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Message: <blockquote data-quote="InzeladunMaster" data-source="post: 2645327" data-attributes="member: 9774">Excellent point about the split between the conscious and subconscious.  I am not entirely sure where to go with that but I think you have hit on something.  In recent researches I get the feeling ancient religions were very subliminal and only the rituals were conscious - and the rituals are designed to honour mysteries and maintain the culture.Almost all ancient religions forbid the writing down of its interior secrets - only the outer mysteries could be recorded.  Those who understood the inner mysteries could 'translate' the outer mysteries.  Somewhere along the line, someone decided the outer mysteries was all there was...  I wonder if my disillusionment with Christianity had to do with a feeling that there must be something more to it than I was being taught - something that used to exist but is now forgotten.So many ancient religions are so similar to Christianity it is frightening.  So frightening that most Christians claim that Satan, with perfect foresight, created those similar religions to mock Christ before there even was a Christ!  I can't buy that theory.  As for dreams, I am of the mind that they are highly symbolic.  The subconscious mind is infinitely aware of more than our conscious mind is; we just build scotomas (blocks) to the information so we can focus on what we are doing.  Imagine if we were constantly bombarded with all the noises and sights around us at all times, every rustle of clothing, every sound the children make... the important stuff gets through, but all else is relegated as background and ignored - but the subconscious is aware of it all, making the decision of what is important and what is not.   If we listen to our instincts, we find we can even predict the future - this is the case with people who decide not to get on the plane just before it crashes.  Instead of listening to their conscious minds, they listened to the subconscious warnings that are aware of EVERYTHING.Later, the subconscious "talks" to the conscious via symbolism... and that is what dreams are.  They tell us the future possibilities as well as the past so we can make more informed choices.  Depending on what is going on in life, these things can be trivial (so ignoring the dream has little impact) to monumental.  A lot of dreams simply tell us about the present in more detail than our conscious mind can actually perceive.However, many people insist that dreams mean nothing - they are just the random babblings of a restless mind.  That answer does not satisfy me at all, nor does it necessarily reflect my own encounters with dreams.  Of course, reality is perception and as long as I ascribe a meaning to my dreams, I will create a self-fulfilling prophecy that "proves" the validity of the meaning I ascribed to it.... and now I am going into circles.  But, just because I have the power to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, does that not go against the idea that God creates everything and puts situations before us?  Or do we create our own reality?  Are our lives God-inspired or self-inspired? Many movies show that dreams are portentious.  Is this indicitive of a subconscious realisation that dreams are portentious, or do some of us believe dreams are portentious because we have seen it in movies?  It is hard to be objective because of the subjective nature of perception.I think part of modern religion's problem lies here: It tries to portray itself as objective truth, whereas ancient religions tended to accept the subjective nature of life - thus the ancient religion's ability to adapt and bend as the culture needed.Modern Christianity and Islam both are fairly inflexible religions, despite the variations in interpreted dogma (the protestants vs. the Catholics, for example).  Changing religions or starting new ones is really the only way to incorporate new subjective spiritual truths into an existing religion.  Why would God have created a religion that is so unclear that many different branches are created, often on the disagreement of a single point of interpretation?  The answer may be that religion is not objective and was not intended to be.  The "teachings" are supposed to be symbolic, not literal - and subjective.  Modern religion makes a grave mistake in presuming and teaching that it holds objective truth in its grasp.The number one objection I get when I teach Strategies for Success, which is about creating self-fulfilling prophecies of success, is that it runs contrary to God - who gives us our lives and the situations in it.  I teach that we can choose our lives based on how we think and believe.  I also try to teach them to stop believing they are poor, miserable human beings and that they are intelligent, successful people - a point someone always seems to claim is also contrary to their faith in God.  Anyway, Grimhelm is right about the themes of Star Wars:  Using instinct and the subconscious to aim the proton torpedoes instead of the conscious mind and the computer targeting device is but one example of that.</blockquote>

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