Are we spirits?

[Loki]

I read in a publication just now that a guy is making the following statement:




Remember that we are spirits who have come here for a human experience, and not the other way around ...


This obviously ties in to religious views, but not necessarily. Sure, Christians believe that humans are essentially a soul/spirit (depending on the particular doctrine) that is hosted in a temporary body - and that the innermost being will continue to live on after the body has died. But also, there are people who are non-religious, and yet believe in the spirit world - and that humans are somehow special, and more than just a body with a brain and temporary consciousness.

Most atheists obviously reject this whole spiritual thing, and state that all that there is of a human perishes with death.

What are your views? I have personally not seen any evidence of life after death, and of the existence of a spirit world.

[SaxonCeorl]

I don't believe in any spiritual realm or life after death. Much of my existential beliefs are mirrored in Albert Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus." I don't believe in any objective "greater purpose," but I also think it's human instinct to try to create meaning in our lives. I don't fight my instinctual inclinations to create meaning and "purpose" in my life, but I also try to stay mindful that it's all a figment of my own mind and not some greater, objective purpose.

[Curtis24]

I believe in the continued existence of one's identity after death - the fact that we are conscious, to me, shows that we're remembering something from a future point. Like how you when you "dream" its because you remember a dream. That being said, death is probably a lot like waking up from a dream...

I also like the Buddhist idea that one's identity exists as long as one seeks fulfilment through it.

[Tomasz]

It's difficult for me to believe that there is life after death and it seems to be product of human fears. Humans don't want to die and they comfort themselves by inventing myths about some afterlife. I wish I was wrong now, but I see absolutely no rational reason to believe in life after death.

Our consciousness seems to be based on our superior brain. That's also, why we are capable of creating civilizations and art or abstract thinking. If we look at developed animals, for example certain apes are capable of many human-like behaviour. They are capable of feeling certain "higher emotions" like grief after death or the other ape, they use tools and even wage "wars" against other group of apes.

On the other hand, if we look at lower representants of Homo Sapiens, for example primitive Australian Aboriginals, then we see that they are actually closer in many respects to animal kingdom, than to Europeans. Their IQ is on average below 60. When they met Whites, they were 5000 years behind them in development. If I remember correctly, they didn't invent as much as bow and arrow and were ignorant about the fact that sexual intercourse causes pregnancy.

So as you can see, it's a smooth boundary, it's not like humans are unique. Higher animals show many human-like behaviour, lower humans show many animal-like behaviour. My conclusion is that's mainly question of brain development that caused "self-consciousness".

[Piparskeggr]

I believe that I have a motivating spirit, which animates my mind...the body is run by various chemical processes creating the needed electrical current (or my pacemaker doing the same when needed :D ).

I have had experiences that I believe and feel to be moments of Mystic transport beyond this existence, into what may be another reality altogether.

I also believe and feel that I have had some contact with what I can only describe as elements of a "Higher Consciousness," one might say they were contacts with the Holy Powers in which I have faith.

I think that these are truths for me.They are experiences, which can have validity only for me. I do not know if they are actually true, or the product of a very productive mind. If they are not, I'll never know.

However, lots of folks like the poems I write that are inspired by them. ;)

[Beorn]

All you experience is a test. Remember that the next time you weep over money.

[The Lawspeaker]

I misclicked but I do think that the spirit is something eternal as life seems to be about learning. It's quite possible that the Buddhists or other Asian religions are on to something. But I am not sure as it is a hunch.

However.. there have been plenty of occassions were people met spirits, including the spirits of deceased loves ones and I am not entirely convinced that they are just making stuff up.

It could well be that you live life in a continuous reverse, moving between several versions of your life or that you reincarnate and that some remain wondering as spirits and I think it has something to do with your life's choices. Some people feel so responsible for their family's safety and welfare that they could stay behind to watch over their loved ones. And this could be the guardian angel.

[Aemma]

Well if Sting says so, it must be true. :D

P32zf6iVCYQ

:P












I'll answer more seriously next week when I don't have so much Stella spirit in me. :D

[blan]

I think that the physical and spirit are linked, i do think that something within all living things goes on, i would like to believe that it is as simple as we die and our true inner being goes to a place of nirvana with the creator and i hope that something like that is real a heaven, but i think it is more abstract than that, one thing for certain is that there is life and life and being is a amazing thing so i dont see why there would not be a creator or a God or spiritual force that controls or is apart of life and exsistance. but life and spirit continue death is the proof of this

[Bloodeagle]

I believe in the Godhead.
The spirit is an expression of the godhead- "as above so below"!

