Abrahamic Religions are Relatively Inferior

That’s not metaphorical or allegorical. It’s just stupid.

That’s another of your strange ideas… that you can say any nonsense and it qualifies as metaphor or allegory. Weird. :confused:

So your answer would be almost identical to the one I give theists :smiley:

Dogs are cats is categorically wrong just like many other things in the bible (most of the genesis story for one). Talk about being a hypocrite.

Guess you don’t know what ‘hypocrite’ means either.

I’m just going to stop wasting my time on you. You’re on ignore from now on.

Says there is a difference between false biblical facts and false fact I made up that makes it so the former can be up to interpretation while the latter can’t
Fails to point out such difference
Ignores me for successfully arguing my point

You just can’t win against theists… well, you can, but they never acknowledge it and just go back to the same ol same ol :smiley:

What makes the qualities you cite ‘spiritual’ qualities? I can certainly see why you might personally prefer religions that don’t have an ‘us vs. them’ approach, and I can certainly see why ‘us vs. them’ is more agreeable to certain political ideologies than others…
But if a God created the world in basically the way the Abrahamic Religions describe, then it seems to me those religions are spiritually superior irrespective of anything else. If, for example, reincarnation isn’t real, then it seems to me Hindu is spiritually flawed irrespective of anything else.

 Maybe we just live in a 'us vs them' kind of universe, and some folks don't like it, and so prefer to believe other things. 

The bit about ‘immutability of holy texts’ shows an unfamiliarity with any theism outside of Evangelical American Protestantism of the 20th century, so I’ve not much to say on that.

I have to believe that we live in a universe that accounts for all the differing beliefs seeing as how there is such diversity in mankind. I can’t believe we live an us vs. them universe, though; simply because it’s only what people have made it out of paranoia and distrust. What if they’re all right and all wrong in that their philosophical ideas are correct and right, but not as standalone beliefs; they’re meant to be coincided with everything else for a complete answer and the us vs. them mentality actually prevents people from seeing it. I just think it’s a matter of people having to have something they know very little about to talk shit about. Vague subject matter such as ‘Abrahamic religions’ and yet if you had seen any of these belief infrastructures when they were brand new, you would not have talked shit about them, you would not have called them weak and fallible but strong and indomitable. Such is the passing of an era and we are made to continue on and to keep piecing it all together for those who actually care to learn.

No detail, just vague references to material you know very little about seeing as how most religions that exist in the modern age have been irrevocably changed by the modern age alone to coincide all other aspects of life within them. Realistically, it’s just a means for people to hate other people for doing the same things they do for their various groups and allegiances. It’s a political nightmare aside from government. And then you bring you guys into the mix and it’s like, really? as if it wasn’t bad enough already. Let’s attack and drag everything through the mud one step at a time instead of trying to see where you can go using it. Nothing saying you have to be a hardcore believer, but give it the effort and actually get to know what you’re putting down by getting involved with other people that believe these things and actually give it the fucking effort instead of going to church once, reading a small bit of the bible or visiting a wiccan group and going, damn these people are fucking idiots to believe these things. I mean, it just makes you look stupid, not them.

That sounds like an awful condition that would make it very hard to do philosophy in any meaningful way.  Both because 'having to believe things' would make investigation impossible, and because a universe in which every ideology gets a trophy to keep anybody from feeling left out would make investigation pointless.  Just believe whatever the hell you want- voodoo or Jedism or whatever- and the universe will take care of you, because the universe has 21st century Western sympathies and will respect your diversity?  Speaking in terms of what we 'must' believe and what we prefer to believe:  I think I'd rather just live in a universe where I can be  wrong and know that there is something correct to discover out there, than be 'right' no matter how little effort I've put into discovering the truth.  The kind of correctness that I would have to share with somebody who believes Tolkein is a prophet and he is a reincarnated elf is not the kind of correctness I am interested in. I'd rather just play video games and jerk off than do philosophy, if that's all philosophy has to offer. 

 What if all this 'diversity is a super big deal' stuff goes away in a few years as quickly as it arrived?  Seems like sketchy ground to take as axiomatic in defining one's religious views. 

What if not?

Actually, not really. The surprising thing is you don’t really have to believe the things, just the possibility of the things. it’s to say that things happen for a reason instead of being utterly random. There’s a theory I haven’t seen much discussed here called the chaos theory that states that even the flapping of a flag has a hidden meaning; they look for hidden meanings in the most inconsequential things, which sounds like a tiring thing to do. When it comes down to it, the basic underlying premise of most belief structures is to just live. Beyond the ‘believe this or else’ built into things and the ‘us vs. them’ is another world of just living where you account for these beliefs and those who carry them and actually pay attention to reality and see from that reality where these beliefs might have stemmed from personal experiences; but then you eventually reach a point where the results can no longer be reproduced because people try too hard to reproduce them through analytical thought processes and trying to nail them down, which is the premise behind what I said.

Another surprising part is that it becomes easier to work with the more knowledge you take in because in essence it’s just another juggling act that we deal with while living and we are expert jugglers when it comes to dealing with mental tasks. We have to be after a while if we wish to actually partake in life and the world around us and work around other people.

