Minds So Infinitely Small.

a reply to: InTheLight

To me it is trying to discover what is ultimately real and, of course, as with so many of these threads we always end up at a standstill due to conflicting philosophies and experiences. So that is the question, "What is real?"...and it will vary from everyone due to beliefs, experiences, prejudices, etc.

Agreed. That's where our little dialectic comes in. Though it appears we are opposing each other, we are really furthering each other.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: InTheLight

To me it is trying to discover what is ultimately real and, of course, as with so many of these threads we always end up at a standstill due to conflicting philosophies and experiences. So that is the question, "What is real?"...and it will vary from everyone due to beliefs, experiences, prejudices, etc.

Agreed. That's where our little dialectic comes in. Though it appears we are opposing each other, we are really furthering each other.

Only in that we both are seeking the truth about our existence, but you and I, and you and others who have experienced spiritual journeys, will never resolve this debate.

Remember, as with physics, metaphysics too is only theory...nobody really knows.

a reply to: InTheLight

Only in that we both are seeking the truth about our existence, but you and I, and you and others who have experienced spiritual journeys, will never resolve this debate.

My only goal is to show others the chinks in their own armour, so that they may mend them, make them stronger. If zen is your flavour, it's a koan. In Catholicism, a devil's advocate. The truth isn't the goal; the debate is.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I do agree with most of points in your thread, regarding the boastful nature of those whom your thread pointing too, where they do project a feeling of superiority and wisdom regarding such issue, even though I am or were unimpressed as you and guilty of it at times, and actually got on my nerves on the lack of insight some of those have.

And them being able to manipulate words from a source to their preference is equally as unimpressive, especially when it gets to the bickering part of their arguments.

As for spirituality on the side, over the few months I've been more dumbfounded trying to find the right idea to sum in a material form more or less. I've had some interesting experiences, like meditation, where I could feel a certain flow of air which had happened to me on Sunday afternoon when I probably did my actual first meditation in quite some time. I'm not gonna go in depth because my explanation would lack a lot of it, because IDK how I did it, or what circumstances are needed to even recreate the same feeling.

And that the thing that really bugs me, or gives me the sense of disinterest of even trying, since there's so much anti-material on the subject, yet there non at all to actually complain other then idols.

As for the higher self ideology, well, what is one thinking anyways. Never really believed in the higher self really.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: InTheLight

Only in that we both are seeking the truth about our existence, but you and I, and you and others who have experienced spiritual journeys, will never resolve this debate.

My only goal is to show others the chinks in their own armour, so that they may mend them, make them stronger. If zen is your flavour, it's a koan. In Catholicism, a devil's advocate. The truth isn't the goal; the debate is.

The problem with that is that we who have these spiritual journeys don't have any chinks in our armour for you to jab at, so, perhaps for some of us, the goal is to poke at the chinks in your armour.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Wonderful way of looking at it.

I'm gonna take a break. I haven't read your latest reply but I'll be back with a reply probably tomorrow.

a reply to: TzarChasm

but according to SOME schools of though, love and beauty and that sense of significance or awe are useless unless quantifiable.

I do believe that that particular straw man you present was already mentioned in the OP.

As an aside, it is usually at around this point in any discussion on these matters that anyone who speaks as I do about these fictions is charged with reductionism or materialism, usually in the pejorative rather than technical senses (for it is rare that they know and understand the technical sense), because anyone who speaks in such and such a way risks offending those who believe in such and such a way, and is therefor, by some stretch of the imagination, evil.

Now I feel like looking up materialism myself to see if I may have the technical definition wrong in some way.

a reply to: Specimen

As for spirituality on the side, over the few months I've been more dumbfounded trying to find the right idea to sum in a material form more or less. I've had some interesting experiences, like meditation, where I could feel a certain flow of air which had happened to me on Sunday afternoon when I probably did my actual first meditation in quite some time. I'm not gonna go in depth because my explanation would lack a lot of it, because IDK how I did it, or what circumstances are needed to even recreate the same feeling.

