Round and round you go. Where you stop, nobody knows. Wake up people. The definition of atheist is in reference to god. So. First you have to understand the definition of god. Let’s have some fun and see how far out of the Dark Ages man has come on this subject. Wikipedia, God - an object of faith. What is faith? It is what ever you want to believe. So where does that leave the meaning of “Atheist"?One who rejects all gods and all faith. It's that simple.
Write, It seems to me that memories are ephemeral rather than eternal. Certainly some “memories” are passed on historically, but history, itself, is not eternal. But I suppose that everything, and everbody, and every memory, and every concept, is involved, in some way, as to how eternity proceeds.
Mike Yohe - "Now help me with dualistic conceptualizations of God. That may be me too. There is not a bone in my body that believes in God or the concept of the creator except in the Gnostic thought. I fully understand that man created gods, all gods. And you will never convince me otherwise. When I die I return to star dust. Don’t believe in the sprites and junk. But, When I think of my Grandfather and Grandmother I know that they are in heaven with their God. And their God Almighty is real. You can try but you will not be able to convince me otherwise. I do not try and figure it out, because it doesn’t bother me that much, I figure it is just part of being human. I sure hope this is dualistic conceptualizations of God trait; otherwise call for Nurses Ratched; I’m ready for a lobotomy.It is not dualistic conceptualization in the presence of Gnostic thought. Missing Gnostic thought, then Atheism makes no sense, and lobotomy not helpful.
Write, It seems to me that memories are ephemeral rather than eternal. Certainly some "memories" are passed on historically, but history, itself, is not eternal. But I suppose that everything, and everbody, and every memory, and every concept, is involved, in some way, as to how eternity proceeds.I agree, memories do fade in time. And yes, we are part of the wholeness and our bodies are in a constant state of flux along with the holomovement (Bohm) of the universe.
>>So let’s remove Atheist. And we are half way there.<>So now if we know what “God" is we can reach understanding.<<
As far as the atheist is concerned, there is nothing to understand.
@brmckay, from wiki,So let’s remove Atheist. And we are half way there.Can't do that. Try taking a look at the title of this thread to understand why.So now if we know what “God" is we can reach understanding.As far as the atheist is concerned, there is nothing to understand.
Gnosticism was primarily defined in a Christian context.[5][6] Some scholars have claimed that gnosticism predated Christianity. Such discussions have included pre-Christian religious beliefs and spiritual practices argued to be common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism (especially Zurvanism), and Neoplatonism. The discussion of gnosticism changed radically with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library and led to revision of older assumptions.Again, read Bohm.
The Cosmic Plenum: Bohm's Gnosis: The Implicate Order.http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html
Write4U Post 79
Have you ever considered that Heaven resides in your Mind.
My research tells me Heaven is where the stars are. As far as my Grandparents, of course it is all in my mind. Yes, before I was old enough to question information from trusted sources.
When we speak of eternal life, it means “eternally in our memory".
I don’t think so, when we speak of eternal life we are talking about “belief". It is wishful thinking for all mankind, always has been going back to the Red Ochre burials.
You believe your grand parents are in heaven because YOU remember them fondly and you always will and tell stories of them so that their memory “lives" on in your children and so forth.
Yes, of course I want to leave behind to my children a family bible of the lives of the family they came from.
At some point I was expecting those feeling of my Grandparents in heaven to change. But I’m not holding my breath.
Lois Post 80
One who rejects all gods and all faith. It’s that simple.
Boy, you don’t have to tell me that. I agree 200% with you. We are on the same page buddy.
So, I want to know why according to some dictionaries and atheist web sites today there is the presumably that many Christians can not understand that statement the same way and you and I do?
Brmckay Post #82
It is not dualistic conceptualization in the presence of Gnostic thought.
Missing Gnostic thought, then Atheism makes no sense, and lobotomy not helpful.
Brmckay, I have a hard time expressing in words my inter thoughts from my research and reasoning.
But to me if Gnostic had the time to fully evolve as a religion, it could be the closest thing to an atheist religion or a humanist religion there could be. The God of the Gnostic Jesus is a concept all atheist would understand and I can’t imagine have any trouble with.
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon Post 84
>>So let’s remove Atheist. And we are half way there.<>So now if we know what “God" is we can reach understanding.<<
As far as the atheist is concerned, there is nothing to understand.
Widen you understanding of what God is.
The Gnostic Jesus said “God is Knowledge"
And don’t you need God?
And I think Jesus was right when he said “God is inside of you".
I bet you have some knowledge.
