Christian apology by a non-Christian

[uwot]

... who desires to be picked apart on an Internet forum? [Only Gustav, the truly heroic one, summits himself to it---invites it!]

To think I called you a humourless berk. Clearly you have a refined sense of irony.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

The lesson: we must always be willing to revise our opinions, especially those formed through the 'blind' medium of words read on an Internet forum.

[Harry Baird]

Gustav old fellow,

Well, naturally, I do not accept your characterisation that my approach is a "con game". To rejoin with my own little rhetorical flourish, I'd suggest that I'm actually being more real than you, the supposed realist: I recognise the *real* possibility for us as a society and as individuals to do better. You, the supposed "realist", say, "We must accept the world as it is" - this is not real, it is defeatist; the progress of the world is the story of men and women setting higher goals and achieving them: *this*, the need to strive for higher goals, is "real".

Just on the idea of punishment though, I wanted to add a few thoughts to clarify my views a little: the main problem I have with the idea of punishment is when it is used as vengeance, when it is a matter of "you have done wrong and now we will make you hurt for it". I see this as antiquated and barbaric thinking (if you see otherwise, I'd encourage you to explain). I do recognise, though, that there is another (more valid) reason for punishment: deterrence. Whether or not this is a good enough reason to punish people (with prison) depends, I'd suggest, on two things: the existence of empirical evidence to support the assertion that it is an effective deterrent, and the lack of viable alternatives. As you might have guessed, I am not well read on this subject, but a quick bit of googling turns up quite a few studies, some suggesting (in their title at least, I don't have the patience to read them, but if I gain some patience later I will post my findings) that prison does, and some that it does not, have a deterrent effect, so one would have to look into it a bit more closely to determine the truth.

As for viable alternatives, I'm sure there are plenty - and bear in mind that I'm excluding the "really bad ones" as you put it, those who are irredeemable and simply need to be kept away from other people, but even then I don't believe that this separation should be "punishing"; I think we're long past the time when the notion of "an eye for an eye" was good sense. One alternative I've heard about incidentally either on TV or radio was, I think, a New Zealand initiative, where offenders were required to meet in a formal setting with those they'd offended against and listen to the ways in which their offence had affected the offended. I seem to recall that this process was a profound one for most of those involved, and greatly reduced the rate of re-offending, but I don't recall whether they had any statistics to back this up. Pulling another thought off the top of my mind, I'd suggest that another possibility (semi-inspired by the story I mentioned in my last post) would be to require offenders to engage in some sort of charity work where they see directly the positive effects of their actions on others and even are thanked and appreciated by those they help, but as I say, I am just writing off the top of my head, and one would have to evaluate empirically whether this approach really did work.

What I find interesting is that whereas you present your view of the necessity of capital punishment ("If you pick up a gun (I might also include knives) and point it at someone, for any reason and at any time, you have forfeited your privilege of living. In that case 'you' should immediately be shot. Without a second thought. No remorse, no excuse.") as a carefully considered (and presumably rational) one, it strikes me as being more driven by emotion and passion than anything else. It seems to me that it is predominantly shaped by your feelings about the (granted, appalling) gun crimes committed against people you know. Of course, as a fellow human being, I understand where you're coming from. There is that instinctive part of us that is angered by criminal acts, that "wants them to get their come-uppance", and even (as in your case) that wants to see them simply eradicated from existence. Personally, and I hope this doesn't sound too presumptuous or arrogant, I think we can make allowances for those feelings on an individual level, but to base our justice system on such feelings is, I think, unjustifiable. Our justice system should be based on reason and evidence, not feeling and passion. Isn't that what it means to be "civilised"?

As for "It is a quite literal fact that Jesus Christ does not have a male member", that is a notion I have never come across before, I wonder wherever you picked it up from!

As for "I am fairly certain that you don't understand the implications of my notions about man, about 'reality', about realism, certainly about 'God' and spirituality, not theology nor dogmatics": if that's what you really think, then perhaps you might try to explain them in more detail.

As for "You propose an absolutely good God, unstained in any sense by real contact with the world. And you naturally have to explain all the terrible contradictions of life through a 'divisive' man oeuvre in which all that you understand as Evil is focussed toward an opposite pole. And you are there, in the middle. There is more that could be said but who desires to be picked apart on an Internet forum?", I am participating and sharing my views here voluntarily, they are fair game for anyone to pick apart. Why don't you do that rather than simply listing what I already know about them? If I am off the path, then please correct me!

