These are the non-tolerant religions who worship a jealous demanding God. I agree that these are the dangerous ones. But there are others that can also be dangerous.

Becoming an atheist is not the solution to the problem, but I don't think he openly suggested that solution. I think that some atheists are focused on the extreme religions, and some have no belief in the spiritual side of life at all, and maybe others are just anti-religion in regard to the current mainstream religions of the world today.

But any 'organized' belief that calls itself a religion has the potential to become a dangerous cult.

I give "Eckankar" as a good example. It was clearly started by a con man who wrote fiction and plagiarized many other spiritual texts and it grew into quite a huge organization that leaned towards being a cult, with a God-man guru and all. (I was lightly involved with them in the 70's) I even heard a rumor that some were told that one day we (Eckists) may have to fight and die to defend their ("our") beliefs. I then decided to back off from them as I was beginning to get a feeling of their control over the higher ranking initiates. I decided that only I would be the one to decide what I would be willing to fight and die for.

Eckankar was an opposite religion from Christianity. They even taught that the Christian God was the evil Devil himself (Satan) and their name for him was "Kal" which manifests in the lower astral worlds. Their God, of course, was a higher God. They call him "Sugamad." Eckankar is still in operation today. Much of their history within the cult has been rewritten, but you can read the truth about this cult in a book called "Confessions of a God seeker." It was written by a very high ranking initiate of Eckankar who was in the inner circles of that organization.

Yes some others can also be dangerous, but it would be pretty difficult to take a religion that claims "all is god" and use it to justify a war, or harming others.



How is that a good example?

You go on to say:



Sounds to me like they were just a really weird 'take-off' from Christianity. They still claim to have 'evil' and 'good' Gods and in this case they were even referencing the Christian doctrine as being valid (at least in the satanic sense)

So how is that a 'good example' of a religion that isn't based on this same nonsense with personified godheads?

Sugamad? Sure sounds like a personified godhead to me.

Paul Twitchell plagiarized many really good spiritual wittings and created a religious organization much the same way Christianity was created. (With lies and plagiarism.) So in that way yes, it is more of the same. They also had their representative of God on earth. (The Living ECK master ...who is their "Jesus.")

They apposed Christianity as a rival. Which is the kind of thing that Islam does. So they are all religions with the potential to war against each other. In that respect, yes they are the same.

Redy said:(Are you tired of people taking that quote out of context yet? )

Actually, I understand and agree with the point I think you’re trying to make – that any faith in the supernatural is subject to that “hijacking” phenomenon.

But I think that to be fair you cannot limit it to faith in the “supernatural”. It seems to me that faith in virtually any group (e.g. from things like the KKK all the way down to things like public schools with their loyalties and rivalries) would have to be included when considering “indoctrinated beliefs that can be hijacked”.

So from that broadened perspective, it seems that faith itself is the malignant factor. Any faith in anything at all, is subject to that very same “hijacking” phenomenon. It may not be hijacked for malignant purposes in all cases, but the potential is there for abuse of varying degrees, and it is fairly obvious that all of them often actually do result in abuse.

So maybe we should broaden the whole scope here and look at faith itself.

Taking the idea of “faith in the supernatural” as an example, what would differentiate that from “faith in the natural”? Or more to the point, what is “natural” and what is “supernatural”. (And the ubiquitous question: “Who decides?”)

And why would one be considered benign and the other malignant?

And to expand on that, how would those relate in general to “group” phenomenon as a whole (e.g. vis-à-vis the KKK and public school scenarios)?

And just so we have a datum of comparable magnitude here, what would be the opposite or converse of "faith"? Certainty? Knowledge? Experience? "Non-faith"?

I have a few ideas of my own, but I’m interested in how you see it, since it was your statement.

With Eckkankar, they taught that all Gods were manifestations of God on different levels but that all were essentially channels for "God." When a soul descends to the lower worlds to incarnate, here it becomes the game of "My God is bigger and more powerful than your God." sort of argument.

In war, if you are given the choice to "convert or die" you should feel lucky. The more ruthless warriors for their God won't give you that choice. These same kinds of wars happened between protestants and Catholics, Jews and Christians, Muslims and Christians, etc. Many Jews converted to Christian just to stay alive. Others, died willingly for their belief. Personally, I would convert in a heartbeat.

That's my whole point on that topic right there.

