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Intelligent Design

Ok, to summarize, you believe god exists, but you believe it is delusion for you to believe god exists. I will grant you one thing, you are certainly demonstrating to me that you are deluded. I am sorry, but really, what else can I say?

:2razz:

Absolutely. Ishvara comes from Brahman through vidya-maya, the creative principle of the kosmos. Ishvara is the prime actor. Everything else is formed and set in motion, "within his own body". In other words, Ishvara is ever-present throughout all of creation creation. Ishvara is the creation God of all other monotheistic traditions.

Our conception of Brahman and Ishvara is a delusion. We try to conceptualize infinities with finite perceptions as well as deluding ourselves that Ishvara is separate from us.

The context in which you are saying this is where the Buddhist writer is stating that your perception that your prayer was answered by god is a delusion. Further, that your focus on it is blocking your ability to shift your focus to "awareness", and that if you cling to it, awareness will elude you. You admit this, but the only side of this discussion you have come out on is to justify theist dualists in their belief in god. Their clinging to their beliefs and the delusions upon delusions that led them there are just as much a block to their own enlightenment as a scientist's embrace of empiricism would be, but you seem to fail to see that, and give them encouragement and justification toward sinking deeper into that delusion.

I am not sure if your understanding or grasp of eastern philosophy is simplistic or if your application of it is capricious.

"Deeper" into that delusion of separateness brings one closer to nondual awareness. I, my belief in God, the experience of my prayer being answered are all delusions. My ideation of the kosmos leads me toward nondual awareness, however long that might take. Dualists have no model of nondual reality. But I do encourage them in their beliefs.
 
No, atheists do not "believe" in anything. That's why we're atheists. We don't search for any reasons to not believe.

this is an argument i have been making for years... and why i do not usually identify as an atheist but as a rationalist... if i must be categorized i would rather be categorized by what I am than what I am NOT.

the notion that one can hold an unquantified ideation of a negation is absurd. One cannot 'believe' that god does not exist, only NOT believe that god does exist.

geo.
 
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reefed, I have two questions for you.

Why did you choose your particular religion and not another?
Also, your religion seems extensively developed. If someone had not told you of their beliefs first (and you obviously accepted them), do you think you could have come to all of these things yourself?
 
reefed, I have two questions for you.

Certainly, with pleasure.

Why did you choose your particular religion and not another?

I have said previously that I started off an atheist, after the social rigors of Episcopalian church fast wore off my patience. However, I was intensely interested in the subject of spirituality and why people believe. and what they believe. It is like me and languages. I never learn one that well, but I like to sample them and learn how to say "hi", "thank you" and "goodbye" in as many as I come across.

I then started learning about all sorts of stuff, like Kabbalah and native american beliefs. I became an agnostic. These ideas seemed plausible, although I had no proof.

I evolved further to the point where I said I believe in the social force of God and then that I believe in the concept of God.

Then I found Yoga exercise and quickly learned that there was a philosophy behind it. I dove in. Polytheism really didn't interest me so much as I figured the ultimate source needed to be all encompassing. I asked and found out about Advaita Vedanta. As luck would have it, there was the Vedanta Society of Washington right there in town. I started attending philosophy classes and learned about 3 of the 6 main philosophies over months:

  • samkhya (purusha and pakriti)
  • yoga (raja, jnana, bhakti, karma)
  • vedanta

I also read a lot of books:
  • Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
  • Bhagavad Gita
  • Sri Vivekananda's collection on Vedanta
  • The Sermon on the Mount: According to Vedanta by Swami Prabhavananda
  • The Uddhava Gita
  • Self-Knowledge by Swami Nikhilananda
  • Spiritual Consciousness by Swamie A. P. Mukerji
  • Mystic Christianity by Yogi Ramacharaka
  • Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant
  • Psychic Healing by Yogi Ramacharaka
  • Splendor Solis by Salomon Trismosin
  • Divine Pymander by Hermes Mercurius Trimegistus
  • The Kybalion by The Three Initiates

Then I had my dreadful spiritual experience, but I left that with absolute certainty in the spiritual realm. Hindus call in Brahman/Ishvara and Buddhists call it "positive emptiness".

First and foremost, I am a Nondualist.

Also, your religion seems extensively developed. If someone had not told you of their beliefs first (and you obviously accepted them), do you think you could have come to all of these things yourself?

My "religion"? :) It is a church of one. Thank you very much for the compliment, however.

NO WAY could I have come up with all this! I had to be inspired by what people said about their strain of spiritual belief. I have synthesized things to a degree, between different sources, but the reality is that all of these different traditions seem to have some component of nondualism, they have some mechanism by which creation occurs as a cascading emanation from the source, consciousness is central, faith is critical to have, enlightenment is possible, and prayers are answered. My mainstay is Vedanta, however, as it seems to be the most complete and straightforward of them all. I like simplicity.
 
