Kishar

I feel that religion or faith in some God is a way for man to come to grips that were all alone, marooned on this rock with nowhere to go, so we look to some sort of higher power to keep our sanity.

Thats what I get and believe from this quote.

But none of us know jack, really. How could we?

I'll just wait for death then maybe I'll figure it out.

I don't even like to ponder these thoughts anymore, it's just a big watse of time cause I can't and no one else on this planet can figure it out or we already would have.
Don't get me wrong I have beliefs and HOPE that there is something out there but I'm just not intelligent enough to explain it!
I'm just gonna smoke as much weed as possible and maybe it'll kill me so I can figure this stuff out.
I'm sick of it all

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So, if a stranger walked up to you and poured pebble like seeds into your hand and then said, plant them and your harvest can be made into rope cloth or paper, it could help the sick or intoxicate. What would you say?

Would you keep the seeds or chuck them away?

RollREDRoll

Ego Tripping

"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." --Albert Einstein

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smoke

this was an interesting post to read. thanks to all. but like every other religious argument, every other scientific argument, etc... ego's right. it comes down to the 'why?', and that won't be answered by anyone but yourself.

JahBohl

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
-Albert Camus

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"If you know what life is worth, then you would look for yours right here on Earth" ~Peter Tosh

I'm in favor of it as long as it's multiple choice. ~Kurt Rambis, on drug testing

Ego Tripping

...

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smoke

salsa dancing? i just drown my confusion in thc & lp's

colorsinthevoid

ego tripping, i appreciate the waking life quote. very thoughtful movie. [i assume that's what it's from, and the movie doesn't take it from anything].

i don't believe in god. it seems like an escape from facing reality and the truth behind things, a cop-out to avoid the arduous process that i love so much to discover what things really are.

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Waves

Exactly. But science and religion are both tools we can use to find out the "why"s.

The only problem is at this point in time science is at a stage sort of equivelent to the rock paintings and sun-worshippers of early religion. does that make it any less valid as a tool to explore reality? i would say so at this point. But in 40-50 years time science will finally be able to answer some of the deeper questions MUCH better than religion ever could

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

Frodo

Consider the real numbers. There is no biggest real number, and there is no smallest real number. They do not have a beginning or an end.

The universe operates on a similar principle. There is no beginning. The cyclic nature I described is that of periodicity - think of a sine wave, not a circle.

Ego Tripping

Science IS a Religion, wtf?

All require unadulterated subjective beliefs, no matter how the conclusions are drawn and even if they are drawn together.

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smoke

wiggity word.

we dont know if science is true, we dont know if religion is true. we dont know. period. we can only ask why, and science or religion are not tools for us to answer that question. there's just investments in faith which make us ask why even more.

snapshot

As long as none of you take yourselves too seriously when talking about God. Personally, God is not a serious issue. It's a fact. Not an issue. And an unknown fact at that. The facts about God have not even come to be. It's a non-issue. I dunno why people get mad and defensive and even joyous and happy when talking about God. Your emotions are still, in effect, slaves to your presumptions. If talking to yourself makes you happy it doesn't have to be God. If you're alone and depressed that's no evidence for or against God.

A light-hearted discussion on God would be a new one on me.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

smoke

well obviously.. you're stirring up discussion about whose way of life is most righteous. you can't attack anything more personal than that...

and what is an unknown fact? a fact is: knowledge or information based on real occurrences. unknown = no knowledge.

Waves

Thats sort of like saying a bike is a car.

Yeah, true in a sense, but one of them will get you where your going faster.

__________________
On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

snapshot

an unknown fact means that perhaps I do not believe that something does not come into existence simply because we perceive it. It's there whether we look at it or not. The world doesn't disappear when you close your eyes.

God is a fact, apparently. Whether you believe that fact says he exists or doesn't exist is up to you. But whether you believe whatever you believe, there is still something that either is or isn't there. We just don't know it yet.


Personal? Attack? I don't see how anything could be further away from personal than God. When's the last time you took it personal when God did something bad to you? When's the last time you had a personal conversation with God that wouldn't be perceived as a convoluted story if you told it to your friends.

It's beyond me how God can be personal. It's the beliefs about God that are personal. If God was somehow personal to us I don't think we'd be arguing so much about what the fuck it is.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

Waves

im gonna let you in on something:

In reality, there is no "why." Reality just is. It just is to the extent that we cant even comprehend its "is"-ing. There is no "why" to reality. But as long as we put ourselves into situations where it looks like there COULD be a "why" we will look for that why.

Religion and science are both tools of exploring and understanding a reality that is not explorable or understandable. But we try, because we can. And we end up creating a bunch of bullshit based off of more bullshit based off of more bullshit. the golden ratio at work, if you will. Anyone who thinks they know the "why" is lying because in reality there is no "why!"
Whos arguing for truth here? science and religion dont have much to do with "truth" at all. just repeatable constructs. Science provides them, religion doesnt, and that is why science will take over religion completely in the next 40 years. People always seem to think im anti-religion or something. No, i love religion. I think its one of the greatest things man has created in his short time here on earth. its just time for us as a race to stop listening to priests and start listening to professors.

__________________
On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

snapshot

heh. there is no "why?".

true that yo. definitely an inefficient model of thinking. "how?" to me is a much better interrogation for investigation..

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

smoke

when i ask 'why?' im asking a million questions.. trying to understand the whole of existence... which no one can. you can not prove your reality. it could all be a dream. we don't know SHIIIIIIIIT.

Waves

we know some shit. and you should always be trying to learn more shit. i know i am.

sure its a longshot to say that we will someday explain reality in full. but we dont need to understand reality to understand our own individual realities. we all have minds, and physical senses designed to express our minds in a limited way, and we all have limits placed on ourselves and theres nothing we can do about it. But you can always know more shit.

Some basic shit to know would be: why you are here, what this place is designed for.

But no one knows. and thats fucked up. and the reason its fucked up is because its so fucking easy to learn why you are here and what this place is all about. just go lay down and retain consciousness. dont fall asleep, make the transition with full awareness and you will get everything you need. Its that simple.

Religion really fucked us over in general. It depressed our senses of self worth and made us all cattle who waste our whole lives in hopes of getting it right after we die. If people only knew how easy it is to find meaning in the world RIGHT NOW IN THIS LIFE we would be living in a wonderful place. but we hate ourselves and we hate each other, and we kill ourselves and we kill each other. im optimistic that its going to end soon and all these stupid divisions/ aka reasons to kill each other come to an end. science is where its at guys.

Lay down and practice lucid dreaming a half hour a day. You'll thank yourself later.

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

Ego Tripping

Waves:

What does it mean to 'know' something?

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