Objections To Spirituality Mega-Thread

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

Valid response if it wasn't for the fact spiritual experience, that will absolutely blow all skepticism out of as skeptics head, are not that hard to come by...

There's blow outs so big you just will not be able to remain a 'rational skeptic' afterwards, even though the tendency may stick it's head out in the form of some thoughts, it just won't be the same.

Which is why I said:

Quote

The skeptic must intuitively grok that skepticism is untruthful and biased. If he fails to grok this, he's fucked and nothing can save him.

That accounts for the mystical experience you were talking about. A mystical experience is an intuitive groking.

[JustThinkingAloud]

11 hours ago, Scholar said:

So we might say that fundamentally the ego is that kind of skepticism. The skepticism is it's own life-form and seeks to survive as long as possible.

This will eventually lead to the skepticism to attempt to somehow solve the issue of mortality, so that it can be forever skeptical, or alive.

 

So in essence the skepticisim is like a structure which seeks to uphold it's own structure. Maybe, in a metaphysical sense, that is in some shape or form what biological life-forms themselves are. There is a skepticism in the structure of the brain or mind, but the very organism itself, namely the body, the bacteria, any structure which attempts to uphold itself, is in essence skepticism.

The physical form of skepticism is biological life, as it seeks to remain it's form as is, it seeks to perpetuate itself, to create more versions of itself, to basically uphold it's own structure for all of eternity.

 

Maybe this is even what the atom is. A structure struggling to uphold a certain state, but susceptible to an eventual deconstruction or death. That would mean that the skepticism or ego in a more fundamental sense is embued in the fabric of what we call the physical universe. It would bridge the gap between "physical" and "biological" as both would fundamentally be one and the same. The complete dissolving of the universe into nothingness would then be what the dissolving of the human brain is on a smaller scale.

It would explain why the physical material of the universe struggles to create ever and ever more complex structures. By that design, life is inevitable as it is even part of the very substance of the universe. The ego in the human sense would be simply a more complex structure attempting to uphold it's own structure, while atoms would be the same thing on a more fundamental scale.

 

Thus the entire Universe is basically just Devilry. Duality attempting to remain in duality, but eventually collapsing into one. The genius of the design is that there can be something that self-perpetuates, a structure that in it's very essence structures itself. It is completely circular, it should be impossible.

A structure which by the nature of it's structure creates it's own structure. Yet there is a fundamental weakness to that structure, which we can observe in the very fundamental particles of the universe and which scales up to all forms of life that exist.

 

Imagine how smart you would have to be to create a design that works on such a small scale and yet works perfectly well on a greater scale. A design so smart it by it's very nature designs itself. It designs itself so well that it not only creates structure, geometry, consistency but also contains completely different aspects of reality, like colors, sounds and feelings, and which can create a being that by these different aspects can grasp the nature of geometry. A design so ingenius that it inevitably creates a being which can look at that design and grasp it's nature.

A design in which all of these aspects are not seperate instances, but interact with each other in impossible ways. It's so funny how I thought intelligent design was an absurd argument, but at this point arguing against it seems the most absurd thing ever.

 

This is akin to us designing an AI and then the AI forgetting that it was designed. It would look at all of the intricasies of it's own nature and explain those intricasies with the intricasies, like the physicist is explain physics with physics or the evolutionist evolution with evolution.

They completely fail to see how much intelligence it took to create the physics, the evolution or the intricasies of the AI in the first place. It is so genius, so well designed, that we do not even realize it is a design.

"Evolution is the way because that's just how reality is! There is no design behind it, the rules of reality create the designs."

lol

 

It's not even intelligence. This is like create a Tree by creating the rules that will eventually create a Tree. This is beyond problem solving, you create the Tree by creating the problems that will eventually lead to the creation of the Tree. Whatever that is, calling it intelligence is insulting.

It is not mere intelligence, it is Intuition. It is true Creativity.

Wow, I love that. Isn’t our mind amazing how it can align things once we adjust it to our individual way of thinking based on our lives. There’s so much to the reality that we don’t understand yet while every generation gets “reset” to allow for new way of thinking while cherry picking from the knowledge of previous generations that results in a better more improved view and knowledge.

[Anton Rogachevski]

If there are in fact no brains, how can different people have minds?

[Geromekevin]

On 8/3/2019 at 1:46 PM, Geromekevin said:

I think the simulation theory is true. If you aren't familiar with it, the basic argument goes like this:

1. Soon, we will be able to create a simulation that is indistinguishable from reality.
2. In this simulation you could also create a reality that is indistinguishable from reality because the simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
3. If this is both true, our world could also be a simulation. And you can repeat this argumentation as often as you want. So we could be in a simulation, in a simulation, in a sumilation... ad infinitum until there maybe is a base reality.

In this context here are my questions:
 

• How does spirituality tie in into the simulation theory? Do you just assume that it is wrong and we are living in base reality? Do you think that drugs / awakenings take you back into base reality and or give you experiences from it?
• How do you know, that what you experience aren't just hallucinations? Maybe we will be able to create experiences in different ways (e.g. electric stimulation) that will feel the same? I mean just because it feels real and you could swear that it was and must be real, doesn't mean it is real.
• Spirituality has close to zero value (besides placebo) because it leaves the realm of reason. All there is is math. You can't reliably reproduce spirituality. You can reliably reproduce math and physics.

