Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836–1886) did not “join” religions in the institutional sense — he didn’t convert or take formal membership in any sect. But he entered into and practiced the core disciplines of several major traditions to their experiential depths. He wanted to prove (through direct realization) that all sincere paths lead to the same Truth.
>>18028843Why’d he have gyno?
>>18028882he was not the body. you are not the body
>>18028882he's Indian
>>18028843Well? What conclusion did he come to?
>>18028907He lived and realized the truths of Hinduism (multiple branches), Islam, and Christianity. His conclusion: all religions are valid paths to the same Divine Reality, each with its own form and expression.
>>18028910>Divine RealityBased. I like him. He's also completely correct
>>18028907>“You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.” > “Common men talk bagfuls of religion but do not practise even a grain of it. The wise man speaks a little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.”> “God has made different religions to suit different aspirants, times, and countries. All doctrines are only so many paths; but a path is by no means God himself. Indeed, one can reach God if one follows any of the paths with whole-hearted devotion...One may eat a cake with icing either straight or sidewise. It will taste sweet either way.” >"I have practised all religions - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity - and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion - Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well - the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several Ghats. At one, the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ' Jal '; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ' pani '. At a third the Christians call it ' water '. Can we imagine that it is not ' Jal ', but only ' pani ' or ' water '? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him." >
Reposting from the other thread>All religions are true because they're all trying to elucidate something beyond the abstract thinking abilities of their audience. How do you educate a person above their capabilities? Religious thought accomplishes this by meshing with the congregation, forming hundreds of connections to everyday life and culture, that create a bridge from simple to divine thinking. The way to truth is different in every country, nearness is measured by efficacy in finding the One. Not by ability to compete with empiricism. Indeed for other religions (other than yours) to be false, it can only be true that they "misconstrue" the divine, no person is blind to it. No amount of demon activity can take away free will. Thus all religions are puzzles leading to the great truth, the real God.
>>18028910>>18029067>>18029952This is simply Hindu theology, and it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Its simply the bandwagon effect applied to spirituality: if a religion got big, God must have made it.If you look at what these religions actually claim, this is totally impossible. Its not possible for, say, Judaism and Paganism to both be correct since the Old Testament is extremely adamant that there is one and only one God and worshipping others is a grave sin. It isn't possible for both Christianity, which says no one comes to the Father except by the Son, to be true at the same time as Islam, which says claiming Allah has a son sends you to Hell. And none of these can be true at the same time that Buddhism is, which says there are gods but there can never be an eternal God.
>>18029996and how is your post any different from an atheist explaining how God doesn't exist?
>>18030053Many ways, but one of them is that I can follow up my negative claim (X isn't true/doesn't exist) with a positive one. Hindu theology is mistaken because we can show that there's only one God, and He only accepted worship at one temple under one identity.The world is and always has been full of temples to all sorts of deities. Think about how many temples Shiva has in India or Ameratsu has in Japan. But at none of these do we ever see any miracle. None of these purported deities, which the theology espoused in this thread would essentially argue are all just different names for the same being, ever act at any of them.But there has only ever been one Temple of Yahweh, in Jerusalem. He specifically said that this was His only temple. And it is the only temple in all the world at which we have ever seen historically verified miracles. Within recorded history as well. The most recent were in the fourth century AD when the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate instructed the Jews to build a Third Temple.So an anti-Christian Roman Emperor sponsored the Jews to rebuild the Temple, something they were exuberantly enthusiastic about. So why isn't there a Third Temple?The non-Christian Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, either a contemporary of Emperor Julian or who was born just after his death, reports inhttps://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0082%3Abook%3D23%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D2 that Julian "planned at vast cost to restore the once splendid temple at Jerusalem", however it could not be done: "terrifying balls of flame kept bursting forth near the foundations of the temple, and made the place inaccessible to the workmen".Sozomen reports the same here: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/26025.htm, as do othersSo when they tried, God forced them to stop with a miracle. There were others, but this is one strong example.
>>18030192This worldview falls victim to the casual misanthropy which was expected of medieval religions. Back then it was normal to say everyone outside your church was a subhuman incabable of receiving the divine. Today, with our modern understanding of history, it's nothing short of absurd to state that 99.999% of humanity simply missed out, bad luck. Born at the wrong time or place. That doesn't pass for a universal theology anymore. Also the miracles argument is very bad, other cultures have miracle claims that your pre-bunking is insufficient to dismiss.
>>18030210>Back then it was normal to say everyone outside your church was a subhuman incabable of receiving the divine.Christianity certainly doesn't teach this - there are no subhumans, everyone is descended from Adam and then from Noah after. Even the phrase "catholic church" just translates to "universal assembly". That's one of the goals of Christianity: unite all of humanity under one organization dedicated to the one God of all.>nothing short of absurd to state that 99.999% of humanity simply missed out, bad luckThe Roman Empire, where God chose to manifest, was the largest empire in the world and His teachings took it over. Today they're held by a third of humanity (and if you include warped forms like Islam, its the majority of humans), and not going away anytime soon. Since populations were so low in the past, a surprising proportion of the people who have ever lived are alive right now, today. So all told, it was only in 4000 low-population years from the Flood (which is part of Hinduism too if you doubt this - it's part of the Matsya Purana) until this message started going to all of humanity again. Taking human history as a whole, those without access will have been a tiny fragment of the population.> Also the miracles argument is very bad, other cultures have miracle claims that your pre-bunking is insufficient to dismiss.Such as? Let's take a look at an example you have in mind to see the difference between that and the miracles at the Temple in Jerusalem.
