Why Subjective Reality Is Delusional IMO

[Tanja]

Originally Posted by zenrealized

What is missing is asking for permission to alter the objective reality subjectively. If this reality is the subjective dream of a super powerful entity in order to change or influence it subjectively you would need permission from the source of it.

But if this reality is a dream of this powerful entity/the dreamer, then like in dreams --you are all avatars in your dreams--so we (OR) are dream avatars of the source. We're the sleeping source.
Wouldn't it be like you asking yourself in your dream for a permission to change something...
Maybe I'm just understanding it wrong tho..

Edit: I went on about it being a lucid dream, who knows why.. But I ask the same question ..sigh..nvm.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by cylon

I used to think that way. That's the elitism of the modern scholar speaking. What you are completely leaving out is the possibility that people had sensed God. Had direct Revelation. You're assuming that all experience is in the intellect. What you aren't considering is that people may have used stories and myth to attempt explain a real phenomenon they were experiencing, that happens to be way beyond any sort of description.

Human wisdom and intelligence didn't only start with the 20th century.

Elitism? I object. I'm just looking at the presented facts. Are we talking about a specific religion or just the idea of a creator?

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Mounds

Elitism? I object. I'm just looking at the presented facts. Are we talking about a specific religion or just the idea of a creator?

You can't just brush aside thousands of years of people's personal experience as "they just didn't know any better". You weren't there, you don't know what happened. You aren't aware of any kind of divine revelation people had. You only share the modern opinion that they were fools and were just trying to understand the world around them.

[MidasGirl]

Originally Posted by Mounds

IMO, there really is no evidence of a higher power in an objective reality. Like, absolutely nothing. The idea of a higher power was born in a time when people had no other explanation for what was happening around them. They craved that explanation though and so the idea of a higher power was born.



-Tim

But moundsy we still can't explain a lot of things even today no? Of course the religions explain higher power in the most simplistic way, it's easy for the common mind to grasp, which explains why the majority of the world is religious.

Although I'm not an atheist, if I had to choose, I'd rather be an atheist than a religionist, because at least as an atheist you are free to reject God, which is a funner option than buying into the average explanation given to the masses.

There won't even come a time we can explain EVERYTHING that is going on because the egoic life is an illusion.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by cylon

You can't just brush aside thousands of years of people's personal experience as "they just didn't know any better". You weren't there, you don't know what happened. You aren't aware of any kind of divine revelation people had. You only share the modern opinion that they were fools and were just trying to understand the world around them.

Hey now, I never called anyone a fool. In their time, that was a good explanation. Human knowledge has evolved since and now I think there are better explanations.
Ironically, the people who wrote the Old Testament were not around to witness the events between Moses and God. Supposedly it was written quite a number of years after the fact.

[cylon]

I don't believe all the bible stories and myths are true. My point was that the experience of a higher power is completely ignored by you. Trying to explain it with myth, and actually having the experience, are two different things. And if someone has had the experience, that can't be brushed aside by lumping it in with "they didn't know any better". You'd really have to be in their shoes to judge if they had an experience or not.

[Mounds]

Although I'm not an atheist, if I had to choose, I'd rather be an atheist than a religionist, because at least as an atheist you are free to reject God, which is a funner option than buying into the average explanation given to the masses.

It's not even so much that I reject God. I like to say i have an "abscence of beleif". Trust me, that's lots of fun

There won't even come a time we can explain EVERYTHING that is going on because the egoic life is an illusion.

I have to explore this whole ego thing.
I actually like the idea of not being able to explain everything because that would be boring. I like having things to discover. Maybe that's why I jump hobbies and interests so much.

-Tim

[Carl Carlson IV]

Originally Posted by zenrealized

There's nothing to gain from your perspective don't you see that? Don't you realize how long eternity is? You think that murderers and rapists take those actions because they aren't looking for the easy way out? Those are the actions of selfishness. All the stuff that we call bad is based in selfishness. All the stuff you are saying makes your eighty plus years a little better for you. You're so worried about you missing out on your ego and you're stuck inside your head. Common sense would give you the answer that doing the most selfless things is the path. The reason is because it's the farthest path from selfishness. It's the farthest path from murder and short sightedness. God crushed and destroyed because the people never learned to stop thinking about themselves. Just like your anger and mocking right now is done with malice is the same way they acted in their behavior.

