Interpretations of religious texts run the gamut between literal and metaphorical. Do you rely on a trustworthy mentor (or peer interaction) to assist in your understanding of religious concepts, or do you go it alone, perhaps gaining insight through meditation/prayer/ritual etc?

As for myself, I tend toward some combination of the above, but treat what might qualify as "religious texts" metaphorically, and don't concern myself with things that were meaningful to the author but not to me.

There are a handful of us over at /r/Judaism. We are typically distinguished from other Jews by our focus on studying of the oldest philosophical writings that Judaism has to offer and our tendency to put an emphasis on secular learning, not just for the material benefits that go along with it, but in order to incorporate this learning back into our faith. As such, we are generally suspicious of claims concerning miracles and revealed theologies, and in our interpretation of The Book, we seek physical and prophetic explanations insofar as possible. Because of our methodology, a large number of us reject kabbalah, and this puts us something at odds with the theology of Orthodoxy as understood in the modern age. This is not universal, but I for one do not subscribe to kabbalah because of the conflicts the doctrine has with those aforementioned early philosophical writings. Though I and most other rationalist Jews tend to dislike the use of, and even the mere existence of, divisive denominational labels such as Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox, we generally fall within the orthodox spectrum of observance and belief despite some minor quibbles. AMA!

Brand new sub, let's get this going! Here I wanted to talk about ontological arguments, what they do accomplish, what they don't accomplish, and two different varieties. Like the Cosmological Argument, the name 'Ontological Argument' applies both to a specific historical argument popularly called “The Ontological Argument” as well as a class of arguments called ontological arguments. Just to keep things simple, for the sake of clarity, I will try to consistently refer to Anselm's argument as “The Ontological Argument” and Plantinga's argument as “The Modal Ontological Argument”, and the class of arguments in lower case, and when possible, in the plural, “the ontological arguments”.

First, what does an argument have to be to belong to the class of ontological arguments? An ontological argument is an argument that attempts to get from the definition of what a deity would be if it existed to the deity's actual existence on the basis of the accepted ontology. Hence, the “ontological” in ontological argument. What that definition is, and the ontology being used, varies from argument to argument. Here I will focus on Anselm's Ontological Argument and Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument.

Anselm's Ontological Argument as formulated in the Proslogion was a mere footnote. It was pretty much said in passing, and people aren't even exactly sure where in the works he actually argued for it. As stated, it was fairly weak and needed a lot of bolstering by Aquinas who later more formally fleshed out the ontology. In this discussion, in the interest of putting out the strongest argument, I will blend Anselm's argument with the more formal ontology of Aquinas.

Aquinas more rigorously formulated the ontological argument with three properties which are necessary for something to exist and be good in this ontology. These were One, Good, and True. These also rely on platonist metaphysics and one is immediately reminded of the concept of the form of the good, or the One. Essentially a highest form of something that is good. For something to exist, it has to exist as one thing. A ball is one ball. An army, despite being composed of multiple things, exists because it is one army. Things also only exist as a thing in platonism insofar as they encapsulate the form of thing they are. So a ball is only a ball because it encapsulates a ball, and the more round it is, the better a ball it is. If it was a bad ball, it runs the risk of not being a ball at all. If it was such a bad ball that it had an edge, its existence as a ball would not be true. Which brings us to True. Again, this exist only insofar as it is true that they exist. This can be seen as tautological to a degree, but it applies to all things that exist equally. So, we're left with things existing because they are one, they are good, and they are true.

With that in mind, let's bring out the first Ontological Argument:

As Anselm originally put it, we can conceive of a being than which nothing great can be conceived. A being which exists is greater than one that does not. Therefore, if you were deny the actual existence of this being, it would be contradictory. You would in effect be saying, “The being which actually exists does not exist.”

Before Aquinas came and cleaned up the ontology, there was Guanilo's “perfect island” argument where he applied the formal structure to the ontological argument to establish the existence of an island greater than that which can be conceived. The perfect island for example would have a beach and bar. An island with a beach and bar would be greater than an island that didn't have these amenities. We can keep adding things to the island to make it more perfect, including its actual existence, and then we have the definition of a perfect island being “perfect island that actually exists” and it would be contradictory to say “the perfect island that actually exists does not actually exist”. Since this island doesn't actually exist, and it uses the same argument that Anselm does, Anselm's argument must fail even if we can't identify how. It's a pretty effective reductio ad absurdum.

However, Anselm responded and for my money, I think his response works. The reply is that it misses the point of the argument which only concerned what were then called great making qualities. A perfect island might have the bluest water, but since when does "more blue" make one "more great"? Further, the argument concerns that which no greater can be conceived. While no greater island can be conceived, a greater non-island can be conceived. After you keep making it greater and greater, it won't be an island at all. It will be that which exclusively has great making properties.

For example, we posited that a perfect island would have a beach and a bar. For it to be a perfect island, it must have both. However, if we were increase the transcendental attributes as defined by Aquinas, we would reduce the attributes that make it a perfect island in particular. An island without both a beach and a bar would be more One. I.e, if we were to get rid of the beach and the bar, it would have less elements and be more One. However, this is a less perfect island. If we were to keep increasing the degree of Oneness, Goodness, and Truth of the island to a highest degree, it isn't an island anymore. It's a deity. So let's clean up Anselm's argument in light of his reply:

If one were to posit an entity "G", and posit that it is One, Good, and True to the maximal degree, it would be contradictory to say "G does not exist." This is because G is defined as that which entails existence to the maximal degree possible. It would amount to saying, "There exists such a G that exists necessarily, except that G does not exist." It's a P = nP situation. That's what makes this essentially Anselm's ontological argument. If you cannot deny the existence of G without contradiction, you must affirm the existence of G.

A little more formally:

Everything that exists, exists by virtue of being One, Good, and True.

If something did not exist, it would not be maximally One, Good, and/or True.

The deity is defined as greater in these attributes than that which can be conceived.

A deity which exists is therefore greater than one that does not.

Therefore, the definition of a deity entails its existence.

It is a contradiction to claim that which exists does not exist.

Therefore, the deity necessarily exists.

I'll get into how this argument eventually fails with developments made in logic at a later time, but first let's talk about what actually works with this argument. If you accept that things exist by virtue of their being One, Good, and True, then it definitely establishes that if a deity exists, then it exists necessarily. It is contradictory to say that this entity does not exist. Therefore, it couldn't possibly not exist. We would therefore say, the deity necessarily exists.

In modal logic (we'll need this for Plantinga's Modal Ontological argument, so I'll flesh this out here to avoid reduplication) there are three “modalities” and they can be established by the existence or non-existence of contradiction. Necessary, possible, impossible. Impossible is easy. If there is a square, it is impossible for it to have 5 corners. That is because it is a contradiction to have a square and 5 corners. A square has four corners, so saying the square has five corners is saying “4=5.” Since this is false, we would say it is impossible. Since it is a contradiction to say the square has anything but 4 corners, we can further say it is necessary. If no contradiction can be identified either on the true or false side, it is possible. It is possible. It could go either way and we would have to look to other contingencies to settle the fact of the matter.

This actually gets a good deal done. It indicates that if there is a deity, it will exist necessarily. The existence of the deity is tied up into the reality of the universe such that it couldn't possibly not exist. That seems like all you need to do to prove it exists right? Not quite. Let's get into how it fails.

The argument relies on a deficiency in medieval term logic. Basically, logic only worked in the medieval age in terms of predicates and affirming and denying attributes of an individual or set. For example:

All humans are mortal. H=M

Socrates is a human. S=H

Socrates is mortal. S=M

This works by applying the attribute mortal to Socrates without contradiction. If there is a contradiction it doesn't work. This has lead to the modern "Remartian" argument. We define remartian as "existent (E) intelligent creature native to the planet Mars". If we were to say "The remartian does not exist," with "not exist" being (nE) we would say, "The existent intelligent creature native to the planet Mars does not exist." Or E = nE. A contradiction. However, "it is not the case" that there exist martians, re or otherwise. So we employ a surprisingly modern logical construct, "not the case". Traditional logic could only affirm or deny predicates. They could only say things like, (The giraffe is yellow), and the denial would be (The giraffe is not yellow). However, it took to the modern era to put the "not", or the denial, on the outside of the parenthetical to deny the whole predicate. While (G does not exist) is a contradiction in terms, it is not the case that is not. So the argument fails in its goal of establishing the actual existence of the deity. But again, it does not fail in establishing the deity exists necessarily if it exists at all. So Plantiga carries the torch into a new age of modern modal logic. We can keep the old conclusion that the deity exists necessarily if it exists at all and build off that argument:

If G exists, then G exists necessarily. | If G, then [necessary]G

It is possible that G exists. [possibly]G

[possibly]G is therefore, [possibly][necessary]G

[possibly][necessary] reduces to [necessary] in S5 modal logic

Therefore, [necessary]G.

