Intelligence, Awareness, and Religious Belief/Experienc

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I truly believe it's all in one's personal perspective of religion, to be honest with you. I mean, to a nonbeliever, religious beliefs may be rooted in fantasy and irrational thought, but to a believer, the tenets of their belief are all easily explainable and make complete sense to themselves. I personally can make sense of my own personal religious beliefs, being a bit of a practicing Catholic and all, and I'd also like to think I'm an intelligent and rational individual. I don't see any dischord or conflict between the two. My religious beliefs have influenced the way I think, live, and see the world just as much as the scientific lessons I've learned throughout my schooling have. I'm not exactly sure what mental processes facilitate this, but it works out, and I find happy harmony with things that the fundamentalists of the world, both in the believer and nonbeliever sense, couldn't find harmony with, e.g. creationism and evolution.

Science is not a satisfactory object for these feelings of worship, because science is too limited in its explanatory power (by design). Ideas of the divine have the appropriate characteristics to make them attractive objects of worship, since a god or gods can encompass both the known and the unknown, the orderly and the chaotic, the beneficent and the malevolent, the personal and impersonal.

So long as such ideas do not prevent one from the ordinary pursuit of life and happiness, then most people find value in them, as a handy, empty container for many otherwise pointless absurdities. Gods make good stories and good stories are worth more than gold.

yeah, it's pretty amazing that christ rose from the dead. but then again, people are still talking about it 2000 years after the fact. and anyway it's not like anyone believes this happens all the time. it happened once! 2000 years ago! surely, if christ's resurrection were compatible with the laws of the natural world, nobody would be talking about it every sunday as if it were something special.

intelligent people i know who worship a divine are generally impressed by the theology first, and the miracles second. they don't sweat the miracles because they're not really expecting any. yes, amazing shit happens to you if you're jesus but that was like a special exception for this one guy. so if you're impressed by the theology, no need to worry about the exception. there's always exceptions to rules. it's not like religions are asking people to believe in the existence of dragons or ufos or the yeti or anything.

It is my observation that humans require stories almost as much as we require air, food and water. We are endowed with all this intelligence and memory, and stories are our most natural organizing principle for all the scattered bits of information we gather and store.

Even scientific knowledge, which proceeds upon different organizing principles, is often presented to the population at large as a story - as in "the story of volcanoes" or "the story of life on earth". It is no coincidence that science has its heros and its foundation narratives (Gallileo vs The Pope, and so on). The urge to make a story is too fundamental to dispense with.

When I stated that gods make empty containers for absurdities, I was thinking of how a container can both hold a collection of heterogenous materials and simultaneously impose its shape upon them. Gods tend to be the container into which humans place the collection of pieces that don't fit together, are too frightening to think clearly about, or stand outside the boundaries of our knowledge. Things like "why do I suffer?"

Gods impose a narrative on these nasties, and give them a form that is otherwise not evident and a sense of meaning that a scientific narrative cannot provide. This may sound dismissive, but when I say this is worth ore than gold, I'm trying to express the fact that belief in a god or gods provides us with a sense of security and well-being that is extremely precious.

It is a cliche to say there are no atheists in foxholes and to note that anguished people under the worst sort of duress often turn to god for comfort. This is not a blameworthy act, but a sublime one. In such a situation, the need to extinguish the fear and pain is insuperable and you must either die or find a more satisfactory way forward. Gods provide us with a way out that doesn't kill us, but extinguishes the pressure caused by the suffering mind.

Now, for myself, I prefer the Buddhist or Taoist form of religion - without any gods - because this does the least violence to my normal understanding of the universe. But these are religions just as surely as any of the god-dominated theologies. I don't belittle religious faith. The human condition will always require it. Because the First Noble Truth is that life is suffering - and that isn't ever going away.

Theoretically maybe these religions are god-fee but in practice most of their adherents tend to invoke quite a number of gods.

The problem with science is that (as Burroughs said) it doesn't have a 'why?'. Unless you're willing to accept the universe as completely meaningless you're going to need an additional way to organize things.

