Regarding death, if you believe you go somewhere else or continue to live in another form then what about every other organism that ever lived, will they too continue on forever as important, magical beings? If it's only humans because you think we're somehow special and more deserving why is that?

With lack of evidence to say otherwise it seems logical that there is nothing at all after death, we're just biological machines that wear out, the sole purpose of which is to propogate, just like any other species. 'Life is a petri dish, old chum'. I think that's the lyric.

My own idea about why intelligence developed is simple - it's to enable life to get off the planet, to spread like all life does. That's something I find amazing, that essentially DNA steers us ever onwards and we overcome obstacles through evolution. __________________ I left a gap there for you to insert your favourite of 7,000+ gods.

If you see me on the other side, wake me up and convince me that I'm dead.

 

You and your typos
from your previous comments we all know you meant "your favourite 7,000,000,000+ magical spirits of deceased DOGs"

 

Do We Live In A Virtual Reality? with Physicist Tom Campbell

"Consciousness is Immortal.“ | An In-Depth Interview with Tom Campbell

Tom Campbell is a former NASA physicist and large systems analyst turned consciousness researcher.
Next to his technology–centric career, he joined the team of volunteering research subjects around Robert Munroe, where they volitionally induced and systematically investigated phenomena of paranormal nature like e.g. out–of–body experiences, remote viewing, telepathy to name the most prominent.

In his trilogy "My Big TOE" (TOE: Theory of Everything) he describes the nature of our larger reality, provides a complete theory of consciousness, and explains our purpose and connection to that larger reality. Along the way, Mr. Campbell derives a more fundamental science that directly answers the most pressing problems and paradoxes of modern physics.

Contents:
00:00:20 If you had to put your big theory into a nutshell – what does it say?
00:04:46 Entropy is devolving from order to disorder – can we put it like that?
00:09:30 Ideas and theories of this reality are a simulation – are you ok with that?
00:13:08 Some scientists reject your point of view – would you say that their view is entirely wrong or incomplete?
00:23:55 David Bohm and his theory of the implicate order – what is your opinion?
00:30:46 What do you think about the idea that there is a cyclical universe and infinite number of big bangs?
00:43:40 You are addressing some of the weaknesses of the original Double-Slit Experiment …
00:57:21 A theory of consciousness
00:58:25 The phenomena of remote viewing used by the CIA?
00:59:27 The database and what is sometimes called the akasha record in spiritual philosophies?
01:04:02 Why would the system make this information available to a medium if one of the tenets of your theory holds that the agent should never be able to tell that it is a virtual reality?
01:09:02 Would the individual units of consciousness be sort of a holographic replica of a large consciousness system?
01:10:30 Is our world in which we live currently but one of many virtual realities?
01:17:30 You are referring to what is sometimes called “Qualia” …
01:19:59 According to what you are saying, the outcome should never be predictable depending on who is doing or watching the experiment? 01:23:20 We cling to the idea that something of us should last – would that make sense within your theory?
01:35:04 Do you think that our individuated unit of consciousness may indeed persist potentially and definitely eternally?

 

Religion is a power, a way to control people, to try to make them enter in a specific mold, a model of behavior, a simplified and often strict way to apprehend and react to our daily reality.

This strictness poses often a problem for people who were born "different" (note: for me "difference" is only the surface of things, we should dig deeper). It is said somewhere in many, many books that the character or entity called "God" is Love (this is written in black on white on the books, so no one can't deny these words), but what I see, too often... is hate, racism, homophobia, xenophobia and sometimes rejection of many sorts of handicaps, like autism for example.

Believing people have really to decide definitively, once and for all: are they adopting Love, or Hate? They have to take a deep, conscientious decision on this, because it's one OR the other, you can't choose both.

For example, horrible practices like "conversion therapies" are a direct consequence of hate, and should be stopped and banned forever.

"Love" always implies peaceful tolerance, and relaxed dialogue with so-called "different" people. "Tolerance" doesn't mean "accepting everything" it means: if you live in harmony with the laws of your country, if you harm no one by your behavior, you shouldn't be a subject of discrimination, hate, violence or rejection.

This is a big difference between religious books and the laws: if you estimate that certain laws are unfair, you can always fight or campaign to change them. Religious books are frozen into ice forever, and even if the context have changed many times since they have been written, there is always a big majority of people who read these books "by the words", without any distance, nor reflection, nor analysis (especially considering that 90% of these books are translations, and there are literally thousands of ways to interpret a phrase in Aramean or Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit, depending of the context, the historic period, the local cultures and traditions you consider.

About the power to control people: I'm intimately persuaded that power is the most addicting, the most dangerous, the most insidious drug ever invented. Even if you're considered - or better: you consider yourself - as a SAiNT (TM) (R) (C) the frontier between "power" and "power abuse" is so thin and transparent that I suspect that many, many human beings have fallen, are falling, and will fall into this trap.