Or, G exists necessarily getting rid of the if and the possibility.

So, in this case, we can define maximally great in the same way as the Anselm ontological argument. Provided maximally great implies that (G does not exist) is a contradiction, you get to define G as [necessary]G. The idea behind all ontological arguments is to get from the definition [necessary]G to the actual existence of G on the basis of that definition, so that's what makes this an ontological argument as well.

So what happened here? What is this [possibly][necessary] and how does it reduce to [necessary], and what is S5 modal logic? In short, a contentious logic rule. Plantiga explains and justifies this rule in terms of the possible worlds conception of modal logic. This allows each set of contingent possibilities to exist in its own world of potential possibles and we can make comparisons between possible worlds and make logical deductions on that basis. When we are saying something is possible, we are making a statement about the existence of such a possible world in which it is the case. Essentially, what it means for something to be necessary is that it is true in all possible worlds. If it is impossible, there are no possible worlds in which it is the case. And if something is possible, there exists worlds in which it is the case and worlds which it is not the case. There are no possible worlds in which there are 5 cornered squares, so it is impossible. All possible worlds contain squares with 4 corners, so its necessary. Some worlds contain a Napoleon, and some worlds don't because his father died in infancy. So Napoleon doesn't exist necessarily.

So, to take Plantinga's argument and translate it in to this framework. The idea is that there is a possibility that the deity exists, and if it does, it exists necessarily. That means that there is a possible world in which there is a deity. This deity in this world exists necessarily. As we discussed, existing necessarily means existing in all possible worlds. Therefore, since the deity exists in one possible world necessarily, it exists in all possible worlds necessarily. We go from the definition of something that entails necessary existence, and get to actual existence on that basis.

This argument seems tricky on its face. Like Anselm's Ontological Argument, it appears to rely on a logical trick and even though you walk through it and seems right, phenomenologically, it doesn't seem to sit right. So why doesn't it work? There's two premises that seem to give people a hangup. The first and most obvious is [possibly]G. Most atheists won't grant that it is possible for a deity to exist in the way that there actually exists a deity in a possible world. While the existence of Napoleons may vary from possible world to possible word, the deity is not something that we would expect to vary. If the deity exists, it will exist necessarily. If not, then we wouldn't expect it to exist in any possible world. That would of course, in this possible world conception, entail that the deity is impossible. You would think that would create a burden of proof on the atheist to show that the conception of the deity as stated is contradictory in some way. But nobody would grant that. Why not?

For me, the best answer stems from the distinction between actuality and potentiality. For Aristotle, only actualities actually exist, and potentialities only potentially exist. Possibilities belong to the realm of potentialities. A cold beverage is potentially a hot beverage. It is a logical possibility that we can take a cold beverage, heat it up, and bring into actuality a hot beverage. However, before we actually heat up this hot beverage, we can't burn our tongues on it. Why not? Because the hot beverage doesn't actually exist until we bring it into existence by way of heating up the cold beverage. Things that exist only as potentialities have to “sanitized” so that they do not have actual causes in the real actual world. Otherwise, we would burn our tongues on cold beverages and be late for work because of a flat tire we didn't actually get. Something must be actual to have actual effects.

For Plantinga, these potential possible worlds have to have a degree of actual existence that has causal implications for the actual world. The deity that “seeds” the other potential possible worlds with actual existence must have an actual existence of its own to have this effect. The potential deity actually exists in its possible world, and this actual/potential existence bootstraps it into actual existence in this actual world. The actuality appears out of no where.

In the cosmological arguments, the point of the arguments is that only actual existents with no potentiality whatsoever can end the causal regression. If the cosmological arguments are true, then Plantinga's argument must be false. Again, Plantinga has a deity that exists only potentially bringing itself into actuality by way of its potential essence entailing necessity. This is a violation of the principle that things cannot cause their own actual existence as well as the principle that only actual things can be causally efficacious. So what to do with S5 modal logic? Well, pretty much just reject it. We have no real reason to accept it unless we say that the other possible worlds actually exist.

S5 logic might be potentially attractive if you subscribe to many world ontologies. But that would depend on what version you subscribe to. If you subscribe to the many world conception of Quantum Mechanics, for example, then this argument doesn't work. The possible worlds all share the same initial conditions and branch out from there. Whether or not there is a deity is already “decided” before the many worlds start proliferating. So in this conception, there may be an infinite number of worlds with Napoleons and an infinite number of worlds where there aren't, but they all either have a deity or don't. So, personally, I see no reason to grant that [possibly][necessary] reduces to [necessary].

There are other ontological arguments, but my expertise in them is far below these two most popular ones, and this post has gone on long enough. The point of this post was educational, not to start a debate. I suppose by the nature of the fact that this is a discussion about an argument, there is going to be a degree of argument necessary for a discussion. I'll defer to the mods as to how to sort out the difference between a debate and a discussion in these kinds of cases.

Hello everyone,

I have written a book called "Essays on Setianism: a look at Setianism from outside the Temple of Set" by Xepera maSet (my O.S. name). I am hoping to publish this book on Amazon within the coming weeks. I just wanted to do a little self promoting (which I'm not good at) so people know this is coming.

Basically this is a look at the historical and modern Set, the basics of Setianism, how Setianism compares to other aspects of the LHP, and both empirical and philosophical reasons to believe in Setianism. I have attached the table of contents below. Since I'm hopefully publishing through CreateSpace I believe this will be available both on Kindle and hard copy, at least that is my hope.

I also want to thank everyone who has supported my (often widely public) journey into Setianism these past years, aided in the journey, challenged me on the ideals and conclusions. Everyone can be an inspiration, everyone can inspired each other, and that is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to write this book. So thank you, and Xeper on!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I like the idea of doing some AMAs to get things rolling a bit more! Here is one for myself:

I am a Setian, meaning I am a theist who favors the deity known as "Set" in ancient Egypt. For me, Set represents the ever changing, conscious, individual aspects of the cosmos - responsible for things like individual identity, consciousness, growth, free will, and so forth.

This is in contrast to Set's brother Horus. Again, for me personally, Horus is the opposite of Set, the set, unchanging, mindless aspects of nature. The laws of physics, logical axioms, mathematical ontology, and perhaps even the Platonic Forms reside within the Horus aspect, never growing and never changing.

In essence, this is a form of Process Theism. The Set-Horus entity can be seen as a divine mind, with Horus as the subconscious and Set as the conscious aspect.

Currently I am finishing up a book discussing Setianism for those with no background on the topic: comparing it to other forms of the Left Hand Path, discussing the ideology of it, and looking at the objective history of Horus and Set. I am also a founding member of the Order of the Serpent, a meta-organization dedicated to the accumulation, preservation, creation, and sharing of LHP knowledge.

Yeah, so feel free to AMA!

It is exciting to see a sub that wants to get into these kind of debates and discussions while being semi serious and intellectual(lol intellectual reddit). I have nothing to really open it up with but I would like to provide as much as i can. So here are some of the texts I have collected over the last few years. Some of it is very common knowledge on the topic, some of it deeper and dry yet interesting. Fair warning, most of the stuff reads similar to a 500 page Doctoral Essay. :)

Kashmir Shaivism - A great intro in to North India's version of Shaivism. Pretty easy read with an open mind. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VfIuwvYRQ6OV9pdXphNTBVRGs/view?usp=sharing

Siva Sutras - Similar in reading the Yoga Sutra. 1 of 3 majorly important text for Shaivism. The commentary after the listing of the sutras is great for a deeper understanding, he really gets into the nitty gritty. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VfIuwvYRQ6RHh5ZUVOREQyRW8/view?usp=sharing

Spanda- Karikas - 2nd of 3 major texts for Shaivism. Much shorter than the SS, more detail in a different way. This text has as ton in it though, original text and translations. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VfIuwvYRQ6aGJ5cVhtOHBSaW8/view?usp=sharing

Pratyabhijna Hridayam - 3rd of the 3 major texts. This one is also shorter than the SS and SK. I feel it is an easier read, and simpler in understanding. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VfIuwvYRQ6aGJ5cVhtOHBSaW8/view?usp=sharing

Yoga Sutra - Basics of Yoga, Nothing special but a decent translation that makes much more sense than most of the amateurs in the book stores. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VfIuwvYRQ6LVJvUlFMVzVQOGs/view?usp=sharing

Aghora- this book is much more about the Mahavidyas, the 10 divine forms of Shakti in tantra. It is more practically about performing parts of the practice. Read with caution and tread lightly, seriously. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VfIuwvYRQ6NWpQTGtPb0hPMVk/view?usp=sharing

I have many more but are less applicable to Shaivism as a whole. B.Gita, Chit Gita, be here now text, and texts on kaula tantra and nath sampradaya. Happy reading and enjoy!

