Some things about Religion i have observed

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giordiocies

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Without adhering to any specific Religious system, i am saying this as something that seems compatible with many Religions, because it is such a simple idea, like the 'golden rule' (Confucianism and Christianity) that it is like the things many Religions say, so that it could help anyone without placing a specific conversion on someone (that is for them to decide, or the Deitie(s)). I used my Reason to understand this because i think Religion and Common Sense can and should work side by side. This info i was told by nothing and no one, i figured it out.

INTRO: Somehow, many of the things you see in life, your circumstances, your location, the people you run into even, are under some form of control so that events SEEM predestined. could be predestination, total or partial (allowing some measure of free will for us) or pantheism in real time, God(s) like a person and us like organs or cells, therefore we have free will, or creatures one dimension above us that can alter things in a powerful way like the book Flatland, seeming like predestination. Whatever is out there, cares about morals and ethics. I know this because i have seen coincidences in events in life that are too great to be coincidence, and too precise to be left by any process, but only by something intelligent.

INFORMATION TO SHARE:
*the imagery you encounter in life is important. If you do wrong to someone, someone that looks similar will do that to you. but they will not look so similar, and it will not happen so soon, that you would start to notice this, i think what i am saying you aren't supposed to figure out. A Deity might also wish to make a negative or positive comment about you, this is done behind your back where you do not understand immediately, using imagery. Say it wished to call you a racist, it might show you a tall person of a different race with another distinguishing characteristic like an accent. Then later when you are distracted a tall person of your skin color with a similar accent will argue with you and you get mad, he is the earlier person using some imagery to say this, you have been labeled racist because you are angry at him. For the blind, undoubtedly, speech is used the same as sight for those that can see, as imagery. so, something 'karmic' is happening, and my information that i have, it always uses imagery - you don't just get what you give but you can see it coming if you look closely the right way. Getting involved in looking at imagery is dangerous, though, it can lead to madness. Be scientific if you listen to what i am saying, and don't assume that everything you see is some imagery directed at you, but only if there are ten pieces of evidence.

and don't get anxious. you generally only get what you give so if you are not bad you have no reason to be afraid. You will die a natural death because of the human body you are in, that's it's law. If you are killed in an accident there might (?) be a payment for you for the missing years of life. If you cause someone to bleed, you can be made to bleed. think about the implications of this. It means that people's normal excuses do not work with a Deity. bleed = bleed, pain = pain and human customs from some specific time and place do not excuse you, and your slightest act that is 1% immoral will be thrown back at you, 99% moral and 1% immoral, relentlessly. Even the small things you do you don't notice are returned to you.

There are tests, and traps to make you look bad. Religions say this.

Imagery can be used with the tests, and it is even possible to foil a trap that you might deserve, if you understand what is happening well enough. Foiling something this large is probably bad.

Your mind is being read as we speak and your thoughts are used to judge you. A Christian once said this (St. Paul). It or they reading it has an intimate understanding of human psychology.

It is possible that minds are not read perfectly, and that stereotyping and pidgeon-holing is used to judge people quicker. this is not fair. tough luck, you pidgeon hole people daily and act on it, even unconsciously. You get exactly what you get. totally.

*Your arm could be moved in a way that would involve you not remembering that you did it. This would not be too hard all you need to do is manipulate some brain circuitry a little bit, decrease or increase the activation levels of a few neurons. This means that your body, face, gestures, can be temporarily hijacked and used to test someone over how they would react to their friend saying 'x', without them or you knowing this. This is not different from something that could be labeled 'predestination' or 'pantheism', it is an old Religious idea, something new to tell you, this happens all the time, not a day goes by that you do not see this happening and not understand what you are seeing. It is constantly happening near you. Telling you this is giving some of the technical details of how vaguer ideas like 'predestination' and 'testing' work. and it is not telling you too much either. I don't know very much, just a little. A war could be started this way. If military people have never killed (it is best for 'Them' not to kill a person if they never killed) and are facing each other with weapons drawn one arm can be hijacked and a bullet sent wide, the humans react by killing each other, no excuses matter, each person who kills can be killed. this probably happens.

It is likely that there is some kind of afterlife considering the effort that is being poured into this. I do not assume that it will be eternal like many Religions say, i have no evidence that this might be the case today as i write this.

