Zoroastrianism and the Abrahamic religions

[Sriram]

I'd be quite happy to see religions go away to somewhere in a similar way that the writings of Homer are taken nowadays, a rather quaint collection of old stories that don't need to be taken that seriously and neither can I see any harm in reference to religions within our young children's history lessons just so that we're able to see how things used to be.

As you can see we differ on our opinions about this subject, it's just that surly when even you must recognise we are now in the 21 st century and should be putting magical, mystical and old superstitious beliefs to bed now, it's about time.

Regards ippy

What has the 21st century got to do with it?!  There is no rule that in the 21st century people cannot believe in God or afterlife. That is a old school early 20th century idea. 'Science has now come in folks...all religious ideas out'!!

What will happen in the 22nd century then...does anyone know?

Fortunately or otherwise, these things do not follow a linear progression. They are cyclical. Most ideas tend to come back in a slightly different way.

What do you mean by magic? Just because we can't explain something does it mean it is magic? Some people may think of Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Parallel Universes as magic. Are they?

[ippy]

What has the 21st century got to do with it?!  There is no rule that in the 21st century people cannot believe in God or afterlife. That is a old school early 20th century idea. 'Science has now come in folks...all religious ideas out'!!

What will happen in the 22nd century then...does anyone know?

Fortunately or otherwise, these things do not follow a linear progression. They are cyclical. Most ideas tend to come back in a slightly different way.

What do you mean by magic? Just because we can't explain something does it mean it is magic? Some people may think of Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Parallel Universes as magic. Are they?

Of course you'll always get hangers on but shouldn't we be just that little more forward thinking people by now, the 21 st century, and putting the large amount of knowledge we've accumulated over the many years to good use, rather than believing in as I said magical, mystical and superstition based backwood old stories that are still taken on by so many without reference to any kind of evidential base that could or would support them.

I wont bother with your reference to:'What will happen in the 22nd century then...does anyone know'?

You then go on to say: 'Fortunately or otherwise, these things do not follow a linear progression. They are cyclical. Most ideas tend to come back in a slightly different way.

Like most ideas that don't have an evidential base, Zeus has gone so has Apollo, Thor, Odin and so many others, where have they gone? What was so special about them? I suppose they, your lot of gods,  wont be joining the others in time whoever or whatever they might be or are supposed to represent?

Dark Matter is only a name for something that's based on the evidence of mathematical calculations to be there somewhere, where's the magic in that? You tell me magic's more your subject, not mine.

Regards ippy

[Sriram]

Of course you'll always get hangers on but shouldn't we be just that little more forward thinking people by now, the 21 st century, and putting the large amount of knowledge we've accumulated over the many years to good use, rather than believing in as I said magical, mystical and superstition based backwood old stories that are still taken on by so many without reference to any kind of evidential base that could or would support them.

I wont bother with your reference to:'What will happen in the 22nd century then...does anyone know'?

You then go on to say: 'Fortunately or otherwise, these things do not follow a linear progression. They are cyclical. Most ideas tend to come back in a slightly different way.

Like most ideas that don't have an evidential base, Zeus has gone so has Apollo, Thor, Odin and so many others, where have they gone? What was so special about them? I suppose they, your lot of gods,  wont be joining the others in time whoever or whatever they might be or are supposed to represent?

Dark Matter is only a name for something that's based on the evidence of mathematical calculations to be there somewhere, where's the magic in that? You tell me magic's more your subject, not mine.

Regards ippy

I was asking you about your views on the 22nd century since you expect the 21st century to be in a certain way.

In the 1960's-70's when people were shocked with women wearing bikinis (mainly in the west...with a couple of fashion models in India) the reaction was... 'It's the 20th century for heaven's sake!'.  That set many bright eyed people imagining that in the 21 st century women would be going around in the buff. 

But today what do we see?  Lots of burkas even in London and New York. 

My point is that, the 21st century does not represent anything special.  People don't necessarily have to subscribe to all the ideas that are extrapolated based on certain ideas of the past.  In most cases, ideas evolve as a mix of the old and the new. And this mix could be different in different regions. In does not move in a linear well defined manner.

Zeus and Apollo are just images and labels that represented certain mystical forces. Today it is Jehovah or Allah or Shiva.  Just because the images changed does not mean the essence is any different.  The new images represent the same forces as in ancient times. 