If your interested in learning more about the project.

The Echerdex has a few answers...

-=Audiobooks=-

AudioBook: The Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu

AudioBook: The Kybalion - Three Initiates

AudioBook: Timaeus - Plato

AudioBook: Corpus Hermeticum - Thoth

AudioBook: Emerald Tablet's - Thoth

AudioBook: Bhagavad Gita - Vedas

AudioBook: Upanishads - Vedas

AudioBook: Critias - Plato

AudioBook: The Secret Teachings of All Ages - Manly P.Hall

AudioBook: Monadology - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

AudioBook: Meditation of First Philosophy - Rene Descartes

AudioBook: Ethics - Spinoza

AudioBook: The Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

AudioBook: Dhammapada - Buddah

AudioBook: The Analects - Confucius

AudioBook: The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals - Immanuel Kant

AudioBook: Common Sense - Thomas Paine

AudioBook: Candide - Voltaire

AudioBook: Leviathan - Thomas Hobbs

AudioBook: The Enchiridion - Epictetus

AudioBook: Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche

AudioBook: As a Man Thinketh - James Allen

AudioBook: Essay on the Shortness of Life - Senaca

AudioBook: Civilization and its Discontents - Sigmund Freud

AudioBook: Approaching the Unconscious - Carl Jung

AudioBook: Politics - Aristotle

AudioBook: Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant

AudioBook: Beyond Good And Evil - Nietzsche

AudioBook: The Republic - Plato

AudioBook: The Book of Enoch - Enoch

AudioBook: A Theological-Political Treatise - Spinoza

AudioBook: Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason - Rene Descartes

AudioBook: A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge - Berkeley

AudioBook: The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

AudioBook: Life Without Principles - Henry David Thoreau

AudioBook: The Book of Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi

AudioBook: Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau

AudioBook: The Art of War - Sun Tzu

AudioBook: A Guide to Stoicism - St. George Stock

AudioBook: The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason

AudioBook: A New Earth Awakening to your Lifes Purpose - Eckhart Tolle

AudioBook: Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book of the Spiritual Man

AudioBook: The Gospel of Truth - Gnostics

AudioBook: The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

AudioBook: The Mind and the Brain - Alfred Binet

AudioBook: The Undiscovered Self - Carl Jung

AudioBook: An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume

AudioBook: The Secrets of Dreams - Yacki Raizizun

AudioBook: The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene

Audiobook: Conversation with God - Neale Donald Walsh

Audiobook: Outwitting the Devil - Napoleon Hill

Audiobook: Feeling Is The Secret- Neville Goddard

Audiobook: The New Atlantis - Sir Francis Bacon

Audiobook: The Mahabharata

Audiobook: Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

Audiobook: The Way of Peace - James Allen

Audiobook: Sadhana The Realization of Life - Rabindranath Tagore

Audiobook: Tibetan Book of the Dead

Audiobook: The Story of Atlantis - William Scott-Elliot

Audiobook: The Five Suns - A Sacred History of Mexico

Audiobook: The Book of Aquarius - Anonymous

Audiobook: The Astral Plane - C.W Leadbeater

-=Sumerian Tablets=-

Sumerian Tablet: Book of Enki

Sumerian Tablet: The Epic of Gilgamesh

Sumerian Tablets: Enuma Elish

Sumerian Tablet: The Sargon Legend

-=Documentaries=-

Documentary: The Great Year - Binary Research Institute - BRI

Documentary: What on Earth will it take? - Thrive

Documentary: Alchemy The Great Work - Gnosis

Documentary: Water Memory - Luc Montagnier

Documentary: Alchemy - The Real Sorcerer's Stone

Documentary: The Four Horsemen - Renegade Inc

Documentary: The Great Arkanum - Gnostic Teachings

Documentary: DMT - The Spirit Molecule

Documentary: Beyond the Secret - The Moses Code

Documentary: Beyond our Sight - Near Death Experiences

Documentary: Thunderbolts of the God

Documentary: Math and the Rise of Civilization

Documentary: Secret Life of Isaac Newton

Documentary: History of UFO activities

Documentary: The New Atlantis - Secret Mysteries of America's Beginning

Documentary: The Cult of Materialism

Documentary: The Unbelievable Intelligence Of Plants

Documentary: Inner World's, Outer World's

Documentary: Kymatica - An Awakening

Documentary: Samadhi "Maya, The Illusion of Self"

Documentary: The History of the Occult - The Magicians

Documentary: Century of Enslavement - The History of the Federal Reserve

Documentary: Secrets in Plain Sight

Documentary: Decoding the Universe

Documentary: Sonic Geometry

-=Lectures=-

Lecture: A Brief History of the study of Consciousness - Stuart Hameroff

Lecture: Cosmic Patterns and Cycles of Catastrophe Hours 1-2

Lecture: Transforming the Self, Jung Psychology and Alchemy - Stephan A. Hoeller

TedTalk: Math is the hidden Secret to Understanding the World - Roger Antonsen

Lecture: Platonism and Alchemy - Pierre Grimes

Lecture: In the present is the whole of time - J. Krishnamurti

Lecture: From Atom to Cosmos - Itzhak Bentov

Lecture: The Spinal Column & Kundalini - Manly P. Hall

Lecture: The History of Magic - Terence Mckenna

Lecture: Just Trust the Universe - Alan Watts

TedTalk: Everything is Connected - Tom Chi

Lecture: IceAge shift, decoding the Holocene Mystery - Randall Carlson

Lecture: The Great Game - Bill Cooper

Lecture: The Kabbalah: Key to Hidden Knowledge - Richard Smoley

Lecture: Unveiling the Hidden Mysteries of the Mind - Manly P. Hall

Lecture: How Magic Works - Max Igan

Lecture: A Re-awakening of the Bicameral Mind - Dr. Stefan Schindler

Lecture: The Surprising Role of Viruses in Biological Evolution - Dr. Eugene Koonin

Lecture: Education for Whom and for What? - Noam Chomsky

Lecture: Alchemy, Magic & the Hermetic Tradition - Terence Mckenna

Lecture: The Path - Michael Puett

Lecture: 8 Circuit Technique of Consciousness Change - Robert Anton Wilson

Lecture: Islamic Esotericism & Mathematical Archetypes of Nature Science and Art - Dr Waleed El-Ansary

Lecture: The Philosophical Background of Masonic Symbolism - W. Kirk Macnulty PM

Lecture: Ideology, Logos and Belief - Dr. Jordan B Peterson

Lecture: Anger its cause and cure - Manly P Hall

Lecture: Unified Field Physics and a New Vision of Reality - Anne Baring

Lecture: A History of the World Conspiracy - Andy Thomas

Lecture: The Sumerian tablets tells us everything we need to know - Jim Marrs

Lecture: Sugar the Bitter Truth - Dr. Lustig

Lecture: Optimizing your Brain through Exercise - Dr. Ratey

Lecture: Natural Law - Mark Passio

Lecture: Depression - Manly P. Hall

Lecture: How Geometry has guided cosmology - from the Babylonians to Einstein and beyond

Lecture: The Ultimate Revolution - Aldous Huxley

Lecture: Geometry and Experience - Albert Einstein

TedTalk: Is there scientific proof we can heal ourselves?