I used looking at my life and my memories to understand this. I used to be a 'philosophical atheist', and there is no way i would be saying Religion is true if i did not have Sensory Evidence using Empiricism, and enough to stun me into accepting Religion as true. I am not insane either and i think the lucidity of this post will be evidence of this, i've cited Religious materials to show that those ideas are similar, i've thought about and tested every idea i have mentioned.

p.s. i hardly believe all religions are the same they are each very different. there are many people who say they all say the same thing but if you read them you see each one is very different from every other one, 'if it were true'. You actually have to read some of each Religion and decide by thinking which is true. That is what i am doing right now. It is also very clear that science is Truth, about a trillion years will pass on this planet with no apocalypse, which many Religions do predict.
 
giordiocies said:
Without adhering to any specific Religious system, i am saying this as something that seems compatible with many Religions, because it is such a simple idea, like the 'golden rule' (Confucianism and Christianity) that it is like the things many Religions say, so that it could help anyone without placing a specific conversion on someone (that is for them to decide, or the Deitie(s)). I used my Reason to understand this because i think Religion and Common Sense can and should work side by side. This info i was told by nothing and no one, i figured it out.

INTRO: Somehow, many of the things you see in life, your circumstances, your location, the people you run into even, are under some form of control so that events SEEM predestined. could be predestination, total or partial (allowing some measure of free will for us) or pantheism in real time, God(s) like a person and us like organs or cells, therefore we have free will, or creatures one dimension above us that can alter things in a powerful way like the book Flatland, seeming like predestination. Whatever is out there, cares about morals and ethics. I know this because i have seen coincidences in events in life that are too great to be coincidence, and too precise to be left by any process, but only by something intelligent.

INFORMATION TO SHARE:
*the imagery you encounter in life is important. If you do wrong to someone, someone that looks similar will do that to you. but they will not look so similar, and it will not happen so soon, that you would start to notice this, i think what i am saying you aren't supposed to figure out. A Deity might also wish to make a negative or positive comment about you, this is done behind your back where you do not understand immediately, using imagery. Say it wished to call you a racist, it might show you a tall person of a different race with another distinguishing characteristic like an accent. Then later when you are distracted a tall person of your skin color with a similar accent will argue with you and you get mad, he is the earlier person using some imagery to say this, you have been labeled racist because you are angry at him. For the blind, undoubtedly, speech is used the same as sight for those that can see, as imagery. so, something 'karmic' is happening, and my information that i have, it always uses imagery - you don't just get what you give but you can see it coming if you look closely the right way. Getting involved in looking at imagery is dangerous, though, it can lead to madness. Be scientific if you listen to what i am saying, and don't assume that everything you see is some imagery directed at you, but only if there are ten pieces of evidence.

and don't get anxious. you generally only get what you give so if you are not bad you have no reason to be afraid. You will die a natural death because of the human body you are in, that's it's law. If you are killed in an accident there might (?) be a payment for you for the missing years of life. If you cause someone to bleed, you can be made to bleed. think about the implications of this. It means that people's normal excuses do not work with a Deity. bleed = bleed, pain = pain and human customs from some specific time and place do not excuse you, and your slightest act that is 1% immoral will be thrown back at you, 99% moral and 1% immoral, relentlessly. Even the small things you do you don't notice are returned to you.

There are tests, and traps to make you look bad. Religions say this.

Imagery can be used with the tests, and it is even possible to foil a trap that you might deserve, if you understand what is happening well enough. Foiling something this large is probably bad.

Your mind is being read as we speak and your thoughts are used to judge you. A Christian once said this (St. Paul). It or they reading it has an intimate understanding of human psychology.

It is possible that minds are not read perfectly, and that stereotyping and pidgeon-holing is used to judge people quicker. this is not fair. tough luck, you pidgeon hole people daily and act on it, even unconsciously. You get exactly what you get. totally.

