The Evolution of Religion

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Nick_A
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Re: Nick

Post by Nick_A »

henry quirk wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 5:57 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 4:32 pm
Nick_A wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 3:09 am

What did you think of what I posted on the Ninth Wave? It is art which includes layers of depth cocnerning hope a spiritual person will appreciate while a secularist my not.
I think it would be depressing to take it seriously.
don't worry about it, Nick: RC is a good egg...he just ain't got no poetry in his soul
The Ninth Wave is good example of art vivifying intellectual thought. Hope can be experience as more than just something to argue. I thought it was what RC asked for. No harm, no foul.
Belinda
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Nick wrote:
--men sacrificing young virgins for a ritual we've come to know as cash.
What this means is for example something I read in the newspaper this morning.

It concerns an allegation the present British government still endorses the illegal sale of war aeroplanes to Saudi Arabia despite this being illegal for the past year. These aeroplanes are used to kill people in Yemen. And all for "cash".(Court of Appeal judgement).

The profit motive sacrifices the innocence of a whole nation for "cash".

Similarly in the USA the profit motive ("cash") was the root cause of old fashioned slavery which has left the USA with the bad conscience that causes atrocities against the weaker in society. At this juncture I am not discussing modern slavery though I could.

"Young virgins" might be understood literally as sexually inexperienced girls . It might also be taken to mean any exploitable persons who the powerful exploit for "cash".
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henry quirk
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sacrificing young virgins

Post by henry quirk »

search...

germans place kids with pedos

...and see what comes up


search...

european pedophilia

...and see what comes up
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:06 am Nick wrote:
--men sacrificing young virgins for a ritual we've come to know as cash.
What this means is for example something I read in the newspaper this morning.

It concerns an allegation the present British government still endorses the illegal sale of war aeroplanes to Saudi Arabia despite this being illegal for the past year. These aeroplanes are used to kill people in Yemen. And all for "cash".(Court of Appeal judgement).





Similarly in the USA the profit motive ("cash") was the root cause of old fashioned slavery which has left the USA with the bad conscience that causes atrocities against the weaker in society. At this juncture I am not discussing modern slavery though I could.

"Young virgins" might be understood literally as sexually inexperienced girls . It might also be taken to mean any exploitable persons who the powerful exploit for "cash".

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams

America once understood why liberty requires the ideals of a moral and religious people. Of course it wasn't practiced but the ideal kept the influence alive in society. The dominance of secularism assures the loss of liberty in the pursuit of cash paving the way for statist slavery to take over.

In God we trust defends freedom. In cash we trust leads to slavery to control the struggle over cash.

https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciBhan.htm
Plato realises that all theories propounded by Cephalus, Thrasymachus and Glaucon, contained one common element. That one common element was that all the them treated justice as something external "an accomplishment, an importation, or a convention, they have, none of them carried it into the soul or considered it in the place of its habitation." Plato prove that justice does not depend upon a chance, convention or upon external force. It is the right condition of the human soul by the very nature of man when seen in the fullness of his environment. It is in this way that Plato condemned the position taken by Glaucon that justice is something which is external. According to Plato, it is internal as it resides in the human soul. "It is now regarded as an inward grace and its understanding is shown to involve a study of the inner man." It is, therefore, natural and no artificial. It is therefore, not born of fear of the weak but of the longing of the human soul to do a duty according to its nature.
Plato points out that our normal definitions of good and evil are the results of acquired external interpretations. In this way they are mechanically secular and subject to legal systems. However Plato refers to the right conditions of the human soul which humanity can evolve to experience. Einstein called it conscience. The real undiscoved country only a few have the need, will and impartiality necessary to explore..
Belinda
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Nick_A wrote:
America once understood why liberty requires the ideals of a moral and religious people. Of course it wasn't practiced but the ideal kept the influence alive in society. The dominance of secularism assures the loss of liberty in the pursuit of cash paving the way for statist slavery to take over.
Do you think secularism is like another word for atheism?
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Lacewing
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:09 pm America once understood why liberty requires the ideals of a moral and religious people. Of course it wasn't practiced but the ideal kept the influence alive in society.
If it's not practiced, what good is the influence?
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:09 pmThe dominance of secularism assures the loss of liberty in the pursuit of cash paving the way for statist slavery to take over.
That's quite an imaginative story. How is rejection of religious beliefs a pursuit of cash?

