2007-02-12 01:19:38 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
It's like reality is an 'illusion' or dream, so it would be pointless to create another 'sub-dream' to distract us from the 'here and now'. It would be a waste of energy.
Shouldn't we rather create a more 'dreamlike' reality than a seperate 'dream' reality? (i don;t know if you will make sense of that but hey, whatever...
2007-02-12 01:30:16 · update #1
No, not at all
2007-02-12 01:22:06 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
First of all I must say that Iove this question.
If you start to think about it you come to relize that us humans have to have an answer for everything. Since we keep on questioning everything it's so much easier to say God did it. And if a child ask anything that you can't explain or answer it is way easier to say oh it's just God. Remeber when you were little and you heard thunder it was God bowling? Maybe all religion is just that an explaination for everything that we will look back on and laugh at. If mythology has taught us anything, then it should be that if you can explain why something is the way it is just name a God for it. The bible says a lot but if you actually read what scientist has discovered about it, then it makes more sense. I hate it when "big" religious people deny reality. Such as there are no dinosaurs archelogist just went out and put those masive bones there. They won't even listen to the other side of the argument. But most christians believe religion above all eles because they are scared of what really could be out there. I mean isn't "safer" to "know" what happens to you after you die? Go to heaven or go to hell? Instead of nobody knows! I believe that there is something greater than us a "God" and we had to come from somewhere, but the truth is we may never know from where. But yes, I do believe religion is something to distract us from reality, but it could also be a true distraction.
*I also must end this saying I do go to church but I also read other things besides the bible. I grew up in a school were I was going to hell because I didn't believe everything the bible says. Also, if you do say that you believe everything in the bible word for word then you are stupid! The bible contridicts it's self everywhere. I guess you aren't that religious if you haven't even read the whole bible.*
2007-02-12 01:54:19 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Anyone can be a Gautam Buddha, but not everybody can be a Michelangelo or Nietzsche. This is because spiritual realisation is everybody's birthright.
It is not a talent like painting, music, poetry, or dancing; it is not genius either. A genius has tremendous intelligence, but it is still of the mind.
Enlightenment is not of the mind, it is not intellect; it is intelligence of a totally different order.
People like Friedrich Nietzsche who have missed the journey towards their own selves were great intellectuals, geniuses unparalleled — but all that belongs to the mind.
And to be a Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Zarathustra is to get out of the mind. It does not matter whether you had a big mind or small mind, a mediocre mind, or you are a genius; the point is that you should be out of the mind. The moment you are out of the mind, you are in yourself.
So the strange thing is that the more a person is intellectual, the farther he goes away from himself. His intellect takes him to faraway stars.
He is a genius, he may create great poetry, great sculpture. But as far as you are concerned, you are not to be created, you are already there.
The genius creates, the meditator discovers. Consciousness has nothing to do with creativity, it has nothing to do with inventiveness, it has nothing to do with science or art; it has something to do with tremendous silence, peace, a centring.
When an ordinary man meditates, he comes to the same space of blissfulness as Nietzsche, Einstein or Russell.
That space of blissfulness will not be different, will not be richer for Bertrand Russell because he is a great intellectual. Those values don't matter outside of the mind.
It is as if you all fall asleep here; you will be dreaming. Somebody may have a very beautiful dream, and somebody may have a nightmare. But both are dreams.
And when they wake up, they will know that the beautiful dream and the nightmare are not different — they are both dreams. They are non-existential, mind projections.
Enlightenment is discovering your being >>
This is great and good news because it means a woodcutter or a fisherman can become Gautam Buddha. An uneducated Jesus, an uneducated Kabir, who doesn't show any indication of genius, can still become enlightened, because enlightenment is not a talent, it is discovering your being.
And the being of everyone is absolutely equal. Suddenly all distinctions, talents of the mind, disappear. There is only pure sky where you cannot make any distinctions of higher and lower.
Enlightenment is the very nature of things. But it has never been said that way; on the contrary, people's minds have been corrupted by creating a goal against nature, giving it beautiful names, "supernature".
And man was caught in this because of a very simple reason: The nature of things is already where you are. It is not an excitement and it is not a challenge to your ego.
It is not a faraway star. Mind wants for its nourishment something very difficult, something almost impossible. Only if you can achieve the impossible can you feel you are somebody special.
Enlightenment is not a talent. It is not like somebody being born a painter or a poet or a scientist — those are talents.
Enlightenment is simply everybody's very source of life; it is realising the fact that "I am that which I have always wanted to be, and I have never been anything else and I cannot be anything else, ever
2007-02-12 01:23:34 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Perhaps religion gives some people a sense of hope that would otherwise would be missing in their lives. But as you pointed out, "what is reality?" I do not believe in religion and I'm an agnostic, but I also like to philosophize and I was told that philosophers do not dismiss ideas simply because they cannot be understood. (Does THAT make any sense?) So who knows what will happen when we die, perhaps an entire new reality will open up to us. Complete with new beliefs, ideas, and possibilities.
2007-02-12 01:45:30 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Religion was what resulted from stories people made up before science and critical thought played a part in the human way of thinking. These stories were to explain the questions of 'where did we come from?' and 'why are we here?' Every culture had a different story, and the people within the culture began to buy into these stories and the creators began to expand on these stories to gain power and wealth and stature.
2007-02-12 01:29:09 · answer #5 · answered by stephanie 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
What you are saying kind of follows the old quote that religion 'is the opiate of the masses.' It is a substitute for reality. A mind numbing alternative to the actual events of the day.
2007-02-12 01:41:04 · answer #6 · answered by ndmagicman 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think humans are hard wired to be spiritual beings. After all, even an atheist can have a highly spiritual view towards the natural universe and all its power and glory.
However, religion itself is an attempt by organizations or governments to utilize that natural tendency towards spirituality to control the populace. Quite often, there is a nefarious reason behind it...political power, social power, monatary power...
2007-02-12 01:24:54 · answer #7 · answered by mamasquirrel 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Religion is a control mechanism. I'm not an athiest, I just think that organised religion as a whole has done nothing but divide people as a whole. I don't think thats what God intended.
2007-02-12 01:27:45 · answer #8 · answered by Los 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hospitals, schools, abolition of slavery, the make poverty history campaign, etc, all distractions from reality??
Sorry but the evidence does not bear you out.
Plus many of the world's greatest intellects have been people of faith.
2007-02-12 01:24:06 · answer #9 · answered by alan h 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It's pretty much a way of denying the inevitability and permenance of death.
2007-02-12 01:25:47 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It is a way to make us dependent on others. We must be dependent for food, shelter, protection and now happiness. It is sad.
2007-02-12 01:24:09 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