Do you believe in God and why

[mauGR1]

12 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

I'm not sure they'd be so dumb as to deny subjective reality.  It's not at all subtle, though.  I'd say kinda in yer face.

Perhaps i was being too subtle ????

Well, the new scientism cult denies the existence of the soul, that's in my view a subtle attack on subjective reality. 

.. as for the subtlety of it all, roughly 70% of mankind don't ask questions, but follow blindly. 

[save the frogs]

22 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

God gave us free will, so blame humans for the suffering in the world, not God.

you are right

[save the frogs]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, the new scientism cult denies the existence of the soul

how can you prove the soul exists?

how do you define it? 

 

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Perhaps i was being too subtle ????

Well, the new scientism cult denies the existence of the soul, that's in my view a subtle attack on subjective reality. 

.. as for the subtlety of it all, roughly 70% of mankind don't ask questions, but follow blindly. 

Well, to be honest, there ain't a one of us that's not guilty of blinding following both on many issues and at one time or another.  I freely admit guilt.  So given that I can't be too harsh on them else I come off as holier than thou.  "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

[save the frogs]

23 hours ago, Hummin said:

Nothing can exist without its opposite just another absolute 

sorry, not quite grasping ... maybe i'm tired too. but ... 

[Tippaporn]

1 minute ago, save the frogs said:

how can you prove the soul exists?

how do you define it? 

 

I don't mean to barge in, mauGR1  but this one's pretty easy.

The definition of soul varies from  individual to individual.  Christianity holds that we have a soul, as though it were some thing.  To me the definition of soul is that we are a soul.  We are a soul garbed in flesh, blood and bones.  Therefore the proof is staring at you right in the mirror.

[Tippaporn]

On the other hand, if you think a soul is something apart from you then you'll be searching a long, long time for proof.

[save the frogs]

20 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

The correct answers to those questions are critcal for anyone wishing to understand how it all works.

you have the right attitude.

i'm not trying to discourage you.

just saying it's hard.

[save the frogs]

3 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

To me the definition of soul is that we are a soul. 

you would need to expand on that definition.

soul implies that the death of the body is not the absolute death of the person? 

the soul lives on after death? 

[Hummin]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Perhaps i was being too subtle ????

Well, the new scientism cult denies the existence of the soul, that's in my view a subtle attack on subjective reality. 

.. as for the subtlety of it all, roughly 70% of mankind don't ask questions, but follow blindly. 

There will always be a 70% no matter what it is who follow blindly in the right setting without thinking for themselves, but leave that to those find leadership with and comfort. 

 

 

[mauGR1]

11 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

That's true, and i never thought that "throwing stones " could solve anything, but here we're just talking, right ?

However, a passive acceptance of injustice is not solving any issue.

I find " Popper's paradox" quite interesting in this regard, pls have a look if you don't know it already. 

[mauGR1]

14 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

I don't mean to barge in, mauGR1  but this one's pretty easy.

The definition of soul varies from  individual to individual.  Christianity holds that we have a soul, as though it were some thing.  To me the definition of soul is that we are a soul.  We are a soul garbed in flesh, blood and bones.  Therefore the proof is staring at you right in the mirror.

Humm, are you confusing me and savethefrogs ?

Just to make things clear, i agree on most of your definitions of "soul".

[Hummin]

13 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

sorry, not quite grasping ... maybe i'm tired too. but ... 

Newton 3. Law For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object.

 

Not only in physics but also in many cases a truth in psychology as well.  

[mauGR1]

12 minutes ago, Hummin said:

There will always be a 70% no matter what it is who follow blindly in the right setting without thinking for themselves, but leave that to those find leadership with and comfort. 

 

 

I have to say that i agree with you most of the time, nonetheless, for some reason, i feel compelled to talk about ????

[mauGR1]

3 minutes ago, Hummin said:

Newton 3. Law For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object.

 

Not only in physics but also in many cases a truth in psychology as well.  

Yes, the law of cause and effect works on all planes of reality, that's imho one of the basic laws of the nature and the supernatural. 

Of course to reach a perfect understanding of those laws is a tough job.. 

I find always useful to compare natural science to what spiritual masters have to say on the subject. 

[Tippaporn]

39 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

you have the right attitude.

i'm not trying to discourage you.

just saying it's hard.

The only thing that's hard about it are the current misconceptions which folks have, over time, come to adopt as true.  Learning is easy.  Unlearning can be very difficult.

