[kjanyeaz1]

I believe there is some rational explanation for all "miracles."

People want to believe in miracles. And miracles are used to promote various cults and sects.
Some of the things reported as miracles were trickery, some stories that became embellished over time, some were allegorical stories that were taken as literal truth, and some were just weird things that we have no explanation for.

Many of the things once regarded as omens or mysterious occurrances are now explained by science. We now know how magnetism works, what causes tides, what makes the oceans salty, where comets come from, what causes volcanoes, and many thousands of other things once explained by religion.

If these were harmless delusions it wouldn't bother me so much. But thoughts can lead to actions, and actions based on false ideas often have negative consequences.

Magical thinking spreads through a population and is used to promote other ideas. People are encouraged to believe that they have been chosen by God. And what does God want them to do? History gives many examples of groups engaging in violent and bizarre behavior because they thought they were following instructions from God.

The way I see it. Religion is a mental disorder.

[FredderiK]

I agree. Except for you very last sentence.

Religion itself can be a very beautiful thing and it can help a person deal with events in their life.

Not all religious thoughts are bad.

Peace & Love!

[sapedotru]

I agree. Except for you very last sentence.

Religion itself can be a very beautiful thing and it can help a person deal with events in their life.

Not all religious thoughts are bad.

Peace & Love!

Spirituality can be beautiful and helpful.

Religion is a social disease.

Peace & Love back at ya!

[Blaxastij]

Religion is a social disease.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course, you know that I disagree with you here.

Peace & Love!

[sleelverrex]

I have to disagree with the statement that "Religion is a social disease"


I think a lot of things can be concerned a social disease.

What works for one wont always work for another.

Bad apples in every bunch that use what ever means they can to achieve their won goals.

So I don't think thats a fair statement / judgment.

Nor do I think your statement that "Miracles promote various cults and sects" is fair.

Thats not to say some (bad apples) will use the word miracle to promote.

Isn't free will/thought grand?

Greed,self indulgence,abuse, the list can go on to help in describing social disease.


I have never thought of Religion as being such.

Just my own thoughts.

[texbrease]

An interesting thought. I disagree, though. Religion requires action on the part of the practitioner in order for it to become 'social,' if you get my meaning. In that respect, it is not religion as a thing, but those who claim to represent it. It can be said that 'religion' is potential.
It's up to us to decide what to do with it, and why we are pursuing such a thing to begin with. A good number of people follow a path because of the power they want, or to feel better than their neighbors, although it doesn't take religion in and of itself to do this.


Miracles can do far more than distribute fear. True miracles (should one believe in such things at all) should instill faith. Pious fraud has always been a liability. Always will be, whether that means false artifacts or staged miracles or whatever. Besides 'Miracle' probably sounds better than 'Weird thing we can't explain,' which can be considered to be something describing a miracle.

Funny thing about miracles. They don't have to feed the multitudes or allow one to walk on water in order to make themselves known. They come in all sizes.

Then again, it all could be delusion...

Great topic, as always, fturner!

[seawolferr]

All our experiences are processed by the sensory equipment we were born with. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin, and brain. Those experiences bring us joy, pain, insights, and delusions.
Dr. Michael Persinger, working at Laurentian University, in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, has pioneered a method for inducing the religious, spiritual experience of the shaman. Without drugs, herbs, hypnosis or invasive surgery, he can quite literally flip a switch and induce the experience of "god."

Using an ordinary striped yellow motorcycle helmet purchased at a sporting goods store, which he has modified with electromagnetic coils, he can place the helmet on your head, connect the wires to a device he has constructed that generates the proper signals, and when the magnetic fields produced by the coils penetrate the skull and into the temporal lobes of the brain, the result is the stimulation of those lobes and a religious experience results.

In common with the Hindu view that a confrontation with God is a confrontation with the self, the nine-hundred plus people who have undertaken the experience produced by Dr. Persinger's helmet have had some very profound experiences. Four out of five say that they've had experiences so profound they would be life-changing had they not understood the mechanistic underpinnings of what they had experienced.

How does Dr. Persinger's helmet work? It works by inducing very small electrical signals with tiny magnetically induced mechanical vibrations in the brain cells of the temporal lobes and other selected areas of the brain, located in the skull just above and forward of the ears. These lobes are the portions of the brain that produce the "Forty Hertz Component" of the brainwaves detected in electroencephalograms. These mysterious "forty hertz components" are present whenever you are awake or when you are in REM sleep. They are absent during deep, dreamless sleep. What the "forty hertz component" does is not well understood, but we know that it is always present during the experience of "self." We cannot have a "me" experience without the forty hertz component being present.

