Agnostics/Atheists, more knowledgable than adherants...

[Ben D]

IMO, religion is not supposed to be about knowledge or belief about anything, but is a practice to realize actual reality/truth directly, beyond the mundane mind's conceptualization of IT.

Buddha once entered a village. A man in the morning asked him, "Does God Exist?"

Buddha replied, "No, absolutely not!"

In the afternoon, another man approached and posed the same question, "Does God exist?'

Buddha said, "Of course yes!"

In the evening, the third man asked the same question

The enlightened one closed His eyes and remained silent.

The inquirer too closed his eyes. Something transpired and the man bent forward and touched the feet of Buddha reverentially. He said, "You are the first man who has answered my question" and left feeling grateful.

Ananda, Buddha's attendant who was a witness, was confused about the conflicting answers of the master to the same question. When Buddha was retiring to bed, he told Him, "Please do be more compassionate on me as I am puzzled. The other three people have not listened to your different answers, but I have. So please dispel my confusion"

The enlightened one opened up. "In the first place, My answers to their question had nothing to do with God. My approach was rather towards the questioner than the question.

The first person who approached me was a theist, a believer in God. The second was an atheist, who believed in the absence of God. The person who believed in God wanted to confirm his belief about God and the person who believed there was no God wanted to confirm his belief in the non-existence of God. All beliefs are barriers to the realization of the truth. Theist or atheists they are all tied to their own beliefs and systems!

As Ananda listened intently, Buddha continued, "The third man was a real enquirer. He was not concerned with the existence or non existence of God. He wanted the bare truth. So I remained silent looking within. My message to him was to be silent and know. There is no need to raise any questions as it is not a question to be answered, rather a quest or a thirst. Thus he simply followed me and in his silence, when he looked within, something transpired. He was so overwhelmed with gratitude as I did not provide any intellectual answer but the very taste of the existential truth!"

Can the mundane mind get to know the way of the enlightened?

[Simulist]

I appreciated reading your well-considered and thought-provoking post, Ben.

[Ben D]

Thanks Simulist, pleased that it 'resonated' with you.

[The Hundredth Idiot]

If I may humbly say, I agree with the views that one who has 'deprogrammed' is more likely to be open-minded and simply truth-seeking as a matter of course.
Whether this leads to more or less knowledge I guess is up to the individual, only you know how far and where you need to go.
I'd never hack on a person for wherever it is they have settled along the road, but personally I can never forget what the major religions have done to the tribes/caretakers of the earth over history.

"Man's predicament is that he intuits his hidden resources, but he does not dare use them. This is why warriors say that man's plight is the counterpoint between his stupidity and his ignorance. Man needs now, more than ever, to be taught new idea's that have to do exclusively with his inner world, shaman's idea's, not social idea's, idea's pertaining to man facing the unknown, facing his personal death."

"The unkown is something that is veiled from man, shrouded perhaps by a terrifying context, but which nonetheless is within man's reach. The unknown becomes the known at a given time.
The unknowable, on the other hand, is the indescribable, the unthinkable, the unrealizable. It is something that will never be known to us, and yet it is there, dazzling and at the same time horrifying in it's vastness." -Carlos Casteneda'

Quoting Casteneda is prob gonna shit some people, but as religions over time have shown us, even the most elaborate works of fiction have their grains of truth.

[82_28]

I used to be a hardcore atheist. It was all I could do, given my upbringing -- not necessarily my parents, but the innocent importance they put on church attendance. I wound up making a lot of friends in church -- their parents' were the ones I had to deal with as I grew older and rebelled from "the system" and more and more began to only attend church functions as a way to be near girls I had crushes on. When Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot came out I got head over heels into being an atheist first and then became this youthful prodigy for the Colorado Humanists. I even manned a booth or two for their presence at festivals. In my early twenties I had all manner of atheist bumper stickers on my car. I was a total dork. I lived, LIVED! to get into debates with Christians. I was probably very hurtful to some of the guys I would get into go arounds with. I had so many books and pamphlets and arguments to read and use. I became obsessed.

There was this church, a really sketchy church that basically tried to swallow up all confused souls on my college campus. Anytime they would approach me, I would take them on. They never knew what hit them. I would even attract a crowd as I completely obliterated their beliefs, in public and quite ostentatiously too. I attended atheist meetings with a bunch of grumpy old assholes. Like I said, they were fascinated by me. The atheists and humanists wanted to know how the fuck they could attract more people my age into the group. I said they could begin to sponsor punk shows and shit -- stuff like that. Never went anywhere of course, because I grew tired of it, tired of their negativity, they were all such ugly people -- physically and spiritually. Not lying. Everybody had some chip on their shoulder.

