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Monday, December 8, 2014

Re: [mukto-mona] Redefinition of God (God 2.0)



God 2.0 has been seen by Chopra as absolute consciousness and essence of being human or conscious awareness. The idea is not vague, nothing can be more idealistic than the proposition made by him. He simply made some statements and did not care about elaborating on them. The circumstances he has listed to warrant the necessity of idealizing God 2.0  basically always existed. His idea of God is so vague it does not qualify to be a metaphysical construct. But he may sell well among many Americans in the same way as Bhagwan Rajnish could be sold. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 8, 2014, at 5:52 PM, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

 
In the link below, America's spiritual Guru, Dr. Chopra has discussed the redefinition of God (God 2.0) that I have been talking about in recent days. Many could not conceive that idea yet; many kept going back to religious definitions of God(s) and kept missing the point.
As Dr. Chopra has pointed out, modernity have given us comfortable life-style, but it's not enough to bring peace and tranquility in one's life, which requires spiritual enlightenment. Life without spirituality is incomplete.
Materialistic ideology, such as communism, drives God out of life, and fails miserably to fulfill both material and spiritual needs. Religion, on the other hand, cannot fulfil anything, not even the spiritual need. It divides God into thousands of fragments.
Under the circumstances, redefinition of the concept of spiritual God could bring God back to peoples' lives, once again. Spiritual God is one God for all devoid of political religions.
Jiten Roy
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You can see the link below:



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Posted by: Subimal Chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com>


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Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God



Deeldar, what I said is that – extreme materialist will not able to comprehend spiritualism. The reason is - radical materialists are radical realists as well. Spiritualism needs an imaginary deity, be that God or whatever. Radical materialists or realists may have difficulty accepting any such imaginary deity.
Jiten Roy
 

From: "Shah Deeldar shahdeeldar@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, December 8, 2014 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Yes, however, I do not see why a materialist would not be able to practice a non religious spiritualism? It is rather an inherent property of our cognitive brain, which is a product of many million years of evolution. Is it always logical? Does it always need to seek a material basis of everything? There are plenty of things that we do not sense with our sensory organs. Does that mean they not exist? There are plenty of things that we would never see even with our fancy instruments but their existence might be proven indirectly with some math equations. Are they real?

I do not think the spirituality should exclusively be boxed with idealism.
-SD
 





On Sunday, December 7, 2014 8:35 PM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
Use Bangla meaning of materialistic and spiritualistic to understand them.

Spiritualistic => Addhyattik
Materialistic => Bastovbadik
 

From: "Shah Deeldar shahdeeldar@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2014 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
I would not equalize a spiritualist with an idealist (people who believe brain being a product of idea). Both an idealist and materialist can be spiritual. I see no problem with that unless you got a different definition for spirituality? As materialist, you can be spiritual about anything and everything. Why that would be a problem, I still do not get it. Thanks.
-SD
 



On Sunday, December 7, 2014 5:59 PM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
You bring Rabindra Nath again and again, but you do not understand if he was a spiritualist or a materialist. Do you understand where his source of inspiration came from?  

Jiten Roy


From: "Subimal Chakrabarty subimal@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2014 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God
 

 
I agree with Mr. Deeldar. Again we can use Rabindranath as an example. Was he exclusively a materialist or a spiritual man? He wrote devotional songs and songs and poems of love. At the same time he wrote essays including essays on science. You will not smell any spirituality in the latter. In his personal life he maintained two distinct entities within himself----spiritual and materialist. We all more or less are like this. 

Spirituality is real and human brain---to repeat Deeldar---is a product of our brain. The concept of God or ghost one has in his mind is nothing but a subjective reality. This subjective reality can have a big impact on the life of one who believes in God or ghost. But it is not only intangible, in reality it does not exist, or at least one cannot form a refutable hypothesis based on the existence of God or ghost. 

