Conspiracy against true spiritual potential

The bible is irrelevant when it comes to spirituality and no where near as important as some people and religious institutions would have you believe. Read it by all means, put it's teachings into practice in your daily life, but it's not like you even need too. It's just not essential reading if your goal is to achieve spiritual enlightenment, as the the only tools you need are your own mind, body and soul. Knowledge, wisdom & truth comes from within.

reply to post by Skyfloating


if i was einstein,i probably would have realized---try to forgive me-- i'm no good at guessing what i don't know.

reply to post by yahn goodey


Forgiven.

Point of the matter: I can believe in an afterlife without kneeling down to worship some object.

reply to post by Skyfloating

thank you for your reply--up to now i didn't realize that you were concerned about a better life than this one later.

I personally do not think there is a conspiracy against our spiritual potential, I just think it's taking a bit of time for the people to wake up.

Yes, religion is a problem, but at this point and time I think things would be much worse without the constraints religion provides. We are at a point and time where religion serves a purpose, that time is passing.

It's not a conspiracy, it was just something we as a species needed to survive and not completely wipe each other out.

I think we are growing out of the need for it though. We are starting to understand that we are responsible for our own actions, not some God or boogyman.

I think mankind has been going thru the cosmic equivalent of the terrible twos. We want what we want when we want it. Religion has been something of a surrogate parent that helped us to come to understand that we have to share, to love one another and that hurting people is wrong.

More and more people are starting to understand that you don't need religion to have a relationship with the divine. They are starting to understand that religion is actually a hindrance to just such a relationship.

We are in a transitional phase of existence.

We are growing up.

We're about to go into the idiotic three's.

WoooHooooooo!!!!!

reply to post by Skyfloating


To be honest, I've never thought of myself as an 'atheist' - although many here have tried to pin me to the wall on that one.

I agree with you that there is a 'third way' indeed - it is staring us right in the face. Is it purely a 'christian' or 'muslim' (fill in the blank with your favourite faith) concept? No - of course not!

My beef is with those who try desperately to claim all spiritual enlightenment as the sole property of their own faith - and no other. This is, to me at least, nothing less than hypocrisy. No religion - and I MEAN no religion - has any right to claim as much.

Do I therefore DENY the possiblility of spiritual existence? Not really. I feel it's a real and distinct possibility. But I also feel that every man & woman needs to look within themselves to find it.

No church or philsophy can do the dirty work for you.

It's strictly up to you.

J.

Originally posted by kindred
The bible is irrelevant when it comes to spirituality and no where near as important as some people and religious institutions would have you believe. Read it by all means, put it's teachings into practice in your daily life, but it's not like you even need too. It's just not essential reading if your goal is to achieve spiritual enlightenment, as the the only tools you need are your own mind, body and soul. Knowledge, wisdom & truth comes from within.

Kindred,

Why is the bible irrelevant?

If the spiritual exists then everything is a manifestation or evidencing of a greater spiritual truth.

Can't the truth be found in all things?

Originally posted by kindred
The bible is irrelevant when it comes to spirituality and no where near as important as some people and religious institutions would have you believe. Read it by all means, put it's teachings into practice in your daily life, but it's not like you even need too. It's just not essential reading if your goal is to achieve spiritual enlightenment, as the the only tools you need are your own mind, body and soul. Knowledge, wisdom & truth comes from within.

Hmm..Very elequent - and kinda what I just said - only with more insight. Yes - I KNOW this is just a one-line post - which is why I'm writing this second line heh!

Did it suffice?

J.

[edit on 4-3-2008 by jimbo999]

Originally posted by Skyfloating
ATS should have a button for

"I read and acknowledge/appreciate your post and have nothing to add"

That would save a lot of writing space, a lot of unnecessesary chatter, and improve the overall relationship between ATS members.


So here´s to you Paul_Richard: "I read and appreciate your post and have nothing to add"

Heh! Wonderful idea Yep - you'd also keep me down to a dull roar too...heheh.

Too bad it's never been implemented. Perhaps a massive increase in the price of HD space could forseeably bring it about?

Who can say?

We could always revert to something more basic I guess. What DO we do exactly once ATS dissapears? Anyone conversant in the ancient art of smoke signalling??


J.

I think Jesus will come back and explain this exact same thing.
I resonate with Jesus's teachings very much, but the different views people give it take away from what he was teaching.
He points this out regularly in the Bible.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by kacou

I thought I´d put this thread up because the christian vs. atheist voices are over-published here, as if the voice of a thrid alternative didnt even exist.

Here Here! Cheers to you on that one!

I really hope this thread doesn't turn into a Christian bashing party, but at the risk of encouraging that behavior, I have to say that I personally feel my religion embraces change, in fact encourages it. It's perfectly ok in Wicca to worship together or on your own. No one tells you how to worship, no one tells you what's good or bad. What we do is share information as we learn it. What you do with that information is up to you. That's one of the beautiful things about it. I think organized religion is important only in the aspect that it should teach the basic fundamental concept. Beyond that I think ppl are better off on their own. There is so much we don't understand and when we participate in churches we are influinced by others that may have a hidden agenda.

Originally posted by psychedeliack
I think Jesus will come back and explain this exact same thing.
I resonate with Jesus's teachings very much, but the different views people give it take away from what he was teaching.
He points this out regularly in the Bible.

Ok... oh, never mind - I'm not even going to go there. The third way is what we were talking about? Would that not entail an alternative to 'Jesus' and all his holy buddies? Are we not speaking of something else here perhaps??

J.

Newday wrote
Why is the bible irrelevant?

If the spiritual exists then everything is a manifestation or evidencing of a greater spiritual truth.

