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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7475668 - 10/01/07 09:55 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

stellar renegade said:
Where on earth did we come up with the concept, then?




The barter system. We traded our critical thinking to some aliens for it. :wink:



:hehehe:

Quote:


But the way that looking to a higher power works for many people is that it releases the stress of being self-conscious about the journey of letting go of their addiction.




How do you define "self-conscious"?


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:


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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: fireworks_god]
    #7475687 - 10/01/07 10:03 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

fireworks_god said:
Quote:

Icelander said:
But the way that looking to a higher power works for many people is that it releases the stress of being self-conscious about the journey of letting go of their addiction.




How do you define "self-conscious"?



Icelander, we're waiting for an answer.  :waits: :hehehe:  JK

It means to me that the person is struggling to make themselves initiate the process.  In other words, they're looking inward at themselves for the source of power and motivation.  The problem with this is two-fold: we cannot truly see ourselves, and if we had the power already, we would be able to put it to use without looking at ourselves.  The problem, more or less, is that the answer does not reside simply in ourselves, but in some other power which we must rely on.  Perhaps it's a matter of re-orienting our mode of channeling another source of power, but if we already had the potential then we would already be fulfilling it without effort.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7476146 - 10/02/07 01:24 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

stellar renegade said:
Quote:

Yosefxp said:
So yeah, I totally get you but I have nothing against Christianity it's just the organized part of it. The part of it that makes it their mission to 'recruit' people. They go for the weak: young impressionable children or drug addicts who are trying to get help (See the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous. Rule 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him). That is my problem with organised religion. I just use christianity as an example because it is the most prevalent in my society.



Wait... you're saying that because people who have trouble with addictions are seeking help from a higher power, they are being preyed upon by brainwashing predators? WTF?? I thought this aligned more closely with a personal religion like you were talking about. Trusting in God, the essence of love and the essence of life. God is in silence, inside the emptiness of the soul (I know that's troublesome language, but I can explain if you need me to).

How is it being victimized to trust something you don't have control over to a higher power who loves you? That seems like the most simplistic, individual thing you can do. It has nothing to do with organized religion. I was surprised they even had something like that in a non-confrontational program like that, but I don't even see it loaded with Christian terminology. It's just very basic.

If the alcoholic were to trust themselves with recovery, then they would be draining an empty well. They know that it's beyond their control, that's the whole point. The problem is that much of humanity tries to rely on itself, forgetting that reliance requires leaning on something greater than yourself, or else it wouldn't be called 'reliance'.




I fail to believe that there's no way you can rehabilitate a person without god. Maybe that's one way but there are plenty of more reliable and effective methods out there.

It's a poor mindset to put people in by telling them they have a disease, something inside them which must be flushed out. We need to find out why they are addicted and then go about setting up their life so that they have other reinforcers about them so as to take away reliance on the drug. God may be a solution but to tell people it's the only solution is not fair.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand


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OfflineYosefxp
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: fireworks_god]
    #7476150 - 10/02/07 01:26 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

fireworks_god said:

We develop knowledge through interaction with reality. We have within ourselves the means of succesfully interacting with reality, through the usage of the sensory data that reality's interaction with our sensory devices produces, coupled with the phenomenon of our mind, yet it isn't as though knowledge lies inherent within ourselves. Knowledge is inherent within reality itself, the process of an aspect of reality interacting with all aspects of reality produces knowledge.





I tend to believe that if religion exists at all it must be innate. It doesn’t make sense to me for a god or higher consciousness to rely on our experience in order to know religion; this would mean some people know it and some don’t, the luck of the draw, and this seems unfair.

Quote:



What is the difference between organized religion and any other individual or institution of individuals that propagates ideas in this regard? Everyone has their conception of reality and their means of presenting it in order for others to find it. Some are more effective in presenting ideas, some aren't. That is pretty much the jist of it. :shrug: 





Other individuals don’t have the power or rules as believable as large organizations. By other institutions I’m guessing you mean corporations? Companies telling you how which brand car or t.v. to buy? Not telling which spiritual path is “correct” and if you don’t agree, condemning you to eternal hell. Often to your face. But yes I agree that’s how the world works.

