On Spirituality

How religion is an anchor to the souls of men—dragging a dead weight.

I am an atheist. There is little to convince me the natural order of things needs guidance to align itself with compatible attractions. I do not naturally concur or conclude any god or gods, but only by desperate, impatient persuaders and force-fed answers are we convinced—surrender to its message or be damned.

However, I do not discount the fact that some people are attuned differently to the universe and take advantage of its properties. We are all part of this electric, energy-field of space, full of Planck waves and particles, entangled one with another and everything in between. We are made of energy. It would make sense that we should be able to interact in these fields to our benefit—to use them in the understanding of humanity. We are a part of it, comprised of the same waves that surround us. There is no empty space.

—Enter Religion

They have all attended the same schools of thought for the past 3000 years. They debate every friggin word of the Bible (literally) and are a constant dead-weight dragging on the conscious fabric of space. We’re dragging an anchor around with us. Can we imagine for a moment—everyone engaged in real solutions developing human potential celebrating their individual abilities, versus pigeon-holing humanity into a self deprecating belief and abandoning the natural connections and abilities?

There are merely a handful of very smart people plowing on to advance the human cause. How do we escape the numbing stupor of religious beliefs? Humans have the capacity to be outstanding!

“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself“—Galatians 6:3

I could not disagree more. Seeing what we have to work with I’d say we have much more capacity than the “unworthy servant”.

We start with an insufficient premise of defeat, the worthless sinner, the holes of indoctrination offer an ongoing climb that only gets deeper. We can do more! Much, much more when we realize we’ve got this way beyond “glory to god” for allowing one damn problem free day. The bar is low—way too low.

“Whereas all rivers flow to the sea, carving, meandering ways, changing course, moving mountains and civilizations—so it is in the whole universe”

Author: jimoeba

Alternatives to big box religions and dogmas

142 thoughts on “On Spirituality”

  1. The Abrahamic religions…

    three of THE MOST disempowering, defeatist, and spiteful belief-systems humans have ever dreamed up and swallowed hook, line, and sinker… from their own naivety and laziness to question, explore, dissect, understand, mess up then correct (repeat!) in the entire history of our species!!! Those three paradigms/ideologies have hinder our progress and genius by perhaps 1-3 millenia, minimum! (face-palm)

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    1. I’ll face palm you too. It is something that such mediocrity and disempowerment is celebrated. The bar is pretty low when you have a god to tinker in your dailies while you wait.

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      1. Wait? Did you say WAIT Jim!!!!!!!???????? 😮

        No, no, NO! It is called FAITH my Brotha from the Northwest!

        But actually originally from our family Momma named Lucy (or 1 of those finds down there – LOL) in south central Africa many hundreds of thousands of years ago… not too long after we came down out of the trees into the Savannah!!! 🙂

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  2. “It would make sense that we should be able to interact in these fields to our benefit—to use them in the understanding of humanity. We are a part of it, comprised of the same waves that surround us.” Perfectly said Jim. From my own experience I’ve found that religion actually hinders our connection with these energy fields..we created a God to take the place of the things we can’t understand like always…..therefore this whole idea of “energy” is almost as crazy as the idea of “evolution”. Because not possible?…. It’s God..Right? Also, on a different note, I’ve been reading a book that touches on the subject of the earth being structured in a way that is more “women-like” that anything at all. Even describing how the ocean acts as a womb..creating life within it’s body. If you, like I do, consider this type of thinking, then women would be more sacred than sexual. Religion degrades women to the lowest degrees possible. It’s actually disturbing. Awesome perspective Jim. Rejuvenates my brain!

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    1. Some of the current and ongoing discoveries in physics, energy waves, and gravity are going to change the world drastically in the next several years. Maybe then we’ll be able to embrace openly the sorceries exterminated by the churches that empowered ancient men and women to choose their own way. The ways of the Shaman

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            1. It is a nice idea in a lot of ways. I don’t need to believe it do I. Is that a threat? Haha it turns out rawgod, that the amount of energy enclosed in one small area of what appears to be empty space, contains enough raw energy to power civilization for thousands of years. Scientist are on the verge of discovering how to harness that power. I know you have trouble imagining what the implications of that are, but suffice it to say “we ain’t seen nothing yet”! It is a race to save humanity from ourselves to own this source of clean energy since it’s obvious no one will stop the madness of population and pollution over having stuff

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            2. The “I” part was referring to the ego/mind of an individual, which does not get reincarnated. If there is a way to harness the energy around us, capitalism will fall, because they won’t be able to charge for it. That is ok with me. But we still need to control the pollution, esp the throwing away of plastics. I would rather see stopping the use of all plastics. We don’t need them, there are other materials to use. They are just too convenient for an impatient world.

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            4. Eternal use plastic might be acceptable, but even then people would get sick of whatever the item was, and throw it away for a new one. That would still be pollution. I think plastic of any kind has to go. We need to emphasize biodegradability.

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  4. I have no idea what Planck waves are, Jim, but I know connections, and there are more connections than there are living beings. How many synapses are in one brain? How many cells are in one body? How many cells are in, on, or above this earth? The number is too big to boggle the mind. How many is a gigazillion?

