Do you really think that Jesus is God?

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sgttomas.thinkersforum	Do you really think that Jesus is God?		Lead	[-]
Posts: 23 06/01/09 23:55:37	Tags : None Hi TinyT =) What's your Christology? I've never been able to reconcile a coherent form of a divine man outside of a systematic theology. With the definitions/perception of divinity and humanity I work with, there is no possible bridge. Peace, -sgttomas
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Tiny Thinker		#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1070 06/02/09 10:27:27	From a panentheistic point of view, everything is Divine. A wave is made of water, but it isn't the entire ocean. If you get rid of all of the waves, eventually there is no more ocean, so to get to know the ocean, become familiar with the waves. The ocean itself is too vast to comprehend in an intellectual sense, but we can still go float in it and experience it directly (which is especially meaningful when we realize we are part of the ocean). The other half, that we can know the ocean by knowing a wave, is important to your question. It is reflected in the Jewish teaching that Jesus taught was supreme - that to know and love God is to know and love others. The Gospels paint a picture of someone who embraces and embodies this Wisdom and lives the teaching every day, every moment, including his willingness to give up his life. The problem is that in conveying this to the people at his time, the apostles chose different ways of speaking to the people's understanding, to bridge the definitions/perception of divinity and humanity they work with. There were many stories that kings and rulers used to justify their legitimacy. Many of the ways of telling Christ's story inverted these standard tropes - for example being born in a manger. In other cases the symbols were crossed or exaggerated to try to make a point to the audience. This was also true of the stories after his death. For example, substitutionary atonement works up to a point a s a metaphor, but if it doesn't lead you to the bigger picture, it can stagnate into something awful like Calvinism as people start to undue the universalist tone of Christ and try to sneak selectivism back in to the picture. The way I understand the correct usage of that particular theological model is that we are all already embraced by God but we cannot see it or accept it. It is our duality of thinking, of God and not-God, of exaggerating the objective reality of good and evil, that keeps us from accepting this truth and resting in God. This way of thinking, of a cosmic struggle, of us and them, is clearly expressed in the most concrete of terms in the Bible. But that doesn't mean we are just supposed to accept that view without further thought or reflection, as the flat-thinking folks would have us believe. It does however, when combined with what Christ taught, ask us to follow through. Christ had to die because we are the ones who see a distance between ourselves and God, because we give our faith to such distinctions. It isn't God's sense of justice that must be satisfied - it is our own. That is a fuller picture of how to appreciate substitutionary atonement in my humble opinion. There is also the more obvious symbolism. Of dying to the lesser self, the ego, and being reborn to a full awareness of our own inherent wholeness. At his Ascension, Christ returns to the heart of creation, the unlimited potential of existence, the Tao, the nature of Shunyata (emptiness), etc. Or the relationship of the Trinity as the relationship between form and emptiness, between the potential and the actual, the infinite and the finite, as the Father gives Himself utterly to the Son, and the Son gives himself utterly to the Father, via love/wisdom (i.e. the Spirit, Holy) - a constant cycle of Becoming. Etc. It is also true that humans need a way to relate to the Ultimate. The Hindu refer to manifestations of the Ultimate which are the most effective at reflecting or orienting us to that Source as avatars. In order to function effectively they must retain their humanity but also expand our consciousness, hence they also have a Universal or Cosmic Quality. Hence one can appreciate both the human Christ and Cosmic Christ, one and the same beyond contradiction. By believing on him ("trusting the insights of his story as reflecting a deeper truth that speaks to you personally"), you come to understand that you are also a child of God, you are also a wave that can never be parted from the ocean. For that to happen, one has to "meet" Jesus in the Gospels, to "meet" Jesus in those who live the Gospels, in whom Christ is resurrected, not just read about him or analyze the theology or focus on the posers. Or, as part of a reply I wrote to someone recently who asked me if I "believed" in the resurrection... The resurrection is also part of a larger story representing our struggles with our limitations, our struggles with God, the importance of surrender of the ego in our liberation, etc. There is more to most Biblical stories than whether they are historically verifiable. They open us up to ahistorical truths about ourselves, timeless truths, that need to be part of a story, not an instruction manual. I trust in the resurrection because I see it happening in the lives of people, Christian or otherwise. Those who have died to the self, who have stopped struggling with their egos, and who have been reborn to something greater than they were before - more generous, humble, confident, and optimistic. Whether they believe in God or call God by another name or no name, they are open to the Spirit. It doesn't matter to me whether we could go back in time and find an empty tomb. The basic truth of the resurrection story has been demonstrated to me. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members.
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Sgt Tomas		#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 06/02/09 15:25:14	Of course trying to describe the nature of God is impossible, because God is not like any created thing. We can say, "God Loves, God is Wise, God is Merciful" but we cannot say, "God is big, or heavy, or wave-like" except with an apprecation for the Eastern duality of Is/Not (i.e. analogies fail). To make your answer more explicit, in Islamic thought, whatever is an object of worship (ilah) is your god. Hence the saying la ilah ilAllah (there is no ilah, but The Ilah, "Al-lah"). Do you worship Jesus? Peace, -sgttomas
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Tiny Thinker		#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1070 06/02/09 16:16:56	I don't have any specific object of worship (nor do I necessarily subscribe to that definition), but I don't have any problem with language describing the divinity of Christ. By the definition is Mecca not God, since Muslims bow in its direction to pray 5 times a day? If not, how is your relationship to Mecca different than a Catholic's relationship to a crucifix or a Nichiren Buddhist's relationship to the Gohonzon? Are these not symbolic objects of reverence and devotion pointing to something greater, not items of actual worship? While some people explicitly worship Jesus, my understanding is that they tend to be referring to the Cosmic Christ representing the boundless love and wisdom of God who ascended to the heart of the existence. But Jesus the human being during his 33 year stay on Earth? That would be odd, as pre-Easter Jesus on Earth never asked to be worshiped and treated the disciples like his brothers, not his groupies. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members. Last Edited By: Tiny Thinker 06/02/09 16:20:06. Edited 1 time.
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Sgt Tomas		#4	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 06/03/09 01:30:31	Tiny Thinker wrote: I don't have any specific object of worship (nor do I necessarily subscribe to that definition), but I don't have any problem with language describing the divinity of Christ. The definition I gave would apply better in our world to say, a big wad of cash, perfect lips, an idol, an ideology, political office, or alcohol than a crucifix. Do you ask Christ to answer your prayers? How do you know that the Christ is worthy of having "divinity" ascribed to him? By the definition is Mecca not God, since Muslims bow in its direction to pray 5 times a day? If not, how is your relationship to Mecca different than a Catholic's relationship to a crucifix or a Nichiren Buddhist's relationship to the Gohonzon? Are these not symbolic objects of reverence and devotion pointing to something greater, not items of actual worship? Correct. While some people explicitly worship Jesus, my understanding is that they tend to be referring to the Cosmic Christ representing the boundless love and wisdom of God who ascended to the heart of the existence. Isn't it a little disingenuous to say, "while some people..." when the majority doctrine/practice throughout Christianity past and present has been to explicitly worship Jesus? (and since these same groups also held the eternal two-nature Christology this implies they also worship the Earth-bound Jesus) But Jesus the human being during his 33 year stay on Earth? That would be odd, as pre-Easter Jesus on Earth never asked to be worshiped and treated the disciples like his brothers, not his groupies. It sounds like a form of monophysitism is what you believe is true? Did Christ transform himself from a man into God? Peace, -sgttomas
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Tiny Thinker		#5	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1070 06/03/09 09:45:04	Sgt Tomas wrote: Tiny Thinker wrote: I don't have any specific object of worship (nor do I necessarily subscribe to that definition), but I don't have any problem with language describing the divinity of Christ. The definition I gave would apply better in our world to say, a big wad of cash, perfect lips, an idol, an ideology, political office, or alcohol than a crucifix. Do you ask Christ to answer your prayers? I'll let you know when I decide to pray on a regular basis in a consistent way. But for me, prayer isn't about "getting" things. It is about seeking and a shift in orientation. When my prayers include Christ they include the conception of Christ I gave you above. Sgt Tomas wrote: How do you know that the Christ is worthy of having "divinity" ascribed to him? I covered that before. Sgt Tomas wrote: Isn't it a little disingenuous to say, "while some people..." when the majority doctrine/practice throughout Christianity past and present has been to explicitly worship Jesus? (and since these same groups also held the eternal two-nature Christology this implies they also worship the Earth-bound Jesus) It sounds like a form of monophysitism is what you believe is true? Did Christ transform himself from a man into God? The people at the time of Christ did not worship him. If you can find a single reference in or out of the Gospels which say that people were worshiping Jesus prior to the crucifixion, I'd be interested to hear of it. It wasn't until after the story began to spread of his Resurrection and Ascension that he went from being an inspirational miracle-working Rabbi advocating Love as the highest law and who saw God as a Father for all to the Son of God sent to redeem humanity and eventually the Son of God who was the human face of God and part of a Holy Trinity whose presence is a reminder of God's unfailing love and mercy towards humanity. Still others began to emphasize the regal aspects of the stories used to bridge people's expectations of the Messiah. The dual nature of Christ never says he we worshiped on Earth, it is just an answer people gave to the question of how to try to categorize Christ. To claim people are worshiping the Earthly Christ doesn't make sense because had he only been that he wouldn't be worshiped at all. People are worshiping the Cosmic Christ and may include the historical Christ by association, not the other way around. Those arguments about the dual nature of Christ and the ones in opposition to them are by necessity inaccurate and incomplete and only serve to satisfy a kind of vain curiosity. As I said before, in a panentheistic view, Christ and everyone and everything is part of the Divine, and could not be otherwise. But even that is just a frail human description. The fact is, it doesn't entirely matter who Jesus the man was. Arguing dualism, monism, dualism as a delusion within a monist reality, defining spirit as this, whatever as that. Blah Blah Blah. Jesus the man has become the Cosmic Christ. It doesn't matter if that was the point of why Jesus was on Earth or not. But people are going to find a way to use their cultural icons and stories to try to strive for the Divine. Why do you think we see the emergence of the Universal Buddha? As the human symbol of selfless love and sacrifice, especially with the redempetive symbolism, it may have been inevitable that Christ would take on such a limitless dimension as the exemplar of the incarnation(s) of the Divine. As I said, the truth of life that we see in the Gospels is ahistorical and seemingly universal. How people want to try to "prove" that to others via theology is their business. I don't subscribe to the idea that you have to give intellectual assent to a set of unprovable historical claims about the life of Jesus to attain some kind exclusive salvation. So a lot of that other theological baggage isn't relevant to me. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members.
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met111		#6	[url]	[-]
Posts: 51 06/03/09 21:42:31	great convo, both of you . . . TT, great initial elucidation on 'the Christ' . .. Last Edited By: met111 06/03/09 21:44:59. Edited 1 time.