*Your arm could be moved in a way that would involve you not remembering that you did it. This would not be too hard all you need to do is manipulate some brain circuitry a little bit, decrease or increase the activation levels of a few neurons. This means that your body, face, gestures, can be temporarily hijacked and used to test someone over how they would react to their friend saying 'x', without them or you knowing this. This is not different from something that could be labeled 'predestination' or 'pantheism', it is an old Religious idea, something new to tell you, this happens all the time, not a day goes by that you do not see this happening and not understand what you are seeing. It is constantly happening near you. Telling you this is giving some of the technical details of how vaguer ideas like 'predestination' and 'testing' work. and it is not telling you too much either. I don't know very much, just a little. A war could be started this way. If military people have never killed (it is best for 'Them' not to kill a person if they never killed) and are facing each other with weapons drawn one arm can be hijacked and a bullet sent wide, the humans react by killing each other, no excuses matter, each person who kills can be killed. this probably happens.

It is likely that there is some kind of afterlife considering the effort that is being poured into this. I do not assume that it will be eternal like many Religions say, i have no evidence that this might be the case today as i write this.

I used looking at my life and my memories to understand this. I used to be a 'philosophical atheist', and there is no way i would be saying Religion is true if i did not have Sensory Evidence using Empiricism, and enough to stun me into accepting Religion as true. I am not insane either and i think the lucidity of this post will be evidence of this, i've cited Religious materials to show that those ideas are similar, i've thought about and tested every idea i have mentioned.

p.s. i hardly believe all religions are the same they are each very different. there are many people who say they all say the same thing but if you read them you see each one is very different from every other one, 'if it were true'. You actually have to read some of each Religion and decide by thinking which is true. That is what i am doing right now. It is also very clear that science is Truth, about a trillion years will pass on this planet with no apocalypse, which many Religions do predict.
Click to expand...
I believe in predestination. It does seem that the location, people places ect we are around happen for a reason doesnt it.
 
DT Strain said:
Can you give a detailed example of an event that you experienced which you consider to be empirical evidence of your claim? Please give only one, and make select the best example.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Here is one coincidence. i read alot. I am in a library. I grab one religious book of a particular religion, just for investigation purpose. I am an agnostic. i also grab a random novel based on cool cover art. i have read nothing in or about these books either of them, before this. i am bored and i grab two books to entertain myself. i read the religious book. it is about 'the afterlife', in fact the last phrase of the book concerns the afterlife, it is a sentence about the afterlife. that last sentence of this religious book is the TITLE of the random novel. I look over at the title of the novel facing me. holy cow. the exact title. and this i pick up after i have asked a deity, ' if you are listening, give a sign you are there'. i do that as an agnostic, to check to see if i am wrong. the novel is not a religious novel, in fact the two have little to do with each other.
 
giordiocies said:
Here is one coincidence. i read alot. I am in a library. I grab one religious book of a particular religion, just for investigation purpose. I am an agnostic. i also grab a random novel based on cool cover art. i have read nothing in or about these books either of them, before this. i am bored and i grab two books to entertain myself. i read the religious book. it is about 'the afterlife', in fact the last phrase of the book concerns the afterlife, it is a sentence about the afterlife. that last sentence of this religious book is the TITLE of the random novel. I look over at the title of the novel facing me. holy cow. the exact title. and this i pick up after i have asked a deity, ' if you are listening, give a sign you are there'. i do that as an agnostic, to check to see if i am wrong. the novel is not a religious novel, in fact the two have little to do with each other.
Click to expand...

Little moments like this happen to me often. Especially lately now that I've gotten back into my spiritual path. I take these as very positive signs we are in harmony and where we should be in our journey, these moments count even as we evolve (as we surely do).

As a matter of fact, landing on your post is an example. I have not visited this forum in quite a while. I was posting on a Christian forum but I posted about something that had to do with my friendships with people of other religions and how I keep meeting people of one particular religion (not mine) in very unexpected places. I then felt 'unpopular' with my wide lens view. I remembered this forum. Your post is one of the first I clicked on.
Beautiful. Thank you.

INTRO: Somehow, many of the things you see in life, your circumstances, your location, the people you run into even, are under some form of control so that events SEEM predestined.

Take care now,
Faith
 
Synchronicity (as perhaps best exemplified by the theing that happen in "Awakw" a new T.V. series) has always been one of the ways the D!vine communicates. It was around along time before Jung and Joyce wrote about it.
 
Now the odds of finding a book whose last line is the title of another randomly selected book is highly unlikely...

So does that mean what occurred was highly unlikely? no.

What you are seeking is random synchronicities and if both books had a chapter with the same title you would have accepted that, or if the authors were different names, you would have been excited about that, or if they were published on the same day...ya get my drift.

