what I believe...

[texan]

Well I guess it's time to lay it on the table, to let things out in the open.

What I believe is strongly based on what I feel, for I think that our nature is born from our beginnings. Like all of nature's creations we have instincts, but unlike most others, most are intellectual instincts rather than ones rooted in basic survival. And at our core, we have a need to define who we are and where we come from. Why is this? Why do we feel an inexorable need to transcend the basics of father and mother, to find something greater than that in which we can attach our reasoning to? I believe it's fundamental proof of something larger, that in ourselves is the key to unlocking a mystery that's both unsolvable and, at the same time, part of our basic needs.

Us humans find solice in a higher power, and we find this because it's built in, an instinct if you will. Now you can debate the origins of this until you are blue in the face, but at the end of the day, we have this instinct, this drive, and there's no scientific explanation for it. Of course I submit a different angle, that our instincts toward this goal are driven by it's truth, by the Creator's seed in us all. I myself am on a spritual journey, trying to find my true North (what I call enlightenment).

And this is my reason for being, my core. I have studied the world's religions, the Science, the Bible, the Eastern thought, the Western thought. And through all this I have not found my true North. I feel as though I am a compass, irreversably drawn to a single point, yet unsure of where this is or what lies beyond. I am, at this point, as unsure of things as ever, yet buried deep within is the knowledge that there is one True path, and that all other paths are merely distractions to my journey. So I'd like all of us, the Christians, Athiests, Agnostics and Dualists; share your thoughts on this concept, enlighten us all on your experiences and beliefs (or lack thereof) on this subject. Peace!

[Heep]

whoa...that's deep, man

I see what you're saying though...everybody eventually feels best believing what they want to believe, whether it's a higher power or that we can do whatever we want. Everybody thinks that everyone else should share their viewpoint, I'm guilty of it too. But I think you should believe what you yourself want to believe.

[JD@af]

Yeah man, I'm on the same page. I often wonder how it is that some people I talk to look at me like I have 6 heads when I try to introduce my thoughts on this subject matter. Do some fail to attempt to analyze their lives and the world we live in? Do they not wonder about who they are and why? And I don't know if I should feel pity or envy for their disposition.

I too have been a little lost since I graduated college. The girl I thought I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with informed me in my last week of college that she had other plans. I think this is when it all started. I kissed her good-bye, and let her walk right out of my life. While now I no longer think she was the one for me, I am on a journey to find where I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to be doing. For the first time in my life, I did not have a path set out before me. It wasn't you go to high school, and then college... etc. I had a world of freedom at my fingertips, and that's pretty overwhelming considering the options that lay before me. My path may be different than that of many others, but the goal is the same. I want to know, like you said, what my true north is.

I have questioned life, and purpose, and why I am here. This outlook has made me selfish, and I refuse to let much of anyone get close to me, just because I can't stand to think about them or their problems when I am so overwhelmed with my own. It's like you said about finding meaning, about trying to "find something greater than that in which we can attach our reasoning to." Every so often, I am struck by something meaningful, that says something to me, that others often fail to recognize. Many read the book Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, and like me found it to be an important and life-shaping work. Believe it or not, seeing the movie Fight Club was also like this for me. Somehow it made sense to me.

I think my big problem is that I look at society, and the world that I live in, and I can not help but wonder why am I supposed to live this way? What makes this correct, and the ways of others somehow estranged by the narrow-minded people one encounters in most walks of our society. I wonder if we have any business getting married, and working jobs from 9 to 5. Somehow there must be more to life than this. These courses of action strike me as ideal for complacent sheep, eager to eak their ways through life, and wake up dead one day, not for the species we have evolved into (sorry, no creationist here).

We started out as nomads, driven by the instinct of survival like all other animals. Look at us. We have removed that survivalist instinct from our lives for the most part. I feel that this may be the route of many of our problems, and why some people who wonder too much are left scratching their heads at the paradigm of convention living. I am finding meaning in pleasure and adrenaline, because at least these are aspects of live that make me feel alive (by the way, tex, where does your love of cars tie into all this? - mine is derived from the rush of going fast, which is better than almost anything else {sex included} to me), now that I don't have mom and dad looking over my shoulder telling me what's right from wrong. I believe that life should be lived by experiencing as much as possible, and that one day, if I can stop seeking and waiting for enlightenment, I will find it. I hope this is coming out all right - I don't think this is exactly what I want to say, it's just intangible and I can't put the feeling into words that serve its true meaning justly.

