flamy Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Communism, Marxism - all are ideologies. Egoic entities. When we identify and label ourselves as anything, it is the ego in us that is speaking. So, what would it take? Simple. Death. Death of an idea. This is why it is so very difficult for people to accept they are wrong. It is Death. Death of the rigid beliefs that one held. The essence of ideology itself is this. A vociferous loyalty to an idea. Closed to any other alternative interpretations of reality. However, i sense there is a deeper question behind the OP's original question. Which is what my earlier post here was trying to get at. In the end, an Open Mind and an Open Heart will give us the answers that we seek.
nikred Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 I say it lives in fear As an atheist, I feel liberated. :icflove:
flamy Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 There are two worlds - One lives in faith and one lives in fighting it. The first one is happier. Classic example of the Carrot. Expect the Stick to show up soon =)
Rajiv Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 From a modern human being, can some of you really believe there was a Ram, Sita and a monkey who could lift a mountain and there was some guy with multiple heads..seriously
Jersey #10 Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 From a modern human being' date=' can some of you really believe there was a Ram, Sita and a monkey who could lift a mountain and there was some guy with multiple heads..seriously[/quote'] It's an analogy to make the dumbest understand the good deeds.
Lurker Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 I say it lives in fear ++1 Blessed are the one who live in the world of sin. :two_thumbs_up:
Nova Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 God is nothing but a big ego. People are trying to put a label on something coz they don't understand the deep questions of origins and the end. As far as science is concerned, humans are nothing but sentient creatures present on this planet due to evolution. We can think and analyze, and many of us choose to explain the hitherto unexplained mysteries through man's greatest invention "God". Flamy, are you high again? Mahadeva... om namah shivaya... :winky:
flamy Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 God is nothing but a big ego. People are trying to put a label on something coz they don't understand the deep questions of origins and the end. As far as science is concerned, humans are nothing but sentient creatures present on this planet due to evolution. We can think and analyze, and many of us choose to explain the hitherto unexplained mysteries through man's greatest invention "God". Flamy, are you high again? Mahadeva... om namah shivaya... :winky: :D Yes, but not substance-induced, if that clarifies it for you. =)
ganeshran Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 From a modern human being' date=' can some of you really believe there was a Ram, Sita and a monkey who could lift a mountain and there was some guy with multiple heads..seriously[/quote'] I think the events in the Ramayana and Mahabharata were vaguely based on real people and wars but were hugely exaggerated in order to make the events more enchanting and appealing to common folk. Maybe bollywood style masala writers existed back then as well :dontknow:
Rajiv Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 It's an analogy to make the dumbest understand the good deeds. You mean story telling
Lurker Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 From a modern human being' date=' [b']can some of you really believe there was a Ram, Sita and a monkey who could lift a mountain and there was some guy with multiple heads..seriously I can. I have been to Sitmarhi in North Bihar where Sita hailed from. :--D
Rajiv Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 You know what I mean, Laxman Rekha. 14 years in the jungle
Lurker Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 You know what I mean' date=' Laxman Rekha. 14 years in the jungle[/quote'] Depends on how you look at it I suppose Rajeev. If you want to explain and rationalize it then thats easy to answer NO. But Hindu theology is more mythical anyway. These are great works of literature, in my opinion, the beleivers think them to be true. Folks like me and you we love to read and enjoy them and not get hung up on facts. By the way in Sitamarhi Sita was borne off the ground. Been there too..:--D
akshayxyz Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 Here is a looong rant I jotted down few years back, on the topic. proving to an extent - God = "/dev/null", a techie term, those who understand will see the analogy - towards the end I have tried to explain in simple language - how it is like. MTC/G92, and other writer folks here, please review my writing/ranting skills.. :). whether I should even attempt in future( this one was 5-6 years back). Nothing new about it, you've already seen/heard similar incidents, you all know it, just that I couldn't think of lesser nonsense to kick start my blog. (Owing to the sensitive nature of the real life incident, bear with me the obscurity of characters and space time coordinates) Somewhere sometime back, at my someone's some ceremony, my usual self turned on the people watching mode... There were at least 100-150 people gathered, waiting for some Guruji to confer the ceremony. I had heard from my someone about this guru-dude, who heads this cult sort of community, who have blind faith in this guru and his fundae.. I thought he must be some really enlightened being (vivekanand kind), thats why so many educated people follow this cult as a religion. As the 60-70+, 6+ feet, healthy