It’s not to say that every ideology gets a trophy as that would be silly. There are no trophies given; no medals awarded for advanced thought processes being delivered. There’s no glory to be gained and no reason to push forward your own knowledge except because you choose to, because it’s the gift of free will we find in a world bound by fate and self-fulfilling prophecies all around us. For me, it’s an on-going conversation in the back of my head and some times in the forefront. From chakras and third eyes to christs and antichrists to meditation and balance; I incorporate the best and discard the discrepancies that get so many people going on in hating the groups that bring forth these ideas. There is no real evolution of the texts and ideas and so people are continually stuck with decadent philosophies and wonder why we keep trodding the same paths of them and getting seeming nowhere with them individually. The more you incorporate into your mind; the more you open it; the easier it is to just keep going in life itself and not just in the belief of these things. It’s something I’ve mastered that I like to refer to as mental martial arts; wherein you develop fluidity of mind which leads to fluidity of body and actual martial arts which we learn on a daily basis without realizing it. Tying everything together can be a daunting task, but what of future generations that, as you describe, may get tired of the diversity and pretending that the differences between them are worth having wars over; worth losing friends over; worth stabbing people in the back just to get a momentary one-up.

The fact is that I would not be so silly; and neither would many other people; to believe that I could generate energy charges like in Dragon Ball Z or fly like in the Matrix or perform such tricks as Jedis do, for to assume that we can do such as such is ridiculous given the present nature of reality. What I’m saying is that such may be possible if we were to change the perceptions of our world and to let go of such binding ideas of the laws that we put in place for true nature and true reality cares little for the laws of men, if it cares for men at all as a species; which it must if we are to believe anything at all about these teachings, for why would we be taught methods that we can incorporate into our lives that help us deal with those lives as we transgress what seems like Hell on Earth with the promise of a savior and Heaven on Earth’ with the idea that through meditation; which we all do in one way or another; we can learn to manage more than just our bodies, we could soar the universe in our minds eyes and see things that we might never see in our short life spans.

What if immortality were possible and the only reason why people don’t live forever is all of the stress and anxiety and fighting. What if, by getting along together and learning these things that teach us how to do so instead of falling for the us vs. them mentality or the ‘we’re better than them and this is why’ stupidity we could free our selves from the only things that actually kill us, since even the toxins our factories produce are produced from naturally occuring developments. What if we kill our selves on such an epic scale in such an epic way as to realistically be the most tragic story ever told on a cosmic scale as people kill and are killed for no other reason than because they can not move past their own mental traumas, insecurities and insanities; can’t transgress the differences in ideologies to bring them together as they might have once been before a great divide occurred to tear them apart into all of the in-fighting we see today throughout every culture known to man. I tie history and psychology and the provable things into it all and it makes more and more sense and nobody can disprove it and if they could; even if we got everyone squared away and found our selves to still be mortal and to still die at the end of a lifespan, wouldn’t we at least experience world peace and deliver it to every generation that were to come after us in epic style?

That’s what I look at… no matter what you believe, we’re soon coming upon a time when there will be an epic showdown and a once-and-for-all struggle for dominance and I personally believe that peace will win out for eternity because eternity to the nth degree has to be worse than eternity and one stretch of eternity can be so vastly different; so what is eternity except the concept of a belief structure evolving over time and learning so many things; as has been evidenced throughout our cultural achievements and our evolution of intelligence, not to mention how we know the things we know; where our information and knowledge comes from in the back of our minds; how it develops, etc. Where do geniuses come from and how can everyone be a genius and an idiot in the same breath is the question you ask at last and isn’t that the cosmic balance? Isn’t that the answer to the question asked? The very act of finding a definitive answer to work with and to set the groundwork for future analysis in a field of study that would be vastly rewarding regardless of everything else that happened around us would set us free from the very things we seek to be free from and people would no longer wish to be craven and licentious monsters and they would care about each other as they do already when they finally find their groupings to settle down into to create the us vs. them mentalities.

And people who delve too deeply into beliefs instead of rolling with the flow of reality as it comes would look like fools trying to manipulate reality itself as they do while looking crazy after a while and having it said of them that they fell too far into drugs or researched the wrong things. What if the balance of life is to account for it all until it develops the deeper understanding that so many search in vain for; to let it come to you instead of chasing it.

And, off the record; Tolkien did a great job of recreating religion with his words. Here’s a question that Tolkien could never answer, though: what happens at the end when Melkor is finally released? All of Middle Earth is destroyed. And, what was so bad about Melkor to begin with that they had to lock him away to the point where he created so many shadow creatures to reach out to everyone else; all for introducing a darker section to the music the Valar created in the beginning with Illuvitar. They blamed him and were all like wtf, why are you introducing that, why do you have to put that in and perhaps it was just a part of his knowledge, a part of him that they hated him for and he really just wanted to be like them and to fit in with the crowd; maybe Illuvitar needed a devil to work with, but to what end result? What of Melkor’s love life, or the Wizards or the other Valar? What did they sacrifice to do what they did? The stories don’t speak of that and neither do religious works paint a picture of the angels and demons and what their ultimate goal is. In fact, if you read the silmarillion, the only God that knew what they were doing was Illuvitar, the rest made music with him to create everything; one made dwarves in private and what of Fourth Age Middle Earth with Aragorn in charge?

What of the politics between nations; the inevitable simmering down of conflict into a tolerable peace before Melkor was released, since no real evil existed in the world after the fall of Sauron; though there is still room enough for lesser evils to slip through every so often when societies let their guard down; the inevitable progression and evolution of that evil from direct fighting and conquest to the political manipulation such as wormtongue and the dissipation of magical energies as the wizards and elves leave middle earth in large and leave a bare minimum. What of the fifth age and the sixth?

