Pulling away from religion entirely

[Windwalker]

Hi, Wind, sorry for the delayed response; I've been traveling and since back too busy to get on here.

No problem. I sometimes enjoy these stretched out discussions.

I may be reading more into your post that I should, but I'm one who while very familiar with "brain = mind" theory and the assumptions of materialism, does not buy into that so much.

You are in fact reading into my posts what is not there. Trust me, I'm no materialist. I do not believe mind=brain. I believe in emergent properties that are non-reducible to the component level. Mind emerged from brain, but cannot be reduced to brain. But as a molecule is not an atom, it is also not free of atoms. What goes on in the atom affects the molecule. But the molecule has its own set of rules that is not the atom's rules. To understand the molecule, you have to look at molecules, not atoms alone. Same with the mind.

No, this is not an "anything's possible" stance, it's the stance that we have only limited observation, and while undoubtedly the cogitation of other living beings are different than humans, that in no way necessitates any other conclusions.

The only thing I am postulating is that based upon brain capabilities, it is relatively safe to say that the complexity of mental objects is limited. We can say this based upon brain size for one. That said however, this does not mean that animals do not experience "God". It is simply the state of being to them, not some mental construct, as we have in our theologies.

In fact, to me what is truly a ponderance of my own is that we end up limiting our own existential experiences, and our spiritual experiences, because we get to tied to these mental constructs. There is something valuable in the raw, simple, 'letting it be', but not in the purely primal sense of a slumbering consciousness, such as a fish swimming the seas, but in the sense of an awakened higher mind, in tune with an allowing the simply 'let it be' to inform that higher mind that was and is otherwise lost in itself!

Anyway, that make take some unpacking to get what I was getting at there.

If your assumption that brain = mind is really the case, then perhaps it is safe to conclude that otters and others don't have metaphysics like that of humans. Of course, they may have much different metaphysics, appropriate to their role in the world, which if all we're looking for is what is like humans, then we're not likely to find it.

I think what I'm saying is that framing concepts that are abstract like this is actually something alludes a huge percentage of humans. How can an otter ponder self-reflexively?

FWIW, I think "mind" is not something that exists only in humans. The level of sophistication that mind takes however, will in fact be tied to physiology. If the brain is unsophisticated, the mind can't be independent of it. If you cut a part of the brain out, the mind collapses.

Again, this does not in my thinking mean brain=mind. I do not accept that. What it means is simply that the higher is built upon, and emerges from the lower. Mind is higher than brain. But, the way these things work is that the higher, more complex system, is dependent upon the lower less complex for its existence. If you remove the higher, the lower still exists. If you remove the lower however, than everything above it collapses. Think of it like a pyramid of building blocks. At the top is mind, in this example. If you take the top block off, the base stands. If however you take out the middle or the base, then everything above that point collapses. This is how mind is dependent on brain. But brain, is not dependent on mind. Thus, brain does not equal mind.

There are plenty of peoples' minds that are barely more sophisticated than the otter, but their brain still fills their skulls. Our brain gives us the potential to have a more highly developed mind, not a guarantee. But not having a brain capable of that potential, is a guarantee you won't. A child born with only a brain stem will not ever ponder itself in light of its existence in a dualistic reality. It is not capable of that sort of thought.

However, if brain does not equal mind (even if brain is a part but not the whole of mind), then it is not safe to conclude anything about what is going on inside Otter or anyone else.

No. If the brain is not sophisticated, then it is safe to say that higher level reasoning does not happen. Because higher level reasoning is in fact dependent upon a sufficiently complex enough foundation of higher mind to emerge. An angle worm is not about to pondering the 'big questions' of life and existence within itself. It simply does not have complex enough of an organ for higher mind to manifest itself.

what's going on here is, I think, that you are a material monist and I am a dualist (there is matter and there is what most would term spirit). I was intending to point out that from other points of view, such as mine, your conclusions are not warranted.

I am absolutely not a materialist monist. That's several light years off target. In fact, first and foremost I have the heart and soul of a mystic. It is in fact because of this, that I understand the reductionist/material philosophies to be woefully inadequate. On a rational and scientific approach I take into account the complexity sciences, which is anything but reductionist. But even they tend to gut out the interior spaces, of which mind in question comes into play. Not the least of which, they neither address the spiritual, which runs through all manifestation, in both the interior spaces, of mind, soul, and spirit, and the exterior spaces of physical or material manifestation, from atoms to molecules, to cells to biological organism.

