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The Harm Done By Religion


Doug1066

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3 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

So when someone gets in your face and yells at you, you don't get angry?  How strange.

Why get angry? That's a non constructive response.

If their yelling is unjustified tell them so, either with humour or with dispassionate firmness  

If their yelling is justified tell them that, and say you will make amends, or do better. 

(I  would also add that their anger left me unmoved, and that the y could have made their point without it )

 

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4 hours ago, XenoFish said:

No one gets in my face. I'm either too scary or ugly looking for that. 

There is also another option, maybe you don't say anything that would make people feel they needed to get in your face. I know your an intelligent guy, and I suspect this is actually the case.

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2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

It does require training, unless you are raised to it as a child.  My siblings were raised never to be hurt by another's words   but also to try never to aim to hurt another 

  Again, resilience training and other psychological programmes are designed to do exactly that.

Not so much "turn off"  feelings, but desensitise them so the y don't hurt so much,  and don't cause you to react unsafely or irrationally  

Most humans need more self discipline and to think before acting or speaking.  

Stoicism is a good thing  to have a modicum of 

It is a Scottish  trait (or so were told)  A kind of endurance,  and  self  control/discipline of mind and body.  We called it dour, (pronounced dooor ) 

Well, I'm Scotch-Irish and our tradition is to beat the crap out of our enemies first, then forgive them.

Edited by Hammerclaw
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7 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

So when someone gets in your face and yells at you, you don't get angry?  How strange.

I don’t, nor do I get scared. At that point my mind has assessed that whatever happens happens, and I actually have the tendency to shut down my sense of fight or flight. I think it’s a learned response from being so sick as a child—I have already endured the worst that I could possibly endure besides death, so I actually become fearless.

My brother and I were in an argument once and he didn’t like what I was saying so he got up in my face like he was about to punch me in the face—very unstable.

Rather stoically I told him that if he actually did something he stood to lose much more than I, so he could do it if he wanted—I had witnesses that would testify against him. 

I think I just stopped giving a **** about being hurt/dying after a certain point. 

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22 hours ago, XenoFish said:

No, you hammer on and on about how others are inferior to you. Just like a Bible thumper does. How unenlightened they are. You express a form of toxic spirituality. 

Of course we're free to believe whatever we wish. So long as it agree with the likes of others such as yourself. 

I have already tried to explain that within the idea of One(ness), there cannot be anything that is inferior.

And, one is free to believe whatever they like, whether it agrees with my point of view, or not, has nothing to do with this one.

I do not care what you think.

OK?

 

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22 hours ago, XenoFish said:

It would be better for you to spend some real time with your shadow. Instead of hiding behind your spiritual beliefs. If you don't spend time bringing the unconscious to conscious awareness, you'll never truly progress.

A dark night of the soul tends to pull all the horrible stuff about ourselves to the surface. The things we mask and hide through our varying belief. 

It is often a very ugly and depressing process. Especially when there is no way to hide from it.

I get the feeling you talk a good game, but you have many demons yet to face. Perhaps one day you'll start to become indifferent toward others. Realizing that there isn't one answer, no single truth. Maybe, just maybe, you will understand that religion and spirituality are just mask.

Considering it's been 10 years of forced self work and still much to go. I hope you find your true and honest path one day.

There will be so many illusions and delusions you will need to let go of. 

I do wish you luck, you might find yourself one day. 

The dark night of the soul has come and gone.

That is why I have found peace.

Now one is on the true and honest path of simply staying in the present moment, and deepening ones love unconditionally.

If you like, I can say a prayer for you?

They normally work!

You may even get to feel, see, the difference..

 

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21 hours ago, XenoFish said:

I wasn't impressed by it. I started practing magick in 1996 meditation was one of the first exercises. That state of consciousness is fleeting, I had a long stride of it. However, life is life and it will throw a lot at a person. No amount of inner peace can overcome some things. In an occultist career there is a moment simply known as the dark night of the soul. It is a point where everything that we keep hidden is thrown back at us. All those thoughts, feelings, impulses, wishes and desires that are not the best. We are forced to face them. Like I mentioned to you before. You reach a zen point, then what? What next? This thing you're chasing is a life time process. Not something you can do with a 16 week course. 

You might not realize it and I'm sure you'll deny it, but I've been trying to help you. You think of god as everything, fine. I personally have no issues with your truth and subjective opinion. You seek enlightenment and oneness. All I can say is to not force or strain the process it'll happen and you'll feel a sort of positive indifference. But you must face yourself. Always ask yourself "Why", what do you do what you do, what do you say what you say. I personally found that by asking myself "why" I could discover my hidden motivators. 

