Bluelighters what are your religious beliefs (or disbeliefs)

[Flickering]

but this still isn't proving that consciousness is all there is.

So, what else could there be?

and well, the difference between the death of a cell and the death of a whole organism is that the cell itself isn't aware of itself, but the organism (man) very well is. even though we change all the time, something in ourselves still stays the same.

What does?

 

[Bagseed]

So, what else could there be?

energy in different forms (matter, radiation)

What does?

the composition of our DNA throughout almost every cell of our bodies for example, which is unique to every single entity of life?

we can agree that there has to be an observer... but the observer himself has to be made out of something, but if there isn't anything, there can't be anyone observing "it".

 

[Flickering]

Basically, the World, Nature, Existence, Actual Infinity, Objective Reality, Absolute Truth, Being(potentiality being actualized), the Great Mystery, Nirguna Brahman, the Tao, Dependent Origination, the
Eternal One, the Sacred Other, the Logos, Dunamis, etc. are all different names that represent what the word God means to me. I define God as the most supreme being. As humans, we have a tendency to anthromorphize this concept to help us make sense of our reality, our existence. To grasp at the infinite so we can confine it into a feasable idea. However, these concepts that we name(so we can communicate and appreciate it) are only symbolize the Actual. We personify it so we can better identify with it, but what we conceptualize merely represents a reflective glimpse of the objective reality through the filter of a subjective perspective.

Beautiful way to say much the same thing. It's to recognise that whenever you're dealing with words and ideologies, you're only dealing with masks.

energy in different forms (matter, radiation)

So there's a universe, but nothing there to see it? We're going to need to back up for a second here and qualify in what sense, then, it actually exists. Because that's the big, unchallenged assumption of our time, much the way very few people who lived in the Middle Ageswould have even thought to question that the God of the Bible existed. Does an object exist without a subject? You said yourself a subject can't exist without an object, isn't the reverse then also true?

It requires for you to be aware of something before it's real. Until then it's just the potential of an experience. An uncollapsed wavelength.

the composition of our DNA throughout almost every cell of our bodies for example, which is unique to every single entity of life?

The fact we're all coded by DNA? Or the compositions themselves? Because the composition of DNA can change by all sorts of means over a person's lifetime - radiation, chemicals, viruses, retroviruses, mitosis errors, meosis errors, replication errors and so on. But even if it did stick with you over a lifetime, what of it, does that mean it's you? If a piece of your hair contains your DNA, is it still you when it's plucked from your head? If you get cloned, are you and your clone the same entity? Which part of your DNA are you? - or is it rather just another part of the whole process that's constantly assembling this thing you call yourself?

 

[Bagseed]

It requires for you to be aware of something before it's real. Until then it's just the potential of an experience. An uncollapsed wavelength.

well, you can't really transfer this principle from the microscopic to the macroscopic. it might apply to small particles, but not really to bigger clusters of matter. I think it is a bit strange to completely link existence to consciousness. what was before conscious life arose? if there wasn't an observer before, how would the universe, following your logic, ever turned into a certain direction?

and, in my understanding, quantum physics is still a theory, yet to be proven to be a scientific law. so you can't really use it to prove your point. also for example, the heisenberg uncertainty principle states that you can't observe the position of a single electron, because any means to observe it (hit it with engergy, like light, radiowaves) would push it into a new place. but this doesn't mean that it is never in a certain position, just that we can't observe where it is exactly, thus it is easier and more accurate to see it as a wave with areas of high probability of residence (which are the orbitals).

regarding the DNA thing, yeah of course mutations happen over your lifespan, but the bulk of your cells have the same code embedded in them over your lifespan. the same code also provides mechanism to destroy cells which differ from this code (cancer cells for example). of course, if some of these mutations wouldn't survive, there would be no evolution. but still, DNA is a pretty solid and amazing thing.