[Felasco]

Hi again Harry,

Do you not count the (symbolic) affirmations of others as to their experiences of God as, in some sense, a "finding" of God? I suppose that I'm asking whether "proof [insofar as one accepts it] of the existence of" God, which might well include "proof through the (symbolic) testimony of others" is, in its own way, a "finding" of God: a realisation that He is "real" based on the affirmations of those who have had experiences with Him.

Perhaps it will help to set God aside for just a minute and try an easier example.

Let's say I'm hungry, and am thus interested in food. Others say that food exists. They offer all kinds of explanations and theories about food. They show me photos of food, and give me books about food to read. A scientist shares data that seems to prove the existence of food beyond a doubt.

But I still don't have anything to eat. All they've given me are symbols, not real food.

Whether or not a god exists, it seems to me the point of a religious endeavor is to eat, to satisfy the hunger. What is the hunger that has driven religion, the largest cultural event in human history? How do we meet this need?

My thesis is that this human need arises directly from the inherently divisive and symbolic nature of what humans are, thought.

As a start, this would explain why religion has arisen in every time and place whatever the cultural circumstance, because all humans are thought. Let's talk about this thing we are....

Say you are wearing pink tinted sunglasses. Everywhere you go reality looks pink, right? The equipment you are using to make your observation has introduced a significant distortion. If you don't know your equipment well enough to understand this and account for the distortion, you'll be fooled and think reality really is pink.

Now imagine you are wearing inherently divisive sunglasses. Now everything you see looks divided, separate. Now you experience reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else". You perceive yourself to be separate, alone, vulnerable. And so you want to "get back to God", reunite, heal the division, end the aloneness and vulnerability.

Also, I'm not really sure I understand your answer as to what you believe God is. You mentioned "nothing" quite a lot... I'm not sure quite what you're saying - that God is "nothing"? This doesn't make much sense to me, to be honest.

Ok, sorry, my bad, will try again.

1) We said we're looking for a real god, not just a book about god etc.

2) And so we said we would look for a real god in the real world.

3) If a God created the real world, he appears to be very interested in nothing, because that's mostly what the real world is, from the subatomic level right on up to the cosmic level.

4) If there is a God who is really interested in nothing, perhaps we should be interested in nothing too?

5) In the physical world, nothing is defined as a space free of physical objects. In the psychological world, nothing could be said to be a space free of conceptual objects.

Ok, that's enough from here for a a bit. Thanks to all for a cool thread!

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Nice post there Harry. A couple of hurried thoughts. (And also I have been thinking of how to respond to Felasco. Will get to it.)

As to Jesus as the Penisless God. In the Jewish Bible the Patriarchs are always 'going into' the Matriarchs and others too and sex is always there, overtly. But in the Greek Bible it is as far as I am aware completely absent. And although it is alluded that Jesus had some sort of relationship with Magdalena, there is no orthodox text that has ever considered a relationship in a sexual sense. But Jesus as the Christ (in the Johannine sense) was supposed to have become fully a man and to have lived and felt everything that was possible and necessary for a man. Except in that area, apparently. Jesus of the Gospels comes across as utterly sexless. It might have been unavoidable, given the times, and a certain Jewish rigidity, but it does seem to me to be a terrible omission.

In comparison, and in this way the Indian religions are sometimes (in some areas) 'more mature', Krishna is a god who is a sort of rogue. He messes with the Gopis minds in rather shameless ways, first by being extremely attractive and alluring, but then he plays devilish erotic games with them, trapping them into desire for him even to the point of sneaking out of their homes and away from their husbands at night to carry on in bizarre, and always erotic, love-play. In the early Krishnaist texts it is all portrayed quite rawly. Krishna as God actually has divine sex with the Gopis (the Gopas, the male devotees are left on the sidelines, sadly for them I suppose). In later Krishnaist texts it is all sanitized to some degree and the 'love-play' is 'celestial' and on a level above 'kama' or 'desire', so they say. But it is described as a sublimation of sexual and romantic energy, which is what Bhakti (fervent devotion) is, I guess. In South India there are devotional sects who are excessively emotional devotees. You can get a sense of it in this devotional tune of the Bauls of Bangladesh.

Christianity is very strong in many areas. There is nothing in any texts of the East to compare with the social consciousness possible through engagement with Christian tenets. It is hugely strong in this sense (and in others). But Jesus is still not allowed to have a sexual life. Interestingly, DH Lawrence wrote a novella called The Man Who Died which portrays a Jesus who dies to his emotional and physical deadness and is resurrected into life as a man (in this particularly manly sense). It is a metaphor for the way that people turn off their erotic self which is a way of turning many other parts of themselves off as well. How to be whole and alive and potent in all senses is of course a problematic question.

