Page 6 of 6 [ 81 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

waltur
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2009
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 924
Location: california

23 Nov 2010, 1:35 pm

skafather84 wrote:
waltur wrote:
any (non-prejudiced) suggestions?



I'd go with the ideas of Peter J Carroll. Especially that of random belief:







RANDOM BELIEF
Various stages in the belief cycle of the self are provided in the
following sections. Try each or any of them for a week, a
month, or a year. This exercise may save one an unnecessary
incarnation or two. It may also help to make clear the aeonic
mechanism which creates the various psychic milleniums of
past and future history. The beliefs are given in order, with
Number 1 understood to follow on from Number 6 in a circle.
Atheism and Chaoism are presented in both their early and
degenerate phases to make clear the stages of change, and to
permit the use of the sacred cube.

Dice Option Number 1: Paganism
The gods show themselves in all things. In the elements,
tempestuous and placid by turns; in the seas, the mountains,
the green fields, in the hail and in the lightning. They show
themselves as various animals and they show themselves in
metals and in stones. Most of all they show themselves in the
mind of man impelling him to love, to war, to fortune, or to
disaster. The gods watch over everything in the world; there is
no thing not under the auspices of some god or other.
For in all things there is both substance and essence. The gods
came out of Chaos, and from the gods came the essences of all
things — some gods giving essences to some things and others
to different things. Man contains the essences of all the gods.
What is good or what is ill is what is pleasing or displeasing to the
gods. But what is pleasing to Mars may not please Venus.
Hence there is war in heaven even as there is war in man. Yet
by making an appropriate invocation or offering we may set
matters aright and gain their favors. If we live always in
devotion to our patron god and do not displease the others
overmuch, our shade will go at death to rejoin the essence of
its deity.

Dice Option Number 2: Monotheism
There is but One God who created everything.
He created man in his own image.
He gave man free will to do good or evil.
Good is what pleases God, evil displeases him.
After you die God will reward or punish you
For pleasing or displeasing him.
God also created angels and demons.
These are spirits with free will,
Some remained good, some became evil.
These spirits help man to become good
Or tempt him to do evil.
If you stop doing something evil
God will be pleased.
If you stop doing something you enjoy
For God's sake, he is also pleased.
You may pray to God and ask him for help.
You may worship him with prayer also.
By this he will be pleased.
To know how to be good and please God
You must obey the teachings
And the authority of the religious hierarchy
He has established on earth
As the one true religion.

Dice Option Number 3: Atheism
The idea of God or a personal soul is an hypothesis we have no
need of. Besides there is not the slightest scrap of material
evidence that will stand up to examination. Let's stick to what's
real, shall we?
There is always some sort of a reason or explanation for
everything even if we haven't managed to work it all out yet.
But we're doing pretty well. I mean, you've only to look
around yourself, the whole universe works on a sensible cause
and effect basis; it's only hocus pocus if you're too primitive to
work out how it works. Free will, for instance, is probably just an
illusion caused by some defect in the neuroelectro-biochemical
plumbing in the brain. But we'll all go on using it till we find
out. After all, enjoyment is the whole point in life. The only
sort of morality or law worth having is that which stops fools
from spoiling their own or other people's enjoyment in the
long run.
And when you're dead, you're dead.
Until we find evidence to the contrary.

Dice Option Number 4: Nihilism (Late Atheism)
Material causality is everything. Science can probably explain
away everything. There is nothing which is not caused by
something else.
But this is no-explanation.
The world now seems accidental, arbitrary, and without
meaning. We can know How everything happens but there is
no reason Why. The universe has become predictable but
meaningless. That is the burden of intelligence, of being able
to see through it all. There is obviously no spirit or personal
survival after death. Hence there is no reason to do anything, or
for that matter, to restrain from doing anything. Even this is to
deceive ourselves for there is no such thing as free will. One
cannot help but get involved in doing because one happens to
be. All motivation is just an attempt to put the body-brain in a
lower energy, less tense state, even if by a roundabout route.
There are no absolutes in terms of importance, goodness,
meaning or truth that do not arise from the accidental structure
of the body brain and its surroundings.
We are just living out the chaotically complex forces which
spawned us and which will one day reduce us to nothingness
again.
Everything we will ever do is just a result of how we are made
and what happens to us. For all our pretense of free will, we are
an accident running a fixed but unknown course.

Dice Option Number 5: Chaoism
As above, so below
I am the universe
The life force in us
Is the life force of the universe
The subtle force in us (aether)
Is the subtle force of the universe
The gross matter in us
Is the gross matter of the universe
To Chaos, nothing is true
And everything is permitted
Though it has limited itself
To the principle of duality
In building this world
for itself.
(For a further elucidation of these beliefs consult The Book of
Chaos in its entirety.)

Dice Option Number 6: Superstition (Low Chaoism)
All phenomena having come from the one source, there exist
mysterious connections between things with similarities.
All like things contain the same signature or essence; they
share the same spirit. This essence or spirit can be made to go
into other things by bringing the signature-bearing objects into
contact with whatever is being treated. This is the principle of
contagion.
All things being connected in diverse, mysterious ways, one can
take augury from anything about anything of which it reminds
one. There is nothing that is not an omen about something else
to him that but has the wit to know it.
And by similar wisdom, anything can be affected by performing
the required action on some other thing that reminds one of it.
Like attracts like, the principle of similarity.
Wisest of all are those who know the most deeply hidden
connections. They are able to be reminded of the obscure by
the more obscure. They know what sacrifices are to be made to
adjust or placate the essences of things. Morality is the
avoidance of misfortune. One's next incarnation will be as
whatever creature of which one's activity in life is most
reminiscent.


dice based theology ftw!


_________________
Waltur the Walrus Slayer,
Militant Asantist.
"BLASPHEMER!! !! !! !!" (according to AngelRho)