I was theistic agnostic most of my life (despite being brought up protestant). Over the course of my self-discovery of religious beliefs, I finally concluded that I was Pantheistic.

When I finally made that decision, I wrote the following:

My religious views are Pantheism,

The Universe is God. It's language is math. It's humor is irony. It's currency is karma. It can communicate with us through chance or physics. It creates things of awe inspiring beauty from chaos and our existence implies it's existence. It is what I most revere.

---

Figured I'd share.

Nicely put and I like the description of your view of Pantheism, Aetherius Rimor.

Even though I am an open and pragmatic agnostic person, I love the idea of Pantheism and the follow up of that with "all is one, one is all".

I love to philosophize along the lines of:
* Will the total be more as the sum of it's parts?
* If the total is more as the sum of it's parts, can some 'total' systems be more as others?
* If the total is more as the sum of it's parts, what will the total universe be for an omni-complex deity?

Also the holographic principle and fractals come to mind when I think about Pantheism, since to me they are a statement of how infinity can be and how omni-complex things might be formed out of seemingly simple patterns/algorithms.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

This is where I find myself too. After many journeys, trips and even more sober reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the Universe is God... and I am the Universe.

..the Traveler wrote:
..isn't this a bit like the paradox of the Infinite Set..?
if we (or consciousness) makes a set of all things, then this set itself becomes a new thing, requiring the craetion of a new set of 'everything', and so on to infinity (omega)
..no wonder historically suggested 'omni-complex deities' are usually described as 'incomprehensible' by ordinary mind..
.

Beautiful description.



For me, when I use the term Pantheism, I have three meanings.


First of all, the everything is god, everything is conscious. A basic statement of animism.

Second of all, a belief and respect for all the gods.

Thirdly there is Pan himself. Horned god, Wild Man, Green Man, Animus Mundi. Crowley said it well:



Hymn to Pan




Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man ! My man !
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan ! Io Pan .
Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady !
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and styrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me,
Coem with Apollo in bridal dress
(Spheperdess and pythoness)
Come with Artemis, silken shod,
And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God,
In the moon, of the woods, on the marble mount,
The dimpled dawn of of the amber fount !
Dip the purple of passionate prayer
In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare,
The soul that startles in eyes of blue
To watch thy wantoness weeping through
The tangled grove, the gnarled bole
Of the living tree that is spirit and soul
And body and brain -come over the sea,
(Io Pan ! Io Pan !)
Devil or god, to me, to me,
My man ! my man !
Come with trumpets sounding shrill
Over the hill !
Come with drums low muttering
From the spring !
Come with flute and come with pipe !
Am I not ripe ?
I, who wait and writhe and wrestle
With air that hath no boughs to nestle
My body, weary of empty clasp,
Strong as a lion, and sharp as an asp-
Come, O come !
I am numb
With the lonely lust of devildom.
Thrust the sword through the galling fetter,
All devourer, all begetter;
Give me the sign of the Open Eye
And the token erect of thorny thigh
And the word of madness and mystery,
O pan ! Io Pan !
Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Pan Pan ! Pan,
I am a man:
Do as thou wilt, as a great god can,
O Pan ! Io Pan !
Io pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Iam awake
In the grip of the snake.
The eagle slashes with beak and claw;
The gods withdraw:
The great beasts come, Io Pan ! I am borne
To death on the horn
Of the Unicorn.
I am Pan ! Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan !
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold , I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world without end.
Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan ! Io Pan !


Aleister Crowley



As you may have guessed, Pan has long been a favored god of mine. Love the guy. Thus when I use the term pantheist I mean to say that I feel like everything is conscious, I also have many gods and respect the existance of more dieties and entities still, and that I have a special reverence and adoration for the horned horny gawd Pan Pan Pan.

this along with so many other reason,s is why i love the nexus...BEAUTIFUL!!

I also found pantheism to be a natural conception, but I had to broaden it as my realizations about the Universe and Divinity expanded.

I just posted about it in the other thread here, but I would have to say that panentheism is even closer to my beliefs and experiences. It differs from pantheism in that whereas pantheism is the belief that G*d is all and all is G*d (usually interpreted as the G*d is the Universe idea)... panentheism asserts that the G*d is the Universe, but also beyond it, so that the Universe takes place inside of G*d who is both immanent and transcendent.

