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I am religious but I don't follow any of the mainstream religions. I just take parts of them. In the 1980s I became interested in New Age and Spiritualism. I liked those because they seemed non-dogmatic and general.
However, I gradually stopped liking certain aspects of New Age and Spiritualism, to the point where now I don't seem to like them at all. Unfortunately, because there aren't too many other options.
Recently I had a conversation with someone I know from the Spiritualist church. I asked him if there are any bad spirits and he said no. And when I go, occasionally, to the spiritualist church there is no mention of anything except love and goodness. Nothing about the dark side of spirituality. And I have watched a lot of youtube videos about spiritualism -- same thing, all the mediums say the afterlife is all good, no bad.
Obviously, there is a dark side. People have been battling evil spirits since our species have began. Were they just imagining things?
The same for New Agers. Evil does not exist, it's just an illusion caused by fear.
This kind of lovey-dovey unrealistic thinking caused me to become interested in born again Christian ideas. Unfortunately, born again Christians believe in all kinds of stupid stuff, so I can't join them. But at least they understand that if there is light there also has to be darkness.
I am religious but I don't follow any of the mainstream religions. I just take parts of them. In the 1980s I became interested in New Age and Spiritualism. I liked those because they seemed non-dogmatic and general.
However, I gradually stopped liking certain aspects of New Age and Spiritualism, to the point where now I don't seem to like them at all. Unfortunately, because there aren't too many other options.
Recently I had a conversation with someone I know from the Spiritualist church. I asked him if there are any bad spirits and he said no. And when I go, occasionally, to the spiritualist church there is no mention of anything except love and goodness. Nothing about the dark side of spirituality. And I have watched a lot of youtube videos about spiritualism -- same thing, all the mediums say the afterlife is all good, no bad.
Obviously, there is a dark side. People have been battling evil spirits since our species have began. Were they just imagining things?
The same for New Agers. Evil does not exist, it's just an illusion caused by fear.
This kind of lovey-dovey unrealistic thinking caused me to become interested in born again Christian ideas. Unfortunately, born again Christians believe in all kinds of stupid stuff, so I can't join them. But at least they understand that if there is light there also has to be darkness.
Why? I realize that the yin:yang concept of contrary and opposing forces has a long history of being widely accepted, but I do not see that it is universally applicable.
We have gravity, but we do not have anti-gravity. We have electricity, and within electricity we have charges that we arbitrarily label positive and negative, but they aren't opposites by any means. We have broccoli, but we do not have anti-broccoli.
Although we can conceive of opposing and opposite forces, that doesn't mean that they exist, or that they have any volitional power.
Why? I realize that the yin:yang concept of contrary and opposing forces has a long history of being widely accepted, but I do not see that it is universally applicable.
We have gravity, but we do not have anti-gravity. We have electricity, and within electricity we have charges that we arbitrarily label positive and negative, but they aren't opposites by any means. We have broccoli, but we do not have anti-broccoli.
Although we can conceive of opposing and opposite forces, that doesn't mean that they exist, or that they have any volitional power.
We know that things aren't all good in this physical world. We could not have a concept of goodness if we didn't have the opposing concept of badness. Same for all other concepts.
Why would it be otherwise in non-physical, or super-physical worlds?
What you are talking about is only a conflict between two different survival imperatives: concern with what appears directly beneficial to us as individuals and concern for what is best for the group which contributes to our survival in community. You may consider the group ethos as "spiritual," but it is only when individual interest conflicts with group value that it becomes "evil."
We know that things aren't all good in this physical world. We could not have a concept of goodness if we didn't have the opposing concept of badness. Same for all other concepts.
Not true. We have a concept of human, because we are human. We don’t have a concept of anti-human. We simply have concepts of non-existence.
Taking that further, if we have the dual concepts of existence and non-existence as opposites, that is fine. But it doesn’t take us any further. Things that exist do not have a non-existent version of them, there is simply the blanket notion of non-existence.
Broccoli va non-existence
Humans vs non-existence
Rabbits vs non-existence.
This means that the concept of non-existence doesn’t actually tell us anything about things that exist. This means that we are able to conceive of things in the absence of their opposites, which means that their opposites need not actually exist.
Thus, duality is disproven.
Quote:
Why would it be otherwise in non-physical, or super-physical worlds?
Let’s start by showing that non-physical or super-physical worlds exist first, before we start assigning attributes to them.
I am religious but I don't follow any of the mainstream religions. I just take parts of them. In the 1980s I became interested in New Age and Spiritualism. I liked those because they seemed non-dogmatic and general.
However, I gradually stopped liking certain aspects of New Age and Spiritualism, to the point where now I don't seem to like them at all. Unfortunately, because there aren't too many other options.
Recently I had a conversation with someone I know from the Spiritualist church. I asked him if there are any bad spirits and he said no. And when I go, occasionally, to the spiritualist church there is no mention of anything except love and goodness. Nothing about the dark side of spirituality. And I have watched a lot of youtube videos about spiritualism -- same thing, all the mediums say the afterlife is all good, no bad.
Obviously, there is a dark side. People have been battling evil spirits since our species have began. Were they just imagining things?
The same for New Agers. Evil does not exist, it's just an illusion caused by fear.
This kind of lovey-dovey unrealistic thinking caused me to become interested in born again Christian ideas. Unfortunately, born again Christians believe in all kinds of stupid stuff, so I can't join them. But at least they understand that if there is light there also has to be darkness.
I wonder if you might find the shamanic path interesting. It's very spiritual (but of course not Christian in orientation), and they definitely believe that not all spirits are beneficent.
What you are talking about is only a conflict between two different survival imperatives: concern with what appears directly beneficial to us as individuals and concern for what is best for the group which contributes to our survival in community. You may consider the group ethos as "spiritual," but it is only when individual interest conflicts with group value that it becomes "evil."
Yes, very true, I agree. Good and evil are relative to the context, as well as to each other. And that goes for all concepts.
Not true. We have a concept of human, because we are human. We don’t have a concept of anti-human. We simply have concepts of non-existence.
Taking that further, if we have the dual concepts of existence and non-existence as opposites, that is fine. But it doesn’t take us any further. Things that exist do not have a non-existent version of them, there is simply the blanket notion of non-existence.
Broccoli va non-existence
Humans vs non-existence
Rabbits vs non-existence.
This means that the concept of non-existence doesn’t actually tell us anything about things that exist. This means that we are able to conceive of things in the absence of their opposites, which means that their opposites need not actually exist.
Thus, duality is disproven.
Let’s start by showing that non-physical or super-physical worlds exist first, before we start assigning attributes to them.
I wonder if you might find the shamanic path interesting. It's very spiritual (but of course not Christian in orientation), and they definitely believe that not all spirits are beneficent.
Yes I am very interested in shamanism, because I think it is the foundation of all religion. And yes that is true, shamans are very concerned with bad spirits as the source of illness and misfortune.
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