God works in mysterious ways....

Sure. I think I may have misread your initial post regarding this. I took it to mean anyone having experiences would be arrogant to ignore them. I obviously don't know the force of your own personal experiences, and so wouldn't doubt them. But I would add that this only works for you and no one else in terms of convincing evidence. Not that you said anything different, just clarifying.

I don't. I said my view of reality includes reincarnation and karma...to which you replied...

We can't ignore these things in an explanation of what we deem in "other cases" to be human suffering.

This earlier explanation I gave would explain your question though.



See we think the person isn't dead and they think they are dead....so who is right? Well, all of us. We have this experience of them walking around as living, breathing, human beings who think they are dead and we think this is an awful disease that causes a crazy delusion and unnecessary suffering. They believe they are dead and have an experience of being dead....an experience that due to their karma they may need to have.

Again, if you don't believe in those things this explanation will do you no good as I've said many times already. I however, can't give you a medical scientific answer that can answer all questions objectively as I don't think we live in a completely objective reality as I have also stated already.


We have this normal human tendency to project our own life, our faults, our joys etc onto others. We make all kinds of assumptions about them and their experience they are having based on what has happened to us, just pay attention to yourself and you will see you spend all day doing these things off an on. When we see people who are having a drastically different life experience than the vast majority we call these people "crazy" or "sick" or "diseased" or whatever. We assume they aren't having exactly the life experience they are supposed to be having because we compare it to our own and to others around us.

I'm not worried about whether I agree. I obviously don't. I'm trying to figure out if your view is. I said before that I thought your overall outlook was something like" "'We can't know anything for certain, so when faced with competing answers, each is as good as any other." You didn't respond, but I kind of feel like that's what you're saying here: That there's no way to distinguish whether he is dead or alive.

If this is the case, then I wonder how this works for you in a practical sense. So, you're faced with the answer to a question, either A,B, or C. Does the answer always depend on how you feel about the situation or is there anything external that factors into the decision?

I'm saying your experience is the best indicator of your own truth and your own guidance in life. No matter how many people try to convince someone with Cotard's they are alive and well, they won't believe you. Their experience indicates different to them. We try to make them wrong but are they? Why do we need to be right?

Why can't we just live life and and see it for what it is without the need to put labels on everything, or be politically correct in everything we say or do, etc... Why do we accept monogamy as a society as essentially the golden standard for relationship or any idea that society imposes on us? I'm simply talking about lifting the veils of dogma and beliefs that have been imposed on us and seeing life for what it is without all the pretty and ugly labels and ideas of good and bad we impose on everything we see and every situation that occurs.

In practical life, I used to find it hard to do....nearly impossible. The more I try to live my life that way the easier it becomes but for anything that requires planning and thinking about the past or future it is always a constant struggle I assume.

My attempt however, is to as much as possible live life in the present moment and see it for what it is without all the labels we impose on life and without constantly comparing everything to past experience or trying to figure out how things will end up in the future if I do A, B, or C. Again, this is def hard but gets easier and easier the more I work at it.

Completely agree.

This was the overall crux of my point when I said I view reality as subjective overall, that reincarnation and karma fit well into this model of reality to keep reality working properly, and that we all search for God in our own time and our own way, in this life or another.

Which is essentially what is being discussed above and when an atheist blasts a theist for his beliefs because they "just know" or "just feel" God.

I used to be that atheist that did that. Having been on both ends of the spectrum I have felt completely disconnected from God for much of my life so the "knowing and feeling" I've have of God since has been too much for me to personally ignore yet I know it serves no one other than myself any purpose regarding proof. You have to search for you own proof.

For me this just came in the search for truth and I've gone through many major religions, philosophies, science, and most importantly my own personal experiences to come to a conclusion that makes sense to me. I'm open to reality not being the way I perceive it to be, as a matter of fact I completely realize it isn't exactly the way I perceive it to be bc we can't completely know everything as human beings. I do have a sense of knowing and feeling about the universe and what is the truth to me though. I have no doubt that everyone finds this truth at some point in some lifetime.

Even here I don't think we are on the same page, though, as I distinguish between personal truths and objective ones, while it doesn't seem like you think such a distinction exists.

I was generally interested in how you lived your life in a practical fashion under your worldview because personally, I don't think it can be done. It isn't surprising to me that you are struggling so much with it. The reason, I think, is because with out some kind of external influence there simply isnt a reliable way to decide what is true in the face of differing explanations. I recognize that certain truth's are personal, but also think they are the most likely to be unreliable. Am I in love with this person? I think so. But what if what I'm really feeling is just an inflated sense of ego from being desired? How can I tell? I can't, really. But, as I said before, I make the assumption because it allows me to operate in the world.

I believe that most of reality is relatively objective. As in we can agree that if you come to Los Angeles and have a look around you and I are going to mostly agree on all the things we see and hear as being real and existing. However, these things that exist within a shared reality on a quantum level don't exist the way we believe them to as being "solid matter".

For example, take a baseball and place it inside a box. You and I would both objectively agree that the baseball is inside the box. On a quantum level however, the boundaries that make up the baseball are made of atoms and some of those atoms, if measured can be found outside of the box and stretching out into infinity. So in actuality we can see it as objectively real while it can never truly be objectively measured and we will never come to an absolutely true consensus of the mass or measurement of any physical matter...we can only get very close approximations.

My overall view on reality is that of a subjective reality based on the constant flow of energy and information, however...at the absolute highest level of reality the only reality is God.


Jesus lived this way. It's an example for all of us on how to live. You find it surprising that I struggle to live this way, yet if we look all over the world there are probably 1000 or less people that are living their life this way completely all the time.

It is very hard and a constant struggle for any human being for the exact reasons you go on to mention. As human beings, we are all constantly in a struggle whether to follow our emotions and joy in life or follow the beliefs we attach to those emotions. The beliefs we attach are the the ego structures we have created but they are hard as hell to break down completely.

I spent 32 years of my life walking around in a drunken stupor of my own ego's creation....it's only been just over a year that I have had these "spiritual" realizations and and if we accept reincarnation as a possibility, I have possibly been on this journey for thousands of years and many lifetimes, so a 1 year struggle seems quite reasonable. That said I think it's all a struggle in some way but as you break out of the ego it certainly becomes less of a struggle as you start to experience more of what I can only call grace. At some point possibly there is no more struggle or effort as I suspect it becomes more and more grace until finally it is all grace and no effort.

Holy crap! A lot of blowhard rhetoric itt. You guys could give Deepak Chopra a run for his money with the nonsense that's being spewed. So typical for the RGT forum. It always so quickly departs from the question posed in the OP.

Well, as Deepak Chopra would tell you, that is because you create your own reality.

You have already created an entire reality for yourself as an atheist where you get to play the game of hide and seek with the truth. You hide the truth from yourself until one day you wake up and realize it was your ego structures that prevented you from seeing the truth that was clear as day staring you in the face.

"God" preforms miracles all the time. In the atheist and scientific community though you call them by a different name....spontaneous remission/regression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_remission


Now some, like me, would call that unknown knowledge God while you keep hiding yourself from the truth. It's a fun game to play, changing the language and idea/concept of something to fit the belief you hold so you can hide from the truth....bc when you finally find the truth after doing it for so long, it feels that much sweeter to find it. I know bc I used to do it until I woke up one day and realized exactly such. It's a great game to play but when you get tired of it the search for the ultimate truth always wins out.

You can call me crazy and defend your position but as long as the ego remains it will protect itself from ever reaching the real truth. Perception dictates reality, not the other way around. That is why so many people have completely different beliefs about the same exact things.

Yes, this is correct, except with the addition of - it is unnecessary to postulate the existence of a 'super-natural' if it has not demonstrated any consistent (and discernible) influence on the 'natural'. In my experience, and most scientists I presume, divine intervention (of any kind) is unnecessary to the functioning of the world/universe.
Because they're in a vulnerable, fragile state. People don't feel more vulnerable than when they're 'near-death'. When you're in this state, you're almost entirely dependent on the people around you. As such, you recognise how much you need love in times when you're down and out.

To summarize: Everyone you disagree with create their own reality and are therefore wrong and can't reach the truth.

No, the opposite actually. Everyone will eventually find the truth on their "journey to find God". I never said I had the truth, it's simply my perception of the truth and I'm still on my journey to full realize it. I'm open to being wrong about all this, however it's lead me to the realization that the only things that are truly important in life are love and compassion and I'm OK with that being my truth while things keep pointing to that being so. But, all truths are valid for the people that hold them at the time they hold them because it suits their purpose on that path to finding God.


But yes, you create your own reality to have the exact experience you need to have to give you opportunities to put yourself on that path, however the choice is always yours between identifying with your "ego" or your "soul"...identifying with fear or love.

Are you implying that one should identify more with their "soul" than their "ego"? (ignoring the fact that both of these have been left undefined).

And if you're making normative suggestions, then you can't claim that "you create your own reality". My reality is not created by me if I'm particularly impressionable and if the creation of my reality is influenced by your suggestions.

All Muslims to invite all Christians, all Hindus, all Buddhists, all Jews, etc to a 16 year plan to study Physics, Math, Chemistry, Biology and Computing and then magically within 16 years all of mankind to have finally gotten it right and turned into a loving, logical, creative, cooperating, fair system that aims at progress, ethics and the improvement of the human condition, liberated from narrow self interest, united at last, without however people losing their confidence in the power of the individual human spirit.

Yes, that will do it!


Ps: It really needs to starts with Muslims though inviting the others !

Do you have any criteria or rules for when people are wrong?

I'm not implying that anyone should do anything. I'm simply posting my understanding based on my own experience and in my search for the truth. I'm not implying anyone should do anything I do or say, because there is nothing to do. You will do it on your own when your searching for the truth takes you there within your own experience.

Your reality is created by your beliefs. If you play the victim role in life then life is always happening to you, and against you and that will be your reality. You will attract situations in which "life" makes you a victim in your own mind so that you can transcend this ego based fear driven thought and realize your infinite potential as a loving being.

Any time you have a choice and choose fear over love. But it isn't wrong, there is no right and wrong about it. It just is and it's part of everyones path to realizing love is the only real thing. If you choose fear enough life will typically annihilate you to the point where the suffering becomes so unbearable in your mind you start to shift your perceptions. This is a very common and lots of people are on this path but it isn't the only path and any path is valid because it's all simply an experience of searching for the love of God in the end.

This is where ideas of reincarnation and karma fit into the picture.

Great, so I'll keep following the path that I am currently on - without taking suggestions from anyone at all - and I'll continue to create my own reality and if this reality never involves God, I can safely assume that I won't be judged by God for creating my own reality.

Exactly man...keep on keepin' on. This path isn't something you can intellectually plan out imo, it just unfolds for you and you realize only after the fact. For me it was connected to a bunch of little choices I was making for self improvement in my life and just threw me headfirst on a spiritual journey but it isn't really just that. It's about self exploration of my mind at the deepest levels through introspection and staying in the present moment to notice when my egos pop up and try to get me to make a fearful choice. It's about taking responsibility for my own thoughts, beliefs, and actions, and living my life by making conscious decisions to be loving.

If you had told me 15 months ago that where I am right now in life, posting the posts I've been posting in this forum the past couple months is where I would be in my life right now....I would have told you that you're out of your ****ing mind and bet my entire net worth you were wrong. Yet here I am doing just these things. I don't think I ever even visited the RGT forum on here that I can ever really remember in my entire posting history here until sometime in the last 6-8 months probably, and if I did it wasn't with much interest or concern for any of the subjects being discussed. I considered myself very left brain and analytical so my life experience has been a major trip for me too in the past 12-15 or so months.

In another 15 months you may be on this forum or a similar forum debating the same things but from the completely opposite side - militant atheism. Eventually, you'll argue both sides and comfortably arrive somewhere in the middle. When you've gone through this particular "path" - of experimenting with opposing paradigms - you'll better see the flaws in both sides and you'll begin to understand the importance of 'clearly defining your terms', not only in your writing and communication, but also in your thought-processes.

If every word in the dictionary is a human concept and "God" is just another word/concept, and if "God" can be used to refer to almost anything in nature, then the concept becomes meaningless.

If you use God synonymously with "love" or "compassion" or whatever other concept you think is positive then you're making a definitional/categorical error. For example, if in the same discussion, you also use the concept of God synonymously with "truth" or "karma" and then you use it in opposition to the concept of "ego" then the word God starts to lose meaning, to the point that it can refer to anything you consider positive: thus losing all meaning as a concept/word. In this case, any conversation about God becomes meaningless. Concepts ought to be precisely defined before any meaningful discussion can take place.

That is certainly true, but only if you look around the world and it doesn't constantly marvel you at what you see. Once you see it like that and call it God....you found what you were looking for.

But why call it "God"? I see the same marvel, complexity and inspiration in nature and I call it "Beauty". "God" comes with connotations and is far too undefined, whereas "Beauty" has a precise definition, so why use the word that is more vague?

Call it whatever you want, it's just semantics. If I point to a tree and say that's God and you say, no it's beauty but you fail to see that that tree gives you life and you can't live without it you fail see God or Beauty for what it actually is. We're all connected to everything in the universe, the whole is experience itself is God experiencing God...change the word to whatever suits you and your beliefs though.