[Harry Baird]

Hello, Felasco,

I sense, and in some ways it is more than just a sense, and is actually based on things that you have explicitly said, that you are not so much concerned with "finding God" in the way that I would understand that phrase (discovering through a personal encounter that a Divine Consciousness truly exists, and entering into a relationship with it), as with "having an experience of reunification between man and nature". These seem to be distinct concepts. In that sense, could it be that perhaps we are talking past one another to some extent, or at least not communicating as effectively as we could be?

A complicating factor is that you don't quite rule out a conscious God either: you don't seem quite to know how you want to define God. This makes our communication even more fraught. I cannot be sure what your position is, to know whether or not I agree with you on some points. For example, in your most recent post, you wrote "If a God created the real world" - suggestive of the possibility a creative, wilful, and presumably conscious, God - yet in one of your earlier posts, you wrote "Perhaps god is a conceptualized personalization of nature? If yes, then perhaps god might be thought of not as a this or a that, but like nature, encompassing all things" - suggestive of the possibility of a view of God-as-Nature. I understand the taking of an agnostic position, I just find yours a little confusing.

It might help if you stopped using the term "God" to refer to both possibilities (i.e. where when you use the term "God", you mean "possibly a conscious being or possibly a personification of nature"), and to start using separate terms for those two separate concepts, and to stipulate specifically when you mean to include both possibilities and when you mean to include only one. This would make it easier for me (and possibly others) to understand what you mean at any given point.

Perhaps you would be willing to switch from "God" to "Nature" (with a capital N) when you refer to the latter concept ("God-as-personification-of-nature"), and either, for the former concept ("God-as-conscious-being"), stick with "God", or, preferably, something even more distinct such as "the divine conscious being"? Just a suggestion, of course, and of course you're quite free to ignore it; you might, for example, find it too restrictive, or prefer not to take suggestions from random folk on the internet.

All of which is to say: I'm not sure you made things any clearer (at least in respect to that which I've outlined above) with your list of numbered points. You still seem to want to leave it ambiguous as to whether God is a conscious, creative being or nature personified.

You write that God seems to be "very interested in nothing, because that's mostly what the real world is", yet isn't it equally true that God seems to be very interested in love, feelings, intellectual curiosity, friendship, play, work, etc, because that's mostly what *conscious experience* is, and it seems to me that from an existential perspective, conscious experience is at least as primary a fact of the "real world" as is matter, on which you seem mostly to be basing your view of the importance of nothing ("from the subatomic level right on up to the cosmic level")?

Gustav,

Hmm, I'm not quite sure what to make of your linking to that video [of "Harry"]. I'm not sure quite what you're suggesting, but whatever it is, it doesn't seem positive. :-/

You write [link omitted] "As to Jesus as the Penisless God. In the Jewish Bible the Patriarchs are always 'going into' the Matriarchs and others too and sex is always there, overtly. But in the Greek Bible it is as far as I am aware completely absent", by which I understand that you didn't really mean that "literally", "Jesus Christ does not have a male member"; you actually meant it "figuratively" (incidentally, one of my pet peeves is such misuse of the word "literally" - I wouldn't have expected you of all people to have made that mistake. Tsk tsk, sir, tsk tsk).

In relation to what you wrote earlier, I'm not sure why you write that you "do not trust a God who has no penis". Didn't you write that it is eroticism that binds us to this plane? Wouldn't you then expect that a God *not* bound to this plane would have no need of the instruments of eroticism that so bind us? Or does this come down to that difference in our views whereby you deny that God *is* separable from "our" reality?

[Felasco]

Hi Harry, thanks for your ongoing interest in my posts. And thank you as well for articulating the difficulties that arise from them.

I sense, and in some ways it is more than just a sense, and is actually based on things that you have explicitly said, that you are not so much concerned with "finding God" in the way that I would understand that phrase (discovering through a personal encounter that a Divine Consciousness truly exists, and entering into a relationship with it), as with "having an experience of reunification between man and nature". These seem to be distinct concepts.

A key to understanding my view is to shift focus from concepts (the content of thought) to the concept making machine (the nature of thought).

This might be compared to the astronomer who is keen to understand his telescope, and any distortions it may introduce in to his observation, rather than just assume his telescope delivers an accurate representation of reality.

As example, you state God and Nature are two distinct concepts, which I don't dispute for indeed they are. But the question we really should be asking is, are they two distinct realities?

My thesis is that thought, our telescope if you will, is inherently divisive in nature. By that I mean, thought's job is to break reality up in to separate conceptual objects.

The easiest example is the noun, a foundation of language, which is a key expression of thought.

