>> ^Psychologic:

I think this is from Anatomica.


Third Eye Open: String Tribute to Tool.

Lebron still misses the full-court understanding and vision that Jordan had. I could say only John Stockton, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson was that far, mentally as a leader--he lacked the "ego" to force plays to happen to other guys; Karl did what Sloan wanted or Karl did what Karl wanted. Lebron is a good defender, very athletic, and a prolific scorer.

He has a way to go and grow. Basically, he NEEDS to learn how to lead; and to be like Jordan you have to grow a third-eye. Kobe had/has this same issue. Amazing player still.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.
At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.
Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.
It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.
I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.
When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.
Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.
At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.
For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.
Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.
What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked exactly like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.
It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.
Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.
So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.
I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.
So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.
So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..


Wow, thanks for that detailed reply. Forgive me, but I've broken it down to basics here. Can you confirm that I've understood you correctly?:

OK, so in short:

- You were an atheist from birth.

- You had a dramatic and sudden spiritual awakening and began to perceive an extra spiritual dimension in the material world around you.

- You began to have visions that were akin to out of body experiences or remote viewing, but with an extra dimension of spiritual perception. You interpreted these experiences as little miracles, and that they were provided by a higher being: a god.

- At this point god spoke you directly and explicitly, and proved to you that you were not imagining him. He explained that he permeated *everything*, including your being, and that in many respects he *was* you.

- Over the next 6 years you studied, and were guided and tutored directly by god who explained to you more specifically about his nature, and what the bible was all about.

Or to break this down even further!:

You believe there is a god because, after a sudden spiritual awakening he spoke to you directly and proved to you that he exists.

Have I got the basics correct here? Just the very basics?

Well, I am not sure how else to describe it. My third eye chakra was opened and my energy system changed to a different voltage. It was a whole body thing, it wasn't in my mind.

I don't like to tell people about this because it leads to esoteric knowledge but..I can see through my third eye with my eyes closed. Not all the time, but occassionally. It wasn't me imagining things..it was me being transformed by the power of God. My eyes were opened. The bible talks about this here:

Matthew 6:22-23

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

In regards to your Christian experience..I'll tell you what I tell every other ex-Christian..

John 6:39

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.

Your problem is you didn't actually do what God told you to do. You were a kid, you didn't understand, fine..Now you're old enough to know. Are you content to lean on the reasoning of a child? You say God reveal yourself to me! What amazing arrogance. Why don't you try doing what God told you to do first? Then ask God to show you He is real.


>> ^MaxWilder:
Well, that explains a lot. You must understand that from our perspective, you've simply flipped your lid. You had a "kundalini awakening" and you think that is rational and logical? Again we are back to differences of opinion in regards to the definitions of words.
Let me tell you, in brief, that I did not abandon God. He abandoned me. I was raised Christian. I believed when I was younger. But the older I got, the more I thought about God and religion, heaven and hell, scripture and prophets... the more I realized how much it was all crap. Piece by piece, the lies that had been the foundation of my spiritual life became evident. I went from believer, to questioner, to skeptic, to atheist of the course of many years and many prayers.
But you think you can convince people? Even, hypothetically, if your experience is completely and truly God entering your life and revealing Himself, what reason could he possibly have for withholding that revelation from the rest of us?
I will say right here and now, I welcome God to reveal himself to me!
But you know what? It won't happen. Because the truth is that even if God was real, for some reason he won't simply let everybody know. He has to remain behind the curtain, condemning souls to eternal damnation for having the audacity to be curious and skeptical and logical. That's repulsive.
I'll give you the only version of spirituality that makes ANY sense. Whatever happens to us after we die, it happens to all of us the same. Either we simply cease to exist, or we are reborn, or we all ascend to some other plane of existence. Because anything else, especially the Christian view of "salvation", is so repulsively unfair that it is gonna take waaaay more than a few ancient words to convince me that a loving God could ever allow a human being to be condemned in that way. For simply failing to believe? In a world with so many lies, so much deceit, so many charlatans that just want to use our money and obedience for their own selfishness... we're supposed to sift through thousands of possible religions and pick the ONE that gives us a Get Out Of Hell Free card? It's patently absurd.
So I say again. God, if you exist, you gave me a sharp mind. You made me logical. You made me skeptical. You put me in this world full of lies. If you want my faith and love, you have some explaining to do.
The God of the Bible is an invention by frightened and ignorant savages. Every other religion has a similar origin. If God wants me to believe different, He can tell me himself. I'm all ears.

