Reality Check - stop degradation of discussion to Religion vs. Science

It seems to me people have lost all common sense in the discussion of origins and creationism, spirituality and indeed any subject relating to the concept of "God".

The problem is one of culture and how it relates to consciousness. The problem is western (and therefore most of) culture is in an epistemological and ontological crisis. The western mind is ill. Spiritually sick and lost, because of materialism.

Most discussion of "God" (the nature(/existence) of whom "creationism" depends) quickly degrades into a fierce fight of self-perpetuating belief-knowledge systems and their respective twists (religious establishment, scientific establishment, etc). We cannot stick to the simple definition of "God" = "all that is" - we have to fall back again and again to our programming and perpetuate what bogus ideology has been shoved down our throats for millennia regarding the nature of God and our relationship to God.

It seems on one side we have a mass of people clinging to dogma and literal interpretation of thousand year old scriptures which makes no sense when observing the world and bearing in mind the achievements of the exploration of physical matter through science. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism all do as good of a job of explaining the world as does the African creation myth of God Bumba who had a stomach ache and puked out the world. Yet, you have a millennia year old institution which addresses extremely fundamental human needs of understanding.

On the other side we have materialism - the idea that all of reality is made of matter and therefore the study of matter gives or CAN give complete understanding of reality. An equally loony idea, in my opinion. An argument can be made that science has propelled civilization forward towards progress. I agree to an extent - it has propelled it towards material progress.

The problem is there is an infinite amount of experience out there than science cannot account for, so being the self-perpetuating belief-knowledge system that it is, it simply tries to explain it "away" even when such action is inappropriate and obviously not relevant to some deeper truth of reality waiting to be understood. This is what I find in so much of what has been labeled the "New Age" - that, in my definition, includes the beginning of what I consider to be a kind of Spiritual Renaissance - spiritual gurus, alien channels, psychonauts, healers, remote viewers, alien contactees and so on.

The collective mind has rebuked against the absurdity of shallow, dogmatic, manipulative control-based religion, then rebuked against the answer to religion - the absurdity of the rationalist-reductionist methodologies of science, the mathematical and strictly physical way of explaining things "away". And what we get is people searching for truth somewhere in between. Some framework of understanding that can account for the apparent presence of something beyond physical reality - however you may experience it.

I'm not saying some people who call themselves "new agers" are not a bunch of swindlers looking to make a buck selling faith for money and power/fame, but I am saying a lot of them are not. They're all crazy in their specific way and some of them make tremendous sense, if you're willing to set aside your belief system and preconceptions for a moment, put your intellectual arrogance asleep for a moment and try to take on a new perspective and try to push the limits of your perception further than they've been so far.

The trick is, in seeking any truth in anything - and therefore in God (in my definition) is not selling your faith to anyone. Not to religion, not to science, not to spiritual gurus or alien channels. What you have to do is flood your mind with as much information as possible and don't believe anyone. Just see how the immense volumes of diverse information relate to YOUR DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF REALITY and in time, metaphorically speaking, a "mathematical formula" of understanding will pop-up in your mind and unify seemingly unrelated patterns of consciousness. Don't be afraid to be a minority of one - on the contrary - remain true to yourself in this journey.

This is all for now, I really needed to spill my thoughts somewhere. Sorry if I was a little incohesive, my mind is kind of foggy as of late.



P.S.

Really, this guy sums it up brilliantly

reply to post by falseveils


WOW! I love the thought you have put into creating this thread and when reading I completely felt like I was right beside you saying YEAH! Whooooo Hoooooo!!! Real Talk!

I had a hard time following any religion so I formed my own opinion when I went on a "journey" and was it an eye opener!

Now..my opinion is based solely on my experiences of my perceptive reality. My journey is different and so my perception of the Universe and the Energy I call God is different. Really cant explain each step I took to come to my own conclusion.

All I know is .....its different. I do not "need" to be like someone else and I do not need others to validate my experiences that lead me to my own conclusion.

Its a "personal" journey I have taken in my own right within my own self. I came into this existence through a material tunnel and I will exit this life through an unseen and energetic tunnel.

Others "personal" experiences that have lead them to a conclusion is within their own right.

The only issue I have is when people try to mock or ridicule others beliefs.

Love is the only way to go...if a word or an action is not within the realm of love....walk away.

This right here is what I found to be TRUTH!

We cannot stick to the simple definition of "God" = "all that is"

Well, this forum is actually about conspiracies to push creationism in classrooms.

Your thread is off-topic. Might I suggest Philosophy and Metaphysics?

reply to post by falseveils

It seems to me people have lost all common sense in the discussion of origins and creationism, spirituality and indeed any subject relating to the concept of "God".

You'll get as many different responses as to what constitutes "common sense" as the number of people you ask. "Common sense" is a poor way to try and make judgements.

The problem is one of culture and how it relates to consciousness. The problem is western (and therefore most of) culture is in an epistemological and ontological crisis. The western mind is ill. Spiritually sick and lost, because of materialism.

You've laid your bias bare in your second paragraph by blaming the ills of western society on materialism. The honesty would be refreshing, but "materialism" is just code that many theists use for atheism and science. So while you go on to try and assert that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of science and religion, you've made it abundantly clear that you're not really interested in some kind of middle ground.

Most discussion of "God" (the nature(/existence) of whom "creationism" depends) quickly degrades into a fierce fight of self-perpetuating belief-knowledge systems and their respective twists (religious establishment, scientific establishment, etc). We cannot stick to the simple definition of "God" = "all that is" - we have to fall back again and again to our programming and perpetuate what bogus ideology has been shoved down our throats for millennia regarding the nature of God and our relationship to God.

