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Shifting Towards What? (Read Thread for Choice Key Befor Voting)

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Well wherever I might be, there is no movement going on. :D

Yes, a lot of people are in one place and stay there, I am too, I have had these beliefs for an extremely long time, I've never shifted down or to the left.

My descent would go like this, a shift down would be going from the belief in singular independent of me sentience to multiple independent of the singular and of me sentiences influencing phenomena and what is generated, going down from there is the belief that I am one such influential sentience, the middle is that its just me, then the other end of the middle is that I am unintelligently colliding and interacting with other forces, then that other forces are unintelligently colliding with each other which is driving me, and at the extreme left is that there is just no sentience whatsoever just random emerges and phenomena popping in and out with no Conscious Living Mind and Sentience Deliberately and Actively and Purposefully and Knowingly Generating it or Participating in it, does that give you a picture of the scale? I started at the far right and went to the far left, or started at the top and went to the bottom.
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
We're all dying, we all have a terminal illness and are headed towards a point of termination, do your current beliefs and activities make you happy or happiest? What would be better?

My current beliefs and activities make me very happy actually. I think it is because I feel good about myself by overcoming the challenges in life. I actually get happier the older I get.

I think that what would make me happiest would be if everybody was immortal and invulnerable, I had access to all the books in the world, I had a suped up PC, I could live in alternative universes where my favourite fictional characters were real, absolute financial security and such things.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I wouldn't mind studying the whole sordid tale via email, I learn and extract a great deal of useful information and meditations from such.
I have quite a bit of the sordid story written up in a Word document, and I already posted it on this forum, so it would be easy for me to post it here if you are interested. I left out some of the gory details though, such as how I felt and still feel about God, and that might be best discussed in an e-mail. ;)
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Your dot fits on the spectrum, it just moved back and forth between theism and non-theism but I think you were probably never really a believer or a very certain one, so are best suited away from theism.

Actually, your story is very interesting, like how did you get into Jehovah's Witness stuff and leave it? Doesn't it seem like almost a split personality type two brains thing? I really want more insight into this and details and your inner thoughts.

The first sentence is a heavy topic in itself. But in short, I am best suited away from theism. You are right about that. But the back and forth transitions were surprisingly fluid and make sense.

I will PM you about the JW stuff. I have stated them on the forum before and some JW's on the forum take my points personally.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Yes, a lot of people are in one place and stay there, I am too, I have had these beliefs for an extremely long time, I've never shifted down or to the left.

My descent would go like this, a shift down would be going from the belief in singular independent of me sentience to multiple independent of the singular and of me sentiences influencing phenomena and what is generated, going down from there is the belief that I am one such influential sentience, the middle is that its just me, then the other end of the middle is that I am unintelligently colliding and interacting with other forces, then that other forces are unintelligently colliding with each other which is driving me, and at the extreme left is that there is just no sentience whatsoever just random emerges and phenomena popping in and out with no Conscious Living Mind and Sentience Deliberately and Actively and Purposefully and Knowingly Generating it or Participating in it, does that give you a picture of the scale? I started at the far right and went to the far left, or started at the top and went to the bottom.

Well I will try to describe my locus of (non) belief. As a child, around age 11, I discovered that there were so many different religions, and thus became rather suspicious of this. I was raised in a nominally Christian family, it possibly being the default especially since my mother spent a year in a convent after being abused by her father. But religion was just in the background, and it only meant going to church for weddings and such, even though my mother tried to get me to go to a Methodist chapel on a Sunday. I preferred something different (like playing with my mates) and she never insisted. She was a rather lovely person actually.

As a youth, I looked at most of the major faiths and was only taken with Buddhism, which made some sense and a lot more than some of the claims made by most of the others. I was also interested in philosophy and psychology at this time, still am in the latter, and perhaps this eroded any likelihood of my having any religious beliefs or in having any spirituality.

So my current position is that I believe that I am responsible for my own behaviour, whether that is truly of free will or partially deterministic. I don't tend to believe in any gods - any that affect humans that is - but I am open slightly to there being some creative force. My scientific knowledge (lack of) precludes me from being completely atheistic. I don't believe there is much else other than what we see and can measure. I've never had anything that could be described as being a religious experience and anything I could possibly attribute to karma I could equally find a reasonably normal explanation for.

You could probably place me knowing this.
 