[mauGR1]

41 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

how can you prove the soul exists?

how do you define it? 

 

I've been trying for years to explain with my words, and it's been totally unsuccessful. 

I think that @Tippaporns definitions are quite similar to mine.

However, it's most important to remove some prejudice and try to understand with an open mind. 

Personally i find Rudolf Steiner's dissertation on his book "Theosophy" very clear, but other people may find other books more inspiring. 

[Hummin]

20 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

That went over my head.  Care to rephrase?

Blaiming each other beliefs be it science or religion or any faith in one way or another exposes the mirror effect. In one way you are talking about yourself, your own doubts looking back from your own experiences.

[Sunmaster]

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

you would need to expand on that definition.

soul implies that the death of the body is not the absolute death of the person? 

the soul lives on after death? 

The way I understand it, is that the "soul" (I prefer to call it "self" due to the heavy religious associations with the word soul), is our true identity. Our present incarnation/individual personality is just one part of that soul. The soul is also the connecting link between us as an apparent individual and the divine consciousness (some call it God). The soul is not bound by space or time as we are and consciousness on the soul level is not so heavily restricted the way it is squeezed in the material form.
For example, we are bound by forces that seem very deeply ingrained our day to day life: time, space, the apparent disconnection between our ego-identity and the true self. But the connection is always there, always present. 
There seems to be a sort of membrane in place, or a veil of ignorance between the Ego-self and the self. This membrane functions as a safety valve and only lets a tiny bit of data come through from the self. The individual would not be ready or strong enough to receive the full force (knowledge, consciousness) of the self, and the self only provides the individual with the right amount of data as the individual can handle. There is a lot more to say about this here, especially free will, but let's try to keep it short.

Now, these are not static, unchangeable circumstances. We can train ourselves to lessen the grip of the ego and open ourselves more towards the inside. We can make ourselves stronger and thus manipulate the membrane, with the result that more consciousness/knowledge/intuition can be accessed by the individual. At the most basic: the weaker the identification with the ego, the stronger the connection with the soul/self.

To answer your question then....the soul/self, not being restricted by time and space, has no concepts of birth and death, beginning and end, cause and effect. They only make sense in our material 3D world. We, the apparently disconnected ego-individuals walking around in a perishable flesh coat, eventually will shed this coat and realize that our lives were just a blink in the ocean of eternity that is the soul/self's existence. 
Just like a smaller electromagnetic field can exist in and be part of a bigger field, the individual's memories will not be lost, but are stored as an integral part in the bigger field that is the self, which itself is a small field in the ultimate field called God.

This is some pretty heavy stuff for 9am. ????

Edited March 2, 2023 by Sunmaster

[Sunmaster]

29 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Yes, the law of cause and effect works on all planes of reality, that's imho one of the basic laws of the nature and the supernatural. 

I would disagree. The idea of cause and effect needs a linear timeline to work....a beginning (cause), a period of change and a resulting effect. This can only make sense on a plane that is restricted by time, such as ours.
If you take out time from the equation, then "cause and effect" become just floating moments in an eternal NOW.
For this reason, cause and effect seem to me the exception rather than the rule, when it comes to planes of reality.
 

[mauGR1]

19 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

I would disagree. The idea of cause and effect needs a linear timeline to work....a beginning (cause), a period of change and a resulting effect. This can only make sense on a plane that is restricted by time, such as ours.
If you take out time from the equation, then "cause and effect" become just floating moments in an eternal NOW.
For this reason, cause and effect seem to me the exception rather than the rule, when it comes to planes of reality.
 

In a way i pretty much agree.

I guess it's about from which point of view you are looking at it.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm living in the linear time, in the spiraling time and in the eternal present altogether. 

Not sure if that make sense to you though ????

[Hummin]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

In a way i pretty much agree.

I guess it's about from which point of view you are looking at it.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm living in the linear time, in the spiraling time and in the eternal present altogether. 

Not sure if that make sense to you though ????

No matter what we all believe, somehow, we are in this moment  right here right now, and i this miraculous web, is maybe the solution to every question of being somewhere else, but still right here in this little nod.

 

Fungus in space? 

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, Hummin said:

Fungus in space? 

I would say definitely yes.

Although it's not easy to describe the invisible ????

[Tippaporn]

40 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

you would need to expand on that definition.

soul implies that the death of the body is not the absolute death of the person? 

the soul lives on after death? 

