immortal

 

 

So in other words to my question of Have these sciences added anything to sum total on human knowledge?

 

Your answer is No...

Perhaps you read only what you want to read.

Yes, in recognizing that a non-physical mind exists and also an intellect exist in the platonic realm and we take much pride in having discovered such esoteric secrets about our cosmos and this is the reason why physicists have not yet been able to solve the measurement problem and come up with a model of the mind simulating human conscious thought and if they continue ignoring these sciences they never will.

Nobody here has suggested that theists not be allowed to worship. Please try to avoid arguing against strawmen, and please try to avoid moving the goal posts.

No, how can a theist worship God if you keep calling them broken? Theists cannot worship god without believing in some higher entity. If there is evidence found that the existence of God is more likely then worshipping is one of the best ways to test god for a theist.

I presume you mean outside of psychology or anthropology, correct?

Yes, there are compelling reasons and evidences with in the exact sciences to investigate gods because there is a hypothesis for a non-physical mind to solve the measurement problem and we theists think its very likely that such a non-physical mind is the product of a divine god.

If so, then kindly please define god in a way that can be measured without the use of neuroimaging equipment. Until then, your assertion that science "will abandon physicalism and shift thei r line of research into investigation of the gods" is quite an unrealistic assertion to make.

For millennia, contemplatives have known that ordinary people can divest themselves of the feeling that they call "I" and thereby relinquish the sense that they are separate from the rest of the universe. This phenomenon, which has been reported by practitioners in many spiritual traditions, is supported by a wealth of evidence—neuroscientific, philosophical, and introspective. Such experiences are "spiritual" or "mystical," for want of better words, in that they are relatively rare (unnecessarily so), significant(in that they uncover genuine facts about the world),and personally transformative.

 

They also reveal a far deeper connection between ourselves and the rest of the universe than is suggested by the ordinary confines of our subjectivity. There is no doubt that experiences of this sort are worth seeking, just as there is no doubt that the popular religious ideas that have grown up around them, especially in the West, are as dangerous as they are incredible. A truly rational approach to this dimension of our lives would allow us to explore the heights of our subjectivity with an open mind, while shedding the provincialism and dogmatism of our religious traditions in favor of free and rigorous inquiry. There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science.

 

- Sam Harris, End of Faith

If neuro-imaging and recording equipment convinces one about the indirect empirical effects from the numinous then there is no better equipment than your mind to measure the existence of an anthropomorphic god.

Indeed, sir. Very much agreed. Unfortunately, you ought to look in the mirror when casting such aspersions instead of at the people who ask for a reason to accept your ideas as anything more than wish thinking and delusion.

Why should I let go my beliefs if they are based on scholarly evidences in religion supported by sound arguments from theoretical physicists.

Immortal,

 

If I did come up with a way to develop a machine with strong AI, or a machine that was conscious of its own existence, wouldn't you quickly find a rational to explain it as a cheat in some way, where I had actually taken some of your gods, put them into the machine, and erroneously claimed it was "my" idea?

 

Regards, TAR2

 

Or perhaps you would suggest that I had found a way to grab disembodied souls, on their transit from a former life to the next, and coax them into residing in my machine.

 

In any case I think you might not release your belief in gods, just because scientists developed strong AI machines.

All I want you to do is just make a machine think, the last time I came up with an algorithm all by myself was for to check whether a number is an armstrong number or not (for example :- 153 = 1^3 + 5^3 + 3^3). So perhaps if you give this example to a machine and tell the machine to come up with an algorithm to determine whether a number is an armstrong number or not all by itself then we can at least say a machine has an understanding and also is thinking.

That's the whole point! Human beings can always find a new way of looking at something, but an algorithm can't. You can't have an algorithm which generates new algorithms for itself, because if it did, the new bits would by definition be part of the original algorithm.

 

- Penrose's point.

“A majority of contemporary mathematicians (a typical, though disputed, estimate is about two-thirds) believe in a kind of heaven – not a heaven of angels and saints, but one inhabited by the perfect and timeless objects they study: n-dimensional spheres, infinite numbers, the square root of -1, and the like. Moreover, they believe that they commune with this realm of timeless entities through a sort of extra-sensory perception.”

“And today’s mathematical Platonists agree. Among the most distinguished of them is Alain Connes, holder of the Chair of Analysis and Geometry at the College de France, who has averred that “there exists, independently of the human mind, a raw and immutable mathematical reality.”… Platomism is understandably seductive to mathematicians. It means that the entities they study are no mere artifacts of the human mind: these entities are discovered, not invented… Many physicists also feel the allure of Plato’s vision.”

- Jim Holt

One of my main reasons for believing in gods is because I think intellect exists in platonic realms and if you need to come up with a machine capable of strong AI you need to embody this intellect into the machine to make it think and access mathematical truths but science cannot get beyond mere appearances of phenomena to do that.

Sounds like a fair enough deal to me.

Immortal,

 

By the way, since I mentioned it, how many souls do you figure there are, in total?

 

This reincarnation thing, does not seem to work out right, as the population of humans grows. Are there human souls of a certain number? Or can any mammal soul become a human soul? Or can the soul of any life form, become a human soul? Is it just the count of souls on Earth that we care about, or if we should birth more beings than the souls available, do we import souls from other planets?

 

If you have answers to these questions, can you give us the empirical evidence that was used to arrive at the number?

 

Regards, TAR2

 

(don't forget to subtract the souls that have reached nirvana, as it would not be cricket to put THEM though the whole eternal process again)

This answers all your questions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MqPNsj1we50

By the by the way, this reaching nirvana thing has another related glitch, as that you would still be inhabiting a mortal body after you reached nirvana. Either that, or you would immediately expire.

Seems a logical problem, to me.

This answers your question.

Sankara's and Buddhist methodology: epistemic, not ontological negation

 

Sankara's method of 'neti, neti' (‘not this, not this’) is also often misunderstood. In it the sheaths or upadhis are supposedly rejected one by one as 'not-self' in order to reach the Self. Guadapada, his predecessor, had often, in fact, as previously mentioned, been accused of being a 'crypto-Buddhist' as the dialectic used by him was nearly identical to that of the Madhyamikas. However, the doctrine of the five sheaths in the Tittireya Upanishad, which forms part of the material which Sankara drew from, never once mentioned negating a sheath as not real or as not-self. Rather, the method of analysis there was wholistic, in which one successively realized each sheath as the Self, incorporating each in turn within the other, until nothing was known apart from the bliss of the Self. Sankara used a provisional negation, an epistemological method of negation, yes, as a first stage to find the self apart from the world, which some have interpreted as ontological negation, looking for an essence apart from that which was not real. But, in non-dual truth, there is no such separated essence per se, as nothing is not-real or known apart from the Self. The Self is the negation of a negation, realized in the second stage of the Vedantic approach where the world is known as Brahman. That is, Sankara would use 'neti neti' to strip away one's attachment to everything perceivable; then, when one had become so detached, he would ask one to reintroduce the negated elements into the one Self. "Brahman is real, the jiva is mithya (neither real or unreal, that is, apparent or relatively real), the jiva is Brahman' is how the formula actually read. The emphasis on 'neti neti' was more on negating the limits on the Self rather than trying to negate or eliminate the world. For even after realization of the Self, the sage would still see the world of duality like other men, only as not apart from the Self and this not objectively real in itself. Sometimes Ramana Maharshi, for instance, would say things that implied that for the sage whose jiva-hood was gone there was no world, thus misleading some people into an incorrect view of non-dualism.

LoL, why do you continue to make a fool of yourself?

Why do you continue to make the same common mistakes that people do without knowing the view of the Acharays who gave us the doctrine of Advaita to the world? Schroedinger didn't go too far down the rabbit hole.

Please elaborate on this, what "other sciences" has the west ignored?

