Is the concept of "God" necessary, let alone real?

[Greta]

The world is a living machine. Of course a plant is aided in its growth by earthly qualities like water. However, the sun is not a part of the earth which receives its energy. We are like this. The Source is not a part of the earth yet we receive its influences through grace attracting us to return to the source much like a moth is attracted to the light.

Nick, I'll answer this because it's much more interesting than the reply you gave to my comment.

This is actually one of the few things you have written that I like. I am in shock and may need to have a lie down

However, how do you know the source isn't Sagittarius A*, which certainly would qualify as our source. Maybe black holes are conscious, breaking out of our dimensions into the/a Source? Maybe it's the black hole's mind that mystics sense?

That's the point - there's a lot we don't know, as LW said. More realistically, I think the God concept is a matter of human imposed boundaries placed over cosmic phenomena. The God concept may be a mistaken amalgam of characteristics, akin to placing the head of one fossil with the body of another, with the tail of another species tacked on, and then thinking that it's the fossil of one species.

God has been to be attributed with all manner of characteristics, depending on the observer:
a. intuition of evolution's potential
b. human hopes and dreams
c. the cosmos / the bulk
d. a father figure on which to lean
e. justice
f. love
g. creativity
h. sense of being
i. consciousness

Mix n' match to suit.

[Nick_A]

Greta

That's the point - there's a lot we don't know, as LW said. More realistically, I think the God concept is a matter of human imposed boundaries placed over cosmic phenomena. The God concept may be a mistaken amalgam of characteristics, akin to placing the head of one fossil with the body of another, with the tail of another species tacked on, and then thinking that it's the fossil of one species.

You are describing idolatry and Simone Weil explains why idolatry including that of the Great Beast reigns supreme.

http://gatheringinlight.com/2009/10/13/ ... -idolatry/

Simone Weil on Idolatry

I’m sitting with this one for awhile:

"Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, we do not possess the power of supernatural attention and we have not the patience to allow it to develop" (Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace 53).

What helps you, if anything helps you, develop patience and the power of supernatural attention?

C. Wess Daniels is at Guilford College serving as the Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies. He is a Quaker theologian, author, speaker and minister.

The author is sitting on Simone’s observation for awhile. Join the club. How to remain open to its value in a society in which it will be scorned? In a world that is rapidly moving towards the loss of attention span and where patience is no longer a virtue, it does seem idolatry will rule the day.

I am a believer in ancient astrology so do believe in both planetary and star influences on human being. However our sun and the level of reality it represents has the strongest influence.

Jesus had twelve apostles. They represent the twelve essential human types.They had to learn from each other and their unique perspectives while in the presence of Jesus to acquire the quality of consciousness they were drawn to. As creatures of reaction much like other forms of organic life on earth, we respond to both influences in the world and those qualities of energy which come from afar. Our task in accordance with the ancient traditions in one form or another is to be able to make the transition from slavery to mechanical animal reaction into human conscious action and “choice” which connects level of reality

[Greta]

That's the point - there's a lot we don't know, as LW said. More realistically, I think the God concept is a matter of human imposed boundaries placed over cosmic phenomena. The God concept may be a mistaken amalgam of characteristics, akin to placing the head of one fossil with the body of another, with the tail of another species tacked on, and then thinking that it's the fossil of one species.

That's the point - there's a lot we don't know, as LW said. More realistically, I think the God concept is a matter of human imposed boundaries placed over cosmic phenomena. The God concept may be a mistaken amalgam of characteristics, akin to placing the head of one fossil with the body of another, with the tail of another species tacked on, and then thinking that it's the fossil of one species.

God has been to be attributed with all manner of characteristics, depending on the observer:
a. intuition of evolution's potential
b. human hopes and dreams
c. the cosmos / the bulk
d. a father figure on which to lean
e. justice
f. love
g. creativity
h. sense of being
i. consciousness

Mix n' match to suit.

You are describing idolatry and Simone Weil explains why idolatry including that of the Great Beast reigns supreme.

You are misreading. in this case idolatry, as per your unusually broad definition, refers to the responses some people would have to holding the above views, not the ideas themselves.

The above notions range from the simple father figure posited by idolisers to more sophisticated models.

