What do you believe in?

catallus wrote: »

This is the big problem I have with people who say they don't believe that there is an ultimate reason why we're here, or that there's nothing beyond our ability to know:

Who can honestly believe this bull**** idea that people are good? Anyone over the age of 10 knows it to be totally untrue.

The idea of god is there to hide the fact that we are sacks of meat, disposable animals, held up by bones.

You seem to be forgetting the most important part of what makes us human- our consciousness.

As for your assertion about the idea that people are good being bullshìt, I'll happily call bullshìt on that and suggest you should get out a bit more. I've met many people who have been great, and many more with the potential and capability for greatness. There are people that are working to change the world they live in that will never feel a need for validation and recognition. They do it because they believe people are essentially good people, you guide them in the right direction and they can do great things.

I was reviewing a powerpoint presentation during the week when I came across an interesting quote that I for one could certainly identify with-


"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give".

I can't remember who the quote was attributed to, but it wasn't Winston Churchill.

I also happen to follow the philosophy of Andrew Carnegie, who said-

"Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth".

I believe that anyone(especially if you're stoned) reading this thread should consider this: if there were nothing but silence, it wouldn't exist for you; you wouldn't know what it is. Only when sound appears does silence come into being.
If there were only space without any objects in space, it wouldn't exist for you.Imagine yourself as a point of consciousness floating in the vastness of space -no stars, no galaxies, just emptiness. Suddenly,space wouldn't be vast anymore; it would not be there at all. There would be no speed, no movement from here to there.At least two points of reference are needed for distance and space to come into being.Space comes into being the moment the One becomes two and the two becomes ten thousand things.
If there were only one color, let us say blue, and the entire world and everything in it were blue, then there would be no blue. There needs to be something that is not blue so that blue can be recognized; otherwise, it would not“stand out,” would not exist. In the same way, does it not require something that is not fleeting and impermanent for the fleetingness of all things to be recognized? In other words: if everything,including yourself, were impermanent, would you even know it? Does the fact that you are aware of and can witness the short-lived nature of all forms, including your own, not mean that there is something in you that is not subject to decay? When you are twenty, you are aware of your body as strong and vigorous; sixty years later, you are aware of your body as weakened and old. Your thinking too may have changed from when you were twenty, but the awareness that knows that body is young or old or that your thinking has changed has undergone no change. That awareness is the eternal in you–consciousness itself. It is the formless One Life. Can you lose It? No, because you are It.

I'm more religious than spiritual. I like a lot of the cultural and community aspects of belief. I'm kind of spiritual too....but more religious.

Also,

I believe in life after love

Sparklygirl wrote: »

The Catholic priests all over Ireland a few months ago, stood on their alters and told us- no- directed us, that abortion is wrong in every circumstance, and that if the baby is going to die, it makes no difference at all, the Mother should not be saved. That is what the Catholic church thinks of the women in your lives.

Don't want to go off topic, but that's not the the catholic church's position on abortion. Neither is it the pro-life campaign's position. Those priests who may have spoken on this topic, for the most part I suspect, read their bishop's letter on the matter (which stressed that care for the mother was paramount) and little more.

I have never heard or read anyone state that a mother's life should not be saved if it is in danger during pregnancy - even if it leads to the death of the unborn child.

By all means, dislike the church for it's many failings. But not for positions you, wrongly in my view, think it holds.