• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

What made you find faith, or what turn against it?

I read an interesting passage about nihilism some two years ago. Will see if I can find it because it shook my understanding of it quite a bit.
 
lecroute said:
I was curious about how certain situations or events in life make you start having faith in a higher power. Or lose that faith.
Click to expand...
Not to quibble or split hairs, but originally I kinda perceived this to be a loaded question. I've since read that you're an atheist so I was off the mark a bit. But originally I suspected you were a religious person that was treating faith as an actual thing we either have or find, or have had and lost. But like I think FUBAR was suggesting... what about those of us that vote neither? It kinda reminds me of Bob Dylan: You're either serving the lord or you're serving the devil. Well, thanks for defining the parameters for all of us, Bob. Some of us think the statement itself is bullshit.

I don't think anyone has answered it this way yet, but here's an answer that I suspect atheists and religious people could agree on: The biggest life situations that sculpt faith is probably the culture you were born into. If you were born in back-woods USA you're probably more exposed to Christianity. If you were born in Pakistan it's probably Islam. Are there exceptions to this rule? Of course. But usually the people most impacted by religion in their upbringing or day-to-day lives are also most likely to be impacted by what they perceive to be "faith" later on.
 
AngelsandFairiesarereal said:
I always carry a different stone (or stones) on me or in my pocket and wear bracelets made of different stone like turquoise ect. When I am having a hard time with PTSD, flashbacks, panic attacks, ect … I’ll take the stone out of my pocket and hold it. I use it for grounding purposes to try to calm or bring me back by touching the edges and feeling the smoothness or ridges, or just feeling it in my hand. I usually have two different kind of stones for different texture and looks to help. If it’s really bad I will go outside in nature and just breathe and to distract myself feel the ridges with my fingers and notice the patterns on the stone (or like I said notice where it’s smooth). Or have a crystal of some sort and hold it up to the sky to see the parts that I can see through or the parts that the light goes through. It’s all kind of a direct way nature helps me with some pretty extreme PTSD episodes.
Click to expand...
This is what the ocean does for me.
Both the water, and the air.

Standing alone on a beach, screaming or crying into the wind and waves is always very therapeutic for me.
Being happy on the beach is just as therapeutic.
Oceans make me feel at home. Like I’ve arrived somewhere I’m supposed to be.

I never leave a beach without making a wish and throwing a rock. And I never leave a beach without taking one with me.

I have about 500 pounds of sea glass/marbles/etc.. and rocks/stones. I have my favourites on display. They bring me peace.

I relate to you a lot in that way ❤️
 
Asparagus_Prince said:
Not to quibble or split hairs, but originally I kinda perceived this to be a loaded question. I've since read that you're an atheist so I was off the mark a bit. But originally I suspected you were a religious person that was treating faith as an actual thing we either have or find, or have had and lost.
Click to expand...
Can't I be an atheist person who asks a loaded question about finding or losing faith in (a) god(s) because I want to better understand the concept of it?
 
pixies+ said:
This is what the ocean does for me.
Both the water, and the air.

Standing alone on a beach, screaming or crying into the wind and waves is always very therapeutic for me.
Being happy on the beach is just as therapeutic.
Oceans make me feel at home. Like I’ve arrived somewhere I’m supposed to be.

I never leave a beach without making a wish and throwing a rock. And I never leave a beach without taking one with me.

I have about 500 pounds of sea glass/marbles/etc.. and rocks/stones. I have my favourites on display. They bring me peace.

I relate to you a lot in that way ❤️
Click to expand...
That’s so beautiful, thank you for sharing that 💕💜
 
What is "God" & what is "Faith"?

I am so glad I learned about Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj & the Zen Monk Ikkyu as I can't help but smile & laugh reading over this thread.
Most of these posts are beyond help & understanding of the concepts people toss out.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
What is "God" & what is "Faith"?

I am so glad I learned about Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj & the Zen Monk Ikkyu as I can't help but smile & laugh reading over this thread.
Most of these posts are beyond help & understanding of the concepts people toss out.
Click to expand...
Instead of mocking everyone for our lack of understanding, perhaps you would like to explain your personal journey to what you believe faith is and who or what your view of "god" is.
Mocking others' belief systems is not a discussion or a sharing of a point of view; just a dismissal of others' belief without any substance or reason.
 
Cheshire_Kat said:
Instead of mocking everyone for our lack of understanding, perhaps you would like to explain your personal journey to what you believe faith is and who or what your view of "god" is.
Mocking others' belief systems is not a discussion or a sharing of a point of view; just a dismissal of others' belief without any substance or reason.
Click to expand...
Owkay..........

Began as a Child, if anyone knows the part in TIHKAL called The Spiral I lived that several nights a week for decades so I knew this body isn't it all, something else is out there & is way more deeper than it seems at first glance.

Worked my way through all kinds of "systems" from Chaos Magick, Hindu Aaiyyanists etc........ till I found an English man who spent years in the hills of India & he shared the NavNath Tradition with me.

