First off I would like to say, Terry, I really respect your ideas and Thought process. I firmly belive that the human mind is the most powerful tool, weapon and enemy, that we as humans can face (rom 2:15b.) We as humans truly make our own reality. The problem is at a young age we allow others to either set our realities or influence us into a path that is not productive for our life. We are basically raised with ideas and thoughts that do not necesarily mark the course that we should follow. We are raised to chase someone elses dreams and ideals. But, what if they themselves are chasing a ghost. Someone once said in a wedding talk 'Dont take others advice in your marriage, all they are doing is getting you to make the same mistakes that they made.' with such a powerful and sly weapon at our disposal we need to train our instinct as to what is right and wrong for us on an individual level (Disclamor, I am talking about normal people not psychopaths.) I have come to this conclussion after reading the book 'Think and grow rich'. After reading I realized that what we want for ourselves as individuals, is in all of our grasp. The problem is most of us dont realize that we have such power. We grow up or come to belive in life, that God, holy spirit, fate or just dumb luck plays a role in our successes or failures. If you are successful God has blessed you. Have you ever notice that no matter how you advance in the troof that the advancement is acredited to God or holy spirit. But look at the criterior for advancement laid out by the WT$ itself. 1. set a goal for yourself to get more time, 2. develope a workable schedule that you can firmy adhere to. 3.get someone to help you reach your goals. The list can go on but this is the basic formula, now here is the catch...after all the steps are met and laid out they add pray for holy spirit to aide you. So you do the work of setting yourself up for success and then give credit for your success to prayer and holy spirit. By the way that is the basic formula outlined in the book think and grow rich for success in buisness endevers. Armed with the knowledge that we create and influence our own destiny can be both liberating and scary for some. Its liberating in the sense that all things are possible, it gives us a newfound sense of purpose and our own ability. It also can be scary when we realize that we are responsible for our situation in life. Some prefer to hide behind the veil of others stumbling them or getting a bad break in life, the man trying to hold them down. Some due to ingrained beliefs and thought practices find it diffficult to change or take charge of their situation late in life. Well that my take on the mind and how we think. I dont know whether this resolves the paradox you brought up Terry, But it was some what theraputic for me.
HOW DO WE SOLVE THIS PARADOX?
by Terry 61 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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darth frosty
I use Mozilla and I dont know why it wont permit the use of spaces.
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Terry
Terry, when you say 'religion' don't you actually mean 'Christianity'? Not all religions teach that man has a damaged consciousness polluted by sin, that man cannot think and reason own power, etc. So, your very first three statements are wrong....and so, I think your whole first post is, well, wrong.
Sorry.
Please don't hurt me.
-Lisa
Hey Lisa, I won't kick, pinch, snarl or even tickle!
I'm glad you asked why I said "religion" instead of the more specific "Christianity".
Here is why.
Life is about surviving.....and...beyond mere survival (that's a lot, actually) life is about figuring things out to enhance the quality of experience of living.
Humans want a QUALITY experience of being alive!
There are only two ways to obtain useful information how to maximize life experience:
1.Learning from reality-based referents and applying the information in a clever and resourceful way
2.Falling for a decoy substitute "higher-reality" that promises more and wasting time on magic rituals
Reality is mundane. No doubt about it. Mystical and supernatural "answers" are exceedingly exciting to contemplate!
Our life IS OUR TIME SPENT.
If we waste our time on rituals, prayers, incantations, phoney histories and empty motions we squander our most valuable asset.
Any and all religion is a lure to be sidetracked in life.
Whether we contemplate our cosmic navel, crank a prayerwheel, finger beads, zone out in meditations, sniff incense, vibrate our chakra, become one with an enlightened master or kill the buddah on the road----we are fooling ourselves and poisoning the well of our intellect with nonsense.
There is only fact vs a really bad guess to choose from.
The best salesmen in the world are peddling the really bad guess. And worse, they aren't selling it as a really bad guess; no, they are calling it ENLIGHTENMENT, TRUTH, SALVATION, TRANSCENDANCE----and getting rich off the dupes who believe them.
Magic answers can be as thrilling, mysterious or alluring as you want them to be because they are pure imagination.