Are you unaware of (or ignoring) how cash-driven religion is?
Nick_A wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:09 pm In God we trust defends freedom.
How so? Is cultish behavior freedom?
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Belinda wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 9:46 am Nick_A wrote:
America once understood why liberty requires the ideals of a moral and religious people. Of course it wasn't practiced but the ideal kept the influence alive in society. The dominance of secularism assures the loss of liberty in the pursuit of cash paving the way for statist slavery to take over.
Do you think secularism is like another word for atheism?
No. Atheism denies a conscious source for creation while secularism refers to qualities of conscious inclusion. The easiest way to explain this is to imagine yourself in the lobby of a building with three floors. People are interacting around you in the lobby and you are a part of these interactions. They can be talking politics, religion, business or whatever. This is secular consciousness

You take the elevator up to the first level and look out the window. The crowd is still interacting below but you are not part of it. You start to sense that you are in the world but not of it. Going up to the second floor the crowd is further away and you experience the city around you. You are less aware of the interacting crowd and more aware of the buildings in the city they are all a part of. You become aware that the source of meaning attracting you is not in the world but rather from a higher source. Moving up to the third floor you experience that you are both attached to the interacting crowd and also attracted to the source of higher meaning. This is universal consciousness. It begins when a person inwardly turns. They have experienced higher consciousness and stop defending the first floor. They are open to take the elevator up to higher conscious inclusions at the second floor and beyond.
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Lacewing
If it's not practiced, what good is the influence?
The human condition is the struggle between man's higher nature and what makes liberty possible, and Man's lower nature only concerned with pragmatism and cash. A moral and religious people keep the higher influence alive
That's quite an imaginative story. How is rejection of religious beliefs a pursuit of cash?
It is the default position. Take away experiencing higher values and replacing it with cash can only lead to the struggle over cash and statist slavery to control it.
How so? Is cultish behavior freedom?
The essence of freedom is the freedom to find and experience objective meaning. That is what America offered. Is communism less of a cult than secularized religion? People are rioting as expressions of Marxism The results of blind denial are as much like cultism as blind secularized beliefs. My guess is that you don't know what freedom is and define it by your beliefs and rejections.
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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1948
"One never goes wrong following his feeling. I don’t mean emotions, I mean feeling, for feeling and intuition are one.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 95. – conversation on September 14, 1948)
Einstein wrote of the necessity for our conscience to evolve. Can our conscience evolve without our consciousness evolving? Can they evolve together without opening to receive intuitions?
While the two terms are often confused, the conscious and the conscience refer to very different things. As described above, your conscious is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. Your conscience is your ability to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.
It seems both our conscience and consciousness must evolve together for religion to evolve to serve the evolution of religion. But the reality is that we don't know how. So the result is that humanity as a whole remains the same and continues to battle between opposing expressions of self delusion.
Belinda
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Nick_A wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:19 am
1948
"One never goes wrong following his feeling. I don’t mean emotions, I mean feeling, for feeling and intuition are one.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 95. – conversation on September 14, 1948)
Einstein wrote of the necessity for our conscience to evolve. Can our conscience evolve without our consciousness evolving? Can they evolve together without opening to receive intuitions?
While the two terms are often confused, the conscious and the conscience refer to very different things. As described above, your conscious is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. Your conscience is your ability to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.
It seems both our conscience and consciousness must evolve together for religion to evolve to serve the evolution of religion. But the reality is that we don't know how. So the result is that humanity as a whole remains the same and continues to battle between opposing expressions of self delusion.
Conscience is one sort of consciousness of which there are other sorts such as scientific consciousness or consciousness of the changing seasons or consciousness of your own motives.

Conscience is consciousness of social mores and ethical behaviour. In the normal person these are deeply ingrained and it usually takes some knowledge of philosophy, psychology , or anthropology to understand how conscience is taught to children and is not inherited through the genes.

