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Disbelief Systems Are Still Belief Systems - PLUS My Belief System

Posted By: Gaian
Date: Friday, 17-Oct-2014 12:52:03
www.rumormill.news/1932

In Response To: BELIEF SYSTEMS (Nemesis)

Greetings Nem and All!

As Rush so famously wrote: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

So, choose wisely... :)

Beliefs aren't LIKE opinions, they ARE opinions - deeply set opinions. And everyone has, not one, but MANY.

I work on my beliefs, using reason and personal experience. It's that simple - and that complex.

The most comprehensive work I've written on the subject of my personal belief system was on the Washington Post "On Faith" blog on New Years Day, 2007. Wow, it's been that long ago. It was an enormous blog, with several thousand comments. I kept the comments I posted, and I'm going to share these two posts with the RMN Readers below.

A few things to keep in mind while reading these posts: 1) I wrote these for the Washington Post readers, not RMN readers - it's an entirely different audience around which I "framed" my comments; 2) I've grown since then, and my beliefs have evolved/changed somewhat since (and that's good); and 3) I used the word "conscience" in places where I should have used "consciousness" - I know better now :), but I've kept these posts pristine, typos and all, for posterity.

So without further ado, here's a general synopsis of my belief system. Your mileage may vary.... :)

Blessings and Namaste,

Gaian

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post 1:

I’ve been a silent observer on this site for several days now and feel I have come to know quite a few of you personally, for what is more personal than one’s beliefs? I respect and appreciate the open and candid posts that have been shared and I feel compelled to share as well. I’ve worked many hours off-line on this post and it has become somewhat long. My apologies in advance to posters this may annoy.

The original topic, somewhat lost in the fray, was a two part question asking whether believers and atheists can have a productive conversation and, if so, over what kinds of issues?

Believers and atheists have been having a productive conversation right here for days; however, IMHO, the discussion is limited due to the lack of clarity in the question asked. One of the reasons I’ve waited until now to post is because I don’t know which camp I’m in. I have my beliefs, although I consider them spiritual as opposed to religious. But my beliefs are not shared by any posters thus far. I have a well-formed god-theory that I am completely comfortable with which provides me a flexible framework within which I may openly contemplate, yet it does not conform to the ‘popular’ definition of God.

The posts clearly demonstrate an age-old problem that continues to keep believers and non-believers from having candid conversations – semantics. We’re using the same words but define them with our personal perspectives. If you ask me if I believe in God, my answer would be yes. But if you asked me if I believed in your specific God, my answer would most probably be no. So, which am I, believer or atheist?

For me, the answer is simple – I’m a believer, of course. I have a very different concept of God than most, but a conceptual shift does not negate or invalidate my belief. However, it makes it very difficult to have a meaningful discussion on spirituality/religion because my approach is from that of a believer, but am always taken to be a non-believer by other believers with beliefs unlike my own – and vice versa. Always at this point, communication breaks down because we have reached a paradoxical impasse, of sorts.

Much time has been spent debating whether atheism is a religion. My two cents - I believe not. Atheism is the absence of religion/god-theory, just as cold is the absence of heat and darkness is the absence of light. Further, atheists do not act as a religion. They typically do not congregate to discuss their non-belief and many choose very carefully with whom they have these discussions for fear of social stigma and reprisal. I haven’t seen any Atheist churches in my travels and never has an Atheist came to my door to deliver and discuss their non-belief literature. Now, I have a question: Why does it matter if atheism is or is not a religion? Does one answer carry more weight than the other?

If Atheists and Agnostics were to rally their followers, organize and proliferate prominently within our communities, I suspect the reaction of most ‘Believers’ within the community would be swift and unkind. This Believer, however, would not mind at all if the ‘First Atheists Commune for Non-Believers’ or the ‘Agnostic Church of Divine Possibilities’ popped up on my block. I’d attend at least once just because I’d be interested to learn their choice of topics and forum (open, panel, sermon) used for discussion. My least favorite of these is the sermon, which allows for only one point of view. I’ve never attended any religious services that follow a sermon with a congregational Q&A session. My gut feeling it that this is by design. I learned very early in my spiritual quest that many religions feel that questioning implies doubt, and doubt implies a lack of faith, and lack of faith will leave you burning in hell for all eternity. This runs anathema to my view that questioning removes doubt, where refusing to answer casts doubt.

