Do you believe in God and why

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

5 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Intuition and the creative processes are a result of the brain processing, thinking about and pondering over, either directly or indirectly, what has been received through the 5 senses. I'm not aware of any person who was born blind and deaf, and who is also insensitive to smell, taste and touch, who is able to even survive, never mind expressing any creativity and intuition. Are you?

I beg to differ.
According to my experiences and understanding, and according to the Vedic tradition (which came way before any organized religious tradition), the information flow is not bound only to the 5 senses. On the contrary, yogic teachings state that it is by shutting down the 5 senses that one can access higher states of consciousness, and thus open a new (and I would say, far greater) source of information.
Like @Tippaporn mentioned, any scientific theory that attempts to decipher the big picture, can't just ignore and dismiss this part of human knowledge simply because it doesn't conform to its narrow framework. If the information gathered from sources other than the 5 physical senses doesn't fit, then a wider framework has to be used. 

Vincent's belief is one which is natural given the assumption of a "one world" viewpoint.  Since there is nothing other than physical reality then it's completely logical that information can only come from physical sources and can only be interpreted with the physical senses.  I can't blame him for the view he has settled on.  Logic can be destroyed by the introduction of new "facts."  Given the emergence of any new puzzle pieces logical notions can quickly be reduced in status to illogical notions.

 

The existence of an infinite number of realities would imply an infinite number of senses.  Each reality would require it's own set of senses in order to be perceived.  So I would say we have, inherently, an infinite number of senses.  Not all of them would apply in our reality, obviously.

 

Just saying.

[Tippaporn]

4 hours ago, luckyluke said:

 

I know enough to have a serene, happy life.

 

Is that wrong? 

 

I started to understand things when I was 12, I know more now than 60 years ago. 

 

Pretty sure it will continue this way, and people will know and understand more than they do now. 

 

Something different :

 

I admire well-spoken and well-written people.

 

But I am not impressed by them.

 

Neither will they more convinced me than someone who express his opinion in simple words.

 

I am not state here that all well-spoken/written people want to impress/show off. 

You don't need to know much of anything to experience a happy life.  That much is true.

 

Being well-spoken or well-written for me serves the purpose of fulfilling my desire to be able to express difficult ideas or concepts so that they might be understood more fully by others . . . including myself.   

 

Perhaps I'm wrong but this seems to be the approach you use.  Good on you if I'm correct.

 

Buddha:

 

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

5 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

In 500 years ( if humans are still around ), scientists will regard today's science in the same way we regard science of 1000 years ago.

We know nothing, Jon Snow ( but some think we do ).

What nonsense! It's impossible to know nothing because there's nothing there to know. We can only know something. ????

 

If one wishes to interpret 'know nothing' as 'not know anything', then that's also nonsensical.

 

All living creatures need to know something in order to survive and reproduce. A fish needs to know how to swim and recognize food, and ants need to know how to build their 'Ant Hills' or nests.

 

The etymology of 'know' means to 'recognize and identify'. However, if you interpret 'know' as meaning 'a complete understanding of something in all its details, complexities, history, and connections, then I agree that we don't have a truly complete knowledge of any single 'thing'.

 

If that's what you meant, you should have stated so.

Sunmaster used this earlier . . . I like it . . . a lot.

 

 

Come on, Vincent.  You're just being a petty stickler now.  Let's dispense with the noise.

 

[Tippaporn]

5 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Intuition and the creative processes are a result of the brain processing, . . . <snip>

Am I allowed to laugh at some of the funny things posters say?

[luckyluke]

2 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Perhaps I'm wrong but this seems to be the approach you use.  Good on you if I'm correct.

Not really, I am rather pragmatic, combined with a simple approach of things. 

Nature is beautiful, the earthly pleasures great.

I enjoy things for what they are, not really a need to know why and how they exist.

Problems occur of course, but they disappear soon or later. 

Through these approach I feel relaxed and happy.

[luckyluke]

22 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Am I allowed to laugh at some of the funny things posters say?

I find some amusing too, however  admire the creativity of some explanations of why and how things occur.

[Tippaporn]

8 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

Not really, I am rather pragmatic, combined with a simple approach of things. 

Nature is beautiful, the earthly pleasures great.

I enjoy things for what they are, not really a need to know why and how they exist.

Problems occur of course, but they disappear soon or later. 

Through these approach I feel relaxed and happy.

