Do you believe in Ghosts?

Yes, as quickly and cheaply as possible. I'd kill it. If however that sheep was lost on the moor, suffering in a ditch with an infection from a sheep tick bite, and I didn't know where it was or even that it was suffering, I'd just get on with looking after the rest of the flock, which would be my livelihood.

 

God is ment to know everything though and be all powerfull. So if he does exist i have no respect for him he is a lazy sod!

 

Also Jack im referring to a classical wood burning camp fire that burns in open air. I dont think the method you are talking about would have even been available back then...

 

Only a small subset of all religions teach that. In fact I can only think of three, which really are all one. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I don't claim to be an authority on religion, but I did go through a phase of trying to learn a bit more about what different groups believed in. As far as I can gather, there are very few monotheistic religions (ie ones that teach that there is only one all powerful god). From what I can gather, the rest have either loads of gods, no gods at all (eg Buddhism), or in one case, an infinite number of gods, including some very horny characters who are obsessed with hedonistic practices.

My favourite one in Taoism. My Taiwanese mate lent me a book about it when I was on my quest for knowledge. I expected it to fry my brain much like my attempts to understand buddhism had, but I was blown away by its simplicity. The book concluded with a sort of executive summary, that said, there is a thing called 'Tao', which roughly translates as 'the way of things'. It makes no attempt to explain why there is life and death, or good and evil, or why we sow our seeds in spring and harvest our crops in autumn. It is just the way, or Tao. I have to admit I didn't take it very seriously, but I really appreciated the refreshing simplicity of it.

 

My own opinion is that God is what we think we should be conditioned to... lets think about it, god is an all knowing, all seeing entity, but that actually sounds like an overcoat for human arrogance. Either that or a call for help that we are not as great as we would like to be.

The idea of god is so vastly amazing on a psychological standpoint.. but the god accepted by organised religion is part of the psyche, rather than an actual physical, moral driven entity.

Just my opinion anyway... how I see it personally.

I agree with Clueless however, I think nature is as close as you can get to the widely accepted god. The only difference is with nature there is no obligation to be right or wrong, you've just got to be clever with your decisions, you can't get saved or rescued, you gain from being shrewd... and you know nature is there, rather than having endless debates about whether it does, or doesn't exist.

 

That particular god belongs to the monotheistic trio I mentioned earlier. He was created by men to control people. He was created when people still lived in small isolated pockets with no communication between groups, and no access to any information beyond what was happening in or just outside of their village. If there is a war monger in your village, and he is roughly the same height and build as you, and he says 'attack that city for me will you lads, they outnumber you 100 to 1 and have defensive walls and better weapons, but I'm on your side. The villagers would either laugh at him or sort him out. If he says 'attack that city in the name of your god, they outnumber you 100 to 1 and have defensive walls and better weapons, but your god will be with you, oh and if you dont you and all your kin are going to hell', then its a different story if the only information you've ever had access to is that there is a god and there is a hell.

Of course I'm not saying that such a god was created purely for war. Some religions prohibit people from eating certain types or cuts of meat. They teach that god said its dirty and therefore prohibited. In a day when god is god, its easier to say don't do it because god said than it is to say don't do it because we've figured that in this blasted desert heat we've found that the meat goes bad very quickly and has in the past killed half our men of death within 24 hours.

 

Actually, that makes a sort of sense, Clueless. The Almighty is often described as a shepherd. Following your analogy, he wants his flock to thrive but doesn't really give a monkey's about the individual animals, since they are going to end up at the abattoir anyway. Personally I'll take my own chances rather than trit-trotting into the back of the lorry.

 

Ah, but that's the point, isn't it? A good scientist is aware of just how much he doesn't know. It's why peer review is so important and why respectable scientific journals spend such a lot of time finicking over words. Theories stand and fall, and knowledge develops and changes. Anything which is simply an act of faith is completely outside of this sort of system. You either believe or you don't.

 

OK, show me a person who can astrally project. The trouble is, I'm not really sure what it means. Some sort of out of body experience involving the stars? Or maybe a particularly violent spasm of projectile vomiting. Anyway, I digress. How would you begin to prove something like that? I worry about your gullibility, *dim*. If someone came up to you and said they'd invented these things called 'skyhooks' that were sure to make your fortune if you'd just put your house on the line, would you cough up? Approach all the whacky supernatural stuff you read with a similar level of scepticism, old chap.

 

I have always thought that the reason different religions have these different rules of what you can and cant do is the same reason the army wants you to stand to attention everytime an officer walks past, or salute or all march in time with each other. Im not talking about the real sins - like murder and rape ect i mean the ones that seem a little strange to us like fasting or priests not being allowed to have sex ect

 

ClaraLou .... I read what people write on different forums, and I frequent many.... I don't read books, but I can 'read' people ... I get a gut feel if they are genuine or not ....

I have read many posts of people relating their experiences, and based on what I have read, I do believe that some people can (and do) practice astral projection

I would love to be able to do this

 

Its no shock that you dont read books Dim. I have often wondered what standard of education you were given.

 

Re astral projection, here goes.

The idea is that some people, through deep meditation, can free their spirit from the flesh at will and then go out without the limitations of the physical world. I guess if it was possible, it would be easy to prove. You'd just have to report something in detail that happened 1000 miles away in the last five minutes. If I was to lay down for 10 minutes in front of witnesses, shut my eyes, open them again 10 minutes later, and report that Pedro's goat has just broken out of its pen and eaten all Paco's vegetables, and now Paco is so angry he's just hit Pedro over the head with a loaf of rustic bread, and then someone checked up and found that that's exactly whats just happened, then it would be hard to dismiss. If I could do it repeatedly on demand, then it would be virtually impossible to deny or explain away. However, to my knowledge, there has never been such a successful test.

What is known is that through deep meditation, we can develop enough control over our own mind to control our dreams. When we can dream on demand, and dream what we want, it is called lucid dreaming. I used to be able to do this. It feels extremely real, right down to physical sensations and perception of environmental conditions. I suspect its because of this perceived realism, that many who achieve it mistake it for astral projection.

 

I'd settle for lucidity during my waking hours ...