What does any of this mean? Do you know what the laws of the universe are (and if you do why don't you tell the rest of us)? People have been under the impression that they basically understood the universe, aside from a few loose end, many times in the past and this view has always turned out to be wrong. Part of use of invoking the "gods" is a stance of basic humilty. We really have very little understanding of whats going on, and in areas like life and death and the nature of our own consciousness we know practically nothing at all.

I really don't see the contradiction. The alternatives, however, seem rife with contradictions. A lack of fath seems more emotionally driven.

the problem is you can't really argue religion intellectually. you have to really be open to it and 'get it'. like love maybe. if you come from a strong atheist perspective, you have to feel some shift - maybe from a big experience like drugs or trauma or coming to the end of some obsession until it opens up some other realm of possibility. specific religions and practices are more cultural or social and used for mundane, sometimes really shitty ends. but i think there really is more to it than that and throwing it all out because of a few (or well, a majority of) cloudy interpretations is unfortunate. i mean science takes a lot of faith too, not to say i don't 'believe' in it, but i haven't done the research, the astronomy, the biology, and the equations first hand. whereas i have experienced things first-hand that make me open to spiritual ideas. i think that movie Contact or even 2001 is brilliant for that kind of message.

I do believe that lolita corpus has made a lot of sense as well. Thanks for explaining things the way you have, including the point you brought up about "many who are [christian/jewish] don't take the old testament literally".

One of my last Catholic religion classes included discussion of the Genesis creation story. Our teacher at the time explained to us that the creation story was not meant to be taken at face value but rather as an allegory. The days represent time values one cannot be clear upon; who knows what a "day" is to God? (There's also a joke that uses that point to comic effect.) Adam & Eve don't represent the first two people to roam the Earth but rather two groups of individuals, both equally at fault and equal in their sharing of responsibility for the sinful actions that cast them out of the Garden of Eden. The trees and the fruit, the snake, even the Garden of Eden itself -- all of that is supposed to represent various aspects of human's first days here on Earth as well as an explanation for why it is that life is like for us here on this imperfect Earth, away from God and away from perfection.

It's... it's kinda hard for me to explain further. So many points were brought up that it's kinda hard getting them all straight and I think my old religion teacher would explain much better. But the above is just the general gist of what I was taught.

also, isnt believing in something because its a nice idea sort of self-serving? Isnt it basing your idea of truth on what makes you feel comfortable?

this is a definition of self-deception, it's true there are deceitful and manipulative people who are into religion but isn't religion when done "right" about another logic of truth, the performative logic, where the enunciation brings the truth to what is enunciated, to say that something is true is to signal one's agreement with it. In any case, I think these "truths" should not get in the way of civil rights and liberties in any way.

it's always interesting to me how the real hard-headed anti-religious rationalists are so preoccupied with miracles and the supernatural

if cisco pike jr. is actually interested in these issues - and somehow the way this question is raised i doubt it - the intersection btwn "reason" and "religion" may have been at its most vivacious and revolutionary during the English revolution of the mid-1600s - check out the Ranters and Levellers and Baptists and Anabaptists and Quakers and Shakers and Diggers and whatnot. a few of these even took to calling God "Reason," since they felt the two were one and the same. many called the entire preisthood a sham, felt anyone ought to be able to speak in church, and said that England's private property system was immoral, irreligious, and heretical. some said there was no such thing as sin, and some drank and whored themselves every night, in order to prove it.

isnt christ rising from the dead what christianity is all about though? that's the meat and potatoes. if you dont believe that this miracle took place, arent you basically just agreeing with the golden rule and being a humanist? Basically, I guess im disagreeing with you. or at the very least adding that people of faith are as preoccupied with the miracles and supernatural elements as are the hard-headed anti-religious rationalists youspeak of.

similarly people jawing about sacrifice and redemption is quite a bit less visceral than being crucified and rising from the dead.

whether you want to look at the gospels as a clever parable that expresses the christian value system, or as actual events that embody and enact the christian value system, or any point along that spectrum, that's a matter of your personal style.

seriously, i am absolutely bewildered by the inability of some people to "get" religion. i am not a theist either, but i feel like the religio-skeptic viewpoints expressed on ILE are utterly disingenuous. it's a bit like starting on ILM thread called "what's up with classical music, it lacks fat beats"

Christianity is quite unlike most religions in that it makes historical claims that are at the very core of its beliefs. They are not claims about the nature of the universe or of god or of goodness or morality, or allegories and parables, but specific claims about matters of historic fact. The prophets prophesied in historic time about events to come. The Messiah, Son of God, member of the Holy Trinity in good standing, descended in human form and walked the earth in Galilee, Judeah and Caana. He was crucified on the cross and rose on the third day. He ate, got dusty feet, bathed, slept and wiped His nose. And so on.

Religion in general is another kettle of fish than is Christianity specifically. It is possible to believe in God, to believe in the numinous quality of nature, to believe in a whole host of religious phenonmena, without being able to believe in Christ's bodily resurrection from death and ascension into heaven on a fine day in spring in Jerusalem in roughly 33 AD. Or that He appeared to his disciples later, in the flesh. sat among them and had a nice chit chat while Thomas fondled his wounds and marveled.

Now, you may say that Xtianity is not about miracles, but I submit that if you deny the miracles, you may be deeply religious, but you are not any longer Xtian - but some manner of believer who takes Xtianity for a stepping-off point. If the various sects of christianity would just repudiate all their factual claims about the NT and content themselves with considering the NT to be a set of moral fables, tales and the parables, then you'd see a whole lot more people reconciled with the Xtian faith.

However, in the USA, this far, far from the case. And we Americans won't see that happen until hell freezes over.

And if your idea of god doesn't have to make any sense, then how can you tell the difference between god and a koala taco?

STOP RIGHT NOW - go to the nearest bookstore, and purchase and read Elaine Pagels' "The Gnostic Gospels". The Nicean Creed is not the definition of Christianity, as the Diggers or Roger Williams or any host of Christian thinkers will tell you. Hewing to a literal interpretation of the Christ "story" was - and I think Pagels' establishes this with decisive force - cemented as religious dogma in the interest of consolidating power. It doesn't have anything to do with the spiritual lessons/teachings of Jesus.

I'm in vahid's camp on this thread - as I am not a theist but am pretty profoundly irritated by the pseudo-rationalist anti-religious opinions sometimes expressed on these threads. "Science" is not some foolproof, fully coherent system that "explains" the universe - consider Bohm's axiom that in any given point in history 90% OF HUMAN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT HAS BEEN COMPLETELY WRONG.

Then you believe Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and moldered in the ground? I ask this seriously.

(I don't believe Jesus literally existed - he strikes me as more of a composite figure, as evidenced by the host of wildly divergent actions and sayings ascribed to him)

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let's not forget that the premise of this thread is the possibility of maintaining "credible belief", and not the project of defining who is/isn't a christian.

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yeah - maybe the reason cisko pike jr. can't maintain any credible belief is because what he's projecting onto/absorbing from various religions is, frankly, just not credible. maybe if he dug a little deeper he'd find something that corresponded more closely to his intellectual sensibility - every religion has its geniuses, poets, scientists, mystics, etc. you just have to be willing to look for them.

The Romans regarded the early Christians as a wierdo cult of Jewish and Greek troublemakers. Not only were they continuing the trouble which was that monotheism that just won't go away, Judaism, they were started a whole new batch of trouble that had the potentiality to become political, and did. (All very funnily parodied in the Life of Brian). So these people had reason to note Christianity as a relatively small and annoying cult, which it was, and they did.

The writings of Josephus, Plebius, the synoptic gospels, the writings of John (Book of John and Revelation: likely early 2nd century), Jewish tradition as a corrective force sociologically, historical tradition and, not unimportantly, centuries of scholarly scrutiny, and billions of dedicated and faithful, seems sufficient evidence to accept the existence of aa specific historical Jewish figure named Yeshua Ha-Nostri (Jesus of Nazareth), as opposed to a composite sketch or legendary construct. Pagels is a relative latecomer, and an eccentric (not necessarily in a bad sense). I think she's interesting, if not alltogether factual.

Gnosticism is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Gnosticism is un-Judaic. Christiantity is, very strictly, the daughter of Judaism, and Jewish tradition. Gnosticism is often ascetic. Christianity values the material and the sensual. Although some say gnosticism is more proto-feminist (which may or may not be true). But don't get your history from the Davinci Code -- it's full of shit.

Remember, Jesus was into hanging out with prostitutes, money-lenders, fishermen, and dying people. This seems totally anti-gnostic to me.

What other religion tempts the doubter with such pinache?

seriously, i am absolutely bewildered by the inability of some people to "get" religion. i am not a theist either, but i feel like the religio-skeptic viewpoints expressed on ILE are utterly disingenuous. it's a bit like starting on ILM thread called "what's up with classical music, it lacks fat beats"

heheh. i think there's the same attitude towards republicans here. not to say i don't feel the same way about republicans myself, but there are certain things 'skeptical-intellectual' subculture is really lazily judgemental about. which is unfortunate since there can be some good in those things. or being more open to it can help connect with and understand other people instead of dismiss them for being stupid and naive. but the over-simplification and condescension seems so beatnik-teenagers-at-dennys.

hey that's a good name for a band.

Dan Brown is a baldly revisionist idiot, and I've said so on other threads. It irritates me to no end that Pagels should in any way be associated with him (as I read her years before I'd ever even heard of Dan Brown).

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very good at talking shit about the system, society, the man, other people, somewhat less skilled at self-reflection.

mind you, i'm talking about teenagers at denny's, not anyone on this thread, or any teenage ilxors, or any ilxors at denny's.

tho i do wish this thread had more "here's how my family (or religious acquantaince i respect, or whatever) worships"

But Buddhism does not lead towards happiness; it strives for mona (absolute nothingness).

-- Star Cauliflower (spen...), March 11th, 2005.

its not self-negation when you're trying to realize that the 'self' itself is an illusion! and thats bullshit about buddhism being nihilistic, thats a superficial misunderstanding of it.

Personally, I don't go to Church, but find Christianity intellectually substantial and rewarding, and preferable philosophically, morally and
socially to secularized humanism. But I could be wrong.

I've spent most of my life looking for reasons not to be believe. Now I try to look for reasons to believe. And I might be right.

there are a number of fairly religious people in my life who I respect both intellectually and spiritually - my Dad, for one; a Sufi-schooled acquaintance of mine; the friend who introduced me to vipassana... but I don't know if there's anything paricularly unique or convincing about their lives that would shed any light on this thread. have to think about that...

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uhm, well I was pretty much responding to the initial post's sentiment (ie, "how can anyone believe in something so inherently stupid and obviously false!") and then there was Ed's little gem of wisdom...

Still, the idea that Buddhists and warm and fuzzy and Jews and Muslims are the ones with blood on their hands, should take a trip to Burma.

(x-post re Buddhism - yeah, there's plenty of examples in SE Asia where its become just as doctrinaire, violent, and blindly dogmatic as any western religion)

Shakey, I will leave it to other Christians to argue with you whether the Nicean Creed has "anything to do with the spiritual lessons/teachings of Jesus". I think they'd give you a good run for your money.

I appreciate your point of view, but for good or ill, a belief in Christ's bodily ressurection has been accepted by the vast majority of Christians as a basic tenet of the faith for about as far back as anyone can see. And, yes, I have read Pagels's book. It was a very interesting retrospective look at a tradition that was dead enough that it took an archaeological dig to unearth it.

The fact that Christian teachings can be interpreted in a mythic and parabolic fashion is obvious to me. The fact that almost all Christian churches strongly disavow this approach is also significant to me. As it happens, my wife was raised in the Quaker meeting and if I understand it correctly, a faith in the resurrection is not required there. This is, to say the least, unusual.

I find it far simpler to stand unambiguously outside the church, looking in all directions for spiritual guidance than to stand at the extreme edge of it, looking in. You may choose otherwise. As the saying goes, I'm all in favor of letting each of us go to hell in our own way. More power to you.

The vast series of possibilities inherent in how one chooses to reflect on things spiritual -- and that need not simply refer to what can be described as something specifically religious or philosophical -- to my mind is its own reward for the species that is us. Similarly with things political, what they might be -- where both have problems, as I see it, is when those beliefs and conclusions are used to justify the greatest general abuse I can think of, namely, control. Even the most individualistic of political or spiritual beliefs can be a gateway -- somehow, some way -- to a form of expression of control, whether it's clamping down on the potentials in your head (thus the supposedly 'individual' philosophies of the likes of Ayn Rand or libertarianism disgust me for their lack of vision and easy, self-satisfied assumptions) or seeking to clamp down or deny something outside yourself, or worse. Human history provides us with enough examples of this, I need not bore you with a listing of them. That there are those who are willing to use religion, science, philosophy, politics to justify control by legality, by doctrine, by force and by threat of murder is readily clear.

This all may seem overly simplistic. But it reflects my current belief -- and that too may yet change -- that if human society is marked by people, movements and mindsets who would demand allegiance to fixed principles or else, we must be willing to stand aside and look at it all as we can. To claim an outside perspective in truth is I think impossible -- or rather it is a convenient construct we can use to congratulate ourselves for not 'being taken in' like everyone else, a too easy path. But we can at least regularly try and be aware of what we have made our mindsets to be, and question them, and consider, and rethink, rather than constantly act in a certain way to the point of caricature. I am hardly innocent of falling into that trap, but I can still consider a further ideal viable.

This is why though I am of closest principles with Ed on the subject of science and atheism, I find his relentless dismissals impossible to countenance, and why I myself *must* choose agnosticism over atheism in the end -- for I simply cannot know. In this state I have found the strongest arguments for spiritual reflection as I see it, as well as the chance to formulate in my brain the best arguments I can that ethics can exist independently of a specific spiritual conclusion -- and that both one's successes and failures there can be acknowledged by oneself, however happily or bitterly, without reference to such a specific.

Meanwhile, do I look on the choices and conclusions here reached by Lolita and Dee, by Star and Vahid, by Aimless and Shakey as ultimately contradictory or to be ranked by what's right and what is not? No -- my fears about the abuse of conclusions have been stated, but my overriding belief that the variety is its own reward remains strong. We are all collectively shaped by our experiences in macro and microstructures, and the resultant diversity flows in ways that I think often surprise even ourselves. To appreciate that is, to my mind, essential.

So to speak to the original question -- 'credible faith' is no fixed term, I think. In a world of 'scientific laws' -- or rather, conclusions based upon the result of observation and experimentation -- the capacity to interpret and consider that world is boundless. It is not a question of credibility, but ability. I am glad for the latter's existence. I do not believe in the natural good of humanity as such but neither do I believe in a natural evil in turn -- I believe rather in sorrow and success, of heights and depths. The human experience is the core -- and if this is only applicable as a conclusion to myself and for myself, and if it makes no sense for anyone else, then that means further in a multiplicity of approaches, and I am glad of it.

Yet, oh! there is a yet, science in its very nature, in its foundational precepts, cannot destroy religion, epistemically.

After one pursues the avenues of science and observation (and ingests a small dose of humility: what can we really know, anyway?), it is enough to cause one to look at the world with a compassionate (and weary heart) and ask, can there still be redemption after all of this?
For all of this?

If we are all a random combination of atoms, temporarily assembled for survival and pleasure, then why should we assume that the apparatus called the brain should lead us to any sensible conclusions, including scientific.

But if we are, indeed, invested with a mind that is capable of reason, and even wisdom, a mind not totally unlike one that designed the mind that thinks, and is. Then what?

What do we see? Suffering. But how, as the Buddha says, can we exit this cycle? Is it by our own acts? Our own virtue? The length of our penises? The holiness of our wars? The number of people we've loved?

