How to Know God?

[Nick_A]

Paul wrote:

9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

What was alive and what died?

"I died".

There is the death of animal Man but not the awareness of the spiritual direction which leads to the soul of Man.

It's the opposite, actually. The "animal Man" is walking around, just fine (Eph. 2:1-2). But spiritually, there's no life in the "I." That's what "dead in your trespasses and sins" means; not that you were physically dead, but spiritually, that you were "dead."

It's rather like the old trope of the Jewish father who says to his wayward child, "You are dead to me." It doesn't mean he's literally, physically killed his child; it means that so far as any living, dynamic, meaningful connection with the father goes, the child is removed from it. He might as well be dead, then, so far as the father is concerned. There is no relationship anymore.

I agree. The earthly man is first which has the potential with the help of grace to evolve and become spiritual man. But earthly man cannot know God. All our opinions and interpretations about God wanting this and that is pure idolatry. To know God requires being born again. But who knows what that means without its meaning becoming secularized?

John 12

23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

To me this is the essence of Christianity for Man. People argue about morality in the world but really its value is conscious freedom from attachments to the world or Plato's cave if you prefer. How to inwardly turn towards the light to experience metanoia? It is only possible with the help of grace.

[Immanuel Can]

The earthly man is first which has the potential with the help of grace to evolve...

Man does not "evolve" morally. If nothing else, the millions massacred in the last century alone should have taught us that lesson.

...and become spiritual man.

The spiritual man is not an evolutionary product. As Paul says, spiritually, the man is "dead." I've yet to see a dead thing "evolve."

To know God requires being born again.

That's right.

But who knows what that means without its meaning becoming secularized?

"Secularized" is the one thing that "meaning" never can be. And the "secular" man, what the Bible calls "the natural man" cannot understand God at all. See here:

But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)

[Nick_A]

The earthly man is first which has the potential with the help of grace to evolve...

Man does not "evolve" morally. If nothing else, the millions massacred in the last century alone should have taught us that lesson.

...and become spiritual man.

The spiritual man is not an evolutionary product. As Paul says, spiritually, the man is "dead." I've yet to see a dead thing "evolve."

To know God requires being born again.

That's right.

But who knows what that means without its meaning becoming secularized?

"Secularized" is the one thing that "meaning" never can be. And the "secular" man, what the Bible calls "the natural man" cannot understand God at all. See here:

But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)

Quite true. Animal man does not evolve morally. The human condition described by Paul assures that everything remains the same for animal Man. Animal man which dominates the world cannot understand spiritual man. This is why they are ridiculed But at what point does animal man become spiritual man? When is he capable of letting the dead bury their dead? How many TV evangelists are just dead people practicing idolatry for profit? This can't change. Only the individual can

Matthew 11;11

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Apparently there is scale of being in which animal Man has reached its being potential but can now continue on into conscious spiritual evolution. They can follow the path laid down by the Christ. How else do we explain the limits of being born of woman and the potential for one being born from above?

[Immanuel Can]

But at what point does animal man become spiritual man?

On his own, or by his own natural wisdom? He never does.

spiritual evolution.

I think you've misapplied the word "evolution" here. "Evolution" implies a natural process: but spiritual life is neither "natural" nor a "process." Like physical life, it's a thing you have, or a thing you don't have. The degree of it, or quality of it, is a secondary question.

As I say, dead people don't "evolve." They're just dead. Only people who are already reborn can spiritually "progress."

[Nick_A]

But at what point does animal man become spiritual man?

On his own, or by his own natural wisdom? He never does.

spiritual evolution.

I think you've misapplied the word "evolution" here. "Evolution" implies a natural process: but spiritual life is neither "natural" nor a "process." Like physical life, it's a thing you have, or a thing you don't have. The degree of it, or quality of it, is a secondary question.

As I say, dead people don't "evolve." They're just dead. Only people who are already reborn can spiritually "progress."

Before conscious evolution is possible a person must first awaken

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see

Dead people or to be more precise sleeping people can awaken. How did Mary Magdaline awaken even after she had sunk to the lowest of the low and was spiritually dead? The quality of Jesus' being and the quality of energy he gave her made it possible

Mechanical evolution is a mechanical process. A caterpillar changes the quality of its being and becomes a moth by a mechanical process.

Animal man can change its being by a conscious process made possible by help from above in the form of the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit and the grace it provides, awakening as the beginning of a conscious evolution is impossible.

How many acorns can become oaks? Only a very few can. The majority either feed the earth or animal life on it. Only very few animal men can become spiritual Man. Most follow the cycle of dust to dust or remain asleep in the body of Christ Paul refers to as the spiritual body in 1 Corinthians 15

We need "new eyes to see and ears to hear' The world rejects them so since the world is as it is, everything remains as it is. Conscious evolution can only refer to individuals. So why not admire and be inspired by these rare individuals

[Veritas Aequitas]

V A

P1. Absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real
P2. God, imperatively must be absolutely perfect
C. Therefore God is an impossibility to be real.

