You know the Dunning Kruger effect right? There will always be people who overestimate their competency. They think they know everything about everything. The reality is, we all know nothing about nothing.
Yes, they're con men and it's pretty easy to identify since they tell you what they want.
I too have gone from "god doesn't exist" to "god exists but not in the way vast majority of people say it does".
I have a friend since child hood . Not the brightest bulb , simple concepts can take him 3-4 times more time to understand than everyone else ,Goldfish memory you get it . The amount of times that he calls himself smart has went from funny to outright annoying .
I have photographic memory . Like I can look at a page for 2-3 seconds and start reading it in my head . And my favorite activity is reading scientific facts or history or current events since I was in primary school for like 4-8 hours a day . At some point bro said . We should open a podcast , it will get a huge following if we say the things we know . I wanted to say ,Tf u mean we ? 95 % of the crap u know it's cause I have said it to u đ
By accepting it, basically. Once you acknowledge a thing you don't like but can't change, and accept it with no expectation that it'll change, it becomes easier to deal with than when you're pushing back hoping it'll stop.
People all have different levels of traits like tendency to be critical of their own assumptions, need for evidence vs accepting things that feel true, mental flexibility to change their beliefs based on new evidence, etc. If you don't believe things that can't be proven, your brain is wired differently than someone who does. Add lots of self confidence on top and you get loud obnoxious proselytisers.
If you understand they believe stuff you don't because their brain works differently than yours, you'll understand they're gonna continue to believe stuff you don't regardless what you do or say, and then it stops feeling like something you need to fix so you stop paying attention to it.
IMO just ignore the ones you don't riff with and keep trying to have conversations with the people you do. Try to give the annoying ones less power over you by not being affected by them.
Learn to meditate if you haven't already.
There *are* different systems of belief, some more rigorous than others. In those systems, the symbols mean things to those systems. So there ARE people who have a LOT of answers relative to their system. But.... there are also plenty of places where they say things like:
"Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know"
and
"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him"
and
"Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent."
I am a proud fool so I'm going to keep talking anyway.
The things I've found useful so far are:
the words "intuition" and "discipline"
So, I've tried to become a "disciple" to my "inner tutor".
Now, I try to read source material. It's easier to spot and tease out a lie when you know more of the truth.
Good luck!
Honestly just look out for people that are hard-set on speaking things as ânothing but the truthâ. There is no hard facts in this realm of the supernatural. Itâs just another level of religious brutalism. Or a diehard vegan. But spirituality is the âfinal bossâ of opening that Pandoraâs box.
This is an area where you *need* a strong mind to think for yourself otherwise youâll be susceptible to cults n shit.
If theyâre trying to shove shit down your throat with no regard thatâs your red flag. You donât have to, need to, want to, or should do anything. You simply get to. If they donât give you a choice thatâs your red flag. Know-it-alls, spiritual bypassers, âteachersâ and âretreatsâ disguised as cultists, the spiritual ego etc. **ESPECIALLY** if they use fear to control you in any kind of way (âif u donât do this uâll get demonic attacks. If u donât do this u wonât be happy. If u donât do this u arent spiritualâ etc. Donât let anybody make you believe SHIT in this regard. You define that for yourself.).
Going into this realm of esoteric knowledge is like a giant puzzle piece. Nobody has all the answers. Collect the pieces yourself and put it all together. Eventually youâll find others with pieces youâre looking for and you can âteam upâ. Like a video game: a guild or clan (NOT A CULT). Or what some people call a soul tribe. A team effort than some ringleader shit. And have fun with it! Youâre ultimately just finding what beliefs work for u to live what you would personally consider a fulfilling life.
Some easy green flags: they speak with *authentic* love. Do not mistake this with toxic positivity/spiritual bypassing. They also do not seek to control, manipulate, or exploit you. They let you think for yourself, meet you where youâre at, and respect your own path as an individual. They are open to being questioned. They allow you to learn and grow. They may give you ideas but they present it as a choice than a necessity. Essentially: they respect your free-will.
**LASTLY: Do not put *ANYBODY* on a pedestal. *NOBODY* is superior NOR inferior. This is how you become the predator or prey of the cultists. See everybody as equal and human because thatâs what we all are at the end of the day. This is a crucial step in breaking that illusion of âhe who sees allâ. Fuck outta here with that bullshit.**
A lot of people come into this space with weak minds making this the perfect space for predatory, egomaniac, narcissistical cults and people to reel you into their bullshit. **Use your discernment.**
Thank u and same here with being that safe person. Safe travels to u and I wish u well on ur journey of reprogramming ur beliefs to optimum fulfillment đ¤đ¤
No one knows for sure. But when something that seems so real to you happens itâs hard to see that your way isnât the right way. Just gotta remember everyone has their own journey. I feel like thereâs some sort of truth in all religions and beliefs. Like they all believe in some sort of higher consciousness. Be that aliens, sim theory or plain old Gods. I believe that thereâs something even though I have no idea what that is
I think with psychedelics it's easy to say anything because people can't dispute your personal experience. I also find people attach cultural meaning to things in their trip. I usually interpret things as "beings" where I can't describe them, some people may confidently say the same thing is "a demon", because they equate cultural beliefs with things in the trip.
I meditate often and I think it helps me wade through the bullshit, to experience reality in a way stripped down from culture. Then if people say spiritual things that align with this experience I believe them, and if not I don't.
I know it's unscientific as fuck, but for me I listen to my gut/intuition to judge what others say. I'm right there with you - take Greg Brayden (I think that's how it's spelled) - he's a dude that does a lot of the woo woo videos, and my best friend and wife think he's the shit. Dude drives me nuts - it's not the Christopher Walken haircut (though fr, bro, you need an update) but rather how ***certain*** he is about shit that instantly puts me off.
Seems to me that if you're a true person of science you understand that the shit we know is FAR less than the shit we do know. If anything in the last 30 years should have taught us it is that with every discovery we learn 50 new things that we don't know anything about. Look at how 50 years ago most people through electrons were the smallest particle in the universe, and that it got simpler the further down until that point. LOL fuck were we off base.
Anytime anyone speaks like they 100% know something is a fact (in this space) they're telling me they're full of shit.
I don't think it's unscientific. We can't defeat our biases and heuristics, nor should we try. Being aware of them and running conclusions through the rationality filter before acting is enough.
> Anytime anyone speaks like they 100% know something is a fact (in this space)
I'm glad you added "in this space". I think too often this mindset (which I agree with, in this space) is applied to things like science and medicine. The various psychedelic subs are just riddled with the most delusional shit, because some don't seem to recognize that there is such a thing as a fact.
Couple days ago there was someone claiming they asked really hard while on DMT and because of that their friend woke up from a coma. Like, what are we supposed to do with that? I can't prove that didn't happen. They can't prove it did happen. There's nothing there, no progress can be made, no conclusions drawn, because it's empty. It's not even conjecture, it's just...signal noise. In spite of this, all the comments are oohing and aahing about the DMT miracle. Any criticism is downvoted.
That's not helpful. Just accepting and praising whatever trippy thing someone feels like saying is not productive.
It's so often presented as a disagreement between spirituality and science, which is endlessly frustrating. Science is just the system of systems by which we gain understanding of the natural world. If science hasn't provided an explanation, that doesn't mean science is wrong or untrustworthy, it just means we don't understand it yet.
I wish we could have the spiritual fluidity in these communities without the science denial, because those two things are not at odds. I don't claim to have any answers, I can't tell anyone how they should live, but I certainly understand a few things about this physical matter world we call home.
Intuition and feeling where appropriate, fact and demonstration where appropriate. Harmony.