Yes, for example Esotericism.

https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CD0QFjAB&url=http://www.lists.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind1202a&L=PSYART&E=base64&P=652049&B=--14dae93404139e87ec04b851fddd&T=application/pdf; name="Esotericism and the Academy.pdf"&N=Esotericism and the Academy.pdf&attachment=q&ei=LCDQUKKqMcLOrQfQoYC4DA&usg=AFQjCNFhz2K6AFbyfOR0hy3V3-pHtfZAiw&sig2=ZVL6uayGCZ42wVD2tkYj7A&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.bmk

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture Cambridge University Press 2012

 

Academics tend to look on “esoteric,” “occult,” or “magical” beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter J. Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the Renaissance have tried to come to terms with a cluster of “pagan” ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion and Greek rationality. Expelled from the academy on the basis of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics, these traditions have come to be perceived as the Other by which academics define their identity to the present day. Hanegraaff grounds his discussion in a meticulous study of primary and secondary sources, taking the reader on an exciting intellectual voyage from the fifteenth century to the present day, and asking what implications the forgotten history of exclusion has for established textbook narratives of religion, philosophy, and science.

Empirical method in the study of esotericism.

http://www.alpheus.org/html/articles/esoteric_history/Empirical method in the study of esotericism.pdf

Have these sciences added anything to sum total on human knowledge?

Yes, in recognizing that a non-physical mind exists and also an intellect exist in the platonic realm and we take much pride in having discovered such esoteric secrets about our cosmos and this is the reason why physicists have not yet been able to solve the measurement problem and come up with a model of the mind simulating human conscious thought and if they continue ignoring these sciences they never will.

Have they bettered the human condition in any way comparable to "Western" Science?

At least they will prevent crazy shoot outs on innocent people.

What technologies are based in these other sciences? Did they contribute to elimination of disease? Have they sent man to the moon? Do they feed the world? Come on Immortal, you keep making these vague assertions of your ideas about god being based in science and so far you have failed to show any connection at all other than vague claims and interpretations of misunderstood science concepts...

Every science is useful in its own way and it isn't fair to completely demolish such a science and at the same time expect fruits from the same science. How much has the west investigated in these sciences?

Your first sentence I find very difficult to follow, but I think I agree with it. I'm not criticising the Vedas, I'm suggesting that your approach to attracting some attention to them is going to annoy scientifically-minded people like me. You must be able to see this from the responses yout posts attract. I'm more or less on your side, but I'm also on the side of those who complain that for the most part religion comes across as waffle.

Common mistakes that people do while studying eastern religions -

1. Put western philosophy and western thought on a pedestal without realizing that Asian thought isn't positivistic.

2. Make Advaita atheistic without realizing that the traditional view takes the existence of gods very seriously.

3. Ignore the minor philosophical differences between Advaita and Buddhism.

4. Epistemologically link quantum physics and Advaita without realizing that they are based on two completely different epistemology and are incompatible with one another.

I am from the local and I know the truth and these religions should be understood with in their own milieu and obviously that annoys a lot of people because I state things as they are without showing any double standards.

Metaphysics is precisely the investigation of the implications of axioms. Of course, as you say, it cannot produce knowledge of reality, only empiricism can do that, but it shows us exactly where such knowledge might be found and fully vindicates both Aurobindo and the Vedas. I feel it is a poor idea not to use the brains God gave us at least to the extent we are able.

 

But yes, in the end the intellect meets a brick wall and .other methods are required.

 

Modern science is very new but its foolish to ignore the history of mankind and ignore other sciences which has been rejected by the western academy.

If you allowed me to I'd make a far stronger case for the Vedas than you have here. But you always torpedo my attempts.

Why do you think I can single handedly drive you away from this forum? But don't piss me off by saying Advaita is atheistic.

I have been thinking about this question for quite a while and want opinions from mathematicians, programmers and others.

http://denninginstitute.com/pjd/PUBS/AmSci-1990-2-thinking.pdf

How, he(Penrose) asks, could an algorithm have discovered theorems like Turing’s and Gödel’s that tell us what algorithms cannot do?

I want to specifically discuss about this question. We know mathematicians prove theorems, for example Alan Turing proves that no algorithm exists to solve the halting problem and he arrives at an algorithm which shows what algorithms cannot do but my question is did he arrived at that algorithm in a computable way or to put it in an another way is there an algorithm which generates other algorithms or did he just discovered it in a non-computable way. Even programmers come up with new algorithms for various problems and when we are in the process of generating a new algorithm do our brains really invent them or do we directly access insights from some where?

In other words in order to show that machines can think does a machine need to come up with a new algorithm all by itself, an algorithm which generates new algorithms, is a neural network aware of what it is doing to acquire such an understanding of the problem and generate an algorithm to solve that problem?

What is thinking?

If the theist scientist have the answer why don't they publish it?

 

"Anyone who has studied molecular neurobiology knows that there is no place for such a model in the physiology of the human brain"

Clearly nonsense.

Since nobody (yet) has a valid claim to understand the brain, they can't say what it doesn't do.

 

And I'm still wondering if you would take the shotgun test?

 

"Academy of parapsychology and medicine"

I think there's a thread here somewhere debating whether psychology is a science, yet you think it's legitimate to cite parapsychology as evidence.

Do you expect to be taken seriously?

Immortal,

 

Gods you can have a dialogue with?

 

Do you mean "think you can have a dialogue with", or that you could have a dialogue with, that could be recorded in some fashion for the benefit of others, and for the inspection purposes that others might have?

 

My guess is that you mean they "really" exist, in some objectively testable fashion, exactly adorned with jewels, mined from the minerals of the earth, and the jewels would be measurable as to their luminousity and size and wheight and shape, color and hardness.

 

In this case, I think you are expecting reality to hold an entity which it does not hold. Your mind might hold the image, but its analog does not exist in reality, where I can behold it.

 

Inow,

 

I was not able to view the recent videos, so I can't comment on what points Immortal was making, or attempting to make, but in general, recently on this thread, I would say that Immortal has retreated into an indefensible area, and being that he believes the area he has retreated into IS defensible, I would say he is broken, as in the way an ostrich is broken when it hides its head in a hole to escape danger.

 

So although I was attempting to give Immortal an out or two, I do believe he is defending a rather broken position, and if his beliefs are of the same type, as others who believe in gods, and these beliefs are of the type where the expectation is that these entities are "actual" and measurable, and exist in reality, then I will have to once again give up, giving such individuals the benefit of the doubt, and fall back into the "people that believe in God are broken" camp, since the fortifications surrounding that camp will hold, and the fortifications surrounding the opposing camp are somewhat thinner than air.

 

Regards, TAR2

There must be an objective justifiable reason before concluding anyone as broken and that criteria should be empirical evidence and actually my position is very much defensible, develop a machine capable of strong AI and that's a challenge to the atheistic scientific community and unless and until, allow practitioners to worship gods. Honestly speaking scientists should have abandoned physicalism or even scientific realism by now and theistic scientists will do realize it and abandon it and shift their line of research into investigating the gods.

 

Question: You talked about the peaceful and wrathful deities. Most Westerners don’t know they exist. Is it possible to recognize fear, anger and wrathful things in bardo?

 

Rinpoche: This is the reason Trungpa Rinpoche had the Tibetan Book of the Dead translated, printed, and distributed everywhere. It is very beneficial in introducing people to the bardo.

I don't believe in gods just because that belief easily gets a pass, its because we have genuine, reasonable scientific reasons for that belief, just because you don't understand a concept it doesn't mean such a concept is childish or wrong, that's quite a common accusation when the claim is counter-intuitive to normal experiences but many of the well accepted scientific theories are also counter-intuitive.

Its double standards and foolish to say we are working on consciousness and we will understand it say by another 200 years and ignore all evidences with in the exact sciences as well as from psychological studies in bio-feedback research which forces one to question such a line of research and at the same time insult practitioners world wide as broken who at least know that science and the scientific method is not all there is and who are honestly working to demonstrate that a non-physical mind exists questioning the basic assumption that the empirical universe exists independent of the human mind.

There aren't a lot of places over the internet where I can honestly discuss this because no one seems to care for scholarly evidences in religion as well as evidences from the exact sciences and everyone are so hooked up with their false beliefs they just doesn't want to let that go.

Immortal,

 

I was rather disappointed when you started to actually name the 33 gods or the 1 and a half, or whatever the numbers and different categories. Sky, heaven, air and such. These are just the things we all know. If this is what the Buddah "believed in", then there is no argument. We all believe in these things, and no "brokeness" or unbrokeness can be determined regarding our agreement that these things exist.

 

Throws a whole different light on the subject, and puts it in the realm of a "misunderstanding".

