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"Your Belief in God is Merely an Escape from Your Monotonous, Stupid, and Cruel Life."
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Yes, and optimism is also merely just a belief that is an escape from your cruel life, pessimism is a belief to make your life cruel... All beliefs are merely an escape from life, and the belief and God must be the most enlightening
Naw, he's not even saying that. All he's saying is that, if there is a god, then the rule that the map is not the territory would apply to that god too. That, and the fact that belief in god, as most people practice it, amounts to little more than a psychological escape.
When Krishnamurti has been asked if there is a god, his response has been along the lines of why don't you go see for yourself?
sandy whitelinger
Veteran Member
No, I'm a lot more monotonous, stupid and cruel now that I believe than I was before.
Here's the quotes again just for a quick reference:
All of those do seem to presume the existence of God. If he didn't believe that God was actually something to find, then why would he be telling people that they are going about it incorrectly? Why would he claim that God was an experience?
But regardless, my comments and these quotes, are more about the value of belief (not just belief in God). And I still find them to be rather hypocritical. He believes that "belief is a denial of truth", and yet he is strongly convinved of that belief!
I also don't think the first quote is internally consistent. If reality is what you are and what you think, then beliefs are very much a part of that, but he claims that beliefs have no reality whatsoever. Why's he hating so much on beliefs?
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Muffled
Jesus in me
Am I missing something here? It seems to me to be a good thing to escape from a monotonous, stupid cruel life.
Does that mean he believes those who don't believe in God are still leading that kind of life?
As for the mundane Jesus taught to be in the world but not of it. Basicly Jesus still ate and drank and walked and talked but allthose things pretty nearly take care of themselves as He taught and I believe that allows a person to concentrate more on spiritual realities.
sandy whitelinger
Veteran Member
I escaped from a perfectly good life when I became a Christian and now enjoy another perfectly good life with a better future.
Me Myself
Back to my username
I would assume it depends, is she projecting herself and then feeling hereelf or is she just directly feeling herself? (Hummm... I think that sounded kind of euphemistic, didn't it?
)I also feel God is an experience. That's why I say some people that say God doesn't exist may be saying the same se people that say God is everything. They are just giving a different name to the same experience.
To me, faith is a sort of perception. Real faith I mean.I have seen and heard a lot of people pretending to be theists but truly being atheists in denial. Surely the opposite also exists.
Me Myself
Back to my username
Sme things escape words, and words work only as pointers. If you see only the words and see them in all perspectives, you'll find many contradictions. If I make a sign pointing at the moon, it wont point at the moon all the time,or will it point at the moon from every perspective. If I point you the moon with my finger, again it will not point at the moon from every perspective. You have to try to see from which perspective I was pointing, to see what I was truly pointing at.
When we talk on things like this, words are similar.
Can you explain consciousness conceptually? Without including that which is not nor excluding that which is? Words are limited.
I think that JK is simply saying that to experience God means to empty the mind/oneself of all concepts, which cover the truth. It is a simple and common teaching of eastern religions. Jiddu is known to be a bit verbose.
Why should we believe in JK?
What are you saying? Are you claiming that the idea JK is presenting is free from those things that I find unsatisfactory, but the words he must utilize are clouding the issue?
Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
I find this to be an anthropologically deficient perspective. It surfaces every now and then.
For an indigenous group, of course they have their own distinct perspectives, traditions, and beliefs. All these are rooted in their environment from which they evolved and fashioned their social structure and base of interactions. It's how they relate to their region, and to each other.
It doesn't really matter whether their beliefs are objective or not, because their whole purpose is to be subjective and focused on their region and life.
Krishnamutri's assumption here is that all experience stems from and is conditioned by belief. That is not necessarily true for all cases. In addition it is pretty vague to discuss about 'experiencing God',it sounds as somewhat of a statement of exclusivity that supposedly Krishnamurti did indeed experience God, while other people of different political persuasion are delusional.
Reality is the unknown? then what difference does it make what we believe about the unknown, since it can be anything?
Some truth, which any self critic can voice. But more vagueness than truth I would personally say.
For example, in order to contrast truth and beliefs, I would personally discuss the importance of the search for facts, and how this can help us get a more objective and neutral picture of reality or a series of circumstances.
