Topic: The function of religion ? - page 19. (Read 18646 times)

I havent personally, but other people have.
And there is no evidence whatsoever outside you personal experience that shows there is more than neurons and chemicals.
Again, i urge you to read the science of broken brains and see how that influences the affected person. It is a very important lesson in understanding what creates things like consiousness. And it's really really interesting.
It is the only example as humans are the only beings claiming they experience anythinog 'spiritual'.
It all comes down to humans and their feelings.
BTW, you completely not answering the questions i have asked you in my previous posts.
Are you avoiding them?
I was brought up as a catholic and the spiritual experience taught me that there is no spiritual realm outside of reality. It's all just brains. It hit me like a hammer and it took me years to process it. In fact, i'm still sometimes struggle with the implications.
So why do you think your experience describes the truth better than mine?
BTW the feeling of religious epiphany is produced by certain parts of the brain and can be stimulated magnetically to give people a genuine feeling of transcending their human souls to bathe in the glory of infinte love.
It's being done on regular basis in brain research centers.

And your round earth theorie applies in reverse to these issues.
It's the believers that don't want to accept that the earth is round.
Thankfully scientists kept an open mind and actually went out there and checked it out, even when their lives were in danger from a certain not so open religion.
Science works because we keep an open mind. You would not be typing posts on a computer and communicate over the internet if science was close minded.
Every fact, every theory, is under constant scrutiny from other people. It is the very essence of why science got us where we are.

The problem with believers is that they keep on believing despite the many many found facts that there is nothing.
By now, the chance that there is actually something like a spiritual world is so incredibly small that there is realy no difference between believing that and believing in the spaghetti monster.
Science allways keeps an open mind, even now, and if you can show something exists then please show us and science will accept it.
But you need to show any real effects. Since, you know, we exist in reality whatever it may be.

Have you tried taking away the chemical(s)?  Is it not possible spirituality causes the chemical reaction in the first place?  In absence of chemicals, or even death, I think you will find plentiful amounts of love.

Regarding your other post, I don't think man is the 'summum' of evolution, it's an example, since we are humans.  Religions are based on spirituality, they are different flavors of man's understanding of the universe.  And yes, they became largely corrupt.  I have experienced the other side, I can testify on it's behalf based on experience.

May I remind, I used to be straight forward atheist, I wasn't indoctrinated to think the way I do.  It took very real spiritual experiences to shape my belief and make me believe in god.  I can't prove the existence of something, someone else has not experienced, to them, it's up to you to find it yourself.  If you're not open to the possibility of it, just as many people weren't open to the possibility of earth being round, you will never find it, in this life.

You said earlier :"I'm not arguing against the chemical reactions that occur, I'm saying it can happen both ways, simultaneously."
So, as i understand it, you say the feeling of love is mediated by both chemicals and some mystic power of 'universal love' or something.

I'm just telling you that there is only the chemical acting on your neural system and nothing else.
If you take away the chemical you cannot experience the feeling of love.
There is no other 'simultanious' spiritual way of this happening.

First of all, its pretty egotistical to think of 'man' as the summum of evolution.
Evolution is stronger than man and it will prevail even when mankind fails. It is just a very simple system that works on all levels.
Most people don't give a rats ass about the universe so most people are created by the universe, of the universe to fuck around and have children. Like any other replicating bit of DNA.

The most widespread and prolific organism on earth is the bacteria.
A single celled organism that mostly only eats, shits and replicates and sometimes defends itself against competing single celled organisms).
In fact, humans would not be able to survive without bacteria and yet all bacteria do is eat shit and reproduce.
Yet, no big thoughts about the nature of existance comming from bacteria.

There is no effect of 'decreasing awareness' on survivability outside the modern human scope.
But humans are only part of the puzzle and it is completely wrong to start your reasoning from what man has achieved.
And that is where all these problems come from. People take themselfs and their consiousness way too seriously.
On a galactic scale humans are really of no influence whatsoever.
But i bet it does make you feel more important when you believe that we are. You know, like giving you something to live for etc.
And that is another 'fault' in our brain. We usually start reasoning from our own standpoint.
That is why we used to believe the earth was flat untill through science we came to actually know the earth is round.
So you can believe what you want but unless you can actually show something real(!!) it's just a fantasy.
Meanwhile through science we know a lot of these things to be fantasies but despite these actual real world facts people still chose to follow their instincts and believe in one way or another.
So i've got a question for you.
There are numerous religions and believe systems.
They can't all be correct. So which one is correct and why are the others incorrect?

What?

You cannot argue they both happen because if we take the chemical out it does not happen at all.
A brain (and hence your conciousness) cannot experience love if that chemical is not present.
I'm sorry to bring it to you, but it is realy this mechanical.
You are your brain.

I'm not arguing against the chemical reactions that occur, I'm saying it can happen both ways, simultaneously.

Regarding the direction of evolution, there certainly is a goal to understand the universe.  Everything man has ever done has increased our awareness and knowledge of the universe.  If there had to be one purpose to life (but there's not, you create your own purpose) it would be to increase your awareness, in my opinion.  We are created by the universe, of the universe, to learn about the universe.  That would be the wise conclusion, in my opinion, for systematically decreasing awareness would certainly cease our existence.