Quote:



How can anyone force you to believe anything? :sherlock:





By punishing you repeatedly. You just have to look at homosexuals who are afraid to come out, even to themselves. They know with all their heart that they are gay and they cannot change it yet people like this in many organised religions are still forced to think they are morally wrong. I saw a documentary on it the other night and it just sickens me to see people in that much conflict with who they are and this is mainly caused by the organised religion. If they adopted their own personal religion they would instantly conclude that being gay is ok.

Another example might be rehabilitated criminals. They believed stealing was wrong but after years of looking at the world through bars they change that belief

Quote:



What is the difference between deciding to go into a church and listen to an individual propose ideas, and entering into a philosophical/spiritual forum to listen to your ideas? No one can learn for you, so I'm not clear as to how organized religion (an abstract conception of the relationship of human beings) can learn for you.

Perhaps you refer to the ways in which some human beings who do not have a mature or developed (relative terms) mind will choose to accept the ideas that others propagate, without employing critical thinking for themselves? "Organized religion", such as it is, clearly isn't responsible for the manners in which individuals choose to utilize their minds.





The vast majority of people going to churches don’t go there to ‘listen to an individual propose ideas’. If, say, I went to a church that’s what I would do but most people go there to hear gods word. They see a man reading words out of a book supposedly containing the answers on how to live your life; courtesy of god. They don’t perceive the words as an individual’s ideas; they are gods ideas.

Quote:



What bothers you more, that an organization would use means of presentation to bring others to adopt their proposed viewpoint, or that others are incapable of utilizing critical thinking to see past the means of presentation, and contemplate ideas by their own merit? Either way, it is the nature of reality.





Certainly it is the second. Hence my plea for people to listen to themselves, not others. But the organization which is based on the ideas of kindness and morality, shows a surprising lack of morals when it takes advantage of these people who don’t think for themselves and that bothers me also. And of course it is the nature of reality but if everyone walked around saying that about everything nothing would change would it?

Quote:



The influence of the crowd? This sounds like an evasion of personal responsibility to me, which is certainly not an idea to promote. People act how they decide to act. How have you discerned what others know regarding their actions and how they "should" act? :strokebeard:





Of course it is an evasion of personal responsibility, that’s exactly what being in a crowd is all about. If you were the only person watching a band play would you be jumping up and down singing along to yourself out loud? Probably not, but in a crowd you would. Why? Because there’s that lack of personal responsibility.

When I say how they “should” act I mean how they act normally. If you’re angry with a governments policy you certainly aren’t going to walk down the street and smash up shop windows but if there are already 2000 other angry rioters smashing up the place...

Quote:



None of this has anything to do with "organized religion", and everything to do with the individual choices of each individual on this planet, officially chartered as a member of such an organization, or not. We all have our influence on the propagation of ideas and memes throughout time. Supporting the conclusion that an abstract "organization of religion" is controlling minds when nothing could be further than the truth seems to feed into the propagation of "organized religion". There is no organized religion, simply the individual thoughts and choices and actions of all sorts of human beings.





The thoughts and choices of individuals is exactly what organised religion is out to control. If I am offered a choice, I do what I feel is right. When my Christian friend is offered that same choice, they will either try to remember what they were told at a church or they will ask their pastor or church leader on what to do. There really seems like there’s something wrong with that second picture.

Quote:



This is no different and no more serious than any other way that one human being seeks to exert influence over any other human being. We love to define each other; it keeps us from having to face our own insecurity if we can define others through manipulation, instead of bettering ourselves.