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Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
I'm sorry, but I am just an innocent bystander trying to sort this all out. :confused:
I have no idea what a Falun Gong practitioner is. o_O
Well, I won't speak for another, my own extensive knowledge comes from a quick squint at Wikipedia. I would think he will be happy to answer any questions.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Well, do you believe in a guiding sentience behind experience / phenomena or not? Like, you may like to say "I don't know" but you probably have an inkling if you consider that in all honesty you believe the seat you sit on is made of material, its "real" enough, and if someone mimed pulling out a chair but there was no chair, you would fall if you tried to sit. Right? So, you believe in the chair, you don't believe in the mock chair someone mimes while there is no chair. Right? Keeping it very simple. So, do you believe in an intelligence consciously generating phenomena or not.

Not. :)
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Well I will try to describe my locus of (non) belief. As a child, around age 11, I discovered that there were so many different religions, and thus became rather suspicious of this. I was raised in a nominally Christian family, it possibly being the default especially since my mother spent a year in a convent after being abused by her father. But religion was just in the background, and it only meant going to church for weddings and such, even though my mother tried to get me to go to a Methodist chapel on a Sunday. I preferred something different (like playing with my mates) and she never insisted. She was a rather lovely person actually.

As a youth, I looked at most of the major faiths and was only taken with Buddhism, which made some sense and a lot more than some of the claims made by most of the others. I was also interested in philosophy and psychology at this time, still am in the latter, and perhaps this eroded any likelihood of my having any religious beliefs or in having any spirituality.

So my current position is that I believe that I am responsible for my own behaviour, whether that is truly of free will or partially deterministic. I don't tend to believe in any gods - any that affect humans that is - but I am open slightly to there being some creative force. My scientific knowledge (lack of) precludes me from being completely atheistic. I don't believe there is much else other than what we see and can measure. I've never had anything that could be described as being a religious experience and anything I could possibly attribute to karma I could equally find a reasonably normal explanation for.

You could probably place me knowing this.

We have some similarity here, maybe typical of our time and location. I was sufficiently interested in psychology to take it at uni (as a science rather than as an arts). And of course, we both have excellent taste in music.:cool:
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Thanks for sharing your story. I cannot help but identify with it because I grew up in a similar fashion. The difference is that both my parents dropped out of Christianity altogether before I was born, so there was not only no Bible in the house, there was not talk about God, so I had no conception of God and I never even thought about God.

Fast forward to my first year of college and I stumbled upon the Baha'i Faith, but I still was not thinking of God a religion and it was the last thing I was looking for.

Thank you for sharing.

It just shows how a chance event can have so much effect upon a person. We both stumbled upon a thing which we found we could relate to. (It happened to me again on another occasion).

I viewed the Baha'i Faith as a cause and I liked the teachings such as the unity of mankind and world peace, and I liked the idea of the soul and the afterlife, and that is why I joined. Much happened after that but I won't tell you the whole sordid story. Suffice to say I was not very active in the Baha'i Faith for about 42 years and I did not want anything to do with God. Then about seven years ago I suddenly decided the right thing to do was to try to rejoin the Faith and try to work out my issues with God, and that is what I have been doing for the last seven years and five months.

Did something particular happen about seven years ago (if you wish to share it) ?

One thing I would like to add is that I think that the fact that i was not raised believing in God makes it very difficult to relate to God or love God as a good Christian would.

Are you getting more "comfortable" in your relationship with God now, even if it is still a "work in progress" ?
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Did something particular happen about seven years ago (if you wish to share it) ?
As I recall, I was just fed up with going to counselors and not getting any help for a serious problem I have.
So then one day I was doing an internet search related to this problem and that led me to find the Planet Baha'i forum and that led me back to the Faith and God.... that of course is the short version.
Are you getting more "comfortable" in your relationship with God now, even if it is still a "work in progress" ?
It is a little bit better but it is not that great... :(
The problem is that I hold God responsible for suffering that is not brought on by me, so I hold God responsible for the particular problem I have that has yet to be resolved and probably will never be resolved until I die.

I hold God responsible for undue suffering because God created the material world in which people suffer, and some people suffer so much more than others. I know the religious apologetic but still something about that does not seem right.
 
As I recall, I was just fed up with going to counselors and not getting any help for a serious problem I have.
So then one day I was doing an internet search related to this problem and that led me to find the Planet Baha'i forum and that led me back to the Faith and God.... that of course is the short version.

