Gaia: Knights & Maidens of the Roundtable - Faiths - Spirituality VS Religiosity

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://andrewmarkmusic.gaia.com — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:49:45 GMT

"The desire for absolute certainty is a deadly poison to a living mind."

Yes Janos, i tend to agree with that statement too, especially in the light of modernism and post-modernism...uncertainty is no where near as comfortable but i think it's truer to reality.

TIME: i'm hoping that time has always been a matter of evolutionary perspective. The conceptual development of early tribal cyclic notions of the Sun,Moon, Planets and Stars; to the more modern notion of time being linear in the sense of Newtonian physics; and then, the conceptual understanding of Relativity Theory; and the concept of time being 'nested', in that the past, future and present are happening simultaneously. No conspiracy here; just a lot of egoic posturing over who is right..........

Evil? well to me, it's obvious that it exists and that there are indeed people who embrace it. Supernatural evil? I don't know and that goes to the uncertainty thing. It's obvious that most religious people through-out history do indeed believe in some form of Satan. And i'm not saying that i don't believe that; it's just that i cannot prove the assertion any more than i can prove the assertion of there being a personal God. I don't think this position makes me a flake or a fence-sitter; it's just that i honestly do not know for a fact! Even if there is supernatural stuff going on on this planet; i don't exactly know what the average human is supposed to do about it. If Jesus and Satan and God and Angels are duking it out here on earth, well then, what's any human to do about it? It seems to me the war in Heaven is up to them to resolve, or not............

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://ResurrectedOne.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:17:15 GMT

Yeah...that's the ticket! We're just nuts and there's no conspiracy...LOL, LOL, LOL!!!

Oh Thank Goodness I'm not the only one, Andrew...I am feeling you on this one!!! The Time frame that we are "Given to believe and live by" just doesn't seem to...Fit.
My intuition tells me that it's all screwed up so that we never learn the proper potent times...to ensure that when we do our magic spells that the timing is wrong therefore nullified.
Oh, wait...nobody's that diabolical on this planet...right?
Right?
;-)

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://goodworld.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:46:08 GMT

...the Urantia book... what do you make of it?

It is just one of the many creation stories. It is a menu of possibilities and it is an error to take any of its dishes as solid truth. It can be used to nurture our hunger to make sense of the world but in the end, though, we need to digest it and transform these given dishes to create our own personal creation story ("belief body").

But our own story also has to be guarded against ossifying into a personal set of dogmas. They need to be firm enough as a base for active life, yet "held lightly", always open to modification if another person's story contains elements that help us interpret the world even better.

"The desire for absolute certainty is a deadly poison to a living mind."

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://andrewmarkmusic.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:15:15 GMT

Anyway Ariela, i just spent the last hour on wiki trying to figure out the time/calender issue (gotta work tomorrow so hey, i'm old and boring).
So, the best that i can tell is that the early Romans adopted a solar calender, making the new year around the winter solstice: late December early January. They say the months names came from latin: sept. meaning 7; Oct. meaning 8; nov. meaning 9;dec. meaning 10, etc.
But to me something is still not jiveing cause if it was the same folks who came up with the names that adopted the solar calender then they sure as shit couldn't count! At least not from January proper. I don't know if it's just me but my common sense from living in the northern hemisphere tells me that the proper time to hold a New year celebration is at the end of winter and the beginning of spring,i.e. MARCH! You know when Bambi twiterpates....I'm i the only person in the History of the Northern hemisphere that feels this way? What the hells the matter with me?yikes! And why does the numerical calender counting make sense then? What the hell is up with those scholars at wiki?
Hmmm, maybe we should have just stuck with that lovely feminine Lunar calender! Oh, oh, wait a minute, maybe that's a part of the issue here: the hijacking of the feminine principle of divinity..........Na, there's no conspiracy on this planet; it's all just very complex evolutionary struggles.........

