Religion

dotheevolution1

Thoughts?

Ahnimus

Yea many, but they can all be condensed into one word: Sucks!

norm

dotheevolution1 wrote:

Thoughts?

You first!

bubbamackdaddy69

I'm not religious but it's good for some people as long as they don't preach it to everyone

scot88

bubbamackdaddy69 wrote:

I'm not religious but it's good for some people as long as they don't preach it to everyone

close to perfect answer.

ihavadog

i like the messages but hate all the doctrines, laws, collection plates,

blah blah blah

Gary Carter

religion isnt for everyone, but RESPECT people for what they believe as a human being

Bu2

It's a way for us to try to reach our beginnings. And our endings. And a way for us to make sense of everything in between.

Ahnimus

Apollonius of Tyana (c. 1-c. 100 AD) was a Greek Neo-Pythagorean philosopher and teacher. His teaching influenced both scientific thought and occultism for centuries after his death.

He is best known through the medium of the writer Philostratus, whose biography's peripatetic narrative structure is built upon a series of instructive dialogues and the sage's responses to places and events. Apollonius was a vegetarian, and a disciple of Pythagoras. He is quoted as having said "For I discerned a certain sublimity in the discipline of Pythagoras, and how a certain secret wisdom enabled him to know, not only who he was himself, but also who he had been; and I saw that he approached the altars in purity, and suffered not his belly to be polluted by partaking of the flesh of animals; and that he kept his body pure of all garments woven of dead animal refuse; and that he was the first of mankind to restrain his tongue, inventing a discipline of silence described in the proverbial phrase, "An ox sits upon it." I also saw that his philosophical system was in other respects oracular and true. So I ran to embrace his teachings..."

This is The Prayer of Apollonius of Tyana, circa 23: "Oh, Thou Sun, send me as far around the world as is my pleasure and thine; and may I make the acquaintance of good men but never hear anything of bad ones, nor they of me."

Having kept a vow of silence for five years, he decided to travel to India, and to learn the wisdom of the Persian magi and the Indian gymnosophists ("Naked Philosophers") and Brahmans. On his way through Asia and before reaching the Euphrates, he visited a sacred city of Syria called Hierapolis ("Ninos" in Philostratus), where he attracted a disciple, Damis, who kept a diary of Apollonius's deeds and sayings. These notes described a number of incidents and adventures in the life of Apollonius, including events relating to Roman emperors from Nero (54-68) to Nerva (96-98). Eventually Damis's notes are said to have come into the possession of the Empress Julia Domna, wife of the emperor Septimius Severus (194-211), who commissioned Philostratus to use them to assemble a biography of the sage.

The narrative of Apollonius's travels, as they are reported by Philostratus on the basis of Damis, is so full of the miraculous that, in the words of Edward Gibbon, "we are at a loss to discover whether he was a sage, an imposter, or a fanatic." If we can believe Philostratus, he continued to travel widely after his return from Europe, going far up the river Nile as far as Ethiopia, and in Spain as far as Gades (modern Cádiz). Though he had many followers and admirers, Philostratus maintains that he also had many enemies, notably the Stoic philosopher Euphrates of Tyre. Both his friendships and his quarrels are also reflected in his extant Letters. He himself claimed only the power of foreseeing the future; yet, again according to Philostratus, he either raised from death or revived from a death-like state the daughter of a Roman senator. In the biographer's account, he is accused of treason both by Nero and by Domitian, but miraculously escapes, and after further travels in Greece finally settles in Ephesus. Philostratus keeps up the mystery of his hero's life by saying, "Concerning the manner of his death, if he did die, the accounts are various," though he seems to prefer a version in which Apollonius disappears mysteriously in the temple of the goddess Dictynna in Crete.

Around 300, a certain Hierocles endeavored to prove that the doctrines and the life of Apollonius were more valuable than those of Christ. Hierocles was soon refuted by the Christian bishop, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his extant Reply to Hierocles. In modern times, Voltaire and Charles Blount (1654-1693), the English freethinker, have adopted a similar standpoint. Apart from this extravagant eulogy, it is absurd to regard Apollonius merely as a vulgar charlatan and miracle-monger. If we cut away the mass of mere fiction which Philostratus accumulated, we have left a highly imaginative, earnest reformer who attempted to promote a spirit of practical morality.

