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 Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:27 am
ImNotaFashionStatment I have a feeling that Al will totally obliterate me if I try to challenging him. sweatdrop Oh yeah, do you care that I call you Al, I don't think that we are close friends , so some might deem that disrespectful. Any way, back to the matter at hand. You say that your against the idea of blind faith. But in the extent of my knowledge their is no proof saying that there is a god. I know I'm probably not reading into this enough, but even if its religion or spirituality(sp) you need to know that their is some higher being out there right? I believe that there are higher entities, but at this point I am not sure that a God exists in the commonly believed sense. I've said it before -- but no one should ever be afraid to voice their opinion, or argue their side of things. Both sides benefit from such an exchange. 3nodding And no, I don't mind if you call me Al. biggrin Whozit I may be wrong here, but isn't another difference between the two ritual? Don't all religions have at least one ritual that people follow, whereas with spirituality there are none? Religions do tend to have more ritual involved, this is true. But I'm not sure if it is a requirement to be considered a religion. -Alezunde (Al)
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 10:26 am
Alezunde I am against the idea of blind faith. -Alezunde It is a slight tangent, but I do believe this idea is releveant to the discussion here. What, to you, constitutes blind faith? It might be said that all faithful are blind. As soon as you develop a conviction in a belief system, you begin to blind yourself to things that contradict that system either consciously or unconsciously. You narrow your focus to one particular way of looking at things, thus effectively obsuring many other modes of thought. Similar things occur whenever you settle on any philosophy, theory, or hypothesis; the above applies to more than just religion and faith.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:04 pm
Firsty, it seems you are shaping God to who you want him to be, not who he is. 'If he isn't exactly like this, he doesn't exist.' Perhaps it is just myself, but this seems to be limiting your views. We are finite, God (if he exists) would be infinite - out of our understanding. We cannot possibly explain him.
On the issue of a pure soul:
Person A has become pure in God, He has cleansed them of ALL sin, only God has this power. Though this person still certainly sins, they have accepted the free gift of salvation, resulting in their purity.
Person B, though a good person, still has the weight of sin due to not accepting God.
Please note, this is what the Christian faith teaches, as well as my belief.
As for the existance of God:
You mentioned you could be swung either way, a great book to check out, if you have the time, is a Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel. If you are looking for a (rather) fair view, it is most certainly worth your time. I will summarize its main points tomorrow.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:12 pm
Aeonian.life Firsty, it seems you are shaping God to who you want him to be, not who he is. 'If he isn't exactly like this, he doesn't exist.' Perhaps it is just myself, but this seems to be limiting your views. We are finite, God (if he exists) would be infinite - out of our understanding. We cannot possibly explain him. On the issue of a pure soul: Person A has become pure in God, He has cleansed them of ALL sin, only God has this power. Though this person still certainly sins, they have accepted the free gift of salvation, resulting in their purity. Person B, though a good person, still has the weight of sin due to not accepting God. Please note, this is what the Christian faith teaches, as well as my belief. As for the existance of God: You mentioned you could be swung either way, a great book to check out, if you have the time, is a Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel. If you are looking for a (rather) fair view, it is most certainly worth your time. I will summarize its main points tomorrow. I think what her is trying to say is that it is not fair if a good person who lives with out doing anything wrong is still being punished for not doing or believing in somthing that cant even be proven or not. Or it could be that she was saying that god shouldn't be predjudice against people just for not believing in their religion. I don't know much about your religion, but I think that I understand even if you commit terrible crimes and still put your faith into God or Jesus than you will be forgiven.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:21 pm
Aeonian.life Firsty, it seems you are shaping God to who you want him to be, not who he is. 'If he isn't exactly like this, he doesn't exist.' Perhaps it is just myself, but this seems to be limiting your views. We are finite, God (if he exists) would be infinite - out of our understanding. We cannot possibly explain him. On the issue of a pure soul: Person A has become pure in God, He has cleansed them of ALL sin, only God has this power. Though this person still certainly sins, they have accepted the free gift of salvation, resulting in their purity. Person B, though a good person, still has the weight of sin due to not accepting God. Please note, this is what the Christian faith teaches, as well as my belief. As for the existance of God: You mentioned you could be swung either way, a great book to check out, if you have the time, is a Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel. If you are looking for a (rather) fair view, it is most certainly worth your time. I will summarize its main points tomorrow. What I am saying is that if God is less than a perfect being, then I do not care to worship them. If God is wrathful like some people claim, if he is vengeful, if he is prejudiced, if he carries an ounce of anger of hate in him, then I do not care to call him my God. If he is simply like any other person, but with omnipotent powers, then I will not call him my God. This world has enough hatred and suffering in it -- and if God is not above that, then I would rather live with any sins I may have commited than accept him as my God. Any God less than perfect has no business being my God. ImNotaFashionStatment is correct in what he says. Being a good person is hard work -- a good person has to work hard each and every day to be a truly good person. A lifetime of effort goes into being a good person. Why be a good person if in the end, if you might be condemned simply for not believing in God? I believe that a perfect God would not be prejudiced against such a person for the simple, trivial, petty fact that they might not believe in God. Also, it is my belief that we each have a spirit, or a soul -- a body of energy that, like our physical body, has a state of health. Exposure to negative energies will cause the state of our spirit body to decline. Exposure to good energies will restore the health of our spiritual body. These good energies can come from many places: God, nature, and ourselves to name a few. If we live a good and healthy lifestyle, our spirit will remain healthy and pure. If we live a corrupt lifestyle, our spirit will start to become tainted by negative energies, becoming sick and unhealthy. I believe that our spiritual health is our responsibiltiy -- not God's. These are my beliefs. Starlock It is a slight tangent, but I do believe this idea is releveant to the discussion here. What, to you, constitutes blind faith? It might be said that all faithful are blind. As soon as you develop a conviction in a belief system, you begin to blind yourself to things that contradict that system either consciously or unconsciously. You narrow your focus to one particular way of looking at things, thus effectively obsuring many other modes of thought. Similar things occur whenever you settle on any philosophy, theory, or hypothesis; the above applies to more than just religion and faith. Excellent point Starlock -- this has a huge relevance to our discussion. 3nodding I believe that blind faith is simply believing what we are told -- with no real reason to. Blind faith is the act of believing without ever questioning it. The danger in blind faith is that we could be believing in some huge elaborate lie -- but we would never know it because we never question our faith. Though I'm inclined to disagree with your statement about any conviction in a belief inevitably becoming blind fath. I believe that if you have formed a belief with solid reason behind it, then you have a right to have a conviction in your belief. If you can adequately defend your belief, then your beliefs are solid. To be able to defend your beliefs, you must first know exactly what it means to believe in what you believe, and you must know the reasons behind your beliefs. -Alezunde
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 8:46 am
Spirituality.......Religeon........I'm not sure about what I agree with just at this moment but I will let you all know if I ever do. For now I will leve it at this: I don't believe in their being a god that is superior to everything, at least not right now. At one point I thought I did but I've since come to the conclusion that I don't think it's possible and that I'd rather have a scientific view point to life then one based on the Christian Bible. For years before I became a Christian I went to the Unitarian Fellowship and most of what I believe is centered around what I learned while I was there, even if at the time I was only in elementary school. They taught me that it's best if you allow other people to have their beliefs for whatever it is that they want to believe in and not criticize them for that. Although some beliefs are somewhat similar to what the bible says people should do to in order that someday one would be allowed to enter heaven, it's more or less common sense that you should be kind to others if you want them to treat you in the same way, don't kill others because it's not a good thing even if they don't treat it as a sin for overall there is not heaven or god, but life lessons that make sense and don't require any type of worshipping to anything in particular. In my Sunday school classes often we would study numerous religeons so that we would gain acceptance to others instead of learning that we should try to get other people to believe what we believe.
