Is Belief in God Spritual Suicide?

[Onkara]

But I assume no part of this personal experience is measurable or empirical in any way? How do you know that you are not just deluding yourself?

I am not looking for some kind of religious or spiritual "awakening" of any kind, and personally I think that anything supernatural is nonsense. Just as it is considered impossible to convert a "dyed in the wool" theist, I do not think it is possible for a theist to convince me that their view is the right one.
I am however trying to understand the mindset of the people who do believe in these things, especially since it is so alien to my own way of thinking.

1) Because delusion is belief in something which later appears to be incorrect. Even for belief to arise, there needs to be consciousness, the foundation. Belief and delusion depend on ideas, consciousness does not. A blind man may build a crocked wall but the foundation remains the same (to use analogy). If someone does not know that foundation for themselves it remains theoretical and not empirical. It must be come "true" for you/me or it will remain as an idea. It is not measurable, this is why it eternal. Only material is measurable like the body, which is why many people fear death and illness.

2) I hope my question didn't come across overly blunt. I asked to better understand how to answer you. I personally, needed to know myself, it was not a search for God nor a need for something more than material. In fact I found that there is no division of material versus non-material, there is no duality, and that is my mindset.

 

[Sunstone]

Personally I was not looking for a Creator, but rather an explanation of what everything is, including me.

Is that so? May I ask whether it is possible for a person to be passionately looking while entirely ignorant -- while entirely without "knowing" or prejudging -- what they are looking for? Is that ever possible?

 

[Sunstone]

Hello Sunstone

I understand that 'projected idea of oneself' has already condemned us to -----.

...

If by "-----" you mean what some might poetically call "a hell of our own making", then I certainly agree.

 

[Sunstone]

Ultimately it [i.e. belief in deity] is a matter of aesthetical preference.

I agree. Even if one had an experience of deity, any answer to the question of whether or not that experience was of an ontologically existing deity would necessarily be as much a matter of aesthetical preference as is the question of whether your words were actually written by you, Luis, or are instead merely a projection of my own completely deluded mind.

 

[Onkara]

Is there some sense in which you can know god? I ask because I am unaware that even an experience of god allows you to know god. So what am I missing here? And, please tell me, who is this "you" that does the knowing?

Hello Sunstone
The difficulty comes in defining god. A topic which I feel will not surprise you after many years on this forum. Much disagreement arises when we try to define "god", because as soon as I say "God is kind" we can provide examples of pain and destruction, demonstrating that God cannot be that kind. So it is better to not define "god" but rather arrive at a point where there is nothing left to negate or remove.

Luckily we have a head start in that others, such as Buddha, Jesus, Shankara, Rumi, Ramakrishna etc have made this investigation and turned back to give us pointers. Why so many people? Because it is the foundation for all people, all existence, so it cannot be denied to anyone i.e. it is omnipresent.

Because this "foundation" is omnipresent, then it is also omniscient, there is not a thing which it does not know "it knows your every thought". As it is the "foundation for you", it was there before your first thought, as there had to be a "foundation" on which even your first thought arose.

The problem is that we look at the divisions. We think "I am a 35 year old man" and "I have studied xxx but not xxxx". There are experiences in life, but they are not the foundation: Know Thy Self, said Socrates; he knew It. But we think we are limited to what we have learnt, our limited life experiences. We fail to see the foundation of our being, because we look outwards not inwards. It is for this reason that we miss the real "you" that knows everything which comes and goes. "You" are the foundation or Consciousness in and from which everything must arise and be known "now". It is not a mystical experience, it is so normal that it is everywhere always. But it is so subtle that we miss it, in the same way we forget our feet when we are watching TV or typing on a PC. The real "You" is still there and is not different to the real "me". It is thoughts and experiences, memories and imagination which constantly change and make us divided to "John" and "Fred", but we all share the same pure foundation: Consciousness.

I hope that addresses your questions, although perhaps not as direct as desired.

 

[Onkara]

Is that so? May I ask whether it is possible for a person to be passionately looking while entirely ignorant -- while entirely without "knowing" or prejudging -- what they are looking for? Is that ever possible?

