identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.
thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.
his colleague.
I agree with KateWild—sounds logical and more reasonable.
My case is similar.
1) I was raised as an atheist,
2) Then I tried JWism for sometime half-heartedly because of environmental factors.
3) Then I was influenced by Einstein’s views on religion and God—and I believe in God and in the reason He has endowed me with, but not in any religions!
Yet my twin-brother remains where he was in the beginning!
in our personal lives we have experienced that it is the inner elements (thoughts, feelings, emotions ...) that ultimately influence a relationships rather the outer elements (what we say or do)!
these inner elements are more powerful and faster than the outer elements!.
when i was with jws, it is their stubbornness and arrogance that i felt more than the outer elements.
In our personal lives we have experienced that it is the inner elements (thoughts, feelings, emotions …) that ultimately influence a relationships rather the outer elements (what we say or do)! These inner elements are more powerful and faster than the outer elements!
When I was with JWs, it is their stubbornness and arrogance that I felt more than the outer elements. This is a great irony in the case of those who claim that they have monopoly over the truth!
Speciality of truth is that it is always revealed at the right
moment and at the right place-most of the time without the help of an outside
agency. One doesn’t need to be concerned about proving it. You need only to be
concerned with being it and living it. Trying to prove truth reveals
stubbornness.
It’s everyone’s experience:
If we have doubt in what we believe, we feel the need to prove it.
If we do not have any doubt in what we believe, then we are not concerned of proving it to others.
though we can easily dismiss many of jws teachings on many counts, the sad part is that we do not have any alternative.
1) 1) though some of the things bible said may have gone wrong (most of which would not even touch our day-to-day lives), the worst thing it foretold (which very much affects our day-today-lives) has come true: people will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.
(luke 21:26).
Though we can easily dismiss many of JWs teachings on many counts, the sad part is that we do not have any alternative.
1) 1) Though some of the things Bible said may have gone wrong (most of which would not even touch our day-to-day lives), the worst thing it foretold (WHICH VERY MUCH AFFECTS OUR DAY-TODAY-LIVES) has come true: “People will faint from TERROR, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.” (Luke 21:26). Despite all-out résistance and fighting by nearly all the Governments—including the Super Power and NATO forces, terrorism is on the increase!
2)
If we turn to Science, it is also equally DOGMATIC! For example take
a very major subject: the age of earth and life on it. They often prefer to
speak in terms of Billions of years as age of earth, and Millions of years as
age of life on it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution). Yet when we
do some home-work on what scientists claim, we are disappointed! If Homo Sapiens appeared on earth millions
of years ago, what could be the present population on earth? Would it not be UNIMAGINABLY
greater than the present 7.12 billion? Let us start from something concrete,
and go backward! According to United States Census Bureau, world population was 2
Billion in 1927 and 4 Billion in 1974 and will be 8 Billion in 2026. That means
population almost doubles about 50 years.
Now let us make a simple calculation! Though a couple can produce four children in about four years, let us give a too liberal 160 YEARS TO PRODUCE JUST FOUR CHILDREN! Suppose the human tree starts with just 8 people (or 4 couples), and each couple produces 4 children each in 160 years (and then the original couples/parents pass away). Now the history is 160 years old and population of the earth is just 16 (or 8 couples). These 8 couples produce 32 children (or 16 couples) in another 160 years, and the parents pass away. Now the history is 320 years old, and population is 32. If we go on calculating like this, earth’s population will be 17.17 Billion in just 4960 years (160 years x 31 = 4960). [Yet the present population is only 7.12 Billion, and the excess of over 10 Billion would adequately provide room for all those who remained childless for various reasons and all those who died prematurely due to war, accident, diseases … etc]
|
No of couples |
No of children |
No of years |
|
4 |
16 |
160 |
|
8 |
32 |
320 |
|
16 |
64 |
480 |
|
32 |
128 |
640 |
|
64 |
256 |
800 |
|
128 |
512 |
960 |
|
256 |
1024 |
1120 |
|
512 |
2048 |
1280 |
|
1024 |
4096 |
1440 |
|
2048 |
8192 |
1600 |
|
4096 |
16384 |
1760 |
|
8192 |
32768 |
1920 |
|
16384 |
65536 |
2080 |
|
32768 |
131072 |
2240 |
|
65536 |
262144 |
2400 |
|
131072 |
524288 |
2560 |
|
262144 |
1048576 |
2720 |
|
524288 |
2097152 |
2880 |
|
1048576 |
4194304 |
3040 |
|
2097152 |
8388608 |
3200 |
|
4194304 |
16777216 |
3360 |
|
8388608 |
33554432 |
3520 |
|
16777216 |
67108864 |
3680 |
|
33554432 |
134217728 |
3840 |
|
67108864 |
268435456 |
4000 |
|
134217728 |
536870912 |
4160 |
|
268435456 |
1073741824 |
4320 |
|
536870912 |
2147483648 |
4480 |
|
1073741824 |
4294967296 |
4640 |
|
2147483648 |
8589934592 |
4800 |
|
4294967296 |
17179869184 |
4960 |
Their claim of “millions of years” makes no sense!!!