He wrote many books and treatises on a wide variety of subjects during his life, including science, medicine, and philosophy. A few decades after his death, the Emperor Hadrian made a collection of his Letters, though it was Philostratus's biography that made him into a major figure of religious history.

Apollonius' fame was still evident in 272, when the Emperor Aurelian besieged Tyana, which had rebelled against Roman rule. In a dream or vision, Aurelian claimed to have seen Apollonius speak to him, beseeching him to spare the city of his birth. In part, Aurelian said Apollonius told him "Aurelian, if you desire to rule, abstain from the blood of the innocent! Aurelian, if you will conquer, be merciful!" Aurelian, who admired Apollonius, spared Tyana.

Medieval Islamic alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan's Book of Stones is a lengthy analysis of alchemical works attributed to Apollonius (called "Balinas") (see e.g. Haq, which provides an English translation of much of the Book of Stones).

In some of the teachings of Theosophy, Apollonius of Tyana has been regarded as an Ascended Master and an embodiment of the Master Jesus.

Last Exodus

Oh Geez. There he goes again........Didn't your mother ever teach you the two things you never talk about in pulic?

bubbamackdaddy69

scot88 wrote:

close to perfect answer.

only close ? lol ...hahaha

statistics

in providing happiness to some, it provides pain for others.

dotheevolution1

statistics wrote:

in providing happiness to some, it provides pain for others.

Now THAT was the perfect answer.
not for me, but I know many for whom it (religion) helps.

sponger

Isn't this the bajillionth thread on this subject?

mammasan

Religion doesn't bother me unless someone is trying to ram their's down my throat.

soulsinging

dotheevolution1 wrote:

Thoughts?

thoughts? no. it usually discourages those.

bubbamackdaddy69

mammasan wrote:

Religion doesn't bother me unless someone is trying to ram their's down my throat.

Yep...but unfortunetly alot of people do try and ram in down our throats..The are the "know" all...they really annoy me those people..
I pretty much just say.." Shut the fuck up..believe what you wanna believe and let me believe or not believe what I want you friggin freak"....LOL

keeponrockin

For the second time this week, I'm gonna quote Ben Harper:

My choice is what I choose to do
If it's causing know harm why should it bother you?

Your choice is who you choose to be
If you're causing no harm you're alright with me

sponger

I think what makes some religious people so preachy is the fact that their faith is based on a need for acceptance. They were sort of forced into subscribing to religion by their fear of excommunication. Therefore, they don't believe it to be fair that people who do not succumb to this form of peer pressure be allowed to reap the benefits of social acceptance.

angelica

People don't like when religion is being shoved down their throat. This goes back to my assertion that the majority of people are tied into the tribal mindset. We don't know where one guy starts and finishes and that we are separate and start and finish elsewhere. We fall for the illusion that our mindset is "controlled" by the other guy whom we are "attached" to. Until we learn to detach and disconnect we'll find that others will do all kinds of things "against our will", when really, unconsciously, we've hooked ourselves into the equation voluntarily. There are all manner of ways to put down boundaries and to not allow something be "shoved down your throat". The base problem is that we willingly open up and create a connection with the other person. Often opposites will attract, and we'll gladly jump in to take the opposite stance--effectively hooking ourselves. Since we are unaware of our unconscious fully chosen participation, since we are in denial, we must make it that we are the victims and the other guy is the "wrong" one forcing us to listen "against our will". These are some very interesting dynamics. What we really don't like is that someone chooses differently than we do.

sponger

angelica wrote:

People don't like when religion is being shoved down their throat. This goes back to my assertion that the majority of people are tied into the tribal mindset. We don't know where one guy starts and finishes and that we are separate and start and finish elsewhere. We fall for the illusion that our mindset is "controlled" by the other guy whom we are "attached" to. Until we learn to detach and disconnect we'll find that others will do all kinds of things "against our will", when really, unconsciously, we've hooked ourselves into the equation voluntarily. There are all manner of ways to put down boundaries and to not allow something be "shoved down your throat". The base problem is that we willingly open up and create a connection with the other person. Often opposites will attract, and we'll gladly jump in to take the opposite stance--effectively hooking ourselves. Since we are unaware of our unconscious fully chosen participation, since we are in denial, we must make it that we are the victims and the other guy is the "wrong" one forcing us to listen "against our will". These are some very interesting dynamics. What we really don't like is that someone chooses differently than we do.

