>>41242243
What are your opinions so far? What spiritual things seem true to you based on life experiences?

>>41242414
Quite a lot of things. I believe the world is fictional for starters, and that we're all characters in a world book composed by an "Author", and that there are perhaps multiple authors. These authors view us as fictional, in a sense. Don't take it completely literally, but think of it this way. Let's say you're reading a book, right? You might know that the characters in the book are fictional, but the characters within their own world view themselves as real. It's kind of similar to that. My views sort of intersect with literature in a way.
What I'm going to say next is going to sound extremely heretical to some people, but I believe even the gods of major religions in this universe are characters as well. They are no less fictional than you and I are. The true god(s) come from beyond the story we live in.
I can keep going if you want, but those are some very basic beliefs of mine.

>>41242518
just join hinduism

>>41242535
Why would I join Hinduism?

>>41242564
thats basically hinduism

>>41242575
I don't really believe in Karma though. And while I do believe in reincarnation, I don't actually think each incarnation is based off of how good you are in each prior life. I also don't believe there's much point in worshiping the author(s) themselves. Whether or not you get any blessings thrown your way is served only by whether it moves the plot along.

>>41242518
I feel ya, I have similar beliefs.

Ultimately reality is much more malleable than we think.

>>41242940
Oh so someone does feel the same way. You're right though, reality is very malleable overall. For instance, I think that belief and to an extent culture actually influences the power systems here. If you take a Native American shaman and throw him into China, he's going to be very ineffective at dealing with a Chinese spirit. Similarly, a Chinese monk's eastern arts will hold very little sway over the djinn of the middle east. At least that's how I view it. Belief shapes reality, and that's why in this age of atheism, paranormal events are less common. It's probably possible to develop your own magic system if you get enough people to believe in it and define it well enough.

>>41243021
All is Imagination after all.

The way I see it, science and technology are in themselves beliefs and work under the same line as religion and magic

After all technology somehow stops working despite favourable conditions and sometimes all you have to do to fix it is to turn it off and on again.

Have you had any paranormal or religious experiences?

>>41243037
I've had some paranormal experiences before yes. I've seen a man in broad daylight who had horns on his shadow in Europe. He was just walking around with two other people and I remember specifically double checking to make sure I wasn't going crazy before he walked away. Sure enough, his shadow had horns. I've also been woken up by a spirit who called out my name.
As far as religious experiences go though, I don't believe I've had any, at least none that I can remember. But, with that being said, a lot of my views are adapted from text in a few images that two anons from 4chan have written. So I can't say that I've come to these conclusions on my own. I guess you could say I've expanded on the theory a bit, and tried to get things to work as best as I could. To me at least, the model I've built up in my head seems pretty resilient.
Here's a pretty good one: Why does evil exist?
Well if the author just views this as a work of fiction, and wants to create an engaging story, then you have your answer right there. What other purpose does building a universe have if not to tell a story? Evil and good exist to create an engaging tale. Our universe is just one of the many sandboxes that exist in reality. Now you may consider the Author as being evil for unleashing that kind of thing upon the world, but I view it as no less evil than writing your own story where a hero has to face a villain. We are just fictional hand puppets for our souls so we can roleplay a specific character. The vast majority of us have existed for an extremely long time, and have played many different roles throughout the ages. You will inevitably end up playing every single one over a long enough period of time. And once you play every single role there is, there might be a "reward" at the end.

>>41242518
If you dont mind hearing my psychological take, I feel that the fictional world you described is instead the limits of man-made society and its unending attempts to tell us who we are, or rather who they want us to be. This Western society we seemingly cannot escape is increasingly incompatible with nature and takes us further and further away from the truths of life. And our fictional selves are instead the masks that we are taught to wear by our education and need of money.

>>41243192
I don't mind at all. Though I'm a little confused about what you're saying here. While I'll admit that if things were natural I wouldn't have obtained these beliefs that I have, I think that this is just a process that was bound to happen from the start. Stagnation leads to boring stories, so it's only natural for us to enter new times and new ages. The plot may pause and linger for a time, but it will always eventually begin to move. There will never be an unending utopia, but there will never be unending dystopia either.
Back to what you were saying though, I'm not quite entirely sure what you meant by this line: "And our fictional selves are instead the masks that we are taught to wear by our education and need of money." We are fictional yes, but we are still characters in a story, and so we regard our world as real because breaking the fourth wall too much would derail everything. Of course anyone could break character at any time, but it's not something anyone does because to do so of their own volition would be crazy in their own eyes.

agnostic pandeism with universe collapse reunification collective consciousness afterlife.