@Winston
Winston wrote: ↑July 9th, 2018, 4:12 am
Hi @Aron,
I don't understand what you mean. No one has a problem with taking the Bible allegorically. Not even atheists do. That's not something people usually challenge unless they are Christian fundamentalists. Are you trying to say that the Bible ought to be seen as 100 percent false? No book is 100 percent false. Every book contains a variety of good and bad, truths and untruths, as you should know.
Sure there are great spiritual archetypes in the Bible. For example, the death and resurrection of Jesus represents spiritual transformation, how we can die to our egoic self and rise to higher consciousness, etc. That's been the timeless quest of all mystery religions. It's also part of the hero's journey that is represented in all stories, myths and even movies too. See my thread about the hero's journey here:
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=37430
I think you're interpreting the idea of 'taking something allegorically' different than me. What i think when i hear that is Christians who believe mostly in the ideas of the bible but don't treat it literally because they know that doesn't logically make sense. Since i don't mostly believe in the ideas of the new testament i don't see myself as taking it allegorically.
I'm not so sure Jesus's death really was intended to represent what you think it does. To me that just seems like people reshaping the bible so that it's more rational and more reasonable to them. The bible says many times that Jesus's death was supposed to be necessary to save everyone else's souls. Basically, Christians are worshipping death when they are indoctrinated to believe that Jesus had to die for them to be saved, and at the same time put all the power in someone else's hands to save them.
I watched that documentary you linked in that link but it doesn't say much but just that everyone should follow their bliss and passion. And it doesn't really say anything about christianity either. I'm not so sure Jesus fits the archetype of the Hero's Journey, he does not struggle much due to his superpowers. The closest you could get to him leaving his home is him being the son of god and becoming a human, but so what, that doesn't really fit the theme of the hero's journey where the hero goes into an unknown land and takes risks. Christianity doesn't show Jesus making any real effort to get his powers and in the end he takes the bizzare step of choosing to die as a 'sacrifice' when he could have easily avoided it with his powers. Basically he might as well be giving up on his hero's journey here where a normal hero would try using these vast healing abilities to heal more people and possibly fight the people who were trying to execute him.
As you can see, the life of Jesus fits all 12 stages of the hero's journey. We all go through that in some sense when we are on an adventure. So it's a timeless archetype. Remember a myth represents a timeless truth, while a historic event is something that only happens once. So myths are far more meaningful. Please look up the teachings of Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, and Manly P Hall. Those are the best comparative religion scholars.
Sure the Bible can be divinely inspired, but that doesn't mean divinely dictated by God. Many books can be inspired by God but not be infallible. Even great works of art and great classical music pieces can be divinely inspired.
Listen to what the great Zen teacher Alan Watts said about Jesus here in this lecture below. He explains who Jesus most likely was, and what he was trying to convey to everyone, but wasn't allowed to. I think this best represents what the true historical Jesus (if he existed) was about. It makes a lot of sense and is worth listening to. Alan Watts was also very witty, funny and had a unique original way of explaining things. You just know when you hear him that he's on a very high wavelength and consciousness that's different than everyone else.
I love the part in the lecture where he says that "People on Earth cannot accept a mere mortal man on Earth being the Son of God, so they had to kick Jesus upstairs in order to deify him." LOL. The audience laughed at that. It's so true. Men cannot accept a mere mortal human on Earth being God or the Son of God, so they had to crucify him and deify him and put him on a pedestal in the heavens. Because people can only accept a God that's up there in the heavens, but not amongst them on Earth. That's so funny, witty and true about human nature. lol
I'll address your other statements later.
I watched this video and he made a few main points. The first one was 4 minutes in or so where he for some reason thought that it would be bad if people could perform miracles as Jesus supposedly did since then they would be dissatisfied somehow. Which doesn't really make any sense. Most people including the christians try to use modern medicine and science to fix their issues and if somebody had magic healing powers they would obviously be happy to use those. Same with most other theoretical powers.