The spirit expresses itself with a soul which in turn expresses itself with a physical body.
Our physical being lives for a while and then perishes. It then becomes the souls responsibility to clean up the mess and once the job is complete the soul is free to finally expire, releasing the spirit once more to travel through evolution back to the godhead.

I also believe in involutionary beings, "better known as angels", whose primary function is to aid and guide the spirit of man towards it's natural evolution and return home. :)

[Sally]

"Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity."

I believe we have a material body and a spiritual soul. The human body is not something that is debased; it shares in the dignity of "the image of God."

Prior to the Last Judgment, each soul will unite with its resurrected body.

[Cato]

Not certain; I've seen a lot of evidence for, but most of it is based upon a faulty worldview (i.e. that of the Christian's Bible).

[Bridie]

I think our bodies are a physical manifestation of our spirits.

[Cato]

I'm also unsure because many belief systems have an unhealthy view of the spirit and the afterlife, putting more attention on immortal bliss in some undefined realm in the ether than on trying to progress life in the, ahem, mortal realm.

To quote Tom Paine again, "I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life." If the power of heaven, which saw fit to create me, also sees fit to continue my existence when my earthly body dies, so be it. If not, and eternal sleep awaits, as Marcus Aurelius wrote that death may very well be, I won't even be aware of it.

[Cato]

A more Platonic concept of the divine might say that, for example, spirits exist in exile from the divine source (God, Monad or whatever), as the ancient gnostics used to believe. The idea is for the human being's true nature, the spirit, to escape its prison of the body and ascend back to the source. Similar to this is the concept contained in the Corpus Hermeticum, yet a definite creator figure is spoken of (Ra, I'd assume, since the visible aspect/demiurge of this creator is the sun).

A Stoic position (or one of them, the Stoics never had a unified cosmology per se) is that human beings are divine, not by virtue of their human forms, which we share with beasts, but by virtue of intellectual capacity and freedom of choice. The spirit, if I recall correctly, is merely a portion of the existence of the fiery mind of the cosmos (i.e. Zeus or Logos) and merely returns to it at the time of death, thus enriching God with the accumulated experiences of a lifetime. That's why the Stoics used to say that, when death came a-calling in whatever form (disease or old age, even suicide), that the wise man (or woman) was to hand the spirit back over to Zeus cheerfully.

The Stoic view of the spirit especially appeals to me, much moreso than the view of the spirit contained in the Bible (where the spirit is constantly under assault by tempting devils and other assorted spiritual nasties).

[Austin]

No we are not spirits. I believe there might indeed exist organisms that achieved spirit-form long ago, though in other galaxies. Humans however are made of flesh. We will rot just like a tree will rot.

[Cato]

No we are not spirits. I believe there might indeed exist organisms that achieved spirit-form long ago, though in other galaxies. Humans however are made of flesh. We will rot just like a tree will rot.

Like the Vorlons?

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

(P.S., I might be skeptical, but I am humanocentric and believe that mankind is the only sentient species in the galaxy, perhaps the entire universe- and that mankind has a Promethean destiny to bring the light of civilization and life to a "dead" cosmos.)

[Austin]

Like the Vorlons?

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


Eh perhaps, never heard of them, I don't watch TV for the most part. But I do believe if a biological entity is evolved enough it will eventually leave the primitive husks of flesh and fluid and achieve a spirit-like form and congeal with the universe and it's powers.

[Germanicus]

I believe that we evolved with a bigger brain, we harnessed the atom to do our bidding, we are a superior animal.
When we die our brain is the last thing that switches off, it is like someone turning off the light before you go to sleep, but in our case when we die our whole entity dies.

[Breedingvariety]

Arthur Schopenhauer

Short Dialogue on the Indestructibility of Our True Being by Death.

...So that, in the first sense, after death you become nothing; in the second, you are and remain everything...
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter7.html

[Liffrea]

What I do know is that I’m flesh and blood and that I have potential, that’s all I need; the only animating principle worth anything in my estimation is my will.

I think the question is really more are you afraid to simply no longer be one day? Me, I care not, do you?

As a Roman tomb stone states: I wasn't, I was, I am not, I care not.

[Fulgour]

The moment of conception is our individual "big bang" and it's all about Spirit.

Spirit needs the material world, even if just to strike the match of existence.

Mortal and Immortal are One. We are because we have been and will be...

Without the material world, the Spiritual world cannot exist. Life, goes on...

[Eldritch]

Öhdvidh F., is that you?

[Curtis24]

I've often thought of what life after death is like.

sometimes I think its just like life - but in a different spatial location. Our souls just.. go somewhere else, perhaps with a new body or our old one, and we keep living, trying to resolve the struggles we had in life.