The function of the noun "tree" is to conceptually divide reality in to "tree" and "not tree". Conceptually, it's all very neat and tidy, but in the real world we can see our definition of "tree" is highly dependent on the limitations of our visual equipment. Imagine that we could see the gas exchanges the tree is conducting. Our concept of tree would change, but the real tree would not. In the real world, separating "tree" from "sun", "soil", "water", "insects", in a neat and tidy way becomes ever more problematic as we learn more about how trees actually function.

Another example is the concept "me". Conceptually, the boundary between "me" and "not me" seems very clear. In the real world, not so much. When does that next breath of air you inhale become you? When does the water you drink become you? We can draw these boundaries in any number of ways, but the key point is that it is us drawing the boundaries, not nature, not reality.

In the real world everything is connected to everything else to a degree that reveals the thought generated notion of separateness to be a form of illusion. We are after all star dust, as Joni Mitchell famously sang.

To return to your very reasonable question, you ask whether it's God or Nature that I worship. My reply is that "God" and "Nature" are words, products of thought, an inherently divisive medium.

I love words, but I don't worship them, because due to their inherently divisive nature they are incapable of accurately representing reality, which is arguably not a collection of separate parts, but a single holistic unified system, much as the human body is.

Let us not assume that in the real world God and Nature are two separate things, and instead use the placeholder "Whatever" to represent our ignorance on the subject.

Please recall, we are looking for Whatever in the real world. We've long since known that God/Nature/Whatever exists in the conceptual world, so that's not too interesting.

How does one look in the real world? By turning down the volume of the very distracting conceptual world. If we want to listen carefully to what our friend is saying, we turn down the blaring radio on the table between us, a very simple and straightforward plan.

And now a reader may ask, what do we find when we look very carefully at the real world?

This request is an attempt to return to the symbolic world. The reader wishes to identify some separate object, assign a name to it, and place it in a database category,because this is what the inherently divisive nature of thought will always attempt to do, because that's it's job.

My reply is, never mind about that, let's return to the real world. The real world is the subject of our investigation, not the symbolic world.

Perhaps it might be helpful to introduce this comparison. A new term to toss around at any rate...

In Philosophy observation is a means to an end, theories and conclusions. That is, the goal is to convert the real world in to the symbolic world.

In aPhilosophy (a term I coined on this forum a few years back) observation is an end in itself. In this case, we aren't rushing through observation in order to get back to the symbolic world. Our interest here is in the real world, not the symbolic world, and so we shift our focus out of the symbolic world in to the real world. We observe very closely, unwilling to be distracted by the theory/conclusion process.

What makes my posts understandably confusing is that, despite my so many words, my interest is in exploring beyond the boundaries of philosophy. The goal is not to create yet another pile of inherently divisive concepts, but to travel outside the symbolic realm in to the real world.

My reasoning is as follows:

1) We keep saying we are interested in whether Whatever exists in the real world. So let's go to the real world and look, not the symbolic world.

2) Thousands of years of philosophy in every corner of the world by some of the best minds among us has revealed philosophy is incapable of resolving this question of Whatever. This inquiry has been a huge experiment, the largest cultural event in human history, and the results are in.

When it comes to these kinds of questions, philosophy doesn't work.

However, philosophy is capable of examining this huge pile of evidence, and concluding that philosophy doesn't work. This is indeed a productive use of philosophy, so I'm attempting to use philosophy for this purpose in this thread.

I hope all these words might accomplish something more than just further complicating the confusion. If not, my bad, will try again if requested.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

'Hello Harry'. The scene from The Third Man had no (known) significance other than the pure surface significance of the way the name 'Harry' is used. When I say 'hello Harry' I always feel as if I am in that movie. I suppose there MUST be a Depth Psychology interpretation possible so I will go to work on that...

(Joke).

As to the rest: I reckon you are not aware or interested in the various 'movements' of the early 20th Century and their attempt to 'cure' the Victorian division between body and spirit, and that would I guess include sex and sexuality and its link to spiritual and religious life, but if you were it would likely be easier to understand the ramifications of a sexless God or 'God-representative'. With more familiarity with the implications of a more unified internal position in life (where sexuality, the body, and all of the 'higher dimensions' of human possibilities are joined and unified), it would be possible to understand what some of those people who noted the deleterious effect of 'cutting oneself off' from the body, and thought about ways to bridge the division (Nietzsche, DH Lawrence and many others), proposed, and also to understand how we, now, live in the outcome or evolution of those more unified ways of seeing and approaching life and living it.