Write4U Post #85
Watergate was child’s play when it came to covering up an issue. The burial of the Gnostic teachings has been an effort that is still going on today by the organized religions.
One would think that Jesus got his education in Egypt; Egypt was ruled by foreign leaders for hundreds of years with root or connections in India by way of Babylon (Zoroastrianism). And we know the biggest college in the known world on religion at that time was in Egypt and taught Gnostic
I would look for the definition of Gnosticism to be redefined many more times in the upcoming years.
Strip Gnosticism to the bear bone of thought and it is God is knowledge and all mankind makes up god. But for you to find the knowledge in side of you, you have to seek it.
This thinking got Jesus in a lot of trouble in Israel when he said that he was the son of God. As all people are in the Gnostic sense. And thus Jesus shut up about it, except to people like Mary and Thomas. Thus we now have the secret teachings of Jesus. That is what it is beginning to look like.
@Mike Yohe
Sort of agreeing with you, at least I think so. Ask Write4U to quote the Tao Te Ching.
@Write4U
From what I’ve seen of Bohm via your quotes, I don’t have to argue with him. I don’t know if he ever uses the term “God”; doesn’t matter. That’s just my preference.
Lot of quibbling about semantics.
Quotes from Bohm:
"the whole notion of active information suggests a rudimentary mind-like behaviour of matter"
"knowledge of matter (as well as of mind) has changed in such a way as to support the approach that has been described here. To pursue this approach further might perhaps enable us to extend our knowledge of both poles into new domains"During the process of the various conversations, in these forums, I've come to appreciate that God does not exist. And also, that this does not in anyway change God. For me the question is, how to improve expression of It. i.e. Yoga. or Scientific enquiry? As Mike suggests:
"... to find the knowledge inside of you, you have to seek it."
Brmckay Post #91
Thanks brmckay for your post.
*This is just a side note for brmckay, it is off subject of the posting.
Nothing gets the people’s interest like a good battle.
The atheists got beat up in the beginning, going back fifty years, of the evolution vs. creation battle. But the atheist evolved and got organized with great thinkers and philosophers and the superpower religion saw this and left the battle field. The atheists now have all these highly educated philosophers sitting around because the fundamentalist left the field of battle and do not want to fight the atheists.
Doesn’t mean fundamentalist have gone; they just change their methods of management and stay away from the atheist. The super power or organized religions are the ones I am talking about. You still have the individual fundis that come around.
The atheists are at a stand still right now. They need to get ready for another battle or go to bed.
To get ready the battle they need to get their weapons ready. The weapons are knowledge and facts. The delivery system is words. And if they can’t agree on the definition of “atheist" that is understood by everybody, they should give up and go to bed. In understanding the definition of “atheist" one has to understand the definition of “god". And it is my feeling that many atheist do not.
Once the definition of god and atheist are accomplished then take the battle to the fundamentalist to the point you get the superpower religions back into battle.
And that is easy. Just use what they have been trying to bury for last two thousand years. The true meaning of Gnostic religion. And the atheist will have Jesus on their side. That will confuse the hell out of the people and get their interest.
What would America hope to gain in another battle like the evolution vs. creation battle you may ask? One giant step for mankind. And the ability to stop the damage of Christian movements, like the war on drugs.
The Christians, Islam, and Eastern religions all have misrepresented forms of Gnostic in them. But it is a major common factor of the Gnostic religious building blocks of those religions that has been misunderstood.
It is also quite possibly the only god and religion that atheistic would have no problem with and even endorse.
History has shown us that mankind had created god out of need and has always needed a god. And as mankind has evolved so has god.
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain.
Fingers crossed. Wars can be messy.
What are the vehicles of Gnostic transmission?
Jesus preached. It took the Christian religion over 300 years to evolve.
Gnostic never got to evolve. So we have to stick with the main thoughts.
Is this blogging business likely to work?
No, it will have to be picked up by the philosophers for a real war game. We just have to let them know that were ready for them to move us in that direction.
What would that look like?
A lot of new books out on the subject. News coverage. Then the superpowers coming out to disclaim the findings and calling it a new movement, a bunch of lies based upon false theories. Sort of like the evolution vs. creation had to go through at the beginning.
Two things the super churches don’t like are Gnostic and DNA. You know according to “religious DNA" all things in the bible are true. Talk about misdirection.
Can any atheist please define to me what “religious DNA" is?
I hadn’t heard the term “religious DNA", but I assume it refers to how cultural belief systems are passed on in an analagous way as are biological traits. i.e., those cultural beliefs that are most beneficial to the maintenace and survival of a particular culture are most likely to be passed on through the progression of time.
