Is man even a spiritual being?

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

No, we are just a bunch of chemicals. Just molecules interacting with each other.

Life has no significance. The universe will carry on regardless of whether there is life in it or not.

I'm going to have to issue a Red Card on that one for trying to introduce reality into this conversation.

If you aren't living in the moment you are wasting time*, especially if you are occupying that time trying to prepare for something there is zero proof of actually existing.


*Unless of course you are making a comfortable living off of it such as Elron and the rest of the 'spiritual' conmen

 

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

Our lives do have significance to ourselves and each other.
The significance is what we make it to be in the limited time that we have.
(And I agree with your last sentence.)

Yep, and that is precisely why should should spend our lives living them and not handing them over to some conman's pipe dreams of immortality.

 

[mate]

It sure looks like I missed the mark with my observation about conscious awareness, so let's try this .....

There have been many reports of "out of body experiences". Reports which are uncanningly similar yet demonstrably independent. At least one of our own has had such an experience.

The two common experiences are the travelling through a light filled tube, and the other is observing one's body from above during an operation in a hospital operating theater.

David.

 

[programmer_guy]

You're being optomistic. You don't know the universe will go on forever, it is the current accepted hypothesis that it will because we have considerable evidence we live in a flat universe.

We live in an expanding universe - Bethany Cobb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWbc54u8k8c


The Expanding Universe - Alex Filippenko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsPqeS5I_QM&feature=related


And the expansion is accelerating.
This means, again, that eventually we will not be able to see distant stars and galaxies.
They will finally be beyond an "event horizon" due to expansion and the limit of the speed of light.

Our universe will sort of "pop" like a bubble.

Are we ghosts in this machine? I doubt it.

 

[Ogsonofgroo]

This has been an interesting dialogue thus far, and though my instinct is to sort of bite my tongue and watch/read but I'd like to share a couple of vids with y'all for consideration.

I like this dude> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOBy7oPweY&nofeather=True

They know> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFGvNxBqYFI&nofeather=True

So do they> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQu_RRLbVDA

I might too, and maybe you do too, semantics aside ~ the fact that the OP's question was asked in the first place makes the answer self-evident imho.
We all have one or two things in common, we were born, we exist, our physical entity here at this time will eventually end.
I maintain that the really deep answers are in a universe without words that flows through all living forms, including our big parent, Momma Earth.
Now~
Time for a late night cocktail and then go contemplate my navel once again.
All!

 

[uniquemand]

We might have what we call spiritual experiences, and that ability might be a genetic advantage, because we have the capacity to treat our world as though it were sacred. Whether it is actually true or not, it would be a very good idea, until we have more than one world.

 

[marjan]

I'm going to have to issue a Red Card on that one for trying to introduce reality into this conversation.

If you aren't living in the moment you are wasting time*, especially if you are occupying that time trying to prepare for something there is zero proof of actually existing.


*Unless of course you are making a comfortable living off of it such as Elron and the rest of the 'spiritual' conmen

ChuckNorris, I agree totally with you.

A belief system is exactly that -- a belief, not a proof.
The only eternity we will ever have is this singular moment.
Just one moment after the other, on and on and on.

What happens when we die, and where we go, or don't go is UNKNOWN.
There are theories. There are hypotheses. But until the day that we close
our eyes for good, we will not KNOW.

Live and enjoy your life, this very moment.
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
That's a really good start.

Mark

 

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

It sure looks like I missed the mark with my observation about conscious awareness, so let's try this .....

There have been many reports of "out of body experiences". Reports which are uncanningly similar yet demonstrably independent. At least one of our own has had such an experience.

The two common experiences are the travelling through a light filled tube, and the other is observing one's body from above during an operation in a hospital operating theater.

David.

What you are describing are reproducible neurological events. No different that people believing nature occurring phenomena such as earthquakes and lightening were spiritually induced events, or that viral or bacterial diseases where induced by spiritual beings or events prior to scientific understanding of them.

[video=youtube;8YPOTaUyvA0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YPOTaUyvA0[/video]

 

[TrevAnon]

Gee, when I read all this, I think writing a penny a word is just ridiculous. If you really want to get rich you would have to start a religion.

So that's what I am going to do, I call it Trevanology.

Luckily for me I just found a new way for enlightenment one's sorrows by something similar to a lie detector. You must hold two soup cans so I can help you. After you have cleared yourself from your sorrows with a little bit of my help you will have a perfectly happy life, you will get rich, and you will have lots and lots of sex.

