5 Reasons You Can’t Find the Right Spiritual Path

[Rick O'Shez]

7. Confusing beliefs with practices.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

This idea of creating our own path is appealing because we know intuitively that our path is an individual endeavor.
Our path is already laid out we just have to follow it.
There are laws that govern the choices we make.
We must live out the consequences of our choices, this is what governs each path.

So you beleive in predestination? ie; "Our path is already laid out we just have to follow it."

 

[allfoak]

So you beleive in predestination? ie; "Our path is already laid out we just have to follow it."

I also said that we have free will.
So the path is determined by the natural laws and the choices we make.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

I also said that we have free will.
So the path is determined by the natural laws and the choices we make.

So you do agree that free will is compatible with predestination? Lol, I am not disagreeing with you, the free will vs PD debate rages in the Christian community as well. I also feel the future can be known by a deity without destroying mans free will. It sounds nutty eh? If we agree that the future is known by God or whatever, how in the world can man have free will? Example; "God" knows that today you are going to Starbucks for an espresso at 7am, well by God today you are going to Starbucks at 7am to get an espresso! My take on how free will can co-exist with an 'all knowing deity' or whatever is complicated but logical. I am sure we can have free will along with God 'knowing' our future....

Care to share your explanation how free will can exist when the future is known?

MrMr



Truth etc quotes;

“Know thyself,” from the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
'To thine own self be true.' William Shakespeare
'The Truth Will Set You Free' - Jesus

 

[allfoak]

Solving this dilemma starts with understanding that God is not separate from us.
Yet God is very much unknowable.

God set into motion laws that govern our existence.
If we live according to these laws we decide our own future.
If we live contrary to these laws our future is still decided by us but without even being aware that we created the circumstances of our lives.

Time is something we use to function but it is something that is created not eternal.
Time really doesn't have anymore existence than mortal man.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

6. Sticking with something which doesn't work for too long, and getting disillusioned.

I hope this isnt a too personal question, if so just iggy it, lol, no worries. What would you require of a religion and what was the thing that disillusioned you the most in the last religion etc you attempted.

I will go first... I think we are all born atheist, but innately want to beleive in a comforting father figure, especially if it tells us death is not the end. Being born on an airplane coming from France I cant say I was born and bred in east TN but soon the bible belt well meaning people converted me to Christianity, well as Christian as one could be in the first grade. Being suspicious of Gods existence each day for month I held out my lunch money and asked God to take it and use it lol, all of it anyway he wished. It didn't occur to me that the creator of the universe might see through the trick I was trying to play. Of course the lunch money never evaporated and I became a closet atheist/agnostic, until I was 16 or 17.

I gotta go to try to figure out how to use the macro feature on my Cannon rebel....

MrMr

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

Solving this dilemma starts with understanding that God is not separate from us.
Yet God is very much unknowable.

God set into motion laws that govern our existence.
If we live according to these laws we decide our own future.
If we live contrary to these laws our future is still decided by us but without even being aware that we created the circumstances of our lives.

Time is something we use to function but it is something that is created not eternal.
Time really doesn't have anymore existence than mortal man.

Hmm', interesting! By that I mean its interesting that I being a 'primitive' Christian and you a kind of deistic type (just guessing) have similar beliefs. I think God is in every material thing too, trees, rocks, mountains. Many spiritual people thought the same, here in the Blue Ridge Mts the local Yuchi and Cheorkee called it the Mantóac or Manitou.

I beleive in a more spiritual intangible existence (dimension?) runs parallel to this reality. Usually its separate from our realty but at times it dips into and weaves into our universe. However the free will part is just as in quantum theory both the momentum and place a particle is nor if it is a particle or wave can't be known. There are only probabilities where it is or which path it will choose or it its a particle or wave. Well that's true unless an observer looks at the particle and forces it to become either a particle or wave. Quantum Mechanical theory is weird! Lastly and to close I think sentient beings are like that particle. While God may know the final outcome of a particles journey or lifespan (heaven or Sheol, ie hell* for example) he doesn't know all the choices it makes (because he chooses not to).


footnotes;

* Hell,....... I do not beleive in a burning Hell. God has no torture chamber for humans to wit;

"Then he shall also say unto those who shall be on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" Matt 25:41.

Scripture also indicates non-repenting Christians, nonbelievers etc will simply die. They will go to the grave and the soul will die as well (maybe the bible is not clear if the soul is finite etc).

MrMr

 

[Unveiled Artist]

7. Confusing beliefs with practices.

Wait? Beliefs are not practices? I only found that true in some christian denominations. Islam, Judaism, and many Buddhist sects may disagree with you. Without practice, how can you believe; if you believe, how would you know without practice?