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Internet Sacred Text Archive

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81–90 of 130 posts

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#81
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume unverifiable but narratively meaningful theories like multiverse theories, "the universe is a hologram", etc fill that role nicely. Sci-fi is full of them. "New Age" beliefs are what you're looking for at face value, of course.

Thanks. Thought of these. I wondered if anyone has taken it a step further and created new gods (of the hologram, of the multiverse, etc) beyond the metaphysical/new-age trend towards "the self as god". I suppose Roko's basilisk true believers and their AI god counts.

In all seriousness I would recommend reading into the subculture around salvia.

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#82
post #4

I've been curious lately about the existence of any religion, mythology, folklore, etc that capture something closer to the current edges of modern physics and astrology. Basic assumption is that most/all are based on dated observations of seasons, planets, stars, etc -- things that were once mysteries in the mechanical universe. Are there any that touch on quantum weirdness or more recent astrophysics (black holes,…

>Basic assumption is that most/all are based on dated observations of seasons, planets, stars, etc -- things that were once mysteries in the mechanical universe. I think this is pretty much propaganda from anti-religious people. I have read all of the major religious texts over the last two years and If you look at most religions and their scriptures they deal very little with the physical world in general and are mo…

[deleted]

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m extremely proud of your skepticism at something I really haven’t put much effort into. To clarify I haven’t read every religious text, but I have now read the Old/New Testament, The Baghavad Gita, The Tao te Ching, The Quaran and currently working my way through the Buddhist Sutras (looking to start on Sikhism next). That is the main text of all major religions and I only read 20-30 pages a day (with some overlap…

Buddhism is derivated from Christian heresy called Manicheism. Created and spread in Asia from Pakistan by third generation after apostle, called Mani. There isn’t any evidence of any existing trace of Buddhism before 4th century AC, most Buddhism art are based on grec, and Syrian Christian artists who followed St Thomas the apostle into the east. Mani predated those early Christian with his fake teaching which found…

And in the same spirit, Christianity is just a Jewish heresy. What's your point?

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#84
post #4

I've been curious lately about the existence of any religion, mythology, folklore, etc that capture something closer to the current edges of modern physics and astrology. Basic assumption is that most/all are based on dated observations of seasons, planets, stars, etc -- things that were once mysteries in the mechanical universe. Are there any that touch on quantum weirdness or more recent astrophysics (black holes,…

Check out the Jung/Pauli letters.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/03/09/atom-and-archetype...

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#85

They have text and illustrations of The Secret Teachings of All Ages but the images are B&W scans. https://sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/index.htm The large color illustrations are why I have a copy of the book https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22the+secret+teachings+of+all+age...

I did like this book but feel a lot of it was Halls fan fiction. Especially the section on Gnosticism seems completely false compared to what we’ve uncovered from actual gnostics and their scriptures over the past 30 years

I'm pretty much with you. Originally I qualified my post with some remark about not heaping trust on a 1910s understanding of the occult - but cut that out for brevity.

I bought an 80's ed of TSTAA when I was big on spiritualism - and even then I approached it like an art piece. Maybe the sampler format didn't inspire seriousness.

Or maybe it was Manly Hall's glamour shot. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Manly_P....

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#87
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have read all of the major religious texts over the last two years you're doing better than a lot of monks did over their entire life time. call me a skeptic, but even if I was able to accomplish such a herculean feat over 2 years time I doubt I would have the time to grasp much of any of the content that I blazed through -- but of course we're different people -- allow me to express my awe.

I’m extremely proud of your skepticism at something I really haven’t put much effort into. To clarify I haven’t read every religious text, but I have now read the Old/New Testament, The Baghavad Gita, The Tao te Ching, The Quaran and currently working my way through the Buddhist Sutras (looking to start on Sikhism next). That is the main text of all major religions and I only read 20-30 pages a day (with some overlap…

> The Baghavad Gita

It's The Bhagavad Gita.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#89
post #4

I've been curious lately about the existence of any religion, mythology, folklore, etc that capture something closer to the current edges of modern physics and astrology. Basic assumption is that most/all are based on dated observations of seasons, planets, stars, etc -- things that were once mysteries in the mechanical universe. Are there any that touch on quantum weirdness or more recent astrophysics (black holes,…

Advaita has all-encompassed the chat. ;)

See Oppenheimer quote from the Bhagavad Gita after the first atomic bomb test.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Oppenheimer+quote+from+the+B....

The Gita is about Advaita.

Skip the Wikipedia article about Advaita, it is somewhat crap.

Go to deeper sources such as books by well-known people, preferably S. Radhakrishnan, 2nd President of India.

(Or at least google a bit more if don't want to or cannot buy or get the book).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarvepalli_Radhakrishnan

First paragraph from the above article about him:

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan OM, FBA (pronunciationⓘ; 5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975; natively Radhakrishnayya) was an Indian politician, philosopher and statesman who served as the second president of India from 1962 to 1967. He previously served as the first vice president of India from 1952 to 1962. He was the second ambassador of India to the Soviet Union from 1949 to 1952. He was also the fourth vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University from 1939 to 1948 and the second vice-chancellor of Andhra University from 1931 to 1936. Radhakrishnan is considered one of the most influential and distinguished 20th century scholars of comparative religion and philosophy,[2][web 1] he held the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta from 1921 to 1932 and Spalding Chair of Eastern Religion and Ethics at University of Oxford from 1936 to 1952.[3]

Re: Internet Sacred Text Archive

#90
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y…yes? We do take the Big Bang seriously because there are observable effects of it. “As far as you can tell” is doing a massive amount of incurious lifting. Is phrenology making a comeback next?

That’s tautological. We observe the effects, and assume they must propagate backwards under rules we think we know, then say that the theory must be true because we observe the current state is the forward propagation under those same assumed rules. It’s unfalsifiable and accordingly uninteresting.

The reason why we assume the same rules is because 1) we haven't observed anything that implies that they changed, and 2) if we assume that they did change, then any attempt to figure out what really happened is moot anyway.

From a religious perspective, there's a take in e.g. some mainstream Islamic madhabs that time is an illusion that is caused by God literally recreating the entire universe moment after moment. He just happens to do so mostly in a way that is consistent with stable laws of nature, but ultimately it happens that way because God wills it to happen that way and for no other reason - there are no actual laws. If you adopt this viewpoint, then for all you know, the universe can be literally one second old, and all your memories of past events are just pre-created. That is unfalsifiable and uninteresting; the assumption that there are stable laws that hold, to the contrary, is interesting because it allows us to make interesting conclusions that also turn out to be practically useful in some cases.

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