And then there’s the Chronicles of Narnia and C.S. Lewis. Why is Narnia only truly create once those children bring the white witch there and why did Aslan not do more to understand enough about her to prevent the destruction of Narnia. The White witch being the main source of evil in THAT world; allowed by Aslan who obviously could have had the power to show her out and chose not to; allowed her to stay and do what she did and for what end? The same question to be asked of Illuvitar and Melkor, of God and the Devil. Even C.S. Lewis accounts for a multiple world theory. It’s a matter of asking where do these stories come from? These people don’t just create these stories… they’re just not that good. These stories come to them in their dreams and imaginations and they get caught up in the flow of reality as it flows out of them, just the same as I get caught up in the flow of reality as I bring forth my words to speak the ideas I speak; to write the poetry I write.

What is really prophecy and what is really learning lessons and what is really just a warning of what could happen if we refuse to learn something from it all? When there are so many common trends in our culture, isn’t it a fools errand to discount any of it as foolish?

As James rightly mentioned, they are superior for the simple reason that they had extra 2000 years, or at least 1500 for sure, to evolve. And, that applies both to religions and the audience they were addressing.

But, i would not use the term superior. I would like to use more evolved or more detailed instead.

There is nothing such in the Eastern religions, which was not known to Prophets of Abrahamic religions. The only difference is that their Prophets did not focus on those subtle details because the addressed audience was not competent enough to grasp that. Moses tried but that backfired and Jesus had to spend his entire life and attention to put the teachings of Moses into perceptive for common man. He had no time to address subtleties. Though, Muhammad tried to address both the issues, as much as he could afford, given the disturbed circumstances, in which he found himself.

Sufism is at par with Buddhism and Vedanta. But, most of the western intellectuals are not aware of this. Its knowledge is scattered and not compiled in a systemic way. Much of the Sufi work is not translated yet into English and English speaking world is not aware about that.

There is only one western scholar, who learned Arabian and Persian in person to go in the details of Islam and Sufism. His name is William C. Chittick. I am not aware of his present status but he was alive some years ago and was teaching Islam related subjects in some US university.

Prism, you need to read his works about Sufism to understand what it actually is and how far or less it goes in the comparison with Eastern religions.

Coming back to Eastern religions, there was an era in the Indian subcontinent, where the religions were scattered, believed in afterlife and magic (something similar to Shaman), and even used to bury their dead, instead of putting them into fire. These are called Pre-Vedic religions and they gave way to the Vedic era somewhere around 1500 BCE.

Vedic era is spread over roughly from 1500 BCE to almost the birth of the Christ. It is divided into two parts; first the revelation of the four Vedas and then their interpretations. Lust like the case of Abrahamic religions, Vedas were also misinterpreted and misused by the [u]Brahmans/u to keep folks under their control. But, its later half is more important and gave the birth to Upanishads, which are philosophical investigations of Vedas. This is what we call Vedanta. Vedanta means - What happened after the end of Vedas.This was also the timeline of the advent of Buddhism and Jainism.

These last 8-10 centuries before Christ, are considered the golden period of Hinduism or Classical Hinduism. But, Abrahamic religions did neither get the chance to go through that refinement nor they had any mature enough audience ready to be taught the details. On the other hand, Eastern religions had both that advantages. They hit the maturity before the Abrahamic religions actually got even started.

Prism, you cannot teach Einstein’s theory of curved spacetime to the primary students. Can you? You need at least a high school student. It was not the shortcoming of the teachers; they did not have the students competent enough to grasp the whole lesson. So, preachers had no option but to teach according to the capacity of the listeners.

with love,
sanjay

Secondly, there is one more very important issue which has not got the attention of the intellectuals yet. Abrahamic religions, especially Islam, are still in the evolving phase. They are far away from the maturity yet. Though, Christianity seems to be a gone case by now. The Church has been conceded the defeat a long ago. But, Islam is still fighting hard to find the way. It still has all the options open.

A western citizen may not able to realize but there is a lot of chopping and churning is going on within Muslims all over the world. It may have not surfaced yet but it is gaining momentum by each passing day. And, fortunately, this feeling is not only in the common Muslim but within the Umma( cleric community) as well. They are finding it hard to digest what some from within their community are doing in the name of Islam.

I am not sure whether they would be able to turn the tide of not, but there would such attempt for sure very soon. The circumstances seem to be the most favorable now than ever. The rates of crude oil are less than half now what it was just one year ago. This single factor is good enough to break the back bone of Islamic extremism as they all are funded by the Petro Dollars of rich Gulf countries.

All Islam needs right now is some wise leadership from within Islam, which have the courage to stand up against this madness. No outsider can do that. They can only help the cause. Such leadership must have Muslim face.

My guess is that Pakistan is the only country from where this can started. It has all the necessary ingredients to flourish any counter extremism movement. Iraq was the also such a country but at that time, the whole of west decided to support conservative Arab countries instead of a liberal one.

The difference between Islam and Christianity is that unlike most of the Christians, a majority of the Muslims have not lost thier faith in Islam. They may interpret it rightly or wrongly, but they still have faith. On the other hand, most of the Christians do not care about Christianity. This is even true for those who still consider themselves Christian.

My guess is that for about 2/3 of the Christian believers, Christianity has been come down to going to the Church to Sundays and lighting candles. It is merely a social practice now. The real faith is missing. But, things are not the same in the case of the majority of the Muslim believers. They have real faith in their hearts besides social practices.

