The Evolution of Belief

reply to post by HunkaHunka


My friend I would never endeavor to deny that there are not common sense pearls of wisdom and insights into the human conditioned sprinkled throughout religious doctrines and text.

Yet one can find these as well in the Farmer’s Almanac and some amazingly accurate long range weather forecasts as well!

Yes the Almanac is published yearly for a price in gold that requires a greater investment in keeping up with than one or two simple religious texts, but…you don’t have to make donations at the Almanac’s publisher’s headquarters on a weekly basis either!

As our friends the Habiru would say “Such a deal!”

As a natural human being my friend you have at your core an incredible wealth of untapped powers and abilities.

Organized religions are in large part designed to cause you to disassociate yourself from them or to ascribe their occasional manifestations to other things that you are taught to see as divinely beyond your personal control and responsibility but as either the coincidentally inspired work of mystical entities or the acknowledgement and granting of a request by a deity.

This is simply a travesty visited upon humankind by a ruling class whose greed and corruption can not afford or risk you as a human being ever reaching or understanding your full human potential.

Any good conman can tell you that the best lies are those couched in kernels of the truth.

There are just enough kernels of the truth in false religious doctrines to make them believable but the lies do far more damage in almost entirely unrestrained form, than the truths do good in highly restrained and distorted form.

You are you and what flows from you flows from you and what abilities you enjoy in any of the realms that comprise your life’s experiences are inherent to you and of you.

The truth shall set you free!

Fear not freedom or that others desire it.

Just budget your money wisely as there are still only 179 shopping days left to Christmas! Which occurs 3 days after the symbolic death and theft of the sun in it’s celestial travels as it frees itself from it’s fixed position in the sky that it holds for those 72 hours from the 22nd Winter Equinox to the 25th when it restarts it’s life sustaining and growing movements towards longer and warmer days.

I personally recommend a tropical equatorial residence as it’s just not such a big deal when it’s 80 degrees at the beach on the 22nd of December.

The following post is a bit long but I think it does give some insight towards understanding the "issue" of religion and faith.

I find most people that are atheists or are against religions are just riding on their own anger, suffering, ego or arrogance. My parents are atheists, whilst I'm not. This is why:

Religion is like fire, but one which is always burning inside us and can either be used to do the worst of and greatest of things. We all have it in some way, but just wouldn't impose it on others - at a time being that is.

Many great people were also very religious, and that certainly is not a negative thing whatsoever, not at all.

Religion is like a woman. There are men who isolate themselves from women, as if they are greater beings, as if women make them do bad things. Muslims are very isolated from other women, because they corrupt men with effective seduction.

Belief is a relative attribute of living beings. Dog believes his master will rise up from dead and stands on his master's grave waiting for the miracle.

Not being rational isn't being religious, it's just being irrational.

We stick all kinds of labels on ourselves - I'm Christian, I'm Buddhist, I'm Muslim... it's just that, a mark, like that "mark of the beast" and nothing greater than just simply marking one as a human being.

The problem is we don't know who we are, we barely even know what we are. The word "science" is becoming a label, the same label as "Christian", it is only starting to get exploited in modern times as much as religion. Science says this, science says that - who is science, is it a man sitting on clouds who is better than you, or is it a bearded monkey with glasses and a diploma who is better than you?

Science is better than religion? Then science IS religion. Atheism is truth? I say it isn't, but what is then? Of course I don't know what is truth, you probably don't know either. Even if you did, you couldn't express it with letters - truth is absolute and can't be reproduced. You say you know the truth but not absolute truth? That statement is just misleading, it's deceptive and seductive, much as religion you're opposed to.

What iulslion has been posting are words from numerous philosophers, scientists, and even men who claim to know the truth, who know themselves. He's not speaking truth, but lies, in best possible intentions, just like you - one can't possibly write truth. Not in stone tablets, not here in ATS either. Don't dismiss what he said, he's read and done probably more research into "Evolution of Belief" than all of us who posted here - it's not mumbo jumbo.

We people learn through days, through life, experiences, through evolution. We learn and yet we always believe in truth, some truth, for belief is what starts the journey towards absolute truth and what energy you invest into that journey is what you will get in return.
If you search with anger, you will find anger. If you search with pure curiosity, you'll find even more curiosity.

Religion is just natural, it's not deviating from nature. However, we want to change things by proposing a same thing with different label on it - that's why we get so much resistance, because we do it with very resistance in ourselves, resistance towards the same thing with another name.

Knowledge is also religion. I won't label it with "good" or "bad", that's just silly. Knowledge can be abused, it is always a lie, but we must walk the path of lies to get to truth, just as we must suffer in order to feel joy. You can't just deny ignorance, it's like denying pain - it doesn't lead anywhere, just anchors you to one same spot.