You are confusing God as conscious potential with creation or the actualizations of conscious potential. Where God beyond time and space as conscious potential is perfect, creation within time and space is designed to be imperfect. That is how the living machine we call universe serves its purpose of transforming substances

The leverage of the above argument is 'to be real'.

The argument as above,

• P1. Absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real
  P2. God, imperatively must be absolutely perfect
  C. Therefore God is an impossibility to be real.

If God is impossible to be real, then God, however thought as an idea is unreal.

The point is humans can have all sorts of thoughts which can represent real things or unreal things.
One can think of an apple, but even if we do not see an apple at present, we know as proven empirically, real apples do exists. This is the same for whatever has been proven or provable to be real.
The tests is merely to bring the evidences of the above possibility to be verified and justified within a credible framework and system of reality[FSR], the scientific FSR being the standard bearer of the truth of reality.

On the other hand, humans can also have the thought of a square-circle, a married bachelor and other contradictions. Such thoughts are impossible to be real i.e. can never be represented in reality as real.

The thought-of-a-God is the same as the above, it is merely a thought which by definition and argument [as above] cannot and is impossible to be real.
If God is so great as it is touted to be, then we should easily prove its existence within a credible FSR but there is no convincing argument that prove God exists.
Instead what we have are centuries of shifting arguments to prove God exists, culminating in the ontological argument which is ineffective.

In reality, the claim God exists is merely a-thought-of-God which has no real referent in reality [impossible to be real], thus unreal.
In other words, the thought-of-God is a real thought but there is no real referent-God that can represent that thought in reality.
A-thought-of-God is merely a thought that arose to deal with an existential crisis and to soothe the manifesting dissonance.

So the thought-of-God is merely a mental solution to deal with the inherent existential crisis and in a way embedded in the mind of the majority.

Btw, this potential thought-of-God which is embedded in the brain/mind of all humans also manifest in the mentally ill where it is recognized as an illusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg
This potential thought-of-God also manifest when people take drugs and psychedelics, in various mental illness, under very stressful conditions, brain damage, meditation, etc.
The thought-of-God and its related experiences disappear when the mentally ill are treated properly or people stop taking drugs.

The above evidence of a thought-of-God manifesting in a non-theistic situation is evidence the claim of a God existing a real [no proof] is most plausible to be a psychological issue than there is really a real God out there.

If you are in a psychological state to chase the 'impossible to be real' as real, i.e. to deal with the inherent existential crisis, it is likely you will not change your views on such an illusion or look at the alternative views.

But there are many who have an alternative views which are realistic other than claiming a-thought-of-God has its corresponding real referent.

Where you believe the attraction to God is a defense mechanism, I believe it is a normal conscious attraction to the inner light of consciousness much like a moth is mechanically attracted to the light in the world. How can we know? We can only know by beginning to "know thyself" or experience the reality of what we are

Yes, the belief is God is a defense mechanism and a consonance to soothe the inherent dissonance within your self - brain, mind and body.

Do you really "know thyself" thoroughly?
How much do you really know how your brain works and its psychological mechanisms within?

Humans are endowed with emotions and the emotion of fear when triggered is a very powerful force that generate terrible mental pains and sufferings.
The fear of premature death being the most terrible fear, thus triggering the most terrible sufferings.
All theistic religions focus on the fear of death and make provisions for the afterlife when one believe a God exists.
This should have given you a clue the thought-of-God is effective as a consonance to deal with the fear-of-death [subliminally], i.e. via faith, no need for proof.

In your case your belief is not in a personal God, but it is nevertheless along the same continuum of believing in the illusory to deal with an inherent existential crisis.

Occam-wise,
that God is merely a thought without a real referent and it is effective to deal with an inherent existential crisis,
is more plausible than insisting God is a real thing that exists in reality.

[Veritas Aequitas]

But at what point does animal man become spiritual man?

On his own, or by his own natural wisdom? He never does.

spiritual evolution.

I think you've misapplied the word "evolution" here. "Evolution" implies a natural process: but spiritual life is neither "natural" nor a "process." Like physical life, it's a thing you have, or a thing you don't have. The degree of it, or quality of it, is a secondary question.

As I say, dead people don't "evolve." They're just dead. Only people who are already reborn can spiritually "progress."

As I mentioned above, theism, i.e. falsely taking the thought-of-God as represented by some real referent, has a continuum depending on the degree of spiritual progress.