The fact-based life is just plain ordinary and it is hard work! There are no magic beans you can trade your cow for in the promise of a golden goose.
That is why I said "religion" instead of "Christianity".
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lisaBObeesa
I hear you saying that religion is B.S. You are saying religion is the easy way to live, the more exciting way to live, but is a waste of time because it distracts us from reality and wastes our time that would be better spent doing something else, something real. I hope I got that right.
But you didn't address my point....
....I'm juss sayin'..................
Regards and thanks for not hurting me,
-Lisa
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trevor
Wise words James. You have recommended the book, The Power of Now - by Eckhart Tolle. I have read the book and found it very much along the lines of what you are saying.
Religion is only one illusion. To escape the treachery of the human mind we have to completely separate from our identification with it. This requires the use of a deeper part of us. It is this concept that Terry rejects believing that the thinking mind can square the whole sum through logical thought, backed by tangible evidence. I see the value of this approach but it binds us to total reliance on our thought process. I think the greater the intellect the greater the tendency to rely on it totally.
I find it interesting to knock these ideas back and forth and have enjoyed all the comments on this thread but don't have time to comment further right now, as I am off out.
Be Seeing You
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Terry
I hear you saying that religion is B.S. You are saying religion is the easy way to live, the more exciting way to live, but is a waste of time because it distracts us from reality and wastes our time that would be better spent doing something else, something real. I hope I got that right.
But you didn't address my point....
Let me be more specific, then!
Healthy people don't go to a doctor. If they do they are hypochondriacs. Hypochondriacs spend their time and money on imagined illnesses. They seek out physicians who will take their money and treat them even though there is no ailment to be cured!
Now, think about what religion does. It begins with a premise. That premise in its most basic form is hypchondria.
How so? Religions offers A WAY. A way to do what? FIX YOUR PROBLEM. For you to need to fix your problem you must buy in to the illusion you have a problem and that it is fixable.
Okay? That is step one. What kind of fix are we talking about? What do the religion hucksters offer?
Religions differ; but, essentially they offer at least some of the following:
1.A way out of death
2.Enlightenment
3.A close personal relationship with deity.
4.Super powers
5.A brotherhood/sisterhood support group
6.Superior knowledge of life's purpose
7.Things to do (how to spend your time and money).
THIS MEANS THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU NEED THESE THINGS. IT MEANS YOU CANNOT FIGURE THEM OUT FOR YOUSELF. IT MEANS YOU ARE CONDEMNED TO IGNORANCE UNLESS YOU FOLLOW THE CHOSEN PATH.
This isn't too hard to understand, is it?
The label each religion puts on these things is represented by a different terminology.
Buddhism tells you to stop your desires and do your duty and you'll stop being born/reborn (i.e. death). Christianity essentially bans these desires, prescribes your duty and gives you one rebirth and escape from death.
RELIGION GIVES "THE ANSWER".
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Terry
Not all religions teach that man has a damaged consciousness polluted by sin, that man cannot think and reason own power, etc. So, your very first three statements are wrong....and so, I think your whole first post is, well, wrong.
You are fighting what here?
Is it the premise that religion holds man's rational mind in contempt?
The rational mind relies on nature. Religion substitutes super-nature (the supernatural).
What is the supernatural??
The universe exists--but--the supernatural asserts something more than what exists! Super-nature is existence BEYOND existence! It contradicts knowledge itself and substitutes "enlightenment". What is enlightenment? It starts with a new vocabulary. Each word that refers to reality is unhitched from reality and given a NEW definition. Before you know it your thinking has little to do with life on planet Earth in the Milky Way. Your mind has moved to a fantasy-reality where a new heavens and new earth are ruled (and threatened) by invisible beings with mighty powers!
Jehovah's Witnesses have a special vocabulary that has unhitched from reality. So do all other religions. The purpose of the NEW vocabulary is to snap you into a knee-jerk response you are conditioned to take in place of personal choice based on fact.
When a JW hears the phrase "THE TRUTH" it has an electric circuit that takes them ONLY to Brooklyn New York's version of how things are.
