Split Thread Scorpion's Spiritualism

[Scorpion]

So the end result of all this spiritual progress, losing their gender and body parts, etc., is they eventually realize they need a body? How is that progress? It sounds more like reversion.

No, the end result is that we complete our cycle of reincarnation and settle all our karma. After which we continue to grow as immortal spirits in higher realms. We become beings of light in a mental world we can control with thought.

 

[Scorpion]

Wouldn't it be better to do something about it rather than just shrug and say it will be better when we're dead?

Silver Birch speaks of giving service to others as part of the way forward.

 

[Pixel42]

I just took a break to watch, 'blue planet 2' and it shows the corals are dying, and the ice caps are melting. Trouble is coming, and people and animals are going to suffer a lot more.
Spiritualism could give them comfort that suffering will pass and there is a higher world.

In which case what is their motivation to fix the problems that are causing the suffering?

False comfort is worse than no comfort.

 

[Scorpion]

Why should you or spirits try and reduce suffering, given that you believe that suffering is a means to a greater good?

If you reduce someone's suffering, then you're interfering with the long term payoff they will gain from their suffering. You shouldn't do that.

You want to eat your cake and have it too. Suffering is something good that is necessary for some ill-defined long term pay off. Simultaneously, suffering is bad and you and the spirits are trying to minimise it.

Which is it?

Silver Birch says things like, we do not have to do everything the hard way, we can avoid much suffering by choosing right actions. But the human race is at a level of spiritual evolution that is a long way from what we could become, and we will have our wars, and be ruled by self interest.

Basically we are not cooked yet, humanity is a work in progress.

 

[Scorpion]

In which case what is their motivation to fix the problems that are causing the suffering?

False comfort is worse than no comfort.

The causes of a lot of suffering is wrong action and wrong thinking (See the teachings of Buddha) We can choose to live harmlessly and work for the common good, and eventually things will improve.
But there is much bad karma being created in the world today, and we have a long road to travel.

This world is a meeting ground for souls from higher realms and souls from lower realms. In the spirit they are segregated but on earth we are thrown together. It is our interactions with one another that make us grow.

From my point of view spiritualism is not false comfort but largely the truth.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I meant they give comfort to the bereaved through mediums in spiritualist church services.

Given how few people go to Spiritualist Church services and how throughly unconvincing the rest of us find it, you can only conclude that the spirits are uninterested or unable to help in any help full way. Or maybe they're non existent and the stories are only convincing to those already emotionally invested?

 

[Nay_Sayer]

The causes of a lot of suffering is wrong action and wrong thinking (See the teachings of Buddha) We can choose to live harmlessly and work for the common good, and eventually things will improve.
But there is much bad karma being created in the world today, and we have a long road to travel.

This world is a meeting ground for souls from higher realms and souls from lower realms. In the spirit they are segregated but on earth we are thrown together. It is our interactions with one another that make us grow.

From my point of view spiritualism is not false comfort but largely the truth.

Unfortunately, Your point of view is not a barometer for truth. Evidence is.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

From my point of view spiritualism is not false comfort but largely the truth.

Your point of view is not proving terribly convincing is it?

 

[Andy_Ross]

It seems a bit 'in the best of worlds all things are for the best'

 

[Thor 2]

The spirits incarnate on other planets are us, part of the family of souls we are created as. We may incarnate on other planets during our cycle of rebirths.

I was just reading from the teachings of Silver Birch and he said there are many planets on which people are more evolved than us, but only one that is less evolved. We may incarnate on a planet that is most suitable for our evolution.

I don't think physical gravity confines a spirit, and they can travel at the speed of thought.

I cannot speak for God or what he is doing, but it seems clear to me that we cannot be created perfect as individuals. We need experience to make our own way.
I do not know about the evolution of angels, only that they never reincarnate, and I have heard it said they envy humanity the freedom of our evolutionary struggles. Ps. Angels do not have wings, they travel by thought power.

Wow!

- Other planets that spirits can move between at "the speed of thought" and all but one more "evolved" than us.

- Wingless angels travelling by thought power.

- Angels that envy us humans.

You have such a wealth of knowledge about this stuff Scorpion. Do you have a take on the "man being created perfect but sinned" idea, and the angels that turned also?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Travelling at the speed of thought seems quite slow.

Of course, it's difficult to quantify, but I think I can get something rough that's reasonable enough for what I'm going to say about it. According to this article, a runner can go from hearing the starting pistol to deciding to run in 150ms. I'm also going to use that article's definition of speed of thought:

For our purposes, a “thought” will be defined as the mental activities engaged from the moment sensory information is received to the moment an action is initiated.

If we assume an average height of 167.5cm (5' 6" - again, the roughness of this figure isn't hugely important, and I'm erring a little on the side of being generous to Scorpion's assertion) then that allows us to calculate the speed.

150ms = 0.15s
167.5cm = 1.675m

1.675 / 0.15 = 11.166m/s

So, calculated thusly and making it a round number for the sake of clarity, spirits can move at a not exactly spectacular 11m/s. For comparison, light moves at 299,792,458m/s - or roughly 27,253,860 times faster than spirits. And even travelling at that speed light could potentially take many billions of years to get from one planet to another.

In fact, the closest planet to Earth is Venus, and at its closest it's 41,000,000,000m away from the Earth. It would take a spirit travelling at 11m/s 3727272727.27 seconds, or roughly 118 years to get there. Imagine how long it'd take to get to a planet in Andromeda. That's 2.5m light years away, and it's still the closest galaxy to us.

