Pure Brutality

[Leonardo17]

You think that your collection of new thought quacks offer an improvement over abrahamism.  The abrahamists thought their collection of new thought quacks offered an improvement over paganism.  I think that you were both wrong.

   I don’t think it’s that simple.
 

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   See Tutankhamun (The famous pharaoh whose tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter) was the son of a man called Akhenaten. He was a pharaoh who tried to do exactly as you say. He wanted to improve the situation of having a deity for everything (a bit like today’s India: in India every village has its own deity). And he tried to get everyone to worship the one God that was symbolized by the sundisk. See image:
 

 
   And guess what? It didn’t work. On a personal level, I have come to understand that the many deities used to symbolize the different Aspects of what is one single power or energy that created and is the universe itself.
 
   I can say that our approach is simply more practical. The more you complicate a spiritual teaching, the more chances for people to get everything completely wrong. So it is true that Abrahamic prophets like this story of confrontation between the one true God and the many false Gods. But it’s not that different in the East either. While deities are being tolerated in Tibetan Buddhism, the main focus in always on inner-transformation and individual connection to the One True Eternal Being.
 
   This is a constant warfare that didn’t even end in our time. One example from my country: Our population simply love to visit the tombs of holy persons who have died some 500 years ago. They also love to tie pieces of cloth to some particular trees (another tradition that comes from Shamanistic beliefs). These are done to obtain some favors from these deceased persons or sacred trees. And I’ve heard many scholars warning us that such practices have absolutely no place in Islam. And still none of these traditions are anywhere close to dying out.
 
   Besides, you probably know that many forms of paganism have managed to survive within the newly established religion. Many people will compare (for instance) the triad of Osiris - Isis and Horus to Jesus – Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. There are stories in more ancient belief systems that are simply being retold in newer religions using different symbols but with exactly the same message being conveyed.
 
Ex: Seth the evil God takes Osiris and chops him down into pieces. Isis finds his body parts and then “Re-Members” her husband and Horus is the result of the union of these two energies.
 
This is a bit like Romans (forces of the Ego-mind) taking Jesus and putting him on the Cross. But the women refusing to abandon him, washing his corpse after he was taken from the cross. And then Jesus kicking wide open the gates of hell and being resurrected from the dead. So that all of us are now liberated from this crucifix and have the power to claim our spiritual heritage if we chose to do so (like Horus being born from the Union of Isıs and Osiris).
 
To summarize: I’ve been told by some people that I did not need to study all sorts of spirituality from all around the world. There is simply no conflict between different schools of spirituality. There is no conflict with atheism either. The only issue is about finding your own path and getting the results you want to achieve.
 

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Newer religions are actually simpler than more archaic ones. And Atheism is actually the simplest approach that is available to us. So if you like it, you can stick to it
 

[The Grand Nudger]

When you have to make claims like that to support some other claim that was itself absurd on it's face, we approach fractal wrongness.

[Leonardo17]

When you have to make claims like that to support some other claim that was itself absurd on it's face, we approach fractal wrongness.

I have questions for you too (for everyone actually / I suppose I am the only theist here).
 
Do you dislike religion because you see it as fake from the very beginning, as in you dislike the idea of anything that cannot be somehow observed, measured and/or demonstrated?
 
Or is it the current practice of religion? The results it has on humanity? All the wrongness that is done in the name of that God or this God etc.?
 
(Or both?)
 
/ If it is question number two. Than I am with you. I sort of agree with that and I think that Humanity has to work on that somehow.
 
/ If it is question number 1. That is a whole different debate. And I don’t really have the philosophical skills to elaborate on that. So on a personal level, you’ll have to accept me as I am.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm an atheist and an anti-theist, but I'm not anti-religious.

From my perspective, the one thing religions can't be is fake. That's the whole problem with abrahamic theism. Every single utterance or belief that forms the content of a particular religion could be in error from the bottom to the top, and all forms of theism are wrong in precisely this way.......consequentially and dangerously so, but the religion is still real. Still out there in the world and having social effects that don't depend on the accuracy of the belief but in the demographics of belief.

Sure, I think that the history of abrahamic theism provides ample reason for concern...but allow me to give you a glimpse of the uncanny valley here. I think that right now, right this very moment, with all of the shit about kids...and sex rings.. and conflicts...and extremism... and terrorism...right now, is the "best" that abrahamic theism has ever been. There's a discussion to be had there about how this is in some large part not entirely voluntary, that the restraining hand of growing secularism has effected this outcome. I want to skip all of that and just acknowledge that, especially if the history of abrahamic belief in the world is our measuring stick...they're doing very well at present.