Though, over the time, Hindus are also slowly following that very path of Christians.

With love,
sanjay

Noted your various points.

I dare say, there are substantially* no evil laden elements (potential or otherwise) in the holy texts of Buddhism nor Jainism. I dare not claim for Hinduism as it comprised on many sub-religions. Except for some potential areas of misinterpretations, Hinduism generally is OK and do not has notable inherent evil elements like those of the Abrahamic religions.
*minor disputable points.

When I compare the Abrahamic religions to the main Eastern Religions, the basis is the average best performance they are capable of.
To use an analogy from academic;

  1. The highest potential for the average Abrahamic believers is up to say primary level.
  2. The highest potential for the average Eastern religions is up to University Level.

Note I said, the potential for the average believers, this will exclude the mystics who are special class of people. This include Christian mysticism and Sufism. You will note the Sufis are regarded as apostates and infidels by mainstream Muslims. Note the recent bombing of Sufi shrines. IMO, the mystics of Christianity and Sufis should be regarded more to mysticism rather than belonging the their conventional religion. In this case, a Sufi is 90% mystic and 10% conventional Muslim, as is similar with a Christian mystics or a Buddhist mystic.
Btw, I am very familiar with Sufism.

Why I say the average Abrahamic religions potential is inferior to the Eastern religion is based on the parts of the brain they addressed in facing the existential dilemma.
The Abrahamic religion focus more on the reptilian and limbic [animal] part of the brain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain#Reptilian_complex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system

while the Eastern religion focus on the higher cortical brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex

If you researched into the holy texts, the ethos and behaviors of Abrahamic believers and ER believers in general, you will notice the associations with the various parts of the human brain.
I will avoid the details as it can be tedious.

The point is,
because the Abrahamic religions focused on the lower and mid brain, the limit of its average can only reached a certain level, say X points, (exceptions of the mystics)
because the Eastern Religions focused on the higher complex brain, its max limit of it average will be extended beyond X, say X+3 points.

The other point is,
the Abrahamic religions work on the principle of the immutability of their holy texts (to edit God’s word would be a sin & blasphemous). As such, there is no likely possibility for any progress to be made from what is stated in the holy texts which focused on the lower and mid brain.
The Eastern Religions meanwhile are dynamic and flexible and believers can direct attention to the relevant parts of the brain to facilitate greater spiritual progress.

It is on this basis that the Abrahamic religions are relatively inferior to those of the Eastern Religions listed above.

Jainism existed in parallel with the Vedas (controversial point) and Buddhism emerged from Jainism in parallel with the Vedas.
I mentioned earlier, Buddhism is a paradigmatic shift in its central principles (anatman) from the atman of the Vedas.
The older Vedanta existed before Buddhism, but the later-Vedanta [renewed by Adi Shankara] emerged only after Buddhism was getting popular in India and subsequently this renewed-Vedanta pushed Buddhism out of India.

As I explained above, there is no room for the Abrahamic religions to evolve based on what is fixed in its holy texts and its immutability.

It is possible for Muslims themselves to evolve away from Islam towards Sufism which is mysticism and which is not Islam per-se.
It is possible for Christians themselves [not Christianity per se] to evolve, but they would be deviating from the central core of Christianity [the only way] and complementing their Christian beliefs with elements of Eastern religions (e.g. yoga, meditations, etc.) and secular practices.

What I foresee is, in the future, believers of all religions will veer toward and adopt a sort of generic human-spirituality that is centered on the development of the whole brain with real positive changes to the neurons in the brain. Then there will less religionists and the majority will be spiritualist-proper (not perverted shamanic, new-age or scam spiritualists)

Eugenics is deciding what will or will not be concerning the neurological structure of the casts and species. Atheism can’t avoid nihilism, in fact favors it.

Blind “progress” is annihilation and extinction.

Prismatic 567,
Can’t you see that this argument is self defeating? The very basis of your argument is Us vs. Them. Good Eastern Religions vs. those evil, psychotic, intolerant Abrahamic religions. The title and the two large bold subtitles scream Us vs. Them.

If no Us vs. Them is the criteria for good vs. bad, then your argument is bad.

I don't know what you mean by 'knowledge' or 'work with' here.  When all you're doing is accepting carte blanche that everything is equally possible, then there is no knowledge to be had, and there's no working to be done other than memorization. It's not as though you have any particular motivation to discover if the arguments for some position work or not. 
SO you're just on a quest to make yourself feel good? Seems like their are much easier ways to do it.  Either chakras are bullshit, or they aren't.  Wouldn't you like to know, instead of just faking it moment to moment because it gives you a special feeling?
Ah, so you only believe in things that aren't immediately refuted by physical reality around you.  So won't believe that you can breathe fire, because...you try it and you can't breathe fire.  But you will believe that you have a magical energy vortex in your solar plexus that will increase your libido if somebody pokes it with a needle, because, well...it's a state of mind mostly and can't be as easily refuted. 

Here’s my problem with that- you and I are doing the same thing, you’re just doing it on easy-mode, to me. You only deny that which you’d have to be a fool to accept. The low hanging fruit of skepticism. If you worked a little harder, and stepped beyond what is accepted/denied by your immediate senses, though, you could do philosophy and realize that there are a great number of claims out there that are just as bullshit as jedi powers, and are revealed to be such through argument, historical evidence, and so on.

