Spirituality Guide

In the previous post I talked about the possibilities of the beginnings of both the Universe and of Life. They range from random chance on everything to God making everything happen in an ongoing manner.

There’s a common problem with every one of these - what was there before the Universe? Once we posit that there WAS a ‘Before’ then any of the scenarios becomes possible. This is where the whole Creation argument belongs, while, with the exception of number 5-c, evolution could be a factor in the development of all of them.

Instead Evolutionists like to get pulled into the whole ‘there is no God’ argument and Creationists like to get pulled into the ‘He didn’t need Evolution’ argument. I’ve come to the conclusion that as stated by Edward de Bono, the creation of funnels to categorise things is a very bad thing. More and more the funnellers expand their definitions of ‘other’ to include more and more people who aren’t exactly like themselves.

It starts with (say) Democrat/Republican - the Funneller identifies with all Democrats and everyone else gets dumped through the Republican funnel. But then s/he begins to notice that not all democrats are the same - in fact some have decidedly Republican ideas and leanings - wham, down through the Republican funnel they go. The process continues until the only people who are identified as ‘us’ are those with almost exactly the same ideas, ideals and thoughts as the Democrat.

We see it in the Christian /Islamic/Jewish camps, where they subdivide themselves based on criteria that are meaningless to anyone not of their creed. We see it in Evolutionists where they subdivide according to Absolute Random Chance, Punctuated Random Chance, Guided Evolution etc. We even see it at a higher level where Believers and Atheists are seen as being opposites, yet both are believers - they use the subject of belief to isolate the other group. The true opposite of both of the groups is actually those who have no belief - mostly these are Agnostics. Agnostics withhold belief, preferring to wait for evidence.

Funnels are bad and a lazy way to think. In this debate (Evolution versus Creation or ID) the opponents usually enthusiastically embrace the funnels, willfully dividing the debaters into a variety of labels and spend their time lambasting the opposition with no hope of ever converting them - they aren’t arguing about the same things!

It seems to me we have been fed an untruth. It is one that seems common across a wide range of people and I think very few ever question it. We are taught that the opposite of a believer in God is an Atheist.

I think it isn’t true; I think an Atheist, someone who ‘knows’ there is no God, is also a believer. I think, on a line with believers in God at one end, the other end is an Agnostic. Atheists are believers just as much as those they so vehemently oppose. And just as we see various sects of particular branches of religion get riled with another sect over minor points of dogma, the two branches of believers get very heated with each other.

It’s an ongoing debate, one that never seems to convert anyone, never seems to run out of ire and agro, and seems ultimately unsolvable by mere humans.

Are Creationists right or are Evolutionists? The argument has raged since Darwin and has recently gotten even more fiery in the US with the Intelligent Design fracas. Creationists tried to remodel their beliefs into a pseudo-scientific structure in an attempt to get ID taught in schools as an alternative to Evolution. They ran into a wall by, in my opinion, over-reaching themselves – they demanded it be taught in Science classes.

Now the Theory of Evolution has the problem of being called a Theory. What most people without a science background fail to see is that a Theory, in Science, has a different meaning to how it is used out in public. The Theory of Gravitation is such a Theory – nobody flies off the surface of Earth because Gravity is a theory – the theory bit is just our explanation of it.

Evolution is the same. We have proof of changes in genomes and various life forms. We know for a fact it happens. The Theory bit is whether the random mutations in a genome can account for the variety of life we see when we look around.

By: Seeker
Each year, as Earth travels its almost eternal circle round the Sun, there are some events that proceed like clockwork. There are a couple of annual meteor showers that happen regularly, causing streaks of light to cross our night sky and drawing wonderment from those looking up.

If the Earth is precessing in orbit, which pretty much means it isn’t in exactly the same place on a given date of the year, then the meteor events should be changing their dates, slowly but steadily across the years – and they aren’t.

There’s a longer term confirmation of this as well. Earth and Venus both travel around the Sun, and orbital mechanics says that Venus must travel faster than Earth. Those same orbital mechanics say that every 105.5 years or every 121.5 years, Venus will pass between the earth and the Sun. This can only happen in early June or early December and the transits occur in pairs eight years apart.