My own view is that, even if we are not aware of it, we have only relatively recently achieved the possibility of 'living in the body', or 'coming into the body'. There was a time that almost universally living life was almost endless pain. And pain in the body started early with the teeth rotting away and also having to suffer physical maladies that are easily cured now. When it became 'possible to live in the body' (for 30-40 years or more of relatively unpained existence) the next step was to take advantage of it. And my sense is that out of this arises our present physically-oriented culture of life 'fully in the body'. There was a time when 'living above the body' and in this sense 'outside' the body was a forced alternative as life in the body was not attractive. But now there is real competition! You can, one can, live all of one's life 'fully in the body' and use the body as an instrument to be in life and live it so fully that the notion of 'higher life' becomes if not meaningless then 'qualified'. People, now, do not seem to respond to the renouncer's message and much of the older format of the spiritual message has to be refitted for people interested in and indeed quite invested in living physically. Church in this sense cannot compete with the Natural God, with the open skies, with healthy winds, with first class food in a beautiful spot in nature. And obviously with all those erotic attractions of one's young, beautiful lover and all the prospects of immediate sensations. And would we label honest, forthright physical-erotic play between a man and woman (not to mention all the other possibilities) as pathological? Do all of Early Christianity's attacks on 'Pagan sensuality' in the luscious gardens of Daphne still have 'validity' today? Like it or not people are choosing the opportunities that the present offers to them. On one hand a more sane, honest possibility of human sexual expression, but on the other extreme completely unbridled and really rather mad and destructive pornographic experience.

The whole problem seems to reside in the notion of 'handling sexuality' while not denying it. It still seems to me to be a truly spiritual question and one for a 'spiritual aristocrat' or, if you will, a 'higher type of man'. Meaning a man who places his 'sadhana' or general spiritual practice (the way he lives his life) in the fore and has the internal power and desire to 'handle' himself. But this would not necessarily mean to be disconnected from himself physically nor sexually. In some esoteric schools sexual vitality is cultivated but controlled or that same sexually vital energy is deliberately focused in other areas.

And again when Mass Man, that basic, crude and undeveloped man who can be a peasant or a King, starts to direct and determine life's possibilities and to set the stage or to provide the lead, we note how his influence 'pollutes' the present. In this sense we live in a 'vulgar age'. So, Mass Man is given possibilities that are lost on him and which he essentially squanders.

[Harry Baird]

Hello, Felasco,

Bear in mind, please, that I've had rather more than is wise of the amber fluid, and that I might not make as much sense as I otherwise would. That said, onward ho!

As example, you state God and Nature are two distinct concepts, which I don't dispute for indeed they are. But the question we really should be asking is, are they two distinct realities?

I would suggest that if they are two distinct concepts, then, necessarily, YES, they *are* two distinct realities. How could two concepts be different yet refer to the same reality? Isn't this a contradiction in terms?

With respect to your argument that boundaries (between trees/"us" and other) are illusory, I don't find it at all convincing. Surely, we know through observation that there are limits to this argument? For example, you would not claim (at least not sanely, not expecting to be believed) that you or a tree was equal to the universe, being that all boundaries between you and the rest of the universe were "illusory". Surely, you recognise that there are reasonable "approximations" to these boundaries, which we would all do well to accept?

To return to your very reasonable question, you ask whether it's God or Nature that I worship. My reply is that "God" and "Nature" are words, products of thought, an inherently divisive medium.

And yet, despite that they may be "mere words", they nevertheless "divide" into *two reasonably different outcomes*: the one a conscious being, the other an unconscious natural phenomenon. Their definitions (and *realities*!) are distinct.

Let us not assume that in the real world God and Nature are two separate things

We cannot do but otherwise, given that they have different definitions! But if you mean that the effects of their (different) definitions might be the same, then I'd ask you to elaborate on that. How could it be that a (divine) conscious being, with all of the subtlety that we have in terms of our communication (including explicit words), plus an infinity on top of that, could be on the same communicative basis as dumb, inanimate nature?!

In aPhilosophy (a term I coined on this forum a few years back) observation is an end in itself. In this case, we aren't rushing through observation in order to get back to the symbolic world. Our interest here is in the real world, not the symbolic world, and so we shift our focus out of the symbolic world in to the real world. We observe very closely, unwilling to be distracted by the theory/conclusion process.

I have no quibble with observation, except that what is observed should be, in the scientific spirit, subject to hypotheses, and, furthering those hypotheses, subject to prediction as to future observations, so as to (in)validate those hypotheses. And this "hypothesising" is, inherently, a "symbolic" process. What is the point of "observing" in the "real world" if *not* to generate (symbolic) hypotheses? Do we simply wish to say, "Well, that was an interesting experience", and leave it at that?