 

Also answers in my mind why so many sayings of the teachers and mystics are so circular and childish, and pretend to hold some deep underlying truth, that only the practiced can understand.

 

When in actuality, all the words are just describing common things. Things that we hold in common. No surprise then that the sky is the sky, and when we look up we see the sky, and the clouds are in the sky, and produce rain which waters the earth from which springs the seeds that were sown, and this is life, which is the energy of the sun and the form of the earth and the movement of the waters and the air, which is the Magilicutti, that we are.

 

So, on further inspection, with the added knowledge, that the Gods you are referring to, are the items that science believes in, as well, the arugment is, or the question is, why consider your own awareness of these things, special?

 

Regards, TAR2

 

And more specifically, why bother going through all the contortions, to come up with the truths that were evident to begin with? Just to call them "your" idea? Or the Buddah's idea?

 

And all the other made up stuff about levels and hidden (unevident) realities, are either imaginary crap, or real, evident stuff, cased in the same figurative language that mystifies the obvious, like the 1.5 god.

Nope, they are anthropomorphic gods with which you can have a dialogue with and they exist in the Pleroma(western neo-platonic Christianity) or the Agnisoma Mandala(eastern religions). The Vajrayana Tradition of the Tibetan Buddhists which is the culmination of all Buddhist teachings and the Smarta tradition which is the culmination of all Vedic teachings takes the existence of gods very seriously and the non-dual truth is based on the existence of these gods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kY-STjNnHRQ

If you take this line of reasoning -

http://www.holosforum.org/v4n1/rosenblum.html

and if you dig deeper

http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/publications/the-mystical-core-of-the-great-traditions.htm

if you go more deeper then this line of reasoning will inevitably lead to the conclusion that "gods are real and these gods are everywhere in all aspect of human existence and all aspect of human life." - James Hillman

At about six and a half minutes into the video he says something that's plainly wrong.

He says that "we" scientists" assume that matter is not capable of consciousness That's plainly wrong. I assume it is capable - as long as it's arranged correctly. That's why my brain - which is made of matter is aware that it is my brain and made of matter.

 

It's not the first thing he gets wrong and I don't know if it's the last because I stopped watching.

What would be the point? he s basing his argument on a false premise so it van't be a valid argument.

The idea that he is trying to put forward is that we can't explain consciousness within science because we are making the wrong assumption.

In fact we don't make that assumption so his point is invalid.

He is trying to make the analogy with old astronomy where, because they thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, we couldn't explain the movements of the planets.

Once you ditch that assumption, the planets behave just as you would expect.

That's true enough- but in order to ditch that belief, we also had to ditch the reason for that belief: it had been told to us by an old book.

 

If you say that consciousness is not a function of the matter and arrangement of the brain, then you have to accept that being shot in the head won't affect consciousness. It's funny that they don't seem willing to do that experiment.

 

Finally there's one obvious comment to make about the idea that

"What is consciousness?"

is one of the

"Questions which atheistic scientists sidelined and ignored.".

 

It's a flat out falsehood.

It's just not true.

Science is working on it. OK , we have yet to get there but that's just a comment on the current state of knowledge.

 

Two hundred years ago we hadn't eliminated smallpox and we had, at best, a shady idea of how we might.

Now we can say that that problem is solved.

It may be two hundred more years before we sort out the nature of the mind, but that doesn't mean we need to resort to magic explanations of it- it just means we have to say that it's a work in progress (at the minute).

 

But let's be absolutely clear on this.

It simply is not true to say that science has ignored the question.

 

Saying otherwise is either remarkable foolishness (in not having checked) or a lie.

You guys aren't anything different from Bishops who did not wanted to look through the telescopes and let go their beliefs, right? Its atheists who are showing double standards.

http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html

 

Alain Aspect is the physicist who performed the key experiment that established that if you want a real universe, it must be non-local (Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”). Aspect comments on new work by his successor in conducting such experiments, Anton Zeilinger and his colleagues, who have now performed an experiment that suggests that “giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned.”

 

Be clear what is going on here. Quantum mechanics itself is not crying out for such experiments! Quantum mechanics is doing just fine, thank you, having performed flawlessly since inception. No, it is people whose cherished philosophical beliefs are being threatened that cry out for such experiments, exactly as Einstein used to do, and with exactly the same hope (we think in vain): that quantum mechanics can be refined to the point where it requires (or at least allows) belief in the independent reality of the natural world it describes.

 

Quantum mechanics makes no mention of reality (Figure 1). Indeed, quantum mechanics proclaims, “We have no need of that hypothesis.” Now we are beginning to see that quantum mechanics might actually exclude any possibility of mind-independent reality⎯and already does exclude any reality that resembles our usual concept of such (Aspect: “it implies renouncing the kind of realism I would have liked”). Non-local causality is a concept that had never played any role in physics, other than in rejection (“action-at-a-distance”), until Aspect showed in 1981 that the alternative would be the abandonment of the cherished belief in mind-independent reality; suddenly, spooky-action-at-a-distance became the lesser of two evils, in the minds of the materialists.

 

Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism.

I'll tell you what it is. It's a poorly defined state of awareness that, while many use it to make humans seem important, a wide variety of animals have.

If nature has made us special then we have to simply accept it and not discard it. Mathematics has shown that human beings can answer questions for which no algorithm exists showing that human thinking is non-algorithmic and Green, E.E., Biofeedback for mind/body self-regulation, healing and creativity, in Academy of parapsychology and medicine (1972) show that human beings are indeed special.

So why don't theistic scientists have the answer?

They have it.

Roger Penrose contends that the foundations of mathematics can't be understood absent the Platonic view that "mathematical truth is absolute, external and eternal, and not based on man-made criteria ... mathematical objects have a timeless existence of their own..."

Anyone who has studied molecular neurobiology knows that there is no place for such a model in the physiology of the human brain but such a model is easily feasible if we consider eastern philosophical models of the mind where they have continuously asserted that intellect exists in a platonic realm and that we intuitively access already existing truths and Neoplatonism is a religion and one cannot take away the religious element from such an idea.

It has been argued that "[consciousness causes collapse] does not allow sensible discussion of Big Bang cosmology or biological evolution, at least on the assumption of an atheistic universe.[16] For example, as Roger Penrose put it, "[T]he evolution of conscious life on this planet is due to appropriate mutations having taken place at various times. These, presumably, are quantum events, so they would exist only in linearly superposed form until they finally led to the evolution of a conscious being—whose very existence depends on all the right mutations having 'actually' taken place!"[36]

 

16. http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9501014v5.pdf, p.46

36. R. Penrose, The Emporer's New Mind, Penguin Books, 1989, p. 295.

 

 

Again the eastern philosophical systems know there is a non-physical mind but no scientists are interested in it.

 

 

I didn't watch the videos yet because I don't want to wake my wife, but I have a feeling they are going to bring next to nothing in quality information.

It might wake you up if you are aware of the recent developments in these fields.

Not to mention there are quite a few theistic scientists working in well established positions, are they sidelining these questions as well?

Actually its their very investigation which have made them to believe in a theistic universe.

 

 

 

Response to Immortal's Last Post

 

I currently cannot view youtube videos. If you could show me something else with similar content, I might understand your post.

Anyway, my guess is that they set aside the problem of consciousness because they didn't know how to solve it yet.

I think you should watch them because not only you will understand my point as to why the conclusion should have been more open but also recognize the point which I said that its not my belief in gods which led me to this conclusion, its this conclusion which led me to believe in gods.

 

I edited something into my previous post after you posted, so I'm moving it here.

 

 

Your views on religious faith are probably what led you to think Mother Teresa was a hero.

Although MT probably had good intentions, she was not a hero. With the people in her care, she was primarily concerned with ensuring their entrance into heaven. She had little concern for their longevity, health, or well-being. She just wanted them to go to heaven.

Mother Teresa actively discouraged the nuns from seeking medical training. Her justification was that God empowers the weak and ignorant. I actually have a book written by a former nun named Colette Livermore. She writes about how she planned to be a doctor, but she joined Mother Teresa's order instead. Because of this organization headed by MT, Colette delayed medical training for over a decade, until she was 30.

If Mother Teresa weren't so fanatical, her organization could have done a lot for those poverty stricken people in India. Thus it puzzles me that people of India revere Mother Teresa.