Is it Hindu tradition that defines Nirvana as the ultimate be-all end-all expression of life? I whole-heartedly agree. But I believe only through a vast array of experiences can this knowledge be acquired. I hope someday it will all make sense.

[MBTN]

Testify!!!!!!!

I my self am on a path to achieving eternal w00tyness, something that is very difficult to achieve.

[Bean Bandit]

I'm too a spiritual guy. I belive that each and everyone has some kind of force that leeds him call it the unconcious or whatever but I'll keep searching 'till I understand what it trys to tell me.

I hope you guys will find your North:bandit:

[Moppie]

Thats some deep stuff JD and Texan.
I can relate to what both of you are saying, and could even find refrences to some of in it in works by diffrent philosophers, so your not the only ones to have doubts about our society, our roles in it, and what we take as meaning for our lives.
Iv spent a long time thinking about this myself, and while I can agree with some of what others have written I am yet unable to define into writing my own thoughts, partly because of thier rather abstract nature and partly becasue there are still being worked on. I still think im to young (only 23) to rarly understand all that there is in life, so I seek out new experiances, new ways of perciving the world around me, (but no Drugs, I want an undistorted perception), then hopefully when I feel I have added enough experiance I will be able to find away of defining it.

I like your concept of seeking a "True North", however I dont agree with it, I feel it's two religeous in its goal, to seeking of a higher being, or a seeking of infinnite existance. I believe our lives our finnite, when I die im dead, any work I complete may survive, but I the being, the existance, will be gone. All I can do untill that point that I cease to exist is to try and live what I think is the best life possible. (and this in a contridictory way is something im still seeking, (although I feel im close).).

:smoka:

[texan]

Only one thing to say here, and that's that the concept of "True North" is not religous at all, but faith based. And all belief structures are firmly rooted in faith, whether it be religous, philosophical, or scientific in nature. It's just my way of saying what feels right deep down to our core, like the Tao (the Way). A way of life, a direction, some meaning to it all, whatever. It's all the same thing when you boil it down, none of us can lay claim to being right other than our faith in our belief structure's inherent truth.

And to be devil's advocate, I could say that due to this fact, the more righteously you believe in anything, the crazier you are. I once had a professor named Jerry who published this simple graph called "The Truth and Jerry's Curve". It plotted your sanity level against how strongly you believe you are right about the workings of the universe and existence... the more correct you thought yourself to be the crazier you were .

[Moppie]

Originally posted by texan
It's all the same thing when you boil it down, none of us can lay claim to being right other than our faith in our belief structure's inherent truth.

So there no absolure truth? And reality is based on our own individual beliefs?

[texan]

Originally posted by Moppie


So there no absolure truth? And reality is based on our own individual beliefs?

Of course there is absolute truth, at least in a logical sense. That's one of the easiest things to prove logically...

Statement: There is no absolute truth.

If its true: That's a paradox. Then there is at least one absolute truth in this world, the statement itself. So it's still false.

If it's false: Well, it's false, and there is at least one absolute truth in the universe. Either way though, it must exist in the logical universe.


What I am saying is that all belief structures eventually boil down to one point of faith, since all have an untestable hypothesis at their core. In my previous example I mentioned religion, philosophy (most of which is religous in nature, so we'll focus on logic based philosophy), and the sciences. All have basic points of faith that are not provable in the traditional sense of the word...

Religion's faith point: A higher power or underlying force creates and sustains all things.

Logical Philosophy's faith point: Logic can answer all the universes' questions, because it's existence is based upon logic.

the Sciences faith point: All questions can be answered by applying the Scientific Method. In the case of all hard sciences, this is the faith point.

For the sciences, it's a big leap too. The Scientific Method is not logically provable, it's not even a logic statement in basic form. It's simply a belief that if you adhere to a certain way of thinking, all your final hypotheses about the universe will be true.