I take into account both the sciences, and the spiritual in my philosophies and lived experiences. So, as I said, calling me a materialist monist is dead wrong. On a metaphysical level I am a nondualist (which is not monism), and you could call me a panenthiest as well (which is not a pantheist), depending upon how I wish to talk about or relate to the transcendent in lived experience.

How about you? How would you describe your views?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

No problem. I sometimes enjoy these stretched out discussions.


You are in fact reading into my posts what is not there. Trust me, I'm no materialist. I do not believe mind=brain. I believe in emergent properties that are non-reducible to the component level. Mind emerged from brain, but cannot be reduced to brain. But as a molecule is not an atom, it is also not free of atoms. What goes on in the atom affects the molecule. But the molecule has its own set of rules that is not the atom's rules. To understand the molecule, you have to look at molecules, not atoms alone. Same with the mind.


The only thing I am postulating is that based upon brain capabilities, it is relatively safe to say that the complexity of mental objects is limited. We can say this based upon brain size for one. That said however, this does not mean that animals do not experience "God". It is simply the state of being to them, not some mental construct, as we have in our theologies.

In fact, to me what is truly a ponderance of my own is that we end up limiting our own existential experiences, and our spiritual experiences, because we get to tied to these mental constructs. There is something valuable in the raw, simple, 'letting it be', but not in the purely primal sense of a slumbering consciousness, such as a fish swimming the seas, but in the sense of an awakened higher mind, in tune with an allowing the simply 'let it be' to inform that higher mind that was and is otherwise lost in itself!

Anyway, that make take some unpacking to get what I was getting at there.


I think what I'm saying is that framing concepts that are abstract like this is actually something alludes a huge percentage of humans. How can an otter ponder self-reflexively?

FWIW, I think "mind" is not something that exists only in humans. The level of sophistication that mind takes however, will in fact be tied to physiology. If the brain is unsophisticated, the mind can't be independent of it. If you cut a part of the brain out, the mind collapses.

Again, this does not in my thinking mean brain=mind. I do not accept that. What it means is simply that the higher is built upon, and emerges from the lower. Mind is higher than brain. But, the way these things work is that the higher, more complex system, is dependent upon the lower less complex for its existence. If you remove the higher, the lower still exists. If you remove the lower however, than everything above it collapses. Think of it like a pyramid of building blocks. At the top is mind, in this example. If you take the top block off, the base stands. If however you take out the middle or the base, then everything above that point collapses. This is how mind is dependent on brain. But brain, is not dependent on mind. Thus, brain does not equal mind.

There are plenty of peoples' minds that are barely more sophisticated than the otter, but their brain still fills their skulls. Our brain gives us the potential to have a more highly developed mind, not a guarantee. But not having a brain capable of that potential, is a guarantee you won't. A child born with only a brain stem will not ever ponder itself in light of its existence in a dualistic reality. It is not capable of that sort of thought.


No. If the brain is not sophisticated, then it is safe to say that higher level reasoning does not happen. Because higher level reasoning is in fact dependent upon a sufficiently complex enough foundation of higher mind to emerge. An angle worm is not about to pondering the 'big questions' of life and existence within itself. It simply does not have complex enough of an organ for higher mind to manifest itself.


I am absolutely not a materialist monist. That's several light years off target. In fact, first and foremost I have the heart and soul of a mystic. It is in fact because of this, that I understand the reductionist/material philosophies to be woefully inadequate. On a rational and scientific approach I take into account the complexity sciences, which is anything but reductionist. But even they tend to gut out the interior spaces, of which mind in question comes into play. Not the least of which, they neither address the spiritual, which runs through all manifestation, in both the interior spaces, of mind, soul, and spirit, and the exterior spaces of physical or material manifestation, from atoms to molecules, to cells to biological organism.

I take into account both the sciences, and the spiritual in my philosophies and lived experiences. So, as I said, calling me a materialist monist is dead wrong. On a metaphysical level I am a nondualist (which is not monism), and you could call me a panenthiest as well (which is not a pantheist), depending upon how I wish to talk about or relate to the transcendent in lived experience.

How about you? How would you describe your views?