Dark Matter is not 'somewhere'. It is five times more abundant than normal matter and tons of it is probably sitting on your lap at this moment. Yet you have no clue about it. That is magic. Dark Energy is not understood and cannot even be sensed with our best instruments.....yet it is said to be pushing galaxies further away at an increasing rate.  That is magic.

Some people might like to call Dark Energy...'God's unseen hand'. So what? That's just another way of looking at the same phenomenon.

Anything that we don't understand we call magic. Once it is understood it is normal.

[ippy]

I was asking you about your views on the 22nd century since you expect the 21st century to be in a certain way.

In the 1960's-70's when people were shocked with women wearing bikinis (mainly in the west...with a couple of fashion models in India) the reaction was... 'It's the 20th century for heaven's sake!'.  That set many bright eyed people imagining that in the 21 st century women would be going around in the buff. 

But today what do we see?  Lots of burkas even in London and New York. 

My point is that, the 21st century does not represent anything special.  People don't necessarily have to subscribe to all the ideas that are extrapolated based on certain ideas of the past.  In most cases, ideas evolve as a mix of the old and the new. And this mix could be different in different regions. In does not move in a linear well defined manner.

Zeus and Apollo are just images and labels that represented certain mystical forces. Today it is Jehovah or Allah or Shiva.  Just because the images changed does not mean the essence is any different.  The new images represent the same forces as in ancient times. 

Dark Matter is not 'somewhere'. It is five times more abundant than normal matter and tons of it is probably sitting on your lap at this moment. Yet you have no clue about it. That is magic. Dark Energy is not understood and cannot even be sensed with our best instruments.....yet it is said to be pushing galaxies further away at an increasing rate.  That is magic.

Some people might like to call Dark Energy...'God's unseen hand'. So what? That's just another way of looking at the same phenomenon.

Anything that we don't understand we call magic. Once it is understood it is normal.

Thank you for your reply but before I begin, I'm sure we all have our own colloquialisms, and no critique intended of the way you express yourself as an Indian, but the effect of the mere distance between England & India makes this even more likely to occur.

We have some contributors to the forum that live here on the same island as I do and I can only assume their ways of expressing themselves differs considerably from mine, one contributor in particular here I've given up on because even on the simplest of matters unless your answer to this person resembles a multi page thesis it is always misunderstood, without fail, and even then this person manages to make out there is some other obscure way misunderstanding, usually semantics.

Now having hopefully having expressed that lot and got it out of the way, you may be able to see where I'm coming from.

Dark matter there's no need to discuss it, it is evidenced based on mathematical calculations that' all that's needed, any more that's needed to be known for the purposes of our exchange about dark matter can be looked up at leisure at another time, end of reference to dark matter, end of this part of discussion, we can both read?

The 22 nd century who knows? I don't.

The 21 st century science closes many gaps sometimes every day, as in god of the gaps, there's no sign of this slowing down, this effect does make the old superstition based, magical and mystical look more and more foolish as this process continues and shows signs of moving even more rapidly as time goes on so provided there are no planet wide mega disasters there is every sign of this progress going on into the 22 nd century.

You said in your post: 'The new images represent the same forces as in ancient times', What forces and where is there any evidence to confirm or support the idea that there ever was any of this particular kind of energy you are referring to? Whatever it is?

You have also said: 'Anything that we don't understand we call magic, once it is understood it is normal', I wondered why you've repeated back to me the very thing I was expressing to you only I was expressing this using different words to the ones you have used?

Regards ippy

[Sriram]

Ok....I think we can end this discussion here.

Are you aware that there is a difference between Spirituality and religion?!

[ippy]

Ok....I think we can end this discussion here.

Are you aware that there is a difference between Spirituality and religion?!

Most religionists of whatever way the chose to title their belief or beliefs, they seem to me to think there is a Mr Magic involved somewhere within the ideas they have about spirituality, most, if not all non-religious people don't go for the Mr Magic element within their ideas about spirituality.

We all have spiritual feelings, such as a first born of our own, etc, I don't see any kind of magical element, I assume others do and I also assume we both think the others that don't share our individual views are wrong.

I wasn't looking to shut you up it's just that to date no one has managed to come up with any incontrovertible evidence that would confirm any single element of either the magical, mystical or the superstition based parts of their, I'm sure, sincerely held beliefs.

