SOUL

Oh...you're serious? I'm sorry, any book that tells people they can own slaves and as long as they don't die within a day after beating them you don't get punished because they are your property isn't that wise. Stoning a young girl because they think she isn't a virgin if she doesn't bleed on her wedding night when less than 50% of females do their first time isn't wisdom. God punishes a man who commits adultry by killng the child from that affair and having a bunch of wives r*ped by one of his sons. So the kid and the wives are punished but the man? Nothing even though it's the man who 'sinned' and the kid and women didn't do anything. God commands a genocide that kill everything alive including children for a 400 year old grudge. In the new testament, before you cry b-b-but that's the old testament, God strikes down a married couple dead because they didn't give everything they had to the church. Considering how despicable the judeo-christian civilization has treated indigenous peoples and other cultures around the world for almost 2000 years I'd agree that book influenced them but wisdom isn't the way to characterize it. I understand that book better than you, my friend, it's a book of primarily bronze age myths that borrowed most of it's stories from other cultures around them. Even their god is a hand me down diety from the Cannanites and the reason it's so prominent today is because a regional power at the time decided it was the perfect religion to control it's fraying empire and immediately began a bloodthirsty campaing to wipe out any dissent from the theology they decided was it's canon. Now they run around telling everyone they are born evil, original sin, are evil and will be tortured forever if you don't bow to their beliefs. Anything that dangerous should be taken seriously but not in the way you are expecting us to.

I have to disageee with Leo....that BS isn't nice, it kinda sucks.

This cult is cheaper and you still get the aliens....

I identify with the microbes that live in and on me.

@Judy2 It's a useless exercise to explain all of that and is suffice to say I was a miserable youth with many of the characteristics and traits one might associate with someone in this state. Then without any guidance directly from anyone around me I began the path of awakening inner work in an autodidact method to finally experience genuine liberation. In this cessation from self suffering the state of well being fills my awareness and influences my consciousness. So ultimately the personality characteristics and traits I experience now are reflective of what one might associate with someone in the state of well being as expressed through a presence of joy, contentment, fulfillment, inspiration, peace, bliss and others. The specifics of my life story are not significant or useful, the fact that we can influence our inner life and intentionally contribute to the natural process of change that happens whether we like it or not, we can't not change, is significant and useful.

Personality can change through one's life and can do so quite dramatically...I'm one who has...and if I'm an extreme example it still suggests it can happen.

An interesting way to look at it is in comparison to Religions. There are many sects of a religion and they all have their different ways of interpeting 'the way', then in each of church of sect the pastors have their own way of expression these different interpretations. Then each congregant of each church has their own way of understanding the interpetation so it's like they have their own personal 'god'. Not just personal relationship with 'god', they have a unique perspective of what characteristics and traits this god has and even with how one has to connect with it. It's as if for every person there is there is also an individual god, or at least a perspective of god. So with the mystical pursuits it is very similar. There are different sects of the pursuit with different interpetations, there are different teachers and preachers of the pursuit that express it differently and there are different perspectives that each pursuant has in how they imagine 'god' and the path. It isn't surpring that once someone finds 'sect' and an individual 'preacher' who resonates with them they can start to echo their rhetoric even if one were to examine their actual perspective of everything there would be noticeable conceptual differences. Plus humans are culty creatures that like to feel like they are part of a community so often conform to fit in....just like with religion.

Want to talk about a slippery slope...this kind of reasoning can lead to justify cannibalism. Of course in solipsictic terms it's a god eating itself.

@Joseph Maynor I mean it genuinely, it's good to see you still here.

@Joseph Maynor I pop in from time to time. Good to see you still kicking around as well.

The stuff people use the words 'god', create' and 'evil' for are human conceptualizations that often have little connection to reality and usually are figments of their imagination.

@yetineti Does it not? I suppose dying on impact would have a consequence on the hallucinating and it's not like one can hallucinate a feathery bed to land in and have it magically replace the hard ground that really is there. People confuse the 'hallucinating' the mind does to interpret the signals coming to it from the body and construct a paradigm in it with what actually is taking place in the material world. There are many layers to the fact that reality is an illusion but it's the material world that creates them, not the hallucination in the mind creating the material world. Despite what magical minded mystics believe about it and would try to convince others believe about it, too.

Yea, sure materialism is being hallucinated but the difference is when you fall off a cliff you hallucinate all the way down until you really hit the ground.

Your philosophical definition is the actual definition, I'm not sure why the definition derived from a religious text has become the default definition for the common understanding of it. Why would I want to use a 2 thousand-year-old uneducated zealot's definition that is really a distorted version of it to begin with? If someone else chooses the weak definition and assumes it also is what I'm using this is their distorted belief, not my problem. Belief is when we place trust or confidence in something that it is true or comports with reality. Everyone has beliefs, we cannot move in the world without them or we'd be a psychological wreck not trusting anything. Even using language posting on this internet forum is a network of beliefs that layer upon each other to be able to do it. Even the word faith, as defined by the religious text is problematic, not the actual definition of it. The primary definition is a loyalty or fidelity to something so it is an action that is in accordance with something one believes in. If someone doesn't behave in accordance to what they believe or behaves contrary to what they believe it creates a divide in consciousness. If we behave with harmony between our beliefs and faith it creates a unity in our conscious experience and it doesn't even matter if it is actually true or based on evidence, the psychological resolve can be just as strong as if it was true with evidence to support it. This is where the layman's definition comes in, it isn't the only or primary definition, it's a facet of how belief and faith works in our minds that allows it to be powerful in us. I know the religious text version has become a common definition of it and there is a facet of the belief/faith dynamic that correlates to it but I'm not going to let someone else's mistaken belief in their version influence my trust and behavior. If they express to me they believe I'm using their distorted version I will simply clarify the one I am using and then move on, they can believe anything they want. Belief and faith isn't problematic on their own, again it's how we move in the world, it's natural mechanism of our psychology. Even animals with less awareness than ours have trust and behavior that reflects a semblance of belief and faith in something or someone. Yes, an issue can arise when it's not actually comporting with reality or is a limiting one which is why it's a beneficial exercise to examine the ones we have. Keeping our belief/faith system to a concise one is often helpful to creating our consciousness as clear minded and free from conflict, one that is bloated and complicated with tendrils and tangents everywhere creates much more opportunity for a conflict to arise. Having a light belief/faith system also provides less source for self suffering, the more beliefs the more attachment. Can we rescue back the word from the distorted version of the laymen? I won't place much trust in that happening.

So it is mythological group think for lazy dum dums that don't want to do any work on themselves yet they believe has magical mind meld forces to give them a hall pass to eternal reward? That checks out...

Have you tried womanifesting? If you are waiting on a man to fest anything it's going to take a long time...

They are the minions of opining.

So don't ask 'who' then 'who' doesn't exist? Hmmmm

You haven't caught on to the game yet? They explain it and label it in thread after thread yet also claim any name or explanation is not it but if yours is different from them, you are told yours is wrong, theirs is the label 'absolute truth' and they explain how their thought beliefs are the right ones....while simultaneously saying any name or explanation is not it. Rinse...repeat....but here's the real question, 'who' is rinsing and repeating?

The real question is who is it that remembers the member name and password?

Where else can you find so many people claiming to be the only 'god' that creates reality arguing with the other only 'gods' about how the reality they created is wrong because they are alone in the universe as 'god' and know the absolute truth? It's hilarious