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I'm not an atheist, nor am I a theist. I don't know what to classify myself, unless there's a term for "looking for the next explanation"...ist. I do, however, have a pretty good hook on what constitutes peace and to be honest I'm not seeing much around the place anymore. Peace doesn't have provisos like "believe what we believe", neither does it have a price tag. But that's not the point really. The point of the question is that peace requires some sacrifices, some people would not sacrifice anything while others would sacrifice everything to achieve true peace (or at least as close as humans can get to this, just for those who think this can't be done). For the religious who are still reading this, are the the former or the latter?

If the you, the latter, please read on...

Does that include your religion?

That if Judaism had accepted Jesus as mashiach then Christianity wouldn't even exist: you'd all be Jewish.

Pity.

I'm just trying to get this right in my head.

Did they believe that everything belonged to the land? In that everything was produced by the land: the plants and trees, the animals, the people and the spirits are all related to each other and literally borne from the land. Was it a kind of hierarchy? Like the animals were below the people and the people were below the great spirits, and the plants fit in somehow, but everything and everyone respected each other because of their relationship.

Does that mean that the land itself is what we would consider God? Is the real difference only that some believe that an external force took action in our creation while others believe that nature itself took action to create us?

Actually, if you could just answer that last one, that would be good.

I'm thinking of a start-up religion based upon the feminine divine, which takes a completely different view of creation than other religions.

Basically creation is a pregnancy, it is living thing and as with the highest level of living things it started with nothing and became...something...which grew and became more complex as time went on.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, I can't use Gaianism because it's taken already. Not that I mind, what they do is a beautiful thing, I just wish there was a name as familiar as Gaia. I can't use Eywa because of legal issues and, lets face it, if you haven't seen the movie the word is just a weird typo. I can't use Asherah because she doesn't quite fit the bill.

Any suggestions?

P.S. I'm not looking for names like: Heathen, Pagan, Idolator, Fool, Demon, Rubbish, Gibberish, Jibber Jabber, Poppycock (or Poopycock for that matter) "It's all lies" or "I'll pray for you".

I've recently been having a little think about this. The name "Gaianism" is a bit a convenience label admittedly.

Most people don't really understand what Gaia was to the ancient Greeks; for some reason people think of Zeus and his assorted siblings when they think of Greek religion. This is probably because these guys were bratty kids and like young princes/princesses went out and about getting into trouble (at least metaphorically). However, at the top of this was Gaia, she was the mother of the entire pantheon, she was the ultimate judge of the gods, and her name was the most honored by both gods and humans. I'm only saying this because the Greeks were technically the last people that believed in a female creator being; the Romans got this bit wrong, being more into the shenanigans of the grandchildren and placing Terra into a minor role.

The reason I'm saying this is because it is completely at odds with abrahmic religions, in fact it is diametrically opposed to it.

Think about it, the very first lines in their bible talks about their god just mumbling things into existence: "let there be light" and suddenly an unprecedented type of electromagnetic radiation appears, it seems unlikely. It's somehow easier to imagine that all of creation as a pregnancy.

When I think about it, it makes far more sense than anything that any christian can spout at me. The Universe started as a single point that rapidly expanded and grew more complex with systems added as time goes on: just like gestation. Things like Evolution aren't even debated because it is a simple fact. Evolution is a built-in process that develops not only more complicated life forms but, because of this complexity, more complicated consciousness's as well. In other words evolution allows for greater apprehension of creation. This also applies to technological innovation, which is a kind of evolution.

I'm still thinking about all this so maybe I'll provide updates as I go, maybe not. All I'm trying to get to is a viable alternative to the masculine beard-mumbling creator with something that people can at least relate to. I guess that people who can't relate to a mother figure should be pitied.

Of course, like all religions, none of this is true. It is only true for me.

I was just reading up on reiki cause I used to be into it but haven't for a while. I got my first degree a few years back and can remember how it felt to be attuned to whatever the energy reiki uses quite well. Anyway in my travels I came across this little blog entry:

http://amazingcatechists.com/2012/05/reiki-not-for...

I found it interesting that this bunch of bishops thought that reiki isn't scientific and is therefore banned to any catholic. The problem I have is that science doesn't say anything about reiki itself, just that it hasn't demonstrated any medical benefit. The energy used by reiki is still hypothetical according to scientific research, it hasn't been disproved.

I think it is important to clarify this.

My "attunement" felt like a strange trickle of something (could have been cold or hot, hard to tell) in the top of my brain that seemed to expand and spread out to all of my brain and then tried to push itself back out the way it came and, because there was now so much more than before, got blocked up until it forced a wider "hole", kind of like a broken dam. What I'm saying is that I'm absolutely certain this energy exists and I'm sure that others will attest to this as well. I've never really tried to heal myself with it because just feeling this energy was enough for me.

I'm not interested in the healing aspects of reiki for this argument anyway, whether it is a good healing practice or not doesn't factor into my train of thought at the moment; I'm more interested in the source of the energy. If you've ever had reiki done on you and you felt the heat, the tingling sensation and the buzz from it afterwards then you will know what I mean. From a scientific perspective a thing needs to fill in a few parameters to be hypothetical: it must be predictable, repeatable and confirmable. There is quite a lot of evidence that these parameters being met by many people around the world. The only real stumbling block is there are no experiments designed to test this hypothesis, how could we? Where would we even start? The thing is that while people keeping feeling these sensations from this practice then the energy will remain hypothetical.

Many practitioners say that the power comes from God, I don't cause that would make me a theist, which I'm not. I need something a little more than that: a better explanation. Maybe something more primal.

