(Part 3) Top products from r/religion

> Perception and reality are not, and cannot be separated.

From a subjective level this is absolutely true, however consensus reality relies on the subjective perceptions which people agree are objective. If I say I'm a tomato because I'm perceiving being a tomato its subjectively real but its only objectively real once people agree with me.

> I have been doing more and more research into all of this. And I think I more or less have it figured out, and it does fit within the given range of what I would have been willing to accept before the event.

I can understand this, I accept many things now which I never would have accepted a decade ago. I would have thought you are a loony. lol now I'm probably more loony than you are.

> Graham Hancock

Some of his stuff is ok. He is a good writer but take a lot of it with a grain of salt, too many of his readers take it as gospel when its intended to be speculation. If you read his book Supernatural I recommend you read Shamanic Voices by the antropoligist Joan Halifax which he used as a source for much of his writing in that book.

> I am now completely convinced that I understand the nature of reality, and that this is only one plain of existence,

It's not so much that its only one "plain" of existence, in my experience, but rather that its only one "timeline set". Even if you experience these things as 100% real, not everyone will. You are experiencing multiple timelines simultaneously and they overlap partially with other people you communicate with. For some people the things you are describing are as real as the computer in front of you. For some they are not real at all. Both are right.

> and that I met a Reptilian that inadvertantly enlightened me while attempting to destroy me.

I can dig it.

> I met (I am looking for a word here that means EVERYTHING. The alpha, the omega, god, satan, yahweh, whaterver).

Sure. I call it "Existence Itself", "The System" or sometimes "Zooey" (long story on those names there). One night I had a 3-some with it and Non-Existence Itself. It was pretty hot. (I'm serious lol)

> I am that person, and that person is me. I am my own god of my own universe because this universe is only a matter of my own perception and therefore my own reality.

That's partly true but only as true as you are able to control your own experience. If you can't imagine that your walls are a different color and have them instantly be and stay that color than you are not only experiencing your universe but you are also experiencing the universe of one or more other people. Also you should check out the book Conference of the Birds in which the birds seek out what is basically God and discover that they themselves are God but that understanding this at a deep level is a very hazerdous journey.

> To summarize, I met a reptilian shape-shifter. They convinced me they were god using clever tricks of manipulation and mind-control. They have a better grasp on the energy and vibrations that allow this plain of existence to be manipulated, and they use that for their own gain.

Why would they use it for their own gain? What is there to gain? If they are shape-shifters are they reptilian or is that just one shape?

> On a side note, what do you think about things like psychedelics, monatomic gold, B17, pineal gland calcification, and things of this nature?

Psychedelic drugs can be useful for some people at some points in time to get them to learn to think outside of their native reality but one should be careful about extensive use. I believe mild stimulants to be more useful in getting one's brain into a state of controllable cross-reality experience but whatever works for you. I have no reality on the other things you are talking about there. If they make sense to you go for it, but they mean nothing to me.

> What do you think of "The Illuminati"?

Such groups exist in some timeline sets but not the ones that the majority of redditers experience, and not the one I'm experiencing right now. In the ones where they do exist they are typically not as 'evil' as people assume. Most of the ideas regarding groups like this come from past-life pre-earth memories and the groups now defunct.

> Do you think there is any chance that the entire world earth is being manipulated by Reptilians posing as the human super elite (ie Rothschilds) so that humans can be used as cattle/slaves by calcifying our pineal glands and brainwashing us?

Maybe in some realities but not any I've ever encountered, and I get around. Still it may be true in your reality, I'm certainly not going to tell you its not true for you but I will say its not true for me.

Our individual environments are manipulated by ourselves in ways we don't understand. Time is a lot more complicated than our memories suggest and much of what you do and think in your environment reinforces your future and past thoughts and beliefs. In a sense, we enslave ourselves by believing we are enslaved.

Elaine Pagels is a great contemporary scholar of Christian religion, and particularly textual and historical explication. Her The Origin of Satan is fascinating, and The Gnostic Gospels is a solid survey of some of the lost branches of early Christian tradition.

Gershom Scholem is one of the last century's great explicators of Judaism and mysticism, particularly the Kabbalah. I doubt there's a book he's written that isn't worth reading, but the best place to start may be his book On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, particularly the chapter on the relation of mystical experience to community norms.

Speaking of Kabbalah, it's recent popularity speaks poorly of what is an otherwise venerable and serious tradition of symbolism and ethical concern. If you're interested in spiritual literature, it's probably not a bad idea to take a stab at the Zohar. There's an abridged translation by Scholem out in paperback, but you're probably better off with this edition.

