I'm Not The Only One ... Trust and Faith Are Growing

Contoveros Feels It Too
^^^ Click for his post ^^^

In this post Contoveros speaks of missing a train only to find out later that taking that train would have been a waste of time - but in more words, with more skill and effectiveness LOL :)

This:

" ... How often are you plans dashed only to learn later that you were saved from some tragedy or heartbreak? Why did you take a wrong turn at one exit and not the other? Could you have been saved from a danger only God or whatever you want to call the Source had foreseen and plan to prevent from happening? ... "

And:

" ... When will I ever learn to trust the Universe?

When will I develop enough faith to believe things happen for my well-being? And when can I truly trust my instincts and live more peacefully in tune with what the Cosmos is manifesting just for me ? ... "

Me, I've been letting various thoughts, seemingly unrelated and unrelatable, follow their apparently random patterns as they percolate and incubate in my mind.

At any given time all of us have any number of 'random thoughts' floating around in our heads, or sitting quietly in their little niches, or regulating the actions of our bodies, or whatever ... 

I think (but for goodness sake don't quote me because this is one of those wayward thought processes that just roams around in my mind) that, as ideas make their way through the maze of our minds they bump into one another now and then. 

Some of them apparently have an affinity for one another and end up sticking together, continuing their own wayward patterns but now linked even as they separately wend their way through the twists and turns. As they go, they each pick up other thoughts or ideas to add to the equation, and the network begins to connect.

Whether there's any actual basis for any such thing I have no idea and I don't particularly care. For me, it's just the way I sense what's going on in this crazy nuts head of mine. Cope as best you can.

On the other hand, science is adamant about some things that really do have an actual basis besides my intuition.

Every last thing in our world is energy, from tiny to tremendous. Visible and 'invisible', it's all energy in one form or another.

Everything.

Wrap your head around that concept.

Everything our five senses tell us is 'real' is energy manifesting in one or another of its forms. So is everything else. Just because we can't see as well as those shrimps whose visual gifts exceed ours by far doesn't mean that colors we can't see don't exist. Shrimps can see things we can't. Many animals can hear things we can't. Our limitations do not limit theirs - and so it is with our bigger world. We do not and we cannot at this time know the full complexity of our world; that's just the way it is. We can only 'know' what our five senses make 'real' for us.

Yet, and here's another of 'those' thoughts, I think we do indeed live in an Interactive Universe.

How can it not be so?

Energy changes forms, some of which forms we cannot understand or even conceptualize. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Having said all that, until the time comes that we do understand every last little thing in our complex world, I'm going with the Interactive Universe thing - aka GOD. My God, not necessarily 'yours' although honestly, no matter how you look at it, there really is only One. 

We are unable to even grasp the intricacies of energy, let alone create it or destroy it. God is fully capable of all three.

Yep.

That one might be a little harder for science to wrap its head around, which doesn't make any difference one way or the other, regardless of what science thinks.

Onward.

All that energy we can't sense with our senses probably isn't just sitting around doing nothing - that would go against its nature.

So what's it up to?

Well how the heck should I know?

Maybe its playing pinochle on the Spiral.

I'm speculating though, for example, that the energy we expend in thinking changes forms, goes out there into the same sort of networking webs our brains theoretically construct as we think, and does what the thoughts and ideas in my mind do - connects with an energy 'strand' of some kind that has an affinity to it, and makes its way along that web to wherever it finds its destiny to change form again and become yet something else, via all those entangled bits of energy that can and do impact one another over unknown distances.

Which leads to a pair of thoughts. What if Karma is real and the Power of Prayer really works - a spiritual concept being verified by science does not in the least lessen its spirituality, you know. Nothing we can say or do or believe or think or feel has ever been able to lessen God's power. Never has, never will.

At any rate, no I'm not surprised to find that many of us all seem to be on the same 'wavelength' in our thought patterns - literally.

In ways we will not be able to understand or explain any more than anyone before us could, our world is an Interactive Universe. 