So, in the end, the ultimate question should be about the humans themselves, not religions. Knowing how imperfect we are, how can you trust a lonely human being, being the Pope himself (or whatever representative of religious authority you can think of) to say what's wrong or right?

In democratic regimes, we have the incredible chance and privilege to be able to vote and debate collectively of any subject, including the laws. We have the incredible chance to have counter powers (senates, national assemblies...) who regulate and limit the power of the President.

We have the incredible chance to have a free Press, which is a good example of counter-power entities... that don't have any concrete power by themselves. Their only power is to try to awake our conscience. But there is no such thing in religious institutions: there is no distance and no real debates, nothing to limit the power of the imperfect humans (who are too often, men only, which is particularly unfair) in charge.

In the world, some religious authorities have even the power of life and death! This is unbearable, and should not be accepted by anyone.

Even if you think your religion is perfect, you should realize that humans are all imperfect, and knowing that, their power must have clear and impassable limits.

 

Last edited: May 8, 2022

and he's also a doolally ding bat
There is one thing more irritating than a nutter trying to beat me up with religion.
That's someone who knows just a tiddly little bit of science, just enough to pretend they know what they're talking about,
or even someone that's brushed into quite a bit of science at a shallow techie only level but has a fossilised brain, and then they hope I will buy into their batty pseudo-science. Well I won't - cos all those sciency words being ignorantly trotted out for credentialising effect do actually mean something - to me! - and I am immune to being conned by some woo woo nutter hijacking those words.

Forget Tom Campbell - he's a crank.
If you're attracted to Quantum Physics - find lectures from someone like Sean Carroll
If you're attracted to Studies of Consciousness - find lectures from someone like Anil Seth
Don't buy into crackpots just because they know a few words - all you'll do is miss out on the 'good and sane' stuff.
Life's too short to make that dumb mistake.

 

Whatever we are discussing here, beliefs or certainties.

I am positively surprised that we can do this here without any significant disputes.

Unlike simple politics

Have a nice week.

 

I distrust anyone with a long white beard

 

Blake Mills seems to feel the same way.

 

I just watched "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" (for reasons, don't ask lol). Given that Charles Schultz was said to be a fairly devout catholic, I have to question the point he was trying to make... because it seems to be the opposite of what you'd expect. Maybe he was more subversive than we thought, with this and the whole Peppermint Patty thing.

 

or black I am not pointing at hipsters if you are wondering

 

Yes all my life. But there is more to it then that.

In summation:

