I don't think it matters what we believe.

[blackout]

Most often I act in accordance with "probablility" of what I observe re. my surroundings/reality/Self.
Sometimes my actions are "leaps of faith" based on nothing but inspiration and wonder.

To address some earlier questions I missed--

I generally refrain from "believing" things about others...
and
I generally refrain from "believing" the "truths" that others name.

I don't break the law because i love my kids and my freedom...
not because I "believe in " the law.

ACTUALLY...
It makes me happy to see unique individuals unconformed to mass rule...
therefore I act in accordance with the beauty of individualism I would like to see more of.
I hope I encourage it, in those surrounding me, just by BEING it.

Not because I "believe" in it... but because it's what I like to see and experience around me.

People of course are free to "make up" a world of con-form-ity.
But I also am free to be a catylist of a different kind.
Perhaps it is little more than an asthetic difference.
Like styles of art, people prefer differing life asthetics.

You MIGHT loosely say "I believe" in the asthetic of individualism...
but really it is just more that it in-spires me and makes my spirit happy.

I like to see people happy. And trying out life for themSelves.

Just because I do.

As well I HATE to see people suffer.
It actually pains me.
This is why I'm not so keen on the ways of the world I live in.
I don't believe in it.... because it does not treasure what I hold dear.
We are not of the same vision.

I really think belief has little or nothing to do with it though.

I simply would like to see something completely different.

 

[Willamena]

Isn't that a seperate point? I'm not arguing against it's existence

Sorry; I misunderstood your reply.

Wasn't your point that consciousness makes existence available to us?

In the manner of giving form to the world, including "consciousness": yes.

What does it mean for consciousness to "lag behind existence"? The way I see it, if there is a "lag" imagined, it is imaged in consciousness.

 

[Dunemeister]

My own opinion is that it is the actions of those in both these examples that are important and not the beliefs of those who acted.
What was important (from an Irish perspective) about Cromwell was not his pious Christianity but his actions - the murderous slaughter.

Okay, well if the relevance you're talking about is whether victims of crimes care how publicly pious a person is, then again, I have no disagreement. (But then, in Christian terms, piousness is not a matter of correct belief only.)

But you are actually historically wrong about whether the Irish cared about Cromwell's beliefs. Lots of ink was spilled about how his actions contradicted adherence to Christian faith. So it mattered to at least a few Irishmen.

My beliefs have done a full turnabout. I have gone from atheist to theist. My behaviour towards others has not changed as a result of my beliefs - that is why, regarding myself, I consider my beliefs to be 'surface'.
My longings and dreams are constant despite the evolution of my beliefs that is why I consider them to be from the depths.
Could it be the other way around? I honestly don't know. If someone explained to me why they considered it so in their case - I would believe them.

I understood you to be saying that, more or less objectively, it really doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are. If you're only claiming that they don't matter to you, that's a different issue (although it begs the question why they're worth discussing).

Moreover, if you don't view contradiction as a problem to be dealt with, I guess that discussions about truth, no matter what kind of truth, are indeed irrelevant.

I'm not sure what I try to do comes into it. I find what I believe plays catch up with what I feel. My consciousness lags behind my experience.

It comes into it because your actions demonstrate that you don't actually believe your own theory about the primacy of "the depths", whatever those are, as opposed to beliefs. This is true even if your "consciousness" (what do you mean by this term?) lags behind your experience.

It seems to me a fact of human life that our beliefs are involved in the initial and final interpretation of our experiences. Sometimes the experience transforms the beliefs; at other times, it confirms them.

I have found that neither my longings or my dreams make sense to me as I experience them or am close to them in time. Again I experience my consciousness playing catch-up with something deeper.

Again, I can accept this without buying your theory. What do you use to interpret your dreams? Your beliefs, obviously. Maybe your dream modified your beliefs so that it was more coherent to you, but it was still your beliefs that interpreted your dream and allowed you to live your life in congruence with it (and what determines that congruence if not, once again, your beliefs?).

 

[sandandfoam]

What does it mean to "lag behind existence"?

Seems to me that what we normally refer to as consciousness is in fact a very recent memory.

 

[.lava]

Seems to me that what we normally refer to as consciousness is in fact a very recent memory.

so we're not living in present moment?

.

 

[Willamena]

Seems to me that what we normally refer to as consciousness is in fact a very recent memory.

As opposed to what?

 

[sandandfoam]

As opposed to what?

we exists in the present but we are not conscious in it. When we say anything about anything we are conscious of we are talking about the past.
In the present the frame (of consciousness) is absent.
'I' normally refers to the conscious 'me' and I don't think this exists in the present - only as a construct of consciousness.

