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Originally Posted By: Rev
Humorous (if we are lucky) imitations of a serious piece of writing (Aldous Huxley)--the kind of parody I enjoy.
If you are really lucky, there are some excellent music-kind of parodies. Mozart's Horn music is one of them. I remember hearing one done by, was it Flanders and Swan?


The only relevance this seems to have to the OP is that Flanders & Swann are dead.


There never was nothing.
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Bill S__ Thanks for cheering me up. I loved Flanders and Swan and saw them in Sydney many many years ago. Brilliant! I 'm remembering the Madeira song now -- and grinning a lot!

In the same area.. Did you watch the reunion show of Monty Python? They were slower, they forgot bits and everyone expect Palin looked older, but they were still very, very funny.

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Do you think that the German scientists in the original experiment were trying to prove that the afterlife did exist? Their belief influenced their results. If I had done the experiment I would not have reached their conclusion because I I do not think that a NDE, when you are still alive (if rather tenuously), is the same as actual dying, when you are dead.

TT You asked when I realised I thought there was no god. I honestly can't ever remember really believing that there was, but I am sure that if I did have any shreds of belief left I would have been praying furiously when I was (officially!) so ill when my baby was born. I am not in any way a militant atheist. I hope that anyone who has a sincere belief in god continues to enjoy that comfort forever. I just don't share it.

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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
There are always those who amuse themselves by imitating, poorly.
Or imitating and pretending, having practiced it to an art.. wink
But the point of the OP was to enliven a conversation rather than to take credit for the thread. cool

Originally Posted By: Ellis

TT You asked when I realised I thought there was no god.

Well what I was asking was.., if you had formulated an idea of your own about what you had no belief in, or if it was someone elses idea you couldn't connect to or were having the realization about.
Obviously in order to take a stand either for or against something, you have to have an idea about what you are for or against.
The thing about spiritual exploration is to understand your relationship to what it is you are looking at or pondering without it being determined by someone else. Having your own experience and finding validity in the reality of the experience rather than signing it off due to the skepticism of others begins to wear on a person. If you begin to allow others to think for you, and define you, then you aren't going to be in touch with who you are or what you can create and experience.

Rodonaia expressed an idea about his experience of God.."All I can say is that I now believe in the God of the universe. Unlike many other people, however, I have never called God the light, because God is beyond our comprehension. God, I believe, is even more than the light, because God is also darkness."

All of the Hindu and Greek Gods were visionary. Someone saw an image in a meditative state of mind or in a spiritual like epiphany, and gave testimony to the experience. If the individual was influential he/she prompted those who had no vision of their own to adopt the view and opinion. This is how religion begins. An enlightened individual has an experience of something that is beyond belief, but being that we live in the world of duality bound by limitations of language and the differences in comprehension, one cannot give another their direct experience or reduce it in order to bring the infinite into duality without distorting it or filtering it thru shades of belief.
All of the ancient sages point towards the infinite without ever attempting to define it or give it special acronyms to idealize it into a personal God.
The Advaita Vedanta (Teaching of the non-dual nature of reality) contains thousands of books which describe various experiences and understandings to the approach, with the inner and subtle senses, but never define the infinite into forms or belief systems.
Images and ideas shared by those such as Buddha and Jesus became a construct adopted by those who had no experience and decided to allow their imagination to assume the reality as well as the idea that their imagination was an exact match for direct experience and understanding.
We see this today in practice by those with religious title. They quote and plagiarize others of vision to give themselves importance and to find acceptance and value from others.

Spirituality is the experience of God without defining it. One can express their visions and experience but if God is infinite we can only bring back our vision and experience within the constraints of duality and its boundaries.
All religions are born of followers who adopt relative boundaries as the defining principals to bind God to both the personal ideal as well as something that can fit the collective consciousness and its ability to comprehend.
Exploring the infinite has no finality to capture and contain what can't be contained or captured.

I always enjoy hearing someone experience something and say out loud, "I don't believe it!" It just goes to show just how set a person can become in their ideas about themselves.

I asked a question before.. If an atom is 99.99% empty space, then what is it that we see, feel, hear..., experience, and believe in?


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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I did spend some time trying very hard to accommodate religious thought, but it always seemed to contradict what I really thought particularly when I was a child. I was surrounded by war ,and thoughts of war then, and I knew that if I were to have been an omnipotent god I would have stopped the fighting and sent everyone (including my dad) home.

I became aware that most people from both sides were in fact praying to god about war, and he/she/it was taking no notice at all.

From there I wondered about illness. why was one person dying and another was spared and so on. I think children worry a lot about these things, but we adults are not responsive to them. We tell children it is god's will etc 'Believing in a god can comfort many people, but if you never felt committed to the idea it is easy to accept that there really is no big god inspired plan.