Alceste
Vagabond
I completely agree with you, but I don't know that this is completely incompatible with Krishnamurti's comment. A delusional belief can still be the most pragmatic belief to hold. In fact, I have no doubt that I hold a great number of delusional beliefs that are simply necessary in order to live companionably in the society to which I happen to belong.
In fairness, he is not saying "all experience is conditioned by belief", I don't think. Like mystics in general, he seems to be saying that preconceived beliefs cloud our perception of our experience. To give a really silly example, I once dated a guy who thought I was sent by Satan to tempt him, simply because we were sexually attracted to each other. OK, more than once! I lived in a comparatively religious province for a while. When we let superstition colour our perceptions, we can get things very wrong, can't we?
I ******* love the search for facts.
Thank you for choosing this as your career.I can't speak on behalf of Krishnamurti's experience, but I suspect that what mystics generally mean when they say things like "reality is the unknown" is that we should abandon dogmatic belief in favour of the search for truth. Truth is the sort of thing you or your colleagues might unveil in an archaeological dig. Belief is the sort of thing preachers drill you to repeat in church.
Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
You're right, it doesn't necessarily mean that his statement is incompatible, but I believe that in some major ways he is ignoring the reasons for the development of and for holding indigenous beliefs. Beliefs which are certainly subjective, but to the Maya were as important as the conditions for growing good maize. The idea that whoever holds subjective beliefs or ideas is delusional doesn't sit right with me. It may be true in some aspects, but wrong in others.
In your (crazy
) example, I have to agree. But I believe that other traditions and beliefs are forged out of reality and circumstances. Some may even reflect reality, without necessarily adhered to as factual. For example in the world of symbolism, metaphors, and allegories. People and cultures have a reach symbolic world, and through this pool they relate to reality or physical phenomena.While I agree that healthy skepticism is a good thing, and that accepting dogma on blind faith is a downward spiral, I also shy away from 'truth'.I ******* love the search for facts.
I can't speak on behalf of Krishnamurti's experience, but I suspect that what mystics generally mean when they say things like "reality is the unknown" is that we should abandon dogmatic belief in favour of the search for truth. Truth is the sort of thing you or your colleagues might unveil in an archaeological dig. Belief is the sort of thing preachers drill you to repeat in church.
Even if we have a collection of evidence and facts, it doesn't mean that we can construct a truth from them.
I think that JK is correct in his assessment that our beliefs-- our biases-- can shape how we experience things. This is definitely something that we should be cognizant about, and if not precisely something to guard against, at least something we should be aware of.
However, I think most everything, and even beliefs, are best when indulged in moderately. And I think that JK has taken an idea that is useful when applied moderately to an extreme, and unuseful, conclusion.
Beliefs are not the enemy. Indeed, we could not function without them, and I think it delusional, or perhaps just naiive, to think that we could or should. As with most things, beliefs can be utilized for good or ill, and it's the balance that we should be striving for. It is the figuring out of how to have beliefs, while maintaining an open enough mind for new material. Simply demonizing beliefs is not helpful, practical, or realistic.
Me Myself
Back to my username
I am claiming it is possible that JK is free from these things, yes , or at least that he is free from these while he makes such claim. In this kind of subjects, sometimes it is impossible to talk without some poetry so to say. That's why I put the example of consciousness.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Belief in Something greater than myself is rational.
Believeing every human fails to survive the last breath is not rational.
The odds are billions to none?
No survivors?....not a chance?
So with ANY notion to an afterlife.....there is hierarchy.
Otherwise we stand into chaos in the hour of our last breath.
No One in charge?
Belief is concretion upon truth. To know the truth, which Shri Krishnamurti says is what one is, wil require becoming nude again -- devoid of any clothing of belief. Nothing is diagreeable to me in above.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Nay!
We enter this world naked....true.
We leave this world naked....true again.
But we stand before heaven with our words and deeds upon us.
They will be able to see through us as if we are made of glass.
As it is written...all that was ever done in secret shall be made known.
I agree...and believe it.
I disagree that that is an issue here. Those quotes were quite emphatic, brooking no disagreement or possibility of ambiguity. If it were a matter of struggling to properly convey the concept, then he should have acknowledged this, and used softer language to convey that.