Anyhow, I remained atheist for quite some time, probably until the age of 30 or so. Then I was turned onto PKD and began to consider everything under the sun as I read more and more. Started reading my Elaine Pagels and Karen Anderson. Became acquainted with Rupert Sheldrake, etc etc. I became more fascinated with how it is we can sit here today belittling belief systems of the past and yet here we still sit. It couldn't have been ALL wrong!

As I sit now, I think myself more "Christian" than any self proclaimed Christian there is. I follow as best I can in the steps of Christ. I describe it as becoming a Christian "through the back door". I don't think myself better than anyone. The question of whether god exists or does not is the most stupid question I ever concerned myself with in life. Yes, it was completely by route of studying PKD for a number of years that "proved" to me that Christ does exist and he exists within me and I am that Christ. Christians are accustomed to judging people who may say something as I just said as psychopathic. The way I look at it, is I would tell any of those smarmy motherfucker psychopaths who preach and make money on it is that they are wrong and they don't believe in Jesus any more than in equal parts they have a problem with me using profanity. Creationism is a willful lie meant to control the underclass by the empire, which never ended. No true Christian church would support any war or any system which seeks to uphold the mysteries of the class based occult.

The role of the church has been supplanted by technocracy and the church, as a parasite has attached itself to its host, which is the empire -- an old empire and constantly seeks to emulate what it is the ideal role of such a church or religion would be. Christianity is a simulation within the processing powers of a mind occluded from the true nature of creation. Time does not exist, only entropy. Creation never happened. Time is an invention of what would eventually come to be called capitalism.

Creation happens within every thought an entity has. If nobody is thinking there is thus, no creation. Never was and never will be. There is only obedience to a finely honed machine conceived of long ago which the gnostics were able to detect, for which, they were thusly, only briefly, exterminated. Yet as PKD writes, the knowledge, the information is alive and cannot be killed.

[brainpanhandler]

double post

[brainpanhandler]

There's no reason to attack Christians, they're 0% more or less deluded than the rest of us.

Bullshitty. Attack christians? I'm not sure what you mean. Attack christrianity in the form of organized religion? Hell fucking yah! The typical christian is 100% more deluded than me. Christianity is a mind control cult. It could not have been designed any better to cripple human beings. It splits the believer into a mind and a body and then tricks the believer into despising his own bodily impulses and functions. That is crazy making.

So we can attack Christianity all we want, but to paraphrase/quote Thoreau, "There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Good luck finding the root, however...

One of the roots is christianity.

The Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis is credited with saying, “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”, although it's not really clear that he said it. In fact, it's one of those orphan quotes that no one really knows the source of. Regardless of who said it, it's fucking true, true, true and there's a reason for that. and on edit maybe that quote should be rephrased as, " When fascism came to America it came wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross".



I have tried on many occasions to get christians to see the contradictory nature of their politcal views and the teachings of christ. This is almost always a 100% dismal failure, which if you wish you can blame on me. I rather naturally blame the seemingly inbuilt dumbing down effect of modern christianity. Christians are just too stupid to even recognize when their own views and beliefs are at odds with each other. nitwits.



And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust, we are golden,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

[Sounder]

The conversation between my wife and I last night was a take-off on this thread, (she does not read any RI material). I liked Ben D’s post because I consider that any ‘beliefs’ reflect insecurity rather than certainty. (My wife has a hard time believing that I can have no beliefs, even though she could not name any beliefs I may have.) The other aspect of the conversation was the inherent blasphemy of preachers acting as is they can speak for “God”. Sure we want to be more ‘spiritual’, but if this thing is measured by how well one can conform to the dictates and formulas of the preacher, then ones ability to hear the ‘still small voice’ will surely be compromised. Plus the preacher then gets to abuse his authority because after all the ‘followers’ look to him/her as the decoder of their reality. This holds true in the secular scientific versions of understanding also as folk still depend on authorities to decode the circumstances of our life.

So we get experts who are well paid to assert that conventional forms of understanding are the best way possible for drawing meaning out of our perceptions.

The writing impulse here was derived from thinking that I fall somewhere between Wombat and BPH, while feeling much closer to the wombatian view of things.

While the potential meaning contained behind religious forms have been greatly occluded by institutional players, so also modern intellectualism greatly inhibits development of consciousness, because among other things, it kills anything before it studies it. (bit of hyperbole, but still it works with dead things better than with live systems.)

