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Placebo Religion
    #5336466 -

At the risk of entering into this thread sounding like my late father who boasted of his old age and having "been around," I will go ahead and propose this thought:
Have any of you had the opportunity of having watched someone you know practice a given religion - any religion - for many years? All dabblers are excluded from this. One may have watched a Methodist worship with Presybyterians or Baptists while remaining identified with Christianity, or perhaps a Mahayana Buddhist practicing Zen and learning Tibetan Buddhist practices, but generally the individual must remain in a basic world view.

I have been around long enough to have paid attention to this. The kindly neighbor lady who treated me like her little boy, when I was a little boy, and whose family impressed me sufficiently with their peaceful demeanors as Catholics, were the model for my having been baptised in the Catholic Church when I was 22. Yet, at age 89, when I spoke to her last, she registered apprehension at the approach of death. Even though the majority of octagenarians do not fear death, I heard it in her comments on her age.

The many Jews I have known, in my own family and outside of it, who refer to themselves as Jews but practice no regular prayer, meditation (like the donning of tephillin or working the paths of Kabbalah), do not read, let alone study Jewish scriptures, and many (like my own mother) maintain they are atheists! I've been reprimanded for saying "God Bless you," for a sneeze by one. A particular brand of materialism marks the Shadow of such Jews because there is no thought of themselves in terms of Eternal Life - my family included. Cults of the 70s were overly represented by young Jews because of their spiritual hunger for the Transcendental. Anyone familiar with this syndrome?

Have you ever watched the process of someone who has been "born again" over a period of years? (I went through such a thing myself without the annoying preaching to others. Hey, 'Do unto others...'). There are very discernible stages, both spiritually (as the Bible points out with the seed-on-stone/thorns/soil metaphor) and psychologically. Do you like what you see if you see this?

Is anyone particularly impressed with an obvious metamorphosis for the better across time? Do any of you see changes that stand up to the stresses, temptations and rigors of life with real peace, equanimity, grace, kindness, or any of the virtues of character that have been described in both Eastern and Western philosophies? If so, care to share? I mean, if your middle age mom took up Yoga, for example, and began to slim down, look younger, calmer, less bitter, whatever, smiled more and surprised you occasionally with some really insightful or sage advice, put it out here.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

Edited by MarkostheGnostic (03/25/17 04:40 PM)

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5336507 -

I was talking to a friend about the National Geographic show "Science of the Bible," and he said "Ya, well, because I'm Catholic, I don't believe in a lot of that stuff." It sat vividly in my memory because I thought to myself "Why is belonging to any particular religion any excuse for shutting out facts?" It just seemed like a very immature approach to religion.

I have another friend, also Catholic, who told me that he was beginning to question some aspects of his Catholic upbringing. I was taken back by this, because this friend was not as intelligent as the other friend, yet I could see in him that he was beginning to mature spiritually. I lent him the book Jesus and the Lost Goddess by Freke and Gandy, and he seemed very receptive to the new ideas in the book.


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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336520 -

Thanks for the response Paradigm (now I've had 1.5 mg Melatonin, 3 hits of Passion Flower, the next door neighbor's dog has shut up, and one response on this post, maybe I can get some sleep).


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5336590 -

What do you call a Jew who doesn't believe in G-d?

A Jew.

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5336745 -

I think I understand what you are asking. Here's what I have noticed. People typically, based on a pivotal life experience, first face a new facet of themselves, and then turn focus in a new directions as result looking for a reflection or back drop to it.

Many credit the reflective reality, be it a religion, philosophy or ritual practice of some sort, yet, I credit the pivotal points in life for any REAL transformation that takes place.

I had an older cousin join a cloistered convent for 4 years. She  left at age 22 and has been out for almost 20 years. She is no longer the extroverted, outgoing, jovial creative ring leader of fun and games I grew up adoring. Shes very sullen and quiet and sees more bad then good now.

As far as I have seen, her 4 years in the convent robbed her of the best her. I think when she turned 18 and was facing the world on her own so to speak, it scared her. I think that fear is what sent her into hiding from the world and the fear has been robbing her of living the full life she use. I think her move into the convent and disposition ever since are just reflections of that pivotal moment in her life.

Some are not always for the better like that one. Many others make people become bitter some times.