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://andrewmarkmusic.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:05:52 GMT

Who ever came up with the names of the month originally new that the new year was in and around March (Aries-the astrological/astronomical New Year) cause if you count from March to October (8) and December (10) then the calender makes sense. January (named after a Roman God Janus) was obviously a later adjustment. Why and when the New Year got changed i'm not exactly sure, but it seems to me that yes, it was the Euro-centic mind-set that ran rough-shot over Earth/nature based cosmologies. My own opinion is that this was done to 'disconnect' humanity from reality; making people easier to control................
An interesting thing to consider is that our modern day civilization is still built on the roman infrastuctures of roads and sewers:pollution of air; pollution of water........

i tend to think that perception is relative, but not necessarily reality. In my thinking reality is absolute, it's just that these individual brains/minds can only comphrehend small doses of reality which tends to lead to your take on it.....

Now i can say for certain that i am nuts! but i hope in a rather good way...........

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://ResurrectedOne.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:09:25 GMT

Ahhh, yes...that IS food for thought, hey?

The fact that there are so many theories all the time concerning Jesus is a signal to me that the story has been manipulated so many times that it's hard to keep their facts (or lies) straight ;-)

BTW...why has religion even taken over Time itself? Why is the calendar based on Christ? Did time begin with Christ? How ever did THAT scam come to be? Who decided this? Did this happen with Christianity surged throughout the world, burning up everything that told other facts, other stories, other beliefs?
LOL...

Don't forget that Everything is Relative! So everyone's going to have a different take on...well, everything! LOL ;-)

Hmmm...maybe it's just one of those things designed to drive one nuts and waste their lives deciphering...

In the end...I'm just as confused about the nature of reality as anyone else...except in the fact that reality is relative, LOL ;-)

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://andrewmarkmusic.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:51:34 GMT

Hi Ariela, yes, Dr. Kellogg seemed to be involved in some form of 7th day adventism.
I guess the question i have is that if Jesus wasn't a historical figure, but rather; some sort of mythical allegory, then who keeps writing all these different notions about who and what he was? i mean there just doesn't seem to be the obssesion with writing different notions about Krishna or Muhummad (at least in the writings that i've come across) but there always seems to be some new notion of someone who argueably didn't even exist.
What's up with that? Which is why i brought up the masonry hypothesis. Is Jesus Freemasonries ace in the hole of control and manipulation? Apparently, the founders of jw's, mormonism, 7th day adventist, christian science were all members of the masonic order.................
But yeah, i am the same as you in the sense that i too, find truths that resonate with me from whatever source. i guess i'm just not a fan of blatant contradiction though, especially when it comes to writing that is supposed to be from angels, ascended masters, etc.
it's good to know that they seem as confused about the nature of reality as we seem to be down here.............................or.......................

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://psychicsurgeon.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:56:32 GMT

Yes, I know what you mean by not wanting to get paid. I learned on a TRS-80 in the eighties myself. I had to do my own programs in BASIC. Later, I upgraded to ATARI ST after pricing both Mac and Microsoft. Mac was unaffordable to anyone who was not born with a silver spoon. Microsoft was half the price with an IBM clone. My ATARI ST was $500 and it connected to both a computer monitor and a television like my TRS-80. With that machine which I bought in Berkely, California on University Ave., I could afford to learn desktop publishing, audio and video editing.

For upgrades, I could get add-ons to read mac and microsoft software. That was the late eighties. From my Berkeley sources, some of the designers left ATARI to design the Amiga, its rival. Those two facing each other off split the local users groups. Besides, I heard rumors in the San Franscisco Bay Area at the time, Atari could not expand as business model to match the competitors. Honestly, it needed a higher end pc for professionals.

Myself, after learning how to get under the hood the machine, I prefer being able to take apart my system, add and delete parts, design my own workstation and develop my own means of processing my data. I could not live in a world where my choices were limited alone to the designer's concepts. Macintosh held the NeXT OS code source for years before OS X. I know because I owned NeXT OS for Intel a few years before Mac OS X. Microsoft made the IBM clone revolution possible. Now, anyone can own one at a reasonable price. Wow, people can get laptops for $500 in the new millenium? Yes!

