The Religion/Spirituality Thread

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

26 minutes ago, Ratam said:

Very interesting this article, specially the great variation from the same continents and countrys.  Call my attention the low Japan religiosity.

I was surprised how low those East Asian countries are. Could they consider themselves Buddhist but also not religious because they view it more as a philosophy than religion?

[Dazey]

6%  Brexit or no Brexit it seems we're not that daft after all.  

[Ratam]

3 hours ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

I was surprised how low those East Asian countries are. Could they consider themselves Buddhist but also not religious because they view it more as a philosophy than religion?

Yes, seem that Asian country not take the religion many seriously as many west country's, you are right is more as philosophy. In Latin-American i was aware that Uruguay is the least religious country in this region. 

[Ace Nova]

On 7/30/2019 at 3:14 PM, SoulMonster said:

Of course it isn't very high on my list, either. Still, another example of how primitive USA is.

Yet, the U.S. is responsible for 90%+ of every major invention (especially technology) over the past 100+ years.  (We already had this discussion and I listed them for you).  

Your stance against the U.S. is prejudicial.  You generalize the entire population of a country based on (maybe) what 20%-30% of folks are like.  (And imo, those are some of the best, honest, hardworking people I know).   So even the ones you despise are actually good people.  

I actually like Norway as I do the rest of the Nordic countries.  Sweden, Denmark, Finland...most people I've met from those countries have been pretty cool people.  And the women are beautiful.  

 

But if I viewed Norway, the way you view the U.S., I could easily throw insults.  I won't do that out of respect for the people of Norway because I know the vast majority of Norwegians are pretty cool people...at least the ones I've met.

 

 

 

[SoulMonster]

58 minutes ago, Kasanova King said:

Yet, the U.S. is responsible for 90%+ of every major invention (especially technology) over the past 100+ years.  (We already had this discussion and I listed them for you).  

Your stance against the U.S. is prejudicial.  You generalize the entire population of a country based on (maybe) what 20%-30% of folks are like.  (And imo, those are some of the best, honest, hardworking people I know).   So even the ones you despise are actually good people.  

I actually like Norway as I do the rest of the Nordic countries.  Sweden, Denmark, Finland...most people I've met from those countries have been pretty cool people.  And the women are beautiful.  

 

But if I viewed Norway, the way you view the U.S., I could easily throw insults.  I won't do that out of respect for the people of Norway because I know the vast majority of Norwegians are pretty cool people...at least the ones I've met.

Most of the Americans I meet are great people, too. Nothing against them. Doesn't change the fact that USA is primitive in many ways.

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

Quote

But I need to state clearly, Jesus was inviting that women who was to be stoned into his kingdom by saying "sin no more" to her. As in: be with this truth and reject the world. The idea that Christ would literally mean she cant sin is antithetical to the necessity of Christ itself!! And again, you just rejected the notion that Christ fits into the narrow confines of modern day american politics and culture, so...

Responding to Soon here. Of course it isn't necessary for someone to never sin to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But if you don't think "go and sin no more" wasn't a heavy rebuke to the lifestyle that woman was living I don't know what to tell you. She had to make a good faith effort to give up that lifestyle.

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

I think if everybody had a proper idea of how our solar system worked, and where they are in it, then it may help create more 'unity and peace', instead of fighting over whose God is best, and who's closest to God. First of all, we should know we're just one planet in a solar system, and tiny compared to our sun... which is tiny compared to other stars, and they are dwarfed by black holes. 

Copied from Facebook over the weekend:

Sunrise is really: First Sight of Sun.
Sunset is really: Last Sight of Sun.

It's quite hard (for me) to think about our real place in the solar system, orbiting the sun.
When we see the 'sun rising' each day (morning), it is really our part of the world spinning around to face the sun, after (night) facing away.
As the sun seems to travel across the sky to sunset during the day it is really our planet continuing to spin anti-clockwise, spinning us from first sight of the sun again to last sight.
Our planet spins around on its axis creating a 'day', and orbits the sun over '365 days': a year.
One way I envisage it is to imagine somebody running around an (365 metres - the norm is 400 metres) athletics track, with their neck (the Earth's axis) stuck at an angle, but the head spinning around every metre ( a day).
Each lap is like a year for us, as we orbit the sun.

Some further thoughts on our place in the solar system from yesterday.
High in the northern hemisphere, as the UK is, we're like a revolving restaurant on a skyscraper (planet Earth), although the whole 'skyscraper' is revolving, and we're travelling around in a circle too: orbiting the sun.
But forgetting our whole planet is revolving and orbiting for a moment, us seeing the sun each day is like a revolving restaurant arriving at a landmark each time it revolved.
If we were in London, we could use Big Ben as a landmark. So each time we revolved, anti-clockwise, we'd see Big Ben to the left, and then as we continued revolving, it would eventually leave our sight to the right.
Big Ben wouldn't be moving, we are.

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

On 18/08/2019 at 1:24 PM, SoulMonster said:

Most of the Americans I meet are great people, too. Nothing against them. Doesn't change the fact that USA is primitive in many ways.

As an agnostic I have an open mind about the 'supernatural'.

