Spiritual Forums

Home


Donate!


Articles


CHAT!


Shop


 
Welcome to Spiritual Forums!.

We created this community for people from all backgrounds to discuss Spiritual, Paranormal, Metaphysical, Philosophical, Supernatural, and Esoteric subjects. From Astral Projection to Zen, all topics are welcome. We hope you enjoy your visits.

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest, which gives you limited access to most discussions and articles. By joining our free community you will be able to post messages, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload your own photos, and gain access to our Chat Rooms, Registration is fast, simple, and free, so please, join our community today! !

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, check our FAQs before contacting support. Please read our forum rules, since they are enforced by our volunteer staff. This will help you avoid any infractions and issues.

Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > Interfaith

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #91  
Old 25-03-2020, 05:25 AM
HITESH SHAH HITESH SHAH is offline
Master
Join Date: Apr 2019
Posts: 1,295
 
threat to religion

Quote:
Originally Posted by ketzer
Many good points, two in particular bring a question(s) to mind. Is an open mind in the midst of a sea of different ideas about faith a threat to ones religion?

Answer is yes (to false sectarian idea of religion ) and no (to true idea of religion as true exponent of spirit , super spirit and overall light in the world /universe) . So answers are not obvious . There will always be conflicts and difference of opinion . However if u see the world history (which describes effectively which way the Force weighs in ) , any religion which has held unsustainable ideas (like untouchability in Hinduism few centuries ) selfish ideas (Pope doing favouritism in pre-renaissance period) or sectarian hateful ideas (like frequently invoking Jihad for totally unwarranted reasons in Islam justifying violence on innocent and frequent categorising of other faith as non-believers in Islam ) has suffered terribly . So there can be no doubt to commit to true teachings of one's own religions and yet having goodwill with other faiths .


Quote:
Originally Posted by ketzer
And if so, who is really the one with something to lose?
If people having interfaith goodwill understands the spirit truly , there may be nothing to loose . Definitely the unscientific people , unscientific practices of religions have lot to loose whether we take any initiative or not .
Reply With Quote
  #92  
Old 25-03-2020, 05:45 AM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
Master
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: अनुगृहितोऽस्म
Posts: 16,043
  BigJohn's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by HITESH SHAH
If people having interfaith goodwill understands the spirit truly , there may be nothing to loose . Definitely the unscientific people , unscientific practices of religions have lot to loose whether we take any initiative or not .

Go one step further: With Interfaith, there is nothing to loose.


Only thing you have to fear is self generated fear.
__________________


 
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜

        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜


Reply With Quote
  #93  
Old 26-03-2020, 03:44 PM
ketzer
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJohn
Go one step further: With Interfaith, there is nothing to loose...
Perhaps true if one only wishes to go one step further. But if one wishes to go all the way, then that is where the debate seems to begin. Can one have complete interfaith harmony, without getting ride of all those individual faiths. Must all those branches eventually merge into one river. A similar question to the one eluded to in your other thread, "Can one love thy neighbor as thy self and still have separation?" Or perhaps is the 2nd commandment less of a commandment and more of a prescription. Interesting questions, but rather esoteric, particularly from where things are at now. Perhaps one step at a time is best way to go.
Reply With Quote
  #94  
Old 26-03-2020, 05:13 PM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
Master
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: अनुगृहितोऽस्म
Posts: 16,043
  BigJohn's Avatar
The 2nd commandment that Jesus listed was not the second commandment/Law from the Hebrew Bible but was the second greatest commandment in his opinion of all the commands/Laws.

Another word for commandment is Law. The Israelite Law(s) were expected to be obeyed just like the laws are expected to be obeyed in your country.

as I have mentioned before, a lot of the friction occurs over subjects that are really theories. For example: Ask a person of a different religion such as Buddhism, "What happens after death"? and you probably will be given a theory that is espoused as a fact. If we recognize it is only as a theory, we can debate the theory and not get upset because neither party, for the most part knows the answer.
__________________


 
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜

        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜


Reply With Quote
  #95  
Old 26-03-2020, 05:48 PM
ketzer
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJohn
The 2nd commandment that Jesus listed was not the second commandment/Law from the Hebrew Bible but was the second greatest commandment in his opinion of all the commands/Laws.

Another word for commandment is Law. The Israelite Law(s) were expected to be obeyed just like the laws are expected to be obeyed in your country.

as I have mentioned before, a lot of the friction occurs over subjects that are really theories. For example: Ask a person of a different religion such as Buddhism, "What happens after death"? and you probably will be given a theory that is espoused as a fact. If we recognize it is only as a theory, we can debate the theory and not get upset because neither party, for the most part knows the answer.

Or they might just get mad enough to kill each other and find out who was right.
Reply With Quote
  #96  
Old 26-03-2020, 06:17 PM
BigJohn BigJohn is offline
Master
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: अनुगृहितोऽस्म
Posts: 16,043
  BigJohn's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by ketzer
Or they might just get mad enough to kill each other and find out who was right.
I remember when I went to college, there was at least 3 theories on how electricity 'flows'. They were theories. No fights. Once you realize most religions are based on theory, there is no desire to 'fight'.

For example: how many theories are there on "What happens after we die"?
__________________


 
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜

        Happiness is the result of an enlightened mind whereas suffering is caused by a distorted mind.
   ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜ ⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜⁜


Reply With Quote
  #97  
Old 26-03-2020, 08:13 PM
ketzer
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJohn
...
For example: how many theories are there on "What happens after we die"?
I wouldn't be able to even guess how many, but then there is always room for more. What we experience after we die, at least at first, during any transition, may have a lot to do with our theory of "what happens after death" that we held when we were alive. What we experience in life is very much colored by our beliefs, so perhaps also is our experience at the end. Sometimes when I have finished binge reading a really good book, or binge watching a streamed TV series, I notice that for a while, I view "reality" a bit differently. As if something of the viewpoint or color of the story gets carried over into my everyday waking life for a brief time and I might even see things as the protagonist might have. We are what we eat and its easy to gain a few pounds that can take a while to lose.
Reply With Quote
  #98  
Old 27-03-2020, 08:04 AM
Gem Gem is offline
Master
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 22,073
  Gem's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by HITESH SHAH
Answer is yes (to false sectarian idea of religion ) and no (to true idea of religion as true exponent of spirit , super spirit and overall light in the world /universe) . So answers are not obvious . There will always be conflicts and difference of opinion . However if u see the world history (which describes effectively which way the Force weighs in ) , any religion which has held unsustainable ideas (like untouchability in Hinduism few centuries ) selfish ideas (Pope doing favouritism in pre-renaissance period) or sectarian hateful ideas (like frequently invoking Jihad for totally unwarranted reasons in Islam justifying violence on innocent and frequent categorising of other faith as non-believers in Islam ) has suffered terribly . So there can be no doubt to commit to true teachings of one's own religions and yet having goodwill with other faiths


Religion is necessarily sectarian because it is a named thing, and unless people identify with that name, they remain just people like everyone else.



No doubt people have a spiritual dimension regardless of what they believe or do not believe, and perhaps it is fair to describe what is a really religious mind, which has nothing to do with religious belief at all. But lest we become convoluted, we shouldn't say there is a true religion and a false one, and be very clear that religion is one narrative or another that props up a system of symbols, rituals, costumes etc and an identified entity maintained by those who internalise the entity as what they are.



If we are to speak in a way that addresses the issue, we can't be nice, and the conditioning about how we need to respect religions is problematic as well. For example, this 'respectful' regard enables the Church to continue even when their institutional abuses are clearly exposed. The same applies other self appointed and presumed spiritual teachers, and considering the degeneracy perpetrated under this guise of spiritual leadership, let our critique be such that the fundamental rot is found so that no one eats the tainted fruit.


Should all men be truthful and ardent about the truth, religion would evaporate like mist on a warming day. The truth has always been the undoing of religion. When they found out we are not the centre of the universe but an orb that circles the sun along with other heavenly bodies, that alone undermined false Church tenets. Of course they persecuted Copernicus and Galileo, and finally Descartes, who themselves were very religious men, to perpetuate their fallacy and conceal what is true, but the truth prevailed and liberated Western civilisation from a thousand years of Christian oppression. Even after that we allowed these institutions to persist because we are supposed to 'respect the church'; and what abhorant abuses they have perpetrated in the years since.



Of course, the jihad, a violent revolution, and we still have to respect Islam despite the violence and atrocity affecting us all. People still claim that Islam is peaceful despite what they actually observe. Not to pick on Islam here, I could example any number of religious movements equally.


People see the degeneracy of their own institutions and remain identified with them anyway. This makes them party to if not complicit with the horrors I allude to, and you may wonder why I fear one adorned with the crucifix even though I am not a vampire. It is not the particular individual that concerns me. it's the superego; the collective identity as the life-blood of an inherently violent entity.



Quote:
If people having interfaith goodwill understands the spirit truly , there may be nothing to loose . Definitely the unscientific people , unscientific practices of religions have lot to loose whether we take any initiative or not .
__________________
Radiate boundless love towards the entire world ~ Buddha
Reply With Quote
  #99  
Old 27-03-2020, 09:29 AM
winter light winter light is offline
Experiencer
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 305
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
Religion is necessarily sectarian because it is a named thing, and unless people identify with that name, they remain just people like everyone else.

No doubt people have a spiritual dimension regardless of what they believe or do not believe, and perhaps it is fair to describe what is a really religious mind, which has nothing to do with religious belief at all. But lest we become convoluted, we shouldn't say there is a true religion and a false one, and be very clear that religion is one narrative or another that props up a system of symbols, rituals, costumes etc and an identified entity maintained by those who internalise the entity as what they are.

If we are to speak in a way that addresses the issue, we can't be nice, and the conditioning about how we need to respect religions is problematic as well. For example, this 'respectful' regard enables the Church to continue even when their institutional abuses are clearly exposed. The same applies other self appointed and presumed spiritual teachers, and considering the degeneracy perpetrated under this guise of spiritual leadership, let our critique be such that the fundamental rot is found so that no one eats the tainted fruit.

...

People see the degeneracy of their own institutions and remain identified with them anyway. This makes them party to if not complicit with the horrors I allude to, and you may wonder why I fear one adorned with the crucifix even though I am not a vampire. It is not the particular individual that concerns me. it's the superego; the collective identity as the life-blood of an inherently violent entity.
Sectarian is only an issue when there is some authortarian power dynamic in play. Where a few are allowed to control the beliefs of others. It usually occurs by way of some fear or charismatic enchantment, or a nice combination of those.

I would say that having diversity of ideas is healthy. And all religions I have studied eventually lead to a mystical component that encourages the individuals to self-explore and share their stories.

Names are just an agreement for communication. It does not matter what things have names or how they are named or that names are agreed upon. Look up "null-subject language" and it will make you wonder how much banter about self and non-self is really just an exagerated communications issue.
<< Wikipedia >> In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject; such a clause is then said to have a null subject.
So then someone with great charisma shares ideas that are poorly translated from a null-subject language. The identity gets dropped and everyone goes "ooh, that missing name must mean something important". They get sidetracked and miss the point of the teaching. Which most likely involves maturation and transcending self rather then elimination of self.

Spiders spin webs and birds sing songs and humans share stories. It is in our nature to do this. So a little group self-organizing is to be expected and natural.

The idea that all sharing of ideas and symbols should be stopped comes across as a form of control that appears to me to support authoritarian control and be in contradiction to your intent. Instead of control with avoidance maybe there is some way to embrace these types of relationships in a healthy way.

People, as in human beings with a body with a human brain, must identify with things. It is how our brains function at a very base level. In the end it is not the religion that demands respect, it is the people who carry those beliefs. And their need to share them.
Reply With Quote
  #100  
Old 30-03-2020, 03:56 AM
Gem Gem is offline
Master
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 22,073
  Gem's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by winter light
Sectarian is only an issue when there is some authortarian power dynamic in play. Where a few are allowed to control the beliefs of others. It usually occurs by way of some fear or charismatic enchantment, or a nice combination of those.


A religious sect relies on conformity of belief and behaviour, so there is always an authority figure where the power is cited to influence those who subscribe to the religion's narrative. When the belief system is instilled, the narrative and its authority is internalised to an identity that reflects the identity of the sect. The issue then becomes, a person whose identity relies on the internalised externality of the narrative cannot let go of the dogma, and they are adversely affected when the fallacy of the identity structure is exposed. Being affected thus, there are very strong reactions that compel people to do things, just about anything, to preserve the whole identity structure including its internal and external facets.


Quote:
I would say that having diversity of ideas is healthy. And all religions I have studied eventually lead to a mystical component that encourages the individuals to self-explore and share their stories.

Names are just an agreement for communication. It does not matter what things have names or how they are named or that names are agreed upon. Look up "null-subject language" and it will make you wonder how much banter about self and non-self is really just an exagerated communications issue.


Agreed, the names do not matter. My fundamental point is just that. There is no religion observable in nature and we can examine every nuance of the manifest universe and find no religion to notice. Furthermore, the investigation of phenomena reveals no entity to be regarded as me, so there is no entity, I, apart from the self-referential thought, and therefore, no being who can be a Buddhist or a Christian or a Jew apart from the imagined entity that forms concurrently with the name.


This means the truth itself appears destructive because the real lived observation reveals the symbolic structure of the identity which has no foundational entity.
Quote:
<< Wikipedia >> In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject; such a clause is then said to have a null subject.
Quote:
So then someone with great charisma shares ideas that are poorly translated from a null-subject language. The identity gets dropped and everyone goes "ooh, that missing name must mean something important". They get sidetracked and miss the point of the teaching. Which most likely involves maturation and transcending self rather then elimination of self.

Spiders spin webs and birds sing songs and humans share stories. It is in our nature to do this. So a little group self-organizing is to be expected and natural.

The idea that all sharing of ideas and symbols should be stopped comes across as a form of control that appears to me to support authoritarian control and be in contradiction to your intent. Instead of control with avoidance maybe there is some way to embrace these types of relationships in a healthy way.

People, as in human beings with a body with a human brain, must identify with things. It is how our brains function at a very base level. In the end it is not the religion that demands respect, it is the people who carry those beliefs. And their need to share them.




The dilemma is not the ideas in themselves. For example, up and down are just ideas. You point up on the north pole and that direction is down to me on the south, but since we are not identified with the symbolic structure, neither of us are right nor wrong because up and down is inherently untrue. The symbol is a statement without a truth value. Religion is also a symbolic system without a truth value. There is no entity at its core and therefore no foundation to the religious identity, there is nothing there; it is only an internally self-defining system of symbols, and that nature of it is a dire undermining to one who has internalised the essentially empty identity structure. You can imagine how important it becomes when it is myself and what lengths people will go to enforce it externally so as to preserve themselves internally. If any less important than life and death, the religion would pass momentarily just like any other thought.

This is nothing to do with an authority stopping the thing (though in cases of institutional abuse they should be shut down, which would leave very few standing), it's about letting the thought be free to come along and pass away as all thought is wont to do, and not creating these structures that divide people into I am and I am not. Just today I was asked if I was Buddhist. Actually it was presumed that I am not a Buddhist... and I had to explain how I didn't say anything in the first place. Other people created that identity while I did nothing at all, yet I am now impelled to self-classify in the not category so that the identified can preserve their identity in contrast against the 'others' (who are not). Do you see then how they created the us and them, and why that in itself creates the conditions for violence to arise?
__________________
Radiate boundless love towards the entire world ~ Buddha
Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 08:17 AM.


Powered by vBulletin
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
(c) Spiritual Forums