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Chris B

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It is certainly the pit one falls into, or in another analogy, the garden that a serpent appears in ... remembering (by analogy) that is is the garden of God.

Ah, I'm more with Douglas Adams on gardens.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
 
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timewerx

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(in it's purest form) prove that who you believe yourself to be as consciousness exists?

Logic is the purest drive of consciousness.

All matter is predicated by the fact it holds itself true as we think they are.

What nobody bothers to ask is why and how....... Why does an electron chooses to be an electron and how? Why does a quark chooses to be a quark and how??

Why does a paper manifest as a paper as long as you use it as a paper?

Why does the body does not live to be 200 years old or longer?

Is the paper alive? Who is more alive?

Who has more faith and truth? You or the paper?

Do we even deserve to be asking these questions?


To someone else's perspective, we are nothing but an ugly stain on an otherwise perfect blue white, and green sphere in space. Today it is, tomorrow, no more. Are you really more alive than the things you possess?
 
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x141

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My mind did not create my body.

Somebodies mind had a hand in it (but one could equally say the big bang/chaos had a hand in (the ordering of) it) ... though imagination (designated as a function of the mind) can change what we see and hear in association with what we believe to be real.
 
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x141

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Ah, I'm more with Douglas Adams on gardens.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

I don't disagree with him, but it's not so much about the garden as it is about what you plant and let grow there; after all, you are God and your mind your garden.

For the most part, God is just a word no more or less than garden is a word which is the same for time and the perception of it ... am I more than what I see in the mirror, of course, a universe exists in me just as it exists outside of me, but again, there is one that is tangible/matter/measurable, the other relational; it is the relational that we cling to as the assembling of truths that make up self, irregardless of the source, and no matter how probable or improbable it may be.
 
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DogmaHunter

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Somebodies mind had a hand in it

No. Biology and bio-chemistry had a hand in it...

(but one could equally say the big bang/chaos had a hand in (the ordering of) it) ... though imagination (designated as a function of the mind) can change what we see and hear in association with what we believe to be real.

What we believe to be real or imagine to be real doesn't change what actually IS real.
 
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x141

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No. Biology and bio-chemistry had a hand in it...



What we believe to be real or imagine to be real doesn't change what actually IS real.

So you don't believe you exist? so therefore you don't have any say in the matter?

For the latter, what actually is real is not definable to us outside of what we believe or imagine.
 
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DogmaHunter

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So you don't believe you exist? so therefore you don't have any say in the matter?

No sense, this makes.. hmmm. (/yoda-voice)

I could believe that I don't exist and it wouldn't change the fact that I actually do exist.
My beliefs don't dictate what reality is.

In fact, I make a big point about having reality dictate my beliefs instead of the other way round...

For the latter, what actually is real is not definable to us outside of what we believe or imagine.

Only if you base your worldview on "faith".
 
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x141

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No sense, this makes.. hmmm. (/yoda-voice)

I could believe that I don't exist and it wouldn't change the fact that I actually do exist.
My beliefs don't dictate what reality is.

In fact, I make a big point about having reality dictate my beliefs instead of the other way round...



Only if you base your worldview on "faith".

"My belief's don't dictate what reality is." This works undoubtedly well with things in regards to matter, but when it comes to a loving relationship with say a spouse ... the road becomes very rocky very quickly. Very few spouses would be accepting if you told them that your love for them is nothing more than a chemical reaction. If they did accept it, I am certain it would not remain this way for very long.

Actually, at times ... if I let my reality dictate my belief I would have to say my wife really hates me, that is, at times ...

Reality should dictate our beliefs though, but we also (for ourselves) with belief accept this as reality, or it never becomes relative to us.
 
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allhart

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The Quantum bit computer created by CERN has the comparable compasity of 7 billion human brains with no self awareness just pure logic... Our brain resonates at 7.83hz but then again one can be a live in a vegetational state etc!? Justifications only sound good to those who make them... How do u know your alive n if u do not then why is there this knee jerk reaction to want to say alive!?
 