We are here by some freak chance and we have done some wonderful things. There have been magnificent humans and some wonderful leaders with inspiring ideas regarding our lives and the most rewarding way to live them. The variety is astonishing. It's not all good, but we are still here, and every day has some element of happiness and reward. That is not enough for everyone, but it is for me. I see nothing wrong with contentment.

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No nothing wrong with contentment, but then our nature is not complacency and our challenges inspire us to look further than what we see and experience. We get bored easily if everything remains the same. Our favorite food doesn't stay our favorite if that is the only thing you have to eat.

What you seem to be saying tho in reference to the God Idea is that you yourself never settled into any particular definition or idea, yet also can't find commonality in the ideas brought to the table.
However to say you don't believe in something points to an idea or definition of a something/no-thing which you have no belief in. If you say you don't believe in God there's a fair chance you'll be asked for you best definition or idea about, the subject of disbelief to find commonality in the topic of discussion.


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!




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Ellis, in response to TT, you wrote:
Originally Posted By: Ellis
...You asked when I realised I thought there was no god....
Ellis, do I detect that you were born a skeptic? Sounds OK to me.

Me? My father (1880-1964) died--TB and miner's lung--when I was 14.

Our mother (1885-1935) died when I was 5. Meanwhile, TB already took our oldest brother and our sister--her husband and her two young children). To this day, I still wonder: Is the 'God' of theism asleep? perhaps Woody Allen got it right with his cynically amusing comment: "God is an under achiever!" This how I felt in my teens; at 17, I took the same attitude with me, when I registered at www.mta.ca in Sept., 1947.

aWhen our mentor of theological students--professor Arthur Ebbutt, told me the meaning of 'psychology', I asked him: Would it okay for me to make philosophy+psychology my major program? He responded: Dr. Charles A. Baxter (a Ph.D, from Toronto U) will be delighted.

Now, I have no desire to thank a mentally-imagined, Santa-like God--assumed by child-like thinkers, young and older, to have dimensions.

But, I thank G O D (the oneness beyond all inner and outer dimensions)--the ominipotent, omniscient, and everywhere-present power, including in our hearts, or spirits, or minds (pneuma is the Greek word).

You end your comment so,
Quote:
I honestly can't ever remember really believing that there was, but I am sure that if I did have any shreds of belief left I would have been praying furiously when I was (officially!) so ill when my baby was born....

Last edited by Revlgking; 11/11/14 05:32 PM. Reason: Always helpful

G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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Ellis, CORRECTING AN ERROR I MADE--The Greek for word is LOGOS, not PNEUMA
===========
Quote:
But, I thank G O D (the oneness beyond all inner and outer dimensions--the microcosm & the macrocosm)--the ominipotent, omniscient, and everywhere-present power, including in our hearts, or spirits, or minds (pneuma is the Greek SPIRIT.

Last edited by Revlgking; 11/12/14 03:33 AM. Reason: Always helpful

G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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Hello again Rev. You sound in great form!

We have talked (argued) about this many times. I think that the existence of the divine in any of her/his/its manifestations has to follow belief in such a concept and the need for some, to worship, love and follow. This is a very necessary aspect oF faith for many , and indeed I read to-day that Mr Putin is supposed to be using the renaissance of religion in Russia as a basis for expansion of his power. Possibly a cynical way of looking at things-- but he would not be the first.

I can appreciate that need, but I do not share it. You, Rev, once called me a secular humanist, and I liked that so much that I often identify myself as such! And I should thank you for the label. I much prefer it to sceptic, which always sounds closed minded, and I don't think I am.

There are many examples of the belief that leads to believing. The most well-known is probably Paul (not my favourite apostle) whose belief stemmed from a vision and instantly he believed it was god calling him. His belief took him into a very different life, and it was one filled with faith and belief. How do you explain that? You don't. Belief has to be accepted, sometimes with a struggle, but always without proof, because it is impossible to prove the truth behind belief.

The topic here is life after death. It too cannot be proved. Many people wholeheartedly believe in it, and industries have grown up to support that belief, but no one has proved immortality anywhere.

And I think that does not matter! If you believe in eternal life, then for you the idea needs no proving because you believe.





Last edited by Ellis; 11/12/14 06:46 AM.
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Ellis, thanks! INTEGRAL PHILOSOPHY--The work of Ken Wilber, check out his BIO on Wikipedia--well worth it.

LOT'S OF FREEDOM TO THINK. VERY DEMOCRATIC AND FLEXIBLE PHILOSOPHY. NO DOGMA, JUST INFORMATION!

Also check out www.paragonhouse.com About INTEGRAL CHRISTIANITY--The Spirit's Call to Evolve, by the Rev. Paul R. Smith is a great summary of Ken Wilber.

http://www.paragonhouse.com/product.php?productid=496&cat=0&page=&featured=Y

Last edited by Revlgking; 11/12/14 07:27 PM.

G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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