Can't the truth be found in all things?

Good point. Yes of course the truth can be found in all things, but one has to search for it, to find it and even then will you recognise it. As for the bible, I was simply stating that one does not necessarily need to read it to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Some Christians seem to think that Christianity is the only path to God. In my opinion, that couldn't be further from the truth.

I've had quite a few spiritual experiences and I didn't get those from reading about religion. They came about because I simply looked within.

Jimbo 999 wrote
My beef is with those who try desperately to claim all spiritual enlightenment as the sole property of their own faith - and no other. This is, to me at least, nothing less than hypocrisy. No religion - and I MEAN no religion - has any right to claim as much.

Do I therefore DENY the possiblility of spiritual existence? Not really. I feel it's a real and distinct possibility. But I also feel that every man & woman needs to look within themselves to find it.

No church or philsophy can do the dirty work for you.

It's strictly up to you.

Well said, I totally agree. I just don't understand why people put the most important thing they have in their possession in the hands of others and do so in the name of faith. They are just leaving themselves wide open to be manipulated, lied too or something far worse.

I don't see a problem with religion.

My view is all religion, and science also, is limiting to the mind, it dampens the individual’s true potential to achieve the impossible through spirituality, fixing their attention on the mundane, making it difficult to see passed the things of this world.

Looking to Religion and science can get us stuck in the denser levels of reality, the material physical of the universe, the mater and substance of things.

The only thing we will ever see through science and religion is where we are and what time it is, why that is more appealing to most than manifesting spiritual power is beyond me?

We are not human in reality; we are conscious energy using form for our experience.

We can have it all right here in real time; nothing is beyond the reach of any one of us.

We should be looking to the inner universe of the spiritual, not the outer of science and religion that would bring on true evolution and revelation.

I absolutely agree with the last few posts. I think to do anything short of combine science with spirituality is to limit ourselves. If we don't continually ask the questions, who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose in this world? Why is the world here? etc... we'll never look beyond our own front doors. And, if we never take out our microscopes to find out how the world functions we'd never evolve past our own limited understanding.

I've said this in many posts. To say any way of thinking is absolute is a mistake. We are complex creatures in a complex world, in an even more complex universe. There are no absolutes and anyone who think's they have the answers is only kidding themselves!

Anybody notice how many atheism/evolution vs. christianity/religion threads are opened a day?

It proves the points being made by you all in this thread. There´s a conspiracy of stupdity happening right in front of our daily eyes.

reply to post by Skyfloating


lol Seems stupid I know, however, recently I refered to it as useless chatter and someone pointed out to me that it's not useless, out of these discussions comes growth. PPL begin to question and then go looking for answers. I thought that was a pretty profound way of looking at it.

reply to post by enchantress62


Thats certainly a positive way to see it. I guess on some days I could actually agree with that statement.

I'm currious if a guru or other spiritual figure is necessary for spiritual progress. I've heard quite a lot about intellectualizing spirituality and that to make ture progress one needs a mentor.

Religion, spirituality, and generally anything that doesn't come from myself I tend to look at as complete, absolute, nonsense.
Now having said that, I sure that, to use a nicely spiritual word, I'm "invoking" something of a response. My response to that, "whatever". What does that mean? Well, I'm pretty sure you can make up any thing you want to answer that. If you can't someone can tell you. Sound a bit like life?

I spend most of my waking and some of my sleep researching. Do I believe in anything? No. Do I want to? Eh sure. Love, hope, joy, free-will are amongst my highest. I suppose you could categorize these as values if you wanted to. For myself, I would see it as alot of wasted time on your part trying to figure me out as though it will some how reveal to you some gain.

Personally I think most spiritualists living today are really a bunch of materialists who haven't figured that out yet. The only people here that will get that statement are those that for whatever reason or chance can think without dualism.
Those that do figure out they are materialists become much more passive and less dangerous to anyone in my opinion. Of course, it is up to them to then choose to do so.

And I'm going to define a 'materialist here'. "If you are trying to influence or change someone or something other than yourself, you are being a materialist; even if your motives be spiritual." This is what we, all of us, term most absolutely as "evil" and this is its root.

People today spend almost every waking moment of their time in some way trying to "improve" on their world. Alright, if you are suffering, then sure, materialistic activity, as I have defined it is about your only way out. However, once you have stopped your suffering WITHOUT causing suffering to another person and persist to... then you are achieved what is your most sacred desire. IF you start going around causing suffering while relieving your own, then you have failed. I really don't care if you believe that, but that is my view on life.

Everything and almost everyone today just keeps on trying to make 'heaven' on Earth in some form. I don't care if that attempt is Atheist driven or some other group or even person. The point is, and how it relates to this thread, there is very much an attempt being made to change very single life on Earth until there is just one single way of being. One beautiful life that is perfect.

Religions constantly conspire to do this. Governments conspire to do this. PEOPLE conspire to do this. Animals don't conspire to do this. If there is one great conspiracy born before all others and there to exist till forever, that is likely to be it.

All of these conspiracies of course hammer, restrict, murder, and most appalling r*pe all spiritual advancement and even achievement with humanity and partially everything. I apologize also for those it impacts in having used the crudely censored word, but it deserves to be acknowledged as happening and in all of its forms; especially having a need to be addressed given this topic.

If people would stop being materialists, there would be peace. Until then, everyone will suffer whether they contribute to materialism or not. This is one evil, and the root of evil, that is addressable, solvable, and takes nothing more than 'inactivity' to achieve.

If there is a conspiracy I would make, it is that this truth has been covered up.




[edit on 27-10-2008 by Old_One]