At 12, I had all those years of Catholic religious teaching crammed into me and you'd think, I'd have been a peaceful compassionate disaplined child. I was a reflection of my home environment and a hard core unruly bully. Very physical, no heart and little thought of consequence before action. In the 6th grade, I had a pivotal moment. :sun:

This boy whose desk was next to mine, grabbed my siscors from out of my desk to cut something he was wroking on. I said, "Hey! :crankey: Thats MINE! :evil: and I kicked it out of his hands and it flew up and cut his eye lid.

He heaved a big sigh, turned red and in exasperhation he said, "CINDY, WHY are you always hurting people?" My heart felt something it never felt before. I had known him since kindergarten and something happened in that moment. I haven't laid a finger on anyone physically to cause them physical pain ever since.

(still working on my words that can cut though and I've come a long way since then)

My point with that story is that 12 years of a religious teaching based on compassion, taught me nothing about it, and one pivotal moment in every day life with a regular kid, taught me unspeakable volumes.

We can bury our heads in books, teachings, religions, philosophies and rituals, and place labels of esteem on our associations with them and yet nothing beats just living the lessons hands on through life itself.

Hope this somehow applies to your post.

:peace: :heart:


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Ahuwale ka nane huna.

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: gettinjiggywithit]
    #5337290 -

Yes it does relate to the post, with an unanticipated twist. I was asking the question with some formal practices, beliefs or rituals in mind, but you supplied actual, "pivotal" inner experience, or realization, which answered my inquiry on a deeper level than my inquiry itself! Thank you!


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5337315 -

MushmanTheManic said:
What do you call a Jew who doesn't believe in G-d?

A Jew.



"About Dying"

A old Jewish man on his deathbed whispered, "Sarah, Sarah, where are
you, my
dear wife?"

"Right here at your side, my love."

"And my son, Moishe...where is he?"

"Right here at your side, papa."

"And my daughter, Mitsy...where is she?"

"Right here at your side, papa."

"And my son, Abraham...where is he?"

"Right here at your side, papa."

"What, none of you are minding the store?"

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5363194 -

I have observed my faither's faith in God. And I know he has something there, despite not being a church goer, I have observed him out of the blue attend a church service, studying scripture and going through what can only be described as a bout of closeness to God. But he's human, and the human routines soon cause the Bible to pick up dust. But it doesn't collect dust longer than a few years or so, God bless my old man.


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"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: Basilides]
    #5438140 -

The most impressive obvious metamorphosis across time that I see is the encounter with visionary plants. With the ability to access more information, as in the role of the shaman, people are able to experience a widening of their current world model. I feel that this is not only healing, but genuinely produces the spiritual results aspired to in ritual or organized religion. The voice or the "word" being the first determining factor. All else in my opinion is just an effort to conjure up these 'real' effects. I think modern man will do anything before he eats a mushroom to solve his problem. Modern history in a nut shell.

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: psyillyazul]
    #5438732 -

Hmm well first I want to spinoff your use of the term placebo.

My experience in middle school with Christianity involved a youth group called "youth alive". You could go to it during lunch in the school's multi-purpose facility to get some cheap pizza, pop, and prayer. It was subsequently 2P and 3P if I recall right. (not sure why it was two initially, maybe they only had pizza?).

Well there was this man who if not for being an ordained Christian preacher would have worked well as a cult leader. What he did was this. He broke you down. He would now and then remind of us how eternally horrible hell is, how most of the people there aren't murderers or thieves but simple liars.... how easy it is to be damned forever for your actions and how miserable it is and how it will never end.

He went on and on and on, each word stabbing your soul and making you feel tremendous guilt and doubt like a deer in the headlights. What can I do? How can I avoid this? I don't want to go to hell! I freaked out.... I was on the verge of tears....... then..........
Praise Jesus. We prayed. We prayed. I accepted Jesus into my heart and all the fear disappeared and I was transofmred with love and deliverance.

Now strip away Jesus, strip away his words and look at how this happens. Fear. Intense, irrational, hellacious permeating fear, you have a situation set up from which there is no escape, you are forced to identify completely with it, because your doctrine supports it and this man with authority speaks it with such passion.

You are THRUST, dragged... literally... into hell by being caught in his sermon. So normally praying to Jesus means little, you're like "meh that was nice, it was kind of relaxing" but now that your ETERNAL soul is on the line praying to Jesus induces extreme ecstacy.

That's how they hook you.