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Sgt Tomas		#7	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 06/03/09 23:10:58	I'll let you know when I decide to pray on a regular basis in a consistent way. But for me, prayer isn't about "getting" things. It is about seeking and a shift in orientation. cool. oh and it was kind of sticky terminology on my part. I understand the very act of seeking and shifts of orientation to be a work of God, so for me those things would be answers to prayer. When my prayers include Christ they include the conception of Christ I gave you above. Personally I find that weird, because the only thing that tangibly makes Jesus, peace be upon him, something I can conceive as human is, well....his humanity. His Earthly life. One we are talking about transcendence, I can't relate human characters anymore. I experience a yearning for certain characteristics of humanity, but know that whatever it is I am meditating on about mercy I haven't even gotten the half of it. The point I'm getting at is that since you hold a heterodox view of Christ that doesn't require you mentally linking the Earthly and Heavenly Christ as the same entity, what's left of Christ once we are talking about the Divine? It can only be that you are relating to the Earthly example of Christ, or you are yearning for the transcendent Almighty. And I have no idea what kind of evidence or argument you could employ to determine that Christ transcended into the Almighty and even if you could, the Oneness of God makes the individual Christ irrelevant. I understand you favour a panentheistic view of reality with us all having divine "sparks", but I cannot reconcile this view with a Creator God, the Almighty, The LORD God of Israel, for instance. He was pretty jealous about His status...for His Name's sake, and what not. Heh...also, we really ought to discuss the merits and consistency of a panentheistic worldview attached to a monotheistic religion at some point. ;) ...or....maybe that's just what we are doing now. Sgt Tomas wrote: How do you know that the Christ is worthy of having "divinity" ascribed to him? I covered that before. Previously you described divinity. How do you know that Christ is worthy of that elevated divine status? How do you know that Christ achieved an exalted status? And if that elevated status isn't equivalent to the Almighty God, then just what the heck is the point of "Christ" in your beliefs about God, except as a Prophet and guide in his Earthly life? As a meditative focal point Christ is limited in nature and therefore limiting. If coterminous with the Almighty God, the LORD of Israel, The One True God, how is that not idolatry? If you can find a single reference in or out of the Gospels which say that people were worshiping Jesus prior to the crucifixion, I'd be interested to hear of it. Epic win !!!!!!!!!!!! hee hee. As I said, the truth of life that we see in the Gospels is ahistorical and seemingly universal. How people want to try to "prove" that to others via theology is their business. I don't subscribe to the idea that you have to give intellectual assent to a set of unprovable historical claims about the life of Jesus to attain some kind exclusive salvation. So a lot of that other theological baggage isn't relevant to me. True. You traded in the Louis Vitton for Mark Jacobs, but the baggage is still there ;) The Cosmic Christ doesn't exist in the same way that you and I do, or that Jesus (peace be upon him) existed. There isn't anything of the knowable, tangible, touchable, relatable Christ that can be translated into the transcendant Cosmic form because none of us knows the formula for transcendence. It seems clear that you believe that Christ transcended into a pure relation to the divine Almighty but ought not to be treated as co-equals with the LORD the God of Israel. Your invocation of "Trinity" is a little bit misleading because there's nothing particularly trinitarian about your beliefs. You are talking relationally about our human potential and the divine presence that permeates reality, right? Anything that you relate to about Christ's miraculous example of humanity is thoroughly human and tangible by nature (also extraordinary). The only cause for reaching the conclusion that Christ transcended human potential to become divine is to satisfy our imagination. Everything else can be understood in thoroughly human terms. Whatever Cosmic qualities exist cannot be attached to the word "Christ" because the "Cosmic Christ" is no longer anything that we can relate to in a human capacity. The Ultimate that you try to peer at through Christ is none other than The Most High God. So why do you invoke the name of Christ at all? Once Christ left this world, there was nothing left for us to tell stories about. The ascension stories and Cosmic Christ cannot be distinguished from figments of our imagination, so I fail to see what they cause a person to aspire to without all that Louis Vitton baggage to lug around. Mark Jacobs suggests you invoke the Earthly Christ as a model for your life and leave the Cosmic stuff to the LORD. Peace, -sgttomas
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Sgt Tomas		#8	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 06/03/09 23:25:43	met111 wrote: great convo, both of you . . . Fun stuff, huh! My first really in depth exercise in working through the arguments in my head about the divinity of Christ with someone else. I tried it with KR Wordgazer on Meta's board, but we didn't have much to relate to after our opening statements. Does Tinythinker have any Sufi orders nearby? Sufism = Islam lite! lol. You're in PA, right? ....somehow Michigan is like a hive of Islamic community and activity. Made me chuckle when I saw this pale-faced player from the Detroit Redwings with the anglicized last name Abdelkader (obvious derivative of Abdul Kadir - servant of the Capable One). "They" are going to breed "us" out of existence!!!! -sgtt
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Sgt Tomas		#9	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 06/03/09 23:27:51	oh!!!!! ....just looked at my profile pic. I miss that cat sooooooooooo much. Sulu. Went to a better place.... .......Parksville, British Columbia. lol. I bet he's killing mice like crazy right now! =) -sgtt
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Tiny Thinker		#10	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1070 06/30/09 20:41:40	Sgt Tomas wrote: When my prayers include Christ they include the conception of Christ I gave you above. Personally I find that weird, because the only thing that tangibly makes Jesus, peace be upon him, something I can conceive as human is, well....his humanity. His Earthly life. Once we are talking about transcendence, I can't relate human characters anymore. I experience a yearning for certain characteristics of humanity, but know that whatever it is I am meditating on about mercy I haven't even gotten the half of it. You can't just focus on either transcendence or immanence to follow my position. I am referring to what has been called the infinite in the finite. The transcendent in the immanent. The eternal in each moment. God isn't merely the sum total of phenomena but all phenomena are manifestations of God. That is the panentheistic model - unlike pantheism, where the transcendent is exhausted in the immanent, in panentheism the immanent is present within and consist of the transcendent. In the standard Christology, Christ is fully God and fully human. This has been debated a million different ways over 2000 years. Panentheism collapses seeming dualities between the material and spiritual, and so the real question would be - did Jesus eventually manage to/would it be possible for Jesus to fully embrace the total "knowledge" of God while in human form? Or did he have some other input into a universal awareness? Some Christian mystics have suggested it is possible in the highest earthly states of ecstatic union to have a complete comsic awareness of all things without standard human computations or categories (can you tell us the exact date in a Gregorian calendar that the last dinosaur died?). I have no idea to what extent Jesus' awareness and insight can be characterized. Yet his teachings, through his words and his actions, still stand. For most Christians Jesus then stands as THE example of God's solidarity with humanity - a visible symbol of the confluence/intersection of the Ultimate and historical realm (of space and time). Panentheism is compatible with this, but it doesn't require Christianty any more than Christianity requires panentheism. Sgt Tomas wrote: I understand you favour a panentheistic view of reality with us all having divine "sparks", but I cannot reconcile this view with a Creator God, the Almighty, The LORD God of Israel, for instance. He was pretty jealous about His status...for His Name's sake, and what not. Heh...also, we really ought to discuss the merits and consistency of a panentheistic worldview attached to a monotheistic religion at some point. ;) ...or....maybe that's just what we are doing now. Three quick things here to clarify : Nope, no divine sparks. Phenomena are waves, the Divine is the ocean. Everything real is sacred. Everything unreal is (the source of) sin. Evil is the betrayal of this truth, which must always by its nature be deluded and violent and a violation of us all. The view of God in the Bible as a petty tyrant, even in the OT, is grossly exaggerated and fails to take into account an exegesis in which A) some lessons were culture-bound to particular periods in history and B) some depictions reflected the misunderstanding of God as well as the proper understanding. There are many more passages by far about God being merciful, just, kind, faithful, and loving, including many rebukes by the prophets, than there are passages in which people claimed God wants death and destruction. Panentheism wasn't/isn't being imposed on Christianity, and the versions I am most familiar with arose within Christianity long ago. It isn't a new flavor of the month, it is a rediscovered and refined thread of an ancient theological legacy. The question is to what extent it can be applied to other traditions. I've said before it tends to be an idea that is compatible at the very least with certain forms of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as parts of Sufism. It may also be compatible with other traditions as well, as explored by Br. Wayne Teasdale in his book The Mystic Heart. Sgt Tomas wrote: The point I'm getting at is that since you hold a heterodox view of Christ that doesn't require you mentally linking the Earthly and Heavenly Christ as the same entity, what's left of Christ once we are talking about the Divine? It can only be that you are relating to the Earthly example of Christ, or you are yearning for the transcendent Almighty. And I have no idea what kind of evidence or argument you could employ to determine that Christ transcended into the Almighty and even if you could, the Oneness of God makes the individual Christ irrelevant. What's left of God when we are done talking about Christ? If you take away all the waves, what becomes of the ocean? No individual can ever be irrelevant in talking about God, or we are no longer discussing God but an idol of our own prejudice. That is why the Oneness of humanity expressed in Christ is relevant to the Oneness of God. Christ is a reflection of ourselves in the Divine. That is the mystery and the revelation of Christ, human and cosmic. Sgt Tomas wrote: Previously you described divinity. How do you know that Christ is worthy of that elevated divine status? How do you know that Christ achieved an exalted status? And if that elevated status isn't equivalent to the Almighty God, then just what the heck is the point of "Christ" in your beliefs about God, except as a Prophet and guide in his Earthly life? As a meditative focal point Christ is limited in nature and therefore limiting. If coterminous with the Almighty God, the LORD of Israel, The One True God, how is that not idolatry? As I said, the truth of life that we see in the Gospels is ahistorical and seemingly universal. How people want to try to "prove" that to others via theology is their business. I don't subscribe to the idea that you have to give intellectual assent to a set of unprovable historical claims about the life of Jesus to attain some kind exclusive salvation. So a lot of that other theological baggage isn't relevant to me. True. You traded in the Louis Vitton for Mark Jacobs, but the baggage is still there ;) The Cosmic Christ doesn't exist in the same way that you and I do, or that Jesus (peace be upon him) existed. There isn't anything of the knowable, tangible, touchable, relatable Christ that can be translated into the transcendant Cosmic form because none of us knows the formula for transcendence. It seems clear that you believe that Christ transcended into a pure relation to the divine Almighty but ought not to be treated as co-equals with the LORD the God of Israel. Your invocation of "Trinity" is a little bit misleading because there's nothing particularly trinitarian about your beliefs. You are talking relationally about our human potential and the divine presence that permeates reality, right? Anything that you relate to about Christ's miraculous example of humanity is thoroughly human and tangible by nature (also extraordinary). The only cause for reaching the conclusion that Christ transcended human potential to become divine is to satisfy our imagination. Everything else can be understood in thoroughly human terms. Whatever Cosmic qualities exist cannot be attached to the word "Christ" because the "Cosmic Christ" is no longer anything that we can relate to in a human capacity. The Ultimate that you try to peer at through Christ is none other than The Most High God. So why do you invoke the name of Christ at all? Once Christ left this world, there was nothing left for us to tell stories about. The ascension stories and Cosmic Christ cannot be distinguished from figments of our imagination, so I fail to see what they cause a person to aspire to without all that Louis Vitton baggage to lug around. Mark Jacobs suggests you invoke the Earthly Christ as a model for your life and leave the Cosmic stuff to the LORD. Lots of assumptions above that I don't share. I suggested that the understanding of Christ was elevated to a Cosmic level, but I never said that during his life Christ made himself Divine. I certainly never suggested he transcended human potential to become divine. You are thinking of these other authors to a certain extent, I assume, but to me there is nothing trivial about our human potential and the divine permeating reality (and in which it subsists). Nor do I think these are separate - each points to and fulfills the other. Take nearly everything you wrote just above and turn each thing 90 degrees then mash them together. There is plenty to tell about the life of Jesus, from birth to ascension, each liturgical year. We can relate to God reflected through the Cosmic Christ precisely because we can relate to the human Christ presented in the Gospels, in which we are given a "formula" for realizing our human potential and an awareness of the intimacy of God. Specifically, through the life of Jesus and his key teachings. As for evidence or proof, it remains the same for all sacred traditions - the positive transforming effects we see in people's lives. That's why for example I wrote before about "evidence" for the resurrection: "I trust in the resurrection because I see it happening in the lives of people, Christian or otherwise. Those who have died to the [lesser] self, who have stopped struggling with their egos, and who have been reborn to something greater than they were before - more generous, humble, confident, and optimistic. Whether they believe in God or call God by another name or no name, they are open to the Spirit." What other kind of proof would you accept? What other kind would matter? Isn't it the same kind of proof that you would offer for Islam? The point of such mysteries isn't to simply ask if they are historically true or demand certainty of such things based on second-hand knowledge. You can debate them if you like, and reject them if you wish. The question is - what do they tell you about yourself? When we can't know for sure based on our own senses or physical proof, when the details are ambiguous, what does your head and your heart tell you? With a head full of hope and a heart full of faith, to someone who has encountered God in the Gospels the tomb perennially turns up empty every Easter morning. Divine love conquers even death itself. Jesus is risen. And the faithful sing Alleluia. If they were issues that could be strictly settled by logic, emotions, or other human faculties, these kinds of things wouldn't be mysteries, would they? Sgt Tomas wrote: If you can find a single reference in or out of the Gospels which say that people were worshiping Jesus prior to the crucifixion, I'd be interested to hear of it. Epic win !!!!!!!!!!!! hee hee. That was addressed here. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members. Last Edited By: Tiny Thinker 06/30/09 23:33:57. Edited 1 time.