I don't think that abrahamic theism's religiosity is the problem, it's the contents. You simply can't get theism "right" in the moral sense that seems to be of particular concern to us both - because you can't premise a religion on a king in the sky without ending up with slaves on earth. Big g gods, soul forges, things like this are necessarily authoritarian and destructive premises. I'm not surprised by the bad outcomes, I'm surprised when and if it isn't worse. It is baseless and immediately apparent revisionism to suggest that people who treat women, for example..like property today are somehow not following in the footsteps of patriarchal slaveowners who saw fit to write a king in the skys seal of approval over the sex trade into the book they say...they say....came from a god. They may be "doing religion wrong" by our moral lights - but they are not "doing religion wrong" by religions rights, or even their specific religions explicit metrics. That you and deepak chopra have suggestions on entirely different ways we can get things wrong, factually, practically, morally, is, to my mind, no improvement in particular. Even less so when it's used to launder the reputation of the former.

I know I've said this to you before in a bunch of ways, but the difference between a maltheist and an antitheist is only that one of them believes in the gods they both agree are shit.

[Leonardo17]

“From my perspective, the one thing religions can't be is fake. That's the whole problem with abrahamic theism. Every single utterance or belief that forms the content of a particular religion could be in error from the bottom to the top, and all forms of theism are wrong in precisely this way.......consequentially and dangerously so, but the religion is still real. Still out there in the world and having social effects that don't depend on the accuracy of the belief but in the demographics of belief.”
 
- So that answers the first question.
 
   “Sure, I think that the history of abrahamic theism provides ample reason for concern...but allow me to give you a glimpse of the uncanny valley here. I think that right now, right this very moment, with all of the shit about kids...and sex rings.. and conflicts...and extremism... and terrorism...right now, is the "best" that abrahamic theism has ever been. There's a discussion to be had there about how this is in some large part not entirely voluntary, that the restraining hand of growing secularism has effected this outcome. I want to skip all of that and just acknowledge that, especially if the history of abrahamic belief in the world is our measuring stick...they're doing very well at present.”
 
   I’m not so sure I’m getting you right. But bigots and religious frauds are getting smarter every day. In the middle ages we had someone called Hasan Sabbah (1090-1124) in todays Iran. He used modern methods of brainwashing to train his assassins and send them on whoever he wanted. And he did that “In the name of God” by promising them (and actually showing them) a version of “Heaven”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan-i_Sabbah )
 

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  So you might understand why I cannot stay silent in world in which we have perhaps more than 1000 modern Hassan-I-Sabbah that are spread all over the world and as you said. Thanks to modern technologies, they are getting better at what they are doing every passing day. Hassan-I-Sabbah would not have parachuted his assassins upon a wedding ceremony or other festivity to “avenge” his brothers-in faith.
 
   See there has been a time in which belief meant something (to the majority of people). Why would early farming societies for instance invest so much energy carrying stones from hundreds of miles away to erect something like Stonehenge? Her in Göbeklitepe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe  ), they created this monument at about 9500 BC. Then they buried it so that nobody would be exposed to the “energies” present in that place. They did not abandon the place. They deliberately buried it and they hid it.
 
   That’s something common in Bronze Age societies. Egyptians made no distinction between ordinary life and religious life. Other cultures always mentions some past “Golden Age” in which people were more spiritual, taking moral issues much more seriously than we do.
  
   In my way of seeing things, I believe that we are returning to that kind of social organization. I am not talking about a return to theocracy. But I believe that our energy is increasing. The energy of Hassan-I-Sabbah like creatures is also increasing. So they are also getting better at doing things.
 
   Otherwise you believe in religion as an observable social phenomenon. I believe in Truth, to be honest. So I would be scared to do things in the axis of Hassan-I-Sabbah. For starters, I would not want that kind of Karma on my back. I believe in these things. Hassan-I-Sabbah like people pretend to believe these things because it suits their Ego. So you should include that to your observation based belief on religion. I think this is very important.

