[Gem]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

I was reading a piece about constructive vs non-constructive beliefs, and I suppose you could include destructive ones as well. Constructive beliefs 'stand the test' and don't crumble at the hint of a challenge while non-constructive ones do. I often wonder how many harbour non-constructive beliefs and the reasons.

Discernment is something we can all practice and I wonder how different these boards would be if they did?

I often wonder how enlightened people really are and if they listen to themselves; if they are a 'Spiritual person' what are they saying? Yeah I know it's good grammar but it still puts the Spiritual first - or more correctly their definitions of Spiritual. Words create worlds.

There are reasons that religions can't really be spiritual, mainly because they are organised and have to be upheld and maintained, but they are basically a thought construct like any social or cultural paradigm, and thought is of an imaginary nature, temporal, unlasting, inevitably in passing, but the spiritual pertains to that which is present, and doesn't arise or pass away. I tire of the special reverence paid to religions, which are not alive in the universe, and represent so much clinging to what amounts to thought. Hence we might say the spiritual encompasses religion in so much as it includes any other thought, but becomes perverse due to the importance these religious thoughts are given. Then we see so obviously the conflict in minds caused by such a strong clinging, which erupts in the sorts of violence that predominate in global conflicts today. It seems simple to say that clinging to thought, holding on to the 'known' is the defining characteristic of bondage. But then it is not politically correct to express the imaginary nature of religion, of nation, and the other symbolic structures that produce an imaginary society of constructed identities and organisations. The real society, which is the actual living relationship between people, seems to go practically unnoticed.

Now they want another organised structure we can identify as an 'enlightened society', but it's obvious that people have to conform to the social paradigm so they can identify with it, or otherwise identify in contrast to it, so we can only end up with another identity crisis, which I suggest directly contradicts the enlightenment.