My beliefs do not fear questioning, they require it. It is through continuous contemplation of the questions I pose through the filter of my beliefs that I am able to further define, or know, my God. My questioning is not in search of absolute answers. I prefer the subtle nuance within shades of gray as opposed to the stark finality of black and white. It is the exploration of the question that keeps me grounded and inspired; hence, the quest is in the questioning. When I have no more questions, I have no more quest. No worries. I’m pretty sure that when I transition from this realm, their will be an unasked question left on my lips. Many, I hope.

My God is neutral. It is neither good nor evil, as I believe that these are attributes that we apply after the fact based on circumstance and intent. We are capable of both good and evil although I believe we are born neutral and our disposition for one or the other is defined by our unconditional trust of familial, social and cultural influences during our formative early years.

The same could be said of our choice of religion (or lack of). Who among you were given a choice of religions by your parents that included religions other than those of your parents? I suspect there aren’t many and I’m certainly not one of them. Generally, we inherit the religion of our parents and by the time we acquire and hone our critical thinking skills, our psyches are thoroughly entrenched with their brand of theology. This is a lonely and dangerous precipice at which to stand. It is where I asked my first question which is still the hardest I’ve uttered but simplest to answer: Have I found my truth?

My answer came easily but at a very high cost. I might as well have murdered my mother. Although she knew I no longer subscribed to her religion, she still insisted that I was just a lost member of the flock in need of being shepherded back into the fold. It was not that I had turned my back on faith, but that Satan had succeeded in casting doubt on my faith, as was his duty. She begged that I fight off Satan’s ever-tightening grasp, even suggesting that it would be selfish for me to ruin her heavenly afterlife by knowing that I was burning in hell. Apparently, Mother’s heaven allows guilt. Lovely. We both firmly stood our ground on this issue, but found other avenues in which to grow our relationship until she met her end.

My beliefs do not incorporate reward or punishment, so there is no need for the concept of heaven or hell. My God does not kill nor does my God prevent killing. My God does not resemble me as my God requires no form.

My God is not interested in whether I believe in it or not. I sought my God, it did not seek me.

My God does not offer salvation or eternal life and I anticipate neither. All my God offers is unconditional acceptance within a spiritual framework. Service to my God requires only that I diligently observe, interact and contemplate within my present realm to the fullest of my ability.

I arrive at my beliefs by using a very simple process as my yardstick. I didn’t invent this process, so you might recognize it or even use it yourself. You begin at a point on the left called ‘Possibility’ and end at a point on the right called ‘Probability’. The space between these two points is a sliding scale called ‘Certainty’. The closer the answer lies to the right end of the scale near ‘Probability, the higher the level of certainty in your answer. I must mention that the scale from left to right is at a significant incline. Your answer requires reason behind it to push it up the scale and increase its certainty. No arbitrary answers are allowed. I also incorporate the concept of imperfect knowledge so that the answer to any question cannot be considered an ‘impossibility’ or a ‘certainty’. As I stated before, I do not look for absolutes in my answers as they imply perfect knowledge, something I do not profess to have. It is within this construct that I ask questions that continually build upon my god-theory.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of this construct, I’ll use it to arrive at an answer I find suitable to a question posed oh-so often on this thread: Do I believe in the existence of the infamous pink unicorn?

In asking the question, I quickly realize that to find an honest answer (what would be the point in being dishonest?) I must ask myself not one, but three, questions: Do I believe pink unicorns ever existed? Do they exist now? Will pink unicorns ever exist?

Do I believe pink unicorns have ever existed? My breadth of knowledge and experience does not include a species called ‘unicorn’, so I have no empirical evidence to give reason to believe there has existed such a species. My answer is therefore found at the far left of the scale under ‘Possibility’.

Do I believe pink unicorns currently exist? Same answer as above.

Do I believe pink unicorns will ever exist? Ah, here’s where it gets interesting. Using the tool of deductive reasoning, I find my answer lies near center, around ‘Significant Possibility’. I arrive at my answer by asking a different, but equivalent question. Instead of asking me, a human, if pink unicorns will ever exist, I consider a similar question hypothetically posed to another species 100 million years ago – a dinosaur, any dinosaur: Do you believe humans will ever exist? The dinosaur would have no experience to base a reason for believing that we could come to exist, yet we do.