1. Raised Eastern Orthodox Christian, a very lite Christian.
2. Was sick of it by late teens, because it simply wasn't working, wasn't adding value or knowledge/wisdom to my life that my soul sought.
3. I abandoned it, back an anti-theist.
4. I couldn't stay with an atheist long though, in fact, they are akin to babies.
5. Got interested in conspiracy stuff, secret history, who really rules the world, why is society decaying, why civilizations fall, etc.... because I had always wanted to know that stuff.
6. Which eventually drew me into alternative spirituality. All I knew, at that time is that I never wanted Christianity in my life again. Bible, and Abrahamic religions were a bunch of high level bullshit that ought to be forgotten by everyone.
7. I get into self-help type stuff, but only for the short term, because that stuff is just not deep enough.
8. Finally I commit to alternative spirituality, which from that moment on no longer appears as "alternative", but as THE universal and highest level spirituality that one has been looking for all of one's life. (For me that meant a synthesis or syncretism of: Eastern religions [particularly Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism] and Western spiritualities [gnosticism, neopaganism, occultism, shamanism, a ton of New Age, mysticism, etc..). (In other words A LOT of stuff. Some people take a lifetime exploring just one of those.)
9. I start practicing and participating in various things. And it gets to the point where real serious paranormal stuff starts happening. Including UFOs. Including alien stuff. Etc, etc. I also become an avid reader of channeled materials, the higher quality kind.
10. I get together with a good woman through a "program" in the New Age movement called "twin flames" (similar to soul mates). We fall in love, but also the programming of our minds makes us think that we are destined to be together anyway. But at least, we genuinely cared for one another. However there is a darker twist to "twin flames". They are romantic or sexual partners, whom are used as puppets, to disseminate a certain type of teaching throughout the earth. From a higher perspective its also about breeding for the purposes of possession of those children. (Which of course one does not know when one is part of all of this.)
12. However, she and I are not like the rest, we see through things more than most other people do. And also... we never abandon our childhood belief in the One true God. Even though "God" got redefined to high hell with all of the teachings we were absorbing and practicing. So that the God we believed in at that time did not resemble the Biblical God at all. Yet neither of us gave up on the idea that God was a personal being, His own character with His own will.
13. My gf and I start channeling (which is contact with spiritual entities) [of an evil nature], who present themselves as beings of love and light, or as extra-terrestrials, or as higher dimensional entities or civilizations.
14. My girlfriend and I think we're doing good (godly) work helping all mankind (a common deception when following any alternative spiritual tradition). She and I do a lot of channeling. I organize the sessions into documents for dissemination. (Which thankfully never happens.)
15. Personally, lots of things happen between her and I, and her own life struggles put pressure on her to find answers to life's struggles. This pressure forces her her to question the foundation of what we are doing. Ironically, it is I who brought to her the inspiration that would begin that process in her.
16. Unfortunately the contact with these beings (presenting themselves as good, or as one's higher self), takes a heavy toll on her - precisely what ought not to happen. (Yet does happen to all channelers, all who believe they are contacting good entities.)
17. My girlfriend's health deteriorates. Our relationship is strained. But we still love one another.
18. I return back home, half-way across the world.
19. Very soon, for a strange reason, I lose internet for exactly 1 month.
20. And that is when God gets to work! First He leads my girlfriend to start asking questions about everything we were into. Every day she finds more and more information exposing all of these religions and traditions as satanic, demonic, as coming from the very same evil that has plagued mankind since the beginning. I of course know none of this back home on my continent. If I had been in contact with her, I would have prevented her from going down this road of research, with my elaborate explanations for everything. (In fact Satan had prepared me for just such a thing... which is why I struggled later on so much.)
21. As my gf finds more info, and unravels everything for herself, she is shocked and grieved that what she thought was good, was actually evil. (One has to understand that most people who go into these alternative teachings don't go in with ill intentions or wanting to do dark satanic stuff. People are genuinely looking for answers to the biggest questions of life one could ever ask for. And have, for some reason or another had a bad experience or history with what they thought was the right path: Christianity. Yet it is these very experiences which God uses to show people a greater truth. It may take years or decades, but He uses, even people pain, to make them grow.)
22. Eventually my internet is repaired and what my gf presents to me is just shocking, unbelievable.... stupid, sad. To cut the story extremely short, I have the most challenging few months of my life from that time onward.
23. MY gf wants me to come out of everything I've poured myself into for the past 5 years of my life. She says it's all from "evil". I start arguing with my gf, daily. She's stressed and sick, but cares enough to keep sending me stuff to wake me up. She never gives up on me! Despite me being an ass towards her.
24. From my perspective it seems like she was going back to sleep and I was the one who was still woken up. Satan had prepared me for this. But from my perspective, I just thought that she, like a few people prior that I had seen (which has since become an endless avalanche of people around the world), who were returning to Christianity (or coming to Christ for the first time ever) were people falling back down from the high levels of consciousness found through "alternative spiritual teachings and practices".
25. My poor gf struggles how to wake me up. And that is when God finally arrives on the scene. He first challenges me on my core and foundational beliefs of everything I had invested myself into, and sure enough, exposes it all as a lie that I wanted to believe or be true. From that time onward God sends several long messages to me, through my gf. Rather cleverly using the modality of communication to which I was accustomed (due to channeling prior), in order to bypass my mental programming which had been inserted into me due to my proximity to so many false teachings from Satan and his fallen angels.
26. These messages, 3 to 4 weeks apart, gradually deprogram my mind. Or said in another way, they show me the light by not only challenging my understanding and personal construct and experiences of everything, but by showing that I was actually born to expose the very things that had entrapped me and hijacked me. (As it had many others).
27. So.... for the climax that many may not want to hear, and that I certainly did not want to hear back then, 6 years ago: The Bible, the Christian God, the Holy Creator Trinity, Jesus Christ, Biblical Christianity, that's all real, and the true way that man ought to live by, if one wants to receive eternal life, as God meant to give to mankind since the very beginning.

Essentially, over a decade and a half of me not wanting any of that to be real or true, gets turned around by God Himself, when He challenged me and answered me my questions, through the messages that He sent to me. Showing me that I was wrong. Which is esp. relevant because I had not only tried other religions from around the world and various spiritual and other kinds of teachings which would not even call themselves "religious", but I had also walked the path of atheism and its shallow philosophies. I had seen the real dark side, that there were entities behind it, and how they work, invisibly to most people. So I knew that if real evil existed --- that automatically meant that real good must exist too.

God had allowed me to suffer and see much, so that I could testify of the truth of Him and His work in this world.

I didn't want the Christian God to be the real God. I wanted many other things. I even argued with God. But He was gentle and patient with me. I had and wanted many other ideas of my own to be true, but no, He showed them all to be inferior. I thought that those ideas were far better than anything that most religions had presented, and esp I took aim at the Bible, thinking it a dumb and primitive book for idiots. But in the end, I ended being totally wrong about almost all of the foundational stuff. And even if some of the knowledge I learned when I was deceived has stayed true, the big picture has shifted beyond all description in its profundity.