You said yourself a subject can't exist without an object, isn't the reverse then also true?

not necesarily. how do you come to that conclusion? 3/2 isn't the same as 2/3..

also, if you are the observer, wouldn't it be necessary that some other observer observed you first, before you are even able to observe stuff yourself. so even your theory would require an observer prior to the observer (and so on).

 

[Flickering]

well, you can't really transfer this principle from the microscopic to the macroscopic.

Why not?

I think it is a bit strange to completely link existence to consciousness. what was before conscious life arose?

It's as meaningless as asking what was before time, since before or after are also observations.

if there wasn't an observer before, how would the universe, following your logic, ever turned into a certain direction?

I'm not the one claiming there's any difference between the observer and the universe.

and, in my understanding, quantum physics is still a theory, yet to be proven to be a scientific law.

In science, 'laws' don't refer to theories that have been tested so thoroughly we've proved them, but rather to basic underlying and observable principles of the universe. As far as quantum physics go, the theory is pretty... well, I almost said solid, but quantum physics is literally the antithesis of solidity, so there you go. But anyway. There are no perfect models of the universe by definition, but as far as they go, elementary quantum physics are looking pretty reliable by now.

At any rate though, to clarify, I wasn't using quantum physics to prove my point, so much as to draw a parallel. 'Collapsing the wavelength' is literally the physical parallel of 'seeing which side of the coin you flipped' - until you look down and see, the coin is neither head nor tails, but rather the potential to be either. Because again - in what sense is it heads or tails until someone looks and then interprets the sensory data?

regarding the DNA thing, yeah of course mutations happen over your lifespan, but the bulk of your cells have the same code embedded in them over your lifespan.

Okay, so is the bulk of you the same but 1% of you not? It's the same problem no matter what proportion or what element of you changes. The fact is simply that no structure, mental or physical, is completely stagnant. Stuff goes in, stuff goes out. Emergent experiences come and go. There's only one thing that's consistent through all that and that's your own presence in it. And that's what you really are: the raw, unalterable fact that you're aware of anything at all.

not necesarily. how do you come to that conclusion? 3/2 isn't the same as 2/3..

Only valid if object is greater than subject, which you haven't demonstrated yet, so it's circular logic. Sure, 3/2 > 2/3, and all Catholics are Christian but not all Christians are Catholic. But what reason have you given yourself to think the universe is greater than you, as opposed to symbiotic with you? It's crystal clear to me that it's symbiotic.

also, if you are the observer, wouldn't it be necessary that some other observer observed you first, before you are even able to observe stuff yourself. so even your theory would require an observer prior to the observer (and so on).

Correct. And each observer is also a subject of somebody else's observation. What does it tell you if you're a subject and an object all at once?

I'll expand on that. You are sustained by the world around you. Your body is provided for by the food you eat, without which it soon withers, dies and returns to what created it. Your thoughts were given to you by what you learned from your environment, so you are and always have been dependent upon your surroundings in that way too. Think about language. Did you invent these words and their meanings? No, they were handed to you by your culture, through your family and peers. Every single thing you can think of was given to you and one day you'll have to give it back.

You also contribute to it all, though. Everything that goes through you also goes out. No information is ever wasted, none of it ever gets destroyed. There is nothing to destroy. It's a zero sum game. The inside feeds off the outside, the outside feeds off the inside. And really there isn't any difference at all, just whatever you imagine there to be. Just as you imagine death to be an ending, when it could just as easily be seen as a beginning. When you're born, it's as much an ending as it is a beginning.

There is literally no difference between you and everything else. So when you're looking at the outside world, you're looking at yourself, because your experience is a part of you, and your experience is inseparable from the outside world. In turn, the outside world needs you to be exactly what and where you are right now, in order for it to be what it presently is. You came out of it, it created you, and it's no different from you, the boundaries are all imaginary to begin with. One is not greater than the other because they are the same thing.