Other times, I believe we somehow retain consciousness throught the DNA of our descendants - hence the obsession with sex and reproduction.

Who can say?

[Agrippa]

I don't believe, but, especially in times of great stress, I have "hope" to put it that way.

In general, I consider myself being agnostic, which just means that I realised for myself that I can't know, so I take everything with a pinch of salt and if it helps, one can believe a little bit in this or that, but one shouldn't change his life, especially not for irrational and in this life negative moral and ideas, for something which is unsure and even rather unlikely.

What's true should remain true and what's just and useful too, if there is a god and afterlife, only the rules of the Universe and Life itself will matter, nothing humans created in their fantasy and which makes no sense even if going after the knowledge we gained until now.

Talking about probabilities: That there is a personal god? Low. "Afterlife for our soul" - what is our "soul" - which stage of our development, which part of ourselves? Low for sure.

But as I said, I can't know, neither can you, and sometimes, if it helps in this world, believe in whatever if you want - just don't compromise the facts of this world with your fantasies in a harmful and/or irrational way!

[Osweo]

Fore there neidfaerae naenig uuiurthit
thoncsnotturra than him tharf sie
to ymbhycggannae aer his hiniongae
huaet his gastae godaes aeththa yflaes
aefter deothdaege doemid uueorthae.


[Before the unavoidable journey there, no one becomes
wiser in thought than him who, by need,
ponders, before his going hence,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his day of death, will be judged.]
- BEDE'S DEATH SONG




Cucum dom thig tissaid uile iar bar n-ecaib.


[All of you, my children, shall come to my house after your death.]
- Donn


;)

[Fortis in Arduis]

Yes, but only white people.

Srsly. :swl

[Magister Eckhart]

Reincarnation.

[Cato]

In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

You fence-sitting people need to get up offa your duffs and get with the damn program. Saying humans are just "smart animals" is to admit that humans are just apes with language and useful thumbs.

I've seen plenty of people here poo-poo on the Bible, and yet embrace un-biblical notions of humanity that make just a trumped-up ape, yet it's only the Bible that places man [potentially] on the same level as the Almighty Creator himself:

Behold, man has become like one of us [aka the Elohim/Adonim , God and the divine host], knowing good and evil.

[Austin]

Why does there have to be a god though? The universe chose our line of organism to evolve and rule this planet over all the other variants, why must we pin it all on a father-like god figure? Isn't the universe as a natural selector a much greater god and or force than we could ever possibly dream up and put down in a book? I see my god every time I look up in the sky at night, the universe, which selected my species to dominate this planet as I'm sure it has selected numerous others to dominate other planets.

[Cato]

Why does there have to be a god though? The universe chose our line of organism to evolve and rule this planet over all the other variants, why must we pin it all on a father-like god figure? Isn't the universe as a natural selector a much greater god and or force than we could ever possibly dream up and put down in a book? I see my god every time I look up in the sky at night, the universe, which selected my species to dominate this planet as I'm sure it has selected numerous others to dominate other planets.

Austin, you put "Christian" as your religion.

If you question the existence of God as a Christian, especially of the Abba of Jesus..... :confused:

Put "Deist" then, for no one who accepts the Bible as writ (even allegorical writ) can not think of God as anything but father, friend, king, lord, etc. and not an abstract deistical concept like Einstein's god.

[Austin]

Austin, you put "Christian" as your religion.

If you question the existence of God as a Christian, especially of the Abba of Jesus..... :confused:

Put "Deist" then, for no one who accepts the Bible as writ (even allegorical writ) can not think of God as anything but father, friend, king, lord, etc. and not an abstract deistical concept like Einstein's god.


No I live in a world where to reach the levels I want in life it is in my best interest to profess to be Christian so I do. I'd never hurt myself or my family over a trivial belief system that I know in the end is a crutch and a lie. I have to work within the primitive belief/thought system I reside in but that doesn't mean I am actually what my name tag says I am. I'm more moral than most religious people I've ever met in terms of my past actions in life compared to theirs. My conscience is clear. I can play a religious person very well, I know the customs, the politics, the good and bad guys. I do just fine.

[Cato]

No I live in a world where to reach the levels I want in life it is in my best interest to profess to be Christian so I do. I'd never hurt myself or my family over a trivial belief system that I know in the end is a crutch and a lie. I have to work within the primitive belief/thought system I reside in but that doesn't mean I am actually what my name tag says I am. I'm more moral than most religious people I've ever met in terms of my past actions in life compared to theirs. My conscience is clear. I can play a religious person very well, I know the customs, the politics, the good and bad guys. I do just fine.