>>18030262the catholic church doesn't believe the earth is 6000 years old. moronism has miracles from only 150 years ago not 2000and the vast majority of people alive today believe the wrong religion, through no fault of their own, not just past people.
>>18029996lol, learn how to comprehend what you read if you want to discuss something
>>18030990>the catholic church doesn't believe the earth is 6000 years old.A) I'm a Protestant - why would I care what they believe? They always fold on pressure issues eventually.B) It's actually closer to 7500 btw>moronism has miracles from only 150 years ago not 2000None that even vaguely compare to this. Their's are mainly things like private visions; unverifiable events that privately take place in the mind. People from every religion claim to have these so they don't wind up supporting any of them.The closest parallel would be if their Salt Lake City Temple had, in full public view of everyone, had a light from heaven shine down on it and armies of angels encircle it, which is what actually happened with the Temple in Jerusalem.>and the vast majority of people alive today believe the wrong religion, through no fault of their ownI disagree with that. Most people simply lazily accept whatever their parents or culture told them. Anyone who looks around at the world should be able to tell that most other cultures and parents are wrong, so your's are equally likely to be wrong. But when you talk to most average people about why they believe what they believe, it's usually either some appeal to subjective religious experience (which they should know everyone else claims too) at best, or just a "idk that's how I was raised". Are you really doing your duty to God if you just accept whatever you hear about Him and don't do any fact-checking on it? You aren't. Accepting what you hear because it's what you heard is a fault.>>18031016What a mighty retort, surely I am stunned by your surpassing rhetorical skills
>>18031133Joseph Smith literally performed miracles in front of live audience.People have gone to incredible lengths to learn the truth which according to you, God allows Satan to hide behind the appearance of an old earth and other sciences. It's worse than bad luck, the point can only be to filter 99.999%
>>18031289>Joseph Smith literally performed miracles in front of live audience.What event are you referring to?>People have gone to incredible lengths to learn the truthSure, some have for sure. But the great majority simply absorb what they're taught, despite the fact that it should be plainly obvious that your parents and culture can be very wrong.>hide behind the appearance of an old earth and other sciencesNot so, the evidence is strongly against evolution and the evolutionary timeline of history. Let's take a look. What would you consider to be the strongest evidence for the world being billions of years old?
>>18031400That's where you're wrong. If the evidence were in favor of a young earth, people wouldn't need faith. They could just follow blindly. It is in fact completely obscure to ensure faith. Joe smith read from the golden tablets in public, the ones he miraculously found. However, miracles have the same problem that they objectively prove divinity and remove free will. It was likely a demonic trick.
>>18031412>If the evidence were in favor of a young earth, people wouldn't need faith.This is like saying the Apostles and Prophets didn't have faith because they directly interacted with God. Faith is trust, and it should never be blind. Some of the greatest examples of it were the least blind.>Joe smith read from the golden tablets in publicThat's actually not true. Nobody ever directly saw the golden plates in person besides, supposedly, himself. >It was likely a demonic trick.What religion do you believe in, exactly?
>>18031416Well then why doesn't God show himself right now? Why not give a sign to everyone? Because the point is to winnow out most people.
>>18031416>What religion do you believe in, exactly?They're all true because they're grug tier metaphors for something that is true. Like the idea of few becoming enlightened. It's unjust if you take it at face value, but that's just how groups and initiatives work, they involve a few people not everyone. When all society does something together it's usually not a good thing. That has fuckall to do with metaphysics and everything to do with how we communicate.
He practiced under a Sufi teacher, dressing as a Muslim fakir, performing namaz, and focusing on Allah until he experienced a vision of the Prophet.
>>18031420I think the ultimate answer is the one that https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YKUhD7--LKw gives. Interestingly, God, as the best possible being, needs to take relatively limited direction action in order to avoid paradoxes with omnipotence and infinities. >>18031431>They're all true because they're grug tier metaphors for something that is true.What would you say that truth would be?
American young Earth creationists unironically have absolutely no frame of reference for how utterly retarded YEC is to any educated person living in a civilized country.
>>18031480That makes no sense whatsoever.>What would you say that truth would be?The divine mind really existsNonhuman nature also has characteristics of divinityAnyone that denies will verily pay the costThe dead are not gone, in a way they live onGod is absolute goodness, and God is in peopleThese things can be said thousands of different ways, with sophisticated higher meanings and local flavors. For my own christian background, I would add that people need to willingly serve God for their own best outcome.