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Chris B

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I don't disagree with him, but it's not so much about the garden as it is about what you plant and let grow there; after all, you are God and your mind your garden.
Nah. I can't promote myself to God. I don't have the qualifications. And my mind isn't completely my own creation, but I'm working on the consequences of that with gradual editing, as influences become apparent.
(I grew up simply *knowing* that in any fight between US cavalry and indians (sic) the cavalry were the good guys. Sheesh.)

For the most part, God is just a word no more or less than garden is a word...
I like that. It's a reminder that any word can have a variety of meanings attached to the singular set of letters, and that can significantly confuse or distort communication. It takes awareness and work to minimise this.

...a universe exists in me just as it exists outside of me, but again, there is one that is tangible/matter/measurable, the other relational; it is the relational that we cling to as the assembling of truths that make up self, irregardless of the source, and no matter how probable or improbable it may be.

Interesting. I'd reverse those two but I am an atypical human, sitting at a range of points on the autistic spectrum.

Chris
 
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x141

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Interesting. I'd reverse those two but I am an atypical human, sitting at a range of points on the autistic spectrum.

Chris

To reverse it to me would bring me to the same consensus; more or less, they are like two fruits of a tree, it's still the same tree.

I'm not really a christian, though it was the serpent I chose. I put christian under faith because you had to put something, I was more looking for nothing.
 
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Chris B

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To reverse it to me would bring me to the same consensus; more or less, they are like two fruits of a tree, it's still the same tree.
I was reluctantly forced to conclude that I was human, around the age of 15: my mindset and way of looking at the world was so different from those around me *and they had consensus backing them up*, that this was not intuitively obvious.
If not alien, I was certainly alienated. "Are we supposed to be having fun, now?
I understood "things," concrete and abstract far better than people. Despite trying to learn "people" (as you'd study a new language), this remains so.
I encountered serious Christianity on an "is it true" basis. Nothing else weighed in significantly.
 
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GrowingSmaller

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I am probably mistaken abouut my existence, unless I refine my "self consepr" to a bare minimum, but then would that be the "me" I have come to know over the years? For instance, I get one point in philosophy, science or anthropology wrong, just one point, and my "self" (which is understood in relation to all of this) is an illusion. I may be 99.9% real, so to speak, but have one marginal attribute (for instance how bald I am) wrong. And thats it, fallible, game over as total accuracy.
 
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x141

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I was reluctantly forced to conclude that I was human, around the age of 15: my mindset and way of looking at the world was so different from those around me *and they had consensus backing them up*, that this was not intuitively obvious.
If not alien, I was certainly alienated. "Are we supposed to be having fun, now?
I understood "things," concrete and abstract far better than people. Despite trying to learn "people" (as you'd study a new language), this remains so.
I encountered serious Christianity on an "is it true" basis. Nothing else weighed in significantly.

For me, I experienced something I could not explain so I started at Christianity and it lead me back to myself.
 
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Chris B

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For me, I experienced something I could not explain so I started at Christianity and it lead me back to myself.
The world is full of stuff: some of it I can't explain (what am I, at the cutting edge of research in every field?) and it terms of knowing it all, far too much of it. Humans aren't a great fit for this universe, in some respects, but it's the universe we've got.
And, to date, we're the only beings we know of capable of regarding the universe with a question marks as well as awe and wonder.
Even if, as of yesterday, we're going to have to re-think our ideas on how the solar system came together.
"Ah, right, we've got that wrong." I like that attitude.

Chris.
 
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Chris B

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I accept the truth that I exist.

I'm taking that (my existence) as a reasonable assumption, as other assumptions are difficult to work with.

With philosophical Hinduism, however, the thought is that only one being, one consciousness exists, and this sense of being an individual, which so many of us appear to have, is an unhelpful illusion which needs to be unlearned for real spiritual progress.
No, I don't agree, for a range of reasons. But it does leave a significant strand in the world with the thought that "I", "I" as individual "I", "I" with personal ego "I", is a concept to be abandoned, an illusion to be dispelled.

It hurt my brain trying to get a trace of inside understanding of that.
(Critique from the outside, that's easy).
 
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