If you truly think god is love, you need to deeply understand what love is. If you wish to cultivate a loving and compassionate nature, sympathy to the suffering is a way to start. I know you have trouble with that from personal experience. The point I'm trying to make is that your desire to impose your beliefs are others only go to hurting you. Let go. Metaphorically (maybe figurately) speaking. To be god, is to become fully self actualize. With a good nature and a kind heart. You've got to really face your demons and quit hiding behind the mask. 

Because having that zen like moment is all well and good, but it doesn't really mean anything. Sure you'll feel a deep sense of no-thing-ness. A disconnect from the world. However, you still have to live in the world. You can't escape it. As someone who has suffered much at my own hands, I'll tell you this. Once you realize that we're all headed towards death and this finite life might be all we have, you will see things differently. 

You can ignore all that I've wrote. Call me wrong. Even tell me I'm stupid. That's fine, but you're spiritual immature. Work on yourself and don't worry about others. If there truly is a god-like-thing, let it deal with each one of us on its own terms. Not man-made ones. 

With that I'm done with this conversation. The harm religion really does is creating illusions and delusions of divine purpose based on another persons desires and wishes. Escape and find your own balance. 

Have a good day. 

Thank you for a thoughtful and considered response, its appreciated.

And I have one to give back..

This state of pure awareness, is not fleeting, it is the exact opposite, it is the only substantial, essential, real and unchanging thing in the whole Cosmos. Everything else is in a flux, changing from one thing to another, and therefore one may say is "empty" or "unreal". And even if ones ability to remain in that state of being is normally very weak, to begin with, it can be worked upon and improved. 

And, I have asked "why" many times before now..

To know the truth, to know THAT, to be THAT, to demonstrate THAT, to end all suffering and ignorance. From which place one may help, (wisely) anyone who asks. This has always been the motivation.

If one seeks, one shall find, knock, knock, and the doors of the Kingdom shall open.

But to explore and abide with-in, there cannot be any thoughts.

All the best.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Crazy Horse said:

 

I do not care what you think.

 

Excellent. Then let's make a truce. I'll put you right back on ignore and you quit quoting me. I'll let others deal with you. 

Is that a deal? 

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8 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Actually I was thinking of the opposite situation, where a judge instructs a witness to limit their responses to yes/no upon request of the cross-examiner.

Yes, but that is the special situation of a designated "hostile witness." If the questionner pulls some shennanigans by their selection of yes-no questions, then the adverse party has a variety of opportunities to elicit richer testimony from the witness.

I think you are thinking of a different instruction, where the witness has been asked a yes-or-no question, and launched into a lengthy digression without actually responding yes, no, or don't know. The likely instruction from the bench is to answer yes or no first, and only after that to explain the answer (which itself is subject to a motion to strike if it is digressive). Either the instruction or the question itself should include the condition "if you know, ..." unless it is already in evidence that the witness knows or clearly ought to know.

8 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

In such a situation where you've been instructed by a judge to limit your answer, what would be your answer to, 'Do you believe a god exists?'.

The answer is no. Where are you going with this, counselor? There has never been any dispute whether or not I believe a god exists. The issue is whether that one answer alone suffices to call me an atheist and to instruct me to shut up about it, because that's what I am whether I agree with the description or not.

8 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

The belief question is more binary, you have the belief or you do not,

That's not generally true, however. We have a convention for conversation where a yes answer to the question do you believe that P is true? means that I have sufficient confidence in the truth of P that I "accept" it as true. If so, then an impilicit premise of the question is that I have some level of confidence about P or its negation. That's why I lack sufficient information is responsive: it is shorthand for your question appears to be based on a premise that is contrary to fact.

Acceptance has no uniform definition. It is a judgment call on the part of the respondent how much confidence they require for their own acceptance of the truth of the uncertain proposition. Confidence itself comes in levels, not only yes or else no, and very possibly not applicable.

Bottom line: there is a "binary" convention for conversations about beliefs, but the quality of holding beliefs is not inherently binary. The first clause of the previous sentence is semantics. but the second clause concerns ground facts about how beliefs work.

8 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I know we've talked about this before but historically and in some places currently, the distinction between the more discrete definition of atheism and agnosticism is of no difference to portions of theism that necessitated the existence of at least the first term at all.

