A Universe from Nothing?

[`mud]

and.....whoz on 1st

 

[McBell]

and.....whoz on 1st

Yes.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Bull, read my original post. I provided evidence to disprove your selfish claim and you have been ranting, changing goalposts and manipulating text ever since

You are obfuscating, anyone who read my post can see clearly that you claimed still mind meditation is not a religious practice. Get over it and move on....

 

[godnotgod]

This is acceptable.



This is not acceptable. Magicians make things vanish all the time. It doesn't mean those things don't actually still exist (in other words, those things may still be real).

I don't see how the five senses create a means by which to verify that this 'waking world' is not a dream, nor do I see how science is able to establish that. The reason we use the word 'real' to describe our environment is that we've come to a mutual contextual understanding. We understand that we use the word 'real' to refer to things that actually exist rather than things we imagine or suppose.

Although we may use the five senses and science as tools for establishing certain facts about the relative reality of our waking world for us and for each other, it does not establish that the waking world is not a dream. The reason this isn't an issue for us is that we have the contextual understanding that we are awake rather than sleeping. We distinguish dream events from awake events and this allows us to distinguish real from not real in our conversations about real and not real things.

If we want to talk about the waking world as being yet another dream rather than a reality, then we have to talk about what it means to wake up from this waking dream, but the five senses and science aren't going to help with that because they only tell us about this waking dream. They don't tell us about a reality beyond this reality.

Very good.

re: magicians: no they don't make things vanish; they only make things appear to vanish. Dreams, however, do vanish upon awakening. The magician creates the illusion of something real vanishing, while the dream is an illusion that actually does vanish.

Most humans use the five senses to determine that the 'material' world they live in is real, along with comparison to the sleep-dream state they awaken from. Science just confirms it for them. It is because of our confirmation via the five sense that we have the mutual contextual understanding you talked about. Few come to the point that they suspect this 'real' world (and their own personal existence) to be illusory, and that some higher state of true awakening may be the case. But we have numerous reportings of such a higher state of consciousness from many unrelated individuals throughout the world over time which adhere to a consistent pattern of the experience.

"The fact is that man in the third state of consciousness (Waking Sleep)** is in a situation from which it is hard to escape. He does not recognize the state as waking sleep, does not understand the meaning of
identification. If anyone tells him that he is not fully conscious, he replies that he is conscious and,
by the "trick of Nature," becomes conscious for a moment. He is like a man surrounded by
distorting mirrors which offer him an image of himself that in no way corresponds to reality. If he is
fat, they tell him he is slender. If he is old, they tell him he is young. He is very happy to believe the
mirrors for they save him from that hardest of all tasks, the struggle to know himself as he-really is.
Furthermore, this sleeping man is surrounded by other sleeping people and the whole culture in
which he lives serves to perpetuate that state of sleep. Its ethics, morality, value systems are all
based on the idea that it is lawful and desirable for man to spend his life in the third room rather
than in a struggle to enter the fourth*. Teachings that exhort men to awaken, to adopt a system of
values based on levels of being rather than material possessions are distrusted. Theoretically, in the
United States at least, what are loosely called "spiritual values" are accepted as valid, but practically
they do not carry much weight.*

The Master Game, by Robert de Ropp

*Self-Transcendence

** "For many people, this concept of waking sleep makes no sense at all. They firmly maintain that,
once they "wake up," they are responsible beings, masters of themselves, fully conscious, and that
anyone who tells them that they are not is a fool or a liar. It is almost impossible to convince such
people that they are deceiving themselves because, when a man is told that he is not really
conscious, a mechanism is activated within him which awakens him for a moment. He replies,
indignantly, "But I am fully conscious," and because of this "trick of Nature" as Ouspensky used to
call it, he does become conscious for a moment. He moves from the third room to the threshold of
the fourth room, answers the challenge, and at once goes to sleep again, firmly convinced that he is
a fully awakened being."

