MAHARAJ AND THE RELIGION VS. SCIENCE DEBATE

TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS

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2. Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "god," the "Son of god," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns. See the green text after today's post for the full meaning and implications of that. 

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MAHARAJ AND THE RELIGION VS. SCIENCE DEBATE 

"Science will someday advance to the point that it will confirm the validity of the non-dual teachings." 

--Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Note: Whether one (a) uses the original seven-step process as offered in the beginning by Maharaj and as offered here in bygone days or one (b) uses the modified four-step approach as offered in the end by Maharaj and as offered here nowadays, both include a step which involves religion and / or spirituality. 

At the third step, religious and / or spiritual roles are usually assumed and played for a time by seekers. Whether their "journey" to realization happens promptly or becomes a long and arduous path depends on how long it takes for them to transition all role-playing and return to the next step . . . to the Child No-Nothing State. 

Be they non-dual seekers or be they among the 97% who are attached to one organized religion or another or among the other 2.9% who brag about being "spiritual, not religious!" most will never move beyond those supposedly "good" identities and will remain in the darkness of false roles and myth-and-superstition-based belief systems. So it is, and so it likely to remain. For the few, the discussion here will continue.]

So with all of the scientific evidence and with the wealth of facts available, why do 99.9% of all humans prefer myths and superstitions and lies over facts and truth? These all contribute to the inability of the non-realized masses to differentiate between true and false:

1. Programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination.

2. Humankind's propensity for foolishness and being fooled. 

3. Humankind's preference for emotional highs such as that generated by emotionally-intoxicating religious and / or spiritual teachings and activities and by emotionally-intoxicating political agendas.

Remember this quote? 

4. Hence, humans' tendency toward laziness which leads them to prefer being spoon-fed "knowledge" (a.k.a., "learned ignorance") rather than working to find truth via facts. 

5. The fact that 99.9%+ of all humans have had the Ultimate Sickness passed down to them; the fact that the key symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness (per Maharaj) include "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity"; and the fact that they have not found the Ultimate Medicine which could free them of those symptoms. 

6. Pride. Arrogance. Egotism. Humans are driven by ego-states (false identities, personalities) which are sustained by massive levels of egotism. That can lead to their being proud, not of anything accomplished but, of things they had nothing to do with. 

For example, I cannot drive more than a few miles from my house without seeing a car with a bumper sticker like this one: 

Nor can I go many days without hearing some proclaim, "I'm proud to be a Native-born Texan." 

Really? So one of your greatest points of pride has nothing to do with anything you've ever done but has everything to do with the fact that the canal from which your plant food body was spewed by the one you call "mother" just so happened to be within the boundaries of an area called "Texas" at the time of said spewing? And now that is a source of pride for you? 

The same applies to the "Proud American," many of whom in this region double down on their unjustified pride over being not only "A Texan" but also "An American." Some of those prideful types display this bumper sticker: 

Of course there are in the U.S. "Proud Southerners," "Proud Westerners," etc., and scattered all around the globe are "Proud Brits," "Proud Germans," and "Proud Whatevers." 

There is also an Ultimate Sickness / egotism connection as well: When gasoline prices were exceptionally high, Obama offered a suggestion which has proved to reduce a car's gasoline consumption by 3 to 4%. His opponents attacked him and his suggestion, to which he replied, 'It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." 

It is a fact that many persons really do take pride in being ignorant.

When persons are trapped in the Ultimate Sickness, they will display the "ignorance, stupidity, and insanity" which Maharaj made clear will accompany that Sickness. 

Others take pride in the fact they have become "a great success" or "ultra-wealthy" or "a nobleman" or "an affluent landowner" or "a member of the gentry or some other upper social or economic class," but in many cases, whatever they claim to have earned was actually given to them or handed down to them and they actually had nothing to do with accomplishing anything on their own. Often their so-called "success" came in spite of rather than because of.

Others take pride in their beliefs which have been accumulated as a result of ignorant and insane programming, conditioning, acculturation, domestication, brainwashing, and indoctrination or other factors which they had nothing to do with: 

"I'm proud to be white." 

"I'm proud to be a Republican / Democrat / Independent, etc." 

"I'm proud to be a Christian / Jew / Muslim / etc." 

For the sake of illustration of the point, let's consider one belief which many Christians hold dear, a belief rooted in ignorance but one which they cling to and argue about while refusing to even consider the available scientific evidence which could enlighten them to the falsehood of their belief, namely, "the age of the world." 

