mind. All material reality is dream, and therefore the stuff that "God" is made of. Another way of looking at it ? that EVERYTHING is God, these thoughts in my head, this keyboard, the coffee in my hand, the urine in my bladder that I'm suddenly becoming conscious of.

It is an error of human thinking to think of animate and inanimate matter, thinking and no thinking as separate. Separation in this universe is but an illusion.

We are constantly breathing in particles of the universe, i.e. oxygen so that we continue to exist.

We consume formerly animate matter to create energy so that we may continue to exist.

God is the floor I walk on, the hostile exchange with a local hoodlum, the act of making love to my girlfriend, the rice and beans I had for lunch. God is everything.

God is depression DP DR and anxiety. God is success, a full stomach and a roof over our heads.

Human consciousness, philisophical thinking, and semantic wordplay is just one aspect to something much more vast and by nature totally eclipsing. So big we cannot even see it. GOD IS. That's all we can say.

Check out the Bhagavad Gita if you are interested...


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## Guest

For similar veins of thought check out:

The Vedas (also Hindu scriptures)

Gnosticism

Sufism

The philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza


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## Guest

Xeper wrote:


> However, I don't understand why anyone would believe something for the sole purpose of "feeling better."


Ah, welcome to the human race. Everyone does it. And I hestitate to add this (at the risk of ending up a target in the Book of Hate, grin) but you do it, too. You "hate yourself" as protection. It makes you feel superior (i.e., the part of you who does the hating). And it makes you feel safe from people you believe would hurt you if you let yourself fall for their games.

(all that was said with the highest of respect. I happen to think you are remarkably intelligent, and only posted this as a friendly "challenge" - not to slam you at all)

J


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## Guest

I appreciate your post Ms. Baker, however, and I believe there to be merit behind it (i.e. I consider it to be a likely possibility). However, due to the early, impressionable age at which I began hating myself (around 5 to 7), I believe that I learned to hate myself in response to how others felt about me, as inculcation of sentiment, rather than self-righteousness or adaptation. Besides, this isn't something that I believe in contradiction to what logic and sensory data would tell me, this is something that I feel towards myself, an emotional attachment to my every thought of myself. Whenever anything reminds me of me, I feel this paradoxical, yet intense, hatred. It was this that first started my dp/dr (which also served as a homeostatic response to my schizophrenia, which makes sense since schizophrenia is, in one aspect, a disintegration of one's personality), and also precipitated my Inferiority Complex.

In conclusion, my self hatred is not something that I believe to make myself feel better, but something that drives me to overcompensate because I am never satisfied, I never "feel better."

Yours truly,
XEPER

P.S. I am a partially recovered schizophrene, though I still have low level psychoses from time to time.

P.P.S. It took a long time and a LOT of pain to admit to myself that I am schizophrenic.

P.P.P.S. How much experience do you have with schizophrenia? If you have extensive experience, please pm me with any data you think will help.

P.P.P.P.S. Deja vu!


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## bright23

"For similar veins of thought check out:

The Vedas (also Hindu scriptures)

Gnosticism

Sufism

The philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza"

Okay Xeper, you're well read. So what do you make of the above philosophies? What do they collectively say about the nature of our universe?


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## Guest

Bright23, I think they're interesting ideas but I can't say that I believe in any of them (then again I don't believe in any thing, if you prod me enough times). However, if I were to believe in God, it would be an unconscious syncrasis of the ideas therein.

Yours truly,
XEPER

P.S. There is no postscript...


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## bright23

"an unconscious syncrasis of the ideas therein"

Can you explain what you mean by this? I don't follow you.


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## Guest

I don't believe that God would be a conscious willing being, but rather the culmination of all things and ideas in existence and not in existence, kinda like Spinoza? God is a collection of all the musical notes, the ones that are played are the ones we perceive. However, it would be nice to believe that in its essence God would be love, since God would be in everyone of us in this system of thought, and since love, not only romantic but universal as well, in one of the most profound of sentient experiences, it would be interesting and it would result in an idyllic life for those on Earth. But, that is IF I believed in it, which I don't.

Yours truly,
XEPER


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## bright23

I don't feel like you answered my question and actually you said it above as well... "(If I were to believe in God it would be) an unconscious purification and syncretism of Gnostic, Sufi, and Vedic philosophical thought."

Why "unconscious," what do you mean?

Also ? are you saying you don't believe in God because for you s/he would need to be in essence "love" and this fact "would result in an idyllic life for those on Earth." Obviously that's not the case, so hence God can't exist for you?


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## Guest

I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to explain.