As we know people need God for various reasons. It can even simply be a prejudice instilled by the society in one's mind. Some people through rational thinking and scientific judgement can shake it off, some cannot. Some cannot because they do not want any disequilibrium in life. Some cannot because of fear. Some cannot because of the sense of uncertainty.

 Rabindranath never said any thing against the atheists. He rather praised them at one point. But he used his jeebon debota as his Polaris to which maintained a continuous journey throughout his life. He never boasted of it nor advised any one to follow his unique path. He was not a preacher, but he had innumerable informal followers or disciples. Even Abu Syed Ayub, apparently an atheist, wrote Panthojoner Sakha (Friend of the traveller). We are all traveling and we probably need a friend to guide so that we are in the right track. 

Sent from my iPhone



On Dec 7, 2014, at 10:54 AM, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
It is almost impossible for a strict materialistic to be spiritual. Your definition of spirituality as an open minded attitude towards life and its surroundings is also impractical, because spirituality requires a focal point of thought, just like you require in the meditation. When you do that, you are no longer an open minded people. Most people put God at the focal point of spirituality, as Rabindra Nath did.     
Jiten Roy
 

From: "Shah Deeldar shahdeeldar@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2014 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
You can be a great spiritual person with very strict materialistic views. They do not contradict each other at all. Spirituality is too a product of our brain as the idea of religion. However, I call spirituality is an open minded attitude towards the life and its surroundings while the idea of God and religion has already found the "absolute truth", which does not exist.
-SD
 



On Sunday, December 7, 2014 9:04 AM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
Sanjeev, you are an extreme materialist; with that sort of mindset, it will be almost impossible to conceive spiritualism. So, it will be a waste of time to go any further with this discussion.
Jiten Roy

 

From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2014 1:48 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Reality affects even those people who do not experience it.  Illusion affects only those 
who experience it and there is no other effect on external world.  For example, if a 
snake bites me while I am sleeping and I do not see it, even then its poison will affect 
me.  But if I dream something, it will not affect any thing in the external world.  That is why dream is not considered a reality even though it is so vivid that  the person 
experiencing it cannot make out that it is not real while experiencing it.  When awake
 he concludes that it was not real as it did not affect any thing other than the person 
who was experiencing it.  So he rightly distinguishes reality from illusion disregarding 
his personal experience  which is not consistent with other experiences when awake. 
Water that you see in the desert is considered illusion (mirage) because you only experience it but cannot quench your thirst nor extinguish fire by it.  So illusion is 
only experience where as reality has other effects on the external world too.

Unfortunately this rational out look is not applied to spiritualism.  
Your brain is quite capable to show you video games.  People consuming liquor or drugs lose touch with the reality and imagine many things and experience many things which are not real.  The centers in the brain which the drugs stimulate can be activated by psychological manipulation and auto-suggestion / self-hypnosis.  Even electrical currents to these centers gives you experiences which are only generated in the brain and are not external reality.  (see the experiments re. god-helmet).  But due to religious upbringing, instead of just enjoying spiritual experiences and recognizing what they really are, people start believing them as the ultimate reality and external 
world not consistent with these experiences as illusion (maya) .  This is a big blunder.
Actually spiritual experiences are only a result of stimulation of brain and chemical play in the brain and  not the reality.  No wonder any lives based on this so called ultimate reality resulted in a big failure in the material world (real world).  

You have observed galaxies coming into existence and destroyed.  Did you see any external factors deliberately doing it ?  If not, why you concluded that some body is controlling these things ?  For more detailed discussions, see the debate between scientists and religious people by googling the term ' creationism v/s evolution debate".  There is plenty of articles by prominent scientists giving reasons as to why and how there is no god or any one controlling the happenings in the universe.  

There is no purpose of this universe.  Finding purpose in the vast universe and meaning to your life reminds me of s villager.  He visits a big town and attends a fare.  While enjoying different stalls etc. he loses his blanket some where.  Not able to trace it, he concludes that the whole purpose of establishing that town and organising a fare in it was to steal his blanket !  Many people try to find purpose in the universe and their lives like this villager.  