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.

At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.

Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.

It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.

I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.

When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.

Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.

At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.

For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.

Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.

What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked *exactly* like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.

It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.

Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.

So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.

I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.

So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.

So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..



>> ^TheSluiceGate:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Well, according to the dictionary:
dict.org
Atheism \A"the ism\, n. [Cf. F. ath['e]isme. See Atheist.]
1. The disbelief or denial of the existence of a God, or
supreme intelligent Being.
merriam-webster.com
Definition of ATHEISM
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
a·the·ism   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
dictionary.reference.com
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The definition of atheism is very clear; the belief that there is no God. If you don't really believe that, IE .0001 percent, then you're not an atheist. You can't just reinvent the definition so you have no burden of proof. That .0001 might as well be 99 percent for all the difference it makes. Personally, I think the definitions people are trying to use today for atheism are extremely intellectually dishonest.

The problem here, as MaxWilder suggested, is that arguing about what the word atheist means is just semantics. We could both quote dictionaries until the cows come home, but it would make no difference to the central argument. It's for reasons like this that other new terms such as "rationalist" or "humanist" are being coined all the time as a way of distancing traditional atheism from the word atheist itself. I realise now that me trying to clarify the manner in which many people commonly define their lack of a belief in a god is actually quite pointless. I'm even going to disregard that you didn't respond to the reason why it doesn't take faith to be an atheist. This thread needs to be brought down to brass tacks.
Let's simplify the central point here, the central point of both the video you posted, and of all the arguments in this thread: Can you give one reason why you , shinyblurry, personally believe that there is a god? Just your one best argument for a god's existence.
For my part, and in the interest of fairness, I will tell you briefly how I arrived at being an atheist. (You can comment on this separately if you wish, but please, not before addressing the above question!)
I was about 13 years old when, as a child brought up a catholic and attending weekly mass, I began to question the morality of the god described in the bible. I looked at the atrocities he committed and asked myself what I would think of a real flesh and blood person alive today who behaved in the manner of the actions attributed to him in the bible, and whether or not this person would be worthy of the praise and admiration heaped upon him. This central idea led to an increased questioning of all the aspects of the religion I had been brought up in, and an awareness that although there were many great ideas and philosophical truths in catholic teachings, there was no conclusive proof either in the bible, or in the world in general, for the existence of a supernatural god of any kind.
So if you, shinyblurry, were recording a video in the style of the one that you have posted, what would you be saying on camera was the one central reason for your belief?

I prefer him circa Third Eye Foundation but this is good stuff.

If you're as ignorant as I was, the definition of a dermoid cyst is according to wikipedia:

A dermoid cyst is a cystic teratoma that contains developmentally mature skin complete with hair follicles and sweat glands, sometimes luxuriant clumps of long hair, and often pockets of sebum, blood, fat, bone, nails, teeth, eyes, cartilage, and thyroid tissue. Because it contains mature tissue, a dermoid cyst is almost always benign.



An introspective third eye... Dunno if I want one though.

"What i hope for is to see less videos about religion and atheism and for people to loose interests in this retarded war. I got tired of all the video spam on these subjects long ago, but they seem to keep returning."

As long as there be unfulfilled, frustrated, bitter, and uncreative folk, there will be arguments "for" or "against" anything and everything.

Religions make Semolians....greenbacks...MONEY. Including the 21st Century religion of Atheism. Both sides will always profit in our current paradigm, where money reigns supreme. YES! Has not the choggie been spouting from day 1 here on the sift (with a chambered downvote shotgun at the ready) that the rabid, sophomoric, finger-pointing and name-calling by both sides is a circle jerk of mammoth proportions?

The sift has enough video wreckage-those who play here and show up to look, usually have a brain with a solid handle on a take on God. Personally???...If ya wholesale rule out a creative force in the uni/multiverse that may or may not be a benevolent omni-being or catalytic observer/initiator, well, you simply ain't had a third-eye opening experience, and ya need to have yer pineal gland fibrillated!

Praise Bejesus Mary Magdaloin!