 Yeah, what if?  Go off and believe such things without evidence because it makes you feel good, if you like.  Just please don't try to pass laws or reshape society in the name of your baseless ideas.  It'll be a little sad if you raise children to believe baseless ideas with no grounding in reality, but that's your business. 

Point is, it matters that people are crazy. If you believe in a bunch of mystical horseshit that isn’t real, sooner or later you will convince enough people to agree with you, laws will be passed or policies will be enacted, and folks will suffer and die. The only reason why your ‘make it up as I go along’ philosophy seems to work for you is because you are surrounded by, watched over by, and protected by people with their heads grounded in reason. Would you like your doctor to have the same ideas about medicine and anatomy that you have about religion?
Look at the Quakers- pacifists. Pacifism seems nice, especially when you have your tiny pacifist enclave tucked away in the midst of the greatest military power on earth willing to die to protect you, and law enforcement ready to do violence to anybody who would hurt you.

But anyway, what you’re saying confirms for me that you are believing as you do because of politics and not philosophy, which takes me back to my critique of the OP, who seems to be saying that religions are inferior of they challenge his political assumptions.

your first assumption is that I classify all as perfectly equal in such a manner, which I don’t. In the end, that doesn’t matter as they will twist back together like a frayed rope being returned to the form of a whole rope and certain things will be discarded. You say there is no knowledge to be had and yet the knowledge itself is unimportant compared to the lessons learned that aren’t knowledge at all but present themselves in our instinctual programming in how we react without thought, etc. Memorization has already proven to be a faulty process of learning since simply learning these things and memorizing them is pointless to actual learning. People still need to actually experience something to fully understand it and then they have their own understand separate from what is presented, which is the entire point and what spurs growth and your assumptions of what I meant are what stints growth. Your assumptions are based in faulty learning programs presented by and institutionalized system of indoctrination. You immediately look at how what I say can be construed for the worst instead of taking it and seeing where it goes from there. Instead of being able to move onto the next part of the conversation, I now have to clarify what I meant beyond what I needed to and waste time with you as you drag me back for the next arrow shot forward; which would be the metaphorical exemplification of this post. I’m going to still take it to the next step.

Yes, I am on a quest just to make myself feel good. Considering that your job as a moderator allows you to see far more posts from me than others here, that assumption from you is rather asinine. At the same time as being for me, it’s for others, too and I know you see that even though you pretend not to for the sake of gesticulating fakery on my part as if I would fake something that interests me so much and as if I could fake the help I’ve managed to give to my self that I try to give to others. What you and others don’t realize is that I am my favorite test subject for what I learn before I ever learn from others. My pursuit is learning how best to help the worlds problems and these conversations are but small part. The ripple effects of them are going to be epic if I live long enough to see them and yes; to be quite fucking honest; I do this for me in the long term. I was born to be King of this world and I don’t forget that shit. Cue the questions that queue on that thought process for me from you and those will be another post of explaining further my intentions and my visions of all that rests around me in this world and more views into my personal perception which you seem to have your own negative opinions of what I mean. Frankly; after all that I do and have done, I do expect something from life itself for it all; but that’s not the main reason I do it and would be content with nothing as long as I made a difference with my pathetic life that I have sought to make less pathetic.

The fact is that chakras aren’t bullshit and neither is spiritual energy or emotional energy. As a strong empath, I do sense these energies and feel them move through me and have felt the different chakras and the opening of my own third eye. I have looked into the sun on multiple occasions throughout my life and have recently seen things in it that would amaze you and yet I believe that the things I saw were only able to be seen under the circumstances they were seen under; you can’t just stare at the sun and then close your eyes and see cool shit pop up instead of the usual flashes of greenish color from staring at lights. Most of the time, that’s all you’re going to say and you’re going to feel stupid and yet twice in the past 5 months, I stared at the sun and the first time saw afterward with my eyes closed an eye within the sun clasped open like clockwork orange; like the image of the Crayak if you read Animorphs at all; which are a damn good set of books; and the second time I saw simple geometrical patterns in a 1-2-3 format stopping after the third one with the insinuation that there was more. The simple fact of the matter is that people truly experience these fucking phenomenon’s, Ucci, and where I used to believe people who believed in ghosts to be silly superstitious fools; I find it really hard to discount any of it.

No, I believe even things that are immediately refuted by the physical reality around me; it’s a lot like situational ethics except situational reality and why is that so hard to believe? Perhaps in the right situations, I could breathe fire or fly or release energy blasts from my hands with a power level of over 9000, or even walk on water. You don’t know because you’ve never been in a situation that demanded it of you and your mind may not be open enough to give it an honest try even if it did and who would believe the people who might have had such happen to and for them and so why would they say anything at all if it did? I never said Jedi powers were bullshit; just bullshit as they were presented. Ever see Men Who Stare at Goats?

I don’t believe these things without evidence and I don’t believe them because they make me feel good. Some times, they don’t make me feel good at all and I have all the evidence I need and am content with it. I have no need to have a God prove itself to me anymore to believe in it and yet such a God may still do so just because it chooses to. In fact, there are times where I don’t like what I experience, but what the Hell can I do about it other than deal with it? That’s the whole problem that I fear: that more laws and policies will be passed that are entirely useless.

