Religion (or non-religion) as a major investment / gamble with your time and energy

amorphous_constellation · Sep 20, 2019

So many of you must take your beliefs seriously not only as mere thoughts, but as major outward investments of time and energy. You probably genuflect your life and time in major ways, the cost being sunk deep into a variety of holidays, ritual practices, observances, and even the mere bet that you are in some ways correct. In wishing that this time and energy results in positive feedback, is it true that you may stultify other pursuits that might alternatively manifest themselves in this life? In dedicating yourself to the investment of reading scriptures or performing practices, do you not frustrate the possibilities of your very limited time here

In counter - argument, atheists and agnostic types may take an inverse risk. I am prompted to write that by a dream I had last night. I take it that my subconscious counts me as being among those tribes. I had dreamt of starting out in a large, deep, pristine lake (in dreams, water represents the spiritual realm) surrounded on all sides my massive mountains, and there were mansion cabins and forests on the side of them. In wishing for the heights of materialism, I ascended to the mansions and woods, exploring as I went. Looking down, i saw how beautiful the water was, and decided to find a way back down. Crossing over a curiously vacant lot, I perceived an easy way to descend via gripping some roots coming out the soil. This way became more vertical, and I began seeming to fall more that I felt comfortable. Suddenly I came to the end of these roots, and Lo, beneath me was a thousand feet of sheer cliff. A spiritual cul de sac? Thus, in cutting yourself off too much from the spiritual, is the bridge back to it burnt?

beenherebeforeagain · Sep 20, 2019

there are several ways I'm sure that you can look at it...a culmination of poorly considered decisions puts you in the position of falling to your death or re-climbing the way you have just come...

Or, your decisions have put you into the position of letting go of the things you've been depending on to keep you from falling...and now you must face your decision, to let go, and to fly free of your material bonds and soar on the wind...

I'm sure others can suggest other interpretations...

Spirit of Light · Sep 20, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
So many of you must take your beliefs seriously not only as mere thoughts, but as major outward investments of time and energy. You probably genuflect your life and time in major ways, the cost being sunk deep into a variety of holidays, ritual practices, observances, and even the mere bet that you are in some ways correct. In wishing that this time and energy results in positive feedback, is it true that you may stultify other pursuits that might alternatively manifest themselves in this life? In dedicating yourself to the investment of reading scriptures or performing practices, do you not frustrate the possibilities of your very limited time here

In counter - argument, atheists and agnostic types may take an inverse risk. I am prompted to write that by a dream I had last night. I take it that my subconscious counts me as being among those tribes. I had dreamt of starting out in a large, deep, pristine lake (in dreams, water represents the spiritual realm) surrounded on all sides my massive mountains, and there were mansion cabins and forests on the side of them. In wishing for the heights of materialism, I ascended to the mansions and woods, exploring as I went. Looking down, i saw how beautiful the water was, and decided to find a way back down. Crossing over a curiously vacant lot, I perceived an easy way to descend via gripping some roots coming out the soil. This way became more vertical, and I began seeming to fall more that I felt comfortable. Suddenly I came to the end of these roots, and Lo, beneath me was a thousand feet of sheer cliff. A spiritual cul de sac? Thus, in cutting yourself off too much from the spiritual, is the bridge back to it burnt?

When you say stultify other pursuites I guess you mean more worldly things like money, objects we own and so on. And I would say that to me there is no physical object that has any value that can overthrow the pursuit of enlightenment, Nothing in the physical world is important. So i do not have many physical objects in this life. But the Dhamma teaching is what is important, to realize the truth within Dhamma and gain wisdom.

Twilight Hue · Sep 20, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
So many of you must take your beliefs seriously not only as mere thoughts, but as major outward investments of time and energy. You probably genuflect your life and time in major ways, the cost being sunk deep into a variety of holidays, ritual practices, observances, and even the mere bet that you are in some ways correct. In wishing that this time and energy results in positive feedback, is it true that you may stultify other pursuits that might alternatively manifest themselves in this life? In dedicating yourself to the investment of reading scriptures or performing practices, do you not frustrate the possibilities of your very limited time here

In counter - argument, atheists and agnostic types may take an inverse risk. I am prompted to write that by a dream I had last night. I take it that my subconscious counts me as being among those tribes. I had dreamt of starting out in a large, deep, pristine lake (in dreams, water represents the spiritual realm) surrounded on all sides my massive mountains, and there were mansion cabins and forests on the side of them. In wishing for the heights of materialism, I ascended to the mansions and woods, exploring as I went. Looking down, i saw how beautiful the water was, and decided to find a way back down. Crossing over a curiously vacant lot, I perceived an easy way to descend via gripping some roots coming out the soil. This way became more vertical, and I began seeming to fall more that I felt comfortable. Suddenly I came to the end of these roots, and Lo, beneath me was a thousand feet of sheer cliff. A spiritual cul de sac? Thus, in cutting yourself off too much from the spiritual, is the bridge back to it burnt?