What this means is that the forty hertz component is essential to our experience of self. We cannot experience our sense of individuality without it. It stands to reason, then, that if the forty hertz component could somehow be suppressed, the sense of individuality would be suppressed with it, and indeed, this is what Dr. Persinger's helmet does. It turns off the forty hertz component and with it the sense of individuality which your brain uses to define "self" as opposed to "rest of the world."

When the brain is deprived of the self stimulation and sensory input that is required for it to define itself as being distinct from the rest of the world, the brain 'defaults' to a sense of infinity. The sense of self expands to fill whatever the brain can sense, and what it senses is the world, so the experience of the self simply expands to fill the perception of the world itself. One experiences becoming "one with the universe." Experiencing God: The Neurology of the Spiritual Experience

Just as the eye can be tricked into thinking that the world is flat, the brain can be fooled in many ways.

Kind of takes the pressure off when you realize that we are all fools.

[EliteFranceska]

Kind of takes the pressure off when you realize that we are all fools.

Hehehe. Hey Fred. Speak only for yourself.

Peace & Love!

[texbrease]

And of course:

You experience the world through five primary senses: visual (sight), auditory (hearing), tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste). But you do not take in these impressions directly, objectively, as they are. They pass through multilayered filters, colored and often distorted by your interpretations, expectations, assumptions, beliefs, associations, fears, desires, and opinions. You also perceive through cultural, religious, professional, educational, racial, and gender filters, created by your unique life experience.

From p. 147
To the degree your perception is distorted by a filter of associations or beliefs, you experience misunderstandings and miscommunications. Simple reality, as it unfolds in the present moment, is clouded by meanings, troubles, hurts, interpretations, and confusion.
Even when we speak the same language, our personal filters account for much of the difficulties in communication. The same words have different meanings for different people.

And from p. 150
Unconscious beliefs are those we mistake for truth or reality. We don’t say “I believe this is so.” we say, “This is truth.” Unconscious beliefs lie at the root of fundamentalism; true believers zealously defend their beliefs and ideas as ultimate truth, confusing their opinions with the word of God. Such fundamentalism exists not only in the arena of religion, but in any field, any place, any time we are convinced that our way, our method, our ideas, are universally true.

[eocavrWM]

Hi Ananta,

All that is valid, I think. And that is why I say that we must unlearn all the crap we have learned through the years in order to experience life as closely to its true nature as possible.

This includes our inner essence as well as all else around us.

Peace & Love!

[Hsmrcahr]

Hi Ananta,

All that is valid, I think. And that is why I say that we must unlearn all the crap we have learned through the years in order to experience life as closely to its true nature as possible.

This includes our inner essence as well as all else around us.

Peace & Love!

[parurorges]

To question is the best way to determine what is crap and what is not. I feel sure that you are one who questions. I think that during our questioning we should first set a priority in that we should ask, "Does the answer, true or false, make any difference to me as far as my inner peace (peace of mind) is concerned?" If it doesn't matter then I think it is not worth questioning.

I don't know anyone who is terribly upset because they don't know why the cosmos exists.

What will be left, I think, would be a person who is at peace with their Self, there inner essence. That is to say, we will be able to live our physical life in such a manner that we will never have inner conflict. But is that really possible? Inner conflict also comes from the need to make decisions. Life is very complicated. Even if you live alone on a mountain you still have to eat and drink. Your mind demands stimulation which can lead to inner turmoil.

Now, sure, we are still going to make mistakes. That's a given. But we will be able to rely on the fact that we did what we were inspired to do according to the knowledge and experience we had at the time and if things didn't work out the way we thought they would at least we have learned another lesson. And that, in its self, can bring contentment. If someone loses his job or a lot of money, he has to live under different circumstances which may be difficult. And if there are others in your life, people who depend on you, it becomes even harder to find contentment in the idea that you have learned something.

[WUlcN1Rz]

I agree. Except for you very last sentence.

Religion itself can be a very beautiful thing and it can help a person deal with events in their life.

Not all religious thoughts are bad.

I guess if you can find consolation in the idea that all nature is one that would be a nondangerous spiritual-like thought. But most people are not consoled that way. They want immortality, usually a continuation of their present lives. I don't know anyone who would be consoled with the idea that they are going to be reincarnated as a lower animal.