 

[Willamena]

we exists in the present but we are not conscious in it. When we say anything about anything we are conscious of we are talking about the past.
In the present the frame (of consciousness) is absent.
'I' normally refers to the conscious 'me' and I don't think this exists in the present - only as a construct of consciousness.

The image of consciousness lagging is very useful for acquiring the image of conscious 'I' as construct, but it can be no more or less true than consciousness not lagging. Consciousness that doesn't lag is as much the construct. Each is a model expressing a different way of putting ideas together. Ideas of consciousness.

The Vedas has a line that appeals to me that might be worth investigating: "Form does not differ from Emptiness." With my oversimplistic understanding, this is what I initially see: In its context the phrase expresses one way of viewing reality. "Form differs from emptiness" is another way. Both are true, depending on how you look at it (construct it) (perspective). In being reality, consciousness is reality and not reality (or "is and not" reality --ambiguity abounds); in not being reality, there is no consciousness, no reality.

Therefore, Shariputra, all experience is emptiness. It is not defined. It is not born or destroyed, impure or free from impurity, not incomplete or complete.

Translations - The Sutra of the Heart of the Lady Perfection of Wisdom

 

[jtartar]

What do you think?
I feel easier with myself because my belief satisfies my conscious mind. But I don't think it really matters what I think I believe.
Sometimes I feel at one with things, surfing or climbing were great sources of that feeling for me. Bikes too. Sometimes I feel it outside in the early morning - something inside aligns with the universe and everything is just so. But somehow I disappear from the frame. The need of my conscious mind to put a rationale around this has led me to religion and I find the Baha'i faith suits me well.
But I don't think one needs to believe to experience this. Indeed I imagine many atheists have feelings much like I describe mine but their consciousness doesn't need God. It doesn't mean that either position is correct. It just means that our consciousnesses are regarding things from different angles.
I think whoever or whatever I am exists at a level beneath my conscious mind. That what normally passes for my consciousness is just the surface of the mind ocean and is only of any importance to itself.
The important stuff is in the depths of my being. In my longings and in my dreams. What I think I believe is merely the most surface of dressings. What I do is what is important and that is rooted in the depths.

stephenw,
If you consider yourself a Christian, it matters profoundly what you believe. The fact is that Jesus came to earth to bear witness to the truth, John 18:37. The Bible also tells us that we MUST worship the Father in spirit and truth to be acceptable to Him, John 4:23,24.
Paul also tells us that Accurrate knowledge is very important, if we qant to please God, 1Tim 2:4, Col 1:9,10. Consider the words Paul used at 2Tim 2:24-26. Here Paul says that not having an accurrate knowledge of God makes a person the servant of Satan.
Jesus said that it means everlasting life to take in knowledge of the only true God and the one that He sent forth, John 17:3.
Stop and think about this: Many religions teach things that are exactly opposite of what others teach. This makes it impossible for them to be pleasing to God, for He hates deception, and lying, Prov 6:16-19, Ps 5:6.
The Bible tells us that there is only one faith, one hope, Eph 4:4,5. This makes it imperative that we find the truth of God's word, in order to be acceptable to Him. That is, of course, if we want to live in the Kingdom spoken about by Jesus, Matt 6:9,10, that will bring the paradise that Jesus promised the evildoer, who died by Jesus' side on the stake, Luke 23:43.
Remember, there is only ONE TRUTH, all other teachings about any subject are shades of untruth.

 

[YmirGF]

The image of consciousness lagging is very useful for acquiring the image of conscious 'I' as construct, but it can be no more or less true than consciousness not lagging. Consciousness that doesn't lag is as much the construct. Each is a model expressing a different way of putting ideas together. Ideas of consciousness.

Nicely put, Patty. It is my view that understanding how belief structures and the resultant thoughts chains form personal reality helps to lessen this so-called "lag" feature. Awareness itself is not limited to time constraints even though the assimilation of data, filtered through the lense of physical perceptions can take time to assimilate. In my view this is a necessary aspect of physically focused consciousness, whereas when awareness is not focused within the physical realm that lag practically disappears altogether, as time no longer enters the equation in the somewhat linear way. When awareness is focused outside of physical reality it can digest many threads/feeds simultaneously without causing confusion. I hope that makes some sense.

The Vedas has a line that appeals to me that might be worth investigating: "Form does not differ from Emptiness." With my oversimplistic understanding, this is what I initially see: In its context the phrase expresses one way of viewing reality. "Form differs from emptiness" is another way. Both are true, depending on how you look at it (construct it) (perspective). In being reality, consciousness is reality and not reality (or "is and not" reality --ambiguity abounds); in not being reality, there is no consciousness, no reality.

I have come across this a few times and I always giggle over the idea of how exactly one would set about proving such a point, lol. If there was no reality, how would you know?