Gustav,

Allow me to share the Depth Psychology interpretation with you! Harry is, surreptitiously, tailing his friend, Gustav. Gustav has no idea of this, until the light above the window comes on, and he realises the depravity of his friend, to betray him like that. He chases after his friend, but his friend (deviously) eludes and outruns him. That fiend!

Good lord, am I revealing every one of my insecurities all at once?! It's not the first time I've derived a hopeless interpretation out of media that you've shared with me... dang, do I read into shit or what? (pardon the inebriated swearing)

No, I am not aware of the movements to cure the Victorian division between spirit and body, but I can readily imagine them. I notice, though, that you dodged my question: if we are drawn into this sphere by eroticism, then shouldn't the God of this sphere, free from its bindings, be contrariwise free from eroticism? I am enquiring into your own views, after all. I think it's relevant.

You ask, "And would we label honest, forthright physical-erotic play between a man and woman (not to mention all the other possibilities) as pathological?". I would suggest that "pathological" is a particularly "worldly" descriptor. A more "realistic" question might be whether we were to label such things "spiritual", or at least, "conducive to the spiritual life", and on that, I would suggest, there is much debate and dissent, as you later seem to acknowledge when you write that "In some esoteric schools sexual vitality is cultivated but controlled or that same sexually vital energy is deliberately focused in other areas".

You write, too, "Like it or not people are choosing the opportunities that the present offers to them. On one hand a more sane, honest possibility of human sexual expression, but on the other extreme completely unbridled and really rather mad and destructive pornographic experience." This is pretty spot on, in my view. Regardless of whether sexual expression is "spiritual", it can be handled "healthily" or "unhealthily", and, if we are to eschew spiritual concerns (on which, as I noted above, there is debate and dissension), then we ought to at least strive for a "healthy" sexuality (where, yes, that involves "sanity" and "honesty").

[Felasco]

Bear in mind, please, that I've had rather more than is wise of the amber fluid, and that I might not make as much sense as I otherwise would. That said, onward ho!

Ok, Gustav is having wild sex, you're drunk, and I'm nerdly mumbling many many words about the foolishness of words. Everything is going according to plan, and we're right on schedule. The Apollo program had nothing on us!

[Harry Baird]

Hey, if the sex is *that* good, and the beer is *beyond compare*, and your words *are* a perfect experience, then why *not* look to Apollo? :-)

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

...if we are drawn into this sphere by eroticism, then shouldn't the God of this sphere, free from its bindings, be contrariwise free from eroticism? I am enquiring into your own views, after all. I think it's relevant.

Hello Harry. People who have a natural 'mathematical' mind, and who see things exclusively in black and white, or strictly within 'logical' parameters, will phrase their questions as you do. But this *hic* really means to 'impose on reality' a priori certain ideas that they have established or which have been established in them. So, in your (divided) view it naturally *hic* follows that you divide yourself. Some sort of 'pure God' exists 'over there, up there, out there' (but not in you) who is 'free from its bindings'. I reckon that this becomes an Impossible Ideal which cannot ever be lived (honestly).

Using a radically different math one could see the problem in a different way, which would also lead to a different praxis. One is to see that all descriptions of reality (including the one I tossed up which was 'Upanishadic') are only Stories, and stories are conceptual mappings, but that there cannot really exist a Story which can represent Reality. So, all Stories *hic* are 'suspect'. Everything depends on how one relates to the content of stories. The place where we have to live all this is here, in a bodily frame, now.

There is a line in a song: 'The only way out is through'.

• 'All the detours taken never lead you home / What a maze you find yourself in and still alone / Oh you thought it would be easy but the truth alluded you / The only way out is through.'

Even if one were brought to a Desire Realm because of a untranscended desire, everything depends on how one works on the issue. By separating oneself away from sex, or the body, sensuality and sexuality, one has done little more than avoid the issue. Is that the solution? Sexuality and eroticism is intimately tied to the force of life and cannot be separated so it would appear not.

An alternative is to go into the inner meaning of the question and, as a yoga, solve the problem. Meaning, that sexuality and sensuality become part of the spiritual path.

Riffing of of Felasco's reference to Apollonian attitudes, it would seem that 'we' are seeking ways to live in a more unified way within this reality, within our body and in Nature.

Consider the following.

[Felasco]

I would suggest that if they are two distinct concepts, then, necessarily, YES, they *are* two distinct realities. How could two concepts be different yet refer to the same reality? Isn't this a contradiction in terms?

This is very easy. Sometimes we're wrong. More to the point, sometimes the system we're using itself contains inherent wrongness.

