Who is going to hell? An argument for the Bible, Religion and God.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by THEINCREDIBLEdork

Blonde, I don't understand. I've agreed with everything you've said. America sucks, I wish we were as enlightened as countries that are not America.

ID is stuck.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

No. Do we have any programs like Dent posted in the USA on standard broadcasting or not?

Yes or no answer, to your knowledge.

Lots of good shows on Science, NatGeo, Smithsonian, PBS, lots of others.

The BBC is kind of hard to compare to though, since it is publicly funded by license fees of everybody who owns a TV and it doesn't need to make a profit.

[Mr. Blonde]

Yeah, but I was going off of "shows like this". There are plenty of science programs and documentaries out there, sure. But debates and thing like them on controversial issues (aside from scripted and network-approved news shows, or extremely time-restrictive half-hour programs) are almost nonexistent.

[Saint DH]

The McLaughlin Group fuckface.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Even though its besides the point, Blonde will hold on to the fact that there isn't a show exactly 100% like this one. Even though its a combination of Tyra and any other debate show with panelists on it. Oh wow the panelists are sitting in the audience thats so intellectual. (seems like a good show, just illustrating what goes on in Blondes fragile mind)

That's proof American culture is outclassed by England and Sweden in every way. lol amirite guys?

The "Enlightened" in this generation are completely ignorant of other countries problems because their Eurotrash yokles aren't on display on a global scale daily like our yokles are.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Dent

are there any shows like this in America?

Originally Posted by THEINCREDIBLEdork

Even though its besides the point, Blonde will hold on to the fact that there isn't a show exactly 100% like this one.

Originally Posted by THEINCREDIBLEdork

The "Enlightened" in this generation are completely ignorant of other countries problems because their Eurotrash yokles aren't on display on a global scale daily like our yokles are.

lol



You're such a hater, bro.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

No, sir. You are the hater.

America is the greatest civilization that has ever occupied this earth. Our culture, entertainment, and art influence the entire world. Even Kimmy J wanted to emulate American luxury. The children in countries that are our "enemies" sing our pop songs.

When I went to NZ in college to a remote Maui village their tradition was for the children to present a dance or something to us... their choice? They shook their asses at us in their ceremonial garbs to an Eminem song and repeatedly asked if we had Ipods and if they could see them

Edit: no more!

[ninjaface]

Mr. Blonde is Grumpy Cat.

[Dent]

Should We Create Children Without Fathers? - YouTube

Should We Create Children Without Fathers? - YouTube

Found that clip

[Ugly Bastard]

Dig Alain de Botton Best of 2012: Religion is too important to be left to the religious – Opinion – ABC Religion & Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Dent]

Responding to William Lane Craig on animal suffering - YouTube

Responding to William Lane Craig on animal suffering - YouTube

A nice pair of tits showing William Lain Craig who's boss, and dolphins are people now.
this isn't worth watching

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Originally Posted by Dent

this isn't worth watching

I appreciate this. I still ended up watching half of it for the tits, regretably

[Dent]

Atheism and Theism = theological epistemology of belief.
Agnosticism and Gnosticism = philosophical epistemology of knowledge.
Agree with this Repugnant?

[Mr. Blonde]

I haven't had a religious debate/argument in almost a year. Bestow upon me thy praise.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Good boy. You have been a good boy.

[Mr. Blonde]

[Saint DH]

[Repugnant Abomination]

After re-reading the last 10 pages or so of this threat it's interesting to see how some of our member's positions have evolved. I think I'm ready to be apologized to now.

Who would like to begin? Blonde? Dent?

[Mr. Blonde]

Won't be apologizing for shit, you spiritually proud rapscallion! It appears to me that until one truly has their ego crushed, over and over again by circumstance, they cannot open their minds to something larger than themselves. "Everyone is the Hero in their own story." My late-blooming mind also had a very difficult time understanding the intellectual abstractions of high-philosophy until the last few years.

Originally Posted by Joe Rogan

Philosophy....without the drugs....SUCKS.

And let's not forget you were one of the first ones to get pretty militantly atheist on this board after your crazy (sorry) family's behavior, before you met your BAE and found God or w/e.