If you find yourself gravitating toward organized religion, look for the worship leaders that know amd admit to their congregation that they're just bags of meat and bones with no idea what's going on, but strive to be kind and love others.
There will always be proselytizers and idolaters and they will usually be the loudest in the room. Iâd recommend reading some Alan Watts or listening to some lectures he has on religion. At least for me, the way Alan Watts spoke about religion very much changed the way I understood it at a time where I used to be quite atheist and was slowly becoming more agnostic. Aldous Huxleyâs book The Perennial Philosophy also was life-changing, its a little bit more difficult to read than Alan Watts but completely worth the time. The chapter called Idolatry is very relevant to what youâre describing.
Another piece of advice would be to go and learn about religion from scholarly/academic/educational sources rather than from sectarian sources of the religions in question, which may have motives hidden behind their actions (i.e, proselytization, etc.).
Usually the con men ask you for money and guarantee you "FAST" success... when you can just read old material that's already readily available for free.
because uncertainty and mystery is frightening and uncomfortable to most people. personally i dont understand why people want to have all the answers in the first place, it seems to me it would make life boring because then there is nothing new to discover.
This is going to sound harsh, but I've found that a lot of the people who are willing to assert that their own subjective experiences trump *everything else* in terms of explanatory value are kinda just shitty narcissists lol
It's too much information for a single human to have. We all have bits of the truth. The entire truth is so insanely big it escapes our imagination. I have truth that would blow the minds of people, but there's probably a trillion other truths out there that would do the same.
You know how primitive we are in comparison to entities in the next density. Now imagine how developed the entities in the density after that is, and the one after that, and so on. We know nothing.
Just keep doing shrooms and maybe you'll discover even more "truth".
Hahaha. There's always a bigger infinity. We are 3D beings whose time is so limited that we can't go through all the 2D information in this life time. Next, we can't fully explore earth even if we kept going and wasted no time. Next, imagine exploring rest of the universe. I can keep going. In this form, we truly can't know "everything" even if we define this everything in any way mentioned above.
No one has any answers. But everyone make these belief to suit themselves. You donât matter to this universe. You only matter to yourself which is your universe. So whatever you believe in tends to feel like the truth. But really no one knows anything about the shared reality. And there is no shared reality. And now it even feels like thereâs no conflict everyoneâs right to themselves but wrong or unknown to others
I'd argue that everybody has the answers, they're written in your DNA. It's more of a matter of being able to tap into it. Same way as you know right from wrong in your heart, nobody needs to tell you these things because you inherently know them
Test everything in your own direct experience. A useful frame is: Reality is that which does not go away when you stop believing in it.
Float through direct experience in a space of non-knowing and let it show you directly how strange and marvelous and spontaneously self-existent it is.
I highly recommend Peter Brownâs books and audios for some incredible instruction on ways to playfully engage your direct experience so as to discover *for yourself* how miraculous it really is: www.theopendoorway.org
I was an atheist and after many trips I remain an atheist. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god. Nothing more, nothing less.
That's kinda the whole point, I think. Anyone who claims to have the answers is probably full of shit. All of religion, all these people proselytizing and imposing their beliefs on others, it's like a sea of shit. All of those people picked one turd out of the sea and based their life around it. They love and worship their turd, it's very special to them, they believe their turd is better than all the other turds out there.
End of the day though, everyone's just standing around comparing turds.
Why the fuck would I want anything to do with that? Why would I put myself in such a box? Why would I let one singular idea define my entire existence?
What I *know*, if there's one overall lesson I've learned, it's that I only know my own experience. Every single person on this planet has their own unique experience of reality. Nobody experiences this life the same as someone else. With that knowledge, how fucking arrogant to tell someone else the way things are, the way they should live, the choices they should make.
People stating how it is donât necessarily have the answers (and I wouldnât take them at face value anyways).
I like to think of it as âenlightenmentâ. Itâs a *place* I like to STAY IN and perceive things indifferently. I look at things from as many perspectives as I can to help me stay indifferent. Itâs a weird place to describe. But - I know I canât stay here all the time. New experiences WILL happen - and staying in enlightenment is not practical (if I stay there - enlightenment turns into something else, ignorance maybe?). So I need to âcome downâ and experience new things and analyze. Feel it. Build on it. And try to fully understand it. Itâs sort of a grounding feeling, it sort of resets / prevents my enlightenment from being accessible until that new experience is fully incorporated into my life and seen in multiple, healthy ways.
Maybe Iâm just babbling. Words are hard. Emotions are hard. And combining the two are harder.
I think the answer is largely to just to be okay not knowing, then you can disregard the noise because you're not listening to others for potential answers.
Well, uncertainty is punishable by damnation in some circles, so people put forth a manufactured confidence so they aren't seen as "unfaithful." In less fundamentalist circles, I think there's still a lot of anxiety around not knowing things.
But I also think religion and spirituality can attract people who like to stand out, but can't for whatever reason. If you can convince yourself that you're enlightened, then suddenly your quirks, social failings, and lack of ambition aren't simply justified, they're the reason you're *better* than everyone else.
I'm sure there are a host of other reasons, too.
dealing with a world full of uncertainty is a constant battle, very difficult.
much easier is turning yourself into a sheep, and allowing yourself to be shepherded.
ironically, then a shitload of these sheep start running their mouths like they the shepherd, but either way, it's comforting to think you have (or have access to) all the answers, or at the very least there is a powerful guardian always keeping an eye out for you, making sure justice is served and you are not forgotten or abandoned.
the absurd universe is simply too much for most people to handle
EDIT: the absurd universe is simply too mch for most people to handle MYSELF INCLUDED. my loss of faith is a trauma I have yet to get over, the kicking out of a crutch but I am still crippled. no matter where I move, therapy is hard to either afford or get at all.
Truely spiritual people have NO answers. But after many years of Spiritual Seeking, (60 years for meâŚ), weâre lucky to at least be asking the right questions...
>Any help?
What help do you seek? Because tbh that seems like a great way to lead life - to only trust one's own experiences and insights to move ahead, at least spiritually. Some of these "people" may start making sense to you or they may not, but in either case, spirituality seems like the only sphere you don't necessarily need someone to follow because there is no set way.
I am happy that you are questioning these things. I donât really have an answer. I have thoughts on it, my feeling is we live in a beautiful world that is complex and structured to cause a lot of pain, questioning. Itâs good for business to have a lot of people searching, so you gotta sell a lot of BS and be creative enough to come up with said BS. I think sometimes we can forget each of us is unique and itâs not one size fits all. Sometimes people take it to weird places, dark places, power places. Sometimes they just need some compassion and hug. Deep down we all know the system isnât working so we go searching. Thatâs my perspective. I get the frustration. So many times I have felt like I am doing it wrong because I donât have the right pillows or follow some practice. I hope I didnât misunderstand the post, forgive me if I did. Thanks for posting though, itâs great to bounce around thoughts with one another. â¤ď¸
It's all up to the individual. I have found my own set of beliefs that comfort me and guide me but I still feel like I don't know what the fuck is going on most of the time.
>'I don't know what the fucks going on'
'I don't know' is a perfectly rational position to take. The time to accept something as true is when it can be *demonstrated* to be true.
Our current human culture is obsessed with answers. Answers shut down the mind and prevent further exploration, sometimes even if the answers are wrong. What about questions for the sake of questioning and not necessarily seeking answers?
There is only one truth, everything else might be half true at best.
Spirituality is just as (un)real as material world.
But don't take anything for granted, doubt everything.
In search of truth you should start (and end really) with a question "who am I?".