Just curious, and with all seriousness and respect, why do you post here?  It seems that you have things all sorted out very well for yourself, which is admirable.  So what purpose do you find in reading all of us discussing issues which you state you do not need to know to achieve happiness?  Obviously there is something which interests you here.

 

Again, with all due respect, I'm just curious.

 

Edit:  Perhaps you answered my question with your recent post above.  Entertainment?

 

[Sunmaster]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

Are you saying that there exists information that is completely unrelated to anything that can be perceived or detected by any of the 5 senses? Are you claiming that there is a 'state of awareness' that does not involve even a memory of something that can either be seen, or heard, or smelt, or tasted, or felt?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

 

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

Feelings, which are one of the 5 senses, do not have to relate to external objects at the moment the feeling occurs. They can be initiated within the body due to a particular activity in the biological processes. Just as one can experience a headache or a stomach ache, one can also experience joy when thinking about a 'loved one', even if the 'loved one' is not there at the present moment to see and touch.

I've already told you that yogic practice has a very clear goal: shut down the external senses to activate the internal sense. If feeling is a product of the 5 external senses, logically it will disappear along with them. 
Do you really think that the great masters who dedicated their lives in practicing union with God, could not differentiate between a simple feeling and the eternal, unconditional love of God? 

And you don't even need to be a yogic master to know the difference. Okay? ???? 

[luckyluke]

2 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Just curious, and with all seriousness and respect, why do you post here? 

Curious to know what's people opinion is about the matter.

 

Some kind of being disturbed by the fact that constantly there are some pretending that their opinion is the only right one, has more value than that of anyone else, and that their way to reach serenity and happiness is oh so superior. 

 

With my regular posts, I want to let know that paths may be different, but that there are no highways or secondary ways to reach the objective.

[Sunmaster]

A: All opinions are equal!
B: Ok, my opinion though is that there are some opinions that have more value than others.
A: No! I told you ALL opinions are equal! 
B: Yes, but you just said that my opinion is....
A: No but. I have spoken.

 

The irony... ???? 

[mauGR1]

3 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

With my regular posts, I want to let know that paths may be different, but that there are no highways or secondary ways to reach the objective.

Nothing wrong with that for sure, i am partly nihilist too.

What do you think of the nihilist philosophy ?

[luckyluke]

7 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Nothing wrong with that for sure, i am partly nihilist too.

What do you think of the nihilist philosophy ?

I can not answer as I don't know what the nihilist philosophy is.

 

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, luckyluke said:

I can not answer as I don't know what the nihilist philosophy is.

 

No worries, i didn't know much myself, but i had a look on wiki, and i realised that the little i knew was completely wrong.

I can be at the same time an ontological nihilist but i am completely against moral nihilists.

So, forget nihilism, it's a load of nonsense, in my opinion of course.

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

What nonsense! It's impossible to know nothing because there's nothing there to know. We can only know something. ????

 

If one wishes to interpret 'know nothing' as 'not know anything', then that's also nonsensical.

 

All living creatures need to know something in order to survive and reproduce. A fish needs to know how to swim and recognize food, and ants need to know how to build their 'Ant Hills' or nests.

 

The etymology of 'know' means to 'recognize and identify'. However, if you interpret 'know' as meaning 'a complete understanding of something in all its details, complexities, history, and connections, then I agree that we don't have a truly complete knowledge of any single 'thing'.

 

If that's what you meant, you should have stated so.

Jai yen, jai yen.

You do know what subforum you are posting on, don't you?

Do you know who Jon Snow is and the context in which I use it?

[luckyluke]

Just now, mauGR1 said:

No worries, i didn't know much myself, but i had a look on wiki, and i realised that the little i knew was completely wrong.

I can be at the same time an ontological nihilist but i am completely against moral nihilists.

So, forget nihilism, it's a load of nonsense, in my opinion of course.

Fine,

I know now that it is not important that I know nothing about nihilist philosophy,

that you were wrong about it,

but that anyway it is a lot of nonsense.

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

43 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Just curious, and with all seriousness and respect, why do you post here?  It seems that you have things all sorted out very well for yourself, which is admirable.  So what purpose do you find in reading all of us discussing issues which you state you do not need to know to achieve happiness?  Obviously there is something which interests you here.

 

Again, with all due respect, I'm just curious.

 

Edit:  Perhaps you answered my question with your recent post above.  Entertainment?

 

Some of us twigged why he posts a long time ago.