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      1. Hmmm. Which number were you describing? According to my arithmetic there are at least 269,280,000,000,000,000,000 living human cells in the world. I cannot even try to estimate how many cells would be in a 1000 year old redwood, or a baleen whale, or an aspen growth, or that giant fungus in the northwestern continental USA. Those are just individual beings. To include every multi-cellular being, and then add in every bacteria or virus, the number has to have thousands of zeros in it. Then you can multiply by how many atoms are in a cell, and the number becomes fantastical. And this is just one planet…

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        1. One proton contains/equals all the information of all the other protons in the universe. 10 -39cm/sq. All the information is everywhere at once and physicists seem awfully close to unlocking this 100 year old equation.

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          1. Good luck to them, but I hope this is not another atomic bomb situation. Harnessing the energy in an atom was potentially good, but the use humans made of it was deadly. Is this energy going to be deadly also? If so, it might be better to refuse to access it. Humanity is not ready to be responsible…

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            2. If we could learn to become one with nature, I would choose life. But even still, I do not want to see us kill off every other lifeform. Can we just commit human harakiri, and leave everyone else alone?

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            3. I disagree. I think unlocking this would prove a massive awakening to humanity. A polar opposite to the outcomes of faith. It is only through knowledge that faith and it’s side effects will die

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            4. No problem, Jim. At this point I am thinking of a wider perspective than faith. For me solving the religious problem is not as important as solving the survival problem, even though the two are inextricably combined.
              We need to be alive to have unbelief.

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            5. we *are* one with nature. Nature isn’t all rainbows and kittens. the idea that we are somehow apart from it is nothing more than the noble savage nonsense.

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            6. We “should be” one with nature, but most of us are not. Humans treat nature like their “preyground.” Most feel no connection to things natural, except to use them and own them. Yes, nature can be very ugly, but it is seldom cruel. We are cruel, especially to nature.
              How the noble savage fits into this picture I have no idea. I see humanity as neither noble nor savages. We are violent beings, and nothing is beyond our cruelty, not even other humans. This is not natural.

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            7. And you haven’t seen a cat play with a mouse. You want to pretend that if we just all went back to nature, we would be better. That’s the whole noble savage routine, assuming that someone without what we call civilization is somehow better.

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            8. Not we would be better, overall life would be better. You seem to have no desire to improve life on this planet. The only reason it needs improvement is because of all the negative effects we have had on the environment, on climate, on life itself. Cats chasing mice gives them the chance to earn their freedom. What chance does any animal have against a gun, an arrow, or a steel trap? Yeah, we can look at a cat and call it cruel. The cat knows nothing about cruelty. Humans do. Humans define cruelty. We know enough to know better. Animals do not. They have no god to impress, or obey. They have no right and wrong. No morals. No sins. Neither do I.

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            9. I have a lot of desire to improve life on this planet, and that sometimes takes standing up to the bad guy. That’s my choice. You have made yours. I’m sorry you have no right or wrong.

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            10. Why would you be sorry? You have no right to think I need to change. But right and wrong are interchangeable, depending on the situation. Circumstances are never exactly the same. What is right one time is wrong the next, and vice versa. I choose my actions, I do not base them on some unchanging absolute.
              Religion hurts people, but it also helps some people survive in this world. Who am I to tell them not to believe when believing actually helps them cope in this world.
              I know too women, now in their seventies, who were repeatedly raped by their fathers as teenagers. One is a believer, the other is not committed to anything. To change either one would be to upset the lives they have built for themselves. I am an atheist. To tell them to be atheists would be wrong. Yet it is right for me to be an atheist, it uncomplicates my life, amongst other things. Circumstances. Choices. No right. No wrong.
              As for standing up to bad people, that too can be good or bad. I am not about to walk into a white supremicist meeting and tell everyone they are crazy. Together they are in a mob mentality, and will not listen to anyone who disagrees with them. But if I meet one-on-one with a white supremicidt who us willing to talk, when there is no one around he or she wants to impress, then definitely I will try to have a conversation with them. As sick as it will make me, I will let them tell me about who they are, and I will try to tell them about who I am. Circumstances. Choices.
              No right. No wrong. No raised voices. No violence.
              No shouting someone down. Respect.

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            12. You have no idea what I stand for. But I certainly do not stand for any national anthem. You keep making statements about me, but you never tell me the reasoning behind them. I wish you would. I know you feel it would be useless, but I think it would be a lot of use if you opened your mind to what I am really saying. I don’t expect you to change who you are, but I would very much like to show you how biased you are in your thinking. I know I don’t fit into your worldview, but there is no reason I should. What would the world be like if we all thought the same?

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            13. Your actions describe yourself well. That’s my reasoning. and nice false accusations that I have a closed mind RG.

              I’m quite happy to do my best that no one thinks like nazis or other vermin. I’d be more than happy with a world without that.

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            14. See, again you are twisting my words. I never said you had a closed mind. I said it would be good if you “opened your mind to what I am really saying.” You like to read what “you” think I am saying. But that is nowhere close to what I am saying. At some point you decided what I had to say was worthless, so you stopped reading with your mind, doing so only with your brain. It shows in your replies to me. And this is why I am not giving up on you. I know you care, but you don’t think I do.

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            15. Each of us has something to offer. I would prefer we offer solutions. What’s tried and true is certainly found wanting. Status quo is a running joke that nobody likes nor believes in, but we hang in there out of what? Insecurity, fear, and pride.