Some people say this is hair splitting, but it is a fundamental difference.

Also, since my belief is in a multi-dimensional, multiverse with truly infinite numbers of universes and alternate timelines of each one... it is more of a G*d is the Omniverse idea rather than a G*d is the Universe.

After all, G*d (however you define that) exists in Hyperspace, and that place certainly doesn't seem to be any part of the 3D+ 1 material universe we observe in our so-called "consensual" waking lives. If anything G*d is more immanent there than here.

Awe, you beat me to it! I was gonna say, I personally like the way Panentheism sounds a little better. Here is a website that I think explains it rather eloquently:

http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/panentheism.html

I really enjoyed the OP's description though, but I'd take it one step further and say that the Omniverse is God.

edit: Damn, you beat me to the Omniverse part too!! Lol.. You know what they say...

^ ;-)

Something about great minds...

Thanks for that link. Was mos def a worthy explanation of the concept.

I'm in the same boat as Hyperspace Fool. Originally raised in charismatic Christianity, rebelled into atheism, realized that was pretty harsh and in a way just as closeminded as Christianity (in the opposite direction), so I broadened that to agnosticism. Then I started using psychedelics and reevaluated myself as a Pantheist, and within the last year, after a lot of heavy DMT and mushroom use, really pushing [read: dissolving] the boundaries, I came to the conclusion that Panentheism is where it's at.

Hearing others espouse these sentiments really warms my heart. The Universe is God and I am the Universe and You are Me and We are They and Everything is One!

I think the Universe is a machine for building Gods.

Our discussion continues here as you wished, Hyperspace Fool. For anyone interested, see the previous posts of this discussion here.



Of course not. It is logically impossible to prove a negative, so it would be strange if I had somehow disproved anything. However, I have tried to show through science why we don't consider the universe to be intelligent as a whole, why it is doesn’t exhibit complex properties, such as life, at large scales, why it doesn't seem to be fine-tuned and why we don't assume it is intelligently designed. Scientists goes where the data takes them, and right now data doesn't take is in your direction. We could be wrong, but it doesn't seem so for the time being. This is the most honest we can get.



How, exactly, is everything I have said an argument for your case, instead of against it? I find it strange how you can turn all my arguments on its head like this.

Self-organization is not a mark of intelligence, why would it be? In his book "The Self-Made Tapestry", Philip Ball provides many examples of pattern formation in nature that makes a strong case against the belief that mindless natural processes are unable to account for the complexity we observe around us. Many patterns observed in biological systems can also be found in nonliving systems, and they are understood by elementary, reductionist physics. This too, should provide some antidote to the belief that some special holistic or nonreductionistive processes are needed to account for life. Complex systems do not need complex rules to originate from simple origins. Note that nowhere does this make life less incredible, I think it’s magnificent and I am baffled by it, but it makes us understand it without inserting some intelligent agent into the process. It’s just not needed or suggested by data.



Perhaps then, you can tell me why even random elements, for example atoms moving randomly around in a gas, can be considered a type of intelligence? Perhaps I have misunderstood you all along and we've been talking over eachothers heads, if so is the case then an explanation from you (preferably a little thourough) might remove these misunderstandings.

For example, I wonder, how can a rock rolling down the hill be considered a type of intelligence? What does the rock "pick out or discern"? It just rolls mindlessly down the hill because of known natural laws, and the atomic structure of the rock is also understood by reductionist physical and chemical laws and processes. I just have a seriously hard time considering this as anywhere near intelligence, or anywhere near being an implication of design by some G*d or intelligent force of some sort. In principle, nothing different is going on inside cells neither, just mechanical and natural things governed by the known laws of our universe. Things happening out of necessity (cause and effect) and out of randomness. We still understand very little, yes, but we keep understanding more and more every day through this picture, and nowhere do we need to insert intelligent design, G*d or anything.

Also, how can the mindlessly and purely reductionistic process of chemical reactions to form new substances be considered intelligent or designed? How can the completely random processes of quantum mechanics be understood to be intelligent or designed? These phenomena are also what constitutes everything we see around us, but the macrocosmos behaves in a rather deterministic way given by the law of large numbers. What about rolling a dice and getting a number? What is being picked out or discerned in quantum mechanics or the rolling of a dice? How is this intelligent design? How is this at all intelligent?