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

<snip>

 

A person cannot have a dream that he is a butterfly unless he has previously seen a butterfly, or seen at least a picture of a butterfly.

 

<snip>

 

I must be an exception to your rule.  My dreams can be chock full of other-worldly creatures, never seen or encountered or even imagined in the physical.  What possible explanation would fit?

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

Fine,

I know now that it is not important that I know nothing about nihilist philosophy,

that you were wrong about it,

but that anyway it is a lot of nonsense.

 

 

Yes, i thought that you were a nihilist, but after checking i realised that all humans are partly nihilist, and one can be a nihilist in some field, and anti-nihilist in some other ways.

It's also possible to be more or less nihilists on some day or another, as it's connected with pessimism and that inexplicable sense of emptiness, when everything looks worthless.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

Are you saying that there exists information that is completely unrelated to anything that can be perceived or detected by any of the 5 senses? Are you claiming that there is a 'state of awareness' that does not involve even a memory of something that can either be seen, or heard, or smelt, or tasted, or felt?

Of course there is. Just because science at its present primitive state can't detect it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

However, it's impossible to explain it in such a way that a committed unbeliever can be convinced, so I'm not even going to try.

I had my "God" moment when I wasn't on any drugs of any sort, and I wasn't using meditation. Either I was having an hallucination ( never had one before or since ) or it was the real thing. I was in my 20s, fit and as "normal" as any "normal" person.

[luckyluke]

28 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

A: All opinions are equal!
B: Ok, my opinion though is that there are some opinions that have more value than others.
A: No! I told you ALL opinions are equal! 
B: Yes, but you just said that my opinion is....
A: No but. I have spoken.

 

The irony... ???? 

 I conceive this as :

that we have a different opinion about the matter.

As it is only an opinion nobody can claim he is unconditionally right.

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 2/21/2020 at 6:10 PM, VincentRJ said:

Many of the great scientists in the past were self-funded and therefore were free of the influence of invested interests and the need to use their research to earn a living. Charles Darwin is an excellent example. Despite being raised as a Christian, he was able to allow his objectivity to prevail and gradually became an 'agnostic' on the issue of the existence of God.

 

In his later private autobiography, Darwin wrote of the period from October 1836 to January 1839:

 

"During these two years I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle........ I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindus, or the beliefs of any barbarian."

I see nothing there to prove he was "agnostic about "God". He decided that religion was a crock, but that doesn't mean he stopped believing in God.

Believing in evolution is absolutely compatible with belief in a creator.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 2/22/2020 at 5:36 AM, mauGR1 said:

No confusion from me, and the contradiction between "true science" and the "authority of science" is not a new thing.

The fact is that the scientists, well, most of them, have always been in the pocket of those who pay the bills.

I met many scientists in Antarctica. None of them filled me with awe. Some were obviously pursuing bogus science to get a paid for trip to Antarctica.

Others were carrying out perfectly rational research as in the one that took our blood after summer finished and there were no more visitors to the base. He was testing to see how the common cold is caught and needed a group that were isolated after the incubation period was over, and we were it. He was a good guy, but not in any way deserving of adoration.

[bannork]

38 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

A: All opinions are equal!
B: Ok, my opinion though is that there are some opinions that have more value than others.
A: No! I told you ALL opinions are equal! 
B: Yes, but you just said that my opinion is....
A: No but. I have spoken.

 

The irony... ???? 

Some opinions are more equal than others.

I'm enjoying this discussion, actually I'm trying to chase Tippers to post some more music. He's been a naughty boy, playing truant for some time from the music thread.

Back to the discussion- subjectivity and objectivity and questions of why and what is behind the leaf and its properties, Were the great ascetics really beyond the senses? etc.

I'm wondering if our earthly questions are wrong, i.e. why and what's behind, for example.

The reality, if there is such a 'reality', beyond our world of time and space may possess properties beyond logic, cause, reason and time.

Properties which we cannot recognize or comprehend, either through lack of knowledge, or due to being beyond our consciousness. I can understand the word eternity but I can't grasp the meaning. I mean it's go to stop somewhere, nothing (that I know or and can comprehend in my present state) can go on for ever.

Perhaps i should have taken more drugs when i was young.

 

[mauGR1]

3 minutes ago, bannork said:

I mean it's go to stop somewhere, nothing (that I know or and can comprehend in my present state) can go on for ever.

That's the point of the whole discussion, we cannot know, but if i was gambling, i would bet on the existence of something eternal, be it just pure consciousness.

