Do you believe in God and why

[soalbundy]

Does it matter what anyone else believes in? many religions, many concepts belief isn't knowing. I don't believe it's Thursday, I know it but if you want to say it's Friday that's OK with me as well.

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Does it matter what anyone else believes in? many religions, many concepts belief isn't knowing. I don't believe it's Thursday, I know it but if you want to say it's Friday that's OK with me as well.

I agree with you but we have to talk about something, don't we ?

And btw, today it looks like Monday to me.

[giddyup]

3 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

I agree with you but we have to talk about something, don't we ?

And btw, today it looks like Monday to me.

I don't like Mondays.

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, giddyup said:

I don't like Mondays.

Very few people like them, i guess, well, at least we agree on something.

[giddyup]

4 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Very few people like them, i guess, well, at least we agree on something.

It's the name of a song by the Boomtown Rats in 1979.  You been living in a cave?

Edited September 19, 2019 by giddyup

[Skeptic7]

 

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, giddyup said:

It's the name of a song by the Boomtown Rats in 1979.  You been living in a cave?

Why do you assume i should even know Boomtown rats, btw i was spending most of my time in India in those years, i missed a lot of new music then.

Apparently, the song you are citing has not survived in the memory of many people, at least in my circles.

[Skeptic7]

The story behind the song... 

 

The History

On the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer took a .22 caliber rifle and opened fire on the Grover Cleveland Elementary School across from her house in San Carlos, California, killing two faculty members and wounding eight students.

 

After she’d been taken into custody, she was asked why she did it. Her infamous reply: “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

[mauGR1]

..But i am fond of this one

[giddyup]

12 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Why do you assume i should even know Boomtown rats, btw i was spending most of my time in India in those years, i missed a lot of new music then.

Apparently, the song you are citing has not survived in the memory of many people, at least in my circles.

It was a number one in the UK and quite a few other countries as well and gets regularly played on radio and there wouldn't be too many baby boomers who don't know it. 

Edited September 19, 2019 by giddyup

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, giddyup said:

It was a number one in the UK and quite a few other countries as well and gets regularly played on radio and there wouldn't be too many baby boomers who don't know it.

Good to know, i know them just because their leader was among the organisers of a mega-concert, end of the 80s i think.

[VincentRJ]

5 hours ago, GarryP said:

Wasn't Buddhism simply a philosophy for life, not a religion? 

Good point. Buddhism does have some very sound philosophical principles which are very rational and can appeal to those who respect science and logic. However, the Buddhist scriptures are also 'contaminated' with animism, belief in magical spirits, and various Gods in heavenly realms, presumably to appeal to the masses who have been culturally influenced by such nonsense during their upbringing.

 

For example, the story of Buddha's birth is a pure myth and fairy tale. He was conceived when his mother, Queen Maya, had dreamed that a magnificent white elephant entered her body on her right side. When the Buddha was born, 10 months later, he came out of his mother's side, without causing her pain or injury, yet his mother died 7 days later and entered heaven.

 

Immediately after the birth, the young baby Buddha  took seven steps in each cardinal direction, with lotus blossoms springing up after each step, and spoke the following words: "For enlightenment I was born, for the good of all that lives. This is the last time that I have been born into this world of becoming." 

 

What nonsense!

 

However, all religions do have some sensible and insightful points in their scriptures, including Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Intelligent and thoughtful people will tend to accept the sensible parts and reject the 'mumbo jumbo'.

 

The modern, popular philosopher, Alain de Botton, uses a very apt analogy in his advice on this issue. Consider religion as a large buffet with lots of various foods on offer, representing all the different stories in a religion. You can choose which dish appeals to you, selecting a bit of this, and a bit of that, and so on, and rejecting foods that you think are fattening, or junk, or unhealthy.
 

[Skeptic7]

"Humanism" satisfies without the hooey and superstition. Credit to the power of the cumulative human mind, teamwork, drive, ingenuity, empathy and accomplishment. Secular equality for all without special treatment and privileges for the irrational and unreasonable. 

 

Why all the extraneous need for some supernatural force or thing especially when no one...anywhere...has ever provided a shred of valid explanation, definition or knowledge of such...so much as demonstrated anything?

 

Personal feelings and experiences, emotions, awe, dreams, woo, faith, etc just don't cut it as any sort of evidence and have never proven to be a way to what is true...regardless how amazing or good they make one feel. They are certainly not to be relied upon as a demonstration of anything supernatural. All those are simply natural human traits. 