How is stellar nucleosynthesis intelligent or intelligently designed? What happens is, after all, that when a star has burned up its hydrogen it begins to contract as there is not enough gas pressure to balance gravity out. This results in a rise of temperature because the pressure is rising – a natural consequence of contraction. Thus it is possible for completely random moving nuclei to undergo processes so that they fuse together to heavier nuclei. What goes on here is incredible, sure, but there is no guiding force or design here. These things happens naturally and are very well understood by reductionist physics.

Moreover, certainly intelligence is understood to be a little more complex than just an ability to “pick out or discern”? Everywhere I read it is certainly so. What does that even mean, “pick out or discern”?.



I would like to see this data that indicates gas clouds and nebulae being living systems with intelligence. Can you find them somewhere for me, please? Sounds very interesting =)

I don’t think I am overshooting current scientific understanding, because all I am saying and trying to show here is that there is no reason to assume intelligent design and fine-tuning in our universe.

I have also already said that we probably find life and intelligence elsewhere in the universe, and I have already said that many organisms on earth exhibit some traits of intelligence. I have just attacked your claim that the universe is literally teeming with intelligence, or that it is intelligent in itself, or being intelligently designed or fine-tuned for complexity and life. Because it is not, as I have shown through many examples.

I think perhaps you are working with such a broad definition of intelligence, pretty far away from how we generally work with it, that it becomes rather meaningless. It’s like defining death to be something completely different than consensus, just so you can talk about how there is no such thing as death, or whatever else your fancy. Most scientists (unless religious) will not agree that the universe is intelligently designed neither, there has even been made pretty many strong cases by good scientists against intelligent design.

For the record, dark matter is not an unproven theory, mister. You should get your facts straightened up, because dark matter is confirmed by data. It is also not correct that data doesn’t back up atheism, because it does. Data is completely consistent without the need for theism, deism, Taoism or animism. It’s not needed, and in fact much data directly contradicts common notions in Theism, animism and certain traits of Taoism (for example the concept of Qi) and Deism (such as the fact that reason and observation reveals a God created universe). At any rate, there is no need to insert these concepts from these faiths onto the data, so who is really projecting their wishes here? Atheists such as myself, on the contrary, just examines the data as it is without the need for unfounded assumptions that are not needed to explain or suggested by what we see. The second the data suggests otherwise, we’ll honestly and rationally go where it points.



Red herring? Come on. If we live in a multiverse amongst 10^500 other universes with different parameters of physics (as suggested by string theory), we just – quite obviously since we’re here - happen to live in the one that have the specific parameters that are suited for our kind of life and complexity. Where does intelligent design come in if we accept this picture? Anyway, I was just being illustrative, showing that one of our controversial theories can suggest such a picture and how this gets us out of the way of fine-tuning and intelligent design.

But as I showed you in the last post, we can just look at our own universe to find that there is no fine-tuning here, and my example of gravity and electromagnetism doesn’t speak to complexity or design, it speaks to the fact that these parameters are not fine-tuned. Period. It is also a matter of fact that many of the parameters of physics that have a concrete effect on our universe can vary greatly, without even eliminating the possibility of life as we know it. How, then, are they fine-tuned?

What the hell does the Bible have to do with this?



Your example of mice is perfectly illustrative of a possibility, but why claim that this in fact is the case when you can't possibly know, as you did earlier? Why even assume that this is correct? The same applies to the fact that we could in principle be living inside the dream of a bacteria inside the ass of a cow, or any other metaphysical varieties, without knowing - but there is no reason to assume it is so, and it's even more absurd to claim it is so.



Again, the process of natural selection and random mutations, as well as the naturally ocurring Self-Organization (which is not intelligent, and certainly not guided) account for the complexity we see. Evolution is not understood to be intelligent, evolution is not understood to be driven by anything else than... evolution itself! No intelligent design is going on here. Why do you insist it is? It is a mindless, mechanistic as well as random process of nature, with no final goals or anything. Besides, poor design speaks against intelligent design quite clearly - how could it not? If it were intelligent design however, then whomever or whatever that is guiding it is not very intelligent...