So this is what I mean... whatever it is you believe, I promise you it's core is a basic point of faith. And to comment on the reality point you brought up, of course there logically must be an objective reality. But whether or not we can ever come into direct contact with it has been debated for over a thousand years, and nobody has come to an agreement about it yet. Personally, I think reality is necessarily a subjective thing, one of the fundamental points of intelligent human life is the realization that we have a picture of our universe, and that picture is only completely true for ourselves. It's not in reaching for an objective reality which shows a person's true understanding of his world, it's in the realization that we all see things from a different viewpoint, and while that viewpoint can't always be seen by others, it can be understood. The truly enlightened person is not one who sees reality in it's objectiveness, but one who understands the limitations and beauty of another's reality. Except for the possibility of Jung's "collective unconscious", I believe we are all islands in an infinitely large sea.

[Jay!]

I'm sorry if I back the discussion up a bit, but I wanted to point out the idea addressed in the book/movie Fight Club that our fathers are our models for God. We have pretty much grown up in a generation of absent father-figures. We were on the backside of the baby boom, and that led to a lot of single mothers because of men that weren't ready for families, so they left. And those families that still included the father, miss out on him anyway because typically he works all the time and is never home.

Now, all those, especially young men, that didn't have a father, they don't know what to make of God. God represents a super-father-figure that must not want them either. If they think they are God's unwanted children, then they lose the easiest way to "plug in" to society's rules of right and wrong, to follow the Christian model of good and evil.

I think that few that are like this will find their way out of it. They will be destined to turn out like their (absent) fathers, and to repeat the cycle.

I don't think that turning to God, this Chistian society's God, is the answer. I can only imagine that these folks need a re-socialization to learn how to interact with others ethically and responsibly.

I also don't think the self-destruction, ala Fight Club is the answer, either.

[Dinohunter]

Ok, lets start out here with several faith realizations. For one, I believe the Bible is the most innaccurate book ever written from a historical point of view. There are several things that a lot of hardcore evangelists say that are simply not true. I have been on several digs in AZ, and have seen Carbon dating at work. Its very accurate. Some people dismiss it entirely, and those are the people who are afraid of the truth. I know a lot of harcore jesus heads believe we walked with Dinosaurs. Now let me ask, how so? B/c, if we did, we would be eaten, and not here today. I bet my life savings on it. Second, if that is true, that means Dino's would have to be on Noah's ark. How can dino's co exist with all animals on a ship? It would be total carnage.

There is also great evidence in chaos theory. This is where something can be shot off path by amplified imperfections. Such as golf. You hit the ball in one spot, one direction, and it hits the ground 100m in front of you. But if you hit another one it will not hit the same area. Why? Well the tiny imperfections in the ball, in the club, in the air. All of these small factors become amplified to an extent where it changes everything. Chaos theory is a real theory, and it hit hard in Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I think that everything in life can be described using chaos theory, even religion.

Every religions core is ignorance of the masses. Thats all it is. it was created as a tool in controlling the masses of the land, and easing fears and ignorance. It has been used by kings and queens alike to control people, start wars, and invade countries. Its used today as salvation. There is a god, but its a force. I do not take the bible for what it is, I think its rubbish and no good whatsoever. I think that we are here by chance, and chaos theory proves parts of that. One distinct part is the fact that if that large asteroid didn't hit the Yucatan peninsula, then we would not be here. It was that tiny imperfection that amplified and created us. If the dinosaurs were not extinguished by that asteroid we would not be here. But they were, and they evolved, and more organisms evolved, and eventually he we are. Do you see how we were created like the dinosaurs as an imperfection that was magnified? Its fairly deep in understanding from my point of view.

[texan]

Dinohunter- I have heard that speech before (the basic idea anyways), I have given that speech in my past to others. But that was before I started studying philosophy and other subjects, and before I had any idea what I was talking about concerning Christianity. Now I'm not going to attack your position because it's sharing your beliefs that I wanted in this thread, but I would like to point a few things out.

1) The Bible was not written to contain historical fact, it's a philosophy book, not a history book. Some of the history the Bible speaks of is fact, some is most likely pure fiction intended to simply help the authors in getting a point across. But yes, I do agree that if it's seen as a history book, it's not one of the better ones.

2) Religion's core is not ignorance, it's faith just as I said earlier. Faith like you have for evolutionary theory, faith in the Scientific Method. Perhaps it's a different flavor of faith, but it's no less respectable than your own.

3) Religion was not created to control the masses. That's ridiculous, and we both know it. It's a way of explaining our own existence and that of the universe's, to give direction and meaning to life and sometimes to provide a template for living.