I terms of spiritual progress along this belief-in-God continuum your personal-god [Abrahamic] basis would be 4/10 while Nick's [non-personal god] is 7/10.
Those of the deists, pantheists, panentheists will be rated higher than 7/10.

[Nick_A]

V A

Humans are endowed with emotions and the emotion of fear when triggered is a very powerful force that generate terrible mental pains and sufferings.
The fear of premature death being the most terrible fear, thus triggering the most terrible sufferings.
All theistic religions focus on the fear of death and make provisions for the afterlife when one believe a God exists.
This should have given you a clue the thought-of-God is effective as a consonance to deal with the fear-of-death [subliminally], i.e. via faith, no need for proof.

In your case your belief is not in a personal God, but it is nevertheless along the same continuum of believing in the illusory to deal with an inherent existential crisis.

Occam-wise,
that God is merely a thought without a real referent and it is effective to deal with an inherent existential crisis,
is more plausible than insisting God is a real thing that exists in reality.

Is there an innate need for truth in man which is greater than the normal attraction to pleasure and security? The inherent existential crisis refers to this attraction to pleasure and security to forget that we fear death but know it is inevitable.

Yet there are those whose need for truth which answers our need for meaning is far greater than our avoidance of this existential crisis by putting the blame on God. Simone Weil was such a person which is why I admire her.

These people are an exception and will always be hated by intolerant believers and deniers. Their need to experience truth is greater than the need to rationalize it into self justifying imagination. To know God means first to consciously open to the reality of the human condition and experience what we are. Why bother? The future of our species may well depend upon these rare ones able to lead the way. They are willing to experience the truth of themselves, our nothingness, in order to experience the Way to God and our non-illusory meaning and purpose in serving the needs of the body of God or our universe.

[Immanuel Can]

Before conscious evolution is possible a person must first awaken

The dead do not "awaken" by themselves, anymore than they "evolve."

Animal man can change its being...

No, I fear, he cannot. As it is written, "...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." (1 Cor. 15:50)

[Immanuel Can]

...falsely taking the thought-of-God as represented by some real referent...

We know your "answer," VA. "There is no way to know God," is what you're going to say.

Okay, then...bye.

[Age]

The way that 'you' ALL blind yourselves to thee ACTUAL Truth is Truly amusing to LISTEN TO and OBSERVE.

[Nick_A]

Before conscious evolution is possible a person must first awaken

The dead do not "awaken" by themselves, anymore than they "evolve."

Animal man can change its being...

No, I fear, he cannot. As it is written, "...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." (1 Cor. 15:50)

Animal man is not pure animal. The lower parts of the collective human essence are animal but the higher parts are also capable of conscious self awareness and the conscious awareness of our source. The struggle between the higher and lower parts of the human essence are the source of what is called the human condition.

Plato wrote of the soul turning from the shadows towards the light while Christianity refers to metanoia and the inner change of mind which is really the same idea. Being born of woman is strictly animal while being born from above awakens our conscious potential. When a person experiences metanoia it is the beginning of awakening which you seem to doubt. Awakening is not possible from our own efforts but through the help of the Spirit it seems for those capable, the natural transition from mechanical into conscious evolution. Please explain.

[Veritas Aequitas]

V A

Humans are endowed with emotions and the emotion of fear when triggered is a very powerful force that generate terrible mental pains and sufferings.
The fear of premature death being the most terrible fear, thus triggering the most terrible sufferings.
All theistic religions focus on the fear of death and make provisions for the afterlife when one believe a God exists.
This should have given you a clue the thought-of-God is effective as a consonance to deal with the fear-of-death [subliminally], i.e. via faith, no need for proof.

In your case your belief is not in a personal God, but it is nevertheless along the same continuum of believing in the illusory to deal with an inherent existential crisis.

Occam-wise,
that God is merely a thought without a real referent and it is effective to deal with an inherent existential crisis,
is more plausible than insisting God is a real thing that exists in reality.

Is there an innate need for truth in man which is greater than the normal attraction to pleasure and security? The inherent existential crisis refers to this attraction to pleasure and security to forget that we fear death but know it is inevitable.

Yet there are those whose need for truth which answers our need for meaning is far greater than our avoidance of this existential crisis by putting the blame on God. Simone Weil was such a person which is why I admire her.

These people are an exception and will always be hated by intolerant believers and deniers. Their need to experience truth is greater than the need to rationalize it into self justifying imagination. To know God means first to consciously open to the reality of the human condition and experience what we are. Why bother? The future of our species may well depend upon these rare ones able to lead the way. They are willing to experience the truth of themselves, our nothingness, in order to experience the Way to God and our non-illusory meaning and purpose in serving the needs of the body of God or our universe.

The existential crisis is inherent and primal at the core of human existence.
There is no force that is greater than the force of the existential crisis except the basic drive for survival and preservation of the human species.

