what you gotta do.

Originally posted by amannion
I can certainly explain your grandmother's hallucinations, since it's quite common for people under extreme physical and mental duress (such as near death) to experience these.
I'm not going to base my belief in an entire world view on the ramblings of one person - a loved one or not.
That'd be like saying, "yeah I believe in aliens since my second cousin twice removed told me she was abducted once."

thats bull, i dont believe somebody hallucinates during near death experiences when theyve never hallucinated before in their life. dont you think if you were dying the hallucinations would be scarey? not pleasant, youre dying.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And if you don't believe in God(s) then ...Poof... it disappears in a puff of smoke!

not if God(s) is real, you cant just ignore something that is real.

Originally posted by amannion
I think the point of the thread was to state a belief that religion is not necessary. If you choose to believe in a god that's cool, and maybe it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
But there are some of us to whom this doesn't happen (poor us!) and we get our warm fuzzies in other ways, sans gods ...

Pretty much. I get my warm and fuzzies when I know that my future is secure and that the people around me are hapy and secure.

If I am feeling depressed or alone I mediatate... but this has nothing to do with connecting to some intangible omniscient entity... it has more to do with what is happening within myself and within my brain... I know that everything has an ebb and flow to it, so in order to be happy sometimes we must first be sad.

Originally posted by rooktakesqueen
no, your wrong, to say be happy is wrong, no one is happy all the time, who would want to be, for a start it would make us incomplete as we would never experience the opposite to this and more importantly, if we never experience sadness, how would we recognise happiness..? your other point is even more navie, we do not choose not to stay healthy, no o ...[text shortened]... about staying happy, but staying balanced, it is not about staying healthy, but staying at peace

you are correct, I never said "be happy all the time" I said "be happy" which means you have to work towards that goal... do what it takes to be happy.

Being healthy is obviously not always possible... but we as a collective can take steps to ensure the health of eachother. We as individuals can take steps to ensure the health of ourselves... such as not smoking and eating healthy.

Really, we are talking about the same thing here. To me, being at peace is being content with who you are and this makes me happy. Maybe by definition, being content is not being happy, but in practice it might as well be.

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
its still there whether you ignore it or not, that is if you believe in God(s).

Yes, just like a virus. Stay away from overt sources of infection.

Originally posted by rooktakesqueen
no, your wrong, to say be happy is wrong, no one is happy all the time, who would want to be, for a start it would make us incomplete as we would never experience the opposite to this and more importantly, if we never experience sadness, how would we recognise happiness..? your other point is even more navie, we do not choose not to stay healthy, no o ...[text shortened]... about staying happy, but staying balanced, it is not about staying healthy, but staying at peace

Who would want to be peaceful all the time? After all, if if we were peaceful all the time then we would be incomplete, because we would never experience war. Moreover, if we never experienced war, how would we recognize......

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Originally posted by bbarr
Who would want to be peaceful all the time? After all, if if we were peaceful all the time then we would be incomplete, because we would never experience war. Moreover, if we never experienced war, how would we recognize......

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Further to your post, there have been experiments on rats (mind you, I am opposed to animal
experimentation, but since the results are available) where in they placed some sort of probe
in the rats' brains which was connected to their pleasure center. They then rigged the probe up
to a button which stimulated that pleasure center.

The rats nearly universally pressed the button over and over again until they became physically
exhausted. It is perfectly natural to desire to be happy (a pleasurable state) constantly. Of
course, there are societal disadvantages to this -- if you were happy all the time, how could you
be a productive member of society?

Enter 'Brave New World.' Contrast '1984.'

Nemesio

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
thats bull, i dont believe somebody hallucinates during near death experiences when theyve never hallucinated before in their life. dont you think if you were dying the hallucinations would be scarey? not pleasant, youre dying.

Why would they be scary?
That wouldn't make any sense.
If you're dying and your body knows your dying the more sensible approach would be to ease the process with some nice comforting hallucinations.

Certainly MRI scans of brain activity at these type of stressful times shows significant activity in the very places that give us vivid hallucinatory images - like in our dreams.

yes chessjester, i can see what you're saying, sorry for misjudging your original post... the problem is it doesnt matter what you write on here people will always mock it, i could find the secret to happiness and share it with people and all the majority would do is try to find the wrong and contradiction within it... most people read the words and analize, rather than read the words and feel