Pick up any two books and look long enough and you'll find something appearing neatly coincidental.

Like the birthday paradox, with 23 people in a room the odds are that two of them have the same birthday is better than 50%....but the odds of another having the same birthday as you (picking a constant) is highly unlikely (just as getting your last line, title thing to happen in the next thousand books you pull off the library shelves)

all that being said, i don''t discount the seeming synchronistic as nothing....I'll say it will be nothing to many....but it is something to you. Noticing similarities and parallels and reveling in the rewards they provide link together systems and patterns that tie YOUR life together, they are for you, and mine are for me.

They tell us about ourselves, what matters to us, paths we are taking and provide us insights and clues to our benefit.

keep on keepin on...
 
giordiocies said:
...If you do wrong to someone, someone that looks similar will do that to you. but they will not look so similar, and it will not happen so soon, that you would start to notice this,
Click to expand...
"He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."
Karma: the spiritual "Gottcha!" :p

There are tests, and traps to make you look bad. Religions say this.
Click to expand...
God (or whoever created opposites) made everything, BOTH good and evil... it's all GOoD in a way - because it helps us progress - live & learn. Sometimes when we feel bad about some truth (ie like I felt when I started to realize Mormonism is not all good)... sometimes instead of searching for "why" we feel bad, religious brainwashing kicks in to makes us believe that whatever is making us feel bad is wrong/evil. In reality, it's our emotions that are clinging to comfortable familiarity. And the only way we can heal & truly love ourselves & others is to explore "the kingdom of God within."

It is also very clear that science is Truth, about a trillion years will pass on this planet with no apocalypse, which many Religions do predict.
Click to expand...
You know what's funny - well kind of sad too?
I was raised to fear the "last days" - my church was named after this fear...
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
Yet, Jesus clearly taught (& it makes sense) that the kingdom of God is not going to come after we let this world go to hell. Infact, if we let this world go to hell, we are partly responsible for the hell created. Jesus taught that "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, lo here! or lo there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you." -Luke 17:20

How simple! Why did it take me so long to understand that God is "I AM that I AM"... discovering who I AM... discovering the kingdom of God within me. I can't feel God anyway except within me!

Science is just one perspective of truth. The more perspectives, the more truthful.
 
giordiocies said:
Without adhering to any specific Religious system, i am saying this as something that seems compatible with many Religions, because it is such a simple idea, like the 'golden rule' (Confucianism and Christianity) that it is like the things many Religions say, so that it could help anyone without placing a specific conversion on someone (that is for them to decide, or the Deitie(s)). I used my Reason to understand this because i think Religion and Common Sense can and should work side by side. This info i was told by nothing and no one, i figured it out.

INTRO: Somehow, many of the things you see in life, your circumstances, your location, the people you run into even, are under some form of control so that events SEEM predestined. could be predestination, total or partial (allowing some measure of free will for us) or pantheism in real time, God(s) like a person and us like organs or cells, therefore we have free will, or creatures one dimension above us that can alter things in a powerful way like the book Flatland, seeming like predestination. Whatever is out there, cares about morals and ethics. I know this because i have seen coincidences in events in life that are too great to be coincidence, and too precise to be left by any process, but only by something intelligent.

INFORMATION TO SHARE:
*the imagery you encounter in life is important. If you do wrong to someone, someone that looks similar will do that to you. but they will not look so similar, and it will not happen so soon, that you would start to notice this, i think what i am saying you aren't supposed to figure out. A Deity might also wish to make a negative or positive comment about you, this is done behind your back where you do not understand immediately, using imagery. Say it wished to call you a racist, it might show you a tall person of a different race with another distinguishing characteristic like an accent. Then later when you are distracted a tall person of your skin color with a similar accent will argue with you and you get mad, he is the earlier person using some imagery to say this, you have been labeled racist because you are angry at him. For the blind, undoubtedly, speech is used the same as sight for those that can see, as imagery. so, something 'karmic' is happening, and my information that i have, it always uses imagery - you don't just get what you give but you can see it coming if you look closely the right way. Getting involved in looking at imagery is dangerous, though, it can lead to madness. Be scientific if you listen to what i am saying, and don't assume that everything you see is some imagery directed at you, but only if there are ten pieces of evidence.

and don't get anxious. you generally only get what you give so if you are not bad you have no reason to be afraid. You will die a natural death because of the human body you are in, that's it's law. If you are killed in an accident there might (?) be a payment for you for the missing years of life. If you cause someone to bleed, you can be made to bleed. think about the implications of this. It means that people's normal excuses do not work with a Deity. bleed = bleed, pain = pain and human customs from some specific time and place do not excuse you, and your slightest act that is 1% immoral will be thrown back at you, 99% moral and 1% immoral, relentlessly. Even the small things you do you don't notice are returned to you.