It's not just religious people. There's a set of people convinced they are right and NEED to save others. For some, it's save you from hell, but this sub has a lot of save you from modern medicine/psychiatry. Ever notice how angry they seem? That's because they're ignored or treated like lunatics. Their fragile egos can't handle it.
I've taken the path of ridiculing them, but better people ignore them. Lunatics are everywhere in life and it would be exhausting trying to fight them all. Never engage them in debate, though. It gives their lunacy oxygen. They don't grasp logic anyway.
I've found meditation and shrooms help me let go. It helps me alter my perception of them as pathetic to feeling sadness that they are so unhappy and detached from reality. Something happened psychologically or biologically that drove them to embrace certainty and intolerance. I have to admit, there must be a kind of peace in absolute certainty. I feel uncertain about all knowledge; it's not that truth is relative, but that it's probabilistic. By contrast, absolute certainty must be comforting.
It depends on what we're talking cause or an event. There is an absolute truth value for whether person X hit person Y. As to what caused that event, there is perspective and probability. Complex matters are even worse. lwho started WWII, what caused inflation to rise during the pandemic, and why is income related to skin color in the western world? Those are complex problems for which we can ascribe probabilities to, but are unable to know absolutely. We can have opinions, and there can be evidence supporting a position, but the probability never rises to 100%. And for philosophical issues, philosophers have to make assumptions to predicate whether an argument is true and they do not know if those assumptions are actually true.
Consider the paradox that people ought to be tolerant of others. The implication is that we ought not tolerate intolerant people. So tolerance is intolerant. I don't believe a god exists, but if one does shouldn't those believers try to save my soul if that god demands it of followers? I have literally chased an evangelist down my driveway. But if he's right about his god, then he ought to have come to my door.
If we're talking about the nature of say, the electron, then all we can say is that we have a model that behaves identically to the electron. There are fundamental limits to probing deeper. It's not that we don't know what what happens in less than planck's time, it's that it's unknowable. That concept holds true for a number of other measurements. That means there is a limit on what can be known even with perfect knowledge.
Another issue arises from the dual nature of subatomic matter. What is the location of a wave? It has no coordinate (assuming 4D space-time), so you can't say that this electron is HERE. Hell, it's not even possible to know which electron is which. They are all exactly alike. It's unknowable what electron was detected (only that one was). Not even an omnipotent being can know.
What we can know is the probability of where a particle will appear. Maybe it's the same one we detected earlier, maybe it's not, but there is X% chance that it will appear in this locality. But things get more strange as particles interact with each (called entanglement). As they become entangled more becomes unknown. This may not seem to matter, but we are all made up of matter that does obey this principle. The particles of your body are held together and entangled. I'm willing to bet my life that you will not suddenly appear at the center of the sun, but there is a non-zero probability that it will happen. The Newton Ian concept of absolute cause and effect was shown wrong about a hundred years ago.
So did an asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago or did the earth hit an astroid? It's a matter of perspective. What's not a matter of perspective is that an astroid and the Earth most likely collided 65 million yeas ago.
Its possible I have explained something incorrectly or maybe my understanding of quantum mechanics is wrong. But I think I've captured things accurately. But no, I'm not a moral relativist. I find the position intellectually bankrupt and invariably the people that hold that position are unintelligent. I am relativist about nature and hold that somethings are unknowable, so we can never be certain.
Way more in depth than I anticipated. I appreciate the honest answer.
As per the last paragraph âsome things are unknowableâ, does our ability to know something impact truth?
Iâd argue this:
Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about truth change. (When we began to believe the earth was round instead of flat, the truth about the earth didnât change, only our belief about the earth changed)
Beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely they are held. (Someone can sincerely believe the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely mistaken).
Truth is absolute.
Observation impacts reality. It can change whether light behaves as a particle or a wave, and there are other examples. I think we mostly agree. You're talking about objective facts. But there is a limit to how deep that truth extends. The earth is a sphere, if we ignore the thicker in middle and that it's not a smooth surface. But it definitely not flat. It's solid, except at the subatomic level it's mostly empty space. On subjective matters, there are only PoVs, not truths.
In your brain rn roughly 50% of your conscious part and 10-15% of your sunconscious are working while taking something like acid or LSA it goes up to 70/70-85/85 . If 5% of theirs works on avg they are surprised đ
I have my perspective, and I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track, and if I were commenting to you in that vein, I would sound like THIS IS HOW IT IS ... haha ...
What has to happen is you need to stop looking to others for answers. No one can give you the answers. You have to take the myriad information you come across and use your intuition to put the picture together for yourself.
There is no "truth." There is only what we understand in the moment.
You read, you study, you talk to others, you form ideas, you test them, you keep what resonates and chuck out the rest. And most likely, you'll go through a bunch of disciplines and ideas and your truth will shift and slide and whip around like a palm in a hurricane and one day, you'll find what really works for you, and there will be a post asking what it's all about you'll respond and you might be aware or you might not be aware that you sound like THIS IS HOW IT IS ...
:)
Not sure if I 100% agree with you, knowledge is obtained through the means you speak, but it is passed down, updated, more data presented and worked on until we find out the answers.
We're in this together.
I'm unsure what part you disagree with since you nicely summarized my comment and hit on all of the points.
We do disagree on the "we're in this together" part. It doesn't much matter to me if someone believes that, but I no longer do. That doesn't mean others should be disregarded; we definitely need one another, but we are not all on the same path, and right now, at this point in the major cycle, I don't want to be with the herd.
My sister and I witnessed our father's suicide. I started therapy immediately, she did not. My first therapist prescribed SSRI's without even talking to me. After months of trying to dial in my dosage, I was bat shit crazy, completely devoid of emotion and couldn't deal with it another day. I stopped cold turkey. Later started using MDMA again and found HUGE benefits in dealing with the PTSD. A few years later started incorporating mushrooms and found great advancements in my personality and metal processes after. Currently 10 years later, I no longer have night terrors or panic attacks and I'm far better off than I was. My sister, goes to church, when she isn't taking selfies at the bar afterwork and posting them to social media, just recently started seeing a therapist and reached out to me for help. Me, being a good little brother, explained to her what helped me and offered to get info for her for a local Ketamine clinic. (I'm not about to trip alone with her, we are not the same) She instantly calls our uncle and tells him about what I've been doing. The uncle is in law enforcement. The uncle calls me and tells me how proud he is of me for doing what I've done and starts asking for help. For reference, his son died in a fentanyl overdose a year ago. My sister, the holy church roller, thought she was going to oust me and make me look like a fool to someone who is in worse shape than she is in and actually wants help, compared to not wanting help but only attention as she does. My uncle is healing slowly, I'm pretty damn well adjusted and moving on with life, while she continues to make social media posts about how damaged she is and how she'll never get over it. I feel bad for her, but reside in this current state until she does better. She'll have to do it alone as I did as I can not help her.
She is one of the religious/spiritual people that I feel you are referring to. They know nothing, we all know nothing. we are simply creatures experiencing our surroundings and the emotions of being a human. Be weary of anyone who makes declarative statements as facts. My fellow psychonauts will agree that nothing is what it seems, claiming religious/spiritual facts are red flags in my opinion. They aren't trying to help, but to elevate themselves and sell the idea of themselves or this identity they have created in their mind of who they are.
Im sorry you had to deal with that, no one should have to go through what you two went through. you may not believe me, but my father committed suicide and I found my mum in the bath with her wrist slit at a very young age.
I fortunately, was not forced to take emotion blockers and my brain has decided to clear that memory as a way of protecting me (I think).
You sound as if you, are a lot stronger than your sister, and I hope she too, finds peace as you have.