[sweatalot]

3 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

However, all religions do have some sensible and insightful points in their scriptures, including Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Intelligent and thoughtful people will tend to accept the sensible parts and reject the 'mumbo jumbo'.

Well said

[StreetCowboy]

15 minutes ago, sweatalot said:

Well said

I suppose it depends on whether you want to believe the teachings of the prophet or the stories of the prophet. The teachings of Jesus are quite clear, and do not rely on whether there were five or seven loaves or fishes.

[Sunmaster]

4 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Good point. Buddhism does have some very sound philosophical principles which are very rational and can appeal to those who respect science and logic. However, the Buddhist scriptures are also 'contaminated' with animism, belief in magical spirits, and various Gods in heavenly realms, presumably to appeal to the masses who have been culturally influenced by such nonsense during their upbringing.

 

For example, the story of Buddha's birth is a pure myth and fairy tale. He was conceived when his mother, Queen Maya, had dreamed that a magnificent white elephant entered her body on her right side. When the Buddha was born, 10 months later, he came out of his mother's side, without causing her pain or injury, yet his mother died 7 days later and entered heaven.

 

Immediately after the birth, the young baby Buddha  took seven steps in each cardinal direction, with lotus blossoms springing up after each step, and spoke the following words: "For enlightenment I was born, for the good of all that lives. This is the last time that I have been born into this world of becoming." 

 

What nonsense!

 

However, all religions do have some sensible and insightful points in their scriptures, including Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Intelligent and thoughtful people will tend to accept the sensible parts and reject the 'mumbo jumbo'.

 

The modern, popular philosopher, Alain de Botton, uses a very apt analogy in his advice on this issue. Consider religion as a large buffet with lots of various foods on offer, representing all the different stories in a religion. You can choose which dish appeals to you, selecting a bit of this, and a bit of that, and so on, and rejecting foods that you think are fattening, or junk, or unhealthy.
 

Yes, it is very important to discern the truly helpful bits from the more "folkloristic" additions. This is true for any religion.
But let's not forget that Buddhism is not just a philosophy, a mental construct, it is heavily focused on practice. The Buddha explicitly said not to believe what he was saying, but to find out by yourself.
Buddha and Buddhism also talk about enlightenment and the way to achieve it. This is not something supernatural, but the most natural thing in the world. It is our birthright and in my opinion, our duty to better ourselves and start on the path to enlightenment. 

No mumbo jumbo here, nothing hooey or superstitious about sitting down and clearing your mind. Buddhism offers clear, concise instructions on what to do to quieten your mind, clearing the muddy waters that your ego loves so much.
Nothing, absolutely nothing "supernatural" (as in above nature) in meditation. 

And for you, Skeptic....aren't you tired to run in circles? You've been offered ways to get proof. None has been discussed intelligently by you, let alone tried with an open mind. Nobody's asking you to change your beliefs, there's no need to. Meditation can be practiced by atheist without problems. In fact, one of my best friends is atheist and practices Transcendental Meditation (TM). Granted, I find it a bit puzzling, but he seems perfectly comfortable and he can completely integrate it in his worldview.
If you have some free time, I recommend checking out TM, as there are many scientific studies that prove its efficacy. Not all can withstand the closest scrutiny, but if only half of them are reliable sources of data, then it's really something to look out for.

Or perhaps you're scared to try?
 

 

 

[sirineou]

4 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

However, all religions do have some sensible and insightful points in their scriptures, including Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Intelligent and thoughtful people will tend to accept the sensible parts and reject the 'mumbo jumbo'.

isn't that what Atheists do?

[Sunmaster]

11 minutes ago, sirineou said:

isn't that what Atheists do?

Not the ones in this thread, me thinks.

Picking out the sensible parts requires actually studying those religions, and that seems to much work for some people. Much easier to just dismiss everything out of hand and claim some kind of intellectual superiority. 

Edited September 19, 2019 by Sunmaster

[sirineou]

1 minute ago, Sunmaster said:

Not the ones in this thread.

Picking out the sensible parts requires actually studying those religions, and that seems to much work for them. Easier to just dismiss everything out of hand and claim some kind of intellectual superiority. 

In highschool I studied the bible as literature, which IMO was an attempt by the educational system to circumvent the separation of  church and state, because from a literary perspective the bible is mediocre at best IMO.