If you truly want to find the truth, you must understand as much things as you can. Try to understand what you hate the most, instead of just throwing rocks at it. By investing positive energy, you will get positive feedback and will understand how religion truly functions and why are we atheists at the same time

[edit on 16-6-2009 by SassyCat]

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Actually, all that you said are things which I would consider to not be important. I do not even care if Jesus is real or not, it has nothing to do with the "truth". So I pretty much avoid those kind of discussions. I figure it to be about like people arguing over if the matrix movie is literally real or not, either way they are missing the understanding given.

Truth is an understanding, not literal words.

Everything Jesus says of himself is true of others. The difference is he had really deep understandings, well beyond any normal man. And if he is not real, then whoever wrote the story had the same deep understandings. And it is the understanding that is important.

I think much of that has been covered up and manipulated. I'll give an example. I do not think Mary was a virgin. The father(god) is the virgin. I think it was likely changed to keep people blind to the understanding. The bible and religion gears Jesus to be everything you are not. But that is a lie. And Jesus even says these things, like you can do even greater things, and the father is within you etc.

Jesus knows that he is not his flesh. That he is his soul. And he knows where the soul is born from. It is born of the father, and that is a virgin birth. The flesh is born of our flesh parents. He even denies Mary as his mother at one point. 2 births in the understanding.

Those are the kinds of things I think of as "truth" in the bible. I understand that as the father/son relationship. I know what he is talking about for myself. All that other stuff doesn't really have bearing on this kind of stuff.

I also think Christianity as a religion is the "anti-christ" religion people wonder about. It came after the time of Jesus, it is based not on the understanding of Jesus, but on the idol of Jesus and the teachings of Paul(fraud). It appeals to political power, and then proceeds to kill anyone who doesn't go along with their authority structure and version of things. Jesus says do not make authority figures of yourselves, and they do the opposite.

He warns of them in Matthew 7.

I find the religion to be Satanic in nature. It's a religion based on a sacrifice. And not just any sacrifice. But a sacrifice of truth so that the lie of this world may live. I on the other hand look towards the understanding of Jesus as being the real deal, and then to follow that rather than the murder is to live in the truth. Jesus says he desires mercy, not sacrifice but then the entire religion is based on sacrifice.

Jesus does not fight back because he would be committing an evil action if he did so. Same reason he heals the mans ears, do no harm to others. So he shows it is better to die than to take up evil and save yourself. Because when you have evil fighting evil, the greater evil will win. And thus, if you succeed you will have become an even greater evil. Fighting fire with fire makes for a bigger fire.

But in Romans - a book named to the political power it appeases, it twists this into being all powers and authority are of god, and of course that means the "Romans". But Jesus did not submit to their powers, he just didn't do evil things. If he had submitted and served those powers, they wouldn't have killed him. He was a threat to their power, that is the reason he was conspired against.

So yes, I am well aware of the manipulation and so forth. But I separate that from the understanding of Jesus. If I couldn't separate Christians and Jesus then I wouldn't talk about it at all. Not that they are all evil or anything, just most of them are deceived. For them, it matters if Jesus is literally real or not. Only have to deceive the good people.

reply to post by SassyCat


Thanks for the mention but I would appreciate you talking to me instead of talking about me.

I am not one of those people who, as you suggest go around posting quotes from various philosophers or prophets:

What iulslion has been posting are words from numerous philosophers, scientists, and even men who claim to know the truth, who know themselves.

No, I am a prophet for the living God. I do not claim to speak for God, I speak of myself, and of what comes to me. But I have been led through life, fully aware of His presence, and He has led me here, amongst other places. I do this not for me, but for God. (for all of you)

I may have spent a lifetime studying the nature of human beings. Mathematics, Chemistry, Philosophy, Psychology and finally Medicine, I have discovered things, and I have re-discovered things.

However 99% of what I say are my own words, and prove me wrong - please. I may use some quotes, and I give credit where it is due. But this is the way knowledge is used where I come from...

Lets get to the point.

You are right when you said:

He's not speaking truth, but lies, in best possible intentions, just like you - one can't possibly write truth.

SassyCat

The sad fact of the matter is, no matter how much we know, we will never know the truth. That is why KNOWLEDGE IS NOT THE POINT OF LIFE.

You can spend every single waking moment of your life, burying your nose in a book, and you will reach the end just like every other guy, saying "what the ^&*# just happened?"

Hence let me emphisize my point again:

Thought itself, is the highest existence. The highest reality. It is hard indeed to put a thought into words. It is much harder yet to put a collection of thoughts under a single word. (religion)

iulslion

So please don't go around like you think you know what religion is all about, because the history of religion - is the history of this here Earth we live on. Sure religion has changed and has many names...

But it is not something that will one day be forgotten, or left behind as science progresses.

Religion in itself, proves one thing.
God is here and has always been. Even if just in the minds of his followers. All the same. Hes not going anywhere.

[edit on 17-6-2009 by iulslion]

Thermodynamics – a running down process. In common parlance, science indicates the universe did not evolve and continue to improve, but rather the converse. To advance organic evolution is to contradict this scientific second law of thermodynamics. The truth of the Bible is that there is a "running down" of the universe (Heb. 1: 10-12).