It sounds like what you're saying is that we who do not like the preachiness of religion are really only interested in proving our sense of individuality. Is that what you're saying?

angelica

sponger wrote:

It sounds like what you're saying is that we who do not like the preachiness of religion are really only interested in proving our sense of individuality. Is that what you're saying?

No. I think it's valid to not like something. There are a ton of things that others do that I dislike, all around me a lot of the time! I'm saying when we blame the other guy, and take the "look what they are doing to me" route, we are not being conscious of our own role and how we are contributing to what we are creating that we don't like. If we are allowing someone to shove religion down our throat, or fighting it and thereby connecting with the dynamic, or even when we are letting it bother us, that is about us, not the other guy. The reason I tie this into the tribal mindset is because it shows us when we are "hooked" and thusly not individuated.

hippiemom

angelica wrote:

No. I think it's valid to not like something. There are a ton of things that others do that I dislike, all around me a lot of the time! I'm saying when we blame the other guy, and take the "look what they are doing to me" route, we are not being conscious of our own role and how we are contributing to what we are creating that we don't like. If we are allowing someone to shove religion down our throat, or fighting it and thereby connecting with the dynamic, or even when we are letting it bother us, that is about us, not the other guy. The reason I tie this into the tribal mindset is because it shows us when we are "hooked" and thusly not individuated.

On a one-on-one basis, I agree with you. There are numerous very effective ways to shut down that sort of communication. I don't know what others are specifically talking about, but when I say that I dislike religion only when people attempt to force it on me, I'm talking about attempts to legislate religiously-based beliefs on everyone.

angelica

hippiemom wrote:

On a one-on-one basis, I agree with you. There are numerous very effective ways to shut down that sort of communication. I don't know what others are specifically talking about, but when I say that I dislike religion only when people attempt to force it on me, I'm talking about attempts to legislate religiously-based beliefs on everyone.

Yeah, I was definitely referring to one to one.

hippiemom

angelica wrote:

Yeah, I was definitely referring to one to one.

If you discover an equally effective way to shut down the busy-body would-be legislators, please let me know!

angelica

hippiemom wrote:

If you discover an equally effective way to shut down the busy-body would-be legislators, please let me know!

Will do!

B nice

god is for idiots

sponger

I wouldn't necessarily say that a belief in god is a sign of being intellectually challenged. There are plenty of intelligent people out there who are religious. I'd say that a belief in god is a sign of a lack of introspection. It's possible to be intelligent yet not know a thing about one's own self.

sponger

angelica wrote:

No. I think it's valid to not like something. There are a ton of things that others do that I dislike, all around me a lot of the time! I'm saying when we blame the other guy, and take the "look what they are doing to me" route, we are not being conscious of our own role and how we are contributing to what we are creating that we don't like. If we are allowing someone to shove religion down our throat, or fighting it and thereby connecting with the dynamic, or even when we are letting it bother us, that is about us, not the other guy. The reason I tie this into the tribal mindset is because it shows us when we are "hooked" and thusly not individuated.

You live in a society that is more secular than the states. At least, that's the impression I get about Canada. Things are a lot worse down here.

Smellyman2

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg

angelica

sponger wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that a belief in god is a sign of being intellectually challenged. There are plenty of intelligent people out there who are religious. I'd say that a belief in god is a sign of a lack of introspection. It's possible to be intelligent yet not know a thing about one's own self.

I consider myself probably the most introspective person I've known and it's through my introspection that I have found how far I reach into the universe. I have touched base within with what is termed "God" on numerous occasions.