Yes, but your defining of God as "all that is" is, in fact, just another belief system, just another ideology, just another form of programming.

It seems on one side we have a mass of people clinging to dogma and literal interpretation of thousand year old scriptures which makes no sense when observing the world and bearing in mind the achievements of the exploration of physical matter through science. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism all do as good of a job of explaining the world as does the African creation myth of God Bumba who had a stomach ache and puked out the world. Yet, you have a millennia year old institution which addresses extremely fundamental human needs of understanding.

On the other side we have materialism - the idea that all of reality is made of matter and therefore the study of matter gives or CAN give complete understanding of reality. An equally loony idea, in my opinion. An argument can be made that science has propelled civilization forward towards progress. I agree to an extent - it has propelled it towards material progress.

And yet there are many theists who have no problem reconciling their faith with scientific fact. I think part of the problem is that some people feel that science it trying to supplant religion when the truth of the matter is that science simply doesn't care what religion has to say. Science is concerned with the observable, religion (in a broader sense, metaphysics) is concerned with what is, ultimately, not observable.

The problem is there is an infinite amount of experience out there than science cannot account for, so being the self-perpetuating belief-knowledge system that it is, it simply tries to explain it "away" even when such action is inappropriate and obviously not relevant to some deeper truth of reality waiting to be understood. This is what I find in so much of what has been labeled the "New Age" - that, in my definition, includes the beginning of what I consider to be a kind of Spiritual Renaissance - spiritual gurus, alien channels, psychonauts, healers, remote viewers, alien contactees and so on.

Rarely does science try to "explain away" these things. There's just no objective evidence by which these phenomena can be measures, so science doesn't take them into consideration. And there's been peer-reviewed published research into the area of remote viewing that suggests there may be something to it. You should read up on it.

The collective mind has rebuked against the absurdity of shallow, dogmatic, manipulative control-based religion, then rebuked against the answer to religion - the absurdity of the rationalist-reductionist methodologies of science, the mathematical and strictly physical way of explaining things "away". And what we get is people searching for truth somewhere in between. Some framework of understanding that can account for the apparent presence of something beyond physical reality - however you may experience it.

Given that the majority of the world's population is theistic in some fashion, I'm not sure how you can claim that the "collective mind" has "rebuked… religion". Using developed nations as a gauge of acceptance of science given that they are the populations most exposed to science education, a majority of the population of developed nations are proponents of the theory of evolution, probably the most contentious theory on a theological basis, so I'm not sure how you can claim that the "collective mind" has "rebuked science".

I'm not saying some people who call themselves "new agers" are not a bunch of swindlers looking to make a buck selling faith for money and power/fame, but I am saying a lot of them are not. They're all crazy in their specific way and some of them make tremendous sense, if you're willing to set aside your belief system and preconceptions for a moment, put your intellectual arrogance asleep for a moment and try to take on a new perspective and try to push the limits of your perception further than they've been so far.

Again, this is why common sense is a really poor gauge of the validity of a judgement, as it is anything but common.

The trick is, in seeking any truth in anything - and therefore in God (in my definition) is not selling your faith to anyone. Not to religion, not to science, not to spiritual gurus or alien channels. What you have to do is flood your mind with as much information as possible and don't believe anyone. Just see how the immense volumes of diverse information relate to YOUR DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF REALITY and in time, metaphorically speaking, a "mathematical formula" of understanding will pop-up in your mind and unify seemingly unrelated patterns of consciousness. Don't be afraid to be a minority of one - on the contrary - remain true to yourself in this journey.

But this whole post is really you making your case for a redefinition of God as "all that is", and therefore it is just you trying to "sell your faith" to members of this forum. It's not, as you going on to assert, "taking in all of the information" and seeing where it leads. It's taking in all of the information with a set end point in mind.

I believe it's a wholesome arguement for ATS, hearing peoples cases to try to support their beliefs. I like having the ability to see all the arguements for an against certain beliefs, and it being an open forum to I can hear intellectual(at least sometimes) debate on the topic, instead of only the bias of the person putting their thoughts on other mediums.

The fact that every single topic that has anything to do with religion, get's derailed into a few people arguing what belief is right or not, is ridiculous though. If people want to push their beliefs, they can make a thread about it themselves, no go into threads relating to other beliefs and go spouting out claims that the poster of that thread is wrong.

For example, I partook in the recent topic about whether or not the bible actually taught of people going to heaven or hell. I felt no need to mention that I didn't have any belief in the bible's validity, because that was off topic, and instead discussed it on topic. If I wanted to do what I could to express those views, I would make my own thread, not derail a different fully viable discussion.

There's times and places that aren't proper for that preaching. The problem though is that people think that etiquette doesn't apply to them after they're convinced that they are right about something.

Same thing happens with Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative, Conspiracy theorist and Grounded people. People don't care if it's irrelevant to attack beliefs that aren't their own, and that's a serious problem.

reply to post by PieKeeper


You're right, no conspiracy here. Mods should move it where it belongs. Sorry, Mods.

I would agree. There is a conspiracy on these forums to attack any idea of spirituality, through cheap shots and outright character attacks. It's always the same group of people, and they always derail the thread into a science v. religion thing. I don't totally believe everything that's in the OP, but that's the point of self revelation and spirituality. Every person will come to terms with their own spirituality on their own terms.