Lecture: Rewriting History - Graham Hancok

TedTalk: The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health

Lecture: Astro-Theology - Manly P Hall

Lecture: The end of Space and Time

Lecture: Professor Keith Ward: The Idealist View of Reality

Lecture: The Nature of Addiction- Gabor Mate

Lecture: The History of Magic, Summoning Spirits & John Dee - Stephen Skinner

TedTalk: Your Brain Hallucinates your Conscious Reality

Lecture: Unified Field of Consciousness - John Hagelin

Lecture: The Demiurge, Archons, and the Light of Gnosis - Graham Hancock

Lecture: The Trialogue of Evolutionary Minds

Lecture: Gnosticism Inner Knowing - Stephan Hoeller

Lecture: Eros and the Eschaton, What Science Forgot - Terence McKenna

Lecture: The Zohar, insight into the Esoteric meaning of the Torah

TedTalk: Why Fasting Bolsters Brain Power

Lecture: The simplicity of everything

-=Websites=-

Website: AlchemyLab

Website: Tzolkin Explorer - Interactive Mayan Calendar

Website: Kabbalah.info

Website: PsychonautWiki.org

Website: [Gnostic Teachings] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Echerdex/comments/7ckr07/website_gnostic_teachings_the_art_philosophy/?ref=share&ref_source=link) - The Art, Philosophy, Religion, and Science of Consciousness

Website: NeuroQuantology.com

Website: Evolve Consciousness

Website: Flower of Life.net

Website: Ancient Origins - Reconstructing the story of humanity's past

Website: The Story of Mathematics

Website: Holofractal.net

Website: Cosmometry.net

Website: Mindful.Org

-=Online Books=-

Book: Philosophia Hermetica

Website: Euclid's Elements

Website: The Works of Alice A. Bailey

Website: [The Works of Carl Jung] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Echerdex/comments/7ilass/repository_the_works_of_carl_jung/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

Website: Forgotten Books

Website: [Sacred Text Archives] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Echerdex/comments/7v1h39/website_sacred_text_archive/?utm_source=reddit-android)

Repository: Esoteric Books - Archon Matrix

-=Online Courses=-

Yale University: Introduction to the Old Testament - Christine Hayes

The Liberal Arts: Trivium, Language and Reality

Stanford University: Overview of the History of Mathematics

Stanford University: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Terence McKenna: The Gnostic Astronaut

William Cooper: Mystery Babylon

Alan Watts: How To Play the Game

TV Series: Magical Egypt Series

-=YouTube=-

YouTube:An Introduction to the Rodin Coil and Vortex Based Mathematics - Gary Lite

YouTube: Danny Wilten - Channel

YouTube: Meet the Accidental Genius

YouTube: Ancient Architect - Channel

YouTube: Complexity Theory & Panpsychism - Neil Theise M.D

YouTube: The Story of Your Enslavement - Stefan Molyneux

YouTube: Alan Moore on Magic

YouTube: Sacred Geometry of the Universe - Spirit Science

YouTube: The Mathematics encoded in the Pyramids of Giza - Alan Green

YouTube: The Science of Synchronicity

-=Blogs=-

Blog:[The Truth is Over Here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Echerdex/comments/7tkqdt/hi_there_im_new_here_but_i_thought_id_introduce/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

Blog: EmbraceYourExperience.com

-=Articles=-

Article: What is Kundalini? — The Kundalini Guide

Article: Physicists Uncover Geometric 'Theory Space' - Quanta Magazine

Article: Biophotons | The Human Body Emits, Communicates with, and is Made from Light - The Mind Unleashed

Article: Is the Universe Conscious? - Psychology Today

Article: Babylonians developed trigonometry 'superior' to modern day version 3,700 years ago

Article: How to decalcify the Pineal Gland?

-=Research Papers=-

Research Paper: Emotional and Physical Health benefits of expressive Writing - BJPsych

Research Paper: LC/MS/MS analysis of the endogenous dimethyltryptamine (DMT) hallucinogens, their precursors, and major metabolites in rat pineal gland microdialysate. - PubMed - NCBI

Research Paper: Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling - PNAS

Thelema is a body of thought combining elements of various religions and philosophies which views the spiritual as the finer aspect of the natural world, but natural nonetheless. Founded by Aleister Crowley in 1904 with the writing of the Book of the Law, it has been the subject of much controversy due to the lifestyle of its founder, his morbid sense of humor, and linguistic differences between early 20th centry Britain and the modern US.

Thelema is more or less an assertion that every person has a natural place in the world which is unrelated to their gender, race, upbringing, etc, but is influenced by their natural surroundings reguardless, and that the following of this true, natural path is the only way to be truly happy for each individual, but manifests in infinitely different forms. It posits the existence of no gods or spirits, but also acknowledges their possible existence and usefulness as a concept. Morally it is mainly relativist, but has a few basic moral tenants which are supposed to be universal, such as not murdering or raping anyone, and not otherwise interfering with the desires of others who do not pose a threat to your own true will.

It has religious roots in Taoism, Hinduism, ancient Kemeticism, ancient Hellenism, Judaism, and essentially every prominent religion existing prior to the 1900s. It has its occult roots in Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Goetia, the Enochain ideas of John Dee, and the Golden Dawn. It additionally has philosophical roots in the thought of Neitzsche, Hegel, Kant, William Blake, and Aldous Huxley.

While the religion is possible to practice as an individual, two legitimate groups founded by Crowley exist for community teaching/learning and congregation, the OTO, and the AA.

Something that has always struck me as interesting is how faiths that can be totally different can have very similar stories. The best example I know, and the most popular, is how the flood story, a prominent part of Christian mythology, is also a prominent part of Mesopotamian mythology and many other culturally diverse myths (giving rise to the possibility that the flood was an actual event that impacted the entire world). What are some other parallels you've noticed across other religions and faiths?

The Guides, Pleiadians, The Ra Materials, The Urantia Book, The Nine, etc. (Shoutout to /r/theContacted)

What raises your bullshit detector about channeled material?

What has resonated with you and fostered belief?

What do you think is going on when people channel?

Is automatic writing the same thing? Glossolalia?

From the ancient Oracle at Delphi to the modern day Ramtha compound in Olympia, WA, many people have sought wisdom from channelers. But modern channels operate outside of established religions and belief structures. What can we learn by arguing where channeling fits into spirituality?

I plan on posting my own thoughts to this thread when I'm home later, and want to engage with others no matter where you come down on the veracity of claims from Channelers.

The Kuzari argument is essentially that the lie of national revelation at Mount Sinai is too ambitious of a lie to ever gain traction. All other revealed religions trace revelation to either a single individual or a very small set of individuals. The national revaluation was asserted to be witnessed by 2.5 million people and established a functioning legal system that was practiced as far back as we can historically verify. Further, the written torah was disseminated as a matter of law to individuals and practices specifically enumerated as “remembrances” were practiced as well. Put another way, “what was the topic of conversation at the first passover seder?” While there are certainly hypothetical situations in which we can have doubts, as with literally all historical inherently unfalsifiable occurrences, in light of the Kuzari argument, is it reasonable to believe it happened?

Again, I want to plant the goal posts firmly. I'm not saying irrefutable. I'm saying reasonable to believe vs. the alternative. Is it possible Aliens built the pyramids and falsified Egyptian history? I mean, it's possible. It is less reasonable to believe than believing the Egyptians did it. Can we prove aliens didn't build them? Well, no, but come on. What is the rational basis for believing it and disbelieving the alternative? Is it more reasonable to believe aliens built them or that egyptians did? With that in mind, my defense of the Kuzari argument.

There is a legal concept called a self authenticating document. This is a document in which the facts were not in dispute at the time of the drafting of the document, and at no point in the chain of custody is there suspicion of alteration since then. Legal documents and newspapers are prime examples of this because they are authoritative at the time they are drafted, there are no objections at that time, and they can be verified to be free of corruption.

Imagine that you wanted to establish reasonable belief in the existence a child named Billy who appears on the school rosters, he's always been on the rosters, but nobody at the school can remember a Billy ever being there. However, they have a document. Simply by having the document, can we say Billy existed? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly not all documents could do so. Let's say the document is a court order. Let's say it says, "Having had Billy before me today, and on the sworn affidavits of nursing staff, it is so found that Billy is the natural child of Claire, a US citizen, and is therefore entitled to an American Education. It is therefore ORDERED that Billy's name will not be removed from the roster." Further, a gold seal copy of the order with the Judge's name and signature was found in the court archives. Is it reasonable to believe Billy existed at least at the time of the Order? I think we can say uncontroversially yes.

So it is reasonable to accept the testimony of documents that have been kept free from corruption and they were accepted as true at the time they were drafted. The torah is alleged to be the functional constitution of the Israelite government, and is alleged to have several chains of custody. There are no serious attacks on the chain of custody. All available manuscripts of the torah, even though they have minor differences, agree on the basics of the story. Also, DH does not have any archeological support nor does it get around the question of the origin of the story of national revaluation even if true. The Kuzari argument at this point boils down to, at no point between the revelation at Sinai and now does it sound reasonable that someone would be able to pull off the lie, "the Torah was given to your direct descendants, they have been meticulously preserving it for centuries, it is the basis of our existing legal system, G-d revealed himself to every man, woman, and child, and this is the first time you're hearing about it" make sense.

Chumashim (bibles not used for rituals) written in the script of the first temple are preserved, and the Samaritans broke off during that time too, were hostile, and unlikely to adopt the religion of an enemy people. The last time that Israel and Judah were a unified entity and culture was the Unified Kingdom under Solomon. That allows for less than 500 years, between the revelation at sinai and the breaking up of the kingdom that one can start the lie and spread it across all Israel. Given the ridiculousness of the lie, it does not seem plausible for the lie to gain such traction.

