The only true freethinkers are agnostic freethinkers.

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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The only true freethinkers are agnostic freethinkers.

That is the beauty of being a freethinker. We can think for ourselves.

As such, when we get a toolbox we can decide which tools to use for the job. Some tools are used a lot, other tools are left alone for the time being, and still others are trashed when we see they are broken and useless.

Again, a freethinker is ‘free to decide’ how they wish to proceed.

Just be careful of falling into the trap of ‘mind manacled freethinker’ as many ego based people fall into.

The prejudiced, blind, small minded thinker cannot entertain freethought as they must block or censor the ideas and concepts before testing them for truth.

Their ego will not allow it! Such people do not operate on truth, they operate on ego. There is nothing wrong with having personal opinions, but when we use these opinions to destroy others, then it does become very wrong.

The difference between an authority and an authoritarian is this. An authority speaks from a place of truth and such speaks as an authority. Whereas an authoritarian rules by fear and not by truth. For the truth stands on it own and the authoritarian stands on their EGO.

No, egocentricity is not good for spiritual work and we need to be open to others ideas and embrace them as nourishment for your growth and sustenance for life - as no one person is God.

Traditional freethinkers (atheists) do not accept me as one of their group, since I draw from spiritual paths as well as wordily areas to garner wisdom to live at peace. Traditional freethinkers do not like anything that comes from religion.

Kind of a misnomer isn’t it…I’m a freethinker…but I must block out everything that comes from religion and spiritual traditions and whatever other prejudice I wish to inject into the equation?

Psychologist William James once said, “A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

When we limit prejudice we can open our minds to truth and peace. And realize the truth of Blake’s words that “all deities reside within the human breast.”

If it is religion that an atheists need to adopt, they only have to look as far as the religion of humanity. But just paying secular humanism lip service will not do any good.

Our talk of spiritual values must match our actions.

I was at a religious discussion where the group was composed of a wide spectrum of believers and non believers. One atheist said he ran his life by the golden rule. Another person piped up that the golden rule came from the bible, which made the atheist wince.

The atheist seemed to take pride in his self sufficiency and did not like to run his life by anything that came out of the bible. When it came up that the concept of golden rule might be from an earlier source than the bible, the atheist was relieved.

This was a good reminder to me to examine where my guiding light resides? Is it ego based or truth based?

When the guiding light of this atheist was not grounded in the bible he was happy. But when it came from an area that he did not like, he was upset.

How can the same material be used to build a palace by one man, yet only build a hovel for another? By one spiritual practitioner seeing truth and applying it to live a life at peace. And the other person only seeing prejudice and problems and doing nothing.

Every religion was made by man and as such every religion is imperfect as it is run by man. Despite these imperfections, each religion also has many “perfection’s” within it as well.

We can still be open to peace generating tools from any of the religions and spiritual traditions that are available to us if we are serious about being at peace. This requires us to run our life by truth and not by prejudice.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). Nowadays this verse is commonly referred to as “The Golden Rule,” and is more commonly quoted as: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Here are some of the earliest sources for this concept of reciprocity

~1970-1640 BCE “Do for one who may do for you, / That you may cause him thus to do.” - The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant 109-110, Ancient Egypt, tr. R.B. Parkinson.

  • ~700 BCE “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.” - Dadistan-i-Dinik 94:5, Zoroastrianism.

  • ? BCE “Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others.” - Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29, Zoroastrianism.

  • ~550 BCE “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the LORD.” - Tanakh, new JPS translation, Leviticus 19:18, Judaism.

  • ~500 BCE “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” - Udana-Varga 5:18, Buddhism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity

Now, whether you believe in God or believe in Jesus or are an atheist or Buddhist does this wisdom not apply to you? This truth is universal in nature as it is based not on being of a certain religion, other than that of the religion of humanity.

In this case, you can adopt a peace generating tool and apply it to your life irrespective of your religious beliefs or lack thereof.

I had to chuckle one time when an atheist argued that the golden rule is not perfect, so he said he does not follow it. When I questioned him about what he does follow as well as the state of perfection that applied to his life, all he could do was reply with profanities and attacks on me.

Those that can’t argue truth…argue personalities.

If we are waiting for perfection when it comes to spiritual studies we will always be disappointed. Before applying perfection to anything outside of us, we should examine the perfection within us.