Of course I would like to have a nice sum of money for my work. Hey, I got to live too.

Who of you guys is with me?

T Rev Anology

 

[marjan]

Gee, when I read all this, I think writing a penny a word is just ridiculous. If you really want to get rich you would have to start a religion.

So that's what I am going to do, I call it Trevanology.

Luckily for me I just found a new way for enlightenment one's sorrows by something similar to a lie detector. You must hold two soup cans so I can help you. After you have cleared yourself from your sorrows with a little bit of my help you will have a perfectly happy life, you will get rich, and you will have lots and lots of sex.

Of course I would like to have a nice sum of money for my work. Hey, I got to live too.

Who of you guys is with me?

T Rev Anology

Ha ha ha... bite me TrevAnon!

 

[Clarence Rockaway]

Ha ha ha... bite me TrevAnon!

My friend Larry Michel, an old timer from DC days, knew a guy named Paul Twitchell, who lived in San Diego. One day Paul said to Larry,
"I'm thinking of starting my own religion." To which Larry said,
"Go ahead."
So Twitchell did. It's called Eckankar.

 

[Div6]

My friend Larry Michel, an old timer from DC days, knew a guy named Paul Twitchell, who lived in San Diego. One day Paul said to Larry,
"I'm thinking of starting my own religion." To which Larry said,
"Go ahead."
So Twitchell did. It's called Eckankar.

TrueFax

His CF folder was still there in the early 90's (pre-idle morgue). It was an interesting read.

 

[Leafy]

"Spiritual" is such a dirty word, tainted by delusion and rainbow escapism.

When asked what spirituality means to me, I say that it is only a word that tries to describe the inexplicable nature of human consciousness and the seeking of truth in "what it all means."

I like RolandRB's answer. We ARE just human organisms, built of physics and chemistry, with consciousness riding on finite bioware that is configured to produce a sense of selfhood - a subconscious self model that enables the brain to move us around in an environment and do all the things we do, eat, poop, love, think, weep, all of it.

The "inexplicability" is the delusion that there is an actor or agent driving our lives when in fact life drives itself. More accurately, life happens. and happens and happens. No driver, no little man behind the curtain of consciousness.

I know that sounds weird to some of you, but just think about it. Human beings are genetically and environmentally programmed, running on hardware that evolved blindly.

"Spirituality" is nothing more than the search in understanding this, life seeking its own awareness of itself.

 

[Student of Trinity]

As a technical detail about the expanding universe: distant galaxies may eventually recede out of sight, but the hundred-billion-odd stars in our own galaxy will remain pretty much as they are, being held together by their own collective gravity. We will never end up alone in a black sky. Or at least, we won't get that way because of cosmic expansion. Once stars have fused up all the light elements, they'll burn out and no new ones will form. That will turn out the lights.

"Spirituality" is nothing more than ...

Speaking as a physicist, it has always seemed absurd to me to say we are not spiritual beings because we are 'nothing but molecules'. That's like saying you're not rich because you have nothing more than truckloads of diamonds. Molecules are amazingly complex things. To really understand even a simple molecule requires conceiving simultaneous alternatives in spaces of many more than three dimensions.

To me, there is exactly one intelligent response to being told that you are a piece of meat: "That must be some piece of meat." Well, it is.

The question of what we're made of is a minor one. We're made of matter; okay. So what? Whatever we're made of, we are what we are. That's not in doubt. The question is how we work. Answering it won't limit what we are, any more than finding out how your car works suddenly stops it from working.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

It sure looks like I missed the mark with my observation about conscious awareness, .....

This strikes me as non sequitur, David. WHY do you think you may have missed the mark?


Mark A. Baker

 

[Clarence Rockaway]

This strikes me as non sequitur, David. WHY do you think you may have missed the mark?


Mark A. Baker

If there is such a thing as a creator who made us, then it becomes clear with the commentary of many, that some are predestined to stay in the three dimensional universe of SEMT, Space, Energy, Matter and Time, (created in that order, not MEST). While others are pulled along into higher universes where SEMPT doesn't exist. These people see things without eyes, microscopes, and telescopes, or other SEMPT extensions. They see, sense, hear, and/or feel things that the 3rd dimensionally destined person insists cannot be unless scientifically proven.