And personally, I believe that if we were to fix our problems of society that we would be able to heal our selves and others with our minds, making medicine and doctors completely useless. The combined power of such energy working through everything would dictate immortality since we would have reach a point where the future may become set in stone in a manner that we would be completely content with: pure epicity. But that’s just a coincidence to what I already postulated here as a possibility that can’t be disproven and until such a possibility is given the full measure and effort it deserves in bringing about world peace in a conducive manner and disproven, who are you to call it mystical horseshit. And I don’t make it up as I go along, either. Calling my ideas baseless… How trite and utterly predictable of a cynic. I believe as I do because of a mixture of it all together as I have said countless times and even gone so far as to show. Politics is pointless is the entire point I’m making.

Anyway, it’s been fun talking with you again Ucci, but you are simply not intellectually qualified to have a conversation with me since all you can do is futilely attempt to deconstruct my posts with barbed cynicism and misconstruing what was being said. You can call it foolish all you want, but it’s just a bunch of bullshit just like you claim my theses to be. And frankly, at such a point as that, Fuck you, lol. No offense, but fuck off, lmfao. I’m going to laugh about this because it’s just infantile. Like this needed a counterpoint such as yours to reinforce negativity and cynicism in people. No, kid, I actually experience and learn what I put forth and you can’t shake it and you can’t shake my mood any longer, either. I have a lot more things now that nobody can ever take away from me again and I’m trying to share those things with other people on the off-chance that they might be going through the same things.

You don’t understand that I don’t need to teach this shit and that’s not what I’m doing or have been doing with all these posts of mine or with the fight I’m fighting. It’s a giant reach out to people who feel like me and experience like me which I assume is a good portion of society more than what is apparent by just viewing the surface of the interactions. I would assume that some people may go their entire lives without ever experiencing anything like what I have and yet there are still too many people who do. I’ve never learned a damn thing from any other philosopher except how similar my thoughts are to theirs after the fact of having my thoughts. And I laugh and laugh and laugh at how silly people are to go to school and try to hold down a job in a world where everything we need in life stems from our subconscious and our souls. Laugh and laugh and laugh, lol. The fact is that it does make me feel good to have justification to believe what I believe. I don’t even care that I can’t transfer that justification over to others as they have to walk their own paths in life.

I say to the world, ‘set my people free.’ If you don’t understand these things that I say, if you can’t see their place in the world and the importance of these things beyond the concept of just being a belief then you are not one of my people, lol. There are things in this world stronger than beliefs and those are actualities and the things I talk about have been proven to me by life and not by any other person or group of people, so what really can you say to that? Absolutely nothing and yet you’ll probably try anyway because you may not have experienced it in your life. Shit man, sucks to be you, because it’s fucking awesome.

Btw, do you have any respect for intellectual integrity or NOT?

You need to read my justification in the whole context and the related points.
Note, the point in red;
On this basis, only the religion’s own believers are superior while others are inferior and condemned in the worst light.
I gave examples of what that meant.

Btw, you need to understand the full perspective of the primal inherent “us versus them” impulse.
The neural mechanics of the “us versus them” impulse is embedded deep in the brain and once upon a time (10,000 and prior) was a critical necessity to facilitate survival of the tribe, group and therefrom the human specie.
This “us versus them” impulse has lost its criticalness [i.e. leverage on life or death, see point 2 below] and significance as humanity progress to the present state of the trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology. Such an impulse may still be critical to some tribes in the jungles of Amazon, Africa and elsewhere, but this is insignificant to our modern society.
Elsewhere it is still useful to some degree and if it is not used ‘malignantly’ it is of no cause for concern.

Because the “us versus them” impulse is deeply embedded in the brain and still have some use it cannot be eliminated and thus need to be modulated. Where this impulse is not modulated in individuals, they form gangs, become racists, political extremists, religious divisions, etc.

  1. Now what is worse is this “us versus them” impulse is malignantly enshrined in the immutable holy texts of the Abrahamic religions.

  2. The double whammy is this “us versus them” is leveraged upon a deeper primal impulse of the threat of eternal death and hellfire.

  3. The incendiary elements are the evil laden verses I have highlighted.

1, 2, and 3 are the ingredients for a Molotov cocktail from SOME fundamentalists to commit evils upon non-believers and even believers.

To you. If knowledge isn’t important TO YOU, then you certainly have embraced the right outlook to make sure you don’t have to worry about it.

 You repeatedly condemned people and institutions that teach that there is such a thing as correct and incorrect when it comes to religious beliefs.  I've listened to you rant about how everybody that doesn't think about religion in the exact way you do is causing wars, and death, and backwardness and how they are everything that is wrong with the planet. 
Now I'm criticizing YOUR take on religious beliefs in turn. You can respond or you can ignore me, it's all good, but I'm not interested in the 'why are you picking on me' game. 

So you discovered the miraculous secret to how to save the world, and that secret is the exact same views on spirituality and self-righteousness that any random millennial raised on the Left Coast would have. You’re wasting a lot of words painting yourself alternately as my victim and a super hero, when I’d rather discuss philosophy. I simply don’t care what you think of yourself or how clever you imagine yourself to be. It will reveal itself in the quality of your arguments, or it won’t.
And this goes back to what I was hinting at before about relativists doing the same thing as everybody else, except on easy mode. What are the true secrets of the universe? Self-serving drek that you don’t have to try to hard to achieve.

OK, so in addition to everything else, you think you have magic powers. No wonder you don’t consider yourself to be in a position to judge anybody else’s beliefs.
Best of luck to you.