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sgttomas.thinkersforum		#11	[url]	[-]
Posts: 23 07/05/09 22:59:37	Tiny Thinker wrote: You can't just focus on either transcendence or immanence to follow my position. I am referring to what has been called the infinite in the finite. The transcendent in the immanent. The eternal in each moment. God isn't merely the sum total of phenomena but all phenomena are manifestations of God. That is the panentheistic model - unlike pantheism, where the transcendent is exhausted in the immanent, in panentheism the immanent is present within and consist of the transcendent. In the standard Christology, Christ is fully God and fully human. This has been debated a million different ways over 2000 years. Panentheism collapses seeming dualities between the material and spiritual, and so the real question would be - did Jesus eventually manage to/would it be possible for Jesus to fully embrace the total "knowledge" of God while in human form? So this is more or less a rhetorical technique, correct? Since The Reality can't be captured in words, anyways, whatever is true about God must be experienced as well as understood. In that sense the Divine isn't removed from Creation but can be known through our experience of Creation, by striving to sense the Unity that pervades all. Does that sound more like it? Three quick things here to clarify : Nope, no divine sparks. Phenomena are waves, the Divine is the ocean. Everything real is sacred. Everything unreal is (the source of) sin. Evil is the betrayal of this truth, which must always by its nature be deluded and violent and a violation of us all. Heh, okay but "sparks" is a form of light, light is waves, light and darkness cannot dwell..... ....I don't think that really makes a difference, except for how we think about those words ;) The view of God in the Bible as a petty tyrant, even in the OT, is grossly exaggerated and fails to take into account an exegesis in which A) some lessons were culture-bound to particular periods in history and B) some depictions reflected the misunderstanding of God as well as the proper understanding. There are many more passages by far about God being merciful, just, kind, faithful, and loving, including many rebukes by the prophets, than there are passages in which people claimed God wants death and destruction. No no no. I've never found anything of merit to those "tyrant" arguments. God explicitly says time and again that He extends His Mercy and Grace to Israel and will even extend His Covenant to the whole world for His Name's Sake. Those who are jealous of God - the unique, the Unity, the Alpha and Omega, the Creator and Sustainer of all - God will be jealous of and covet them in this life and in the afterlife. I am purposely using this imagery because that's how it is revealed in the scriptures to portray God as Merciful and Loving, not petty. Jealousy can mean exclusivity and you have already declared that The God is exclusive in many ways (evil/sin versus good/light). So this is why I am so curious about who you worship and how you worship. Because the Jealous One doesn't look favourably upon those who worship idols - which chiefly had meant pagan deities. I know that panentheism isn't the same thing as paganism, but I haven't really met many people who preferred the label "panentheism" to describe their beliefs so you are my test subject. ;) Not that I ever expected you to be a pagan. hehheh. Panentheism wasn't/isn't being imposed on Christianity, and the versions I am most familiar with arose within Christianity long ago. It isn't a new flavor of the month, it is a rediscovered and refined thread of an ancient theological legacy. The question is to what extent it can be applied to other traditions. I've said before it tends to be an idea that is compatible at the very least with certain forms of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as parts of Sufism. It may also be compatible with other traditions as well, as explored by Br. Wayne Teasdale in his book The Mystic Heart. Taqwa is the arabic word for it ( "God consciousness" ). I suppose using your imagery (which I favour myself) and with what you've said here, panentheism is more like a discipline to prevent idolatry within monotheistic religion. ...as ironic as that may seem to some. Would you agree that panentheism is necessarily monotheistic? (how else can we think of the divine unity that pervades all and transcends all?) Would you agree that "mysticism" is a synonym for "panentheism"? If you take away all the waves, what becomes of the ocean? The God I know is described at The Self-sufficient One. ....so, I don't think anything happens to the ocean if you take away the waves. Since I cannot imagine the lack of my existence (or of existence, period), I can't make sense of your analogy (yet?) No individual can ever be irrelevant in talking about God, or we are no longer discussing God but an idol of our own prejudice. That is why the Oneness of humanity expressed in Christ is relevant to the Oneness of God. Christ is a reflection of ourselves in the Divine. That is the mystery and the revelation of Christ, human and cosmic. Curiously enough, it works just as well to think about Christ as part of the Trinity if that manifests the divine in us. ....not something I would disagree with, but also the reason why I have problems with your approach. Its strength is in explicitly denying a special status for idols, since all forms are "wave in the ocean". The drawback is that "truth" can't be consistently established since the mystical tradition is based on experience as the "truth"-er. ....the weakness and the strength are the same thing and really it's the user who is responsible for his sins. So I don't want to be understood as diminishing the positive aspects of your approach. My own approach is pretty much so exclusive that hardly anyone else can appreciate it. And that's cool too. That's entirely your point, I gather, that we all create our own Gospels - we all create this Christ character who has transcended his humanity by becoming the focal point for understanding our relationship to/with The God (whether we explicitly meditate on "Christ", or any other sense of humanity that performs the same function). That sound more comfortable to you? Lots of assumptions above that I don't share. I suggested that the understanding of Christ was elevated to a Cosmic level, but I never said that during his life Christ made himself Divine. I certainly never suggested he transcended human potential to become divine. You are thinking of these other authors to a certain extent, I assume, but to me there is nothing trivial about our human potential and the divine permeating reality (and in which it subsists). Nor do I think these are separate - each points to and fulfills the other. Take nearly everything you wrote just above and turn each thing 90 degrees then mash them together. There is plenty to tell about the life of Jesus, from birth to ascension, each liturgical year. We can relate to God reflected through the Cosmic Christ precisely because we can relate to the human Christ presented in the Gospels, in which we are given a "formula" for realizing our human potential and an awareness of the intimacy of God. Specifically, through the life of Jesus and his key teachings. I read this book over Christmas. He articulates the Cosmic Christ as a story character that fills the requirements for that "formula" you alluded to. This is how I view the "Gospel". Hmm......so I'm throwing around ideas about what the historical Jesus means in terms of the Cosmic Christ - like what kind of causal relationship you might see between the two. Would you say that while the historical Jesus obviously wasn't trivial, the actual historical sayings and actions of Jesus were best served as inspiration for the myriad of Gospels rather than a dictation of decrees and beliefs? (I mean, one can more or less read those words in the bible, but I'm just looking for...I dunno....I guess I understand Jesus an awful lot like you do, so I'm asking a lot of questions to try and rid my own thoughts to ensure yours are coming through clearly....that's why I was making a lot of those assertions because they gave me good reference points to check you out. heh.) As for evidence or proof, it remains the same for all sacred traditions - the positive transforming effects we see in people's lives. That's why for example I wrote before about "evidence" for the resurrection: "I trust in the resurrection because I see it happening in the lives of people, Christian or otherwise. Those who have died to the [lesser] self, who have stopped struggling with their egos, and who have been reborn to something greater than they were before - more generous, humble, confident, and optimistic. Whether they believe in God or call God by another name or no name, they are open to the Spirit." What other kind of proof would you accept? What other kind would matter? Isn't it the same kind of proof that you would offer for Islam? Indeed. This is the only true religion of The God. Peace and blessings, -sgttomas
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Posts: 1070 07/06/09 17:46:44	sgttomas wrote: Heh, okay but "sparks" is a form of light, light is waves, light and darkness cannot dwell..... ....I don't think that really makes a difference, except for how we think about those words ;) The God I know is described at The Self-sufficient One. ....so, I don't think anything happens to the ocean if you take away the waves. Since I cannot imagine the lack of my existence (or of existence, period), I can't make sense of your analogy (yet?) Sparks suggest emerging from a Source, becoming separate, and fading. Waves suggest you are never separate from the Source. If you have an ocean that is constantly in motion, and you try to scoop out a wave, it is replaced by another wave, and another. What would happen when you ran out of waves? It would mean you had run out of ocean. One could point out that the ocean is infinite, but the point here to clarify the relationship between the ocean and the waves, and that both are water. If you want to know what water is like, if you want to appreciate the ocean, you cannot ignore or dismiss the waves. sgttomas wrote: In that sense the Divine isn't removed from Creation but can be known through our experience of Creation, by striving to sense the Unity that pervades all. Does that sound more like it? There you go. sgttomas wrote: Would you agree that panentheism is necessarily monotheistic? (how else can we think of the divine unity that pervades all and transcends all?) Would you agree that "mysticism" is a synonym for "panentheism"? There are ways to conceive of panentheism in which the Ultimate is conceived of as the Tao or Dharmakaya, and ways which are closer to traditional views of Yahweh or Allah. Mysticism has to do with the direct experience or awareness of the Divine, but it doesn't require panentheism. Of course, my original introduction to mysticism was by a panentheist (or was my original introduction to panentheism by a mystic?). sgttomas wrote: No individual can ever be irrelevant in talking about God, or we are no longer discussing God but an idol of our own prejudice. That is why the Oneness of humanity expressed in Christ is relevant to the Oneness of God. Christ is a reflection of ourselves in the Divine. That is the mystery and the revelation of Christ, human and cosmic. Curiously enough, it works just as well to think about Christ as part of the Trinity if that manifests the divine in us. ....not something I would disagree with, but also the reason why I have problems with your approach. Its strength is in explicitly denying a special status for idols, since all forms are "wave in the ocean". The drawback is that "truth" can't be consistently established since the mystical tradition is based on experience as the "truth"-er. ....the weakness and the strength are the same thing and really it's the user who is responsible for his sins. I might say "Christ is the part of the Trinity that manifests in (or even as) us through opening ourselves to the truth of our participation in the divine - which is commonly known as receiving the Holy Spirit (the spirit of Wisdom/Sophia)". I am not sure where you are going here for the rest. Yes, I In a sense, as we all share the same foundation, we all have access to the same universal "truth", but as we are individuals, we experience it unique ways. This goes back to the whole objective/subjective versus absolute/relative argument. This view argues that there is an objective reality but that we each experience it subjectively, leaving open the question of to what extent objective reality is influence by subjective perspectives. Absolute truth can only be understood as a totality, hence as we do not consciously reflect on all possible states of existence, we experience truth (including morality) as relative. Even those who say they base their views on God are, by definition, relativists since their values are in relation to (their perception of) God. Of course we are responsible, both individually and collectively, for our sins, but we also have the capacity to realize our deluded state and wake up to the fact that all real things are sacred and exist within God and that the sinner's path is based in a false view of reality ("the world", "samsara", etc). sgttomas wrote: So I don't want to be understood as diminishing the positive aspects of your approach. My own approach is pretty much so exclusive that hardly anyone else can appreciate it. And that's cool too. That's entirely your point, I gather, that we all create our own Gospels - we all create this Christ character who has transcended his humanity by becoming the focal point for understanding our relationship to/with The God (whether we explicitly meditate on "Christ", or any other sense of humanity that performs the same function). I would say "who has fulfilled/completely actualized his humanity." sgttomas wrote: I am purposely using this imagery because that's how it is revealed in the scriptures to portray God as Merciful and Loving, not petty. Jealousy can mean exclusivity and you have already declared that The God is exclusive in many ways (evil/sin versus good/light). So this is why I am so curious about who you worship and how you worship. Because the Jealous One doesn't look favourably upon those who worship idols - which chiefly had meant pagan deities. I know that panentheism isn't the same thing as paganism, but I haven't really met many people who preferred the label "panentheism" to describe their beliefs so you are my test subject. ;) I suppose using your imagery (which I favour myself) and with what you've said here, panentheism is more like a discipline to prevent idolatry within monotheistic religion. ...as ironic as that may seem to some. To clarify, it is humans who make exclusivism of the variety of which you write because of their own fractured view. We understand and use our cognition to logically analyze by exclusion and negation. This not that. Something A as opposed to something B. But in the unity of the Divine there is no division. It's all one ocean of light and potential and sacred joy. Again, the path of sin and evil is the path of the unreal. It's Calinivism's other option in understanding irresistable grace - you know, that topic that Matt Slick is to scared to allow on his forums. sgttomas wrote: I read this book over Christmas. He articulates the Cosmic Christ as a story character that fills the requirements for that "formula" you alluded to. This is how I view the "Gospel". I haven't read it so I can't comment directly on his views, but to be effective Christ has to be more than just a story character. One has to "meet" him. You can currently "meet" him in roughly 6 billion disguises, some of whom it can truly be said "it is no longer them but Christ which lives in them", and some who are still asleep, still unaware. Not all who are awake are explicitly "Christian", just as not all who cry out "Lord, Lord" are truly awake. This is comparable to the wave/ocean analogy you have to "find"/"experience" God by exploring and appreciating everything as sacred. Speaking of relevant books, I am reading Irresistible Revolution, about a Christian who gets fed up with the seeming comfortable hypocrisy of the faith and goes to seek God and Christ by taking the Gospels seriously. After sleeping on the streets regularly among the homeless in Philly and working with the dying and the lepers in Calcutta after seeking out Mother Theresa, he gains a new appreciation of Christ living in us, of meeting Christ/God in others, of miracles, and of the meaning of the Beatitudes. sgttomas wrote: Hmm......so I'm throwing around ideas about what the historical Jesus means in terms of the Cosmic Christ - like what kind of causal relationship you might see between the two. Would you say that while the historical Jesus obviously wasn't trivial, the actual historical sayings and actions of Jesus were best served as inspiration for the myriad of Gospels rather than a dictation of decrees and beliefs? (I mean, one can more or less read those words in the bible, but I'm just looking for...I dunno....I guess I understand Jesus an awful lot like you do, so I'm asking a lot of questions to try and rid my own thoughts to ensure yours are coming through clearly....that's why I was making a lot of those assertions because they gave me good reference points to check you out. heh.) I think people made decrees and beliefs to try to preserve the teaching, but as living tradition, it must be truly embodied in ones life in order to be able to know how and when to adjust/adapt certain applications/implications of these teachings. But yes, I would agree that neither the historical Jesus nor the Jesus of the Gospels (in as much as they may differ) are trivial. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members.