 

Based on your recent posts, I'm assuming you are not a Catholic. So why were you talking about Mother Teresa like she was a hero? Catholics think suffering is beneficial in some way, which explains Mother Teresa's behavior. Does your religion also view suffering as a good thing?

I think you have misunderstood me, I have never talked about Mother Teresa on sfn. I was actually talking about St. Teresa of Avila(1515-1582) and not Mother Teresa(1910-1997).

The one whom I am talking of is she, my real hero -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Ãvila

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.mountainrunnerdoc.com/stteresaofavila.html

So your questions are based on a complete misunderstanding.

Even if you say St. Teresa of Avila is a catholic why shouldn't I not revere her? Sorry I don't hold any fundamental beliefs. Actually the religions I am interested in which are basically esoteric religions, they are all dead, I guess, perhaps only followed here and there.

Perhaps this quote might show you how esoteric and liberalistic the Vedic Aryan religion actually is.

"Aum Bhur Bhuvah Svah" the Viyahritis shall have to be concerted. The three planes of Bhur Bhuvah Svah that constitute the whole universe shall have to be brought into focus. In other words, it must be established in mind that I belong to no particular country but am a dweller of the whole universe. In this way those who are Aryans, find themselves established in the Sun, Moon, the Planets, and the stars at least once a day, and thus renew their unbreakable ties with manifest universe"

- Rabindranath Tagore, on the meaning of Gayatri Mantra.

My interests of study are completely different and to answer this question Does this religion also view suffering as a good thing? even though it was irrelevant is, yes, much of views are based on stoic philosophy so they see goodness in all works of nature whether there is a bloodshed or a great harvest.

 

I'm not sure what you were trying to say here. Your conclusions about people and their positions led you to beleive in God? No, that wouldn't make any sense. Hmm...

When I was 16 I was told that the biggest mystery facing biology today is this: What is consciousness?

Questions which atheistic scientists sidelined and ignored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUXhKmiJQ10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7G6DgP9Zfg

Rather than putting forward such crazy ideas if scientists study religion then they will find the answer.

“The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the West.”

(Source: WHAT IS LIFE? By Erwin Schrödinger Pg. Cambridge University Press)

“There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction… The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.”

(Source: Mein Leben, Meine Weltansicht [My Life, World View] (1961) Chapter 4)

What did the people of Upanishads believed in?

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

 

III-ix-1: Then Vidagdha, the son of Sakala, asked him. ‘How many gods are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ Yajnavalkya decided it through this (group of Mantras known as) Nivid (saying), ‘As many as are indicated in the Nivid of the Visvadevas – three hundred and three, and three thousand and three’. ‘Very well’, said Sakalya, ‘how many gods exactly are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ ‘Thirty-three’. ‘Very well’, said the other, ‘how many gods exactly are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ ‘six’. ‘Very well’, said Sakalya, ‘how many gods exactly are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ ‘Three’. ‘Very well’, said the other, ‘how many gods exactly are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ ‘Two’. ‘Very well’, said Sakalya, ‘how many gods exactly are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ ‘One and a half’. ‘Very well’, said Sakalya, ‘how many gods exactly are there, Yajnavalkya ?’ ‘One’. ‘Very well’, said Sakalya, ‘which are those three hundred and three and three thousand and three ?’

 

III-ix-2: Yajnavalkya said, ‘these are but the manifestation of them, but there are only thirty-three gods.’ ‘Which are those thirty-three ?’ ‘The eight Vasus, the eleven Rudras and the twelve Adityas – these are thirty-one and Indra and Prajapati make up the thirty-three’.

 

III-ix-3: ‘Which are the Vasus /’ ‘Fire, the earth, air, the sky, the sun, heaven, the moon and the stars – these are the Vasus, for in these all this is placed; therefore they are called Vasus.’

 

III-ix-4: ‘Which are the Rudras ?’ ‘The ten organs in the human body, with the mind as the eleventh. When they depart from this mortal body, they make (one’s relatives) weep. Because they then make them weep, therefore they are called Rudras.’

 

III-ix-5: ‘Which are the Adityas ?’ ‘The twelve months (are parts) of a year; these are the Adityas, for they go taking all this with them. Because they go taking all this with them, therefore they are called Adityas.’

 

III-ix-6: ‘Which is Indra, and which is Prajapati ?’ ‘The cloud itself is Indra, and the sacrifice is Prajapati’. ‘Which is the cloud ?’ ‘Thunder (strength).’ ‘Which is the sacrifice ?’ ‘Animals’.

 

III-ix-7: ‘Which are the six (gods) ?’ ‘Fire, the earth, air, the sky, the sun, and heaven – these are the six. Because all those (gods) are (comprised in) these six.’

 

III-ix-8: ‘Which are the three gods ?’ ‘These three worlds alone, because in these all those gods are comprised.’ ‘Which are the two gods ?’ ‘Matter and the vital force.’ ‘Which are the one and a half ?’ ‘This (air) that blows.’

 

III-ix-9: ‘Regarding this some say, ‘Since the air blows as one substance, how can it be one and a half ?’ ‘ It is one and a half because through its presence all this attains surpassing glory’. ‘Which is the one god ?’ ‘The vital force (Hiranyagarbha); it is Brahman, which is called Tyat (that).’

 

So the questions which atheistic scientists sidelined and the double standards that people who think that Schroedinger is there hero showed led me to conclude if Schroedinger needs to be right then it is inevitable that these gods need to exist.

Do you think the way immortal continues to misinterpret people and mischaracterize their position has anything to do with him believing in god(s), that perhaps the way he thinks has been impacted by that and is causing the confusion?

Its not my belief in gods which led me to this conclusion, its this conclusion which led me to believe in gods.

I believe that his continued refusal to accept the truth as supported by evidence* is consistent with his religious belief

Yeah, quite a reasonable belief based on facts established from experiments and not devoid of evidence.

"The message would be that the purpose of life is not to eat and drink, watch television and so on. Consuming is not the aim of life. Earning as much money as one can is not the real purpose of life. There is a superior entity, a divinity, le divin as we say in French that is worth thinking about, as are our feelings of wholeness, respect and love, if we can. A society in which these feelings are widespread would be more reasonable than the society the West presently lives in."

- Bernard D'Espagnat

and I also the either or both of these could be considered evidence that he is (in the sense intended in this thread) "broken".

 

* specifically his continued assertion that iNow, and possibly others, are dishonest when he can not possibly know if that is the case or not.

Its obvious that they are since I have been saying from the beginning that things are not as simple as that especially when the philosophical doctrine of a hypercosmic God which resides at the kernel of all religions is what contemporary physics is also pointing to which is testimony to the fact that religious traditional people are neither worshipping a unicorn or puff the magic dragon. One doesn't need extra-ordinary evidence to show the dreams of fantasy of false analogies which you guys are living in.

Immortal,

 

Explain to me a seeming contradiction in your position.

 

From Wallace's first paragraph.

 

 

"Reputable scholars of Buddhism, both traditional and modern, all agree that the historical Buddha taught a view of karma and rebirth that was quite different from the previous takes on these ideas."

 

I take it, you are on Wallace's side, against the errors of Bachelor and Harris, and in support of the Buddah's teachings.

I also take it, that you maintain that the repeating truths, found by the mystics and teachers, reveal an underlying, unwaivering truth of an everlasting and unquestionable nature.

Yes, I am on Wallace's side and yes I maintain your second point as well.

If both these takes of your position are correct, one might wonder, how the Buddah was able to find something out about karma and rebirth, that was quite different from previous takes on these ideas. His intellect, his disipline, his insights, his imagination, his esoteric knowledge, was superior to those that came before?

 

Actually the core concept is similar and both his previous contemporaries and he accept about karma and rebirth but only there are minor philosophical differences in how they view it but the process and the beliefs are the same.