Very possible! Some may say that the passion to arrive at something yet unknown is the first most important requirement. Buddha, for example gave up everything and willed himself to sit under a tree until he arrived at that truth, not knowing what it was but innately knowing that must be one. His passion was so strong that he didn't move from that tree until everything had given way to the Truth. Truth by its very nature cannot be stopped, denied, it can only be missed, obscured or disregarded for other interests.

Śaṅkarācārya, and Indian Philosopher, said that only "ignorance" must be removed for the truth to shine forth. He meant that we don't understand because we don't know (not knowing is ignorance). When we know then we understand (what god/truth/consciousness/nirvana actually is for ourselves). Before we know we are clutching at straws, what others tell us, we need to know for ourself. It requires us to be logical, one just needs the right enthusiasm and the right premises to investigate logically. The premises need to be demonstrated as true or false by you/me specifically and neither rejected or accepted without thorough investigation first.

A premise I adopted was that "Mankind is divine and the purpose of life is to know that for oneself". I wanted to know "how I could be divine and how knowing that would we the final answer".

 

[atanu]

If by "-----" you mean what some might poetically call "a hell of our own making", then I certainly agree.

Well. You are omniscient .

...

 

[jarofthoughts]

Interesting questions, but...

In precisely what sense is your skepticism measurable or empirical? How do you know that you are just not deluding yourself when you believe you have personally experienced a skeptical thought or idea?

Answer one set of questions and I believe you will have answered the other.

By assuming that objectively observed reality (as in the scientific method) is real, mainly because I have no other choice. And by doing my best to avoid further assumptions about reality.

My question still stands.

 

[jarofthoughts]

1) Because delusion is belief in something which later appears to be incorrect. Even for belief to arise, there needs to be consciousness, the foundation. Belief and delusion depend on ideas, consciousness does not. A blind man may build a crocked wall but the foundation remains the same (to use analogy). If someone does not know that foundation for themselves it remains theoretical and not empirical. It must be come "true" for you/me or it will remain as an idea. It is not measurable, this is why it eternal. Only material is measurable like the body, which is why many people fear death and illness.

I think we need a more accurately working definition of "consciousness" if this line of discussion is to be valuable at this point. What would you define it as? Please try to be as accurate as possible.

2) I hope my question didn't come across overly blunt. I asked to better understand how to answer you. I personally, needed to know myself, it was not a search for God nor a need for something more than material. In fact I found that there is no division of material versus non-material, there is no duality, and that is my mindset.

I don't offend easily, and no, it was not overly blunt. In fact I prefer blunt questions. It makes the conversation more efficient.

Personally I do not think that there is anything that is not, on some level, material. Even light (photons) carry mass (when in motion mind you) and I've seen no evidence to suggest that there is anything besides the material world. Hence, I fully expect that when I die that will be the end. This does not, however, bother me. I've been close to dying once before and I was not afraid then, nor do I expect to be when my time actually comes. To quote Mark Twain: "The ten thousand years after I am dead will bother me no more than the ten thousand before I was born".

 

[SLAMH]

Is it possible to have an objective scale that defines the line between enlightenment and delusion ?

 

[LuisDantas]

I don't know about being fully objective, but as a rule delusions clash with facts, while enlightenment doesn't.

 

[jarofthoughts]

Is it possible to have an objective scale that defines the line between enlightenment and delusion ?

Delusion: definition of delusion from Oxford Dictionaries Online

Enlightenment: definition of enlightenment from Oxford Dictionaries Online

 

[EverChanging]

Is it not true that those who believe in god will find only the god they believe in? And is it not also the case that any god the petty mind can conceive of is a petty god? Last, if all of that is so, then is not belief in god a form of spiritual suicide since it would condemn us to -- at the very best -- find nothing beyond our own petty, projected idea of god?

To mistake that which is to point to the Beyond for God itself is spiritual suicide.

As for members of this forum, sure, many of them are going to think they have all the answers and definitions of God. This is, after all, an Internet forum. But serious research into the world religions shows that religious ideas of God are more complicated than that, even in the three Abrahamic faiths. The development of fundamentalism, however, has really overshadowed that. Nevertheless, all three of the monotheistic faiths emerged in a premodern time when people still thought within a context of myth, and myths were always growing and being re-interpreted. Mystics of any faith, including the three major monotheistic faiths, have always said that God is beyond words, ineffable, even going so far as to call God "Nothing."