That comes, incidentally, from a series of books issued by a Catholic publisher, Paulist Press, under the name Classics of Western Spirituality, which is generally excellent. So far as I know, it's the only press currently printing some truly classic historical texts, so their catalog is worth browsing. They're particularly good, as you might suspect, on early Christian texts -- I don't know where else you'd go for something like Carthusian Spirituality -- but they also have Sufist, Judaic and non-mainline texts. In particular, I'd say pick up the Pseudo Dionysus.

While we're on the subject of early Christian writers, there's The Desert Fathers, The Cloud of Unknowing, Revelations of Divine Love -- the last of which is a notable early example of feminine Christian spirituality.

On the more modern end, there's Simone Weil, the tragic Marxist-cum-Catholic. I'd recommend either Waiting for God or Letters to a Priest]. While we're talking about modern Christian theology, we should note three of the most important names of the 20th century: Paul Tillich, Rudolf Otto, and Tielhard de Chardin. The books to start with, respectively, are Dynamics of Faith, The Idea of the Holy, and The Divine Milieu.

Shifting away from Christianity, another major name in 20th century theology is Martin Buber, the Jewish German mystic. His I and Thou is the most generally applicable and was widely influential in existential circles, but he also wrote widely on issues of Jewish identity.

More in the mainstream of Jewish tradition, there's the Talmud, although the sheer size of the writings that full under that name are the sort of thing that scholars give their lives over to. For our purposes, something like Abraham Cohen's Everyman's Talmud will generally suffice.

And finally, I just recently bought The Three Pillars of Zen, which is widely held to be the best practical introduction to the topic available in English. There are a bewildering amount of books on the subject, but without some sort of framework for understanding their relation to the historical traditions, it can be nearly impossible to sort out which are worth while.

EDIT: Forgot linking by reference isn't working; fixed with inline links.

First of all, can I just say how much I love giving and receiving book recommendations? I was a religious studies major in college (and was even a T.A. in the World Religions class) so, this is right up my alley. So, I'm just going to take a seat in front of my book cases...

General:

1. A History of God by Karen Armstrong
   
   
2. The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
   
   
3. Myths: gods, heroes, and saviors by Leonard Biallas (highly recommended)
   
   
4. Natural History of Religion by David Hume
   
   
5. Beyond Tolerance by Gustav Niebuhr
   
   
6. Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel (very highly recommended, completely shaped my view on pluralism and interfaith dialogue)
   
   
7. The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
   
   Christianity:
   
   
8. Tales of the End by David L. Barr
   
   
9. The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
   
   
10. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
11. The Birth of Christianity by John Dominic Crossan
    
    
12. Who Wrote the New Testament? by Burton Mack
    
    
13. Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox
    
    
14. The Five Gospels by Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (highly recommended)
    
    
15. Remedial Christianity by Paul Alan Laughlin
    
    Judaism:
    
    
16. The Jewish Mystical Tradition by Ben Zion Bokser
    
    
17. Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman
    
    Islam:
    
    
18. Muhammad by Karen Armstrong
    
    
19. No God but God by Reza Aslan
    
    
20. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells
    
    Buddhism:
    
    
21. Buddha by Karen Armstrong
    
    
22. Entering the Stream ed. Samuel Bercholz & Sherab Chodzin Kohn
    
    
23. The Life of Milarepa translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
    
    
24. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers
    
    
25. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps (a classic in Western approached to Buddhism)
    
    
26. Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams (if you're at all interested in Buddhist doctrine and philosophy, you would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading this book)
    
    Taoism:
    
    
27. The Essential Chuang Tzu trans. by Sam Hamill & J.P. Seaton
    
    Atheism:
    
    
28. Atheism by Julian Baggini
    
    
29. The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
    
    
30. Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
    
    
31. When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges
    
    
32. Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith

A intro to religions book that was recommened to me is "Religious Literacy". I haven't finished it so I can't pass a judgement, but it seems pretty good so far.

Physical edition and the reason for the drastic price differences.

Update: Due to popular feedback, I decided to make split versions of the ebook edition for anyone who found 2554 pages too daunting but are still interested in reading my book. In case any of you are still interested.

Part I Only.

Part II Only.

Explanation on pricing can be read here.

I'll grant that.

Since I mentioned it above, the holy book of my religion which gelled with me / spoke to me is the Principia Discordia. I don't know if it's what you're looking for, though. If it doesn't gel with you, all I can say is you're probably looking for a different god. Nothing wrong with that.

