No one chooses what they believe

[Jodie.Lynne]

7 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

That's Mr. Fifi , the black and white number or should I get into the Chistmas spirit and slip into that hot little red outfit?

 

jmccr8

Only if you are going to wear the stockings and heels as well.

[jmccr8]

5 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

Only if you are going to wear the stockings and heels as well.

jmccr8

[rulebook54]

Jodie,

regarding suffering in the world, if you go the deprived parts of the world, you are surprised by spontaneous joy found there too. in unspeaakbale slums, there are children laughing and playing. Joy and suffering are such relative things that it is hard to judge like that. News bulletins only serve politicians and their voters. The world really is wonderful, orderly and beautiful. If we can step aside from the politics of it.

[+DieChecker]

On 10/28/2019 at 11:50 PM, rulebook54 said:

Jodie,

regarding suffering in the world, if you go the deprived parts of the world, you are surprised by spontaneous joy found there too. in unspeaakbale slums, there are children laughing and playing. Joy and suffering are such relative things that it is hard to judge like that. News bulletins only serve politicians and their voters. The world really is wonderful, orderly and beautiful. If we can step aside from the politics of it.

Some of my best days were growing up dirt poor, barefoot all summer. With patched clothes, and just dogs, rocks and sticks to play with.

Modern living isnt more joyful, just more busy.

[Habitat]

2 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

Some of my best days were growing up dirt poor, barefoot all summer. With patched clothes, and just dogs, rocks and sticks to play with.

Modern living isnt more joyful, just more busy.

Yes, I sometimes reflect, that as kids, we were "poor. but we didn't know it". Or think it !

[+DieChecker]

On 10/28/2019 at 2:59 PM, Jodie.Lynne said:

What amuses me is how readily someone can believe in "this god" and dismiss other people's beliefs in "that god" as incorrect or as nonsense.

Question? If those people arent trying to force anything, why does it matter? I can see if someone is trying to enforce their beliefs on others... Such as Sharia Law, but generally we dont see that in the Industrialized World.

Just as if a child has an imaginary friend and hurts no one and nothing... Why force them to stop?

[XenoFish]

13 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

Modern living isnt more joyful, just more busy.

And less fulfilling. Work, work, work.

[+DieChecker]

11 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

And less fulfilling. Work, work, work.

I try to give my kids those good times, even though I know what is behind the curtain. 

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, DieChecker said:

I try to give my kids those good times, even though I know what is behind the curtain. 

I think we try to give ourselves an out, even though we know how things work. 

[psyche101]

On 10/31/2019 at 9:48 PM, DieChecker said:

Some of my best days were growing up dirt poor, barefoot all summer. With patched clothes, and just dogs, rocks and sticks to play with.

Modern living isnt more joyful, just more busy.

They were joyful because we made the best of the situation. Childhood comes with no responsibility. It's often remembered fondly no matter what. 

Kids today might be more indoor, but they are smarter too. My kids teach me things all the time, and can hold conversations to an academic level that I never could have at their age. 

I'm not sure it's a bad thing. It's just development. 

[XenoFish]

7 hours ago, psyche101 said:

Kids today might be more indoor, but they are smarter too. My kids teach me things all the time, and can hold conversations to an academic level that I never could have at their age. 

We didn't have access to a world of information either. Which is about the only Pro to the innumerable Con's of the internet. 

[Mr Walker]

On 10/28/2019 at 2:38 PM, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

In the last demonstration of the video the crow has 3 vials, one with the food and one on either side. The crow is given a choice and after dropping 2 pebbles in the one vial sees that the food has not moved and puts the next pebble in the other vial. So although not the same as us there is an indication of cognitive abilities and that is all my point was.

jmccr8

Oh yes, animals aren't stupid, especially  when it comes to food.

A dog can be trained to recognise and respond to 400 different nouns,  verbs, and adjectives.  Some animals use basic tools to access food 

 It is the realm of abstract and symbolic thought, as well as abilities like constructing one idea to cope with another idea , that humans are different   Ie imagination, creativity, religion  and all the forms of emotion which require the use of abstract thought,  like love hate jealously etc., rather than just chemical responses. 