I have synthesized things to a degree, between different sources, but the reality is that all of these different traditions seem to have some component of nondualism, they have some mechanism by which creation occurs as a cascading emanation from the source, consciousness is central, faith is critical to have, enlightenment is possible, and prayers are answered.

Bloody hell, I cannot believe I left the Golden Rule off that list of common features.
 
Yes, absolutely. You nailed it. But I will reassert that the involvement of consciousness in bringing about reality at the quantum level is an indicator that the same may be true at the classical scale, and the absence of consciousness being involved would have weakened that case. We know it is a valid and justified possibility, rooted in real physics. That is what we know.
The possibility would exist whether or not there was any conclusion that the effect is there at the quantum level. It might even have been the case that the effect was there at the "classical" level, but not at the quantum level. I do not see the case being strengthened for the classical level by evidence at the quantum level at all, though I understand why it would seem that way. I used to believe as you do, that there was a strengthened case, but I do not any longer. It has been many years since I believed that. It has been a fascinating revelation of science, but there is no reason to make more of it than simply what we do know.
 
One cannot 'believe' that god does not exist, only NOT believe that god does exist.

That's absurd. Certainly one can believe that God does not exist. This is the difference between hard and soft atheism. You are a soft atheist (which is really a kind of agnosticism), but that does not exclude that possibility that there are people who take a stronger position, and affirmatively belief in the absence of divinity. Plenty of people do hold this belief. Just because you don't find it particularly convincing doesn't mean there aren't people who hold this belief.
 
Well, yes and no. Atheists, in their atheism, do not believe in anything. Atheism is the answer to a single question: do you believe in a god. If the answer is anything but "yes", then you're an atheist, regardless of any other position you might hold. Atheism has no other meaning except that single answer.

Athiest has no proof exept that either.

So what's the big deal, not all athiest are bad not all athiest are good.
Not all people that believe in God are bad not all are good.
All are simply human.
 
No, atheists do not "believe" in anything. That's why we're atheists. We don't search for any reasons to not believe.

Think about everything you ever discarded in your life because of any lack of evidence. Do you have faith that unicorns don't exist? That goblins don't?
Just because atheists are in the minority doesn't mean we have to have the same amount of faith in a lack of a god as you do in a god. Being an atheist means you don't use faith at all when it comes to the existence of a god.

To not have the same beliefs as another can be debateable but to be made sprt of to laugh at is a differant matter.

I grow tired of this fairy tale, spagetti monster, unicorns, and goblins routine connected with faith.
Perhaps that is how you see things but not me.

What about the athiest/ scientist discarding their life for lack of evidence, only to have magic tricks.

Do you believe in magic , like having an explosion without energy and matter basic physics or is it?
Do you believe in pulling living organisms out of a vacum from nothing to start evolution, biology or is it?
Most magic tricks are in fact distraction and illusion nothing more ,:peace
 
I don't think it is sufficient for modern scientific purposes, but the concept itself is far from new, and is quite deist in notion.

Sir I have on more than 1 occasion read the bible no where does it say beware of science do not seek scientific ideas.
Strange I have also read more than a few science books no where did it say there is no God.

Did I miss something, did they make a new rule, to study science you must be an athiest?

Perhaps science should look closer to technology and less to creationism.

Unless the new quest of science is mearly to prove there is no God.

I have ask these questions once before and got no answer, perhaps you have one.

If a religous man found a way to extract hydrogen from water at hardly no expense would he be cheered?
If an athiest found a way for a human to leave this solar system and come back would he be cheered:peace
 
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That's absurd. Certainly one can believe that God does not exist.
no guy...I am not an agnostic. it is true that I do not 'believe that god does not exist', but not because i think he might exist.... but only because it is not possible for anything to 'not exist'. it is illogical to suggest that I can believe a thing that I know is not possible... see?

it is not possible to 'believe/not' - that is, to hold a unquantifed rejection of - an unquantifed premise. THAT the premise is unquantified quantifies the rejection.

it is metaphor, a convenient, if illogical way of saying something meaningless which has a meaningful, if less easily expressed, parallel - like telling you to close the refrigerator door before you let the cold out. that is not possible, there is no such thing as cold.

think about it for a bit. a belief is an unquantifed acceptance 'as true' of a premise. an acceptance as 'not true' requires no quantification, no evidence. it is enough that the existence of something cannot be quantified to exclude rejection of the premise as "belief".

i do not have to rely on my ability to take something as true without evidence to reject as true something for which there is no evidence. that god exists is an unquantifed claim that obliges "belief" in order to be accepted. that same lack of evidence IS the only justification needed to reject the premise that god exists. it is not "belief", it is merely the lack belief, just as cold is not a thing itself, but only the lack of heat.

geo.
 
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