The Lord God gave me a message that I had to come to Him if I wanted life, but that it had to happen through Jesus Christ.
If I wanted to serve the true good side, and not the false light side of evil, with all its pretty colours and pleasures.

Up to that point I had never read the Bible, nor knew any of its teachings. But essentially what God had sent to me, I later found it to be the exact message of the Bible, except for the fact that what I had received was with modern language and concepts included as part of the message. And when I saw what God was really trying to do, all along, I was humbled, and realized how entirely correct the Bible was all along, and how wrong man is, now or then.

It's the tragedy of man, that the very solution he seeks, he rejects, thinking the solution to be everywhere else, except where it truly is.
The Bible is even aware of that very fact, and it's a book written 3500 to 2000 years ago. That's how little man has truly changed or grown, because people are going through exactly the same deceptions, problems, life challenges that the Bible describes and gives solutions to. From the problems faced by all of us every single day, living in this hard world, to the ultimate problem that drives many of our choices: the problem of death.

Do I believe in an intelligent God?

Yes, but more than intelligent. A deeply caring, empathic, compassionate, loving and personal God. Who, in all His aspects, is genuinely a Father who would do anything for His creation - even if they don't deserve it at all, to the point of dying for them, in order to preserve them from the same - even if they deserve that! So that they might become His own children, living in His glory forever and experiencing the ages of Creation to come!

There was no person on this Earth who could have convinced me that the God of the Bible was the real God, the One who is the good God from whom all good things come, from whom life comes. God did that for me, and I am eternally grateful. He showed me kindness when I was the furthest from Him. Because I certainly did not deserve His grace or mercy, for when He came to me, to call me to follow Him, I was an prideful know-it-all, following evil and immorality, and yet back then, I thought he knew everything. Sure enough, I was filled with knowledge - but useless knowledge. Looking back on it now, I am so pleased how quickly God exposed me or how quickly He exposes anyone who stands before Him - not for the joy of bringing them down, but for the joy of setting them free and building them up to become more than they ever could have become by themselves!

As Jesus said:
- "If you accept and continue to obey My teaching, you are truly My followers. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
- "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, if not by Me."

Hopefully that answers the question. ^_^

 

Who's left then? Oh, I see... Go Captain RedBeard the Pirate!!!

 

I was pointing at Johnny Depp! but wait a minute, I actually trust him!

Hope he will get justice at last!

 

Well, Tealla, I won't deny that I have thoughts but I'll keep them to myself. Airing them would be fruitless. I suppose we all end up where we're comfortable though.

 

wtf

 

Yes but try and write a meaning full sentence that is divisible by 7, and then each paragraph is also divisible by 7.. or wait. it works backwards also... and now with that formula write a text with the weight, length and originally of the bible.... I'll wait.

 

49 virgins were joined at a meeting.
In the morning but seven were left.
What say then the pushers of scripture
Soul dealers for true virtue in life
When random chance plays in all nature
And monks pass their Eves in denial
God surely does his best work at night.

How many children must then daily suffer
In the shadows of fear, lies & pain?
While self-serving priests & philoshophers prattle
About God's purpose for sufferance & shame
With faux wisdom they distract your attention
Proof of existance is now word games?
Being able to join letters proves nothing...

Good action speaks truer than words - always.

 

Last edited: May 8, 2022

Only 622,700 words to go, and then maybe it will inspire future civilizations.

 

Dude, my point was that working within a constrained word number framework in the bible* proves only the human inventiveness of hebrew & greek scribes.

* tbh i don't know if this is literally true, but i'm prepared to take it on faith

 

Last edited: May 9, 2022

...there's a tiny fruit fly in the room where i write. It seems particularly happy to try to get as close to my eyes as possible, which is quite sweet actually - i think perhaps it's lonely. Maybe in its own small way it considers me to be a god. Compared to it, this would make sense:

• I'm so much bigger than it, it would be impossible for it to fully comprehend me, my intellect or my motives.
• My lifespan, compared to that of a fruitfly, is also effectively immortal.
• I could most certainly alter its fortunes by either supplying it with food or by (righteously?) extinguishing its brief claim on life.

I cannot, however, reverse the laws of nature and grant my little fruit-fly chum eternal life by my side (in my fluffy, utopian heaven?), no matter how hard it prays to me - even if i wanted to.

The notion that a supreme architect of this universe, that spans many trillions of planets across billions of light years of space time, would remotely give consideration to my insignificant human desires at any given time, shows just how vain and egocentric the human religeous impulse truly is. Regrettably, this is precisely what the entirely human priestly caste utilise in all man-made religions.

No wonder religeous fundamentalists are so hostile to the reality of evolution by natural selection, 'cos it naturally leads to a fundamental question: who then created the creator?

 

Last edited: May 9, 2022