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            16. All of those things, especially fear of the unknown, stop humanity from growing into what it can be. Yet most of our meaningful advancements have come from looking into the unknown, the seemingly unknowable (but not the religious unknowable) to see what is really there. If we only went where we could actually see into the future, we would not go very far. Therefore I ask people to look, not knowing what they might find–but hoping they will find something…

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            17. The religious people that I encounter always criticize my ideas, but offer nothing but the failed party lines. We can do better if we dump the opinions of the experts and think for ourselves. People are pretty cool at that point.

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            19. amazing how you claim that it “would be a lot of use if you opened your mind to what I am really saying”. aka you are claiming that I have a closed mind. Sorry, you wrote what you did and trying to deny it is rather unfortunate for you.

              I don’t think what you say is worthless. I think it that is wrong and you are a hypocrite. And the mind and brain are the very same thing, woo peddler, since the mind changes or ends when the brain is damaged. That dualism BS is the same stuff that theists make false claims about.

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            20. As I said, you refuse to open your mind to what it is that “I” am saying. You can read the words, but you cannot understand the meaning.
              l guess it is time to stop trying. Your brain is set.

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            24. Your choice of name is telling, though I presume you mean it in a sarcastic manner. If you mean it straight up, well, that is up to you. I pity your friends and club members.
              .

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            25. I take great pleasure when people’s hate, fear and willful ignorance bring discomfort to them. Club Schadenfreude is the name of my blog. I’m Vel. No one needs pity from someone wouldn’t do anything .

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            26. “Pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.” Hmmmm, not quite what you are trying to tell me. And if you think you are discomforting me somehow, again you read me wrong.

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            27. Yawn. I said this “I take great pleasure when people’s hate, fear and willful ignorance bring discomfort to them.”

              and yuo did your best to ignore that and twist it to what you wanted to here. ““Pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.”

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            28. All I did was give the definition of shadenfreude as I found it on the internet, first try. That you wish to redefine it is on you.

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            30. The only goalposts are in your head. I said what I had to, and I meant what I said. You still have not explained any of the things you said about me, but you want me to play your game. Your rules.
              Life doesn’t work that way.

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            31. still nothing to support your false claims. I’ve explained what I about you and said it was because of what you claim to be true, and what you write. You are judged by what you’ve said, a pacifist who seems to not care about anything but himself.

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            33. Actually, it means that I have to carefully consider each situation I face, and decide how to act in that situation.
              I am not about to follow some absolute commandment of a non-existent god, or some lawmaker who can only see one side of a situation. I take responsibility for all my actions, so I want to make sure I am acting according to how I best understand that situation. If that means “I don’t have to do anything,” it is only because doing nothing would be my best action in whatever situation I am being forced to consider.
              If you don’t want to consider all the ramifications of an action you are about to do, that is up to you. Act according to whatever authority you choose. The only authority I listen to is me, and I am an authority on nothing.

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            34. more attempts to cast aspersions at me. It’s a shame that someone who thinks that they act on their understanding and then says that they are an authority on nothing.

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            35. Key word: Authority. But then, given your history with me, I don’t expect you to understand that which you refuse to look at. You seem to eat red herrings for breakfast, then spew them back up when you have no idea how to carry on a conversation.
              An authority is someone who knows everything about something. His or her mind is closed to other possibilities.
              I try to see what it is I am looking at, not what I believe I am going to see. That is why I call myself an authority on nothing.

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            40. Something funny just happened. I was answering your next comment when I touched a wrong button somewhere. I was looking for my reply when something red flashed on the screen. Whatever happened wss unintentional.

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  5. Some days I’m ‘dust in the wind’ and other days I feel like the center of the Universe. A fun topic worthy of thought and debate without the dogmatic uselessness of religions or gods.

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      1. Ok, some days I’m the windshield. Some days I’m the bug. How’s that?
        Oh. lawdy Jim! Could we have some fine doozies. I shan’t even rename thee.

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  6. “We start with an insufficient premise of defeat, the worthless sinner, the holes of indoctrination offer an ongoing climb that only gets deeper. We can do more!”

    People are so strange – parents tell their children education is important, tell them that they can be anything, can be successful if only they work hard and learn.

    But then every Sunday they drag them off to a church where they’re told that they are the scum of the earth, sinners, worthless, and unless Magic Jesus sprinkles them with his holy water they’re going to burn in hideous torture for eternity in hell. A church which actively works to undermine the very education the parents want their children to have because it doesn’t agree with something written in a two thousand year old book that’s been so badly translated, altered and re-written that no one knows what it really says anyway.

    [thump] [thump] [thump]
    Sound of me banging head on wall with frustration.

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    1. That sounded like head banging. Better that Taboos face palm by .62—That may be enough for the gold medal, Jim…
      To shift the focus, what to do? There is still a lot of religious rancor (probably still driving the wrong way) overall but I’m hopeful for a new period of enlightenment. It only takes one discovery to really change the world.