The issue here is that if earth were really moving backwards in orbit each year as current Precession theory assumes, we could not have regular transits at all – the transit is partly due to the different speeds at which Earth and Venus travel and partly to do with just where the orbit of Venus ‘crosses’ the plane of Earth’s orbit. Move earth even slightly away from the June or December point in space & the ‘crossing’ will not occur when Earth is there to see it.

So it seems that Precession cannot be as we think it to be. If it isn’t a wobble due to external planetary or mass influences from the rest of the Solar System, what causes it? And why is it changing?

By: Seeker
There are a couple of things that don’t quite fit with the Precession theory. One is the accuracy and how we’ve been adjusting the theory of why it happens.

Currently the idea is that Precession occurs because the Earth wobbles as it orbits, like a spinning top wobbles as it spins. Newton thought this was because of the gravitational effects from the Sun and Moon. Earth travels around the Sun with a ‘counterweight’ swinging around it. This causes effects in the Earth orbit as the Moon pulls on the Earth just as Earth pulls on the Moon.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for all the effects we observe, so over the recent centuries since Newton, various people have added in extra effects caused, including the other planets and even larger asteroids. And still the calculations don’t quite work out.

Another problem is that the apparent length of the time for 1º of Precession is changing. This is rather hard to account for as the Solar System seems a fairly settled place – it’s not like there’s mass being added to change the balances. And we measure fairly carefully so it isn’t that the orbit of Earth around sun is changing, nor the days getting shorter or longer.

There’s also a problem that it seems, until Cruttenden and his team saw it, nobody else had thought about. If Precession is simply the Earth changing its precise place in orbit for a given time each year, (the vernal equinox is where it is traditionally measured) then events based on fixed orbital location relative to the sun should also be changing dates – and they don’t.

By: Seeker
Walter Cruttenden has a theory. He has devoted considerable time and effort into trying to disprove his theory. Instead the group he founded has been moving steadily in the direction of firmer ground, finding more corroboration of the theory and nailing down the details.

This is how Science is meant to work, but there are groups around who have corrupted the process and so many now don’t have the respect for Science that it (mostly) deserves.
An example of how NOT to do Science is to have an hypothesis, look around for data, discard all the data that contradicts the hypothesis, modify measurements that may falsify your hypothesis, then perform inappropriate analysis and use incorrect statistical methods to ‘prove’ your original claim. Add to that the suppression of any and all opinions and research that might count against the original claim, indulge in extensive propaganda to promote the idea and use standard propaganda techniques to convince the people who don’t know the Science of it all of how right you are about it.

In other words, be the IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) trying to convince the world that human carbon dioxide is responsible for sending Earth into a runaway warming that will bake us all and make life unlivable and that the only way to stop it all is to tax everyone for producing carbon dioxide.

Real Science is about having an idea, then going out to find what might make the idea wrong. If the data doesn’t fit, discard the idea, not the data. Walter Cruttenden has walked this path and his idea is rather startling, to say the least.

By Seeker

So why are we confronted and confounded in our quest for a better life? Why is Religion, once a force in our lives that drove entire civilizations to magnificent achievements, now a subjugating establishment that will kill rather than provide freedom of belief?

The Church spent the better part of two thousand years persecuting anyone who held even slightly divergent views to what was decreed from Rome. Question the authority of a regime which bled entire nations of their strength and wealth, doubt for a moment the bishops, or worse, the Pope, were truly divine and you would die. Usually horribly.

For centuries, the scriptures were printed only in Latin, a script the average person could not even attempt to read. But you could still be killed outright for failing to fully accept what was said from the pulpit or failing to offer everything you had to those already rich on the gold and blood of the subjugated.

This is not Religion, it is oppression. It has not yet released its hold on Humanity. Today the biggest threat to our personal safety comes from religious institutions and the governments who use the beliefs of the people to justify their personal agendas.

So again, Spirituality is not Religion. There are many people out there, wrapped up in religions, who are wonderful people who do their best to embody the credo of their chosen faith. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to find leaders of those religions who actually justify the faith of those they are supposed to be shepherding.