Well, you keep refering to that science can't answer this or that as if it were constituting an argument for your beliefs. It doesn't, and I have so many times given reasons for why it doesn't already in several discussions on the nexus. And again, your personal experiences are not enough for drawing valid conclusions about how the universe actually works. You could so easily be wrong when you base your beliefs and claims on your personal experiences! You even admit yourself personal experiences can be so severely misguiding, but somehow you don't seem very critical to a very spesific set of them.

If I came up to you saying I could fly, and I severely believed this to be the case, and I proceeded to jump out of the window from the top of a building... would you not say I was wrong and hallucinating, and that I would get hurt or even die if I did this? Would you not stop me? I think you would. Another example; if Elvis visited me in my living room, would you not assume I was tripping balls or being psychotic? The examples are many, but the main point is that you are ready to judge certain experiences as being evidently wrong and hallucinatory, while you are ready to consider a spesific set of experiences as not. You're just drawing a completely arbitrary line here..

I'm sorry but you are a sad, sad individual. Who are you really trying to convince?

Why do you come out like this towards me? I am having and interesting discussion with my internet friend Hyperspace Fool here, where we discuss intelligently and calmly deep matters that concerns us both. What is wrong with this? Instead of coming on to attack me like this, why don't you engage in the good way that Hyperspace Fool does? It is not productive to bash out like you do, and it is clearly against the attitude at the nexus.

If you have nothing constructive to add to a discussion, please don't post at all. Personal attacks of this sort are unwarranted in the Nexus. Ad hominen are fallacious and just degenerate the atmosphere. Regardless of what side of the issue one stands (if one stands on any side at all), we must remain respectful in this community.

If you want to make some constructive criticism to Citta, please expand your arguments in a reasonable way.. But be sure next time to think twice if your post is adding anything or if its being a venting and attacking unconstructive post such as your last one.

You want to know why? Because I have better things to do, and so should you. If I went through this and actually pointed at all the points that you are just NOT GETTING, and MISSING COMPLETELY, then I'd be here for-fuck-ing-ever. And then you STILL wouldn't understand! Because you're not interested in the truth; you're interested in seeming right! You're not interested in finding common ground, and coming to an agreement; you're interested in proving that you are correct! When in reality, neither of you can be 100% sure that you are right or wrong, ever! So you acting as if you are right and he is wrong is just as foolish as you think he is being. That's why I'm not bothering to do this the appropriate way.

And I'm sorry if I've been rude, but.... Christ, if I had to say all that in a polite manner, it wouldn't really get the point across now would it? Plus it would be a long ass post, and there's always a way to shorten things up and make it more eloquent. I think we're all adults here and can handle a little constructive criticism. It's not like I'm calling you an idiot by any means. You seem very intelligent. I'm just trying to show you the same level of condescension that you seem to show others, IMO, even though the way in which you do it is passive aggressive.

Maybe if after this you still don't get what I'm saying, and it really bothers me, I'll find the time to nit pick at your excessively long post in the manner that you would all like me to...

And again, I'm sorry for any disruption that I may be causing, but that's just my $0.02... I'm not trying to break the rules, I'm just speaking my mind in hopes that I won't have to further.

Often said, but not actually true. I can prove, for example, that I am not in Borneo at the moment.

You are not in a position to speak for the scientific or reductionist community in the royal 'we' my friend.

You may have tried to show these things, but you will need to try harder if you think you will convince mystics with direct experiences to the contrary. Scientist do not go where the data takes them... they go where their employers, funders, and reputations take them. You must have heard the famous quote "Progress in science is measured gravestone to gravestone."

You have a remarkable amount of faith in an institution that has scoffed at every major truth ever proposed even after there was plenty of evidence piling up. In fact, the number of things that scientists have anywhere close to a unanimous consent on are few and far between. After all, even such well accepted things like Natural Selection and Climate Change have hundreds of lettered scientists willing to come out publicly against them.

As I have said before, Self-organization is only one of the definitions of intelligence. If you choose to ignore me when I say it, maybe reading it elsewhere will convince you. The kind of intelligence we are discussing when dealing with vast systems and incorporating laws and dynamics which give rise to order is known as Collective Intelligence. Notice that this link takes you to a section of the Wikipedia page on Self-organization.