The nature of humans is that of imperfection, so we must always look towards direction and forget perfection.

I heard a story one time in a Yoga lecture that illustrates this point. “Range is of the ego - Form is of the soul.” The only thing we need to be concerned with is how is our form when it comes to our spiritual practice and our life.

Regarding the golden rule? It is more perfect than imperfect, so it is a most useful tool to live a life at peace by.

And when we combine it with other tools such as universality, natural law, contrast the greater good with the greater right, etc the synergistic effect is close to perfection as humans can get with this subject.

But it takes some thinking and one will not see it without an open mind. Wisdom for living a life at peace is all around us for the taking. But many of us get blinded with labels and personal prejudices.

Whenever we take it upon ourselves to beat down, we are headed in a direction of destroying peace. We destroy our own peace as well as others peace. As such, I practice from many religious and spiritual traditions without problems or prejudices and readily look for such gifts irrespective of what label they come under - on the contrary I am most grateful wherever I find them.

If I am not able to use a concept, I leave it alone, but do not spend my time or energies to beat others down.

Do we like to be beaten down?

I saw some paintings in a Japanese museum that showed a cousin of the Buddha being of great power and to show his strength he went up to a baby elephant and pushed it down to the ground. A second painting showed the Buddha helping this baby elephant back up to his feet and the Buddha lifted the elephant high up over his head and said, “It is much better to uplift - than to tear down.”

Whether this is a true story or not I do not know. But we can all benefit from uplifting rather than destroying.

I see this predisposition to destruction many times in responses I receive from my posts. The critiques offer much in the line of ‘no goods’ but they seldom do they offer any substantive tools to finding peace. Maybe I do not have it ‘100% right’ but I have it ‘right enough’ to be able to be at peace if I apply these principles. If I waited for perfection, I would never act. I use the tools at hand.

Aristotle ~ “It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.”

This being able to ‘rest satisfied’ is something the perfectionists lack and why they will never be at peace until they stop collecting concepts and start using the concepts of peace generations.

The atheist I mentioned above demonstrated this with his blanket dismissal of the golden rule since it is not 100% perfect. He could offer no substitutes for the golden rule, all he could do was succumb to personal attacks on me. We can examine our writing to see what useful tools for finding peace we offer to others it also says a lot about our own practice of generating inner peace.

When you practice peace promotion with others you will reap inner peace promotion. When you practice destroying others peace, you will reap self destruction of inner peace. This is the truth when the prejudice of ego is stripped away.

Whether atheists, theists or Buddhists, I submit that you all drop the pretense and lies that you have been grasping onto for entire life and rebuild your life through a foundation of truth and testing and regenerate yourselves into a truth based agnostic freethinker.

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Not givin’ Confucius any cred here with “Do not impose on other that which you do not desire?” at ~500BCE? Tsk, tsk.

While I admire much of what you have written here, and agree with a lot of it, it seems to me like you are neglecting a means whereby one can improve themselves in this mix. Trying to find moral truths is a noble thing, but knowledge of moral truths does neccessitate action and all too often that is where people slack.

As you said, all religions have man’s imperfections as well as man’s perfections. For me, the problem is that by taking a hodgepodge and creating your own you’ve just repeated the error since the system you create will contain that same mix. Perhaps there will be a few metaphysical improvements here-or-there, but the essence of moral theory really hasn’t changed that much and we are still having the same (or at least very similar) debates that people did in 500 BCE!

So, I think that being a ‘freethinker’ has the potential to become an isolated brain, where the community, which provides much of the impetous for change, is absent.

I guess the problem is that when people create their own moral systems, it tends to agree with what they are already doing. If these people were raised properly and had good values cultivated in them at an early age, then such a system will be sufficient for them. But what about the next generation?

The advantage of traditions and restrained thinking is that it allows for community. Communities aid in instilling values in the young, as well as helping us when we fall.

How does your system address the issue of community? The community is quite helpful in lifting each other up, is it not?

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Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Did not know about Confucius.

Add it to the wiki, as it is a good quote.

In reality, ‘my system,’ would not be practical one for most of society, as most people are too busy and / or unable to think.

I just write about this subject to share my thoughts.

Prepackaged morals of religion keeps most of society in check.

Yes, the right community ‘can be’ helpful, just as community can be destructive…it just depends.