All this, on a cosmic level, seems insufficient.

Does our insufficiency drive us to despair, as it did the Existenitalists? Does it drive us to hatred as does to the murderer?

Where else can we go from here?

Higher or lower?

I (perhaps foolishly) believe we have a choice. In essence, things are not as hopeless as they seem.

But how much will be redeemed. A righteous few. Every blade of grass and every sinner?

Christians believe that only Jesus can save, but that doesn't mean that the only way to be saved is through Jesus. This was an interesting conclusion for me, an extension I have always felt for my friends who are Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, gay, straight, intellectual, unsearching or unloved: theist and atheist.

Ok, that seems to go somewhere...One must seek and love...indeed seek to love. But when that fails, have faith, and ask for a little time.

For ff human experience is the core, then what if that experience is robbed? Let's say you are diabled in an accident, or you are abused.
Then is the core gone?

There has to be, in my opinion, a core outside of our core; in fact, our core is not us, but something beyond us, something infinite in potential and infinite in good.

But there is only one way to find out. And I'm not hopefully going to very soon

I have more than one? Hot damn! (And thank you for the kind thought at the start of your post.)

(I do leave open the possibility that we're a lab experiment of our alien overlords' eighth-grade science students.)

I find it funny that oftentimes, in order to give greater validity to their religious/spiritual beliefs, people show the logical steps and thought processes behind them. "logic doesn't explain everything...now let me show you how i logically reached that conclusion"

If we are all a random combination of atoms, temporarily assembled for survival and pleasure, then why should we assume that the apparatus called the brain should lead us to any sensible conclusions, including scientific.

what better to understand the universe than the atoms that make up the universe?

Incidentally, it also states that Christ was not made of normal physical matter, but of the same divine spirit that heavenly beings are formed from. Not many Christians seem to realise that.

As regards Genesis: it's easy to state that the Creation is clearly a mythic folk tradition concerning the mesolithic-neolithic transition. Then again, it's just as easy to read it as a philosophical allegory on Why Life Is Shit. What's also interesting is that Genesis is rather vague about what order God created everything in. If you read the first part - the seven days of creation - it happens in one specific order. In the second part - the creation of Adam - it happens in a slightly different one.

i mean science takes a lot of faith too, not to say i don't 'believe' in it, but i haven't done the research, the astronomy, the biology, and the equations first hand. whereas i have experienced things first-hand that make me open to spiritual ideas. i think that movie Contact or even 2001 is brilliant for that kind of message.

I think Contact is a beautiful movie, but I think it's about truth, not faith. You don't have faith in things you experience, like you don't have faith in gravity. The difference between alien contacts and religious experience and normal scientific experiments is that normal scientific experiments are replicable. You can take what biologists or astronomists say on faith, but their experiments ARE replicable, and there is such a thing as valid peer review and reproduction in the sciences. Science requires trust in authority in that you can't do it ALL, but I think it's fundamentally different from faith.

Christians believe that only Jesus can save, but that doesn't mean that the only way to be saved is through Jesus.

I like that.

Incidentally, it also states that Christ was not made of normal physical matter, but of the same divine spirit that heavenly beings are formed from. Not many Christians seem to realise that.

Some professor told me that this was the main reason for the split between Oriental and Eastern Orthodox congregations, the Oriental Orthodox churches said Christ was all divine and the Eastern and Roman Catholic churches said Christ was both divine and human (which is what I've ALWAYS heard). That makes me doubt a little that the Nicene Creed (the "God from God" bit is what I assume you mean) is recited in a literal all-God-not-man sense in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

haha - I was gonna bring up the Quakers as a good example of what I was talking about re: diversity of Christian interpretations, guess that wasn't necessary (my mom is a frequent attendant of her local Quaker meetings).

I mean sure, there's an implication that light = people (and animals and fingernail clippers and chewing gum and big trees) and later on in the story of this bible we hear that the Big Guy has given us dominion over everything. but that sentence alone is enough to make me feel like just a fleeting cinder. and you could read "darkness" as just not-being-seen—cause nobody was around to see it! (or even talk about it on internet message boards)

In the proposal for discussion, a very narrow spectrum of religion is addressed and the scope of understanding as limited.

