I’ve seen people that read so much, but it is vanity, because they don’t have the “hands” to hold and wield knowledge.
Other people spend a whole life chasing after temporary pleasures, instead of finding the ever-lasting.
Such wisdom =D>
Reminds me of the idiom … “Out of the mouth of babes” … you are so young to “see” this Dan.
NT
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One of my biggest fears is that i wont be powerful enough to handle and survive a life in the spirit world.
Modern humans don’t know what true power is, or what it’s like to live near the bottom of the food chain.
When they think about saving their soul, it is usually a path of theism.
Dan … have you read my latest OP “Individuation”?
Your above comment is precisely why so few people enter the “dark night” voluntarily. To enter the night safely one must be tethered to mighty strong spirits. 
Some people get chewed up pretty good in their lifetime(s).
Still largely true today … tomorrow … who knows eh!
Dan, I can even go atheist to be there with you if you need it. The nooks and crannies of the spirit world are vast. I can tell you one thing: people want the best for themselves - when eternal death knocks, nobody answers the door. Never have, never will.
That, and spend a lot of time developing one’s self where possible.
The universe is packed full of spirits. But finding a good one is up to the person in question.
Jung … a life lived extraordinarily well. There is no end to this guys path, and it keeps getting richer. He died like Crowley died, anticipating.
Id say he is the standard for how we should approach the drive to philosophize in ourselves.
I’m going to point out the obvious to people, though they may struggle with the idea…
Churches and marriages are stages of our and others’ evolution…
We’ll always have what we’re true towards, which in a practical sense is mutual experiences of beauty… even those we consider wicked rely on the kindness of others to do these things… once they figure out that this is what’s the important part, they begin to nurture it more and more…
Dan … my experience tells me spirits find us … we do not find them.
If you check out my writings on the subject “My Spiritual Family” I describe to the best of my limited capabilities how I met the spirits currently in my life. You may also note the list starts with Jesus and Mary … followed by a community of well known Catholic Saints and ends with two non Catholic historic personages … Mao Zedong and Lao Tzu. This confirms what I shared with you in a recent PM.
A religion with hope would be concerned with the ultimate destiny of Man. It would therefore be this-worldly, here and now perpetuation of ecosystems. In the past Utopias such as Brook Farm failed because nobody wanted to do the down to earth menial tasks necessary for maintenance of a viable community. I think Gaskin’s Farm still prospers. The former was an ideal; the latter is a practice. A religion of the future cannot afford to be impractical.
As an issue of being practical, the current Media has control over what people believe to be hopeful and worthy of effort.
And when has it been any different?
What’s the difference between the strategy employed by the current media and the ancient priestly class of Judaism … why do all world religions require heresy, apostasy and so on?
Such wasn’t the point, but there have been times throughout history, far less technological times, when the general populous was far more free of Media mental oppression. Early USA was one of those times when organized propaganda Media was illegal with competition being the primary enforcer. Today, with monopolies reinstated, there is no competition, merely the feigning of it, “Let’s all pretend to argue, while never mentioning the actual truth”.
The point was that if you are to base your new religion upon popular beliefs, you are merely extending the current religion.
oops
gib"
Can you say then in one sentence what to you produced consciousness? I do not mean to simplify things here.
The write-up sounded made it sound really interesting.
Well, that’s just the rub. I don’t think consciousness is “produced” at all. I think it is the foundation of being. To experience conscious is simply what it is to be. It is the experience of “here I am” or just “I am”. Everything that exists, exists in virtue of experiencing its existence in some form.
=D> =D>
The reluctant saint is waking up.
The reluctant saint wants to hit snooze a few more times. 
Gib … have you ever taken an overnight train? … I have many times. It’s impossible to sleep … the train consistently though in an irregular pattern jerks and lurches throughout the night.
So it is on our life’s journey … some of us though we are desperate to sleep feel the jerking and lurching of the pulse of the universe. At the appointed time we wake up … there are many ways to wake up … though the process is fraught with peril.
Hmmm, I do not know, gib.
Here is the definition of produced.
p[b]ro·duce
verb
past tense: produced; past participle: produced
prəˈd(y)o͞os/Submit
make or manufacture from components or raw materials.
“the company has just produced a luxury version of the aircraft”
synonyms: manufacture, make, construct, build, fabricate, put together, assemble, turn out, create; More
2.
cause (a particular result or situation) to happen or come into existence.
“no conventional drugs had produced any significant change”
synonyms: give rise to, bring about, cause, occasion, generate, engender, lead to, result in, effect, induce, set off; [/b]
I would have, from the above definition, no problem with thinking that consciousness can, in a large sense, be produced - especially the first one…from components and raw materials…if we stretch our imaginations insofar as what those components and raw materials would include. I do not think that consciousness came from absolutely nothing.
Is consciousness as being produced and as being the foundation of being necessarily exclusive? I may be wrong but I am not so sure that they are.
I think that in a way consciousness/conscious as being produced means the same as human evolution.
Did life on Earth begin with consciousness or is it something which eventually at some point came into existence and has been evolving since then.
As self-awareness or did you mean something different?
Wouldn’t you say that it goes more than a step further than that? Part of that means to be able to know who the I is and to be able to express that - not simply that I exist. Am I wrong there? I am really asking.
The other day you casually implied consciousness with reference to something that was mentioned. So what are you saying here - that your form of consciousness which you implied was simply about here I am or just I am. If that was the case, then in my book, you were making much to do about almost nothing. 
Is that the equivalent of consciousness to you or a conscious being?
Okay - so then, what is it in your estimation that is the cause of consciousness? You said that it was different than that which was previously thought of (paraphrasing).
If it just suddenly appeared on the horizon, that could also be seen as human evolution, yes?