Dreams can get pretty trippy.

amorphous_constellation · Sep 20, 2019

Amanaki said:
When you say stultify other pursuites I guess you mean more worldly things like money, objects we own and so on.

Not necessarily, that is just one thing that is here. There a many ways to train the body and brain to do things in this life, ranging from physical sports to math problems etc. etc. Knowledge and techniques are what make up the physical world in addition to money.

bobhikes · Sep 20, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
In dedicating yourself to the investment of reading scriptures or performing practices, do you not frustrate the possibilities of your very limited time here

I find myself in boredom most of the time. I get brilliant flashes that energise me periodically but mostly boredom. I have plenty of time to sit and ponder my existence or to pass the time engaging the TV. Religion forces me to take action and gives me motivation. It also puts me in a different environment where I don't get bored. Only when I'm charged with brilliance do I find religious requirements annoying but they are far and few between and in fact I have gotten more brilliant inspirations when acting in a religious environment then I get annoyed because it is interfering with my insight.

amorphous_constellation · Sep 20, 2019

bobhikes said:
I find myself in boredom most of the time. I get brilliant flashes that energise me periodically but mostly boredom. I have plenty of time to sit and ponder my existence or to pass the time engaging the TV. Religion forces me to take action and gives me motivation. It also puts me in a different environment where I don't get bored. Only when I'm charged with brilliance do I find religious requirements annoying but they are far and few between and in fact I have gotten more brilliant inspirations when acting in a religious environment then I get annoyed because it is interfering with my insight.

That's an interesting post.

amorphous_constellation · Sep 21, 2019

beenherebeforeagain said:
there are several ways I'm sure that you can look at it...a culmination of poorly considered decisions puts you in the position of falling to your death or re-climbing the way you have just come...

Or, your decisions have put you into the position of letting go of the things you've been depending on to keep you from falling...and now you must face your decision, to let go, and to fly free of your material bonds and soar on the wind...

Well, it's an investment as I say. I guess a good point to the dream might be that all decisions are investments. Maybe if you climb out of a hole, then the way down disappears. But if I stayed in the pond for too long, I might turn into a fish.

beenherebeforeagain · Sep 21, 2019

I think in many ways the basic concepts of economics, the comparison of costs versus benefits and their valuation over time does provide a great deal of explanation of religious beliefs and behaviors. As with any other economic decision, choices may not lead to the preferred/best outcomes, especially if the individual does not directly face the full costs and benefits involved with their choices.

But even so, humans are prone to making poor decisions because of their cognitive limitations and inability to adequately address the issues of time and place, and the sequential nature of decisionmaking (that is, once a path is started down, it's difficult to decide to change paths...)

amorphous_constellation · Sep 21, 2019

beenherebeforeagain said:
But even so, humans are prone to making poor decisions because of their cognitive limitations and inability to adequately address the issues of time and place, and the sequential nature of decisionmaking (that is, once a path is started down, it's difficult to decide to change paths...)

Yeah, and I suppose the religion or spiritual path itself may stand in for the role of the human in this phrase. Every religion wants a continued future on the earth, but has to balance its choices over time between the very practical / physical endeavor of its continuance with whatever body of spiritual material it has on the market. All of this culminates to form a path that sooner or later may lead to a dead end. Religions have found that dead end in the past with the result of becoming forgotten, and they will surely do so again. Humans that decide to jump on whatever boat they represent may also find that their investment runs aground.

9-10ths_Penguin · Sep 21, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
In counter - argument, atheists and agnostic types may take an inverse risk.

Meh.

I'm also taking a risk by not carrying a snorkel around with me everywhere. After all, I can't say with perfect certainty that the room won't suddenly fill 7 feet deep with pudding.

We can dream up any number of wild, unfounded hypothetical scenarios, but we - or at least I - need more than that to actively worry about them.

amorphous_constellation · Sep 21, 2019

9-10ths_Penguin said:
Meh.

I'm also taking a risk by not carrying a snorkel around with me everywhere. After all, I can't say with perfect certainty that the room won't suddenly fill 7 feet deep with pudding.

We can dream up any number of wild, unfounded hypothetical scenarios, but we - or at least I - need more than that to actively worry about them.

Well, we humans often don't have perfect insight, you must admit that to at least some degree? That's why we all collectively end up at so many 'dead-ends.' If you can't see things occurring, such as a path becoming narrower like in my dream, it doesn't mean it's not happening. It seems like a lesson for my ego on some level.

