You might have a point, if say someone had called you evil, that might be considered personal, but this forum is open to all forms of debate, be it religion, politics or the proper way to eat ice cream (I prefer a cone).
This brings up my major gripe with religious zealots, which is their inclination throughout history to stifle (by any means necessary) any dissenting opinion. Why is this? Is it because their belief system won’t stand up to the light of reason? I think so.
So you see, your seemingly innocuous appeal for censorship represents for me the vast and bloody history of religion’s suppression of humankind’s right to think and speak freely.
Please remember that I am not attacking you personally, just your need to remain unchallenged in your belief system.
It was not meant as a insult, neither directed at all christians. But from what we discussed… But it does indeed sound cruel and evil to me that even a kind person is sent to hell, just because he/she have other beliefs. Its very hard for me to believe that Gandhi is supposed to be as bad as lets say Hitler… I am not saying all christians believe this, but most christians i have talked to seem to do so.
Pinky i understand your feelings but to be honest if u read all of the bible
u can c a god thats cruel and a god thats love…the choice what we think god is, the christian god as tomas speaks of, is coming from our own perspective, our own interpertation. And then there will be ppl that are not religious and think by reading the bible, or parts of the bible, god is this or god is that. In fact if there is a god he will be always the same, so this is not about god but about how we c or interpetate the bible. And thats very personal!
Err, sorry guys. I really didn’t mean to support the “vast and bloody history of religion’s suppression of humankind’s right to think and speak freely.” Very eloquent, Firehorse. But, Really, I didn’t! And I didn’t take it as an insult tomas. I just wouldn’t feel like I was doing my duty if i let someone question the nature of someone that died to save me. (or so I believe!! I’m not trying to convince you or anyone else!!) You just have to understand that an insult against my God is an insult against me, and a thousand times worse than that too, and it is my moral duty not to sit by passively when it happens. It’s like in a movie when someone insults someone else’s mother and they get into a fistfight…the other person was just expressing himself, but still, a fight insued. But despite all that, I sincerely apologize.
I guess for the sake of harmony I should have just let it go. Peace?
Not true. If God really cared about us and wanted to save us from Hell than why doesn’t he just come down onto the Earth right now and confirm to us that he exists. Can you imagine how many souls would be saved if God just showed up and said hi. And if God really is omnipotent and omniscient then he could talk to everyone on the planet one-on-one all simultaneously. If God exists then:
A. He is not all powerful and can’t help us
B. He doesn’t care about us. He cares about us as much as we care about ants
As for you, Mabus, I’ve learned my lesson and I’m no longer getting involved in these discussions. I will just say politely that I disagree, and if you wish any more heated conversation, you may contact me in another way.
I don’t think killing people in a dream would be a sin, but I guess it depends on your reasons for doing so. I don’t claim to understand exactly what passes as a sin (does anyone, honestly?) but I am of the opinion that sins are defined as acts that negatively affect others. If I feel better upon waking from a dream in which I killed my loud, annoying secretary, is it a sin that I’m a little happier for the duration of the following day?
Some people are just curious, and if there was a God, I believe he would have given us the ability to lucid dream as something of a testing ground to focus our perception of real life. A training ground, if you will. Maybe even an escape from the life we have absolutely no say in.
To stop some monster attacking me once I just said ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ and it was completely disintegrated. Try using prayer to God and if it’s a person bless that person. I think you’ll see a difference.
I wish I read this earlier
I have some thoughts on this…
Like someone said earlier, what a sin is depends on the person doing it. Remember also that not everyone uses words like sin, as they are not Christians. For the sake of my post, lets call them, ‘moral standpoints that should not be crossed because of a belief system’. Maybe thats a bit long.
Anywhooo…lucid dreaming is an engine for self improvment. Its like, a vehicle for exploaring the mind and the universe, to find out who you are and better ways to act in society, to re evaluate your views on the world, or to just have a super awesome time. Needless to say, the list is extensive. So, if you look at it that way, Lucid Dreaming cannot be a sin, unless your religion preaches that you never try to learn anything about yourself or the world, or have fun, and I don’t know any religions like that.(Except for the fun part)
So, now it falls to your actions in the lucid dream. Like I maintained before, what a sin is depends on your beliefs, or the belief systems you conform to. But, I wonder, if you cannot truely ‘sin’ in a lucid dream. Like I said, I dont like that word, but…lets say in a dream, I kill someone trying to hurt me. Thats murdur, a sin. I never actually killed anyone though, and the guy I ‘killed’ was just a creation of my mind, but there’s the rub right there; just trying to make your problems dissapear in a second isn’t a very good way to try to get through life. It would’ve been much better to try to talk my problems out, or to love my enemy, something else many religions teach.