And one of the things we've discussed from time to time is that there are legitimate and useful terms (e.g. non-theist or in some contexts secular) that include atheists along with agnostics and maybe some other folks as well.

Which I think is the answer to your last paragraph: there are some major religions where some strong affirmative belief in the existence of their favorite god is taught to be necessary to receive some reward or avoid some punishment. The difference between agnostic and atheist may simply not matter to them. Conversely, religions that don't have that feature may well not have any other "official" reason to distinguish between agnostics and atheists, since the belief that the A-team both lack isn't necessary for getting or avoiding anything important anyway.

"Purgatory" seems like unnecessary roughness for either of our views. I suspect all that either of us needs is a display of some actual evidence that survives critical examination, and any belief problem would be cheerfully fixed.

Edited by eight bits
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7 minutes ago, eight bits said:

"Purgatory" seems like unnecessary roughness for either of our views. I suspect all that either of us needs is a display of some actual evidence that survives critical examination, and any belief problem would be cheerfully fixed.

A mental hell comes no better than this, much more relevant than any physical hell, whatever that means... 

Quote
11 May 2015 — In 1988, Tiger Balm Gardens is renamed Haw Par Dragon Villa, ... The sixth court: A tree of knives, for those who cheat, curse, or abduct...
 
~
 
The sixth court: A tree of knives, for those who cheat, curse, or abduct. And for the misuse of books, for possessing pornographic material, breaking written rules or wasting food, abusing animals, they are sawn in half.
 
 

~

There are more than some printed pages that are a great waste of a good tree... 

~

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7 hours ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

I don’t, nor do I get scared. At that point my mind has assessed that whatever happens happens, and I actually have the tendency to shut down my sense of fight or flight. I think it’s a learned response from being so sick as a child—I have already endured the worst that I could possibly endure besides death, so I actually become fearless.

My brother and I were in an argument once and he didn’t like what I was saying so he got up in my face like he was about to punch me in the face—very unstable.

Rather stoically I told him that if he actually did something he stood to lose much more than I, so he could do it if he wanted—I had witnesses that would testify against him. 

I think I just stopped giving a **** about being hurt/dying after a certain point. 

I found out that my reaction to that kind of thing is to go forward instead of back, it usually surprised who ever is in my face and they end up backing off.   In one instance that involved my children I did get angry, but the other two times I was in a situation that seemed like I would be killed I just stepped in to it with the idea that if I died there would at least be plenty of evidence of who did what and the perpetrator would not get away with it.  It was a kind of emotionless state, more like resignation, like you are forcing my had, so be it.  If I were in a retail position and people came in and yelled in my face I know I would be angry, but I also would know that the person's anger was insane and not caused by me, which would probably temper the anger somewhat.   I had one job where I was a cashier at a hamburger place (a national chain) and I lasted 3 months.   Once I ended up in between a drunk trucker and some teenagers who wanted to beat him up.   The manager would not do anything and my inclination was to call the police, but I was the lowly cashier.   I guess the manager already had too much paperwork to fill out.  I am not cut out for that kind of job.  So I went to college and got one I am suited for.

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2 hours ago, eight bits said:

The answer is no. Where are you going with this, counselor?

You noted that changing a question from a question of fact to one of belief doesn't compel that only yes/no are responsive answers.  What qualifies as a 'responsive answer'?  If I'm asked what 2 times 2 is, are 'green' and '1 million' both 'responsive answers'?  I thought you were noting this for your specific situation, that there is a non yes/no response to the question 'Do you believe in God?' in your case, but since you are saying 'no' then I guess I was on the wrong track, and I don't understand I guess whatever you were noting to onlooker.  I agree I think with onlooker that so far every non-yes/no response to that question provided has been identical to 'no'.

2 hours ago, eight bits said:

The issue is whether that one answer alone suffices to call me an atheist and to instruct me to shut up about it, because that's what I am whether I agree with the description or not.

I have missed any instruction for you to shut up so I'm not seeing that as an issue at all.  I also haven't seen anyone insist that you are an atheist whether you agree with the description or not, onlooker said 'to me' all agnostics are atheists.  I don't think you are arguing that there is only one definition, and of course onlooker is free to use the definition that is useful to him and that is and has been one of the entirely acceptable definitions of 'atheist' for a long time.

3 hours ago, eight bits said:

We have a convention for conversation where a yes answer to the question do you believe that P is true? means that I have sufficient confidence in the truth of P that I "accept" it as true. If so, then an impilicit premise of the question is that I have some level of confidence about P or its negation.

