Origin of religion

Originally posted by whodey
Evidence? I talk only of the God of the Bible who says so. Now if you want evidence for God I suppose their is only one way to go about it, however, I would not recommend it. After all, we would miss ya around here Scotty. :'(

Touched. 🙂

Originally posted by whodey
Evidence? I talk only of the God of the Bible who says so. Now if you want evidence for God I suppose their is only one way to go about it, however, I would not recommend it. After all, we would miss ya around here Scotty. :'(

talk to a dead person with a ouija board and see what they say

Originally posted by vistesd
Brahman is not generally seen as personal. Therefore, I would argue that one does not relate to Brahman directly, but to the manifestations of Brahman—including this atman/self that I am.

I distinguish between a monotheism that posits a supernatural being separate from the cosmos, and monism (or non-duality) that speaks in terms only of the ground of bei ...[text shortened]... e poet Kabir said it:

The holy One manifests in myriad forms;
I sing the glory of the forms.

But must the Brahman be related to soley in terms of manifestations rather than direct contact? I was looking at some Jewish sites and found this interesting. This paritular site referred to Moses as "The Revolutionary". They wrote:

"The giving of the Mosaic law was revolutionary in that it was the idea that the same God who transcends all nature and is responsible for the very ground of existence is really wrapped up in how we live down here. That was revolutionary. It was totally out of sych with so-called enlightened thinking of the times. People thought only little gods could get involved in this kind of thing--and they were easy to bribe. In Egypt, they called that "matta"--something like "karma" to the Hindus. They knew of some essential oneness at the core of reality--but they thought it proposterous to consider that this God could be engaged in anyones daily life. Never mind the daily iives of the masses, which gave all the more justification to be the hierarchy of power and oppression that Moses had stood up against. So Moses was bringing God down to earth much in the same way as the pyramids were attempting to bring man up into the realm of the gods."

Originally posted by whodey
But must the Brahman be related to soley in terms of manifestations rather than direct contact? I was looking at some Jewish sites and found this interesting. This paritular site referred to Moses as "The Revolutionary". They wrote:

"The giving of the Mosaic law was revolutionary in that it was the idea that the same God who transcends all nature and i he same way as the pyramids were attempting to bring man up into the realm of the gods."

What is sooooooooooooooooo difficult to understand? We are in "direct contact" with Brahman since we are part of Brahman. Your "revolution" consists of trying to find a Big Daddy God to protect us and look after us. I seriously doubt that was any "revolution"; it's a feature of many primitive religions.

And "karma" isn't anything like what your article says. Will you please actually try to understand some part of Hinduism if you are going to keep pretending to discuss it?

EDIT: I gave this in another thread:

In Buddhist teaching, the law of karma, says only this: `for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.' A skillful event is one that is not accompanied by craving, resistance or delusions; an unskillful event is one that is accompanied by any one of those things. (Events are not skillful in themselves, but are so called only in virtue of the mental events that occur with them.)

Therefore, the law of Karma teaches that responsibility for unskillful actions is born by the person who commits them.

http://www.ncf.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/sigs/religion/buddhism/introduction/truths/karma2.html

Originally posted by no1marauder
What is sooooooooooooooooo difficult to understand? We are in "direct contact" with Brahman since we are part of Brahman. Your "revolution" consists of trying to find a Big Daddy God to protect us and look after us. I seriously doubt that was any "revolution"; it's a feature of many primitive religions.

And "karma" isn't anything like what you ...[text shortened]... w.ncf.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/sigs/religion/buddhism/introduction/truths/karma2.html

So if the Brahman is in direct contact with everything what do you make of all of the seemingly "lost souls" roaming around the earth including myself before my conversion? There is an apparent disconnect. After all, if there were not a disconnect, I would think you would be a man of faith. How does one then rectify a disconnect with the Brahman who is in direct contact with us all?

Originally posted by no1marauder
What is sooooooooooooooooo difficult to understand? We are in "direct contact" with Brahman since we are part of Brahman. Your "revolution" consists of trying to find a Big Daddy God to protect us and look after us. I seriously doubt that was any "revolution"; it's a feature of many primitive religions.

And "karma" isn't anything like what you ...[text shortened]... w.ncf.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/sigs/religion/buddhism/introduction/truths/karma2.html

We are in "direct contact" with Brahman since we are part of Brahman.

Thank you. I stand corrected on that; you are absolutely right. Well said.

The shift to non-dualism is a real paradigm shift. I don’t think I’d made it as completely as I thought I had before my last vacation from here. Shortly before I left, you said something about the unsatisfactoriness of my position that we could not find meaning in the cosmos, but just make it. I thought about that a lot. In the end, it carried me deeper into the monist paradigm, where I think the answer resides—in that Brahman/Atman identification.

Now, I seem to see it everywhere—it’s like I got it before, but I didn’t really get it. And your articulation of it on here has helped deepen it even more—like just now.

BTW, have you found it just a bit ironic how much you and I have been singing duets on here recently?

Originally posted by whodey
So if the Brahman is in direct contact with everything what do you make of all of the seemingly "lost souls" roaming around the earth including myself before my conversion? There is an apparent disconnect. After all, if there were not a disconnect, I would think you would be a man of faith. How does one then rectify a disconnect with the Brahman who is in direct contact with us all?

You need to mediate and perhaps then you'll realize that what you perceive as reality is merely an illusion. That is maya. Don't worry; your "soul" will have as many lifetimes as it needs to reach the state of blissful knowledge where you will return to the One.

Originally posted by no1marauder


EDIT: I gave this in another thread:

In Buddhist teaching, the law of karma, says only this: `for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.' A skillful event is one that is not accompan ...[text shortened]...
http://www.ncf.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/sigs/religion/buddhism/introduction/truths/karma2.html[/b]

Thanks for the info. It is akin to the Christian doctrine that states whatsoever a man sows he will reap. However, it also says that it is becuase God will not be mocked. In your definition of karma I saw no mention of God so perhaps it is assumed a God-like entity is involved, I don't know. Perhaps he is this blob of everything that brings it altogether? To be honest, the teachings of Buddah seem to be more philisophical than religious.

Originally posted by whodey
So if the Brahman is in direct contact with everything what do you make of all of the seemingly "lost souls" roaming around the earth including myself before my conversion? There is an apparent disconnect. After all, if there were not a disconnect, I would think you would be a man of faith. How does one then rectify a disconnect with the Brahman who is in direct contact with us all?

The disconnect is rooted in illusion. There is no disconnect in reality.

EDIT: Oops. My "soul mate" already answered that one...

Originally posted by whodey
But must the Brahman be related to soley in terms of manifestations rather than direct contact? I was looking at some Jewish sites and found this interesting. This paritular site referred to Moses as "The Revolutionary". They wrote:

"The giving of the Mosaic law was revolutionary in that it was the idea that the same God who transcends all nature and i ...[text shortened]... he same way as the pyramids were attempting to bring man up into the realm of the gods."

Here's a interesting take on the Egyptian concept of ma'at and its relation to later philosophies, including Christianity:

The Egyptian word for this balance was the Egyptian word for "truth," ma'at; this is perhaps the single most important aspect of Egyptian culture that you can learn. For once you really understand this concept, the whole of Egyptian culture begins to make sense. The order of the universe (ma'at ) functioned with unswerving accuracy; it was maintained by the goddess Ma'at. This meant that the concept of "truth" meant for the Egyptian the the rational and orderly working of the universe rather than its diverse phenomena. The Egyptian, then, believed that he or she understood how the universe operated; all phenomena could be explained by an appeal to this understanding of the rationality of the universe.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important this concept of ma'at is to subsequent history. This idea that the universe is rational and that the "truth" of the universe is the underlying rationality and order of the universe rather than its diverse phenomena, passed from the Egyptians to the Greeks. The Greeks called the underlying order of the universe, logos, or "meaning," "order," "pattern." The early Christians adopted the logos in order to explain the moral order of the universe; the first line of the Gospel of John is, "In the beginning was the logos , and the logos was with God, etc." But the concept for the Greeks and the Christians was more or less the same as ma'at . The Egyptians believed that the ma'at of the universe was a god that benevolently ruled all aspects—human, material, and divine—of the universe; the Christians would likewise make the underlying rationality of the universe into God: "And the logos was God."

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM

Originally posted by whodey
Thanks for the info. It is akin to the Christian doctrine that states whatsoever a man sows he will reap. However, it also says that it is becuase God will not be mocked. In your definition of karma I saw no mention of God so perhaps it is assumed a God-like entity is involved, I don't know. Perhaps he is this blob of everything that brings it altogether? To be honest, the teachings of Buddah seem to be more philisophical than religious.

Karma requires no God; it is a self-regulating system.

Originally posted by no1marauder
You need to mediate and perhaps then you'll realize that what you perceive as reality is merely an illusion. That is maya. Don't worry; your "soul" will have as many lifetimes as it needs to reach the state of blissful knowledge where you will return to the One.

How can one be certain what the illusion actually is?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Here's a interesting take on the Egyptian concept of ma'at and its relation to later philosophies, including Christianity:

The Egyptian word for this balance was the Egyptian word for "truth," ma'at; this is perhaps the single most important aspect of Egyptian culture that you can learn. For once you really understand this concept, the whole of Egypt ...[text shortened]... God: "And the logos was God."

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM

Yes, yes, yes. Ma’at, logos, Tao, Brahman—Huxley was right: the “perennial philosophy” flows like a river through all the major religions; it takes on some different and interesting currents, but it is still what it is...

Originally posted by whodey
How can one be certain what the illusion actually is?

It is all illusion but the One.

Of course, this is the dualist strand of thought in Hinduism which seems close to Buddhism and Taoism.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Here's a interesting take on the Egyptian concept of ma'at and its relation to later philosophies, including Christianity:

The Egyptian word for this balance was the Egyptian word for "truth," ma'at; this is perhaps the single most important aspect of Egyptian culture that you can learn. For once you really understand this concept, the whole of Egypt ...[text shortened]... God: "And the logos was God."

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM

Thanks again for the info, however, I would like to return to discussion of Larry Richards which states that the world's religions have veered away from a personal God. There are those who seem to be caught up in the similarities of various religions and there are those who are more focused on the differences. I for one am more focused on the differences. I am not one of those who thinks that all roads lead to Rome. This is because there are two possibilities. Either one religion points to the one true God or he simply is not bothered by the differences and does not care. Here again we get to the issue about a personalized God. Do we have a God that does not care or one that cares about what we think about him and how we interact with him or even one that wants to interact with us. If he does not care about how I interact with him, where does that then leave me? I suppose it leaves me out in the cold only to return to the some concieved blob of "oneness of the universe" as I fade away into nonexistence.

You must admit one thing and that is that Christianity is different from Hinduism and the Egyptian religions in that a personal God came down to give us laws to live by. He then came down in human flesh to die for us and save us. Thats the kind of God I want to serve.