Again, you misinterpret. I never said knowledge wasn’t important or that it wasn’t important to me. Also, never said I was free from worry, did I. No, I did not.

Point out one instance of me condemning institutions for pointing out a wrong and right way to live. I have not condemned any institutions, let alone for that reason. I believe I said something about each institution; each group and every person is a mixture of right and wrong because they fail to properly coincide to bring out the maximum potential of each belief and they fail to tie those beliefs together as they should for being so disconnected from each other. I have never said that people who don’t think about religion exactly as I do are the only cause of wars, in fact I don’t think I blamed a single one for causing a war. The fact is that wars stem from it and there is an ongoing war of the spirit that has existed for a very long time. I never said they were backwards, either.

I have said a good many things about religions and other groups and their fallibilities, but I have also been there to speak of their virtues, too, if you would care to listen to both sides of the story and argument. You want to envision something as perfect when it isn’t? Fine, be my guest. The fact is that the duality of mankind isnt just limited to masculine and feminine but to good and evil, too. To some I would appear to be very good and to others I would appear to be very bad and to others still, I would seem a variety of both in either confusion or confidence. To state these things about these groups is to state the same things for individuals, myself included. You think I remain unaware that my actions have the same repercussions? Why do you think I stand away from groups and act on my own as an individual instead of speaking beyond my means for people who may not share the same ideologies.

Now, the fact of the matter is that I came in here and I turned a lot of people on their asses and on their ears when they thought they had suitable argument against what I was saying. I have used more than just swearing and insults to bring down faulty arguments, I have used actual reason and sense beyond emotion to point out the fact that most arguments brought forth by people are not fully fleshed and they really don’t know what they’re talking about, but love the idea of talking about it as if they do. Now, if you want to state that I lump all people into that category, then you’re wrong. I have not engaged every person here in the same manner, nor have I tackled every subject matter there is, here and why do you think that is? I don’t know everything, duh. I argue what I know and some times I just sit back and watch a conversation as it unfolds without saying anything. I treat every situation differently based on the merits each situation and each person part of each situation brings forth.

You’re not criticizing anything except your own integrity. You’re tackling an insurmountable project by criticizing me and my arguments because you have nothing to stand on but cynicism and negativity and I really don’t give a fuck, bro. But here I am anyway giving a fuck and responding to you anyway; do you get the picture, yet? Has that duality popped itself into your head, yet? I’m not saying that you’re picking on me and I’m not asking why, either. You seem to want to take bits and pieces of what I say and pull them out of context to make it seem as though I say something I’m not saying and why? I don’t know and frankly, I don’t care to ask you for your reasoning, because it seems sketchy and I doubt you would give much actual reason.

I’m not sure what I discovered and yet you want to jump quickly into assuming that I’m stating such just because I’m confident about what I say. You mistake my confidence for something else. I have no clue how to save the world, to be honest because shits going to happen regardless. All I have ever said in this regard is war is ongoing, it is going to get worse, prepare for a massive shit storm in the future and I go forth and try to prepare people for what I see coming, often times without realizing that this is what I’m doing. I’m often just reaching out to people I see who are struggling with their own inner storm and I ask nothing in return and yet hope they pay it forward to the next person they see that needs help that they can help. I have no idea about random millenials or how the left coast plays a part in things. I don’t paint myself as anything but myself. That I see myself as a hero and as a victim of circumstances beyond my control is obvious to anyone who sees me; one is what I have been, the other is what I hope to be and often fail at and yet never give up and even in the failing, I succeed in never giving up and give testament to will power and tenacity and integrity. I don’t give up, even in giving up it becomes a strategic retreat.

It seems to me that you’d rather talk out your ass than talk philosophy, Ucci. I’ve seen your posts and they don’t amount to much, in my opinion and that might just be me striking back at you for what you’ve said to me. Honestly, I can’t remember reading anything of yours worthy of notice. Magical powers, you say with abject cynicism and then you look down your nose at me and judge me all the same. I never considered myself to be in a position to judge others no matter what I believed in. Even in negativity, I fought against talking shit about people for no reason based in immaturity. This extends from racism to everything else. Now, I have made a good many jokes and I have torn apart arguments and shredded peoples beliefs on all sides as I’ve argued so many things. You want to persecute me for my beliefs or my thought processes, my theses, then go ahead, but you leave your self open for the same treatment. I have not once persecuted anyone for anything or called anything silly… I only asked that they properly present it and argue it, show that they’re using their minds to properly bring it forth.

Now, I have actually experienced shit and I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD TO HAVE DONE SO. I know this to be true. There are many things I am, but I’m not a prick for no reason; not like you. You want to be mean? I’m still pulling my punches. You want to know the secrets of the universe? Hah, here’s a clue, buddy, so do a lot of other people who never get further than the philosophies of those who already came before them and yet here I am, never asking once to see a single secret of the universe and I get shown some amazing stuff just for being a good sport and fighting an actual fight against corruption and bullying. I have been hated by so many and I’m not whining and bitching about it anymore; have had things I loved torn apart, my family torn apart; my friendships ruined; by an intangible entity working through this world and I may be just a man caught in physicality or I may be much more and I don’t know or care enough to know for sure either way. I just want to live my life in a better world and that is impossible, so I seek to make it better for others who will come after me. I really don’t care how silly you think it is, I stand in the darkness against darkness; darkness that you exemplify at this moment.

You want to talk philosophy, then talk philosophy. The fact is that I try hard while barely trying and again there is that duality that is hard to pin down; that seeming contradiction.