Again, a photo of you will never be you, no matter how good of photo it is. The photo is useful for sure, but it simply is not you, and never will be. So to say the photo is both accurate, and an illusion, is reasonable, yes?

A boundary is another symbol in the human mind that while being useful, doesn't necessarily accurately represent the real world. The usefulness of conceptual boundaries is proven, the solid wall of separation in the real world implied by conceptual boundaries is not.

Surely, you recognise that there are reasonable "approximations" to these boundaries, which we would all do well to accept?

The boundaries can have a practical usefulness, no doubt. They are also a form of distortion, that too. Both.

And yet, despite that they may be "mere words", they nevertheless "divide" into *two reasonably different outcomes*: the one a conscious being, the other an unconscious natural phenomenon. Their definitions (and *realities*!) are distinct.

Yes, their definitions are distinct. That doesn't automatically make them distinct in the real world.

What I keep suggesting is the notion that distinct divisions are a distortion by-product of the equipment we're using to make our observation, the inherently divisive medium of thought. Remember the pink sunglasses example? Like that.

We cannot do but otherwise, given that they have different definitions!

Definitions are created by human beings. They are not binding upon all of reality.

How could it be that a (divine) conscious being, with all of the subtlety that we have in terms of our communication (including explicit words), plus an infinity on top of that, could be on the same communicative basis as dumb, inanimate nature?!

How do you know nature (the largest word of all) is dumb? Are you the divine conscious being?

More to the point, if there is a divine conscious being in the real world sooner or later we're going to have to get around to looking in the real world.

And this "hypothesising" is, inherently, a "symbolic" process. What is the point of "observing" in the "real world" if *not* to generate (symbolic) hypotheses?

This is a truly excellent question, and I thank you for it. Yes, what is the point indeed.

If you'll recall, my theory is that religion arose in every time and place in response to some fundamental human need.

(This is not a comment upon the truth value of any particular religious belief.)

My theory is that this need didn't arise from bad thought content because if it had we would have by now (thousands of years later) have found the good thought content, the correct ideology that solves the problem.

Rather, my theory states that the need arises not from the content of thought, but from the inherently divisive nature of thought itself. This would explain why religion arises in every time and place, whatever the cultural circumstance.

What religions typically do is build a big mountain of ideology in the hopes of creating the perfect thought structure that will meet the fundamental human need. In doing so they neglect to consider that it may be thought itself which is generating the need.

Why do we observe carefully without a goal of creating theories and conclusions? Because to do so takes us out of the symbolic realm in to the real world.

Why do we want to go to the real world? For one thing, the main question of religion would be, is there a god in the real world. If the question was, "Is there a God in Africa" then we would go to Africa, right? Simple.

You want to do philosophy, which is completely appropriate here.

So I would ask you, where is the evidence philosophy will ever resolve these issues?

We've done an experiment. We've conducted thousands of years of philosophic inquiry in to these questions in every corner of the world led by some of the best minds among us. And we're still right where we started at the very beginning, nobody can prove or disprove God. At what point do we accept the results of this experiment we've invested so much effort in to to? For how many thousands of years do we plan to keep on doing the same thing over and over and over and over again?

A final thought. Do you consider the God issue while having wild sex? Most likely not, eh? So there are experiences which are sufficiently satisfying to resolve the God question.

If we scratch the itch that caused us to raise the God question in the first place, the God question is resolved, because the human need driving the God question is met.

My goal is not to prove or disprove God, an impossibility. My goal is to identify and meet the need that's causing us to so insistently ask the question.

[Felasco]

The place where we have to live all this is here, in a bodily frame, now.

What Gustav said!

Now is the only thing that's real.

[Harry Baird]

Gustav,

Harry: ...if we are drawn into this sphere by eroticism, then shouldn't the God of this sphere, free from its bindings, be contrariwise free from eroticism? I am enquiring into your own views, after all. I think it's relevant.

Gustav: People who have a natural 'mathematical' mind, and who see things exclusively in black and white, or strictly within 'logical' parameters, will phrase their questions as you do. But this *hic* really means to 'impose on reality' a priori certain ideas that they have established or which have been established in them. So, in your (divided) view it naturally *hic* follows that you divide yourself. Some sort of 'pure God' exists 'over there, up there, out there' (but not in you) who is 'free from its bindings'. I reckon that this becomes an Impossible Ideal which cannot ever be lived (honestly).