Spirituality is personal – the message comes down through the ages, echoed again and again by sages, mystics and spiritual people throughout time. Allowing others to tell you what is spiritual, what is right and real, simply opens one up to manipulation. Billions have died throughout history because they allowed others to decide for them what Truth is.

When it comes to Western astrology, things can get a bit complicated when you talk about charting down to the precise degree, what planets are in what houses, what ascendants are, what your lunar sign is… There are quite a lot of components to learn about.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to give you some terms and definitions you should know. Call them astrology basics (even though I will probably miss something that another astrologer considers basic but absolutely necessary to know).

Your Chart: Your personal chart is a circle mapping out the position of the planets (plus the sun and moon) in particular houses at the time of your birth. The 360 degree circle is split into twelve 30 degree houses…

Houses: Each 30 degree ‘slice’ of your chart is a house, and each house has its own meaning. Houses are what lie behind our urges in life. In astrology there are ten planets and twelve houses, so the houses with no planets are the areas of life you aren’t particularly interested in. The more planets you have in one house, the more focused on that area of life you are going to be.

Signs: The signs are probably what you already know about. There are twelve signs, including Capricorn, Aries, Saggitarius, etc, and each of these signs, like the houses, have their own meanings and basic personality traits.

Aspects: Aspects are the relationships between planets. There are different categories planetary relationships fall into. For example, if you imagine your chart as a clock and have one planet at 9.00 and one planet at 3.00, these planets are in opposition. As you can imagine, the urges associated with the planets in opposition ‘battle it out’ in our personalities.

Of course, things definitely get more complicated than that, but I’m just here to point out the basics. If you want to learn more, that’s up to you.

The standard view towards intuition is one of wariness or outright scorn because intuition is equated along the same line as psychic or ‘sensitive’. However, if you use the word ‘instinct’ instead, then you are far more likely to get an attentive and accepting audience.

It’s interesting how two words can mean basically the same thing and yet the connotations attached to those words can influence how you think and feel.

I’m not saying that intuition and instinct are the same thing, but I am trying to point out the similarities. Both come from places other than our conscious minds and both are things we react to even though we may not realize what it is we are reacting to.

Intuition is defined as “direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.�

Whereas instinct is defined as “an inborn pattern of activity or tendency to action common to a given biological species.�

I feel the need to make this distinction because, while instinct is a commonly used word mainly without negative feelings attached, it’s often mixed up with intuition, which I feel is a more spiritual experience.

When I write for this site, I let my intuition guide me. I had fully planned on starting my exploration of the major religions, but something in me compelled me to talk about intuition and instinct. Intuition is something that has been influencing me lately. While I don’t want a lot of my personal life and beliefs to come to play on this site, it seems they have anyway.

Despite the negative attachments to ‘intuition’ I will be talking about it on this site. Whether you feel guided or inclined to feel the same about it as I do is completely up to you, and I certainly won’t judge you for it.

Last week we talked about how to break down religion into four main groups: Theism, Deism, “Ever-Present� and Nontheism. I then broke theism down into its various categories.

Today I’m going to do the same thing with deism, ‘ever-present’ and nontheism.

Deism is the belief that yes, god(s)/being(s) does exist, but god/gods does not interfere with the world/universe. The break down of this category is similar to the breakdown of theism but without quite the ‘black and white’ definitions.

In pandeism, you have the belief that the creator came before the universe, created the universe, and is now on the same level as or is the universe.

In polydeism, many gods came together to create the universe, but after it was created, they stopped interacting with it.

“Ever-present� – a term I made up – describes the broader belief that gods/beings are present in everything. This category can be broken down into four subcategories:

Pantheism takes away the division between god and the universe, making them equally one.

Panentheism, similar to pantheism, also believes that the universe and god are joined together. However, this belief puts god as greater than the universe.

Cosmotheism is a combination of both man and creator. This belief is that the cosmos and man are essentially one. What man wants, the cosmos want, and vice versa.

Animism, put simply, is the belief that everything has a soul and is thus important at some level.