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Need an emoji for 'ROFL'

Oh..he's back.... and seriously...how do you think a sun dial measures time?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Honest? Who are you to berate me for lack of honesty. Your honour has taken a nose dive over this discussion. And all because you are not man enough to admit being beaten by a woman.

It's over girl, if you feel you need to make the claim you won, it's because you didn't.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I said not necessarily, and provided evidence to validate that... Evidence you claimed is not relevant

Wait....we are making progress...all that needs to be cleared up is what you mean by evidence. I understood by evidence you meant that the practice must have some religious goal. Still mind meditation is a zen religious practice for realizing enlightenment/transcendence, are you saying you did not know that?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I am not going through 2 weeks of your bull, deception, and misrepresentation just because you are frightened of being beaten in a simple discussion.

I provided the evidence to refute you, you claimed it irrelevant
Since then you have tried all ways at your disposal to manipulate my posts by actually lying about them.

No, enough is enough, you have proven your mettle is lacking.

Fine, slink away...

 

[ChristineM]

You are obfuscating, anyone who read my post can see clearly that you claimed still mind meditation is not a religious practice. Get over it and move on....

Bull

 

[ChristineM]

It's over girl, if you feel you need to make the claim you won, it's because you didn't.

Bull

 

[ChristineM]

Wait....we are making progress...all that needs to be cleared up is what you mean by evidence. I understood by evidence you meant that the practice must have some religious goal. Still mind meditation is a zen religious practice for realizing enlightenment/transcendence, are you saying you did not know that?

My evidence was a link to data that disproved your claim, you remember the one you said was irrelevant?

 

[ChristineM]

Fine, slink away...

No slinking involved

I am simply not pandering to your nonsense

 

[Ben Dhyan]

My evidence was a link to data that disproved your claim, you remember the one you said was irrelevant?

Wait.....you replied to my post #4255 where I made the statement about the religious practice of stilling the mind, to say it was not a religious practice. The reason I keep explaining to you that the link you refer to as evidence is irrelevant is that there is no evidence on the link that says or implies that the religious practice of still mind meditation is not a religious practice...or anything like that.....if you think there is, please point it out...if you can't, just let it go.

 

[gnostic]

Gnostic, why do you label yourself as 'gnostic' when you appear to eschew religion, you really sound like an atheist?

I am actually an agnostic.

I used to be believer, but didn't convert, and I was almost baptised twice when I was teenager. And I have believed for almost 20 years, despite 14-year hiatus of not touching the bible.

When I did touch it again, re-reading the bible 34, my view has changed, because I have seen the flaws in church teachings, especially their interpretations of the Old Testament. A few years later, I considered myself as agnostic.

Not only do I considered my position that the the existence of deity or deities to be unknowable, I will only changed back to being believer, only if there are evidences to support their existence, and not before then.

Just because I have become skeptical, it doesn't mean I have forgotten what I have learned before becoming an agnostic.

For me, I think I understand religions and religious scriptures better in the last 14 years as an agnostic than the almost 20 years as believer of the Christian faith, especially more so than when I was teenager.

Also 12 years or so ago, I finally got my hand on translation of gnostic texts, the Nag Hammadi codices, so I am familiar with Gnosticism. I found the gnostic cosmogony to be fascinating and complex, but it is still a myth, just as Abrahamic creation is a myth, and that of Cosmic Consciousness and Ultimate Reality are myths.

One of the reasons why I chose the name "gnostic" is my fascination with their texts, just before I had joined RF.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I am actually an agnostic.

I used to be believer, but didn't convert, and I was almost baptised twice when I was teenager. And I have believed for almost 20 years, despite 14-year hiatus of not touching the bible.

When I did touch it again, re-reading the bible 34, my view has changed, because I have seen the flaws in church teachings, especially their interpretations of the Old Testament. A few years later, I considered myself as agnostic.

Not only do I considered my position that the the existence of deity or deities to be unknowable, I will only changed back to being believer, only if there are evidences to support their existence, and not before then.