 

[Bagseed]

don't have time to reply to all of this, but just a little answer:

'Collapsing the wavelength' is literally the physical parallel of 'seeing which side of the coin you flipped' - until you look down and see, the coin is neither head nor tails, but rather the potential to be either. Because again - in what sense is it heads or tails until someone looks and then interprets the sensory data?

well "heads or tails" is a human concept, meaningless to anything but us, but the coin itself is a phyiscal body made out of matter with a mass, and following physical laws, if you flip it a certain way, it will land on either side. you can calculate this with great accuracy. so no, the coin can't be in a state between to sides of his surface being both facing down or upwards, even if you don't look at it.

 

[Flickering]

well "heads or tails" is a human concept, meaningless to anything but us

Yep.

but the coin itself is a phyiscal body made out of matter with a mass, and following physical laws,

No, those are all concepts as well.

if you flip it a certain way, it will land on either side. you can calculate this with great accuracy. so no, the coin can't be in a state between to sides of his surface being both facing down or upwards, even if you don't look at it.

(bold mine) As soon as you've calculated it, you've observed it.

 

[LearntYoung]

I'm an anti-theist. I don't think religion brings any good in the modern world, nor does it have any ground anymore.

 

[Bagseed]

No, those are all concepts as well.

well but the difference is that they are concepts meant to describe something real. matter is definately more real than "heads or tails".

also, I don't agree that you have observed it by calculating it. and if the calculation is accurate every time, there is only one possible state to observe anyway. you can do the calculation before the coin ever gets flipped, and if you flip the coin in exactly the same way dictated by your equation, it will act the way you predicted it. this can also be repeated as often as you wish. so again, I don't agree that making a calculation equals observing something which hasn't even happened yet.

 

[turkalurk]

cool discussion, I can dig it. On a quatum level things aren't ao deterministic and predictable. I am more of a fan of chaos theory. the observer is an emergent property of what is being observed, and its properties continue to be observed from other similar properties of existence. The objective reality is unattainable from a subjective vantage point, but we can conceptualize and try to project ourself to higher vantage points to gain a "more" objective perspective. For me, the entire system of being is infinitely greater system than my personal internal system of being in which the properties of "I" emerge from. Existence will always exist, but the frame of references attached to this particular experience I assign my identity to will have be assigned to a different subjective perspective when these properties emerge within a different system with its own frame of references. We are all one from a universal perspective, but the word "I" implies an individual perspective. Everything we are is contained within the category of Existence, but only small portions of the whole are contained within us.

Mathematically, existence is 1. Therefore any individual aspect of existence is less than the whole, a fraction less than 1.

 

[Bagseed]

Mathematically, existence is 1. Therefore any individual aspect of existence is less than the whole, a fraction less than 1.

interesting way to express this. thanks

 

[Flickering]

well but the difference is that they are concepts meant to describe something real. matter is definately more real than "heads or tails".

You think that because you can touch, feel, see, smell etc. physical objects - perceive them directly with the senses. But you are still perceiving them with your senses. They're still projections of your mind. Your perception of matter is not matter itself. In that way everything exists in your mind, whether it's abstract concepts like heads and tails, or concrete concepts like body and coin.

That may sound pedantic, but consider how wrong you can be about the qualities of an object. When you hold and feel a coin, are you feeling every constituent detail of the coin? The position of every last atom, every groove on the face of Lincoln, every glint of light of every part of the surface? No, what you're getting is actually a very vague, imprecise model of the coin, which your brain interprets by picking up sensory data through the nervous system. It's usually enough for your human mode of perception. But it is not the coin itself. It is never anywhere near the coin itself.

Furthermore, the idea that the coin exists to begin with IS an idea. That is, the word 'coin' distinguishes it from 'not-coin', i.e. everything else in the universe. But until you make that distinction, the separation doesn't exist, because the separation is only in your mind.

It's ALL thought.

also, I don't agree that you have observed it by calculating it. and if the calculation is accurate every time, there is only one possible state to observe anyway. you can do the calculation before the coin ever gets flipped, and if you flip the coin in exactly the same way dictated by your equation, it will act the way you predicted it. this can also be repeated as often as you wish. so again, I don't agree that making a calculation equals observing something which hasn't even happened yet.