The clearest reason why "religion" exists is for us to grow and develop past it. Taking personal power away from ourselves and placing it in the influence of a collective of others is our own folly. Everyone is on their own path, and will lead the life that they choose to lead. :yinyang:




Of course it’s the same but as I said before; if we all sit around and look at the world and observe it the way it is then every time we find something we don’t like about it we just say to ourselves “Oh well, that’s the way the word is” then nothing will ever change. What if someone had said that to Lincoln about the slaves, or Martin Luther King about civil rights?

All I’m doing is saying that I see a problem in the world and I’m trying to explain it to others. If you can’t see it then there’s no problem for you but if you do see it, then you can tell others and maybe they’ll see it too. I’m just trying to make this world a better place for us all...I mean would it really be so bad if we all just sat at home by ourselves to practise our religion instead of going to a church every week? It would certainly save petrol money and maybe the church land could be made into something more useful.


--------------------
Well it's alright riding around in the breeze
Well it's alright if you live the life you please
Well it's alright doing the best you can
Well it's alright as long as you lend a hand


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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7476424 - 10/02/07 05:29 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

I tend to believe that if religion exists at all it must be innate.




No. Religion is taught.
Expanded awareness experiences occur naturally. Religion appeared as a misinterpretation of those moments and so did the concept of god. It is overwhelming for some people to believe that those experiences come from themselves and that's how god appeared in the picture. The rest in history. :grin:

Quote:

It doesn’t make sense to me for a god or higher consciousness to rely on our experience in order to know religion;




It doesn't make sense to me to believe that there is a god in the first place, so the idea of religion fails as well.

Quote:

this would mean some people know it and some don’t, the luck of the draw, and this seems unfair.




Can you maybe elaborate on that?

Quote:

Other individuals don’t have the power or rules as believable as large organizations. By other institutions I’m guessing you mean corporations? Companies telling you how which brand car or t.v. to buy? Not telling which spiritual path is “correct” and if you don’t agree, condemning you to eternal hell. Often to your face. But yes I agree that’s how the world works.




Nobody really forces us into anything. It is true that some methods of convincing people are much more efficient than the others. However, those who accept/believe do it because they choose to do it, not because someone threatens them.
Those who choose to believe in hell for example, do it because it's convenient for them to do so. Because when something "bad" happens to them they can always find comfort in the thought that those who did them wrong will burn in hell. Because they can use it themselves as an emotional blackmail technique on those who they want to have control over. Because there's always a heaven too and each time they think they did something grand they will inflate themselves with the idea that god sees them and they will get rewarded. This is how it goes in each and every similar situation, we always make conscious choices, even if we want to admit or not.

Quote:

By punishing you repeatedly.




I will have to disagree with that too.
Pushing repeatedly could at best make someone DECIDE to do what I say because they don't want to be "bothered" anymore.
Tell me, if a homeless guy comes and repeatedly asks you for change and you finally give him some money, will you be able to say that he made you do it? That you had no other choice but give him money?
You might as well said hey fuck off.
Or walk faster. :shrug:

Quote:

You just have to look at homosexuals who are afraid to come out, even to themselves. They know with all their heart that they are gay and they cannot change it yet people like this in many organised religions are still forced to think they are morally wrong.




This is only because they have personal issues. Because they don't want to be treated as outcasts or being made fun of. And this is because they lack of self confidence.
Please don't confuse things here, because it's not like religion doesn't give them ant other option but to pretend that they're straight.
Doesn't it make you wonder why some homosexuals just come out in open with it, free of any inhibition and fear? How does your speculation apply to them? :strokebeard: They grew up in the same society, surrounded by the same mentality and confronting the same people as the others, day by day.

Quote:

I saw a documentary on it the other night and it just sickens me to see people in that much conflict with who they are and this is mainly caused by the organised religion. If they adopted their own personal religion they would instantly conclude that being gay is ok.




