I was thinking the other day that reality for a physicist consists of quantum particles, galaxies, the universe that started with the big bang, etc. A physicist calls this model "reality". If we lived in a universe where everybody believed in the same god and the same story of how god created the universe, we would call this model "reality". A while back, I was thinking that words like "religion" belittle the beliefs of people who hold such beliefs to be reality. If, as a culture, we differentiate a christian's views from the baseline view (agnosticism, maybe materialism) by referring to them as "religious", then we are already asserting that the christian's views don't reflect reality. I feel like saying "I respect your religion" is, in a way, the same as saying "I respect your obviously incorrect worldview". I feel that, in much of conversation, "religion" is not just a term for as aspect of a person's life anymore, but is becoming a label for beliefs that should not be taken seriously.

I know that was a very repetitive (and probably exaggerated) explanation, but I just want to make sure I get that argument across. Now I want to ask if it is at all a valid point, because I'm thinking that, in the future, I will discourage people from accepting "religion" as a label for their beliefs.

I like your approach. As soon as you start labeling and quantifying people and their reality in general, you start reducing and detracting away from the beauty and experience of it, even though labeling is a necessity, to an extent, for humanity to understand the world and reality around them.

I agree that the word religion is a loaded term that instantly has a negative connotation to a lot of people, much in the same way politics can. I must admit, I consider myself to have fairly spiritual views on the universe (but I have far more questions in my head than answers... ) and if someone where to offhandedly refer to me as a religious person, my initial reaction would be to object. Even though, in the broader terms, both spirituality and religion share a lot of space. Instantly in my mind the word religion brings associations of dogma, wars because of it, rigid inflexible beliefs, etc. But religion is also capable of great compassion and beauty at its core, the wonders of humanity and our place in the cosmos...

It reminds me of another realisation in my personal life, I have played and made a living with music for the better part of my life and at first would call myself a guitarist. As time went on and I learnt a few more instruments, I would call myself a musician. Only recently has it dawned on me that the term 'musician' is too limiting and I think of myself now as an 'expressionist' (which I can apply to my interactions with people, my writing and art, and the way I relate the world in general, isn't life but one big creative, expressive act?). Suddenly, with this broad, brush stroke of a term in place, I view everything differently, my music, my art, my friendships and my place in the universe too.

Anyway, before I digress even further, great topic hixidom, it shows how reductive we can get as humans, without realising how much we limit ourselves and other people in negative ways. I guess that's the pitfalls of the duality of humanity needed to decode and understand this material life we inhabit.

I find the label of religious to be extremely helpful. It helps not just to understand his religous/spiritual philosophies, but also it says allot about his or her way of life, mabe something about their ethos, and morals. It helps me to understand this person. It explains soo much to me.

When a person uses a label to describe himself or herself I dont find it negative. I find labels used in this way to be very helpful an very positive.

I dont like it so much when one is labeled by another, for obvious reasons. Mis-representation is a terrible thing in my opinion.

Be impeccable in your word!!!!

I agree Ice House, there is nothing wrong with defining yourself, I think we all do it to a certain extent, but being defined by other people can be very frustrating and limiting because after all, no one know yourself better than you do.

Well at least as far as Christianity goes, I strongly believe that there is way more to the story than what "modern christianity" is spoon-fed to believe by the church,
like Bob Marley said "half the story has never been told".

IMO The original Hebrew text in the bible tells an altogether different story of creation than does the modern fairy tale interpretations of it. For example the first word that appears in the bible is Bareshyt..

In hebrew mysticism there have been entire books written on this one letter/number sequence, because of it's complex implications..."Barashyt - - Violent affirmation of creative immanence folowed with the surging action of perpetual creation that gives birth to its' own containers. ---Upspringing of life, intermittent pulsation invisible, not thinkable; life always new, always present, never present. Containers of existences, existences in their containers. Containers offering resistance against life... without blessed resistance there would be no birth

Vertinginous movement, immesuearable movement, movement that tracends all conception. In the hidden depths of movement is the secret of existence, and this movement is the custodian of all posibilities. Existence, projection of life and negation of existence.(everything that exists must cease to exist) Apparent betrayal of life, Lfe death is one." -paraphrased from a book called "the cipher of genesis"


Also, according to the original hebrew tex, before creation occured, everything existed in state of chaos and desolation.

This sounds alot more big bang like to me than the simple "in the beginning".