The question is not about abolishing community, it about allowing community to freethink.

Living a life through practical application of philosophy is tough for those that have no desire or time or energy for introspection.

This is where community come in to help guide them.

See:

jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ … opic=380.0

No, I am not an advocate of isolation. If you read my posts I draw from all sources.

Freethinking allow you to test for truth as opposed to judging by prejudice.

There is no one system that will work, I draw from many tools as I go into below.

…My discussion of a similar topic from an earlier post.

(Anonymous Atheist 1) writes:

“What are the morals we should follow? Whose morals are correct? How do we agree upon a common set of morals? or even what are morals?”

(Anonymous Atheist 2) writes:

"Atheism is making real progress with destroying religion.)

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

V:

Hi and thanks for your posts.

Like to get rid of all religion and replace it with morals without God? But can’t decide on whose morals are the correct ones to replace religious morals?

The short answer:

Destroying others always destroys peace. It destroys your peace as well as the inner peace of the one that you destroys … look to the God of Inner Peace and the God of Nature for moral and ethical values. Even if you dump Yahweh, you can never dump these two Gods and live a flourishing, healthy peaceful life.

See:

jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ … opic=342.0

The long answer:

There is no answer no matter how long you make it that gives an absolute answer, for we will always come up with exceptions to the rule with this subject.

The question of universal morals and laws are the subject of numerous college classes and even with a Ph.D., it still depends on the person and their spiritual health when they answer such a question.

The arguments always seem to be around Moral Relativism vs Objectivism vs Determinism vs Emotivism vs Ethical subjectivism vs Moral Absolutism and around and around they go.

Add a few more components to the equation, such as Universality, The Golden Rule of Reciprocity, Natural Law
Theory, listening to the God of Inner Peace, Greater Good vs the Greater Right, Flourishing of the Species Theory and ‘Might Makes Right’ and people can get really stuck in analysis paralysis.

What is the best answer?

There is no best answer, other than it is a mix of all these in that yield us a ‘best fit’ equation to morals and ethics to live by.

All these concepts requires the individual to have thinking ability and a ‘conscious’ supported by spiritual values to come to the best fit for the circumstances at question. Humans have a conscious since they do not run solely by instinct as animals do. Without a spiritual based conscious they would turn to self-destruction.

This is a good topic to study up, for without having a feel for how this all works and without the fear of religion to keep humans in check, humans soon turn into monsters that sink to levels even below that of the beasts. You see, religion are humans brand of prepackaged morals. One just hopes that the various religious sects did a good job in developing the packages.

With atheists, many a time they lack spiritual values and are run by ill will, fear, hatred and a bloated ego. This goes for theists as well, so I am not singling out atheists as a problem. It just goes to illustrate that whether religious or not…it takes more to live a life at peace than belief in God or freedom from God.

I discuss some of these issues here:

jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ … ?topic=4.0

jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ … opic=318.0

jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ … opic=380.0

You will never get people to agree on anything. Some are sick, some are well and the rest are somewhere in between. And some of the well ones get sick on other days and d it is the same with the sick ones.

The best we can do is to live ‘our life at peace’ and help promote peace within others.

There are 3 components necessary to live a happy life: CONTENTMENT, LOVE or COMPASSION and GRATITUDE. When we realize that happiness is there for the taking and it is independent from our circumstances it someday may sink in that there is nothing stopping us from being content and happy RIGHT NOW!

The choice is your if you have had enough pain. Examine which of these components is missing in your life.

As James Allen wrote in As a man Thinketh:

“To think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all - such unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor.”

Early records for moral codes goes back to Egypt with the 42 negative confessions. Scholars think the 10 commandments came from these. Yahweh also dictated over 600 other commandments and rules for the Jews to live my. So, even in the old days, it was a tough job trying to follow the rules.

Nowadays we can take courses that deal with morals, values and making laws but when you finish them you are sometime more confused than when you started.

Does this mean we should chuck the whole thing and give up?

No, for is we gave it no thought we would really be into deep trouble.

We have to do with morals and values the same as we do with life. We live it the best we can albeit imperfectly and do this until the day we die if we wish to flourish.

I heard a story one time in a Yoga lecture that illustrates this point. “Range is of the ego - Form is of the soul.” The only thing we need to be concerned with is how is our form when it comes to our practice and our life.