I don't think that's quite as implicit, you've seemed to have mixed the implicit premise of one specific answer with the question itself.  This is pretty deep in the semantic mud, but I think I understand what you are saying, if someone asks me 'do you believe quantum mechanics accurately describe the sub-atomic world?' and I say merely 'no', then there is a suggestion that I disagree that QM does do that, when actually it's that I can't have that belief (this is an example, I actually do believe based on trusting experts) because I don't know anything about it.  But then I can rephrase that as, 'do you possess a belief' or other semantic gymnastics to try and get around that... we're muddy enough I think.

3 hours ago, eight bits said:

That's why I lack sufficient information is responsive: it is shorthand for your question appears to be based on a premise that is contrary to fact.

What premise is contrary to fact or what is potentially 'not applicable' in 'Do you believe in God?'. Is there an example?

3 hours ago, eight bits said:

Bottom line: there is a "binary" convention for conversations about beliefs, but the quality of holding beliefs is not inherently binary. The first clause of the previous sentence is semantics. but the second clause concerns ground facts about how beliefs work.

Agreed, but we are of course discussing conversations/semantics about beliefs.  I think the question is then under what conditions does the second clause make the first clause's binary convention logically and semantically unworkable.  All the examples I've seen do not make it unworkable, they are either based on assumptions of why the question is being asked, suspicions that the questioner has not provided enough specificity in the question that they are meaning to ask, or the desire to provide additional information.  None of those are wrong or out of bounds, but neither is it necessarily actually 'useful' as you noted, it might be extraneous.  And all we need do is contrast your typical post with posts from a certain other commenter here to see how assumptions/desire to provide additional information or things that they think are important and relevant can lead to non-useful results.

3 hours ago, eight bits said:

"Purgatory" seems like unnecessary roughness for either of our view

Yea, my info on Purgatory is very sketchy.  Not sure where I got this from originally, maybe Dante, but I just realized my conception of Purgatory for some reason involves lots of walking with other souls in a line and contemplating your wrongs I guess.  Not sure where I got the 'walking' from offhand.

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On 11/10/2021 at 8:41 AM, Hammerclaw said:

If you believe in that sort of thing. I'm too old for Sunday School. I believe in deity, but I don't limit myself to two thousand year old concepts.

You just stay the way you are. Putting new wine into an old bottle could make it burst. As for 2000 year old concepts, as the Gospel says old wine is better than new. Nobody in their right mind would choose a brand new religion over an ancient one that works. I spent yesterday trying to figure out what happens to wine that turns ancient. Apparently it will eventually turn into vinegar and last indefinately if it remains sealed. There are wine dealers who say that after 50 years a wine will start to lose its flavor, but I pulled up more than one account of people claiming to have drank 100-200 year old salvaged wines that tasted fine and even retained their bubbles. Depending on the way it has been stored. It really is an alchemic mystery with wine and vinegar.

John 5

Quote

36And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. 37And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. 38But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. 39No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

It won't work with some modern wines because they are made with added ingredients that would ruin the process.

Edited by The_Phantom_Stranger
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1 hour ago, The_Phantom_Stranger said:

You just stay the way you are. Putting new wine into an old bottle could make it burst. As for 2000 year old concepts, as the Gospel says old wine is better than new. Nobody in their right mind would choose a brand new religion over an ancient one that works. I spent yesterday trying to figure out what happens to wine that turns ancient. Apparently it will eventually turn into vinegar and last indefinately if it remains sealed. There are wine dealers who say that after 50 years a wine will start to lose its flavor, but I pulled up more than one account of people claiming to have drank 100-200 year old salvaged wines that tasted fine and even retained their bubbles. Depending on the way it has been stored. It really is an alchemic mystery with wine and vinegar.

John 5

It won't work with some modern wines because they are made with added ingredients that would ruin the process.

You can't put new wine in old skins was the saying. A wine skin was a cured sheep's bladder. Back then, they didn't know how to stop the fermentation process and wine continued to ferment swelling and stretching the skin. New wine in an old stretched skin, as it continued to ferment, generating gas, would rupture it. 

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Mother of vinegar is formed on wine making it into vinegar. The mother of vinegar can then be taken out to create more vinegar from wine. This can go on and on and a mother of vinegar might be seen as a blood line of vinegars.

https://www.vinegarshed.com/pages/how-to-make-a-vinegar-mother

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/09/garden/vinegars-with-1000-years-of-tradition.html

 

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32 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

You can't put new wine in old skins was the saying. 

