God to You - Page 4

Thomas · 10-05-2011, 11:45 AM

I may be getting jaded in my old age but ...

Nothing is in the mind that was not first in the senses — Aristotle. Stiull holds, I think.

The real trumps the unreal every time.

I think comparisons between OU and SU are precarious, if one treats both on a level, then dangerous, as on the OU will trump the SU hands down, even though the OU might let the SU get away with it for a long, long time.

The Objective Universe is the Universe of Things.
The Subjective Universe is the Universe of Relations.
Try picturing a universe without relation, or rather, each and every 'thing' is the only 'thing' in its own universe, and is utterly unaware of other 'things', in fact, it does not even possess awareness ... why should it?

OU says you are there for it,
SU says it is there for you,
A balanced (non-dual) view says we're all in it together,
A human view says "Come on over to my place,"
A consumer view says "Got anything to eat?"

The cosmos should be one big wedding ... in the West it's treated like one big stag night out — get in there, fuck everything that moves, then get out before management presents you with the bill.

God bless,

Thomas

Etu Malku · 10-05-2011, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Cup Of Tea

hehe, I actually have a cold so lets blame it on that.
I HEARD the poem in a MOVIE

Just being a wisenheimer . . . sorry!

bananabrain · 10-05-2011, 01:33 PM

oooOOoooo. this is a good one. for me:

G!D Is and Isn't at once. G!D = (a & !a) as well as a+a=a, a-a=a, a*a=a, a^a=a, the paradox set, all that mathematical stuff.
G!D Is the Point at which all vectors and dimensions meet and diverge.
G!D Creates the space in which we all exist.
G!D Creates the laws by which science functions.
G!D Is the "back of the tapestry"; we can only see the pattern, not the knots. hence suffering, evil, theodicy.
G!D Is the Cause of causality, but also of potentiality.
G!D perspective is everything that has ever happened, but also everything that hasn't, at the same time.
G!D Creates good and evil, but neither of these have "objective" reality, no matter how much they are real to us in the world.
G!D Is Balance and Harmony - and its reverse.
G!D, for reasons unknown to us, seems to have decided to use the jewish people as some kind of control in an experiment in this particular part of the space-time continuum. not because we're better, but perhaps because we're not. we still haven't figured out what the hell that is all about.
G!D Is (in the words of sir terry pratchett) the One dealing [blindfolded] you cards in a dark room without telling you the rules - and Smiling all the time.
G!D Laughs when we use the rules of the system to beat the system.
G!D Is Parent somewhat like my mother; unconditionally Loving, but bloody Annoying with it; sometimes you just have to put up with it whether you like it or not.
G!D Is Parent as we are child: when we were toddlers, we used to get picked up, burped, cosseted and had our arses wiped. as teenagers, we'd get a wallop if we crossed the line. as grown-ups, we are responsible for our own mistakes.
G!D Is *not* what we cannot face about our own parents' humanity, dr freud.
G!D Is *not* there to act like a sort of cosmic muscle at the behest of our hunger for power and control, fundamentalist imbeciles.
G!D Is *not* the Big Beard In The Sky, literalist yahoos.
G!D Is *not* the Big Tits In The Earth, dimwit oppositionalists.
G!D Is *not* a reason to chop off your own intellectual curiosity and honesty, intelligent design weasels and "gnu atheists".
G!DLike effects (e.g. from drugs, mental illness, coincidence, science we don't really understand yet) is *not* the same thing as G!D. the map is not the territory.
G!D Is *not* our excuse for failing to do what we should.
G!D Is *not* a reason not to know better.
G!D Doesn't mind either way, unless we've been Told otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

For me, the real always trumps the imaginary because it is, and the imaginary is not.

a point of view which is all very well until it comes up against the inadequacy of human perception to tell the difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etu Malku

But if course . . . I can't wait around for 'someone else' to do this, now can I?

and there you have judaism in a nutshell.

b'shalom

bananabrain

radarmark · 10-05-2011, 02:11 PM

"Nothing is in the mind that was not first in the senses." False then, false now. Qualia and experience are of the mind without the senses. More importantly my knowledge of G!d (limited as it is) is not of the senses.

The imaginary does trump the real in many many cases (New Guineans did not see the big silver bird until it landed in the water, Africans did not see the moving pictures, just the depiction of G!d as a chicken, the painting or photograph, if sufficiently detailed can cause one to walk intop a wall).