Here is a sample college level course on ethical values

Facts and Values
Lives to Envy, Lives to Admire
Foundations of Ethics—Theories of the Good
Foundations of Ethics—Theories of the Right
Thoughts on Religion and Values
Life’s Priorities
The Cash Value of a Life
How Do We Know Right from Wrong?
Cultures and Values
Questions of Relativism
Cultures and Values
Evolution, Ethics, and Game Theory
The Objective Side of Value
Better Off Dead
A Picture of Justice
Life’s Horrors
A Genealogy of My Morals
Theories of Punishment
Choice and Chance
Free Will and Determinism
Images of Immortality
Ethical Knowledge
Moralities in Conflict
Conclusions

Sample college level course on natural law:

The Philosophical Approach
The General Nature of Ethics
Law, Nature, Natural Law
Principles of Natural Law Theory
Greek Ideas of Nature and Justice
Aristotle’s Clarification of “Nature”
Aristotle on Justice and Politics
The Stoic Idea of Natural Law
Biblical Views of Nature and Law
Early Christians, Nature, and Law
Roman, Canon, and Natural Law
The Thomistic Synthesis
Late Medieval and Early Modern Views
Hobbes and Locke
Natural Law and the Founding Fathers
Descartes, Rousseau, and Kant
Can Rights Exist Without Natural Law?
The Question of Evolution
The Paradox of Cultural Relativism
The Problem of God
Current Applications—Jurisprudence
Current Applications—Bioethics
Current Applications—Social Ethics
The Eternal Return of Natural Law
All Course titles Teaching Company

You will find just one area as a foundation for this subject will not do very well. For as much as I like natural law as a guide to living right. We can see the Nazis used the same natural law argument to purify the races when they came to trial.

Sound crazy?

In nature doesn’t the strongest survive?

Balance is of the utmost importance with our quest for truth. The Nazis left out the God of Peace in their calculations and had to pay the price to this God when judgment day came along.

The Greeks used to teach harmony and balance in the Trivium in their schools. In the ‘tenants of reason’ they went into much details with the subject of harmony breaking it down into proportionally, prudence, balance, fitness and aptness. Not subjects you hear a lot of nowadays.

Proportionality and harmony would be most welcome subjects taught nowadays. So do not do as many of my atheists friends do when they try to think with ‘manacled minds’ of self imposed prejudice. For the best fit with morals and laws we need to a balance many areas as one thing only goes so far with giving us a good life.

When judgments have to be made, mistakes can and will happen the best we can do is give it an honest effort with rational thought. The ancient Greek philosophers knew that when passion rules the mind, that the only job left for reason is that of the subservient task to find cleaver ways to satisfy the passions. They called it “putting passion before reason.”

Both these areas of passion and reason where the foundation of much philosophical discussion of ethics and virtue with the ancient Greeks. Once we put passions before reason we are using prejudice as the foundation for our building plan, and sooner or later anything built on lies will fall. Rationality hopefully can leave the personal prejudice out of the picture.

Always remember…“honor dies where the interest lies.”

Laws are advertised as reason without passion, but usually fall short of their goal. As the truth is that which does not change and man made laws always seem to change.

3 Components of Rationality

1 - Rationality requires reflection.

2- Rationality is the ability to anticipate consequences.

3 - Rationality requires adherence to certain standards.

This being able to ‘rest satisfied’ is something the perfectionists lack with their rationality and why they will never be at peace until they stop collecting concepts and start using the concepts of peace generations.

We can examine our actions to see what useful tools for finding peace we offer to others. This evaluation says a lot about our own practice of generating inner peace. When you practice peace promotion with others you will reap inner peace promotion. When you practice destroying others peace, you will reap self destruction of inner peace.

I suggest any atheists wishing to find inner peace within their life adopt the creed of the atheists (their version of prepackaged morals) and become secular humanists as a good first start.

The ‘informal creed’ of atheism.

An Atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An Atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy.

An Atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction, and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and enjoy it.

An Atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church.

An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said.

An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man.

He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.

He believes that we are our brother’s keepers; and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”

atheists.org/Atheism/

“The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles”

• We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.

• We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.

• We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.

• We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.

• We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.

• We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.

• We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.

• We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.

• We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.

• We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.

• We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
• We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.

• We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.

• We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.

• We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.

• We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.

• We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.

• We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.