Change your forum's religious affiliation then; speak plainly [on religious matters] or not at all. :)

[Austin]

Change your forum's religious affiliation then; speak plainly [on religious matters] or not at all. :)


It isn't a religious matter as there is no religion in reality. We are talking basically about texts in books/scrolls/tablets written by hundreds of people over many years and edited/interpreted constantly.

I am speaking plainly lol it just isn't to your liking. I am not deceiving anyone. I am the most common type of religious person there is ironically, the one who has to hide the fact that they aren't one to begin with. Most people aren't serious about religion, they do it due to pressure and to stay respectable.

[Psychonaut]

Why does there have to be a god though? The universe chose our line of organism to evolve and rule this planet over all the other variants, why must we pin it all on a father-like god figure? Isn't the universe as a natural selector a much greater god and or force than we could ever possibly dream up and put down in a book? I see my god every time I look up in the sky at night, the universe, which selected my species to dominate this planet as I'm sure it has selected numerous others to dominate other planets.

:nod:

If all is sentient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism) and all is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism) holy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism), then it makes much more sense for nature's teleology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology) to come from within and be self-directed rather than to come from an external puppet master. When the same givens are applied to Loki's original question, we can say that we are not "spirits who will live on after bodily death," (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_%28philosophy_of_mind%29) nor is "our consciousness...contained in our perishable bodies only." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism) Rather, that mind, or mind-like quality, is common to all, so that death results not in the cessation of mind, but in the transformation of mind.

[Brynhild]

I voted yes, and I've elaborated on my beliefs in this regard elsewhere in other posts. While I can't necessarily know for sure whether there is life after death, it really doesn't matter. I'd rather like to think that there's somewhere better to go after living this hell on Earth. I've always upheld the notion that we reincarnate, living many lives so we may carry valuable lessons from the previous life, and learn from them until we've mastered those lessons.

[Cato]

It isn't a religious matter as there is no religion in reality. We are talking basically about texts in books/scrolls/tablets written by hundreds of people over many years and edited/interpreted constantly.

I am speaking plainly lol it just isn't to your liking. I am not deceiving anyone. I am the most common type of religious person there is ironically, the one who has to hide the fact that they aren't one to begin with. Most people aren't serious about religion, they do it due to pressure and to stay respectable.

I was being a bit of a wiseass last night. :D

But, I try to take belief in the divine seriously, even if my religious affiliations aren't easy to pin down.

[Cato]

The human form, the body, is composed of physical matter. The Stoics, I believe, said that we're very similar in form and function to lower life, animals and such, but that we also had commonalities with vegetables, plants, and whatnot. The only way in which humans differ is also the most important: humankind's kinship to Zeus/God, who gives them the faculty of choice, free will, and so forth. Mankind's intellectual prowess is, itself, divine. God is Mind in this view, and mankind is a "thinking animal to the Stoics, one who has to live in harmony with nature.

The Bible also indicates that mankind has a biological existence like that of animals, but with the especial component of a spirit/soul. God created man's physical form firstly and, after this, he put his spirit into man ("Adam") and then mankind became a living creature. It's interesting to see the obvious, that man's physical body predated his actual rise to sentience (when God "breathed the breath of life" into him). I haven't seen too many people comment on this aspect of the creation myth in Genesis. In the Bible, mankind is the crowning achievement of creation, intended to rule over nature (as its caretaker and guardian), and to be like God- that is creating and working on earth as a partner with the divine. People tend to think that this means the domination and exploitation of nature or somesuch, but it's not as crass as that (i.e. Adam was put in Eden as a caretaker and tiller, not as a slash-and-burn farmer).

[Don]

Last evidences about this "futile" matter of soul/self/conscience:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SDF1ugkGL.jpg

An extract of a recent interview of the portuguese.




LEHRER: I think many readers will be surprised that, in your attempt to explain the mystery of consciousness, you begin with discussions of the body. Why, as you write, is “the body the foundation of the conscious mind”? And why does the brain stem, this most ancient of brain areas, play such an important role in consciousness?

DAMASIO: That is where having an evolutionary perspective comes in handy. Why do we have a brain in the first place? Not to write books, articles, or plays; not to do science or play music. Brains develop because they are an expedient way of managing life in a body. And why do we, by now, have brains that make minds with selves — conscious minds? Because minds and selves increase the management power of brains; because they permit a better adaptation of a complex organism to complex environments. In other words, organisms equipped with brains, minds and self were selected by evolution because such organisms had better chances of survival, and, eventually, chances of survival with well-being.