Paranoia is in bloom,
The PR transmissions will resume,
They'll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down,
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(So come on)
Another promise, another scene,
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed,
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds,
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(So come on)

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious
(So come on)

Interchanging mind control,
Come let the revolution take it's toll,
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye,
You'd see that
We should never be afraid to die
(So come on)

Rise up and take the power back,
It's time the fat cats had a heart attack,
You know that their time's coming to an end,
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They can not control us,
We will be victorious

It's not a cataract, her third eye is suffering from glory hole vision!

3030 way past the millennium, check it out
Yo, Deltron thunderforce, ain't no other source of sunlight
Two ton mic, leave you toungue-tied
Runnin amuck with technology with no apology
Shoutin out to my colony with third eye physiology
Millennium past apocalypse is all I spit
Make you swallow it - your weak style, I'll abolish it
with nuclear rockets they glued to your optics with sci-fi
Unsettlin, man and metal blends
Underground chillin with the Mole Man, and his whole fam
Inhibit bacterial growth, material wrote
Impenetrable, incontestable, indigestible intelligence
Never let a computer tell me SHIT
It's rapid innovation, penetratin
Artificial life forms, who bite songs
I'm a buy a vest, lie is next, then I'll flip the bio-techs
Right into the wireless; your third eye is hit with psoriasis
The mightiest, Deltron Zero
Traverse and purge the travesties that tempt your earholds
The area of distribution, lifts the clueless
My flow is like, liquid oxygen
Rip it often with specific impulse, increasin thrust
Grease the cuts - unleash a cluster of thoughts I muster
I talk to touch ya, and rupture commercial communications
Convert solar energy, into imagery
In the mind's eye, blindside the contagious
With radioactive isotopes to decay them
Atomic mass they small as fragments
I magnetize the avid lies
My radiation shields reflects, rejects Decepticons
who take the truth and stretch it long, while I bless a song
Next level incredible, metal melding
Flexability and my engine is never failing

All your rhyme histories combined couldn't violate
the Prime Optimus operative
Use my hydrometer to see how warm you are, watch me form a star
Hydrogen turned to helium when I shine
Ridin 'em revealin 'em leadin 'em to the vacuum
Interact with tunes in my digital citadel
Critical pivotal with the mental shit on you
Spit infinity, hiden energies too dope for our planet
Star spannin, slammin hymms with
mechanical limbs, scanning your lens
with cosmic rays, you'll all get played, your brain's inferior
I hit the lateral AND posterior
My science is eerier
Ionic bonding for your moronic pondering, meet the armorines
My micro machines, might throw your team, into paralysis
They not talented, just a malady
Worry 'bout a salary, creative casualty
Couldn't defrag my power density intensity
Nonequivalence, nine hundred Newtons
Crush you like croutons, you plus Houston
Hiero's like dipoles inside a silo
Turbulence ten-fold, never simple
Defies accepted methods development most unique
Paralyze central nervous when you close to me
Interstellar void fills with color, appears to bubble
and split into four like amoeba
Inhabitin planets with, grandiose boast
and coast like Silver Surfer, feel the purpoise
High velocity, verbal atrocities
Fire resistance, better hire assistants
My pistons glisten ultra, high performance
Inside your private quarters where I fry your components

Prying open my third eye.
So good to see you once again.
I thought that you were hiding.
And you thought that I had run away.
Chasing the tail of dogma.
I opened my eye and there we were.

-- Tool, Third Eye

Members I miss the most:

-- My left pinky. (Never use a tablesaw while juggling.)
-- My spleen. (The guy who left me in the tub of ice didn't know what a kidney looked like.)
-- My third eye. (McCain 2008!)
-- KP's vagina. (It had sand in it, but he refused to take it out. Someone needs to explain to him the difference between a vagina and an oyster.)

I *hated* this movie when I was a kid, and it's sequels, but obviously I watched them so much that every now and then it pops into my head 30 years later. If not the "Boogedy Boogedy Boo"! line, then the "it's the super duper, super natural...third eye!"

Probably the latter pops into my head once a month at least. Eesh.

>> ^rottenseed:
Being abused by Choggie is a rite of passage here on the sift. So is being ass-raped by blankfist.


Yeah, from my time as a lurker here, I've come to know that chuggie and quantum are colossal nitwits, so I'll wear my downvote like a badge of honor, and keep my third-eye fixed on sir buttfist.

(still: CFR = WTC7)