If I saw a big red arrow in the sky I think I'd definitely get down on all fours and offer it my arsehole.
How Can Anyone Be An Atheist?
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dangermows
Striker
So that's why you're banned from the airshow.
Readers share stories proving there IS an afterlife | Daily Mail Online
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D
Deleted member 30853
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Mercia Blackcat
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We have not moved on as human beings from the days of the Buddha who stated that greed, hate and delusion are our motivations that bind us to a cycle of suffering. We respond to every phenomena with like, dislike and neutrality. By our own volition this becomes attraction, aversion and the ignorance of where that can lead. Taken further this becomes greed, hate and the delusion that lasting satisfaction and fulfilment can be found in pursuing transient desires. In that cycle we become trapped.
Despite all that the fact that we can think about the origin of the universe when we have still not sussed that event and have no answer is not proof that we have moved on as human beings when we are still motivated by greed, hate and delusion.
From the emptiness of the singularity, duality emerges. The realm of opposites. When that duality is neutralised we return to the emptiness of the singularity. That is the nature of the universe and we are part of this universe so it our own nature too.
Buddhism is an atheist philosophy in which there is no supreme God. God and Soul are considered concepts of the mind which due to its fear of emptiness seeks something to grasp onto. Just because we have surrounded ourselves with sophisticated material objects does not indicate we have moved on from the days of the Buddha. Just because some no longer believe in a God does not mean we have moved on from Buddha who did not believe in a God.
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Kent_Mackem
Striker
The thing about the origins of the universe is nobody knows for sure how it happened. There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know" while researching and trying to find out. The believer just adopts the lazy position saying "Yeah God did that." Which, of course, only pushes the question a step furry back and makes it even more difficult to answer, since the designer must be more advanced than his design. But that doesn't seem to trouble them. Easy life being a believer.
The fact we don't know something shouldn't mean we turn to silly answers instead. that's what stupid and/or lazy people do.
The fact we don't know something shouldn't mean we turn to silly answers instead. that's what stupid and/or lazy people do.
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
I totally agree. To put Buddha's perspective into context, he was saying thinking about the origin of the universe is a distraction for those around him who wanted to eliminate greed, hate and delusion from their own life when time is precious and life is short. He didn't say contemplating such things as the origin of the universe should not be pursued but that for his devotees no answer would be found.
I'm not sure. I think most of us have similar experiences at times in our life but the human brain is a very powerful organ which could be the source of those experiences despite how our mind perceives them. Without going into each individual story, in some cases there are certainly other mundane explanations which would need to be eliminated before jumping to the conclusion that a supernatural explanation was the proof.
The video at the end is interesting. An Indian chap describes Christian angels while a statue of the Buddha sits in the background. Fair enough but then he describes his experience further and that relates more to Indian Raja Yoga concepts and experiences which also correspond to those obtained through meditation and are certainly not Buddhist. For example he describes an ocean and whether he is part of that or not. This is very dualistic whereas Buddhism is non-dualistic. In fact there is nothing Buddhist in anything he says despite a statue of Buddha occupying such a prominent place. Fair enough I suppose.
What he is describing is an NDE but an NDE is not death. It is a neurological experience. A Buddhist would describe the experiences he described as neurological which would also apply to Raj Yoga meditation. I say this as someone who has practised Raja Yoga for around 50 years and who is not actually Buddhist themselves so I am not biased against Raja Yoga.
So for me. The experiences described prove nothing.
PS: He describes certain physical conditions but describes them as illnesses of the soul. I don't believe there is a soul but if there was it would a piece of God in each individual so how could it become ill, especially with a physical illness.
In post #524 I have replied to you but have in error quoted myself.
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Outlaw Pete
Midfield
I wont even try to discuss most of that but should my sig be the default position?
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
I can't see signatures. Must be my settings.
Just altered setting.
Probably but that's a lot of big words for me.
I doubt if there is any inherent meaning but to recognise our true nature. We don't have to of course.
I don't know about absolute nihilism though just as I don't know what happens after we die.
I think there is an intrinsic quality to life but whether that classes as value I don't know.
Pursuit of that true nature, experiencing the intrinsic quality of life, our inherent humanity is a personal choice I suppose rather than a universal automatic meaning. It's only when we make that personal choice that that life can take on objective meaning but even that meaning is to experience which becomes subjective..
Buddha did say that which is intrinsically pure cannot be defiled by man.
Our inherent nature is obscured by the clouds of the mind rather than defiled.
Which brings me back to the quote I posted earlier that:
There is a young baby and a three year old in a room. The three year old says to the young baby, "Tell me about heaven again, I'm starting to forget".
I thin this is the real meaning of the Garden of Eden story. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil. In other words they got into duality of the mind which then obscured their inherent quality. I don't see that story as literal but rather symbolic of the process we all go through after being born Nurture takes over from nature.
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JonMc
Striker
That's the one where the lass is completely right and St Christopher is completely wrong.
High and mighty ideals of 'free thought' really do fly out of the window when this shit is repeated. He's lying from his pulpit and it's rebranded as being 'the truth' by his congregation because they just haven't thought about it. They just accepted it was fact because He said it. That is the definition of a priest/congregation relationship because that is what it is.
Nice hair. 2:20 - and that's in the sticks, not Tehran where I'd expect things to be more conservative.
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
I have had a brief read on existential nihilism and would agree with your signature which says:
Existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.
It was the meaning of what constituted "value" that was making me wonder but you do say "intrinsic value" and so qualify the meaning.
As I said more or less, we are here. It doesn't matter how we got here. When we are born we are a blank, in terms of concepts, experiencing machine in the here and now. After that we develop thoughts, constructs of the mind and concepts. So we then superimpose meaning and value on the experience of being in the world. In that intrinsic emptiness we experience forms through the senses which we like, dislike or feel neutral. We then attach those feeling to the forms which we then perceive, categorise and label. This then leads to a reaction of our own volition, it generates a response and the experience has entered our consciousness. This sequence of cognitive moments we then bind with the brain into a stream or continuum and a personality develops, a sense of "I". At first our given name is a meaningless sound but eventually this personality that has arisen in the mind becomes our identity.
That is how I see things and it is actually very Buddhist. Yet, it is all in our mind, our imagination, and has no substance. It all arose out of our intrinsic emptiness and one day will again dissolve back into that emptiness. Meditation is a way to experience that while we are alive.
In effect we surrender to the delusion that this is all real whereas it is transient and the only reality is our intrinsic emptiness in the here and now.
This emptiness is not affected by time and has no dimension, yet it is with us from our first breath to our last.
That how I see things anyway.
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Mercia Blackcat
Striker
I know that flagellation was an historic movement within the Catholic church and is still practised by some today despite being condemned eventually and classed as heretic by the Pope but this is ridiculous and disturbing. It is a prime example of how someone else's concepts can become part of religious belief. If flagellation was necessary why didn't Jesus advocate that? I wonder what he would think if he was alive today and saw that? They even indulge in voluntary crucifiction. Madness, Jesus was not crucified by choice but as a punishment for sedition by the Romans. In fact he may not have also been scourged as the Romans used scourging as an alternative to crucifiction rather than both. It would appear to have been added into his Gospel by Mark for dramatic effect. Paul does implicitly refer to scourging for self mortification but Paul was not Jesus.
Kent_Mackem
Striker
He is wrong on this occasion and, just like with Richard Dawkins' overly aggressive and thoughtless attitude towards his subject, does himself no favours.
dangermows
Striker
Church will be bouncing tomorrow morning
WHD
Striker
Which one?Church will be bouncing tomorrow morning
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