Over the last few years I've been focusing on UFOs, but some people think the 'small orbs'; such as foo fighters; are spirits. 

I was watching an episode of 'In Search of' recently, and there was a father who'd lost a daughter with filmed evidence of a light speeding around a room after he tried to 'contact her'. 

It looked very authentic, but of course, I don't know how it was filmed really, so it could be totally fake too?

Any thoughts, about the TV series, or orbs - UFOs or spirits?

In Search of: Life After Death: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8971434/?ref_=ttep_ep8

As I grow older I seem to be searching for answers again; but not religion; which was the topic of my latest artwork (see Greta Thunberg's Groupie topic). 

Maybe I'm just researching my next big journey!

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

https://youtu.be/D9OAw9KnQeo

After watching another video relating to Gary Ganka footage, have to agree with commenters that 'orbs' are spiders in this video: one over bed anyway. Don't know if faster ones in TV show were speeded up?

[Len Cnut]

I'm not sure that anyone knows what spirituality is.  Its not very well defined, is it?  A brief google tells me it means being concerned with human spirit as opposed to physical or material things.  I could get with that.  Then other definitions go on to claim it means loving animals and being kind.  Odd. 

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

Yes, guess it's evolved and broadened over the years, and other meanings split off from the original, which I think is kind of the human soul: body, mind and spirit; father, son and holy ghost.

I supposed even showing spirit in a behaviour way, such as sporting, is related to it: still having some soul/energy, and not broken/empty.

 

[Axl's Agony Aunt]

Axl's middle-aged mellowing, with more onstage reflection than ranting, under the guidance of Beta etc, is roughly in line with the 7 years cycle of Goddess-worshipping Vedic tradition, which pre-dates all today's major religions:

'42-49 years: surrender
This mid-life period is often a time of personal re-evaluation and self-examination. We may experience a healing crisis, unexpected loss or a life change that acts as a catalyst to shift our perceptions.

49-55 years: being

Our primary challenge in this phase is to accept "what is" and find the blessing in the present moment, developing a sense of communion with all of existence.

Post-55 years: innocence

Our lesson is to complete the cycle by returning to a state of innocence and trust.'

Goddess Wisdom: Made Easy, p. 74, by Tanishka.

 

[action]

there is a dead body on the ground with a gunshot wound (there are stars, planets and lifeforms, and the universe is expanding)

next to the body, there is a smoking gun (there are remnants of the big bang, seen in background radiation)

the ballistic expert that investigated the body, comes to the conclusion that the gun was fired approximately 5 meters from the victim and could not have been fired by the victim himself. (scientists have found laws of nature, written in the fabric of the cosmos. these include the standard model on particle physics, general relativity, quantum theory)

conclusion: the victim was shot by an unknown murderer (the universe and the laws of the universe were created by an unknown creator)

Edited September 10, 2019 by action

[Dazey]

48 minutes ago, action said:

Scientists have found laws of nature, written in the fabric of the cosmos.

No they haven't. We've been over this before.

[action]

8 minutes ago, Dazey said:

No they haven't. We've been over this before.

E=MC²

[Dazey]

11 hours ago, action said:

E=MC²

That's a man made model that best fits the observed experimental data. 

edit: also it's lower case m & c  unless you're trying to claim J = N.m.(J.K)²  which I think we can all agree is a bit silly.  

Edited September 11, 2019 by Dazey

[action]

12 hours ago, action said:

the ballistic expert that investigated the body, comes to the conclusion that the gun was fired approximately 5 meters from the victim and could not have been fired by the victim himself. (scientists have found laws of nature, written in the fabric of the cosmos. these include the standard model on particle physics, general relativity, quantum theory)

in the case of the ballistic expert, he reviewed one parameter (the trajectory of the bullet) and came to the conclusion that the person was murdererd.

Most people would have already come to the conclusion that the person was murdered even before the expert came in (dead body and smoking gun).

in the case of the universe, there are countless and vast, mind blowing parameters that all add up to the theory that the universe is a fine "tuned" system, and thus created.

Edited September 11, 2019 by action

[SoulMonster]

36 minutes ago, action said:

in the case of the universe, there are countless and vast, mind blowing parameters that all add up to the theory that the universe is a fine "tuned" system, and thus created.

Just like Earth, with its magnificent distance from a star allowing liquid water to exist and an abundance of organic chemistry, might be a ridiculously rare planet in a barren, desolate and seemingly endless universe; our Universe, with the physical laws allowing water and organic chemistry to exist in all its diverse splendour, might be a rare universe in a multiverse where all other universes are tuned differently, disallowing complex chemistry to exist. So no, no indications of anything being created or designed, just probability theory and the inevitability in complex life originating where the conditions are favorable.

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by SoulMonster

[action]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

Just like Earth, with its magnificent distance from a star allowing liquid water to exist and an abundance of organic chemistry, might be a ridiculously rare planet in a barren, desolate and seemingly endless universe; our Universe, with the physical laws allowing water and organic chemistry to exist in all its diverse splendour, might be a rare universe in a multiverse where all other universes are tuned differently, disallowing complex chemistry to exist. So no, no indications of anything being created or designed, just probability theory and the inevitability in complex life originating where the conditions are favorable.