>>18028843I find Christianity preys on my paranoia. As much as I've studied and practiced Hinduism, I still get the doubt "what if it's convoluted demonic deception?" I think the fruit of the many Indian sages would pass the litmus test for "testing the spirits", they overflow with love and compassion, are staunchly peaceful, but they don't point to the one true Jesus Christ, so they ultimately are demonic in nature. That's the argument. As I've pondered this over the years my conclusion is that Jesus is more than just the flesh and bone man who walked on the ground two millenia ago, that form was a representative of something higher, and I have a hard time seeing Shiva or Krishna as not also representing the same thing.
>>18031542Good progress. There are hundreds walking the earth right now who have touched buddhanature inside themselves. Anyone can do it.
>>18031542Theologians and church fathers wrote about that stuff for a reason too. You probably can't infer the right lessons about religion designed for a different cultural background.
>>18031591What do you mean?
>>18031624The point of everything we're talking about is an information problem, where there's always more information than you can teach or learn. God would be meaningless if people knew everything. The individual starts from zero in a world of near infinite complexity, humility is absolutely necessary, and so is cooperation with other people. Admitting the wisdom of others is a practical everyday component of how one should relate to God. Reading past authors allows us to benefit from their work and not duplicate efforts, at the expense of awkwardly syncretizing with outdated views of the world. So when scripture or theology says something is a sin, that's not wrong just because all religions are true and not all religions have the sin. It's an anachronistic wording of a syncretic principle of a philosophical thru-line between something that was true then and something that's still true now. Of course you can find theology too outdated to be useful, but something like "don't become Hindoo because it's demonic" is a pretty basic widespread religious idea, which probably still exists in our world. Though if I knew how, I wouldn't need education. Maybe white people who practice hinduism just make other people uncomfortable. You and I don't know, that's why we need to inherit cultural lessons learned and scale up our understanding beyond what one person can experience physically.
>>18031657Basically. I just keep praying to God to lead me to truth and protect me from deception.
>>18031671well, human history can't all be wrong
>>18031512>That makes no sense whatsoever.You agree that the divine mind exists - would you say that the divine mind is the best possible being?And the best possible being would want to make the best possible world, right?The problem: goodness can increase infinitely. No matter how good of a world the best possible being makes, it could always make a better one. So it would have to make a world that has ∞ good. The problem?Actual infinities like that can't exist. Once you examine them, they turn out to be self-contradictions, like square circles.So what's the solution? Instead of making a world that has actually infinite amount of goodness, which is logically impossible,.you go with the next best thing. A potential infinity, which mathematically just means a value that always increases. So that's why God created a world with change in the first place. He made a world where goodness will always be growing. He acts when his action is necessary in order to keep that going. But when it isn't, he avoids directly improving it, to avoid a paradox with infinities: if the best possible being always takes the best possible action, and simply adding good to the world with no hard limit is such an action in some situation, how much must the best possible being add? The answer is ∞, which gets us our problem.Tl;dr actual infinities are impossible so the best possible being went with the best possible quantity, potential infinity. That means perpetual increase that never reaches ∞.>These things can be said thousands of different waysWhat do you think about what Jesus said about them?
>>18032281This is simply peasant logic which would blaspheme any church you'd care to name. Actually it doesn't even rise to that level because there are several huge leaps in your first lines, this is cope. >What do you think about what Jesus said about them?He was right.
>>18028882Sitting on his ass eating chapatis all day
>>18032401many such cases!
>>18032390>there are several huge leaps in your first linesWhat looks to be a leap to you? Character limits are tight here, so sometimes things can't be as thoroughly explained as would be ideal. >He was right.So when in John 5 he talks about how "for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out" and "the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son", if he's right about that, wouldn't that mean that he is the the main one we should follow? Since he is the one who will be bringing us all back to life one day after we die and the one who will be deciding our fates afterwards.
>>18032869Best possible being, best possible world, the logic and everything else between the two is blasphemy against any church you'd care to name except gnostics and the church of satan. It's also a series of logical leaps which I reject. Your implicit calvinism is ironically just hinduism with a christian coat of paint, because it poses individuality as an illusory face of vishnu. The real processes of the universe all take place in the mind of God and there's really no such thing as a human the way we talk about humanity. If you could accept the connection that would be one thing, but you profess to be christian. In later paragraphs, the focus on paradoxes and tautology like God's rock only serve to emphasize the role of language. Solomon would offer to cut your baby in half, the world isn't a math problem nor formal logic. >the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the SonLet's see. Is he talking about Joseph here? Is he speaking as the human Jesus H. Christ of Nazareth? I don't think so. He's speaking as the Son. Most people don't get to hear directly from Jesus anyway, we have no choice but to follow the Son in his abstract form. Being present in 1st century Judea is not necessary.
>>18032869I can't even get past step one with this logic. To say God is the best possible version of himself is an impossible judgment. It's something only God would know. Then it's used to restrict God's freedom by saying he couldn't do anything different, this is the ideal configuration. Even though it's arbitrary when miracles start and end etc. Even though there are infinite details. The fact is, using this level of basic logic God cannot possibly exist. No entity can create the earth on its own. That's how you sound and in truth, I don't believe the universal nonhuman part of God is an individual. I'm not even sure he has free will. But if you want to be a christian to the exclusion of others, you can't get there with tortured logic.