So....... I strayed away from Christianity but have not really shaken the fear of hell and may indeed believe in Jesus. I sure do see how the Bible might be about events that are happening right now, not that have passed, how it is an application in how to relate to this world.... Rome... America? They seem rather similar and cruel to peace.... they glorify death.... their colloseum emits radiation and is in every home.

Ah well.

See, this is the placebo. The placebo is the fear/salvation duality, it doesn't matter whether you throw Jesus into the equation or not. It's a very good way of brainwashing people and establishing cults or religions.

So........... you ask if I have seen people transformed through religion? Not really. I saw my grandmother cry while being baptised, but even at the young age of 8 or 9 I actually faked "religiosity" ..... you're supposed to literally ask Jesus into your heart? WTF? I didn't know that as a child. I just believed in him. Oh well now this girl is leading me in a prayer so I can be "saved".... I wasn't "saved" before? Why? What? Oh the prayer is over..... I act happy, I smile fakely becasue that's how it's supposed to be when you do something like that, but I didn't feel a discernable change.

From that age onward my Christian upbringing went from sincere normal peaceful living, you know, Jesus is neat... etc... not really caring or being concerned too much, just living a good life.... to being paranoid and scared that everything I was doing was wrong and no matter how much I believed in Jesus I might still go to hell because I just didn't feel saved anymore.

Fucked up.........

I have transformed quite a bit and becoming how I used to be as a child in more adult-like ways. Buddhism, yoga, tai chi, psychedelic drugs have given me the introspection necessary to stop rebelling against Christianity and authority (i am against authority but it's not for the sake of conformity and rebellion, it's because of the war on drugs and eradication of freedoms).....but no one religion has ever really given me transcendence.

I borrow from Buddhism mainly right now, if I were anything I would be Buddhist, but I do not consider myself a Buddhist.

I have really ............ had bad experiences... I haven't seen anyone be turned around by religion.... I have seen people who were blindly raised into it either become religious zealots that were rather intolerant..... or shy away and rebel and live lives of crime.......... or just stay on a moderate path calling themselves religious but not putting effort into practice.

My grandmother seems rather devoted..... my family seem in the middle.............

My friend has shyed away from a strict Islamic raising but still feels the guilt that he was programmed with.

The only REAL spirituality that I have born witness to in others is through my yoga teacher. She's going to be well on her way to becoming a Boddhisattva..... but I really only know the her that is a "yogi" not her as a normal person. Yoga has transformed her. Tai chi got my instructor out of a wheel chair.

It seems that daily spiritual practice is the key, and meditation of some kind, SEEKING and RECEIVING transcendental states is NECESSARY, without them you are a decayed festered underdeveloped shell ..... your religion is meaningless if it does not take you beyond the confines of traditional human perception and truely unite you with the divine.

Have I been united with the divine? not entirely. I was washed in the clear light while stoned but could only hold it for maybe one half a second and brought it back twice before losing hold of it altogether. I know that chi flow can lead to it. This gives me faith. Since then marijuana has destroyed my chi which makes me skeptical of whether psychedelics are really good for spirituality or not. Weed just gets it flowing but it will deplete it if you aren't careful. On the other hand if you have strong chi and only use it once in a blue moon I'm sure it could bring good results. I think eating weed is probably a good way to go and can't really see how it would drain your energy though, but it might shift it into a weird alignment.

I'm afraid I just don't know anyone who has been transformed through religion, but my sample size is quite small.

I also don't like my "oh i'm saved" / "oh i'm doomed" bipolar spirituality either. What I have come to realize is that you are always in tune with God if that is simply your desire. It starts subtle but increases towards transcendental with faith. You get up and try and live a good life, you help others. Good things happen, you subtly shift toward a more divine energy. It's all about moderation, the middle way......... compassion. Kindness. Patience. Not taking anything seriously. Acceptance. Peace.

If Moses and Mohammed and Buddha were all spiritual whose to say that we can't be like them too.... the religions are a guide... they are not supposed to be blindly followed. Buddha said to abandon his teachings once they take you where they need to go. The end result is you have to look in you for spirituality, because you speak a different spiritual language than the doctrines do, because you are a different person than Moses's followers were.......You have to blaze your own path and if you use religion to get there, great. But you can't take it as fundamental truth...... it is truth in a cup..... you drink it and its helpful, but it's the water that is pure truth, and all cups, no matter what they look like..... hold the same truth.