guru-dude (draped in bright red saree kinda cloth) entered, people started chanting stuff in his praise and red carpets were rolled(in reality), ladies went on their knees with heads touching the ground, on both sides of the carpet. And the guru was also enjoying every moment. it was reflecting on his face, which I expected to show some aura/calmness, instead it was displaying arrogance.. there is a subtle difference, but i think i captured it right. this was evident from his actions, like the way he was waving hands to: order his disciples to arrange mike and stuff, order camera/video-men to stop recording, order crowd to move backwards etc etc. Personally, I feel at discomfort when i see people display such extremes of humility for just another instance of homo-sapiens. I mean, I understand there have been some extremely enlightened brains, (buddha, vivekananda, gandhi et al), but i think none of them 'ordered' ppl around, they just did and said what they believed in and ppl just followed them by their choice. I would compare this to some road-side madari, who becomes conscious the moment ppl start asking questions or video record his tricks. Another height of arrogance. While he was conferring the ceremony, he was mumbling some mantras/sholkas, there was mike-system available. but instead of using the mike, he had one of his disciple, sitting at a distance, reading his lips and repeating the stuff to the crowd on a separate mike. Another thing that i noticed in the hall was, there were signs all around "mehndi lagey haathon se aarti karna mana hai (you are not allowed to 'aarti' with henna colored hands)". i was like "thats interesting, there must be some hygiene issues". Anyways, after the ceremony, as a custom, all the close members/relatives of my 'someone' are supposed to 'aarti' a holy book placed in front of guru, so in a way u r 'aarti'ing the book+guru. All this while ppl were doing full 'dandwat-pranam' (full on your stomach salute) as and when they felt like. Interesting part was, it was usually set of 3-5 such salutes, regardless of curvatures of bellies. that was another scene that discomforted me, doing such thing for someone who couldn't care less about the public around. I also happened to do the aarti.. not out of respect for guru, but for my someone... and while I was doing that, I kept staring at guru, expecting to exchange a glance, so that somehow he knows that I am not impressed, rather i am inviting him to see me at my backyard... no exaggeration, yes i am that egotistic and disrespectful of such ppl. now comes the interesting part, finally Guru-dude explained the significance of the event and enlightened the public ( he does this at the end of every such ceremony) "why use of henna is not allowed, not just in the hall but through out the life with cult" "You people must have noticed why no one here uses henna, instead we use haldi(turmeric) or kesar (i dont know the english equivalent). Henna leaves red color, which is same as the color of cow's blood, and hence henna is a product of cow's blood. While turmeric and kesar leave yellow color, hence they are just and are allowed. Even the other brahmins in Hindu religion are ignorant of this very fact. And I am telling you that this is THE TRUTH." Then there came forward a seemingly educated couple, 90 degree bent with such a humility, "Guruji we didnt know this, aapney jo gyaan diya hai hum sunkar dhanya ho gaye(we are fortunate to get this knowledge from you)." And to top it, Guruji was so elated that he was finding it tough to hide his teeth, just like Ganguly would after winning MoM with a score of 28 after a series of 10 ducks... i mean if he is real guru, even if based on silly fundas, he must not react to praises or insults... my usual thoughts..too much.. this is the limit...what the fnck is this cow*****.. "ek baar akela mil ja fir dekhta hoon" Had it been happening in jungles of Satpuda, I would have commended his creative thinking (i find "Ganesha statue drinking milk", more authentic), but not in a place, where every other guy is carrying cellphone and many of them are graduates in science/arts/whatever.. Ok most of them don't care about whats going on between quarks, but wouldn't you be curious to know how cow's blood used to make henna, especially when majority of people following Hindu religion use it in holiest of events/places.. Btw if someone tells me that they don't, then please understand my ignorance of religious stuff, i am an atheist and believe only in the power that resides in everyone alike. Anyways he said few more things which I found completely incoherent, unintelligent and too generic/vague... Btw, I still am open enough to listen to that guru-dude, in person though so that i can slap him when i want to, hoping he has some really enlightening stuff to share, but i doubt if he has any. So whats with the title.. that was to my attempt at philosophy in moments that were contemporaneous with the incident...