In any case the church is out to sink reiki completely. It seems they are really worried about this and rightly so: it could mean that literally anyone could be in contact with this energy.

Thanks for reading this.

I'm a bit 'iffy' on this. I've always conceived a dimension as a space that holds an infinite number of whatever dimension is below it. For example the 0th dimension is a single point in time and space, while the 1st dimension (𝑥) is the space where all possible occurrences of a 0th dimension exist, which is why there is normally an arrow at the end of the axis on a graph, showing "boundlessness". Similarly the 2nd dimension (𝑦) holds all possible occurrences of an 𝑥. The same can be said for the 3rd and 4th dimensions while the 5th, being the Universe, holds all possible 𝑡.

Is this accurate? If so would the 6th be the Multi-verse, where all possible Universes exist? And what would be the 7th?

I realize that Quantum Science define many more dimensions than this. I also realize that this is probably a pedestrian definition of dimensions. Any help would be appreciated, as long as the help is also at a pedestrian level.

Not living things, but the idea of Life, the concept.

It's something I've been wondering for a little while because I'm tending to think that Life might be the only perfect thing that exists. It creates itself under the most ordinary circumstances. It somehow manages to survive and propagate on this world despite all obstacles and events that should have wiped it out. It adapts and evolves to create higher forms, forms which can then witness and record reality as they understand it. It imbues itself with instincts to ensure procreation. It endures in circumstances which seem impossible.

Some religions say "God is Life", I'm wondering if it isn't actually "Life is God". I'm wondering if there is a belief that holds that only Life itself is the Ultimate Creator.

Consider the following two statements:

1) Perfection cannot abide imperfection.

This means that even the most infidecimal mote of imperfection renders perfection invalid. This is something I've been playing with off and on for a few years (I'm an absolute riot at parties...).

2) Humans are imperfect.

It's pretty much standard knowledge that we are far from perfect, seeing as we don't even know what that means. In fact free will gives us licence to be imperfect. Consider when you were young and lied about eating all the <yummy treat>s (insert your favourite yummy treat, as an Australian I'll put 'biccie'); that's probably imperfect, even though we were too young to know or care.

Now...

My problem is that the "Word of God" is meant to be a perfect message, but it has been sent through an imperfect messenger; a human. Doesn't it then follow that the message has been rendered imperfect and is therefore invalid? Is this why Catholics raised Jesus to divinity to counter this inherent problem?

Or am I just a little too stoned.

So I'm looking at this little article:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/working...

and I'm wondering how you feel about your so-called freedom to do as you please and your right to live your life free from attack. Seems to me that you have no freedoms or rights. Is that correct? Am I interpreting this correctly? Or is this just media hype?

In this information age you'd think that muslims wouldn't spout off these media/propaganda straw men answers. Do muslims actually think that we are just media zombies?

In the texts according to Nasa'i, Musnad Ahmad, and Tafsir Ibn Jarir there is the following verse:

"Submitting men and submitting women, believing men and believing women, obedient men and obedient women".

This clearly implies that men and women are equal before Allah in all ways. Why, then, does Islam have such a poor reputation when it comes to attitudes towards women? I'm not interested in flimsy scapegoats like western media and propaganda, as these don't account for the horrors we've seen done by muslims to women.

Even your Qur'an says that is an installment. Can you consider that there is still more to come?

Why do muslims say that Islam is a religion of peace when it can so easily be twisted into a cult of horror and mayhem? Why do muslims condemn Islamic extremist terrorism while not actually doing anything about it themselves?

If Westboro Baptists decided that the only answer was to turn Mecca into a glass bowl in the desert do you think that the west would stop them? Of course we would, but I believe that if the tables were turned YOU wouldn't raise a finger.

You say that the West hates you and use it to justify horrendous acts. The truth is that we don't trust you at your word, because there's nothing in your actions that back up what you say about your faith. If you are a religion of peace then you have a duty to keep it, especially within your own faith, otherwise we have no choice but to look upon you as liars.

I keep getting the feeling that Christians are annexing the word "God". I've heard comments like "Oh yes, the pantheist and pandeist God is our God too". They don't seem to get that both these ideas absolutely disallow Christianity.

Do Christians think that the mere mention of "God" automatically assumes their god? Can they allow for an entity that doesn't fit their specific needs? Can they allow for an entity whose purpose is far beyond human understanding? I know they can't allow for the non-existence of an entity, but there's a massive gap between non-existence and what their doctrine states.

Or is that too many questions?

I've been reading answers to http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AprLf... and I was wondering what does taxing the Church have to do with the Establishment Clause (or anything else in the U.S. Constitution)? Answerers are saying that if the Church gets taxed it removes or invalidates this clause or something. I'm not entirely certain of the association. I'm reasonably certain that it's basic scaremongering.

I've been reading answers to http://answers.yahoo.com/question/answer?qid=20130... and I was wondering what does taxing the Church have to do with the Establishment Clause? They're saying that if the Church gets taxed it removes this clause or something. I'm not entirely certain of the association.

In a word: corroboration.

Bare with me, the religious state that their bible is divinely inspired, so it holds that this inspiration must be universal, because God created the universe.

First we find and extraterrestrial civilization with a level of technological and philosophical sophistication at least equal to our own. If such a thing exists then they must have a bible as well, because of universal divine inspiration. Their bible needs to be word for word identical to the bible found on Earth. I'll concede that the names don't have to match, but the story and purpose of the two books need to be identical.

If this happens I might be prepared to believe.

Also if this theory has been raised previously, sorry.