God doesn't need worship. He doesn't need anything. What he wants is something he can't create. He wants you to make the choice to love Him. These are my opinions and conclusions and the reason I can understand them is I tried to imagine what I would want if I were God. I guess I would want friends that cared about me. In order to know if that they really cared I would have to see if they could find me in my creations and through my work. That faith would be proof that I had a real friend. I would gain as much as I gave away.

What is there to gain from your perspective? I would argue there is probably more to lose by believing in a God than not believing in any Gods. If you're wrong and we only have this life, you may end up wasting your life believing a delusion. It sounds like you're hedging your bets and believing in God "just incase" and any higher intelligent God should be able to see right through that.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by cylon

I don't believe all the bible stories and myths are true. My point was that the experience of a higher power is completely ignored by you. Trying to explain it with myth, and actually having the experience, are two different things. And if someone has had the experience, that can't be brushed aside by lumping it in with "they didn't know any better". You'd really have to be in their shoes to judge if they had an experience or not.

Maybe those people did have an experience! Beats me.

Maybe the reason I'm quick to discount a higher power is because I don't want a higher power. I would rather be the higher power than follow one.

[Carl Carlson IV]

Originally Posted by cylon

I used to think that way. That's the elitism of the modern scholar speaking. What you are completely leaving out is the possibility that people had sensed God. Had direct Revelation. You're assuming that all experience is in the intellect. What you aren't considering is that people may have used stories and myth to attempt explain a real phenomenon they were experiencing, that happens to be way beyond any sort of description.

Human wisdom and intelligence didn't only start with the 20th century.

People may experience God, but personal experience does nothing to convince me. They could be mistaken, dreaming, "out of their mind" etc. There is no reason to believe in a God because someone tells me God spoke to them. I want logical reasons and evidence for a belief, and there is little to none for any God.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Mounds

I would rather be the higher power than follow one.

Well it's a subjective reality thread. So you're covered on that desire.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Carl Carlson IV

I want logical reasons and evidence for a belief, and there is little to none for any God.

Yeah that's going to be a problem. In a subjective reality world, your knowledge and evidence will only exist to the extent you would believe they would. Right now you don't believe it's possible so no evidence enters your reality.

I'm not saying you have to agree with someone if they say they've experienced "God". I'm just saying there's no way you can prove they are wrong and you are right.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by cylon

Well it's a subjective reality thread. So you're covered on that desire.

No reason you or I or anyone else can't have it in an objective reality either.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Mounds

No reason you or I or anyone else can't have it in an objective reality either.

I'm talking higher power like in spirit and consciousness. You already are that higher power, you created the universe. You're talking about higher power being the ego, only the thinking mind. That's not the same thing. And there is no objective reality to begin with so no, you can't have it there.

[Mounds]

Sure there's an objective reality! I discover it everytime I run into things while I'm walking through the dark (happens more than you'd expect).
I like to think I'm the master of my domain. I do my own thing and it serves me well. If I do what other people or a higher power want, then I'm not being true to myself. That's why whenever I get a new job, I climb the ladder as fast as possible. I don't like having people/gods above me.

-Tim

[Carl Carlson IV]

Originally Posted by cylon

Yeah that's going to be a problem. In a subjective reality world, your knowledge and evidence will only exist to the extent you would believe they would. Right now you don't believe it's possible so no evidence enters your reality.

I'm not saying you have to agree with someone if they say they've experienced "God". I'm just saying there's no way you can prove they are wrong and you are right.

God either exists or doesn't exist. I don't understand why me believing in him has anything to do with it. Why do I have to believe in God before I receive any evidence?

Sure there is no way to prove them right or wrong, but you can't seek absolute truths. You have to come up with the best explanation based on what you're presented. What would you say if someone told you they just saw a flying pink unicorn? You don't require proof to call them wrong. I look at God in the same way, I have no reason to believe in any Gods until I am presented with a logical reason to do so. I don't see why that is such a problem, it isn't really for everything else in my reality.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by Carl Carlson IV

What would you say if someone told you they just saw a flying pink unicorn?