Oh, but Gustav, my fine fellow, it is not so much a matter of my having a "mathematical mind" (in the pejorative, as you would have it), as the evading (on your part) of the perfectly reasonable answer to which I alluded in an earlier post: 'Or does this come down to that difference in our views whereby you deny that God *is* separable from "our" reality?' In other words, all you needed to say was, "Why yes, Harry, my good chap. Yes indeed, it's exactly that. I deny that God is separable from 'our' reality. But thank you for your question. You may now put down your hand".

As for "there cannot really exist a Story which can represent Reality", well, you already know what I think of *that* as far as a denial of objective truth goes, and if you don't, then sheesh, man, you really *haven't* been paying attention, and for your homework you are to refer to my earlier post to Felasco.

As for 'All the detours taken never lead you home / What a maze you find yourself in and still alone / Oh you thought it would be easy but the truth alluded you / The only way out is through.' Oh boy, here I am, the hopeless, trenchant pedant, picking on men for their proofreading failures, but, seriously... "alluded"? *I* know that *you* know that you meant "eluded". In any case, what if the song is wrong? After all, songwriters are only human, with all of the imprecisions that implies. What if, instead, "The only way out is upwards, upwards"?

Perhaps this question will explain my answer to what you suggest next: "Even if one were brought to a Desire Realm because of a untranscended desire, everything depends on how one works on the issue. By separating oneself away from sex, or the body, sensuality and sexuality, one has done little more than avoid the issue. Is that the solution?". What if "separating oneself" is not so much "avoidance" as "transcendence"? And, really, in any case, how can one transcend a desire in which one indulges?

As for the drunk compilation video, man, I was getting a real kick out of that until my tongue fell out and my forehead hit the keyboard, so that I spent the next fifteen minutes listening to the video time after time stutter to a start and then fall silent again, not knowing what the fuck was going on until I realised: hey man, it's OK, you're just really off your face and need to lift your head off the spacebar. (pardon, again, please, the inebriated expletives)

Felasco,

Hmm, this conversation is becoming... frustrating! In any case, I will go with you another round, and we will see where we get. I hope you realise that I bear you no ill will, and that my frustration is based merely on the apparently hopeless disconnect in our views, or at least ability to communicate about them...

Harry: I would suggest that if they are two distinct concepts, then, necessarily, YES, they *are* two distinct realities. How could two concepts be different yet refer to the same reality? Isn't this a contradiction in terms?

Felasco: This is very easy. Sometimes we're wrong. More to the point, sometimes the system we're using itself contains inherent wrongness.

Felasco[cont]: Again, a photo of you will never be you, no matter how good of photo it is. The photo is useful for sure, but it simply is not you, and never will be. So to say the photo is both accurate, and an illusion, is reasonable, yes?

I don't think you get my point. If we define two words differently, then, necessarily, they refer to two different realities - otherwise, why would we give them different definitions rather than the same?! Recall that we are talking about the two concepts "God" and "Nature", with wildly different definitions, *which you don't dispute are different*. How, then, could they refer to the same reality? Serious question. Your answer might be suggested by what you write here though: "How do you know nature (the largest word of all) is dumb? Are you the divine conscious being?". Perhaps here, you suggest that "Nature" might be conscious? If so, sure, in that case "God" and "Nature" *might* be one and the same, *except* that we would then have to presume that Nature/God created Itself, which would be... logically questionable, to say the least. See, I still think that definitions are important, and tell us something about the reality they represent, *independent of observation*.

You write in answer to my question as to the point of observing if not to generate hypotheses:

"Why do we observe carefully without a goal of creating theories and conclusions? Because to do so takes us out of the symbolic realm in to the real world.

Why do we want to go to the real world? For one thing, the main question of religion would be, is there a god in the real world"

I would simply ask again: what type of God are you expecting to *find* in "the real world", and, if you don't know, then how will you know if/when you've found that God? Isn't this a question of definition? If you sip on psilocybin soup, and experience some sort of hallucinogenic euphoria of Oneness with All that Exists, have you "found God"? What qualifies that experience as an experience of "God"? Don't you see that your definition of "God" is pivotal to answering that question?

And we're still right where we started at the very beginning, nobody can prove or disprove God. At what point do we accept the results of this experiment we've invested so much effort in to to?

I'd suggest that this claim and question are particularly presumptuous of you. *Many* people over the years have claimed *direct* experiences of God, which I'm sure would qualify to them, and, no doubt, to us if we had them too, as "proof of God". Of course, as I've been saying, this depends on a particular definition of God.

My goal is not to prove or disprove God, an impossibility.

Again, I'd suggest that this is presumptuous. A direct experience of God would be a "proof", wouldn't it? To deny that such an experience is possible in the first place would seem to me to be the true impossibility!

*Hic*