And again... people are in conflict because of their own fears, not because religion obliges them not to be gay. :lol:
I have a gay friend and his parents are very religious to the point of insanity and he has no problem with admitting or behaving according to his sexual preference.
And why exactly do gay people need a religion to tell them that being gay is ok? :what: :rofl:
I think that living with a lucid mind and making use of common sense is enough for any of us that there's nothing either good or bad to be gay, It is just an aspect of reality. :bongload:
Why do we need religion to tell us anything at all? WTF is with all that? Isn't it about time that we finally grow out of it and start living our lives the way we want, without the continuous perplexing feeling that there's someone who's watching us all the time? When we sleep, when we eat, when we pee, when we get stoned, when we fuck... give me a god damn break :smirk:

Quote:

Another example might be rehabilitated criminals. They believed stealing was wrong but after years of looking at the world through bars they change that belief




The majority of rehabilitated criminals... go back to jail. It is that well that they learned that stealing is "wrong". :smirk:
I'm sorry, it's just statistics. And statistics show the inefficiency of "educating" through prison (punishment).
And this is how your argument has turned in a contra argument. :tongue:

Quote:

The vast majority of people going to churches don’t go there to ‘listen to an individual propose ideas’. If, say, I went to a church that’s what I would do but most people go there to hear gods word. They see a man reading words out of a book supposedly containing the answers on how to live your life; courtesy of god. They don’t perceive the words as an individual’s ideas; they are gods ideas.




Considering the more than obvious fact that there's nothing to prove that god exists, those people go to the church and pretend (as in choose to think) that they are listening to the words of god, printed on a piece of paper from which the priest is reading. :smirk:

Quote:

Certainly it is the second. Hence my plea for people to listen to themselves, not others. But the organization which is based on the ideas of kindness and morality, shows a surprising lack of morals when it takes advantage of these people who don’t think for themselves and that bothers me also. And of course it is the nature of reality but if everyone walked around saying that about everything nothing would change would it?




Those people are not victims. They are not taken advantage of. It is how they choose to live their lives and make social relationships. It is so because they go to the church, it's not the church who's beating at their doors. Why does that bother you? How does this affect your own personal growth?
You're free to live your life the way you want, and so are they.
And why do you feel like you have ti change anything? You have the unlimited freedom to do anything you want with your own awareness, mind, and choices regarding your own world.
What makes you better than organized religion? From what I see, nothing. :shrug:
Religion wants to change the world in a direction and you want to change the world in a different direction. All in all, it's all the same bull shit.

Quote:

Of course it is an evasion of personal responsibility, that’s exactly what being in a crowd is all about. If you were the only person watching a band play would you be jumping up and down singing along to yourself out loud? Probably not, but in a crowd you would. Why? Because there’s that lack of personal responsibility.




There is always personal responsibility, even if we acknowledge it or not. A crowd will never abolish you of personal responsibility, it is just you deluding yourself into thinking that others should be held responsible for your actions. Like I said but I'm gonna repeat it, it belongs to the individual's choice whether or not they run away from being responsible or not.
And what's so shameful about singing out loud and jumping that I need a crowd to feel ok with it? :confused: Of course I would kick and scream and laugh or whatever else I would feel like doing, if I feel like doing it. :hehehe:

Quote:

When I say how they “should” act I mean how they act normally. If you’re angry with a governments policy you certainly aren’t going to walk down the street and smash up shop windows but if there are already 2000 other angry rioters smashing up the place...




You would certainly smash up stuff (with the adjacent crowd or not) if you are unable to see that there are other more efficient and less stupid solutions to your problem. :smirk:

Quote:

The thoughts and choices of individuals is exactly what organised religion is out to control. If I am offered a choice, I do what I feel is right. When my Christian friend is offered that same choice, they will either try to remember what they were told at a church or they will ask their pastor or church leader on what to do. There really seems like there’s something wrong with that second picture.