It's been that way since 'the beginning' and we know that instinctively. 

Why would it change now? Or ever, for that matter? 

Why would we want it to? 

God is God. 

Science cannot contradict that in any effective way but only reinforce it.

God and Science are not mutually exclusive. God isn't mutually exclusive with anything, being the Creator of all. God IS all.

So why would not everything we know of and everything we don't know of (yet) be thoroughly connected? Why would Karma be a silly thing, and why would the Power of Prayer not be completely valid? Why would it be impossible for people who are far removed from one another to be following similar thought patterns at the same time?

We live in our own here and now but we are simultaneously inextricably entangled with the whole of infinity - past, present, future.

Not that it generally matters much on a day to day basis, mind you. That Universe isn't going to clean our houses for us or pay our bills for us or do our jobs for us. We have to do what we have to do.

But maybe it does matter how we do what we have to do; maybe it really does make a difference (albeit a slight one per individual, the collective effect would be cumulative) what attitude we use our energy to promote or strengthen. If there are prayer webs out there, there are likely the opposite as well. There have to be in order to keep things in balance, sad but true. 

Having a prayerful, thoughtful, mindful, positive attitude might be more important than we think, aside from it making us feel better in general. It's what we're designed for so of course we're going to feel better about everything, including ourselves, when we're in tune with the way we're supposed to be. Stuff isn't as 'random' as we might think.

At least that's my take on it.

Trust in good is a good thing; taking a leap of Faith is generally a good thing too.

We will do what we have to do when we have to do it, but we don't have to do it alone. 

That too is a good thing.

Does Mankind 'Create'?

Warning: I'm feeling long-winded again ;) 

The following is a response to a comment in a thread on a post in a Google plus discussion community. The previous comment suggested that people 'create god' by coming up with definitions, and that science and technology, by 'shrinking the unknown', make it less likely that spiritual beliefs are 'real' - to paraphrase.

...

I think you're right about us 'creating' a God or Gods/Goddesses in the sense you're talking about, by trying to define something we can 'sense' but never really with our traditional physical senses. It would be such an individual thing that few would agree except for that intangibility factor. 

Yet the phenomenon (of people defining 'God' to suit their own needs or wants) does seem to be pretty consistent and universal from the ancient times we know about right through our current days.

Science and technology are indeed rapidly shrinking the unknown, making possible what was inconceivable - such exciting times these are in so many ways! The definition of 'impossible' changes almost daily. I see it not as making anything 'less likely' but a journey of discovery that is taking us closer to an understanding, definition if you will, of the world we live in. 

To some of us, the ever-increasing knowledge of interlocking patterns and repetitive design isn't simply a matter of mankind increasing our base of information on which to build even more wonderful advances, to discover even more, although that's exciting enough in its own right - the fact that there's more and more evidence of 'organization' from our very DNA to the universes out there in no way diminishes our faith in Someone powerful enough to have created such wonders for us to discover... rather it reinforces that faith. 

'Discovery' and 'Definition' is not the same as 'Creating' - because we're only just finding things and concepts that already exist, and giving to them names that we humans can relate to. The most creative minds among us do not actually 'create' anything - we just find and use what is already there, pre-existing. Energy, raw materials, accessing and honing the intellects of our minds - curiosity - the whatever it is that drives us to search, to discover, to experiment ... to define ... 

Keep in mind that I'm not talking about any particular 'religion' here - those are all 'definitions', exactly as you say - science and technology add another 'definition' to the mix ... atheists likewise ... IMO none of us can point at any of the others and say,'You're wrong.' At this point in time none of us KNOWS. None of us. We WANT to know, but as of right now we do not.

We've got our physical world to explore; our intellectual selves to challenge, and our inner selves to sustain and drive the others. Again, just my opinion. All three are parts of the whole, so entwined and interconnected that they cannot be separated without harming or destroying the whole.