[Mr Walker]

On 10/28/2019 at 5:02 AM, Jodie.Lynne said:

Completely and utterly wrong. The world is NOT a beautiful ordered place, that daydream is reserved for the believers who think a being 'created' everything to be exactly as it is, and perform mental and linguistic gymnastics to prove that their various holy books prove this, by convincing themselves ( and trying to convince others ) that it doesn't say what it says, but means something else entirely.

 

So if I say that I doubt the existence of the Loch Ness monster, it implies that I actually believe it does exist? Please refer to what I just stated above.

UH I am an  evolutionist, and i find the world both beautiful (subjective) and ordered (objective)

The order is a natural product/function of evolution

Understand evolution, biology, chemistry etc.,  and other disciplines  and you SEE the natural order of the world (and understand the forces which generate this order) .

Even the planets, and their origins and placement, and the nature of galaxies etc.  are  examples of order caused by natural physical and chemical laws. 

if you doubt the existence of the loch ness monster, it means you have not ruled out its non existence entirely.  It is a very rational position 

[Mr Walker]

On 10/29/2019 at 8:17 AM, Jodie.Lynne said:

I did make a very broad statement, allow me to clarify.

 

YES there is great beauty in the world And YES there is some sense of order as well. Trees and plants blossom in the spring, the tides go in and out with regularity, the sun rises and sets in predictable ways.

But there is also great ugliness and chaos as well. Men still kill men over resources, religion, skin colour, or a hundred other reasons. And although Atlantic hurricanes have an 'orderly' season, I doubt anyone would deny the chaos they leave in their wake.

But it is the theists who proclaim that their god has a 'plan', that god has a 'reason' for pain and suffering; that god created the universe and that everything proceeds according to this beings wishes. A family loses an infant, due to illness, accident, or malice, and the faithful try to soothe the family's pain by inferring that it's "god's will" and something wonderful will come of it.

Ah just got to this explanation.

Indeed humans evolved the abilty to construct abstract ideas like gods, to explain  things, and also  to offer belief and comfort for them selves from the harshness of lives, which were not tempered by our technologies and sciences;  ANd from  the fears and other negative constructs, which only humans have evolved the self  awareness to construct.

  it is not a BAD thing. it is an evolved cognitive abilty which evolved to enhance our survival chances, and to make our lives safer  and less traumatised 

Its a strange mind which finds something wrong with ANY cognitive construct which, when applied, eases grief fear etc., and enables a person to cope, move on, and survive, traumatic events 

 We tend to forget that,not long ago, about 70 % of children died in birth or while very young  Families had to have mechanisms to cope with that, as no other hope was available.

Today medicine and modern science aid  survival, but we are still very poor at coping with grief, fear, and anger, if a loved one ( especially a child ) dies  

Modern psychology can offer some methodologies/therapies to cope,   but many resemble religious thinking without the power of a god construct. .

A belief or faith does the job as well, if not better, than psychological counselling.

  

[Mr Walker]

On 10/31/2019 at 10:22 PM, Habitat said:

Yes, I sometimes reflect, that as kids, we were "poor. but we didn't know it". Or think it !

Revolutionary theory posits that it is not poverty or poor conditions which promote revolutions. It is an existing and perceived gap between the welty and the poor  Ie peole are accustomed to how the y live and it doesn't really worry them until the y see others living far better lives 

I don't think anyone in Australia lives as "poorly" as we did as kids but  because some modern families  are poor by comparison with others, the y see them selves, and are described by others, as "living in poverty" 

Just as one example we never went hungry but also there was never a scrap of any for of food left on a plate after a meal  and if any was left it had to be eaten before we were given another meal 

And we ate everything. from  garden produce  meat from  fishing or hunting and everything from soused fish  tripe to sheep brains and lambs tails Luxuries were bread and butter pudding and golden syrup dumplings     We never had new clothes and we almost never bought any food from  a shop cooking and heating was from wood fires including hot water for the bath room.

