The View of a Non-Believer ~ DogmaCURE
- Thread starter J_Hay
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Wothehell does "higher truth" mean? It's always sounded like another phrase for unsubstantiated mystic nonsense to me, and that's generally what it's proven to be when I've questioned people who use it.
If you start out with the assumption that it is mystic nonsense then that is where you end up. If you tune into closed circuit TV to watch a hockey game, then don't expect anything else.
I start out with the assumption that people understand what they're talking about, or I wouldn't bother asking what they think it means. So far, without exception the phrase has turned out under questioning to mean nothing, so I feel justified in expecting that's probably what it means here too, but if anybody would care to attempt a better explanation that satisfies the criteria for testing the truth content of claims, I'd like to see it.
What I learned I learned through experience. I entered into situations with an open mind in which I suspended belief. Belief tends to get in the way of learning. Belief means a rigid set of criteria, a fixed way of observing and evaluating. Whether it is religious or scientific, dogma is dogma and there is no room for experiences that are out of the ordinary, outside the accepted realm of accepted possibilities.
As a small example of initiation, as I mentioned in a previous post, every tribal, indigenous culture had a process of initiation. No matter what form it took, the purpose was almost always the same, to destroy the childhood ego and to have the child, usually at puberty, be reborn into his or her adult responsibilities within that culture. To us it would seem barbaric and senseless to do that to a child. But the process was born of necessity because of the nature of the culture (hunter/gatherers) and the environment in which they needed to survive.
In our society, we really have no such process, so the childhood ego remains in tack for most of our lives, reaping havoc on our fragile psyches. Jealousy, envy, hate, anger are all attached to that ego. In essence, none of us really matures beyond a dysfunctional infantile emotional state. We have short circuited the process that leads to emotional maturity by eliminating the initiation process. Now I have heard all kinds of arguments that say we have different ways of initiation but none is as effective as killing the childhood ego. It is a horrendous process that we can't seem to stomach.
There is one way that some in our culture accidentally get initiated and that is through near death experiences. Quite often, leaving the body is involved and being teleported to a different realm of existence. This has been recorded in countless journals and personal accountings. At this point quite often a gift is received: a gift of insight or healing or whatever. If a person does not use these gifts upon returning to consciousness, they may lose that gift. One thing that happens quite commonly is that the person has a profound change in the way they live their life and how they relate to others and their surroundings. If you ask them what happened, you will get vague answers because usually the experience is almost impossible to relate in any way other could understand unless they had gone through a similar experience.
Something happens on the other side. It is different for each individual because their beliefs and life experiences colour how they experience it. Many initiation rituals and ceremonies mimic near death experiences and can have just as profound an affect on how the person changes how they live their lives and how they understand life and its purpose. Things that used to be important no long are. Any way that is a lot so I will leave it at that for now. There are thousands of books on this and related subjects but they will have to wait for another day.
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Lot of things I could quibble with there Cliffy, like your statement of what belief means, the purpose of initiation rituals, and what actually happens in a near death experience, but they wouldn't really be on point.. The point is that you assume a lot of things to be true, without evidence. How can you know, for instance, that the near death experience involves leaving the body and being teleported to a different realm of existence? There's no good evidence that's what happens, there's not even any good evidence that there IS "the other side," as a lot of people call it. All we have is a lot of anecdotal reports of how people interpret what happened to them, and that's not evidence. There's only one method we've ever discovered for reliably testing the truth content of claims, and those claims don't survive it.
Without evidence, all you've got is speculation and wishful thinking, whatever else you call it.
Wow, a gnostic. I have never heard or read one in person before, although I had heard there were still some around. They jumped on the Christian bandwagon pretty early, as I recall, and were going full steam and writing their own gospels by the third century.
Well met.
Talking down? I never knew what it was to be reviled and ridiculed and attacked until I met an atheist evangelist. And you know something? All that preaching and teaching that you revile I was raised with, and guess what? I discovered that I was a human being, with a free will, which they also taught me, by the way, and I could just walk away, which I did, for about thirty years.
So what's with the mocking words? It seems there is more to this cliffy. Talking about "Big Daddy, the Kid, and the Holy Spook" are offensive, but you know, in my years of experience I've invariably found that someone who really doesn't believe and has rationally rejected the Christian faith, normally has a much more relaxed perspective. Those who try to offend have another agenda, another motivation.
And don't say that it is because those terrible Christians try to "shove it down our throats." That's a canard that needs to thrown in the dust-bin of pop-mythology. Nobody has ever shoved anything down my throat I didn't want. When we have a totalitarian regime in place who persecutes those who don't tow the party line (normally atheistic) then we can talk about the shoving down of throats. Find someplace on earth today that does that and then ask if it is Christian.