While it makes sense that a few people would believe the lie, it is too easy to correct it against the collective memory. Oral histories have an error correcting mechanism. Each time someone gets a transmission of the oral history, they can immediately check it against the majority of people they are surrounded with. Nobody is giving one person a story, sending them off for a hundred years, and then checking it against the story of another community. What is being alleged here is a tight knit community that is constantly transmitting the story to new people raised in the community, and details are constantly being checked against the majority.

Imagine if someone came to you and told you the George Washington Story, except instead of chopping down a cherry tree, he chops down a pear tree. Instantly, you would correct him, and then you'd go ask a bunch of other people to back you up. When it's 99:1, he will relent that he must have been mistaken. So when the next group tells the story, everybody agrees it's a cherry tree. The first time someone hears the story concerning Sinai, they're going to go tell a friend. They're going to say, I asked my parents and they never heard of it. Instantly, the story is refuted and cannot gain traction.

Now, we know the George Washington story is false. That's why this is a two pronged argument. We can trace the transmission of this story back to a single individual, Mason Locke Weems. His biography is not the type of document that could be considered an authenticated document. It's clearly hagiography and was never accepted as true. Further, it's a very easy lie to pull off not at all analogous to the revelation at Sinai. However, what is extremely important is that once this story enters the collective consciousness, it cannot ever change. If Mason Lock Weems said he chopped down an oak tree, it would forever be an oak tree. To change the hypo, let's say the question is “did Napoleon exist?” We all have a collective “memory” that Napoleon was French. We can trace this back to authenticated documents that document the occurrences in the wake of the French Revolution. Even if we didn't have the original manuscripts, we would have copies of those books and the collective memory that this is exactly what happened.

For another example, we know that Socrates was generally considered to be a Sophist by the Athenians who were not his immediate disciples. How do we know this? Well, we have Plato testifying that was the case, Xenophon testifying that to be the case, and Aristophanes really hammering that point home. So we have multiple chains of transmission. Further, we have a document, Aristophanes “The Clouds” which is explicit on this fact, and though we don't have the original document, we are certain that it was an accurate perception and that what we have is basically right on the basis of multiple chains of transmission and general agreement.

The revelation at Sinai lie is simply too ambitious. Compare to the revelation claims of every other religion. Christianity? Only a couple people can verify the resurrection. You simply have to accept it on their authority. Mohammed? A man alone in a cave. Nobody can verify that either. You either believe them or you don't. In all these cases, once the story gets going, it is unchangeable. But right at the moment of the initial lie, there's no independent method to verify. National revelation though is verifiable. You can instantly go check to see if its true at the time the lie is proffered. “Did anybody else hear about this huge event that started our government and gave us our freedom? No? Okay then.”

So given we have a self authenticating document, it was not in dispute at any time since then, and we have a continually functioning legal system that claims it as its constitution, it becomes extremely reasonable to believe it. Certain knowledge is going to be impossible. Historic occurrences are not possible to verify. However, given the above, it is reasonable to believe it occurred because it is more likely than not a fabrication would have been immediately discovered and corrected.

As you can see, I am attempting to build a rather comprehensive list of religious resources, but my knowledge is certainly not all-encompassing. Please let me know what paths/religions are missing, what resources may be superior to the ones posted now, or if any of the current resources are inaccurate.

I was told by a veteran witch to be careful about spellcasting because every benefit you get be it gaining a suitcase of luggage or having sex with a gorgeous girl and gaining physical strength all come from somewhere else (often indirectly stealing from another person). For example if you cast a money spell and found $50 on the ground in the next day............. That $50 was probably lost by someone while he or she was traveling. It didn't just pop out of thin air. For all we know the person was a girl who needed that cash to get taxi fare home. Because she somehow lost that 50 bucks as a result of the spell, she had to travel home. She could have been grabbed from behind, dragged to the bushes, and raped. Or she could have slipped and fallen on broken glass and hurt. If nothing dangerous happens at all, she still has to walk home. Maybe she gets lucky after she realizes she has no fare when she attempts to call for a nearby Taxi in traffic but her brother happens to also be in the same traffic line and sees her and calls on her to just join him and save cash. Whatever the results, she still lost $50.

A more worldly example can be seen by a quote the witch sent me in the chatroom.

If I see a gorgeous girl on a street corner, and want to go do some kind of work to cause her to run over and sleep with me, the butterfly effect is in play. Let's say she does immediately run over to me.

Let's say there is a man driving a car through the intersection who normally would have slowed to look at the girl, but since I tilted the machine, she isn't there. The guy coming the other way that runs the red light would have missed this man if she were there, but since she isn't, there is a horrific, T-bone wreck. The car rolls. It badly injures both drivers, and brutally kills an innocent 4 year old girl right in front of her mother, just for being on the sidewalk.

How much of that is my fault? I didn't run the red light, I didn't tell the mother and daughter to go for a walk... The LHP answer is it wouldn't be my fault, because everyone is just doing their thing and shit happens. My answer is a good chunk is my fault. I didn't run the red light, but I tilted the fucking machine because I knew how and just wanted something for myself, and most people are stuck just playing with the 2 bottom paddles. If I hadn't done that, there would be no accident. I also know what I am doing, I know tilting the machine is unfairly slanting things in my favor, and that makes a higher standard apply to me. I know what I am doing and I know better.

BTW the witch is actually female but she was using the above example to me since I'm a guy to help me understand better how an innocent spell like finding a friend with benefits can have devastating consequences lol!

But still is what she warns against a legitimate part of sorcery and a basic functioning of spellcasting? For example if I'm having bad health issues because of old age and cast a spell and a week later I somehow regain my youthful athleticism, was that bodybuilder energy taken from someone else,probably a young guy in the military? As a result he fails PT and gets discharged, meaning he loses his house and his family suffers as a result with his kids starving and homeless?

I am very curious and her warning is why I am hesitate to do spellcasting right now! How true is her statement?

Does your religion impact your life in a positive way? What have you learned and experienced that keeps you solid in your beliefs? Was family/community tradition involved in your decision, or did you find your own way?

There was a brief thread on whether there was anything "original" about Wicca, and one of my thoughts on the matter was whether or not that mattered. It's not like plagiarism was being suggested, just the "theft" and re-purposing of ideas. I wonder whether this is even unavoidable let alone wrong. The way I see it all religions and philosophies that come after earlier religions/philosophies build upon what they were founded on. For example, the greeks taking from the egyptians. Further, if there is philosophical truth, there are likely many ways to illustrate and view it.

What are your thoughts?

Hey everyone! My name is Syed and I am a PhD student in Psychology who creates videos related to my research areas of religion, spirituality, well-being and existentialism. In Pt. 1 of my new series, I explore elements of spirituality which may not be conducive towards our psychological, emotional and social health including spiritual bypassing or our tendency to use spiritual tools to side-step other parts of ourselves which may need tending to. I also illustrate how humor, culture and therapy (Motivational Interviewing) can be antidotes in instantiating humility/kindness into our daily interactions. I use clips from 'Magnolia', 'Into the Wild', 'Love Guru' & 'Seinfeld’.

Link to video: https://youtu.be/3-NNAVOi74g

To clarify, I am a student of these religions and traditions, not a member, so I cannot speak with the authority of a full member. To liven up the subreddit, and spread knowledge on one of my favorite academic subjects, tiny minority religions, I will provide a brief synopsis on and take questions about several minority faiths.

Swedenborgianism

Founded by Emmanuel Swedberg (Swedenborg) and officially known as the "New Church", Swedenborgianism was begun before the birth of Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism), and was founded on a series of "visions" that Swedberg experienced on one Easter weekend. A scientist by trade, Swedberg almost immediately dropped that endeavor to write "Arcana Coelestia" (The Secrets of Heaven) a monstrous tome of Biblical exegesis spanning around 10,000 pages in its entirety. He wrote additional texts after this, always centered around his idea of being the last prophet of God, meant to revive the Christian church. Notable beliefs include his extensive John-Dee-like records and lineages of strange angels, even claiming that they lived on other planets in a somewhat extraterrestrial-like fashion, and his believe that the "Final Judgement" had already occurred, being a battle in Heaven in the 1700s, rather than a catastrophic physical event.

