Basic question, what exactly are we? Scientists like Dawkins would have us beleive that we are just bio-chemical lifeforms that live, die and decompose back into the earth, period. That our being ends with death.
Or is it as the Christians have it, we live once and are then delivered to the bossom of God for eternity.
Or is it that we are really spirit people who occupy these biological machines for a short period before leaving them behind when they have lived their life and either move on to another realm or return to live again?
Either of theses last two leave the question, what are we. are we just energy, just thought, or are we part of something larger, some kind of collective existance, just cogs in a massive organism called the universe?
Just a small question for you to give your opinions.
RE: What Are We?
Well, in scientific terms, you can look at it from various angles and it depends on the context you want to take.
As you say, Dawkins would have us as bio-chemical lifeforms that live, die and decompose back into the food chain as it were, but if you look at it from another scientific point of view, as Einstein determined, all mass is energy, therefore we (and everything around us)are all energy, and that's without the spiritual side of things creeping in.
Different religiousbeliefs, as you also pointed out,have us leading different lives with different endings (or not as the case may be). Buddhism would have us leading our lives from throughout beginningless time, constantly returning to samsara after each life to experience rebirth in another life based on our karma and merit, until such a time we practice spiritual practices sufficiently to release ourselves from the endless cycle of rebirth into contaminated lives, i.e. we become Buddha beings.
So, what we are will entirely depend on your own beliefs and what feels right to you. The one thing we can be sure of in scientific terms is that we are all energy, but if you want to abtract that up a level to bio-chemistry (as per Dawkins) then that's your choice.
Love and Reiki Hugs
RE: What Are We?
Who is this Dawkins? Does he do similar work to Professor Stephen Hawking?
I personally believe that we as a race have come from another planet, crash-landing millions of years ago, and ever since then have been trying to get back to the stars....
RE: What Are We?
ORIGINAL: Gemmeg
Who is this Dawkins? Does he do similar work to Professor Stephen Hawking?
I personally believe that we as a race have come from another planet, crash-landing millions of years ago, and ever since then have been trying to get back to the stars....
Dr Richard Dawkins, great debunker of God and all things religious, and of anything not supported by science. He is as dogmatic and as narrow minded about science and Darwinism as any deep south bible belt preacher is aboutthe bible or muslim cleric is aboutthe Koran. Ironic isnt it!
RE: What Are We?
Hi Woodcat,
Interesting question!
To me, we are spiritual. Always have been and always will be. We live in the realm of thought. It appears to the material senses that we are solid flesh and blood but is this the whole picture? NO!
I had an awesome experience once, but was unable to talk about it for a very long while. I felt it had been such a special gift from God and wanted to hold it close. I was 17 and used to suffer from terrible period pains. I passed out at school and they sent me home.
I was alone and went to bed, taking my 24/7 pastor with me, (the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy.) Others might turn to their medicine cabinet, but I always turn to God in every situation. However, I was in such pain that I was unable to read or even pray, but the thought came to turn to the 100 pages of healings (sent in by realy readers of the book )at the back of Science and Health called Fruitage.
I'd only been reading for a short time (only up to the third testimony) absolutely engrossed in people’s accounts of their healings that had come about from the spiritual ideas in the book, that I forgot all about my body until I came across a testimony which quoted from these words of the Apostle Paul:
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. (II Cor 5:8)
Those words "absent from the body" and "present with the Lord." just stood out to me and I then realised that I too, like the writer had become so absorbed in what I was reading that I was also "absent from the body" and "present with the Lord." and then I realised that all pain had gone and I was healed!
The next moment, gently, silently, I lifted out of my body and hovered up on the ceiling, the brightest light I have ever seen shining all around me and the most incredible feeling of warmth, love, joy, harmony and peace I have ever known, just encircling me. The light was so bright – brighter than the sun and there were no shadows and I was also seeing everything clearly without my glasses. Words are inadequate to explain this, but those who have had this experience will understand. Above all, I had this glimpse that what I had learnt for years in theory – that "there is no life, truth intelligence, nor substance in matter, all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" was true. I felt I was being shown my spiritual selfhood – entirely pure, innocent, perfect, at one with God, which had nothing to do with the "chrysalis" body
After a few minutes, I gently came back into my "body" but had no sensation of weight for at least 2 hours and still felt as if I was walking on air for the next two days. Also, that was the end of all my period problems. I feel it was such a special privilege to have been given this proof of my immortality and spirituality, to learn that right here and now, I am spiritual, not material, that God is my Life and my life is God.
