I seek truth yet it remains hidden..going bananas looking for the right religion (Help me)....

reply to post by Rtardx


You're very welcome good sir. Just trust that you are part of creation meaning your very self holds a piece of The Creator. One last piece of advice, try to find your own path to The Source, Ive learned that trying to mimic someone else's practices/views can lead you into a lot of frustration and dead ends. Know that you have just as equal access to enlightenment as anyone else, even Jesus and Buddah started out as normal people seeking something "more."

I have faith in you.

reply to post by Rtardx


you have to determine the truth for yourself. there are a lot of options out there. may i suggest looking into the "enuma elis"(earliest recorded creation myth[?], summerian) or check out the religious practices of a stoneage culture that still lives relatively untouched in the jungles of south america, the yanomami.

i'm sort of in the same boat as you, as far as searching for truth is concerned. honestly, i just feel like alice continuously falling down a rabbit's hole. i am unwilling to commit to any belief system(religion or science)without proof. however, the more i see, experience, read, and feel makes me realise i know absolutely nothing. accept this, try to stay positive, and keep re/searching.

reply to post by Astyanax

You can post yours without trying to tell me where you think mine are wrong.

You can post yours "WITH" telling me where you think I am wrong. Also, you cannot put confines on me or else this wouldn't be an open exchange. Thing is, I used to be an Atheist, hard core at that, and grew out of it. So I have both the atheist and non-atheist perspective. But that's neither here nor there in the grand scheme.

If that is the case, I am sure he will tell me so.

He already told you so, he said he had all these experiences which make atheism null/void (paraphrased). Twas simply echoing it was the same reason I could no longer be an atheist, and I have since convinced a handful of atheists I know personally, to leave that label themselves via philosophical discussions on the nature of direct human experience and the fallibility of conceptual constructs.

Hmm. Convenient. So, can you choose to love someone for a time, and later choose not to love them when you feel like a bit of variety?

Yes. Have you ever been in Love? I have been in Love and have fallen out of it when certain things came to light. It lasted for a "time" in which I had the option to extend or not. I no longer Love her as I did and have not seen her for 11+ years. There is still a light sentimental remnant of the Love I once had for her and wishing her all the best.

Also I just met someone new, and there seems to be the beginning stages of Love as well with her. She is off on a retreat for a month of solitude, and I have no contact with her, and so what seemed like the beginning of a new Love flowering, is completely on hold in a sort of plateau, until it is seen what will come of this upon her returning into my life.

There is free will & choices in Love

Give this man as much time as you give everyone else.
Yes it is long but well worth your time if you really want the truth.
Another Jesus, from Another Spirit, of Another Gospel

This program is a good thing to have for word searches/study. or to just follow along.

There are so many religions, so I made up my own:

It is superior to ALL other religions

We do not accept new members

We do not accept donations

And I am not allowed to tell you any more about it

So, go make up your own religion. Follow the above three rules, and you too can claim it is superior to all others.

reply to post by dominicus


Personal human experiences of the weird doesn't necessarily discount atheism though. Just because you witness something that isn't currently explainable by science doesn't mean that a god or gods exist. Not that I am saying that atheism is correct, I just find it odd that you would abandon rational thought for irrational belief based on a few strange occurrences you (and I guess the OP in this case) witnessed. At the most, I could see someone switching from atheism to agnosticism, but then again most atheists are agnostics so there's that. Personally, if I witnessed something otherworldly, I'd say, "wow that's odd, let me try to reproduce that so I can study it and explain it," instead of saying, "wow that's odd, I guess god exists." The second line is a logic breakdown, not to mention a lazy cop out to explain something that currently cannot be explained. I mean, the things you (or the OP) witnessed could just be events or happenings that our science can't currently explain and not have anything to do with any number of gods.

To be honest, I really think the OP needs to try atheism or at the very least agnosticism. He sounds like he is already there, but due to ingrained brainwashing from the Christian religion he is afraid to let go because of the fear of hell.

Hi, Rtardx .

The links in the first 2 lines of my signature changed soooooo much my life and
way of thinking, that this signature is similar in all the other forums I visit ! !

What is in there did answer the important questions of my life. . .

So. . . do have a good DVD watch, and a good PDF read !! B-)

Blue skies.

There is no right or wrong path to The Creator, the conflicts lie in the words used to explain an individuals position, the differences are only seeming. For example, if you were to gather a group of people together and give each person the exact same destination to travel to but individually they had to find there own paths you'll have one person arguing that riding a bike got them there, another would argue that biking is too slow and that driving a car is better, then another would argue that driving a car is too easy and that sailing in a boat is the best option etc, etc. As you can see there is only one destination, one Creator, but the glory of it all is that the routes to get to him are so vast in number that literally -every- path warrants its own rewards based on the perception of the individual seeking.