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“I don't think that abrahamic theism's religiosity is the problem, it's the contents. You simply can't get theism "right" in the moral sense that seems to be of particular concern to us both - because you can't premise a religion on a king in the sky without ending up with slaves on earth. Big g gods, soul forges, things like this are necessarily authoritarian and destructive premises. I'm not surprised by the bad outcomes, I'm surprised when and if it isn't worse. It is baseless and immediately apparent revisionism to suggest that people who treat women, for example..like property today are somehow not following in the footsteps of patriarchal slaveowners who saw fit to write a king in the skys seal of approval over the sex trade into the book they say...they say....came from a god. They may be "doing religion wrong" by our moral lights - but they are not "doing religion wrong" by religions rights, or even their specific religions explicit metrics. That you and deepak chopra have suggestions on entirely different ways we can get things wrong, factually, practically, morally, is, to my mind, no improvement in particular. Even less so when it's used to launder the reputation of the former.
 
I know I've said this to you before in a bunch of ways, but the difference between a maltheist and an antitheist is only that one of them believes in the gods they both agree are shit.”



 
   I don’t think I have a problem with that. But I might remind you that I don’t believe in a Freudian “Cosmic Persona” above treating us as slaves with Satan romantically rebelling to him etc. It’s more like “Shiva” (=he who is not) as in the empty space filling the emptiness in the universe as well as the emptiness in atomic and subatomic levels which is present within each and everyone of us (so there is actually no need even for religious teachings since that being has the power to lead us to spiritual enlightenment within a second if it choses to do so).

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  Yet your approach is very correct. I have had this conversation with a friend recently. Mosques and Churches have a maintenance fee. That’s money we can use to build schools, hospitals and opera houses. You can’t just keep investing into the priesthood or to a feudal type of Aristocracy that is being supported by this priesthood. We need to use our resources wisely.
 
   On a philosophical level, it’s not so clever to assume unproven facts either. As Richard Dawkins said “The garden is already amazing even without fairies living under it”. Nature can be our “God” if you like and science can be our “Rituals” if you allow me to put it that way.
 
   But as I said. What I’m talking about is something else. A typical Narcissist like Hassan-i-Sabbah will pretend to listen, shake his head in approval, pretend he understands every word I am saying and will in the meantime elaborate strategies on how to use my own “naivetés” against me in order to better manipulate me and make use of my resources.
 
   So this is also an empirical reality. Our society does not have the spiritual sincerity that (for instance) the Bronze Age societies seemed to have. But I think it is coming. Why?
 
- Look at the Fridays for future movement. Our extremely materialistic approach to live is not sustainable (even without political İslamists etc.) We are on a path of mass suicide. The problem with the forest fires in Brazil is that the guy sees money to be extracted from these lands. He does not perceive the oxygen, the global balance of the environment, the life that is present in those trees. To him it’s just cash.
 
  There was this documentary on DW. They were asking to people sitting in the park “What is the value of this tree to you?” Some said it’s a 1000 euros or more, others said “It cannot have a financial value”. So what is the value of something that does not have a price tag on it but has a value that is immeasurable? Like life itself for instance?

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   My theory is that these will be the main issues of 21st century spirituality. This transformation is already happening. And people like Deephak Chopra are sort of leading us toward that. And I think this is going to be very important. And Anti-Theists like yourself are sort of helping us to leave the superficiality aside and concentrating on the questions all spiritual peoples really need to ask themselves.  

[The Grand Nudger]

A supreme being that leads us to spiritual enlightenment as if that were a real and definite and singular thing, and as if it were.... we could be lead to it. I see a king and a soul forge. You propose the same thing...and isn't this what you're always telling us, really, when you insist that your revisionist histories of the notion and it's great men show that you have a connection to them and that all other faiths validate whatever principles you hold?

There is no king, there is no soul forge. Whatever you think the contents of enlightenment are, they can only be harmed by this idea. Subjugated to the point that you would shiv religion in it's defense, making a fool of yourself in the process. We will always need religious teachings. They will always be with us. Rightly or wrongly, they're how we learn to live our lives in a manner that conforms to whatever makes us a single moral community. Gods and self help hucksters are free-riders to that good, whatever it is, insomuch as it is, if it is. They have nothing to tell you about any of it.

Meanwhile, back in mere reality, the main issue of 21st century spirituality is more likely to be which group of fucking warlords god handed a property deed to in some magic book.

[Leonardo17]

A supreme being that leads us to spiritual enlightenment as if that were a real and definite and singular thing, and as if it were.... we could be lead to it.  I see a king and a soul forge.  You propose the same thing...and isn't this what you're always telling us, really, when you insist that your revisionist histories of the notion and it's great men show that you have a connection to them and that all other faiths validate whatever principles you hold?  