Sanjeev




From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, 6 December 2014 11:38 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Spirit is not imagination, spirit is something you can feel and experience. Enthusiasm is a spirit, you feel, but you can't see it.
Religion started with spiritualism, but slowly personal interests replace spiritualism, and religion became a commodity of the commercial interests.
With the advent of commercialization, God became almighty, and then came the tenet that believers must have absolute faith in everything in the religion, else almighty God will burn them with hell fire. Now, believers had to believe every damn things religious establishment ask them to believe. Thus, believers became slaves of religious establishments. Therefore, I am not interested in what the belief of the religionists.
What I am trying to point out is that an abstract idea of God has a place in our psyche. We need this abstract God to solve many of our psychological problems. We can define our own God without looking at what other blind faith religionists believe in or not.
You said scientists says universe was as such from the beginning of time, and no one created it. Well, every now and then, I come across the news of the birth of a new galaxy, and death of some stars; it's happening all the time. I wonder what's behind these creations and destructions. I know, nothing happens without cause and effect, and everything happens for a purpose. If this is correct, who is controlling those purposes? Do you have answers? 
Jiten Roy
 



From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:57 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
I agree with you if for you,  meaning of spirit is imagination.  There is no limit to what you can imagine like some one talking to you, some one existing every where even after death etc.  But for the believers god is not imagination but reality, where we disagree. And you need not stop at the creator but can go on imagining that there is a unending chain of creators who created your creator who created you.  As such scientists who say this universe always existed in some form or other, there is no role for a creator as there is no point of creation (not even big bang is the starting point).  Since there is no creation, there is no creator !  

Sanjeev




From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, 6 December 2014 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Sanjeev, not everything can live everywhere; only spiritual entity can live everywhere without existence. 
As per religion, God is everywhere and with everybody, meaning - God is a spirit.
When my parents were alive in Bangladesh, I used to feel bad because – they were so far away from me. They are now gone, but I feel their presence (in spirit) always with me. I talk to them silently, when I feel like. God is one such entity that can exist everywhere with everybody; you can talk to Him silently, whenever you like to. These are all spiritual thoughts.
Just like my parents created me and my home, where I grew up, we can extrapolate this thought to the beginning, and  assume that there was one such creator, who created the universe, where everything is today. Obviously, these are spiritual thoughts only, but it can give us a closure of the thought. Isn't it better than leaving that thought open?
Anyway, religion is a product of human imaginations. So, there is no reason to think that everything in religion will be right. I have no problem with the spiritual part of the religion.
Jiten Roy

 



From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, December 5, 2014 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Jiten,  Can any thing live any where without having existence ? 

If god has only one attribute or characteristic then every individual can claim for him god means XXXX (where XXXX stands for creator,  truth, spirit, love, barby doll, some prophet, avtar, saint, big bang, black hole etc. etc.  --pick your favourite attribute and put it  in place of XXXX   as per your liking and ask whether atheist can accept it. But 
if you study all the religions, god is not just a single attribute but it is  sum total of all supposed attributes of god viz. creator, dispenser of justice, punisher of evil, sustainer of order, capable of bending rules by way of miracles to favour his devotees to answer 
prayers , sender of messages and prophets and taking birth as avtar to destroy evil, 
intelligent designer etc.  Unless you believe in most of the attributes, you cannot say 
you believe in god. 

 Just believing in spirit, or creator etc. does not make it god in totality.  And we 
atheists do not believe there is any thing in the universe which meet most of the 
criteria and supposed attributes.  For any thing like this to exist, the  universe will 
have to violate many laws of nature, which is simply impossible.  Nature does not 
make exception to its rule no matter how holy the person or entity is.  


Sanjeev




From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 5 December 2014 7:08 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Yes, Sanjeev, you need to define God first. If I say, my God has no existence, He lives in the spirit, then where the question of existence of God come from? Atheists should not have trouble accepting this God. Isn't it? 

