Religious repercussions I am meaning… and you can live life cautious and aware, without fearing.
Because self control is freedom which religion is the opposite of. Religion is controlling other people by fear of hell, demonizing, and all of the other bad things that are said to happen from sin. There is no being controlled by others and systems or fearing religious repercussions.
It takes control to do something doesn’t it? If I say I want to go get an ice cream right now, isn’t that decision in my control? Which in turn is freedom?
Yeah I agree. It pisses me off too.
An epileptic would have a serious problem seeing it. That’s why TV programs give warnings about flashing lights.
But most of all - it just makes you look like a dick.
I’m still not sure that counts as the major difference between religion and spirituality, nor that it is the mark of self-control. Why can’t a spiritual person fear hell and a religion person feel safe under the watchful protection of a loving God? And does living with fear really mean having no self-control? I think it would depend on how one conducts him/herself in response to the fear.
I think self-control has to do with one’s highest goals. A base emotion like fear would operate on the lower (animalistic) levels of our being, and it depends on if we can muster the will on a higher level to overpower that fear and attain our goals in spite of it. And even then, the higher goal may be perfectly aligned with the fear. If I see a tiger and fear for my life, I should hope I would have enough self-control to make myself run away.
Well, that’s one way of defining religion.
Yes, that would be freedom. But I’m a determinist, so for me it doesn’t make sense to talk about something that isn’t controlled by something else. Freedom, for me, isn’t acting in a causal void, it’s simply being in control of your destiny. We live in a cyclically deterministic universe where everything is controlling everything else–but that means that as much as everything is being controlled, everything is also controlling in turn. We are links in a chain. The link behind us controls us, but we in turn control the link ahead of us. It is the only way we can have control.
Because that’s a form of control, fear is an illusion. It is the mind killer, it is the jailer of the mind. Which is why ignorance usually comes with fear. What you do not know, you usually fear or are uncomfortable with. Hence imprisoning oneself through means of fear.
Being in control of your self and destiny, what you think and do. Your actions of which repercussions may or may not be planned is freedom. But it takes control regardless to be free, but can only be free through controlling the self. Rather than something else controlling you, that would be the opposite, that would be force and can be imprisonment. Whether it be a person, fear, etc.
There are also false hopes in religion, such as heaven and deals of bliss. But that is also still control through obligation/influence. Regardless, religion is different because it doesn’t let the person decide for them self without chiming in to influence the opinion/action/thought of a person. Spirituality is different because it allows one to reach their own conclusions/thoughts/actions/opinion, etc. Reach those things with control of the self/freedom.
What about my avatar? do you know what those mean?
And yes, there is nothing without control. I arrived at that conclusion as well before. Even unintentional actions can still be control.
Your callous disregard for other people is not impressive.
The avatar is bothering many and it would not be very much trouble for you to change it. You could have a very similar one without the flashing. But you don’t care.
Because it’s not a big deal. Why would I change something with meaning to me because others don’t like it? Do I look like a sheep to you? Oh… and it is very much trouble, because i’d have to find and re-size a new one due to the Image sizes.
You want to be part of the community but you won’t play nice with the other members.
You think that being intransigent makes you strong. You think that being accommodating the needs and wishes makes you a sheep. You’re wrong.
Your attitude shows that your ego is fragile - resting on a foundation of trivialities.
If everyone did what they were told because others didn’t agree or like it we wouldn’t be living in a technologically advanced world. Guarantee.
And yes, doing what your told because someone else doesn’t agree is being a sheep. Why would I keel over? That’s like in The Other Guys, Mark told Will Ferrell to stop humming, and he basically said fuck off.
The things you fear may be an illusion–the tiger you see may be a hallucination–but then again, it may not.
This is cherry picking. You choose the things you want to say are controlling you and say “That’s not me. It’s something controlling me.” Instead, you could say that the fear is a part of you. The way you react to something you are afraid of is your choice, and it’s justified by your knowledge that the thing might hurt you.
You need both–control and being controlled–as I explained in my last post. The kind of “being controlled” that you’re talking about is the kind that bypasses “you” in the chain of cause and effect. Remember, we are all links in the chain–the previous link controls us and we in turn control the next link. But in cases where the previous link controls the link ahead of us by some other means besides going through us is a case in which we have no control over the next link.
I choose to have a cigarette. That choice is caused by a nicoteine addiction that I’ve built for myself over years of smoking, but since it’s still me that makes the choice to have a smoke, it is something that works through me and I ultimately get to make the choice of whether to have this smoke or not. Now, if someone pinned me down and forced me to suck on a cigarette, that would be a case in which something is not working through me–through my decision that is–and forcing me to smoke against my will.
This is a good example of the kind of control other things have over you, but it doesn’t mean you have no control. All that’s happening in these cases is that something else controls your thoughts, values, desires, etc., but those thoughts, values, desires in turn become the basis on which you make your own decisions. Nothing is being done to you against your will. It doesn’t matter whether deception is involved as that is a different issue from that of control and freedom.
But no matter how much freedom one has to do this, one begins in a state that was determined/influenced by other things.
I read somewhere that the opposite of love is not hate; it is fear. The spiritual person is unafraid
and sees life as a flowing river. The religious person often sees the river as controlled by dams and is afraid. The latter fears that what he has may at any moment be taken away.
Artimas’ avatar flows. Are we done with that aside?
Yes, many feel that way but I don’t. But for me and I’ve said this before the opposite of love is not fear but apathy. What is the opposite of fear - courage. Saying that love is the opposite of fear is like saying that apples are vegetables.
But the spiritual person is STILL a human being, Ierrellus, and as human beings, we are sometimes afraid. It’s a wonderful evolutionarily stable strategy. I love that term. Fear keeps us from doing stupid things albeit it can also keep us docked to shore where we don’t have a life, where we simply want to stay safe.
That’s not necessarily a religious thing, Ierrellus, but as human thing. But then maybe I’m not understanding your meaning.
I say this with respect and gently to you, Ierrellus. Do you ever deviate from a thread?
I would actually prefer to speak about spirituality in here and NOT religion.
Aside from that, have you not heard that God draws straight with crooked lines?
Stupid things are subjective… so how can fear stop us from doing ‘stupid things’ when we’re the ones who determine what is stupid and what is not. How can it truly be stupid then.
How is fear your choice? It is usually something not wanted or not wanted to happen.
Religion doesn’t let you choose though. That’s the difference. You have limited control. With Spirituality there is no limit to what you can think of or believe or even do, besides the man set laws. Most of the time fear is an illusion created by the imagination, tigers are real… you don’t have to imagine a tiger to know it is real. Fear isn’t just bound by reality, you can create things extremely terrifying with your imagination, which kind of proves it is indeed an illusion based emotion. It is just an illusion, but a very believable one.
I’m not saying fear is a choice. I’m saying what we do in response to it is.
What you’re talking about is how religion tells lies (sometimes). Fear of an everlasting hell is an illusion if hell is not real. But as the subject of religious indoctrinations, one cannot (always) tell the difference between the truth and the lies–and it makes no difference–if you’re told that hell is real, you will fear it. You will fear it whether that happens to be a lie or not. It has nothing to do with self-control.
Perhaps what you mean to say is that there are those who will look to figures of authority for what they believe and value (the religious type) and there are those who will think for themselves and search for the truth on their own (the spiritual type). The latter certainly seem more self-determining than the former.