You frequently say things to the effect that something doesn't need something else as a proof that it doesn't involve something else... and then your backing of this leap is that scientists tend to think this way. Well... we are not in a physics lecture here, but in the Spirituality Forum. There is no compulsion that I or anyone here adopt the ridiculous conventions of modern science which have (until now) utterly failed to lift the veil on any of the great spiritual mysteries. On the contrary, direct mystical experience has consistently provided answers to these questions for those with the courage to put down their books and go into it head on.

You say that complex systems don't need complex rules to originate from simple origins. This may be true, but no one ever argued that they did. What I have said is that the very fact they can originate at all or arise into complexity is itself a mark of intelligence. You may not want to see it, but to most impartial observers, all cells behave intelligently. It doesn't matter if you think you understand why they do so. The ability to build a living form out of raw materials based on a genetic plan is clearly a sign of intelligence.

You still seem to insist upon a definition of intelligence that is not in keeping with the way the word is actually used. the Bee Orchid is many levels of intelligence greater than AI, and yet we still call that "Artificial Intelligence." In fact, we have called AI intelligence since back in the days when it was just a few genetic algorithms, a simple neural network, or an expression of fuzzy logic.

Perhaps I could. But my example was of non-random elements not moving randomly. It doesn't behoove you to insert your opinions onto my analogies. It is only a long list of esteemed astrophysicists who determined that these gas clouds displayed intelligence. This is not something I made up.

Collective Intelligence, Swarm Intelligence, Symbiotic Intelligence, The Global Brain, The Gaia Theory... these are all things that were invented by scientists. If you choose not to recognize or agree with these branches of science, it is your choice... but it does argue against your tendency to speak of science as a "we" all the time.

If I truly wanted to flip the argument against you, I would stop speaking to you in your language and using examples from your reductionist crew of bookworms and base this debate in spiritual and mystical terms... quoting from theologians, spiritualists, mystics, and (G*d forbid) New Age texts. You fail to recognize that I am not just meeting you halfway, I am engaging you on your home court... whereas you are adverse to even leaving your side of that court.

The laws of gravity, thermodynamics, igneous & sedimentary rock formation, and the forces that created hills to roll down are all more intelligent than a simple neural network... and this is still called intelligence.
You assume that it is mindless. There is no way to prove that wild conjecture. It could be composed entirely of mindstuff for all you know. The rocks that roll down hills in my dreams are certainly made of mind.

BTW, just because you have a seriously hard time with something, doesn't mean it is not valid or possibly true. I have a seriously hard time pronouncing words in Cantonese. I think with practice, the ability to consider morphogenetic intelligence and the like will come easier to you. I have the feeling you haven't really tried all that hard.

Even if cells were mechanical, they could still be displaying intelligence. Being natural doesn't preclude being designed... or even entirely supernatural as well. Cause & effect is not a proof against intelligence, nor is randomness.... think chaos theory.

BTW you can stop with the need line of thinking. We don't need physics to have incomplete or entirely false representations of existence either.

Dice are clearly designed. If they are rolled, it implies that there is someone there to roll them. Even if someone builds a dice rolling machine to do the actual rolling, dice do not roll themselves. BTW, you are assuming that the processes of quantum mechanics are random... there is no evidence for this. If anything the quantum concept of an observer collapsing probability waveforms is highly non-random and implies consciousness and discernment... i.e. understanding... in its very essence.

Perhaps we need to agree upon a definition for intelligence. It is kind of droll to have to limit it to whatever string of words are next to it in a dictionary, but you seem to not grasp that intelligence is not limited to frontal lobes or even brains. http://www.etymonline.co...x.php?term=intelligence Notice that information is itself a definition of intelligence.

see above

So?

I didn't invent the word... the French root of it... or the Latin word it comes from.


This is from the New Journal Of Physics http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/9/8/263
A Russian paper on a similar topic http://biospace.nw.ru/as...o_otroschenko_63_92.pdf

For laymen: http://science.howstuffworks.com/weird-life.htm & http://physicsforme.word...could-they-harbor-life/

No reason not to either.