The emphasis on the brain stem is closely related to the star role that the body plays in my account of minds and selves. The brain stem nuclei hold the principles and the rules required to manage life in our bodies. The cerebral cortex, on the other hand, ends up helping the organism manage life, according to those principles. That is the heart of the matter, really!

[Austin]

Every time I begin to question my lack of faith I go outside on a clear night and look up. That about does it for me. I don't see anything in the Bible or Koran or any other religious text or dogma that even begins to rival what I see when I look up on a clear night into the universe.

I'll side with whatever entity/power created all that above me in the night sky over whoever created those religious books and doctrines any day.

[Cato]

Every time I begin to question my lack of faith I go outside on a clear night and look up. That about does it for me. I don't see anything in the Bible or Koran or any other religious text or dogma that even begins to rival what I see when I look up on a clear night into the universe.

I'll side with whatever entity/power created all that above me in the night sky over whoever created those religious books and doctrines any day.

A deist then.

A good Christian would accept the Bible as writ.

A good pagan would accept the Theogonia of Hesiod as writ.

A good heathen would accept the Havamal as writ.

A good deist would accept The Age of Reason as writ.

So, for you, are you nebulous or... Willing to take a stand for a certain kind of writ? I own copies of all four books mind you..

[Óttar]

A good pagan would accept the Theogonia of Hesiod as writ.

Would he? 'Pagans' didn't have Holy Books as such.

[Cato]

Would he? 'Pagans' didn't have Holy Books as such.

Why did the ancient ones accept the Iliad and Odyssey as writ then, hm? These are books moderns pass off as legendary yarns nowadays.

Are the modern pagans somehow superior to their ancient counterparts and forefathers?

[Osweo]

Why did the ancient ones accept the Iliad and Odyssey as writ then, hm? These are books moderns pass off as legendary yarns nowadays.

You can't compare Heathens and their Lore or Hellenes and their Epics, with the Jews and their Books.

The Jews and their offshoots are a very peculiar thing, and shouldn't be taken as a model with which to look at the wider world. Nobody but the Abrahamists are the 'People of the Book'. You understand 'writ' or Scripture in a way that is only really appropriate to them. There ARE Heathens who try to make their religion conform to this same pattern, but you can see on this very forum that they meet with a great deal of resistance from their peers.

[Óttar]

Why did the ancient ones accept the Iliad and Odyssey as writ then, hm?
Again I say, "Did they?" They most likely regarded them as high literature, but as divine writ? I'm sure opinions would have varied from person to person. Homer wasn't handed them down straight from Zeus. Homer is himself legendary being probably a composite of authors.

[Psychonaut]

Nobody but the Abrahamists are the 'People of the Book'.

Well...

The way Hindus treat the Vedas is comparable. Why we don't see that kind of textually based orthodoxy with any other branches of IE polytheisms is very interesting though.

[Osweo]

Well...

The way Hindus treat the Vedas is comparable. Why we don't see that kind of textually based orthodoxy with any other branches of IE polytheisms is very interesting though.

The Aryans were shitting themselves. They knew they were doomed to be swallowed up in the brown masses of Dravidians and Mundans. So they responded by getting very protective of their traditions and blood, giving the Vedas and the castes. None of the rest of us were in such a situation.

I don't know enough about the Hindus to really discuss it, but I'm sure there are great qualitative differences between their stuff and the Jews'.

(Might it perhaps be more comparable to the Psalms alone?)

[Wyn]

Well...

The way Hindus treat the Vedas is comparable. Why we don't see that kind of textually based orthodoxy with any other branches of IE polytheisms is very interesting though.

I'll stay out of this conversation for the most part (because I don't know enough about Hinduism to talk about it to any great extent), but the manner in which Hindus and Buddhists often quote their texts and adhere to what is written in their canon(s) has always seemed very similar to me to the Jewish, Christian etc reverence for scripture.

[Cato]

You can't compare Heathens and their Lore or Hellenes and their Epics, with the Jews and their Books.

The Jews and their offshoots are a very peculiar thing, and shouldn't be taken as a model with which to look at the wider world. Nobody but the Abrahamists are the 'People of the Book'. You understand 'writ' or Scripture in a way that is only really appropriate to them. There ARE Heathens who try to make their religion conform to this same pattern, but you can see on this very forum that they meet with a great deal of resistance from their peers.

See my PM. :)

[Psychonaut]

...I'm sure there are great qualitative differences between their stuff and the Jews'.

(Might it perhaps be more comparable to the Psalms alone?)