Morning, Wind,

Okay, now I see why I thought you were saying brain = mind and were a materialist (I must admit that although I've read many of your posts over time, I've not studied your responses closely enough to get where you're coming from, until now.) Sorry for misunderstanding:sorry1:

The idea of emergent properties such as mind, as you express it, seems to me, however, to still be driven by the material. As you say, a brain that is not as complex as another cannot "emerge" as complex a mind with complex thought. From my perspective, that's still much like saying "brain = mind," as the mind--emergent as it is--is fully dependent on the existence of a physical brain. So I think I'm missing how the spiritual fits into your understanding.

I also see myself as a mystic, who also attempts to use science where appropriate. But as I said, I am (at least currently...it tends to vary over time in a lot of different directions) a dualist, meaning in this case that I believe that there is a material nature to reality (which exhibits emergent properties), as well as a spiritual nature. There in fact may be more than two, which would make me a polyist, I suppose. And, I am unabashedly an animist, meaning that I believe all "things" (and nonthings, too, but that's another discussion) are/have that spiritual nature.

In the past, I have tried and failed to embrace material monism, always ending up with there having to be something other than matter to make sense of my experiences. I have also tried pantheism and panentheism, and in both cases failed to adopt them except on a provisional, intellectual basis: although I have experienced the mystical state of "oneness," it's simply beyond me to know whether it was oneness with the surrounding portion of the universe, the whole universe, or a oneness that extends beyond the universe.

I'd like to hear more about your approach to nondualism, and how the spiritual/mystical (if they are even the same to you) fits into your view of the universe.

 

[Windwalker]

what's going on here is, I think, that you are a material monist and I am a dualist (there is matter and there is what most would term spirit).

I wanted to come back to this this morning after my post last night, as something you said in here stands out to me. Aside from my correcting your assumption of me being a materialist monist, which I absolutely am not, you said this, "I am a dualist (there is matter and there is what most would term spirit).

Would you say you see that matter or material is the opposite of spirit? Are you saying that metaphysically you see the world in terms of pairs of opposites? And that in this system you see a balance of these opposites to be the goal, like Yin and Yang? So then you see mind as free and independent of matter?

One thing that may help to explain my thoughts is firstly that as far as a dualist description as above, pairs of opposites in balance, though I certainly do see that as true, it presumes a certain underlying pregiven static state. It's understandable that escoteric systems like these developed in our past, and they do hold great truths. But I think they miss something that is more reflective of reality and that the whole is a product of interactions between these in a dynamism, which results in an emergence of the new, a move of creativity towards higher and higher expressions of itself. In another more familiar word: Evolution.

Ternary systems tend to be more consistent with the natural world, and the spiritual world as well for that matter. Whereas binary systems, or dualistic thought alone, does not account for change over time. It does not account for novelty. I believe it was Alfred Whitehead North who said one of the underlying laws of the universe was "The creative advance into novelty". That is evolution. Where materialism fails, is in the same way any dualistic thought fails (as it itself is dualistic). It does not acknowledge novel forms. "Mind", is novel. It is built upon brain, but is itself not reducible to brain.

To try to give some model of how I see these things you need to look at them in terms of interior and exterior spaces. And that those spaces interact with and inform and influence one another. Brain is the exterior component of mind, and mind is the interior component of brain. In this example, brain affects mind, and mind affects brain. We can and do in fact alter brain through mind, through thought, through will. We can and do reshape our pathways and the areas of the brain which are more active through choice. But if you zap the brain, the mind will be affected. If you don't eat properly and get enough oxygen to the brain, the mind will suffer. They interact.

And here's the next real catch that binary systems don't address. They develop. We develop the mind. And in turn, the mind develops the brain. We can actually drive our very own biological evolution through the development of the interior spaces.

So in short, you have interior and exterior to everything that is, and both develop interiorally and exteriorally, through an interplay and exchange through each other. And this development, or evolution, leads to novelty, or new forms, with new sets of rules.

From here it get's more interesting, but I'll leave it there for the moment to see if you're interested in opening that greater can of worms. Suffice to say, you can see that when I am speaking of an otter's brain, I am taking a great deal more into account than just some overly-simplistic materialist monism.

 

[Windwalker]

We over-posted each other this morning. Guess I'm excited about this type of discussion. I saw your post this morning and will offer a response to that shortly.

 

[Windwalker]

The idea of emergent properties such as mind, as you express it, seems to me, however, to still be driven by the material.

I understand how that can be the perception, and it's challenging to explain this. I did touch on this a little in my other post from this morning where I talked about the interior and the exterior. The evolution of the brain, allows the evolution of consciousness through the mind. That's the exterior providing a means for the interior to emerge into higher forms as well.

Think of it like developing a complex telescope versus the naked eye. With the naked eye we see the night sky and see points of light dotting a black curtain above us. But as we first put two lenses together and some young curious soul turned it upon the night sky, that tool allowed what has always been there for us all along, to come into a greater or higher awareness of his conscious mind. Then as that tool of the telescope became more and more sophisticated, what arose into the conscious mind was a greater and greater awareness of what was there the whole time.

In this sense, the development of the brain, allows the development of the mind. The otter has "mind" as well, but it simply doesn't have a very sophisticated tool in order to perceive the world and to contemplate it mentally in order to see more deeply into it. It still sees that night sky, so to speak, but with the unaided eye. It exists in and experiences the world, but it does so in a rudimentary fashion. It's brain, or telescope, isn't sophisticated enough to offer its' mind the lens of perception that the triune brain of humans does. But we do have it's brain included in ours. We have the reptilian and paleomammilian parts of the brain, as they do, but also the neomammilian brain, which they do not. That latter part is what allows all those tool of higher mental forms to exist, which offer models of the world to be created for science and reason, as well as archetypal forms for spiritual and mental transcendence.

This is where it gets more complex, but as far as spiritual development, taking the Spiritual, which is present in all forms from low to high, to have that come into focus in the body, in our minds, in our souls, it requires as well a greater tool set, such as the use of these archetypal symbols. Symbols move the psyche vertically, to a new level of emergence of the mind and of the spirit. It is not the brain that does that work, but it merely offers the ability for such tools to exist. It is the mind, through spirit, that utilizes these towards its own interior development, or emergence into higher states of conscious awareness. Both need to be present, but it is not "brain" that gives rise to higher mind alone. It just offers a set of tools, that otherwise did not exist previously. It provides the lenses of the telescope, but it takes that curious soul to look through it, and to use the mind to transcend itself into new awareness.

I also see myself as a mystic, who also attempts to use science where appropriate. But as I said, I am (at least currently...it tends to vary over time in a lot of different directions) a dualist, meaning in this case that I believe that there is a material nature to reality (which exhibits emergent properties), as well as a spiritual nature. There in fact may be more than two, which would make me a polyist, I suppose. And, I am unabashedly an animist, meaning that I believe all "things" (and nonthings, too, but that's another discussion) are/have that spiritual nature.

I've addressed lot of this above and in my previous post this morning. What isn't clear from these we can take on further in the next posts.

In the past, I have tried and failed to embrace material monism, always ending up with there having to be something other than matter to make sense of my experiences.

Ditto. It does offer tools of higher reason, but that alone does not make us a whole human. We are spiritual in nature, as well as reasoning. Both are important, and anti-intellectualism is anti-spiritual. And anti-spiritual, is also anti-human, IMO.

I have also tried pantheism and panentheism, and in both cases failed to adopt them except on a provisional, intellectual basis: although I have experienced the mystical state of "oneness," it's simply beyond me to know whether it was oneness with the surrounding portion of the universe, the whole universe, or a oneness that extends beyond the universe.

This comes to what I mentioned before, that if we look to the mental models to put us in touch with reality, we will in fact disconnect ourselves from it! In this sense, when we do that, the otter in fact is more spiritual than we!

I'd like to hear more about your approach to nondualism, and how the spiritual/mystical (if they are even the same to you) fits into your view of the universe.

As this is already lengthy, I'll try to make this brief. I don't approach nonduality as a matter of concept. It is lived experience. Nonduality, despite the popular missue of that term as "monism", is really this: Seeing and knowing the formless, or Emptiness, in form.

What the traditional religions have tried to do, beginning from the first Axial Age, is to flee the world of form to find that Emptiness, or Ground, or Nirvana. It reveals that the world of form, is a world of illusion, and that causes suffering. We tie our minds to the illusion and experience separation and suffering. This is in the Garden of Eden myth as well, in eating that fruit of knowledge of good and evil, becoming self-aware and entering into the knowledge of our own mortality and finitude. So to go the path of ascension, flee the world to heaven, was seen as knowing God, or wholeness.

