• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

The First Move

All I know is this. I'm a Christian who believes that the Bible doesn't tell me everything. It tells me how I can 'get right with God'. It tells me through whom (i.e Jesus) I may 'get right with God'. And it tells me that God wants me to know him. If God wants me know him, then I have no difficulty in believing that it is possible to know the truth. Surely God is capable of sharing the truth with me? What I don't know is why? I'm not 'spiritual' (whatever that means). I don't (as every Christian would say) deserve it. In fact, why not the Buddha? Why not not Zoroaster? Why not Ghandi? Why me?

I don't Know!!!

Rip me to pieces if you like, but i'm telling you...

GOD IS REAL!

nuffsaid. :killme:
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
The only problem with the bible is, it doesn't have any power to someone who does not believe in it. The bible is full of words, if only truth was contained in words. I hope you can get past the words, and understand yourself.
 
Master Vigil said:
The only problem with the bible is, it doesn't have any power to someone who does not believe in it. The bible is full of words, if only truth was contained in words. I hope you can get past the words, and understand yourself.

:hi: "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" 2 Corinthians 3:6 N.I.V :hi:
 
Master Vigil said:
Very good, the person who wrote that was close to enlightenment.

St. Paul. 8)

he also said; "Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it." (Philippians 3:13) N.I.V

Refering to the enlightenment of KNOWING Christ.
 
Master Vigil said: >>But we do know that the water is rippling. How do we know that? That is what you must find out.<<

But we don't know that the water is rippling-- all we know is that we perceive it rippling.
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
What does perception play on our ability to know? And how does your inner self know of perception? In the end, we do know that the water is rippling. You must figure out how we know that. This is where science limits the mind.
 

Ceridwen018

Well-Known Member
Perception doesn't play on our ability to know, but rather on our ability to think we know. This is where the spiritual/metaphysical limits the mind. Just because we think we percieve something to be a certain way, does not mean it actually is that way. You have to back your perceptions up with empirical evidence. To take things at face value and not investigate them (religion, etc.) does not make you a more complex person, but a duped one.
 
I agree with what Ceridwen is saying: You limit the mind by assuming to know the water is rippling, and not admitting that perhaps the water only appears to ripple. In the end, all we know is that we perceive the water to ripple.
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
See, when you have to think with science and not yourself, you limit your own ability to understand. The answer is very simple for one that knows themselves. You know what you study in science, but you do not know yourself. The answer is that it is not in your nature to ripple. Its that simple. Remember that the question does not ask if the water ripples, it asks if your eyes ripple with the water. Science complicates everything.

Another for you...

As incense burns, so does your life. What is your smoke then?
 
Master Vigil I beg your pardon but you do not seem to know yourself.

Humans can see mirages. We can dream things. We can hallucinate. Our eyes can get blurry. Our minds can misinterpret data from our eyes. You don't have to "ripple with the water" to perceive water to be rippling... :p
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
I never said that you ripple with the water to percieve the water rippling, quite the contrary. The water ripples on its own without our perception. I know that my eyes do not ripple with it, because I know it is not my nature to ripple.
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
Ultimate truth cannot be found with our perception. For perception is not reality. Reality cannot be divided into subrealities for none of them would be more or less real than the others. This would create chaos. Therefore, there is one reality, and we have our perception of that reality. But our perception is only limited by our human potential. Once you understand your limits, and understand how to expand them and understand chi, you can understand much more than expected. I understand you may not think this is true, but I have the ability to smell souls and the spirit world. You probably think that as completely bogus, but it makes no difference to me. There are many things that science cannot explain, and I am not sure if it ever can or will. I am not saying that science is bad, it is not, it just cannot tell you WHO you are. To achieve this understanding of yourself, you must let yourself go. Let all your desires, ideas, theories, worries, knowledge, studies, emotions, etc... Let them all go and see what happens. It is hard I know, It took me almost 5 years of this. And I am ever learning. But you must understand that the mystical must not be forgotten, for we as living beings are mystical ourselves.
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
When incense burns, its original form changes, and then it lifts away as smoke. When your life burns, it changes. Does it change for the better, or for the worse? Either way, what lifts away as smoke?
 
Master Vigil said:
I never said that you ripple with the water to percieve the water rippling, quite the contrary. The water ripples on its own without our perception. I know that my eyes do not ripple with it, because I know it is not my nature to ripple.
This still doesn't address the fact that you don't know the water is rippling...you could be imagining it or dreaming etc...you don't know that your perception of the water is accurate.

Therefore, there is one reality, and we have our perception of that reality.
Ok, so our perception of the reality is that we see the water rippling. The "one reality" may be something different though--after all, our eyesight isn't perfect all the time right? Again, the only thing we know for sure is that we are SEEING the water ripple.
 

Master Vigil

Well-Known Member
So when you wake up in the morning, how do you get out of bed? I mean, the floor may not be there, you could only be dreaming it is there. You could fall into oblivion. Please, you do know that the water is rippling. The question I put forth was a question to make you look into your self. But instead you started taking side roads and trying to disprove your own senses. Which tells me that you are not even sure what you do or do not know. That shows that you do not know yourself.
 
Allow me to quote Runt in his post in the World Philosophy forum about Our Binary System of Meaning:

>>Without our unique perception in which we differentiate between things and name and define them, all particular things cease to exist. They are merely the byproduct of our uniquely limited perception of reality, but are not inherent in reality at all. This means that black and white, big and small, and all other pairs of opposites do not exist except in the human mind.<<

Might that include rippling versus non-rippling water?

To continue Runt's quote:
>>So what do we have? What is reality really? Something inconceivable.

Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu tried to describe the reality outside of human perception as the “Tao”. This was a reality that cannot be told, cannot be named, is intangible, infinite, eternal, and undivided. “Look,” he wrote, “and it cannot be seen. Listen, and it cannot be heard. Reach, and it cannot be grasped. Above, it isn’t bright. Below, it isn’t dark. Seamless, unnamable, it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all comprehension.” <<

Sounds like your boy Lao-tzu agrees with me! The true nature of the water is a reality that "cannot be told" "cannot be seen". It's a "form that includes all forms". So, even though the water ripples in your unique perception, the "reality" or Tao is that the water doesn't ripple/not ripple--the Tao is the reality outside your perception which "is beyond all comprehension". Looks like Lao-tzu and I agree that the water only appears to ripple to you! :mrgreen:
 
Top