Great responses all around, I think this is a fantastic thread!
I hope you are right! I should back up and say that indeed, such phenomena as flying saucers have been detected on radar and eye-witnessed by credible people (airline pilots, military persons, etc). For my money, they're as real as the people who have seen them. Still, for certain individuals proof will not exist until they land on the white house lawn. Even if they shook hands with an ET they would later just believe that they hallucinated. And it then gets doubly hard to offer proof to someone else, even when you have credible witnesses and radar evidence, radioactive spots on the ground where they have landed, etc. due to the very large taboo our society holds against the serious notion of UFOs. (I suppose this paragraph is more of a rant than speaking to your point.
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Sounds great to me! Let me know if or when you develop such an application, I'll be the first to download it on to my phone.
I think you've got a valid list here. For myself personally, I would be willing to "believe" after the first bullet point was satisfied, so long as I had a clear enough view or direct enough experience to disqualify other explanations. This is common to those people who have had the near death experience. Of course to be fair, there are some who have had NDEs and later chosen to discount their experiences. The bottom line as I see it is that everyone has their own unique level of evidence or proof they require to believe something.
Here here!
Quoted for agreement. The idea of the bang/crunch pattern is something we've discussed on the forum before to an extent. Based on my LOO readings, I interpret it as the start and ending of our Octave of experience.
This is something I have put thought in to over the last year of my awakening. I am still undecided on the matter. While I agree it makes good common sense to attempt belief in only those things that you suspect are actually real, at the same time I have read from other sources that our entire existence is holographic and multidimensional in nature so that what you experience in life is exactly what you agree to experience, based on your unconscious beliefs. Assuming an infinite number of near-exact copies of myself exist in an equal number of infinite other realities, all things are experienced on every level. The reality that I know as true, here and now, typing this message out to you may just be one infinite small fraction of the whole that is choosing to experience this reality now. In another reality UFOs might not exist. Now then, this is a large leap I am taking and sounds very sci-fi, but like so many other things I do not have very good reason to disbelieve it in the face of insufficient evidence. And, as someone in my position who has not much to lose (such as credibility) in my workaday life I admit that I do not hold the candle of scrutiny as close as perhaps others might. As ayadew mentioned, I generally feel that how we act towards ourselves and others are more important than what we believe is true about the nature of reality. Then again, I am not fully decided on this part of my personal philosophy. But forgive me, I am ranting again without too clear a focus!
I fully agree, although it took some pain on my part to figure this out! (just do a search on this forum for my posts about pyramids, moon bases, and belief in general... good grief)
Glad to compare notes with you!
As hard as it is to wrap our minds around, indeed, every major theme we run in to is basically a product of pre-incarnate decisions. This is not just espoused in the Law of One, but also in the works of Michael Newton, a now retired hypnotherapist who explored the inbetween life stages for well over 30 years. He's written two books that talk about this in great detail, 'Journey of Souls' and 'Destiny of Souls'.
Although it would seem pointless to chose to become a captive for your entire life, it actually may be exactly what that person needs in their overall life to find balance in some way. Maybe that person was boisterous or overly something or other in 10 previous lives, or was themselves the cause of someone elses captivity in a similar fashion. I don't believe in some divine Karmic force, but I do believe we as disincarnate souls have the clearest picture of what we need to evolve in the best way possible.
Also, you never lose the ability to chose things. You may be interested in this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spie...22,00.html
The story of a man who was assumed to be in a vegetative state for over 20 years, while in actuality being fully conscious. Before his accident he was highly active, in to sports, etc. You could only image the pain that person had to go through, especially as doctors one by one gave up trying to communicate with him. In the article, he says that he listened to people talking and made their conversations in to stories to tell himself, often meditated and daydreamed to escape his isolation. In other words, he never stopped making choices, in this case choosing to remain sane. I will agree he had severely limited the extent of his choices, but that was again, his choice to begin with.
I also believe this to be true. Of course it is fun to try and figure it all out... the "big picture"... but failing that, as I think we always will, it's best to focus on evolving ourselves.
I can't wait to see the threads appear. These are things I have also put some energy in to thinking about, especially as I opened my belief system up to the esoteric, alternative spirituality, channeled material, UFOs, prophecy and all the rest. At first I would frequently accuse myself of getting involved in cult related activity, until I learned to relax more. I'd love to mull over the issue, and others you mentioned.
Wanted to add that I just ordered it last week in book form. Synchronicity? Hmm.
