Too Taboo To Chew! (Religion) (Page 4 of 16)

This is turning into a LOT of speculative bullshit...

Religion is one of the more prominent foundations of our society, every society has their own norms and values, which can mostly be traced back to the religion in that area.
Our society as it is would probably be a lot different if there had been no religion to 'guide' it in the way it is now.
This doesn't mean THIS is the right way it's been guided into, but since we all grew up in this society and received information and seen interaction with and from other people, we think we're on the right path (to what? Enlightenment? Who knows...).

But still society is far from being a good one, just look at all the wars, poverty, etc etc.
It's still (and probably will be for a LONG time) driven by power hungry assholes. And with this I don't mean any government, but all the large companies who are making billions and effectively control this world. (Anyone who thinks otherwise really has his eyes closed or is somewhere on cloud nine high on something).

The funny thing about all this is that the church has always had plenty of money and still is one of the most profitable concepts today! And they've got a lot of followers, who in some cases, do everything for their church (or other building of worship...).

In the past gods were created to explain things for us that we didn't understand, f.e.: Thor God of Lightning.
Since there are still so many religions on this earth, saying that your belief is the right one, based on, well... A book, seems kinda selfish and ignorant to me...
Yes but my book has the right carbon dating!!! (f.e. bible) Well so does mine!!! (f.e. koran) Yes, but you're not white, so what do you know... Here take out book and you shall believe in this book! (crusades, missionaries in America when it was discovered, and now in Africa and who knows how many other countries)

The funny thing is, everybody nowadays knows how to get along with each other, thru interacting with each other, also with people who come from other societies, but somehow most just ignore that fact and pursue their own happiness above others. And if you don't feel the need to go to Africa and be a volunteer to hand out food, you're all working for money, because society demands it of us.
Which we all give into, because we want to belong. And, since I believe in evolution, we are all gene-drive to survive and procreate, so we need to fit in to better or chances.

So since I've stated society is pretty much fucked up as it is, do we still need religion? I don't know, I think we need some sort of belief, but I doubt it's any religion we're using right now...
From where I'm standing (useless at the sideline, since I can't change the world), I don't need religion and think all religions which make profits should be banished. I'll just keep on working my ass off, so the big companies get all their money and I can support my own family, so my genes can live on and I have a general happy feeling about my life. While trying to treat everyone as equals and having as much fun as I possibly can!

Actually...
I generally hate everybody until they prove otherwise, I don't care what anyone thinks of me as long as I feel good about myself, my favourite hobby (next to watching series!) is shooting people online and cursing at them the same time (especially with my girlfriend, who does the same ), I like to go to house party's and totally loose control, not thinking about anything...
But that's just the surface

No kitty that's a bad kitty!

“After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Unity of men and men, no...there's not really any religion that advocates for that. Unity of man and God however, is the unity I meant.
"All is One" - Buddhism
"I am the alpha and the omega" -Jesus
"Look within" -Buddha
"The Kingdom of God is inside you" -Jesus
"Brahman contains all of existence" -Hinduism
"I and the father are One" -Jesus
"All is one" -Buddha
"Everything is an expression of Divinity in some form" -Hinduism
"The Holy Trinity" -Christianity
"Advaita/Nonduality" -Hinduism
"Love your neighbor as yourself" -Christianity
"What you have done unto the least of your brothers you have done unto me" -Jesus
"Everyone and everything is a potential expression of Brahman" -Hinduism

Unity is the highest truth.
Division among men is a lower truth than unity in God. God is everywhere - even in the sheep and the goats - there is no division of God vs. Not-God...only of man vs. other men.

Krishna didn't recognize classes as being limiting in one's ability to experience Brahman. Class divisions in Hinduism are a cultural and social matter, but not really a spiritual one. After the Bhagavad Gita, this was clarified. Krishna advocated for a devotional aspect of spirituality, and considering that Brahman(God) is everywhere, and in everything, he most certainly was not against caring for the untouchables. He didn't set it apart as a mandate for the faith, but it wasn't looked down upon either.
No spiritual teacher in history has covered every point of a particular faith - Christ included. There's nothing in the bible about driving and talking on your cell phone, for example. Just because other faiths don't have a particular teaching at the center of their faith doesn't mean that it is incompatible with the essence of it.