There are tests, and traps to make you look bad. Religions say this.

Imagery can be used with the tests, and it is even possible to foil a trap that you might deserve, if you understand what is happening well enough. Foiling something this large is probably bad.

Your mind is being read as we speak and your thoughts are used to judge you. A Christian once said this (St. Paul). It or they reading it has an intimate understanding of human psychology.

It is possible that minds are not read perfectly, and that stereotyping and pidgeon-holing is used to judge people quicker. this is not fair. tough luck, you pidgeon hole people daily and act on it, even unconsciously. You get exactly what you get. totally.

*Your arm could be moved in a way that would involve you not remembering that you did it. This would not be too hard all you need to do is manipulate some brain circuitry a little bit, decrease or increase the activation levels of a few neurons. This means that your body, face, gestures, can be temporarily hijacked and used to test someone over how they would react to their friend saying 'x', without them or you knowing this. This is not different from something that could be labeled 'predestination' or 'pantheism', it is an old Religious idea, something new to tell you, this happens all the time, not a day goes by that you do not see this happening and not understand what you are seeing. It is constantly happening near you. Telling you this is giving some of the technical details of how vaguer ideas like 'predestination' and 'testing' work. and it is not telling you too much either. I don't know very much, just a little. A war could be started this way. If military people have never killed (it is best for 'Them' not to kill a person if they never killed) and are facing each other with weapons drawn one arm can be hijacked and a bullet sent wide, the humans react by killing each other, no excuses matter, each person who kills can be killed. this probably happens.

It is likely that there is some kind of afterlife considering the effort that is being poured into this. I do not assume that it will be eternal like many Religions say, i have no evidence that this might be the case today as i write this.

I used looking at my life and my memories to understand this. I used to be a 'philosophical atheist', and there is no way i would be saying Religion is true if i did not have Sensory Evidence using Empiricism, and enough to stun me into accepting Religion as true. I am not insane either and i think the lucidity of this post will be evidence of this, i've cited Religious materials to show that those ideas are similar, i've thought about and tested every idea i have mentioned.

p.s. i hardly believe all religions are the same they are each very different. there are many people who say they all say the same thing but if you read them you see each one is very different from every other one, 'if it were true'. You actually have to read some of each Religion and decide by thinking which is true. That is what i am doing right now. It is also very clear that science is Truth, about a trillion years will pass on this planet with no apocalypse, which many Religions do predict.
Click to expand...

I appreciate very much, the ideas you have shared.
I see similarities to my own thought processes - and i salute the soul i feel thrashing inside you... you desire to awaken. You will - and i thoroughly appreciate the aplomb with which you approach that. Hats off to you, my friend.

I would offer you things which have been shown to me.
There is NO ONE guiding your path - you do that for yourself...
only you may decide which way you are bound.

I suggest opening the mind to the possibility that you exist in a larger Creation that you presently realize.
That at Higher vibrations ( picture the electromagnetic spectrum which we know exists - but only physically experience a very small part of it ) you are Godlike in competency and knowledge...( God LIKE ).

When one is unaware of this, they are receiving " clues and guidance " from the larger part of themselves as exterior stimuli...
When one realizes this, they can begin to have a constant "signal" which guides and assists... and like a muscle - it gets stronger and stronger the more you acknowledge and honor that connection.

You have found your foot on the very first step to a staircase leading to Very Grand Things....
the ONLY thing which may hold you back is YOURSELF....
I am specifically desiring to congratulate you on the strength of your conviction - it will carry you far, and it will be a source of deserved pride...
You do that which you came for - and you do it in a way which might inspire...