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      1. I used to hope we were coming to a new period of enlightenment, but I don’t know. Perhaps it’s simply because the media tends to focus on the controversial (which I admit it does because controversy = money), but what I see are things going the other way. We seem to be becoming more superstitious, less concerned with actual facts. And, frankly, religion itself seems to be becoming increasing irrational. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see things changing for the better any time soon

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        1. What if another discovery of such importance changed the world as we know it? We’re one or two important measurements away from busting this thing wide open. Consciousness and gravity is in the physics and the energy. We are in the mix so thick we can’t see it, but when we do? I’m hopeful as always. Maybe too much so, but as much as the story of one man became a perpetual dead weight on humanity, one man who already may have died, understanding and applying what he envisioned can undo it. We’re a hundred years behind what some exceptional men put to paper. I’m hopeful we can put into use what solutions they envisioned. .

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  8. I’m convinced the human species is de-evolving, mentally especially.

    Look at the people you run across in daily life. Do they represent people growing and learning that we all need to cooperate and use logic and reason to ensure survival of us and our planet? I don’t think so.

    I will say it. They are so stupid and incapable of any real thoughtand reason, that it burns!

    There are the flat earthers, the conspiracy theories which know no end, the admiration of people like the Kardashians, latest fad diet followers, alien abduction believers, vitamin junkies, ghosts, new age gurus and on and on ad infinitum.

    And religion is simply the easiest brainless vehicle for self destruction.

    Here is a really good example of religious stupidity.

    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/02/guru-convinced-400-men-to-castrate-themselves-to-be-closer-to-god/

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    1. It’s lazy economics of thought. It’s how you train a lazy horse. If he doesn’t give-in you make him work til he eventually will stand still for whatever you need to do. We have to fight the urge to go with the flow—fighting the current.

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    3. Hi Mary,
      What I see is a lot of spiritual evolution, which includes turning to atheism instead of belief/faith. Thanks to the internet it is easier to find other atheists than prior to.

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  9. Imagine a world without a god or religion. Then imagine a world without science or reason. In which one would you rather dwell? “Imagine all the people living life in peace” John Lennon.

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    1. I hear often hear that it’s not possible, and that is a problem in itself. Why not? Never quit, die trying, love everyone. But, those pesky un-corroborated beliefs get in the way

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  10. Well, me being me (I never have been able to imagine hoe I could be anything other than me) I still like what Carl Sagan said in his “Cosmos” series many years ago. We are ALL star stuff. Every star that explodes sends all sorts of goodies out into the universe and we on this small planet are proof of that.
    As to being born as a “poor sinner” I call bullshit! If my great grandpa was a bank robber, I’ll be damned if I’d let and gummint lock me away for his crimes. This holly buy-bull crapola of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of a certain tree (the very same tree this god critter planted) so we all get punished for that event? No way Jose! I reject that totally and if I spend eternity shoveling coal into some furnace, well, I give it about two weeks of me doing that and Satan will be on the phone trying to get air conditioning installed in hi office.
    Organized religion is the absolute worst invention we humans ever made. Yes, even worse than nuclear weapons. Weapons only kill/wound the bodies, religion kills the mind.

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    1. Hi Walter,
      I have to agree and disagree at the same time. I see three equally bad inventions, religion being one of them. The other two are money (something used to represent value that has no implicit value of its own), and government (anything that allows one or more persons to tell other people how to live their lives, and what to do with their lives). I do not believe in evil as such, but if I did these are the things I would nominate as evil: God. Gold. Government. Three Gs that have destroyed humanity.

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  11. I wrote a post ages ago about this exact, enraging thing: An offensive, appalling waste of time.

    It concludes:

    Now, the fact that a 7th Century B.C.E Vedic grammarian almost grasped the nature of the observable universe not only blows my mind in the best possible way, it also fills me with a certain indescribable rage. It makes my skin crawl to know that ninety generations ago our grandfathers were on the right track, asking the right questions and driving headlong toward understandings that (after being dismissed by Aristotle) would not again be tickled until the English Chemist, John Dalton, discovered “lumpy particles” in chemical experiments conducted twenty-seven centuries later. It makes me furious to know that despite the monumental efforts of this giant of proto-science (and the work of the Greek atomists who followed 250 years later) our collective popular culture instead continued on down the wrong path; the path of superstition and supernal promises built upon lies and fabrication. It bends me completely out of shape to know we have wasted ninety generations interpreting and re-interpreting gibberish spoken by mad men masquerading as prophets to forever unseen deities when the foundations of Naturalism were first scratched at one hundred years before Nebuchadnezzar figured Babylon might look a hell of a lot better with some terraced landscaping.

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    1. Love this!
      And it makes my point about de- evolution, which has been going on awhile now.

      You would think by now, that about 60/70 % of the population worldwide would be more enlightened in the modern world of ever increasing knowledge….but no. Instead it’s about 20% and I may be generous.

      There are three explanations to me.

      1) This is a computer simulation and it’s being tweaked as some sort of experiment.

      2) Mankind is just greedy and stupid and this will go on a long long time until we die out for good.

      3) Or it is part of the deep encoded DNA in any species itself to reach an apex and then go in reverse. It’s simply to make room for new species. And simple ones,like roaches, may outlast all the rest.

      A species will not survive in the long run, when 70/80 % believe in nonsense and ostracize, kill and destroy for this nonsense.

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      1. Existential death anxiety explains a great deal of it. Mortality salience makes it inevitable that people will look for sedatives, regardless of how silly those sedatives actually are.