True spiritual insight comes from practicing, not preaching.

As you can tell by everyone's dispositions in this thread that we all have a lot of growing to still accomplish.

reply to post by Krazysh0t

Personal human experiences of the weird doesn't necessarily discount atheism though. Just because you witness something that isn't currently explainable by science doesn't mean that a god or gods exist. Not that I am saying that atheism is correct, I just find it odd that you would abandon rational thought for irrational belief based on a few strange occurrences you (and I guess the OP in this case) witnessed.

Actually there's 2 levels of this. The seeker and the finder.

These odd mystical experiences that are still termed anomalies & pseudo science by a mainstream scientific status quo, which has yet to figure out what consciousness is, are real occurrences that happen to people all over the world throughout history.

I agree, for the beginner or seeker to have a few of these and attribute it to God, is in a sense jumping the gun, but not entirely irrational. Those kinds of experiences are insights which are prone to give the experiencer more gusto in intuitively sensing that there may indeed be a God, Source, Infinity, whatever you want to call it. That, in turn, starts up the passions and search to find this so called "God" as a direct experience.

The "Finder", was once a seeker, who having had a number of mystical experiences that correlated to the findings that others have had these as well, has these experiences which are prior to reason, logic, rationality (faculties which only come to the picture later to try and make sense of the experience). Upon further searching: "Hey Look!!!!! All these different paths are claiming you can directly experience God as the Ultimate truth and foundation of reality."

At that point, you find a variety of maps & blueprints to reach this destination, and eventually a few of these seekers become Finders that yes, there is God that they are directly experiencing, the source of all creation, being, existence, reality. What can be said of its qualities is exactly the same as said by all the other "Finders", which in a sense becomes like third party correlates that this is a legit finding.

At the most, I could see someone switching from atheism to agnosticism, but then again most atheists are agnostics so there's that. Personally, if I witnessed something otherworldly, I'd say, "wow that's odd, let me try to reproduce that so I can study it and explain it," instead of saying, "wow that's odd, I guess god exists."

YEah, I agree. This is what I did and how I have approached things. Of course when you get to certain stages where you are detached from your body as consciousness, and can clearly experience and see that there is an existential source of you as consciousness, well that kind of puts your former atheism/agnosticism into a death spiral of no return.

The second line is a logic breakdown, not to mention a lazy cop out to explain something that currently cannot be explained. I mean, the things you (or the OP) witnessed could just be events or happenings that our science can't currently explain and not have anything to do with any number of gods.

There really isn't a lazy cop out. It's actually quite the hardest and most rewarding thing one can do, is enter a path, or set of blueprints/maps, to see for one's self if this God/Absolute Truth exists or not.

The Lazy cop out is to choose a label like atheist/agnostic, and continue in conceptualized thought, defending one's label without taking the plunge to see if what these blueprints say, is really there.

Of course I'm of the notion, that science one day will acknowledge and be able to explain God. Could be another thousand years though

To be honest, I really think the OP needs to try atheism or at the very least agnosticism. He sounds like he is already there, but due to ingrained brainwashing from the Christian religion he is afraid to let go because of the fear of hell.

Well in a sense, everyone is already born with no beliefs of anything, so in that sense everyone is born an atheist/agnostic. Of course newborns can't even claim those labels because for them, that's also a conceptual illusion

reply to post by dominicus


The ego sure does love to label, separate and confuse the mind of man, doesn't it?

EviLCHiMP
reply to post by dominicus

 

The ego sure does love to label, separate and confuse the mind of man, doesn't it?

edit on 4-3-2014 by EviLCHiMP because: (no reason given)

Of course that's the nature of the ego, to separate and confuse.

Luckily there exist blueprints and maps that point the way for one to see what is prior to ego, what is its source, its illusuory nature, and eventually Truth is revealed without Ego's impressions, naked and of its own accord, prior to all things but including all as well.

reply to post by dominicus


But how do you KNOW as a finder that what you are experiencing is truly god? How do you know that you aren't experiencing some other being that just happens to be vastly more powerful than we are, so much so that it becomes very hard to comprehend it? This being could still be a resident of the universe like you or I, just on a different level that is accessible by us through meditation and other pseudo-science stuff, but not the creator. Also what makes you so sure that your mind isn't just playing tricks on you? You take a hallucinogen and your mind starts to feel like it has ascended to another level of thinking, yet it is really just the effects of a chemical distorting the way your mind processes information. How do you know that your experiences aren't just different versions of a mind trip? For instance did you know that scientists can create NDE's through g-force simulators?

Near-death experience 'all in the mind'

Pilots flying at G-force can sometimes experience "hypertensive syncope" which causes tunnel-like peripheral or even central visual loss for up to eight seconds.