  Ice cream was home made and kept in first an ice box then a kerosene powered fridge.  milk delivered fresh to a pail on the front  gate and we were allowed one bath per week.

  The toilet was  a luxury, newly plumbed by my father to replace the old long drop,   about the time i was born in 1951, but was still outside 20 yards from  the house under a big pepper tree 

Yet we were happier, better educated, and more well adjusted than many young people today 

[psyche101]

On 11/2/2019 at 5:20 AM, XenoFish said:

We didn't have access to a world of information either. Which is about the only Pro to the innumerable Con's of the internet. 

Social life seems enhanced. Again, my son has met online friends who live a couple hours away by train, but they make the effort to catch up for lunch and a movie. They tend to socialise with more kids than I did, and seem more mature. Like DieChecker, I did some wild stuff and played with sticks, my kids are into the arts, acting, things I didn't even know existed when I was their age. 

I don't know that it's bad, just different. Everything can be bad. Moderation is the key to everything I think. 

[jypsijemini]

I was raised to believe that I am inherently sinful.

I was told to believe in the truthfulness and accuracy of an ancient text. I was taught that there was no other truth.

And that book shaped my impressionable, young mind. It told me how the world began. Who designed it. Where humanity began. How the world was formed. What is expected of us. Where we will go after death. How to live a life pleasing to the Deity who created us.

It was filled with wondrous, unimaginable stories covering everything from the supernatural to basic human nature; from natural disasters to miraculous signs; giants and demons and angels; kings and queens, dictators and liberators; poetry and lyrics; visions, dreams and messages from the spiritual realm; holiness to pure evil.

I was raised to believe that I could exercise a limited form of doubt - but that I could never disregard or reject this Truth. My soul hung in the balance.

For almost twenty years, I did all I could to own this as my own truth. I attended a Christian primary school. My family became cross-cultural missionaries. I grew up in a third world country in a strong, dedicated Christian community. I attended bible study nights. I rarely missed Sunday church services. I was baptised as a baby. I chose to be baptised as an adult. I led prayer groups at school during break times. I participated in outreach programs. I attended Christian youth camps. I went on retreats. I had numerous translations of the Bible to better understand my faith. I kept a prayer journal. I had cross necklaces and earrings to publicly proclaim my faith, paired with a "WWJD" bracelet. I proudly wore a 'promise ring' that symbolised my commitment to celibacy outside of marriage. Right after graduating high school, I attended Bible College. I led youth services at my church.

I prayed. I read my Bible. I memorised verses.

Twenty years of indoctrination. Sure, I could have rebelled. In some ways, I did. I always preferred rock and metal over Christian music. I became more engrossed in true crime, fiction and factual than Bible stories. I wrote more dark, depressive poetry than I wrote entries in my prayer journal. I secretly succumbed to lustful thoughts and desires. But I never stopped pursuing my faith.

This was the only truth I'd ever known. I was surrounded by like-minded, dedicated believers. Everyone I knew owned this same truth. There was nobody in my life who challenged this. It was accepted that some struggled with their faith, some lost their way - but it was always believed that God would seek them out and lead them back to Him. We prayed for their salvation. We laid hands on those who were struggling. We reassured ourselves with verses that promised God's Love and loyalty and timeless wisdom.

For what alternative did we have? The only unforgivable sin was to know God and willingly reject Him. Such an offence would earn one's soul eternal damnation and suffering. The price for disobedience was clear and final. Either you believe and you are saved - assured your place for an eternity in Heaven, or you don't - and your soul will be swallowed up by the pits of Hell. A New Heaven and a New Earth was promised for the faithful. A river of fire and ultimate destruction was the only outcome for the unrighteous.

I seemingly had no choice.

I'd known God since I had learned to talk. My walk with God started when I took my first baby steps. I'd known nothing else. While I was allowed to question God, I was never free to choose whether He was real or not. I just had to believe and accept it. My soul was at stake.