IF the calculation is accurate every time - but for that to be so, you would need a perfect computer, and to have a perfect computer, it would need to factor every variable in the universe with unerring precision; and if it could do that, it would have to be bigger than the universe itself.

But the problem is even more fundamental than that, because everything you've just described has still been about somebody or something calculating the probability of this outcome, and observing what happens. You still can't demonstrate that the object is entirely separate from the observer. Because it isn't. If there is a coin that nobody has ever noticed or interacted with in any way, it might as well not exist. And the moment you try to prove it does exist, you draw attention to it, and it begins to exist in your mind.

 

[murphythecat]

more or less all true
but im afraid that what you say must be experienced for people to understand
or at least, to see for themselves.

theres no outer world without a inner world that want to look at the outer world.
but you know what, im done trying to show that to people and so should you. people who get it gets it, and those who dont, simply dont. and Im afraid its very hard to make them see how their logical approach is absolutely illogical.

cheers though, we think alike.

You think that because you can touch, feel, see, smell etc. physical objects - perceive them directly with the senses. But you are still perceiving them with your senses. They're still projections of your mind. Your perception of matter is not matter itself. In that way everything exists in your mind, whether it's abstract concepts like heads and tails, or concrete concepts like body and coin.

That may sound pedantic, but consider how wrong you can be about the qualities of an object. When you hold and feel a coin, are you feeling every constituent detail of the coin? The position of every last atom, every groove on the face of Lincoln, every glint of light of every part of the surface? No, what you're getting is actually a very vague, imprecise model of the coin, which your brain interprets by picking up sensory data through the nervous system. It's usually enough for your human mode of perception. But it is not the coin itself. It is never anywhere near the coin itself.

Furthermore, the idea that the coin exists to begin with IS an idea. That is, the word 'coin' distinguishes it from 'not-coin', i.e. everything else in the universe. But until you make that distinction, the separation doesn't exist, because the separation is only in your mind.

It's ALL thought.



IF the calculation is accurate every time - but for that to be so, you would need a perfect computer, and to have a perfect computer, it would need to factor every variable in the universe with unerring precision; and if it could do that, it would have to be bigger than the universe itself.

But the problem is even more fundamental than that, because everything you've just described has still been about somebody or something calculating the probability of this outcome, and observing what happens. You still can't demonstrate that the object is entirely separate from the observer. Because it isn't. If there is a coin that nobody has ever noticed or interacted with in any way, it might as well not exist. And the moment you try to prove it does exist, you draw attention to it, and it begins to exist in your mind.

 

[Flickering]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's pointless. A lot of people are genuinely, often desperately, trying to understand this stuff. I myself spent years in almost constant contemplation, meditating and listening to gurus and blasting my mind open with psychedelics and assimilating and integrating information from all aspects of life... It only really started to click for me late last year in any meaningful lasting sense, when I was on a sunset drive in the country with my girlfriend, completely sober, and it struck me as completely undeniable that everything outside of the present is just a story and my entire life history is similarly a fabrication - there is only now. In fact it never hurts to reinforce that everything I just said is also a story, and the words I'm writing that story down with are nothing but glossolalia to anyone who does not ascribe meaning and imagery to them!

Everything, including thoughts of past and future, only exist insofar as they are observed from the here and now, from the present moment. But to realise that, a person has to go against an entire lifetime of inculcation into a very skewed way of thinking. There are so many aspects of it you have to deconstruct, and for it to be genuine, you have to do it in your own way. The search (for where you are standing right now) does not end the moment you notice you don't exist, that your entire identity including your name and your life story were imaginary all along. You still have to confront every thought about this 'I' which people are so sure is real, like how a computer can delete a program but leave behind a mess of residual files. Progressing towards consistent mindfulness is a matter of constantly cleaning up the clutter of your own mind until you finally reach a point where you don't have to struggle to understand this is all just an illusion.

