With global Internet use being at the highest it's ever been, a new religion on the block is set to take over. Its numbers will grow to gargantuan proportions; eventually eclipsing the billions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists and Scientologists.
This is the religion of conspiracy, be it 9/11 or JFK, from Diana to the moon landing, there is a new breed of people who believe all or most of these theories. But the monster of all of these is the Illuminati or New World Order conspiracy.
For those of you not familiar with this particular conspiracy I will explain in brief. The legend of this particular conspiracy says that a secret society has been running the world for its own gains since (again depending on who or what you read) the sixth century.
The New World Order are part of everything from banking to politics; they are in place at every level of society, making sure that they grow more rich and powerful, whilst us poor serfs suffer and grow less empowered and get poorer.
There are a number of documents and videos all claiming to back up these claims, most of which you'll find on the Internet. Without the Internet these stories have no conduit to the masses. Mainstream broadcasters stay away from films such as Zeitgeist and The Truth About 9/11.
The Conspiracists say that this is evidence of a conspiracy to hide the truth. Others say that it is because films such as The Truth About 9/11 contain too many Internet 'FACTS!' The rule of thumb is if someone feels the need to scream "FACT!" at you after making a seemingly outrageous statement, the chances are that it's not a fact.
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Re: Conspiracy And Chaos: Religion For Atheists
By Roli Rivelino, April 2, 2008 at 23:52After reading your posting and looking a little more into it, I've decided you're right I shouldn't have mentioned Buddhism in my original article. The 'inner self' is something that interests me a great deal, I believe that things like meditation and the focussing of energies like chi are a practise in bringing the sub concious and concious mind together. The power of the mind is often underated and there have been countless examples of people healing themselves through positive thinking.
So whether you call it Buddhism or meditation or chi energy; I believe in that because it focusses on the 'self' rather than some external God head that we need to worship. I too am searching and I expect to find the answer within myself, one day; hopefully :-).
Re: Conspiracy And Chaos: Religion For Atheists
By luyen, April 3, 2008 at 08:45Hi Roli, I feel very happy after reading your message, not because you agree with me, because like Heather mentioned, you kept a really open mind, and that has opened my mind up further too, and I hope that I don't fall into the trap that so many of us do, believing dogmatically in something and unable to change my mind. I know it's happened to me before, and it takes constant vigilance and breaking down of these mental concepts to always stay fresh and open, like you have done.
I think reality is a lot closer to that open-ness and ever changing kind of nature, and can only be expressed conceptually, but never pinned down.
So thank you for opening my mind as well!
Re: Conspiracy And Chaos: Religion For Atheists
By Heather Wallace, April 3, 2008 at 05:57Whether you ultimately agreed with Lu or not, it's really refreshing to see someone who has gone back for some thought and come back with a new perspective. It shows you're actually thinking about what you're saying, not just stubbornly arguing without listening. Nice.
Re: Conspiracy And Chaos: Religion For Atheists
By Roli Rivelino, March 25, 2008 at 03:15You say that Budhism isn't a religion, but I beg to differ the definition of religion is such; A religion is a set of beliefs and practices often organised around supernatural and moral claims, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. While I'm not a world authority on Budhism, I can clearly see from my own experience and your brief summary that it definitely falls within the above guidelines and it can definitely be classed as a religion.
Perhaps I shouldn't have casually lumped Budhism in with the other main stream religions, however a couple of points spring to mind. The first is, that I mention Budhism once, I'm not singling any particular religion out. My point was (and you confirmed this in your posting) that ALL religion requires faith in what someone else has told you, not what someone has demonstrated to you.
The belief of spirituality or the soul cannot be demonstrated to me in any tangible way, all demonstrations, be they through, praying, meditation or whatever religious technique are simply not good enough for me and many others. The point of my article was that people who are into religion are similar to conspiracists in their dogma and structure of belief.
So whilst on occasions I might reject things out of hand without checking them out first, I haven't made a religion out of it. if you can give me a set of circumstances, i.e. an experiment to recreate with no help from you and I come out with the same results as you, then I will tend to believe that thing. You may call that dogmatic but I call it pragmatic.
Re: Conspiracy And Chaos: Religion For Atheists
By luyen, March 25, 2008 at 08:34Hi Roli, thanks for your message! No i believe you are using the correct approach to test things, and that is the essence of buddhist philosophy, to "assay things like gold", and not to take it on faith alone. Faith is useful, not only in spiritually, but in all aspects of life, but it has to be founded on reason, otherwise it is easily swayed.
The reason why i wrote that particular message, is because you're right, the inner experience of peace, contentment, calmness, or for that matter negative emotions are not tangible, they are not measurable in the sense of being able to measure something through the physical senses, even though they do offer some clues that way.
So there's a whole dimension that Buddhism, and for that matter many philosophers have dealt with, and that is examining the inner world and inner perspective, and it is 100% sure that the practice of certain methods produce results, although i don't have statistics for you, there have been studies by neuro-scientists and buddhists at Science and Mind symposiums, basically analyzing the benefits of meditation for chronic illnesses, 'stress', so both mental and physical forms of pain and suffering.
Anyhow, my point here isn't to convince you, but i can tell you as someone who sits and calms his mind through breathing, and my contemplating the observable reality in a pragmatic sort of way, examining phenomena (such as the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena) there is very little of the definition of "religion" in it, although I can totally understand that it often appears that way from the outside!
But in a sense it's a moot point to talk about semantics, because in the end, whatever we do, should bring us some sense of inner happiness that is sustainable, and repeatable, and that's the true test of any method, and i'm glad you don't reject things outright, that's awesome ;-)
Re: Conspiracy And Chaos: Religion For Atheists
By luyen, February 8, 2008 at 17:02As a "Buddhist" I think you should read up on Buddhism a bit more, as there's no such thing as a creator or higher power, the Buddha just means awakened one, and reflects the inner potential of all sentient beings to become free of mental obscuration. The Buddha that we refer to, is one of many, and his teachings were more like self-guidance methods, to try and connect to what is reality through proper analysis - tools such as meditation to look at the nature of mind, thought, feelings etc...
The process of defining mental obscuration and its removal thereof, is a process of strenuous logical reasoning, by which faith develops naturally, there is extensive studying of what is mind, what is phenomena, what are mental aggregates (feelings, thoughts etc...), and in the past decade a lot of research into meditation and neuro-science.
Yes like any other "religion" people believe without asking questions, just like an Atheist can equally accept/reject things without proper investigation, and people who call themselves Buddhist are no exception.
This can happen anywhere, anytime, by anybody - so that's a big reason why Buddhism isn't a religion, and I think if a person looks deeply, whether they're Christian or whatever, it should be more of a reflection of one's personal investigation into reality and so forth.
Ultimately, I think everything depends on mind, whether you are a believer or not, whether we achieve some technological nirvana or not, it depends on the mind that experiences reality, is it truly happy and satisfied or not?
I think it's good to really check things, but also dangerous to call one-self an Atheist or whatever, as this can lead to a dogmatic point of view!