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        2. Just read this fine post of yours. Terrific!

          To think all of this crazy harmful religion is due to fear and dread of non existence. Too bad we evolved knowing we would die.

          The fear part, which is so easily manipulated, seems so primitive. The stages from enlightenment to dark age mentality back and forth over the eons seems to portend a never ending cycle with no real lasting mental growth of the public at large.

          I’ve also wondered if overpopulation, which causes more poverty, stressful living conditions and loss of good education, is partly to blame. It keeps so many disenfranchised and living a somewhat meaningless life, so they search for meaning in supernatural beliefs. Just a thought.

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          1. I suspect poverty plays a huge role. Look at someone like Insanitybytes. She’s dirt poor, and will remain that way. BUT, in her delusional mind, she’s jesus’ princess, just itching to move into the mansion he has waiting for her, telling her how smart and witty she was on bad-old earth, and how he’s oh-so-proud of her for seeing through the charade and sticking to her guns.

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            1. Or is it poverty that makes her belief bearable? Possibly an excuse to trade mere thoughts as an excuse to settle for mediocrity? I suspect there are some depression/health issues there.

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            3. Alan Watts goes into this topic quite well. Where what we normally think of as obvious is typically a manifestation of the opposite. We can’t see the obvious. Like a fish seeing water. What is in plain site is rarely noticeable. Christianity is the epitome of this. What we are told is not what we see at all, but by belief before examination we are stuck on the first principle. “He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes”. This initial authority, no matter how wrong can be a lifetime of mental baggage. We think what we’re doing is honorable when it is in fact defeat.

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          3. Mary – I think you’re write when you said “I’ve also wondered if overpopulation, which causes more poverty, stressful living conditions and loss of good education, is partly to blame. It keeps so many disenfranchised and living a somewhat meaningless life, so they search for meaning in supernatural beliefs.”

            I wrote a paper about something like that way, way back in the dark ages when I was in college for a psychology or sociology class. It detailed how religion, the government and the wealthy often formed a sort of unholy trinity of oppression, each helping to prop the other up and keep the general population under control. The religion would preach about the ‘divine right of kings’ or something similar to give the government the ‘blessing’ of god, and tell the people that yes, you may be miserable and sick and starving now because of the government’s policies and because the wealthy are keeping you in virtual slavery, but it will all be worth it because if you just suffer in silence you’ll get rewarded when you are dead. And in exchange for that support the government would help prop up the religion, even make it part of the actual government, and the wealthy would pump money into the church to make it more visible and impressive.

            I’m so glad that none of the stuff I wrote back then has survived and has been swallowed up by the abyss of time. I suspect most of it was pretentious twaddle that used a lot of $10 multisyllabic words when a good, old fashioned $1.25 word would have done. Although come to think of it, I still write a lot of pretentious twaddle.

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  12. Spirits and ghosts are the same, no? So, instead of using the words “spiritual” and “spirituality” I use “ghostial” and “ghostiality.” Just with a slight name change, I think many fewer people will ascribe to it.

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  13. the whole worthless sinner nonsense is one of the things i despise about Christianity. First we have a god that makes people, then utterly fails, and then expects humans to take the blame. What a pathetic little god.

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  14. i’m not in a way religious, and never had any religious education. but even christianity has its remarkable mystics (Francis of Assisi, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Meister Eckhart, Heindel) that arrived at same ‘conclusion’ of god as other eastern spiritual paths. often, it is more the interpretation of the words that gives a wrong impression, rather than the original intended meaning. so we don’t need to throw out the baby with the water too.

    ‘spirituality’ is often misunderstood as being something airy, fluffy, out there, not related to the real world. it is anything but. as you said, science is is discovering that the nature of reality is far different and stranger than we ever thought possible, and there is unmistakable connection between our thoughts (or mind) and the world we experience outside. this is of utmost importance. consciousness, which cannot be explained but is experienced directly in meditation, seems to be the very fabric of our world, including matter. consciousness is a vehicle for thoughts.
    what that basically means, is that there is nothing ‘solid’, no concrete world, but rather a projection which comes out of mind. life is like a movie, much as the dreams we have at night.

    so, for man to advance to a more mature approach to spirituality and life, he has to look at his own thoughts. i used to say religion is for kindergarten, spirituality is for grown ups. ‘god’ is the ultimate experience of oneness in which the individual blends in with cosmic consciousness, and so becomes reality itself. those christian mystics i mentioned have all achieved such unity, only their description varies. it is what Jesus meant when he said “i and the father are one”. Jesus was nothing more than a fully awakened being, who had attained his full potentiality.

    i highly recommend this 25min video. Alan Watts is clear and super funny ( another characteristic of an enlightened mind- the one who knows, cannot but laugh) cheers!😊

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        1. I listened to the entire thing twice! I’ve been listening to physicist Nassim Haramein the past couple of days and now this. I’ve been hearing put into words lately many feelings I’ve had since I was a boy. Very interesting. Here’s one for you I saw yesterday. https://youtu.be/xJsl_klqVh0
          The physics and the philosophy are on a merging vector.