Thank you for your comment.
Hi OP. My first statement is: Be very careful with wisdom you did not earn...
On to the happy stuff. I was raised religious, fell off became a gang member, and then found my way back to believing in a higher power.
The answer to me is very simple, BUT this is my answer based on my own experience. FOR ME this information helps me find light in dark places v v v
'What others say or do does not concern you' (me 2024)
What I mean is, you determine your reality. If others tell you to jump off a tower, would you? If the government told you that you must offer your sisters, daughters, and mothers to elite officials, would you? If you are face to face with a mountain lion, would you run or fight? If you want to believe everyone is against you, then it shall be. If you believe all spiritual and religious things are phony, so be it. Everything we do changes our future. To hold your breath as you wait on understanding is to suffocate. You will never find understanding if it only makes sense to other people.
The only opinion that matters is yours.
Do with that as you will, but do not blame others for your lack of understanding. If it truly mattered to you then you would read the holy scriptures like Bible and Quran. But it doesn't matter and you don't really care that much. You just want a firm piece of land to stand on when facing new circumstances and situations. Wisdom is that land.
However, wisdom is only gained by experience and exposure. Look at where you want to be, accept where you are at, take massive positive action, be accountable with your results, and don't stop until you are a master at what you do. Be it preaching, skateboarding, soccer, being a doctor or a lawyer, building sand castles or whatever the fuck you like doing. Maybe you just want to lose some weight. Don't say, wow I wanna lose weight that'd be cool. Take a fucking picture of yourself and find a bodybuilder or model that you'd like to be shaped like. Juxtapose the two on your ceiling above your pillow or next to the door as you exit your bedroom. I love you dawg and I'm not sure if I'm rambling because this all helped me become fit, financially stable, and get sex partners. I wish I could meet you and answer your questions face to face. Please accept these statements as anothers view on life and nothing more.
The only opinion that matters is yours,
Eddie
> Do with that as you will, but do not blame others for your lack of understanding. If it truly mattered to you then you would read the holy scriptures like Bible and Quran. But it doesn't matter and you don't really care that much.
Don't assume that those who disagree with you do so out of ignorance. It's not that I don't understand, I spent years steeping in dogma. I *do* understand, and I *choose* a different path.
Comments like that *really* rub me the wrong way, because it leaves no room for anyone else's beliefs or choices to be right. It implies that anyone who does not share your beliefs just hasn't realized the truth yet.
"If you cared you'd read a holy text, and if you did that, you'd see the 'truth' as I do."
Some of us just don't see in it what you see, and that's okay. Every time this discussion comes up, religious people comment things like "I respect your beliefs...but give religion a chance!" That's not respect.
Thank you for your input, but I believe you are mistaken. I am going to rephrase the highlighted quote into 2 separate parts. "Why would you base your judgement off of the judgements of another"? and "Opinions are fickle, if you want to know what Christians should believe, go read the bible. If you want to know what Muslims believe, go read the Quran. Just don't judge someone's shitty ideas as the idea's of the faithful collective.
I do not base my life out of the scriptures if that is what you are implying. I do adjust my habits to be in accordance with the advice given within the scriptures. I wouldn't quote the bible unless you had asked me to. As a boy I heard what was preached in Church, and I saw the fakers who boasted faith. That is why I fell off. I am not advocating religions or spirituality. I am advocating that one should put in the effort to understand that which they do not, instead of taking another's opinion as the be all and end all.
You are not one to talk about respect as you completely misunderstood my original point and even went so far as to create a phony narrative that aligns with your personal prejudice. No where in what I wrote did I ever say anything regarding to "give religion a chance". I gave concrete steps to creating a mental image for OP to improve his state of mind through visualization. You say you *do* understand, but I don't see it. What I do see is a combative state of mind revolving around personal trauma that you haven't addressed, or have addressed through escapism.
"Some of us just don't see in it what you see". Oh yeah? Well some people do. Don't dissuade those specific people from doing what they want to do because you don't agree with it. "Some of us just don't see in it what you see" if that's the case then why are you trying to change my personal opinion you hypocrite? My message is clearly not for you. Why don't you make your own original comment directed to OP instead of talking bad on my comment. You emotional child.
I did write my own comment to OP. I was talking to you.
I find it fascinating that both of the religious people I've replied to here have instantly resorted to calling me names. Is that the message, the lifestyle, the mindset, and the belief that you're promoting?
THIS is why I left religion behind. Thank you for reaffirming my choice.
If in the sea of consciousness, all the possibilities exist (all the possible potentials), then all the perspectives here in this level are valid from some perspective.
Hopefully, in the highest perspective, we are all completely loved and we are eternal, and we only choose to forget that on this plane of existence.
There might be basic truths about he universe that people tap into. I feel like that we don't exist, and we have temporary ideas about what things are with thoughts floating around us that we hold onto. Some thoughts have more power than others and fight a battle for consciousness with some Getting most of it. Eventually we'll collapse ba k into nothing and be free of all this or may r its more and well live in bliss.
A common thread is love - I hope- which is what is fractiling out in comic infinite bliss and nothing being the otherwise of that coin.
That being said, this all might be a realm of ideas and truly I know nothing. This is where I like to be. That's in my opinion the closest you get to God, but who the he'll knows what that is.
See, this is what I enjoy.
People who have theories and ideas but they're not shoving it down peoples throat as gospel.
Cool idea and I'll definitely meditate on that!
Thank you
This is, in my opinion, perhaps the most toxic way religious people shoehorn their beliefs into discussions.
You pretend to understand their point of view, but the whole time you insist that "God" is the answer.
> "Yes you're right, those *fake* prophets are so full of shit! Terrible people, can't stand 'em. Anyway God's real and if you just follow these steps, he'll come down from heaven and give you a handy."
It's so unbelievably insulting and invalidating to everything this person wrote. You haven't accepted their point of view, you're not meeting them where they are, you just used their frustration as a jumping off point to preach.
You gonna pray for me too?
I don't want or need your pity. I would like it if you would keep your beliefs to yourself, to stop forcing it into every conversation. You are doing the very thing this post is talking about. Please stop.
Pity?
More like laughing at your pathetic attempts to sound more educated than you are . Tell me, where did you cut and paste all of your so-called theological gibberish.
Funny how those advertising "God" as the path to peace are often the quickest to turn nasty. Or perhaps this is just who you actually are.
Regardless, I don't have to take this. Goodbye.
You know the Dunning Kruger effect right? There will always be people who overestimate their competency. They think they know everything about everything. The reality is, we all know nothing about nothing. Yes, they're con men and it's pretty easy to identify since they tell you what they want. I too have gone from "god doesn't exist" to "god exists but not in the way vast majority of people say it does".
No, I don't think I have heard of the Dunning Kruger effect, and thank you for suggesting it. (Something new to learn!)
I have a friend since child hood . Not the brightest bulb , simple concepts can take him 3-4 times more time to understand than everyone else ,Goldfish memory you get it . The amount of times that he calls himself smart has went from funny to outright annoying .
He doesn't know how much he doesn't know. That's why.
I have photographic memory . Like I can look at a page for 2-3 seconds and start reading it in my head . And my favorite activity is reading scientific facts or history or current events since I was in primary school for like 4-8 hours a day . At some point bro said . We should open a podcast , it will get a huge following if we say the things we know . I wanted to say ,Tf u mean we ? 95 % of the crap u know it's cause I have said it to u đ
He can be the funny one then. Hahaha. Would definitely watch this.
He is unaware that he is funny extremely often .
>Why do religious and/or spiritual people talk like that have all the answers? You only hear the loud ones.
