For Those of You Non- and Semi-Non Believers in a God, Do You Wish or Need an Entity to Guide You?

A number of people here appear to be spiritual (not of an organized religion). If you are spiritual how are you - what makes you spiritual?

I'd like to limit the scope of this topic. Only those of you who have tinnitus respond to this.
If you don't have it, be respectful to my request and at least let us know.

Question not in the poll but I've wanted to know this for a long time.

Would you prefer to have hope there will be a cure for your tinnitus sometime in your lifetime?

 

Do you mean that it would be easier to deal with tinnitus if we had hope for a cure?

I think just by examining what goes on around us, in the world and the universe, I cant help but to think that hope is a byproduct of us being human and alive. We have made so many discoveries, both intended and unintended, from medicine to engineering to physics. It may only take us one more discovery about tinnitus to get a cure or one more accident.

As far as what makes be spiritual, Im going to steal from Neil deGrasse Tyson as he explains how i feel far better than i ever could.

The Most Astounding Fact - Neil deGrasse Tyson

"The most astounding fact, the most astounding fact is the knowledge, that the atoms comprise life on earth; the atoms that pick up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles, that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core, under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched guts, across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds, that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets and those planets now have ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up. Many people feel small, because they’re small and the universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms, came from those stars. There is a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant. You want to feel like your a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive. " Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

I love Neil deGrasse Tyson. Wonderful quote!

I also like your statement:

Interesting way of putting this and again, it's simple and makes a lot of sense. Yes, would dealing with tinnitus be easier if you had hope and we'll complicate this by asking would you rather have false hope rather than no hope?

While I'm agnostic, I am one who does not believe in god. I look to myself to believe in myself and create what happens in my life. I believe spiritually in things I can't see but it's based on science at a level totally unseen to the human eye. I believe in what Tyson calls, "... a level of connectivity." Every motion we make. Every interaction we have. All the goodness we put out from our own self and all the not so "goodness" we put out bounces off the atoms around us in perpetuity. It's really just quantum physics in a very simplified way.

My own answer as to hope or false hope is I'd rather be told the truth. I do not want to base my life on false hope. That's lying and I have enough strength to push my way through life based on reality. I may go bonkers now and then because of this but at least I remain true to myself.

 

I voted "maybe" in if I believe in God. For perspective, I attend an Episcopalian church that generally follows the Common Book of Worship but in messaging is fairly open-ended in beliefs. Unofficially, it is somewhat of a Christian church for agnostics.

As far as your question above--I don't personally think there is a direct connection between a belief in God and hope for a pharmaceutical treatment for tinnitus. To take it one step further--I subscribe to the belief that "we are" the "hand" of God, so it's up to us on Earth to try to solve the issues of today. That includes the work that researchers are doing on pharmaceutical treatments.

I think it makes a lot more sense to take an active role in solving those issues than it does to simply pray for a miracle, if that is what you are asking. And I find a lot more hope in the former approach than I do in the latter.

 

Sounds almost Darwinian-like. Darwin, and other scientists believed in God and science. This allows belief and non-believe to exist side-by-side.

 

I agree with your perspective on false hope, I just don't think hoping for a cure to tinnitus is a false hope. Its something, to me that seems much less complicated than some of the crazy things we have discovered to this point.

There is a something called quantum entalgement in science which is very werid. Einstein was baffled by it and called it spooky.

If you have two sub atomic particles they can become entangled or linked, so you can measure one particle, and instantaneously this effects the outer particle. So say one particle spins, then the second particle will spin counter to the original particles direction. This is true even if they are billions of light years away.

These are the same types of particles that make up the universe and everything in it, who knows how many entangled particles in the early days of the universe ended up forming in people or nature or anything else. This may be part of the connectivity Tyson refers to.

Also i have seen a documentary where they demonstrate the type of stuff you are talking about here. I think it was called I AM. It maybe that this is related to entanglement, but is very interesting either way.

 

This is all interesting (thanks). Normally, I would've multi-quoted your response but forgive me, this is easier. When I refer to false hope, it appears that a number of folks here would rather see hope rather than reality when it comes to tinnitus. False hope for me, for example, is the continuing posting of new threads that offer a "cure" for T within five years (after it was "promised" - that's bordering on being a euphemism) it would be cured in ten years. When I see that changing, there are plenty of reasons that the five year cure will not exist. Maybe later ... but later for me is going to be too late. This is false hope to me. In 20 years, it may not be. Facts change - and you no doubt have seen it.

As the universe is complex, so is the brain perhaps as complex. I enjoy your posts and see tinnitus as complicated as some of the crazy things discovered thus far... including black holes (if I'm correct, The Washington Post wrote its first article about them @1977 and it took years to come closer to what may happen to them).