Nontheism is broken down into Atheism and Agnosticism, which I have talked about before here

As you can see, there is a lot to religion even at a broader level than individual religions. That’s why I wanted to explore the broader categories before getting into the individual religions. In future posts, I will begin exploring individual religions.

In the last post, we broke down religion (or rather, religious belief systems) into four main categories: Theism, Deism, “Ever-Present�, and Nontheism. Today I am going to break down theism further into subcategories of identification
You’ll recall that theism is the belief that gods/beings exist and they also interact with the world/universe.

Theism can further be broken down into monotheism and polytheism. If you look at the prefixes ‘mono’ and ‘poly’, it’s easy to keep their definitions straight.

Monotheism is the belief that there is one and only one god. This is a fairly well known line of belief and is the current state of what you could call the evolution of religions being primarily polytheistic and moving to monotheism over time.

An interesting belief falling under the monotheism category is ‘misotheism’ which encompasses the belief that there is one god but that one god is evil instead of the benevolent good god of many other religions.

Where mono means one, poly means many. Those who have polytheistic beliefs believe that there is more than one god/being wandering around in the great ‘out there’.

The subcategories of polytheism are mostly to do with leaning towards one god in one area or another.

Henotheism, while believing in more than one god, believes that one god is supreme above all others.

Monolatry doesn’t believe so much that one god is supreme as it believes only one god should be worshiped.

Lastly, the one with the fun name – kathenotheism – is more of an equal opportunity worshiper. It believes in more than one god and worshiping one of the many, but the difference is that each god will get their turn in supremacy.

In future posts, I’ll break down the remaining three categories of religion.

When it comes to religion and spirituality, the subjects within the main subject are often more widespread and complicated than people realize.

Coming up on this site, I will be exploring individual religions and the basics in their beliefs. Before I do that, however, I would like to explore religion just a bit more.

To make it easier, I think it’s best to start in the broadest senses and then narrow down to specifics. When it comes to religion, the broadest category would be if you believe something or not, but I am going a bit narrower than that with some definitions in the realm of belief.

The first way to break down religion is into four categories: Theism, Deism, what I call “ever-present�, and Nontheism.

Theism is that yes, gods or like beings do exist and they interact with the world/universe.

Deism is like theism in that the belief is that gods/beings exist. However, in deism, the belief is that they do not interact/intervene with the universe.

“Ever-Present� – a term that has no official status and is something I’m probably using incorrectly – is the category of belief that encompasses a diety in everything. There are sub-classes of exactly what has a soul or is a diety, but I will explore that later.

Lastly, we have Nontheism where we have Atheism and Agnosticism. This gets a little tricky when you break it down because some Agnostics have a personal faith, but we’ll talk about that later.

And there you have your Intro to Religions 101. In future posts I’ll be breaking these categories down before exploring individual religions groups.

You’re walking down the street and see a small shop. It’s painted with blues, golds, and purples – much different to the mostly drab shops around it. Curious and with some spare time, you walk inside.

You immediately smell one or more of the incense or candles burning. You see candles, rocks, jewellery, books, clothing, candles, incense, and much, much more.

You have entered a New Age store.

So what is New Age and when did it start? What is it all about?

There is no concrete definition for what New Age is. However, it can be broadly described as large movement towards spiritual exploration and adding on additional beliefs to traditional religions.

New Age encompasses a lot of beliefs, ideas, and activities. It can also touch on a lot of subjects from astral to psychic to even new spiritual movements. Thus New Age isn’t probably something that should be easily disregarded.

The lovely thing about New Age beliefs is that they can often mesh easily with commonly held beliefs of the major religions. ‘New Agers’ often practice mainstream religion along with some of the ‘out there’ practices of New Age.

True, some beliefs go directly against others, but there is no denying a feeling of flexibility and acceptance.

New Age often incorporates some form of the mind-body-spirit awareness. Whether it comes in the form of alternative (or ‘natural’) medicines or the use of meditation for strengthening and focusing the mind, New Age beliefs and practices can offer a lot to any person without causing people to ‘betray’ their religion.