Not a fable but a parable; we believe what we want to beliieve, hence we subscribe to our own personal religion.

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://ResurrectedOne.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:05:06 GMT

LOL, Andrew...

Reaaaaallllly??? The Kellogg Family, huh? It really doesn't matter to me who wrote it...doesn't matter to me who wrote the Bible or the Koran or the Torah...I read all things and find the nuggets of wisdom and truth (even in fiction)...everything and everywhere contains a message and Truth for me ;-)

No, I don't agree with everything in any one book...but there are A LOT of very interesting, mind expanding ideas and concepts that I enjoyed in it...things that I file away in my mind's database for later use, as I do not live my life by any one book ;-)

There were lots of stuff I laughed off...stuff I didn't agree with...stuff that didn't seem to me like it was plausible...but between the lines and the unwritten stuff, therein lies alot of juiciness ;-)

I can't argue Urantia any more than I could argue about the Bible...both contain my underlining and notations, neither are underlined all the way through ;-)

The past and the future are always highly debatable, and highly embellishable ;-)
Only what happens NOW matters ;-)

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://andrewmarkmusic.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 00:38:14 GMT

I read the Urantia book in 94(yes, the whole thing) and also went out and found someone who wrote a critique of it ( i always do this-seek both sides of the story). So, my question is to any one who has read that book- what do you make of it? Is this more masonic b.s. (assuming that masonry is responsable for 'implanting' all religion on this planet-yes,huge assumption) or is there something to that book?
All humans are naturally bi-sexual..
There is no such thing as re-incarnation....
Adam and Eve really existed..........
These are just three of the many assertions of that book. Apparently it was channeled over fifty years by the Kelloggs (corn flake) family. Watch the movie 'The Road To Wellville' to get a sense of who they were.
I must say myself, even though i think now that it's complete b.s.- i still have a soft spot for what it says and even consider the possibility that it could be true............
see, i must be an idiot............

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:32:15 GMT

A friend once said that if you think that computing is not a religion ask a Windows person about Macs and a Mac person about Windows.

Another (the same?) friend said that the mistake Apple Computer management made in their decisions was not realizing that reople would be satisfied with mediocrity, so they kept trying to make the best computer they could and lost the market share.

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://ResurrectedOne.gaia.com — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:32:46 GMT

Borrowed from The Urantia Book... ;-)

Religion has handicapped social development in many ways, but without religion there would have been no enduring morality nor ethics, no worthwhile civilization. Religion enmothered much nonreligious culture: Sculpture originated in idol making, architecture in temple building, poetry in incantations, music in worship chants, drama in the acting for spirit guidance, and dancing in the seasonal worship festivals.

But while calling attention to the fact that religon was essential to the development and preservation of civilization, it should be recorded that natural religion has also done much to cripple and handicap the very civilization which it otherwise fostered and maintained. Religion has hampered industrial activities and economic development; it has been wasteful of labor and has squandered capital; it has not always been helpful to the family; it has not adequately fostered peace and good will; it has sometimes neglected education and retarded science; it has unduly impoverished life for the pretended enrichment of death.

Religion facilitated the accumulation of capital; it fostered work of certain kinds; the leisure of the priests promoted art and knowledge; the race, in the end, gained much as a result of all these early errors in ethical technique. The shamans, honest and dishonest, were terribly expensive, but they were worth all they cost. The learned professions and science itself emerged from the parasitical priesthoods. Religion fostered civilization and provided societal continuity; it has been the moral police force of all time. Religion provided that human discipline ans self-control which made Wisdom possible. Religion is the efficient scourge of evolution which ruthlessly drives indolent and suffering humanity from its natural state of intellectual inertia forward and upward to higher levels of reason and wisdom.

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://goodworld.gaia.com — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:09:19 GMT

Religion is a necessary Evil to the Greater Good like Microsoft is to the Computer.

This is interesting. The comparison is useful and works to a certain extent.