I would think to anyone that has any sort of reasonably well functioning brain should have great difficulty dismissing this rather obvious lack of any kind of viable evidence that could possibly support these religious beliefs they have and for me it begs the question why go for anything that has no evidential base or reason to go for it in the first place?

People obviously do go for these unsupported religious ideas en bulk, all I can think is that it demonstrates the power of very young childhood indoctrination, and those successfully indoctrinated don't even realise they have been, none of these rather extraordinary religious ideas appear, to me, as anything other than obviously man made stories and how sad it is so many are taken in by them.

Yes it's possible these stories could be, surprisingly, established as facts, what a worldwide media event, but seriously coming back down to the real world we all live in together Sriram, it's very unlikely to ever happen, even if you don't want to admit this, it surly must have occurred to you?     

Kind regards ippy   

[ekim]

I wasn't looking to shut you up it's just that to date no one has managed to come up with any incontrovertible evidence that would confirm any single element of either the magical, mystical or the superstition based parts of their, I'm sure, sincerely held beliefs.

That's probably why Sriram tries to distinguish between religion and spirituality.  Religion tends to be organised about a set of beliefs which are impressed upon believers.  Spirituality tends to be about an inner path to self awareness.  With the former there is a tendency to follow one particular doctrine as if it were applicable to all.  With the latter there is a tendency to try many ways or paths as if each individual had to find their own path.  India perhaps is more geared up to the latter which is why there are many 'gods' and many schools of thought.  You wont find incontrovertible evidence for the former which is why it is called a belief not truth.  With the latter you have to find your own 'evidence' or 'truth', nobody can find it for you.  It's more about first hand 'knowing' rather than gathering second hand information.

[Sriram]

Absolutely ekim!  On the button. 

[ippy]

That's probably why Sriram tries to distinguish between religion and spirituality.  Religion tends to be organised about a set of beliefs which are impressed upon believers.  Spirituality tends to be about an inner path to self awareness.  With the former there is a tendency to follow one particular doctrine as if it were applicable to all.  With the latter there is a tendency to try many ways or paths as if each individual had to find their own path.  India perhaps is more geared up to the latter which is why there are many 'gods' and many schools of thought.  You wont find incontrovertible evidence for the former which is why it is called a belief not truth.  With the latter you have to find your own 'evidence' or 'truth', nobody can find it for you.  It's more about first hand 'knowing' rather than gathering second hand information.

Isn't that, the above, exactly what I did express, only in my own terms without using as much detail ekim, religious believers are more inclined to assume spirituality as you mention as a pathway on religion based journey on the whole, I assumed that would be obvious, taken for wrote.

And then where mostly the non-religious, don't see anything magical, mystical or superstition based about spiritual feelings, other than, I must admit, spiritual feelings sometimes feel as though they are a magic of some kind? 

I don't think I was missing anything, please enlighten me?

I do get the impression that on this forum unless the bleeding obvious is stated every time, in full, anyone writes a post.

There's seems to be a large section of contributors have this need to bolster their writings out to unnecessarily large volumes instead of using their loaf.     

Regards ippy

[ekim]

Isn't that, the above, exactly what I did express, only in my own terms without using as much detail ekim, religious believers are more inclined to assume spirituality as you mention as a pathway on religion based journey on the whole, I assumed that would be obvious, taken for wrote.

And then where mostly the non-religious, don't see anything magical, mystical or superstition based about spiritual feelings, other than, I must admit, spiritual feelings sometimes feel as though they are a magic of some kind? 

I don't think I was missing anything, please enlighten me?

I do get the impression that on this forum unless the bleeding obvious is stated every time, in full, anyone writes a post.

There's seems to be a large section of contributors have this need to bolster their writings out to unnecessarily large volumes instead of using their loaf.     

Regards ippy

If you think that my comments were in line with what you have said, then fine, and what I said was either superfluous or possibly amplified what you said.  I suspect that with Sriram's past encounters with this site, when he sees words like Mr Magic, magic and superstition then he sees the writer as likely to just want to ridicule rather than enter into discussion.  Sriram comes from a society where a variety of 'spiritual' schools of thought have been allowed to proliferate without any serious fear of persecution and this possibly allows him to better see similarities within the varieties of religious scriptures, hence the current topic.