What's the difference between 'natural' and 'supernatural'?

Back in the days of Classical Newtonian Mechanics it was believed that the unviverse is made up of tiny billiard-ball-like particles called 'atoms'.

At that point it made sense to talk about the difference between 'natural' and 'supernatural'.

Natural was simply anything that can be explained in terms of billiard balls and a predetermined clockwork-like set of rules of mechanics.

Supernatural was anything that could not be explained using this billiard-ball-clockwork idea.

But that's was back in the days of Classical Physics.

Today we're living in the days of Modern Physics. (and these titles are indeed formal titles)

Classical Physics refers to the old-fashioned Newtonian type ideals. Modern Physics refers to the new additions to phyics, mainly General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. These are the the two pillars of Modern Physics.

The question then becomes, "Can Quantum Mechanics be explained in terms of the old-fashioned ideas of what is natural?"

And the answer is an emphatic, NO!

And it's not because we aren't clever enough or that we are lacking knowledge. It's built right into the very mathematical description of Quantum Mechanics. It's mathematically impossible to know certain things about how the quantum field operates no matter how clever we are.

In other words, based on the Old-fashioned notions of a distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' then the quantum field (which gives rise to all of physical reality) is clearly a supernatural entity!

In other words, with the advent of Modern Physics we have no choice but to believe in the 'supernatural' because science has confirmed that this universe is indeed pervaded by a supernatural entity that we refer to as the 'quantum field'.

So in a very real sense, science has forced us to come to the conclusion that the true essence of all that is physical, is by definition, "supernatural".

This idea that we can point to scientific explanations as being 'natural' explantions no longer holds water.

This is what people don't seem to understand.

Everyone laughs and says things like, "Why is quantum mechanics always brought up?"

Well, it's brought up because it's an extremely important revelation!

Especially when people are attempting to differentiate between what is 'natural' and what is 'supernatural'.

Science can no longer be used to distinquish between these two concepts! If we accept science we must also accept the supernatural because it comes with the territory.

Modern science can no longer be pointed to as a deciding factor in what constitutes a difference between what is 'natural' and what is 'supernatural'.

And this is in no way a "poke" at the crediblity of science. It's just the truth that most genuinely reputable scientists will confess.

This isn't a "failure" of science, it's an "insight" and "discovery" that came from our scientific inquiries.

We should be thankful to science for discovering these things.

You are correct "any extreme beiefs" religious in origin, or not, cause actions and reactions based of the same factors which Dr. Andy has talked about.

Religion has provided a nice ball and chain which are worn by the masses to remind them to remain in their place. Freedom tends to make people less managable in the political arena, but religion rules from some spiritual dictate and people will accept their place in serfdom,in class and caste systems, and in breadlines.

Religion has also been the cause of the greatest violence and overall death tolls in recoreded history. If you see it otherwise you are seeing through the eyes of MYTH or through the self-serving bias.

This is why Dr. Andy has targeted religion. Religions set massive groups of people up to be manipulated. Religions cause such great rifts between poeple that even religious use psychological manipulation against each other.

How can relgions practice tolerance for any other when each one believs they alone are righteous?

These are the reason why Dr. Andy has targeted religion as the most dangerous phenomena - because of its mass appeal, it's rigid death-defying determinatin to be right, and its consequences; mass destruction.

You will need to clarify what you are trying to say. The way I comprehend what you are saying is that if I start out with only a belief in a supreme being having only some minimal knowledge of one or more other beliefs - and then go on to create my own set of mythology, superstitions, and personal codes by which to live, that this person is more dangerous than someone who belongs to an existing doctrinalized world recognizes religion?

Sometimes you scare me Sky.



Ok Sky why don't you look at all these serial killers, add up the number of people who have died at the hands of a serial killer and any converts he may have made and then compare that number with all the deaths and destruction cause by religions in the same amount of time that begins with your fist serial killer. You like to throw out the straw man and red herring black flag of fault but I notice you sure like employ them when suits your purpose.

Your arguments are either becoming irrational justification or perhaps I am simply not reading between the lines of your arguements very well.

BUT- I do want to say that I know you are capable of good intuitive argument and can often revise other people's arguments for better clarification. So I'm thinking it may just my lack of understand of the points you are trying to make.

I think religion is a tool that can be used for good control and bad control. Originally I think it was introduced in an attempt to control for "good." But now I'm sure it is equally used to control for "bad."