But later nondual realizers understood, through experience, that Nirvana itself is itself a form of dualism! It calls that Emptiness as the Truth, and all else as illusion. But nonduality instead knows and embraces that Emptiness beyond illusions, into forms as manifestation of transcendence. It is through form, that you may know Emptiness, or God. And thus arises the Trantric schools.

In short, nonduality is knowing that the form is fleeting and finite, changing, emerging, evolving, yet radiant and eternal in its finitude. As are we. We are That, and we are Us. There is the many and the One, not in conflict or in some dualistic dichotomy, but in eternal expression.

 

[Straw Dog]

I find myself pulling furtehr and further away from religion completely. I think this has been a gradual progress since my christian days. I am unsure on the existance of such beings known as gods and goddesses, and I do tend to have an open mind when it comes to the metaphysical but I have recently come to the conclusion that there is no need for the basic idea of religion given what science can explain.

Good for you! Theological beliefs are highly overrated in society and mostly irrelevant whenever it actually comes to living well practically. My life has been improving considerably since I started moving away from mysticism and traditional religion. I'd recommend studying more philosophy, psychology, and science to better complement your developing worldview. Don't worry about the haters! You gotta be true to yourself.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I wanted to come back to this this morning after my post last night, as something you said in here stands out to me. Aside from my correcting your assumption of me being a materialist monist, which I absolutely am not, you said this, "I am a dualist (there is matter and there is what most would term spirit).

Would you say you see that matter or material is the opposite of spirit? Are you saying that metaphysically you see the world in terms of pairs of opposites? And that in this system you see a balance of these opposites to be the goal, like Yin and Yang? So then you see mind as free and independent of matter?

One thing that may help to explain my thoughts is firstly that as far as a dualist description as above, pairs of opposites in balance, though I certainly do see that as true, it presumes a certain underlying pregiven static state. It's understandable that escoteric systems like these developed in our past, and they do hold great truths. But I think they miss something that is more reflective of reality and that the whole is a product of interactions between these in a dynamism, which results in an emergence of the new, a move of creativity towards higher and higher expressions of itself. In another more familiar word: Evolution.

Ternary systems tend to be more consistent with the natural world, and the spiritual world as well for that matter. Whereas binary systems, or dualistic thought alone, does not account for change over time. It does not account for novelty. I believe it was Alfred Whitehead North who said one of the underlying laws of the universe was "The creative advance into novelty". That is evolution. Where materialism fails, is in the same way any dualistic thought fails (as it itself is dualistic). It does not acknowledge novel forms. "Mind", is novel. It is built upon brain, but is itself not reducible to brain.

To try to give some model of how I see these things you need to look at them in terms of interior and exterior spaces. And that those spaces interact with and inform and influence one another. Brain is the exterior component of mind, and mind is the interior component of brain. In this example, brain affects mind, and mind affects brain. We can and do in fact alter brain through mind, through thought, through will. We can and do reshape our pathways and the areas of the brain which are more active through choice. But if you zap the brain, the mind will be affected. If you don't eat properly and get enough oxygen to the brain, the mind will suffer. They interact.

And here's the next real catch that binary systems don't address. They develop. We develop the mind. And in turn, the mind develops the brain. We can actually drive our very own biological evolution through the development of the interior spaces.

So in short, you have interior and exterior to everything that is, and both develop interiorally and exteriorally, through an interplay and exchange through each other. And this development, or evolution, leads to novelty, or new forms, with new sets of rules.

From here it get's more interesting, but I'll leave it there for the moment to see if you're interested in opening that greater can of worms. Suffice to say, you can see that when I am speaking of an otter's brain, I am taking a great deal more into account than just some overly-simplistic materialist monism.

lol. as you say, we overposted, then you got one ahead of me...now I'll never catch up! However, when I've got time and a talented and interested partner or two to work with, I love to delve into cans of worms. Especially over beer and pizza! :yes:

Actually, I think responding to this post will also cover your next one, mostly. In my previous post I used the term dualist, and in the next again, but added polyist. I used dualist because even most people familiar with philosophy don't go to tri-ist and beyond--most seem to make poly- into pan-, and while intellectually I can go there, on experience I can't.