But with in the course of my studies I did not find our anything that as a moral secular person I wouldn't  already know.  

In the event that I missed something, could you please point as to  some sensible parts in Christianity and or Islam that I would benefit from by studying them? 

  

 

[Sunmaster]

20 minutes ago, sirineou said:

In highschool I studied the bible as literature, which IMO was an attempt by the educational system to circumvent the separation of  church and state, because from a literary perspective the bible is mediocre at best IMO.

But with in the course of my studies I did not find our anything that as a moral secular person I wouldn't  already know.  

In the event that I missed something, could you please point as to  some sensible parts in Christianity and or Islam that I would benefit from by studying them? 

  

 

Sure.

 

The bible is not the only book in Christianity. Look for Christian Mysticism...Meister Eckhart, Hildergard von Bingen, Theresa Von Avila, Jakob Böhme, but especially Rudolf Steiner, Pierre Teillard de Chardin, Anthony de Mello.

 

For Islam, I recommend researching Sufism, which is a mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.

Both Christian and Islamic mysticism, are disciplines that have already sieved out the most useful and practical parts from their respective religions, so you won't have to.

 

[sirineou]

2 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Sure.

 

The bible is not the only book in Christianity. Look for Christian Mysticism...Meister Eckhart, Hildergard von Bingen, Theresa Von Avila, Jakob Böhme, but especially Rudolf Steiner, Pierre Teillard de Chardin, Anthony de Mello.

 

For Islam, I recommend researching Sufism, which is a mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.

Both Christian and Islamic mysticism, are disciplines that have already sieved out the most useful and practical parts from their respective religions, so you won't have to.

 

I appreciate the list and It will become part of my reading list as soon as I retire (with in the next few months) and have more time.Is there a point that you got out of these readings that you might like to relate? 

I am sincere,and not one of the "militant atheists" in fact I am a cultural christian and though I don't buy  in to the mystical aspect of the practice, I do enjoy some of the culture I was brought up  in. 

[Odysseus123]

24 minutes ago, sirineou said:

I appreciate the list and It will become part of my reading list as soon as I retire (with in the next few months) and have more time.Is there a point that you got out of these readings that you might like to relate? 

I am sincere,and not one of the "militant atheists" in fact I am a cultural christian and though I don't buy  in to the mystical aspect of the practice, I do enjoy some of the culture I was brought up  in. 

I think that we are all "cultural Christians"-if we come from the West,that is.It would be most difficult not to be, given that it is bricks and mortar kind of stuff.

 

One could argue that the shift away from state sponsored religions-Roman Catholicism,Orthodox etc that occurred in Protestantism from the 16th Century onwards to a more individual relationship with God helped fuel the rise of Capitalism and Science giving us a more "entrepeneurial" view of the universe.

 

Even good old "Sceptic" sounds like a "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" type of theologian on occassion...????

Edited September 19, 2019 by Odysseus123

[Sunmaster]

23 minutes ago, sirineou said:

I appreciate the list and It will become part of my reading list as soon as I retire (with in the next few months) and have more time.Is there a point that you got out of these readings that you might like to relate? 

I am sincere,and not one of the "militant atheists" in fact I am a cultural christian and though I don't buy  in to the mystical aspect of the practice, I do enjoy some of the culture I was brought up  in. 

I know the names I listed because I've either read their books or read about them in other books. What did I get out of these readings and those of other schools of mysticism?

I think the most evident lesson is the fact that they all talk about the same thing in slightly different ways. They all point to the fact that we don't need intermediaries to connect to Spirit/All There Is and they all give very practical instructions on how to achieve this connection.  

In fact, these mystic schools were quite unpopular with the established religions they stemmed from. Look at what the Church did to the Cathars for example.

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by Sunmaster

[luckyluke]

22 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Look for Christian Mysticism...Meister Eckhart, Hildergard von Bingen, Theresa Von Avila, Jakob Böhme, but especially Rudolf Steiner, Pierre Teillard de Chardin,

I tried to read some of those books, but not clever enough to understand them, so rapidly bored. 

 

I pretend to be a non believer, but at 71 and not afraid of death, I am rather curious, what will happen or not once I die. 

 

For the rest, all my life, I applied simply the following :

 

-Trying to do good, and not doing intentionally bad-

 

Sure there must be very complicated (for me) explanations for this behaviour, maybe even complicated (again for me) books dealing with this subject. 