The most fully articulated doctrine of transmigration is found in Hinduism. It does not appear in the earliest Hindu scriptures (the Rig Veda) but was developed at a later period in the Upanishads (c.600 ©). Central to the conception of human destiny after death was the belief that human beings are born and die many times. Souls are regarded as emanations of the divine spirit. Each soul passes from one body to another in a continuous cycle of births and deaths, its condition in each existence being determined by its actions in previous births. Thus, transmigration is closely interwoven with the concept of karma (action), which involves the inevitable working out, for good or ill, of all action in a future existence. The whole experience of life, whether of happiness or sorrow, is a just reward for deeds (good or bad) done in earlier existences. The cycle of karma and transmigration may extend through innumerable lives; the ultimate goal is the reabsorption of the soul into the ocean of divinity whence it came. This union occurs when the individual realizes the truth about the soul and the Absolute (Brahman) and the soul becomes one with Brahman. The Buddhist concept of samsara (a cycle of rebirth) often appears similar. The classical Buddhist doctrine of anatta ( "no soul" ), however, specifically rejects the Hindu view. The Buddhist position on the workings of karma is exceedingly complex.

 

- Transmigration of Souls, Grolier Encyclopedia

Charles W. Ranson,Former Professor of Theology and Ecumenics, Hartford Seminary Foundation, Hartford, Conn.

You took me back to my past readings.

[Karma is a fundamendal metaphysical concept of Buddhism, one The world's great religions. following excerpt from nineteenth-century translation.]

 

KARMA

 

The kinds of karma are those already briefly mentioned, as consisting of the triplet beginning with meritorious karma and the triplet beginning with bodily karma, making six in all.

 

To give them here in full, however, meritorious karma consists of the eight meritorious thoughts which belong to the realm of sensual pleasure and show themselves in alms-giving, keeping the precepts, etc., and of the five meritorious thoughts which belong to the realm of form and show themselves in ecstatic meditation, making thirteen thoughts; demeritorious karma consists of the twelve demeritorious thoughts which show themselves in the taking of life, etc.; and karma leading to immovability consists of the four meritorious thoughts which belong to the realm of formlessness and show themselves in ecstatic meditation. Accordingly these three karmas consist of twenty-nine thoughts.

 

As regards the other three, bodily karma consists of the thoughts of the body, vocal karma of the thoughts of the voice, mental karma of the thoughts of the mind. The object of this triplet is to show the avenues by which meritorious karma, etc., show themselves at the moment of the initiation of karma.

 

For bodily karma consists of an even score of thoughts, namely, of the eight meritorious thoughts which belong to the realm of sensual pleasure and of the twelve demeritorious ones. These by exciting gestures show themselves through the avenue of the body.

 

Vocal karma is when these same thoughts by exciting speech show themselves through the avenue of the voice. The thoughts, however, which belong to the realm of form, are not included, as they do not form a dependence for subsequent consciousness. And the case is the same with the thoughts which belong to the realm of formlessness. Therefore they also are to be excluded from the dependence of consciousness. However, all depend on ignorance.

 

Mental karma, however, consists of all the twenty-nine thoughts, when they spring up in the mind without exciting either gesture or speech.

 

Thus, when it is said that ignorance is the dependence of the karma-triplet consisting of meritorious karma, etc., it is to be understood that the other triplet is also included.

 

But it may be asked, "How can we tell that these karmas are dependent on ignorance?" Because they exist when ignorance exists.

 

For, when a person has not abandoned the want of knowledge concerning misery, etc., which is called ignorance, then by that want of knowledge concerning misery and concerning anteriority, etc., he seizes on the misery of the round of rebirth with the idea that it is happiness and hence begins to perform the threefold karma which is its cause; by that want of knowledge concerning the origin of misery and by being under the impression that thus happiness is secured, he begins to perform karma that ministers to desire, though such karma is really the cause of misery; and by that want of knowledge concerning cessation and the path and under the impression that some particular form of existence will prove to be the cessation of misery, although it really is not so, or that sacrifices, alarming the gods by the greatness of his austerities, and other like procedures are the way to cessation, although they are not such a way,he begins to perform the threefold karma.

 

Moreover, through this non-abandonment of ignorance in respect of the Four Truths, he does not know the fruition of meritorious karma to be the misery it really is, seeing that it is completely overwhelmed with the calamities, birth, old age, disease, death, etc.; and so to obtain it he begins to perform meritorious karma in its three divisions of bodily, vocal, and mental karma, just as a man in love with a heavenly nymph will throw himself down a precipice. When he does not perceive that at the end of that meritorious fruition considered to be such happiness comes the agonizing misery of change and disappointment, he begins to perform the meritorious karma above described, just as a locust will fly into the flame of a lamp, or a man that is greedy after honey will lick the honey-smeared edge of a knife. When he fails to perceive the calamities due sensual gratification and its fruition, and, being under the impression that sensuality is happiness, lives enthralled by his passions, he then begins to perform demeritorious karma through the three avenues, just as a child will play with filth, or one who wishes to die will eat poison. When he does not perceive the misery of the change that takes place in the constituents of being, even in the realm of formlessness, but has a perverse belief in persistence, etc., he begins to perform mental karma that leads to immovability, just as a man who has lost his way will go after a mirage.

 

As, therefore, karma exists when ignorance exists but not when it does not exist, it is to be understood that this karma depends on ignorance. And it has been said as follows:

 

"O priests, the ignorant, uninstructed man performs meritorious karma, demeritorious karma, and karma leading to immovability. But whenever, O priests, he abandons his ignorance and acquires wisdom, he through the fading out of ignorance and the coming into being of wisdom does not even perform meritorious karma."

 

FRUITFUL AND BARREN KARMA

 

I. Fruitful Karma

 

There are three conditions, O priests, under which deeds are produced. And what are the three? Covetousness is a condition under which deeds are produced; hatred is a condition under which deeds are produced; infatuation is a condition under which deeds are produced.

 

When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed through covetousness, arise from covetousness, are occasioned by covetousness, originate in covetousness, wherever his personality may be, there those deeds ripen, and wherever they ripen, there he experiences the fruition of those deeds, be it in the present life, or in some subsequent one.

 

When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed through hatred,... are performed through infatuation, arise from infatuation, are occasioned by infatuation, originate in infatuation, wherever his personality may be, there those deeds ripen, and wherever they ripen, there he experiences the fruition of those deeds, be it in the present life, or in some subsequent one.

 

It is like seed, O priests, that is uninjured, undecayed, unharmed by wind or heat, and is sound, and advantageously sown in a fertile field on well-prepared soil; if then rain falls in due season, then, O priests, will that seed attain to growth, increase, and development. In exactly the same way, O priests, when a man's deeds are performed through covetousness, arise from covetousness, are occasioned by covetousness, originate in covetousness, wherever his personality may be, there those deeds ripen, and wherever they ripen, there he experiences the fruition of those deeds, be it in the present life, or in some subsequent one; when a man's deeds are performed through hatred,... are performed through infatuation, arise from infatuation, are occasioned by infatuation, originate in infatuation, wherever his personality may be, there those deeds ripen, and wherever they ripen, there he experiences the fruition of those deeds, be it in the present life, or in some subsequent one.

 

These, O priests, are the three conditions under which deeds are produced.

 

II. Barren Karma

 

There are three conditions, O priests, under which deeds are produced. And what are the three? Freedom from covetousness is a condition under which deeds are produced; freedom from hatred is a condition under which deeds are produced; freedom from infatuation is a condition under which deeds are produced.

 

When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed without covetousness, arise without covetousness, are occasioned without covetousness, originate without covetousness, then, inasmuch as covetousness is gone, those deeds are abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future.

 

When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed without hatred,... are performed without infatuation, arise without infatuation, are occasioned without infatuation, originate without infatuation, then, inasmuch as infatuation is gone, those deeds are abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future.

 

It is like seed, O priests, that is uninjured, undecayed, unharmed by wind or heat, and is sound, and advantageously sown; if some one then burn it with fire and reduce it to soot, and having reduced it to soot were then to scatter it to the winds, or throw it into a swift-flowing river, then, O priests, will that seed be abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future. In exactly the same way, O priests, when a man's deeds are performed without covetousness, arise without covetousness, are occasioned without covetousness, originate without covetousness, then, inasmuch as covetousness is gone, those deeds are abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future; when a man's deeds are performed without hatred,... without infatuation, arise without infatuation, are occasioned without infatuation, originate without infatuation, then, inasmuch as infatuation is gone, those deeds are abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future.

 

These, O priests, are the three conditions under which deeds are produced.