My life is no more valid or meaningful than anyone else's.  I feel my beliefs are more wise, as love has the potential to end humanity's problems, so I take the incentive to spread love by any means necessary, to enact the change into reality.  Other people do this too, more and more do it each day.  As more people love, act out of their consciousness, we become one conscious community of humans, working together.

I think that's the wise thing to do, rather than fight each other.

Human beings are just another type of animal - and animals have no problem with life; they just follow their nature. They do whatever comes naturally to them.
Human beings are exactly the same - they just follow their instincts and their nature.
A few humans ask the question 'but why do we do this?' and traditionally they would become monks and nuns, as there was no where else for them to go. For these people religion provided (a celibate) solution and they were taken out of the gene pool.
It's easy to ask these questions and it's relatively easy to create a personal model of reality, but after that you still have to live life - you still have to do things.
So the question is, what do you do about it dank?
What did you do today as a consequence of your beliefs that makes your life more valid or meaningful than a coal miner or a shop assistant or an insurance salesman? What do you actually do with your beliefs? Sacrifice chickens? meditate? Chant hare krishna?

Love is a chemical that is normally released in your brain when you are valued in a social system.
You can take a pill that will make you experience an enormous ammount of love.
So that shows that the experience of love is somehow a chemical system.

I don't agree on you injecting things like 'understanding the universe' into this.
I don't see any sign of evolution striving for that goal.
It is more like a random walk in a space with attractors. Some things just happen to work better than others in this universe and so can be selected for. But possibility space is full of niches and so a genepool can inhabit such a niche and be successfull. The problem is that the genome then becomes more specific and cannot easily escape its current direction of development. That makes it seem as if that strain of genes it directed towards a goal. But that is just an illusion.
What i try to say is that there is no overall direction evolution takes. It just tests the environment and adapts to it. There is no overarching goal of understanding the universe. That is purely a human preoccupation.

Love you too, brother.

omfg so infuriating I want to cry, go die dank.

This is your error.  Every single person is not different, we all share one consciousness, thus, will reach the same truth as each other.  Look at any spiritual culture and even religions, they are all based on the same principles of love.

Your opinions lay outside, for you must formulate an opinion based off what you experience in this world.

But you have not discovered anything, merely voiced your own interpretation on what god is. That is not a discovery, it is an opinion. I think we're done here dank, your like talking to a brick wall.

The truth doesnt lay within either, seriously the amount of bullshit you spout.

truth   [trooth]  Show IPA
noun, plural truths  [troothz, trooths]  Show IPA.
1.
the true  or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2.
conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3.
a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4.
the state or character of being true.
5.
actuality or actual existence.

Clearly anything from within is not going to be truth, as every single person is different, each will have their own 'truth' hence making the word truth obsolete by its own definitions, so no, the truth does not lie within, your own OPINIONS and INTERPRETATION do however.

Like I said im done, frustrating as fuck. Someone needs to beat some sense into you boy 

?

I'm not saying I'm right because I share a similar opinion, I'm saying I'm right because I have discovered the same things, inside of my self, that others have done across many cultures.  The truth lay within.

If someone would point out a hole in my philosophy, about spiritualism, I'd be glad to listen.  That has yet to happen.

Ive pointed many holes in your "philosophy" but you've decided to concentrate on the attacks instead. Try with a modicum of logic to back up your idea's, all I see is you projecting your own opinions as fact and anyone who disagree's with you just 'doesn't understand'.

As for "I mean, what if I'm right, and these answers I've uncovered with my consciousness are true?  I'm not the only person to have thought of this stuff." - this is a prime example of just how stupid you are dank, you conclude because you have an opinion and others agree with your opinion, there for this is some evidence for your opinion to be 'right'?  So whats your opinion on Hitler? Back in 1930s there where millions of Germans who agreed with his opinions, so he must of been right? right? 

You remind me of a close friend I have, I used to blaze with him all the time, turns out all that weed fucked him up real good and he got so detached from reality and out of touch with what was real he just chats hypothetical nonsense all the time, in much the same fashion you have been.

Maybe lay off the dank for a while, its not for everyone. Clearly.

Sorry forgot to respond:
 It sounds like the end result of Zen is similar to cynicism. There's too many things wrong with the world for that in my opinion. Spread your memes like you spread your genes.

Hey, um, if the complete truth and all the important questions are answered after death, after we transcend our bodies and become just consciousness, then what are you guys waiting for?

I don't think it proves anything, it's just an attempt to convey the way I view reality at a really macro level. I disagree there are likely an infinite number of possibilities. The fractal nature I have observed of in my subset of universe  makes me think it is more plausible there is some sort of bounds on what is possible at all levels, even the largest. Whether anyone can ever know them or not is a different matter

Yes, words only have meaning based on what we give them.  But words can still have meaning and the ability to transfer energy, as words are sound frequencies.  What exactly are you suggesting your chart proves?  It could be a 2D graph and there would still be infinite points of possibility.