"what if my whole life has been wrong" LONG first post

StrangestSecret

Just wanted to throw something out here as my first post, that I've had on my mind lately. I've never read the book from which the quote above comes, but I read about the idea in a book by Wayne Dyer. "What if my whole life has been wrong?" I vaguely know that the character who originally asks this question on his deathbed had spent his entire life just following everyone else, just trying to fit in.

But what I've been thinking about lately is, couldn't ALL of this ask this question when we're on our own deathbeds? Nobody KNOWS what the meaning of life is, why we're here, what we're supposed to be doing while we're here, if anything, etc. Many have BELIEFS about these questions, and probably are completely convinced of them and never question them. But no one really KNOWS. And some will say well you can choose whether or not to concern yourself with this question. That's true but on the other hand, whether or not you think about gravity it's still there. And whether or not you think about our need for oxygen it's still there. So does not thinking about these questions really help any?

Here are, as far as I know, the most popular (or at least well-known theories/beliefs that attempt to answer the above questions), and the problems I have with all of them.

Atheism: here's how Webster's dictionary defines atheism a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity Viktor Frankl I'm thinking was an atheist (correct me if I'm mistaken), and he believed that you can give any meaning to anything you want because nothing has any pre-existing meaning. I don't know if most atheists believe this way, but it stands to reason that if there is no "supreme being" or "creator" who made rules for us, its up to us to make our own rules and (hopefully) make rules that are the most conducive to the survival of life on this planet. Atheism doesn't work for me personally just because no supreme being to me also means no afterlife, and no hope of ever seeing loved ones again after we die. And when we die our consciousness just goes POOF and we cease to exist. I just find that too depressing but thats just me.

"New Age", metaphysics, Eastern Religions, NDEs, the Holographic Universe theory, etc: Personally I like this general worldview the best. I realize New Age, metaphysics, Eastern Religions etc disagree on many things but I'm referring to the basic beliefs that they have in common. Such as, everything (including us) is made up of the same thing (energy) and we're not just different parts of the same thing, we ARE the same thing. And that this one thing split off into separate things and "forgot" that it was all one thing just for fun, a game that the universe plays with itself.

And all the seeming dualities (here and there, up and down, good and evil, me and something other than me) are simply something the universe constructed in order to play this "game". Because in its true form, this all-encompassing thing is all that exists...there's nothing outside of itself to be in opposition to it, so nothing to struggle against; no time so there is no future to fear and no past to regeret. And the meaning of life is basically just to "remember" what we've forgot, that we're all just one thing, happy and perfect in every way, the existence of everything and nothing all at the same time.

As I said I like this worldview out of the most well-known theories about the meaning of life, etc. It also seems to be the only one that can claim to be supported by science. And it just seems to make the most sense to me intuitively. But I do have some problems with it, one being that while it SEEMS to be somewhat supported by science, it isn't mainstream science. From what I've read and heard, the scientists in "What the Bleep Do We Know", "the Secret", etc and their theories are considered to be kind of "out there" by mainstream science. This hurts its credibility with me, much as I hope its true.

But most of the problems I have with the metaphysical view have to do with

Fundamentalist Christianity: Fundamentalist Christianity will tell you that any "altered states of consciousness" (mystical experiences, NDEs, etc) are hallucinations at best, and Satan messing with us at worst. I saw Christian author Dave Hunt (a rabid attacker of New Age thought as being from Satan) on a talk show say that in an altered state of consciousness, your spirit becomes separated from your brain, and another spirit (ie demon) can get in there, tick off the neurons in your brain, and make you think you're having all these neat experiences.

Of course the alternative worldview pushed by the "fundies" is one where we are the creations of an all-powerful being who gives us only 2 options to avoid a place of eternal torment after death: be perfect (morally and HE decides what is perfect morally), or throw youself at the mercy of Jesus who was/is perfect. "Doing the best you can" won't cut it with this Supreme Being. He demands nothing less than perfection from his creation. The only way that "doing the best you can" means anything to him is if you do it out of gratitude to Jesus for taking your punishment for being imperfect so you didn't have to face it yourself.

Now its easy for folks to just dismiss this as scare-tactics to get you to support their religion. But you look at how much less crime there was, how much less poverty, how much better the economy was, etc before the
1960s, when people started questioning more traditional
values and started embracing more "New Agey" type world
views. Today it seems that except for terrorists, child
molesters and Paris Hilton, American society has an attitude
of "who are we to judge them, we don't know what kind of
traumatic experiences that person had that made them like
this?"

What I'm trying to say is, American society seemed to
"work" better before the 60s (I mean in general, not that
there weren't problems then too). And fundamentalist
christians will just take that and say "see? y'all got away from the Bible's morality and the world's falling apart. The Bible's way is not only right morally but it's the only way that WORKS."

Sorry this post was so long, but I figured I had to explain where I'm coming from when I ask how can any of us NOT wonder if our whole life has been wrong, when the only people who REALLY know what we find out after death (if anything), unlike with NDEs, can't come back to tell us. Thanks.

karen3212

I think a lot of people use Scandinavian countries as an example to counter that a large non religious liberal society can do just as well if not better than a largely more religious conservative one. I think anyway that the more powerful members of US society encourage religious practice, at least as far as I know I haven't seen many politicians say they weren't very religious.

Marksie

StrangestSecret wrote:

I vaguely know that the character who originally asks this question on his deathbed had spent his entire life just following everyone else, just trying to fit in.

I guess that is what he felt at the end.

So it would appear from teh above that perhaps you spend your life doing what you feel is right for you, following your gut instinct and do so consciously. Even if it brings you into conflict with established mores and values.

Whichever way you choose to do things doesn't matter as without going into details, there are many paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place. So whatever religious view you have should be largely immaterial.

If you fulfill your potential to be, that is whats important (or at least move towards your potential). So that looking back you feel that it has balanced overall then there should be no regrets.

Whatever exists afterwards... well, thats something we all have to find out and it is not someghing to be scared about.

Personally, I feel looking back should be to establish where you are now and then you can look forward to where you want to go.