To clarify "Good and Bad" in this case for the semantics police:

Good meaning, to get people to stop killing and hurting each other, to maintain a peaceful control, and Bad meaning to get people to go to war against each other for the agenda's of the ruling elite.

In BOTH cases it is NOT RELIGION itself that is "Good or evil" but the elite religious leaders and political authorities who USE RELIGION to manipulate the masses.

THIS IS VERY CLEAR AND OBVIOUS.

You cannot place the blame for any act a non-thinking non-conscious idealogical belief system.

People kill people, guns don't kill people.

Religion does not manipulate people, People manipulate religion and religious beliefs for their own agendas. Religion is created by people. So go to the source--- those who create it and perpetuate it, knowing full well that it is a bunch of crap.

I'm not talking about puppet believers. I'm talking about the highest elite in the churches who know its a bunch of crap but still keep it going for the sake of power and control. I'm talking about the elite. This is the highest ranking religious leaders, the highest ranking leaders on the earth. The ones who rule and control the masses with any tool they can muster.

GO AFTER THEM AND THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED.
Expose them, expose their lies, expose their agenda, expose them first and all else will crumble. Religion will crumble, government will crumble.

Expose the truth. EXPOSE THEM.

THAT IS THE SIGN OF THE TOWER.

== THE TOWER

==THE TOWER.

9-11 was the outward manifestation of the energy of the tower. It was a subconscious symbolic act to destroy the tallest tower of the most powerful country in the world.

And guess who own that building? ONE OF THE FILTHY RICH ELITE.

Sky - if every human being chose a singe religion to believe in and let's say they had some 30,000 or more to choose from. Now let's say that evey single one of those religions believed in some kind of 'possible' spiritual existence which extends beyond this life.

So now let's say that every religion had its doctrine outlining the pathway describing how to achieve the best possible 'after-life'.

Now let's say that these doctrines caused immense conflict between religions. One group might believe in euthenasia, another that abortion is not only acceptible but encouraged to favor one sex over another. Add more conflicts, there is only one great authority on Earth who can speak for "my" god and no other law will override it. Continue by adding rituals, some may even include living sacrifice. Oh just keep it going, today's current religions are fill with many more morals that in generall conflict with other more accepted views.

Then upon looking at what you are saying


I have to ask you: How far would you go to stop the killing of an innocent child - full knowing that the child dies because a person believes that child will continue to exsit in another form? How willing would you be to accept the beading and possible murder of a wife that gave birth for the second time to a still-born child. How willing would YOU be to accept a cow in place of money for your pay? Knowing that your 'spiritual' existence depended on casting off man-made capitalism?

You seem extrememly willing to allow everyone to believe in their own religions and believing in an immortal or semi-immortal spiritual existence without considering the consesequences to the life we have right here and now.

If you believe that our only goal in this life is to follow some premince for living the here and now, then you miss living here and now, in fact you trade it in for a belief. Individually I find that sad, but take that concept and apply it to millions and it becomes more that tragic if becomes the worlds most dangerous phenomena.

Abra wrote


Abra you have just done what you claim others have no right to do. You are judging - because you BELIEVE you have the RIGHT point of view. You will not allow others their own becaue it goes against what YOU BELIEVE.



It makes sense to those bombers. And if you allow FREE religious expression you must allow them all or YOU are just another one of those people who think YOU have the correct belief.



Besides you Abra, who else said that "we must teach everyone to become an atheist?" And who agreed?

What is religion "in general" and can you name any doctrinal religion or any of its sects that fall into this category?

Dr. Andy did not, nor have I ever argued against the fact that our vulnerabilities do not fall prey to others in the like fashion.

The argument is against communal, orgaized, doctrinalized religions.
The reason is that they have proven to be the greatest source of these manipulations at the greatest expence to humanity as a whole.

Abra wrote:


My understanding of your view (including what was once considered supernatural and what is now -in our opinion- considered supernatural)is that supernatural simply encompases all the things we don't know.

You also express that we simply cannot know all things, therefore science has concluded that the supernatural exists.

This is how I understand what you are saying.

So my questions to you are:

Do you believe humans have come to maximum extent of knowledge?
Are we even close to that limit?

I only ask becasue you seem to be making absolutist statements like, just becasue we have don't know everything means we can't know everything. You also seem to be willing to accept that limitations exist to what we can know.