Wow, Einstein baffled by something scientific? Sounds like something Tyson would talk about. Here's a brief summary (physics.about.com/od/quantumphysics/f/QuantumEntanglement.htm):

Though this interpretation does mean that the quantum state of every particle in the universe affects the
wavefunction of every other particle, it does so in a way that is only mathematical. There is really no sort of
experiment which could ever - even in principle - discover the effect in one place showing up in another location.

The implications are far reaching. It's curious the author states firmly there's "... no sort of experiment which could ever discover the effect in one place showing up in another location." But facts change and 50 years down the road, this may change. Tinnitus may be cured (but what type and how many types of tinnitus are there - it's limitless).

Thanks for the great thoughts.

 

No worries at all. Got it, i thought you might mean something like this but i didn't want make any assumption. Thank you for clarifying.

I wont get to into this because this quantum mechanics is extremely confusing, like said before entanglement was something even Einstein couldn't wrap his head around.

So just to clarify, what that is talking about it the wave function which is a formula physicist use to describe quantum objects . This is whats not testable in a practical way. Entanglement, which is a result of the wave function is for some reason, we've tested it many times and it seems to be true. Weird huh, The origin of it is not testable but something that came from it is. So there is some indirect evidence for it.

The fact that it is only a mathematical framework at this point doesn't make it false either, but of course in science we need things we can verify. Black Holes were actually first theorized by a man named Karl Schwarzschild 1916. It was many decades before we were able to prove they were more then just an equation.

 

What's stranger is this makes sense to me. I certainly understand the indirect evidence (from a different thing in a past - how far in the past ... microscopically snowballed since the beginning of time ... that's not traceable) - that makes it like quantum physics.

Wow, that's frickin' cool about Karl Schwarzschild THEORIZING (neat) the existence of black holes in 1916.
I don't remember the Washington Post mentioning that. They did show a black & white solar system & photo
of stars and where they thought was a black hole sucking down the system.

 

@Brianna I thought It would be more clear if I didn't explain to much of what qm is but looking over it I think what I wrote is misleading.

when I said the wave function is not testable I meant that it is not when we expand it passed quantum levels. So it's not testable as we link this wave to bigger and bigger things in the universe. but this link is assumed . On the other hand on the quantum level the wavefubction has been verified.

 

Yes.

I need hope. I want my life to mean something. I need to feel there is a destination. There is so much suffering in life. If God is not real, then all this world boils down to is nothing. I don't want my life to amount to zero. If my suffering has a destination, then I have something to hope in. I cannot live without this hope. I can't imagine waking up each day without hope.

Does this come close to address your question @Brianna?

 

Yes, I need it!

I feel that their could very well be a creator,

But not the one that the bible refers to, (who in my opinion, is a vindictive heartless entity who likes nothing more than to play this evil game with us called life, and seems to get great pleasure in watching innocent animals have their throats cut in an offering to him and in watching his so called son get killed in one of the most gruesome and painful way so as to appease his first creation, man, so that said man, could be forgiven for eating a piece of fruit, Then decides to flood the world and murder ten's of thousands of human life, of which there would have had to have been quite a few thousand innocent children and more than a few innocent adults, then apologizes for doing it!
And on top of that, apparently knew all this was going to happen right from the word go!!!!!!!!!)

God! I could go on and on.......

Why I am no longer a creationist - Part 2: The...

 

I feel im living in hope for a treatment or cure as some of us have it worse than others and some are barely hanging on if you tell them no cure they might just give up fighting and call it quits.. Sometimes ill read a promosing treatment or cure thread and get a little excited as hoping my pain will go away or at least improve but yet ill read someone saying thats bull no cure in 10-15 years and itll put me down. But thats just me

 

yes, but not as a separate entity ... so in that sense any wrong you do, you do to god .. any good you do, you do to god. And any wrong or good you do, it is god doing it.

This attitude would change a lot of problems in the world.

If all fanatics believe their god is almighty, then why would he create so much difference and imperfections, in the eyes of fanatic religious people? It would mean their God is actually pretty stupid or pretty mean.

The truth is .. .God himself is perfect imperfection and indifferent difference ... and it is through us he learns to love all of this and so also himself.

We are but senses and feelings of a infinite organism .. we are interconnected on levels beyond your imagination. We are actually one and the same.

and yes, I hope for a cure this lifetime ... cause god loves to discover what the heck will let his children find peace again!

so I voted maybe, because i`m not sure if we have the same concept (but let`s not start a war over it sister self)

 

I don't have an entity but I do have a philosophy that I follow. It is De Oppresso Liber.
It is the motto of US Army Special Forces and it means "to liberate the oppressed." I interpret it to mean "protect those who cannot protect themselves."

 

@Albert Savage.....Great motto.

 

Thank you Teri.