So my point is, not all religion should be considered ignorant or uneducated. It would seem that the oldest "religions" such as Judiasm, Veda and Buddhism are quite advanced, IMO in many ways more advanced than currently accepted "modern" views.

In my opinion all the various "religions/ways of life" all lead to the same type of realization about the world and oneself..despite the geographical differences of where each "religion" came from. To me there is definitely a common thread that runs through all religions. I think most people are just lost in the translation.

I tend to gravitate towards eastern ways, like the bhagavad gita. Such a beautiful text.

I second that

I am not trying to say that religious beliefs are any less valid. Perhaps I should've based my original argument on the word "belief" rather than "religion". I'm not even saying that labelling beliefs is a bad thing either. I just feel as though certain labels draw a completely esoteric/ambiguous line. For example, "spirituality". When I say "spirituality", I am usually referring to my views on the nature of reality. However, a physicist calls his or her own vies on the nature of reality "reality". So maybe my point is that society normally considers there to be a line between reality and spirituality, as though they cannot be the same. The physicist does not call his views "spirituality", so maybe that simply indicates a certain lack of epistemological humility on his part. I'm not saying that using words like "religion" to describe your beliefs is a bad thing, but that other people using words like "religion" to describe your beliefs is a bad thing. I feel like it's just another tool that [some] people use to lump us into a big group of people consisting of everyone who doesn't believe in the real reality (whatever that means).

Interesting I came to this forum today to talk about religion and what do you know somebody already talking about the same subject that i wanted to talk about and a great looking conversation if i do say so my self.. anyways..

I currently have a brother that is an atheist and is constantly using horrible examples of people who claim to kill people in the name of god or their beliefs and claims that all types of spiritual people that claim to acknowledge things they can't prove to anybody else. Him and his atheist buddies claim to use science as absolute truth and that if science claims it isn't true and you can't "show someone god" or a "higherpower" with out the use of psychedelics then its un provable to them. I wish they'd stop trusting what ever system that is strangle holding them and realize there are things in science that science can't explain or even mathematics; there were times that science didn't know about things that it now does and even though I tell them that i acknowledge that "God did it" isn't practical in everyday waking reality, I try to open their eyes that their are bigger things then practicalities. I digress.

Its a shame that labels are quickly defaced with opposing views of their original meaning in the first place and I acknowledge saying I’m a Christian these days will make people thing I'm inherently stupid by association I've been a victim of it many times and I took my religion seriously.

Does anyone else think that religion or spirituality or some kind of belief has pushed them to find the truth than if they had no belief at all to prove to them selves what is real?

yea, i find dogmatic "scientists" to be just as close-minded as dogmatic religious believers.
there is no absolute truth, only things we define as truth.

plus the phrase "science is infallible" (or "science is truth" or what have you) is not scientifically provable, and you should reprimand them for claiming something as truth when you can't prove it with science

The physical world and the psychic world are different realms. We are a long way from reconciling them. Science has taken over as the method of understanding the physical world but has not (yet) made any meaningful progress into the psychic world (although some people seem to love to worship our infantile understanding of the physical basis of consciousness).

Adherents both of the scientific understanding of physical reality, and of religious understandings of psychic reality, tend alike to be overly attached to their particular incomplete understandings. Some people seem to loathe ambiguity and uncertainty and need to invest fully in a particular paradigm. I think OP and I would agree this is not ideal - but what is to be gained by prophelytising to such people? Let people cling to their props and removed them for themselves when they're good and ready...

religion means to re align with whatever "god" that is. Religion exists in may ways because it assumes that you are out of connection with your "god". Looking deeper into religion and you will notice it as something that came into existence in the forming of societies.

When man moved away from nature, something was missing, there was no more calm energy, and this gave rise to religion.

Truly religion is a physical expression and spoken word (in an attempt) to try and replace the direct felt prescence of the psychadelic experience - that was then supressed to give rise to centres of control.

IMO it is all highly questionable because of this. I imagine that in the future all religions will be replaced with psychadelic ceremonies where the "religious" can realise that they ALWAYS were "god", but simply forgot!

This is the beauty and truth of such a thing.

Beautiful perspectives. Just beautiful

Life just is what it is. Thinking gets in the way, and religion even more so.

It is what it is. Deal with it, and find peace in the simple unspoken, unthinken truth, wooo!

The thing about clinging, dogmatic, rigid and violent defense of a world view, be it republican, scientism, or religion....it smacks of insecurity. Take the following statements as examples:

--If science can't prove it, then it needs to be shushed up!!!