If your mind is dead, your body becomes essentially useless. If your body dies, your mind dies with it. If your spirit, your will to continue, goes ... both mind and body are affected.

Yep. And this is what happens when an INFJ tries to communicate. Thank your lucky stars you can just click out of it at will.  :)  

Free Will and the Right to Choose - How are we going to use them?

Before we go any further here, I need to emphasize something. 

I think that humankind has an inherent need, an instinct if you will, for a relationship with God or whatever Higher Being you believe in. Organized religions can and do meet that need and satisfy that instinct - there are enough of them out there that a person can choose whichever best suits. 

I happen to believe that there has been, is, and will only ever be One God  (Trinity or no, God is One) and that God is the SAME GOD for each and all of us - any conflicts among us on the issue are of our own making, for our own purposes, and are not of God. 

When we judge, condemn, harm one another, we are doing likewise to the bit of God that belongs to each and all of us equally by birthright ... that's the spiritual part of us, which balances the physical and intellectual parts. Harming one another in any way is counter-productive at best and an abomination when done under the guise of 'serving God'.

We've all of us got individual tempers, you can take that to the bank. How we choose to use them is up to us.

Nobody's perfect and nobody expects anybody else to be, but we should at least try to avoid harming one another as much as possible.

Call me naive and idealistic - it won't be the first time.

That having been said ...

NOW:

Here's a hypothetical situation and an equally hypothetical question:

What if, back in the day, it dawned on 'leadership' that the peace, love, and obedience taught by Jesus and His followers would provide an ideal population-mindset for the peoples said leadership wanted to dominate? Everyone, whether they had a choice in the matter or not at first, would eventually just fall into line (almost everyone) and go with it because it's mainly a matter of being Nice to everyone, except when the Boss says otherwise. Tweak it a little and you're the Boss of the whole thing with the Powers of God Almighty, get 10% of everyone's income and generations born into the mindset to provide even more ... and what if it worked like a charm for hundreds of years?

Now what if, back in the day, it dawned on someone else's leadership that this system was working pretty darned well, with generations of pliant and obedient people donating of their own free will to the 'cause' - these people born and bred into this mindset would be easy pickings (considering they were supposed to love and forgive everyone, especially those who did them wrong) so these other leaders did a little creative writing and tweaking - and brought a whole different but perhaps even more numerous population to THEIR way of thinking and believing - but the tweaking was to include the clause that you don't necessarily have to be Nice about stuff, and if someone believes differently than you do it's perfectly all right (expected even?) to do them harm if they won't agree with you - and you get bonus points for expanding the territory controlled by this mindset.

Wrap them both up in nice pretty packages, add plenty of sugar so they're easy to swallow, butter it up with the promise of eternal happiness (so your current misery or even your death doesn't really count), destroy anything left over from before, silence anything/one that might possibly cause someone to question your authority to Speak for God, and you're good to go.

Never mind that God gave humankind a free will and the right to choose. What people don't know doesn't matter.  Just keep those obedient and generous generations coming, the bigger the families the better and who cares what the brood mares think or feel or want or need; duty is duty.

Hmmm ... I could take this in any number of directions, couldn't I? Perhaps I'll explore all of those directions one of these days.

For now I'll just leave it as is for you to make of it what you will, as you choose.

You've got a mind: use it. Figure out what makes sense to you and let me know what you think. I'm not hard to find - just watch the spelling of S-H-I-E-L-A :) 

Not Just Physical and Intellectual Beings

http://transhumanity.net/baggage-culture-and-why-embracing-transhumanism-doesnt-come-easy/

Baggage Culture and Why Embracing Transhumanism Doesn’t Come Easy

Zoltan Istvan
...
'The twisted history of our baggage culture extends back many millennia. It started long ago with the inception of civilization, when charismatic leaders and ruling clans began forming permanent communities. Over time, these rulers learned they could preserve their platforms of power by controlling their communities’ thinking and behavioral patterns. Their agendas were simple: dominate with fear through violence; stifle revolutionary and freethinking ambitions; teach adherence to leadership and community before self; implement forms of thought and behavioral control that encourage social cooperation and production, such as communal customs, prayers, taboos, and rites. Variations abounded, but these were the early convoluted versions of human culture and its main intent: to control. Henceforth, culture’s core function became a means of forcing conformity, to transform the individual into a tool of submission and production for the ruling elite.'
...