That's ok by me, but what I don't understand from that point of view is how you conclude that "unknowable" knowledge by a being comprised of a limited capacity for knowledge leads absolutely to spirit, supreme being, or any kind of immortality?

JB wrote:


Everyone who defends religion ALWAYS, rather naively, declares the good that religions provide. I say naively because this argument was reflected by Dr. Andy in one of his points. We are willing to punish the cheater even at cost to ourselves. Why?

Now let me ask you a couple questions;

Do you believe that all the good religion has brought outweighs the bad?

Do you believe there can be no good without religion?

Do you believe that every human has a basic right to the free expression of their chosen beliefs? And if you believe that, how would you make all religions ONLY GOOD religions.

Fianlly - if such control could be exercised, who would decide what if GOOD for every religion?

Yes obviously, Dr. Andy pointed out that pre-literate society was quite capable of killing without guns, far exceeding the number we have killed with guns.

Weapons of war have certainly been a major deterent to opposition from less well equipped nations. That's a good think-right?

Of course the trade off is that now we have to invade the hitherto under equipped nations whenever we fear they are catching up.
After all weapons of mass destruction cannot fall into EVERYONE'S hands. Why is that?

And most importantly why is that different than religion in the hands of the masses?

Hmmm….

To answer that, I would say that neither one is more inherently dangerous than the other. The one that is supported by a group has greater potential for harm simply because the combined resources of the group inherently have more “force”. (That’s one of two main purposes of forming any group – to increase the amount of force that can be brought to bear against external forces. The other being to increase the amount of interaction between the individual group members. But I digress.)

But I had no thoughy of any religious nature at all when I wrote about the “self-originated beliefs”. I was thinking of people like Jack the Ripper, Jeffery Dahmer, et al, where there are no significant religious factors involved at all.

What I was trying to say here was that the factors that lead to irrationally violent behavior all have a common denominator – aberrant cognitive processes and/or aberrant survival goals. And that those factors don’t necessarily have to be “hijacked” by someone (or some group) to result in mass murder. And the beliefs don’t have to include anything religious to result in mass murder.

I’m just pointing out (again) that religion, the way Dr Andy presented it, is a red-herring. It’s only one example of a phenomenon that includes individuals as well as groups, and applies to whole range of secular situations as well as religious. The differences in the manifestations are varied because the situational factors are varied. But they all boil down to that common denominator of aberrant cognitive processes and/or aberrant survival goals.

[quote[Sometimes you scare me Sky.Boo!

Throughout this discussion I have been saying that the differences in the manifestation of the phenomenon are a matter of degree and situational parameters.

So yes, in the sense you are referring to, “religion” has been the cause of infinitely more deaths than have serial killers. No doubt about that whatsoever.

But pointing out the common denominator (over and over) is not a strawman or red herring.

And that’s what I’m talking about – the common fundamental factors that are the root cause of the phenomena in all cases: aberrant cognitive processes and/or aberrant survival goals.

And (again) the proof is in the pudding: eradicate those two factors and it all goes away – all of it – poof – from sibling rivalry to global thermonuclear war.

Does that help? Or have I dug myself in deeper?

No. Absolutely not.

Just because we have discovered that there are limits to what can be known does not in any way imply that what we already know is the totality of what can be known.



No. I'm not saying anything close to that.

First off, that's not the reasoning that is implied by quantum mechanics.

It's not saying that because we don't know everything we can't know everything. It's actually mathematically stating specific things that can never be known because they are forbidden by the very laws of quantum physics.

In other words, the only way that this can be false is if quantum mechanics itself is false. But it's highly unlikely that this is going to turn out to be the case because the predictions of quantum mechanics have not only been experimentally verified, but they are even being incorporated into technology.



I absolutely do accept this. I accept that the mathematics of quantum mechanics is correct. That mathematics shows us precisely why we can never know certain things. I fully understand precisely why this is indeed necessarily the case. So yes, I totally accept this.



Well, for one thing, I'm not saying that specifically.

All I said in my previous post is that in light of modern science we no longer have a meaningful scientific distinction between what is 'natural' and what is 'supernatural'.

So to scoff at the 'supernatural' is to scoff at science.

