@philokalia said
Glad to hear that, at least, I have good company.

I am not claiming that your religion is a "delusion" or a "spiritual dead end" or that your disapproval of meditation is a kind of spiritual "illness".

@philokalia said
Do you want to talk about meditation, or do you just want to talk about me, personally?

I am talking about meditation. Religionists trash talking other's spiritual paths and competing religions ~ meditation for example ~ are ten a penny, so it's not really about you personally.

@philokalia said
How am I prejudiced?

You have a preconceived, doctrinal judgment about another religion and you are dismissing stuff as a "delusion" and even as spiritual "illness" based on the fact you tried it and it didn't float your boats ~ and some new theist ideology you are now a subscriber to has given you dogmatic criticisms of other people's spiritual paths.

Given the nature of this community, it seems a bit like partisan, ideological trash talk. Lazy, too. Any religionist can brand any proponent of a competing religion as having "delusions".

OK, so you have an adverse opinion based on what you may think is sufficient knowledge. But all you are doing is projecting your avid interest and newfound "knowledge" of a particular religion and telling yourself that this also gives you "knowledge" about the wrongness of other religions.

OK, you feel some fervour, I get it, and you are inspired by your new religion, and you are signalling your certainty about your beliefs, but in the circumstances, in this environment, bandying around the word "delusion" is the language of prejudice, to my way of thinking.

@philokalia said
I was talking about this

Your dabbling with Buddhism in the past isn't evidence of anything really.

When I said this

Right, I actually did not use it as evidence for anything.

If your experience of Buddhism did NOT supposedly provide you with evidence that meditation is a "spiritual dead end" that leads to spiritual delusion", then why did you mention it at all?

@philokalia said
Why do I need to do all that when you are here to do it for me? 😛

I believe you should feel the need to do it and then do it yourself. But you should post as you see fit.

@philokalia said
For someone who talks about honestly employing the word cult without pulling any punches, you're awfully sensitive.

"Sensitive"?

@philokalia said
Is an atheist prejudiced against all religious traditions because he bluntly states that there is no God?

To my way of thinking, I'd say yes.

@philokalia said
However, open mindedness does not necessarily correlate with correctness, but this is an interesting insight into the way you think, thanks.

If you see yourself as promoting "correctness" here, that's OK, I suppose. Presumably, doing so means you now have to squeeze all your former pre-Orthodox Catholic curiosity through very specific doctrinal valves in order that, whatever you get from doing that, it does not deviate from the very specific doctrine of the Orthodox Catholic Church.

@philokalia said
Right, I actually did not use it as evidence for anything.

You tried to. You quite clearly were suggesting that Buddhist meditation is a "spiritual dead end" that leads to spiritual delusion" simply because it is not the same as whatever religion you are a member of now.

@philokalia said
Thus, it is something worth putting into a spiritual discussion.

But your attitude to other people's spiritual paths is so utterly limited and prejudiced by your relatively recent complete balls-to-the-wall underpants-nailed-to-the-mast subscription-internalization-regurgitation of a particular dogma/doctrine of a particular Christian denomination.

You really ought to make that clear, explicitly, over and over again, like a caveat emptor, rather than just ooze stuff about "delusion" and "dead ends" etc.

Your criteria for what is and isn't "delusion" is simply second-hand stuff you have rote-learned from a specific religious group. You should constantly remind others that this is the reality underpinning your take on their spiritual paths.

@philokalia said
I also believe that transcendental meditation can be dangerous as it really opens one up to prelest.

Prelest (from Russian: прелесть, from Russian: лесть - cajolery (charm, seduction), Greek: πλάνη - plani), also known as [wiki]: spiritual delusion, spiritual deception, delusion, illusion, – according to Holy Fathers of Orthodox Church, a false spiritual state, a spiritual illness, "a wounding of human nature by falsehood" (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov).

The concept of prelest should not be confused with somatic mental illness of any kind; prelest is rather a spiritual illness, an illness of the soul in its personal relation to God, an illness that originates from vainglory, pride, and demonic suggestion and that is to be cured by humility and Holy Sacraments and under the guidance of the spiritual father. [wiki]

Gosh, sounds simply awful.

@philokalia said
I had a lot of interesting experiences meditating and I think it was a net gain, but I also feel like it was a spiritual dead end in the sense that it leads to spiritual delusion to believe that you are achieving something through a spiritual practice that is not centered in God... And, even if it is centered in God, it would be a mistake to ever credit yourself with your own spiritual progress.

Perhaps you are wrong about "God" ~ your religionist branding of spiritual beliefs or practices different from your own as being "spiritual delusion" and a "spiritual dead end", notwithstanding.

And perhaps "God" gave humans the capacity to use meditation as a means of not only exploring who He is and/or the nature of ourselves and the universe we inhabit but perhaps He also wants you "to credit yourself with your own spiritual progress".

This is a more open-minded view of meditation, I think. Your dabbling with Buddhism in the past isn't evidence of anything really.

What it does establish, however, is that you think it is a "delusion" because you think it is a "delusion".

All you have said, really, is that whatever your religion is, that is what is "centered in God". And whatever meditation unrelated to your religion that people engage in is "not centered in God".

@kewpie said
I can't listen to anything on my smartphone except the spoken voice. Even the notifications noises drive me crazy.

I listen mostly to podcasts through the phone's speaker but I have about 300 albums loaded up too so that I can have a listen when I am not at my computer.

@sonhouse said
I think audio coming out of cell phones are all MP3 level so not the best in the first place.

Who on Earth has ever said to you that mp3s coming out of a smartphone is "the best" audio? You took this bizarre claim seriously enough to repeat it - and shoot it down - here on a message board? Did whoever it was claim it was better than WAV @ 32 bit and 192kHz sample rate, through a pair of Sony WH-1000xM4s, for example?

@secondson said
The human condition is the same, and getting worse. That's how it's changing. If you can't grasp the concept, and I think you do, then obviously you're just creating an argument because you've nothing of substance to contribute.

Just because I think "none" was the wrong answer, it doesn't mean that my point of view has "nothing of substance".

Personally, I think the internet does have impacts on the human condition, both positive and negative ones, and I am sure anyone - including you - could think of an almost unlimited number of such impacts: the enormous spread of pornography and sexualization of children, for example.

And the empowerment of formerly voiceless ordinary people who are able to speak truth to power and hold their leaders accountable, another example.

These are appreciable and tangible changes in the human condition that have been impacted by the internet.

Another example: a Muslim wanting to convert to Christianity is far more able to find out about how he or she might do that [not to mention, why] and also able to interact with Christians anywhere in the world before converting; this is something that was harder to do and relatively less likely to happen before the internet facilitated the knowledge and the communication.

A clear and obvious impact.

As I said, if X is changing Y, then X is having an impact on Y.