Whom can we trust? Where can we turn to for protection?
once i was talking to myself: religions are all about sacrifices (and rituals), viewing god as a means to get forgiveness of sins and material benefits, and bible is no exception.
yet the foundation of the universe is on the never-failing principle of cause and consequences, something which god will never violate.
forgiveness of sins is a violation of principle of cause and consequencessomething that bible itself ironically upholds in galatians 6:7 and in many other verses!
Purpose of sharing the above information is simple, and good-intentioned!
I have two phases to my life:
1) When I was believing “I am nothing more than material elements—‘I am dust into which I will return.’
2) When I started believing I am an immortal soul in this physical vehicle called body.
When I compare, my present life is better! Because it gives me better control over my thinking, hence on all other actions! I will explain:
You don’t feel like smoothening the road when you have a soft rubber chapel. Similarly, when you have correct knowledge about who you are, all types of experiences in your life become manageable—you will no longer be elated over the pleasant experiences and will no longer be troubled over the unpleasant experiences. Hence first know WHO ARE YOU? Look at yourself for the answer. There is something in you, an invisible entity that observes all the activities of your waking hours. At night, when you enter the deep sleep state of consciousness, this invisible being (your inner self, your Soul) remains constantly awake, and in the morning reports to you on your dream experiences and the blissful oblivion of sleep. You have also observed, in the case of others, that once the Soul leaves its seat, their body turns into a trash! That means you are basically a Spirit Being, and your body is like a costume or a vehicle.
That means the Soul is MORE IMPORTANT than the body. This “true vision” is the key to deal with ALL types of experiences in your life! The soul is THE EXPERIENCER! And experience exists in the EXPERIENCER, hence will vary from person to person [For example: a flower is experienced one way by a lover, devotee, poet, scientist, flower-merchant ….; and some commit suicide at some bad news whereas many others take the lesson from even worst experience and move ahead]. It also means, if there is NO EXPERIENCER, then there is NO EXPERIENCE at all! That means EXPERIENCER is greater than the experience, and is FREE to remain unaffected by any type experience. No matter what happens, you have the freedom to view them in any way you like! If you decide to view all types of experiences as neutral, then they will seem to you as neutral—you will never be overwhelmed by any experience at any time. When the mind says ‘I am hurt,’ you can change that experience by simply changing the thought (which is actually the talk of your mind). Change the talk (“I am hurt”) into ‘I am FREE to view either I am hurt or I am not hurt.’ When you thus change your mind’s talk, you are actually moving into a space above your experience, and will see this experience as one of the past experiences, like traffic on the road being viewed from above a building. Result? Your present painful experience ceases to be painful! It becomes just one of the many NEUTRAL incidents which are connected by the Law of Cause and Consequences!
In reality, all happenings are neutral and connected to each other, like tree containing the seed and seed containing the tree—cause becoming the effect and effect becoming the cause. For example, Traffic increases, and Government decides to construct a new Express Highway! This is a neutral event, and you are neither happy nor unhappy about it. When you come to know that Express Highway is going to touch your city, you are very happy! Then you come to know that Express Highway is going to pass right through your house (which means you have to relocate your house), then you are sad! That means your ego takes a neutral event and interprets it as good or bad depending upon its convenience and limited vision!