The soul is quite simply who we are.  To expand on that would automatically lead to an explanation of who we are.  To put it simply we are a gestalt consciousness.  Here's the dictionary definition of gestalt:
 

A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

 

Consider our bodies.  That our bodies are alive is unquestionable.  That our bodies have component parts is also unquestionable.  A cell, for instance, is a consciousness which has it's own identity and it's own individuality.  As does every other component.  Our bodies are literally a collection of individual consciousnesses come together in a joint, cooperative, organisational venture to create the form which we identify with.  Our consciousness is at the helm.

Speaking in our terms we ourselves are a component, a part, of an even more expansive gestalt.  That more expansive gestalt goes by many names, which no doubt are the cause for much confusion.  The names are unimportant but some may refer to this more expansive gestalt as one's greater self, or higher self, or inner self.  Or soul.  Or spirit.

Even as a cell has it's own identity, it's own inviolate individuality, it's own awareness of itself as itself, it's own eternal reality though it dies in our terms, and is itself a consciousness with the freedom to choose and direct it's experience . . . all despite being a component of a greater body consciousness . . . so it is for us.  All of the preceding applies to our human consciousness.  Which explains the intuitive feelings that man so often expresses when he speaks of the feeling that there is more to him that what he sees reflected in the mirror.  Or his belief in a God.  And more specifically in the sense that "we are all part of a whole."

Our source is outside of physical reality.  That more expansive self does not reside here.  Our world is not it's native environment.  And yet it is our source and the source of the entire physical world as well.

So you might ask what this world is about and why we find ourselves here.  What are we doing here?  And why aren't we aware of that more expansive self which is our source?  To answer that, at least partially, I'll quote myself from an earlier post:

Basically, consciousness seeks to know itself in as many ways as possible through it's experiential expression of itself in as many ways as possible.  What would it be like to be a doctor?  A lawyer?  A politician?  An athlete?  A musician?  A bricklayer?  A garbageman?  A mundane floor sweeper?  A famous scientist?  Each occupation in these examples provides for a different type of experience and through that experience consciousness knows itself in ways that were previously unknown to it.  A floor sweeper is no more higher or lower than a renowned and accomplished scientist in those terms.

What would it be like to be a bat, a cat, a rat, a gnat?  An amoeba, a fly, a plant, a fish?  A rock, a hat, a mountain, a table, a planet, an atom, a cell?  Each form which  consciousness takes provides for a new and different experience and thus a greater knowing of itself.  No different than any desire we may have to experience flying, or playing a guitar, or performing card tricks, or visiting another country.  There's no hierarchy within any of that.  No up or down, higher or lower, better or worse, more advanced or less advanced.

One of the aspects of consciousness is creativity.  We inherently possess infinite creativity.  And we seek infinite ways to express ourselves.  We can express ourselves using the medium of physical reality; and we certainly and obviously do.  Yet just as a great artist can express himself in the medium of a canvas and paints he has available to him other mediums for self expression.  Clay or sculpture, for instance.  And so, too, physical reality is but one medium in which consciousness chooses to express itself.  There are an infinite number of other mediums which exist, each one created by us, just as the painting on canvas is the artist's creation.

Yet it goes beyond mere self expression.  It is also a means to know ourselves in experiential terms.  One might imagine what it's like to be a doctor if he is not, or a famous entertainer if he is not.  Or what it might be to be a bird or a tree or a rock.  But the imagination alone can't provide the experience of being that.  And so consciousness literally immerses itself into the experience.  And then knows itself in a way that it otherwise would not be able to know itself.  And thus it also adds to itself.

For our experience here to be real to us we purposely then, as a practical necessity, closed ourselves off to much awareness of our greater selves.  Given that experience is infinite we've embarked on that particular course of experience for our own  specific reasons.  There comes a time, though, when, just as some may waken in a dream to the realisation that they are dreaming, we must awaken to an understanding of our greater being and come to the realisation of our own self created world for what it is.

Now the above should provide you with the answer to your two questions.  But just in case then I'll state unequivocally that we do survive the death of our corporeal form.  Consciousness is independent of form.  And consciousness is eternal.

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, Hummin said:

Blaiming each other beliefs be it science or religion or any faith in one way or another exposes the mirror effect. In one way you are talking about yourself, your own doubts looking back from your own experiences.

Thanks for clarifying, Hummin, and I quite understand now what you are saying.   You didn't quote me and thus I'm assuming that you were referring to my post here:  Correct me if my assumption is in error.