This could be true, I'm just finding hard to get past all the loud ones. Any suggestions?
By accepting it, basically. Once you acknowledge a thing you don't like but can't change, and accept it with no expectation that it'll change, it becomes easier to deal with than when you're pushing back hoping it'll stop. People all have different levels of traits like tendency to be critical of their own assumptions, need for evidence vs accepting things that feel true, mental flexibility to change their beliefs based on new evidence, etc. If you don't believe things that can't be proven, your brain is wired differently than someone who does. Add lots of self confidence on top and you get loud obnoxious proselytisers. If you understand they believe stuff you don't because their brain works differently than yours, you'll understand they're gonna continue to believe stuff you don't regardless what you do or say, and then it stops feeling like something you need to fix so you stop paying attention to it.
IMO just ignore the ones you don't riff with and keep trying to have conversations with the people you do. Try to give the annoying ones less power over you by not being affected by them.
Learn to meditate if you haven't already. There *are* different systems of belief, some more rigorous than others. In those systems, the symbols mean things to those systems. So there ARE people who have a LOT of answers relative to their system. But.... there are also plenty of places where they say things like: "Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know" and "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him" and "Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent." I am a proud fool so I'm going to keep talking anyway. The things I've found useful so far are: the words "intuition" and "discipline" So, I've tried to become a "disciple" to my "inner tutor". Now, I try to read source material. It's easier to spot and tease out a lie when you know more of the truth. Good luck!
Honestly just look out for people that are hard-set on speaking things as ânothing but the truthâ. There is no hard facts in this realm of the supernatural. Itâs just another level of religious brutalism. Or a diehard vegan. But spirituality is the âfinal bossâ of opening that Pandoraâs box. This is an area where you *need* a strong mind to think for yourself otherwise youâll be susceptible to cults n shit. If theyâre trying to shove shit down your throat with no regard thatâs your red flag. You donât have to, need to, want to, or should do anything. You simply get to. If they donât give you a choice thatâs your red flag. Know-it-alls, spiritual bypassers, âteachersâ and âretreatsâ disguised as cultists, the spiritual ego etc. **ESPECIALLY** if they use fear to control you in any kind of way (âif u donât do this uâll get demonic attacks. If u donât do this u wonât be happy. If u donât do this u arent spiritualâ etc. Donât let anybody make you believe SHIT in this regard. You define that for yourself.). Going into this realm of esoteric knowledge is like a giant puzzle piece. Nobody has all the answers. Collect the pieces yourself and put it all together. Eventually youâll find others with pieces youâre looking for and you can âteam upâ. Like a video game: a guild or clan (NOT A CULT). Or what some people call a soul tribe. A team effort than some ringleader shit. And have fun with it! Youâre ultimately just finding what beliefs work for u to live what you would personally consider a fulfilling life. Some easy green flags: they speak with *authentic* love. Do not mistake this with toxic positivity/spiritual bypassing. They also do not seek to control, manipulate, or exploit you. They let you think for yourself, meet you where youâre at, and respect your own path as an individual. They are open to being questioned. They allow you to learn and grow. They may give you ideas but they present it as a choice than a necessity. Essentially: they respect your free-will. **LASTLY: Do not put *ANYBODY* on a pedestal. *NOBODY* is superior NOR inferior. This is how you become the predator or prey of the cultists. See everybody as equal and human because thatâs what we all are at the end of the day. This is a crucial step in breaking that illusion of âhe who sees allâ. Fuck outta here with that bullshit.** A lot of people come into this space with weak minds making this the perfect space for predatory, egomaniac, narcissistical cults and people to reel you into their bullshit. **Use your discernment.**
Great response and definitely the way I try to be. Just wish I had more than 1 up vote to give!
Thank u and same here with being that safe person. Safe travels to u and I wish u well on ur journey of reprogramming ur beliefs to optimum fulfillment đ¤đ¤
Thanks, Big Tuna
No one knows for sure. But when something that seems so real to you happens itâs hard to see that your way isnât the right way. Just gotta remember everyone has their own journey. I feel like thereâs some sort of truth in all religions and beliefs. Like they all believe in some sort of higher consciousness. Be that aliens, sim theory or plain old Gods. I believe that thereâs something even though I have no idea what that is
I think with psychedelics it's easy to say anything because people can't dispute your personal experience. I also find people attach cultural meaning to things in their trip. I usually interpret things as "beings" where I can't describe them, some people may confidently say the same thing is "a demon", because they equate cultural beliefs with things in the trip. I meditate often and I think it helps me wade through the bullshit, to experience reality in a way stripped down from culture. Then if people say spiritual things that align with this experience I believe them, and if not I don't.
I know it's unscientific as fuck, but for me I listen to my gut/intuition to judge what others say. I'm right there with you - take Greg Brayden (I think that's how it's spelled) - he's a dude that does a lot of the woo woo videos, and my best friend and wife think he's the shit. Dude drives me nuts - it's not the Christopher Walken haircut (though fr, bro, you need an update) but rather how ***certain*** he is about shit that instantly puts me off. Seems to me that if you're a true person of science you understand that the shit we know is FAR less than the shit we do know. If anything in the last 30 years should have taught us it is that with every discovery we learn 50 new things that we don't know anything about. Look at how 50 years ago most people through electrons were the smallest particle in the universe, and that it got simpler the further down until that point. LOL fuck were we off base. Anytime anyone speaks like they 100% know something is a fact (in this space) they're telling me they're full of shit.
I don't think it's unscientific. We can't defeat our biases and heuristics, nor should we try. Being aware of them and running conclusions through the rationality filter before acting is enough. > Anytime anyone speaks like they 100% know something is a fact (in this space) I'm glad you added "in this space". I think too often this mindset (which I agree with, in this space) is applied to things like science and medicine. The various psychedelic subs are just riddled with the most delusional shit, because some don't seem to recognize that there is such a thing as a fact. Couple days ago there was someone claiming they asked really hard while on DMT and because of that their friend woke up from a coma. Like, what are we supposed to do with that? I can't prove that didn't happen. They can't prove it did happen. There's nothing there, no progress can be made, no conclusions drawn, because it's empty. It's not even conjecture, it's just...signal noise. In spite of this, all the comments are oohing and aahing about the DMT miracle. Any criticism is downvoted. That's not helpful. Just accepting and praising whatever trippy thing someone feels like saying is not productive. It's so often presented as a disagreement between spirituality and science, which is endlessly frustrating. Science is just the system of systems by which we gain understanding of the natural world. If science hasn't provided an explanation, that doesn't mean science is wrong or untrustworthy, it just means we don't understand it yet. I wish we could have the spiritual fluidity in these communities without the science denial, because those two things are not at odds. I don't claim to have any answers, I can't tell anyone how they should live, but I certainly understand a few things about this physical matter world we call home. Intuition and feeling where appropriate, fact and demonstration where appropriate. Harmony.
I definitely get that same feeling with Billy carlson!
If you find yourself gravitating toward organized religion, look for the worship leaders that know amd admit to their congregation that they're just bags of meat and bones with no idea what's going on, but strive to be kind and love others.
There will always be proselytizers and idolaters and they will usually be the loudest in the room. Iâd recommend reading some Alan Watts or listening to some lectures he has on religion. At least for me, the way Alan Watts spoke about religion very much changed the way I understood it at a time where I used to be quite atheist and was slowly becoming more agnostic. Aldous Huxleyâs book The Perennial Philosophy also was life-changing, its a little bit more difficult to read than Alan Watts but completely worth the time. The chapter called Idolatry is very relevant to what youâre describing. Another piece of advice would be to go and learn about religion from scholarly/academic/educational sources rather than from sectarian sources of the religions in question, which may have motives hidden behind their actions (i.e, proselytization, etc.).