(I trust you are still reading this ) I was thinking why people choose to have faith in gods/gurus/almighty regardless of their bases or why probably some enlightened people designed religions/rules and funda of god. Rules of religion/faith are meant to nurture good qualities (discipline, humanity,compassion etc niceties) in ones life. Its like traffic rules, its like civil law etc. If you follow these rules, you are less likely to land in chaotic situations, it becomes easier to concentrate on the task at hand, its easier to make decisions.. and life becomes streamlined. and what is faith/god for? even if you follow these rules, there are numerous times when you land in unfamiliar/tough situations or when things do not go your way. Then there comes god's role, you start praying and leave it to god, thinking he has all the power and will take care of anything beyond your comprehension or your control. This helps relieve your mind & all your senses, and you are back to the task at hand at the present moment. (senses receive stimuli from the environment, and these inputs are processed by your mind, which is a neural network with some defined state based on your inputs through the life so far). So its all about, clearing the clutter, feeling the present, concentrating at the task at hand and thus giving your best to the present. Thats about bad times, then why, in your good times, do you thank god for? again to cut down the time wasted in celebrations, thank god and move on, this will amplify your perception of his almightiness and hence will increase your faith, which will be useful in recovering from bad times. What are Guru's for? Just a level of redirection to god. People believe gurus have connections with god. They themselves don't have time/access or are not qualified/holy enough to talk to god (most of the times its gurus who proclaim to have such connections and people start believing). So they leave it to overworked guru to handle their issues with god. Sometimes he instantly tells back some funda of life and sometimes he says i'll take it to god. So whats with "/dev/null" , its for my programmer friends. You write a program with utmost care, but you still leave printf status/debugging/error messages, for just in case times. When you manage to run it as per requirements, its time to deploy the program, then you redirect the faltoo messages to logs, to remove the clutter on console. So that you can concentrate the current program/command/task at hand. You know you dont need these messages for now, or you cant comprehend these, or you will wait till you really need to, or you hand over to some guru to decipher, who (depending on skills of guru hired for the job) sometimes is able to help and sometimes buys more time or sometimes suggests to ignore them. Other times, when you know you are the best judge, you just choose to redirect the clutter to /dev/null. and thats what god is :-), everyone has his own copy, some people are able to use it and other people rely on version of god created by society (more robust/reliable implementation of god accepted by wider audience) And I realize its easier to leave it to 'external' gods, than to traumatize yourself by trying to handle everything that comes/happens to you. But the more diverse range of experiences/knowledge I am accumulating the more difficult it is becoming to search for that 'perfect' god who can give me that desperately needed peace of mind.
akshayxyz Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 From a modern human being' date=' can some of you really believe there was a Ram, Sita and a monkey who could lift a mountain and there was some guy with multiple heads..seriously[/quote'] Today, it would be foolish to take those metaphors/exaggeration as literal/actual account of possibly real life story. Nothing less than "Pics or GTFO" should be acceptable. In fact, even with video evidence - one should be skeptical - as Sharmaji can prove, they were advanced enough to make movies like "Independence Day". :winky: Most likely the characters were picked from some real life incidents. But, as I understand there was not good enough technology, "social enlightenment" wise, to record the facts - accurately and strictly reviewed. So these got told-retold-retold....over generations in some poetic language (I guess we do not even have that language around at all anymore). And it is not common to see use of "अतिश्योक्ति अलंकार" in poetry in almost any language. And compound that with "Chinese Whisper" effect across generations.
Sooda Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 What makes you believe it? your religion? Yeah...
Rajiv Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 ^^ but it was given to you, like all of us. As a kid, we are told what to believe but as you grew up did you follow the same line or ever asked yourself more questons
akshayxyz Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 Quick query for "consciousness/atma" theorists: Starting from a single cell zygote, exactly at what point does Atma/Spirit/Consciousness enters the "physical" body... IMO - either one should be able to point at what point it enters - backed up by evidence ( some sort of test for whether a biological entity is conscious or not) - OR - should accept the fact that consciousness is something which grows/evolves with the biological development, and dies with biological death.
Manny_Pacquiao Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 well for me to stop believing in sachin tendulkar, he would have to retire jokes aside, i would need to see some solid evidence for some of the hilarious bullshit that is written in books like quarran, the bible and other religious texts. From a modern human being' date=' can some of you really believe there was a Ram, Sita and a monkey who could lift a mountain and there was some guy with multiple heads..seriously[/quote'] why not? there are ppl on this forum that very confidently claim that real 'scientific' evidence exists for the mahabharat, in the form of elevated radiation levels, carbon dated nuclear weapons, etc. even here in the united states, we have educational institutions that make no secret of their creationist beliefs and even go as far as to claim that the world is less than 10,000 years old. they even have classes that teach this ****. don't believe me? look at this: http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&MID=17309 i am sure these ppl could point u in the right direction
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