PRAISE BE TO NO-GOD WE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE ARE NOT BLESSED WITH NOTHING NO-GOD DOES NOTHING NO-GOD SEES ANYTHING NO-GOD IS NONE i do not pray that you will find the light that does not exist i didn't even join gc before this thread was made. true for some though
You're not an atheist. No offense? You just basically interpreted this person's status based on a post that had nothing to do with any of the accusations listed above. It's a little unfair to judge somebody that you've never met and have no knowledge of, don't you think? ____ In relation to the thread: I don't believe in denouncing organized religion. If somebody is benefiting from Christianity, Judaism, etc. what good does it serve to harass that person about their own personal belief? I understand that religion has been contorted and manipulated for the wrong intentions, but for most people religion is helpful. It's a moral code, a meaning for life, a goal. For the people who want to use religion as a coping tool, I see nothing wrong with that, even if you think what they are following is complete fiction. . Personally I don't believe in any organized religion and think that many of them have gotten way out of hand, but why should the reasonable followers be punished for the actions of the radicals (That would be like grouping responsible marijuana users with irresponsib... OH WAIT, we already do that!)? Personal liberty should always include the right to celebrate any, or a combination of, or whatever religion you want.
Yes I said I am an atheist and yes I believe in a higher power but where the fuck do you guys see me saying that I worship ... It? It being the higher being I was talking about?
I am not a judge, I am but a channel for the spirit beings. If these beings have offended you in any which way, then I apologise on their behalf, coz that's the kind of guy I am, a spirit channel apologising kinda like dude.
Great read OP, I would just like to add my thoughts/views on this subject. Although just so everyone knows...I am not religious, I never have been, was never raised with religion in my life and I view life through agnostic AND atheistic eyes, it really depends on what day it is . Regarding this whole "religion" issue, you know we have the Christians preaching damnation, we have the Muslims wanting revenge or to eliminate the others? (Not stereotyping, but you get my point). The one thing that has always popped into my mind when I think about religion is...WHERE HAS IT EVER GOTTEN US. It has created wars, its killed people, its created poverty, starvation all kinds of stuff. I dislike religion because I feel that it SEPARATES mankind, we should not be fighting amongst ourselves because people have different views on whats up in the big endless space/time continuum, could you imagine if the WHOLE world was say...devoid of all religious belief/faith, just imagine the things we could accomplish if we set our differences aside. I do want to give props to religion in ONE way though, I do feel that it does bring people together in times of need, and that is good in a sense although there are ways to bring people together without creating separate belief/faith systems for "small" groups, there is a much more powerful way to come together, which is to work as a single entity and work as one. Although in no way does it benefit society as a whole to have so many different religions which divides mankind in all directions and literally tears us apart at our very core. All in all, I feel that religion does NOT benefit the world, as the OP said...it is a crutch which human beings like to lean on BECAUSE it is in our nature to want/need something to fall back on when we are feeling helpless/lost. There was this quote from "The Union" that keeps popping in my mind (in context or not its a good quote) which IS regarding the legalization of MJ although I believe it can be taken into account for religion, or for anything really. "Now I've had young people tell me that well "Your generation had a martini and that was your crutch, why cant we have our own kind of crutch". Well you know what, why don't you be a generation that doesn't have to have any kind of crutch" (I think from Reagen on The Union)
I don't believe in anything, I'm a wanderer in a world I didn't choose to be a part of. I don't go around blowing my own horn like an asshole though, however deluded religious people may be, most of them are decent people. I'm glad you've found an outlet for your teenage cynicism, but you're exactly the same as the millions of other people who don't believe in God. Do you now have access to any more information or wisdom you didn't have before? No, you robbed yourself of every illusion you still had. We're all dying with each breath, nothing you do matters and in 100 years everyone who ever posted on GC is maggot food. And you call people who actually have the imagination to believe otherwise weak? I wish I could be religious, it would make life a lot easier. Religious people aren't weak, they're lucky.
Well you're contradicting yourself. You claim atheism but also say that you do believe in a "higher power" which presumably is a reference to an ambiguous god. If you're truly an atheist you should at least be rejecting acceptance or denial of a deity by citing that a factual statement, such as "God exists", requires proof, and that you must therefore abstain from judgement due to the absence of proof. You don't necessarily have to outright reject all possibilities of a deity, but saying that you "believe" in a higher power or describing the universe as a creation from a "magnificent entity" voids your claim that you are an atheist. Alright then. If you're not a judge I'd try to refrain from labeling strangers as "drug-addicts" or "lonely"
Its all about perspectives, the way you see it, I can explain things to you, but I get the feeling that you have your mind made, so nvm. There is always more to the story than is thought, if you can think out all the elements and variables, and rationalize it, then you will have an idea of what the big picture is.
- Okay okay, I believe in a God, I do not worship him but I acknowledge him/it/the universe. There's been too many synchronicities in my life lately. Heck I might even be one of/the God/dreamer controlling this dream/reality/realm/dimension, who knows, who cares. - I apologise for calling the OP a drug addict, which he might be and for calling him lonely. - Areshexus, you claim to hold secrets, secrets of the universe. Do you also posess an immeasurable IQ? Just asking. Just kidding. Do spread the word Areshexus, I would love to hear your views. - You guys are too spiritual for me, so it would be a huge mistake to ask if any of you know when the Annunaki/Reptillians are coming, right?
Science without personal experience: A crutch for the weak pretending to be strong. (scrappy doo's as I call em (as of right now)) How much of what you "know to disprove religion" have you yourself ever personally seen? Quantum mechanics?? Where is your knowledge aside from you read it and due to the authors supposed knowledge you BELIEVE IT. Likewise with religion, they'll read it and due to the authors supposed spiritual wisdom, they BELIEVE IT. How many of you on either side have ever gone about verifying anything you "know" is the truth. Science is the dogma of atheists, since most read and immediately believe because "they know, I blindly trust they are right due to laziness to explore it myself". You're entire atheistic philosophy is no less a belief than a religious man unless you yourself have FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE of the things you think are the truth. Likewise the majority of atheists have never so much as researched theoretical spirituality or metaphysics, let alone took the time to personally experiment and find out for themselves. Everyone is quick to think they're individual belief is the right one and they are unique but very slow to recognize that they go with the herd all the same as the ones they suppose are inferior.
I know this always comes up in these arguments, but I think it's an important point. Science, quantum mechanics, etc. can be taught to another person and the results of an experiment can be physically duplicated if a theory is right. So saying that a person believing in something like science is the same as believing in a spiritual idea is complete nonsense. Science is not just in somebody's head, like it is with spirituality. You can't physically test and reproduce spirituality. People that believe in science are not "blindly following" anything, as they are with spirituality. First hand knowledge doesn't have anything to do with belief. The difference is, a person can go out and gain that first hand knowledge if they want to. It will still be the same as it is now. You can't get first hand knowledge with spirituality, because it doesn't exists. People can say they believe this and that in terms of spirituality, but the bottom line is that it is only in the believers head and nowhere else.
You see, not everyone is strong like you. Some, if not MOST are actually VERY weak. Physically, mentally, spiritually... They are weaklings because they are impoverished in all aspects. They have nothing going for them. Strength and self-belief is a luxury most of them can't afford, even to dream about. They got their lives ahead of them, filled with poverty, diseases, injustice, and deaths. So they are weak. And the weaks need religion. And I would suggest 'Christianity' to those who are weak... it's the perfect religion for you.
Oh you can't now? A person can go out and get first hand knowledge of science, correct. Where you are mistaken is it is exactly the same with spirituality. If you do this consistently, it will lead to that, there is no chance, it is pure cause and effect. It goes higher and higher. I made a thread about this book already, because it will shatter everyone's worldview and it's not a religious or mystical type of book, but written by a nuclear physicists from a purely skeptic scientific perspective. It's called "My Big TOE" by Thomas Campbell. Read it, it's the only way I feel I can get some reality into you guys thick skulls. When 2 or more people do a certain thing, have the same results, a subjective thing becomes objective because the results are repeatable. This is where you guys get f***ed up, because you assume that since it's not all over the news and in popular culture the way science is that it's not worth considering. Most people just don't have the balls and determination to find out for themselves if what the various spiritual texts teach are true, but no matter who you are, if you do what is required, you WILL get those exact results. It's not a matter of belief, it is a matter of subjective experience that when done by more than 2 people, it may be from a different perspective the way the entire world is, but the results are the same and hence become objective. I don't "believe" anything, nor do I claim something to not exist merely because I've never experienced, this is closed minded ignorance. Open minded skepticism is not believing or denying anything until one goes through the necessary steps to attain first hand experience to know it. It is the same with spirituality, although MANY are guilty of blind belief. If you do exactly what is necessary, you WILL obtain the result. Many people waver from whats necessary and don't get the result, and so they call it false. This is like doing a complex scientific experiment, and saying "eh I don't feel like doing these few procedures I'll just leave them out" and then when the results of the experiment don't come out as told, you call the results false. Or like someone who wants to be a bodybuilder but doesn't want to take vitamins and protein, or really push himself by upping weights, only works out once a week, he eats junk food and is lazy in every other area of his life too. It'd be like saying "I lifted weights, but I didn't get big, those guys MUST use steroids, natural body building is not real". IF YOU FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE EXACTLY AS IT IS LAID OUT, YOU WILL OBTAIN THOSE SAME RESULTS AND IT IS REAL. You cannot "do it your own way", exactly the same as you can't expect to do a quantum physics experiment "your own way" without already knowing about it. To learn about something experimental, YOU HAVE TO DO THE EXPERIMENT PRECISELY AS TAUGHT. If you do it any other way, you cannot say the experiment itself is flawed and is a lie, it is YOU who did not follow the steps.