I agree conscience and consciousness must evolve together as religion evolves. This is because religion (NB religion not superstition) always includes a code of ethical behaviour. I disagree that "we don't know how". There are several inspirational figures, spiritualities, and philosophies to choose from so we know perfectly well what the good life entails. These inspirational figures include Jesus, Socrates, Gautama Siddartha, and Confucius. All of those proclaimed religions based upon compassion.
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Belinda
Conscience is consciousness of social mores and ethical behaviour. In the normal person these are deeply ingrained and it usually takes some knowledge of philosophy, psychology , or anthropology to understand how conscience is taught to children and is not inherited through the genes.
As I copied above, Einstein wrote of the difference between emotions and feelings which I agree with. Emotions are either naturally animal or learned. Feelings are remembered. I’m not asking if you agree but do you see the difference between emotions and feelings?
I agree conscience and consciousness must evolve together as religion evolves. This is because religion (NB religion not superstition) always includes a code of ethical behaviour. I disagree that "we don't know how". There are several inspirational figures, spiritualities, and philosophies to choose from so we know perfectly well what the good life entails. These inspirational figures include Jesus, Socrates, Gautama Siddartha, and Confucius. All of those proclaimed religions based upon compassion.
A person can want to be a Christian for example but soon finds he is unable to be one. He lives in hypocrisy. He wants one thing and does another. What he does he does through the need to fit in or guilt rather than understanding or consceince He may desire to be Christian but the hypocrisy of his being that has become the norm for the human condition makes is impossible to be one. He is a pre-Christian.

We don’t know how to pass from pre-Christian to Christian. He is unable to be Christian. We have many inspirational influences but how do they teach us to deal with our hypocrisy in order TO BE.
Belinda
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Nick_A wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:58 pm Belinda
Conscience is consciousness of social mores and ethical behaviour. In the normal person these are deeply ingrained and it usually takes some knowledge of philosophy, psychology , or anthropology to understand how conscience is taught to children and is not inherited through the genes.
As I copied above, Einstein wrote of the difference between emotions and feelings which I agree with. Emotions are either naturally animal or learned. Feelings are remembered. I’m not asking if you agree but do you see the difference between emotions and feelings?
I agree conscience and consciousness must evolve together as religion evolves. This is because religion (NB religion not superstition) always includes a code of ethical behaviour. I disagree that "we don't know how". There are several inspirational figures, spiritualities, and philosophies to choose from so we know perfectly well what the good life entails. These inspirational figures include Jesus, Socrates, Gautama Siddartha, and Confucius. All of those proclaimed religions based upon compassion.
A person can want to be a Christian for example but soon finds he is unable to be one. He lives in hypocrisy. He wants one thing and does another. What he does he does through the need to fit in or guilt rather than understanding or consceince He may desire to be Christian but the hypocrisy of his being that has become the norm for the human condition makes is impossible to be one. He is a pre-Christian.

We don’t know how to pass from pre-Christian to Christian. He is unable to be Christian. We have many inspirational influences but how do they teach us to deal with our hypocrisy in order TO BE.
Do you believe there are some people who have lived perfectly good lives, or do you believe perfect goodness is aspirational?

You may like to bear in mind Jesus said "there is none good but God."
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Belinda
Do you believe there are some people who have lived perfectly good lives, or do you believe perfect goodness is aspirational?

You may like to bear in mind Jesus said "there is none good but God."

We are the wretched man. The purpose of Christinity is to provide the inner direction leading to good and for a person to distinguish from the secular good
Mark 12
13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. 14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

And they were amazed at him.
Who knows what is Caesar's and what is God's? How does one tell the difference? How does a person give to God who needs nothing? How does a person contemplate these things with a mind other than the secular mind?
Belinda
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

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Nick, you misquoted me in your last post .I did not say what you wrote I said.

You did not answer my question:

Do you believe a) there are some people who have lived perfectly good lives, or do you believe b)perfect goodness is aspirational?
Please answer in ordinary language either a) or b).
Nick_A
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Re: The Evolution of Religion

Post by Nick_A »

Belinda wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:54 pm Nick, you misquoted me in your last post .I did not say what you wrote I said.

You did not answer my question:

Do you believe a) there are some people who have lived perfectly good lives, or do you believe b)perfect goodness is aspirational?
Please answer in ordinary language either a) or b).
Tough nite. :D I'll try again

Good is a relative term. I've learned that people who are good in society are often the most hated since they are considered boring. They don't have agendas They are called good householders. They take care of their families and responsibilities and considerate of others. They live good lives.

However what of the Simone types who have felt living a good life requires being a seeker of truth or the need to feel, to experience, the inner direction of the good as distinct from reacting to society. They both live good lives but "good" has relative connotations. The good householder refers to societal good and the Simone types refers to the relativity of human being which requires the conscious need or aspiration not wanted by society.

Since "good" is a relative term the answer must be both a and b depending upon which perspective you are referring to. But the bottom line is that as the "wretched man," the "good" is just an ideal.
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