The gist of this exercise is to show the slippery slope of absolutes. You could say that 2 + 2 = 4 is an absolute truth and I would not whole-heartedly disagree with you. But if I ask you for the numerical equivalent of pi, you would be hard put to come up with such a quick, definitive, absolute answer. For me, I can easily and honestly answer that both 2+2 = 4 and the numerical equivalent of pi is roughly 3.14 at a very high rate of probability. Personally, I resist the use of absolutes and am wary of anyone that incorporates them into their belief system.
For me, this system works flawlessly. It is akin to how I envision Descartes arrived at his ground-breaking answer to his question of whether he truly existed. He became aware of the conscious observer, where thought resides. Others call it the soul, or self, or spirit, or essence. I call it the perspective conscience. My particular perspective conscience is unique to me and it is the most reliable source I have because it is based on my own knowledge and experience.

I don’t spend time imagining things I’ve never seen or experienced to determine whether or not I believe in them, such as pink unicorns, but I understand why the question was posed. But the question of God not does rest within the same realm as the question of pink unicorns, at least not for me. However, I can see how some it might for some of you.

To this end, I will close with a final explanation of how I arrived at my belief in a particular god-theory.

I believe my basis of being is my conscience. It is a singular, imperfect perspective that constitutes the sum total of my knowledge and experience at any given time. I call this spiritual self ‘gaian sapien’ or ‘wise earthling’. My God is the sum total of all conscious perspectives, not just mine – and not just human. I openly include the perspective of all conscious beings – canine, feline, etc., - in my god-theory, even those that I do not know currently exist, have existed or will exist. My God incorporates the collective conscience of all, even gay humans. I do not consider my God to be the Creator, but rather my God is the Observer.

I call my God ‘Omni Sapien’ or ‘All Wise’. It is the holder of perfect knowledge based on the ever-changing properties of the collective conscience. I believe Omni Sapien resides within its own dimension which houses the collective conscience. This is not a physical dimension like length, width or breadth or a linear dimension such as time. It is not necessary for me to know the properties or location of my God’s dimension for me to believe in it’s existence, just as Christians do not need to know the properties or location of heaven or hell to include them in their belief. I hope that we can all agree that there are at least four dimensions as mentioned above. M Theory (or Membrane Theory) poses the possibility of as many as 11 dimensions and I believe with a fairly high rate of probability that Omni Sapien occupies one of these dimensions.

Although these beliefs and my reasons for them satisfy me, I do not anticipate that they will (or should) satisfy others. However, your disbelief does not invalidate my belief and vice versa. But if we must begin by agreeing to disagree, it leaves us little room for productive discussion on issues such as ethics and morality because I approach those subjects much differently than believers of more popular religions.

Our beliefs are an inherent bias and a significant roadblock to productive conversation with others that do not share our bias, because they form a basis of distrust.

I have no solutions, but am more than willing to explore the questions.