Just because I have become skeptical, it doesn't mean I have forgotten what I have learned before becoming an agnostic.

For me, I think I understand religions and religious scriptures better in the last 14 years as an agnostic than the almost 20 years as believer of the Christian faith, especially more so than when I was teenager.

Also 12 years or so ago, I finally got my hand on translation of gnostic texts, the Nag Hammadi codices, so I am familiar with Gnosticism. I found the gnostic cosmogony to be fascinating and complex, but it is still a myth, just as Abrahamic creation is a myth, and that of Cosmic Consciousness and Ultimate Reality are myths.

One of the reasons why I chose the name "gnostic" is my fascination with their texts, just before I had joined RF.

Fair enough, but as an agnostic, I understand that despite your position that the the existence of deity or deities to be unknowable, you do not deny that deity or deities might exist...yes?

 

[gnostic]

Fair enough, but as an agnostic, I understand that despite your position that the the existence of deity or deities to be unknowable, you do not deny that deity or deities might exist...yes?

Yes...

...and "might" is the operative word, which expresses "uncertainty". It "might" or "might not" exists.

And you have to remember that I am more than just a single label "agnostic", so as a skeptic and former student of applied science, I would require some evidences to accept the probability that anything to be true.

I can not accept it claim to be true, unless there are verifiable evidences, evidences that are independent to what desire or to what I believe. Logic and reasoning are not good enough and they are not evidences, simply because any rationale can be sway by bias or agenda.

There is more to my life than being an agnostic.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Yes...

...and "might" is the operative word, which expresses "uncertainty". It "might" or "might not" exists.

And you have to remember that I am more than just a single label "agnostic", so as a skeptic and former student of applied science, I would require some evidences to accept the probability that anything to be true.

I can not accept it claim to be true, unless there are verifiable evidences, evidences that are independent to what desire or to what I believe. Logic and reasoning are not good enough and they are not evidences, simply because any rationale can be sway by bias or agenda.

There is more to my life than being an agnostic.

I accept your position and felt similarly at one time. But I was drawn to mindfulness meditation as a way of settling my active mind after a busy day at my work. After a good number of years of practice, my mind would settle reasonably quickly after about a half hour sitting after work There is no point in my going further in words as it would not mean anything to anyone who has not had a similar experience, suffice to say that I learned that there is much more to the idea of a reality beyond that which I had previously understood from reading religious and esoteric material.

 

[YmirGF]

I accept your position and felt similarly at one time. But I was drawn to mindfulness meditation as a way of settling my active mind after a busy day at my work. After a good number of years of practice, my mind would settle reasonably quickly after about a half hour sitting after work There is no point in my going further in words as it would not mean anything to anyone who has not had a similar experience, suffice to say that I learned that there is much more to the idea of a reality beyond that which I had previously understood from reading religious and esoteric material.

And I agree, which is weird because I strongly disagree with you on what happens during those appointments with infinity.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

And I agree, which is weird because I strongly disagree with you on what happens during those appointments with infinity.

Well there is no reason that the result should be the same for every human being in this period of earthly evolution, we each have our own dharma. Besides, I had no desire to see Vishnu's eye...hmmm Shakti, now that's a different matter..

 

[gnostic]

I accept your position and felt similarly at one time. But I was drawn to mindfulness meditation as a way of settling my active mind after a busy day at my work. After a good number of years of practice, my mind would settle reasonably quickly after about a half hour sitting after work There is no point in my going further in words as it would not mean anything to anyone who has not had a similar experience, suffice to say that I learned that there is much more to the idea of a reality beyond that which I had previously understood from reading religious and esoteric material.

Well, I am happy that you have found your "way". Really, I do.

I am a great believer in each person finding his or her own path, including what they believe in and their personal experiences in that journey.

I am just not convinced of the whole business of consciousness being outside of the brain, nor do I accept that the universe itself is conscious.

What do you call it? Brahman?

I am not convinced of this Ultimate Reality, nor of transcendent consciousness or will...especially when I see no evidences for it.