Another point he makes way later at maybe 30 something minutes in is that Christianity basically is a religion of guilt that makes everyone feel guilty all the time, this is totally true, but he just thinks it's because Jesus was supposed to mean "Nobody can reach the father but through the divine within them" when him making this statement was literally the exact opposite reason in the bible to indoctrinate people into thinking they have to worship Christianity and Jesus to be saved. And always as usual the saving is done by God and nobody can do anything about their own fate. Seems like he was just reshaping Christianity to be more fair and work in a way that would work for him when Christianity didn't fit his ideas.
But when we talk about the matrix being a computer simulation, we mean like in the movie Tron or the Matrix Trilogy, where a user from outside puts their soul or consciousness into the program and becomes a character or avatar.
Yeah but i said that because you mentioned deletion which seems like something most people would not do to other real living beings on a whim, but they'd do it to computer characters that aren't real.
Here is my theory on God. I don't know if anyone else has come up with it or not. Suppose the universe is a giant organism or life form. And our planet is merely an atom or cell inside that organism. Suppose God is the organism of the universe. Then he would not even know about us, let alone be in a position to help us. Think about it. There are 40 trillion cells in your body. Do you know each and every one of them by name? Do you have a personal relationship with each one of them? Of course not. So in the same way, perhaps God is just the organism of the universe and cannot know us individually. That may make sense in a way. Our planet could just be like an atom or electron in this organism, or a biological cell. Either way, God does not know us personally so he cannot help us. And even if he did, there's a limit on what he can do. Just like there's a limit on what you can do to help the cells in your own body. A lot is out of your control. Now there may be higher beings or advanced races in this universe that could help us, who are also part of this organism of the universe, but that's another matter. That's my hypothesis anyway.
Well that theory would explain God not being able to do anything a lot better than Christians usually try to justify it. I'm just not sure why a cosmic consciousness would create an actual being with thoughts though. I guess in your theory more benevolent civilizations in the universe would be like white blood cells. It's an alright idea i just don't get how the bigger being would arise, scientists HAVE found the universe's structure to be oddly similar to the shape of the human brain but there may be other explanations, like the limits of human brain's perception of reality right now. I definitely agree with the idea of a collective unconscious though.
But according to the research I've read, we are enslaved by an insane being named Lucifer. He has a legion of archons/parasites/demons that do his bidding. They feed off us, like batteries. They love fear, anger and negative emotion. Many sci fi movies show this too. So we are in a prison matrix. See my thread about that here
Well I heard of the idea but there is a lot of stuff you just linked. It'd take me a really long while to read it all. Is there any 1 or 2 examples of the prison matrix idea that prove it to you the most? Like for me, some of the most convincing proofs of life after death are some NDEs like Eben Alexander's and that the materialist model for NDEs actually got fully debunked point by point. I don't think we are living in a computer simulation at all but the possibility that alien entities may be trying to manipulate the afterlife on earth does kind of make sense if they are trying to control the world.
Yeah the Q character isn't exactly 'evil' but I just think it's weird how the author of star trek thought he became that way because the Q entities somehow ran out of things to do. I'll read the Gods of Eden thing a bit later since it seems like that's the main proof you wanted to use.
Yeah the polytheism idea kind of makes sense i read some of the thread you made.
Well I believe everything happens for a reason. So Christianity becoming the dominant religion of the Western world wasn't just a coincidence. I think it had a purpose. Religion is necessary. A lot of people need it. It's like a necessary evil. Socrates said myths are necessary for lower people to have something noble to believe in. You have to give people something to believe in, not nothing. It's part of managing a society. Of course, Christianity was used as a tool for social and political control too. Because the Roman Emperors like Constantine realized that religion was a more effective and cheaper control system than having to maintain a standing army everywhere and paying all the troops in it. Also the Roman Empire was falling apart and needed a new stabilizing influence, like Christianity, to help unite it. So it was a useful tool for the Roman government.
I can't agree about everything happening for a reason, some things that happen in the world are definitely just bad. I think karma exists but it doesn't always work. Like some guy could have been a mass murderer in one life, but that doesn't inevitably mean that the karma will come back on them no matter what, people could fail to stop them from messing things up again. Even if some people would have instinctual memory of that guy killing them in their past life and realize he's dangerous at a subconscious level.