• We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.

• We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.

My vote?

Personally I am not here to save anyone’s soul…well, maybe my own soul if I got one.

I ‘save my soul’ by practicing what I preach when it comes to living by the rules of the God of Peace and the God of Nature.

But if the vote was up to me. I vote to keep religion. For it is the fantasy and delusions of atheists that atheism and freethought alone will fix all our woes.

Maybe someday in the next millennium things will be different. But if the trends keep going with our chemical laden foods and stressed lifestyles we will only get worse and not better.

All we have to do is look at alt.athsism to get glimpse of what the world would be like if religion did not exist…scary.

People will always need something to concentrate their minds on as they live to avoid thinking about death, so religion plays an important part of this fixations.

The defiance based atheists use hate of theists to define themselves and to fixate on with their thoughts. So really the two camps are dependent one each other…who would the theists try to save if it wasn’t for atheists?

“Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.”

4

vfr:

No such thing as completely free anyway, so no, agnostics are not the only free thinkers, everything has boundaries, everything!

5

What seperates the ‘thinkers’ from the ‘non-thinkers’? I generally have a problem with this dialectic, since the person saying it is always a ‘thinker’.

Almost everyone is a ‘thinker’ in some way. It is more about where one decides to focus their energies. I, for one, haven’t spent the time learning how to build a computer because I can purchase one. If I spent the time, I am certain that I could build a better computer than the dell laptop I have that is constantly not working; however, I’ve decided to invest my energies elsewhere.

Why reject those systems that are already there? Especially because if I were to build a computer, I would still be building a PC. Why strike out on my own and re-invent the computer when there are perfectly good models that I can work within and try to improve?

I agree with everything that you have written, but it seems far too individualistic for my tastes.

6

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, no such thing as perfection when it comes to humans.

I find it is good to ‘look for direction and forget perfection’ if we wish to be at peace with this subject.

Perfection is a journey I take and direction I head in - but I never arrive at in life.

Perfection is the nature of gods.

Iimperfection is the nature of humans.

We can see this with logic.

What is logical is not always practical when it comes to humans…is it?

Despite this fact, we can all do better if we try at perfecting inner peace within and with all.

Got to go now guys.

Sorry if I cannot reply any further.

You discuss as you wish.

Getting ready for a retreat…going into the woods and water shortly and will be back in June. (I hope)

Will leave you with one last tidbit as to the foundation of my retreat.

As an offshoot to my simple living work, I now use the practice of “voluntary solitude” to give me a more peaceful life. The same way I pick and choose which complexities of living I allow in my life, I now do the same with noise and commotion. I first learned of this concept when reading a book by the granddaddy of backpacking Colin Fletcher. He described the benefits of pure solitude by walking alone. It occurred to me I was addicted to noise and commotion.

I felt like my mind was going to explode some days. Music and noise kept repeating in my brain all night and my sleep was fitful. I had the TV blasting all day with the stock channel or the news or whatever. It didn’t matter if I watched it or not, I just liked the noise. I had the radio or CD going whenever I was driving. Even on the trail when hiking or biking, I had on earphones and at the pool a radio blaring. My mind was full of noise and I could never seem to get any escape with noise even in my sleep.

Once I started with voluntary solitude and shut off the noise, I went though a period of noise withdrawal for a few days, but gradually could see things were getting better. Sometimes our peace is disturbed by other means than noise. I’ve seen persons going out to be alone in nature and they bring their computer or paperwork with them. Maybe they have removed some of the fuel for their stressed life but cannot let go of it all and must still feed their addiction even while in nature. Be aware of peace disrupters in your life, irrespective of whether they make sounds or not.

I now am very choosy when it comes to noise pollution and other disruptions entering me that can be cured by using solitude, deep quiet and renunciation. When we are quiet within we are in an easier position to find peace. I’ve known some people that have a completely quiet day once per week seeking quiet for their mouth and speak to no one in addition to seeking quiet for their ears. Other persons I have talked with just make an effort to lower the volume of the noise they intake as well as lowering the volume of the noise they output…lowering their voice. No matter which road you choose, now is a wonderful time to seek the solitude of nature and practice voluntary solitude in whatever degree you choose.