[uwot]

I am given a choice of slavery. So you thought the wretched man idea was worthy of scorn; this tops it.

You misunderstand. Look again at what I said:

The wretchedness you feel is subjective; I am sorry for you that you feel it, but it is entirely self inflicted.

That isn't scorn; it is pity.
This is the key phrase:

"24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

The fear of death is so strong in some people, that they willingly sacrifice their happiness in this life for the hope of a better one post-mortem. For some, torturing themselves with guilt and wretchedness is a price worth paying for an eternity of bliss. That is genuinely pitiable. But it also makes people vulnerable to exploitation. Christianity was the state religion of the Roman Empire; as Reflex said earlier in this thread:

I agree that those who believe together, stay together...

The Romans understood this very well. They were initially tolerant of the religious sentiments of the lands they conquered; insisting only that a statue of the Emperor, who was deified, be placed in the Temples alongside local deities. Jerusalem was different. They refused to accept any other gods; that is the first of the Ten Commandments, and they point blank refused the statues, 'Though shalt not make graven images' being number two. Jerusalem resisted tenaciously while christians weren't too bothered about being thrown to the lions. It is clearly a very powerful idea, so the Romans being pragmatists adopted it. But not content with the reward of heaven, the Romans co-opted the vision of hell in Plato's Myth of Er (at the back of The Republic, if you're wondering) using the threat of eternal punishment to further ensure obedience. The message being that you may be wretched in this life, but things are going to get a lot worse if you step out of line. Saul, your St Paul, was a Roman soldier.

But yet for the person who has looked inside and verified their inner slavery, the God concept and the help of grace is very necessary to become consciously human.

If for you to be "consciously human" is to accept slavery to a story made up to bolster the political power of an ancient civilisation, because you believe that will save you from death, you have my sympathy.

[Lacewing]

How can you disagree with what you don’t understand?

You do it all the time, Nick... so what is YOUR OWN answer to that question??

Can you acknowledge that your view/understanding is SIMPLY one of a countless number of divine views, and that YOU are no more divine than anyone else? Your puny-ass view is not a template for everyone. To think that YOU represent and deliver a supreme template for all is rather MAD. And that, apparently, is your divine trip... which makes you oblivious to all other divine trips. Maybe that's why you feel wretched.

[Nick_A]

That's the point - there's a lot we don't know, as LW said. More realistically, I think the God concept is a matter of human imposed boundaries placed over cosmic phenomena. The God concept may be a mistaken amalgam of characteristics, akin to placing the head of one fossil with the body of another, with the tail of another species tacked on, and then thinking that it's the fossil of one species.

That's the point - there's a lot we don't know, as LW said. More realistically, I think the God concept is a matter of human imposed boundaries placed over cosmic phenomena. The God concept may be a mistaken amalgam of characteristics, akin to placing the head of one fossil with the body of another, with the tail of another species tacked on, and then thinking that it's the fossil of one species.

God has been to be attributed with all manner of characteristics, depending on the observer:
a. intuition of evolution's potential
b. human hopes and dreams
c. the cosmos / the bulk
d. a father figure on which to lean
e. justice
f. love
g. creativity
h. sense of being
i. consciousness

Mix n' match to suit.

You are describing idolatry and Simone Weil explains why idolatry including that of the Great Beast reigns supreme.

You are misreading. in this case idolatry, as per your unusually broad definition, refers to the responses some people would have to holding the above views, not the ideas themselves.

The above notions range from the simple father figure posited by idolisers to more sophisticated models.

It has become the societal norm to define God as either an expression of creation or a being separate from creation. IMO this is idolatry limiting the Source to the restriction of time and space as is with creation. The distinction is only important for those like me for whatever reason who strive to understand the meaning and purpose of our universe. Those who don't care are better off with video games or whatever serves as distractions from the reality of our daily lives.