You misunderstood what I said about Jesus and the need to die. I wasn't talking about physical death. I was talking about the death of egoic consciousness. The move from ego consciousness to cosmic consciousness. That's the goal of all religion. Obadiah Harris of the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles said that.
Well I half agree half disagree. Sometimes people need to put aside their attachment to some dumb belief or conviction that is tying them down, that they identify with. So that's a time when the egoic mind is bad. But Buddhists sometimes say that people should be utterly self-less, or even try to lose their self, and achieve 'nirvana' after death, which is basically nothingness as far as i can tell from what Buddhists say Nirvana is supposed to be.
Yes human sacrifice and animal sacrifice is gruesome. But that was part of the ancient world, and probably it's part of the modern world as well, only it's done in secret because it would outrage the public if done openly, since modern civilized culture has allegedly outlawed it and grown past it. In fact, that's likely the true reason why so many unnecessary wars happened during the last 150 years that made no sense. (so no, wars are not just about lack of resources or profits, though at the lower and mid levels those are part of the game as well) And many of the mass shootings on TV are human sacrifice rituals too. And Satanic human sacrifices are done in secret among cults too. Google "Satanic Panic". Also listen to interviews, lectures and podcasts by men such as Ted Gunderson, Chris Everard, Jordan Maxwell and Michael Tsarion. They talk a lot about Illuminati occult rituals of human sacrifice. It's a very unpleasant subject, but if you want to make sense out of history and unnecessary big wars, and why they make no sense since they are easily avoidable, you should take this aspect into consideration.
Well idk if it was always a thing everywhere in the ancient world. Christianity seems to have had quite the negative influence, like with the Dark Ages where the Catholic Church essentially dominated the society and hunted down anyone thought to be a heretic or a 'witch'. At least the Roman Empire had running water and aqueducts as oppressive as it was. IMO Christianity basically makes people believe in it at a subconscious level though. I mean they believe Jesus died to save their souls, key word died, the key ingredient is his death, so what are Christians doing when they believe that they are saved by the death of Jesus? Basically, they support what their religion says is a blood sacrifice in pretty much every way, and Jesus is the role model who is willingly blood sacrificed by God who tells him to let himself be executed. And there doesn't seem to be a way around it, it's the mainstream view in christianity of 'died for humanity's sins'. Not to mention that christians often believe sins can be carried on just by being a descendant of someone who sinned like with Adam and Eve in the bible. The reason i mention the new testament is that christians often think the New Testament is free of this stuff when it really isn't and it's got a lot of problems too.
It seems like you don't believe in that 'died for your sins' stuff anyways but I'm saying it because it's just the mainstream Christianity that has the most effect on society and it's a key point of the new testament. Are there good things in Christianity? Well yeah, there are, most people agree with Christian ideas like the golden rule. Just seems like the feel good love elements can get mixed with other stuff like believing the 'dying for your sins' is 'love' when it's actually pretty creepy, and then people might think the only way to be good and loving as Christianity says is to do what Jesus said, to give up all your possessions so you can meet his standards to get into heaven. And that kind of deprives people and isn't very healthy for them if they end up out on the streets or out of money which in the modern world facilitates them becoming debt slaves. Or if because of Christianity they believe that trying to become wealthy is a bad thing even if a lot of people would use wealth and success for good unlike a lot of the greedy billionares today who just hoard massive wealth when just a few of the richest billionares could probably solve poverty easily. So while the love part is often a good thing I just think there's a lot of bad stuff in Christianity that might mess people up even if some elements can be good and good natured people might easily ignore all the bad elements.
Wow you sure are intellectual too and like talking about deep topics too. That's cool. I like that. You can't talk about this stuff with most people, especially in the mainstream. So it's refreshing to meet people that do.
Where are you from anyway? How did you find this site and my other site? Are you interested in HA stuff or only theology and philosophy? Are you white or asian?
Yeah sometimes people don't want to talk about this stuff so it's nice that there are forums like these out there, originally i was going to post in that SCEPCOP forum but it seems like it's totally inactive now so i found out about this one. I'm white and I live in the US and i'm probably not going to ever permanently move somewhere else. I like that this site covers a lot of topics though.