Most religious thoughts are identified as religious because they supposedly come from a supernatural being. And if something supernatural is communicating with you, then it is natural to assume that you are special and maybe even have special powers. The major religions, ######## and Islam, also tell their followers that they must convert others. They hold certain places on earth as sacred. Look at the Crusades, people being slaughtered over Jerusalem, and it still goes on today.

[Extinimot]

I don't know anyone who is terribly upset because they don't know why the cosmos exists.

Neither do I. Good thing too, I suggest. Some questions don't have answers.

But is that really possible? Inner conflict also comes from the need to make decisions. Life is very complicated. Even if you live alone on a mountain you still have to eat and drink. Your mind demands stimulation which can lead to inner turmoil.

Yes, I believe that it really is possible. I suggest that this can be done by living intuitively. That is to say that whatever life throws at you, you will respond with the best action, the action that take the least amount of effort, the action that is the most natural - as if the action were done by its self. True intuitive action/reaction requires little to no thought therefore your inner essence is not disturbed.

If someone loses his job or a lot of money, he has to live under different circumstances which may be difficult. And if there are others in your life, people who depend on you, it becomes even harder to find contentment in the idea that you have learned something.

Yep. This is a different ball of wax. And I agree with you. This is a result of having formed attachments and responsibilities. And your case above would cause inner turmoil. So we take care of business, satisfy the shortcomings in the quickest and most efficient way possible then we are free to regain our inner peace & calm.

Peace & Love!

[engacenus]

I guess if you can find consolation in the idea that all nature is one that would be a nondangerous spiritual-like thought. But most people are not consoled that way. They want immortality, usually a continuation of their present lives. I don't know anyone who would be consoled with the idea that they are going to be reincarnated as a lower animal.

Most religious thoughts are identified as religious because they supposedly come from a supernatural being. And if something supernatural is communicating with you, then it is natural to assume that you are special and maybe even have special powers. The major religions, ######## and Islam, also tell their followers that they must convert others. They hold certain places on earth as sacred. Look at the Crusades, people being slaughtered over Jerusalem, and it still goes on today.

Hi Maxx,

Yes, we can sit here and point out the negative aspects of various religions. And there have been many actions by man, in the name of his God, that are totally unacceptable, in my opinion. So the followers of the various religions can either follow like a blind sheep or they can not accept any of that religion's negative aspects and, they can even get deeply involved in the religion and initiate the changes they think the religion needs. But like you said, some will follow blindly and do evil in the name of their God.

And it is true that most religions have their roots in the concept of some form of life after death. I won't try to go into the 'whys' of this right now but life after death is really a very attractive concept. Just think, if I am a good boy I will go to heaven and live in comfort for eternity. WoW!!!

Peace & Love!

[Soypopetype]

All those big thoughts..... In the end, it's what ever gets us through the day. Meaning is where we find it, or make it.

Jonathan Lobl

[epPtsDno]

I'm getting a flashback to West Side Story. I have a social disease?

Jonathan Lobl

[ErubTiereedig]

Hi Ananta,

All that is valid, I think. And that is why I say that we must unlearn all the crap we have learned through the years in order to experience life as closely to its true nature as possible.

This includes our inner essence as well as all else around us.

Peace & Love!

Easier said than done. And how do we know what is crap and what is not? And if we do manage to unlearn all the crap, what will be left of our inner essence that is unique to us?

[KuRoregioNka]

Easier said than done. And how do we know what is crap and what is not? And if we do manage to unlearn all the crap, what will be left of our inner essence that is unique to us?

True, I did not suggest that it would be easy.

To question is the best way to determine what is crap and what is not. I feel sure that you are one who questions. I think that during our questioning we should first set a priority in that we should ask, "Does the answer, true or false, make any difference to me as far as my inner peace (peace of mind) is concerned?" If it doesn't matter then I think it is not worth questioning.

What will be left, I think, would be a person who is at peace with their Self, there inner essence. That is to say, we will be able to live our physical life in such a manner that we will never have inner conflict.

Now, sure, we are still going to make mistakes. That's a given. But we will be able to rely on the fact that we did what we were inspired to do according to the knowledge and experience we had at the time and if things didn't work out the way we thought they would at least we have learned another lesson. And that, in its self, can bring contentment.

Peace & Love!