[ippy]

Sriram you will see that I have responded to ekim and I will make some adjustments to my previous post to you

Most religionists of whatever way they chose to title their belief or beliefs, they seem to me to think there is something akin to, in my non-religious mind, that magic is involved somewhere within the ideas they have about spirituality, most, if not all non-religious people don't go for any attempt to introduce a religious believer's ideas as an element within their ideas about spirituality.

We all have spiritual feelings, such as a first born of our own, etc, I don't see any kind of significantly other worldly element, I assume others do and I also assume we both think the others that don't share our individual views are wrong.

I wasn't looking to shut you up it's just that to date no one has managed to come up with any incontrovertible evidence that would confirm any single element of either, of my ideas of, these ideas that look magical, mystical or superstition based to me, as parts of their, I'm sure, sincerely held beliefs.

I would think to anyone that has any sort of reasonably well functioning brain should have great difficulty dismissing this rather obvious lack of any kind of viable evidence that could possibly support these religious beliefs they have and for me it begs the question why go for anything that has no evidential base or reason to go for it in the first place? Having said the above wouldn't it be better to establish that we're not discussing fictional happenings in the O P before continuing?

People obviously do go for these unsupported beliefs/ideas en bulk, all I can think is that it demonstrates the power of very young childhood indoctrination, and those successfully indoctrinated don't even realise they have been, none off these ideas that look extraordinary to me, they look so obviously, to me, man made groups of stories and it seems to be very sad, as it looks to me, that so many are taken in by them.

Yes it's possible these stories could be, surprisingly, established as facts, what a worldwide media event that would be, but seriously coming back down to the real world we all live in together Sriram, it's very unlikely to ever happen, even if you don't want to admit this, it surly must have occurred to you? 

I've tried to adjust my writings to you but the trouble is I can only see most of the various facets of any of these beliefs as man made stories, this is my honest view, I put them over to you as just another bunch of postings I'm not trying to bash you over the head steal your money or your wife, nor would I ever try, but try as hard as I can I can't share these religious ideas with you as anything more than man made fiction.

Regards ippy

[Sriram]

Sriram you will see that I have responded to ekim and I will make some adjustments to my previous post to you

Most religionists of whatever way they chose to title their belief or beliefs, they seem to me to think there is something akin to, in my non-religious mind, that magic is involved somewhere within the ideas they have about spirituality, most, if not all non-religious people don't go for any attempt to introduce a religious believer's ideas as an element within their ideas about spirituality.

We all have spiritual feelings, such as a first born of our own, etc, I don't see any kind of significantly other worldly element, I assume others do and I also assume we both think the others that don't share our individual views are wrong.

I wasn't looking to shut you up it's just that to date no one has managed to come up with any incontrovertible evidence that would confirm any single element of either, of my ideas of, these ideas that look magical, mystical or superstition based to me, as parts of their, I'm sure, sincerely held beliefs.

I would think to anyone that has any sort of reasonably well functioning brain should have great difficulty dismissing this rather obvious lack of any kind of viable evidence that could possibly support these religious beliefs they have and for me it begs the question why go for anything that has no evidential base or reason to go for it in the first place? Having said the above wouldn't it be better to establish that we're not discussing fictional happenings in the O P before continuing?

People obviously do go for these unsupported beliefs/ideas en bulk, all I can think is that it demonstrates the power of very young childhood indoctrination, and those successfully indoctrinated don't even realise they have been, none off these ideas that look extraordinary to me, they look so obviously, to me, man made groups of stories and it seems to be very sad, as it looks to me, that so many are taken in by them.

Yes it's possible these stories could be, surprisingly, established as facts, what a worldwide media event that would be, but seriously coming back down to the real world we all live in together Sriram, it's very unlikely to ever happen, even if you don't want to admit this, it surly must have occurred to you? 

I've tried to adjust my writings to you but the trouble is I can only see most of the various facets of any of these beliefs as man made stories, this is my honest view, I put them over to you as just another bunch of postings I'm not trying to bash you over the head steal your money or your wife, nor would I ever try, but try as hard as I can I can't share these religious ideas with you as anything more than man made fiction.

Regards ippy

Your basic point seems to be about proof.   Spirituality and religion are about experiences....not about the objective external world.

If you think that you can sit down in your arm chair and figure out the experiences of people across the world and come to rational conclusions about them based on your old science view of experiences being just brain generated chemical reactions...you are wrong!

I have said many times that it is like trying to prove the existence of Light to a stubborn born blind person.  It just can't be done even though Light is everywhere around him.