Feelings are difficult to explain; probably ineffable. One cannot see the vast interactions, the causal chain within such complexity, and therefor cannot describe them. Too much is going on, that even one missing variable, however minute, might lead to different results. The best you could probably do is describe your experience in a fashion that is visceral, with concrete imagery, sensuality, and real things—the goose-bumps on your skin, the position of your body, the beat of your heart and rhythm of your breath. There is much there to talk and think about, that the need to resort to souls and consciousnesses is merely adding linguistic complexity to an already complex subject.

a reply to: InTheLight

The problem with that is that we who have these spiritual journeys don't have any chinks in our armour for you to jab at, so, perhaps for some of us, the goal is to poke at the chinks in your armour.

If there is no chinks in the armour, there is no way I can get through, and you have nothing to worry about.

a reply to: pthena

Now I feel like looking up materialism myself to see if I may have the technical definition wrong in some way.

For the record, I am not a materialist. I only prefer the writing that comes from it.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: InTheLight

The problem with that is that we who have these spiritual journeys don't have any chinks in our armour for you to jab at, so, perhaps for some of us, the goal is to poke at the chinks in your armour.

If there is no chinks in the armour, there is no way I can get through, and you have nothing to worry about.

I was never worried, I was more confused as to why you hold the steadfast physicality only = reality position when nobody really knows what reality is. Then when we spiritual journeyers share our experiences, hence another theory or alternate reality, we are ridiculed by yourself. Again, not that that worries me, but I am not sure what you have to gain by this behaviour.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

And I'm not an atheist. I only prefer the writing that comes from it.

Thank you.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Well, it was more or less a basic Chakra/Prana meditation, sitting on a corner couch, legs crossed, I'm not flexible enough to do a proper lotus position, back some what against the couch,. Let my self relax for a few minutes, then kind of imagined the chakra points in my body, where I used the Root to summon up some will, and let it self build up just by breathing for several minutes later. I then attempted a third eye meditation, the only thing is I, I get reluctant to even attempt them at all.

Where I try not to focus it physically, or better yet mentally in most cases and from my experience , but more or less kind of generalize the area, only difference is I don't force it, like the Root at all. After doing that for a few moments, I felt this sensation of air kind of circle around my torso, almost like I imagined, just going up all the way past of the base of the skull. At that stage, I'm more or less just trying to sooth my brain to relax itself almost, where it works like it defragging it self like a hard drive type of feel, and un-twining.

When the feeling of relaxation felt more apparent, I felt a sensation, going to my brain, and kind of gave me a sigh of relieve feeling, like going to bathroom, and the goosebumps you get from relieve when you haven't used one for several hours.

I felt similar sensations before where it kind of pulses outward, almost to the point of seeing it move where it looks like Coronal Solar flares, and there have been times when I'm with friends watching a movie in few circumstance where it ether pulses from me or ether around, and it has made a few of them jump before like a Spider or Bug. I've had instance where I feel like I can guide it, but most of the time, it comes on a whim or impulse at my highest points of vitality.

I've had separate circumstances years ago, one at a mall where I got hissed at by some goth chick, and a young Indian woman, probably hindu, kind of bow to me on the late evening bus from her seat.

Anyway I gtg, brb later.

a reply to: InTheLight

I was more confused as to why you hold the steadfast physicality only = reality position when nobody really knows what reality is.

I interpret my experiences in the linguistic framework I am most comfortable with. I am sensual; I rather live a sensual life than a cerebral one, and therefor I speak about what I sense, and essentially, what I love. Consequently, I enjoy sensual and visceral explanations of phenomena, rather than resorting to confusing abstraction. Like all beliefs, it's simply a matter of taste.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Bluesma

Ah well... so you don't appreciate my little internal fantasies. Doesn't matter. They are mine. You cannot touch them, manipulate them, change them, correct them, control them.

Your "internal fantasies", though probably interesting (and knowing you, likely sordid), is not a postulated entity.

I'm getting a better glimpse into your 'metaphysics'.
She's just a woman after all.

www.youtube.com...

# 441

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

What is that thought though? Is it physical, can it be touched or seen with the eye? It's "somewhere" otherwise you wouldn't be thinking it, maybe that "nowhere" you say it is is the immaterial you deny exists.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: PilgriMage

I respect that opinion.

But your emotionally charged rant does not argue against my point.

My only issue is—and maybe you can help me with this given your expertise—why is it illogical?

I cannot with good conscience claim that my "rant" was any more emotional than yours. Your "rant" was no more logical than mine, it was (or tried to be) more poetic than scientific. I am not sure if you tried to be poetic or just managed to make it sound like it when trying to express your _feelings_.