Alternatively, it could refer, I suppose, to proclivities toward becoming religious that are passed on by actual DNA. This would suggest that such proclivities, if they exist, have either been of survival value to our predecesors or that they are at least a spandrel (a sort of by product of evolution that is artifactual but has not been necessary in and of itself to promote survival to reproduction).
I hadn't heard the term “religious DNA", but I assume it refers to how cultural belief systems are passed on in an analagous way as are biological traits. i.e., those cultural beliefs that are most beneficial to the maintenace and survival of a particular culture are most likely to be passed on through the progression of time. Alternatively, it could refer, I suppose, to proclivities toward becoming religious that are passed on by actual DNA. This would suggest that such proclivities, if they exist, have either been of survival value to our predecesors or that they are at least a spandrel (a sort of by product of evolution that is artifactual but has not been necessary in and of itself to promote survival to reproduction).I like it. A primitive instinct to fear the tiger in the shadows, which may be beneficial as a survival tool. This defensive tool seems to be present in all mammals. But as history shows this instinctual belief system is a double edged sword and can be beneficial or detrimental or both. In humans it can lead to a belief system in an unseen benefactor as well as an unseen enemy. Humans have rituals to worship the beneficial ghost or offer human sacrifice to mollify the detrimental ghost. In humans ritual has become very sophisticated, in most animals it is unchanged. We have elaborate pomp and circumstance to publicize the 'sacredness' of god. An army may "martyr" themselves in service of a holy crusade. A herd of buffalo may drive themselves over a cliff by the sight of a single wolf. One thing seems to be true, belief (fear) in "unseen" entities has been with us since the very beginning and may well be a result of our "mirror neural network" in the brain. from wiki,
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular complex behavior.
An instinct should be distinguished from a reflex, which is a simple response of an organism to a specific stimulus, such as the contraction of the pupil in response to bright light or the spasmodic movement of the lower leg when the knee is tapped. Instincts, in contrast, are inborn complex patterns of behavior that must exist in every member of the species and that cannot be overcome by force of will.[2] However, the absence of volitional capacity must not be confused with an inability to modify fixed action patterns. For example, people may be able to modify a stimulated fixed action pattern by consciously recognizing the point of its activation and simply stop doing it, whereas animals without a sufficiently strong volitional capacity may not be able to disengage from their fixed action patterns, once activated.[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct
I hadn't heard the term “religious DNA", but I assume it refers to how cultural belief systems are passed on in an analagous way as are biological traits. i.e., those cultural beliefs that are most beneficial to the maintenace and survival of a particular culture are most likely to be passed on through the progression of time. Alternatively, it could refer, I suppose, to proclivities toward becoming religious that are passed on by actual DNA. This would suggest that such proclivities, if they exist, have either been of survival value to our predecesors or that they are at least a spandrel (a sort of by product of evolution that is artifactual but has not been necessary in and of itself to promote survival to reproduction).I think the evidence clearly points to religiosity being highly heritable. And FWIW, I am inclined to see it as a byproduct of other traits.
I hadn't heard the term “religious DNA", but I assume it refers to how cultural belief systems are passed on in an analagous way as are biological traits. i.e., those cultural beliefs that are most beneficial to the maintenace and survival of a particular culture are most likely to be passed on through the progression of time. Alternatively, it could refer, I suppose, to proclivities toward becoming religious that are passed on by actual DNA. This would suggest that such proclivities, if they exist, have either been of survival value to our predecesors or that they are at least a spandrel (a sort of by product of evolution that is artifactual but has not been necessary in and of itself to promote survival to reproduction).I think the evidence clearly points to religiosity being highly heritable. And FWIW, I am inclined to see it as a byproduct of other traits. I, too, can see how "religiosity" could be a passed-on by-product of other biological traits. And I suppose that neither of us completely rules out the possibility that "religiosity" has been inherited due to past-survival-to-reproduction-advantages. However, it seems clear to me that the particular religions that exist, do so, primarily, due to the adoption of rules, dogma, ritual, or other practices that support the cohesion, maintenance, and/or growth of the particular religious groups.
Religious DNA, I guess that would be RDNA, but I have never seen it used that way.
The first time is seen it used was in story about the Jewish religion. I was written by a top Rabbi, I didn’t copy because I got to many files now. I have seen it used many times but always in relationship to Israel and the Middle East.
The Palestinians were claiming closer DNA roots to Israel than most of the Israelis and Rabbis and they wanted to do a DNA test. They were claiming most of the Jewish people in Israel were originally from Europe and Russia and the DNA test would prove it.
Israel came back with religious DNA for proof that Israel has always been theirs.