Once you're there, though, all the mystery schools of the ancient world seem like one big joke, because when you look at what the Buddha or Jesus taught, it's clear the guys never took the roles and titles they were given seriously. All they were teaching was simply to step beyond those things. It's nothing grandiose. It's the simplest thing in all the world. And the rest of their teachings follow naturally and intuitively: that there is no reason to hoard because there is no 'I' which owns things; that when you harm others you are harming yourself; that there is no reason to fear, ever, because the fact you exist right now is all that you will ever need. All of which is in stark contrast to everything human civilisation stands for (separation, possession and fear).

Even the ones who don't follow or see any value in what I guess you could call nondualistic thinking, at least have been exposed to some other mode of thought now. This might someday take seed in who-knows-what form.

Good to meet others who see things this way anyhow.

 

[murphythecat]

yep
me too!
psychedelic helps.
the buddha teaching is so simple, life is so simple and the path to happiness so simple but at the same time, a total 180 degree trunover compared to our way of life.
mindfulness is hard to attain at anytime, we are so attached to the pleasure of the 5 senses and so used to it, that simply being here now is absolutely alien for us.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's pointless. A lot of people are genuinely, often desperately, trying to understand this stuff. I myself spent years in almost constant contemplation, meditating and listening to gurus and blasting my mind open with psychedelics and assimilating and integrating information from all aspects of life... It only really started to click for me late last year in any meaningful lasting sense, when I was on a sunset drive in the country with my girlfriend, completely sober, and it struck me as completely undeniable that everything outside of the present is just a story and my entire life history is similarly a fabrication - there is only now. Everything, including thoughts of past and future, only exist insofar as they are observed from the here and now, from the present moment. But to realise that, a person has to go against an entire lifetime of inculcation into a very skewed way of thinking. There are so many aspects of it you have to deconstruct, and for it to be genuine, you have to do it in your own way. The search (for where you are standing right now) does not end the moment you notice you don't exist, and your entire identity including your name and your life story is just thoughts, words and imagination. You still have to confront every thought about this 'I' which people are so sure is real, like how a computer can delete a program but leave behind a mess of residual files. Progressing towards consistent mindfulness is a matter of constantly cleaning up the clutter of your own mind until you finally reach a point where you don't have to struggle to understand this is all just an illusion. Once you're there, though, all the mystery schools of the ancient world seem like one big joke, because when you look at what the Buddha or Jesus taught, it's clear the guys never took the roles and titles they were given seriously. All they were teaching was simply to step beyond those things. It's nothing grandiose. It's the simplest thing in all the world. And the rest of their teachings follow naturally and intuitively: that there is no reason to hoard because there is no 'I' to own things; that when you harm others you are harming yourself; that there is no reason to fear, ever, because the fact you exist right now is all that you will ever need.

Even the ones who don't follow or see any value in what I guess you could call nondualistic thinking, at least have been exposed to some other mode of thought now. This might someday take seed in who-knows-what form.

Good to meet others who see things this way anyhow.

 

[sharpmetalmulisha]

I believe that there is a God. Not the kind depicted as a giant bearded guy in the clouds casting his finger down shaming you for this or that... or issuing stones tablets containing "the rules". I believe that the divine energy of ONE. So it doesn't matter if you are praying to God or Jesus or your own understanding of a "Higher Power", because each of these are the same energy, or at least made up of the same energy if they are separate entities. I believe in life after death, but not heaven or hell as places for reward or consequence, rather as states of mind. Though the Bible contains many great examples of Love, Faith, Honesty, Respect, and all the other values and principles taught by every other faith, I think that much of it is blown way out proportion and exaggerated, as well as having a lot of holes in its story. Two of every species of animal with Noah and his family at sea for approx a year or so (I googled it once, and it was something like a year and 110 days or something) and at least one predator didn't eat a giraffe or something? What did Noah eat? and his family? God is said to be loving and I think a God who really loved his creations would love them unconditionally, but the New Testament says that Salvation and eternal life is ONLY possible through Jesus. This means Jesus is the condition for you to be granted everlasting joy and peace and yada yada yada. I also believe that our bodies are more likely to be vessels for our spirits than a temple. Why would God cast out a creation because he/she is gay? Sexual orientation and sex in general sounds like such as earthly idea, so God's dislike towards homosexuals sounds like it was made up by a man on behalf of a church, not a God. I believe universal laws are what govern everything and the meaning of life is coexistence. Everything is intertwined... We need plants and plants need us, but we also need bee's to pollinate plants so we can breath, those bees are around to give us life, they are around to serve as food for birds and other creatures. Birds lay eggs and mammals eat eggs, etc. I believe that of the bible we have today (and other religious scriptures as well) are incomplete and there is more to be said with these books.

