That spiritual feeling.
I am not quite sure why so many people have that deeply spiritual feeling of connection or oneness, or part of something greater that we don’t understand, I feel it may be due to the fact that we really are connected to the Earth and all living things, which in turn are connected to the universe in a very basic way. I believe it is this, that gave rise to all gods and religions through out history as a misinterpretation of these feelings. It would explain why gods and/or religious beliefs are so wide spread throughout history globally…
I wonder if anyone else has had similar thoughts on this?
I wonder if all those legends and myths about gods arose just from story-telling, enlarged and reinforced with each generation. If you were a child, sitting around a fire, hearing those stories, you’d be captivated and you might believe them real.
IMO that sense of oneness comes from deep awareness and has profound meaning.
What's to wonder? There is enough evidence to prove that all myths and legends including religious ones are based on oral traditions of storytelling. Shared stories across ancient religions(it seems pretty apparent that a great flood occured in the middle east long before history began to be recorded); Christ's life recorded a century after he died etc. The Romans were adept at asimilating the religious traditions of conquered nations. Present day Christianity relies as much on Constantine as it does Christ. When written history replaced oral tradition the 'holy books' were continously re-written to adapt to modern thinking or demands. It still happens to this day. Sense of oneness is based on buddhist teaching but just as much a fallacy as any other self-delusional fairytale. What we believe is not nearly as interesting as why we believe.
@SimonCyrene A sense of oneness is a subjective experience. Experiences might be illusory but they are not fallacies.
Oneness also comes forth in Hindu religious philosophy. You might disagree with the concept but you would have a heck of a time proving it to be a fallacy.
@WilliamFleming a heck of a time? Please don't bore me ?. Idiots believe in idiocy.
@SimonCyrene Well now, it’s just an Americanism that I grew up with. Sorry to bore you.
So far as oneness, the concept resonates with billions of people around the globe. Oneness was part of Aldous Huxley’s “Perennial Philosophy”.
I don’t think it’s something to be believed in a firm way as you would believe a mathematical theorem. It’s more a concept to be pondered.
It's human nature to feel the need to explain everything whether one has any understanding or knowledge on a topic or not. Also in the olden days it was far more acceptable to include large amounts of magic and super natural stuff if it seemed to help make the explanation make sense. It's like asking a a little kid who has not been told about the "birds and the bees" where babies come from. They will give you an entire, sometimes very detailed, explanation (which almost always includes magic and/or unexplainable things). Virtually every civilization in the world developed an entire spiritual world that included all powerful gods that demanded to be worshiped and had all manner of practices and rituals to be followed to avoid the wrath of those gods. Of course appeasing the gods was always done out of "love" for the gods (hence the "connection" ). That created the contest as to who the gods loved most (priests and churches) and how those people might put in a good word for you to the gods who mostly just listened to the people they loved most (not you).