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Posts: 23 07/06/09 22:37:31	I am really tripping over your metaphors. In one sentence I am totally getting what you are saying, but then in the next I lose all coherence. I know it isn't the case that you are badshit crazy, so this obviously amounts to more than I am seeing, but you'll have to be patient with me because I just can't understand a lot of what you are saying. doh! Sparks suggest emerging from a Source, becoming separate, and fading. Waves suggest you are never separate from the Source. If you have an ocean that is constantly in motion, and you try to scoop out a wave, it is replaced by another wave, and another. What would happen when you ran out of waves? It would mean you had run out of ocean. One could point out that the ocean is infinite, but the point here to clarify the relationship between the ocean and the waves, and that both are water. If you want to know what water is like, if you want to appreciate the ocean, you cannot ignore or dismiss the waves. .....funny you would chose that analogy from an apophatic tradition. A departure? Curiously enough, it works just as well to think about Christ as part of the Trinity if that manifests the divine in us. ....not something I would disagree with, but also the reason why I have problems with your approach. Its strength is in explicitly denying a special status for idols, since all forms are "wave in the ocean". The drawback is that "truth" can't be consistently established since the mystical tradition is based on experience as the "truth"-er. ....the weakness and the strength are the same thing and really it's the user who is responsible for his sins. - sgtt I might say "Christ is the part of the Trinity that manifests in (or even as) us through opening ourselves to the truth of our participation in the divine - which is commonly known as receiving the Holy Spirit (the spirit of Wisdom/Sophia)". I am not sure where you are going here for the rest. Yes, I In a sense, as we all share the same foundation, we all have access to the same universal "truth", but as we are individuals, we experience it unique ways. This goes back to the whole objective/subjective versus absolute/relative argument. This view argues that there is an objective reality but that we each experience it subjectively, leaving open the question of to what extent objective reality is influence by subjective perspectives. Absolute truth can only be understood as a totality, hence as we do not consciously reflect on all possible states of existence, we experience truth (including morality) as relative. Even those who say they base their views on God are, by definition, relativists since their values are in relation to (their perception of) God. Of course we are responsible, both individually and collectively, for our sins, but we also have the capacity to realize our deluded state and wake up to the fact that all real things are sacred and exist within God and that the sinner's path is based in a false view of reality ("the world", "samsara", etc). ....hmm....well, I guess what I am getting at is that while it's fine to be subjective when exploring the mysteries of existence (we have to "die to our selves")...on the other hand, real life has consequences and if someone tries to take my life I am going to try my damndest to take their first. That's a universal truth of the Absolute. Life on Earth could not exist without the opressed fighting back against the opressor. When mystical experience fades and we have to deal with the pragmatic circumstances of our lives, we need more than a Cosmic Christ, we need the law. So my question is how do we recognize and make our selves subject to God's True Law....the Law that is the Way of Life, that Sustains and Cherishes life and existence, that is the harmony of the True Path - life that exists in balance with death. Killing is wrong, except when it's right. On whose authority do I act? Life is pragmatic and demands action. I understand the strengths of the mystical tradition, but the man I consider the greatest mystic of all time, Iman Al Ghazali, insisted that he only found fulfillment of his mysticism by and through adherence to the Sunnah...which for a Muslim is the Path of the Prophetic tradition (may God's peace be upon all His Prophets). And vice versa...the law only became fulfilled by experiecing the unity that it points to. So, how do you invoke law from mystical experience? Or, whose authority do you appeal to when decreeing the law? It isn't okay just to leave everything relative...or at least it is until someone comes to opress you. You might say that the greatest strenght is to oppose opression with peaceful resistance. Sure, it can be...and that's why mystical wisdom is necessary....but if you are going to kill a baby, I'm going to try and stop you by any means necessary. That is the Path that every other form of life operates under. A time for peace and a time to kill. If we existed in isolation, nothing other than the spirit of the Law would be necessary. But because we are a community, we need a law. Where does your law come from? To clarify, it is humans who make exclusivism of the variety of which you write because of their own fractured view. We understand and use our cognition to logically analyze by exclusion and negation. This not that. Something A as opposed to something B. But in the unity of the Divine there is no division. It's all one ocean of light and potential and sacred joy. But....if you exist in a fractured state, then even what you invision as Unity is not unity. Your very words to describe Unity only have meaning because of the tension between opposites. ....and I am not really sure what I am then supposed to make of notions like, "we all exist in God" and "...it's all one ocean of light and potential and sacred joy"??? There is one sense of Unity that says that opposites exist and through that tension, harmony arises and that harmony between opposites is the Unity. There is another sense of Unity that says that opposites are illusory...which is literally what you have said...and then I just lose all coherence of meaning. Is it just the case that you have favoured certain words because of how you learned to appreciate Unity as the harmony of the first instance? Or are you really undermining your own efforts to mean something? ....I am particularly concerned because you criticize Slick for making the error of using logic to determine that God's Grace is limited, while in turn applying the opposite logical conclusion to declare that Grace is unlimited (and I am sorry to have to compare you to him).....the Lutheran in me responds, "you're both wrong, we can't know the answer, but we can trust and hope in God's Grace because it's God's Grace, not our grace"....and the rest is about trying to make sense of "Grace" and "God", and "me"....in other words, our salvation is just a reformulation of the mystery of pondering our existence and what it means. And there is no resolution to that, except to say that it's an evolving process (tautology) and to remark that light is distinct from darkness (so we have to make choices). ...and the rest is God's Grace. I don't know if everyone is saved....maybe God allows those who don't want to dwell with Him to choose their own fate? It's just as logical of a conclusion, but I have no way to verify the presumptions. ....so...um.....what's up?!?!??! I haven't read it so I can't comment directly on his views, but to be effective Christ has to be more than just a story character. One has to "meet" him. Meet who? ...the nature of story is that it reveals/creates/imagines a character that we encounter....that's the subject of the book. You can currently "meet" him in roughly 6 billion disguises, some of whom it can truly be said "it is no longer them but Christ which lives in them", and some who are still asleep, still unaware. Not all who are awake are explicitly "Christian", just as not all who cry out "Lord, Lord" are truly awake. This is comparable to the wave/ocean analogy you have to "find"/"experience" God by exploring and appreciating everything as sacred. But.....I'm not really meeting Christ if those people aren't displaying his characteristics. It isn't like being asleep, it's like being dead / nonexistant. I don't encounter Christ in a prentious prick who is hell bent on %#!@+%. Such a person does not have the divine in him....this is again why I have trouble with your ocean imagery. I can't appreciate pretentious %#!@+% pricks as sacred. I can recognize that they have rights and dignity as God's Creation, but I don't look to them to know Christ. Speaking of relevant books, I am reading Irresistible Revolution, about a Christian who gets fed up with the seeming comfortable hypocrisy of the faith and goes to seek God and Christ by taking the Gospels seriously. After sleeping on the streets regularly among the homeless in Philly and working with the dying and the lepers in Calcutta after seeking out Mother Theresa, he gains a new appreciation of Christ living in us, of meeting Christ/God in others, of miracles, and of the meaning of the Beatitudes. Wow. That's intense. I can sure appreciate that because we live in a manufactured landscape (we have tailored our environment to suit our needs) it is necessary to step outside of the coddling environment to really experience the challenge of being human - and therefore of being a Christian. That might be the most literal rendering of Christ's message - to give up our own efforts to manufacture peace and harmony in our lives and to seek the inner peace and underlying harmony that God will allow us to experience as soon as we stop filling our lives with illusions and falsehood and impermanence (which we are completely immersed in, and which will inevitably be revealed at some point). Cool. Thanks for bringing this to my attention (bookmarked for purchase at a later date! ...God willing). Peace, -sgttomas
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Posts: 1070 07/07/09 00:50:04	sgttomas wrote: Sparks suggest emerging from a Source, becoming separate, and fading. Waves suggest you are never separate from the Source. If you have an ocean that is constantly in motion, and you try to scoop out a wave, it is replaced by another wave, and another. What would happen when you ran out of waves? It would mean you had run out of ocean. One could point out that the ocean is infinite, but the point here to clarify the relationship between the ocean and the waves, and that both are water. If you want to know what water is like, if you want to appreciate the ocean, you cannot ignore or dismiss the waves. .....funny you would chose that analogy from an apophatic tradition. A departure? No, but not everything can be negation. sgttomas wrote: Curiously enough, it works just as well to think about Christ as part of the Trinity if that manifests the divine in us. ....not something I would disagree with, but also the reason why I have problems with your approach. Its strength is in explicitly denying a special status for idols, since all forms are "wave in the ocean". The drawback is that "truth" can't be consistently established since the mystical tradition is based on experience as the "truth"-er. ....the weakness and the strength are the same thing and really it's the user who is responsible for his sins. - sgtt I might say "Christ is the part of the Trinity that manifests in (or even as) us through opening ourselves to the truth of our participation in the divine - which is commonly known as receiving the Holy Spirit (the spirit of Wisdom/Sophia)". I am not sure where you are going here for the rest. Yes, I In a sense, as we all share the same foundation, we all have access to the same universal "truth", but as we are individuals, we experience it unique ways. This goes back to the whole objective/subjective versus absolute/relative argument. This view argues that there is an objective reality but that we each experience it subjectively, leaving open the question of to what extent objective reality is influence by subjective perspectives. Absolute truth can only be understood as a totality, hence as we do not consciously reflect on all possible states of existence, we experience truth (including morality) as relative. Even those who say they base their views on God are, by definition, relativists since their values are in relation to (their perception of) God. Of course we are responsible, both individually and collectively, for our sins, but we also have the capacity to realize our deluded state and wake up to the fact that all real things are sacred and exist within God and that the sinner's path is based in a false view of reality ("the world", "samsara", etc). ....hmm....well, I guess what I am getting at is that while it's fine to be subjective when exploring the mysteries of existence (we have to "die to our selves")...on the other hand, real life has consequences and if someone tries to take my life I am going to try my damndest to take their first. That's a universal truth of the Absolute. Life on Earth could not exist without the opressed fighting back against the opressor. When mystical experience fades and we have to deal with the pragmatic circumstances of our lives, we need more than a Cosmic Christ, we need the law. So my question is how do we recognize and make our selves subject to God's True Law....the Law that is the Way of Life, that Sustains and Cherishes life and existence, that is the harmony of the True Path - life that exists in balance with death. Killing is wrong, except when it's right. On whose authority do I act? Life is pragmatic and demands action. So, how do you invoke law from mystical experience? Or, whose authority do you appeal to when decreeing the law? It isn't okay just to leave everything relative...or at least it is until someone comes to opress you. You might say that the greatest strenght is to oppose opression with peaceful resistance. Sure, it can be...and that's why mystical wisdom is necessary....but if you are going to kill a baby, I'm going to try and stop you by any means necessary. That is the Path that every other form of life operates under. A time for peace and a time to kill. If we existed in isolation, nothing other than the spirit of the Law would be necessary. But because we are a community, we need a law. Where does your law come from? Getting someone before they get you is a choice, not a universal truth. There doesn't have to be an oppressor. That's a choice. Humans have that capacity. Life is pragmatic but it doesn't oblige you to act in a selfish fashion or to justify such behavior. Just because so many people are lost and treating themselves and others with less dignity and compassion than they deserve doesn't justify giving as good as you get in a dog eat dog fashion. That is the radical nature of spiritual awakening - to not just talk or think but to live another way. A better way. That's why they refer to it as a higher calling. Christ followed the ancient Jewish tradition that the highest law was love God and to love others as oneself. Others like the Buddha have taught similar ideals. But true change cannot be imposed. Killing people is always wrong, period. A legally justified homicide is still morally repugnant. It is still a personal and societal failure that things were allowed to get to the point of being forced to choose between two or more morally offensive choices. Life and death are two sides of the same coin, and both should be respected, which only makes killing other human beings even more offensive. As to where this comes from, it comes from having the empathy to see others as ourselves and to realize our fundamental sameness and interconnectedness. This insight is available to and has been commented on by those of all faiths and those of none. In a God-centered system, this sameness is referred to by recognizing we are all children of God. In other systems, karmic or evolutionary affiliations may be used. Of course, none of these commonalities are mutually exclusive, and they can all work with panentheism. sgttomas wrote: To clarify, it is humans who make exclusivism of the variety of which you write because of their own fractured view. We understand and use our cognition to logically analyze by exclusion and negation. This not that. Something A as opposed to something B. But in the unity of the Divine there is no division. It's all one ocean of light and potential and sacred joy. But....if you exist in a fractured state, then even what you invision as Unity is not unity. Your very words to describe Unity only have meaning because of the tension between opposites. ....and I am not really sure what I am then supposed to make of notions like, "we all exist in God" and "...it's all one ocean of light and potential and sacred joy"??? You don't have to make anything of it, but it's the heart of panentheism. It suggests that what appears to be a duality is really just looking comparing the whole and the partial. But that doesn't mean that either is unreal or unimportant. It doesn't mean we exist in a fractured state, but that we live in a delusion of separation from the Source of our Being. That we think we have a distinct intrinsic existence that is disconnected from the rest of existence. But we do not. This separation isn't real, it's just a false view that we build up, unknowingly and unintentionally. The reason we act so terrible to ourselves and each other is that we are trying to fill the hole in our beings where we fail to see ourselves as we truly are. The hole isn't real but it feels that way, so we