The problem with "Other Religions" is that we never fight about what we disagree on so there are never any good threads in here.

I don't know. My beliefs are pretty far out in left field. It's almost impossible to discuss them without the conversation degenerating into violence... Want to talk about them?

Yes! Although I doubt you'll get any violent reactios here. However, I'd still like to hear them.

You think this is bad, try the Buddhist thread. I can't get a person to post in there for over 3 months at times!

I end up going on other sites to gain knowledge on Buddhism.

Anyway have fun guys/gals and good luck on finding a good conversation!

I believe that we're all going to hell in a handbasket.

Then I started wondering who the hell started that saying.

Well, fortunately in this day and age of the Internet I was able to look it up within seconds. It appears that an author by the name of I. Windslow Ayer first coined the saying in an 1865 history book.

Of course the saying may have already been around prior to that and Ayer may have simply been the first person to actually jot it down. Who knows?

Also Ayer didn't suggest that he (or she) was going to hell in a handbasket, but instead was threatening to send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket. I guess this was written in the south against the north in the American civil war.

So the next time you hear about sending someone to hell in a handbasket you'll know that it was the confederates that wanted to send the Yankees to hell in a handbasket and failed to do so.

So if someone threatens to send you to hell in a handbasket tell them that didn't work.

Isn't the Internet fun?

Well, according to both my direct experiences, and to my religious beliefs, there is not a single human being on the planet that is free. We are all enslaved, controlled, and eaten on a daily basis. There is a ruthlessly efficient predator that people could see, yet we choose not to. (I can't say I blame us, as the sight is so awful and horrible that no one who could see it would want to for long.) These things, (according to my best guess) attach when the host is around two years old or so. (Terrible twos) Once attached, the creature gives the host it's mind. Let me repeat that one. THEY GIVE US THEIR MINDS. They make us think that it's mind is our own mind, so we use it's mind for all of our day to day thinking and decision-making. There is only one way I have found to remove the parasite. You must move your consciousness/ego to within your own heart. (Your center) The mind can not cope with being made to move into the heart. It'll flee for a while when you try this, and then come back later on. Eventually, it will leave for good if you keep it up. Then you are truly on your own. (Since the mind you have had your whole life decides to vacate the host body) So that's my beliefs. (Some of them) What are your thoughts on this subject? I find people's reactions to this information to be very interesting.

I have to think about this. But, my first question is about the predator. Are you speaking literally as in a creature or an alien? Or are you speaking metaphorically? It seems you are being literal because you said we would be able to see this creature if we chose to.

Yes, it is and I love learning stuff like that!

Yeah, Buddhists don't do a lot of chatting.

Quite literal, yes. Young children seem to be the only ones who can see them.

Mine or the creatures? And, how do you go about doing that?

That's the part i don't quite get myself yet to be honest. There is that method "grabbing on to your center" and then there is the method that involves a complete overhaul of one's life in order to become more disciplined. After years of harsh discipline, it will get bored and find easier prey. The way I see it, your awareness, or consciousness which during sober, waking life is centered (or seems to be, behind ones eyes.) This is what you need to move, I would recommend imagination to help visualize it. Imagine it as a point, the one spot that is really what you mean when you say "I" Imagine it beginning behind your eyes, and slowly traveling through your body towards your heart. Close your eyes and try to picture the sensations of moving down into and through your throat, down into the chest. When you get near the heart, there will be a desire to stop, and fight against what you plan on doing. Possibly fear. If you manage it anyway, you will be rewarded with a taste of real freedom until it comes back. It can be chased off over and over until it gets the idea though. I think.

Hmmmm...aescetics like monks and some nuns and hermits have used the method of harsh physical discipline to accomplish various spiritual goals. If what you say is true then the losing of the creature may bring on a kind of enlightenment or feeling that you are one with God.

Do you have any information on where the creature comes from? How long have they been inhabiting our minds for and where they go when the person dies?

My belief is that God created them, since their own hearbeats seem to be the exact counterbeat of our own. I think He wanted to devise the perfect enemy, or a way of keeping everyone weakened. Well, if it was a perfect enemy that we were supposed to win against, we lost to the man, and we're all enslaved in the here and now. As far as how long this has been going on, well, I feel that these things showed up while we still evolving and a nomadic people, pre-cities, back then we would have needed them in order to help us and they needed us for food and to ensure their growth. As for the last question, they can leap place to place like fleas, so I would guess that if the host's death didn't kill one, it would just hop away and find someone else to eat.

I'm making a fictional film about the whole story, but it's pretty hush-hush at the moment.

I understand that you are referring to an actual living creature. But, the way you describe it makes me think of how I would describe the ego and the way we are enslaved by it and driven by it.

Deeply spiritual people often use asceticism or prolonged meditation as a way of overcoming it. Denial of the self. Purifying oneself and getting rid of the ego.

I think that's great that you are making a film. Good luck with that and I hope to be able to see it one day.

The ego is exactly the organism that I am talking about. I also think that it is the root cause of most of the truly global problems facing the world today.

Well you sure took the long way around to tell me that!

In that case. I agree with your beliefs 100%.