I'm failing to see how moving at the speed of thought is a positive when operating on a cosmic scale.

 

[The Shrike]

I have to admit I myself am currently taking a small dose of abilify daily, I went on it a few years ago because I was suffering from alcoholism and it was having a bad effect on me. I needed the drug to settle my nerves, so I could give up drinking which was turning my brain to mush. I have not had a drink for over five years now.

Congratulations on remaining sober!

Note, however, that the spirits that you think have provided some form of healing for you really haven't. They should've kept you from succumbing to alcoholism, and they should've helped you quit drinking without needing a prescription aid. Surely if they were able to control your schizophrenia they should've been able to help with so commonplace a problem as alcoholism.

 

[Scorpion]

Wow!

- Other planets that spirits can move between at "the speed of thought" and all but one more "evolved" than us.

- Wingless angels travelling by thought power.

- Angels that envy us humans.

You have such a wealth of knowledge about this stuff Scorpion. Do you have a take on the "man being created perfect but sinned" idea, and the angels that turned also?

Our souls are created completely innocent, but as soon as we make a decision for ourselves we begin the long road of self development. It leads to making mistakes, and to incarnation.
I don't know much about angels, except the spirits say there is no devil.

 

[Scorpion]

Travelling at the speed of thought seems quite slow.

Of course, it's difficult to quantify, but I think I can get something rough that's reasonable enough for what I'm going to say about it. According to this article, a runner can go from hearing the starting pistol to deciding to run in 150ms. I'm also going to use that article's definition of speed of thought:



If we assume an average height of 167.5cm (5' 6" - again, the roughness of this figure isn't hugely important, and I'm erring a little on the side of being generous to Scorpion's assertion) then that allows us to calculate the speed.

150ms = 0.15s
167.5cm = 1.675m

1.675 / 0.15 = 11.166m/s

So, calculated thusly and making it a round number for the sake of clarity, spirits can move at a not exactly spectacular 11m/s. For comparison, light moves at 299,792,458m/s - or roughly 27,253,860 times faster than spirits. And even travelling at that speed light could potentially take many billions of years to get from one planet to another.

In fact, the closest planet to Earth is Venus, and at its closest it's 41,000,000,000m away from the Earth. It would take a spirit travelling at 11m/s 3727272727.27 seconds, or roughly 118 years to get there. Imagine how long it'd take to get to a planet in Andromeda. That's 2.5m light years away, and it's still the closest galaxy to us.

I'm failing to see how moving at the speed of thought is a positive when operating on a cosmic scale.

I am failing to see your arithmetic. You simply will going to a destination and you arrive there. That means distance has no meaning ,and the brief time it takes you to will yourself to your destination is as long as it takes to get there.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

I think that belief in the spirit world might help a lot of people at this time.
If you think the world is bad now, I am afraid it is going to get much worse. Ecological disasters and over population are going to mean a lot more people will suffer and starve .

And if people would all believe what you believe they'd just shrug and say "No need for us to try and do something about these ecological disasters. Everything is as it should be, we're being tested." or, "I know it's horrible, but God has a goal for everything, so these folks must have been destined to starve because of their bad karma. Let's focus on ourselves to better our spirits."

It's a cheap excuse for selfishness and for avoiding responsibility.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I am failing to see your arithmetic. You simply will going to a destination and you arrive there. That means distance has no meaning ,and the brief time it takes you to will yourself to your destination is as long as it takes to get there.

That's an entirely different statement to the one you made earlier.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

That's an entirely different statement to the one you made earlier.

As with 'vibrations', 'frequency', 'dimensions', 'energy' and all the other words that get tossed out in order to appear to be saying something concrete when it's really only made up word salad.

I think technically though, what was referred to as the 'speed of thought' is actually the 'speed of fiction'.

 

[jrhowell]

I am failing to see your arithmetic. You simply will going to a destination and you arrive there. That means distance has no meaning ,and the brief time it takes you to will yourself to your destination is as long as it takes to get there.

Interesting.

Do you need to know where your destination is relative to your starting point or can you think of any destination and if it exists somewhere then you go there? If you think of a place that doesn't exist will it be created by your thought, or will you go into empty space, or will nothing happen? How about the implications for causality by exceeding the speed of light? Could this make time travel possible for spirits?

 

[Scorpion]

Interesting.

Do you need to know where your destination is relative to your starting point or can you think of any destination and if it exists somewhere then you go there? If you think of a place that doesn't exist will it be created by your thought, or will you go into empty space, or will nothing happen? How about the implications for causality by exceeding the speed of light? Could this make time travel possible for spirits?

I think the answer to your first question is yes you can go anywhere that exists without knowing its location, but as for the rest I don't know any of that. In fact when I first heard you can travel anywhere instantly I wondered if a spirit can get lost in space, and not know how to navigate. But then I figured they only have to think of where they came from to return there.

I do know some higher spirits can see into the future. But according to Darat that would take away our free will. Personally I think we still have free will but the spirits can see the outcome.

 

[Andy_Ross]

As with 'vibrations', 'frequency', 'dimensions', 'energy' and all the other words that get tossed out in order to appear to be saying something concrete when it's really only made up word salad.

I think technically though, what was referred to as the 'speed of thought' is actually the 'speed of fiction'.

Or the speed of monarchy.