 

 

A wise priest knows he now must reap

The fruits of deeds of former births.

For be they many or but few,

Deeds done in cov'tousness or hate,

Or through infatuation's power,

Must bear their needful consequence.

Hence not to cov'tousness, nor hate,

Nor to infatuation's power

The wise priest yields, but knowledge seeks

And leaves the way to punishment.

 

"O priests, if any one says that a man must reap according to his deeds, in that case, O priests, there is no religious life, nor is any opportunity afforded for the entire extinction of misery. But if any one says, O priests, that the reward a man reaps accords with his deeds, in that case, O priests, there is a religious life, and opportunity is afforded for the entire extinction of misery.

 

"We may have the case, O priests, of an individual who does some slight deed of wickedness which brings him to hell, or, again, O priests, we may have the case of another individual who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life, though it may be in a way which appears to him not slight but grievous.

 

"What kind of individual, O priests, is he whose slight deed of wickedness brings him to hell? Whenever, O priests, an individual is not proficient in the management of his body, is not proficient in the precepts, is not proficient in concentration, is not proficient in wisdom, and is limited and bounded, and abides in what is finite and evil: such an individual, O priests, is he whose slight deed of wickedness brings him to hell.

 

"What kind of individual, O priests, is he who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life, though it may be in a way which appears to him not slight but grievous?--Whenever, O priests, an individual is proficient in the management of his body, is proficient in the precepts, is proficient in concentration, is proficient in wisdom, and is not limited, nor bounded, and abides in the universal: such an individual, O priests, is he who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life, though it may be in a way which appears to him not slight but grievous....

 

"It is as if, O priests, a man were to throw a lump of salt into the river Ganges. What think ye, O priests? Would now the river Ganges be made salt and undrinkable by the lump of salt?"

 

"Nay, verily, Reverend Sir."

 

"And why not?"

 

"Because, Reverend Sir, the mass of water in the river Ganges is great, and so is not made salt and undrinkable by the lump of salt."

 

"In exactly the same way, O priests, we may have the case of an individual who does some slight deed of wickedness which brings him to hell; or, again, O priests, we may have the case of another individual who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life, though it may be in a way which appears to him not slight but grievous.

 

"We may have, O priests, the case of one who is cast into prison for a half-penny, for a penny, or for a hundred pence; or, again, O priests, we may have the case of one who is not cast into prison for a half-penny, for a penny, or for a hundred pence.

 

"Who, O priests, is cast into prison for a half-penny, for a penny, or for a hundred pence?

 

"Whenever, O priests, any one is poor, needy, and indigent: he, O priests, is cast into prison for a half-penny, for a penny, or for a hundred pence.

 

"Who, O priests, is not cast into prison for a half-penny, for a penny, or for a hundred pence?

 

"Whenever, O priests, any one is rich, wealthy, and affluent: he, O priests, is not cast into prison for a half-penny, for a penny, or for a hundred pence.

 

"In exactly the same way, O priests, we may have the case of an individual who does some slight deed of wickedness which brings him to hell; or, again, O priests, we may have the case of another individual who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life, though it may be in a way which appears to him not slight but grievous.

 

"Just as, O priests, a butcher and killer of rams will smite one man if he steal a ram, and will bind him, and burn him, and wreak his pleasure on him; and another who steals a ram, he will not attack, nor bind him, nor burn him, nor wreak his pleasure on him.

 

"Who is he, O priests, whom a butcher and killer of rams will smite if he steal a ram, and will bind him, and burn him, and wreak his pleasure on him?

 

"Whenever, O priests, the robber is poor, needy, and indigent: him, O priests, a butcher and killer of rams will smite if he steal a ram, and will bind him, and burn him, and wreak his pleasure on him.

 

"Who is he, O priests, whom a butcher and killer of rams will not smite if he steal a ram, nor bind him, nor burn him, nor wreak his pleasure on him?

 

"Whenever, O priests, the robber is rich, wealthy, and affluent, a king, or a king's minister: him, O priests, a butcher and killer of rams will not smite if he steal a ram, nor bind him, nor burn him, nor wreak his pleasure on him. On the contrary, he will stretch out his joined palms, and make supplication, saying, 'Sir, give me the ram, or the price of the ram.'

 

"In exactly the same way, O priests, we may have the case of an individual who does some slight deed of wickedness which brings him to hell; or, again, O priests, we may have the case of another individual who does the same slight deed of wickedness, and expiates it in the present life, though it may be in a way which appears to him not slight but grievous.

 

"O priests, if any one were to say that a man must reap according to his deeds, in that case, O priests, there is no religious life, nor is any opportunity afforded for the entire extinction of misery. But if any one says, O priests, that the reward a man reaps accords with his deeds, in that case, O priests, there is a religious life, and opportunity is afforded for the entire extinction of misery."

 

- Grolier Encyclopedia

Honestly speaking both his contemporaries of Hinduism and Buddha accept this but differ philosophically which we cannot decide who is right or wrong without we ourselves knowing the ultimate truth.

If you are to anger at someone who refutes the Buddah,

No, I welcome someone if he refutes Buddha, if he calls himself an atheist and says I disagree with Buddha for so and so reasons then I deeply respect his position because he has genuine reasons to discard the doctrine of Buddhism but what I don't like are near enemies who call themselves Buddhists and only accept those things in the religion which suits them and reject the other and even go on to put forward it as the orthodox traditional view and go by prejudices, that's double standards, its highly unacceptable.

“If traditional religion is absent from the public arena, secular religions are unlikely to satisfy man’s quest for meaning. … It was an atheistic faith in man as creator of his own grandeur that lay at the heart of Communism, fascism and all the horrors they unleashed for the twentieth century. And it was adherents of traditional religions – Martin Niemöller, C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Buber – who often warned most clearly of the tragedy to come from attempting to build man’s own version of the New Jerusalem on Earth.”

- Hugh Heclo, former professor of government at Harvard University.

I like to keep the debate between the traditional view which is supported by scholarly consensus vs atheists and I don't like someone undermining the traditional view by putting forward his own views as views of Shankara or Buddha which leads atheists to say "even theists don't agree to a common definition of god" and the entire discussion will be unworthy of debate. How much scientists will be angry if someone misrepresents evolution by natural selection?

you must be invested in the esoteric imaginary world that the Buddah has constructed, and you trust not the wisdom of those that came before, or after, as to their equal access to the truth.

 

Only the Buddah knows. Only Jesus holds the key. Only believers are on the proper path. Seems to be a repeating pattern.

Seems inconsistent with "ultimate" truth to me.

 

If we are all of the same stuff, if we are all of and in the same reality, which we appear to be, then, I would guess we each should have just about the same standing, in regards to it. No preferencial positions, no insiders and outsiders. We are all, fully vested, from the get go.

 

How can you maintain that you know differently, based on what Buddah said?

 

Regards, TAR2

I hope this answers your question.

Q: Is the process of bardo and rebirth the same for all human beings regardless of whether they have Vajrayana training or not?

 

A: Yes, everybody goes through this process, whether they are Buddhist or not. All sentient beings take birth. They all have five aggregates. They must have parents to contribute the two elements and these elements are going to dissolve at death. Whether Buddhist or non-buddhist, earth dissolves into water, water evaporates into fire, and all physical systems degenerate. The details of the visionary sequences may vary according to one's beliefs, but basically everybody will have similar experiences. According to the Vajrayana teachings, the bardo visions are reflections of your mental state, so the forms and images do not always

have to appear in the same way for everybody. There may be differences as to the color and the shape of the visions, but the main thing is to recognize them as projections of your own consciousness. Therefore in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Guru Padmasambhava repeats, "Do not be afraid of your own visions. Don't be

afraid when the wrathful deities appear. Do not be distracted. Recognize them as your own mind forms." He repeats that again and again throughout these teachings. This is the basic message, the main point.

 

- A modern commentary on Karma Lingpa's Zhi-khro

teachings on the peaceful and wrathful deities

by Rinpoche

I don't know if it's something Siddhartha actually said, but the irony is that Siddhartha was an atheist.