In any controversy, the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.- Siddartha...

This gets my vote for best and most useful sig line on this board.


Love your story 82-28

Warmists are just too stupid to even recognize when their own views and beliefs are at odds with each other. nitwits.

Fixed, I think but am not sure that this is an example of double-bind ironic sarcasm.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Attack christians? I'm not sure what you mean. Attack christrianity in the form of organized religion? Hell fucking yah! The typical christian is 100% more deluded than me. Christianity is a mind control cult.

No, Christians are people, Christianity is an abstraction that means something different to all of us. I mean that the tone of Atheists my age, the confrontation, winds up having the opposite effect of making delusion stronger instead of being a catalyst for actual reflection. I do agree completely that targeting the Pat Robertsons and Council for National Policy is more effective, but I'm pretty sure that's best accomplished with "journalism" not Atheism.

Besides, we're all familiar with The Family here -- those people aren't even Christians, they're sociopaths who quote the Bible once in awhile and hold a "Prayer Breakfast" that's more like an organized crime networking party.

No need to be targeting their victims just because we're frustrated and can't lash out far enough, is what I'm saying.

[IanEye]

.

there are a number of factors that may contribute to the relative ignorance of many "believers", but FEAR seems to be at the root.
FEAR to challenge one's own beliefs, to question the nature of one's own understanding of reality..
they prefer the comfort of ignorance, of what they understand as the 'norm'.

when you base your life on credit - and your living days are done
the checks you signed 'with love and kisses' - later come back signed 'insufficient funds'

can y'all get to that?
.

[Belligerent Savant]

The typical christian is 100% more deluded than me. Christianity is a mind control cult. It could not have been designed any better to cripple human beings. It splits the believer into a mind and a body and then tricks the believer into despising his own bodily impulses and functions. That is crazy making.

I have tried on many occasions to get christians to see the contradictory nature of their politcal views and the teachings of christ. This is almost always a 100% dismal failure, which if you wish you can blame on me. I rather naturally blame the seemingly inbuilt dumbing down effect of modern christianity. Christians are just too stupid to even recognize when their own views and beliefs are at odds with each other. nitwits.

I can see your points, and by no means am I attempting to defend Christianity as a whole, but there are many different forms of Christianity, and not all are as restrictive as you describe above. Moreover, as alluded by some here, it's ORGANIZED religion -- and those setting the agendas and committing atrocities under the umbrella of organized religions -- that drive the skewed belief systems, the restrictions, the absurd interpretations of "The Bible" [much of which has been revised countless times over the years by humans with ulterior motives], utilizing fostered belief systems as yet another means of Control.

At any rate, I think 82_28 sums it up quite well here:

As I sit now, I think myself more "Christian" than any self proclaimed Christian there is. I follow as best I can in the steps of Christ. I describe it as becoming a Christian "through the back door". I don't think myself better than anyone. The question of whether god exists or does not is the most stupid question I ever concerned myself with in life. Yes, it was completely by route of studying PKD for a number of years that "proved" to me that Christ does exist and he exists within me and I am that Christ. Christians are accustomed to judging people who may say something as I just said as psychopathic. The way I look at it, is I would tell any of those smarmy motherfucker psychopaths who preach and make money on it is that they are wrong and they don't believe in Jesus any more than in equal parts they have a problem with me using profanity. Creationism is a willful lie meant to control the underclass by the empire, which never ended. No true Christian church would support any war or any system which seeks to uphold the mysteries of the class based occult.

The role of the church has been supplanted by technocracy and the church, as a parasite has attached itself to its host, which is the empire -- an old empire and constantly seeks to emulate what it is the ideal role of such a church or religion would be. Christianity is a simulation within the processing powers of a mind occluded from the true nature of creation. Time does not exist, only entropy. Creation never happened. Time is an invention of what would eventually come to be called capitalism.

Creation happens within every thought an entity has. If nobody is thinking there is thus, no creation. Never was and never will be. There is only obedience to a finely honed machine conceived of long ago which the gnostics were able to detect, for which, they were thusly, only briefly, exterminated. Yet as PKD writes, the knowledge, the information is alive and cannot be killed.

And ditto what W.Rex posted above..

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Great stuff, IanEye

[JackRiddler]

On Christianity, I shall cut-pasta myself from another time because it's relevant, and I'm lazy:

Being a Christian does not mean you believe in the Old Testament God, or in Jesus as his literal son and Messenger of a New Testament.