On a deeper note, I do have reasons why I feel that our knowledge of the quantum world gives support to a notion of 'spirit' and 'immortality'. I'm not sure about any 'supreme being' (that would depend on precisely how we define that I suppose. I don't think we understand the properties of the quantum entity to even begin to 'define it' in that way.

What goes on, on the other side of the "quantum veil", is anyone's guess. The fact that this veil exists and there is clearly something going on, on the other side, is enough for me.

I might be able to say that I have reasons to believe in a supernatural cosmic mind, or computer, or whatever that exists on the far side of the quantum veil. But if you expect me to describe that cosmic mind in detail I'm afraid I have no clue. Access to that information has been forbidden to us by the very nature of teh "quantum veil" itself.

In other words, if there is a cosmic mind (or computer) on the far side of the quantum veil, then that mind has arranged things so that we can never peek into it's most private thoughts.

Supernatural - yes.

Explainable - no.

In fact, isn't that the very meaning of "supernatural" in the first place?

Are you secretly trying to get me to explain the unexplainable?

You sly devil!

(Note:
“premince”? That was a critical word in the sentence and I’m not sure what it was meant to be. So keep that in mind if I go off-target here.)

I think the first paragraph of questions were mainly rhetorical, so I don’t think they need to be answered. (However, if I am mistaken and they were not, I can answer them if you really want answers.)

I think you may have a bit of a misconception about my own personal spiritual beliefs.

From a purely philosophical perspective, I don’t separate the here-and-now from the “afterlife” any more than I separate today from tomorrow or where I lived as a child from where I live now. The environment is different, and I am doing different things and have different goals, and I have different (or additional) thoughts and memories. But I am not different. The essence of what I am has not changed, nor will it ever. It’s always just “me being, doing and having”.

Like the driver and car analogy.

The driver may obtain a new car when his old one stops working. And in between times he may walk or ride the bus. But he is still going to work every day. He’s still doing what he’s doing, regardless of how he gets there. I don’t separate the drivers existence into the various times of having different cars or the times when he has no car at all. He’s always doing what he’s doing. How he gets where he wants to go, in order to do what he wants to do is really of secondary importance. (Unless, of course, he’s racing cars, but that’s where the analogy breaks down, as all analogies must eventually.)

Now this could be considered a sort of “karmic” belief. But I don’t think of it in any such complicated way. To me it’s simply cause-and-effect. A very literal application of “as you sow, so shall you reap”. (My favorite way of putting it is “you create your own reality”.)

So really, I agree with your assessment regarding those who sacrifice their corporeal existence for some “afterlife” reward. From the point of view of my own personal beliefs, that is simply another example of aberrant cognitive processes/survival goals where they (to use your words) “do not understand their true nature”.

To me, it would be like the driver smashing his car into a tree based on the belief that he would be given another, better car for doing so, not realizing that he’s actually going to have to buy the new car all by himself. He doesn’t truly understand the relationship between himself and the car or his relationship between himself with one car, and himself with a different car.

So I don’t differentiate between motivations in any absolute sense. As far as I’m concerned they are all survival goals of one kind or another. The difference is in whether they actually increase survival – which I don’t think suicide bombings do. And which is why I oppose all those other forms actions you asked about in the first paragraph – because I think they are contra-survival.

Ok, I can understand that. And within the context of your meaning, I would agree.

I'm all for eradicating the aberrant congnitive processes/survival goals.

Just as long as we're not proposing to eradicate all beliefs in the "supernatural" or "spiritual" altogether.

Let me just point out that the "target" here has progressed from a single word ("religion") to a more complex, modified, parameterized version ("communal, organized, doctrinalized religions"), which I consider to be a good thing. It is exactly where I (and others) have been trying to steer the focus all along. We’re simply saying, “Yeah there are some bad parts, and we agree that those parts should be eradicated. But don’t throw the baby out with the bath water”.

I mean, there is still very little difference between the actions involved in, say, public education in this country, and the religious indoctrination of a militant religious group. The processes are fundamentally the same. The difference is mostly in the doctrines being taught – one is pro-survival and the other is contra-survival.

And I have no disagreement with “indoctrinating” people into pro-survival viewpoints. I think that is exactly what should be done.

So as I said before (way, way back on page one or so, and many times since) it is the generalization (as stated in the conclusions) that I object to. I have no disagreement with eradicating contra-survival/aberrant cognitive processes/survival goals. I just don’t want any pro-survival concepts to be eradicated in the process.