Right, content wise there's a tremendous difference. In both groups, we can separate the literature into three groups:
Poetic accounts of hierophanies (Psalms for the Christians, the Vedas for the Hindus)
Mythic tales or the origin and fate of man and the universe (Genesis and Revelation for the Christians, the Purāṇas for the Hindus)
Histories of the folk and epics of the folk-heroes (Exodus, Chronicles, the Synoptic Gospels etc. for the Christians, the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa for the Hindus)
While both groups have the same types of texts and consider them sacred, the difference lies in the importance placed upon them. Jews and Christians intermingle all three groups together and consider the whole to be equally sacrosanct. Hindus only take the Vedas as the foundation of orthodoxy.

[Magister Eckhart]

A good heathen would accept the Havamal as writ.


I've been trying to convince a lot of Heathens of this for quite some time now...

Most don't want to accept an infallible scripture for a variety of reasons (none of which are especially good), and trying to convince them that the Gods are actually speaking through the text (making it, as you say, "writ") is often an exercise in futility.

[Piparskeggr]

As a longtime Asatruar, I do accept that the Holy Powers in which I believe have sent inspirations to the writers and poets who left use written Lore.

I accept them as Writ, while keeping in mind that men were the intermediaries in expressing the thoughts...

[Austin]

A deist then.

A good Christian would accept the Bible as writ.

A good pagan would accept the Theogonia of Hesiod as writ.

A good heathen would accept the Havamal as writ.

A good deist would accept The Age of Reason as writ.

So, for you, are you nebulous or... Willing to take a stand for a certain kind of writ? I own copies of all four books mind you..


Well perhaps a deist but internally I doubt it. I know for a fact that I would profess to an alien no to the question of was there really a human-like god or not. I really do not believe there is any one entity that is responsible for our or any other worlds inhabitants. If the universe (nature) can be considered a god then I suppose one could argue that but I really don't view the universe or nature as a god. More as an indifferent facilitator with no hub of decision stuck on go which frequently renews itself through destruction and rebirth.

As I see it religion/gods belittle the actual world we reside in, not make it better or deeper. I don't need scripted morality in order to be moral. If you do then you are a weak entity on multiple levels both in intelligence and morality.

Religion in the civilized world functions as a social service in the form of funerals, weddings, holidays, and other forms of social facilitators which grease the wheels of society. Very few in the civilized world still believe there is a god-like figure watching their every move. If I can get my 65 year old Catholic grandmother to admit this as well as my conservative, workaholic parents then I know that there is no god. Deep down most have accepted it as a social facilitator at best and at worst an outright deception and or hurdle for humanity to overcome. Zealots and the hardcore believers are far and few in-between today if you remove the public opportunists and scam artists/sales persons you are left with very few who don't seriously have doubts about god and religion. You then have to ask, if they have real doubts, is that really belief or mere adherence?

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Austin
Why does there have to be a god though?

Because there are men.

God(s) are as intrinsic to man as thought or language. All 40K fans know the Emperor (beloved by all) tried to create a galaxy spanning secular empire run by science and logic, didn’t stop humanity worshipping him as the God-Emperor of Mankind.

Man projects man onto the world. No God(s) exist beyond the wildest imagination of man, come back a million years from now (if humanity, or rather the post-humans who will be our descendents are still around) and we will probably create pocket universes for children’s birthday presents, how omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient we will be. Just look at what we have achieved and are developing now.


The universe chose our line of organism to evolve and rule this planet over all the other variants, why must we pin it all on a father-like god figure?

In the world of experience and phenomenon (which is the only world anyone can state categorically exists) the universe is energy (matter being simply “pinched” or concentrated energy) it would be difficult to ascribe any concept of choice, there are laws that underpin it, one doesn’t need a god(s) to understand the orbit of a world or the rotation of a galaxy. Likewise we do not need to postulate a god(s) to explain the development of life on earth, its complexity and evolution.

Of course one can argue about why there is a universe in the first place but even then I would be uncomfortable imposing human emotions and concepts such as choice, love, hate etc onto it. The universe is, that much we know, we can also be reasonably certain that our understanding of it will always be inadequate, our senses that allow us to experience and witness phenomenon are wholly unable to take in the world in our garden in its entirety, let alone come to an understanding of all that stuff out there.


Isn't the universe as a natural selector a much greater god and or force than we could ever possibly dream up and put down in a book?

Natural selection is a simple process, that doesn’t mean we don’t ascribe human qualities to it, even the best scientist can lapse and project a purpose onto it, which is entirely understandable given we naturally seek patterns.

Of course we should also be wise enough to know that many have replaced religion with science, which is entirely inadequate and loses the point of both.