Gradually, my life began to change. I moved in with my non-Christian best friend. I started dating a non-Christian guy. I moved to a very rough area of my city. I stopped going to church.

This put my faith to the test. I began to ask myself why I believed. What I believed. Who I believed.

My family on both my mother and father's sides are Christians and have been for generations. Dutch Reformed. Lutheran. Baptist. Non-denominational "Jesus followers". Pastors. Missionaries. Eldership of the church. Nobody knew any different. Stepping outside of this box meant risking complete isolation and indifference to my entire bloodline. They would mourn for me. They would pray for me. They would reach out and try to save me.

Did I need saving? Was I really completely and utterly sinful, right down to my core? Would I really only get one chance to guarantee myself eternal life? Did God really think that I had free will when I'd known nothing but Him? If I chose to deny Him, God's Word told me there was no going back. It was the only unforgivable sin.

But the cracks had formed. They'd always been there. All my life, I had cried out and begged my "Saviour" to reach me, to connect with me, to seek me out, to find me. I greatly admired the Christians who spoke in tongues, cried tears of joy as they raised their hands high in worship and recieved visions from God. The ones whose faith seemed utterly unshakable. The ones for whom God performed miracles; for whom he answered prayers. I pleaded with God for something, anything which could restore my broken faith in Him. To leave the flock of 99 and seek out this one sheep that had "gone astray". I desperately clung to the faith and the fear.

And then I met a mentor who was intrigued by my upbringing. A man who was amazed that my parents had left me to return to their ministry. His ex-wife was a card-reading clairvoyant. His best friend was a Reiki master. He spoke of astral travel and chakras, astrology and the Universe. He was raising his step son, living with his sister and visiting his elderly mother daily - a wonderfully family-oriented man. We regularly spent hours deep in theoretical discussions about life, faith and spirituality.

I started to wake up.

At first, I believed I had a choice to make. Did I really want to reject the life and beliefs I'd spent a lifetime invested in? Did I really want to risk ostracising myself from my entire family and Christian community? Did I really want to risk subjecting myself to a spiritual eternity of hellfire and suffering and destruction?

I was terrified.

But these new ideas wouldn't leave my conscious mind. They spoke to my heart in a way I'd never felt before. Spiritual freedom sounded so much more real than the "freedom" of faith. Forgiveness took on a whole new meaning. Love became a way of life, not a construct.

Christianity had introduced me to the foundation. Spirituality birthed a new reality.

I took the plunge. I recanted and rejected my faith in Christianity. In Jesus. In God. In everything I had ever thought was truth. At first, I was riddled with the fear that if the Bible was true, that I'd just sealed my eternal fate. But that presence of fear kept me going. For what loving, gracious, merciful, forgiving God would give me just ONE measly lifetime in which to accept Him as my Lord and Saviour? I'd been given the ultimate opportunity: I'm Caucasian, citizen of a first-world country founded on Christian principles, free from discrimination and religious persecution. I grew up in one of the most all-encompassing Christian environments imaginable. The same promises that were endowed to me also covered the rest of humanity. What of the Muslims who'd been just as overwhelmed by their own religious upbringings? What of the stone-age tribes who were still isolated in the jungles, practicing witchcraft and cannibalism? What of those who never had an opportunity to "know God" and "give their lives to Him"? I pondered how easily I could have been born into a life like theirs. Why was I any different? Why did I have everything given to me on a silver platter while they didn't even have the possibility of hearing the same message?

Something deep within me knew that I deserved to live a fearless life. To believe in something with a deep feeling of unshakable conviction. To know with my soul rather than to believe by choice. My deepest self knew that there was more and had always craved it. By the age of ten, I knew that I was a healer. I'd been reading about the spiritual gifts. I knew I probably wouldn't have visions or speak in tongues - but something about healing made my heart sing. I knew this was me. But I knew there was more - that miracles were more than just answered prayer or divine intervention. That signs, synchronicities, coincidences and inexplicable feelings should be experienced regularly. That intuition was real. But there was no biblical confirmation or basis for these beliefs. That a soul couldn't learn everything in one lifetime and that maybe, just maybe, we had more than 'one shot' at life to experience what life has to offer.