So, after all that, here’s what I’m getting at. You cant really do any harm to anyone else, that is, ‘sin’, but you can potentially limit your growth as an intelligent being, which, if I liked the word sin, I would call a sin.
Anyway dreams are a source of knowledge an inspiration in the bible, so, what could be wrong with lucid dreaming?
Lucid dreaming can be a very dangerous topic for fundamentalist religious people. Once you have experienced lucid dreaming, you can see how ANYONE could have experienced the things that our prophets tell us were direct messages from God. Could it be that so many deeply spiritual people who believe they have spoken with God, or angels, or Shiva, or burning bushes, etc. were actually people who stumbled into a lucid dream and believed it was real? It actually sounds more plausible than just about all of the religious texts I’ve read. And what a coincidence that just before so many monumental experiences these guys all seemed to have set themeselves up for a WILD, i.e. Jesus in the desert, Buddha under the Bo tree, Hindu meditation.
I totally agree Moogle, though I didn’t add that. How a person has an experience doesn’t diminish the truth in it. That’s why I added “fundamentalist”, because a person who refuses to interpret religious stories and takes them as direct face value would not accept what I said at all.
oh my, now why would lucidity be a sin? it’s just a dream! since when was dreaming a sin? hmm, regardless, it’s what you do in your dream that decides…i don’t see myself doing something against my nature in a dream or reality, so if im not a killer, then im certinly not going to kill anyone in a dream, not any human at least, maybe some monsters i find stalking me…uwahaha…umm, if you think something is sinfull, then you just decied not to do it, dreaming in it self isn’t a sin.
So happy dreaming!
I guess even all priests don’t have the same oppinion about whether it’s a sin or not. I remember when one priest once said that if you make something bad just in your mind if you even think of doing something bad) it is a sin… So according to this all bad stuff we do in our LDs would count as sins…
But I personally think that’s bullshit! I just don’t agree about some things that catholic church says, especially about what is sin and what isn’t. There’s no priest that will ever convince me that my dreams are sins! Even my thoughts are not sins! I can do anything I want in my LDs. I can’t hurt anyone by it anyway. So actually I don’t give a damn about what church says, my LDs are non of their business anyway!
You maybe right. I just looked at the original post for this and they only made one post…lucid-chicken
Sleepwalker
Joined: 26 Jun 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:43 am Post subject: Is lucid a sin?
is lucid a sin for the christianity?I really want to do lucid, it sounds like the best thing ever but if its a sin i dont want to risk it. The idea of doing whatever you want sounds great. but is there a price you have to pay for it?
if it confuses you, dont think about it
[color=blue] So it must have been so confusing, they decided not to think about it…[/color]
I hope I won’t be doing just bad stuff in my LD’s…
I’m not sure if it’s ok or not myself… in the sense that I haven’t made up my mind completely on this. It’s a difficult question to answer. Of course you can do anything you want in an LD. You can’t hurt others, that’s true. Can you hurt yourself perhaps? I don’t know 100%. Probably not since it’s like a normal dream. Having a sexual dream is ok because you didn’t choose to have it. The only difference with an LD is the control part. But it’s not really 100% control, is it? It’s being aware and having some control, but how much you can control is not necessarily 100%. If I end up imagining a sex scene in an LD, I care what the church says about it but there’s no definite answer about this - only different opinions and just private ones.
If it’s not correct to imagine it (a sexual LD), I will try to avoid it - but it’s difficult to avoid forever and should I imagine this type of LD, I’m ready to go to confession because of it. I’m talking about myself, and I respect the fact that not everyone will have the same opinion (I’m not forcing it on anyone either). It’s up to me to reflect on this, check my conscience and I came to this decision.
Please note - I believe LDing in itself is NOT a sin. It’s what you do in the LD which might be. I’m not likely to kill in my LD’s. Ok, I might make a DC disappear completely. It’s like writing a story, come to think about it. Perhaps dreaming a sexual LD is preferable than masturbating since it’s just a thought instead of a physical action (given that you can keep yourself from masturbating after you wake up). But I still think it would not be fully ok, at least for myself.
In my next LD I hope to do things like exploring, flying, talking to DC’s, going to the crossroads. I am tempted to do things like imagine bdsm scenes (things I wouldn’t do in real life at least at present), sexual scenes in an LD, so I might find myself doing that once in a while though I’ll try not to make it often.
I hope nobody is offended by my opinion. What I really like about these forums (ld4all) is that everyone speaks their mind on all topics including faith etc - in a way where posters respect those with different opinions - which is a good thing in my opinion. We can learn from each other.