That being said, I have found the most life utility out of a self-chosen amalgamation of various Eastern philosophies, analysis of comparative religion, and shamanistic drug experiences. It's not my fault everyone in the Midwest region is retarded and terrible at transmitting spiritual knowledge in any way comprehensible to a flowering, stubborn, overly-curious young boy --- mostly because they do not appear to understand it themselves.

It seems that one cannot truly (TRULY) face the fact of their mortality until it is forced on them by life or other cirumstances.

Zazen and Wu-Wei. Do it.

The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the nonintellectuals have never stirred.

Reality is not clearly and immediately apprehended, except by those who have made themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit.

~ Aldous Huxley


Also, Alan Watts is a fucking genius and helped me unfuck a LOT of my indoctrination:

Alan Watts - Man and nature (Top talk) (Man in nature) - YouTube

Alan Watts - Man and nature (Top talk) (Man in nature) - YouTube

[Repugnant Abomination]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I'm sorry.

Thanks. No worries, we're all good.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

You know full well my egoic mind prevented me from seeing things more clearly until I had certain life experiences -- same as you.

Very true. It was very difficult to discuss things with you back then, as I'm sure it was for other people dealing with me when I was in a similar place.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

And let's not forget you were one of the first ones to get pretty militantly atheist on this board after your crazy family's actions, before you met your BAE and found God or w/e.

Yes. If you were to map out or trajectories I've always been about a year or so ahead of you on these issues. I'm sorry to report though that I still have not found God.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

That being said, I have found the most life utility out of a self-chosen amalgamation of various Eastern philosophies, analysis of comparative religion, and shamanistic drug experiences.

I came to a similar place, minus the shamanistic drug use. Not that I was against it -- I've just always had a hard time feeling/experiencing things, preferring to intellectualize them, which kind of misses the point.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Zazen and Wu-Wei. Do it.

I got into Zen and Taosim about a year ago (lol). I stopped doing Zazen at the Zendo though because it fell on the same day as Jiu Jitsu. I've tried doing it at home and have thought about buying a Zafu to help, but I find it difficult. Realistically I need to get back Zen Center if I'm ever going to stick with it.

I've read the Taoteching several times and recommend the Red Pine translation for anyone interested. The religious side of it gets a little wacky, but I admire the philosophical branch. I regret not being more into it when I was in Taiwan. You might be interested to know how much Taoism has actually influenced Zen. The two converge nicely.

However I still find myself unsatisfied with where I'm at regarding all of this. I remain convinced that the road to figuring out whether or not God exists ultimately has to travel through morality.

[Mr. Blonde]

the double posting, really.

[Mr. Blonde]

I got into Zen and Taosim about a year ago (lol). I stopped doing Zazen at the Zendo though because it fell on the same day as Jiu Jitsu. I've tried doing it at home and have thought about buying a Zafu to help, but I find it difficult. Realistically I need to get back Zen Center if I'm ever going to stick with it.

I've been wanting to go the Denver Zen Center for a while, but just haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet. I have a lot of respect for Zen, but I still get a bit weirded out by the concept of sitting silently for extended periods of time around similarly-dressed strangers in a zendo. I'm sure it's fine, just my bias against cult-like behavior. In any case, I've been doing zazen using a few pillows at home stacked up enough so I can do full-lotus properly, and I've been going for at least 10 minutes a day pretty seriously for the past year. It's actually one of the only things in life I've had the willpower and dedication to do by myself, mostly because of how horrific my mental state was last year and how desperate I was to sync my mind to the Present Moment. My main progress, however, has been "Moving Meditation" --- attempting to stay tied to the breath during the entire day, every day, focusing intently on whatever I'm doing, one thing at a time. Whenever I would notice I wasn't paying attention to my breath (usually by realizing I'm stressing out over something, like my ex-girlfriend), I just went back to it. Easy to do when you're not doing shit with your life really.

My landlady is quite stingy and didn't use much heat all winter (I rent out the basement in a separate unit), so I had a unique opportunity to pretend I was in some mountain hut, drinking tea in my bathrobe, studying texts, and sitting. I also highly recommend microdosing mushrooms (not enough to seriously fuck you up, but to give you perceptual effects) in nature. I always recommend mushrooms in nature. Preferably with cannabis handy. I have never experienced such beauty, and it's been in front of me the entire time.

I've read the Taoteching several times and recommend the Red Pine translation for anyone interested. The religious side of it gets a little wacky, but I admire the philosophical branch. I regret not being more into it when I was in Taiwan. You might be interested to know how much Taoism has actually influenced Zen. The two converge nicely.