IMO, the only valid reason to assume intelligent design is when you meet the intelligence that did the designing and are shown how it works.

Glad we can agree on something. ;-)

But... you have not shown this, and I still see intelligence everywhere I look. Not even just the basic kind that should be obvious, that pandeists tend to agree upon... but full on super human, in your face genius. Have you never met any entities whose intelligence appeared to dwarf your own?

1) Show me some dark matter 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter My facts are straight. It is postulated, believed etc, but certainly not proven. "...believed to be composed primarily of a new, not yet characterized, type of subatomic particle."

I actually believe in Dark Matter, but maybe you have a different definition of proven than I do.

Conjecture.

Again with the not needed as a proof against. No scientific theories are needed to explain the data I get while lucid dreaming, that doesn't make them worthless. You can not prove that your precious material universe is not just a dream, so can we give the whole "not needed" (a logical fallacy btw) argument a rest?

How did all of these Universes form? Out of what? By what impetus?

If a cosmic chemist tries to create a certain multi-dimensional chemical and takes 10^500 attempts to get the recipe right... that doesn't imply a lack of intelligence. Especially if any or all of the other iterations were also interesting to said inventor.

Ummm... we are talking about religious beliefs on a forum that was set up to avoid the kind of religion bashing that you continue to engage in. To be an Athiest is a belief system. This is because you can not prove that there is no G*d. No matter how hard you wish it to be true, no scientific proof exists for that claim. Therefore most truly rational materialists gravitate towards the more defensible agnostic stance or become apatheists. You are certainly not the later, as you seem to be very invested in convincing those of us who know the Universe to be divine and miraculous in the deepest parts of our being that we are wrong because you see no need for design in the data sets you happen to be familiar with.

Atheism, quite simply, is an unproven and unprovable standpoint. It is an opinion. One you are entitled to hold... but it is just as tiring to listen to an Atheist evangelize as it is to listen to a Jehovah's Witness. Just that you know.

I never claimed that the mouse example was fact. Furthermore, there is nothing absurd about entertaining metaphysical conceptions or labeling what one sees around them as displaying intelligence. Here in the Spirituality & Mysticism subforum, most things discussed are unprovable, and can only be approached by direct mystical experience, analogy, metaphysical philosophy, koans, allegories and the like. That's just how it is. If you don't like that aspect about these topics, you can stay on the Science subforum.

More opinions presented as fact. You should know better than this.

Poor design does not speak against intelligence anymore than saying a child's first 20 paper airplanes proves that paper airplanes are formed randomly by mindless forces.

It is your projection that I am using this fact as an argument for anything. I have said on a dozen threads that I am not doing any such thing. It is simply a fact. One that scientific materialists know is true, but are awfully defensive about.

Again my personal experiences are valid for drawing conclusions... for me. I have said that repeatedly as well, and nothing you can say will change this. I am not trying to make conclusions for you or anyone else. Mystics tend to understand the folly in this. Most would not bother to engage you on this stuff the way I do at all... they tend to not be gluttons for punishment who enjoy banging horns like rutting rams on a cliff face. I am a born arguer. I love it. As long as no one gets their feelings hurt, I can go on and on for days.

As for being critical, I apply it to everything... including the ideas that I am awake, that there is a material universe at all, that you are someone separate and distinct from me, that the "scientific truths" that I read about are not just aspects of a dream I am having etc. In this context, in true "cogito ergo sum" fashion... I can be no more sure of the things you seem to believe rather strongly in than I can about anything else. If my senses can not be trusted as far as my personal experiences go, why would they be more trustworthy when it comes to the supposed factual experiments, theories, and hypotheses of some men I have never even met?

Thus, the idea that a mystic trusts their own direct mystical experience (when verifiable and repeatable) over anything they might read or hear 2nd hand. There is nothing about a peer reviewed journal or a science textbook that makes it more likely to be "real" than my own senses. Think about it Citta. You can only know of these theories, data sets, studies and experiments... with your senses. Thus, all your vaunted truths and data are simply your personal experiences of having read or heard something.

I will take my 1st hand abilities over 2nd or 3rd hand data. This is my prerogative, and it has served me rather well. I have been remarkably successful in my life.