Peace!

~~~~~~

POST 2:

I've read the few posts with references to the conscience with great interest for that is my spiritual focus.

Although I regard myself a believer, I most often side with the views of atheists and agnostics. I think that believers of popular religions think that I'm an atheist trying to trick or confuse them by calling myself a believer and then bombarding them with a scientific viewpoint. I'm really not. I was an agnostic until I formed a god-theory that incorporates scientific method.

I know, I know. It doesn't matter if you are a believer of popular religion or an atheist, I know you're saying to yourself, 'Ridiculous!'. Believers say it because I call myself a believer, but in their eyes I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing and atheists say it because in their viewpoint science and religion is like oil and water, you can't mix the two due to the faith factor.

Yes, religion requires faith by definition. My belief has faith in the same way that Quantum Mechanics has faith, only the term used is 'Probability'. It is a science that does not allow certainty. You could say it is a faith-based science. ;)

There is a major difference between my God and those of other religions. My God is the collective conscience and although it is all-knowing via the contribution of all singular consciences, it is powerless in the physical world because it does not reside within physical dimensions and therefore it is something that we cannot discern with our five senses.

Okay, you might consider that statement to be a deal-breaker and your about ready to write me off as a kook, but before you go please let me say this - time resides in a non-physical dimension as well. We cannot discern it with any of our five senses either, but I haven’t found anyone willing to say they don’t believe in time. The three physical dimensions move through time (aka spacetime). They work in perfect concert and are meaningless without one another.

The concept of a dimension that houses the conscience, or Observer as I like to call it, is not a far stretch from the concept of a time dimension - especially if you are already familiar with the concept of time as a dimension.

To illustrate the concept, I envision all of the conscious beings that I know to exist and they are all right here on this planet - humans, dogs, insects, birds, whales, etc. For the sake of argument, let us say that Earth is the only place in all of creation that has such rare and wondrous creatures. Then one day, by whatever unfortunate event - BOOM! No more Earth.

All that is left is physical matter moving through time, but what are they worth without an observer? They are instantly meaningless. Just like matter is meaningless without time and time is meaningless without matter, both become meaningless if there is nothing – or no one – to observe them.

In my belief, the dimension of conscience, or rather the conscious dimension, is a cohesive member of this awesome realm and without it, there can be no concept of awesome, no concept of realm. No concepts at all.

As I stated in an earlier post, M Theory suggests as many as 11 dimensions. My belief is that the conscious dimension is one of them. Since only four dimensions are currently known, that still leaves room for further discovery.

Although my God is all-knowing, it is in no way powerful. Power is a physical concept and resides in the physical dimension. My God has no physical form and therefore no power over physical things. It can only observe via consciousness. All conscious beings (of which I'm aware) are limited in this way. For instance, we cannot move objects by thought. If we want to move something, we must move it by physical means within the physical dimensions. When we want to move something and then physically move it, we are making a ‘conscious effort’ (the physical manifestation of thought) which demonstrates our inter-connectedness to the physical dimensions and the conscious dimension.

Most of us are aware that we are inter-dimensionally connected to, and experience, time and physical matter cohesively. It is a small step to accept that we also experience conscience. Or rather, without conscience we cannot experience anything or prove that experience itself exists. A physical body devoid of conscience is, for all practical purposes, dead.

How could it be proven that ANYTHING EXISTS if there were no observer? This may sound like a stupid question, but a true thinker will lose sleep over it.

The human species has a mind-body combination that allows us to observe, question and experience our environment and communicate unlike any other earth species. Our distinctly human ability to convey complex ideas and concepts to one another using language in both verbal and written form differentiates, and separates, us from our other earthly brethren.

In my opinion, that is why we, the human species, don’t consider other species to have souls (or a conscience, as I prefer to refer to it). I disagree with that notion. Most other species have a monumental comparative disadvantage to humans due to physical and language limitations. If you compare our closest relative, the chimp, you’ll find that their major remaining disadvantage is lack of complex language. It is not that the chimp doesn’t want to speak, it can not speak due to the physical location of its voice box. However, for years now researchers have been successfully teaching chimps sign language. These chimps regularly communicate emotions - love, fear, anger, loneliness, etc. - the basis of conscience. And now those chimps are teaching sign language to the next generation of chimps. Granted, chimps may never make great tax accountants but it doesn’t make them any less a conscious being than you or I or any other species. They, as all conscious beings, are observers that participate and contribute their unique perspective of creation and existence.

Much has been written here about good and evil. These are human concepts attributed to physical acts after the fact. I cannot think of a single thing that is good or evil that is non-physical. We can think evil thoughts, but are we evil if we never commit the physical act? Someone once told me that intentionally starving someone unnecessarily would qualify because no physical act needed to be carried out, i.e. not bringing food is an evil non-physical act. I disagree. The ‘evil’ physical act is starvation which you’ve allowed to continue. This can be turned into ‘good’ by the physical act of bringing food to alleviate starvation. Acts, whether good or evil, require a ‘conscious effort’, of which my God is incapable – but we certainly are.

To that point, in my rationale, we are responsible for good and evil via free will. The blood of every heinous unnatural act in our history rests on human hands. The glory for every good deed is ours as well. My God cannot forgive, forget, reward or punish for any physical act. That is our responsibility and our burden.

We all experience our conscience and we all share similar conscious experiences. Our five incredible senses allow our conscience to appreciate the external physical world and it allows us to think, dream and experience emotions.

For me, there is no need to prove the existence of conscience. The conscience exists because without it, you could prove nothing else.

Peace!



RMN is an RA production.

Articles In This Thread

BELIEF SYSTEMS
Nemesis -- Friday, 17-Oct-2014 09:33:05
Disbelief Systems Are Still Belief Systems - PLUS My Belief System
Gaian -- Friday, 17-Oct-2014 12:52:03
PINK UNICORNS
Nemesis -- Friday, 17-Oct-2014 13:36:22

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AN EXPLANATION OF THE FACTIONS