On and on. :rolleyes:
The reason why your christian friend (or any other member of organised religion or not so organised religion :lol:... but still religion) tells you all that is because they already created a personal view on how their lives will follow. I've already been through that and I really hate to repeat myself.
It is still his personal choice... personal choice to let himself frightened by god's punishment as well as inflate himself at the thought of receiving a reward from god.
There is something wrong (from your perspective) with the second picture as well as there's something wrong with you and the choices you make from your christian friend's point of view. What makes you your right more "right" than his? It's all arbitrary. :shrug:

Quote:

Of course it’s the same but as I said before; if we all sit around and look at the world and observe it the way it is then every time we find something we don’t like about it we just say to ourselves “Oh well, that’s the way the word is” then nothing will ever change. What if someone had said that to Lincoln about the slaves, or Martin Luther King about civil rights?




Yeah, what if? :smirk:
I would comment more upon your statement but I already did earlier on, when it came about imposing one's view on life to others. That's exactly what you try to do, and it's also what you blame religion for.
Doesn't it all sound a little weird to you? :strokebeard:

Quote:

All I’m doing is saying that I see a problem in the world and I’m trying to explain it to others. If you can’t see it then there’s no problem for you but if you do see it, then you can tell others and maybe they’ll see it too. I’m just trying to make this world a better place for us all...I mean would it really be so bad if we all just sat at home by ourselves to practise our religion instead of going to a church every week? It would certainly save petrol money and maybe the church land could be made into something more useful.




There's nothing "wrong" with the world. What you see as being the word's problems, are in fact your own. I suggest that you look inside and treat yourself instead of treating the world. With other words, the world doesn't need your "help". There. Deal with it! :thumbup:
And no, you're NOT trying to make this world a better place. You fantasize about changing the world according to your OWN view of that a better place means.
Well accept that: your better does not match thousands and thousands of other "betters". :wink:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Yosefxp]
    #7476634 - 10/02/07 08:08 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Yosefxp said:
I fail to believe that there's no way you can rehabilitate a person without god. Maybe that's one way but there are plenty of more reliable and effective methods out there.

It's a poor mindset to put people in by telling them they have a disease, something inside them which must be flushed out. We need to find out why they are addicted and then go about setting up their life so that they have other reinforcers about them so as to take away reliance on the drug. God may be a solution but to tell people it's the only solution is not fair.



Okay, but a few things: 1) Our differences are more transitory than the underlying psychological principles which govern our being. 2) Those who go to AA generally know they need help (I assume) and aren't told they have a "disease" but simply that when they are at the end of their rope, there's a higher power to latch onto. 3) I'm sure no one's forcing anyone to do anything; rather, it's a means of general guidance. 4) No one's proposing the god of any particular religion or creed, as far as I can tell.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7476725 - 10/02/07 09:09 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

when they are at the end of their rope, there's a higher power to latch onto




Q: Who is responsible for the flying here, Dumbo or the "magic feather"?



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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Veritas]
    #7476730 - 10/02/07 09:11 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

A: this question is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7476770 - 10/02/07 09:26 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Not really.  Religion offers us a "magic feather" in the form of an imaginary higher power.  We do not believe in our own abilities, so we invest this deity with all the power to overcome the obstacles in our lives.  When we manage to "fly," we decide that it is because "God" or "Allah" or "____________" made it possible.

In the movie, Dumbo was finally exposed to the truth: that the feather was powerless, and the abilities were all his own.  Organized religion never wants followers to be exposed to this truth, thus MIND CONTROL.  :crazy: :tongue:

When you're at the end of your rope, the power you latch onto (or not) is YOUR OWN.


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7476781 - 10/02/07 09:31 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Erm... you mean to say that no one can concieve of God themselves? Where on earth did we come up with the concept, then?

We can conceive of anything including the Easter Bunny. We came up with the concept IMO from the idea of the father figure. The protective and stern daddy who will tell us what to do and then protect us.


But the way that looking to a higher power works for many people is that it releases the stress of being self-conscious about the journey of letting go of their addiction. God-consciousness releases us from self-consciousness. Even the person who simply lets go and moves on with their life is working within this same type of consciousness. It's called by some 'humility' and 'perserverance'. The problem for most is that we're too danged self-conscious about anything and everything.