Happy to do so my friend. And glad to find others who have walked a similar path. As far as Alan Watts, the best place to get started is at the Alan Watts podcast page. (http://feeds.feedburner.com/alanwatts) There listed is the three most recent podcasts which are about 10-15 minutes in length. I believe if you subscribe to the podcast in iTunes you can download all the archived segments, which is what I would really recommend. Failing that, if you like, send me an e-mail at eric@eric3d..com and I'll be happy to e-mail them to you since I have them on my ipod already. You can also go to http://deoxy.org/watts.htm where there is a large collection of material, but very poorly organized. There are also lots of his lectures of youtube and Google video. If you want to read some of his books, I might recommend 'The Wisdom of Insecurity', or 'The Book - On the taboo against knowing who you are'. Those are two I own but have not yet read in depth. (but I know they will be excellent!) You can also see a complete listing of his work and find much info about the man, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts
(12-11-2009, 09:58 PM)MistaG Wrote: While I empathize going with the flow and following personal intuition. I think we can legitimately prove any and all inexplicable transient observations (UFO or otherwise).
I hope you are right! I should back up and say that indeed, such phenomena as flying saucers have been detected on radar and eye-witnessed by credible people (airline pilots, military persons, etc). For my money, they're as real as the people who have seen them. Still, for certain individuals proof will not exist until they land on the white house lawn. Even if they shook hands with an ET they would later just believe that they hallucinated. And it then gets doubly hard to offer proof to someone else, even when you have credible witnesses and radar evidence, radioactive spots on the ground where they have landed, etc. due to the very large taboo our society holds against the serious notion of UFOs. (I suppose this paragraph is more of a rant than speaking to your point.
)(12-11-2009, 09:58 PM)MistaG Wrote: One would use, for example, the iPhone location services to notify other users within a certain radius of a persons transient observation to distribute the workload of recording numerous angles of photographic data and to rapidly deploy people with additional sensory equipment to the location. [...] This process could be repeated with virtually any transient phenomenon.
Sounds great to me! Let me know if or when you develop such an application, I'll be the first to download it on to my phone.
Quote:I've reflected on this for a little over a year now and I've come to the conclusion that there are three types of confirmation:
Unless I have at a minimum two of the above criteria I'm willing to doubt the truthfulness of an observation. It's only when all three are satisfied that I'm willing to say something is 100% objectively true, but even then though I have to admit my understanding of the observation is very likely inaccurate if not wholly incomplete.
- Internal Confirmation (seeing something strange, belief-logic, faith)
- Appeal to authority / external confirmation (trustworthy sources - including family members / friends, whistleblowers, current authority figures)
- Scientific verification (repeatable tests that any scientist can authenticate along /w peer-review)
I think you've got a valid list here. For myself personally, I would be willing to "believe" after the first bullet point was satisfied, so long as I had a clear enough view or direct enough experience to disqualify other explanations. This is common to those people who have had the near death experience. Of course to be fair, there are some who have had NDEs and later chosen to discount their experiences. The bottom line as I see it is that everyone has their own unique level of evidence or proof they require to believe something.
Quote:I would say no thing in its own right is ever invalid.
Here here!
Quote:Which is very likely why a big crunch would be such an illuminating moment because at that point everything could be understood fully by all things. Which is very much the idea behind physicist Frank Tipler's Omega Point.
Then in separating out again, perhaps, these things could start to incorporate new meanings and subtleties.
Quoted for agreement. The idea of the bang/crunch pattern is something we've discussed on the forum before to an extent. Based on my LOO readings, I interpret it as the start and ending of our Octave of experience.
Quote:Beliefs are just as valid if not more so than scientific dissection of them. However when we require less evidence and take on a belief we increase the chance that we're buying in to something that isn't wholly accurate.
For me striving for accuracy is absolutely paramount because it dictates how I grow. Anything I accept in to my tenets of "truth" acts as a pillar for all other thoughts.
This is something I have put thought in to over the last year of my awakening. I am still undecided on the matter. While I agree it makes good common sense to attempt belief in only those things that you suspect are actually real, at the same time I have read from other sources that our entire existence is holographic and multidimensional in nature so that what you experience in life is exactly what you agree to experience, based on your unconscious beliefs. Assuming an infinite number of near-exact copies of myself exist in an equal number of infinite other realities, all things are experienced on every level. The reality that I know as true, here and now, typing this message out to you may just be one infinite small fraction of the whole that is choosing to experience this reality now. In another reality UFOs might not exist. Now then, this is a large leap I am taking and sounds very sci-fi, but like so many other things I do not have very good reason to disbelieve it in the face of insufficient evidence. And, as someone in my position who has not much to lose (such as credibility) in my workaday life I admit that I do not hold the candle of scrutiny as close as perhaps others might. As ayadew mentioned, I generally feel that how we act towards ourselves and others are more important than what we believe is true about the nature of reality. Then again, I am not fully decided on this part of my personal philosophy. But forgive me, I am ranting again without too clear a focus!
Quote:This is very much my approach. When a person moves in to a camp they set themselves up to come to prearranged conclusions. I've found as I've gotten older I've taken to scrapbooking every and all things I'm uncertain about. Then every so often I review all the material I've collected and reassess where I stand.
It was fun reading your perspective on things!
I fully agree, although it took some pain on my part to figure this out! (just do a search on this forum for my posts about pyramids, moon bases, and belief in general... good grief)
Glad to compare notes with you!
(12-12-2009, 02:51 AM)MistaG Wrote: I hate to be pessimistic, but what if someone locked you in a shed for the entirety of your life? The only way this can be seen as a choice is if we accept the notion that before incarnation we predestined ourselves for a life of captivity. I'm not saying this isn't possible, actually the LOO suggests this is how it really works, but once in that scenario choice is clearly out the window.
As hard as it is to wrap our minds around, indeed, every major theme we run in to is basically a product of pre-incarnate decisions. This is not just espoused in the Law of One, but also in the works of Michael Newton, a now retired hypnotherapist who explored the inbetween life stages for well over 30 years. He's written two books that talk about this in great detail, 'Journey of Souls' and 'Destiny of Souls'.
Although it would seem pointless to chose to become a captive for your entire life, it actually may be exactly what that person needs in their overall life to find balance in some way. Maybe that person was boisterous or overly something or other in 10 previous lives, or was themselves the cause of someone elses captivity in a similar fashion. I don't believe in some divine Karmic force, but I do believe we as disincarnate souls have the clearest picture of what we need to evolve in the best way possible.
Also, you never lose the ability to chose things. You may be interested in this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spie...22,00.html
The story of a man who was assumed to be in a vegetative state for over 20 years, while in actuality being fully conscious. Before his accident he was highly active, in to sports, etc. You could only image the pain that person had to go through, especially as doctors one by one gave up trying to communicate with him. In the article, he says that he listened to people talking and made their conversations in to stories to tell himself, often meditated and daydreamed to escape his isolation. In other words, he never stopped making choices, in this case choosing to remain sane. I will agree he had severely limited the extent of his choices, but that was again, his choice to begin with.
(12-12-2009, 12:15 PM)Questioner Wrote: The longer I live this life, the more certain I feel that what matters more is the quality of care we have for ourselves and for other lives. I feel this is much more important than whether we have the right doctrine in our heads.
I also believe this to be true. Of course it is fun to try and figure it all out... the "big picture"... but failing that, as I think we always will, it's best to focus on evolving ourselves.
(12-12-2009, 12:15 PM)Questioner Wrote: Later - perhaps through next year, perhaps starting through the holidays - I want to offer a series of topics here exploring faith, doctrine, love, reason, cult abuses, etc., both to explore my own personal journey and to learn from others. If I get around to all that, I'd love to discover more about your perspective.
I can't wait to see the threads appear. These are things I have also put some energy in to thinking about, especially as I opened my belief system up to the esoteric, alternative spirituality, channeled material, UFOs, prophecy and all the rest. At first I would frequently accuse myself of getting involved in cult related activity, until I learned to relax more. I'd love to mull over the issue, and others you mentioned.
Quote:Have you read 'Secrets of the UFO,' a free download from this site? It's the history of Don and Carla's explorations, pretty much leading up to the Ra contact. I think you'd enjoy it and find much to ponder and discuss.
Wanted to add that I just ordered it last week in book form. Synchronicity? Hmm.
Quote:Lavazza, it appears that you and I come to this material from the same type of perspective. Thank you very much for your post. I would like to take you up on your offer of some Alan Watts recommendations.
Happy to do so my friend. And glad to find others who have walked a similar path. As far as Alan Watts, the best place to get started is at the Alan Watts podcast page. (http://feeds.feedburner.com/alanwatts) There listed is the three most recent podcasts which are about 10-15 minutes in length. I believe if you subscribe to the podcast in iTunes you can download all the archived segments, which is what I would really recommend. Failing that, if you like, send me an e-mail at eric@eric3d..com and I'll be happy to e-mail them to you since I have them on my ipod already. You can also go to http://deoxy.org/watts.htm where there is a large collection of material, but very poorly organized. There are also lots of his lectures of youtube and Google video. If you want to read some of his books, I might recommend 'The Wisdom of Insecurity', or 'The Book - On the taboo against knowing who you are'. Those are two I own but have not yet read in depth. (but I know they will be excellent!) You can also see a complete listing of his work and find much info about the man, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts