singhcity

There's nothing in Gurbani that contradicts evolution, or any of science. But we believe that God is the universe, but the universe is just a manifestation of Waheguru, a part of his creation. Waheguru is also a separate divine being who is perfectly conscious and capable of thinking,creating,destroying. Waheguru is hard to describe in so little words but he is isn't just a word for the universe. So no Pantheistic would be wrong.

thanks light yagami

I know we are monotheists (Ik onkar) but i was recently asked by someone to describe how sikhi understands the idea of god and evelution, i said we dont deny evelution as we believe god is a part of nature and god us eberything, but then i was questioned if sikhi was pantheistic then (seeing God as part of the universe and nature) the desription of Waheguru also matches that title, so are we a pntheistic and monotheistic religion?

Thanks

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

does amritvela change depending on what time the sunrises? sunrise these days is at 4 so does that mean amrit vela can be from 1-4? or is it still 3-6?

also,

whats our take on drugs such as weed? its a natural drug and a plant and im sure it was used in war times by sikhs and im sure nihangs still use it today, so whats the deal with it, i kinda wanna try it just to know what being high feels like so i can compare it to my experience with naam, and also so i dont look like a hypocrit in philosophy class when i tell people that you can get high of naam or have a religious experience similar to a high when you meditate.

i think amrit vela is the closest i have gotten to feeling a type of high, but i cant really tell coz ive never been high from a substance so i cant compare it really, I get like a euphoric feeling of dizzness when i eat salad, its so weird but feels really good, is that what being high feels like?

Who deemed it un-natural and lustful lol. It's about as lustful as heterosexuality and just as "un-natural" .

the lust needed with a man and a women is a requirment to reprodue, lust between a man and a man does not have a function a part from kaam, and hetrosexuality is not un natural lol what makes u say that?

Im confused about how i should feel with the current events surroinding the LGBT community as a sikh. I accept that you cant be gay and be sikh or you can but you have to remain celbate for life, there is no mention of beging gay in gurbani and it is deemed un natural and lustful and part of kaljug and kaam, but does this mean we should be against it? surely sikhi would be against discrimination and inequality, and me being someone who has experienced discrimination bc of being sikh and a minority like many of us probably have its hard to be against it as we feel emepthetic, but, does this mean therefore that we should support it ?

im really confused on the opinion i should have tbh lol, and p.s i'm not gay aha, it just something that people have asked me about and what the sikh opinion on it is and i cant really give a difinitive answer on it because i dont know enough, my opinion right now is leaning on the side that we should be nuetral and hence support it as everyone should be free to pursue their happiness and choose their life freely but at the same time understand that a sikh has responsibilities to live in the footsteps of our gurus. and if you are sikh you cannot do things that may be accepted by the rest of the world as 'okay' and normal, like smoking or drinking thats only my take on it tho, i look forward to reading others views and making a solid opinion fromt that and gurbani.

is it bad to do ardaas for exams and ask maharaj to give me good grades lol? simple question, it feels slighty werid to me, i usually do ardaas for the blessing of naam and simran and to end if off with exams seems quite obsure to me.

thanks

Waheguru ji ka khalsa Waheguru ji ki fateh

There's a book called The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James which might be of help. It's quite old and the frames of reference are mostly from the Abrahamic perspective, but the overall theories and opinions he ventures are quite sound IMO.

ahahha i have the book lol, this arguement is an arguement against william james, i like william james but i think he is narrow enough with his beliwf of what constitues a religious experience

...OR everything else describable is actually nonsense.

haha nice !

Have you had a religious experience?

Has anyone else on this forum ever had a religious experience?

If you have could you describe it?

if i had i wouldnt be asking this question tbh, but idk, bhai jugraj singh ji has had one (basics of sikhi), he says its like pure bliss but even he would admit thats its an indescribable feelings.

Well what's the definition of a religious experience according to the questioner?

How does a real life ecstatic feeling differ to a religious experience?

We need definitions of the phrase, what exactly is a religious experience?

:smile2:

I mean what is it?

A reliious experiene is when someone is directly aware of God or Gods actions.

Ok how about this?

How would you explain seeing something with own your eyes to someone who can't see?

It's a similar question.

Honestly, how would you do it?

ahh i see where your going with this,a blind man cannot understand the notion of things like colour wothout experience, so it would be impossible to explain it to him. I think the philosopher in my question isnt denying the importance of experience, i think hes only trying to show that some experience claims may be false. Talk of colours and perception is meaningful because we all have them as part of our conceptual schemes, but religious experience is something rare which is why we he claims we should be doibtful of anyone who has claimed to have one. eeing things is objective, even if the blind man does not understand it he may appriciate it, but a religious experience in relation to your proposition is like the blind man telling us what he can see instead of the other way round, if that made sense lol

Maybe he can draw it, use visual aids instead of words, mystical experiences are usually quite visual IMHO.

My personal opinion on this is a mystical experience is something unique to each person and a true mystic can only help a student by guiding them to their own expeience which will be different to his.

A mystic will know various techniques such as use of breath or where to centre the mind and these will aid the student but the experience has to be experienced by the student to be fully understood.

Just a few of my own thoughts, not sure if they are helpful though.

this question concerns why the student should believe the mystic in the first place, there are many people who say they have exprienced God or that God has spoken to them but not all of them can be right. And when a mystic also adds that he cannot desribe his expeience this makes the experience more unreliable. how would a sikh respond to this, as our doctrine is based on experiencing God and not just believing in him. The Guru is perfect and bani is pure bliss, but how can this be a counter arguememt when every other religion would say the same thing or roughly the same thing ?

how can one reply to this arguement:

"If a mystic admits that the object of his vision is something which cannot be described, then he must also admit that he is bound to talk nonesense when he describes it." - Ayer

Thank You luckysingh99, that was very insightful, I do not disagree that sikhi is true, but, the onlu problem is that i dont know the sikh counter arguements to athiest claims. the questions i get sre very broad and its difficult to talk about a specific God so we have to talk about God in general with the scholars that we are told to use. and examples of the types of problems are:

God is not a rational belief because rationalty is based on evidence. This cannot be denied as all beliefs we have are based on evidence so it seems unfair to use fath to have a belief in God. Ofcourse there are some God arguements for god, such as God is a basic belief for a thest like perception is for all humans, but this arguement fails.

The athiest perspctive is always stronger because its grounded in evidence, And i would argue that sikhi says God is true because of experience of God, but athiests would respond by saying how can we know it is God we are exprriencing, there is no difference beetween a man who eats too little and sees god vs a man who drinks to much and sees snakes.

ok, so i do philosophy at A level and im doing an essay for the existence of God in exam, and when looking at the notes from the book and stuff the athiest perspective always wins. the questions concern sfuff like like the rationality of God through reason and stuff and i always find myself wanted to argue for the athiest side because the theist philospher arguements are too weak and i would proberbly get more marks if i argued for athiests

is this bad? i feel like a sell out of a sikh but, i feel like im doing worse on my essays coz i cant bring in proper arguements against thesists coz it would undermine my arguement?

what shall i do?

are there any Philosophy students out there that can help me out?

i know this seems like a stupid question but i hope it made sense lol.

Khalsa like party?! Lol how did u conclude that?

I just cant take miliband seriously. The guy looks like monkey and acts like one too. Thankfully hes resigning. But he never was a worthy competitor.

Tory are good for businesses, 1 in 3 sikh families own a business.

The Tory have cut benefits and are to cut them even further which frankly shouldve happened a long time ago. Labour encouraged reliance on the welfare system. Labour just messed up the whole system. Sikhs are the least reliant on the welfare system. Since blair, I've not supported them. Frankly they have very little to offer me. And apart from the above, tory have little to offer either. Liblabcon - theyre all pretty much the same with minor differences.

I voted green because out of all parties they seem to be the most 'common man-ish' party, although we all knew they wouldnt win the election. Their support is growing. Unfortunatly a lot of people dont seem to take them seriously enough but yeah i thought they were the only ones worthy of a vote. If i was scottish, i would most definitely have voted snp. Im all for scottish independance. Too long have they suffered at the hands of the english.

