One God

[steven lloyd]

One infinite God that has always existed and will always exist binding all universes and realities together and connected to us all. As many different understandings of this God as there are people on this planet and every planet in this and every universe that contains intelligent, self-reflective life. It matters not how people understand God (or if they even want to accept His existence). What matters is we all have the right (maybe even the responsibility) to question or own beliefs and come to our own conclusions. Some of us will accept our conclusions are incomplete as we contemplate something we accept to be beyond our understanding. Others will decide that because it cannot be understood or proven it does not exist. We are responsible for our own spiritual search, or the decision not to engage in a spiritual search. I have no problem with people who believe there is nothing beyond their understanding. I have no problem with people who do not believe that. I do have a problem with people who think they know the truth of this matter and that those who don’t agree with them are wrong.

Now taking literal interpretations out of the Bible without thought to historical context and/or existing scientific knowledge – well, that’s a different bag of works open for critical debate.

[CJSchmidtz]

……..I begin to wonder "is reality fact or fiction?"……. If there is any substance to these ideas, then most of your views about logic and principles are left dangling in the breeze.

When I had first encountered these kinds of objections regarding the external world and the related arguments I found them to be very perplexing. I do have a response but I admit that I wish I could find a more compelling one. My first response was in merely saying that this would basically make life a joke if taken seriously and I did not think I could really consider these as real options, could I really now be merely talking with a virtual reality machine or, or, or. To this day I have still not found a way to argue that some of those kinds of statements truly contain impossibilities.
The only concept that I have been able to consider really helpful is actually a legal rather than a logical or evidential one. If I am going to cross the road and notice that a bus happens to be traversing the same path I may at times wonder if it could be a “fiction” of some sort, virtually generated, part of a dream, or some other speculative possibility. However I decide to take the reality of the bus as innocent until proven guilty. I know that I could be wrong but on this basis I decide to continue treating it as if it is real, as if I am sane. Another consideration would be a variation on Pascal’s wager. If the bus is a fiction and I treat it as real I have not really lost anything. If the bus is real and I treat it as a fiction….. this has serious ramifications. In other words I treat the external world as real for these two considerations even though I admit that it was initially adopted as a naive assumption. Therefore if I do not treat this objection as overwhelming I consider that I can still go along way with the epistemological tools that we have available. If anyone would like to consider this further I suggest they start with some lectures on speculation given by John Warwick Montgomery, they are posted on youtube.

[cliffy1]

That, of course, is your choice. I have had enough experiences with shamanism to believe that, for example, Jesus was a shaman because what he supposedly did, walk on water, change water to wine, heal the sick, has been done by shamans for ever. There is nothing new that he did that hasn't been done before or since. So I have reason to suspect that if some can manipulate reality, then it is possible for anybody to manipulate reality. This lead me to conclude that if reality can be manipulated, then principles put forth by the holographic universe are correct.

The catch 22 here is that if someone does not believe in the possibility of manipulating reality, they cannot experience it even if it happens in their presence. Which brought me to the conclusion that the mind and its belief systems dictates what is possible for the individual to experience, or more succinctly: reality (like truth) is relative to the beholder. An open mind allows for a greater range of possibilities. As Allan Watts said, "belief is holding to a rock, faith is learning how to swim in the stream of life" - which is why I try not to believe in anything unless I experience it, then I know it not believe it.

[SmokeOnTheWater]

The problem is people are afraid of death and the afterlife so they spend their lives looking for answers. Waste of time. Embrace life. Open your mind and heart. Love each other. Pretty simple.

[cliffy1]

The problem is people are afraid of death and the afterlife so they spend their lives looking for answers. Waste of time. Embrace life. Open your mind and heart. Love each other. Pretty simple.

Its the old Baba Ram Das "be here now" thing. People are too busy fretting about the future to actually live their lives. The past is just an unreliable memory and the future is just a dream. The present is the only reality.