And, if you study the Christian faith, you will find that they have a keen sense of humanity's flawed psyches, pimples and smelly poop. In fact, that is the whole point of the exercise. Theirs is an explanation for our flaws, an explanation for our human nature, and a means of reconciliation with God. And if they did not believe that it was the only way, then they would not need to believe at all. The two are natural companions.
How is it not possible to just simply say, no, I don't believe what you believe and I have no intention of believing it. That's what I say to the nice young Mormon missionaries that come to my door. I thank them for coming out, tell them I admire their zeal but no thanks. I don't mock them, even though I think they are in grave error.
As to heaven and hell, you said once elsewhere that it is a choice made here on earth (correct me if I mistook your meaning) and that is very close to what the Christian faith teaches. The metaphors from Scripture about being cast into the lake of fire are intended to focus the mind, I should think, but any good Christian theologian will tell you that if you want to reject God and you are consistent with that position until you die, then he will give you exactly what you want. His absence. Some have said that is a very good definition of hell. Others suggest that God cannot be absent from any place, being omniscient, so that hell is the opposite, the fire of being in his direct presence yet rejecting him. But beyond speculation, the Christian position is definitely that everyone gets what they want.
And you really believe that solved the problem of in-fighting and wars with other tribes? That is idyllic fantasy. As one wag put it, much of the life of the average aboriginal pre-European can be described as "nasty, brutish and short."
Or even better, how about defense of the defenseless? By the way, that was the entire reason for the Crusades, after Islam had conquered most of what had been Christian for six centuries before the birth of Mohammed.
I said heaven and hell are right here on Earth. And yes my rant was rather harsh. It happens some times. I'm not perfect.
I was brought up Catholic and have studied the bible from many different angles since I left the church. I have had religious discussions with many people of different denominations and different religions. I do tire of the evangelical types and occasionally they get do under my skin. But I was taught a long time ago, that people are, myself included, responsible for their own emotions. So I take responsibility for when I allow someone to get under my skin and conversely, I expect others to do the same. I do not take any responsibility for how others feel.
And European history has not been nasty and brutish? The blood shed that came with "civilization" and its technology was staggering. There has never been an idyllic culture that I'm aware of but I have lived among people of different cultures and some are better than others IMHO.
That was just an excuse, like WMDs in Iraq. The funny part (in a sick sort of way) was that the Muslims had abandoned Jerusalem when they heard the crusaders were coming and the only ones left were Arab speaking Christians who the crusaders slaughtered because they didn't understand them. But the real reason for the crusade was the usual plunder and pillage thing.
I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't, in certain areas at certain times. The point I was making was that your description of the transition into manhood of pagan cultures was to assert that those cultures were somehow superior morally to our society. You said;
All I was pointing out was that while some (perhaps that is not you) have tried to make out that the life of the aboriginal was somehow idyllic prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the truth is far from that. It had its high points, no question, but it was no moral paradise.
For someone who claims to be a free-thinker, it seems you have been unduly influenced by what started as a Protestant polemic against the hated Papists and was popularized by such as Sir Walter Scott, but quite unfounded in the actual history of the time. You have to be careful of what you read as history in the popular culture born out of the public schools and carrying the traditions of religious partisans of the 16th century onward. Let me say, since you been raised a Catholic it would seem only fair to study history from more than just the perspective of rabid anti-Catholics, just as you would likely wish to study the history of Islam from more than the point of view of Muslim haters, yes?
And it is interesting as well, if you go back to the history told by the Muslims themselves of the Crusades, prior to the rise of the any political or social advantage in Europe to be gained from parroting the anti-Catholic propaganda created by the descendants of the Reformation, you will find that they considered themselves the victors and that it really was not a major issue. And if you compare that to the record of what actually happened during the Crusades, you will find that indeed the crusaders were remarkably unsuccessful at achieving their own goals, or maintaining any gains they made over time. To the Islamic world up until recently they were little more than an irritation and the last thing they did was regard themselves as victims. They were proud of their defeat of the Christians.
However, in interacting with the west in recent times it has become apparent that at least in North America, there is a deep guilt over the Crusades brought about by the false description of the goals and accomplishments of those Crusades. And, not to leave such a golden opportunity unused, Islam has run with their newly found victim status and helped to perpetuate the mythology because it tends to paralyze many in the west including many publicly educated leaders.
Hey, if it works, why not use it? You cannot blame them for helping to weaken their perceived enemies, particularly when those enemies are beating themselves with guilt based on a mythology. Why tell them the truth?
By the way, as to motivation for the Crusades there is ample and overwhelming evidence for the actual goals they had in mind. There is no need to repeat the mythology there.
The point I was making had nothing to do with morals, which seem to a particular hangup of Christians. What I am talking about is responsibility, personal and collective. When Europeans arrived this was a paradise filled with wildlife and beautiful rivers, lakes, forests and mountains. Now we have leveled many mountains, cut down the forests, wiped out many species and reduced many more to near extinction. We have fouled the water and the air with our greed and stupidity because we have no idea what responsibility means.