[Nick_A]

Uwot

The fear of death is so strong in some people, that they willingly sacrifice their happiness in this life for the hope of a better one post-mortem. For some, torturing themselves with guilt and wretchedness is a price worth paying for an eternity of bliss. That is genuinely pitiable. But it also makes people vulnerable to exploitation. Christianity was the state religion of the Roman Empire; as Reflex said earlier in this thread:

Christianity as opposed to several expressions of Christendom or man made Christianity, distinguishes between physical and spiritual death. When Jesus said “let the dead bury their dead,” he wasn’t referring to physically dead people burying physically dead people. He was referring to the spiritually dead burying the spiritually dead. Christianity seeks to awaken Man to rebirth and spiritual life normal for human being so as to avoid spiritual death

If for you to be "consciously human" is to accept slavery to a story made up to bolster the political power of an ancient civilisation, because you believe that will save you from death, you have my sympathy.

Lacewing wrote:

Can you acknowledge that your view/understanding is SIMPLY one of a countless number of divine views, and that YOU are no more divine than anyone else? Your puny-ass view is not a template for everyone. To think that YOU represent and deliver a supreme template for all is rather MAD. And that, apparently, is your divine trip... which makes you oblivious to all other divine trips. Maybe that's why you feel wretched.

Uwot and Lacewing express an essential part of our disagreement. They are both concerned with denying belief while I’m concerned with verification of what we are. How does one come to distinguish the wheat from the tares in their own being so as to verify the human condition as it exists in them? Emotional hostility against the concept of religion prevents the first step necessary to verify. This first step requires the ability for impartial self observation as opposed to analysis and justification

Here is a brief article on the concept. Secularism is concerned with thoughts and what we DO. Self observation is the practice of consciously and impartially witnessing what we do. It is not analysis or insistence on some moral change. Self observation is the conscious process of witnessing ourselves and all of our hypocrisy. It is difficult and offensive since it doesn’t advocate some PC lie. It is simply the initial step makeing Plato’s “Know Thyself” possible

http://www.goconscious.com/home/article ... ought.html

Gospel of Thomas

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

Christanity is not about escaping physical death but rather beoming a part of conscious life

[Lacewing]

Uwot and Lacewing express an essential part of our disagreement. They are both concerned with denying belief...

Wrong... as usual. Is this because you are dense or desperate? If your views are so wise, why do you need to continually misrepresent what others are communicating?

Again, I'll ask you: Can you see/acknowledge that your view/understanding is SIMPLY one of a countless number of DIVINE VIEWS, and that YOU are no more divine than anyone else? Simple question!

CAN YOU SEE that if your divine trip is to think that YOU represent and deliver a supreme template for all -- that would make you OBLIVIOUS to all OTHER divine trips?

Is that how you are, Nick? Are you too intoxicated and oblivious to see beyond your own thoughts and experience? Can you even consider the possibility that ALL IS DIVINE? If not, that does seem rather wretched for you.

[uwot]

Christianity as opposed to several expressions of Christendom or man made Christianity, distinguishes between physical and spiritual death.

Could the real Christianity please stand up? There are so many "expressions" of Christianity that it is very difficult to know which, if any of the established expressions, in your view, is the 'not man made Christianity'. Especially as you blend your own ideas with those of the pagans Plato and Plotinus.

When Jesus said “let the dead bury their dead,” he wasn’t referring to physically dead people burying physically dead people. He was referring to the spiritually dead burying the spiritually dead.

Christianity has been interpreted many ways, but for most Christians, the most important festival is Easter, which celebrates the physical resurrection of Jesus. And frankly, if you don't believe in the incarnation, you no longer believe in Christ.

Christianity seeks to awaken Man to rebirth and spiritual life normal for human being so as to avoid spiritual death

That maybe what you are trying to do with your pagan-christian hybrid, but to maintain that the "spiritual life" you associate with your particular belief is normal for human beings, is to describe almost everyone but you as 'not normal'.

Uwot and Lacewing express an essential part of our disagreement. They are both concerned with denying belief...

I don't think either of us is denying that people believe things, but while Lacewing, from what I gather, has a much lighter and playful attitude to 'spirituality'...

...while I’m concerned with verification of what we are.

...you are determined to pin it down and throttle any joy from it. Which in an individual is to be pitied, but it really needs to be resisted in institutions; that's not the same as "denying belief".

How does one come to distinguish the wheat from the tares in their own being so as to verify the human condition as it exists in them?