 

Yes because it's best not to bring too much from the old religion into the new one. Otherwise, they'll burst.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

What qualifies as a 'responsive answer'?

I've been using "A repply to a query which either provides the information sought or else states that the information is unavailable from the respondent."

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

If I'm asked what 2 times 2 is, are 'green' and '1 million' both 'responsive answers'? 

The information sought is of a numeric data type, so green is a type mismatch and so unresponsive. One million is of an admissible data type, but so remote from the correct value that I don't see how it would come up. A responsive answer need not be factually correct, if that's what the example is supposed to explore.

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I thought you were noting this for your specific situation, that there is a non yes/no response to the question 'Do you believe in God?' in your case, but since you are saying 'no' then I guess I was on the wrong track, and I don't understand I guess whatever you were noting to onlooker. 

Well so far I've proposed several remedies for the problem, including allowing me simply to volunteer the information which I need to communicate in order for me to be confident that I have provided the information sought  ("No with an explanation" isn't yes, no or I don't know). I've also pointed to situations where no problem arises with a no answer to the question (the purpose of the query is to classify me as a theist non-theist, but nothing more specific than that, or the question is one of a suite of questions from which an adequately faithful representation of my actual state of belief emerges).

So far as I can see, any proposed remedy will do the trick, and my intention is for the inquirer to take their pick. Many paths to the same peak, and all of that.

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I have missed any instruction for you to shut up so I'm not seeing that as an issue at all.  I also haven't seen anyone insist that you are an atheist whether you agree with the description or not, onlooker said 'to me' all agnostics are atheists. 

So far as I know, I don't have any quarrel with @onlookerofmayhem who was, in any case, sorting out with @Sherapy the meets and bounds of something she had said about on her own atheism, and how it became something else as she realized more about what was proven and what was still an open question. So far as I can see, they succeeded in sorting that out.

However, this is not my first rodeo. I have posted many times over my 13+ years here about aspects of this problem. Let me just say that some of my co-discussants from time to time were less classy than onlooker or Sherapy. Some of them by a lot. Meh; onlooker and Sherapy set a high bar.

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

But then I can rephrase that as, 'do you possess a belief' or other semantic gymnastics to try and get around that... we're muddy enough I think.

Kinda muddy, but that's a variant on the judge's or lawyer's thing of prefacing the question or instruction with "if you know, ..." That, too, is a solution to the problem, "If you have an opinion, then do you believe ...?" or ask as a separate question, "Do you have an opinion about whether or not ...?" If no, then move on,; if yes, then ask "Do you believe that Paris is bigger than Boston?"

It's not that the problem is difficult to solve, just that people ought (IMO) to pick a way to solve it and not just leave it hanging out there.

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

What premise is contrary to fact or what is potentially 'not applicable' in 'Do you believe in God?'. Is there an example?

If somebody asks me "Do you believe in God?" or "...that Paris is bigger than Boston?" then I would probably infer that they are asking me on the premise that I have an opinion about the subject, until and unless they indicate otherwise.

I could be wrong, and I am open to the possibility that they are only interested in those who answer yes, and simply don;t care what those who answer no believe or don't believe apart from that. But just in case, if they don't indicate that to me, then I might volunteer that I have no settled opinion at all.

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

And all we need do is contrast your typical post with posts from a certain other commenter here to see how assumptions/desire to provide additional information or things that they think are important and relevant can lead to non-useful results.

Yes, but all the information I'm adding (if that is the soltuion being implemented) is very brief, and just as focused on the subject matter of the question as yes or no would be.

I can't imagine to whom your referring, but it sounds like this other person posts lengthy expositions that are sparingly related to the topic of the thread, if they relate at all.

9 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Not sure where I got the 'walking' from offhand.

Actually, your purgatory sounds like my life. I do get to bring a dog along on these walks, right?

Edited by eight bits
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The difference between atheist and anti-theist is that where the atheist is neutral about someone else believing (or not) in God, the anti-theist despises theism. Anti-theists spend at least a portion of their time actively working to eliminate or disparage religion (usually of any sort, but often in Western Culture specifically Christianity

 
agnostic
[aɡˈnästik]
 
NOUN
  1. a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
    synonyms:
ADJECTIVE
  1. relating to agnostics or agnosticism.
    synonyms:
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1 hour ago, eight bits said:

Actually, your purgatory sounds like my life. I do get to bring a dog along on these walks, right?

