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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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How I think about religion and God.
#7682390 - 11/26/07 04:05 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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It seems that the idea of God is the most important topic in this forum sometimes. It's the big question on everybody's mind. Is there or is there not a God and beyond that is mankind the apple of its eye.
For myself I have come to believe that the idea of God is a creation of mankind. It began in our early history when survival was very uncertain and we needed to understand how the natural world worked so we could try and control the deep insecurity of our vulnerable position on the planet. We tried in our very primitive thinking to placate the forces of nature by giving them a personality and then offering appeasements. Thus was God(s) and spirituality born.
Not much has changed since then except we act out this basic human drama in more and more complex ways. The so called religious experience is a common biological experience with or without the religious context. This is often the same experience the users of psychedelics etc, have in making a connection with pure being outside of the personality drama (ego). You don't need to be religious to have this experience or feeling as it is part of the biology of being an animal and we express that in our unique human animal way. We have mistaken it for an experience of divinity created in our own image and we call it God or Spirit.
I am not a religious person and yet I have very strong feelings that I used to call religious. It consists of awe and wonder at the complexity of life and the fact that I am here experiencing it without understanding it. I think Albert Einstein put it very well. "My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature"
and again
"To assume the existence of an imperceivable being...does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world."
and again
"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
I guess my objection to the God people is that they seem to feel that they know what God is and wants and that they are especially important to him/her. Any God like that is way too small for my ideas of what is going on here. It's truly beyond comprehension by us in the human/animal state.
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself int the harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings." -Albert Einstein
Having said that I do not believe in a God or a creator. I do have a belief that there is some awareness behind all of this. But I do not have the arrogance of the so called religious man in stating that I understand what that awareness is and can define it.
The Philosophy of Tao comes close for me. "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious." -Albert Einstein.
If I want to understand myself and find a place in the world and attempt to enjoy my time here and find happiness I will choose Rational Emotive Behavior (psychology) every time.
Thanks for reading this very long post.
-------------------- "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 (11/26/07 04:30 PM)
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PhanTomCat
Teh Cat....



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Re: How I think about religion and God. [Re: Icelander]
#7682623 - 11/26/07 04:47 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: Thanks for reading this very long post.
I just read the title, but you're welcome....! 
>^;;^<
-------------------- I'll be your midnight French Fry.... "The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...." >^;;^<
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
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Re: How I think about religion and God. [Re: PhanTomCat]
#7682746 - 11/26/07 05:18 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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I just looked at the pictures.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Well this is the best I can hope for here.
-------------------- "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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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: How I think about religion and God. [Re: Icelander]
#7686254 - 11/27/07 02:32 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Does this mean that Albert Ellis is your spiritual master?
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Basilides
Servent ofWisdom



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Re: How I think about religion and God. [Re: Icelander]
#7686481 - 11/27/07 03:31 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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I think you project alot onto "God people".
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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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daytripper23
?


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Re: How I think about religion and God. [Re: Basilides]
#7686779 - 11/27/07 04:37 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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What I got from Spinoza, was that he wasn't drawing these kinds of lines as much as as he was to blurring them.
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vaportrail
upandaway



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Re: How I think about religion and God. [Re: daytripper23]
#7687004 - 11/27/07 05:10 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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What you should ask is whether God's path a reasonable way to achieve self actualization. Too many people think they have to follow the Christian God, or Jesus, or whoever. You said you have felt that awareness.. whatever.. project a personality onto it, pick Jesus, Doughboy, whoever, make up your own, the point is to build a relationship with that part of you which can realize it's full potential.
Quote:
When I ask how one chooses a personal deity, the rinpoche says that, although one's mind is ineffable, "when it manifests your best qualities - projects them outward - that's your yidam." Although many people venerate popular gods such as Chenrezig and Tara, he says, "You can practice with whichever deity your mind can make, which means yidams are often more interesting that the serene Buddha. Some are fantastic creatures with horse heads or necklaces made of galaxies. Even if you practice being God, perhaps, or the Buddha, that's okay, just so there's not you and the deity, but you as the deity."
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"If I tell you to visualize yourself as Tara," said Tenzin Palmo, giving me the blue look, "you think, I'm Winifred, pretending to be Tara. But the truth is that you are really Tara, pretending to be Winifred."
These two quotes smacked me upside the face just yesterday, in Spiritual Genius by Winifred Gallagher. What do you think?
-------------------- and the hippos were boiled in their tanks
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Does this mean that Albert Ellis is your spiritual master?
I had a feeling that this post would push someones buttons.;)
I have no spiritual masters as that is not how my belief system works. I use whoever I believe has the best and most logical advice on my search for contentment/happiness, and I use them as a tool only; to be put down when the job is over.
-------------------- "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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