When you are bound by the illusion "I am this body," you are merely a point in space and a moment in time.
When the self-identification with the body is no more, all space and time are in your mind which is a mere ripple in consciousness, which is awareness reflected in nature.
Awareness and matter are the active and the passive aspects of pure being which is in both and beyond both.
Space and time are the body and the mind of the universal existence. My feeling is that all that happens in space and time happens to me, that every experience is my experience, every form is my form.
What I take myself to be becomes my body, and all that happens to that body becomes my mind.
But at the root of the universe there is pure awareness, beyond space and time, here and now. Know it to be your real being and act accordingly.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
 
Cheshire_Kat said:
Mocking others' belief systems is not a discussion or a sharing of a point of view; just a dismissal of others' belief without any substance or reason.
Click to expand...
I don't mock anything but a Duality thinking is so absurd & when people speak of "God" yet they refuse to accept the basic truth they are also "God" too I have to laugh, it is like watching a bunch of small children trying to say the Alphabet before they can fully speak.

Most people really do think their name is Real, they ARE a body etc.....they simply cannot accept what underpins everything also is what they are made of. To quote Baba Ram Puri "Try cutting off you arm then make it do arm things"


“The name given to the body is not your name. What are you beyond the body and its name? For a moment, see that you are without the body and its name.’ This is termed ‘waiting at the doorstep of God for a moment’. Say what you are without considering the body and its name. Look at yourself without the body and its name. Understand this point and you understand everything.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
I don't mock anything but a Duality thinking is so absurd & when people speak of "God" yet they refuse to accept the basic truth they are also "God" too I have to laugh, it is like watching a bunch of small children trying to say the Alphabet before they can fully speak.

Most people really do think their name is Real, they ARE a body etc.....they simply cannot accept what underpins everything also is what they are made of. To quote Baba Ram Puri "Try cutting off you arm then make it do arm things"


“The name given to the body is not your name. What are you beyond the body and its name? For a moment, see that you are without the body and its name.’ This is termed ‘waiting at the doorstep of God for a moment’. Say what you are without considering the body and its name. Look at yourself without the body and its name. Understand this point and you understand everything.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Click to expand...
And yet even this is an illusion: Do not mock others as we are all deceived by our five senses. Think about it...
You are laughing at your own folly by being attached to this "concept" because a finite brain cannot comprehend the infinite. We constantly struggle to make new illusions that in the end explain nothing.

As long as we think we know the truth we can be assured that we don't, we just reflect the current illusion.
 
Cheshire_Kat said:
And yet even this is an illusion: Do not mock others as we are all deceived by our five senses. Think about it...
You are laughing at your own folly by being attached to this "concept" because a finite brain cannot comprehend the infinite. We constantly struggle to make new illusions that in the end explain nothing.

As long as we think we know the truth we can be assured that we don't, we just reflect the current illusion.
Click to expand...
You have a point there.

by being attached to this "concept" because a finite brain cannot comprehend the infinite.
Click to expand...

Maybe not 100% but my experience smoking N,N DMT & one experience on 4-MeO-PCP when I took a stupid dose & merged with an endless Void of nothing but a black Void sure shook me up & taught me I am NOT this body, name given at birth, Male, English etc.

I am made from the same stuff as a Tree, Dog, Fish, Yourself (as we are just a reflection of the underpinning Energy of Creation people call "God")
 
Cheshire_Kat said:
As long as we think we know the truth we can be assured that we don't
Click to expand...
You have a system?

This came to mind a moment ago from Robert Anton Wilson, I tried to run but found out my shoelaces were tied together, I nearly broke my nose when I tripped ;)



“The map is not the territory” is a phrase coined by the Polish-American philosopher and engineer Alfred Korzybski.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
You have a point there.



Maybe not 100% but my experience smoking N,N DMT & one experience on 4-MeO-PCP when I took a stupid dose & merged with an endless Void of nothing but a black Void sure shook me up & taught me I am NOT this body, name given at birth, Male, English etc.

I am made from the same stuff as a Tree, Dog, Fish, Yourself (as we are just a reflection of the underpinning Energy of Creation people call "God")
Click to expand...
Absolutely...

and since we are all the same energy laughing at others is laughing at ourselves. Literally.

I too have experienced oneness withe universe using large doses of LSD.

I long ago gave up systems.
 
Cheshire_Kat said:
and since we are all the same energy laughing at others is laughing at ourselves. Literally.
Click to expand...
giphy.webp
 
Cheshire_Kat said:
My grandmother was a strict agnostic. She kinda raised me because of family situations. She would tell me when you die, that's the end.

I'm RC by my own choice and when she died, I think I cried for a month. I still pray for her and it's been almost 50 years now.
Click to expand...
That almost made me get tears in my eyes. But it made me happy somehow instead. Maybe I should have just gave the comment a heart emoti <3 instead. Oh well maybe someone else will comment. I can always delete my post.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top