 

the universe is fine tuned, otherwise it could not exist. You seem to agree on this: you say ours is fine tuned correctly, in a sea of other hostile universes. Well, that does not change the fact that, the universe being finetuned as it is....hold on...it "was" fine tuned.

the existence of multiverses where this is not the case, does not negate the possibility that ours, unique as it is, was finetuned.

Maybe this was god's way of creating "our" universe: rather than spending his resources delicately conceptualising our defined universe, he "chose" to go the easy way: if you create an infinite amount of universes, there is bound to be one that allows intelligent life. This would be far more resource-efficient than if he would have to make up life-allowing laws of nature himself.

We are already making experiments where computers create millions of models of universes, in the hope of seeing results that match our universe. We don't know how the universe works, but still we can make a computer do the hard work for us. Then, if we see a universe that matches ours, we can then review the code of it, made by the computer, and see what laws it put in there.

https://interestingengineering.com/a-universe-machine-supercomputer-creates-millions-of-simulation-galaxies

Maybe god did something similar? Create millions of universes at random, until he had one that was right?

Edited September 11, 2019 by action

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, action said:

the existence of multiverses where this is not the case, does not negate the possibility that ours, unique as it is, was finetuned.

If an endless amount of universes exist with all kinds of physical laws and parameters, then the laws of probability dictates that an universe like ours would also exist. So it doesn't negate the possibility that ours was the result of an intelligent creator, it just takes away any reason to believe it.

[action]

15 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

If an endless amount of universes exist with all kinds of physical laws and parameters, then the laws of probability dictates that an universe like ours would also exist. So it doesn't negate the possibility that ours was the result of an intelligent creator, it just takes away any reason to believe it.

...except if that was part (or better: HAD to be part) of the procedure, to create our universe

[action]

suppose Axl Rose wants to make a new album as good as appetite. Impossible, many say. Yes, but only if Axl would produce one album, then show it to the fans. The fans would most likely not find it as good as appetite. 

Now, Axl goes back to his drawing room, and creates 1.000.000.000 albums. The chances of creating a perfect, appetite album just increased spectacular. Still no appetite in there? Well, lets make another 10 billion albums.

I think this is how god made our universe. It's also the reason why there are billions of universe, many bad, some good

Edited September 11, 2019 by action

[SoulMonster]

Just now, action said:

...except if that was part (or better: HAD to be part) of the procedure, to create our universe

So what you are saying that when faced with these two possibilities:

A) Our Universe has the physical properties it has by pure chance because it is one of an endless amount of universes all with different properties.

B) An intelligent designer wanted to create our Universe but failed numerous times until he got it right, thus creating an endless amount of universes all with different physical properties.

You go for B, is that it?

[action]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

So what you are saying that when faced with these two possibilities:

A) Our Universe has the physical properties it has by pure chance because it is one of an endless amount of universes all with different properties.

B) An intelligent designer wanted to create our Universe but failed numerous times until he got it right, thus creating an endless amount of universes all with different physical properties.

You go for B, is that it?

yes, pretty much

Given the fact that there are multiverses, I think God had some system of "trial and error". I think, god himself is a natural phenomenon (everything is), and therefore limited in some capacity. That's why you see imperfection even on our earth in the form of violence and sorrow.

[SoulMonster]

17 minutes ago, action said:

yes, pretty much

I see absolutely no reason to bring an intelligent designer into this. There is nothing that implies there is one.

And although I find the idea of an imperfect designer more attractive than the christian concept of an omnipotent, all-seeing, infallible deity, I still don't see any reason to think there is an intelligent designer when everything can be explained without it. Granted, we don't know how the Universe (or multiverse) really came to be, except having an idea of how it developed when first started), but this hole in our knowledge shouldn't impatiently by filled with supernatural explanations. 

Here's a thought for you:

Let's say that the multiverse isn't real. There is only one universe, our Universe. But that it has a start and an end; and before our Universe, and after, there will be other universes. Let's also say that each time one universe ends and another starts, the physical laws are randomly set. So in a sense this is similar to the multiverse we talked about before, only that it is a series of universes existing temporally, and not spatially. With adjustments to the various physical laws, like Planck's constant, each of these universes would be radically different to ours. Some would collapse unto itself immediately, others would just expand without mass aggregating until a uniform vacuum is obtained and things are reset. Before our Universe there could have been an endless amounts of such "failed" universes, before, by chance, ours was formed with properties suitable for stars and planets and organic chemistry and you and me. In one of these previous universes there could be only energy. But maybe life doesn't require molecules, maybe energy alone can create self-replicating forms that can eventually evolve into sentient beings, but in a universe where the physical laws and entirely different to here in our Universe. Maybe one of these entities could even somehow learn to survive outside of the temporarily limited lifetimes of the universes, surviving through an endless succession of collapsed and rebirthed universes. And maybe such a lifeform made from energy, existing outside of our physical laws, not having to abide by them, is just another word for "god"? Anyway, just brainstorming and no reason to believe any of this, but fun speculating.

Edited September 11, 2019 by SoulMonster