Jiten Roy

 



From: "sanjeev kulkarni jeevkulkarni@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2014 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Define god ?  Poison by any name will kill.

Sanjeev




From: "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2014 9:00 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Excellent points! I have some issue with atheism; it appears to be incomplete idea. Most atheists think they are atheist because they have rejected God, as defined in the religion. Religionists, obviously, have distorted the concept of God; they made it some kind of human-like character. First thing is to define God, then love or hate it.  
Jiten Roy
 



From: "Kamal Das kamalctgu@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2014 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
Haven't the Buddhists made Buddha their supreme god? There are Amitava Buddha, the sun god with limitless radiation, Kacchapa Buddha looking like a turtle and representing the sky god, Maitreya Buddha yet to come etc. My atheism sees gods and goddesses everywhere. God, having been derived from Godde, a Persian word meaning leader, leads in every place. Religion, by definition, is something that holds together. Even communism is a religion, but atheism or agnosticism, being glue less, are not.

Sent from my iPad



On Dec 3, 2014, at 9:13 AM, "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
If Buddhism is considered a religion, surely God is not needed for all religions. But what is this nonsense of what God needs or does not need? The imaginary character needs whatever the believer thinks he needs. To a rational person, there is no such thing as God needing this or that.
 
I find the statement, 'Atheism itself is regarded as a religion. So Subimal Chakrabarty's atheism or my atheism or anybody else's atheism does not mean that we are all clue-less non-sensical people', totally absurd.
 
Let us look at the definition of "religion" in the Oxford Dictionaries. It is, "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." Atheism is probably regarded as a religion only by people, including some Christians, who cannot think beyond religions. The idea that atheists would be 'clueless and nonsensical' without accepting that their rational thoughts are also a religion sounds too ludicrous to me.
 
SuBain
 
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On Tuesday, December 2, 2014 6:26 PM, "ANISUR RAHMAN anisur.rahman1@btinternet.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
Jiten Roy is probably forgetting his own religion (if he has any), when he says religion needs God. Have you got a God or more widely, have Hindus got a God? There may be a number of gods and goddesses, but not a single all powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent God, as understood in the monotheistic religion. Buddhism does not believe in gods or goddesses. So to assert that 'religion has no existence without God' is blatantly wrong. Religion is a faith, quite often a blind faith.You can have faith in whatever you like - God or no God. Atheism itself is regarded as a religion. So Subimal Chakrabarty's atheism or my atheism or anybody else's atheism does not mean that we are all clue-less non-sensical people, as Jiten Roy claims. In fact, such egregious claim is itself devoid of sense.

- AR  


From: "Subimal Chakrabarty subimal@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 2 December 2014, 0:27
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] God does not need religion, religion needs God

 
First thing first. Your account might have been hacked. I tried to contact you but I do not know your telephone number. Check on that first. 

Now with respect to your query, my short cut answer is that I am talking about the teachings of a religion. You can learn great virtues from a religion. That's why many believers are good human beings. 
Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 1, 2014, at 6:20 PM, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Mr. Chakraborty, you cannot partially support a religion; you may partially follow a religion; in fact, most people do that. That does not mean, they have partial support for their religion. Maybe that's what you meant. Even then, you are contradicting yourself.
 
You have said in a previous post that you are an atheist for 45 years, meaning you don't believe in God. You must know - religion have no existence without God. How can you partially support religion without believing in God? You are not making sense here.
 

God is a metaphysical concept; God does not need religion, religion needs God, meaning one can believe in God without religion, but the reverse logic is not true. 

Deepak Chopra in a recent article discussed how: Physics needs God, but God does not need physics. The concept of God is the same, whether it is in physics or religion. You can find his article in the following link:


Religionists have given a distorted view of God. Enlightened people should not get swayed by such distortion.

Jiten Roy






































__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





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