-Rob

Enlightenment is not personal attainment in Buddhism nor in Christianity, or any faith for that matter. There is 'The Gateless Gate' - where once one crosses the gate and looks back, no gate is there, because there was no 'one' who could have crossed the gate, only the unchanging reality of god/Divinity as it has always been - separation was illusion all along[how's that for personal?]).

There is a parable about two students in a monastery. They had spent their entire lives in the monastery, praying, meditating, doing all kinds of yoga, and finally the time was drawing near to when enlightenment would normally occur for them under such a regiment.
One day they both went to visit the master, and the master said to them: 'Suppose when you reached the final door to enlightenment, you were met by God, and were denied entry.'
The students were silent for a moment as they reflected upon the master's statement.
The first student replied: 'it would be terrible, because I could have been spending my life drinking alcohol, eating meat, sleeping with beautiful women and enjoying a life of indulgence.'
The second student thought a moment longer, and said: 'well, I suppose if it were not the will of God that I should become enlightened, then it would be best that i was turned away.'
Suddenly, the master sent the first student away from the door to enjoy that which he had been denying himself. To the second student, he revealed himself to be God, and opened the doors to enlightenment, and pushed the student in.
Nobody becomes enlightened except by the Grace and Will of God.

See, this is where it is important to understand the purposes of salvation vs. enlightenment. Salvation is not necessary for the enlightened, it is necessary for the unenlightened, because they are still identified with an individual self that is separate from God. Thus, a personal relationship with a saviour is essential(Lotus Land/Pure Land Buddhism covers this). Basically, this is manifest as the tradition of having a guru in eastern traditions. Sure, few were fully realized in the sense of Christ, Buddha, Krishna or any other great avatars, though many had enough spiritual energy to inspire the devotion and love of God/Truth that is necessary in order for a person to be 'saved'. Now, with being saved comes the opportunity to become enlightened; to transcend the individual ego and realize oneness in God(nonduality).

There is a huge difference between knowing and knowing about. you can know 'about' being a cat, but you cannot know what it means to be a cat unless you are a cat. "Truth is verifiable only by identity with it, not by knowing about it"(see my collection of statements of absolute truth). So long as you see yourself ass anything less than the Absolute, you only know 'about' the absolute, and have not found the source of existence within. Cat's still in the bag

Devotional Nonduality - Devotion to God/Truth as expressed in manifestation whilst understanding that neither is God alone. God is the Allnes of Creation.

Healing the sick, raising the dead, and the like are things that appeal to people who need to be saved (they understand themselves as limited, isolated, and in danger of losing their existence, at risk of suffering) so it's normal that someone who came to teach about salvation would do this (The apostles performed miracles too, in Jesus' name). Buddha taught enlightenment (salvation = getting to heaven, enlightenment = getting to the highest levels of heaven). In enlightenment, sickness and suffering, and death are all illusions, and one is guided so as to avoid becoming entrained with those belief systems. With salvation, caring for the sick and hungry and so on helps one to identify the nature of sickness and hunger and poverty and so on. It's not something to fix, nor is it something to remain purposefully ignorant of.

Salvation is different than enlightenment. And if you take away the name 'Jesus', then you're left with the energy field that the name represents. If Buddha is one with God, and Jesus is one with God, then they are one and the same, whether you give God the name Jesus or Buddha or whatever, it doesn't matter, you're having a personal relationship with God up to the point where you transcend the duality of you and God and realize experientially that there can be no separation.

Salvation undoes a lot of personal karma. Beyond salvation, on the path to enlightenment, one deals with a lot of collective karma(Jesus encountered the negative karma of the entirety of mankind when he was killed). With the guidance of a teacher however, one is able to avoid the pitfalls of temptation so that collective karma does not accumulate as personal karma. In believing in Christ, you are saved, but you are not enlightened. Buddhism isn't about saving you. If you're interested in being enlightened, youd better be saved first. You are saved through devotion, love and surrender to God/Absolute Truth, which often requires the inspiration/guidance of an enlightened teacher(such as Christ or the Buddha of Pure Land Buddhism for example).