Do you actually mean "verify"? You verify things you believe to be true. What this means in practise is that you are looking for any support for something you wish to maintain; you only see what you want to see. It's called confirmation bias. This is an example:

Emotional hostility against the concept of religion prevents the first step necessary to verify.

It is not the concept that I personally am hostile to, rather the political, economic, emotional and physical abuse that is done in the name of religion.

This first step requires the ability for impartial self observation as opposed to analysis and justification

The demand that we switch off our critical faculties is a common feature; analysis is really bad news for religions.

Christanity is not about escaping physical death but rather beoming a part of conscious life

Depends on the Christian.

[-1-]

The world is a living machine. Of course a plant is aided in its growth by earthly qualities like water. However, the sun is not a part of the earth which receives its energy. We are like this. The Source is not a part of the earth yet we receive its influences through grace attracting us to return to the source much like a moth is attracted to the light.

My ego is considered bigger because I admit that I am the wretched man. Oprah will explain this somehow

It is like this.

A meaningful metaphor is useless to establish a religion or a philosophy on. It can be explained by it, but not established it by it.

If the metaphor is wrong, however, then it is completely useless, and the philosophy based on it is also completely useless.

However, one must also consider that explaining the bible to today's end-user necessarily involves making the end-user believe the impossible. This requires a lot of training in explanation, in distorting points, in successful self-deception. Once one learned all those skills, then an ill-fitting useless metaphor will easily teach him the light, the knowledge, the truth.

That's precisely where you are situated in your progress of epistemological journey, Nick_A.

Serendipper and guffo came out of the quagmire the bible offers to its end-users, but you, Nick_A, still are hopelessly stuck to the mud of logical imbalance.

[Nick_A]

Uwot

Could the real Christianity please stand up? There are so many "expressions" of Christianity that it is very difficult to know which, if any of the established expressions, in your view, is the 'not man made Christianity'. Especially as you blend your own ideas with those of the pagans Plato and Plotinus.

No, there are many expressions of Christendom but the essence of Christianity must remain hidden and available to those who need it as opposed to acceptable Christendom active in the world. The world must hate Christianity since its awakening influence opposes secular dominance including secularized religion. You don’t realize that the essence of Christianity always was:

St Augustine said, "The very thing that is now called the Christian religion was not wanting among the ancients from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh, after which the true religion, which had already existed, began to be called "Christian."

But the world must hate it and attempt to improve it by secularizing it since it opposes the dominance of imagination which sustains the world as it is.

John 15

18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

...you are determined to pin it down and throttle any joy from it. Which in an individual is to be pitied, but it really needs to be resisted in institutions; that's not the same as "denying belief".

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." --Carl Gustav Jung

Yes, verifying the nature of our being through efforts at impartial self observation is painful for our ego. But verifying reality brings joy rather than pleasure. Consciously awakening in respect to the inner search for objective meaning and purpose is resisted in institutions. Resistance leads to spirit killing and metaphysical repression in the young. Why you would be in favor of it is beyond me.

Do you actually mean "verify"? You verify things you believe to be true. What this means in practise is that you are looking for any support for something you wish to maintain; you only see what you want to see. It's called confirmation bias. This is an example:

Yes, a person through conscious efforts at impartial self observation can verify that they exist as a plurality rather than as individuality. A person can consciously verify that they can simultaneously think one thing, sense another while experiencing habitual emotions all at the same time. A person can verify how they exist in opposition with themselves so reconcile it by imagination. This condition defines the wretched man.

'Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.” ~ Simone Weil

"There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too." - Simone Weil

Christianity offers something that isn’t wanted by the world. Christianity, with the help of grace, offers the potential for rebirth. Only a relative few are willing to sacrifice the attraction to imagination and become capable of emotional detachment for the sake of conscious experience and rebirth.

The concept of a transcendent God is unnecessary for the world dedicated to serving worldly cycles described in Ecclesiastes 3 including the great cycles of war and peace. It is only essential for those needing to become more than an atom of the Great Beast and slave to its secular God supported by its techniques of indoctrination

[Nick_A]

Uwot and Lacewing express an essential part of our disagreement. They are both concerned with denying belief...

Wrong... as usual. Is this because you are dense or desperate? If your views are so wise, why do you need to continually misrepresent what others are communicating?