Yes, I see pairs of opposites, but also triads and quads and higher arrangements. I don't see them all at once, nor do I see them as necessarily permanent--but my experience is limited to what I have experienced, and I cannot be sure what is actual nature, and what is me projecting order on the basis of my experience. I guess in that sense I am a skeptic, in the original meaning of the term: I doubt my own and any individual's (or group's) ability to really know much of anything about "reality." (Still love the Robin Williams line: "Reality! What a Concept!)

No, I don't presume any static or permanent state of affairs, and even evolution is not sufficient in all contexts. In a sense there is a kind of stasis that I perceive, but that doesn't mean its anything except the apparent calm at the eye of the storm...or a pleasant period between storms.

Okay, as I note in the next post, I'm an animist, who finds spirit everywhere. In some ways spirit is separate from the material; in other ways, not. A certain level of biological complexity allows spirit more ability to manipulate and communicate in a manner that we human/spirits can comprehend. Thus, it is possible that a spirit/soul associated with an otter could have "mental" models similar to, different than, lesser than, or superior to that of any given human spirit/soul--but the body it is associated with has limited means for expressing that. I would classify this as speculation, however. I have experienced other humans who have greater and lesser spirits, and greater and lesser capacity for understanding more abstract concepts; I have also known animals who I would say this is true of, too. But again, I put this in the realm of speculation, because I cannot subject it to a controlled scientific analysis. On the same basis, I would classify your emergent properties as a speculation that has some evidence behind it as well. And both may well apply to "reality."

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I understand how that can be the perception, and it's challenging to explain this. I did touch on this a little in my other post from this morning where I talked about the interior and the exterior. The evolution of the brain, allows the evolution of consciousness through the mind. That's the exterior providing a means for the interior to emerge into higher forms as well.

Think of it like developing a complex telescope versus the naked eye. With the naked eye we see the night sky and see points of light dotting a black curtain above us. But as we first put two lenses together and some young curious soul turned it upon the night sky, that tool allowed what has always been there for us all along, to come into a greater or higher awareness of his conscious mind. Then as that tool of the telescope became more and more sophisticated, what arose into the conscious mind was a greater and greater awareness of what was there the whole time.

In this sense, the development of the brain, allows the development of the mind. The otter has "mind" as well, but it simply doesn't have a very sophisticated tool in order to perceive the world and to contemplate it mentally in order to see more deeply into it. It still sees that night sky, so to speak, but with the unaided eye. It exists in and experiences the world, but it does so in a rudimentary fashion. It's brain, or telescope, isn't sophisticated enough to offer its' mind the lens of perception that the triune brain of humans does. But we do have it's brain included in ours. We have the reptilian and paleomammilian parts of the brain, as they do, but also the neomammilian brain, which they do not. That latter part is what allows all those tool of higher mental forms to exist, which offer models of the world to be created for science and reason, as well as archetypal forms for spiritual and mental transcendence.

This is where it gets more complex, but as far as spiritual development, taking the Spiritual, which is present in all forms from low to high, to have that come into focus in the body, in our minds, in our souls, it requires as well a greater tool set, such as the use of these archetypal symbols. Symbols move the psyche vertically, to a new level of emergence of the mind and of the spirit. It is not the brain that does that work, but it merely offers the ability for such tools to exist. It is the mind, through spirit, that utilizes these towards its own interior development, or emergence into higher states of conscious awareness. Both need to be present, but it is not "brain" that gives rise to higher mind alone. It just offers a set of tools, that otherwise did not exist previously. It provides the lenses of the telescope, but it takes that curious soul to look through it, and to use the mind to transcend itself into new awareness.



I've addressed lot of this above and in my previous post this morning. What isn't clear from these we can take on further in the next posts.


Ditto. It does offer tools of higher reason, but that alone does not make us a whole human. We are spiritual in nature, as well as reasoning. Both are important, and anti-intellectualism is anti-spiritual. And anti-spiritual, is also anti-human, IMO.


This comes to what I mentioned before, that if we look to the mental models to put us in touch with reality, we will in fact disconnect ourselves from it! In this sense, when we do that, the otter in fact is more spiritual than we!


As this is already lengthy, I'll try to make this brief. I don't approach nonduality as a matter of concept. It is lived experience. Nonduality, despite the popular missue of that term as "monism", is really this: Seeing and knowing the formless, or Emptiness, in form.

