Freeing the mind slaves

[Jacob(smooth)]

So, the "Yes" in number 1 = You do believe that you are in a matrix, and the "No" in number 2 = You don't want to get out the matrix.

But in your OP you wrote: "Religion is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy."

So you wrote that religion is a system and that the system is our "enemy," yet you still want to stay in that kind of system? That doesn't make sense to me.

It appears to be your enemy . Well, not yours exactly, but most people here.

We're all in a fantasy world, that private little space between our ears. To quote Milton, "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”. We will never know reality other than what our sensory apparatus and cognitive process can derive. I find life is much easier when you learn the trick of remoulding the matrix as you see fit.

{Emphasis mine).

Well, in your OP you were talking about those people who are trapped in religion specifically, but now, you say that we are all in a fantasy world; the whole world is a fantasy.

Then that would mean that the whole world is like a matrix, not just religion as you implied in your OP, right?

Not precisely. I think that we all exist in the little space between our ears. Objective reality may exist but our sample of it is the bit between our ears. Like a photograph of the eiffel tower, the eiffel tower exists, but the photo is not the real thing. Now imagine the only way that anyone could see the eiffel tower was in photos. It would be real, but our impressions of it would not be, would be mere simulacrums. I think both religion and reality are like that.

---

And after 13 years you know what I realise? Ignorance is bliss!

Maybe I didn't understand you well, but I find that comment pretty contradictory with some of the other things you said elsewhere in this forum.

Like in the following posts ... where you revere studying, learning, using reason, and science:

---

One cannot force anyone to believe anything. One can force people to study something, but if you think that human evolution is not yet proven, is studying it not the correct thing to do? Study helps us learn more.

I believe it was Thomas paine who said

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead"

Science is fun!

---

'The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge"

I like ignorance. Its the first step on the road to knowledge. Without the acceptance of ignorance there would be no scientific discovery. In matters temporal I like ignorance because it stimulates discovery and learning. In matters spiritual and to a lesser degree psychological where actual certain knowledge is very hard to come by I much prefer to take a postion of "I think but don't really know" than one of "I know".

I guess the dissonance you spotted was between areas where we CAN find out the "truth" and areas we can't. We start from a position of ignorance with both. In the former, we strive to move on from that place. In the latter I think it is better to say that we remain in ignorance (but posit untestable hypotheses as working models) than to pretend that we have an answer.

Does that make sense? What I find blissful in matters religious is that its OK to not be sure.