 

 

[sirineou]

28 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

I know the names I listed because I've either read their books or read about them in other books. What did I get out of these readings and those of other schools of mysticism?

I think the most evident lesson is the fact that they all talk about the same thing in slightly different ways. They all point to the fact that we don't need intermediaries to connect to Spirit/All There Is and they all give very practical instructions on how to achieve this connection.  

In fact, these mystic schools were quite unpopular with the established religions they stemmed from. Look at what the Church did to the Cathars for example.

 

from the thoughtful way that you have answered my questions, I would venture to say that  you don't really need these books, and that at least instinctually you have figured on your own ,most of the things  they try to convey .

But it does not hurt to get an outside confirmation.

Edited September 19, 2019 by sirineou

[Sunmaster]

6 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

I tried to read some of those books, but not clever enough to understand them, so rapidly bored. 

 

I pretend to be a non believer, but at 71 and not afraid of death, I am rather curious, what will happen or not once I die. 

 

For the rest, all my life, I applied simply the following :

 

-Trying to do good, and not doing intentionally bad-

 

Sure there must be very complicated (for me) explanations for this behaviour, maybe even complicated (again for me) books dealing with this subject. 

 

 

You're quite right there luckyluke.

I too am curious. Some (many) of my friends avoid talking about dying and death as if it were something in the far away future. It's not, it's right there next to us and can come at any moment.

But I'm curious and I want to know. I believe there are 2 pivotal moments in our lives: when we are born and the day we die. I can't do anything about the first one, but I don't want to be caught by surprise and hope for the best for the second one. I want to be ready.

To live a full life is to get ready to die. 

 

Like you said, you can either fill your head with intellectual merry-go-rounds, or simply do good and avoid doing bad. Or, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself".

[luckyluke]

2 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself".

As this sentence is under brackets, and rather strangely written, I googled for it. 

 

I see, at first sight, it is something out of the Bible. 

 

So, one can assume that, without knowing it, I am a follower of the Bible. 

 

I suppose some here will claim it is their gods will. 

 

Fair enough for me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sunmaster]

13 minutes ago, sirineou said:

from the thoughtful way that you have answered my questions, I would venture to say that  you don't really need these books, and that at least instinctually you have figured on your own ,most of the things  they try to convey .

But it does not hurt to get an outside confirmation.

For me it was a bit different, because I first had the experience (without knowing what was going on) and only after I read how others reached the same experience. Normally you would go the opposite way...study+ practice>> have the experience.
If I would believe in luck, I would say I was lucky.

If I am perfectly honest (with myself), I have to admit that I've been feeding off that experience for a long time and I'm starting to doubt if what I'm saying today still has that original spark or if the words have just become empty shells now. I must get more serious in my practice again.
 

[Skeptic7]

6 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

And for you, Skeptic....aren't you tired to run in circles? You've been offered ways to get proof. None has been discussed intelligently by you, let alone tried with an open mind. Nobody's asking you to change your beliefs, there's no need to. Meditation can be practiced by atheist without problems. In fact, one of my best friends is atheist and practices Transcendental Meditation (TM). Granted, I find it a bit puzzling, but he seems perfectly comfortable and he can completely integrate it in his worldview.

No need. Not running (or searching) but rather...Living. Perfectly comfortable, content, satisfied and peaceful. No further delving required. If it helps you achieve what you want or are searching for...great. Everyday my life is fulfilled with fun, excitement and adventure. 

 

Photography, nature, travel, red wine, sex and occasional stimulating conversation suits me fine. Would rather be photographing a new species of bird, bug, snake or flower. 

 

To each their own. Some look for "upward", some look inward, some look to drugs and/or alcohol, and some just look outside...at planet Earth...and all it's fascinating species and places on it. 

 

No sense fixing what doesn't need it. In other words, for me anyway,...life is short, precious and finite. So much to do and see, so gotta make the most of it every single day. 

 

My new camera awaits...

[thaibeachlovers]

18 hours ago, giddyup said:

So, the poor b*stard who is driving along minding his own business when a container falls off the motorway above killing him instantly, is that divine intervention as well? I have many more examples, like floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and hurricanes killing hundreds of thousands, guess they were pretty unlucky as well? Makes your glasses incident look pretty silly, doesn't it?

 

You could have chosen to post a response without the belittling, but ………………………………….

 

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by thaibeachlovers