For me, ideally the green party wouldve won. But that was never going to happen. So im glad tory won. I voted tory in the last election. I have little regret.

The question is, why would anyone vote UKIP?! Farage has put in his resignation. Praise the lord!!

i say its the most khalsa like aprty because it helps the ordianry people and the working class. the khalsa is the hope for the poor and the voice of the oppressors as ravi singh would put it. green parties aims are too idealistic, we need to start with small change like labour. Conservatives are just a puppet to huge corperations and only benifit the rich by taking money from the poor. we should be for a government that makes rich people pay more tax but instead we have a government protects the rich, atleast laboht would have put some pressure on tax evading companies unlike conservatives will. conservatives aim to make the rich richer, that does not seem like a sikh sentiment to me me.

what are your views. think labour definetly should of one. it was the more khalsa like party out of the two. why would people vote conservatives anyway, dissapointed in the British public

what are your opinions?

Would there be a punishment for changing religion from Sikhism to another religion?

Would there be a punishment for leaving the faith?

Would the government be made exclusively of Sikhs or would you allow other faiths into positions of power?

Would there be the punishment for divorce?

Would there be a punishment for abortion?

How about homosexuality, would it be allowed?

Apologies but I'm just curious to know.

in terms of religion, i doubt there would be any punishment, if guru gobind singh ji mahraj allowed the 40 singhs free in the anadpur seige with no punishment, what right would we have to punish thse who leave sikhi, it would be a state which encourges spirituality, bc u can find God in other religions no just sikhi, there wouldnt be punishment for anything trivial i believe unless u have taken amrit. i think kt would be simmilar to society now but people would be more satisfied with their lives because of naam, right now, not many people even know we have a dasam duar. if this knowledge is spread peoples lifestyles will change and opinions i f religion etc will change

so i do A level philosophy and im in a class with 3 other people. 2 athiests ans 1 agnostic. We do alot of political philosophy and we disscuss things like whether libery or equality should be core priorities of the state etc. its interesting but its hard to come up with one answer. so i was wondering what the sikh state would look like. the khalsa was formed to rule n save the world essentially and i tried to discuss this in my lesson which started a debate. i was arguing that our state would be one which instead of capitalism and money at its core would have spirituality. i was arguing for a society simmilar to platos philosopher king, with guru granth sahib ji mahraj at the top and the punj pyare as like the prime ministers. i argued that this state would be better than any other state because it places the enphsis on something internal (Dasam duar) rather than materalistic things like money, the athiests said that this would be a society which favorited the religious and we wouldnt be modernisng and going forward but going backwards, and that the spiritual people at the top (punj pyare) would become corrupt. but i said hat sikhi was different coz its an enclusive religion and wouldnt have a problem with any other belief system or faith or would not contradict anyone. also our ideology is to serve the world, we wouldnt be serving everyone by picking favorites but there were many pragmatic issues highligted to me with my conception of the sikh state

this was only my interpritation of the sikh state with my limited knowledge of sikhi thru bhai jigraj singh ji and russell brand lol, i came across alot of practical issues that wouldnt be work in a complex society like todays. i wanted to know some more eeducated descriptions of how a sikh state would look as were proberbly gonna continue this debate in tomorows lesson lol

thanks

waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ki fateh

what are the nine continents Guru ji is refering to in Japji Sahib?

thank. waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ki fateh

waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh.

I tried doing my own research but didnt manage to find my answer.

my question is when was Satyug (what centry or age) and all the other ages? As we are in kalyug now and the next age will be sat yug again. Also, do we have the same view on the 4 ages as Hindus do. they believe that each age lasts 1250 years long. do we agree with this?

thanks

Have any of these points helped?

yes a couple have lol

Waheguru ji ka khalsa Waheguru ji ki fateh

i am moving out to the university of birmigham (hopefully) at the end of this year and i was wondering how hard it is to keep rehat while living in halls with house mates you do not get to choose. eg. being a vegiarian and not drinking etc. how does impact on living at university

Also is it hard to fit in when u dont participate in things like clubbing and going out to pubs. how do u survive freshers week?

has anyone been in the same situation situation. i would apriciate any advice.

thanks