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 10:06 pm
Alezunde Starlock It is a slight tangent, but I do believe this idea is releveant to the discussion here. What, to you, constitutes blind faith? It might be said that all faithful are blind. As soon as you develop a conviction in a belief system, you begin to blind yourself to things that contradict that system either consciously or unconsciously. You narrow your focus to one particular way of looking at things, thus effectively obsuring many other modes of thought. Similar things occur whenever you settle on any philosophy, theory, or hypothesis; the above applies to more than just religion and faith. Excellent point Starlock -- this has a huge relevance to our discussion. 3nodding I believe that blind faith is simply believing what we are told -- with no real reason to. Blind faith is the act of believing without ever questioning it. The danger in blind faith is that we could be believing in some huge elaborate lie -- but we would never know it because we never question our faith. Though I'm inclined to disagree with your statement about any conviction in a belief inevitably becoming blind fath. I believe that if you have formed a belief with solid reason behind it, then you have a right to have a conviction in your belief. If you can adequately defend your belief, then your beliefs are solid. To be able to defend your beliefs, you must first know exactly what it means to believe in what you believe, and you must know the reasons behind your beliefs. -Alezunde If their is some evidence or reason that some one puts forth to defend their religion or why they put faith in it, it has to be a good reason. I don't think that if you put your faith in a religion that it will lead you to purity is the right answer, because you can be good or pure just by the actions you make in every day life. Another reason one might think that a religion is right because of historical events, like jesus and what not. I highly doubt that jesus was the son of god, or even if their is a christan god. I only think that because the evidence given is from people who wrote a book with all this great stuff in it. And I think that the people who wrote this book are very stupid. I mean people back then still thought that the world was flat. So your going to invest all your faith into a religion that is defended by a book that was wrote 2000 years ago by a bunch of people who knew very little about this world in the first place? I think that their is little reason to put your faith in christaninty at all. Another thing that makes me very skeptical of this religion is what my brother told me last night. I'm pretty sure that what he said is correct since he is almost never wrong. What he told me is that christaninty was made popular because of a king or something that was christian won a huge war, so every one thought " hey if we are christian than we will be siding with some on powerful". I know that I know very little about this religion, so if any one could put forth some reasons to belive in it besides blind faith than I would change my mind. But what I see now is that if one did question their faith of christianity than they would find that their is no reason to follow it.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 8:45 pm
(I have not been posting enough lately!)
Your brother is right.
It was an interesting political event that made Christianity so popular.
If not for that, then I doubt that Christianity would be such a popular religion today.
Here is a point that occurred to me a while ago:
1) God creates mankind.
2) God is there to offer salvation, and purity of the spirit. (The only way!)
3) If the previous statements are true, then about 90% of the world's population got the shaft from God. (Native Americans, Asians, Africans, etc.)
Would God forsake entire races of people -- would he create them, and then offer absolutely no chance of salvation?
I doubt it.
Also, in my opinion, the Native Americans were a very spritual people -- much more so than most of European culture.
-Alezunde
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Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 10:35 am
Of course spirituality can be achieved without religion. But at the moment spirituality is achieved, it becomes a religion as is perceived by the majority. Of course, the truth may be that this spirituality is not considered to be religion by the person, but there are two kinds of truth. Actual, hard fact, and perceived truth. The perceived truth often has more of an impact on society, because society is defined by the perception of what is acceptable and what is not by the majority of people in a given region. Eventually, the percieved truth may saturate the society, and the person whose spirituality it is may become influence to think that their spirituality is a religion, and then the entire truth changes. There is no actual fact in dealing with ideas, only perceived truth, because it is impossible to measure an idea. In the event of a change in perceived truth in regards to an idea, the entire truth about the idea is changed.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 11:40 pm
I might say I'm sipritual. I maditate almost every day, I read books about spiritually, and pracitce : visualisation, chakra control, and self healing.
Medtitation and all other " spiritual" things don't have anything to do with religion. Meditation came from a religion of the east, but it doesn't mean, that you can't use it if you're christan atheists or anything. Also it doesn't mean you can't use electricity, which is a christian invention, if you're not christian.
Plus,- off topic. I would most probably be budhist, if I could find a decent material about the religion. Like the buddhist bible or something, but as I life in poland where are religions except of catholicism are discriminated, I don't have a chance.
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:59 pm
As has been said before, it depends on your definition of religion. If religion is believing in something higher than oneself, not neccesarily a concrete being, but a purpose, a quietness more than everyday activity, then it is impossible to be spiritual without religion. If religion is the concrete belief in a sentient god/goddess/pantheon, then it is indeed possible to be spiritual without religion. Also, I think it depends on what you consider the spirit to be. p2prince Plus,- off topic. I would most probably be budhist, if I could find a decent material about the religion. Like the buddhist bible or something, but as I life in poland where are religions except of catholicism are discriminated, I don't have a chance. That's an interesting choice, considering your past posts... for example, extremely devout Bhuddist monks are said to sweep the ground in front of their feet so that they will not kill any insects, but brush them off harmlessly to the side. Also, I do not think that there is a Bhuddist bible... I'll have to look into that.
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Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:30 am
I'll tell you the real spiritual deal that all those nifty people such as jesus osho and buddha were talking about.