My preferred translation is by the spiritual poet, Stephen Mitchell. I haven't read the Red Pine translation yet, but I like Stephen's because of how poetic and mysterious it is; if not a direct translation. When I was emotionally ruined and delivering pizza last fall and winter I listened to it over, and over, and over again in my truck. I also have the book -- the illustrations are beautiful. I'm actually going to teach myself Chinese/Japanese landscape painting when I get some free time.

Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching - Audiobook - YouTube

Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching - Audiobook - YouTube

Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey: Lao Tzu, Stephen Mitchell: 9780711229648: Amazon.com: Books

And yes, the historical intertwining of Zen and Taoism are actually very beautiful in a naturalistic sense. I'm probably going to get a tattoo of Bodhidharma at some point, because I believe he was a badass motherfucker.

However I still find myself unsatisfied with where I'm at regarding all of this. I remain convinced that the road to figuring out whether or not God exists ultimately has to travel through morality.

Agreed. Moral and ethical purification are much more important than the God question anyways, which arises from suffering in the first place -- which is my main concern.
I also believe the word "God" is far too tarnished and archaic at this point, at least for those looking outside of Abrahamic religions. I much prefer to use the word "Universe" for we all know for a fact that the Universe exists, seeing as how we are inside of it.

The major hurdle I passed while researching all this and meditating at the same time was the sheer awareness of what people call "Spirituality", in all of its myriad forms, on planet Earth. The sheer, staggering number of institutions dedicated to spirituality warrants a very serious examination --- now that I've grown up a bit, it does seem rather silly to write all of those people off as idiots. That being said, a lot of them are still idiots, as we see in the daily news constantly. Humans seem to have an innate and desperate tendency to convince others by any means possible that their view is correct --- as you all saw during my long stint of increasingly aggressive Atheism.


Chronicling spirituality throughout history is also very fascinating. Right now I'm studying a lot of Native American/Indian tribes and all of the different ways they interpreted whatever "Spirituality" is. Before the Europeans came, their naturalistic spirituality is actually very similar to the Zen/Taoist Nature-based fusion.


Truth be told, though, the spectre of Death still freaks me a lot and I wish it didn't. I'm pretty over the god/religion question at this point, and mainly just want to spend the rest of my time here helping others and trying to have a happy, moral life. I have no idea why I'm here, or any of us, but we're all in it together and since we all have a death sentence, if there is any meaning to life at all, it is to love one another and do our best to make the world a better place for those who come after us.

"I do not understand Buddhism." – Hui Neng

[Mr. Blonde]

.

[Repugnant Abomination]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I have a lot of respect for Zen, but I still get a bit weirded out by the concept of sitting silently for extended periods of time around similarly-dressed strangers in a zendo. I'm sure it's fine, just my bias against cult-like behavior.

Yeah, same here.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

In any case, I've been doing zazen using a few pillows at home stacked up enough so I can do full-lotus properly, and I've been going for at least 10 minutes a day pretty seriously for the past year. It's actually one of the only things in life I've had the willpower and dedication to do by myself, mostly because of how horrific my mental state was last year and how desperate I was to sync my mind to the Present Moment. My main progress, however, has been "Moving Meditation" --- attempting to stay tied to the breath during the entire day, every day, focusing intently on whatever I'm doing, one thing at a time. Whenever I would notice I wasn't paying attention to my breath (usually by realizing I'm stressing out over something, like my ex-girlfriend), I just went back to it. Easy to do when you're not doing shit with your life really.

That's really interesting. I assume you mean continuously walking in a circle with short steps? Maybe I should try that. Have you noticed any changed or benefits in your every day life? 10 minutes a day consistently for a year is impressive. I really need to get back to this.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

My landlady is quite stingy and didn't use much heat all winter (I rent out the basement in a separate unit), so I had a unique opportunity to pretend I was in some mountain hut, drinking tea in my bathrobe, studying texts, and sitting. I also highly recommend microdosing mushrooms (not enough to seriously fuck you up, but to give you perceptual effects) in nature. I always recommend mushrooms in nature. Preferably with cannabis handy. I have never experienced such beauty, and it's been in front of me the entire time.