In contrast, when you know you are an immaterial soul in this body, you begin to make use of the infinite potential of that IMMATERIAL soul and transcend all the experiences and enjoy them all!
once i was talking to myself: religions are all about sacrifices (and rituals), viewing god as a means to get forgiveness of sins and material benefits, and bible is no exception.
yet the foundation of the universe is on the never-failing principle of cause and consequences, something which god will never violate.
forgiveness of sins is a violation of principle of cause and consequencessomething that bible itself ironically upholds in galatians 6:7 and in many other verses!
Purpose of sharing the above information is simple, and good-intentioned!
I have two phases to my life:
1) When I was believing “I am nothing more than material elements—‘I am dust into which I will return.’
2) When I started believing I am an immortal soul in this physical vehicle called body.
When I compare, my present life is better! Because it gives me better control over my thinking, hence on all other actions! I will explain:
You don’t feel like smoothening the road when you have a soft rubber chapel. Similarly, when you have correct knowledge about who you are, all types of experiences in your life become manageable—you will no longer be elated over the pleasant experiences and will no longer be troubled over the unpleasant experiences. Hence first know WHO ARE YOU? Look at yourself for the answer. There is something in you, an invisible entity that observes all the activities of your waking hours. At night, when you enter the deep sleep state of consciousness, this invisible being (your inner self, your Soul) remains constantly awake, and in the morning reports to you on your dream experiences and the blissful oblivion of sleep. You have also observed, in the case of others, that once the Soul leaves its seat, their body turns into a trash! That means you are basically a Spirit Being, and your body is like a costume or a vehicle.
That means the Soul is MORE IMPORTANT than the body. This “true vision” is the key to deal with ALL types of experiences in your life! The soul is THE EXPERIENCER! And experience exists in the EXPERIENCER, hence will vary from person to person [For example: a flower is experienced one way by a lover, devotee, poet, scientist, flower-merchant ….; and some commit suicide at some bad news whereas many others take the lesson from even worst experience and move ahead]. It also means, if there is NO EXPERIENCER, then there is NO EXPERIENCE at all! That means EXPERIENCER is greater than the experience, and is FREE to remain unaffected by any type experience. No matter what happens, you have the freedom to view them in any way you like! If you decide to view all types of experiences as neutral, then they will seem to you as neutral—you will never be overwhelmed by any experience at any time. When the mind says ‘I am hurt,’ you can change that experience by simply changing the thought (which is actually the talk of your mind). Change the talk (“I am hurt”) into ‘I am FREE to view either I am hurt or I am not hurt.’ When you thus change your mind’s talk, you are actually moving into a space above your experience, and will see this experience as one of the past experiences, like traffic on the road being viewed from above a building. Result? Your present painful experience ceases to be painful! It becomes just one of the many NEUTRAL incidents which are connected by the Law of Cause and Consequences!
In reality, all happenings are neutral and connected to each other, like tree containing the seed and seed containing the tree—cause becoming the effect and effect becoming the cause. For example, Traffic increases, and Government decides to construct a new Express Highway! This is a neutral event, and you are neither happy nor unhappy about it. When you come to know that Express Highway is going to touch your city, you are very happy! Then you come to know that Express Highway is going to pass right through your house (which means you have to relocate your house), then you are sad! That means your ego takes a neutral event and interprets it as good or bad depending upon its convenience and limited vision!
In contrast, when you know you are an immaterial soul in this body, you begin to make use of the infinite potential of that IMMATERIAL soul and transcend all the experiences and enjoy them all!
once i was talking to myself: religions are all about sacrifices (and rituals), viewing god as a means to get forgiveness of sins and material benefits, and bible is no exception.
yet the foundation of the universe is on the never-failing principle of cause and consequences, something which god will never violate.
forgiveness of sins is a violation of principle of cause and consequencessomething that bible itself ironically upholds in galatians 6:7 and in many other verses!
Purpose of my posting the above information is simple, and good-intentioned!