Some may argue with how ecologically aware the indigenous people were, but the proof is in the pudding. Some say they slaughtered each other so they were just as immoral as the Europeans, but there were as many as 110 million people in the Americas before Columbus and within a hundred years of contact, there were only about 10 million left. Within another hundred years there was less than half that. If they were so busy killing each other, why were there so many of them?
Could you please explain to me the difference? Isn't that the essence of morality? Just like with respect to dogma I think you are rejecting the category when you mean to reject a specific code.
For example, is the only reason you don't murder your neighbour, the fact that it is in the criminal code of Canada and carries a prison sentence? Or is it because you wouldn't do it even if the law had no problem with it? And at the personal level, is that not simply taking responsibility for your own actions and taking responsibility for the life of your neighbour?
So what then is the difference between that and the Christian who says "it is immoral to kill your neighbour, and oh, by the way, that is part of the natural law, found in societies all over the world, even in those who have never heard of Christ."
So Cliffy, it is not morality you are against, but the specific moral code of Christians. Anyone who suggests that our society, individually or collectively, did not take responsibility, whether or not it is true, seems to be just as hung up as any Christian, call it responsibility or call it morality.
What you are talking about is moral responsibility. What you are saying is that it was wrong to level mountains, it was wrong to deforest large tracts of land, it was wrong to pollute the air, the rivers and the land.
How can anything be wrong or right? It wasn't against the law, apparently. Bringing diseases from Europe that killed masses of Aboriginals was not against the law either, but was it right? Herding tribes into small worthless pieces of land was not against the law either, in fact it is still the law, as we are well aware recently, yet was it right?
So how do you talk of right and wrong? Those words are meaningless are they not? I mean, that is all morality is, the question of what is right and what is wrong. Taking responsibility is just another way of saying "morality." So who is hung up? Anyone and everyone who distinguishes between what is right and what is wrong, between what a human being ought to do, and what they ought not to do, between what a society ought to do, and what it ought not to do.
Whether we always adhere to our moral values is another question entirely. You said earlier;
Well neither am I. But you or I wouldn't even know that much without a moral code, a way to measure our perfection, now would we?
Rhetoric without a context. I might as well ask you why their were so few of them before Europeans arrived. Perhaps it was because they were killing each other in inter-tribal war.
What is reality? Does it really matter what you believe?
The Quantum Apocalypse of The Holographic Universe - YouTube
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The Quantum Apocalypse of The Holographic Universe - YouTube
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
First of all you forgot the third element that creates war Trade.
Religion is of course a major contributor but only because of
course Gods on our side. There is a time when you have to
stand up for yourself as a nation. Nazi Germany didn't give a
damn about peace, human rights, or anything else. Of course
the allies as a group contributed to the trade sales to help them
build up to be able to do the job of war.
Dogma is the main essence for conversion, God is absolute,
and therefore there is not need to compromise period or so it
would seem.
Someone on this thread earlier asked if we would ask such
questions on judgement day, well as a matter of fact as people
we likely will, its our democratic right. Think about it, if God is
on our side he must support democracy which means he will
have to compromise and in fact we will have the right to defend
ourselves with regard to our sins and to do that we will need a
court order served on heaven in order to obtain facts from the
celestial freedom of information act.
If God is not on our side he does not support democracy and
therefore he is against the constitution of democracies and
should be deported to some nation that will accept him. Of course
once he is deported or extradited, he will be tried in an international
court for all the destruction he caused with his floods and fires
etc. He is going to go to jail for a long time. Insurance companies
will sue him for all those acts of God.
Religion is of course a major contributor but only because of
course Gods on our side. There is a time when you have to
stand up for yourself as a nation. Nazi Germany didn't give a
damn about peace, human rights, or anything else. Of course
the allies as a group contributed to the trade sales to help them
build up to be able to do the job of war.
Dogma is the main essence for conversion, God is absolute,
and therefore there is not need to compromise period or so it
would seem.
Someone on this thread earlier asked if we would ask such
questions on judgement day, well as a matter of fact as people
we likely will, its our democratic right. Think about it, if God is
on our side he must support democracy which means he will
have to compromise and in fact we will have the right to defend
ourselves with regard to our sins and to do that we will need a
court order served on heaven in order to obtain facts from the
celestial freedom of information act.
If God is not on our side he does not support democracy and
therefore he is against the constitution of democracies and
should be deported to some nation that will accept him. Of course
once he is deported or extradited, he will be tried in an international
court for all the destruction he caused with his floods and fires
etc. He is going to go to jail for a long time. Insurance companies
will sue him for all those acts of God.
Cliffy, Data gets it wrong in the first clip, the second clip is mostly quantum quackery and mystic nonsense, as would be expected of anything that cites Edgar Cayce and the Illuminati with confidence and approval. Quantum theory is fully consistent with an objective reality that exists regardless of anyone's perceptions or expectations of it.