Why is it illogical? Because you dismiss experiences of other people (be they feelings, chemical reactions or however you might want to classify them) and made your own hypothesis of how things really are, based on your own feelings. Somehow still making the outcome "my feelings are more right than others". The "feeling" of belief (in the sense of religions) has been with us as long as the human history goes. It might have changed shape a bit and people hide it nowadays (to either appear trendy or in fear of being ridiculed) but it's still there, after hundreds of years of "real science", philosophers and men who have tried to proof "there is no God/religions are fake".

We do not have a slightest idea actually where conscience is, how it forms, acts and operates. When BILLIONS of people through history claim they have some sort of connection "to higher beings/realms/gods/God", surely a logic thing would be study it and assume it's "true" and there is a good reason for it. Now it seems we rather dismiss them as "useless superstition" and rather than study it, science just acts it does not exist.

However, just because science and modern people cease to study and research it, that does not make it disappear, untrue or not existing. The things we can currently do with radio waves and similar things would be classified as "impossible, useless superstition, stupid faith" with your logic just some time ago when we did not know such things exist. Surely they were still here and electromagnetic waves surrounded as (even if nobody actually used them to transfer advertisements through Channel 4) the same as nowadays. There was a good reason to study them, as well as there is a good reason to study religions and try to find what it tells about human mind/soul and how can it be used to make our lives better.

Suppressing something that has been within us from the very start is illogical and stupid in my mind. I do not deny religions (as well as any -ism) have caused a lot of pain, suffering and stupidity among people.. but it has also given people a lot and made good in this World that sorely needs it this day more than ever.

As I said.. I do not claim either side is "right" what comes to religions, but it's illogical to deny it and try to prevent others to have and experience it - nor study it. If you keep an open mind, you might actually some day make a new discovery like the radio waves that explains some of the phenomenon within religions.

And I do respect your _opinion_ too.. even if I find it illogical myself. (I am on my way to study this religion things as well as everything other that I find interesting in life. I do not claim to actually KNOW much of any of them.. any more than science. Hopefully there will be a continuum for our lives, as there is no way I could experience, study and learn 1% of what I wanted during just one average human life..)

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: InTheLight

I relay my experiences not my ideas, that is where your failure lies.

You live your experiences; you don't relay them. That's where your failure lies.

You have no idea they are happening at that moment (you just remember an incident happened) and have to categorize it in a past event to be reflected upon for future use.

originally posted by: pthena
a reply to: TzarChasm

TzarChasm: i invite anyone to have a look and tell me i am wrong.
The thread entitled, "I Believe in Religion"
LeMisanthrope stated that people can make their own religion, just that you can't make a religion out of religion.
I'm still trying to achieve that goal. I find myself still dealing with religion out of religion. I probably will never achieve the goal while talking religion with other people. Ah, aspirations!

Noble enterprise. I would only have a belief system I instigated (formed) and at that may not want to belong to that club. Religion is mans creation to suit for itself to gain something, power, land, gold, influence; not sure Gods attitude regarding this taking on of the YOKE of good (priests/deacons/bishops vs evil priests/deacons/bishops) and how to discriminate as to the difference. Nothing good comes from Dogma the human creates (if they knew the truth they wouldn't dare).

a reply to: vethumanbeing

I would only have a belief system I instigated (formed) and at that may not want to belong to that club.

I tried that: made a religion for someone as an improved substitute for what he had. More and more questions, "How about this? Where does that fit I?" Finally the response comes down to: "How would I know, it's not my religion after all."

Religion is mans creation to suit for itself to gain something, power, land, gold, influence;

You left out some: understanding other people, getting along with other people, making friends, maintaining friendships.

not sure Gods attitude regarding this taking on of the YOKE of good (priests/deacons/bishops vs evil priests/deacons/bishops) and how to discriminate as to the difference.

I prefer the gods who have retired from those concerns.

I don't think I can easily discriminate the difference in the good vs evil either. Perhaps the ones with the least dire consequences directed at "the enemy" should be considered less bad.

Nothing good comes from Dogma the human creates

In a dog eat dog world, it is preferable to be a cat.

ETA

You have probably heard many people say, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual"
I like to flip that:
I'm not spiritual, I'm religious.