I have two phases to my life:
1) When I was believing “I am nothing more than material elements—‘I am dust into which I will return.’
2) When I started believing I am an immortal soul in this physical vehicle called body.
When I compare, my present life is better! Because it gives me better control over my thinking, hence on all other actions! I will explain:
You don’t feel like smoothening the road when you have a soft rubber chapel. Similarly, when you have correct knowledge about who you are, all types of experiences in your life become manageable—you will no longer be elated over the pleasant experiences and will no longer be troubled over the unpleasant experiences. Hence first know WHO ARE YOU? Look at yourself for the answer. There is something in you, an invisible entity that observes all the activities of your waking hours. At night, when you enter the deep sleep state of consciousness, this invisible being (your inner self, your Soul) remains constantly awake, and in the morning reports to you on your dream experiences and the blissful oblivion of sleep. You have also observed, in the case of others, that once the Soul leaves its seat, their body turns into a trash! That means you are basically a Spirit Being, and your body is like a costume or a vehicle.
That means the Soul is MORE IMPORTANT than the body. This “true vision” is the key to deal with ALL types of experiences in your life! The soul is THE EXPERIENCER! And experience exists in the EXPERIENCER, hence will vary from person to person [For example: a flower is experienced one way by a lover, devotee, poet, scientist, flower-merchant ….; and some commit suicide at some bad news whereas many others take the lesson from even worst experience and move ahead]. It also means, if there is NO EXPERIENCER, then there is NO EXPERIENCE at all! That means EXPERIENCER is greater than the experience, and is FREE to remain unaffected by any type experience. No matter what happens, you have the freedom to view them in any way you like! If you decide to view all types of experiences as neutral, then they will seem to you as neutral—you will never be overwhelmed by any experience at any time. When the mind says ‘I am hurt,’ you can change that experience by simply changing the thought (which is actually the talk of your mind). Change the talk (“I am hurt”) into ‘I am FREE to view either I am hurt or I am not hurt.’ When you thus change your mind’s talk, you are actually moving into a space above your experience, and will see this experience as one of the past experiences, like traffic on the road being viewed from above a building. Result? Your present painful experience ceases to be painful! It becomes just one of the many NEUTRAL incidents which are connected by the Law of Cause and Consequences!
In reality, all happenings are neutral and connected to each other, like tree containing the seed and seed containing the tree—cause becoming the effect and effect becoming the cause. For example, Traffic increases, and Government decides to construct a new Express Highway! This is a neutral event, and you are neither happy nor unhappy about it. When you come to know that Express Highway is going to touch your city, you are very happy! Then you come to know that Express Highway is going to pass right through your house (which means you have to relocate your house), then you are sad! That means your ego takes a neutral event and interprets it as good or bad depending upon its convenience and limited vision!
In contrast, when you know you are an immaterial soul in this body, you begin to make use of the infinite potential of that IMMATERIAL soul and transcend ALL TYPES of experiences and enjoy them all!
once i was talking to myself: religions are all about sacrifices (and rituals), viewing god as a means to get forgiveness of sins and material benefits, and bible is no exception.
yet the foundation of the universe is on the never-failing principle of cause and consequences, something which god will never violate.
forgiveness of sins is a violation of principle of cause and consequencessomething that bible itself ironically upholds in galatians 6:7 and in many other verses!
problemaddict 2, You say: “The brain in the corpse does not think because is decaying matter, not a functioning brain anymore.”
However, there are people whose bodies mysteriously thwart decay. They also have brain intact. Or you take a fresh corpse of a man killed in an accident just a few seconds before. This fresh corpse (which is yet to start the process of decaying) too has brain intact! Yet consciousness is not there! Hence consciousness is not the emergent feature of the brain.