It is a little bit better but it is not that great... :(
The problem is that I hold God responsible for suffering that is not brought on by me, so I hold God responsible for the particular problem I have that has yet to be resolved and probably will never be resolved until I die.

I hold God responsible for undue suffering because God created the material world in which people suffer, and some people suffer so much more than others. I know the religious apologetic but still something about that does not seem right.

There is no apologetic from me. God is Evil, the Source of Evil, the Cause of Evil, in every little evil detail. The Muslims frequently lie and disregard and misread the Qur'an to conceal what it states boldly and frankly.

According to the Qur'an, everything, from your reception and interpretation and actions is from God, and your sickness and all sickness whether mental or physical or a distressing situation is God's fault, God's doing, precisely, and the reason why apologetics don't sit right or well with people is because they are simply lying, as if God will offended by the Truth when the Truth is God and God's Praise is simply the Truth, not like how we exaggerate about one another.

God is The Evil One. We worship God because we want to save ourselves from trouble, and there is no other God to escape to or which can save us from the source of Evil and all Harm but its purveyor and executor.

There is no "problem of Evil" as God simply is the Evil One, Creator and Sender of All Evils and not "Omnibenevolent.

We worship only to save our skins and get ahead. If God was benign and harmless God could be ignored or thrown in the trash and ignored and something else sought. No one needs to love God, only the wise understand and Fear God.

God can freely accept or reject prayers for any reason or no reason. That you think to pray at all and the words coming out of your mouth which lead to better or to worse for you are also God's doing, you're just playing out whatever God makes you play out, if God makes you crazy you will be the exact sort of crazy that God makes you to be word for word and act for act, God is the author and artist of your experiences. God can likewise make you sick, heal you, make you evil, torture you, you're simply helpless before God, which is why the religion is called "Surrender", acknowledging and coming to terms to the state you're already in, whether you know it and believe it or deny it, either of which God is making you do moment to moment anyway.

That is why Islam has long been considered heavy in its Fatalism and ideas of Qadr but which humans in general find very hard to swallow just because they like to think they contribute or have some agency and aren't just dancing corpses, but they are just dancing corpses animated by Allah who is painting every nuance of their experience and activity down to their thoughts, deliberation, and decisions. Even their will the Qur'an gives credit to God for if they will or desire this or that.

That is the real Quran and religion and can be reasoned clearly as I have in some writing explained in detail why it is so and must be so and can't be otherwise and isn't otherwise, but it is too disturbing for most to accept, yet there is no God but this, nor is any other mentioned in any scriptures generally.

Two Logics One Miracup(s) - Pastebin.com
ttps://pastebin.com/mL92xeJQ

No one really knows God or any God or The God except by coming to term with God's Total Control and being the source, cause, bringer, sender, maker of all Evil and Harm and suffering. Not anyone's daddy, not anyone's mommy, not their buddy buddy, not their snuggle muffin, sugar daddy, gramps, but The Enemy of Both Sides, which no one is ever safe from, which is why we grovel, as there is no escape.

4:78
Wheresoever ye may be, death will overtake you, even though ye were in lofty towers. Yet if a happy thing befalleth them they say: This is from Allah; and if an evil thing befalleth them they say: This is from yourself. Say: All is from Allah. What is amiss with these people that they come not nigh to understand a happening?

57:22

No Evil can happen on earth or in your own self but is recorded in a decree before We bring it into existence: That is truly easy for Allah:

53:43
And that it is He who causes laughter and weeping.

67:19
Do they not observe the birds above them, spreading their wings and folding them in? None can uphold them except (Allah) Most Gracious: Truly (Allah) Most Gracious: Truly it is He that watches over all things.

81:29

But ye shall not will except as Allah wills,- the Cherisher of the Worlds
And ye will not, unless (it be) that Allah willeth, the Lord of Creation.

9:51
Say: "Nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed for us: He is our protector": and on Allah let the Believers put their trust.

3:145
And no person can ever die except by Allah's Will / Doing / Permission and at an decreed / appointed term. And whoever desires a reward in (this) world, We shall give him of it; and whoever desires a reward in the Hereafter, We shall give him thereof. And We shall reward the grateful.

76:30
But ye will not, except as Allah wills; for Allah is full of Knowledge and Wisdom.