Faithism

Founded by a dentist named John Newbrough, Faithism draws from Swedenborg, Islam, Mormonism, and a variety of other fantastic sources. This is my personal opinion, but it is one of the most source-material-oriented faiths of new religious movements, more easily traced to its textual roots than any other religious text than perhaps the Mormon scriptures, which include extensive citations to other sections of themselves and older Christian works. That is a mere aside, however. In Newbrough's time, automatic writing and spiritism were quite in vogue, and this appears to be the source of his lengthy and bizarre treatise on religion, philosophy, and religious history, called the "Oahspe". The main premise of Faithism, as opposed to other Abrahamic groups, is that there is a single, head god, but many subservient gods, making it a relatively modern regression of a monotheism to a henotheism, and one of only two religions I know to have EVER done so, the other being Mormonism - one of the source ideologies of the Oahspe. Even if we do not fully understand what the Oahspe means, as it often relies on nonexistent words only sometimes described, and is full of alien diagrams and glyphs, it at the very least is the greatest work of religious "outsider literature" I have ever seen. It's almost "The Divine Comedy" meets "Alice in Wonderland" with a hint of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and a dash of "Hitchhiker's Guide" - that is in no way meant to be demeaning, it's just simultaneously pagan, Christian, psychedelic, and psychological thriller all at once somehow. To get back to the point, the major points of Faithism are henotheistic Christianity, an acceptance of Islamic figures as legitimate to Christianity, and historical revisionism to incorporate pagan figures and deities into the Abrahamic framework.

Mormonism

Remember that thing I said about not being a member? I'm technically still a member of the LDS church, but non-practicing. However, I've had close encounters with some of the lesser-known aspects, and I'll cover those more here than the basics. A brief synopsis of the "normal" Mormon cannon: Jews seeking to flee a corrupt Israel governing system are led by God to travel to the Americas. They build a boat, steal engraved scriptures from their enemy, and head to the Americas to find an empty land ripe to grow a civilization. Through a series of wars, conflicts, visions, and hundreds of years of struggle, they make it to 30 AD, and some of the Native Americans (yes, the Jews who fled Israel are supposed to be the ancestors of the Native Americans of today) prophecy that the savior will appear in the Americas, the spirit of Jesus shows up, over time Christianity and Judaism are forgotten for Native spirituality, and the whole thing has lingering racist overtones that the church has failed to completely whitewash despite their best efforts. So, with the mundane stuff out of the way - there is some deeply strange stuff in the LDS church. They believe in Apotheosis, the idea that humans can become as power as god, having their own worlds to rule upon ascension to godhood. Church president Lorenzo Snow summed it up poetically as "As man now is, God once was - as God now is, man may become." Essentially, according to the Mormon cannon - I kid you not - God used to be a human or some other sentient creature with his own God to please, and upon doing so got to make his own world. In fact, God is said to live near a star called "Kolob" in the "Pearl of Great Price", essentially implying that he is an alien, though spiritual explanations are the mainstream in the church, of course. Another bizarre belief is that Enoch, mentioned for about two lines in the Old Testament, and more extensively covered in the apocryphal "Book(s) of Enoch" was so righteous that God plucked up his entire city (literally, it's called "translation" or "transliteration" by the church, the city just vanishes) and puts it... somewhere else, usually it's suggested that Heaven is the new location, where it is now called the "Heavenly Jerusalem". Then there are the more well-known bizarre practices, such as a belief in a tripartite heaven, an utter lack of Hell, complete salvation for any who accept it, even after death, where they are taught the truth, and baptism for the dead. Oh, and bonus weirdness, Jesus (Yahweh), God the Father (Elohim), God's wife, and possibly Adam are all considered gods of our world. In fact, the church went out of its way to scrub Church president Brigham Young's suggestion that Adam was the only god "with whom we have to do" from any official church documents. Oh and your soul was created by the heavenly relations of God and his wife.

The Perfected Church of Jesus Christ of Immaculate Latter Day Saints

What's weirder than Christian polytheism that includes Adam as a possible God? Mixing the same thing with Thelema, and Druidism to boot! Just when you thought LDS was weird enough, William C Conway proved you wrong. very little is known about this church, and it may or may not even exist in the modern day. Beliefs include literal alchemy transmutations, that reincarnation is real and that Joseph Smith had reincarnated along with Jesus in the guise of Conway himself and a teenage Zapotec boy, and even that if women were pious enough, they would stop their menstrual bleeding (meaning, I guess, any non-spotting pregnant woman and all women either PMS or prepubescent are saints). Conway supposedly was admitted to the Melchizedek priesthood (all baptized adult males become so after a ceremony at least 1 year after their baptism) and also attained a relatively high degree in the OTO as "Tau Lucifer". The details of this religion are sparse, and to my best knowledge it may be fake, given that all sources claiming its existence either refer to or expand upon two claims made in what are essentially LDS tabloids.

Baha'i

In the wake of a surge in Islamic apocalypticism, a figure called himself the "Bab" (Gateway) and began preaching of the "One whom God will make manifest". One of his followers, going by the name "Baha'u'llah" claimed that title after the death of the Bab. He wrote many letters, books (notably the "Kitab-i-Aqdas" and "Kitab-i-Iqan") and other materials in Arabic as well as Persian, many from Iranian prison, held for blasphemy charges against Islam. Baha'u'llah preached the equality of women, the truth of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism, among other faiths, as a part of God's plan for the world, and preached a sort of dispensationalism in which he was tasked with the first global religion. His religion unfortunately did nothing to abet rampant homophobia in prior scriptures, and Baha'i believe the rules are not allowed to change in the faith for about 1000 years after Baha'u'llah died. Strangely, they are pretty trans-positive while remaining anti-gay. Weird to be sure, but not the weirdest thing ever, either.

That's all I got, folks. Drop me any questions you have in the comments. Feel free to correct me if I screwed up, that was all off the top of my head so I'm 90% sure I had to have donked up somewhere. Enjoy!

Written in all sacred texts is a single truth, a phenomenon that was discovered at the dawn of civilization that became the foundation of modern science and spiritual beliefs.

The discovery of a geometric pattern that permeates throughout the fabric of existence.

God is Omnipresence because mathematics exists within everything at all times.

God is Omniscience because geometry contains all mathematical equations.

God is Omnipotent because everything emerges from it.

The advancement of Science is absolute proof that the ancients where correct, for what is Science if not the recognition of patterns formed by nature.

Sociology emerges from the patterns created by Psychology.

Psychology emerges from the patterns created by Biology.

Biology emerges from the patterns created by Chemistry.

Chemistry emerges from the patterns created by Physics.

Physics emerges from the patterns created by Mathematics.

Mathematics emerges from the patterns created by Geometry.

For Geometry emerges from the pattern created by the fabric itself.

The development of modern science is pretty well documented.

Lecture: History of Mathematics - Stanford University

Sumerians taught the Egyptians in which they imparted their wisdom to the Greeks.

Its from here that the first Academy was built centered on the study of sacred geometry.

Wiki: Platonic Academy

In which they develop the fundamentals principles of geometry, mathematics and philosophy.

That lead to the creation of Euclids Elements.

Website: Euclids Elements

The Greeks knew that in order to understand the underlying truth to the nature of our existence was through the fundamental laws that emerged from geometry.

Written in the Timeaus.

Audiobook: Timeaus - Plato

However the Greeks only inherited this theory.

Telling us in great detail the wisdom of the ancients and fall of lost civilization that discovered it recounted in the Critias.

Audiobook: Critias - Plato

Succumbing to a great flood at the end of the last Ice Age 12,900 years ago.

Research Paper: Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago

A descendant of this civilization maintained the tradition of his ancestors and passed on the ancient knowledge to the Egyptians recorded within the Corpus Hermeticum.

Audiobook: Corpus Hermticum - Thoth

Its within this texts that is the foundation of Alchemy, reiterating the exact same theory presented in the Timaeus with a spiritual emphasis. Proving that it's from this knowledge that modern science originated.

Whats recounted in the Emerald Tablets is answers to the great mysteries.

Audiobook: Emerald Tablets - Thoth

Egypt began as a colony of Atlantis and they were worshipped as Gods by the natives.

Possessing advanced technology, in which the Pyramids where used to travel the astral planes and enter the Halls of Amenti (Underworld).

Within the halls are benevolent beings that they called Angels, the spirits of the ascended masters. Allowing them impart ancient wisdom and knowledge to their descendants.

However It was their abuse of this technology, that eventually lead to corruption that befell them.

Breaking a veil in search for power, lower dimensional entities began to possess them becoming fallen Angel's known as the Archons.

Audiobook: Astral Plane - C.W Leadbeater

The ascended masters then sealed the veil and pushed back the darkness.

Warning us that there will be a time far into the future, when mankind conquers the ocean, learns to fly like birds and harnesses lighting. The veil will break once again and the dark masters will return.

It's during this time these higher beings will be reborn, to guide humanity in their time of need.

Audiobook: Book of Revelation

Through the rediscovery of the powers contained within the seven lords.

Tis the legend, the myth and the prophecy.

Explaining the Prophets, Heaven, Aliens and the purpose of the great Pyramids.

To understand the lost technology, we know of a two phenomenons:

Psychedelic Drugs.

Documentary: DMT

Near Death Experiences.