Whatever the area of mind abuse - a sick mind that is constantly busy cannot heal itself without rest. Nor can that mind think rationally when it is sick. Meditation on nothingness (zazen) helps quiet a “sticky brain” that seems to hold onto everything. I can get positive results with just 15 to 20 minutes a day sitting meditation time. It helps if I sit at regular time. I meditate on nothingness, although some meditate on an object If you can get to a half hour meditation time, that is great. Do not confuse zazen with sleep. Having a brain awake and empty if far different from a brain asleep and still producing thoughts and dreams. It just takes time and practice. Morning works better for me than mid day…there are less things distracting me earlier in the day usually.

The important point is to just do it and do it regularly and do not make demands on your meditation practice or have expectations. Balance is very important in life. We need some spiritual practice and some physical as well. We sometimes forget we are spiritual beings residing in physical bodies living in physical world and need effort in both areas.

There are many other ways to use meditation besides traditional sitting meditation. There is also working mediation and walking mediation practices. If you do yoga, you can try combining meditation with your Yoga practice. Mindfulness meditation all starts with being aware of ones breath. I also make use of meditation tools such as a meditation timer. One type is a $10 CD that sounds a gong after a preset time. The other one is an expensive $100 electric gong timer that can also be used as an alarm clock or Yoga timer.

Sometimes I might use the 15 minute preset time just to get into a state conducive to meditation and when the gong goes off keep sitting until I feel like getting up naturally. These are usually the best sessions for me, although they require a person to have some freedom of time. Seldom can I sit for longer than 30 to 35 minutes at a session due to time and my ability. But, don’t get caught up in ego and try to mediate ad infinitum thinking the longer the better. One out of balance practitioner I knew bragged how he could meditate the main away from his rotting teeth with long hours of meditation. In his case too much sitting and too little oral hygiene – stay balanced.

Any sort of timer is fine except one that jars you out of meditation in an abusive and agitating manner. A timer frees one’s mind from worrying about such things. This should also apply to our alarm clocks in the morning. I use a CD clock that plays birds singing. Start your day off in peace. If you need further advice, there are many good books, videos or tapes on meditating from your local library that can help. Also many internet resources.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen

mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php

7

Why do boundries equate imperfection, I dont see it?
Boundries are absolutly necessary in a world of choice.

8

If you’re a free thinker then telling people they ought to change the way they think, like you did in your concluding sentence is not a good way of showing it because you may be contradicting yourself.

Like the ‘eye for an eye’ rule being idiotic, the ‘treat others as you yourself would like to be treated’ principle is impractical. In an ideal world many of your words would be priceless. But unfortunately, if one society was wholly comprised of these so-called agnostic free-thinkers it wouldn’t last very long. To keep your country you’re going to need the common, ruthless, nationalist bigots within it to clear the mess up when other countries that are not so liberal in their values attack it.

It’s these liberal ‘do-gooders’ that Hitler took advantage of to annex the bulk of Europe, that home-grown terrorists in Britain have decieved by blending into a multi-cultural city to kill the citizens of a country that accepted and supported them, that make you scared to say anything against a foreign religion or culture for fear of being outcasted or branded racist or politically incorrect.

In the future when the ordinary soldier and the right-wing leader are seen to come to the rescue yet again as they have done so many times already, taking actions that go against democracy and public opinion to defeat people who simply can’t be comprimsed with, Winston Churchill standing up to the Nazis, George Bush the Taliban etc, people will say “hero”, not “bigot”.

So my adaption to the rule is ‘treat another how you would like to be treated yourself, but only if he respects you as you respect him’.

9

There is no God. You’re in error if you think that cannot be ascertained.

10

vfr,

There is nothing in your list of humanist beliefs that is contrary to good religion.
Remember the religious humanists.

Also, I’d like to suggest that while “freethinking,” as you define it, might just be a step in reaching intellectual maturity, eventually one might want settle into beliefs held by a group – so as to settle into a community, which for many is a human need.

Thanks.
mrn

11

to utter the very word “ascertain” is just as contemptible as whatever you have happened to ascertain.

12

Okay, this may sound stupid, but i think i can defend it:
If there is no God, there is no error – there are only systems of linguistic games.

13

Is your real name Slim Shady?

14

Every thing you think of has a direct connection to how you were raised. Thoughts are controlled by experience, personality and environment. No such thing as free thinking. It may feel like it but, for the most part, the thoughts you think are dictated by those 3 things.