This metaphor is not my own though. But religions as cups is a great illustration.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Edited by leery11 (03/24/06 03:36 PM)

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: leery11]
    #5439392 -

All religions are placebo.
People just need to get on with living their lives and stop about worrying about death.


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YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: Ekstaza]
    #5447167 -

What's in the cup?? If the blood of Christ = known spiritual sacrament then Jesus becomes very important. No?? He must be the cup. What has he filled himself up with?? If you reject Christ how can you know what the sacrament is?? Unless you truly believe that all cups are the same, and therefore hold the same truth. Dangerous. How did this get started in the first place if that is the case?? Might as well just drink the cup with alcohol on Sunday and smile as you bite into that sorry excuse for flesh.

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: psyillyazul]
    #5447825 -

I again find myself at a difficulty to understand what you are expressing.

I am saying that all religions touch upon the same truths and yield the same results... if this were not so why would there be more than one religion in the world and why are people raised into different ones? You are not that likely to stray from your own faith into one of opposition to it.... this pits all religions against all other religoins, all followers being equally convinced of their own liberation which is mutually exclusive to the liberation of all other faiths which yields no one being right or everyone being right.

Taoism is about as close as you can get to it. If Christ is applicable then that is fine with me.... I have not really been given enough conviction but find him a useful symbol to be contemplated upon and await his presence to show me "the way" if such is possible. I do not put trust in those who claim that they alone are right as very few of the mainstreamed religiions have actually attained the mystical, trascendental, union with their own "creator" they just follow what everyone else says and never put it into application in order to see results.

I am of the agnostically spiritual variety as of now.


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I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: Ekstaza]
    #5447835 -

Ekstaza said:
All religions are placebo.
People just need to get on with living their lives and stop about worrying about death.


What makes you think religion is all about death?


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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: leery11]
    #5450379 -

Leery11, I had an experience similar to yours. As a child, I was fascinated by Jesus, even though my parents didn't go to church. I once stared at a picture of him on the cross for an entire drive home from Grandma's (2 hours) and my mom took it away from me after that. When I was 8, I decided it was time to go to church on my own. A local church began picking up children on a bus to "minister" to kids without religious parents. Here is what happened:

On one day of Vacation Bible School, a play troupe came to the church to put on a play. Cool, I thought. The play centered around a group of people on a plane ride. There was a little girl about my age, and her parents. There was also a Christian couple who were "witnessing" to them during the plane ride. To make a long story short, the girl accepted Christ, the parents didnt'. All of a sudden the lights started flashing, people started screaming, and chairs started getting knocked over. I freaked out, got up, and tried to run, but an old woman with a fake Christian smile hiding a smirk of hate grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me back into my chair.

I watched in horror as everyone on the "plane" was killed, and a spottlight came to take away the saved. The little girl was allowed to go to heaven. Her parents weren't. Immediately after this play they asked people to get saved. I, of course, was terrified, and immedieatly complied. I also cried about my parents not being saved. Imagine that! Of course, a pastor came to "witness" to my parents after that. My dad tried to explain to me that they really wanted my parents to go to church because they were the ones with money. They didn't want me, and were using me to get to them. Looking back, I realize he was right. I will always be bitter about the trauma that church forced on me as a brainwashing technique. It was pretty effective, but then again, I was only 8.

Someone else (the OP?) mentioned they worked for a Christian company that is currently being investigated. I have a similar story. The last company I worked for advertised as Christian, did prayers, etc. It ended up the president lost the company's money gambling, using cocaine, etc, and the company was in shambles by the time some "dirty jews" (president's words) bought it and turned it around. I was long gone before that time, though. It didn't surprise me at all, because I had seen the hipocracy in Christianity long before that.

But I've also seen the same hipocracy in my own "faith," metaphysics. I've seen the same zealotry, feelings of specialness, smiles hiding hate, etc.


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Re: Placebo Religion [Re: Gliders]
    #5450738 -

So assuming that there is a mystical reality underlying Christianity, and there is, Christ becomes the Shaman. Complete with dinner and theatrics to put you in touch with the Tao. One GOD is correct thinking but when NO religion can get you there something happened. Suppose Christ could produce results and this is whats missing?? The results. If you know how Christ got results, or better yet what Christ literally means, then you'll know why he was nailed to a cross. You will see why he is all mixed up with this religion crap.

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General Interest > Spirituality & Mysticism
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