To bring things back on track, you may be interested in Anthony Flew's There is a God. It's been a few years since I read it, though, and all I remember is that it was decent enough that I think I read the whole thing.

When we are talking about something irrational, yes.

For good examples of rational things people believe that they cannot prove, see the book of the similar name.

I, for instance, believe that the nature of the universe is entirely understandable, and that the creatures that we become will eventually have the ability to answer any meaningful question.

I can attest to the credibility of this documentary. One of the experts in this documentary is my Professor at the University of Texas and is a brilliant scholar on the history of early Christianity. Here is his book.

I would highly recommend The Study Quran. It is probably the most academic translation out there, at least in my opinion.

This site has basically every major English translation of the Qur'an (including The Study Quran) for comparison, more than any other site I've found.

It's an article about an article about a study that isn't mentioned by name, which prevents me from going to the source.

However, I did find a blog entry by the professor leading the study who says that this newspaper article and several others substantially mis-interpreted and overgeneralized the findings.

Edit: Apparently, the study can be found in this book, which came out six months ago.

Statistically speaking, Campolo, would be considered an outlier. Raymond Moody's study goes into more depth on NDEs.

Define the features you place on this word "god."


All of this proves what I call god doesn't exist.

God has one or more of theses features:

• transcendent mind
  
• telepathy
  
• magic
  
• consciously controlling reality
  
• using nothing to make something
  
  Why these things fail:
  
  
• every mind we know about requires a physical brain and people used hyperactive agent detection to decide things without minds have them
  
• many versions of god exist in imagination yet nobody can prove any of them for reality
  
• violates physics and never observed
  
• without a mind this is impossible
  
• everything comes from something before it (until you reach a scientific nothing which is still something in the philosophical sense)
  
  Also :
  
  
• the kalam's cosmological argument is about a first state of existence not a first being
  
• if god is greater than anything we can think of by also existing it is complex requiring a precursor
  
• god can't evolve from simple to complex failing kalam and anselm before anything else exists
  
• outside of reality means imaginary
  
• http://www.humanreligions.info/hyperactive_agent_detection.html takes the facts and explains them logically
  
• https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029117062/65536-21 shows how intellect is flawed
  
• the levels of cognition are instinct, intellect, and knowledge
  
• knowledge means knowing things, when you know facts you know the truth
  
• verifiable facts require empirical evidence
  
• I provided evidence
  
• you provided argument to the stone
  
• just because god is obvious to you doesn't mean it exists
  
• if you can't show me god exists you don't know that god exists
  
• if you can't prove me wrong you don't know that I don't know god doesn't exist
  
• if you define god as something that obviously does exist I don't consider it god
  
• my definition of god does not exist
  
• if I'm wrong prove it
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone - since you say I'm wrong and can't prove it
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion - since you say evolution proves god but you can't prove that either.
  
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/01/31/the-four-scientific-meanings-of-nothing/
  
  The scientific nothing used for a universe from nothing is not the same thing as a philosophical nothing. The philosophical nothing is never observed and may not exist except outside all existence. Nothing at all can exist outside all existence because that is no place and no time with no properties whatsoever. Outside existence doesn't exist basically.
  
  What happened before the big bang? Nobody actually knows and that is okay. Everything after the big bang was completely natural and we have no indication that before it was any different. "God did it" is only valid in a fact debate if you can prove it.
  
  The deist god literally uses magic to take a philosophical nothing and turning it into something yet has no place or time to exist within. The theist god is based on religious text and those fail on things we can test easily.

>conflicts between science and religion

By religion I mean the texts that make up a religion - not the popular interpretations of those texts. (This argument works for Judaism, Christianity and Islam - it may not hold true for other religions)

So there are three possibilities:

1. Science is wrong and the 'text' is right. In order to take this position one has to deny the human capacity for reason (which is the foundation of free will). This therefore denies one of the basic beliefs of your religion and this position should be rejected.
   
   
2. Science is right and the 'text' is wrong. In order to take this position one has to deny the significance of their religion. IT also ignored all the gaps in scientific explanations. Thus this position should also be rejected.
   
   
3. Science is right and the text is right. This means that any apparent contradiction between the text and science is a result of your misunderstanding of either the science, or the text.
   
   So there is not really any conflict between science and religion, there is only conflict in heads of those who cling to dogma rather than use their capacity for reason.
   
   You might find these books interesting:
   
   Genesis and the Big Bang
   
   God According to God