I don’t imagine myself to be clever; I AM clever. I AM intelligent. I don’t need to imagine or pretend and the fact is that I couldn’t imagine a lot of what I talk about. It flows through me as if I was a vessel for it and find myself a willing puppet for whatever consciousness the universe has. I invited it all in, if it was there, to see what would come of it without thinking in those terms, just trying to find an answer and to my surprise, I got answered. I don’t care if you believe me whatsoever; the fact remains that I am entirely believable in what I say because what I say has conviction to it. I have lived my life as truthfully as possible for a reason I didn’t understand until recently and I love the fucking reason. I love telling the truth and being believed, no matter how insane it might sound. At the least, you can believe that I believe it and have experienced it personally, which should speak volumes. Do I care if it can be replicated? Obviously not if I believe in something I label as situational reality.

But, the actual fact of the matter is, Ucci, that you; as a moderator; have derailed this conversation and taken it off-topic just to lodge a personal assault against me and what I brought to the conversation and for that lack of professionalism and respect for your position, I just get a smug little grin and shrug my shoulders and say, ‘you know, you really should pay better attention to your surroundings and the world around you instead of just opening your mouth without cause.’

Peace, love and harmony, bro.

K.

 I'm just not having it.  You want to have your cake and eat it too- you can't go on a big rant about how every ideology every where all the time is doing everything wrong and you're the magical wizard that has the solution to all the world's ills, while AT THE SAME TIME patting yourself on the back for how open-minded and inclusive you are. 

So far you aren’t saying much of anything and you certainly aren’t making any good arguments. You seem to be writing vast quantities of text in order to impress yourself.

Yes, you take a little bit from every religion and only use what works. Yes, you think that if everybody did this the world would be a better place. You, and every other two-bit 21t century spiritualist. It’s not new or interesting or inspired or particularly deep. It’s just a way of melding (fake) non-confrontationalism with (fake) profundity.

I know you don't, because you have it all figured out, because you read a blog or something.  I'm just sort of skimming your post to see if you stop talking about how wonderful you are and actually make some sort of argument for some sort of position. Not seeing it yet. 

You know, speaking of duality. Look how angry you come off as. In all your embracing of contrary points of view, in all your vast, tireless journeying through what I assume must have taken you many decades, surely you’ve been scoffed at before. You opened up your participation with me by declaring how you believe in everybody being a little bit right and getting past the us. vs. them and all that, and the first time somebody says ‘pfft’ to it you fly into a tirade that is equal parts enraged and egoistical- telling me I shouldn’t question you because of the others you’ve bested, your conquests, your talents. Telling me that if I do question you, you’re oh so above it and couldn’t care less.

Too badass to be doubted and too aloof to be concerned with what others think, and…

that is of course the absolute contradiction of what you proposed to believe, which is my point.

You see, your idea- that all religions are equally right or have chopped up kernels of truth or all that stuff...it's preposterous.  Logically, it doesn't make any sense at all, and it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. It's the kind of thing that nobody would believe.   What, you take your favorite elements from 10 different religions and all your favorite elements just happen to be true? Horseshit. 
 And since it's horseshit, it has to be defended in the ways horseshit always is:  by appealing to the fact that believing and pronouncing horseshit is good for the world regardless of whether or not it's true, which is how you began, or by declaring that people who deny your horseshit are terrible human beings who don't deserve to have their arguments considered, which is what you are moving too.  I was impervious to your "I am spreading baloney to save the world" routine, so now you are trying the "I am a better human being than you" routine, which you will discover I am equally impervious too, having seen all of this before. 

A person who is actually [i]just[/i] a Catholic (or Buddhist or whatever) believing and behaving as these people do, is far less likely to react as you are, because their beliefs are not so wrapped up in their own ego, and they have ways to defend their dogmas other than alternating between self-righteousness and intimidation. 

You declared yourself to have magical powers to a stranger on the internet who was already skeptical of your position, and now you want to portray yourself as a villain because they rolled their eyes at you. How can you help anybody when you are that divorced from reality?

It doesn't matter as much as you'd think.  A super clever, super intelligent person would still lose to a mediocre chess player if said genius simply hadn't taken the time to learn the rules of chess.   If you haven't bothered to learn what a contradiction is, how rhetoric works, why fallacies are important and what an ideology is, and so on, then all the raw brain power in the universe won't get you far in a discussion like this.   You're clever and intelligent? Not clever enough to keep your magic powers to yourself in an online discussion.  

 IN summary, you present yourself as being that one who has a deep respect for all cultures and beliefs and sees the value in them all because that is what is beautiful, how you like to be seen.  In reality, you are somebody who thinks he is more deserving, more virtuous and more clued-in than almost everybody else, and is in a unique position to pronounce on the nature of the universe to guide the plebs out of their ignorance and into your light.  Is what you pronounce good?  Superficially. But because it is rooted in your own ego and sense of self-importance and not the discipline and humility that comes with true study, you become a monster at the slightest provocation.   Why is this a problem?   Because everybody who pronounces the kinds of things you do is that way.   Why?  Because it is horseshit, and see above.

  And to return to the original subject, that's why Abrahamic (or other "us vs. them") religions aren't relatively inferior to other, more 'inclusive' styles:  more inclusive styles aren't rational, and irrational positions that can't be defended through argument have to be defended through authority, emotional appeals, or 'how dare you's' instead.