9-10ths_Penguin · Sep 21, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
Well, we humans often don't have perfect insight, you must admit that to at least some degree? That's why we all collectively end up at so many 'dead-ends.' If you can't see things occurring, such as a path becoming narrower like in my dream, it doesn't mean it's not happening.

So I should go get a snorkel?

It seems like a lesson for my ego on some level.

And for the egos of theists in general, IMO. Just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to everyone else.

amorphous_constellation · Sep 21, 2019

9-10ths_Penguin said:
So I should go get a snorkel?

And for the egos of theists in general, IMO. Just because something is important to you doesn't mean it has to be important to everyone else.

Yeah, I don't think my reply to your post really warrants these responses. Your certainty (which I am currently perceiving) is just as repellent to me as any hyper confident theist.

9-10ths_Penguin · Sep 21, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
Yeah, I don't think my reply to your post really warrants these responses. Your certainty (which I am currently perceiving) is just as repellent to me as any hyper confident theist.

What certainty?

I just explained that I don't exclude the possibility of gods with certainty.

It's just that the same is true for any number of other claims about all sorts of things and there's only so much effort I can put into guarding against risk, so a claim has to meet a higher bar than mere "I can't prove it's not true" for me to take it seriously.

amorphous_constellation · Sep 21, 2019

9-10ths_Penguin said:
What certainty?

Just the certainty of not having that snorkel, went it may turn out to be the Achilles' heel of this entire operation

9-10ths_Penguin said:
It's just that the same is true for any number of other claims about all sorts of things and there's only so much effort I can put into guarding against risk, so a claim has to meet a higher bar than mere "I can't prove it's not true" for me to take it seriously.

Right, that's why you organize those things a little bit. If I'm wandering a desert, I'm probably not going to set my radar for floods.

9-10ths_Penguin · Sep 21, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
Just the certainty of not having that snorkel, went it may turn out to be the Achilles' heel of this entire operation

The snorkel was for spontaneous pudding.

Preparing for gods would presumably mean doing something besides carrying a snorkel; exactly what would depend on the god.

Right, that's why you organize those things a little bit. If I'm wandering a desert, I'm probably not going to set my radar for floods.

How should I go about deciding when I should or shouldn't "set my radar for gods?"

amorphous_constellation · Sep 21, 2019

9-10ths_Penguin said:
The snorkel was for spontaneous pudding.

Preparing for gods would presumably mean doing something besides carrying a snorkel; exactly what would depend on the god.

How should I go about deciding when I should or shouldn't "set my radar for gods?"

I think maybe all I'm saying is that you shouldn't make possibility of it comparable to falling pudding. I don't put everything that might be in the background of this reality in the same box.

You can if you want. But like I described in the beginning here, putting things in that box is an investment.

9-10ths_Penguin · Sep 21, 2019

ideogenous_mover said:
I think maybe all I'm saying is that you shouldn't make possibility of it comparable to falling pudding.

Why not? I can't absolutely exclude the possibility of spontaneous pudding or of gods, so in that respect, they're equivalent. For me to give more weight to gods, I'd need something... some reason to think that a god is more likely than the room I'm in spontaneously filling with pudding.

Actually, I'd say that spontaneous pudding has more going for it, because at least I can identify some plausible mechanisms for it: I know that pudding exists and that people sometimes pull pranks. It wouldn't violate anything about my understanding of natural law for there to be some pranksters in my basement with industrial pumps and big vats of pudding, ready to pump it through my air vents.

When it comes to gods, they do violate my understanding of natural laws. I just acknowledge that my understanding might be wrong.

I don't put everything that might be in the background of this reality in the same box.

Me neither. I apportion how seriously I take an idea based on its level of support.

You can if you want. But like I described in the beginning here, putting things in that box is an investment.

And investment, if it's done wisely, needs an evaluation of risk and return, not just an "I'm not absolutely sure that I'd lose my shirt on this deal."

amorphous_constellation · Sep 22, 2019

9-10ths_Penguin said:
Why not? I can't absolutely exclude the possibility of spontaneous pudding or of gods, so in that respect, they're equivalent. For me to give more weight to gods, I'd need something... some reason to think that a god is more likely than the room I'm in spontaneously filling with pudding.

And what you have to do that, is your brain, actually. In my view, the brain is what is acting as the radar tower / generator here, allowing for a human level of consciousness. And I think what 'wonder' is, is a representation of the things (that still exist) that the horsepower in the brain just can't quite pick up. But it senses it is out there, which is why anyone wonders. I know I've been talking about this for the last 10 years on forums, and only now are scientists actually looking at it. But to me, that's obviously where they have to look. That's all I have to say on the matter

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