[canuckamuck]

There is much more to perception than the 5 senses. The Greek word nous which is read as mind when translated into English from the Greek, has a much broader meaning than just the five senses. The five sense are actually quite base and rudimentary and a very poor representation of what we actually perceive. 

Nous

1. the mind, comprising alike the faculties of perceiving and understanding and those of feeling, judging, determining
   1. the intellectual faculty, the understanding
   2. reason in the narrower sense, as the capacity for spiritual truth, the higher powers of the soul, the faculty of perceiving divine things, of recognizing goodness and of hating evil
   3. the power of considering and judging soberly, calmly and impartially
2. a particular mode of thinking and judging, i.e thoughts, feelings, purposes, desires

[Sunmaster]

2 hours ago, luckyluke said:

 I conceive this as :

that we have a different opinion about the matter.

As it is only an opinion nobody can claim he is unconditionally right.

 

 

A: 3 + 3 = 9
B: 3 + 3 = 6

Different opinions, yet only one is unconditionally right...unless we start to talk about parallel universes where maybe other mathematical laws reign.

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, bannork said:

<snip>

I'm enjoying this discussion, actually I'm trying to chase Tippers to post some more music. He's been a naughty boy, playing truant for some time from the music thread.

<snip>

Damn, I've been hunted down like the cosmic degenerate that I am and nicked by the music thread truancy officer.  Best flush my mushrooms and peyote down the loo.  My mum's gonna give me a good lickin' when she finds out, too.  (Hey, that rhymes! Not only am I a mystic I'm lyrical, too!)

 

 

Gotta go, boys!  Heavenly music is already start to ring in my ears with the most unearthly and sweet guitar riffs.  From whence I cannot know.  But it ain't coming from this world, that's for damn sure.  Jimi, is that you?  Vince'll explain it to ya'll.  Trust his word!  If anyone knows he does!

 

 

I've looked under chairs
I've looked under tables
I try to find the key
To fifty million fables

They call me the Seeker
I've been searching low and high
I won't find what I'm after
Till the day I die

I asked my idols
The questions to my mother
I bought tickets just anywhere
Hoping to discover

They call me the Seeker
I've been searching low and high
I won't find what I'm after
Till the day I die

People tend to hate me
Cause I never smile
As I ransack their homes
They want to shake my hand
Focused in on nowhere
Investigating miles
I'm a Seeker, I'm a really desperate man!

I asked Bobby Dylan
I asked the Beatles
I asked Timothy Leary
But he didn't help me either

They call me the Seeker
I've been looking low and high
I won't get to get what I'm after
Till the day I die

I learned how to raise my voice in anger
Now look at my face
Ain't this a smile?
I'm happy when life's good
And when it's bad, I cry
I got values
But I don't know how or why

I'm looking for me!
You're looking for you!
We're looking at each other
And we don't know what to do!

They call me the Seeker
I've been searching low and high
I won't find what I'm after
Till the day I die

I won't get to get what I'm after
Till the day I die!

 

 

[mauGR1]

God exists, even the Jefferson Airplane had something to say about that.

[luckyluke]

33 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Different opinions, yet only one is unconditionally right...unless we start to talk about parallel universes where maybe other mathematical laws reign.

A = It is my opinion, but I may be wrong.

B = It is my opinion, and in no way I am wrong.

 

I am like A.

You ?

[Tippaporn]

25 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

God exists, even the Jefferson Airplane had something to say about that.

Damn excellent selection there, mauGR1.  I just posted a copy on the music thread.  Hadn't heard that tune in a good long while.  Thanks for that!  

 

More apropos lyrics for this thread.

 

If you want to get to heaven
Over on the other shore
Stay out of the way of the blood stained bandit
Oh good shepherd feed my sheep

One for Paul, one for Silas
One for to make my heart rejoice
Can't you hear my lambs a callin
Oh good shepherd feed my sheep

If you want to get to heaven
Over on the other shore
Stay out of the way of the long tongue liar
Oh good shepherd feed my sheep

One for Paul, one for Silas
One for to make my heart rejoice
Can't you hear my lambs a callin
Oh good shepherd feed my sheep

If you want to get to heaven
Over on the other shore
Stay out of the way of the gun shot devil
Oh good shepherd feed my sheep

One for Paul, one for Silas
One for to make my heart rejoice
Can't you hear my lambs a callin
Oh good shepherd feed my sheep