The universe may well be (to start using anthropomorphic terms) “cold” “indifferent” “hostile” “unfeeling” without “purpose” “goal” or “aim” but humans quite clearly require purpose, aims and goals.

We may well create the God(s) we need but that doesn’t make the creation foolish. Man needs God(s) I’m more convinced of this than ever. Personally I follow Woden/Odin, I’m not convinced Odin is out there but I know he is in here (taps head) as all God(s) are (we can agree on that much) regardless of how you else you choose to see it.


I see my god every time I look up in the sky at night, the universe, which selected my species to dominate this planet as I'm sure it has selected numerous others to dominate other planets.

Humanity has always looked to the stars, why not, we, ultimately, were born there. I remember a panic attack I had when I tried to grasp the concept of actually being composed of elements that were spewed out from a dying sun billions of years ago (technically not all the elements but certainly the heavier elements like iron) those are the moments when I’m struggling both for air and comprehension that I love life most. When I ponder what humanity could become where our imagination (what is heaven if it isn’t the place of everything possible) will lead us. Are the Gods not sign posts for that future?

Edit:

For Ottar:

non fui, fui, non sum, non curo (I was not, I was, I am not, I care not)

[Nodens]

Well...

The way Hindus treat the Vedas is comparable. Why we don't see that kind of textually based orthodoxy with any other branches of IE polytheisms is very interesting though.

The painfully obvious answer that all seem to have missed is that the Kalash folkway is the only other non-reconstructed IE polytheist system left in existence.

[Psychonaut]

The painfully obvious answer that all seem to have missed is that the Kalash folkway is the only other non-reconstructed IE polytheist system left in existence.

:confused:

While the Kalash are fucking rad...

How is Hinduism not polytheistic? The strong idealistic monism of Advaita Vedānta is hardly the rule. The folk religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_Hinduism) of India is just as polytheistic as it was two thousand years ago. The pre-Upaniṣadic Śrauta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrauta) ritualists still hail the uber-ancient Gods of the Rig Veda that have been cast aside by the scholarly traditions. And, even among the scholastic schools, monism is not the rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra), nor do many of the monistic schools say that there is not a plurality of Gods—only that they are not ontologically primary.

[Cato]

Because there are men.

God(s) are as intrinsic to man as thought or language. All 40K fans know the Emperor (beloved by all) tried to create a galaxy spanning secular empire run by science and logic, didn’t stop humanity worshipping him as the God-Emperor of Mankind.

The Emperor also didn't want to be worshipped as a deity, being the first of a new race of psychic humans. At least this is what I recall from the retcon. It was only after he got stuffed in the Golden Throne that he came to be worshipped as a deity by the Imperium.

[Nodens]

:confused:

While the Kalash are fucking rad...

How is Hinduism not polytheistic? The strong idealistic monism of Advaita Vedānta is hardly the rule. The folk religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_Hinduism) of India is just as polytheistic as it was two thousand years ago. The pre-Upaniṣadic Śrauta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrauta) ritualists still hail the uber-ancient Gods of the Rig Veda that have been cast aside by the scholarly traditions. And, even among the scholastic schools, monism is not the rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra), nor do many of the monistic schools say that there is not a plurality of Gods—only that they are not ontologically primary.

I should have expounded further. My point was that Hinduism is the only non-reconstructed IE polytheist folkway (excepting, of course, the Kalash). Other branches are incapable of displaying such text-based orthodoxy by virtue of their near non-existence. Vedic folkways are unique in that they have an older literary tradition, considerably older written texts and a largely unbroken history, whereas the only Western branches that could have realistically established a cannon prior to Christian subversion were the Roman and Hellenic.

Aside note: It is interesting that Zoroastrianism (Eastern IE monotheism) also developed said orthodoxy, so it may be an Aryan idiosyncrasy, but historical disruption in Europe renders the judgment difficult at best.

[Psychonaut]

I should have expounded further. My point was that Hinduism is the only non-reconstructed IE polytheist folkway (excepting, of course, the Kalash). Other branches are incapable of displaying such text-based orthodoxy by virtue of their near non-existence. Vedic folkways are unique in that they have an older literary tradition, considerably older written texts and a largely unbroken history, whereas the only Western branches that could have realistically established a cannon prior to Christian subversion were the Roman and Hellenic.