All I want to state, before this becomes a debate between religion and science again, is that there is more than one viewpoint, and at least a little bit of validity to all. Science certainly can't explain everything as of yet, and the Scientific Method will never be able answer the really interesting questions. Logic might be able to, but what if the universe doesn't run on logic 100% of the ime? Or what if there is a higher power? What is it's nature, and is it sentient? Science most certainly can't grasp that concept, lest it be easily quantifyable and explainable through mathematics. Likewise though, if the world just ran on religion, well that would suck. No computers, no understanding of much of our world's inner workings, and the worst of all bad things... no central air in houses!


And as one last thing, I would remind you Dinohunter that people have done horrible things in the name of science just as people have done with religion. That does not make either pursuit any less noble, it simply reflects man's imperfection and should be seen as such. Never dismiss a belief system because wayward individuals perverted it to their own liking.

[Dinohunter]

Here are some arguments:

1- The Bible was indeed written to describe the history of the Earth and how they believe it was created. There is evidence in this by how they describe these things, and how its taught in Catholic school (i went there for several years ). They teach it as a science (mostly) and many people, I will dare to say a good majority take it literally. Thus presenting itself as a history book.

2- Religion, in its earliest form, was used to stop ignorance. Its is incredibly evident in the Norse, Egyptian, Greek, Aztek, Mayan, Incan, Native American, and pretty much EVERY Single religion thats known to man. Some have evolved however and focuse away from that to faith, like Christianity is now.

3- There is evidence in Egypt this was used to control the masses. There is evidence in the area surrounding Thebes (modern day Luxor) of riots before there was an official religion, and Egypt seemed to calm down after this. Remember during the Dark Ages, the Pagans were not controlled, yet the Christians were moved at will by a pope. This was shown in the Crusades as well, when the Pope, at his will, waged war. Thus controlling the masses.

About your other arguments, sure science can't be the cure-all, but can religion? Certainly not. As I have put it before (maybe not here though) religion is the why, science is the how (in life). Its a very simple explanation. Where I get irritated is where people blend them together, taking religion for more than it is worth, and science the same way.

And BTW, science I believe answers more questions now than religion does. In a study done by Drexel University, the higher educated peoples are more agnostic than religious. This is also demonstrated in Einstein abandoning his religion. Does this show anything? In ways it does, but it also shows people are thinking more today, and wanting to find the answers through science, and what is real (at least scientifically).

I myself use the Chaos theory in many many situations, and it works. Anything unexplainable can be rooted back to that theory.

[Moppie]

Originally posted by Dinohunter

I myself use the Chaos theory in many many situations, and it works. Anything unexplainable can be rooted back to that theory.

please enlighten us with an example?


You both made good points about religion, but Dinohunter, by doing so you only reinforced Texans point about seeing things from a diffrent perspective. I went to a strong prespertarian school, and was given quite a diffrent take on Christian thought.
Texan and I see the Bible as a book of philosophical ideas, you see it as a book detailing the history of the world. Its the same book, (basicly) but we all look at from a diffrent angle, and see in it diffrent things. (look at all the diffrent groups out there who claim to be Christian, thier all reading the same book).

posted by TexanAnd to comment on the reality point you brought up, of course there logically must be an objective reality. But whether or not we can ever come into direct contact with it has been debated for over a thousand years, and nobody has come to an agreement about it yet. Personally, I think reality is necessarily a subjective thing, one of the fundamental points of intelligent human life is the realization that we have a picture of our universe, and that picture is only completely true for ourselves. It's not in reaching for an objective reality which shows a person's true understanding of his world, it's in the realization that we all see things from a different viewpoint, and while that viewpoint can't always be seen by others, it can be understood. The truly enlightened person is not one who sees reality in it's objectiveness, but one who understands the limitations and beauty of another's reality.

I happen to agree totatly, however im curious as to how you came to this conclusion? Its talked about in many diffrent philosophys, and Im always looking for overlaps in ideas between diffrent lines of thought.

[texan]

I've come to that and many other conclusions through philosophy, I created my own belief structure awhile back when I was a Philosophy major. Of course it's still constantly changing and I think I've generated more new questions than I have answered, but this is a journey, not a destination.

As a side note, I also think philosophy is horribly overlooked in the school systems. By my way of thinking, it's the single most important and noble field of study one can pursue.