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New guy here
I have been looking through the forums here for a couple days and decided to join.
I guess the best place to start is by sharing a little about myself.
I grew up in a Christian home. Went to Church on Sundays and Wednesdays and Bible camp every summer. I was raised to believe that the Bible was the word of God and that I would burn in Hell if I ever strayed.
Warnings aside, I started straying at about the age of 17. I did something most Christians don't do: Actually studied the Bible and the history of the church.
I decide that Christianity was nothing but lies and became an Atheist.
I spent the next 6 or 7 years studying other world religions, psychology, and science.
I have been in numerous debates where people have told me that I "sound like a Buddhist", but I never studied much into Buddhism more than the 4 Noble Truths, the Eight-Fold Path, the life of Buddha, and a few lessons. I read the book Siddhartha a few years back and it became one of my favorites.
As of today, here are my beliefs:
1) I don't believe in God...at least not in the old man watching over us all and having emotions sense. I believe that men created God because they could not explain the world around them and simply decided that the unexplainable must be performed by something supernatural.
2) I believe that we all create our own realities.
3) "Morals" are natural, and man would have them without religion.
4) Most people are sheep, and blindly follow whatever system they have been told to because they are either too lazy to find their own answers, or fear persecution from their family and friends.
5) Life should be a never-ending learning experience.
6) I believe that when we die, we fulfill the definition of the word "Dead" and cease to exist...just like a squirrel, fish, or any other creature on this planet. There is a cycle, though, in which we become part of the planet again in a sense(Energy can neither be created or destroyed).
7) Mankind has been lucky enough to evolve to the point where we can understand the world around us. We should use that intelligence to continuously explore our world and the universe in search of answers to life.
I don't know enough about Buddhism to tell if I fall under the Buddhist "category", but I have been studying it lately.
Anyway, this looks like a really cool site with a lot of intelligent people and I am glad I found it.
I guess the best place to start is by sharing a little about myself.
I grew up in a Christian home. Went to Church on Sundays and Wednesdays and Bible camp every summer. I was raised to believe that the Bible was the word of God and that I would burn in Hell if I ever strayed.
Warnings aside, I started straying at about the age of 17. I did something most Christians don't do: Actually studied the Bible and the history of the church.
I decide that Christianity was nothing but lies and became an Atheist.
I spent the next 6 or 7 years studying other world religions, psychology, and science.
I have been in numerous debates where people have told me that I "sound like a Buddhist", but I never studied much into Buddhism more than the 4 Noble Truths, the Eight-Fold Path, the life of Buddha, and a few lessons. I read the book Siddhartha a few years back and it became one of my favorites.
As of today, here are my beliefs:
1) I don't believe in God...at least not in the old man watching over us all and having emotions sense. I believe that men created God because they could not explain the world around them and simply decided that the unexplainable must be performed by something supernatural.
2) I believe that we all create our own realities.
3) "Morals" are natural, and man would have them without religion.
4) Most people are sheep, and blindly follow whatever system they have been told to because they are either too lazy to find their own answers, or fear persecution from their family and friends.
5) Life should be a never-ending learning experience.
6) I believe that when we die, we fulfill the definition of the word "Dead" and cease to exist...just like a squirrel, fish, or any other creature on this planet. There is a cycle, though, in which we become part of the planet again in a sense(Energy can neither be created or destroyed).
7) Mankind has been lucky enough to evolve to the point where we can understand the world around us. We should use that intelligence to continuously explore our world and the universe in search of answers to life.
I don't know enough about Buddhism to tell if I fall under the Buddhist "category", but I have been studying it lately.
Anyway, this looks like a really cool site with a lot of intelligent people and I am glad I found it.
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Comments
'Buddhist' I guess, when all attachments are taken into account, is just another label...
Even the Buddha wasn't Buddhist....
But it's great to meet you. Jump in wherever you feel an input at your fingertips!
A big, warm welcome to you and I hope you find this forum as helpful and inspiring as I have.
Nice to meet you.
-bf
You Got Something against the purple pill, or is it just the color red you like?
Be careful NOT to fall under any heavy categories or catalogues (You never know where all they've been.).
Regards,
_____ Pill Addict Number Nine
I'm a 'newbie', too! Your background is very close to what I experienced...I can relate!
I have a question for the group that I feel a little strange about...do you ever dream things that 'drive' your quest or original curiosity about life that pointed you in a different direction than the religion you might have grown up in?
I ask, because, at times, my dreams have been more 'real' than reality and, experience has proven them time and again to be beneficial to, not only my survival, but pursuit of a religious path that works for me...just curious!
Can't say I have. My dreams lately have always been about cats either trying to kill themselves or me. I looked it up in a dream interpretation book, and found that it (cats) points to some unfulfilled sexual desires. I can't even begin to see the connection.
Anyway, I don't hold much stock in dreams. I've never had a religiously oriented one.
That's good! I think dreaming about cats has less to do with unfulfilled sexual desires and more to do with frustration!!! (We have a lot of cats!)!
I dreamed that I died and went to Heaven, knocked on Heaven's door, and Jesus answered. He said "I do not know you", and I fell to Hell.
At the time I was young and ignorant and thought it was a "sign from God".
Now I look back at it and laugh. Considering my upbringing, how could I not have had that dream from time to time?
My own 'take' on dreams, based on my trainings including Jungian, is to look, first but not solely, on the notion that everything that arises in dreams is a projection of me. In that case, the 'Jesus' who doesn't know you is you yourself: pretty wise, I think. If anything drew me to Buddhism early on was its use as a tool to know oneself.
Welcome to the forum. Hope you find it helpful.
_/\_
How odd that we say God is truth when it should be the other way around, viz., that truth is God or whatever. Keeping this in mind, I don't recall any nation fighting a war in the name of truth, or a President saying truth is speaking to him, telling him to invade Iraq.
We can sure do a lot of evil in the name of God. History if filled with such examples. Then, feeling some remorse, we can believe that God is love or the absolute. But somehow this isn't right. It would be better if all religions just gave up the habit of believing that God is truth or love or something else. Just stick with truth—man doesn't need God. It also makes it harder to go to war.
Love ya'll,
Bobby
Hi Bobby,
Good to see you among us again.
I wish I could believe you but I can't. Human beings don't appear to need reasons to go to war or, rather, wanting to go to war we will invent reasons. The causes of war are deep and age-old: resources. Far more wars are declared "in the national interest" than for/against gods. Abolish nations by all means: they are anachronisms and foster artificial xenophobia; their borders have little or no objective reason to exist, even as lines on a map.
I fear that you are confusing God (whatever that may or may not be) and National Deities.
Even in the Bible, there are moments when humanity pierces the gloom. David, nation-maker and warrior, forgets politics and self-interest for just one moment: "O Absalom, my son, my son; would God I had died for you!" Abolish nations; share resources; love you neighbour: foolish ideas but the ones that would end war - if anyone really wanted to end such an opportunity for big profits!