The primal forces of the existential crisis pulse in degrees of activeness in terms of the degree of dissonance within a continuum.

The existential crisis is the subliminal [unconscious] driver, that drive humans to seek all sorts [theistic and secular] of consonance to dissolve the dissonance.
The most immediate consonance to relieve the dissonance is the idea of a God within a continuum.

On one end of the continuum are the Abrahamic theists [clinging to a personal god] where merely believing and surrendering to a personal savior God give immediate relief of salvation. Upon the consonance of feeling immediate relief, some will go to the extent of killing those who threaten the consonance they are clinging onto like there is no tomorrow.
This is because any threat to the belief that provide the consonance will immediately generate the terrible inherent dissonance.

At the other end of the continuum are the deists, the pantheists, the panentheists, gnostics, agnostics, mystics and other spiritualists who are more spiritually-matured thus not so clingy to the consonance they have established to suppress the inherent unavoidable dissonance.

The existential crisis is universal to all humans, thus to the seculars who has to deal with the inherent unavoidable dissonance with their secular brand of achieving consonance.

On one end of the continuum we have the non-theistic religions and philosophies, e.g. Buddhists, Jainists and the likes.
On the other we have the seculars who turned to drugs, pain-killers and all sorts of secular activities to deal with the inherent unavoidable dissonance of the existential crisis.

Simone Weil was probably a mystic and more spiritually matured but her mysticism was still driven by the inherent unavoidable existential crisis into the God-theistic continuum albeit not in the perspective of a personal God [like Abrahamic and others].

Otherwise, she would fall within the secular spiritual continuum, but she was not.
Within the God-theistic continuum she was still influenced by the illusory-Being to deal with the inherent dissonance.

Note Kant stated, even the wisest cannot free herself from the illusion, in this case, God-being.

Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
B397

My point of concern is, the insistent and maintenance of the God-Being continuum to deal with the inherent dissonance is indirectly a complicit as a reinforcement, support and motivation for those theists at the other end of the continuum to commit their evil and violent acts upon non-theists and other theists [note evil prone Muslims].

[Immanuel Can]

The lower parts of the collective human essence are animal but the higher parts are also capable of conscious self awareness and the conscious awareness of our source.

The Bible says that the "animal knowledge" is enough to tell a man that God exists (Romans 1, for instance); but it denies that this gives mankind the ability to know God relationally. And the two are clearly quite different.

I know you, in the sense that I vaguely believe that a guy named "Nick" exists somewhere. So if somebody said, "Do you know Nick A," I could truthfully say, "Yes." But I doubt you would be impressed with my knowledge. Rather, you could rightfully say, "That's bosh; IC has no idea who I am. All he knows is that I exist, and not even much about that. And he certainly stands in no relationship to me."

You'd be quite right. Animal man does not know God. Nor can he. He can only know that God exists. This is why the new birth is so essential; not only does it amount to an admission that God exists, on the part of animal man, but far more, it indicates an actual regeneration to new life, produced by God Himself, and the reconstitution of that individual as a "Son of God." Moreover, it entails the transformation of his mind so that he CAN "know" God in the real and personal sense.

All of this, animal man knows nothing about. So he has absolute contempt for it. Understandable, but, of course, tragically mistaken.

Christianity refers to metanoia and the inner change of mind

Ah, no...it's not "inner." That is not what Christianity teaches. It's an externally-induced change in the inner man; again, quite a different thing. The agent of it is God, not the inherent self-illuminative potential of animal man....of which he really has none, so far as spiritual things are concerned.

Consider this:

"We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one." (1 Cor. 2:13-15)

[Nick_A]

V A

Note Kant stated, even the wisest cannot free herself from the illusion, in this case, God-being.
Kant wrote:
Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them [the illusions].
After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him.
B397
My point of concern is, the insistent and maintenance of the God-Being continuum to deal with the inherent dissonance is indirectly a complicit as a reinforcement, support and motivation for those theists at the other end of the continuum to commit their evil and violent acts upon non-theists and other theists [note evil prone Muslims].

The essential question: does conscious humanity exist? Is there an elite who have become masters of themselves and tamed the animal within their being which normally defines and rules their being?

Excerpted from a letter Simone Weil wrote on May 15, 1942 in Marseilles, France to her close friend Father Perrin:

At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth.

She was drawn to the transcendent kingdom in which those who have consciously transcended the defense of opinions and experienced "truth". But do they exist? If they do, this means that that Man can awaken. The nature of Man can be understood as well as its relationship to its source. If conscious humanity does not exist then you are right and the religious calling is just imagination only serving as a means for consolation. In short, all of Simone's efforts to experience truth were nothing but futile gestures. A meaningless life. How can we know?