Here's holding MY light up to harmonize with your own....
 
radarmark said:
Synchronicity (as perhaps best exemplified by the theing that happen in "Awakw" a new T.V. series) has always been one of the ways the D!vine communicates. It was around along time before Jung and Joyce wrote about it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, & the thing about this type of serendipity is that by nature it is not repeatable & thus not scientifically studiable. Unfortunately, because of this, many discount it, despite the reality of it.

I do think it's important to distinguish between religion & spirituality. Religion is a group's way of interpreting everything (including moments of serendipity or synchronicity). Spirituality is a personal experience.
 
Persona, perhaps. Religion (with a capital R, as I use it) is the outer trappings, the dogma and ideology. In that much we are right in synch. But I have a third category (that works for me), religion. It is the actual manifested experience behind the trappings which I believe underlay all Religions. A minor point which we could continue discussing.
 
radarmark said:
Persona, perhaps. Religion (with a capital R, as I use it) is the outer trappings, the dogma and ideology. In that much we are right in synch. But I have a third category (that works for me), religion. It is the actual manifested experience behind the trappings which I believe underlay all Religions. A minor point which we could continue discussing.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'd like to know more what you mean by "manifested experience behind the trappings underlaying all religions."

Maybe religion, & all creations are a reflection of our subconscious desires?
 
I see a form of social evolution manifested in religion. Religion was part of human evolution. In Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age societies, religion played a part in group order, submission to some authoritarian leader.

Almost all peoples to explain the unexplainable invented gods and spirits. What makes rain, rivers flow, springs bubble up, wind to blow, plants to grow, and what makes humans/animals act? Man saw death of family and wondered why the mother’s body stops functioning. Something seemed to have left mother. Something had to explain all of the mysterious movement of objects and creatures.

That something could not be seen. It was an invisible cause. It manipulated all things that moved in any way. We experienced dreams, in which our invisible self leaves the body to another world and another time. We see deceased relatives or some hero figure (spirit or god.) Then the invisible spirit returned to the unconscious body and reactivated it.

Something invisible must have created the world, moon, stars, and sun by powerful magic. This spirit was incredibly powerful (Omnipotent) and was a super God. God offered an explanation for everything that was unexplainable.

Warlords utilized the belief in a super-god or a trinity of gods, or multiple gods to demand obedience to warlord authority. Gods were cruel, violent, unforgiving of breaking the rules as expressed by the warlord. Thus, religion acted to create order in society. Fear of terrible gods inspired obedience and will to fight enemies of their god for which they would be rewarded. If they failed to fight the tribe with the other gods, their god would punish them in horrific ways. Warlords designed the dogma of every religion requiring belief or death. Thus, religions tended to have many similar laws.

Religion could evolve into Monotheism like Atenists of Egypt, Jews organized by Moses, and Islam by the prophet Muhammad. Other religions maintained multiple gods and often shared concepts.

Aten was transformed into JHWY or El, and Islamic Allah. These are the Monotheisms.

Polytheistisms also had in similarity multiple gods of different purposes. The largest group evolved from Proto-Indo-European Polytheisms lost to history 8,000 BCE but we know it likely had components we recognize. For example, trinities abound. We see a commonality in Hinduism, Proto-Iranian, Zoroastrian, Mithraic Zoroastrianism, Olympian, Roman, Celtic, Teutonic, and Christian.

A common myth is a virgin birth of a saviour when the high God impregnated a virgin human female. This saviour became the "son" of God, and usually the Solar God/Sun God. We see this in Mithra, Krishna, Apollo, Helios, Lugh (Celtic), Lieu (Gaulish), Baldur (Teutonic,) and Jesus (of Christian Indo-European Paganism.)

These religions thus have a Father god (Brahma, Ahura Mazda, Zeus, Jupiter, Aed Alain or Dagda, JHWY, and others.) They each have a Son of God. They each have a messenger spirit called Spenta Maingu or Holy Spirit. They all have a Goddess (Brigit, Mary, Sila na nGig, Danu, Freya, and others.)

The healing springs in Ireland were the work of Brigit who was later replaced by the Christian Virgin Mary with all of Brigit’s functions. Christianity is just the latest Indo-European Paganism founded in the third century CE when Jesus cults drastically syncreted the Paganism of the Roman Empire and Persian Empire.

Many things change yet remain much the same.