Take something as simple as having at least some slight clue about the age of the universe and the earth which would require only a small degree of wisdom and sanity and awareness of the relevant facts and truth: 

There are currently 2,000,000,000+ Christians on the planet and there have been billions upon billions more over the last 2000 years. There is plenty of scientific evidence which shows the considerable age of rocks and the considerable age of fossils and the considerable age of human remains, yet billions of Christians have believed without any questioning at all that "the world" was created by God only . . . 6,023 years ago. 

And their belief is not even  that the earth is "around 6,000 years old." No, their belief is that know that "the world" is specifically "six thousand and twenty-three years old" and, furthermore, that they know even more particularly the exact day and time when their god supposedly "created the world." 

Specifically, they believe that "The Creation of the World by God" occurred "at the moment of nightfall on 22 October 4004 B.C. and the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October of the year 4004 B.C.," or, again, only 6,023 years ago. No more. No less.

And why do they believe that? Their belief can be traced back to one man who came up with that nonsense: 

Catholic Bishop James Ussher / Usher

4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656 

And what calculations did he make to arrive at that conclusion? He used what he took to be the one and only infallible source (and the one and only source of knowledge needed by anyone), namely, the Holy Bible and, specifically, the Old Testament (Jewish) part of that book. 

Using certain parts of that text, he came up with what he deemed to be a simple and accurate and infallible method of determining when "Creation" happened" by going through the Old Testament part and studying the "begats" in the Bible - as in "Adam and Eve begat Cain and Abel." 

He read the recorded age of those who had been "begotten"; found the number of years that the persons listed therein were said to have lived; from that, calculated how many years had passed from Creation to "the present" (which was around 1650 A.D. for him); and then worked back from there to determine the exact moment of "The Creation." 

Now, while doing the math involved with "the begats," he accepted without question that Adam really lived for 930 years, that Methuselah really lived 969 years, and that Noah really lived 950 years. 

He never considered that the record might be incomplete and that the record did not include in its listing the humans who lived during a 930-year interim but were left off the list or during a 969-year interim but were left off the list or during a 950-year interim but were left off the list.

As with so many who take pride in their belief that the "holy" scriptures are infallible and are therefore to be taken literally and at face value and without any questioning, he believed that many men in "the early days of the world" really did each live for nearly 1000 years. 

At any rate, after his calculations of the years involved with all that "begetting," the numbers he came up with convinced him that "it all started 4,371 years earlier (as of 1650 A.D. when he reached that conclusion) which is now - in the year 2017 - a total of 6,021 years since "the 'creation' of the universe and the earth," according to Ussher and according to the billions who have accepted his ignorance-and-insanity-based calculations as having been accurate and true.

So for the 367 years since Ussher published his "findings," millions and billions of Christians have accepted as fact the calculations of Bishop Ussher and have accepted as fact that the universe and earth are only - as of now - just 6,023 years old, all scientific evidence to the contrary be damned. 

Only six-thousand and twenty-three years? Really? Hell's bells, when I was a kid traveling with my parents from Louisiana and through East Texas - to be dropped off at Grandmother's to spend time with her - we sometimes stopped to eat at restaurants in towns with a population of fewer than twenty-eight people.

Those sparsely populated towns often had only one cafe, a Southern Baptist / Evangelical Church, one blinking light at their one intersection, and one gasoline station. In those cafes, I was served meals which I'm pretty sure were made from food that had to be more than 6,023 years old and meals which were served by waiters and waitresses who had to be more than 6,023 years old. 

And though time can seem to stand still for an 8-year-old boy who was ready to get to Grandmother's place and go play in the woods, I'm pretty sure that it took the servers more than 6,023 years just to get our food from to the kitchen to our table and more than 6,023 years to just bring us our check after we had long finished eating. 

So 6,023 years? Really? 

Considerations from others that have looked at this topic: 

Aldous Huxley: “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” 

Walter Cronkite: “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” 

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” 

Issac Asimov: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.” 

Richard Dawkins: “One of the effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.” (You know, God really does "work in mysterious ways" and "God has a reason for everything that happens.")

George Bernard Shaw: [Of a man being observed]: “He knows nothing but he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.” 

Victor Cousin: “If ignorance is bliss, there should be more happy people.” 

Lao Tzu: “To know that you do not know is the best. To think you know when you do not is a disease. Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.” 

And from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: 

"Realization is but the opposite of ignorance." 