I haven't read that book, so I can't comment on that. But the bolded part, how can you prove that you will get those exact results physically? I mean, someone can say that they had such and such happen to them, but that's not proof, that's hearsay. So, through physical replication of a spiritual process, how can it be proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that someone replicated a spiritual experience? How does an experience that "may be from a different perspective" end up objective? Are you saying that all spiritual experiences end up in the same place? Haha, you can call it close-minded until your face turns blue. I feel like it's irresponsible to believe anything unless verifiable proof can be presented to support an idea. How can you prove to someone else that you had that result, other than conveying it through words? It's not like doing a scientific experiment, because the physical results of the experiment will be different if you don't follow the strict procedures, and that can be proven. So how can you prove that someone didn't follow procedure in a spiritual experience? Again, you seem so sure, how can you physically prove to me, through the scientific process, that you will get these desired results? Can you show me what is happening? Can I touch the results? Can you give me undeniable truth that what you are saying is real?
Meditative states can be detected as the various alpha beta delta theta waves, so for another person to see that meditation is not just sitting there could be proven by this. It's just like a drug, other than symptoms like dialated pupils/coordination loss, how can you prove that the drug has the effects someone says it does unless you do it yourself? Prove to me scientifically that weed gets you high and doesn't just make your eyes red and make you hungry. You certainly don't deny the cause and effect of smoking weed=intoxication though. Why? Because you've EXPERIENCED it firsthand. We know that drugs have certain effects because everyone who does them reports the same effects with only slight variations. A lab was set up at Robert Monroe's ranch, and they had a few soundproof rooms with sensory deprivation. There was microphones in each room to record what the person was saying. The two people both "astral projected" and met up in the astral plane, which is equally real but beyond our current senses and there has yet to be equipment invented to detect it the way UV/Radio waves are. You could say the one merely imagined it, he simply imagined meeting up with the other. As they traveled, they vocalized what they saw and experienced together. Both of them explained it from their own perspective, since that plane is not the way our physical is. Two people will describe a rock in generally similar terms, but there will be some difference in perspective. However, they both saw and experienced the same things, and this was proven by being recorded. The participants were not spiritualists, but physicists who'd developed the necessary faculties, and neither believed these things were real, but they did not deny them, it was only upon stacks of data that they confirmed the reality of it. The only other explanation would be telepathy, which is equally "absurd". Also various instances were recorded of clairvoyance, reading basic things inside sealed envelopes, reading numbers on a chalkboard outside of the sealed soundproof room, etc.. Are these not objective results obtained by a subjective personal experience?? I do too, however if you don't even look for evidence and simply follow the herd in thinking it's fake without even taking a glance into the studies done etc., then it is plane herd mentality ignorance. How much research have you done on various spiritual/psychic studies or experiences? None/little you say? Then what is your conclusion based on except belief and herd conformity. Or perhaps the only research you've done is into "such and such is a fraud explained" and never the other side, which is biased research, the bias being based on BELIEF. This is not open minded skepticism, it is looking to confirm a blind belief in order to feel secure in that belief. People fear the unknown, and would much rather have a false answer to the unknown than no answer at all. See above, in the case of personal mystic states, where it is not something various people can go to see, there is no way to prove it other than the profound positive change observed in the person who has a legitimate mystical experience, a delusion will cause grandiose and irrational behavior, where as legitimate mystical experience leaves the person with their sense of reality still, only adding on to it. Their view of the physical plane does not become distorted with obvious delusions. However again, how can you prove to me that you are high and that your eyes aren't just irritated and you haven't slept or eaten in awhile, and that you aren't faking laughter? It is something one MUST go through the personal effort to attain that state, and then one knows that the effects although varied to some degree by a persons perception, are overall the same and objective even though each person's high is a subjective experience.