This makes it sound as though 'culturalization' has been wholly successful in producing forced conformity and in controlling the lot of us.

I would argue that physics trumps culture.

A long time ago I learned this :  For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Now I'm no scientist; I'm not a mathematician; I'm no expert on anything at all.

But this bit stuck itself somewhere in my mind and out it has popped just now in 'reaction' to someone seeming to imply that I have no will of my own but am simply a product of 'culturalization'.

My gut tells me that we as a species aren't all that easily 'controlled' - else there would be no independent thinkers among us at all by now, and obviously there are among us those who evidently can and do 'think outside the box'.

When we're pushed, we push back; or, just standing still will have the effect of making the pushing force rebound back in the direction from whence it came.

Either way, it's action-reaction.

And the thought crosses my mind: is Zoltan generating action, or is it a reaction?

While I'm being abstract, here's another question: Is atheism the consequence of religion having pushed too far and too hard?

I'm thinking back to the times of my stories again ... it wasn't until rome started quashing diversity that Christianity loomed powerful, a force to be reckoned with not just spiritually but secularly. 

A person's Faith wasn't a personal Choice any more; all citizens of the Holy Roman Empire were automatically Roman Christians, unless I'm seriously misinterpreting my research. It was no longer a matter of personal spirituality; it was mandated.

Me being me, I have my doubts that the sole interest was in the well-being of anybody's soul. More likely it had something to do with a couple of other things, namely a power base and financial considerations.

While the strategy apparently worked to a degree, it also ended up eventually setting off a backlash in opposition. The Protestants broke with the main church. AND there were elements, Christians, who never did conform.

Also, the apparent success of the roman church in its bid for control wasn't happening in a vacuum. The East was without a doubt watching and learning. And up springs a counter-religion. 'If they can do it, we can too.' 

And so the diversity of religions narrowed and the competition was on; at least that's my take on it.

What does this have to do with transhumanism or atheism you ask.

There has to be Balance. 

It's that PHI thing again, the Spiral, the Golden Mean, yada yada.

When religion seems to dominate (I'm talking about organized religion here, not personal spirituality) there's got to be an equal and opposite move. Hence the rejection of religion and focus on technology.

Likewise when technology seems to dominate there's going to be an equal and opposite move - people looking to spirituality as a balance for the tech world we live in. 

With organized religion increasingly being recognized as not entirely benevolent there's pressure from two fronts on us - and we start to look within our own selves because the outside forces of technology and religion aren't bringing us much of anything except a 'choice' between them as to which is 'in control' of us. They aren't offering us the balance we need and want - both want full and utter control of us.

With these outside forces bombarding us, is it any wonder that more of us are beginning to look inward to find our own balance? 

Just as physical balance is maintained by adhering to the simplicity of ergonomics (we're designed to function best when we pay attention to the requirements of that design, so posture actually does matter) and one tiny part of our bodies (the inner ear) is vital to our balance, so too is our emotional or spiritual balance maintained by paying attention to the design requirements - and the 'regulating factor' may very well be an elusive but vital 'something' that lies within us each and all.

Because we've made enormous advances in science, we know the importance of our inner ears.

Maybe further advances in other areas will one day show us the importance of that 'something' which helps us to find and maintain our spiritual balance and personal Peace.

We are not just physical and intellectual beings. We have a spiritual part to us as well - for lack of a better term.

When we lose our physical balance, what do we do? We reach out and construct for ourselves a third contact point to stabilize our stance.

By focusing on the two points of physical and intellectual existence, I think that Zoltan and the others risk losing sight of the value of that third component, the one that stabilizes us.