Enlightenment( salvation in christian)!
And what is that nifty state of enlightenment?
(Here's the book I've got the idea from if you don't believe me:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1577314808/sr=8-1/qid=1152631012/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0522790-2859258?ie=UTF8
+ I've read many books about zen and osho)
I'll give you the definition:
Living fully in the moment.
You'll say, wha? That's what all that fuss was all about? But I live in the moment already!
You don't believe me because:
You live by your freakin past conditioning
You can not think and be in the present moment at the same time, because all thoughts are about either the past or the future!
Give me one thought that is about the now!
Here are the 3 pointers of the enlighten
NON attachement
You people are so attached to things let me tell you a little story:
(which I've modified to be fun)
A prince had it all he had all the babes all da hot chicks, all the money he could get. But that guy wasn't happy. You could think that such a guy would be happy, all his senseful concerns are met!
But he wasn't....
But he heard about a zen monk who always said that he had the key to happiness. So he said "Bring me that monk!"
So the monk came
- Give me the key to happiness, and I'll give you all the money you want
- I don't want your money, I'll give it to you if you promise that you will treasure it
- Ok I promise
So the monk went and about 2 months latter
- Here you go prince
The monk gave the prince a golden rink which had a writing on it:
- Everything just as this will fade
- What should I do with it?
- Whenever you will feel sad touch the ring and read the magic words
That means non attachement
Many people say in their minds
"If I won't achieve success I won't be happy! I refuse to be happy If i don't get that bannana!"
So they're basically always sad, because they seek more ME in external things.
You say more me but those are my things!
They are not.
You are not your body, because it will fade
You are not your thoughts because they will fade
You are that awarness that is aware of it, and that will be always with you.
You are that eternal presence
Non judgement.
Once there was a rich farmer, who lost all his horses. All the towns people said how unlucky he was
the farmer said
Maybe
But after a while his son caught 2 really neat horses
All the people said how lucky he was
he said
maybe
Then his son broke his leg while trying to ride the horses
the farmer said
maybe
then war came and all the young people were ordered to go to war, but the farmer's boy didn't go because of his leg
Everyone said how lucky he was,
he said
maybe
Non judgement
We always think that something is right or wrong. We never look at the word in a meditative way, that is without judgement, without labeling.
That is living without our past conditioning, as if the moment was all there EVER was.
Non resistance
People like to fight thigns let me quote JESUS
"If someone hits you in the cheek turn the other cheek" this means non resitance + non attachement
Let me tell you another nifty storry
There was once a buddhist monk who was so respected and liked.
But then a girl said "he's the father or my child, you should care for it"
The monk said:
Is that so
And the monk lost his students and all the other things that were good in his liffe
2 years have passed and the monk took care of the baby
Then the girl said to her parents that the monk wasn't really the father, but she was affraid that she would get punished for f***** with the fisherman next door.
So the farmers took the baby
the monk said
is that so
All suffering comes from resistance to what is
So how can we live in that nifty now where there are no problems?
- Say yes to this moment
- Surrender to this moment (unconditionally accept everything there is at this moment)
- Be aware of your breathing and your body
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:56 pm
While I may not be very religious, I do consider myself very spiritual. I cannot accept there is no higher power, or some divinity present in all things, in the stars, and the trees, and rocks, and in all of humanity. If there were no divinity, then delicious food would just be sugars and proteins reacting with my taste buds and sending a chemical reaction to my brain, or the stars would only be very distant spheres of incandescent gas, and trees only cellulose. That makes me very sad, and to my heart and soul, makes no sense.
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:11 pm
Aetheling While I may not be very religious, I do consider myself very spiritual. I cannot accept there is no higher power, or some divinity present in all things, in the stars, and the trees, and rocks, and in all of humanity. If there were no divinity, then delicious food would just be sugars and proteins reacting with my taste buds and sending a chemical reaction to my brain, or the stars would only be very distant spheres of incandescent gas, and trees only cellulose. That makes me very sad, and to my heart and soul, makes no sense. What is the difference between religion and spirituality, in your opinion? Just curious.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:24 pm
A response far delayed in the making, but to answer the question of what my faith is:
I am a follower of earthseed, a "religion" for lack of a better term that teaches God is Change, an unstoppable, constant, and continuous force that shapes all life.
www.freewebs.com/godischange
This is a really old site that I made about it. I really don't have much else to add to the topic. Sorry!
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