--if your god isn't Jesus, well, then he/she/it is satan in disguise!!!


Brothers and sisters, this world can be a frightening place. It's all chaos. There never was a firmament, nor solid ground anywhere to stand upon. But if we could just find one small thing to violently defend, then maybe we could sleep better at night. And what it's really about (sais I!) is well, if my grasp on reality is insecure, then I might feel the need to attack any competing systems.

It's similar to homophobia. Sexuality goes deep. There's bondage, role-playing. pegging, group sex.....there's not only multiple orgasms out there, but there's such a thing as continuous orgasms.....swinging, polyamory, fun costumes, guys who can go hours.....man, when it comes to sex, the average guy has barely even begun to explore what's on the surface of the iceberg. He had better attack anyone with a different understanding of sex, or else he'd have to admit his ignorance.


Many dogmatic xtians are openly anti-gay. They don't like the term homophobe....it implies that they are scared. Ha! My advice: admit your ignorance. Then, you will have nothing to defend.

peace

I think it smacks of Control, myself.

Life is just the way it is. To follow a religion actually requires effort in order to understand all the dogma and "rules of their game". Whilst religion is all about : "this is the way", it is actually a seperate"ness" from the constant everchanging moment which is reality. Therefore religion is nonsense.

Religion to me is like reading someone elses trip report that is meaningless to me. Reality to me is my own experience made by myself.

Yeah I'm agreeing with what you are saying....

But it "smacks of control"....sure does. Insecurity seems like the reason people need that control.

Let's say I have a viewpoint on reality. I need it validated. Convincing others to see it my way validates it, so I hope. Man, I'm nervous about stuff--insecure. Controlling others helps (though it fixes nothing).

IDK, maybe control and insecurity are different fingers on the same hand or something. They seem definately related.

I hearby appologize to the universe and everyone in it for every time that I have done this stuff we are talking about here. And in advance for any future dogmatic fearful controlling episodes that I may undergo (I just hope this conversation is not one of them. )

I agree how a lot of times scientific minds will look down apon the world religion as though it is only from the mind and is in sufficient for understand the universe. Although, I believe ;] that it's all ego and they aren't opening up to the fact that their "knowledge" is also based off of the same malleable stand point as any. I agree with most that you said here.

In fact there are MANY people (possibly MOST people) who take exactly the opposite perspective: If an idea isn't intimately connected with "religion" then it is highly suspect (or worse).

Here's an article that discusses a poll study showing that people generally trust atheists and rapists about equally.

***During my first big DMT vape, I had a revelation!! It felt huge to me and I want to share it, but first I wanted to comment on the main topic...***

Hello, I haven't read every post thoroughly so forgive me if I repeat something said before, but I think I have at least something to say that may not have been said.... I dunno.

I think the problem with "religion" has a couple main causes. One is that a certain type of 'intellectual elitists' these days have concluded that science is the sole path to truth, that science does not prove God, thus there is no God, thus He is superstition, thus belief in him is ridiculous and only indulged in by those weak enough to 'need' Him, or gullible enough to believe in fairy tales. From these people, "religion" is always a bad word, spoken with scorn and derision. It can be hard to feel love, compassion, or forgiveness toward such people, as they tend to be rude and inconsiderate of others. Disrespectful and unloving. Yet we should pity them.

Also there is the actual meaning of the word. Religion isn't about The Church, as some people like to refer to The Roman Catholic church, or to Organized Christianity so to speak in general. It isn't even about Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish or Hindu or Buddist teachings or beliefs. It is about the RE-connection, RE-alignment with our spirituality, and with whatever Divinity truly exists behind all of the uncertainty of reality.

I was raised Christian, and I tend to retain some affinity for Christianity, but not for any particular denomination or dogma. I believe the bible contains some truths, quite likely some divinely inspired, but not that it is verbatim Word Of God. I also believe the Qu'ran contains truths, possibly inspired. I believe that ANY and EVERY genuine, sincere pursuit of religion (reconnection) by an individual or group of like-minded individuals ( not necessarily in full agreement on everything mind you, just oriented toward and seeking Truth ) will likely meet with some degree of success. I also believe that we, the flawed creatures that we are, will (almost?) always fall short of complete accuracy about what IS.