Not trying to say that this is the same thing like the article is suggesting, but just trying to show that there could be just as easily be a perfectly rational explanation for the unknown even if it seems completely divine in nature.

P.S.: I also learned while looking up the source for the previous claim about NDE's that you can activate NDE like symptoms (or maybe actual NDEs, who knows?) by injecting Ketamine. Mods: please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to promote drug use, just trying to prove a point.

dominicus

EviLCHiMP
reply to post by dominicus

 

The ego sure does love to label, separate and confuse the mind of man, doesn't it?

edit on 4-3-2014 by EviLCHiMP because: (no reason given)

Of course that's the nature of the ego, to separate and confuse.

Luckily there exist blueprints and maps that point the way for one to see what is prior to ego, what is its source, its illusuory nature, and eventually Truth is revealed without Ego's impressions, naked and of its own accord, prior to all things but including all as well.

Well said.

Well OP, sounds like you're in a situation very similar to one I recently found myself in. Be careful because over-analyzing is almost standard operating procedure with this perdicament. The difficulty lies in the multitude of "options", as you are well aware going by your initial post alone (the only post I read before replying). This fact by itself, in my opinion, absolutely HAS to mean something.

Anyone have anything relating to different religious beliefs explaining the existence of outside (other) religions/stories of creation/etc.? Information similar to the idea that other religions were created by an evil being to confuse you, things like that...

Krazysh0t
reply to post by dominicus

 

But how do you KNOW as a finder that what you are experiencing is truly god? How do you know that you aren't experiencing some other being that just happens to be vastly more powerful than we are, so much so that it becomes very hard to comprehend it? This being could still be a resident of the universe like you or I, just on a different level that is accessible by us through meditation and other pseudo-science stuff, but not the creator. Also what makes you so sure that your mind isn't just playing tricks on you? You take a hallucinogen and your mind starts to feel like it has ascended to another level of thinking, yet it is really just the effects of a chemical distorting the way your mind processes information. How do you know that your experiences aren't just different versions of a mind trip? For instance did you know that scientists can create NDE's through g-force simulators?

Near-death experience 'all in the mind'

Pilots flying at G-force can sometimes experience "hypertensive syncope" which causes tunnel-like peripheral or even central visual loss for up to eight seconds.

Not trying to say that this is the same thing like the article is suggesting, but just trying to show that there could be just as easily be a perfectly rational explanation for the unknown even if it seems completely divine in nature.

P.S.: I also learned while looking up the source for the previous claim about NDE's that you can activate NDE like symptoms (or maybe actual NDEs, who knows?) by injecting Ketamine.

edit on 4-3-2014 by Krazysh0t because: (no reason given)

Some people need more proofs than others; some can see God in a single flower, others may need visual experiences while even others need what they deem as 'facts' or tangible evidence.

'Hallucination' is a man-made concoction, the only truth of anything is that we, for as long as were in this body, can never conceive the absolute 'truth'.

reply to post by EviLCHiMP

The ego sure does love to label, separate and confuse the mind of man, doesn't it?

What is this thing you are labelling "ego"? Perhaps this is some of that separating and confusing you are talking about.

reply to post by EviLCHiMP


Absolute proof isn't what you or I consider to be good enough. Absolute proof is proof that proves the concept without a shadow of a doubt. Seeing god in a flower is silly and anyone who says that is lying to themselves or mislabeling beauty. Do those same people see god in a plague victim? Both are supposed to be products of god, so if you are able to see god in something of beauty, you should be able to see god in the ugly and depressing as well.

Also hallucination isn't man made. People have been tripping off of mushrooms for a LONG time before scientists came around able to extract the psilocybin in it. Heck there are some theories that Moses and co were tripping while a pretty crazy storm was happening around them when he talked to god on Mt. Sinai and was handed the ten commandments, since a particularly hallucinogenic mushroom grows at the base of the mountain.

Manna

A number of ethnomycologists, including Terence McKenna,[17] have suggested that most characteristics of manna are similar to that of Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, notorious breeding grounds for insects, which decompose rapidly. These peculiar fungi naturally produce a number of molecules that resemble human neurochemicals, and first appear as small fibres (mycelia) that resemble hoarfrost. Psilocybin, the primary psychoactive molecule in the "Psilocybe cubensis" mushroom, has shown to produce spiritual experiences, with "personal meaning and spiritual significance" when test subjects were evaluated 14 months later.[18] In a psilocybin study from 2006 one-third of the participants reported that the experience was the single most spiritually significant moment of their lives and more than two-thirds reported it was among the top five most spiritually significant experiences. A side-effect from psilocybin consumption is the loss of appetite.[19] The speculation that manna was an entheogen, also paralleled in Philip K. Dick's posthumously published The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, is supported in a wider cultural context when compared with the praise of soma in the Rigveda, Mexican praise of teonanácatl, the peyote sacrament of the Native American Church, and the holy ayahuasca used in the ritual of the União do Vegetal and Santo Daime churches.[20]