[CJSchmidtz]

The problem is people are afraid of death and the afterlife so they spend their lives looking for answers. Waste of time. Embrace life. Open your mind and heart. Love each other. Pretty simple.

Wow I really wish it was that simple. I agree we should love each other; I completely appreciate that but what if some people disagree? What if some people say it doesn’t matter I am only going to pursue my own interests and I don’t care how it affects anyone else. Some people may have that attitude and punch seniors for fun, randomly kill people, sell meth, or manipulate the banking system so that they can have more money and power to manipulate the world. They do this without consideration for the poor, the planet or future generation that will have to live with the consequences. It seems to me that attitudes about these things are affected by what people really believe to be true about the world. I say affected because I know that people can act inconsistently with what they believe.
Even if we establish that we should love each other what does that mean? I am sure that you mean exactly the same as I mean, but some don’t even consider that is inconsistent with killing people who disagree with them, the infidels. Cliff referred to a group that promotes cannibalism as a means of creating balance in the environment. Is helping the poor an expression of love or is it interfering with someone’s Karma.
This also relates to a lot of practical decisions people make about how we interact with each other and I can give a clear example, even simply from the few sentences that you have written. Before I make this point, I confess that I also struggle with being respectful and so forth……. I have a direct awareness of my own personal motivations; I know that you do not have a direct awareness of my own personal motivations. Therefore when you made a statement which would seem to imply that you know why I (people) search for answers, and I know that answer is false….. before I continue I would say that various people here have brought up real issues, issues that I think are worth considering even though I may not agree with them. However, trying to pretend you know the motivation of a group of people, that is a waste of time. If someone states their motivation you can discuss that, if someone’s actions are not consistent with their stated motivation you can discuss that but effectively misrepresenting someone’s motivations is not helpful. Furthermore I would say it is inconsistent with “loving everyone.” It is inconsistent because by doing so you are misrepresenting me, I would only guess others as well but I can’t speak for others in this regard.
For reasons like these I do not consider pursuing answers to be a waste of time. In fact it is precisely because I don’t want to waste my time that I try to evaluate if what I believe or how I live is a waste of time. I also consider it obvious that people in the world do at times change their views. It seems to me that this is sometimes done by force, by fad, by conditioning, through art and media, and through persuasion. It seems to me that the “answers” promoted by various people have real consequences so I don’t consider evaluating them to be a waste of time. If I could give one more current example, some are currently trying to promote a revolution. I am really interested and wonder what to think of this.

[cliffy1]

After spending most of my life searching for truth, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of life is to be happy in spite of all the insanity around us. Being happy, you shine light onto the world. Not being happy, you dull life around you. I have a simple solution to all the perplexing things I witness others doing. I look at life here in the asylum as a Monty Python skit - the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Yup! People do a lot of crazy, nasty stuff, but I figure it is because they haven't seen the humour in this nut house yet. They dwell on the negative too much and it drives them to acvt out their frustrations and anxieties. Even the most hardened criminal and depraved lunatic has a spark of god deep inside. I try to find that in them and bring it out, not by preaching at them, but by treating them like the divine beings they are under all those layers of angst.

[alexoliversen]

Anybody study Deism?

It seems to solve the theoretical differences of different churches and religious groups. It's very similar to Hinduism, Buddhism, Spiritualists, and Agnostics in that they all prescribe to be more inclusive than exclusive. As well, they all admit that there are greater powers that be, but what and who they are specifically are left open to interpretation. It is interesting to note, it may be only a formal separation which distinguishes their beliefs. Maybe it's always been just one God its just we call it different names, and it is our own ignorance which separates us from other religions/peoples - thus we are just fools in a way, aren't we?

[ronnewman]

I don't know that I would say there is only 1 right one, but there is only 1 period. The reality of the source of all creation is that it is everywhere, in everything, and in all times and space. No matter what we can think of or understand, it is all within the source of creation. Muslims are just as much a part of the source of everything as Christians are, and Buddhists, and Taoists. We are all one because we are all in and of the source of everything no matter if we are a rock, hippo, or human.