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          1. haha! i also listened to it twice. even his voice is soothing and comforting. i think you are zen at heart😉
            i follow Nassim on fb, but have never heard him talk. so, thank you. will drink my coffee with him now

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            2. yes, the new physics certainly offers a new vision, a deeper connectivity between the individual and the world (with the holographic universe and entanglement, especially). The quantum field is completely entangled all the time, so we’re more connected than we ever realized. As an observer, though, the scientist will always fall short of taking the final and most crucial leap: WHO is observing this? We can look and look, but the key lies in the very looking. That’s where ‘god’ is hiding.

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  15. Yeah, I’m totally not on board with the original sin thing. Babies are born innocent. We make our way in this world, but making mistakes is not “sin.” Hello?! If I do something harmless that doesn’t jive with your religion, that does not make me a “sinner.”

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    1. You Eilene, weren’t born a sinner but you came around to it. Still need Jesus after hearing the message. Without the law there is no punishment. The missionaries, preachers and family make sure you have a good shot at hell only after they tell you the blessed message.

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  17. “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself“—Galatians 6:3

    Read the epistles, and you won’t find anyone more insistent about his own importance than Paul himself. He is an apostle chosen directly by Jesus, other teachers are wrong if they ever disagree with him, and only his teachings are to be followed. He even reserves to himself the authority to “hand people over to Satan” or curse people if they ever disagree with him. He gave commands on all sorts of other issues, like dress in church or marriage.

    Much of what people think of as the basics of Abrahamic religion come from Paul. The emphasis on “faith” in particular. The Old Testament books really don’t have this concept. People expect and are given reasons or signs to do or believe things in the Jewish books. Even Abraham got a formal contract sealed before he did anything else. This is depicted in Genesis 17 where Yahweh walks between divided animal carcasses, an ancient Near Eastern way of sealing treaties. It is also made clear in Deuteronomy that the rules are not up in heaven and not too hard to keep. Paul twisted all this to put forward a message stating the exact opposite.

    There is an ancient critique of Christianity that probably came from Porphyry that tears into Paul.

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    1. You wrote: He is an apostle chosen directly by Jesus

      And I must ask … Says who? And don’t recite the “vision” in Acts because there are so many holes in that passage that it will never hold water. Further, the very fact the incident was reported by the writer of Acts and not by Paul himself speaks volumes.

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      1. The epistles claim multiple times that Paul(whoever wrote them) did not learn his doctrines from other Christian teachers, so apparently he was going around claiming some kind of revelation. The Acts story is just a later dramatization, who knows what Paul’s own story actually was. I suspect that it was originally something to do with a “revelation” involving exegesis of the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The author of Luke-Acts had a catholicizing goal, bringing together a bunch of Christian factions under a Pauline umbrella, while mitigating the actual conflicts between Pauline sects and the others.

        It is obvious from the evidence that a lot of other Christians did not like Paul, and that Paul was competing with other Christian sects for followers. That is why he needed to highlight his own importance all the time. It looks bad to claim humility or to say something like Galatians 6:3 and still keep trumpeting his own importance. It also looks bad to talk about love and forgiveness, when Paul himself “hands people over to Satan” for disagreeing with him. The guy did not brook the slightest questioning and certainly had no charity for his opponents.

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        1. I apologize if I came across rather harshly. I did considerable research on Paul when writing my book and I have a major distaste for him and what he did to Jesus’ teachings. Especially since he never met him! (And “visions” don’t count.)

          Of course, when push comes to shove, the entire “Story” has so many gaps and disparities that its credibility is definitely suspect. This is just one of the many glitches that believers like to overlook.

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    2. Great insight on Paul. That “testimony” is still the end all be all when the arguments fail. I was called by god—to write this blog with authority. Pretty hard to prove I wasn’t or was but by “feelings”.

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  18. It’s hard for me to believe that mankind is inherently, fundamentally bad. If Sin is “missing the Mark”, which I have heard said, then we are not perfect as we may often “miss the bullseye” or do less than the ideal thing. It makes me wonder, what was the original meaning of “Sin”?

    On another note: Atheism. First, let me say that like to investigate. I am not an Atheist but I would call myself “spiritually uncommitted” (to any particular thing, church or book)—and yet—-I will say “There probably IS a God”.
    Why? Nope, nt cuz the churches say so. Not because of the Bible, etc., etc…..
    It’s because: let’s do this. Many people like to talk about “the Universe” and “matter”. OK fine. Lets do that. So, imagine yourself at some construction site or a rock quarry. Let’s say you’ve got “dirt-clods, rocks and Matter” all nearby around you. The “stuff of the universe”—-but—–
    Pick up a 2-fist-sized clump of hard dirt, or pick up a 3-pound stone. Matter. Question: Do either of these think? Are they alive? Conscious? Do they “know that they are”? NO!
    But WE do. and so—-if tghe Universe is all there is and there is matter and no spirit, then how do we possibly explain how humans have intelligence and conscious awareness. Think about that. We certainly didnt get it from something (matter) that didnt already have it.

    and so…..it would seem likely, that there is some form of fundamental intelligence out there or baked-into the universe itself. How did we get it if what we came from didnt have it? So therefore, there is likely some intelligence, some creator…ie. God. But wait—–this STILL does not committ us or say anything about DOCTRINE (so relax)—-it merely indicates that something, or someone, is likely there. We still know very little about it. I am open to hearing other explanations, but this seems reasonable to me. I do not go to any church.