For instance, here are some brief thoughts on...

Kundalini and Christianity:

The Siva-Sakti union has to be experienced to be described and few people, including many authors that write about Kundalini, have actually experienced this. Unfortunately, I can't relate the experience because I have never experienced this union before (even if I had, how could it be explained?) I would love to experience this, but I don't intend to force it for reasons explained below.

But, I can give you the theoretical explanation, as I have learned:

You become aware of the "indwelling God" within you, which is the "indwelling God" within everyone, which is your unconscious normally hidden by your animal instincts and ego personality. This is what is called "universal consciousness." Fittingly, the animal side of our nature is closer to the sexual organs and this is where the Kundalini energy is said to be "coiled." The "sin" of Adam and Eve refers to sex, specifically. Sin did not mean "bad" originally, it meant ignorant; so the story of Adam & Eve is just an explanation of why suffering persists among unevolved people who follow their animal instincts (passions, egos, desires, etc.)

However, if man overcomes his animal nature, the energy rises to the brain OR to put another way, man's focus shifts from the primarily animalistic to the primarily "spiritual" for lack of a better word, the focal point of which is the pineal gland or third eye area. Just as we differentiate with our left brain and unify with our right brain, the pineal gland is the center of our spiritual awareness. The original meaning of animal sacrifices was a dedication ritual that represented sacrificing our animal instincts. Done with proper understanding, an animal sacrifice would make a powerful psychological tool, similar to NLP or hypnosis, to communicate to the unconscious mind or indwelling God within us. This is also why the Kundalini should not be forced when one is not ready, because it is a false awakening and actually goes against the mental and physical constitution of the practitioner.

---- TITHING?-----

Tithing, meaning giving 10% to the "Lord," refers to Kundalini energy returning to the "heaved-up" place, heaven, or third eye, which sits under the "wings" of the cerebrum. A psycho physical "seed" (son of man) is dropped from the brain every month (moonth), which is an oil-like substance. "Christ" derives from a term meaning "oil". If one tenth is not returned to the brain (the seed), the body dies little by little until the day it finally dies. This is the meaning of being "saved" through "the christ." The is the meaning of "annointing the head with oil" or being "christed". Things that kill the seed: excess. There are 12 moons a year, with a fraction of a 13th moon (leap year), equalling 37 moons every 3 years. 12 is the number of components that make up the whole, the 13th aspect of a thing: the final product (represented by Jesus and the 12 disciples, among other things). 37 moons is significant as a completion of the system represented by the long-awaited 13th moon.

Satan, the serpent, etc. are all references to the physical world, animal instinct and desires, which kill the body, wasting the 10%. The river Jordan, the straight and narrow, refers to the spine and pneumo-gastric nerve, the Tree of Life, which the psycho physical "seed" must travel. This is the meaning of Noah and the Ark, who saved all the animals (animal instincts; he did not waste the "seed") as he floated on the waters. There are a crapload more references to this in the Bible, both Old and New, but I'm not going to get too into it here. For more information, read "God-Man, The Word Made Flesh" (have your bible handy) and for comparison purposes, read Arthur Avalon's "The Serpent Power."

Psalm 91:4: "He will cover thee with his pinions and under his wings shalt thou take refuge." (see image below)

Image
ihttp://www.rickrichards.com/chakras/caduceus2.jpg

Think of the caduceus placed over the human body with the wings representing both halves of the cerebrum and the snakes both pointing to the pineal gland. The snakes represent the balanced male and female / solar and lunar aspects of the body-consciousness as the kundalini serpent rises to the head for siva-sakti union, but they sure do look like dna, don't they?

---CHAKRAS?---

There is a force in the body that science is clearly aware exists, but has given no name and has no CLUE what it is and therefore tends to ignore it. It is the force that makes a thing grow and animate and it is quite apart from electro-chemical energy.