Buddha and Christ and Socrates and anyone with half an ounce of spiritual understanding knew that sin was due to ignorance. The human mind lacks the capacity to tell the difference between what is true and what the mind thinks is true. In Buddhism, love and devotion to Truth are the remedy as well. However, one needn't be attached to love, as love is the nature of the Divine, and it is thus, ever present and available. Buddhism actually advocates for what you might call 'nonattachment' since detachment so often becomes confused with aversion. there is no aversion to love in pure Buddhism...just no attachment either. It's like a drop in the ocean being attached to its identity with another drop, and how thatt limits its ability to identify with the whole of the ocean.

Buddhism is way more hardcore than Christianity...though it is not in conflict with it at all. It teaches enlightenment, not salvation. Salvation is neccesary for enlightenment though.

-Rob

"You reap what you sow"
"To whom much is given, much is expected"

These are just a few references to Karma that might be of note to this discussion. Most significantly, the Galatians quote...that's basically the essence of Karma.
Salvation or not, you're subject to Karma.
The enlightened sow perfection, and that is what they reap.

-Rob

This thread is a drag.... you write way to much... it's annoying!

It's nice and quiet... me and Gsptlsnz had a nice day on the beach

nice ... got one too:

http://www.4shared.com/file/79206324/91 … oiler.html

your avatar is too terrifying maybe?

edit: seems not. Robcore is back.

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Okay, sorry for the uber-mega delay...life gets busy and then sometimes you feel like epic internet debates aren't as high a priority as you'd hoped, lol. In any case, the pending rebuttal shall follow:

The object of devotion is Truth, which Christ is one with. It does not get removed. Subjective experience of Truth is necessary in order that one have objective knowledge of Truth. To the Absolute, the subjective and objective are one and the same. Do you not think that Christ saw the world 'as it was'? There could be no difference between subjective and objective whilst remaining completely divine.

Historically in Christianity, the validity of the concept of God as Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), has led to a lot of argumentation, essentially splitting the Catholic church in half...The concept confirms that God, the Father/Creator is the transcendent reality, and it also recognizes that the Ultimate Reality is capable of incarnation and, therefore, God is immanent in human consciousness as God, the Son/Christ-Consciousness. Not only is God transcendent and immanent but also available to the human soul as the Presence of Self, or Consciousness (the Holy Spirit).
Now, the 'who' of Christ that you speak of is not defined as a person. In fact, the term 'Christ' is not a name as much as it is a title, synonymous with the hebrew term, 'Messiah'. The who you're speaking of is the personality of Jesus...and that personality is completely lost in time as it is not described in the bible. The bible records what jesus said and did, but not his personality, as one who is fully enlightened has transcended the personality. The personality consists of positionalities and ego programs that artificially imbue value and worth upon things that are of same value under God, by virtue of their divine creator.
When you take away the name, Jesus, it's just an energy field that one passes through. Christ was not a name...if it were, then we'd have significant arguments whether Jesus, Yeshua, Jehova, Yaweh or whatever else was his correct name. The name is not important because you don't get to heaven through a name, or through a physical body...the Who that you talk about is nonexistent. It is a what. a subjective what. an objective what.

God doesn't have a 'purpose'. God's isness as the spontaneous appearance in the manifest is, without need of purpose, for it is perfect not as the fulfillment of some lack, but rather for the fact of its divine source. Devotion, by virtue of being devotional, is personal. It is important to differentiate between 'personal' and 'personality'. By virtue of being a journeyer, one is on a personal journey...but that is a journey of Self discovery. The journeyer may have a personality, but even that must be surrendered to give way to revelation of the true Self which is both personal and impersonal/subjective and objective.
A personality cannot know anything - it is limited...self-knowledge is not a quality of the personality any more than knowledge of what it means to be a cat is something the personality can know. The personality knows 'about'. The Self on the other hand (as differentiated from the personality) knows itself in the same sense as a cat knows its cat-ness. Personally and impersonally. There is no thought 'about' itself, though there is silence and stillness in the completion of one's essence as Self.