Amergin
 
From the scientific side of my brain, I know you are quite correct, Amergin. However, from the mystic side of my brain I believe that the (truly ancient) notion of theology is more than just studying Religion. This is the first time I have really thought about my definitions of "religion" versus "Religion" (inner versus outer). Maybe I should consider "spirituality" instead of religion, and leave "religion" to the intellect.


Thanks!
 
Perhaps I am handicapped by an education heavily weighted to the sciences and advanced math. My medical education proceeded to post-doctoral 4 years in Neuroscience.

However, acknowledging my limited exposure to Philosophy, I really do not understand what people call "spirituality." I am not criticising spirituality. I do not know what it means. In my circle of colleagues (research scientists, fellow neuroscientists, and physicians) I never hear the term "spirituality" even discussed. I get the impression that spirituality is a uniquely American concept or East Asian.

What is your definition of spirituality?

Amergin
 
Amergin said:
In my circle of colleagues (research scientists, fellow neuroscientists, and physicians) I never hear the term "spirituality" even discussed. I get the impression that spirituality is a uniquely American concept or East Asian.
Click to expand...
Really? You must move in a very closed circle.

Check out Iain McGilchrist (world renown neuroscientist) ... how about Albert Einstein or Max Plank? Denys Turner or John Polkinghorne?

Check out the speakers at the Gifford Lectures.

Surveys in 1916 and 1997 show a constant around 40% believers, the same unbelievers, and the rest unsure ... so a average holding around 60-40 (non-b and believers).

You seem to represent a percentage of dogmatic scientism? I suggest you get out more :D

God bless,

Thomas
 
Amergen, like Thomas I must say I am a little confused. The word "spirit" or its equivalent commotate "breath" in many languages and, hence, in many religious traditions from shamanism to things like theosophy.

As usually used (see, for instance JH Brooke, a British historian) it refers to the content of religious experience (see Whitehead's rap on "the primordial nature of God” in Process and Reality, Pt 5, Ch. 2, secs 1-7). Whitehead and other process theologians have also addressed "spirituality" as the human aspect (experience) of the metaphysical science of theology (as it comes from the ancient Greeks, exploring the ultimate and probably unprovable nature of G!D).

All of that being said, we yanks have raised it to new heights I will be the first to admit. With the secularization of politics, society, morals et al, we have created a new kind of ideology (based on European thinkers like Blavatsky, Steiner, Gurdjieff, Guenon, Schuon) that divorces (jmho) G!D from religion.
 
If you talk about scientists of the past, of course most will either be theists or hide their non-theism. Those mentioned by Thomas, except for Einstein, were at least nominal theists. Galileo was threatened by the Inquisition for noting planets had moons. I suspect his belief was out of fear of the Inquisition. Giordano Bruno was burned alive because he said stars were other suns and refused to acknowledge Christian Mythological Creation. Hypatia was beaten, dragged through the streets, drawn and quartered by Christian Monks on orders from St. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. Her crime was teaching the ancient Greek sciences such as the globular Earth, Heliocentrism, and an early theory of biological evolution.

Christianity has never felt kindly to scientists. They like paedophiles but not scientists.

A survey carried out of members of the American Association for Science recently put the figure at 93% - ie, only 7% were believers. The percentage of UK scientists who are non-theists is higher but close to America.

I find that interesting that 93% of Non-Theists versus 7% theists is nearly opposite the numbers in non-scientist Americans. Common Americans are 90% theists (89% probably Christians) while Atheists number somewhere between 5% to 15% among non-scientists. Of course we must remember that Atheists are the most hated minority in Extremely Christian America. They are more hated than gays, Muslims, and Blacks.

Therefore, many people are quite afraid of admitting atheism to any pollster or questioner. It could cost an American his/her job being fired for some other made up excuse. Most scientists are not under so much public pressure. Among Medical Doctors, about 95% of Neurologists and Neuroscientists are atheistic. Yet, at least 80% of Family Doctors who receive patients without referral. Atheist outing destroyed several practiced in America. Having taught briefly in a US medical school, I found almost no Theists in 2nd and 3rd year Med Students. They learn from experienced family physicians and the general public hatred level makes those going into self-referral practices, hide or even lie about believing. Academic and research specialists are protected by their institutions and not forced to pretend to believe in gods.

Amergin
 
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