I have had the opportunity to study both these eastern religious traditions as well as science since I hail from the east. Don't make me to show my anger on sfn.

http://www.mandalamagazine.org/archives/mandala-issues-for-2010/october/distorted-visions-of-buddhism-agnostic-and-atheist/

There is nothing wrong in being a secular humanist or claiming oneself to be an atheist but what's inexcusably wrong is to claim oneself to be a Secular Buddhist and distort the views of these traditions and projecting one's own views as views of Buddha.

 

Question: Who taught these teachings and where were they first revealed? Were they from the historical Buddha or from the Tibetan tradition?

 

Rinpoche: These are Tibetan teachings, but the source of these teachings is found in the tantras. In the tantras you can find the 42 peaceful and 58 wrathful deities. You can’t find this complete teaching in the tantra though, but you can recognize deities in specific tantras and know about what is held in the hands and all contents of this teaching. That was taught by the Buddha.

 

- The First Twelve Days of the Bardo by Thrangu Rinpoche Geshe Lharampa

When the reality in these religions shatters atheism openly then next try making an appeal to authority, but that doesn't work to hide the ignorance of secular Buddhists.

 

 

No, actually it is the way science works, you keep saying investigate while ignoring anything that doesn't agree with you, that is not science it is faith...

Its foolishness to throw them into the dustbin of human history when the stage has been set to reconsider them.

 

It is worth noting that d’Espagnat himself notices that the similarities between his conception of veiled reality and “the great eastern philosophical systems should be considered. . . ”

- Jonathon Duqette, philosopher of religion

...

/ snipped

Ah come on! A quote regarding plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty and you don't even give the source you took it from!

 

It is available here http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty and possibly in other places.

I didn't claimed others works as mine and I never have. If a work is in quotations then it is understood that its not my works.

 

I know you're on a mission, and I can respect that, but this approach cannot work with scientifically minded people. It just alienates them, which is not skilful.

I guess you don't realize that if your paper From Metaphysics to mysticism or your proof needs to be valid then this world-view of Aurobindo needs to be true because if this world-view turns out to be false then your proof doesn't apply to this cosmos where you try to prove that the universe is a unity.

That's what I don't like about metaphysics it might guide us but it doesn't tell us what its implications are. So where as you have taken a different approach than me, I am investigating the very heart of the problem so that either we abandon such forms of thinking as soon as possible because its very much mentally disturbing or take them very seriously.

Why should it have been more open? How is religion any more deserving of tolerance than any other belief?

As I have said many times the wisdom inherent in religion are not so ordinary either so that it deserves intolerance and be dismissed as fictions of a feeble mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_religious_experience

 

Outline logical structure

 

Its logical structure is essentially as follows:

 

1. There are compelling reasons for considering at religious experiences to point to and validate spiritual realities that exist in a way that transcends any material manifestations.

 

2. According to Materialism, nothing exists in a way that transcends its material manifestations.

 

3. According to Classical Theism in general, and to many theistic faiths, God endows Humans with the ability to have spiritual experiences and to perceive, albeit imperfectly, such spiritual realities. There are innumerable references in both the Old testament, from Adam talking with God in Genesis onwards, and in the New Testament of which the Transfiguration and St Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians about spiritual gifts and "seeing through a glass darkly" (i.e. through a poor mirror, imperfectly) may stand as two examples and these spiritual realities exist in a way that transcends any material manifestations.

 

4. Therefore, to the extent that premise (1) is accepted, Theism is more plausible than Materialism.

Points 2, 3 and 4 are relatively un-controversial, and the argument is formally valid, so discussion focuses on the premise (1).

 

Suggested reasons for accepting the premise

 

The principal arguments for the premise are: Very substantial numbers of "ordinary" people report having had such experiences, though this isn't to say that religious believers aren't ordinary.[1] Such experiences are reported in almost all known cultures.

 

These experiences often have very significant effects on people's lives, frequently inducing in them acts of extreme self-sacrifice well beyond what could be expected from evolutionary arguments.

 

These experiences often seem very real to the people involved, and are quite often reported as being shared by a number of people.[2] Although mass delusions are not inconceivable, one needs compelling reasons for invoking this as an explanation.

 

Swinburne suggests that, as two basic principles of rationality, we ought to believe that things are as they seem unless and until we have evidence that they are mistaken (principle of credulity), and that those who do not have an experience of a certain type ought to believe others who say that they do in the absence of evidence of deceit or delusion (principle of testimony) and thus, although if you have a strong reason to disbelieve in the existence of God you will discount these experiences, in other cases such evidence should count towards the existence of God

 

It's hearsay, nothing more... It's no better than the Jesus is coming soon scam i saw when i was a a kid...

 

That's not a vision, a hallucination or an epiphany. That's a serious empirical phenomena which deserves further investigation and might show that humans are truly made in the image of god if they have such powers inherent in them to shatter the whole room.

I have watched the documentary of the Dover's controversy of evolution vs creationism and the main problem for creationists in accepting evolution by natural selection seems to be it says humans evolved from other primates and a creationist even went on to say that that it was a slap to his face because religion says humans are truly made in the image of god. Its wrong to not to understand evolution by natural selection and also it is wrong to not to understand what is our relationship with god via wisdom literatures and other ways of knowing and present and historical accounts like such of St. Teresa of Avila are compelling reasons to investigate them seriously and be open to alternative world-views. You don't have to lose your heads for that.

In the absence of positive evidence the default position is the null position, you can change your mind about what you do or do not believe but in the lack of positive evidence the default position in science is always the null position...

What you mean to say is we must assume that God does not exist in the absence of evidence. I understand your statement. But as you can see much of the debate is whether these indirect evidences actually do point towards the existence of god or not.

Name a religion that insists on empirical evidence?

 

Do not accept any of my words on faith,

Believing them just because I said them.

Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns,

And critically examines his product for authenticity.

Only accept what passes the test

By proving useful and beneficial in your life.

The Buddha (Jnanasara-samuccaya)

It shows they are applying the screening mechanisms they use for reality, religion does not make the cut. How can giving something as lacking in evidence as religion a pass be a reasonable course of action? the bolded print is insulting, is your disdain for anyone who disagrees with you so strong you cannot keep from insulting them?

 

Do you know what's insulting? Its insulting to equate works of late antiquity which religious scholars dedicate their entire life trying to understand each syllable to works of Harry Potter. That's what insulting is not the truth claim which I made.

What do you mean by benefit of the doubt? Give them a pass on proof just because you believe? many people fervently believe in many things that are simply not supported by the evidence. I wonder if you would be more open to a belief in elves or fairies? Many people people truly believe in them, some claim to have seen them and talked to them, do we give them the benefit of the doubt as well?

 

Investigate them or critically examine them. The main point which I am arguing here is I doesn't want opinions or statements which has a confirmation bias, I need explanations which can account for these phenomena and the reason why I hold on to this position is simply because I believe such a thorough investigation has not yet happened.

I know INow will disagree with me on this here, because he has already decided that we should no longer entertain such beliefs in our society and that religion has been given enough time to prove itself and has been given many such free passes in the past and that's where the main problem lies to me here. Perhaps we should discuss on this more rather than going off topic.

 

Then why aren't you here doing just that?

 

You mean I cannot participate in this thread and question the conclusion as a member of sfn?

BTW, isn't more likely that the humanity wide similarities in deities more likely because we share the same brain and tend to experience similar fugue states?

Isn't it more likely that they all were able to access a reality which we have not yet made an effort to access to?

Quite the contrary they are completely honest, puff the magic dragon might be a little condescending since it is known to be fictional but unicorns were at one time seriously believed to be real. The point immortal is that religion and the concept of deities has no more physical evidence than unicorns, dragons, elves, fairies, or trolls.

No, they are not. I didn't accused them of dishonesty just because I disagree with them because their frequent analogies and statements do fall in the category of false analogies and overgeneralization which are termed as common forms of intellectual dishonesty.

Common forms of intellectual dishonesty include plagiarism, applying double standards, using false analogies, exaggeration and overgeneralization, presenting straw man arguments, and poisoning the well (not literally).

Does Buddhism really have 42 peaceful and 58 wrathful deities?

Yes.

That seems to load the odds in favour of the bad guys.

Religion understands good and evil as something which exists with in your Self and teaches one to transcend both good and evil.