Anyway, even if there are people who are able to be released without the conception of a higher power, it does not negate the helpful experience of concieving of one.


We will have to disagree on this. I don't think looking outside oneself for healing is healthy in the long run. Unless of course you just want to fit in. It's the same with most psychotherapy, the goal is not self actualization but instead to make the best of your miserable existence within your culture/society. Just enough health to make you productive for society. In the end you always lose.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7476797 - 10/02/07 09:37 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)



    How do you define "self-conscious"?


Icelander, we're waiting for an answer. :waits: :hehehe: JK


Since as far as I remember I never said this you can just wait fucking forever.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Icelander]
    #7476808 - 10/02/07 09:42 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

"JK" means "just kidding," sweetie. :crazy:


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Veritas]
    #7476907 - 10/02/07 10:16 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Well he can still wait fucking forever. NK.:lol:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Veritas]
    #7476918 - 10/02/07 10:21 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
Not really.  Religion offers us a "magic feather" in the form of an imaginary higher power.  We do not believe in our own abilities, so we invest this deity with all the power to overcome the obstacles in our lives.  When we manage to "fly," we decide that it is because "God" or "Allah" or "____________" made it possible.

In the movie, Dumbo was finally exposed to the truth: that the feather was powerless, and the abilities were all his own.  Organized religion never wants followers to be exposed to this truth, thus MIND CONTROL.  :crazy: :tongue:

When you're at the end of your rope, the power you latch onto (or not) is YOUR OWN.



I think you may have been brainwashed into only thinking a certain way about the concept of G-d.  You accept only the definition of G-d that other people have come up with?  Why can't someone come up with their own understanding?  In your mind, there seems to be only one scenario.  That's entirely too boxed-in for me. :whoa:

It's not that I try to enforce a concept of God on my environment, it's that my environment demands it.  I think of myself as simply a bunch of molecules interacting with all the other molecules, and suddenly I feel an overwhelming presence within  and through everything holding it all together. :sheesha: That's not something anyone has taught me.  I repugn the ideas of others and have learned to continually break free of the mold to think for myself to find such a dynamic reality. :gethigh:

God is not outside of us, but is inside of us as the essence of existence.  That is why it is both herself and us working together.  God is like the Logos of Greek philosophy, the principle holding everything together.  Surely you believe there's coherence in the universe; so do I, and believe that it is the same power by which we live and move. :rockon:

The Establishment merely tries to suck power from that basic philosophy like a vampire.  But there would be no fresh blood if there were nothing living, and likewise there would be no motivation to believe in something greater than us if there were not at least a suspicion of such a thing in each of our individual hearts and minds.
:rainbowdrink:


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7476950 - 10/02/07 10:29 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

By your loose definition "God" means whatever you want it to mean. Hitler also believed in a higher power. So what? So now we all paint ourselves this portrait of our mental masturbations and call it God. That is basically true but not conducive to debate.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Icelander]
    #7476982 - 10/02/07 10:39 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Rheumatism acting up again? :wink:  :chillpill:

Quote:

Icelander said:
We can conceive of anything including the Easter Bunny. We came up with the concept IMO from the idea of the father figure. The protective and stern daddy who will tell us what to do and then protect us.



Or maybe the existence of bunnies and fathers came from a single source holding all of the universe together.  I guess I'm too much of a Neo-Platonist to fall for this underdeveloped view of a headless unity. :rolleyes:

Quote:

Icelander said:
We will have to disagree on this. I don't think looking outside oneself for healing is healthy in the long run. Unless of course you just want to fit in. It's the same with most psychotherapy, the goal is not self actualization but instead to make the best of your miserable existence within your culture/society. Just enough health to make you productive for society. In the end you always lose.