So I began my spiritual journey based on the only thing I knew was real: Love. Nothing else speaks to my heart quite like Love. Nothing else really convinced me of my spiritual nature other than Love. I realised that hate is only an absence of Love. That Love is what every person seeks, consciously or unconsciously. That disconnection from Love is what creates fear and terror and violence and destruction. That Love doesn't have to be attributed to a deity or a creator - it just Is. All my life I'd been told that God is Love, but that wasn't real to me. In the Old Testament, He was a God of control, wrath, destruction, consequences, rules and power. He chose one race to follow and favour (like He was the omnipotent player in Age of Empires!). He ordered for people to be stoned to death. He required blood sacrifice. He demanded temples be built for His glory. He ordered his people to follow, obey and worship Him.

He was described as the God of Love, and He only ever gave Himself one name: I AM THAT I AM. The Great "I AM". And then it dawned on me: I Am. The "I" statement. The knowing of self that reaches far beyond all descriptions and labels. For when we say, "I Am", there is a label that follows. But right from the start, there is a knowledge of self, a higher self which has been given these labels. We use them to construct our individual identities. Name. Occupation. Race. Religion. Gender. Age... But they all start with, "I am". Who is this "I" that knoweth itself?

My old beliefs were completely shattered. I'd just found the key. I'd unlocked the door. There was no turning back and stepping back into the box.

I AM. I am an energetic co-creator of the Universe. I am One with Everything. I am a drop in the ocean of consciousness. I am consciousness experiencing itself. I am consciousness creating the Universe. I am consciousness creating reality. I am Love. I am Energy. I am infinite. I am. I Am. I AM.

My soul knows. My entire being knows. It does not believe - it is higher understanding. Spiritual knowledge. It was no longer a choice, though choices to break away from my past are what lead me to this realisation. But once I discovered the Truth, it was no longer a choice. It's impossible for me to reject what my soul knows. Peace fills me. Fear has left me. Love directs me. All the things I tried so hard to be as a Christian come easily and naturally to me in a way I'd never known before.

I am not perfect. I do not have to be. This existence would be totally and utterly meaningless without duality. This realm requires up/down, left/right, hot/cold, black/white and good/bad in order for life to have any purpose. Mistakes are essential for learning. Learning is essential for knowledge. If we believe that God created everything to be perfect, we have to believe that we would have been subjected to a meaningless life. There would be no reason to create - we would have everything we ever needed. No need for houses, clothing, recipes, jobs, inventions, technology, vehicles - you can't get any better than perfection so where would the idea come from to experiment with something new? There would be no destruction to make way for new things and new ideas. There'd be no death - so we'd very quickly overpopulate the planet.

And what would we know? If knowledge requires learning and learning requires making mistakes in order to understand the nature of something, how would we know anything? In fact, weren't Adam and Eve forbidden to eat from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? (There was a second tree also, The Tree of Life) How then were Adam and Eve able to distinguish between Good and Evil unless they had that knowledge somehow? They just had to passively obey God and not eat from it, even though they didn't truly understand the consequence? There was no death - so the threat of "or you will surely die!" must have meant absolutely nothing to them. They didn't know what dying meant. It didn't exist in their world. They just wanted to know as much as God did because they had a meaningless existence anyway. Eat a perfect vegan diet. Have lots of sex. Hang out with the animals. Repeat for eternity.

Perfection isn't meant for this reality. It is perfectly imperfect. Ying and yang - there's good within the bad and bad within the good. Nothing is irredeemable. We have infinite chances in which to understand why we're here and it's very simple: we're here to learn our true nature as eternal energetic beings of Love.

It's impossible to know what's beyond that. We've been fighting about the why, the how, the where, the when, the what for as long as humans have existed. We use our limited but expanding understanding of science to try to understand and explain it - and all we've achieved thus far is the discovery of quantum physics which proves that all matter and life is energy and vibration. Nothing is real. Nothing exists. But it's not futile and meaningless. Love proves the presence of spirituality. It is far from a chemical reaction in the brain. Love is so much bigger. It can't be explained by science. It is present in all things. When loved, plants grow healthier and fuller. When loved, animals form bonds with humans and with each other. When loved, people love each other. Love creates this reality. WE ARE LOVE. ALL THAT IS IS LOVE.

All you need is Love. Love is all you need.

[+DieChecker]

On 11/30/2019 at 8:15 PM, jypsijemini said:

All you need is Love. Love is all you need.

Thank you for that story. Is what you found entirely outside Christianity? I've found something similar, but not by leaving Christianity, but by joining it.

I think the problem you had... The fear... Was a product of religion, not of the teachings of Jesus. Just my opinion.

[+Desertrat56]

23 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

Thank you for that story. Is what you found entirely outside Christianity? I've found something similar, but not by leaving Christianity, but by joining it.

I think the problem you had... The fear... Was a product of religion, not of the teachings of Jesus. Just my opinion.

Can you show me a non-religious text with the "teachings of Jesus"?  I have never encountered the teachings of Jesus outside of religion.

[+DieChecker]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

Can you show me a non-religious text with the "teachings of Jesus"?  I have never encountered the teachings of Jesus outside of religion.

Just read the New Testament. It's been shown to mainly be 1st or 2nd century. Very little in it prescribes how Chridtianity is to be run. It certainly says nothing about having to live in fear.

If someone believes something, then it is their Truth. If they believe they are Saved, there is nothing to fear. Live your life as you will, and ask forgiveness at your sins, and move on. There is nothing to fear. 

Edited December 5, 2019 by DieChecker

[+DieChecker]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

Can you show me a non-religious text with the "teachings of Jesus"?  I have never encountered the teachings of Jesus outside of religion.

I've been told that many Humanist writings mirror what Jesus taught. And am told such are superior due to lack of mysticism. But, such works lack the Hope, the Peace, the Sureness, of being Saved forever.

[+Desertrat56]

4 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

Just read the New Testament. It's been shown to mainly be 1st or 2nd century. Very little in it prescribes how Chridtianity is to be run. It certainly says nothing about having to live in fear.

If someone believes something, then it is their Truth. If they believe they are Saved, there is nothing to fear. Live your life as you will, and ask forgiveness at your sins, and move on. There is nothing to fear. 

That is a religious text. 

[+Desertrat56]

5 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

I've been told that many Humanist writings mirror what Jesus taught. And am told such are superior due to lack of mysticism. But, such works lack the Hope, the Peace, the Sureness, of being Saved forever.

But they also do not attribute the writings to Jesus, so are they actually the teachings of Jesus?  What has sureness of being saved forever have to do with anything Jesus said or was claimed to have said?  And hope, just a delusion to keep you doing the same thing over and over, actually  keeping you from taking responsibility for yourself.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Desertrat56

[+DieChecker]

3 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

That is a religious text. 

So?

You cant read the Bible without being a Christian? You cant read and judge good teachings, because some people might read it different then you?

Is there some kind of Christian Gestapo that finds all Bibles and assures no one misreads them from the Christian interpretation.

The Bible is not a Religion. It is a tool. Used for inspiration and teaching. It can be used for those purposes by non Christians as well.

[+Desertrat56]

4 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

So?

You cant read the Bible without being a Christian? You cant read and judge good teachings, because some people might read it different then you?

Is there some kind of Christian Gestapo that finds all Bibles and assures no one misreads them from the Christian interpretation.

The Bible is not a Religion. It is a tool. Used for inspiration and teaching. It can be used for those purposes by non Christians as well.

No, I asked if you knew of a NON religious text with the teachings of Jesus.  I have been cranky all day but it looks like you are too.  I have read the bible, new and old testaments and what you said that I responded to with this question indicated you knew of such.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Desertrat56