Where did consciousness come from?

[Nahm]

Experiential.  

[cirkussmile]

Non duality can explain all those questions. 

Experiencing nothing is the experience of what you call God.

[Monkey-man]

@Truth Addict I don't understand why religions, polytheistic, monotheistic and non-theistic (including Buddhism) dismiss this material life as something unimportant and place for mere test and challenge.

Main themes of all religions is escapism: salvation, liberation, redemption. 

And you might be right to say that its a metaphorical tool to make people follow 'goodness' so they can stop attachment to their finite things and live this material life in the NOW with joy and truth and oneness instead of being absorbed with problems, separated and suffering. Escape pain of this realm, not the realm itself. And then as a reward maybe have 'goodies' after this realm.

That can be very appealing and reasonable explanation. But thats only one side of the coin coz its just way too easy to say that religions only advocated that, and used metaphorical way. I think religions (by that I mean actual historical saints, prophets, spiritual scientists of the past) are just as metaphorical as they are literal. They might have been very much serious about actual escape from this 'unnecessary' and 'dirty' existence. Its not just metaphors.

I can't just buy that their main purpose is about transforming your bad troublesome material separated egoic body life realm into good spiritual oneness truth absolute etc etc  body life realm. I think if Abrahamics said that main purpose is whats beyond this 'useless' body life then they actually meant that. If Buddha and Hindus said that main purpose is to leave any life at all, then they actually meant that. 

But question is if God created everything, then he created this life too then why dismiss it?

Maybe the main reason I can't understand that is because the whole evolution process seem to be sooo, well, intelligent and done with such care to details, and its progressing without end. Sorta like: God cared so much to create all that stupid flowers, molecules, cells and stupid human bodies and spend billions years for that. So in the end it is really controversial to say that all of these are unimportant illusions, stupid and useless material life and we only came here to learn and escape from here asap. Saints didn't seem to imply importance of neither spiritual nor material evolution of humanity.

ALSO, Buddha and Hindus talked about escape from samsara including escape from any kind of heavens, but Abrahamic religions (not mysticism) didn't.  Instead they advocated for going to better realms of existence.  If Abrahamics actually meant escape from samsara of all kinds, don't you think they could just simply said that? Buddha simply said that: I'm teaching enlightenment which is escape from any realms. Why Abrahamic religions didn't? Given that they were born later than Buddhism and Hinduism. I think their message was beyond that.

While Buddha was clear he didn't care about living anymore and anywhere as its all stupid suffering. He was enlightened but he still said: escape your suffering and leave this useless place asap.

Can't simply dismiss and can't simply accept that. Something missing here. I dunno perhaps cosmology should be taken more seriously

[Truth Addict]

1 hour ago, Monkey-man said:

@Truth Addict I don't understand why religions, polytheistic, monotheistic and non-theistic (including Buddhism) dismiss this material life as something unimportant and place for mere test and challenge.

Main themes of all religions is escapism: salvation, liberation, redemption. 

And you might be right to say that its a metaphorical tool to make people follow 'goodness' so they can stop attachment to their finite things and live this material life in the NOW with joy and truth and oneness instead of being absorbed with problems, separated and suffering. Escape pain of this realm, not the realm itself. And then as a reward maybe have 'goodies' after this realm.

That can be very appealing and reasonable explanation. But thats only one side of the coin coz its just way too easy to say that religions only advocated that, and used metaphorical way. I think religions (by that I mean actual historical saints, prophets, spiritual scientists of the past) are just as metaphorical as they are literal. They might have been very much serious about actual escape from this 'unnecessary' and 'dirty' existence. Its not just metaphors.

I can't just buy that their main purpose is about transforming your bad troublesome material separated egoic body life realm into good spiritual oneness truth absolute etc etc  body life realm. I think if Abrahamics said that main purpose is whats beyond this 'useless' body life then they actually meant that. If Buddha and Hindus said that main purpose is to leave any life at all, then they actually meant that. 

But question is if God created everything, then he created this life too then why dismiss it?

Maybe the main reason I can't understand that is because the whole evolution process seem to be sooo, well, intelligent and done with such care to details, and its progressing without end. Sorta like: God cared so much to create all that stupid flowers, molecules, cells and stupid human bodies and spend billions years for that. So in the end it is really controversial to say that all of these are unimportant illusions, stupid and useless material life and we only came here to learn and escape from here asap. Saints didn't seem to imply importance of neither spiritual nor material evolution of humanity.

ALSO, Buddha and Hindus talked about escape from samsara including escape from any kind of heavens, but Abrahamic religions (not mysticism) didn't.  Instead they advocated for going to better realms of existence.  If Abrahamics actually meant escape from samsara of all kinds, don't you think they could just simply said that? Buddha simply said that: I'm teaching enlightenment which is escape from any realms. Why Abrahamic religions didn't? Given that they were born later than Buddhism and Hinduism. I think their message was beyond that.

While Buddha was clear he didn't care about living anymore and anywhere as its all stupid suffering. He was enlightened but he still said: escape your suffering and leave this useless place asap.

Can't simply dismiss and can't simply accept that. Something missing here. I dunno perhaps cosmology should be taken more seriously

Sorry I'm not arguing for religion here.

I was just asking some authentic questions.

[egoless]

38 minutes ago, DrMobius said:

@egoless You are stuck because you are trying to apply local reasoning to reality as a whole. Although that's an easy trap to fall into, it is fallacious to assume that, just because the contents of reality behave according to causes and effects, reality itself also obeys the same rule. There is nothing at all that suggests that, it takes a bit of intellectual honesty to understand.

By the way, even from a scientific standpoint, according to the Big Bang theory, causality wasn't even a thing at T=0. Space, time, physical laws, matter, energy, etc. everything was literally one (and infinite) at the original singularity, causality came a little bit later. So you can't use logic to try to grab the whole. Questions like "where" and "why" simply don't make sense. This is frustrating for that curious mind of yours, I know. But hey, that's also the whole magic of it.

But the thing is the t=0 is false idea. Because T itself does not exist

[Truth Addict]

42 minutes ago, DrMobius said:

@egoless You are stuck because you are trying to apply local reasoning to reality as a whole. Although that's an easy trap to fall into, it is fallacious to assume that, just because the contents of reality behave according to causes and effects, reality itself also obeys the same rule. There is nothing at all that suggests that, it takes a bit of intellectual honesty to understand.

By the way, even from a scientific standpoint, according to the Big Bang theory, causality wasn't even a thing at T=0. Space, time, physical laws, matter, energy, etc. everything was literally one (and infinite) at the original singularity, causality came a little bit later. So you can't use logic to try to grab the whole. Questions like "where" and "why" simply don't make sense. This is frustrating for that curious mind of yours, I know. But hey, that's also the whole magic of it.

How do you know that reality is the whole? What if there's someone aka God not ruled by the laws of reality, not needing to be inside of it and Who also created this reality.

Why are you treating God like other material things?

After all, God is, by definition, beyond mind, science, logic, experience, etc.. If He can't be then He isn't God.

God is infinitely infinite, nor the mind neither "direct experience" can grasp the absolute infinity.

[egoless]

@Truth Addict but you are missing the possibility that you might be it yourself. 

[Nahm]

@egoless Substitute the word God when you would otherwise use the word nothing. It helps us realize our idea of nothing is an idea. We don’t actually have an experience of nothing. This might, at least conceptually, reveal that when we let all beliefs go, and attention to anything “physical”, what remains is “nothing”, but the direct experience of this ‘not-anything-physical-no-thoughts-even-“nothing”, is God, and it is not what we thought “nothing” was.