You ARE doimg a lot of needless work! The bible tells us that repeatedly. Don't worry about things, for God has you covered! (You're worth more than sparrows! store treasures in heaven(don't sweat the material world!)). The understanding that God longs for you to have is one that is LESS personal! It's not about you and how you get along with your wife, or how well you do financially, or how much people like you, or what sort of work you do...all that is meaningless personal crap. All these things matter to personalities, but not to God. You do not have a truly personal relationship with God until you shed your personality (Die unto yourself!). It's this personality that gets in the way and anthropomorphizes the divine into a personality...it sees Jesus but completely misses the Christ.

relationships are subjective isolations of an infinite context. The dresser in this room has a so-called objective relationship to the bedside table by virtue of their arrangement in space and time, but that relationship is just an isolation of the relationships that those things have to the totality of existence, and the isolated relationship is sustained by the impersonal totality of existence. What makes the relationship personal is the amount of ignorance that it is founded on...seeing things as separate and isolated, and more or less important than the rest of existence. God doesn't love me more than someone else, or more than the worm wiggling on the sidewalk...it's not personal because the Love is complete.

How do you live through Christ? Does your brain go in his body? or his in yours? make some sense of this please.
Christ could die for our sins only because he could recognize and feel the totality of human suffering. He could forgive us, because he knew that we did not know what we were doing. We don't become sinless, nor enlightened, nor wise by Christ's sacrifice. Christ merely dissolved a massive part of the collective karmic burden (by his unconditional forgiveness) and gave us tools that we could use to reach heaven.

Socrates taught that the unexamined life was not worth living, meaning that one ought to try to live the best life possible. Christ gave us instruction on just how to do that when he said 'die unto yourself that you may truly live'. The personality is unable to live perfectly, because it insists unconsciously that it is God, and that it ought to be the author of one's existence. For this reason, forgiveness is totally necessary...because ignorance prevails. The personality must be surrendered in order that one can live sinlessly...Christ did it, and thus could not be differentiated from God...God's personality and Christ's personality were one and the same. When God is running the show, you don't need to be set on track over and over and over again. Enlightenment is available, but you must die unto yourself...quit seeing your personality as important. Quit thinking that you're special and that your unique qualities set you apart before God. It's an ego mechanism for perpetuating duality between man and Christ/God...a luciferic deception...an intellectual error.

Anger is not necessary for right action. If a dog attacks a baby, it is not necessary to be angry at the dog in order to take action against it. Was Christ angry at those who were hanging him? no! he forgave them for they knew not what they were doing. God needn't have anger in order to be loving. I can stop the dog while forgiving it for being overcome by its animal instincts. Believing in an angry God is yet another consequence of luciferic/intellectual deception; it is a projection of one's own ego/personality onto God. If there are cases where one feels their own anger is justified, they naturally will believe then that God could get angry too. However, anger is negative and not necessary.

So incest isn't bad to God, but what happened in Soddom and Gommorah was? Again, I'll repeat that there is just waaaay to much false representation of God in the OT.

To love chocolate, I do not need to hate or feel angry towards vanilla. It is not necessary to be angered by that which one does not love...it is not necessary to feel displeased that vanilla exists in order that I love chocolate. A God that gets angry is really screwing with us if he thinks i'll believe he's a purely loving God.

It is a mistaken view to think of things in terms of good vs. bad. When so-called punishing consequences occur, they are bad if one views them in the context of the personality getting what it wants, but good if one views them in the context of the soul's opportunity to grow in righteousness and learn from the consequences. Bad for ego freedom, good for spiritual freedom. Ultimately everything is good, because everything is an opportunity to advance one's spiritual freedom. Karma is not good vs. bad, it is the mechanism of a loving God that is aware of our immortality and of a God that will afford us infinite circumstances to learn and choose spiritual freedom.