All claims of emergent consciousness are SIMPLY PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS DRESSED UP AS SCIENCE. You can poke holes in this edifice in three crucial ways, teasing apart the idea that consciousness (1) is an emergent (2) property of the brain (3). Emergent
First, “emergent property” is an oft-misused term. With respect to consciousness, it is one of those hand-wavey terms people like to throw around without any substance behind it. Used appropriately, it can refer to an incredibly useful scientific hypothesis. A basic definition is something like complex properties that result from the interaction of simple behaviors. When people talk about emergent consciousness, they show nothing of this sort and therefore don’t answer the how of consciousness. Some crucial questions that “emergence” doesn’t answer, which actual scientific emergent explanations tackle include:
How does consciousness arise from chemical interactions leading to electric impulses?
Why is there consciousness instead of something else?
How does physiology constrain and define this so-called emergent property?
The crucial thing missing here is mechanism. When we talk about real emergent properties, like those of a network, for example, we can show how a specific type of network (e.g., a Small-world network) will emerge in lots of different situations, (e.g., the brain, social networks etc.) because of simple properties that connections between things have: some sort of relationship between viability and proximity. From this, you get lots of local connections and a few non-local ones in certain proportions. Crucially, this makes sense in a mechanistic way where you can understand how the simple properties specifically gives rise to the larger organization and basically only this organization and you can model it — see it happen before your eyes. We cannot say this in the case of brain and consciousness!
once i was talking to myself: religions are all about sacrifices (and rituals), viewing god as a means to get forgiveness of sins and material benefits, and bible is no exception.
yet the foundation of the universe is on the never-failing principle of cause and consequences, something which god will never violate.
forgiveness of sins is a violation of principle of cause and consequencessomething that bible itself ironically upholds in galatians 6:7 and in many other verses!
Cofty,
Neuroscience says thinking is the emergent feature of brain. If that is the case, why does the brain in the corpse not think? Brain is still very much there in the corpse!
once i was talking to myself: religions are all about sacrifices (and rituals), viewing god as a means to get forgiveness of sins and material benefits, and bible is no exception.
yet the foundation of the universe is on the never-failing principle of cause and consequences, something which god will never violate.
forgiveness of sins is a violation of principle of cause and consequencessomething that bible itself ironically upholds in galatians 6:7 and in many other verses!
Once I was talking to myself: “Religions are all about
sacrifices (and rituals), viewing God as a means to get forgiveness of sins and
material benefits, and Bible is no exception. Yet the foundation of the
universe is on the never-failing Principle of Cause and Consequences, something
which God will never violate. Forgiveness of sins is a violation of Principle
of Cause and Consequences—something that Bible itself ironically upholds in
Galatians 6:7 and in many other verses! Hence all religions—including the Bible—make
no sense!”
I got up from the sleep—ACTUALLY I WAS DREAMING, and the above talk was my mind’s talk to me in my dream!!!
“I cannot see my soul” is not a valid excuse. Because I have not seen my own face other than its reflection on the mirror or its picture on some paper/canvas. Though I use my eyes to see others, I cannot see my own eyes. Just like our eyes made of physical elements cannot see our eyes, physical eyes cannot see the immaterial entity that uses those physical eyes! Hence the immaterial soul should be seen reflected in the mirror of intelligence or reason!
That was the beginning of my disassociation with JWs whose one of the teachings is that we do not have an immortal soul!
the scientists at the scripps research institute, california, have almost succeeded in creating the world's first living organism with artificial dna!.
http://discovermagazine.com/2015/jan-feb/43-first-organism-with-artificial-dna.
http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2014/20140507romesberg.html.
Viviane,
I did not mention the source as it was not the subject. Here are some the published materials:
1) NASA’s rating of Sanskrit as the perfect language was published in the 1985 spring issue of AI (Artificial Intelligence) Magazine.NASA researcher Rick Briggs who wrote in it: “In the past 20 years, much time, effort, and money have been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing. These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor. But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a loving spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence.”
2) Interestingly, the very word Sanskrit itself means perfected speech (http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/05/indian-historical-linguistics).
3) “The Sanskrit of the Vedas and the epics has already earmarks of a classical and literary tongue, used only by scholars and priests; the very word Sanskrit means ‘prepared, pure, perfect, sacred.’ (Will Durant says in Our Oriental Heritage p. 406)
4) “No other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality or plan or analytical subtlety. . . a perfect miracle of condensation.” Professor Sir Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 172.