What the traditional religions have tried to do, beginning from the first Axial Age, is to flee the world of form to find that Emptiness, or Ground, or Nirvana. It reveals that the world of form, is a world of illusion, and that causes suffering. We tie our minds to the illusion and experience separation and suffering. This is in the Garden of Eden myth as well, in eating that fruit of knowledge of good and evil, becoming self-aware and entering into the knowledge of our own mortality and finitude. So to go the path of ascension, flee the world to heaven, was seen as knowing God, or wholeness.

But later nondual realizers understood, through experience, that Nirvana itself is itself a form of dualism! It calls that Emptiness as the Truth, and all else as illusion. But nonduality instead knows and embraces that Emptiness beyond illusions, into forms as manifestation of transcendence. It is through form, that you may know Emptiness, or God. And thus arises the Trantric schools.

In short, nonduality is knowing that the form is fleeting and finite, changing, emerging, evolving, yet radiant and eternal in its finitude. As are we. We are That, and we are Us. There is the many and the One, not in conflict or in some dualistic dichotomy, but in eternal expression.

I really like your pattern of thought; very little here I can disagree with. Somewhat different than mine, but it has many appealing aspects. I once came to the realization, after reading and hearing about a perhaps mythical discussion between someone of Hindu or Buddhist belief (All reality is an illusion) and western science (We can objectively know reality through careful observation and testing): Reality may be an illusion, but it's an incredibly detailed illusion when we carefully observe and test it...

 

[Jiggerj]

I find myself pulling furtehr and further away from religion completely. I think this has been a gradual progress since my christian days. I am unsure on the existance of such beings known as gods and goddesses,

When we claim to be unsure about the existence of gods and goddesses, what does that say about these supposedly omnipotent beings? It says that if the evidence they provide isn't IN YOUR FACE and plain as day, then they can't be all that powerful. And quite nonexistent.

If a god has placed our very souls on the line, either by being accepted into heaven or condemned to hell for all eternity, then he/she/it better sit his butt down at our kitchen tables and spell out the rules in no uncertain terms. Anything short of this would make a god downright evil for playing such a childish game of hide and seek.

 

[dgirl1986]

When we claim to be unsure about the existence of gods and goddesses, what does that say about these supposedly omnipotent beings? It says that if the evidence they provide isn't IN YOUR FACE and plain as day, then they can't be all that powerful. And quite nonexistent.

If a god has placed our very souls on the line, either by being accepted into heaven or condemned to hell for all eternity, then he/she/it better sit his *** down at our kitchen tables and spell out the rules in no uncertain terms. Anything short of this would make a god downright evil for playing such a childish game of hide and seek.

I find that I do not see them as omnipotent beings but more likely to be spirits of some kind.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I find that I do not see them as omnipotent beings but more likely to be spirits of some kind.

As an animist, I find myself not dealing with "Gods" necessarily, but spirits. I try to interact with them on personal and daily basis: make small offerings, thank them for their blessings and assistance, etc. The big ones I don't deal with as much, because it's like an ant trying to get a human's attention--they probably will just be bothered by me, see me as a nuisance ruining their picnic or whatever. The ones closer to my size I can see interacting with with a chance of something worthwhile coming out of it, so that's who I mainly try and often succeed in communicating with to some degree. The littler ones, I try to be aware of and respectful toward, and help if I can, and if I can't, at least try to make it up to them and their kind--the way I'd like the bigger ones to be with me. None of the ones I deal with are omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient, at least not to my knowledge.:yes:

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Good for you, OP. Organized religion is a waste of time. I'm done with it, too.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Well I guess I am a new-comer to the party now. Really I have been an atheist for quite some time. I could only posit a philosophical god but never a real external one. I used the ontological argument for the existence of god for crying out loud and that is quite frankly the weakest

 

[Desert Snake]

I find myself pulling furtehr and further away from religion completely. I think this has been a gradual progress since my christian days. I am unsure on the existance of such beings known as gods and goddesses, and I do tend to have an open mind when it comes to the metaphysical but I have recently come to the conclusion that there is no need for the basic idea of religion given what science can explain.

When I told my partner this she nearly yelled hallelujah finally, when I tried to discuss it with my mum who still holds on to christian beliefs she got defensive and left the room. I do not think I am atheist though, given that I am unsure and open minded but at the same time I do not see a need to try and figure it out.

Hope this was the right place to put this.

Nifty. have fun.

 

[dgirl1986]

I forgot about this thread lol.

I avoid religion but I consider myself a kind of spiritual atheist humanist