6:80
And his people argued with him. He said, "Do you argue with me concerning Allah while He has guided me? And I fear not what you associate with Him [and will not be harmed] unless my Lord should will something. My Lord encompasses all things in knowledge; then will you not remember?

10:100
No one can believe / have faith without the Will of God. God will cast down filthiness / defilement on those who have no understanding.

7:179
And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray. It is they who (you see) are the heedless ones.

5:37
They will wish to get out of the fire but they will not have such a choice. Their torment will be constant.

28:68
Thy Lord bringeth to pass what He willeth and chooseth. They have never any choice. Glorified be Allah and Exalted above all that they associate (with Him)!

11:118
And if your Lord had willed, He could have made mankind one community; but they will not cease to differ.

13:31
If there were a Qur'an with which mountains were moved, or the earth were cloven asunder, or the dead were made to speak, (this would be the one!) But, truly, the command is with Allah in all things! Do not the Believers know, that, had Allah (so) willed, He could have guided all mankind (to the right)? But the Unbelievers,- never will disaster cease to seize them for their (ill) deeds, or to settle close to their homes, until the promise of Allah come to pass, for, verily, Allah will not fail in His promise.

14:4
And We did not send any messenger except [speaking] in the language of his people to state clearly for them, and Allah sends astray [thereby] whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

3:154
Then, after grief, He sent down security for you. As slumber did it overcome a party of you, while (the other) party, who were anxious on their own account, thought wrongly of Allah, the thought of ignorance. They said: Have we any part / influence in the cause? Say: (No, you do not) The cause belongeth wholly to Allah. They hide within themselves (a thought) which they reveal not unto thee, saying: Had we had any part in the cause we should not have been slain here. Say: Even though ye had been in your houses, those appointed to be slain would have gone forth to the (precise) places where they were to lie. (All this hath been) in order that Allah might bring forth what is in your breasts and make manifest what is in your hearts. Allah is Aware of what is hidden in the breasts (of men).

37:96

While Allah created you and that which you do?"
When Allah hath created you and what ye make?
"But Allah has created you and your handwork!

10:107
And if Allah should touch you with adversity / evil / affliction, there is no remover of it except Him; and if He intends for you good, then there is no repeller of His bounty. He causes it to reach whom He wills of His servants. And He is the Forgiving, the Merciful

22:73

O mankind! A similitude is coined, so pay ye heed to it: Lo! those on whom ye call beside Allah will never create a fly though they combine together for the purpose. And if the fly took something from them, they could not rescue it from it. So weak are (both) the seeker and the sought!

5:48
And unto thee have We revealed the Scripture with the truth, confirming whatever Scripture was before it, and a watcher over it. So judge between them by that which Allah hath revealed, and follow not their desires away from the truth which hath come unto thee. For each We have appointed a divine law and a traced-out way. Had Allah willed He could have made you one community. But that He may try you by that which He hath given you (He hath made you as ye are). So vie one with another in good works. Unto Allah ye will all return, and He will then inform you of that wherein ye differ.

47:4
Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance). And if Allah willed He could have punished them (without you) but (thus it is ordained) that He may (bring forth results and) try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He rendereth not their actions vain.

21:23
He cannot be questioned for His acts, but they will be questioned.

7:43
And We remove whatever ill-feeling may be in their hearts. Rivers flow beneath them. And they say: The praise to Allah, Who hath guided us to this. We could not truly have been led aright if Allah had not guided us. Verily the messengers of our Lord did bring the Truth. And it is announced unto them: This is the Garden. Ye inherit it for what ye used to do.
 
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Trailblazer

Veteran Member
There is no apologetic from me. God is Evil, the Source of Evil, the Cause of Evil, in every little evil detail. The Muslims frequently lie and disregard and misread the Qur'an to conceal what it states boldly and frankly.
All believers want to believe that God is wholly good, but you won't get an argument from me and that is because there is no evidence that God is good. All we have are scriptures, mainly the Bible, that say God is good, and that is not enough for me.

Now, God can send me to hell if He wants to, because if God is that petty I would rather go to hell than spend an eternity in heaven with Him. :mad:

I am as close to atheism as one can get, and the ONLY reason I am not an atheist is because I believe Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God, so I know God exists and God is to be feared.

Boy are you going to like the new thread that I plan to post next Saturday. :D
It will be called Why should we love and trust God?
(I already wrote it and it is short but I do not post new threads except on weekends, which is why I am holding it in abeyance.)
 
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