I believe that the universe did not just happen. I believe its origin is more complex and confusing than most people suspect. I mean for the vast majority of people, the idea has been polarized to two 'simple' and allegedly mutually exclusive extremes: Evolution and Creation. ( I hate when people append -ism to those words ) To most people, either the universe came from an exploding singularity and is several billion years old, or was created by a very particular individual prime mover with a word some 4-6 thousand years ago over the course of seven actual days. There are of course numerous variations on the thousands of years part or the seven days part, depending on how one thinks their book should be interpreted.

I believe in 'a' higher power. I prefer not to name "Him" and I do not claim to know if there is one or more, or what form 'it' takes, where it came from, how it did whatever it did when. But obviously there is a Truth about where everything came from and how, and that truth is either 'just happened' or 'was brought about'. I believe We 'were brought about'. I believe that religion is our effort to reconnect to whatever brought us about. My main point right here, is that I believe that everyone who talks about one or more gods that created everything and such, are talking about the same 'whatever.' What they believe about the prime mover, what they call it, what it wants, what it did, etcetera, varies from one faith to another, from one person to another. That's a matter of perspective and of tradition. You learned what you believe from someone who learned it from someone etc. But they are all flawed perceptions of the same ______.

Did you know that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity can all be traced to the same source? Yeah, sure, they talk about the same 'god' even if they don't claim to. But they also go back to Abraham. Isaac, who became Israel, from whom sprang the Nation of Israel, Judaism, Jews, was Abraham's first son by his wife Sarah (Sarai). Ishmael was actually Abraham's first son though--by his wife's handmaiden because they didn't think Sarai could conceive. It is said that Ishmael was sent away because Isaac was the chosen one, but not to worry about Ishmael, as god would "make him a great nation also." Yeah that's right, the Jewish AND Christian God promised to establish a great Arab nation where Islam, based on Ishmael and his decendants, would emerge just as Judaism would be for the Isrealites. What does all this have to do with foreskins? I am sorry, I don't really get that part.

Islam considers Jesus Christ one of God's greatest prophets. Judaism considers him a false messiah, but depending who you talk to, a great teacher. Christianity calls him God and His Son. Who am I to determine by faith alone what is true? I think Jesus was a cool guy, very hip in spiritual matters, but I can't claim to KNOW other than that. I mentioned that I do believe parts of the books of the different faiths were likely divinely inspired--do I know which were and which not? Of course not! But I'll tell you, I think there was something to the psychedelic visions of men such as Isaiah and Ezekiel. And here we come to the meat of and reason for my post today...

I believe that much of the bible contains HIDDEN truths. Such as visions that depict events or other truths symbolically, metaphorically, allegorically.... Like the wheels in the sky, the chariot of fire, the four horsemen... Yes, revelation... Did I mention that I had a revelation today? I finally got my GVG I'd been waiting for after my first extraction that I had been buying gear for over weeks. I vaped, and I kicked back.

I did not quite break through. I stayed in my room, so to speak, though I did have quite some interesting visuals. certain preoccupations tied me down, but the spice let me know what I should do to release the bonds for next time. Nevertheless, somehow I happened upon a realization...

A little background here. I am starting a class next week in Fundamentals of Nanoscience. In preparation I have been brushing up on my math and chemistry. Carbon is an important element, both in nanotech and life itself. There is a reason we are called 'carbon based life' as life as we know it would not be possible without carbon. It is also essential in nanotech as a primary building block for tiny little materials, objects, devices, and eventually nanobots!! But I digress. Within the last couple days I was brushing up on Chem watching videos on Khanacademy.org. A GREAT website for learning ANYTHING for free. It just so happened (synchronicity anyone?) that i was watching basic videos on the periodic table, atomic numbers and so forth, was it yesterday? Anyway, that stuff was fresh in my mind, undoubtedly one reason it was fresh fodder for a 'vision.'

I have also been developing a hypothesis over years regarding the true nature of... well.. forgive me but... Life, the Universe, and Everything. I seriously have a detailed, almost believable description of how and why everything emerged from nothing, including 'God.' I contemplate the nature of dimensions and realms (such as the 3+1 dimensional physical realm in which we live). I contemplate the possibility that there are spatial dimensions of which we are unaware, that time may not be one dimensional as we see it, nor even one-directional, but in fact three dimensional--don't worry about that stuff, i digress (again[and again{and again...} hey look, infinite digression!!])

You know what though? I have just looked back at how long this post is getting, and how much longer it was getting with what followed and decided I will start a new thread with what followed. I will post the thread here, PLEASE check it out, if you have an ear to hear.