Wrathful Deities

 

Wrathful deities suggest the mighty struggle involved in overcoming one's alienation. They embody all the inner afflictions which darken our thoughts, our words, and our deeds and which prohibit attainment of the Buddhist goal of full enlightenment. Traditionally, wrathful deities are understood to be aspects of benevolent principles, fearful only to those who perceive them as alien forces. When recognized as aspects of one's self and tamed by spiritual practice, they assume a purely benevolent guise.

Compare that to Christianity. It has a much more favourable balance - just one bad guy "Satan", up against a Trinity of no less than three goodies "The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost".

With in orthodox Christianity itself there is this concept of light and dark forces and angels.

19. What, seemingly, we are to understand by the words, "God divided the light from the darkness."

 

Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the discussion of the obscurity. To me it does not seem incongruous with the working of God, if we understand that the angels were created when that first light was made, and that a separation was made between the holy and the unclean angels, when, as is said, "God divided the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night." For He alone could make this discrimination, who was able also, before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards the day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. "Let there be," He says, "lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night"; and shortly after He says, "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." But between that light, which is the holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it was future, could not be hidden or uncertain....

 

11. Whether the angels that fell partook of the blessedness which the holy angels have always enjoyed from the time of their creation.

 

And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call angels were never at any time or in any way darkness, but, as soon as they were made, were made light; yet they were not so created in order that they might exist and live in any way whatever, but were enlightened that they might live wisely and blessedly. Some of them, having turned away from this light, have not won this wise and blessed life, which is certainly eternal, and accompanied with the sure confidence of its eternity; but they have still the life of reason, though darkened with folly, and this they cannot lose, even if they would. But who can determine to what extent they were partakers of that those who through it are truly and fully blessed, resting in a true certainty of eternal felicity? For if they had equally participated in this true knowledge, then the evil angels would have remained eternally blessed equally with the good, because they were equally expectant of it. For, though a life be never so long, it cannot be truly called eternal if it is destined to have an end; for it is called life inasmuch as it is lived, but eternal because it has no end. Wherefore, although everything eternal is not therefore blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if no life can be truly and perfectly blessed except it be eternal, the life of these angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and therefore not eternal, whether they knew it or not. In the one case fear, in the other ignorance, prevented them from being blessed. And even if their ignorance was not so great as to breed in them a wholly false expectation, but left them wavering in uncertainty whether their good would be eternal or would some time terminate, this very doubt concerning so grand a destiny was incompatible with the plenitude of blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For we do not so narrow and restrict the application of the term "blessedness" as to apply it to God only, though doubtless He is so truly blessed that greater blessedness cannot be; and, in comparison of His blessedness, what is that of the angels, though, according to their capacity, they be perfectly blessed?...

 

- City of God, Saint Augustine.

This provides a 3 to 1 numerical superiority over Satan. Quite attractive odds, in military terms. Offering good prospects for a Christian victory, and the rout of Satan. Followed by a peaceful heavenly future.

Seems like a fascinating sport.

14. An explanation of what is said of the devil, that he did not abide in the truth, because the truth was not in him.

 

Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying, "because the truth is not in him." Now, it would be in him had he abode in it. But the phraseology is unusual. For, as the words stand, "He abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him," it seems as if the truth's not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in it; whereas his not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in him. The same form of speech is found in the psalm: "I have called upon Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God," where we should expect it to be said; Thou hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee. But when he had said, "I have called," then, as if some one were seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer by the effect of God's hearing it; as if he had said, The proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.

 

15. How we are to understand the words, "The devil sinneth from the beginning."

 

As for what John says about the devil, "The devil sinneth from the beginning," they who suppose it is meant hereby that the devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand it; for if sin be natural, it is not sin at all. And how do they answer the prophetic proofs,--either what Isaiah says when he represents the devil under the person of the king of Babylon, "How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" or what Ezekiel says, "Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering," where it is meant that he was some time without sin; for a little after it is still more explicitly said, "Thou wast perfect in thy ways?" And if these passages cannot well be otherwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also, "He abode not in the truth," that he was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And from this passage, "The devil sinneth from the beginning," it is not to be supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of which the devil is the subject: "This is the beginning of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels," which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, "There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport therein." But these passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature, which surpasses in dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork of the Most High!...

 

- City of God, Saint Augustine

Whereas the Buddhists seem to have bleaker prospects, facing a 42/58 inferiority in the correlation of forces.

Perhaps they are relying on the blast of a Buddhist V-weapon, brighter than a thousand suns?

Perhaps they have the necessary skills to create new forces of light.

From the ashes came Bhandasura Who made all the world as impotent and ruled from the city called Shonitha pura.He started troubling the devas.The devas then sought the advice of Sage Narada who advised them to conduct a fire sacrifice. From the fire rose Sri Lalitha Tripura Sundari.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalita_sahasranama#Story

Its their sport.

Or is it all gibberish.

No, its not.

Nonsense.

 

Even if you had shown that he was wrong( and you have not) then at most you would have shown that he was mistaken, not dishonest.

 

Do you not know the difference?

You both use false analogies and equate God with unicorns, Puff the magic dragons etc and overgeneralise the different forms of theists that exist and put all of them in the same boat. I don't know you guys deliberately do it or you're just mistaken because I don't know what's going on in your minds and aren't those two examples enough to qualify you both as being dishonest.

Please show where you have supported your assertion with anything empirical and testable...

 

That's what I am criticizing about his conclusion from the post #1205 to #1225 of this thread. That the conclusion should have been more open rather than intolerance towards religion.

A god hypothesis should, as should any hypothesis, be required to show some support with something other than faith or belief, your position so far has simply been to make claims unsupported by anything but beliefs, faith and occasionally opinions. I see no honesty in your "god exists" Hypothesis at all so far...

 

The empirical evidence to support a god hypothesis is evidence like these throughout the history of mankind.

"St. Theresa of Avila almost shattered the whole room so much that the nuns came running to see what happened to her."

If that doesn't sound like empirical then what is empirical evidence, so why don't we investigate such things and study them rather than showing confirmation bias.

You seem to think that because no one can prove you wrong you must be right... no, the default position is not what you cannot prove wrong must be right. In fact it is exactly the opposite, your position is the untenable one...

 

There are different positions Gnostic theists, agnostic theists and agnostic atheists. Based on the current evidence the default position seems to be to have no position at all. If there was such an universal default position then I wonder why some atheists change their minds and become theists and why some theists change their mind and become atheists, tell me what's going on. Are each one interpreting the evidence differently, a confirmation bias?

INow's accusation on some people that they some how show double standards and apply weak screening mechanisms especially when it comes to the topic of god doesn't apply to the whole of theistic community, all religions are not faith based belief systems, some religions force one to test the claims of its own religion before asking one to accept it. The very fact that they have investigated the all of religion while atheists just like to pretend that they have and arrived at a different conclusion that a god hypothesis is not something which should be dismissed as childish shows that they are as much interested in knowing what the truth is and are applying the same screening mechanisms which they apply in their normal life.

As I said if it is so important in labelling some group as broken rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt and knowing what the truth is then I am definitely not in for such a thing, perhaps there is something broken in them.

Lack of empirical evidence to support your stance should have given you some pause before you stated that last claim...

I have better evidences to investigate rather than trying to prove someone as a liar or labelling someone as broken.

I know what you quoted.

The point remains that you accused him of dishonesty

Specifically you said

" claiming that people who believe in God are broken is definitely a dishonesty on your part."

and, thus far, you have offered nothing to support that assertion.

 

The fact that he is forthright in expressing his opinion doesn't mean he is lying.

 

Are you going to accept that you have accused him without any evidence or are you going to show that he said one thing while believing another?

I am someone who strive for intellectual honesty and if we both(I and INow) have investigated all of religion and arrived at different conclusions then we both have to give reasonable reasons as to why we have arrived at that conclusion and I think I have done just that and you simply think I have not supported my assertion. A God hypothesis is a competent hypothesis for the origin of our cosmos and there are ample evidences to suggest that such a hypothesis cannot be dismissed so easily and based on this I do accuse him for his dishonest conclusion and his conclusion is quite evident in the position that he has taken in this thread.

Just because you disagree with him doesn't make him (or me) a liar.

Actually it does, it does make your or my statements a lie depending on what the empirical evidence is actually saying. That's what my problem is.