It is not a matter of "things" or "thoughts" it is a matter of actual entities which are both things (real) and thoughts (imaginary). Can we really understand that relativity (with a little help form Hubble) says "the metric is expanding" while simultaneously saying "nothing exists outside the metric"? Can we really understand that quantum (with a little help from Bell and Aspect) says "what happens here is instantaneously linked to what is there" at the same time saying "you cannot know the intervention"?

The bottom line? Hell, I dunno. I pray therefore I am? I do good because I must?

The key comes down to three concerpts "dat'si" (Navajo for yes, no, maybe, and everything in between) "likheetweeh" (Hopi for now, about this time, then) and "grok" (Martian for thou art G!d or drink).

IowaGuy · 10-05-2011, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

the OU will trump the SU hands down, even though the OU might let the SU get away with it for a long, long time.

This would imply that enlightenment is not possible without a deity. I don't think many Buddhists would agree with you here.

Is not the only trump for the OU our ultimate death? Can not anything else be overcome by the SU? (and thus permit enlightenment)

IowaGuy · 10-05-2011, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Cup Of Tea

I was more thinking of someone stabbed through the leg or something.

If you stab an enlightened Buddha in the leg, would he feel pain? Would he endure suffering?

Thomas · 10-05-2011, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bananabrain

a point of view which is all very well until it comes up against the inadequacy of human perception to tell the difference

Then we're in the dark, as it were ...

God bless,

Thomas.

radarmark · 10-05-2011, 03:59 PM

Ah, but do you not see that is where our (admittedly also human) metaphysical conceptions come in. Yes it is true that reality (for instance the truth that the truth of mathematics cannot be prooved inerrant) will trump imagination (mistakingly believing that because it is in the Calculus it "must be true") or that a dying child on the streets of Mumbai shakes our belief in a just G!d or that Western Philosophy tells us that our consciousness is a by-product of some old cheese we relished last night. But that does not make it so.... there are limits to what we can percieve and know. There are none on Revelation and Redemption.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt.

bananabrain · 10-05-2011, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

Then we're in the dark, as it were ...

God bless,

Thomas.

you say that as if it were a bad thing! remember the comment about the Dealer of cards in the dark room; basically, we just don't know *for sure* - nonetheless, we trust. this, for me, is emunah, faith in G!D's Trustworthiness (or "lovingkindness", not that that is a word i really get). i am not, like many, secure that amongst my deal is the "get into heaven free" card. aristotle, here, appears to me to be rather closer to etu malku's position than anything transcendental.

i'd rather know and recognise that i was in the dark and try and focus on my hearing and radar, than insist that i could see perfectly well nonetheless and that darkness was merely an illusion, true though that may be on the most fundamental level.

b'shalom

bananabrain

IowaGuy · 10-05-2011, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bananabrain

G!D, for reasons unknown to us, seems to have decided to use the jewish people as some kind of control in an experiment in this particular part of the space-time continuum. not because we're better, but perhaps because we're not. we still haven't figured out what the hell that is all about.

BB - do you think your "God" and the pantheist or panentheist "Gods" of the Native Americans (Great Spirit, Wankan Tanka, etc) are one and the same; or are they different "Gods"; or were the Native Americans paganists and worshiping the wrong "God"?

Actually this question would apply to any forum members in the Abrahamic Traditions.

radarmark · 10-05-2011, 08:06 PM

Different cultures, different histories, different experiences. If the peyotyl in Native American Chuch ceremonies is Christ Jesus, why could not Taiowa be the Divine as much as G!d?

In its essence the tao and the dharmakaya and G!d all point to one thing. Being a panentheist, that thing is beyond me and beyond comprehension.

And most of the time I even believe it.

Radarmark

IowaGuy · 10-05-2011, 09:13 PM

But so many religions preach that their path/God is the only true one, do they not?

radarmark · 10-05-2011, 09:16 PM

I do not believe that the founders taught that. So the Religion does, the religion does not.

IowaGuy · 10-05-2011, 09:21 PM

Well, the bible teaches that in many places:

John 14:6

Isiah 43:11

Isiah 45:21

Acts 4:10-12

John 3:16

radarmark · 10-05-2011, 09:50 PM

Well, like I have said many places, the word is muddled. Isiah is saying I am G!d, lord, savior, and apart from me is none, the Quran says same thing, same source, same G!dhead.

John does not warrent red in the Jesus Seminar (probably not his words) and Acts is quoting Peter.

I can split hairs with the best!