Status of religion and spirituality forum

Hi tent,

It is oh so nice to see you in here. I hope that you have been well.

Yes it can if we choose to see and to listen. Take the rainbow for instance. Science has an explanation for it; ergo we un-learn that it is not about ~ like some magical thing (though it seems to be in a sense) that happens, some superstitious thing which influences our fate.

I was thinking in the other direction. ~ to say/to discover what IS along the way allows us to get go of antiquated thinking and to continue the journey of discovering what is actual and at the same time shooting down the rubber ducks in the water.

Exactly and what then becomes unreal goes the way of the dinosaur and we may even come to realize that if I was wrong before, I can be wrong again. Little by little, we shed the skins of our superstitious and puny beliefs.

People will call this First Cause, if it EVEN is that, whatever they choose to but would it not be a good thing to break with tradition, to break with the beliefs and patterns that our families handed down to us? I suppose that if someone feels the need to use those terms then they will but does that not take away from the sheer mystery and reality of what this idea we call God actually is? Perhaps it is just a kind of laziness not to struggle to find other words which better define what can be quite undefinable. lol

What was it that Paul supposedly said: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I can understand using the term God but father in heaven? Where is heaven, tent? Up there? Where is this God which many people call father while at the same time many others know that it is senseless in light of what goes on in this world, the injustice and unbalance, to use that terminology? It does not fit!

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Great word and that is my point. People become the potters and form and shape their God into some kind of finished product.

Why?

Carpe Diem, tent. Enjoy your life.

This supposes that it is not magical if we know what is happening on some chemical, physical level. The old supernatural/natural binary thinking, which is not, certainly, what many pantheists/animists have asserted. That there are rules being broken or superceded all the time. That’s more an Abrahamic dichotomy.

The God experience is a realization of being at one with all that exists. That the experience is possible from taking certain drugs does not negate the possibility that the Kingdom is within and is available to anyone.

Hi Ierrellus,

Would you agree or disagree that the experience can also come about from the natural chemical cocktails within our brains? We see, think, feel certain things and ~ voila ~ whatever experience our brains and minds are capable of unconsciously conjuring up we will have. I do not see that as a bad thing. It can even be a positive healthy thing unless it does us or others harm.

What do YOU mean by the Kingdom?

The pantheists/animists appear to acknowledge the power of explanation through scientific methodology but apply the caveat of supernatural becomings when convenient. It is just another work-around to say I don’t know. The Catholic church has perfected this ploy over a century or two. No matter how the doll is dressed, the game is, and always will be, the same.

I think what you are describing is something called enlightment. But like all words, it leaves meaning up to the individual as well as the labels we attach to be consistent (comfortable) with our “truths”.

Hi Tent and Arc,
“A rose by any name would smell as sweet.” God experience, enlightenment, the “kingdom within” all point to the same thing. See Aldous Huxley’s two small books–“Heaven and Hell” and “The Doors of Perception”. Written in the 1950s, these books explore the brain/mind’s chemical responses to certain drugs. The experience of these responses can certainly be seen as religious or enlightening. Schweitzer also wrote of the kingdom within or heaven available to all. How much more within can one get beyond responses to brain chemistry? To see God as here and now one must see God as reaching humans through their physical realities, not though some abstract, metaphysical speculations.

Welcome back, Felix.

It’s impossible to know if that is God or not. It could be God or it could be a chemical or mechanical process. It neither provides support/evidence for the existence of God nor does it provide support/evidence against the existence of God.

Hi Phyllo,
I’d suggest that it may provide support/evidence for both God’s existence and our existence in and of matter. Again, we are back at words trying to describe what is wordless. The experience is the proof of it’s reality. No explanatory words can actually confirm or deny a wordless, heartfelt experience. My problem with much that is said in religious debates is that they do not ground their arguments in the natural human experience of evolution, that, in preference for specious metaphysical explanation, such arguments eschew physical reality.

I agree with you in your assessment
My thing is that we have evolved. You think about gothic cathedrals in Europe for example, with their trilliums stained glass windows-- there wasn’t just an aesthetic reason, but a practical reason in that barely anyone knew how to read.
Religion was in ancient times a way of life, how you lived life. It wasn’t a conclusion after a meditation. It was an oral tradition tied to the very identity of your group, tribe, family, language…what else. We don’t have that anymore.
Christianity was for centuries just a name placed on a myriad of beliefs. Pagan beliefs were rolled, when possible (who was that? Gregory?) into the umbrella of the name “Christianity”.
These are scenarios, lives, I can no longer envision. The world is too small now.

I missed informed discussions. Whether for or against, my problem has been that it seems that belief has become unhinged. Yeah, sure, religion was a way of life based on an oral tradition, but every religion eventually achieved a moment of self reflection when it wrote for itself precepts. I admire Nietzschean religion-- you know the BELIEF on the Overman, The Will to Power, The Eternal Return. Sure, if he had examined himself he might have seen the Lutheran root for a lot of these beliefs.
I don’t know. I hope to find more discussions that interest me.

I was referring to here in relation to history experienced on the human scale. I appreciate quantum mechanics theoretically as well as it’s products, but I don’t expereince it directly. Anyway, that’s off my point which was that history is like the experience of the sacred is unrepeatable.

The Wiki entry on sacred includes this:

To me, use of the term sacred in this way recognizes the subjective aspect in the experience of event or object that sets it apart from the profane.

A cogent argument that has a clear connection to liberal theology.

Religion is a human experience. If we expect religion to be any more rational than people are, we’re gong to be disappointed. Then again, I meant rationality there as narrowly defined as something that can be argued coherently for. Depth psychology and now neuro-science supports Blaise Pascal’s aphorism that “'The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of… We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”

The human brain’s attempts to achieve homeostasis among diverse body parts may be an inbuilt metaphor for some religious endeavors–the thought of achieving a plenitude of one thing comprised of an ultimate variety of things–the Oneness of all in the physical realm.
In the experience of evolution we are engaged in creative outcomes for human destiny.

All mental content begins as biochemical activity.

I’m not sure about those propositions per se. I imagine you have developed those ideas elsewhere on the board. But, it’s true that cognitive science is developing a case for how our embodied point of view forms the basis for how we conceptualize things including metaphors about ultimate reality.

Thanks. I think cognitive science is on the right track.

is it really the same?
How come the chemicals become a person?

They don’t always become a person; they could become a duck or a frog. Being human is a product of specific genetic and memetic evolution.