 

The point of that post was to simply point out that there are many who willy nilly accept anything that science declares with doing a thorough examination themselves.  Or, for that matter, what anyone declares so long as they wear the cloak of "authority."  People tend to slap the label of "trusted source" on sources they have come to trust and then trust without question thereafter.  Never realising that a once trusted source can morph into an untrusted source, as illustrated by the accompanying tweet to my post.  Or, never reconciling the fact that a trusted source can at the same time be an untrusted source.

 

Many here are very much aware of those science minded folk who are quite sensitive whenever the failings of science, or the darker side of science, is brought to their attention.  One gets the feeling that they are dismissive of those types of facts precisely because it would destroy their chosen belief that science is only altruistic.  When that dismissiveness occurs then they become biased and lose their ability to be objective.

So my post below is an explanation of what can happen. and often does happen, when people accept beliefs indiscriminately.  It is not intended as a vehicle to assign blame or judgement to folks for believing what they believe.  I know you believe in science.  I do so myself and have stated that admission quite often.  Yet I do not accept their every pronunciation as bed rock truth and so I look at science with an objective eye.  I applaud their successes and accomplishments while at the same time pointing out their many shortcomings.

So I don't agree with your interpretation in this instance.  I do, however, wholeheartedly agree with you on the concept of a mirror effect.

 

Here's what happens when you don't understand what beliefs are . . . you're apt to believe anything that has even a scintilla of rational behind it.  Especially if the beliefs come from "experts" or "science" all citing "studies."  There's no questioning "experts" or "science."  You wouldn't question God, would you?  Now that would be silly.

For the science minded here, or those who blindly accept every word or study science produces as valid, I'll tell ya, given all of the known instances of whoring themselves out for money, compromising their integrity over ideologies, undermining their trust over conflicts of interest and even going so far as to be outright deceptive at times the institution is absolutely destroying their credibility.  I remember in the 60's when a product bore the label "Made in Japan."  it may as well have read "Junk."  Because at that time the two were synonymous.  These days whenever I hear the words science or experts I roll my eyes.  Science as an institution has totally lost it these days.

Anyway, I laughed my ar$e off watching this.  So true, so sad. 
 

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Tippaporn

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

I've been trying for years to explain with my words, and it's been totally unsuccessful. 

I think that @Tippaporns definitions are quite similar to mine.

However, it's most important to remove some prejudice and try to understand with an open mind. 

Personally i find Rudolf Steiner's dissertation on his book "Theosophy" very clear, but other people may find other books more inspiring. 

You are spot on, mauGR1, on the point of being unprejudiced.  Beliefs can be the very definition of prejudicial.

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

<snip>

This is some pretty heavy stuff for 9am. ????

Was that all written before the first cup of java? 

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

I would disagree. The idea of cause and effect needs a linear timeline to work....a beginning (cause), a period of change and a resulting effect. This can only make sense on a plane that is restricted by time, such as ours.
If you take out time from the equation, then "cause and effect" become just floating moments in an eternal NOW.
For this reason, cause and effect seem to me the exception rather than the rule, when it comes to planes of reality.

The idea that the offender is hanged before the crime was committed can be confusing, to say the least. 

[Hummin]

4 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Perhaps i was being too subtle ????

Well, the new scientism cult denies the existence of the soul, that's in my view a subtle attack on subjective reality. 

.. as for the subtlety of it all, roughly 70% of mankind don't ask questions, but follow blindly. 

I think we have been through how scientists work with a theory, theory proven or not even some indicates it can be something right about it, they continue working with the problems they have. If one have a positive result, then other also continue work with the problem (theory) and often as much prove them right, they also ending up providing them wrong. There is no science that is not up for change as new evidences is proven! No scientists I know of claim anything else, and faith in something, should had same approach, willing to change as new evidences might appear. 

 

How can a scientists if not personal belief, accept a soul if no evidence? 

 

A scientist can say as a believer there is a soul, but as a scientist, he can not! 

[thaibeachlovers]

22 hours ago, Purdey said:

Of course, without evidence of God, we cannot believe in him/her/it.

The evidence is all about you if you choose to look for it. However, that's something you have to do for yourself as it's a bit too complicated for me to give you a guide book on it. However, you could look at a few nice sunsets and wonder at the glory that created them, or look at a starry starry sky and think of all the countless trillions of stars out there and how they came to be.

 

BTW, if we have to have evidence ( that would satisfy you ) of God to believe, IMO we don't have faith.