Isn't that just DNA and RNA replicating, combining to form protein chains that act like symbiotic single celled organisms, that have evolved to produce complex organisms over time, like a mini ecosystem?

What causes the acting principle? It is not electricity and it is not chemical.The DNA and RNA are like floppy discs with information, but the force that puts the floppy disc to use is what?

I believe chakra energy is consciousness or intelligence, which has thoroughly baffled scientists, brain specialists and philosophers to this day.

There is no decided scientific explanation for consciousness and I believe chakras are forms of consciousness, just as our conscious and sub/unconscious are forms of consciousness. I just have a "gut feeling" about this and I believe it with "all my heart."

While on the topic of DNA/RNA as information, here's just a sidenote I had about information:

If you think about how information is transfered, it is generally by the "word," whether spoken, written, felt on the tip of fingers as in braille or the waft of a scent that screams "fart!" It is all interchangable forms of information, a formless substance with many forms that is only known through experience. Until such a time as science can come up with the right "words" to verify chakras, they might not be the sort of information that can be transferred, which means it is up to each individual to experience for himself. However, two people who've had the experience have plenty to talk about.

A cool link on The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge: http://deoxy.org/narbystew.htm

As for "darkness on the face of the waters," yeah, that's one hell of a line (so to speak). It resonates.

re: Genesis and the garden, the story is basically a fable about the dawning of consciousness, right?

As I said above: you can read it as a fable about whatever you like. It works very well as a fable about the dawning of consciousness, about human beings realising that they are different from animals. It *also* works very well as a fable about the mesolithic-neolithic transition - in fact, in the mind of the Genesis writers, the two seem to be firmly connected (they're not - it's hard to tell when we did become "conscious" in some sense, but the length of time from then to the start of the neolithic was many, many times the length of time from the start of the neolithic to today).

Refers to thinking process, self-reflection.

Genesis and the garden, the story is basically a fable about the dawning of consciousness, right?"

Yes. Also see above post regarding Kundalini and Christianity. Concepts like heaven, hell, sin, god, christ and the devil did not mean what most people take them to be today. No wonder people don't believe religion, the misunderstandings make it quite impractical.

Anyone have anything to add to this? Any conversions in the past four years? Refinements of belief? Losses of faith? Juicy gossip?

I am like a broken radio when it comes to picking up spirituality...I just think it's not built into me. I don't understand it, I don't need it, I don't want to & can't figure it out.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/rojc.jpg

i'm with abbott, but in the past few years i think i've improved on not negatively judging people that are religious.

that said, it was only last week where i discovered that 7 from 10 people i was having a tea break with didn't believe in dinosaurs. WTF?

For what's worth, growing older I became more and more interested in religion and now, for many different reasons, I think I can consider myself a (sort of) Christian Catholic - with all its consequences, sometimes not particularly pleasant.
I have no interest at all in theological disputes, they leave me totally cold. Religious belief for me is something that has to do with the human experience (pain, love, culture, meaning or lack of meaning) and its possible answers.
I guess it is also a sort of reaction to a certain pret-a-porter nihilism that is kind of obtuse (perfectly mirroring religious bigotry).

ps I believe in dinosaurs too.

belief in dinosaurs? call yourself a sort of christian catholic? pah.

that's my problem!

But Teilhard De Chardin believed in dinosaurs too.

smart people can still be wrong or get bogged-down in wishful thinking.

also the thing about religion and humility... gimme a break. could there be anything less humble than an anthropocentric view of the universe?

well you can scale down anthropocentric to egocentric and that's less humble

yeah, "god has a plan for ME"

Jesus Christ is your PERSONAL lord and savior

Should Athletes be Glorifying God?

I also believe God's hand has been on American professional sports from the beginning. I believe God anointed Babe Ruth to hit as many home runs as he did in order to give professional baseball the shot in the arm it needed at that time to get accepted with the American public. I believe God is using professional sports to help keep the American competitive spirit alive and well in order to help motivate and keep us pressing on to continue to be the best country in the world.