Start with the basics. When you walk into the store, look around. The first step to becoming more open-minded and informed is to not generalize or assume.

It is easy enough to throw around words like ’spirit’ and ‘Self’ when talking about matters of both religious of spiritual natures. However, what are they and what do they mean? What does it mean when spirit is Spirit versus spirit?

Unfortunately, three terms – Spirit, spirit, and Self – can be confusing. Because I will be using them on this blog, I will explain how I will use them to make things clearer.

Spirit as spirit (lowercase) is often associated with the soul and matters of spiritual growth and desires. The Spirit can also refer in the spiritual sense to the unified, universal consciousness.

The Spirit (capitalized) is often in reference to the religious holy spirit or deity. Mother Spirit and Mother Goddess sometimes mean the same thing.

However, the Spirit (capitalized) is also used in the same way Self (capitalized) is used. Self is in reference to you and not your body. The you, Self, that controls the physical body you are in.

Unfortunately, Self is sometimes interchanged with spirit (lowercase). It can get confusing, but confusing is usually what you get

For the purposes of this blog, I am combining the Spirit/Self (both capitalized) into one category. In my personal beliefs, these two words are for the most part interchangeable. When I refer to a god/goddess/deity/universal consciousness, I will refer to it as such.

(If this doesn’t make you frustrated with the English language, I don’t know what will.)

Please don’t try to read too hard into my decision. I like simplicity. That’s all.

As long as we are on the subject of definitions, I would like to define to other words that are easily interchanged and, in this case used incorrectly.

Atheists and Agnostics are often grouped together – most often under the Atheist label – as being of one belief when it comes to the disbelief of God or gods. While they are similar, they are still different.

Again, I am using definitions from Wikipedia.

[A]theism is the absence of belief in deities, alternatively called nontheism.

Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims—particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of God, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality—is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience.

Put simply, Atheists firmly believe there are no deities while Agnostics are either unsure about the existence of deities or believe that deities are unknowable.

It’s easy to see why interchanging these could lead to trouble and unintended insults.

When it comes to people’s systems of belief, many people can be very sensitive. Just imagine a Christian being called a Mormon or a Muslim being called a Jew. People are often proud of their beliefs. People choosing to believe there are no deities is still a belief and you shouldn’t be surprised if you get the name of their belief system wrong.

Given the similarity in both the titles and the range of belief, it’s understandable how these two can be mistakenly switched. However, if you expect people to know the correct title of your belief system, you should do the same for others.

*
Picture from HubbleSite.org

In my introductory post, I wrote that you can be spiritual without being religious, religious without being spiritual, or both spiritual and religious. Today people often connect the two, interchanging one for the other.

I thought defining the two terms would be the perfect place to start for this site.

According to Wikipedia: A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally organized around supernatural and moral claims, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law.

That definition covers my personal definition of religion: a set of beliefs, organized, centered around a being or beings.

Also according to Wikipedia: Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, involving (as it may) perceived eternal verities regarding humankind’s ultimate nature, often contrasts with the temporal, with the material, or with the worldly.

I put up the Wikipedia definition of spirituality as well because it encompasses my personal definition of spirituality.

Of course, both can be a lot more complicated when applied personally, but in general definition I believe these definitions are a good place to start.

You can easily have one without the other, despite how much people today interchange the two. To be spiritual, you do not need a god or goddess. To be religious, you do not need to be concerned what’s beyond the material and the nature of humankind. (Though to not be concerned about those while religious seems somewhat strange to me.)

Many people are made to feel guilty and wrong for not identifying with one religion or another, and yet many of these people are still concerned with what is outside the material scope of their reality. Feeling pressured to label oneself can change or stop one’s personal growth and education in spirituality.

Likewise, many people find peace and belonging in identifying with a religious group but feel uncomfortable with what lies beyond what is dictated in their religion. Sometimes they feel like they are viewed as being close-minded.

When you realize the differences between spirituality and religion, you can begin to explore your personal Truths without having the ’shoulds’ in life directing your path. The perceived ’shoulds’ in your life will deter you from your Self faster then almost anything else.