Police psychics with excellent track records are examples of beings, most of whom have no scientific grounding, but who are programmed by the Creator, to keep a line back to the Unmanifested (as Eckhart Tolle calls it) where supposedly we all were before we came into these bodies. Some of us without drugs or other stimulants, can reach these realms. Those who can't often deny them, vociferously.

I know, from personal experience that I am a spiritual being. I've seen things right out of sci-fi or sorcery and fantasy comic books, without Scn. inducement. But I no longer feel the need to justify or try and convince anyone. Some people who think it's all atoms and molecules, and nothing more, are going to be in for a real big surprise.

 

[Student of Trinity]

Police psychics?

 

[Ogsonofgroo]

Police psychics?

Over the years, probably going back at least a century, cops have used perceptive people's abilities, though with more meh than actual 'success', hey~when you're an investigator and you are stumped then its time to fan out, so ta speak.
99.999 percent of the time it is outside peoples, those few that are used and successful I would imagine are highly valued and protected.

Now, to get back on topic I offer this~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNvu_e9sR4

 

[Lout Zoo]

I have been a Scientologist for over 35 years and have some insight in this area. In the beginning I was very curious and wanted to observe spiritual phenomena. In my first couple of years in Scientology I experienced several "OT" /spiritual phenomena. Strangely I found it hard to even remember them in the beginning. I found this very puzzling. As I grew to understand innately the concept of A.R.C. it became clear to me that they weren't quite in my reality level. LRH describes this in the awareness levels, "communication, perception, orientation, UNDERSTANDINGS,..." It took quite a few "understandings" to bring me up to where I could easily remember phenomena after I experienced them. I also observed in a friend of mine that forcing someone to see an "OT phenomena" would result in their not being able to remember it. You can get them to remember it afterward with careful direction, but if it is out of their reality they will quickly forget it. So I can say that I know we are spiritual beings with certainty as I have had enough experience to gain enough "understandings" to be certain. Each person as they progress upward spiritually will experience phenomena that will eventually lead them to know for certain. You certainly know when you go exterior, but even then it may be so far out of your reality level that you do not retain the certainty for long. Just being in the presence of a great spiritual leader has brought many people up to a high certainty. Unfortunately when not in their presence they often fall back to a lower level. Good processing can bring you up to a point where you can retain your ability to exteriorize at any time. Your certainty level would be very, very great then. There are always going to be detractors that don't believe what they see. When you understand ARC it is obvious why.

Cheers,

LZ

I'm not heavily opinionated on this right now, which is remarkable given my 26 years in Scientology, but I have been wondering and unfortunately the conclusion that I've come to is that I spent 26 years following a guru that didn't know nearly as much as he claimed and thus my basis of "wisdom", following him, was fatally flawed.

Now I'm in the normal but uncomfortable position where I just don't know the answers.

There are several things, a hatfull I guess, that I still accept from Scientology. One was the concept of SURVIVE. Man, and all life seeks to survive. Seems true to me.

Man also has a really big brain and an incredible gift for creative imagination.

So now I'm buggered. What if all our glorious history of religion and spiritual belief was no more than a product from a lucky combination of man's desire to survive coupled with his keen creative imagination?

I've sought the *truth* as a teenager and that led me to Scientology which sadly for me and my quest was no better than any other belief, ology or ism.

It failed so profoundly when it came to the acid test that it simply disproves itself on too many fronts to count.

Either we are the product of protoplasm or the truth of our spiritual nature will be beyond us while we languish on this physical plane. Something that will be revealed when we leave this playing field.

Now what I suspect is that if real at all then all religion and spiritualism can only be a matter of subjective truth and that definitely includes Scientology, only the Scientologist refers to their faith as "certainty" and "knowingness".

I'm sure I'm not the only ex musing over this at this time, so I was keen to see what other viewpoints were among my friends here on this subject.

 

[Ogsonofgroo]

So, someone after spending 35+ years getting raped by the cult, and seemingly still on 'the nipple' of LRon, this is the best you can do?

Iya.


So, being a newbie or a sock, do tell us here what was the thing you most value now? Got a family left?
See your kids much?
How is the retirement plan going?
Found 'love'?
Are you happy?
Do you travel?
Do you have time to spend people watching in various places around the world?
What have you done with your 35 years?

Curious minds would loves ta know!

(and WELCOME if you're a real newbie!)