Can we say that religion to be the organizing and ordering "tool" or principle to serve "the greater good" which I take to be the inner spiritual experiences of a collection of individuals?

Like any tool or principle, religion can be used in an inappropriate way that no longer works only a useful servant -- like making tentative and emerging consensus into a rigid dogma that begins to monitor and police people's living experiences (not sure how far the Microsoft/Computer comparison can be pushed in this way).

I think the guiding rule should be that no one religion has all the truth -- by definition.

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:04:54 GMT

Well, of course. I have used Apples since I had an Apple II in 1983. I never use a Microsoft product unless it is unavoidable. For instancve you can use Open Office which is an open source program with the funtionality of Microsoft Office and it is a free download or donate as you see fit. NeoOffice is the native Mac OSX version. It is very good and I don't have to give money to Microsoft. I wouldn't use a Windows computer if you paid me.

This could be read as a fable for Religion v spirituality

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://psychicsurgeon.gaia.com — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:00:47 GMT

Do you realize that Microsoft Programmers also program for Mac?

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:37:36 GMT

Thank the gods, I use a Mac!

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://psychicsurgeon.gaia.com — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:48:37 GMT

Religion is a necessary Evil to the Greater Good like Microsoft is to the Computer. We all know that there are a myriad of ideas and concepts but if we pursue all of them beyond our wildhood we lose our sense of the ground under our feet and the sky above. I say that as a healing practioner and teacher who has worked with people who have lost their minds so to speak. Whether it in the astral through drugs or idealism, people can lost their minds to thinking thoughts which lead them into imaginal worlds. Nice for the science fiction writer and story teller but even s/he must learn to balance the realms beyond the body. A religion is formed from the cause of need to communicate in a community. The only real problem with religion is that a set of ideas, as in set theory, can preclude the union of one set with another creating two sets which are in the same real world to seem uniquely isolated. When that happens, through time change must break the rules.

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://katrinamae.gaia.com — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:36:01 GMT

ANYTHING can destroy self-independence, so don't single out religion! Don't be weak; only solution.

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://ResurrectedOne.gaia.com — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 21:09:54 GMT

Awesome, Batte...Very well said...

Let's see how long this stands, before the very thing spoken about occurs. Evolutionary Thinking is required for this pod...not the same old ways!

Good post ;-)

Re: Spirituality VS Religiosity

http://batte.gaia.com — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 20:47:16 GMT

I noticed on Amadon's profile, he says that on Zaadz, "narrow-mindness runs high." I emailed him to say that I'd noticed that sort of thing in other communities where belief is discussed. A lot of us are creating our own personal religions, which is cool, because we all have a different relationship to the Divine Ground.

What's funny is that people get very defensive about this new belief system that they basically just made up, we start acting the way our grandparents did about Catholicism or Judaism or Islam -- this is what we believe and don't try to mess it up with any facts or new ideas. It's something I catch myself doing all the time, and I have to be really careful to step back and take a deep breath and say to myself, "okay, what if this other person is right, how will my belief system change if I have to incorporate this idea?"

My great-grandparents owned slaves. My parents were both from the deep south, and I have a lot of relatives there still. I can totally understand where the KKK was coming from (I do mean was, not is). Their livelihood, their way of life was threatened. These beings that they'd recently bought, sold, housed, fed, and humped just like all the other animals, now wanted their jobs, wanted to go to school with their children, eat in their restaurants. And all of this forced on them because they'd lost the bloodiest war the U.S. has ever experienced (over 600,000 killed, almost 200 times as many as we've lost in Iraq to date. Twice as many as World War II.) Talk about wounded pride.

Still, clinging to the things that separate us from each other -- like the color of our skin, place of birth, the faith of our ancestors -- in the end just makes our own lives smaller and poorer. I think the accomplishments of different cultures (especially food) should all be preserved and celebrated as part of the common heritage of humanity.

But it's time to let go of things that separate us. Isn't that kind of what this pod is about?