@leogura could you please address my genuine questions?

[VeganAwake]

How and why would God imagine something like the ego which appears to have taken thousands of years to evolve into the dysfunctional survival mechanism that it is today and is responsible for almost all of the human suffering on the planet.

[Nak Khid]

On 8/2/2019 at 4:58 PM, Leo Gura said:

I want your help.

As I do research for my book, I want to gather a potent collection of objections to spirituality, nonduality, enlightenment, mysticism, the paranormal, etc.

 

I don't know if this is part of your book or the book's theme itself. It's sounds like a provocative title for a book
Objections to Spirituality or

Objections to Spirituality?

[Anton Rogachevski]

@Leo Gura

1. How can you take an entheogen and say that the truth shown to you is absolute? Isn't the experience (or no-experience) relative to the entheogen and the temporary state? We say that if something is changing it can't be the absolute.

2. If I reach a state where the mind isn't perceiving objects (no-mind), is it correct then to assume that they aren't real?

3. Isn't non duality a confusion of the subjective for the objective, and a basic assumption that one can reach truth via subjective experience? (Of course in a non-dual state the duality of the subjective-objective collapses, but is that state dependent collapse reliable?)

Edited November 11, 2019 by Anton Rogachevski

[Forrest Adkins]

I follow and practice spirituality for years (no mystical experiences yet sadly), and really the only question that never gets resolved is how can we differentiate enlightenment/absolute truth from psychotic states?

The only answer ive gotten from @Leo Gura is "You just know absolute truth when it happens to you" but I cant do anything with that. I have exactly the same amount of evidence for materialism as I have for idealism, extactly zero. I dont believe in anything and how can I ever ? You can always be in states of pure delusion.

Wether the brain exists or not - thats another question - but I'm 100% sure within this reality you can make some very specific cuts with a scalpel on a brain and that person will wake up thinking he is enlightened, met god, and will talk like the buddha. So you can not be sure of anybody - not big news - but how can you ever be sure that you yourself are not this person?

Edited November 11, 2019 by Forrest Adkins

[petar8p]

5 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

3. Isn't non duality a confusion of the subjective for the objective, and a basic assumption that one can reach truth via subjective experience? (Of course in a non-dual state the duality of the subjective-objective collapses, but is that state dependent collapse reliable?)

Give us one example of the truth not reached through subjective experience. Is it possible? Who would discover it then?

[Skanzi]

4 hours ago, Forrest Adkins said:

I follow and practice spirituality for years (no mystical experiences yet sadly), and really the only question that never gets resolved is how can we differentiate enlightenment/absolute truth from psychotic states?

The only answer ive gotten from @Leo Gura is "You just know absolute truth when it happens to you" but I cant do anything with that. I have exactly the same amount of evidence for materialism as I have for idealism, extactly zero. I dont believe in anything and how can I ever ? You can always be in states of pure delusion.

Wether the brain exists or not - thats another question - but I'm 100% sure within this reality you can make some very specific cuts with a scalpel on a brain and that person will wake up thinking he is enlightened, met god, and will talk like the buddha. So you can not be sure of anybody - not big news - but how can you ever be sure that you yourself are not this person?

@Forrest Adkins Truth is not an idea, but the falling away of your ideas, and then what is left is the Truth.

How do I (intellectually) know that this is true? I don't. I simply speak. I simply speak because I have exhausted questioning and doubting.

If you question enough, at some point you start to get to fed up with all the questions. The energy for your constant doubting and questioning will disappear, because it have proven to be so futile and exhausting, and it has given you nothing positive. You may have broken down a lot of the negative mental patterns, but it has not been replaced by something positive. Really, it has taken you from bias to confusion. It did for me, at least.

So when you get fed up with questioning and doubting itself, that's the turning point from Yellow to Turquoise (referring to the spiral dynamics model).

And the strange thing is that instead of continuing to be in an state of absolute ignorance, not being able to make any assertion for the rest of your life whatsoever for the fact that you think you've come to the ultimate truth that "I know that I know nothing", you start to see that even that statement you don't know for sure (even disregarding the fact that the very statement itself is paradoxical), as you start to act and speak from a place that is not based on your past logic and philosophies. For how do we know what "knowing" really means?

As I myself am entering Turquoise territory now, I more and more often start to make statements that I don't provide logical backup for —whether it's inner contemplation or outer explanation. I simply speak, and it feels right to say or write it, so I state it.

Forget your need for it to be logically supported. I don't really care about that anymore. It's not making philosophies; It's making music. Almost exactly the same as making music. There's no right or wrong in making music. You just make music, and people may like it or may not like it, but nobody argues whether this music is "false" or "true". That whole discussion would be ridiculous. There's nothing false or true about music. It just is. Whether people like it or not is a different matter, but it just is.