What kind of argument is this? You are too sharp for this kind of reductio ad absurdem, lowest common denominator stuff. If you were convinced you could fly, and had proven it to yourself many times... and honored me with a demonstration, I would be thrilled. I would only ask you 2 questions. 1) Why not fly around the room or levitate before jumping out a window? & 2) Is it dangerous to me to be in a room where you are exhibiting such profound and extreme forces?

If Elvis visited you, I would have no opinion on your state of being. You could be crazy, you could be tripping, Elvis could have actually visited you, another entity could be posing as Elvis, you could be dreaming... and a million other things. How could I know which possibility was actually true? I could do no actual testing of your conjecture. So, I would simply listen to your story as an anecdote. It would either be entertaining to me or not. I would be naturally curious as to what the King of Rock had to say to you... but this would be the case whether you dreamt it, tripped it, were actually visited by a ghost, or whatever. And, if the information you impart to me from this experience was useful to me, it wouldn't matter much to me how you came by it.

This is true of most things in spirtuality. I find a lot of wisdom in books like A Course In Miracles. The story is that this book was channeled by Helen Schucman from the discorporate presence of Jesus. I have no way of verifying that, and despite the ridiculousness of how such a claim sounds... the actual philosophy and information in that book is top notch stuff. The lessons of the workbook are a very effective mind training which have the power to dissolve much of the thoughtforms that keep people from experiencing the transpersonal and transcendent. Thus, it doesn't matter whether I believe Ms. Schucman's claims or not. I can take what I like from what she put forth.

To wind this up, I have spent most of my debates with you talking to you in your language and using your rules to discuss questions that you bring up. In fact, despite your insistence that your worldview is factual and universally held, it has been I who tends to link to actual documents, encyclopedic reference materials, dictionaries and the like while you just assert that things are true with no references at all. This is okay, because you can not prove Atheism with science. And I seriously doubt you are prepared to debate this stuff in philosophical or spiritual terms.

Just remember that there are plenty of reputable scientists who believe the Gaia Hypothesis, the Holographic Universe Model, the Many Worlds Interpretation, Morphogenetic Fields and more wild stuff than that. These things are no different from what spiritual mystics have always said. In fact, the Gaia hypothesis if applied to the Universe is pantheism.

All the best brother,
HF

Lol, Hyperspace Fool obviously has more time than I do!

As usual I agree HF! Bravo!

#Treated

I guess everyone has to eventually unravel this for themselves.

For me the big 'unravel' as it were started with the realization that my current reality is literally created by nothing more than the chemicals in my brain. Once I realized that it was a short leap to realize that if Hyperspace isn't real, then this isn't real. What took longer however was to realize the reverse. If this is 'real', then hyperspace is also 'real'. If hyperspace is 'real' then the 2 mystical experiences I had were also real.

Even after literally having my consciousness stretch to the edge of infinity and merged with the clear light of the void...pretty much exactly as described in the yoga sutras of Patanjali....even after that I still couldn't completely let go and just accept the proudly obvious.

It took quite a while to do it, but it happened sober and on the border between waking and sleep.

As I laid in bed slowing my breath to calm myself before sleeping I became to practice vippassana meditation. As a slipt to the edge of sleep I felt my consciousness begin to expand and then just like it did on aya and shrooms it surged to the edge of infinity. As I lay there in my bed I could feel every single atom in my body vibrate with joy for life...yet I could also simultaneously dance with galaxies countless light years away. There was literally no mistaking what it was. It was true Samadhi...and it was literally exactly the same thing I experienced once on aya/changa and once on shrooms.

After I 'fell from grace' and drifted to sleep, I woke up the next day and almost immediately I could feel the joy bubbling up inside me. For the first time in my entire life I knew. I knew the internal debate was over. There is a G*d and it is all of this (and infinitely more) and we are little waves on his vast ocean. To believe anything else actually seems completely and totally absurd to me now.

I honestly don't understand how anyone can really come to the conclusion that this all just came form nothing. We just one day up and emerged from the null set....


Band Name: Emerging from the Null Set!


Citta my brother you are on the right path.

Believe nothing. Allow for anything. Question everything.

You just need to work on the "allow for anything" part you and you will eventually get it.

Peace.