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    1. Think about that. We certainly didnt get it from something (matter) that didnt already have it.

      I understand where you’re coming from, and you’re certainly free to propose something that we might call “spirit” or “soul,” something immaterial, but the problem falls to you to demonstrate how spirit can “represent” the person if even some minor cerebral trauma evicts it so completely. Brain injury brings about profound and permanent changes in a person’s temperament, their interests, their likes and dislikes, their emotional responses to events, etc. “An entirely new person” is often the words used by friends and family to describe the person after the injury. We can even measure and predict with astonishing accuracy the parts of a person’s personality that will be altered given the part of the brain that is damaged. A good man becomes a bad man. A gentle man becomes a violent man. A mathematician becomes an artist. This is actual evidence (hard data) against the existence of a spirit. Granted, it does not necessarily mean spirit does not exist, but if you’re a rational player then the next question any sane person would have to address is this: If it does not represent the person, then what is the use of spirit?

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      1. as far as “representing”, here’s an anology:

        Lets say you are singing into a microphone and it comes out beautifully through the speakers. But now, if someone smacks the speakers with a baseball bat or short-circuits one of them by throwing a pitcher of water on it, then the sound will come out distorted….i.e…paralleling when you say the personality will be altered or changed. We can likely agree on that but my point HERE is left undamaged, and allowed to function normally, power and sound would flow through the system. we would have sound as opposed to no sound. we would have and hear something alive vs. something unresponsive or distorted. so…a case could be made that perhaps spirit somehow “feeds” life or power into us, but that we, like the speakers can be damaged which can alter what would have been the “natural flow or state of things.”

        To put it still another way: Just because the instrument is damaged doesnt mean that the electricity that powered it, isn’t there or doesn’t exist.

        So the question persists: if there is no God, then where does intelligence and awareness come from?

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        1. Lovely analogy… If there weren’t any consequences. A person’s entire personality set can be upended. For example, in 2000, a 40-year-old schoolteacher with a perfect record suddenly became a paedophile, trading in child porn and molesting children. After his arrest he complained of imbalance, at which time doctors found an egg-sized tumour. Once it was removed, the man’s uncontrollable urges simply disappeared and he returned to his usual self. But when the tumour regrew in 2001, “its associated nefarious interests returned.” The cancer was located in the right lobe of the orbifrontal cortex, which is known to be tied to judgment, impulse control and social behaviour.

          But you didn’t actually address the question: If the “soul” does not represent the person, as you appear to be saying, then what is its purpose?

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          2. a fair enough question”
            2 responses”

            1. I will admit that I do not know. I can only speculate, as many do, and say what I think is “most likely”.——-and——-
            2. Of all things, many in the Occult and/or New Age may believe that Spirit or God created us and uses matter and the physical world with us sort of as “feelers” to experience, you might say, more of reality or the Universe in more ways (than just spirit alone, i.e…we are here to learn, and experience, in yet another realm other than just “the spirit world”. Is this correct? Again, I do not know, but I welcome “presenting theories” and reasons for them.

            At one time, people would have poo-pooed the idea of the existence of x-rays….but with time and investigation, even science has learned that something was there.

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            1. ‘Most likely.’ Actually, as I’ve given you contradicting evidence, it’s a little more like “What I wish is true… despite the evidence.” But again, I can see where you’re coming from, our ability to hold an internal monologue leads us to think that way, but you should always let reality shape your beliefs rather than trying to make reality fit your beliefs. That will only lead to internal conflict.

              Your second point is certainly plausible if we substitute “God” (a conscious, motivated, singular entity/creator) with the universe itself (trying to understand itself). In this instance there is no requirement for some immaterial realm.

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    2. There are many millennia of indigenous shaman and various types all over the world that would disagree that the rock is non living. The Kogi of Columbia still differentiate many varieties of plants by the way they talk to them. And their accuracy in this practice is astounding. There are many ways of being in the world that are quite inspiring. Most likely this creation is alive, a living earth that peoples from time to time and we are just a piece of the process. We are the eyes and ears of a much larger and always changing organism. You cannot separate yourself from it. The fact that this very short mortal existence is bookended by two voids, unable to remember before or what happens after is the only thing that could possibly make infinite existence and complete knowledge tolerable—by taking breaks from the mundane by not knowing.

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        1. Thanks John. Dipping our toe in this part of experience from time to time also solves the problem of evil and good. You ever notice how those that are truly enlightened do not rush out to save the world? Imagine, all keyed up and afraid to die then, bam! Your back home laughing your ass off! What a rush that will be..again. And any part of the experience, good or bad would be nothing but a kick in the butt, to see with eyes and hear with ears, to touch and suffer and laugh, only possible by taking a break from our normal state.