There is no king, there is no soul forge.  Whatever you think the contents of enlightenment are, they can only be harmed by this idea.  Subjugated to the point that you would shiv religion in it's defense, making a fool of yourself in the process.  We will always need religious teachings.  They will always be with us.  Rightly or wrongly, they're how we learn to live our lives in a manner that conforms to whatever makes us a single moral community.  Gods and self help hucksters are free-riders to that good, whatever it is, insomuch as it is, if it is.  They have nothing to tell you about any of it.

Meanwhile, back in mere reality, the main issue of 21st century spirituality is more likely to be which group of fucking warlords god handed a property deed to in some magic book.

   I am going to insist on the fact that you may be missing the whole point. Spiritual growth does not mean a mind-based understanding of an unproven doctrine based on submission to a man-like and quite tyrannical cosmic boss.
 

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   It’s more practical than that. It’s about growing within ourselves of a reality that is always there for us to reach, that we easily understand but tend to be forgetful about.
 
   See Sadhguru was once with is disciples listening to him. He made them purposefully sit under the Indian sun for more than half an hour just to show them how important the shade of a tree can be. It also doesn’t matter how you get in touch with this common denominator. Many great philosophers are pointing to that too.
 
   The issue is not that complicated after all. My lungs are not just my body. Half of it is outside, in the forest, in the oceans. If nature does not exhale oxygen from some places for me, I will not be able to breathe. End of story.
 
   So how does religion contribute to this type of understanding?
 
Short answer: In most cases it doesn’t. Many spiritual persons are becoming what they are despite religious teachings not because of it. But once you get there, you gain this “ability” to understand things better. And that’s when you start really studying parts of what used to be “a magic book”.
 
   You probably saw the movies “Contact” (1997) or Arrival (2016). It’s not that the message is not there. It’s just that it is mostly designed to be understood on a very personal level through the study of symbols and intelligently related stories that are (in most cases) telling a story beyond the most superficial level of that story.
 
   Anyway, I’m not an advocate of that. My activism is related to the fact that we all need to embrace change rather than sticking to the old ways of doing things. Remember the “shade of the tree” example above. We cannot treat everything in a “make more cash” kind of attitude. There has to be a more “Aham Brahmasmi” or “I associate with all the living” kind of approach. This approach is already here and it is growing.
   So as a spiritual person I just want to repeat that many of the “Religious” ideologies in this world are actually empty. I’m not just talking about acts of violence. I am talking about “Why does tis thing divide us instead of unifying us?”. And again: You need to invest some time and effort to get there. That used to be the basis of religious rituals in most religions. In time they became some dogmatic affirmations of unproven beliefs.
 
   This is a time in which the access to Knowledge is more democratic than ever. And I truly believe that if more people took the inner journey on an individual level, we may than turn this ship around and gradually embrace new models of doing things rather than going dtright into the iceberg.
 
   To me this is very real: I’ve got this cookies packaging right in front of me. The cookies were delicious. But this packaging is the problem. It’s paper with a layer of plastic. Because of the plastic it cannot be recycled. Nature might take care of it. But micro plastics take 500 years or so to disintegrate fully. And no one is even noticing.
 

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    Many people are not spiritual, but they are noticing while many others (who may have taken trips to Katmandu) may not even know anything about the subject. So my ideal is actually crazier than “The Kingdom of Heaven” of the Crusaders or even the Communist Revolution of Karl Marx. I believe in a gradual improvement of our energies and our relationship with this world and with one another.
 
   So I get it. Some people will understand my approach, others will not. But I really believe in this kind of stuff because otherwise there is no way forward for us as a specie.
 
   Do you understand?

[The Grand Nudger]

I understand that people can become so attached to their fantasies that they begin to believe their own constellation of weird is critical to the survival or development of the species, even if it plainly and obviously isn't, and even if they also acknowledge but compartmentalize the fact that those same fantasies have retarded us in every way indicated by themselves as a concern.

Thus these threads, and all of their excuses. I'm sorry that you truly believe this stuff. I've truly believed stuff that was false and vacuous and worse. It sucks. In my experience, more in the holding than the (finally) letting go. There's no good place between deeply wishing a thing were true, and it just not being so.

[Thumpalumpacus]

But I really believe in this kind of stuff because otherwise there is no way forward for us as a specie.

Wishful thinking is not a solid basis for moving forward.

[The Grand Nudger]

Who doesn't want "the way forward" to be something they're personally invested in? Trouble is that the odds are against us all.