Religion conditions your mind AWAY from reality while insisting the new reality is superior to the old one! There is no way to prove a "super-existence" by inference from existence; supernaturalism can only be accepted by means of dismantling your intellect. That dismantling of your rational mind has a name.FAITH!
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moshe
Religion is a belief system to explain the unexplainable. Until such time as G-d enlightens us today ,we are left to our own explanations using unreliable old texts for a foundation. The Bible and other holy writings served man for 2000 years. We sorely need an update for our times.
Perhaps, if man doesn't go extinct prematurely, we might reach a level of understanding to comprehend the nature of G-d. We might not like what we find out.
peace,
Moshe
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Terry
Religion is a belief system to explain the unexplainable.
I have no problem with provisional theories which include an invisible superintelligence. But, I see no reason to believe it is true. I especially see no practicality in insisting it is true and demanding it be respected as though it were a proven fact.
Religion requires belief for no other reason than there are no provable facts.
It seems weird and suspicious to me that a superintelligent deity plays hide and seek while demanding respect and servitude. More likely the hidden nature of who/what G*D is stems from the endless opinions passed off as dogma and immune to testing.
Science, at least, deals with hypotheticals in a reliable and logical procedure:
1.Nothing is acceptable that cannot be tested and confirmed
2.Any established fact must be assaulted with falsifiability.
Further, any scientific fact must be quantifiable and have predictive boundries to be useful.
Religious "fact" must simply be swallowed like a placebo and then one must hope for the best while pretending all ills are cured.
T.
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lisaBObeesa
Hi Terry,
Interesting posts! I hope you don't get too frustrated by me...
You are fighting what here?
Is it the premise that religion holds man's rational mind in contempt?
No. That is not what I am 'fighting.' My point was that you said in your first post:
RELIGION TELLS US THAT man has a damaged consciousness polluted by sin. "
RELIGION TELLS US THAT man cannot think or reason on his own power.
RELIGION TEACHES US THAT man is easily tricked, confused and misled.
and that is incorrect. Some religions do not teach those things. The Jewish religion does not believe or teach at least the first two of your statements, for example. (Not sure about the third....I will have to check with a Jewish friend.) And so the rest of the post falls apart because it was built on incorrect statements.
Still, I believe I understand your thoughts. Please tell me if I am right. You are saying that Religion starts with the idea that we are broken and need fixing and can't fix ourselves. But in order to get 'fixed' we are supposed to go to Religion that is writen by and run by people, who are, by Religion's own teachings, broken and can't fix themselves.
Religion is a cultural universal. ALL cultures have forms of religion. That is alot of differnt religions, beliefs and ways of looking at the world! From the Hopi Indians, to the Jews, to a small tribe of native people living in the deep rainforest, to western people's Chrisianity or New Age, to the East, and all stops in between. If you are going to argue against ALL RELIGION, you really to have to make sure you are arguing ALL RELIGION. Otherwise, we must call it what it is: an argument against Christianity.
Religions differ; but, essentially they offer at least some of the following: 1.A way out of death 2.Enlightenment 3.A close personal relationship with deity. 4.Super powers 5.A brotherhood/sisterhood support group ; ; 6.Superior knowledge of life's purpose 7.Things to do (how to spend your time and money). ; ; ; THIS MEANS THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU NEED THESE THINGS. IT MEANS YOU CANNOT FIGURE THEM OUT FOR YOUSELF. IT MEANS YOU ARE CONDEMNED TO IGNORANCE UNLESS YOU FOLLOW THE CHOSEN PATH. This isn't too hard to understand, is it?
And on this point, suppose I were to accept that all religions had your 1 through 7 above (I don't, but lets say I did), I don't see how any of them lead to the conclusion you concluded with...in red. above. You are assuming when you make that conclusion. Assuming that all religion teaches that it is the ONLY way. Assuming all religion teaches you can't 'figure it out for yourself.' Not all religions are the Jehovah's Witnesses. Again, religion is a cultural universal. That is, it occurs in ALL cultures, so there are thousands and thousands of belief systems out there, many, quite foriegn to our own. (I don't know how to turn this yellow off, sorry.) My two cents. It has been fun. I try to stay off these threads... lol! I like reading your posts, Terry. -Lisa