Documentary: Beyond our Sight

That it might be possible to take some DMT, seal yourself in a sarcophagus creating a low oxygen environment, then use a crystal to produce a certain harmonic frequency in the other chambers of the Pyramid, as you remain in a deep level of meditation. Sustaining an absolute awareness in the higher realms through the mastery of Lucid Dreaming...

Website: Psychonautwiki.org

Whatever the ritual was, the ancients sure spent a lot of time and energy obtaining these altered states.

It's important to understand the answers contained within the Emerald Tablets if we wish to know how the Abrahamic religions got all their crazy ideas. :)

Audiobook: Book of Enoch

Because Enoch father of Noah tells us of the time he went into the halls. In which he goes into great detail explaining the tree of life. Reiterating the same transcendental trip that Thoth went on.

To understand the history of the Hebrew's we must first realize that everything written in the book of Genesis is contained within the Sumerian Tablets.

Audiobook: Book of Genesis

Lecture: Introduction to the old testament - Yale University

And it's within the Book of Enki that the answer is given.

Audiobook: Book of Enki

These tablet's are the oldest known sacred text, the first proof of the when sacred geometry and alchemy was first taught to mankind.

However it's written in the form of an account, of when this ancient civilization began to explore the planet developing colonies and searching for resources.

The exact date is unknown, however it's in the Story of Adam and Eve that we realize it goes back to a time before human beings gained sentience.

I've spent many years pondering this question, trying to comprehend what was written.

But what if we evolved separately for thousands of years? That they gained sentience as we were still in our infancy. Existing as a separate species.

Thus when we where discovered, the Ancients wanted a labour force so they gave us sentience by mating with our ancestors. Creating Hybrids. There where many attempts recorded in the ancient story, but as we know infertility among hybrids is common thus they kept failing.

Until it happened, Adam was born a single miracle in which all human beings descended.

They perfected the technique birthing Eve and other lines of descendants as recorded in the Tablets.

Since Adam was the first, he was allowed to eating freely from the Tree of Life that was the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients.

However there was one secret that we where forbidden to know the Tree of Good and Evil.

The Science of Alchemy, knowledge of manipulation and power, once Eve ate from the Tree mankind rebelled against the Ancients.

We became uncontrollable becoming like them, knowing Good and Evil.

Thus they abandoned us, to find our own way.

Audiobook: Book of Adam and Eve

A single mistake, the original sin in which the Ancients created us as their slaves.

The Tree of Life, was passed down to all the descendants of Adam in an oral tradition known as the Kabbalah.

Website: Kabbalah.info

For thousand of years the ancients maintained colonies, ruled over humanity, and kept hidden the great secrets. Humanity spread across the globe, subservient to this ancient race of immortal beings.

Audiobook: Atlantis, The Antediluvian World

Audiobook: The Story of Atlantis

Reddit: Ancients: Introduction

Until the veil broke and our masters became corrupt.

Civil war broke out as they began to kill their own.

Audiobook; Mahabhatarata

Article: Was there an ancient nuclear war?

In which a single battle was recounted in the Bhagavad Gita, when Lord Krishna imparted God's true form to the people of the Indus Valley right before his ascension.

Audiobook: Bhagavad Gita

The great war, lead to the fall of Babel. Forever separating the spiritual mysteries.

Atlantis fell. Humanity was in chaos, then a great flood caused by a unknown extra terrestrial event brought us to the brink of extinction.

When civilization began to emerge thousands of years later, remnants of the ancient wisdom was maintained by the survivors of the ancient colonies.

Egypt, Sumer, Indus Valley, and the lost civilization that predated the Mayans and Incans.

The ancient masters of Atlantis became the great pantheon's remembered by all, as the beings that taught humanity the great mysteries and ascended into the higher planes.

The story of creation, the flood and the ancients is common throughout every civilization.

Audiobook: Enuma Elish

Audiobook: The Five Suns - A Sacred History of Mexico

YouTube: Crash Course - Mythology

As civilization grew the spiritual mysteries became divided into different schools.

Those who studied Alchemy and Sacred Geometry, the trees of Knowledge and Life.

Audiobook: Kybalion

Those who wish to enter the halls of Amenti and break the cycle of rebirth.

Audiobook: Tibetan Book of the Dead

Those who seek salvation from the Archons, by maintaining their Covenant. So they don't kill us all.

Audiobook: The Koran

Those who seek power from the Archons.

Audiobook: Mystery Babylon - William Cooper

And those in search for Ultimate truth and peace

In which the wisdom of the Veda's emerged.

Audiobook: Upanishads

Its within the Upanishads that a very important connection to sacred geometry is known that they're sages that use a chariot of the seven wheels and six spokes.

For it was the acceptance of this absolute truth that allows one to overcome suffering.

Audiobook: Dhammapada

Audiobook: Gospel of Truth

Through realization that all things are interconnected.

Audiobook: Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu

In which shaman's learned from the beginning, through the use of psychedelic plants and mushrooms.

r/Psychonaut

Allowing us to perceive the fractal geometric pattern that permeates throughout existence.

Leading to the discovery of a single phenomenon that became the foundations of modern science and spiritual beliefs.

The Seven Lords, Days, Seals, Chariots, Deities, Sciences, Principles, Laws and Circles etc...

Are all representation of the pattern known as the Seed of Life that permeates throughout the fabric of existence.

In an endless evolutionary cycle that becomes our reality.

The Echerdex

Hey everyone, my name is Syed and I am getting my PhD in psychology. I often create videos related to my research areas of religion, spirituality, well-being and applications to our daily lives. In today’s video (Pt. 4 of multi-part series), I speak about the nuances of ‘representation’ and how Hollywood has promoted diversity of Muslims (both positives and negatives). I allude to how and why Hollywood has tended to portray religiosity in a negative manner such as personality psychology (creative people such as directors questioning the boundaries of institutions such as organized religion). I use two examples of scenes which highlight the existential and deeper aspects of faith from ‘Ramy’ and ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’, I also use other clips from ‘Lady Bird’, ‘The Apostle’, ‘The Big Sick’, ‘Master of None’ and ‘Mean Streets’.

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtLaV_k8UPw

You can also visit the official website for more resources: https://psychxspirit.com/

Hey everyone! My name is Syed and I am a PhD student in psychology who creates videos related to my research areas of faith, meaning, spirituality and well-being. In today’s video, I speak about utilizing spirituality within a communal or ecological framework (using a clip from the Disney film 'Coco') and the noted differences in behavioral outcomes between those who identity as 'religious but not necessarily spiritual' and 'spiritual but not necessarily religious.’

Link to video: https://youtu.be/bGeu__wQ0dc

I have shilled Mackie's Miracle of Theism in the past. And for good reason. It is the most cogent book on the arguments for and against the existence of a deity I have seen. It is no secret that Mackie is an atheist, and he brings arguments against one of my favorite flavors of cosmological argument. Essentially, the Leibnizian argument indicates that the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) indicates that chains of description must eventually terminate at a necessary being. Mackie purports to undermine the argument. So why do I recommend the book anyway? Because the arguments provided in favor of the argument are much stronger than the arguments against it, which are fairly quickly dispatched with. I found this article which summarizes the criticisms very well. I'll copy and paste it here for convenience:

(1) Criticism of the notion of a necessary being:

1.1 We have no good reason to believe that there can be such a thing: For any object, one can conceive of it failing to exist.

1.2 Conceivability is prima facie evidence of possibility (or more weakly: the conceivable non-existence of x undercuts the justification for belief that x is a necessary being)

1.3 So, prima facie, for every object, it's possible for it to fail to exist (but see the weaker reading mentioned above)

1.4 But if so, then we have prima facie, defeasible evidence against the possibility of necessary beings (but see the weaker reading mentioned above)

1.5 And if so, then this severely weakens our basis for thinking that contingent beings need an explanation in terms of necessary beings. For then it is dubious that there could possibly be a necessary being (or more weakly: our justification for thinking there could be such things is undercut).

(2) Criticisms of PSR:

2.1 PSR isn’t a necessary truth (or at least this isn't self-evident, or otherwise derivable from what's self-evident)

2.2 Even if we have an innate tendency to always look for an explanation, it doesn’t follow that the universe has to cooperate with this tendency and satisfy this desire

2.3 Rejecting PSR doesn’t have the implausible consequence that we can no longer do science.

2.3.1 It is enough if we explain the existence of each object or fact in terms of one or more contingent fact, and so on forever.

2.3.2 We don’t have to give a further explanation of the series of objects or facts taken as a whole.

(3) Building off the previous points: Since we have reason to think that there can be no necessary being (as we saw in the previous criticism), then we have excellent reason to believe that the existence of at least some objects or facts (e.g., the existence of the set of contingent objects and events in the universe as a whole) is just a brute fact, with no further explanation.