What would you say if I said I was the son of God? I don't think that statement would be good enough for the most pious individual today but it was good enough back then.

God either exists or doesn't exist. I don't understand why me believing in him has anything to do with it. Why do I have to believe in God before I receive any evidence?

Yep yep.

[cylon]

Carl I don't recall ever asking you to believe in God. Whether you do or not is none of my business and frankly not very interesting to me.

My point was really to Mounds.

[cylon]

Mounds had said people only believed in a higher power because they were trying to understand the world. Guess what, there is no evidence to support that. While there is evidence that people did explain their understanding of the universe in myths and stories, there is no evidence to say that no one ever had a real, genuine, divine revelation--an experience of God, consciousness, higher power, whatever you call it. If someone says they have, you can call them a liar, or whatever... but it doesn't take away what happened to them, and it's not evidence that it DIDN'T happen.

That was my point.

[SheldonCooper]

Originally Posted by cylon

I used to think that way. That's the elitism of the modern scholar speaking. What you are completely leaving out is the possibility that people had sensed God. Had direct Revelation. You're assuming that all experience is in the intellect. What you aren't considering is that people may have used stories and myth to attempt explain a real phenomenon they were experiencing, that happens to be way beyond any sort of description.

Human wisdom and intelligence didn't only start with the 20th century.

People claim to have felt god and received revelation. The same is true for Islam, many people claim so. There are also plenty of people in the Raelians movement that claim the same.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by cylon

Mounds had said people only believed in a higher power because they were trying to understand the world. Guess what, there is no evidence to support that. While there is evidence that people did explain their understanding of the universe in myths and stories, there is no evidence to say that no one ever had a real, genuine, divine revelation--an experience of God, consciousness, higher power, whatever you call it. If someone says they have, you can call them a liar, or whatever... but it doesn't take away what happened to them, and it's not evidence that it DIDN'T happen.

That was my point.

For the same token, there is no way to prove that I was not sucked up in an elephants trunk this morning and shot into the sky like a rocket, only to land on Mount Olympus where I had a chess match with Zeus. Upon defeating the Greek god, I then rode a lightning bolt back to my house and started posting on this thread.
If I put myself in the shoes of a person living in that era, then the idea of a higher power makes sense. Those people are not fools or liars, they did the best they could with the information they had. There was also a time when people believed the Earth was flat and if straw lay around too long, it turned into mice. Again, not fools or liars, they just did the best they could with the given information.
Anyhow, gotta make supper. Fun convo though!

-Tim

[cylon]

Originally Posted by SheldonCooper

People claim to have felt god and received revelation. The same is true for Islam, many people claim so. There are also plenty of people in the Raelians movement that claim the same.

Well, it's SR baby. Everything is possible because it's all a dream anyway. Nothing is actually real in the first place so no one gets excluded.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Mounds

For the same token, there is no way to prove that I was not sucked up in an elephants trunk this morning and shot into the sky like a rocket, only to land on Mount Olympus where I had a chess match with Zeus. Upon defeating the Greek god, I then rode a lightning bolt back to my house and started posting on this thread.

Interesting. So your ridiculous example is the same thing as someone feeling that they are connected to the world around them, and noticing how their thoughts seem to influence reality. Same thing.

[Carl Carlson IV]

Originally Posted by cylon

Carl I don't recall ever asking you to believe in God. Whether you do or not is none of my business and frankly not very interesting to me.

My point was really to Mounds.

I don't recall ever stating that I don't believe in God.

Originally Posted by cylon

Mounds had said people only believed in a higher power because they were trying to understand the world. Guess what, there is no evidence to support that. While there is evidence that people did explain their understanding of the universe in myths and stories, there is no evidence to say that no one ever had a real, genuine, divine revelation--an experience of God, consciousness, higher power, whatever you call it. If someone says they have, you can call them a liar, or whatever... but it doesn't take away what happened to them, and it's not evidence that it DIDN'T happen.

