Quote:Joel...............................How do you define spirituality? People say they get spiritual feelings/experiences from simply admiring the universe... Or a particularly delicious cheesecake. Neither of these are God (in case you were wondering)
How do you know that a cheesecake is not God?
According to yoga philosophy everything is in the cosmic mind imagination.
When you think about something that thing is part of you.
But to realize this sort of things it takes quite sometime of inner introspection so i can understand your point.
Quote:How can you tell people that they have a goal of life in them if it's entirely subjective? I don't believe there is any inherent 'goal' to life, but ones you set yourself.
When you are not happy with what you got you tend to keep on looking until you find what will satisfy you.
This is inborn in each and everyone of us.
Within this material dimension nothing will satisfy and give total peace of mind to any creature whether they are humans, animals, or plants.
A creeper will keep on moving looking for the best spot.
An animal will keep on moving looking for the best opportunity.
A human being keep on thinking and doing things in the vain and futile effort to get peace of mind.
Have you notice that after you make so many sacrifices to buy a car you realize that you could have bought the same car elsewhere for less money or that a new model just came out and that make think that was much better to wait a bit longer so you could have bought that one which look much better.
This clearly show that material things can not bring any peace of mind.
Even physical-mental love can not bring peace of mind because after short time everything change and satisfaction last only a short time.
Only permanent peace of mind will bring total satisfaction and that sort of thing can not be found inside this physical arena that is why soon or later people will start looking in the right place and that place is not very far from us.
It is inside us and it is the goal of life because is by reaching the goal of life that one find total peace of mind.
Quote:You can't dig up gold if there isn't any there.
We certainly proceed along the same road but at different distances.
You still think that you can find happiness within this material word so you are not interested in finding anything else and in your mind you build up the idea that there is nothing elsewhere, on the contrary i realize that trying to find peace of mind and happiness within this material world is a waste of time so i started looking within where the real gold is to be found.
Quote:I'm not asking you to convince me that a God exists, I'm asking you to provide me with a reasonable explanation as to why your beliefs are justified.
To find out what? That a God exists? How do you know a God exists? If you know then, surely, you can provide some actual evidence for this. Personal experience doesn't count, and if that's all you have then it's not proof... At least not outside of your own personal delus- definition (sorry) of proof.
In the material world is very easy to give the evidence that gold exist.
You just show a piece of gold.
In the mental arena or world is a little bit more difficult.
If someone ask you to show how happy you are after making love you eventually can take a scientific instrument that may measure the brain waves or else, but to prove that spirituality works it become even harder but i guess that even using some scientific instrument is possible to measure the main glands like the pituary and pineal waves and compare the results with someone who is not engaged in intuitional practices or spirituality.
Apart from that there is a enough evidence that God exist by analyze the nde experiences.
People who die and then come back to life.
I am not saying that some of them experience the presence of God.
I say that 100% of them experience the presence of God.