"The circles of ignorance may be ever-widening, yet it remains a bondage all the same." 

"'Creation' itself is rooted in ignorance." 

and 

"An ignorant man is ignorant of his ignorance." 

And there's the rub. 

Those who turn their backs on the light of science and facts and truth will stand face-to-face with fiction and illusions and delusions and will lovingly and wholeheartedly embrace the darkness of their ignorance. 

To be continued.

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 Here, with those who are still driven to talk about "god," the "Son of god," the "Holy Spirit," "Buddha," "Krishna," etc., etc., etc., the invitation to them is to view those as verbs, not nouns. 

THE EXPLANATION 

If looked at as nouns, they point to illusions and are, therefore, a total waste of time to even discuss; if looked at as verbs which are resulting in certain sane but rare behaviors among humanity, then they are worthy of some attention during the relative existence. 

Meaning? There are members of certain groups who say things such as "My concept of god in the past was of a weak god, an absentee god, A Santa Claus-type god, a mean, punishing, vindictive god, etc. Today, I am in close contact with a loving and caring god whom I worship and praise and glorify and give thanks to." 

The reply to that usually goes like this: "If you are in contact with a god that wants to be worshipped and praised and glorified, then you're dealing with someone like yourself - a narcissist - and hanging out with narcissists will never bring an end to your narcissism (that narcissism evidenced by the fact that you think you are "godly"). 

Next, in the phrase 'loving and caring god,' any supposed god that truly had her or his act together would tell you that the totally irrelevant part of that phrase is 'god' and that the only part that is relevant is the "loving and caring" part. 

"That is, a non-narcissistic their god / their goddess would say, "I care not an iota about being worshipped and praised and glorified by you or anyone else. How arrogant and insecure and needy would I have to be to want that? Forget the man-made, dreamed up noun 'god' and focus on the 'god as a verb' understanding and then go forth and let loving and caring be verbs - not adjectives - and let them generate the act of love and the act of caring and let those actions manifest through you." 

Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on: 

"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within" 

--Yeshu'a (Jesus) 

and 

"Heaven and earth shall fade away." 

--Yeshu'a (Jesus) 

and 

"Heaven and hell are not geographic places 

but are states of mind, nothing more than 

concepts dreamed up by men." 

--Pope John Paul II 

"There is no hell." 

--Pope Francis, the current pope 

in an interview with journalist Eugenio Scalfari, 

a writer used by the Pope to issue off the record 

teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium. 

[That said, would that the popes who have shown the courage to reject a core concept of their dogma - namely, "hell" - would find the additional courage required to question the very existence of their institution in light of the centuries-long cover-up of their history of raping children and in light of the mental and emotional and psychological scarring of billions of their members past and present. 

And that need for courage also applies as questions need to be asked about why so many other sky cults are still being supported and allowed to continue to exist as well. When certain types of programming and conditioning have been shown to blind the masses, they should end. Will they? Not likely. Why? 

Because what the masses think and say and do is most influenced by the international crime families which hold sway over the masses as criminals conduct their planet-wide operations. What are the major international crime families and which are the most influential and have the largest memberships? 

The Mafia / La Cosa Nostra; the Catholic Church (with it 1.2 billion followers) whose Vatican Bank worked for decades with the Mafia while laundering mob earnings (for a 15% all-profit charge by the Bank); Protestant and Evangelical Churches (with over 1.2 billion followers) like the one I was raised in where the youth director molested and sexually assaulted young girls; big business which has long created environments in which people have been abused; powerful political bodies like the U.S. Congress, etc., etc., etc.) 

With all of those crime families, neither the followers nor the leadership ever voluntarily step down or shut down their criminal activities. Be they gangs, organized crime families, religions, big business, politicians, etc., they all want control and they all want power and they all want money, and nothing internal will interfere with the driving forces at play. 

The masses must demand that all those in charge must step down and their groups and institutions must shut down, and there's the real problem because the continuation of their crimes are enabled not as much by the people running such crime organizations as they are enabled by the masses of people who - wanting some perceived "payoff" - remain involved with them and give them money and support them and aid and abet the continued existence of those criminal enterprises and thus facilitate the ability of church criminals and political criminals and other types of criminals to continue to commit their crimes.] 

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or 

You can click on the picture link which has now been added for video "Number Ten" in the upper right-hand column on this page. 

If preferred, here's 

the direct link to the AUDIO VERSION 

of that session.