Ha, sure hope so, but that wouldn't be purgatory either, if there are going to be dogs there then I'd probably just want to stay. 

I think my mental image of walking might be my remembering the cover of Purgatorio from college when I had to read the Divine Comedy:

Capture.thumb.JPG.52aa6664714de9eda385713b9863e310.JPG 

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On 11/11/2021 at 4:00 PM, Hammerclaw said:

Well, I'm Scotch-Irish and our tradition is to beat the crap out of our enemies first, then forgive them.

Interesting.

We were taught never to be the aggressor, but  always to be competent, and ready,  to defend oneself  and/ or the innocent 

Later, I learned that there are many better ways to "beat' a person than physically,  and that, given a certain quality /presence and reputation,  no one  was ever likely  to attack you.  

My ancestry is Scottish on my father's side (traced back to abut 1500 ) and English /Norman on my mother's, traced in an unbroken line back to at least 1066 when her family came with William the conqueror form Normandy to England. They seem   to have mostly avoided  physical  conflicts, although my grandfather fought and was gassed in ww1 and my uncle defended Darwin form Japanese attack in ww11. Another, more distant member of the family,  from a branch which migrated there from  Scotland in 1720  was scalped by Indians in America in the mid 1800s, but survived  Generally we seem to have been peaceful, law abiding citizens, who were better educated than most from  their time, and succeeded, using knowledge and skills  in many different fields.  

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On 11/10/2021 at 1:00 PM, Sherapy said:

At best you gained a calm, relaxed state during your meditation practice. The rest of your post is undergirded by your ego, . In your case, being calm and relaxed has led to grandiose claims of god connections and god lessons. This is attachment. 
 

All the best. 

 

You have no idea of what was gained, realised, during certain meditations.

To think otherwise is the height of the ego.

Peacefulness is only the after affect of meditation, of any good behaviour in-fact.

In this altered state of consciousness, there are no thoughts and therefore no attachments. No ego. only the present moment and one-pointed awareness.

The way I am trying to describe it, may well be slightly egotistical, (maybe, maybe not), but the actual state of consciousness itself, (the thing we were discussing) is in no way, shape, or form, the ego. that has gone away, getting weaker, until it completely vanishes forever.

You are a Zen practitioner, have you not realised these things for yourself?

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On 11/10/2021 at 1:02 PM, joc said:

Because the baby is a myth!  Virgins don't have babies.  Dead people don't come back to life.  With the Church the only doctrine is tithe, tithe, tithe  It's all about the money...and if you buy the false premise of thousands of years ago...that's...not smart...imo.

All history is a myth, even the real bits.

Whether Jesus was a real man who lived, or not, is besides the point.

Its the message with-in that particular story that's important.

All men die, what is left behind is their stories, there messages.

And those stories may uplift the human spirit, or keep it ignorant.

 

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11 minutes ago, Crazy Horse said:

You have no idea of what was gained, realised, during certain meditations.

To think otherwise is the height of the ego.

Peacefulness is only the after affect of meditation, of any good behaviour in-fact.

In this altered state of consciousness, there are no thoughts and therefore no attachments. No ego. only the present moment and one-pointed awareness.

The way I am trying to describe it, may well be slightly egotistical, (maybe, maybe not), but the actual state of consciousness itself, (the thing we were discussing) is in no way, shape, or form, the ego. that has gone away, getting weaker, until it completely vanishes forever.

You are a Zen practitioner, have you not realised these things for yourself?

You have to remember that in these days any spiritual experience is a sign of insanity.

Hoshea 9

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The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

 

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On 11/10/2021 at 1:14 PM, Sherapy said:

It seems you want to talk about that you know god, now. The facts are you meditated became calm and relaxed and arbitrarily decided you connected to god who is now guiding you and teaching you.  And, you are on here trying to help others. Help them how?
 

Slow your roll CH, your ego has you by the horns. 
 

Anyone can reach a calm relaxed state and will at times during meditation, all it requires is practice. 

My ego is dying a death.

So lets repeat..

In this state of altered consciousness, there are no thoughts, no conclusions, no discernment or judgment, there are no feelings of anger or hatefulness, and so one may safely say, that there is no ego whatsoever. And therefore, calmness and peacefulness become the natural state of ones being too.

Now, because this one is not Self-realised fully, the explanation may sound egotistical, but that is my trying to explain this altered state of consciousness, not the actual state of awareness itself.  

Please try to put your ego to one side, for a moment, and at least try to see the difference.

 

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