But I think you misunderstand.  It's not looking outside to look outside, it's looking outside to attain within.  Everything we look at outside becomes something inside.  To view God outside yourself is to internalize God.  This is where I agree and disagree with the philosophy of a made-up God.  Of course there's an inward conception of God just as we have for everything else; but that does not mean that of necessity it is not also an outward reality.  Nor, when it is seen as an outward reality, does it cease to be an inward one.  The outside is inside, and the inside is outside. :strokebeard:

To internalize something greater than yourself is to give yourself power to live even greater.  To continually turn inward and look only to yourself is to feed your own weak impulses and degenerate into a self-defeating cycle.  We step outward from ourselves to find our true selves, but lock ourselves inward only to starve ourselves of meaning and its necessary development.

:sheesha:


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7477013 - 10/02/07 10:46 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

To view God outside yourself is to internalize God. This is where I agree and disagree with the philosophy of a made-up God. Of course there's an inward conception of God just as we have for everything else; but that does not mean that of necessity it is not also an outward reality.

That first sentence is a doozy and seems like a common form of mental abberation.:lol:

but that does not mean that of necessity it is not also an outward reality.

I'll always give you the possibility that it's an outward reality if you will admit to the possibility of that being delusion? Bet ya can't do it. :monkeydance:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Icelander]
    #7477016 - 10/02/07 10:48 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
By your loose definition "God" means whatever you want it to mean. Hitler also believed in a higher power. So what? So now we all paint ourselves this portrait of our mental masturbations and call it God. That is basically true but not conducive to debate.



Partly what makes the concept of God so vague is that if God is over all the universe, then everything must be a part of its existence. That means that there can be no specific parameters given.

However, on the other hand there can be specific descriptions given, as each individual thing expresses a different quality of the whole. A man like Hitler who commits crimes against the universe cannot be said to express God through his ideology and actions when they are not conducive, but in fact harmful, to the life and productivity of the whole. He has made a virus out of a potentially life-giving mechanism and calls it his "God".

But the original thing was not corrupted to begin with - corruption must find something which exists, and is pleasant, to corrupt.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7477053 - 10/02/07 10:59 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

A man like Hitler who commits crimes against the universe cannot be said to express God through his ideology and actions when they are not conducive, but in fact harmful, to the life and productivity of the whole. He has made a virus out of a potentially life-giving mechanism and calls it his "God".

Oh Boy is this non-sense! Something you don't like isn't God but what you agree with is. And I thought you were doing well in this debate.:monkeydance:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


Edited by Icelander (10/02/07 10:59 AM)


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Re: What do Organised Religion and Mind Control have in common? [Re: Icelander]
    #7477056 - 10/02/07 11:00 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
That first sentence is a doozy and seems like a common form of mental abberation.:lol:



You don't believe we internalize everything we come into contact with?  That seems to be a troublesome theory at best.

Quote:

Icelander said:
I'll always give you the possibility that it's an outward reality if you will admit to the possibility of that being delusion? Bet ya can't do it. :monkeydance:



Of course, I'm a typical theist who can't imagine anything but what he's been taught by the 'establishment'.  :rolleyes:  Gimme a break.  Just because you have a hard time concieving of anything beyond what you've been taught about the concept of G-d doesn't mean that everyone else does.

I'll admit to the possibility of someone thinking that it's a delusion, but to be intellectually honest I cannot think of another scenario wherein there would be no G-d.  Existence not only requires it but in another sense enunciates it.  We're dealing with the same reality but perhaps the concept of God that you're thinking of is not the same one that I am.  And this is just where the problem occurs.  One sees an aspect of things that another does not, and so the latter comes up with an ad hoc explanation for the other's "ramblings" and denounces it.

This is not a discussion I care to extend for a great amount of time.  People see different things in reality, and it's useless to try to force one's viewpoint on another.  All I would ask of any conversation is a discussion, not a critique.  I do not need your expounditure on the finer points of my central beliefs as you do not see what I see and therefore cannot understand the dynamic I'm working from.  The same with myself as regards you or as regards any two people at all.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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