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      2. Great thought, Jim, and that in no way presupposes an entity as portrayed by most official religions. Next step in that direction: remove the bookends and cross over with your mind. Good science fiction, the kind that science loves to ape, and seriously engaged fantasy, the non-aping kind that uses a persons particular imagination also does that. It doesn’t have to be “blank” – “awareness” – “blank” – “awareness” – “blank”… As long as we continue to accept that we cannot mentally engage either the past or the future we will remain on a universal, perhaps cosmic, treadmill of advancement and regression, advancement and more regression without even realizing in the moment that while it seems we are advancing we are in fact regressing. Now, if we had a yardstick by which to measure our progress or regress, we could make corrections in time. (See Olaf Stapledon’s novel, “Star Maker”) Bashing religion is a boring game, IMO, no one gains, no one loses, it’s all misdirection. Yes, religion is crap. Yes “God” as depicted by religion is a real bastard. Yes to a lot of it. But what about leaving the school yard and moving into the real world? How about taking some risks and exploring beyond the fiats of self-aggrandizing gurus, be they religious or atheist? I’m done with all of that shit. I want to know the answer to all the great and pertinent existential questions. Religion was our first “space ship” into the unknown and we got stuck, taken over by charlatans, quacks and not a few sociopaths. Then there was a major breakthrough, at least in the West and atheism became popular, at least in some European countries. A war ensued in which the two warring factions proceeded to dummy each other down to the ridiculous in their claims and counter claims. Meanwhile the cosmos beckoned and it didn’t care if you’re black, white, green, atheist, anarchist, religious, male, female, young, old, a Mensa member or autistic. Neither God nor Earthian science have any a priori claims on the cosmos.

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        1. Although my thoughts on this are in their early stages, the way I see it actually could include the guides and teachers you discuss (guides, not gods as they are often interpreted) and there many other forces and ideas that include nearly every old and persecuted practice wiped away by abrahamics punitive faith deception.

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  19. I’m sorry buy I feel you went off on a side-issue I wasn’t even talking about. It is true that damage to one’s head/brain/physical matter can result in a personality change, but i was talking about being conscious vs. being UN-conscious, having self-awareness vs. getting it from something that never had it in the first place. This is still unaddressed. To say it yet another way:

    How does the personal “arise” from the impersonal?
    How does intelligence come to be from non-intelligence?
    How does the organic arise from the inorganic?
    How does awareness come from non-awareness?
    So far, atheists haven’t answered this.

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    1. So far Christians have only postulated god did all these things, but have yet to prove any god at all. Making scientific claims without evidence is not anything to be excited about.

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    2. How does the personal “arise” from the impersonal?
      How does intelligence come to be from non-intelligence?
      How does the organic arise from the inorganic?
      How does awareness come from non-awareness?
      So far, atheists haven’t answered this.

      I just did: increasingly complex matter does. And we can demonstrate that.

      Take the “living cell.” Nothing in a “living cell” is alive. Not a single thing. It is a protein based robot hosting millions of chemical reactions every second, yet it is nothing but dead matter simply being moved chemically or mechanically by the business-like laws of interaction. At each individual function it is no more “alive” than a mechanical hole puncher performing the same task every second is alive. However, put all those parts and systems together (one working off another, affecting another still) and we get the appearance of a living thing. Indeed, we call it a “living cell.” And yet, nowhere in this contraption is anything that is actually “alive.” Not a single thing.

      What *you* haven’t done is address the question put to you: If the “soul” does not represent the person, as you appear to be saying, then what is its purpose?

      Can you please address the question…

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      1. A reply offered above.
        I enjoyed reading your explanation. Interesting but one has to wonder: just where do those “business-like laws of interaction” come from?

        and when we “put all those parts and systems together” we get the appearance of a living thing and lets go even further and say that if we keep building and building and building on *that*, that eventually we get what we call “intelligence”, emerges. I am not saying thats the answer, but for the sake of argument, I’ll just go with for now. Here’s my thing:

        So now we’ve got a living intelligent human from the result of hundreds of reactions, “hole punches”, etc. So, now……let’s reverse that process. Suppose somehow, one by one, by one, by one we reduce, end, kill off, or eliminate another, and another of the reactions, or hole-punches, etc. At what point??—does our “alive” being suddenly become no longer alive? After a 20% reduction? More? Is it really necessary to totally reach ZERO before we can say its non-living again? I dont think anyone really knows.

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        1. just where do those “business-like laws of interaction” come from?

          They were snap frozen in place when the early universe cooled from 100 nonillion Kelvin to 1 billion Kelvin. A little slower, or a little faster in the cooling and we’d have a completely different chemistry set.

          if we keep building and building and building on *that*, that eventually we get what we call “intelligence”, emerges.

          Precisely. And we can measure intelligence/awareness by number of neurons.

          At what point??—does our “alive” being suddenly become no longer alive?

          I’ve already told you, there is nothing that is “alive.” It’s just an emergent phenomenon. It’s really not that complicated. In the 19th Century historian and philosopher, John Fiske, prudently observed:

          “As soon as it became cool enough for oxygen and hydrogen to unite into a stable compound, they did unite to form vapour of water. As soon as it became cool enough for double salts to exist, then the mutual affinities of simple binary compounds and single salts, variously brought into juxtaposition sufficed to produce double salts. And so on throughout the inorganic world … Here we obtain a hint as to the origin of organic life upon the earth’s surface. In accordance with the modern dynamic theory of life, we are bound to admit that the higher and less stable aggregations of molecules which constitute protoplasm were built up in just the same way in which the lower and more stable aggregations of molecules which constitute a single or a double salt were built up. Dynamically, the only difference between carbonate of ammonia and protoplasm which can be called fundamental is the greater molecular complexity and consequent instability of the latter.”

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