You might actually say that the Hellenes did establish a canon, now that I think about it. It might be that in ancient Greece and Rome, "educated pagans looked to philosophy, not religion, for enlightenment. Their saints and luminaries were philosophers of antiquity as Plato, Pythagoras and Epictetus."[1] And indeed, can we not, view the Western philosophy as a lengthy series of hermeneutics on the texts of Plato and Aristotle? As Whitehead wrote, "there is no doctrine put forward which cannot cite in its defense some explicit statement of...Plato and Aristotle."[2] Or even that "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that is consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."[3] Of course, the tradition of Pagan philosophy went into hibernation after Proclus and was co-opted by the church, so it never got the chance to fully develop in Greece like it did in India.

Notes:
1. Karen Armstrong, A History of God, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), 92.
2. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected ed., (New York: The Free Press, 1985), 39.
3. Ibid., xi.

[Osweo]

I should have expounded further. My point was that Hinduism is the only non-reconstructed IE polytheist folkway (excepting, of course, the Kalash). Other branches are incapable of displaying such text-based orthodoxy by virtue of their near non-existence. Vedic folkways are unique in that they have an older literary tradition, considerably older written texts and a largely unbroken history, whereas the only Western branches that could have realistically established a cannon prior to Christian subversion were the Roman and Hellenic.

Aside note: It is interesting that Zoroastrianism (Eastern IE monotheism) also developed said orthodoxy, so it may be an Aryan idiosyncrasy, but historical disruption in Europe renders the judgment difficult at best.

aBOUT textual traditions and IE religious 'survivors', and Arya in particular; as a minor footnote, the echoes of pre-Christianism are pretty strong among the Ossets too, who didn't go the way of the Persians with their weird arse-over-heels religious dualism. Again, as among the Kalash, we see a rather ruder sort of religion, lacking in the literacy that this thread's gone on to concentrate upon. ..... How much of the Osset stuff is available in English, I wonder? I have a book of their legends in Russian. Has this material been ignored so far in the Anglophonium?

[Stygian Cellarius]

Hmm, does my consciousness continue to exist after death?

My intuition tells me Yes.

Although, I possess no confidence in either possibility.

If however, consciousness is not destroyed with the body. I reason that it would take a very different form or mode of expression than what we experience now. I believe the probability of retaining the same mode of cogitation is very low, e.g. thinking as we do now, but just separated from the body.

The structure of our consciousness is survival based. Almost all psychological behavior can be traced to some evolutionary raison d'etre. Reason for being where? HERE! In THIS reality! All of those attributes of the mind would no longer have a reason for being in a non-material context (assuming it's non-material and we don't just awake in a new material plane).

The psychological phenomenon of love, I believe, would not exist. Love has a very clear reason for being that is based on survival in THIS reality, viz. the establishment of a non-physical bond between parent and an offspring that requires non-abandonment during a vulnerable ex utero developmental stage.
Until Love was necessary from an evolutionary POV, it did not exist in reality and would not exist after this reality ceased to be the context of Being. Love, along with most other psychological phenomena are based on this reality's particular configuration.

Our minds were sculpted according to the threats and needs of surviving on Earth, with these Laws of physics. Those parameters are extremely important to the form anything will assume when born into existence and not just the physical bodies, but the psychological counterpart as well.

You may think: but what about reasoning abilities or just plan ole awareness?

Ultimately, this is the question that requires asking: what do we have X (psychological attribute) for and is it applicable not-here?
Now of course, in order to answer the second part you would need to know what "not-here" is like, which we have no knowledge of. All we can do is try to deduce some things based on probabilities. Like: Is the "not-here" reality configured just like here? Which we can answer in the negative with a high degree of confidence because what would be the point of two identical realities that one moves through? Then why leave this one! Therefore, the probability of it being different is greater than it being the same. So we have just acquired some knowledge of "not-here" (btw, isn't it interesting how we can learn something about someplace we have zero knowldge of, if it even exists?). Although, unfortunately, that is the best we are going to do with our degrees of confidence, or probabilities. All others that you may discover will be lower grade probabilites, but you can come up with different solutions for different scenarios. Like IF you assume a non-physical form then you can deduce 'this and that' about consciousness. Or if there are not threats then you can deduce some other things about the state of ones consciousness, etc...

[alexandra]

there's no magic involved here. our bodies are mainly composed of water, and when we die, we will be recycled end echoed through nature's process as water is rained upon the earth, soaked into the soil, and serving as plant nourishment. we will take part in photosynthesis, take form of a monsoon, and serve as dinner for worms, catalysts for fertile soil and balanced ecosystems. you die, just like any other animal. there is nothing after. do you remember being in the womb?

the point of life is to celebrate and enjoy your living life and leave your mark upon the world to carry on your existence through eternity, or as long as possible.

this of course, is just my opinion.

i thought this was fairly interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet