Hi, Pastinaken.

I'll comment some on your last post.

However he must admit that most mainstream religious believers across the board would consider him eccentric (at best) for considering that faith in supernatural beings is not central to religion!

Perhaps. Most religious AND non-religious people might think me "eccentric" in some sense or another, because I am kind of a nonconformist to a lot of common approaches in people's ideologies. As Joe mentioned, virtually everyone has an ideology. That is, they have some kind of philosophy, some set of assumptions they're acquired from the human culture around them, and their thoughts and actions are based on their ideology. Most people's ideologies are, in my opinion, silly and unrealistic in some areas...but then, they might think the same about me. ;-) That's the way it goes. I tend to question almost everything, take another look at it, and see if I think it's valid. Many people never question their basic ideological assumptions, because it would scare them to do that. Fanatics, whether they are religious or political fanatics, are people who absolutely refuse to even consider questioning the basic points of their ideology. They think they KNOW. That's a dangerous attitude, and it leads to extremism and intolerance.

I don't think anyone is in a position to say they KNOW something for an absolute certainty unless they have experienced it in the most direct way. Then they have something to go on. If they haven't experience it directly, then they are just making an assumption based on what they heard someone else say. Thus the "sheep" are led down the garden path by political and scientific and religious authorities. Those authorities might be right in what they say. They might be wrong. They might be partly right and partly wrong. But the "sheep" are the people who always assume that the authorities are entirely correct in what they're saying. I assume no such thing.

I consider each idea on a scale of probability...but keep in mind that I don't know for sure until I've experienced it directly. Some things are far more likely than others.

Would that his gentle viewpoint was truly typical of religion. But it isn't, and I respectfully think that it should more properly be filed under 'philosophy of life' - and a very good one at that.

I find the idea of "God" interesting. You can look at it on so many levels...as to just what "God" means. The notion of a "God" who is like some kind of super-powerful old guy in a robe who sits on some kind of heavenly throne and judges...well, that seems tremendously unlikely to me. On the other hand, there are ideas of God as a form of innate presence (in all things) that are much more subtle. Some people find something within themselves that they term as "God". What they are finding may be the higher aspect of their own personality...that is, the side of them from which comes love, truth, conscience, kindness, clarity, etc. It may be entirely their own or it may be something they share with all living beings. Who am I to say? If they find comfort in it and gain strength from it, who am I to object?

There are literally millions of ways of looking at it.

Now, there are also a number of really significant spiritual or religious paths that have nothign to do with a deity, but rather with governing one's own consciousness and one's own behaviour in the most natural and effective way. Among those would be yoga, Taoism, Buddhism, and various other Asian approaches to self-discipline and achieving enlightenment. Those ways aren't about worshipping a deity, they're about gaining better mastery of your own consciousness and behaviour.

In some of those disciplines there is a general belief in reincarnation (as something that can happen...doesn't mean it HAS to happen). Is reincarnation a valid concept? Perhaps. I find it reasonably likely, based on some of my personal experiences and some recorded incidents I've read about (a great many, actually), mostly where young children had very clear memories of an earlier life and those memories were checked against various recorded information and found to be very accurate...and there was no other very likely explanation than that the child had lived an earlier life as another person.

But I can't say for sure. I just consider it likely, that's all.

Now, here's a wonderful statement from Robert A. Wilson about belief:

"Don't believe anything. Regard things on a scale of probabilities.
The things that seem most absurd, put under 'Low Probability', and
the things that seem most plausible, you put under 'High
Probability'. Never believe anything. Once you believe anything, you
stop thinking about it. The more things you believe, the less mental
activity. If you believe something, and have an opinion on every
subject, then your brain activity stops entirely, which is clinically
considered a sign of death, nowadays in medical practice. So put
things on a scale or probability, and never believe or disbelieve
anything entirely.

-Robert A. Wilson (interview with "innerview")


I love that. I think he's nailed it. "Sheep" are people who believe utterly in their chosen set of assumptions and their usual habits and they will kill on account of it. A suicide bomber is one such. A man who pilots an American plane at 20,000 feet and follows the order given him to drop some hideously destructive bomb on a city full of people may be another...because he's not thinking for himself. He's letting his commanders do the thinking.

Thus is most of the evil in the world perpetrated, by many "sheep" following the orders of their commanders, and fully believing that they are doing the right thing, because it either never occurred to them to question it...or they just didn't dare to break ranks and face the consequences.

I am reluctant to be part of any power structure or chain of command. I wish to think for myself. The fact that I do consider reincarnation to be quite likely, for example, arises entirely from my own observations and my own thinking on the matter. I didn't get it by belonging to any religion or following any religious leader's instructions as to what I should or should not believe. It's not up to anyone else what I should or should not believe. I decide what makes sense to me. They don't.

Many people are so afraid of feeling uncertainty that they erect a wall of rigid "beliefs" around themselves like a fortress, and they spend the rest of their lives defending it...and attacking other walls of belief that are different from theirs. Pointless conflict driven by deep insecurity is what that is.

If they would not be afraid to just admit that they don't know for sure and just to work on a basis of probabilities, as Robert A. Wilson suggest, then they'd be a lot more open-minded and tolerant of others, and a lot easier on themselves.

I don't KNOW if there is a God. But there may be (in some sense). I don't KNOW if there is reincarnation. But there may be. I don't KNOW if human beings are really contributing to Global Warming in any significant way...or if there's in truth some much larger interplanetary cause for it that is way beyond anything we can do or affect. Either case may be true, and I don't KNOW. I don't KNOW if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and killed Kennedy. Maybe. I fairly much doubt it, but maybe. And so on...

If people would just have enough humility to admit that they don't KNOW 100% about most of the stuff they purport to "believe"...well, maybe they wouldn't be so damned hard on each other over their differences of opinon, eh? ;-)