And no, that's not why I don't believe in God.


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## bright23

Aww come on, don't leave me hanging here. You say you like to think?

Surely you can explain your problem with the GOD concept, especially since you've educated yourself all about it and have arrived at the conclusion that you don't buy it.

Why "unconscious?"

Are you trying to say that some deeper part of yourself, the non-conscious, the sub-conscious part actually does believe, because you've had to stuff that down out of your conscious mind, because it gets in the way of your thinking and makes you feel out of control?


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## Guest

Not at all.


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## bright23

Whoops, just spotted this above from you...

"I don't believe that God would be a conscious willing being..."

I get you. Yeah, I totally agree, and from my understanding that's exactly what the Gnostics, Hindus, Sufis, Taoists and Buddhists say. Don't you think?

Agreed the word GOD is highly suspect, and there's plenty of reasons to do away with it entirely.

I do get the sense though from your posts that you think reality is a rip off, most people are false and fearful, and in general its a totally depressing situation. Am I near the mark or not?


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## person3

I DONT believe in the type of god with rules, I don't necessarily believe in an intervening God (that either answers prayers or punishes you)

I believe in God in more of the Alcoholics Anonymous approach. I put all the worries about the future I can into this being called God and he holds them for me. I think it's a way to have faith in oneself especially when you can't have your own self confidence yet.

It's not really an issue of science or religion or such, it's just a way for me to be like "hey, my own life has become unmanageable and now I have to have faith that things will work out instead of trying to control the outcome."


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## Guest

Just explain one thing to me...
Why is the idea and even just the mere word "God" given such importance in philosophy and thought in general?
To think that something that evolved out of the cannibalistic and sadistic orgies of the Stone Age and the hunger for power, land, money, and sex, would be used to identify with feelings that are barely related.
Bright23, let's just leave the "God" thing alone for now.

However, let me explain something about my perspective on this thing people call "spirituality."

There is a certain "protocol" by which I can actually act in this "universe" which is very similar to the teachings of Karl Popper (although I didn't know it at the time). In this "protocol," there really is no basis for much of "spirituality," save for a psychological purpose, although it should be obvious that I don't make use of that. I didn't arbitrarily decide the rules of this protocol either; it is based on scientific method (and not that stuffy dogmatic "science" that your oh-so-clever professors will preach to you, as if from a pulpit) and the virtue of pure reason (See Popper and Kant).
This reasoning is used to deduce "facts" about the "universe" given the data that I have received thus far (and anyone who knows me knows that my second greatest hobby, besides thinking, is information overload).

Beyond this protocol, however, what can one say about anything? Beyond this protocol is dp/dr and nihilism at their worst. Alternatively, it can be Spinoza's teachings at their purest. Spinoza called this second "protocol" God. However, I feel that this term leads to confusion among the uninitiated. Therefore, I call it "Hyperthesis."

In relation to the ideas of spirituality, to bring further relevance to this lecture (sorry), the "Hyperthesis" is ideatically egalitarian. By this I mean that all ideas have an equal chance of being true and an equal chance of being false (or a quantum superposition thereof; or any other state of veracity with which I am unacquainted). And since what I think is reason cannot be certified to be "reason" in truth, there is no way of really thinking through the "Hyperthesis." It is a dead end.

That is not to say, however, that I cannot believe in ideas such as love, acceptance, and harmony; they are in perfect accordance with the primary "protocol." However, I do not see why they are referred to as "spiritual" ideas, since they involve no supernatural forces or ideas, just semiotics (see Baudrillard).

Yours truly,
XEPER

P.S. At the risk of initiating the very confusion that I just excoriated, I can say that one might compare the "Hyperthesis" to (in addition to God) the Gnostic pleroma and the Hindu brahman.

P.P.S. Pleroma means "region of light," and is illuminated by the light of ideas. It is also known as the monad in some Gnostic circles.

P.P.P.S. Despite its association with the idea of the anima mundi, or "World Soul (Atman in Sanskrit)," the original meaning of brahman is more similar to the idea of the pleroma, as brahman is the foundation by which all emanations, or perceived things (esse est percipi), derive.[/i]


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## Sojourner

The experience of the _numinous_ has been part of humanity's self-experience from the beginning.

http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Numinous

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Pronouncements by those who claim knowledge of what exists and what does not exist are like statements of a blind man that "painting" cannot possibly exist or be worth all the time spent discussing it.


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## SillyPutty

Pronouncements by those who claim knowledge of what exists and what does not exist are like statements of a blind man that "painting" cannot possibly exist or be worth all the time spent discussing it.[/quote]

:idea: :wink:


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