Being a Christian has nothing to do with faith in the literal truth of Trinity, Original Sin, Immaculate Conception, Resurrection and transubstantiation, the Saints and their miracles, Heaven and Hell, the Devil, or the authority of any of the churches.

Believing that Jesus was a real person who lived in Roman Palestine 2000 years ago does not make you a Christian. Believing that the Gospels constitute an accurate telling of this person's life does not make you a Christian.

You can reject all of these propositions and still be a Christian.

You can believe all of these propositions and yet not be a Christian!

Being a Christian means you take as your guide in life the teachings of the Christ as told in the received Gospels -- that you strive always to live and act as the Christ himself taught and acted.

Read the Gospels: Love your neighbor, be true in your words and deeds, eschew hypocrisy, treat everyone as your equal, share your wealth with the poor, put the common good ahead of the individual good, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, engage in humble prayer and don't pontificate like a Pharisee, don't enrich yourself through preaching, don't use Roman money, don't tolerate money-changers in the Temple, don't commit adultery, and, if need be to defend your integrity, then go to your death like a sovereign being. Spread these teachings to everyone you can reach, always with humility. The kingdom of heaven is yours already on earth.

You may believe that God is a human myth, the Christ story a complete fiction, and the Pope a fraud. You may believe anything about the nature of the universe you like, including that this nature is unknown to us except insofar as it can be apprehended through the means of empirical science. You are still a Christian if you read what Jesus reportedly said and did, and do your best to live by it.

If you don't seek to follow the teachings, you are not a Christian, even if you believe Christ was crucified and on the third day rose again. Pat Robertson is not a Christian. Cardinal Ratzinger is not a Christian. They may believe there was a Jesus, but they do not strive to follow his teachings. (In the same way, the acknowledgement that there was a real Karl Marx who was born in Germany and wrote the Communist Manifesto and died in the 19th century does not make you a Marxist.)

Those with doctrines of the Elect, or of rule by divine right, or of wealth as a sign of Grace, are not Christians, because these doctrines directly contradict the teachings of the Christ.

You can also be something on the border: a hypocritical Christian. You may know the teachings and profess belief in them, but fail to really or always strive to live by them. The striving, honest and complete, is the most important part. Honest failures are fine; Jesus loves the imperfect and forgives the sinner, but he rejects the hypocrite.

Finally, if you don't know the teachings and haven't even heard the Christ story, but nevertheless live in a way that would be consistent with the teachings, then you are not a Christian, but you are with them. You sing together. You could be a Buddhist, or a Marxist, or someone who understands their own religion in the same way, or simply a good person who loves your neighbors. Real Christians would accept you completely, as you are.

I'm not a Christian by my own definition, or by anyone else's. From infancy forward I was subjected to Christianity, or at any rate the religions claiming to be Christian, first by my family and then by the surrounding culture, and I remain surrounded by them. So I feel every right to speak on this.

[DoYouEverWonder]

If you do not need to know the bible to believe "it's all in the bible" then you do not need to know the constitution to "defend" it. Prophecy has taken the place of what religion mostly was as a social and civic spiritual enterprise. End time be-bop is sexier than St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast, and with it comes the promise of personal riches and eternal life while you watch all those gays, atheists, liberals, muslims and jews slaughter each other and beg for a death that never comes from your perch up in the sun with Jesus and all your Rapture pals.

If anyone holds out any hope at all for the survival of democracy, then Xtianity must be attacked, at least hard enough to drive it far enough out of politics that it no longer credibly threatens to establish a totalitarian theocratic state in which questioning capitalism would be the same as peeing on the cross.

The crooks use religion to shield themselves from scrutiny. Bush made himself untouchable by pandering to the 'religious' far right. It's way past time for society to stop putting up with their nonsense.

[Sounder]

Thanks so much for your laziness Jack, that is an inspiring breakdown. So this is an issue between form and substance. I’m reminded of a recent conversation with my oldest daughter, (I had been dismissive of ‘religion’ throughout her younger years) where she responded to some probing inquiry of mine, by saying: ‘its not about belief, it’s about a way of being’.

That shut me up pretty good.

I don’t know, I still can’t identify as a Christian, -maybe I have thought of it as a Roman psy-op for too long. This, even if the power center uses the smartest resources available, -real wise guys/gals that get to put original impulses into the work, even while knowing that the power center will do it’s best to pervert the original substance into stale and fixed forms, -still they leave us pearls dropped from their very long wake.

All glory to