About Spirituality and how it is different from religion....I have written about that many times...but maybe I'll start a separate thread on that once again. (ekim has given a very nice concise para on that above).

Cheers.

Sriram

[ippy]

Your basic point seems to be about proof.   Spirituality and religion are about experiences....not about the objective external world.

If you think that you can sit down in your arm chair and figure out the experiences of people across the world and come to rational conclusions about them based on your old science view of experiences being just brain generated chemical reactions...you are wrong!

I have said many times that it is like trying to prove the existence of Light to a stubborn born blind person.  It just can't be done even though Light is everywhere around him.

About Spirituality and how it is different from religion....I have written about that many times...but maybe I'll start a separate thread on that once again. (ekim has given a very nice concise para on that above).

Cheers.

Sriram

I considerably differ from you Sriram, where the characters in the old writings don't transmit to me any hint to make me think there is anything more to them, other than they are man's early attempts to make sense out of a very complicated world, it isn't a case of me being wilfully blind, I don't see these ancient collections of quaint old stories to be anything more than that, quaint old stories, in fact I think my interpenetration of them is on the whole is quite realistic, when compared to the average religionists point of view.

The only mystery they convey to me is why do modern people still read so much into them, it seems to me they are so obviously man made stories, so much so I don't see any valid reason to research into them any further, other than a historical interest in the development of mankind, of course that'll always be worthwhile, other than that I really can't see why people take this stuff so seriously but not, as I have said before not a wilful deafness.

Spirituality isn't the preserve of religious believers and it is a fact, not just a point of view, that there is no evidence that there is anything more to spirituality than that is presented before you, the things you see hear and feel within oneself, I'll leave the conjecture to others.     

I only mention the evidence because of the lack of it, there isn't enough evidence for me to want to even begin to take religions any more seriously than I have already conveyed to you.

Regards ippy

 
 

[Sriram]

I considerably differ from you Sriram, where the characters in the old writings don't transmit to me any hint to make me think there is anything more to them, other than they are man's early attempts to make sense out of a very complicated world, it isn't a case of me being wilfully blind, I don't see these ancient collections of quaint old stories to be anything more than that, quaint old stories, in fact I think my interpenetration of them is on the whole is quite realistic, when compared to the average religionists point of view.

The only mystery they convey to me is why do modern people still read so much into them, it seems to me they are so obviously man made stories, so much so I don't see any valid reason to research into them any further, other than a historical interest in the development of mankind, of course that'll always be worthwhile, other than that I really can't see why people take this stuff so seriously but not, as I have said before not a wilful deafness.

Spirituality isn't the preserve of religious believers and it is a fact, not just a point of view, that there is no evidence that there is anything more to spirituality than that is presented before you, the things you see hear and feel within oneself, I'll leave the conjecture to others.     

I only mention the evidence because of the lack of it, there isn't enough evidence for me to want to even begin to take religions any more seriously than I have already conveyed to you.

Regards ippy

 
 

The first part of your reply does not seem to have anything to do with what I said in my post.

As far as Spirituality is concerned I have given my views in the other thread.

[ippy]

The first part of your reply does not seem to have anything to do with what I said in my post.

As far as Spirituality is concerned I have given my views in the other thread.

I'm pretty sure the first part of my post set down the flavour/direction of my reply to you.

Yes I got that about your views on spirituality but find it difficult to see where you think there's anything that might have supported such a standpoint, I'm also pretty certain there isn't anything that you would be readily able to find, surly this should make you have some serious thoughts about these views of yours on spirituality?

Regards ippy.

[Sriram]

Ok...thanks ippy.

[trippymonkey]

JAI SRI GANESH !?!??!?!!?!?!?!?!?

[Robbie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYwaacNvfdQ

[ippy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYwaacNvfdQ

Foreign Office material, what a load of old tosh.

Regards ippy

[Harrowby Hall]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYwaacNvfdQ

What has this to with Zoroastrianism and the Abrahamic religions?

[Robbie]

Absolutely nothing HH, I was merely joining in with trippymonkey - in the hope that he would explain what his post had to do with the Abrahamic religions. Sorry, was being flip.

JAI SRI GANESH !?!??!?!!?!?!?!?!?

[trippymonkey]

WELLL You obviously haven't been 'listening' ?!?!? HA HA