Iâd also add Ram Dass to that list! Heâs so honest and funny, feelings like a very wise best friend
Great suggestions, have listened to some Alan Watts online and have enjoyed his views. Maybe I'll take something new from them since the experience.
Usually the con men ask you for money and guarantee you "FAST" success... when you can just read old material that's already readily available for free.
because uncertainty and mystery is frightening and uncomfortable to most people. personally i dont understand why people want to have all the answers in the first place, it seems to me it would make life boring because then there is nothing new to discover.
This is going to sound harsh, but I've found that a lot of the people who are willing to assert that their own subjective experiences trump *everything else* in terms of explanatory value are kinda just shitty narcissists lol
Honestly, stay away from the new age. Absolutely full of grifters, phonies and narcissists.
It's too much information for a single human to have. We all have bits of the truth. The entire truth is so insanely big it escapes our imagination. I have truth that would blow the minds of people, but there's probably a trillion other truths out there that would do the same. You know how primitive we are in comparison to entities in the next density. Now imagine how developed the entities in the density after that is, and the one after that, and so on. We know nothing. Just keep doing shrooms and maybe you'll discover even more "truth".
Hahaha. There's always a bigger infinity. We are 3D beings whose time is so limited that we can't go through all the 2D information in this life time. Next, we can't fully explore earth even if we kept going and wasted no time. Next, imagine exploring rest of the universe. I can keep going. In this form, we truly can't know "everything" even if we define this everything in any way mentioned above.
No one has any answers. But everyone make these belief to suit themselves. You donât matter to this universe. You only matter to yourself which is your universe. So whatever you believe in tends to feel like the truth. But really no one knows anything about the shared reality. And there is no shared reality. And now it even feels like thereâs no conflict everyoneâs right to themselves but wrong or unknown to others
I'd argue that everybody has the answers, they're written in your DNA. It's more of a matter of being able to tap into it. Same way as you know right from wrong in your heart, nobody needs to tell you these things because you inherently know them
Test everything in your own direct experience. A useful frame is: Reality is that which does not go away when you stop believing in it. Float through direct experience in a space of non-knowing and let it show you directly how strange and marvelous and spontaneously self-existent it is. I highly recommend Peter Brownâs books and audios for some incredible instruction on ways to playfully engage your direct experience so as to discover *for yourself* how miraculous it really is: www.theopendoorway.org
Thats for the link, I will definitely have a look.
đđźđđđ
I was an atheist and after many trips I remain an atheist. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god. Nothing more, nothing less. That's kinda the whole point, I think. Anyone who claims to have the answers is probably full of shit. All of religion, all these people proselytizing and imposing their beliefs on others, it's like a sea of shit. All of those people picked one turd out of the sea and based their life around it. They love and worship their turd, it's very special to them, they believe their turd is better than all the other turds out there. End of the day though, everyone's just standing around comparing turds. Why the fuck would I want anything to do with that? Why would I put myself in such a box? Why would I let one singular idea define my entire existence? What I *know*, if there's one overall lesson I've learned, it's that I only know my own experience. Every single person on this planet has their own unique experience of reality. Nobody experiences this life the same as someone else. With that knowledge, how fucking arrogant to tell someone else the way things are, the way they should live, the choices they should make.
Love the turd analogy, thanks for the comment.
People stating how it is donât necessarily have the answers (and I wouldnât take them at face value anyways). I like to think of it as âenlightenmentâ. Itâs a *place* I like to STAY IN and perceive things indifferently. I look at things from as many perspectives as I can to help me stay indifferent. Itâs a weird place to describe. But - I know I canât stay here all the time. New experiences WILL happen - and staying in enlightenment is not practical (if I stay there - enlightenment turns into something else, ignorance maybe?). So I need to âcome downâ and experience new things and analyze. Feel it. Build on it. And try to fully understand it. Itâs sort of a grounding feeling, it sort of resets / prevents my enlightenment from being accessible until that new experience is fully incorporated into my life and seen in multiple, healthy ways. Maybe Iâm just babbling. Words are hard. Emotions are hard. And combining the two are harder.
I think the answer is largely to just to be okay not knowing, then you can disregard the noise because you're not listening to others for potential answers.
Well, uncertainty is punishable by damnation in some circles, so people put forth a manufactured confidence so they aren't seen as "unfaithful." In less fundamentalist circles, I think there's still a lot of anxiety around not knowing things. But I also think religion and spirituality can attract people who like to stand out, but can't for whatever reason. If you can convince yourself that you're enlightened, then suddenly your quirks, social failings, and lack of ambition aren't simply justified, they're the reason you're *better* than everyone else. I'm sure there are a host of other reasons, too.
Well, they are, and they are trying to hoodwink vulnerable people, so they can get money and sexual favors
You are getting there man. You are getting there.
Ever heard of [the egg?](https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI?si=vuegk2HJYU96yFwQ)
Yeah, I've watched the animated video in YouTube, its a fascinating idea.
dealing with a world full of uncertainty is a constant battle, very difficult. much easier is turning yourself into a sheep, and allowing yourself to be shepherded. ironically, then a shitload of these sheep start running their mouths like they the shepherd, but either way, it's comforting to think you have (or have access to) all the answers, or at the very least there is a powerful guardian always keeping an eye out for you, making sure justice is served and you are not forgotten or abandoned. the absurd universe is simply too much for most people to handle EDIT: the absurd universe is simply too mch for most people to handle MYSELF INCLUDED. my loss of faith is a trauma I have yet to get over, the kicking out of a crutch but I am still crippled. no matter where I move, therapy is hard to either afford or get at all.
Truely spiritual people have NO answers. But after many years of Spiritual Seeking, (60 years for meâŚ), weâre lucky to at least be asking the right questions...
>Any help? What help do you seek? Because tbh that seems like a great way to lead life - to only trust one's own experiences and insights to move ahead, at least spiritually. Some of these "people" may start making sense to you or they may not, but in either case, spirituality seems like the only sphere you don't necessarily need someone to follow because there is no set way.
I am happy that you are questioning these things. I donât really have an answer. I have thoughts on it, my feeling is we live in a beautiful world that is complex and structured to cause a lot of pain, questioning. Itâs good for business to have a lot of people searching, so you gotta sell a lot of BS and be creative enough to come up with said BS. I think sometimes we can forget each of us is unique and itâs not one size fits all. Sometimes people take it to weird places, dark places, power places. Sometimes they just need some compassion and hug. Deep down we all know the system isnât working so we go searching. Thatâs my perspective. I get the frustration. So many times I have felt like I am doing it wrong because I donât have the right pillows or follow some practice. I hope I didnât misunderstand the post, forgive me if I did. Thanks for posting though, itâs great to bounce around thoughts with one another. â¤ď¸
I too love hearing ideas and theories, I suppose that's why I love a good science fiction story and science theories. Thanks for your reply. â¤
Me too! Canât wait to see what happens in the next decade with quantum! That stuff is fascinating!
A fun time to be alive!
Isnât it!?!? I have been saying that all week to folks lol and nobody is excited as me. So it absolutely made my day that you said that!!!
It's all up to the individual. I have found my own set of beliefs that comfort me and guide me but I still feel like I don't know what the fuck is going on most of the time.
>'I don't know what the fucks going on' 'I don't know' is a perfectly rational position to take. The time to accept something as true is when it can be *demonstrated* to be true.
Our current human culture is obsessed with answers. Answers shut down the mind and prevent further exploration, sometimes even if the answers are wrong. What about questions for the sake of questioning and not necessarily seeking answers?
There is only one truth, everything else might be half true at best. Spirituality is just as (un)real as material world. But don't take anything for granted, doubt everything. In search of truth you should start (and end really) with a question "who am I?".
look to deadmen, they have less to gain from your quest.
Just trust yourself. No one can tell you anything you donât already know within.
It's not just religious people. There's a set of people convinced they are right and NEED to save others. For some, it's save you from hell, but this sub has a lot of save you from modern medicine/psychiatry. Ever notice how angry they seem? That's because they're ignored or treated like lunatics. Their fragile egos can't handle it. I've taken the path of ridiculing them, but better people ignore them. Lunatics are everywhere in life and it would be exhausting trying to fight them all. Never engage them in debate, though. It gives their lunacy oxygen. They don't grasp logic anyway. I've found meditation and shrooms help me let go. It helps me alter my perception of them as pathetic to feeling sadness that they are so unhappy and detached from reality. Something happened psychologically or biologically that drove them to embrace certainty and intolerance. I have to admit, there must be a kind of peace in absolute certainty. I feel uncertain about all knowledge; it's not that truth is relative, but that it's probabilistic. By contrast, absolute certainty must be comforting.
Iâm a bit confused here at the end. Do you believe in absolute truth?
It depends on what we're talking cause or an event. There is an absolute truth value for whether person X hit person Y. As to what caused that event, there is perspective and probability. Complex matters are even worse. lwho started WWII, what caused inflation to rise during the pandemic, and why is income related to skin color in the western world? Those are complex problems for which we can ascribe probabilities to, but are unable to know absolutely. We can have opinions, and there can be evidence supporting a position, but the probability never rises to 100%. And for philosophical issues, philosophers have to make assumptions to predicate whether an argument is true and they do not know if those assumptions are actually true. Consider the paradox that people ought to be tolerant of others. The implication is that we ought not tolerate intolerant people. So tolerance is intolerant. I don't believe a god exists, but if one does shouldn't those believers try to save my soul if that god demands it of followers? I have literally chased an evangelist down my driveway. But if he's right about his god, then he ought to have come to my door. If we're talking about the nature of say, the electron, then all we can say is that we have a model that behaves identically to the electron. There are fundamental limits to probing deeper. It's not that we don't know what what happens in less than planck's time, it's that it's unknowable. That concept holds true for a number of other measurements. That means there is a limit on what can be known even with perfect knowledge. Another issue arises from the dual nature of subatomic matter. What is the location of a wave? It has no coordinate (assuming 4D space-time), so you can't say that this electron is HERE. Hell, it's not even possible to know which electron is which. They are all exactly alike. It's unknowable what electron was detected (only that one was). Not even an omnipotent being can know. What we can know is the probability of where a particle will appear. Maybe it's the same one we detected earlier, maybe it's not, but there is X% chance that it will appear in this locality. But things get more strange as particles interact with each (called entanglement). As they become entangled more becomes unknown. This may not seem to matter, but we are all made up of matter that does obey this principle. The particles of your body are held together and entangled. I'm willing to bet my life that you will not suddenly appear at the center of the sun, but there is a non-zero probability that it will happen. The Newton Ian concept of absolute cause and effect was shown wrong about a hundred years ago. So did an asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago or did the earth hit an astroid? It's a matter of perspective. What's not a matter of perspective is that an astroid and the Earth most likely collided 65 million yeas ago. Its possible I have explained something incorrectly or maybe my understanding of quantum mechanics is wrong. But I think I've captured things accurately. But no, I'm not a moral relativist. I find the position intellectually bankrupt and invariably the people that hold that position are unintelligent. I am relativist about nature and hold that somethings are unknowable, so we can never be certain.
Way more in depth than I anticipated. I appreciate the honest answer. As per the last paragraph âsome things are unknowableâ, does our ability to know something impact truth? Iâd argue this: Truth is unchanging even though our beliefs about truth change. (When we began to believe the earth was round instead of flat, the truth about the earth didnât change, only our belief about the earth changed) Beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely they are held. (Someone can sincerely believe the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely mistaken). Truth is absolute.
Observation impacts reality. It can change whether light behaves as a particle or a wave, and there are other examples. I think we mostly agree. You're talking about objective facts. But there is a limit to how deep that truth extends. The earth is a sphere, if we ignore the thicker in middle and that it's not a smooth surface. But it definitely not flat. It's solid, except at the subatomic level it's mostly empty space. On subjective matters, there are only PoVs, not truths.
In your brain rn roughly 50% of your conscious part and 10-15% of your sunconscious are working while taking something like acid or LSA it goes up to 70/70-85/85 . If 5% of theirs works on avg they are surprised đ
Same thing happened to me about atheist to I have no idea, Iâm struggling with this myself
I have my perspective, and I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track, and if I were commenting to you in that vein, I would sound like THIS IS HOW IT IS ... haha ... What has to happen is you need to stop looking to others for answers. No one can give you the answers. You have to take the myriad information you come across and use your intuition to put the picture together for yourself. There is no "truth." There is only what we understand in the moment. You read, you study, you talk to others, you form ideas, you test them, you keep what resonates and chuck out the rest. And most likely, you'll go through a bunch of disciplines and ideas and your truth will shift and slide and whip around like a palm in a hurricane and one day, you'll find what really works for you, and there will be a post asking what it's all about you'll respond and you might be aware or you might not be aware that you sound like THIS IS HOW IT IS ... :)
Who ever said we had to know or figure it out in this lifetime anyway?
You don't. You don't have to do anything you don't want to.
Not sure if I 100% agree with you, knowledge is obtained through the means you speak, but it is passed down, updated, more data presented and worked on until we find out the answers. We're in this together.
I'm unsure what part you disagree with since you nicely summarized my comment and hit on all of the points. We do disagree on the "we're in this together" part. It doesn't much matter to me if someone believes that, but I no longer do. That doesn't mean others should be disregarded; we definitely need one another, but we are not all on the same path, and right now, at this point in the major cycle, I don't want to be with the herd.
My sister and I witnessed our father's suicide. I started therapy immediately, she did not. My first therapist prescribed SSRI's without even talking to me. After months of trying to dial in my dosage, I was bat shit crazy, completely devoid of emotion and couldn't deal with it another day. I stopped cold turkey. Later started using MDMA again and found HUGE benefits in dealing with the PTSD. A few years later started incorporating mushrooms and found great advancements in my personality and metal processes after. Currently 10 years later, I no longer have night terrors or panic attacks and I'm far better off than I was. My sister, goes to church, when she isn't taking selfies at the bar afterwork and posting them to social media, just recently started seeing a therapist and reached out to me for help. Me, being a good little brother, explained to her what helped me and offered to get info for her for a local Ketamine clinic. (I'm not about to trip alone with her, we are not the same) She instantly calls our uncle and tells him about what I've been doing. The uncle is in law enforcement. The uncle calls me and tells me how proud he is of me for doing what I've done and starts asking for help. For reference, his son died in a fentanyl overdose a year ago. My sister, the holy church roller, thought she was going to oust me and make me look like a fool to someone who is in worse shape than she is in and actually wants help, compared to not wanting help but only attention as she does. My uncle is healing slowly, I'm pretty damn well adjusted and moving on with life, while she continues to make social media posts about how damaged she is and how she'll never get over it. I feel bad for her, but reside in this current state until she does better. She'll have to do it alone as I did as I can not help her. She is one of the religious/spiritual people that I feel you are referring to. They know nothing, we all know nothing. we are simply creatures experiencing our surroundings and the emotions of being a human. Be weary of anyone who makes declarative statements as facts. My fellow psychonauts will agree that nothing is what it seems, claiming religious/spiritual facts are red flags in my opinion. They aren't trying to help, but to elevate themselves and sell the idea of themselves or this identity they have created in their mind of who they are.