 

[thujone]

i don't understand what disbelief has to do with this topic. disbelief is having the facts and for whatever reason choosing not to believe it. there's no evidence to support the belief of any deities so it's not disbelief to think they most likely have never existed at all.

 

[Flickering]

A solipsist is like somebody who holds a coin in his hand and thinks only the head side exists.

 

[3dmusic]

I was born and brought up Roman Catholic, and I really resented having to give up an hour of each sunday to attend a boring mass.
I also didn't realise just how insidious the brainwashing was from it.
As I got older, I just stopped going to church and stopped believing in God.
I didn't move in drug circles and although I liked to find reasons and explainations for things, I didn't know anyone who thought deeper thoughts than just the everyday bullshit drivel that comes with secular living.
I'm still not religious, but after experimenting in middle age with psychedelics, I am left with 'some form of faith in a divinity'.
I hate all this new age stuff, as I think some new agers are as mind controlled as the religious nuts, but I am extremely sceptical of people who 'know' that this five-senses mundane reality is all there is, and after death, nothing happens.
I once got suicidal and felt releived that I had actually made a decision to die.
Finally, an end to this bullshit human race that are fucked as a species.
Finally an end to feeling miserable, hopeless and alone.
I was stopped from doing it though, because even though I knew I was confident in my ability to achieve death, I suddenly started thinking that if you kill your physical body, you could end up in an even bigger trap than being stuck in this existence. You could end up
still being somehow conscious and aware, but minus your body, as you just wasted it from suicide.
I just cannot believe that we are only our physical body, because while I am still not religious, I feel that there is more to us than our phsycal body.

 

[turkalurk]

I was born and brought up Roman Catholic, and I really resented having to give up an hour of each sunday to attend a boring mass.
I also didn't realise just how insidious the brainwashing was from it.
As I got older, I just stopped going to church and stopped believing in God.
I didn't move in drug circles and although I liked to find reasons and explainations for things, I didn't know anyone who thought deeper thoughts than just the everyday bullshit drivel that comes with secular living.
I'm still not religious, but after experimenting in middle age with psychedelics, I am left with 'some form of faith in a divinity'.
I hate all this new age stuff, as I think some new agers are as mind controlled as the religious nuts, but I am extremely sceptical of people who 'know' that this five-senses mundane reality is all there is, and after death, nothing happens.
I once got suicidal and felt releived that I had actually made a decision to die.
Finally, an end to this bullshit human race that are fucked as a species.
Finally an end to feeling miserable, hopeless and alone.
I was stopped from doing it though, because even though I knew I was confident in my ability to achieve death, I suddenly started thinking that if you kill your physical body, you could end up in an even bigger trap than being stuck in this existence. You could end up
still being somehow conscious and aware, but minus your body, as you just wasted it from suicide.
I just cannot believe that we are only our physical body, because while I am still not religious, I feel that there is more to us than our phsycal body.

I agree, its laughable to believe that we are only what we perceive. Perception is very limited, we perceive so little of reality, pretty assumptuous to believe that's all there is. We are constantly finding new ways to use technology to observe what we can not perceive with our normal senses.