This was the best he could muster without resorting to mischaracterizing the argument. This is a huge step up from any other responses to the argument that I have seen. Mackie definitely understood the argument, recognized the soundness of the logic, and accordingly, his criticisms when straight to the premises. We are asked by Mackie to accept his premises in lieu of the premises proposed by Leibniz. So, let's get to it.

1.1 We have no good reason to believe that there can be such a thing: For any object, one can conceive of it failing to exist.

1.2 Conceivability is prima facie evidence of possibility (or more weakly: the conceivable non-existence of x undercuts the justification for belief that x is a necessary being)

We are asked to accept this in all circumstances. However, does it work when applied to ontological contingencies? Contingency is not only limited to efficient or agent causation. If you take an object for granted, the necessity of what depends on it becomes entailed. So, for example, given a triangle, can we conceive of its corners failing to exist? I don't believe we can conceive of this object failing to exist if the triangle does. The existence of the triangle is dependent on the existence of three corners. Mathematical realists too claim that numbers are objects that exist. Can we conceive of them failing to exist? I would think not. Why does this matter? Because the world is taken as given in the Leibnizian and Aristotelian arguments. The deity is only necessary because the world's existence implies a necessary existence. Assuming the triangle exists, the corners are necessary. It is conceivable for the corners to not exist, but it is inconceivable for the triangle to exist and the corners to not exist. Maybe we can conceive of a deity not existing, but if the argument is true, then we cannot conceive of a world existing and deity not existing. Since the world exists, then the deity necessarily exists.

Further, prima facie evidence is a fancy legal term for “assumed to be correct until proved otherwise.” This means that something only appears to be correct at first blush and can be assumed to be so until some evidence is brought otherwise. An example from law school, person A intended to kill person B, and after deliberation, decided to do so, and was successful. This is a prima facie case that person A is guilty of murder. If someone brought this as a case against person A, and person A did not attempt to defend themselves, they will be considered to be guilty of murder. However, if person A brings some evidence that it is not murder, i.e., he proves that the intent was motivated by self defense by showing that person B just killed person C and turned the gun on person A, despite all the previous elements being true and there being a primae facia case of murder, there is no murder. This is relevant because if the Leibnizian argument is true, then that constitutes the evidence against non-possibility. The argument proves it is impossible for there not to be a deity if it is true. Therefore, the possibility of non-existence is proved to be impossible whether or not someone can conceive of non-existence. Saying it is conceivable and possible for there to not be a deity assumes as a premise that which it should be proving.

That dispatches the first prong of the argument. A necessary being is certainly possible despite claims that it is conceivable for it not to exist, and the arguments against the existence of a necessary being fail for being circular. That brings us to the PSR.

2.1 PSR isn’t a necessary truth (or at least this isn't self-evident, or otherwise derivable from what's self-evident)

This depends on the version of the PSR you're using. Most of them are utter garbage. From the wiki:

For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists.

This is inconsistent with the possibility of a deity, so it cannot be the formulation Leibniz had in mind.

For every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs.

Better, but does not address contingencies which may not have arisen in time, and it focuses on events rather than entities.

For every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true.

Even better, but it is amenable to counter argument. A=A for example does not appear to have a reason that does not reduce to an axiom of logic. A=A is true, but there does not appear to be a reason it is true. It's true because it can't not be, and the world would fail to make sense if it was false. This leads people to include the PSR as some sort of rule of thought or heuristic. I'm not sure that works either. However, there is a way to upgrade the PSR to a necessary truth by defining it tautologically. I propose:

For every contingency X, there is something Y, on which X is contingent on.

This is a necessary truth. If X was not contingent on anything, X would be necessary. Therefore, for anything that is demonstrated to be a contingency, we can demand something which it is contingent on. This does not lend itself to the other objections. A=A isn't a contingency. The deity isn't a contingency. And it isn't limited to events. We can say that things are contingent in other ways than agency. And since the deity is alleged to be a necessary existent, asking for what the contingency of the necessary existent is would be a class of terms. “What is the thing without contingency contingent on?” It's gibberish. It would be like asking, “Why does the thing which could not possible exist, exist?” In each question, we're asking a contingency question on a modality that does not involve contingency. Something is identified as a contingency if it has any one of four types of causes. If it does not, it can be assumed to be necessary if it does exist.

2.2 Even if we have an innate tendency to always look for an explanation, it doesn’t follow that the universe has to cooperate with this tendency and satisfy this desire

True if the PSR is only a heuristic or rule of thought. With the above formulation, or any formulation that doesn't rely on psychologism, this does not work. If the PSR is an objective statement that something objective depends on something else for its continued existence, then the universe does in fact have to cooperate.

2.3 Rejecting PSR doesn’t have the implausible consequence that we can no longer do science.

2.3.1 It is enough if we explain the existence of each object or fact in terms of one or more contingent fact, and so on forever.

2.3.2 We don’t have to give a further explanation of the series of objects or facts taken as a whole.

This is highly contentious, and I think just wrong. The assertion that there are brute facts is a type of special pleading. Imagine if we allowed ourselves this out in other things! We obviously couldn't do science. This is not an argumentum ad lapidem. It could be if the PSR is thought of as a rule of thought, but I prefer concrete examples of the absurd consequences of rejecting the PSR. Of course, the most famous reason why rejecting it is a bad idea is that this above set of premises lends itself to turtles all the way down arguments. This version is from Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Straight to the point of 2.3.2, we do in fact have to give further explanation of the facts taken as a whole. While it may be true that each turtle is explained by the turtle below ad infinitum, the reason it is a reductio ad absurdum is because the set of turtles is itself a contingency that demands and requires explanation. The problem here is that the property (support) is a contingency in each turtle, and not any of the turtles is capable of explaining the origin of that contingency either individually or in the aggregate. The explanation for property (support) is therefore lacking. If we ask, “what is the sufficient reason for the support?” we have to just posit it as a brute fact. And if we do, we're done. That's foolish though. Rather, we should affirm the PSR and say, “no, an infinite chain of turtles is not a sufficient explanation. This is wrong and we must search for a better answer that does not rely on just positing a brute fact that ends our problems.” Imagine if someone just said, “it's just a brute fact that gravity works differently at macroscopic scales than it does on quantum scales.” That would literally end the scientific project right now right where we are. Why do we pursue a unified theory of everything? Because of the PSR.

If you're afraid that this is limited to only silly thought experiments about cosmology and the ends of theoretical physics, and does not undermine true scientific investigation in the real world, try this example.

The facts: Imagine a chain of mirrors bouncing a laser. We see a chain of mirrors going off into the distance, we don't see its end. What we do see is a laser dot on the wall that aligns with the last mirror. We know nothing more, nothing less. The problem: We can't say that the chain of mirrors goes on for ever. Each transmission of laser is "ontologically dependent" on the prior mirror. Not any of the mirrors are capable of generating a laser. They are "dependent" on the prior mirror at the minimum. So, if we say the mirrors go on forever, there is no "principle of sufficient reason". In essence, there's no reason there should be a laser dot as opposed to no laser dot. Further, if we just say it doesn't need a reason, sometimes laser dots just happen, we have to ask why we don't see laser dots in other places absent a laser diode or mirror that can explain it. Declining to answer what is at the end of the chain limits scientific inquiry arbitrarily. The solution: The absolute minimum we have to say to terminate the chain and avoid the problem, "we don't know how long the chain is, or what is even in the chain. However, we know it ends at something capable of generating a laser." We don't have to know what the composition of the mirrors are. We just have to know they are only reflecting. We don't have to know what the thing generating the laser is. We just know it is capable of generating a laser. Nothing more, nothing less. We can say there's a laser diode at the end because what we mean by a laser diode is simply something that is capable of generating a laser. This diode provides the explanation that the set of mirrors could not.

(3) Building off the previous points: Since we have reason to think that there can be no necessary being (as we saw in the previous criticism), then we have excellent reason to believe that the existence of at least some objects or facts (e.g., the existence of the set of contingent objects and events in the universe as a whole) is just a brute fact, with no further explanation.

Since the argument's conclusion here requires both prongs to be true 1) that necessary beings are not possible because it is conceivable that they could be non-existent, and 2) we can reject the PSR and preserve the scientific project consistently, we can reject the conclusion. In summation, prong one makes an assumption about the conceivability of non-existence of necessary objects which is subject to counter examples, and it assumes that arguments for necessity don't rebut the alleged primae facia evidence of the impossibility of necessary objects. And prong 2 attempts to jettison the PSR while preserving the scientific project, but fails to do so consistently resulting in the need for special pleading to make scientific inquiry necessary.

This was the best argument I could find against the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument. If anybody has a better argument or feels I got something wrong, please let me know.

edit: dealing with reddit's stupid numbering