So from the Turquoise perspective, statements are just music. Turquoise people don't care about being logically correct or incorrect. Their statements are just music, coming from somewhere unknowable.

How do you or I know that what I've just written is true from the perspective of Yellow or the mind? We don't. How can we know? Maybe what I've just written has been absolutely untrue. But then again: Can Truth be contained in words in the first place?

So as Leo said, can you know absolute Truth when it happens to you? From the Yellow (or the stages below that) perspective or the perspective of the mind, you can't. There's just no way.

But from the Turquoise perspective, you can and do know it. But this statement will make no sense to you if you start THINKING about it, you see? What I am stating here is just music, not something that my mind can know whether this is true or not. I can say that maybe I am deceiving myself here by correlating no-mind and direct experience with Truth, but this once again is the mind talking, you see?

So do I know Truth? I don't, but I do. But I don't... But I do.

Do you see my difficulty ?. There's still some yellow fears and attachments in me and that's why I find it difficult to say that "I do know the Truth" and just be done with it.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Skanzi

[bejapuskas]

@Forrest Adkins  The knowing of Truth is Truth itself. Truth cannot be grasped, it is Infinite, Eternal, One, anything that has ever happened is it.

[Leo Gura]

14 hours ago, Forrest Adkins said:

I follow and practice spirituality for years (no mystical experiences yet sadly), and really the only question that never gets resolved is how can we differentiate enlightenment/absolute truth from psychotic states?

The only answer ive gotten from @Leo Gura is "You just know absolute truth when it happens to you" but I cant do anything with that. I have exactly the same amount of evidence for materialism as I have for idealism, extactly zero. I dont believe in anything and how can I ever ? You can always be in states of pure delusion.

Wether the brain exists or not - thats another question - but I'm 100% sure within this reality you can make some very specific cuts with a scalpel on a brain and that person will wake up thinking he is enlightened, met god, and will talk like the buddha. So you can not be sure of anybody - not big news - but how can you ever be sure that you yourself are not this person?

Psychotic states are no different really than "normal" states. Consciousness can take on an infinite number of states. All states are part of the Absolute.

The only way to access the Absolute is through direct self-realization. It is not even a process. There is no method. Either you are conscious of yourself as God or you are not.

The Absolute is not a belief. It's happening right now.

The point is not to enter some one true state. The point is to go meta and instantly realize the nature of all possible states, penetrating through them all.

The mistake you're making is thinking of awakening as some kind of special state or position, when it is the transcendence of all states and positions. Once you transcend everything, there can no longer be a question about delusion or psychosis or "Is this real?" or "But how can I be sure?" or "But what if I'm wrong?"

No! All of that junk is transcended. Not in theory but actually.

It is in fact insane to believe there is a difference between reality and psychosis.

[Nak Khid]

16 hours ago, Forrest Adkins said:

I follow and practice spirituality for years

 

How do you do it?

 

[petar8p]

On 12. 11. 2019. at 11:22 AM, Nak Khid said:

How do you do it?

 

There's not much ways to do it except meditation, self-inquiry, yoga, fasting, psychedelics and listening to other enlightened masters.

[TheAlchemist]

Why should we trust our subjective experiences and our senses to be a good source of what's true? Our senses are not adapted to see reality as it is, they are adapted for survival and gettting our genes forward as efficiently as possible. Also, our senses fool us all the time.

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

Our senses are not adapted to see reality as it is, they are adapted for survival and gettting our genes forward as efficiently as possible. Also, our senses fool us all the time.

Who said they are actually your senses? What if that's an interpretation, not a fact?

Do not take a notion like "sensation" or "perception" for granted. There is zero evidence that colors and sounds are senses.

[TheAlchemist]

On 15.11.2019 at 6:02 AM, Leo Gura said:

 

On 15.11.2019 at 6:02 AM, Leo Gura said:

Who said they are actually your senses? What if that's an interpretation, not a fact?

Do not take a notion like "sensation" or "perception" for granted. There is zero evidence that colors and sounds are senses.

If all our senses were to be just interpretations, how could we derive any truth at all from the world? Isn't everything you know based on your experience regardless of if you trust your senses or not? Wouldn't every interpretation be just as valid? Wouldn't there be an infinite amount of truths, thus no consensus truth at all?

[bejapuskas]

@TheAlchemist  How do you know you and your experience are two different things?  

[legendary]

The thing that frustrates me is when teachers say, "There is is no process to become enlightened since it isn't a destination, but the Truth of who you already are. Grasp it, Now!" 

And then many of them turn around and criticize anyone who advocates the use of psychedelics to explore altered states of consciousness.

Well, what am I supposed to do then? I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

[Azrael]

@Leo Gura Objection 1: How can one be sure that one's consciousness is even able to experience the ground of being. If there is limitation in conscious awareness, there can be "more" out there, that one could never grasp. If there is limitation in consciousness, the ground of being one may discover, is still bound by a limitation.

Objection 2: How can you be sure that the ground of being is one "thing" and not a collection of things. If it is a collection of "things", how do you know when you discovered the entire list? Is it finite? How would even know?