I had another experience, again following a physical healing through prayer, in Egypt, when I literally floated up two staircases from very deep tombs.
I see these and all my experiences of healing as proof that we are spiritual, not material.
However, we don’t have two bodies – one spiritual, the other material, there is only one. The material one is just how it appears to us at the moment. You know, I love to illustrate this with those Magic Eye pictures. On the surface, there’s a puzzling pattern, but if you focus BEYOND the surface, the true image appears. Now, it’s all the same piece of paper – it’s just that it appears different from the changed perception.
Here’s a thoughtful article from on the same subject:
[url]Is what you see really what you get?[/url]
Judy
PS Yes, I agree with your summing up of RD. Many atheists have just as closed a t
RE: What Are We?
I believethe ideathat we are spirtual beings having a human experience. I think we are also human beings having intensely spiritual experiences.
I pray that everyone grows through this experience/teaching xxx
RE: What Are We?
ORIGINAL: Ripleykatzzzzz
I believethe ideathat we are spirtual beings having a human experience. I think we are also human beings having intensely spiritual experiences.
I pray that everyone grows through this experience/teaching xxx
Yes I go along with the spritual beings having a human experience view. Thats how I see it anyway. It certainly covers the most base's. As to why is another question, maybe so our spirits and the spirit world can evolve, perhaps the spiritual world and the physical have to evolve together as one.
RE: What Are We?
[sm=hippy.gif]Hello Woodcat.
The answer to your question is simple we are all spirit.
take care
RE: What Are We?
hiiiiiiiiiiiiii
i am sorry for lateness
we are all things in the life
like we are work hard to get good jop and then we will get wifes
RE: What Are We?
I don't think that this question can be solved because,
First of all, before we can discuss what we are, we need to first solve the question of "What Am I?". This is because it is only with the understanding of "Who I Am" (not the role I play in life, not what I have, and not what I am in terms of physical or psychological or mental qualities, because these things change from life to life) but Who Am I, am I a vessel or am I what is contained inside a vessel? Or perhaps these things put together?
It goes without mentioning that it will take more than one life to decide this question in earnest and secondly, I don't think that it's possible to transfer the question of "Who I Am" to "Who We Are" because it seems to me that each one of "Us" should decide who they are and by the time each person decides this, we can all come to a conclusion that we are the same.
The biggest obstacle in this is that someone else needs to decide who they are first, before agreeing with me that we are the same. I personally cannot do this and thus I think this question is unsolvable.
RE: What Are We?
A buddhist might well explain that we are all products of past karma; past actions and past intentions and memory of theses patterns and habits is reincarnated in an endless stream of experiences that are subject to the winds of fate until we succeed in mastering our intentions and perfect them till there is no stain of ignorance left in our karmic imprints and we become fully enlightened.
However an integral part of the process towards liberation from the bondage of karmic causes and conditions is the development of wisdom. This wisdom is based pretty much on the understanding of what is usually called emptiness. Emptiness simply means that everything is subject to causes and conditions and everything has a relative existence and can only be named or identified for purposes of convention in language.
Effectively this means that any question that asks what is the nature of any substance, thing or being is without meaning as all is merely a flux of the perceived and observer and that; the distinction between perceived and observer, is in itself merely a conventional distinction.
Then “What are we”… we are experience and we learn though experience that some intentions bring us and those around us health and happiness while other categories of intention bring us and those around us suffering.
In philosophical terms Buddhism is not an ontological system it is an epistemological system… it does not attempt to explain the nature of substances, it explains how to become free (to experience unconditional love),by explaining the foolishness of asking the question.