Again, I'll ask you: Can you see/acknowledge that your view/understanding is SIMPLY one of a countless number of DIVINE VIEWS, and that YOU are no more divine than anyone else? Simple question!

CAN YOU SEE that if your divine trip is to think that YOU represent and deliver a supreme template for all -- that would make you OBLIVIOUS to all OTHER divine trips?

Is that how you are, Nick? Are you too intoxicated and oblivious to see beyond your own thoughts and experience? Can you even consider the possibility that ALL IS DIVINE? If not, that does seem rather wretched for you.

Maybe you are divine but I am the wretched man. The wretched man communicating with a divine woman. Well it's the new age. What else can be expected?

[Greta]

God has been to be attributed with all manner of characteristics, depending on the observer:
a. intuition of evolution's potential
b. human hopes and dreams
c. the cosmos / the bulk
d. a father figure on which to lean
e. justice
f. love
g. creativity
h. sense of being
i. consciousness

It has become the societal norm to define God as either an expression of creation or a being separate from creation. IMO this is idolatry limiting the Source to the restriction of time and space as is with creation. The distinction is only important for those like me for whatever reason who strive to understand the meaning and purpose of our universe. Those who don't care are better off with video games or whatever serves as distractions from the reality of our daily lives.

At least some of the above are not dependent on space and time as you posited. The bulk is a higher-dimensional space - the source, rather than subject to, the space and time of (most of) the universe.

As a panentheist (items a to c), you consider pantheism and rationalism to be idolatry. They no doubt think of your ideas as superstitious and incoherent. However, such jaundiced views don't matter to informed readers.

The Source can only refer to initial conditions. What those conditions were is still up for debate.

[Nick_A]

The world is a living machine. Of course a plant is aided in its growth by earthly qualities like water. However, the sun is not a part of the earth which receives its energy. We are like this. The Source is not a part of the earth yet we receive its influences through grace attracting us to return to the source much like a moth is attracted to the light.

My ego is considered bigger because I admit that I am the wretched man. Oprah will explain this somehow

It is like this.

A meaningful metaphor is useless to establish a religion or a philosophy on. It can be explained by it, but not established it by it.

If the metaphor is wrong, however, then it is completely useless, and the philosophy based on it is also completely useless.

However, one must also consider that explaining the bible to today's end-user necessarily involves making the end-user believe the impossible. This requires a lot of training in explanation, in distorting points, in successful self-deception. Once one learned all those skills, then an ill-fitting useless metaphor will easily teach him the light, the knowledge, the truth.

That's precisely where you are situated in your progress of epistemological journey, Nick_A.

Serendipper and guffo came out of the quagmire the bible offers to its end-users, but you, Nick_A, still are hopelessly stuck to the mud of logical imbalance.

A meaningful metaphor is useless to establish a religion or a philosophy on. It can be explained by it, but not established it by it.

The intellectual purpose of philosophy and the essence of religion is to raise questions and exercise our powers of contemplation leading to verification through intuition rather than provide answers. Do you think the Apostles dropped everything to follow Jesus because he was giving fine speeches? No, they felt the quality of his "being" and realized it was what they were searching for.

[Greta]

Uwot and Lacewing express an essential part of our disagreement. They are both concerned with denying belief...

Wrong... as usual. Is this because you are dense or desperate? If your views are so wise, why do you need to continually misrepresent what others are communicating?

Again, I'll ask you: Can you see/acknowledge that your view/understanding is SIMPLY one of a countless number of DIVINE VIEWS, and that YOU are no more divine than anyone else? Simple question!

CAN YOU SEE that if your divine trip is to think that YOU represent and deliver a supreme template for all -- that would make you OBLIVIOUS to all OTHER divine trips?

Is that how you are, Nick? Are you too intoxicated and oblivious to see beyond your own thoughts and experience? Can you even consider the possibility that ALL IS DIVINE? If not, that does seem rather wretched for you.

Maybe you are divine but I am the wretched man. The wretched man communicating with a divine woman. Well it's the new age. What else can be expected?

If you want to label yourself "wretched", well, that's one perspective. Do you consider it a balanced or a jaundiced one?