My best advice would be to look in your heart. Look back to when you were a child and you didn't need to understand things, you just knew. I never wanted to tie myself to an organized religion, but fate pulled me in that direction, and it has helped me be closer to the Father. The truth resides in your heart, and while it is good to be open to other things, trust what you know in your heart. Lifes lessons will help to complete your faith, or if you choose to let them, they can sour your faith- so choose where you want to stand and add to that basic principal, but never stop holding that basic principal dear to your heart.

Many of the feelings you are struggling with now will give you strength you need for future events (lessons), so embrace the strength you build through all of your trials and remember how you found that strength, because it doesn't get easier, you just get stronger.

reply to post by Krazysh0t

But how do you KNOW as a finder that what you are experiencing is truly god?

Well, would you deny that you currently exist and are experiencing reality? I'm assuming you wouldn't deny it. So similarly in a sense its sort of impossible to deny the God experience, except its nothing like meeting some guy on cloud with harps in the sky. More so like you are an individual drop of water, and finally meet the ocean from where you came from. Its something that is existentially undeniable and something that you remember you had access to, prior to even being born here.....

How do you know that you aren't experiencing some other being that just happens to be vastly more powerful than we are, so much so that it becomes very hard to comprehend it?

It is an "other being that just happens to be vastly more powerful than we are, so much so that it becomes very hard to comprehend it." Yet we are directly linked to and come from that Being, like a drop of water emerging from and returning to an infinite ocean.

This being could still be a resident of the universe like you or I, just on a different level that is accessible by us through meditation and other pseudo-science stuff, but not the creator.

This Being has the sense of being the foundational building block of all of existence, prior to all things and yet within all things. Instead of a resident of the Universe, more so all Universes are residents within this Being.

Also what makes you so sure that your mind isn't just playing tricks on you? You take a hallucinogen and your mind starts to feel like it has ascended to another level of thinking, yet it is really just the effects of a chemical distorting the way your mind processes information. How do you know that your experiences aren't just different versions of a mind trip?

Because the experience and access is prior to the mind, prior to thought, prior to illusion, opinion, tricks, images, etc. Direct experience itself is prior to thought. IF you are experiencing thought itself as a direct experience, there is still the division of the experiencer, and the thought which is being experienced. That experiencer can be detached from all experiences and plunged into its Source of existence.

Or in another example, various meditators can stop thinking. So you can think, and not think. When you are not thinking, you are still experiencing hearing, seeing, feeling, breathing all without the filters of thought. And so the "God Experience" is also prior to all filters and opinions, senses, etc

For instance did you know that scientists can create NDE's through g-force simulators?

Yes, just like you can create hunger in the stomach by elevated levels of physical activity, swimming, exercise. Does that mean hunger isn't real? In many cases of NDE's, the experiencer of this is seeing things in other rooms, or serial numbers on lights just inches from the ceiling, or a tennis shoe on the roof of a hospital, all of which later is confirmed by a third party to be so. The consciousness leaves the body and is non-local, (Something that even some scientists are starting to propose, see Or-Orch theory)

Not trying to say that this is the same thing like the article is suggesting, but just trying to show that there could be just as easily be a perfectly rational explanation for the unknown even if it seems completely divine in nature.

Im saying the divine is real, and science will one day acknowledge this and prove the points of access within, to the divine. Science has yet to figure out what consciousness is, once they do, that will open the doors to the spiritual, though not without fighting, arguments, anger, and a desperation of upholding the status quo that's currently in place in Academia since this will mean completely new books will have to be written, and the old ones tossed out. Let's not forget the Genius Einstein did something similar, as Quantum Physics began to develop (spooky actions at a distance), Einstein wanted no part of it and denied acknowledgement of it because it completely destroyed the rules and confines of how he thought things worked. OF course things work just like he thought, but on a deeper more fundamental level, everything is much more crazier and seemingly illogical/paradoxical, i.e. 2 strings being everywhere & nowhere simultaneously..

P.S.: I also learned while looking up the source for the previous claim about NDE's that you can activate NDE like symptoms (or maybe actual NDEs, who knows?) by ....................

Of course, you can access all sorts of things in all sorts of ways.

Words
reply to post by EviLCHiMP

 

The ego sure does love to label, separate and confuse the mind of man, doesn't it?

What is this thing you are labelling "ego"? Perhaps this is some of that separating and confusing you are talking about.

I can't say for sure what it is