That was my point.

There is a tremendous amount of evidence for Mounds argument. Back before we had science, God pretty much controlled everything. Once we started learning how the world worked based on natural explanations, God's slice of the pie started getting smaller.

In a way, God is a place holder for understanding. In primitive times, it was widely believed and accepted that God made the sun rise and set every night. We now know how this works, and there is no need for God. Same with disease and sickness, it was once believed that demons were responsible. Of course, now we know what bacteria and viruses are, and there is no need for God. Rain, earthquakes, stars, planets, volcanoes, even animals (you and I!), all things once supernatural now have a very natural explanation. The list could continue on for a long time.

The unicorn analogy was made simply to prove a point as well - tremendous claims require tremendous evidence. God is a tremendously complicated theory, which would require a lot more evidence than just "he or she experienced it" or "people wrote about it thousands of years ago".

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by cylon

Interesting. So your ridiculous example is the same thing as someone feeling that they are connected to the world around them, and noticing how their thoughts seem to influence reality. Same thing.

Hey, I felt connected to SR in that post.

Why can't there be an objective reality?

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by Carl Carlson IV

.
In a way, God is a place holder for understanding.

Lol, that's badass.

[cylon]

Guys one thing you need to realize is I was once an atheist/non-believer like yourselves. And I was once very active in the skeptic world. So you aren't presenting me with new arguments. I've already been down your road so that's why I don't really give much weight to your arguments, because they were once my arguments and I've moved beyond it. You guys are where I was about four years ago.

So I just wanted to point that out. The best I can do now is gently try to make you maybe see things the way I do now, but if you aren't interested you aren't interested... if you don't want to believe in any sort of divine "stuff" then that's your journey to have... not mine to have with you.

It's really not my place though to even try to convince anyone of anything. Seriously, it's none of my business what you choose to believe. I probably shouldn't have posted anything today, but that's how you learn.

Take it easy.

[Mounds]

It's all in fun. No one's a primitive for having one belief or another.

Have a gooder!

[Carl Carlson IV]

Originally Posted by cylon

Guys one thing you need to realize is I was once an atheist/non-believer like yourselves. And I was once very active in the skeptic world. So you aren't presenting me with new arguments. I've already been down your road so that's why I don't really give much weight to your arguments, because they were once my arguments and I've moved beyond it. You guys are where I was about four years ago.

So I just wanted to point that out. The best I can do now is gently try to make you maybe see things the way I do now, but if you aren't interested you aren't interested... if you don't want to believe in any sort of divine "stuff" then that's your journey to have... not mine to have with you.

It's really not my place though to even try to convince anyone of anything. Seriously, it's none of my business what you choose to believe. I probably shouldn't have posted anything today, but that's how you learn.

Take it easy.

LOL thanks for the condescending speech! I hope one day to be as enlightened as you.

But in all actuality, the topic is kind of derailed from the OP anyway, so I'll end my iron age arguments.

[RomanHD]

Originally Posted by cylon

Mounds had said people only believed in a higher power because they were trying to understand the world. Guess what, there is no evidence to support that. While there is evidence that people did explain their understanding of the universe in myths and stories, there is no evidence to say that no one ever had a real, genuine, divine revelation--an experience of God, consciousness, higher power, whatever you call it. If someone says they have, you can call them a liar, or whatever... but it doesn't take away what happened to them, and it's not evidence that it DIDN'T happen.

That was my point.

Man, I had to register on the forum to reply to this post, I really did.

What you are presenting here is a non-falsifiable theory. With billions of people who are living and who have lived, combined with the fact that it's impossible to read people's minds, you can NEVER 'prove' that some of them did not experience something. In fact, it's quite possible, and I'm pretty sure that LOTS of people throughout the history DID have revelations.

The problem is, every revelation was different. How am I, aside from adhering to the scientific method and considering the evidence, tell which revelation was true? Was Joseph Smith right? Neale Donald Walsch? L. Ron Hubbard? Maybe all of them were right? What about the points they did not agree on?

These are the kinds of questions that have to be asked if we are to ever arrive at a sufficiently accurate understanding of reality.