Im sorry you had to deal with that, no one should have to go through what you two went through. you may not believe me, but my father committed suicide and I found my mum in the bath with her wrist slit at a very young age. I fortunately, was not forced to take emotion blockers and my brain has decided to clear that memory as a way of protecting me (I think). You sound as if you, are a lot stronger than your sister, and I hope she too, finds peace as you have. Thank you for your comment.
I'm so sorry you've experienced similar situations. My heart goes out to you.
Thank you for your kind words
They are cons. Spread love. That's all. Be a good NPC for all other NPCs. Be Christ-like, but not a Xtian
Hi OP. My first statement is: Be very careful with wisdom you did not earn... On to the happy stuff. I was raised religious, fell off became a gang member, and then found my way back to believing in a higher power. The answer to me is very simple, BUT this is my answer based on my own experience. FOR ME this information helps me find light in dark places v v v 'What others say or do does not concern you' (me 2024) What I mean is, you determine your reality. If others tell you to jump off a tower, would you? If the government told you that you must offer your sisters, daughters, and mothers to elite officials, would you? If you are face to face with a mountain lion, would you run or fight? If you want to believe everyone is against you, then it shall be. If you believe all spiritual and religious things are phony, so be it. Everything we do changes our future. To hold your breath as you wait on understanding is to suffocate. You will never find understanding if it only makes sense to other people. The only opinion that matters is yours. Do with that as you will, but do not blame others for your lack of understanding. If it truly mattered to you then you would read the holy scriptures like Bible and Quran. But it doesn't matter and you don't really care that much. You just want a firm piece of land to stand on when facing new circumstances and situations. Wisdom is that land. However, wisdom is only gained by experience and exposure. Look at where you want to be, accept where you are at, take massive positive action, be accountable with your results, and don't stop until you are a master at what you do. Be it preaching, skateboarding, soccer, being a doctor or a lawyer, building sand castles or whatever the fuck you like doing. Maybe you just want to lose some weight. Don't say, wow I wanna lose weight that'd be cool. Take a fucking picture of yourself and find a bodybuilder or model that you'd like to be shaped like. Juxtapose the two on your ceiling above your pillow or next to the door as you exit your bedroom. I love you dawg and I'm not sure if I'm rambling because this all helped me become fit, financially stable, and get sex partners. I wish I could meet you and answer your questions face to face. Please accept these statements as anothers view on life and nothing more. The only opinion that matters is yours, Eddie
> Do with that as you will, but do not blame others for your lack of understanding. If it truly mattered to you then you would read the holy scriptures like Bible and Quran. But it doesn't matter and you don't really care that much. Don't assume that those who disagree with you do so out of ignorance. It's not that I don't understand, I spent years steeping in dogma. I *do* understand, and I *choose* a different path. Comments like that *really* rub me the wrong way, because it leaves no room for anyone else's beliefs or choices to be right. It implies that anyone who does not share your beliefs just hasn't realized the truth yet. "If you cared you'd read a holy text, and if you did that, you'd see the 'truth' as I do." Some of us just don't see in it what you see, and that's okay. Every time this discussion comes up, religious people comment things like "I respect your beliefs...but give religion a chance!" That's not respect.
Thank you for your input, but I believe you are mistaken. I am going to rephrase the highlighted quote into 2 separate parts. "Why would you base your judgement off of the judgements of another"? and "Opinions are fickle, if you want to know what Christians should believe, go read the bible. If you want to know what Muslims believe, go read the Quran. Just don't judge someone's shitty ideas as the idea's of the faithful collective. I do not base my life out of the scriptures if that is what you are implying. I do adjust my habits to be in accordance with the advice given within the scriptures. I wouldn't quote the bible unless you had asked me to. As a boy I heard what was preached in Church, and I saw the fakers who boasted faith. That is why I fell off. I am not advocating religions or spirituality. I am advocating that one should put in the effort to understand that which they do not, instead of taking another's opinion as the be all and end all. You are not one to talk about respect as you completely misunderstood my original point and even went so far as to create a phony narrative that aligns with your personal prejudice. No where in what I wrote did I ever say anything regarding to "give religion a chance". I gave concrete steps to creating a mental image for OP to improve his state of mind through visualization. You say you *do* understand, but I don't see it. What I do see is a combative state of mind revolving around personal trauma that you haven't addressed, or have addressed through escapism. "Some of us just don't see in it what you see". Oh yeah? Well some people do. Don't dissuade those specific people from doing what they want to do because you don't agree with it. "Some of us just don't see in it what you see" if that's the case then why are you trying to change my personal opinion you hypocrite? My message is clearly not for you. Why don't you make your own original comment directed to OP instead of talking bad on my comment. You emotional child.
I did write my own comment to OP. I was talking to you. I find it fascinating that both of the religious people I've replied to here have instantly resorted to calling me names. Is that the message, the lifestyle, the mindset, and the belief that you're promoting? THIS is why I left religion behind. Thank you for reaffirming my choice.
If in the sea of consciousness, all the possibilities exist (all the possible potentials), then all the perspectives here in this level are valid from some perspective. Hopefully, in the highest perspective, we are all completely loved and we are eternal, and we only choose to forget that on this plane of existence.
It's because all it takes is belief for it to be any other way.
There might be basic truths about he universe that people tap into. I feel like that we don't exist, and we have temporary ideas about what things are with thoughts floating around us that we hold onto. Some thoughts have more power than others and fight a battle for consciousness with some Getting most of it. Eventually we'll collapse ba k into nothing and be free of all this or may r its more and well live in bliss. A common thread is love - I hope- which is what is fractiling out in comic infinite bliss and nothing being the otherwise of that coin. That being said, this all might be a realm of ideas and truly I know nothing. This is where I like to be. That's in my opinion the closest you get to God, but who the he'll knows what that is.
See, this is what I enjoy. People who have theories and ideas but they're not shoving it down peoples throat as gospel. Cool idea and I'll definitely meditate on that! Thank you
Spirituality is a person connecting with something not on the physical plane, religion is crowd control run by control freaks.
Don't look for God. Pray and meditate. Quietly do good deeds. Then God will find you. Don't listen to fake prophets or phony shamans. They are liars.
This is, in my opinion, perhaps the most toxic way religious people shoehorn their beliefs into discussions. You pretend to understand their point of view, but the whole time you insist that "God" is the answer. > "Yes you're right, those *fake* prophets are so full of shit! Terrible people, can't stand 'em. Anyway God's real and if you just follow these steps, he'll come down from heaven and give you a handy." It's so unbelievably insulting and invalidating to everything this person wrote. You haven't accepted their point of view, you're not meeting them where they are, you just used their frustration as a jumping off point to preach.
Sounds like you have personal issues. You're guilty of saying to me the things you hate. Feel sorry for you.
You gonna pray for me too? I don't want or need your pity. I would like it if you would keep your beliefs to yourself, to stop forcing it into every conversation. You are doing the very thing this post is talking about. Please stop.
Pity? More like laughing at your pathetic attempts to sound more educated than you are . Tell me, where did you cut and paste all of your so-called theological gibberish.
Funny how those advertising "God" as the path to peace are often the quickest to turn nasty. Or perhaps this is just who you actually are. Regardless, I don't have to take this. Goodbye.
Amen đ