That sounds pretty sweet, actually. Do you think the weed and mushrooms are necessary to see the beauty that has been right in front of you, or does it simply enhance it? If the former, what do you think has led you to being able to see and appreciate it when before you couldn't?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

My preferred translation is by the spiritual poet, Stephen Mitchell. I haven't read the Red Pine translation yet, but I like Stephen's because of how poetic and mysterious it is; if not a direct translation. When I was emotionally ruined and delivering pizza last fall and winter I listened to it over, and over, and over again in my truck. I also have the book -- the illustrations are beautiful. I'm actually going to teach myself Chinese/Japanese landscape painting when I get some free time.

Again, awesome. Let me know when you start teaching yourself, I'd like to try too.

Do you ever get frustrated reading about Taoism? I know by definition it is undefinable, and the second you start trying to put it into words you've lost it, but sometimes I feel like it's being vague and esoteric just for the sake of being so. Admittedly that's just my mind wanting definitive, concrete answers, but still. I think more broadly the esoteric nature of some Eastern philosophy and religion is what simultaneously attracts some people and turns others away. The attraction comes from a kind of mystical legitimacy that has been lost with Western religion due to its politicized nature and dumbing down. But that same mysticism makes it seem unknowable to others who are looking for something more straight forward.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Agreed. Moral and ethical purification are much more important than the God question anyways, which arises from suffering in the first place -- which is my main concern.

That's interesting. So you find morality the end, whereas I think of it more as a means to an end. I suppose the two are inseparable for me. Can you expand on your position a little?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I also believe the word "God" is far too tarnished and archaic at this point, at least for those looking outside of Abrahamic religions and the (in my opinion), silly codenames for certain concepts. I much prefer to think of the Universe as being conscious, and we all know for a fact that the Universe exists, seeing as how we are inside of it. I find it difficult to believe that consciousness at our level could spring from an unconscious system, but the "spectrum" of consciousness (See Nagel's: "What is the Consciousness of a Bat Like?") may very well be infinite, and it is likely we are just on one wavelength of that spectrum.

I agree about the word God being loaded. That said, taking your terminology of a pervasive consciousness, could I just swap out the word consciousness and replace it with God and mean the same thing? Forget everyone else's definitions of God. To you, are the two synonymous? Are you basically describing Pantheism? I've thought a lot about that...I think if I were to go in that direction though I'd lean more towards Panentheism, which is subtly different, but the difference between the two means everything, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

The major hurdle I passed while researching all this and meditating at the same time was the sheer awareness of what people call "Spirituality", in all of its myriad forms, on planet Earth. The sheer, staggering number of institutions dedicated to spirituality warrants a very serious examination --- now that I've grown up a bit, it does seem rather silly to write all of those people off as idiots. That being said, a lot of them are still idiots, as we see in the daily news constantly.

It does seem to get to the heart of something profoundly human. To me the question is always is this innate, or did it develop? It's almost impossible for us to understand it must have felt for early man to look up at the sky at night. Terrifying and awe-inspiring, I would think.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Chronicling spirituality throughout history is also very fascinating. Right now I'm studying a lot of Native American/Indian tribes and all of the different ways they interpreted whatever "Spirituality" is. Before the Europeans came, their naturalistic spirituality is actually very similar to the Zen/Taoist Nature-based fusion.

You've mentioned Naturalism a lot. Shinto is obviously Japan-centric, but have you looked into it at all? It seems like what you're doing is merging the idea of universe-consciousness with Naturalist spirituality, which is interesting.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

There are also some very interesting esoteric clues in Greek mythology......

I love Greek Mythology. Any examples?

[Dent]

Apologies mr Repug, philosophy lives.
I want to exit this world positive on the felicific calculus.
Does reductive physicalism entail monistic idealism?
Does reductive physicalism entail monistic idealism?
Does reductive physicalism entail monistic idealism?
Does reductive physicalism entail monistic idealism?

Thoughts please, It's going to take a long time to understand the history of all the concepts, how they came about and why they became unfavourable.
Do you have any good arguements against reductive physicalism? is there any "element of reality" not captured by the "universal wave equation"
and if there is no such thing as wave function collapse, what for identity? ~10^100 splits by the time you finish a sentence, fuck.
And what is emergence and why do top physicists think qualia could be an emergent property of a turing machine? Ahh!

I want to nail some definitions, can we tone down on the eastern spice?