Karma/God. Everyone is born into circumstances that are of maximum karmic benefit. It is our limited view of good and bad which precludes our ability to accept that. Our egos do not see so called 'bad' circumstances for the blessings that they can be.

You reap what you sow is from Paul's letter to the Galatians...written after Christ had died, at the time of the new covenant(between 40-50AD). Gal 6:7 "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal 6:8 "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
Sounds a lot like buddhism to me...(note that in buddhism, the cycle of reincarnation ends when one dissolves their karma. The attachment to form[the flesh] is transcended, and one ascends into a purely spiritual domain for true life everlasting[they have died unto themselves that they may truly live]).

Christ was not a personality. Even as 'through me' it means the same thing...Christ consciousness is an energy field, so to speak. At the last supper, Christ said "This is my body, which shall be given up for you". 'my body' just like 'my car' implies that Christ did not see himself as a body...he had a body, but the body has nothing to do whith the so called 'who' that Christ was. Christ was complete and total enlightenment.

No personality that is separate from God can be righteous or knowledgable as God. Duh. One must die unto themselves, and become one with God...not one apart from God. Christ was righteous. Christ understood. Christ sought God. It didn't refer to Christ though, because Christ IS God. Via enlightenment this is possible for us too. In buddhism it is taught that there is no 'one/person/individual' who achieves enlightenment...because enlightenment is the dissolution of the separate self. Die unto thyself so as to truly live.

If you break one law, you break them all, because separation from God/ignorance is all that sin is. If you are not One with God, you're a sinner, because you remain ignorant of the union between God and man.

You believe you are a body. You believe you are temporal/subject to time. You believe you are separate from God. Christ was Christ even after his body was given up. Christ was the alpha and the omega. Christ was one with God.
If you don't aspire to that, you're not aspiring to true unity with Christ.

That's not oneness and you know it.

That's community, but not unity.
 

You mean, like thinking that their own personalities are important? It's easy to see that we idolize others...but we also idolize ourselves...thinking that we can be one with God/Christ without being God/Christ.

So, commandment #2 says that you aren't allowed to worship Christ as a 'who'. There. He's not some icon/idol...he's God as God, incarnate as man, but the incarnation is not what we are to worship...

Again, as someone who is faithful to my girlfriend, I do not have to hate those who have not been faithful to her. To love chocolate, one does not have to hate vanilla. God is not jealous. The OT is full of erroneous depictions of God which are projections of the human ego upon the perfection of the Divine.

That's a sickening view of a loving father and of a loving God. To be intolerant, the Father would have to act out against the unfaithfulness. Love and violence do not, and cannot have the same source. God faces no loss of pride or status as the father does anyway. The father's ego gets bruised, but God has no ego.

so we have to die unto ourSelves...sinlessness and separateness from God are synonyms. God wouldn't give that advice to God's Self...he gives that teaching to all who see themselves as separate from God.

I was with you until the part where you say 'when I die'. If you no longer live according to the flesh, then you CAN live a sinless life. If the commandment of Christ is to 'Go and sin no more', then you should be able to go and sin no more. Christ wouldn't send people on fools' errands, would he? So long as you're a sinner, you're not one with Christ.

There is effort so long as one's will is separate from God's will. There has not been a dying unto one's self if the individual will persists. If one has died unto himself, no motivation is necessary to live sinlessly...it is the natural consequence of truly surrendering oneself to God. What would sin, if one had truly let God be the captain of one's life?

Enlightenment is sinlessness as per Christ and Buddha and Krishna and Zoroaster's states of being.

If you believe that knowing the absolute truth does not also entail having the agency to follow it, I would argue that you do not believe in a truth that is absolute. You say that there has to be a definition of good and bad...and an absolute truth would explain that...and it would also explain why the good is ALWAYS better than the bad. There could be nothing which could compel one to act against what he knew to be true. Man always chooses what he believes to be the good...the only problem is that we can't tell the difference between what we think is good and what is actually good. If we could tell that difference, we would only do good.

Do you think being devoted to Truth is different than being devoted to God?

Whew.
-Rob