give in to ignorance, greed, and hatred as we pursue cravings for that which we think will fulfill us. But the truth is that we are already complete and fulfilled if we could only realize it. The ugliness of our sinful/deluded selves reflects our pain and suffering - a superficial self that hides a sacred and beautiful being. That is why certain Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and even Sufis (if I recall) talk about the idea that when we see with sacred perception we always see the Pure Land/Kingdom of God/etc. Or that "An ordinary person sees deluded and enlightened beings, while an enlightened person sees only Buddhas." Or that saints see Christ in the face of everyone they meet. I am not sure of a metaphor that gets more directly at the issue than waves (phenomena/aspects of creation) and the ocean (source/creator) both being water (divinity, sacredness). God is the whole infinite ocean, while the waves (you, me, the rocks and the trees) are part of the ocean. We are of God but we are not (the sum of) God. As limited beings we cannot know the totality of God, but we can know the nature of God by examining the water itself in the form of waves, because they have the same nature as God. sgttomas wrote: There is one sense of Unity that says that opposites exist and through that tension, harmony arises and that harmony between opposites is the Unity. There is another sense of Unity that says that opposites are illusory...which is literally what you have said...and then I just lose all coherence of meaning. Is it just the case that you have favoured certain words because of how you learned to appreciate Unity as the harmony of the first instance? Or are you really undermining your own efforts to mean something? There are two dualities being discussed. One is between the phenomenal and the numinous, between the historical realm of space and time and the ultimate reality. This, as I just wrote, is about the partial and the total. But they are still one. Duality resolved. The other is between good and evil, the path of God and the path of the wicked. In this case, again, all that is real is sacred and of God. So the path of God is neither "good" or "evil" in that sense. The path of the wicked is the path of those believing in a fiction, that they are separate and independent of our common reality, in which all phenomena are interdependent. It is a destructive and limiting fiction that creates states such as arrogance, insecurity, despair, hate, greed, oppression, etc. Because we have mind that analyzes via negation and therefore a capacity to choose, we create the choice itself. But that doesn't mean both choices have to be valid or of equal merit, does it? Look around and it is clear that when presented between a healthy realistic option and a destructive lie or delusion, people are perfectly capable of choosing the latter! sgttomas wrote: ....I am particularly concerned because you criticize Slick for making the error of using logic to determine that God's Grace is limited, while in turn applying the opposite logical conclusion to declare that Grace is unlimited (and I am sorry to have to compare you to him).....the Lutheran in me responds, "you're both wrong, we can't know the answer, but we can trust and hope in God's Grace because it's God's Grace, not our grace"....and the rest is about trying to make sense of "Grace" and "God", and "me"....in other words, our salvation is just a reformulation of the mystery of pondering our existence and what it means. And there is no resolution to that, except to say that it's an evolving process (tautology) and to remark that light is distinct from darkness (so we have to make choices). ...and the rest is God's Grace. I don't know if everyone is saved....maybe God allows those who don't want to dwell with Him to choose their own fate? It's just as logical of a conclusion, but I have no way to verify the presumptions. ....so...um.....what's up?!?!??! Two things are being conflated. I wasn't berating Slick for an (incorrect) application of logic, although that would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I was just slipping in my view on universalism. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva is one who does complete their own liberation because they want to assist others still mired in delusion first. In fact, the vow says the Bodhisattva will not stop until all are liberated. For example, Dharamkara was a Bodhisattva who made a number of unique vows concerning the construction of his own special Pure Land, and now he is known as Amitabha/Amida Buddha. If you work it out, that must mean all beings are/or will liberated at some point if he became a Buddha. Other sutras have similar implications. One example comes from the Lotus Sutra, where it is clearly articulated that even the worst offenders will one day realize enlightenment and awaken from the suffering and delusion. There even a chapter in the Lotus Sutra about an individual named "Bodhisattva Never-Disparaging" who always greeted everyone with a generous and respectful salutation because he recognized he was talking to a future Buddha! Universalism was also a very common and popular belief in early Christianity as well. But these aren't just happy beliefs. They again stem from the idea that we are all interconnected - that if we are so intimately connected that our own liberation is incomplete so long as others remain in suffering and delusion. Hence Bodhisattvas MUST save all sentient beings in order to complete their own liberation - this is the insight of the highest level of the Bodhisattva. The same logic of interdependence works for panenetheism in monotheism as well - that the salvation of one requires the salvation of all. That it is an all or nothing proposition. That's where the next step comes in - to realize we are buddhas, we are children of God, but we have simply forgotten what that means. Hence in that sense we already possess what we seek in terms of liberation, salvation, etc. We just need to wake up to that and accept it and figure out how to deal with it. So, again, this is where we meet idea that when we see with sacred perception we always see the Pure Land/Kingdom of God/etc. Or that "An ordinary person sees deluded and enlightened beings, while an enlightened person sees only Buddhas." Or that saints see Christ in the face of everyone they meet. sgttomas wrote: I haven't read it so I can't comment directly on his views, but to be effective Christ has to be more than just a story character. One has to "meet" him. Meet who? ...the nature of story is that it reveals/creates/imagines a character that we encounter....that's the subject of the book. You can currently "meet" him in roughly 6 billion disguises, some of whom it can truly be said "it is no longer them but Christ which lives in them", and some who are still asleep, still unaware. Not all who are awake are explicitly "Christian", just as not all who cry out "Lord, Lord" are truly awake. This is comparable to the wave/ocean analogy you have to "find"/"experience" God by exploring and appreciating everything as sacred. But.....I'm not really meeting Christ if those people aren't displaying his characteristics. It isn't like being asleep, it's like being dead / nonexistant. I don't encounter Christ in a prentious prick who is hell bent on %#!@+%. Such a person does not have the divine in him....this is again why I have trouble with your ocean imagery. I can't appreciate pretentious %#!@+% pricks as sacred. I can recognize that they have rights and dignity as God's Creation, but I don't look to them to know Christ. See above. I didn't say it was easy seeing with sacred perception. In fact, it is hard because we love to judge. But you don't know that prick's whole life story. If you had lived that prick's life, how do you know you wouldn't be the same? What if you just caught the person during a bad spell? Besides, again, at root such a person is deeply suffering. Seeing the person as your brother or sister, seeing yourself in them and a connection between you, is hard because it makes it hard to just walk away. To just judge and dismiss them. It compells you to look more deeply and with compassion. That's why religions spring up around people who realize and teach about this fundamental unity of humanity through divinity, and then someone else down the line adds "except for those people". God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members. Last Edited By: Tiny Thinker 07/07/09 00:53:16. Edited 1 time.
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Posts: 23 07/09/09 22:38:17	No, but not everything can be negation. Well....but ironic consequences of negation are not the same thing as assertion. Anyways, I'm just trying to make sense of things and I can't reconcile a lot of apparent contradictions. So I was hoping for an idea about how to critique this....for instance, in an apophatic tradition I would declare that your statements about the nature of reality are a load of baloney, or at least a load of neurotransmitters, and that you are wrong as much as you are right. But then it seems that you've found some way to relate to foundational truths and have asserted your beliefs accordingly (Cosmic awareness???). So instead I am going to have to try and appreciate how you select those foundational truths. I currently have absolutely no way of doing this. It isn't for prejudice against you that I lack this, but that you appeal to nothing more than your own authority in these claims and I don't take the words of others as any kind of authority. You can't just claim things about reality whtout being able to show how they are real, and I can't imagine any way to reconcile this gap. Please be patient with me. I am going to just say it how I see it...no point in pretending I believe otherwise.... You might object to my form of argumentation, which is an appeal to emotion. This is intentional, because you claim that emtions are just delusion. ...perhaps I prefer my delusion. You have to make a choice if you prefer yours. [quote]...on the other hand, real life has consequences and if someone tries to take my life I am going to try my damndest to take their first. That's a universal truth of the Absolute. Life on Earth could not exist without the opressed fighting back against the opressor. Getting someone before they get you is a choice, not a universal truth.[/quote] Choice is a universal truth. We are faced with choices that have moral implications either way. We have to act based on the information available and our moral sensibilities. That's as universal a truth of the human experience as I can think of. It's just as much a choice to stand aside and let oppression rule with inequity as it is to fight for a righteous cause. Those aren't just human inventions, those are expressions of how nature works and when nature applies to human nature, our experience of right and wrong is as universal a truth as I can think of. There doesn't have to be an oppressor. That's a choice. Humans have that capacity. Life is pragmatic but it doesn't oblige you to act in a selfish fashion or to justify such behavior. Just because so many people are lost and treating themselves and others with less dignity and compassion than they deserve doesn't justify giving as good as you get in a dog eat dog fashion. That is the radical nature of spiritual awakening - to not just talk or think but to live another way. A better way. So, taking your words at face value...it's better to stand aside and let your wife be raped, beaten and killed and her corpse mutilated, than it is to fight the oppressor? That is certainly a radical stance. It's all fine and well to say you can live a better way, but when push comes to shove, that just isn't a truth that anyone but the most detached members of society are willing to accept. Quite literally, those who are unwilling to fight (for whatever reason) are simply relying on other more willing members of their society to ensure that they have a life in which to take a moral stand. Otherwise the oppressive and evil people would completely conquer the earth, and I can't believe that you don't see that there are some people who live only to serve darkeness. Does that mean all fighting is righteous? No. But none of us has a perfect moral sense, and that applies equally well to your notion of pacifism as it does to my notion of fighting. You can't assert that non-violence is universally better without justification and I need more justification than your belief about the nature of reality. That's why they refer to it as a higher calling. Essentially you have removed the distinction between good and evil. Right is wrong, dark is light, killing and peace are....wait a minute. How can you assert such an inconsistent set of truths? Others like the Buddha have taught similar ideals. But true change cannot be imposed. I agree, you can't change a person's heart by force, but you can stop an injustice. Killing people is always wrong, period. A legally justified homicide is still morally repugnant. So you think it was morally repugant that more Jews, homosexuals and gypsies weren't killed this last century? I certainly believe that the vast majority of people who fought to save them (and save themselves) have had to reconcile with taking another life. But justified homocide is the way of life on Earth, for all living things, humans too. In the face of how life works, you ask me to believe something different based on your special perception of reality? ....I have a hard time, coming from an apophatic tradition, just accepting something without evidence or without it necessarily being the case. I can't reconcile your beliefs on either account. It is still a personal and societal failure that things were allowed to get to the point of being forced to choose between two or more morally offensive choices. Well of course it is, but there is nothing to be known about that higher calling you referred to. We can't grasp what it means. We can understand that peace is better, but sometimes it isn't. If you are going to preserve the lives of a million people with your good will and your brother is going to enslave them, and their children on to the fifth generation, I am going to kill your brother, and a million people will have said that I did the right thing. But your authority is greater? How can we reconcile this higher calling with the facts of nature that demonstrate that killing is not repugnant, but it a matter of course for the preservation of life? Life and death are two sides of the same coin, and both should be respected, which only makes killing other human beings even more offensive. Good is bad, right is wrong, life is death. This is meaningless. You can't appeal to a Cosmic awareness of the Unity of all things because you aren't capable of this awareness. If you were really conscious of the cosmic unity of all things you wouldn't be such a flawed person. So how can you trust your higher calling, when it stands in opposition to how life on Earth has been perserved and elevated for 4 billion years? I have your word versus 4 billion years of evidence that what you propose isn't the truth. As to where this comes from, it comes from having the empathy to see others as ourselves and to realize our fundamental sameness and interconnectedness. This insight is available to and has been commented on by those of all faiths and those of none. In a God-centered system, this sameness is referred to by recognizing we are all children of God. In other systems, karmic or evolutionary affiliations may be used. Of course, none of these commonalities are mutually exclusive, and they can all work with panentheism. That's fine. But recongnizing our common dignity, and killing those who take that dignity and treat it like the lowest and filthiest and most worthless of commodities are distinct modes of being. Life survives because of killing, not despite it. [quote]But....if you exist in a fractured state, then even what you invision as Unity is not unity. Your very words to describe Unity only have meaning because of the tension between opposites. ....and I am not really sure what I am then supposed to make of notions like, "we all exist in God" and "...it's all one ocean of light and potential and sacred joy"??? You don't have to make anything of it, but it's the heart of panentheism. It suggests that what appears to be a duality is really just looking comparing the whole and the partial. But that doesn't mean that either is unreal or unimportant. It doesn't mean we exist in a fractured state, but that we live in a delusion of separation from the Source of our Being. That we think we have a distinct intrinsic existence that is disconnected from the rest of existence. But we do not. This separation isn't real, it's just a false view that we build up, unknowingly and unintentionally. The reason we act so terrible to ourselves and each other is that we are trying to fill the hole in our beings where we fail to see ourselves as we truly are. The hole isn't real but it feels that way, so we give in to ignorance, greed, and hatred as we pursue cravings for that which we think will fulfill us.[/quote] So the thing that exists as a subjective feeling, that can only exist as a subjective experience of reality, and that only has meaning as a subjective experience of reality isn't really what it is, but is something entirely different that we don't even have the capacity to comprehend....and that's the basis of truth that you want me to accept? Your authority on the matter would be greater if you were actually capable of this perception that you claim is the real basis of all things. But the truth is that we are already complete and fulfilled if we could only realize it. If we were already complete and fulfilled we wouldn't act as if we weren't. If we are deluded then we aren't complete. How do you propose that we realize that we are complete, from our incomplete state? The ugliness of our sinful/deluded selves reflects our pain and suffering - a superficial self that hides a sacred and beautiful being. You are saying that the "superficial" is not real, but it is the only kind of reality that we can actually perceive. I think a more truthful expression is that light is distinct from darkness not that they are really the same thing if we could only realize it. That is why certain Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and even Sufis (if I recall) talk about the idea that when we see with sacred perception we always see the Pure Land/Kingdom of God/etc. Or that "An ordinary person sees deluded and enlightened beings, while an enlightened person sees only Buddhas." Or that saints see Christ in the face of everyone they meet. I am not sure of a metaphor that gets more directly at the issue than waves (phenomena/aspects of creation) and the ocean (source/creator) both being water (divinity, sacredness). Creation of God works a lot more consistently with reality. Because we are distinct from the Creator, we are distinct from perfection, and it isn't just a matter of realizing it and making ourselves whole. If that were the case then you might actually find such a person in existence, but no one is perfect, not one person. So all of these ideas can only be realized in a hypothetical other life that we have no connection to, no awareness of, no way to verify if what you are saying is true. God is the whole infinite ocean, while the waves (you, me, the rocks and the trees) are part of the ocean. We are of God but we are not (the sum of) God. As limited beings we cannot know the totality of God, but we can know the nature of God by examining the water itself in the form of waves, because they have the same nature as God. You can't say anything about God's nature in an apophatic tradtion. I'm not sure how you justified that departure, but it hasn't helped your cause of truth in any sense that I can actually recognize, verify, or ever have a hope of perceiving (and I am indeed aware of the Transcendent Peace of the Holy Spirit, but it has never told me that darkness is light). There are two dualities being discussed. One is between the phenomenal and the numinous, between the historical realm of space and time and the ultimate reality. This, as I just wrote, is about the partial and the total. But they are still one. Duality resolved. Well you asserted a lot of stuff, without evidence, and without logical consistency. ...so I have absolutely no way of recognizing that what you claim is true, except by your authority, and no man has authority over me....so how on earth can I believe what you are saying? You would tell me that I have to awaken to my true self, but you haven't, so I'm not about to believe you on that point, either. The other is between good and evil, the path of God and the path of the wicked. In this case, again, all that is real is sacred and of God. So the path of God is neither "good" or "evil" in that sense. The path of the wicked is the path of those believing in a fiction, that they are separate and independent of our common reality, in which all phenomena are interdependent. That's not true. Some people are perfectly aware of the interdependence of all things, but they choose to stand as master over it. They are making the same distinction about reality that you are, and are making the same authoritative claim to have mastered the reality of things. If darkness is not distinct from light, then they are just as strong an authority to claim their moral guidance as the truth as you are. There are no ground that you can appeal to to claim otherwise, except this Cosmic awareness that you obvious don't possess. It is a destructive and limiting fiction that creates states such as arrogance, insecurity, despair, hate, greed, oppression, etc. Because we have mind that analyzes via negation and therefore a capacity to choose, we create the choice itself. But that doesn't mean both choices have to be valid or of equal merit, does it? Look around and it is clear that when presented between a healthy realistic option and a destructive lie or delusion, people are perfectly capable of choosing the latter! Sure. But that's just an ad hoc assertion that isn't connected to your central belief about Cosmic awareness. Indeed, everything you are asserting is just ad hoc since it isn't evidence based, nor is it logically consistent. So only by your own authority can you make those claims. I reject your authority, since you obviously don't possess Cosmic Awareness. So I don't have any reason to believe that you have any idea what you are talking about. Two things are being conflated. I wasn't berating Slick for an (incorrect) application of logic, although that would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I was just slipping in my view on universalism. ....which is just the opposite conclusion of Slick using the exact same logic...that's what I am claiming. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva is one who does complete their own liberation because they want to assist others still mired in delusion first. In fact, the vow says the Bodhisattva will not stop until all are liberated. For example, Dharamkara was a Bodhisattva who made a number of unique vows concerning the construction of his own special Pure Land, and now he is known as Amitabha/Amida Buddha. If you work it out, that must mean all beings are/or will liberated at some point if he became a Buddha. Well that's certainly a story. Why should I believe it? The story in and of itself can't be verified. The underlying beliefs can't be verified. The only assertion that has a ring of truth is that we can't think of others as being different from our selves except to dehumanize ourselves in the process. But that's an aspect of many philsophies and religion that at least make claims about reality that can be verified or denied to provide some authoritativeness to the claims. In the philosophical tradition you point to, the only verification possible is to actually complete the migration from delusion to Pure Truth - to remove our ego desire and be absorbed into the Ocean, to not stand alone as a wave, but become the sea of waves, to be the sea itself. And that just isn't possible in this body. So hopefully I die and then some stuff happens, but until then your story has just as much authority as any other man claiming to be God-incarnate. Other sutras have similar implications. One example comes from the Lotus Sutra, where it is clearly articulated that even the worst offenders will one day realize enlightenment and awaken from the suffering and delusion. There even a chapter in the Lotus Sutra about an individual named "Bodhisattva Never-Disparaging" who always greeted everyone with a generous and respectful salutation because he recognized he was talking to a future Buddha! Universalism was also a very common and popular belief in early Christianity as well. But these aren't just happy beliefs. They again stem from the idea that we are all interconnected - that if we are so intimately connected that our own liberation is incomplete so long as others remain in suffering and delusion. Sure...but is it true? The only way I can accept this is to forget about righteousness and justice - because they are just figments of my imagination that cause me to be distinct from Pure Life (they are false) - but I have to replace them with your own beliefs about righteousness and justice....on no authority other than your own, and you don't possess Cosmic insight to the level that you say is necessary to verify what you are saying. So why should I believe you without anything more than your own authority to justify the belief? For instance, it is just as conceivable that what Matt Slick says is true, since his beliefs rely on precisely the same kind of authority that you are using. He too claims to know the real nature of things. And neither of you offer claims that can be verified by logic or evidence in reality. It is just an appeal to idealism, and since both of you are flawed, I have no reason to believe that you are capable of idealizing the world in a true manner. Hence Bodhisattvas MUST save all sentient beings in order to complete their own liberation - this is the insight of the highest level of the Bodhisattva. The same logic of interdependence works for panenetheism in monotheism as well - that the salvation of one requires the salvation of all. That it is an all or nothing proposition. That's where the next step comes in - to realize we are buddhas, we are children of God, but we have simply forgotten what that means. Hence in that sense we already possess what we seek in terms of liberation, salvation, etc. We just need to wake up to that and accept it and figure out how to deal with it. That is not universally the case in monotheism, since most beliefs in monotheistic faiths place the onus on God's Grace to accomplish the removal of our sin and God is distinct from Creation, we are not participating in our own salvation actively, but perhaps passively as vessels for God's Grace, which He bestows according to His Favour, and God knows best. And that's all we can say about that. But you transgress the bounds of truth and offer nothing but your own authority as proof. Why should I believe you, oh ye who doth not possess the Cosmic Spirit yet profess to it's Being? It isn't the notion that all will be saved from darkness that I object to, it's the basis of your authority to assert our own salvation considering the complete lack of evidence, the inconsistent application of logic, and the lack of you actually possessing the qualities that you claim are necessary in order to perceive the truth of things. You don't have any reason to claim to have authority over truth, or insight into the nature of things except your imagination. That works fine for individuals, but it leaves you with abosolutely no grounds on which to establish socially derived truths - which means no social order except for the order of the individual....and then we are our own authority over the pragmatic rights and wrongs that we encounter. I don't accept that as truth because you don't have the authority to declare your own righteousness. So, again, this is where we meet idea that when we see with sacred perception we always see the Pure Land/Kingdom of God/etc. Or that "An ordinary person sees deluded and enlightened beings, while an enlightened person sees only Buddhas." Or that saints see Christ in the face of everyone they meet. So you would happily see the face of Christ in someone who beat, raped, and mutilated your wife? That is the necessary conclusion that your brand of truth forces you to believe, but man, seriously, that's just stupid. You can't accept truth if it makes you believe such stupid things. Is that person a Child of God? No, because Jesus was very clear that a Child of God is one born of God and that there is darkness and light and good and evil and Satan who is the father of lies and death and that we make allegiances to one or the other. A person who can beat, rape and mutilate your wife is not a Child of God but a Child of Satan and he deserved death because that is the way of life that he has chosen for himself. In your view, there is no personal responsibility to the social whole, except that we must all become better people for the salvation of everyone. ....so you necessarily have to stand aside and let your wife be beaten, raped and mutilated in order for the Child of Satan to hopefully (eventually?) be saved from his own depravity. That means that you are responsible for his actions. You've mutliated the words of Christ as recorded in the Gospels, who wasn't nearly so pacifist as you seem to think. This same Christ is the one who will return to judge the living and the dead, to wage war against the enemies of God (the forces of Satan)....I mean, you can pick and chose whatever you like - it's just stories, I suppose - but I find nothing worthwhile in your story, since I can pick and chose the better parts of your own story and weave it into something more consistent with reality. I doubt that this matters to you, as you'll believe what you best think is true. I dunno...my words mean nothing, my opinion is meaningless. I just....I can't accept pacifists as people who have any inkling of what real life is like. To be a real pacifist, you not only have to abstain from violence, but you necessarily must present yourself as a human shield for the oppressed, because that is the higher calling - to sacrifice your life to (try and) save another. There might be the odd person who is consistent in his beliefs and his actions, but you obviously aren't, nor are post pacifists. So I reject your beliefs as having no bearing on reality and manifesting no evidence in your own life. What can I base my decision on but what I can see and feel and experience? Everything you point to is beyond the reality that we experience. The only way to verify what you believe is true is to imagine that it's true and ignore the reality in front of my eyes. That's the kind of worldly detachment that is self-servine, not God serving...but since God is us anyways in a panetheistic belief system, at least you are being consistent on that front. [quote]But.....I'm not really meeting Christ if those people aren't displaying his characteristics. It isn't like being asleep, it's like being dead / nonexistant. I don't encounter Christ in a prentious prick who is hell bent on %#!@+%. Such a person does not have the divine in him....this is again why I have trouble with your ocean imagery. I can't appreciate pretentious %#!@+% pricks as sacred. I can recognize that they have rights and dignity as God's Creation, but I don't look to them to know Christ. See above. I didn't say it was easy seeing with sacred perception. In fact, it is hard because we love to judge. But you don't know that prick's whole life story. If you had lived that prick's life, how do you know you wouldn't be the same? What if you just caught the person during a bad spell?[/quote] First of all, if someone was just in a "bad spell" while they beat, raped, and mutilated your wife, it's irrelevant. They transgressed and have to pay the consequences. I'm not here to judge the person's value as a human, I can only judge their behaviour as right or wrong. That's what your beliefs can't accomplish. The fact is that you only have the luxury to imagine us as all participating in God and seeing with sacred light because you don't have a person trying to kill you, or do even worse things to your wife. The universal truth is that we are made up of material things, that good and bad are distinct, and that there is a Judgment Day when our Creator will Stand before us and we will have to account for our actions. So I don't need to judge the heart of the @++*$!% prick, that's up to God, but Christ himself declared that those who speak with luke warm words will be cast away from him. Hot or cold, man, hot or cold. I have mercy and pity on people - all people - but I have to judge outward actions. I can accommodate most kinds of behaviour, but hanging out with drug addicts and murderers is vastly different from hanging out with pious people. I don't see you admiring the life of a cocaine addict. You judge people the same as I do. That's what I am talking about. But then you equate this judgment of good and bad with a delusion that will actually reveal that the person addicted to cocaine who beat, raped, and killed your wife was just having "bad spell" and is actually a pure heart that you admire and desire to be united with. You want to be united with the person who beat, raped, and mutilated your wife. ....that's certainly a VERY HARD sacred perception - so hard that it flies in the face of every kind of truth that humans can appreciate, except the imaginary kind, which may or may not be true, but I'll trust you on this even though you don't see with sacred light yourself. ....you actually want me to believe that's true!??!?! Besides, again, at root such a person is deeply suffering. So is your wife. What is love? Giv e up your life? Okay, so you are killed....then your wife is beaten, raped and mutilated EVERY DAY for the rest of her life, because you weren't there to be her man, to protect her and to stand up for justice. Seeing the person as your brother or sister, seeing yourself in them and a connection between you, is hard because it makes it hard to just walk away. To just judge and dismiss them. It compells you to look more deeply and with compassion. That's why religions spring up around people who realize and teach about this fundamental unity of humanity through divinity, and then someone else down the line adds "except for those people". You have to defeat injustice before you can LIVE with others as your brothers and sisters. I can know that the person who beat, raped and mutliated your wife is just as much God's creation as I am and entitled to the same rights as I am, but THAT PERSON wants to inflict more and more suffering in the world. For the sake of all those who want to pursue the path of righteousness THAT PERSON has to be removed as a harm-maker - either by his own volition or by force - otherwise more and more people will be beaten, raped and mutilated. I have to keep beating that point home because you don't actually believe it's better to let that happen to your wife, you only think you do because that's what your philosophy forces you to accept as the "greater truth". And all of that because of the error of thinking that we are of the same nature as God. With that central premise being incoherent, everything else is just ad hoc assertions with absolutely no way to verify the truthfulness of the claims - and given the inconsistent application of logic and reason that it demans (light and darness aren't really distinct) we can't remain human but have to become a Buddha creation in order to perceive reality that way. I can certainly understand how the philsophy is articulated (dispite my vehement objections here) but I can't find any reason why a person ought to accept this as true? It isn't necessary to believe what you believe in order to treat every person with dignity and respect, to seek peace as the higher calling, and to resist aggression with a calming temperment. Yet it is necessary to believe that you can't defend you wife in the face of a person who is having a "bad day". So for the sake of someone who is a little "over emotional" your wife is beaten, raped and mutilated. ???? Peace, -sgttomas
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Posts: 1070 07/10/09 15:03:21	Anyways, I'm just trying to make sense of things and I can't reconcile a lot of apparent contradictions. Note how many of these I then dispute as not representing what I am claiming. We all bring assumptions to the table, and it does require patience on all sides, but all I can do is try to steer your characterization of my views back toward a vision of what I am saying that is more accurate from my own point of view. You have a few main objections which get repeated over and over again in an ever increasingly agitated and at times disrespectful fashion. If I were to summarize, it looks like this: "I am conflating the idea that nonviolence towards my fellow human beings is a supreme virtue with the idea that you have to be a helpless variety of pacifist. I believe in fighting for justice and I seem to think you are trying to be a complete relativist except for your idiotic pacifism. I prefer a world that is more black and white than gray and I think you are blurring the lines inappropriately, suggesting things I am extremely uncomfortable with such as the idea that I am connected in a fundamental way to everyone and everything and that even the worst people are worth saving and caring about. Hence I am going to suddenly start looking for any and every challenge I can to your authority or validity in making such claims, even though this was originally just about getting your opinion." I have chosen a few examples of these objections on which to focus my reply. You can't just claim things about reality whtout being able to show how they are real, and I can't imagine any way to reconcile this gap. ... But your authority is greater? ... Well you asserted a lot of stuff, without evidence, and without logical consistency. ...so I have absolutely no way of recognizing that what you claim is true, except by your authority, and no man has authority over me....so how on earth can I believe what you are saying? You would tell me that I have to awaken to my true self, but you haven't, so I'm not about to believe you on that point, either. ... There are no ground that you can appeal to to claim otherwise, except this Cosmic awareness that you obvious don't possess. ... Your authority on the matter would be greater if you were actually capable of this perception that you claim is the real basis of all things. ... I reject your authority, since you obviously don't possess Cosmic Awareness. So I don't have any reason to believe that you have any idea what you are talking about. ... Why should I believe you, oh ye who doth not possess the Cosmic Spirit yet profess to it's Being? It isn't the notion that all will be saved from darkness that I object to, it's the basis of your authority to assert our own salvation considering the complete lack of evidence, the inconsistent application of logic, and the lack of you actually possessing the qualities that you claim are necessary in order to perceive the truth of things. You don't have any reason to claim to have authority over truth, or insight into the nature of things except your imagination. ... I don't accept that as truth because you don't have the authority to declare your own righteousness. ... So I reject your beliefs as having no bearing on reality and manifesting no evidence in your own life. People make claims that cannot be completely backed up all the time. In any case, turn that back around to Islam and all of its teachings, stories, miracles, etc. Can you really sit there and type out a complete and coherent explanation that accounts for all of your own experiences and lessons that led you to accept or reject what you currently believe? I have stated numerous times that my worldview comes from my experiences and education in science, anthropology, comparative religion, and my personal life. Certain models are best able to reconcile what I feel are the most genuine and essential insights I have come across, connecting theology, morality, the nature of perception, the physical/phenomenal world. I have here and elsewhere cited and discussed my developing perspective over several years. Just because you find them illogical doesn't make them so, especially when as I keep pointing out what you are reading into what I am writing is largely inaccurate. If someone finds resonance in what I am finding, that is fine, but for those who don't there is no "argument" or "debate" which will bridge that gap. I never claimed this thread was supposed to cover the history of logic and insight that has led me to where I am now. I never made a claim of superior authority. If necessary, I can collapse my beliefs to the following: "God is/All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well." This is intentional, because you claim that emtions are just delusion ... You are saying that the "superficial" is not real Never claimed that. Choice is a universal truth. Yes, but I said "Getting someone before they get you is a choice, not a universal truth." That is, "getting someone before they get you" doesn't equal "universal truth". So, taking your words at face value...it's better to stand aside and let your wife be raped, beaten and killed and her corpse mutilated, than it is to fight the oppressor? ... it's better to stand aside and let your wife be raped, beaten and killed and her corpse mutilated, than it is to fight the oppressor? ... so you necessarily have to stand aside and let your wife be beaten, raped and mutilated in order for the Child of Satan to hopefully (eventually?) be saved from his own depravity. Is there any real reason to have used that particular scenario repeatedly and graphically? Why not have one with Mohamed violating [insert loved one here]'s bloody corpse with an original copy of the Koran if it is just for shock or sentimental sensationalism? In any case, taking my words at face value have nothing to do with being a doormat as you strongly presume throughout your reply. But violence is also tragic, and killing people is always wrong. As was said in Kung Fu, "It is better to walk away than to strike. It is better to strike than to harm. It is better to harm than to maim. It is better to maim than to kill." If you see such "evil doers" as those who were once as close and beloved to you as anyone you have ever cared for, but now they are lost and confused, it becomes clear. If your soul mate was out of control, you would walk away rather than fight. You'd rather knock her/him out than kill. And were you ever put in a tragic situation where you felt you had to choose to maim or kill to avert a greater tragedy, you will still grieve and lament your actions. As I know I've written before, by the time such a "no-win" scenario emerges, the primary moral failure, both individual and collective, has already occurred. At that point, we are simply facing the consequences of that failure. You can't assert that non-violence is universally better without justification and I need more justification than your belief about the nature of reality. Again, if you see all as your lost beloveds, that is, if you have that universal empathy (whether you view it through divine, karmic, or other forms of connection), it becomes clear. As for the preference of non-violence over violence, in addition to being espoused by many sacred traditions it is also shown through history and personal experience. Violence breeds violence, it does not end it. The lack of open conflict brought about by force or threat only masks the reality, it doesn't grant true peace. Look at what happens to all of these "peaceful" dicatorships when the governments fall. All the hate and violence was still there, just suppressed. True peace must come from within, from finding our connection to the divine in the depths of our being, even if we don't explicitly name it. Peace isn't just an absence of physical violence - I am referring to freedom from emotional, mental, and other forms of harassment or impoverishment as well. Essentially you have removed the distinction between good and evil. Right is wrong, dark is light, killing and peace are....wait a minute. How can you assert such an inconsistent set of truths? ... Good is bad, right is wrong, life is death. This is meaningless. No, that is flat thinking. I haven't said nor have I suggested any such thing. I clearly and carefully wrote that sin is based on a lie, that evil comes from delusion, and that reality is sacred and free from such duality. Human minds create and act on their notions of good and evil. Does a snowflake have any concern of good or evil? The lillies of the field? The moon or the stars? We are human, so we have the capacity for self-deception, hence we must be mindful of morality, of good and evil, without making the error or projecting that onto God or creation. We must be mindful of the human capacity to "choose" delusion and unreality, and the harm it can cause. Nothing in this suggests morality is trivial or that there is no distinction between right and wrong. So the thing that exists as a subjective feeling, that can only exist as a subjective experience of reality, and that only has meaning as a subjective experience of reality isn't really what it is, but is something entirely different that we don't even have the capacity to comprehend... If that is honestly how you carefully and thoughtfully understood what I wrote, then I am not surprised we have hit an impasse. What you wrote is nonsensical, perhaps as a mockery or objection to what you think of what I wrote? My views on subjective/objective are still with me from my purely atheist days. We experience reality partially and subjectively on an empirical and intellectual level - I don't see why that is a difficult concept. We have the chance to be aware of (our subsistence) in divinity and experience a sense of wholeness in realizing we are part of something greater. This direct form of awareness is terms mysticism. How you get from that to what you replied with is mystery. You can't appeal to a Cosmic awareness of the Unity of all things because you aren't capable of this awareness. If you were really conscious of the cosmic unity of all things you wouldn't be such a flawed person... Some people are perfectly aware of the interdependence of all things, but they choose to stand as master over it. They are making the same distinction about reality that you are, and are making the same authoritative claim to have mastered the reality of things. An example of inconsistency where one argument is made to try to counter one thing I say and the opposite argument is made to try to counter something else. Either you can have some awareness of the unity of things and still have the capacity for error or delusion or you can't. I tend to go with the former. Again, you are making all the claims about my authority, not me. If we were already complete and fulfilled we wouldn't act as if we weren't. If we are deluded then we aren't complete. How do you propose that we realize that we are complete, from our incomplete state? Because our delusion doesn't detract from our wholeness, it distracts it from us. If you are an oak tree that believes it is a single brown leaf, that doesn't make you less than an oak tree. You do get at a good semantic issue, but it isn't substantive. It is like a glass of cloudy water. If you let it settle, it becomes clear. If you perturb it sufficiently, it becomes cloudy again. But it never stops being water. But justified homocide is the way of life on Earth, for all living things, humans too. In the face of how life works, you ask me to believe something different based on your special perception of reality? ... How can we reconcile this higher calling with the facts of nature that demonstrate that killing is not repugnant, but it a matter of course for the preservation of life? ... There is no homicide outside of a system of justice, as that is a legal definition asserting an unsanctioned killing. That stems in turn from a morality based on an empathy towards those we consider to share a fundamental affinity - of sentience, of the knowledge and fear of death. Killing is a part of nature, but humans have these extra capacities which distinguish them. A cat doesn't kill a mouse out of jealousy. It kills because mice are on their evolved menu. A virus doesn't kill because it wants to steal your car. A shark doesn't kill because you are of the wrong religion. The realm of morality, as I mentioned above, is the domain of sentient and empathetic beings. Morality is part of the cost of our form of self-awareness. So you would happily see the face of Christ in someone who beat, raped, and mutilated your wife? That is the necessary conclusion that your brand of truth forces you to believe, but man, seriously, that's just stupid. You can't accept truth if it makes you believe such stupid things. Is that person a Child of God? No I didn't say it would be easy or happy. It is this exact objection that leads people to prefer a view of us and them, of a literal heaven full of us and hell full of them. Maybe then those Amish were just as stupid for forgiving the man who violated and killed their little girls a few years back. JP II was certainly foolish to forgive the man who shot him. And Jesus was the biggest fool of all for praying "Forgive them, they know not what they do." Such a vision surely is foolish to the standards many people tend to buy into, isn't it? Yup, real foolishness. Who would have ever guessed? You have to defeat injustice before you can LIVE with others as your brothers and sisters You have to live with others as your brothers and sisters to defeat injustice. The only way I can accept this is to forget about righteousness and justice - because they are just figments of my imagination Not at all, just more flat thinking. Things that we experience aren't figments of our imagination just because we can't reach out and grab them, and I know you agree with that. As I said before, morality is something sentient empathetic beings wrestle with precisely because our minds generate choices - it is a part of our human consciousness. How is this new? How is this different than the billion free will debates that have gone on before? I am simply saying that sin/evil is based on delusion, on a messed up view of reality. How is that a problem? That resonates with the social psychology of evil as much as it does with the religious traditions I cited. As I said, humans create good and evil in their minds, but then they act on it too. I would never say (what dumb %^&* would?) that the piles of bodies in the death camps of the last century were "delusions". Those people were brutally tortured and murdered. Humans tend to take what is in their heads and hearts and attempt to replicate that in their environment. Evil may be based on a deluded view, but that can still be manifested in our actions. Still, the bodies of the killers and killed were not "good" or "evil". The actual weapons were not "good" or "evil". The ovens, the poison gas, the incinerators, these were neither "good" nor "evil". The choices, however, to torture and kill, these were evil - these were based on a horribly flawed and mistaken view of our existence. But our fundamental objective reality is still sacred. How is that a problem for traditional ethics? How does that befuddle or obviate the need for justice? It just reworks justice in the service of charity and takes seriously the idea that God's will shall be done on Earth, that God is always with us even when we believe we can turn away or abandon him. Final note: I don't recognize much of what I write in your replies, which have started to sound a bit insulting. I have tried my best to be open, direct, and responsive to you questions. But if you really find my views so idiotic, baseless (in that you reject one set of theological traditions and philosophies and my personal experience in favor of another set and your own experiences), and offensive, keep in mind you aren't obligated to pay attention to or discuss these things with me. I am not thin-skinned, but I don't want you to get so upset and disturbed, especially over what you seem to regard as a foolish and groundless view. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members. Last Edited By: Tiny Thinker 07/10/09 21:36:40. Edited 3 times.
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sgttomas.thinkersforum		#17	[url]	[-]
Posts: 23 07/12/09 01:14:22	You have a few main objections which get repeated over and over again in an ever increasingly agitated and at times disrespectful fashion. You are absolutely right. I was completely disrespectful and there is no excuse for that. I am sorry. ...I had originally composed my thoughts with images of Jews in mind, where I had referred to your wife, who is far more worthy of respect and human dignity that what I ascribed to her. I can see where my own ego got carried away and detracted from what I really wanted to say. Hence I am going to suddenly start looking for any and every challenge I can to your authority or validity in making such claims, even though this was originally just about getting your opinion. This is absolutely about authority and always was. There are many tacs on the subject. The ultimate authority for panentheism is arationality. That the real nature of thing is not divided into our artificial rational categories, and that it is by spiritual knowledge that we are truly known (and that can be expressed in a myriad of ways and analogies). Any expression of this as truth is, of course, not itself a rational venture since all knowledge about the arational nature of the world is entirely experiential and personal. So the authority of your truth is you. The ultimate authority for much emergent Christianity is the same and this is well expressed in your Cosmic Christ character. The ultimate authority for other religions not of this nature is irrationality. There is some arbitrary imposition of truth upon the world that must be accepted upon faith and cannot be rationally deduced, except without self-reference to the subject (i.e. assumptions that already include knowledge of the subject). This is epitomized in the historical theology of the Trinity and Atonement Theology (in classic, modern theological understanding). People make claims that cannot be completely backed up all the time. In any case, turn that back around to Islam and all of its teachings, stories, miracles, etc. Can you really sit there and type out a complete and coherent explanation that accounts for all of your own experiences and lessons that led you to accept or reject what you currently believe? Yes. Absolutely I can and will. Islam is the only religion in the world that I have found to be entirely rationally based. The basis of this truth is contained in the subject of tauheed - the Oneness of God. The first condition of this truth is expressed in The Unity - the 109th chapter of the Quran. This is my tafsir at-Ikhlas (explanation of the chapted called "The Unity"). The second condition of this truth is expressed in the first chapter of the Quran, which is the basis of worship of God, which is equivalent to saying it describes the nature of our actions and character in response to The Unity. The third condition of this truth is self-reference to the Quran itself, as that which is called The Guidance for Mankind, and The Truth....a claim which it must make for itself in order to complete the necessary self-recursion of statements consistent with truth (truth confirms truth...it's not just a feeling, it's actually a logical predicate and deduction - which is to say, truth is recursion and consistency is self-reference). But that also implies that our human nature is fundamentally sound and is both the limitation of our expression of truth, and the epitome of it. Therefore, "God's Word" (since it has been established that God is necessarily distinct from Creation, but not inaccessible from it...you will have to read about teotl and Ometeotl to appreciate that) will have to be as much an expression of and expressed through the human condition as it can point to what is superrational about the human condition. So Islam can be said to be true because it is super-rational - that is it encompasses all rational human behaviour and experience as well as being able to apophatically derive the necessary and consistent truth about what limits the human experience (which, to imply a limit, is to presume to be able to articulate the unlimited in an analogous fashion....which we already experience in "infinity" and transfinite numbers so we know that man is capable of this expression, but not complete comprehension....that's the irony of apophatically derived truth...we can know what we don't know). The fourth condition of this truth is how the Quran describes our way of life - how we ought to live and how we ought to approach life by bestowing rights upon God, our selves and others. This is now where subjective truth resides entirely. It was introduced in the previous step, but now we are immersed in it. Therefore this step is the enaction of faith - not just belief but proof of belief by a transformed life into that which fulfills our desires and fulfills our obligations to that which is external to us. So quite literally there is no greater authority than the God and way of life described by Islam because that is the necessary nature of truth. Anything else is either arational or irrational, and I can't settle for a truth that isn't truthful except for what I want, and can bring myself to think about it. The real nature of truth is consistent even when I don't know it or want it to be. That is also what you think your approach can accomplish, but because it lacks an inherent self-reference and superauthority, there is no way to verify if what you are saying is true. I can't verify every word of the Quran as being true - some things are only meant to be analogies, some things are just beyond my understanding - but everything it says about itself and its relation to the Truth is necessarily what has already been proven to be the case if "truth" has any meaning at all. So I expect authority to be derived from truth, not from emotion, or subjective experience. If you believe differently, that's up to you. But that is the nature of this discussion I have been having with you (I wasn't intentionally hiding this from you, since I was necessarily implying this argument in my rhetoric...at least the stuff that had any meaning and value - obviously some of the things I said are the epitome of ego-delusion). Whatever I believe about truth is the only possible and necessary conception of truth, if "truth" is going to have any kind of consistent meaning. If "truth" just means "true for you" then reality isn't rationally observable in it's present or "ultimate" state. Obviously I agree that there are limits to reason, but you have narrowed much too far by only having it reside in yourself. If truth is truth then it is necessarily true for all people regardless of their perception of it. That's also consistent with what you believe, but you have only the proof of your own experience of being human as proof for what you believe, while the proof for my beliefs is the observable Universe and the experience of being human. I consider superrationality to be a superior authoirty to arationality, but we all make our own choices in what to submit ourselves to. Peace, -sgttomas Last Edited By: sgttomas 07/12/09 01:23:45. Edited 2 times.
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Tiny Thinker		#18	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1070 07/15/09 14:29:09	[Please read the last paragraph first] Sarge, I saw this thread as you asking how I see things, it was never about providing complex logical arguments, mountains of references to theological and historical sources, and "proving" that my views are perfect and unassailable. You didn't start specifically and aggressively questioning my authority or making that an patent aspect of the discussion until you got ticked off because I said that my views include the notion we are all sacred aspects of the divine, at which point, as I documented, you made repeated challenges in a single thread. In particular, you objected to the wave-ocean analogy, which you took further than it was intended to go. It was to show our relationship to God as an aspect of the Divine substance, that we can appreciate the Ultimate by appreciating phenomena. It is also to show that we cannot exist apart from God any more than a finger can continue to live and function after cut from the body. Finally, it has an implication that we are all united in our common foundation. This in turn does not obviate the notions of sin or evil one bit, it brings them into focus as they have long been known, as that which separates us from God (which in this case would mean that which causes us to forget our true nature) and to choose a path apart from God (which in this case would mean choosing a fiction or delusion over reality) respectively. Hence it also doesn't obviate the need to be aware of good an evil in human activtiy or the notion of justice as humans have the capacity to choose - it only suggests that such ideas shouldn't be projected onto God or the rest of Creation. The other notions you read in, that this means that individual waves are unimportant, or that waves are forgotten once they have had their moment, is nowhere found in what I wrote. The totality of the divine includes but cannot be conceptualized into the limiting categories of time and space, so notions like past and present or near and far need not apply from such a perspective. However, those who diminish their participation in the Divine by choosing evil in the incomplete perspective of the historical dimension may find their participation in the ultimate also lessened. (In this and other ways I find that sin is a punishment in and of itself.) This may or may not involve some variety of afterlife - I tend to think that since this life is a part of the totality, there is no real separation of life and afterlife. Of course, by forcefully rejecting the idea of the unity of God and Creation and the few other assertions I have made about God, you are in fact yourself going way beyond "true" apophatic silence regarding any statement or conception about God. But that is necessary. It is one thing to be a minimalist in making statements about God, but to have no construction linking God and reality is pointless. To lack any such bridge makes God completely unknowable and irrelevant from the perspective of humans or other sentient beings. That would require one to be an agnostic. Given the certainty with which you dismissed my views, and the pronouncements you made in the following post, you are not an agnostic or above promoting a particular view of God. You claim I said truth resides only in each individual, that we each must make up truth for ourselves. I challenge you to re-read the places where I clarified and re-clarified my position on objective reality and the difference between partial/complete, subjective/objective, and relative/absolute. I have said, in this thread and previous to it ad nauseum, that there are ways to try to get closer to a less subjective view, but that we need to acknowledge we each experience God and reality in unique ways. I have the tail, you have the trunk, Meta has the sides, and someone else had the tusks. Do you recall that analogy? The fact that we each experience the world subjectively and that we have a unique perspective of it doesn't obviate an objective reality. But there is no foolproof way to such knowledge. So when I say I have spent years studying evolution, especially physical anthropology (what unites and distinguishes us biologically), that I have an appreciation of cross-cultural perspectives (contemporary and pre/historical), and have made dabbling in comparative religion a hobby, and that I have attempted to reconcile all of this with real world experience, longstanding issues of morality, etc, this is no simple thing. It is a lifelong process of exploration. And I don't believe I have everything totally right. (My views of Jesus, for example, are based on history and my overall spiritual investigation, not just whimsical imagination.) I, like everyone, have personal influences on my motivations and methods. I try to recognize them as best I can and use other sources to fill in my blindspots. For example, in my comparative religious search, I look for commonalities that aren't superficial and that come from various cultures and from various ages. I also look to those with a lived rather than strictly academic theology. I ask "What is the common spirit/view uniting the likes of Moses, Elijah, Micah, Jesus, St. Francis, Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Buddha, Shantideva, the current Dalai Lama, Black Elk, etc, etc?" And I think that the answer must be simple - something that is accessible to all without having an advanced education or time for endless formal devotions and religious study. If I am wrong, I am wrong in really good company. It is a coherent view that upholds the values that I have found to be most vital and most significant even if God turns out to be a fiction. When I asked "Can you really sit there and type out a complete and coherent explanation that accounts for all of your own experiences and lessons that led you to accept or reject what you currently believe," the fact that you thought you could or have shows you didn't get what I was asking for. We don't know all of the ways we are influenced, and we cannot understand or recall all of the things that we have experienced that shape who and what we are. It is a blind spot we all have to deal with, with our minds attempting to create the appearance and feeling of cohesion and correctness. Psychologists have further shown we have a gut reaction first then try to use logic and reason to justify our views after. Logic and reason are context dependent - as the programmers used to say, "garbage in, garbage out." Hence claiming that Islam is the only religion that is rationally-based calls into question all of the things which go into making something appear reasonable to you. For some people, a 6,000 year old Earth sounds perfectly rational. So I have given a really brief outlines for my criteria in my search which I think are reasonable. And we are back to the elephant. Your steps of accepting Islam as the one true or reasonable religion also depend, as all arguments do, on axiomatic assumptions, those which are postulated but cannot be demonstrated. You claim Islam possesses an inherent self-reference and superauthority that offers an authority for establishing truth independent of emotion or subjectivity, but that isn't possible. You have no special authority that has a basis any less subjective than any other religious claims, because these all come themselves from subjective experiences as they come through human beings. As I have written over and over we can ponder how to best limit or minimize the distortions of seeing things from a limited human perspective, but there will always be an element of subjectivity in our experiences. You claim to have the general experience of being human and the observable universe as your proof compared merely to me having my own experience of being human. Yeah, of course, my knowledge of science, especially evolution, especially human evolution, my knowledge of other cultures past and present, my examination of comparative religion, these have nothing to do with understanding broadly what it means to be human, to be spiritual, or to be religious. If we are using such knowledge as criteria for authority, I think I would merit being taken seriously. But again, my goal wasn't trying to argue over authority, to make a case that mine is better than yours, or to impose it on anyone. I just wanted to share my views because someone asked nicely. I am not interested in this becoming a pissing contest. I am not interested in covering the same ground over and over or trying to impose my views on you by proving that my epistemological approach is superior. I had originally decided not to post a reply at all because it seemed to be feeding into something - maybe some kind of need to prove something to yourself or to settle some insecurity or maybe something more benign. But that approach seemed presumptuous. I also considered posting a reply and then closing the thread, with an invitation to post new threads on specific issues if you felt like it. But that approach seemed heavy-handed. Rather than a tit-for-tat quote-a-thon, I just wanted to put out a statement summarizing my perspective and participation with regards to this thread and to let you know I have no hard feelings about it. And that my participation in it is complete. I will not post any further replies. Aloha. God is present in every house of worship, despite the efforts of some of their members.
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Sgt Tomas		#19	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 07/22/09 22:11:43	hey that's cool man. I really appreciate you working through this with me. Honestly, I just see you still searching for something really fulfilling. You're still really trying to achieve transformation. Your turn to Christianity was surprising and a little alarming. And the more we dug into things, the more I found at odds with what is "plainly true" about reality to me. I was just trying to establish the proper rhetoric to direct you to a similar perspective. But you are right that it shouldn't become a pissing contest. I truly believe that there is no compulsion in religion and I recognize that to pursue things further would indeed involve compulsion. I ask for forgiveness if it is required, for harm I may have done (for instance, simply by causing you undue anxiety, or by stating something false which then gives you the wrong impression). Thank you again for your gracious hosting of this forum and for your attention to me. Peace be with you. -sgttomas
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Sgt Tomas		#20	[url]	[-]
Posts: 49 07/22/09 22:13:40	I would love to discuss the apophatic tradition at some point, as we both seem to see that it is only properly fulfilled by culminating in assertion....ironic indeed. If something comes to mind, I am all ears. I will think about a suitable subject to try and catch your attention. -sgtt.
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