Christianity

[Belinda]

What if what transforms the universe from " aJackson Pollok affair" to an orderly system is human mind?

Nah, we discover those rules of operation, we recognize that consistency, coherence, symmetry and elegance. The beauty is there to find.

We ain't the source of it.

Your core argument is respectable and honest and sensitive and I completely understand it , and also the feeling of care for "the rules of operation".
You seem also to understand the alternative as suggested by me, although you prefer to believe the rules of operation are extra-mental.

[Immanuel Can]

...you prefer to believe the rules of operation are extra-mental.

He's not stating a "preference," B, as if we have any alternative. We don't.

It's true to say that our ability to perceive the rules is mental. But it's not true that the realities the rules indicate are mental.

"That I see gravity working" is a statement about my mental operation. But it's not true to say, "Gravity is a mental operation."

[Immanuel Can]

Do you believe that this life you are living, indeed everyones is their first incarnation of existence upon planet Earth?

Of course.

What would provide us sufficient reason to think otherwise, contrary to all normal intuitions and experience? That would require a very elaborate sort of explanation...how it works, how the trans-generational karmic narrative is controlled and by what it is determined, why we ought to think the universe 'cares' about our alleged "enlightement" through successive cycles...and so on.

I think it actually makes more sense...

Show that, please. Can you show how your theory "makes sense," and should "make sense" to other people?

You need to show it does so on its own merits, too. Obviously, you can't do it by criticizing (what you perceive as) my theory, since there are other theories, too. If Theism weren't true, then maybe Polytheism is, or Materialism or Evolutionism is, or maybe the Panspermia theory is, or maybe Idealism of some sort is...

So you can't achieve a proof for your theory by criticizing somebody else's. If you can prove 2+2 ≠ 6, that does not make any arugment that shows that 2+2 = 7.

So I'd like to see what your theory has going for it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

"How could any of this have come about out of a flurry of random happenings?"

First of all (and just for the record), I'm a "he," not a "she."

And secondly, I'm curious to hear how you might attempt to answer the bolded question in the above quote?

And lastly, it's not just that the unthinkable order of the universe arising by chance is riddled with mathematical improbabilities, no, it's also how quantum physics seems to be suggesting that the universe is "mind-like" in nature, thus loosely implying the plausibility of a Berkeleyan-ish form of panentheism.

Personally, I am definitely of the intuitional school that the entire cosmos emerges from the mind of god. Actually you can pick any number of different metaphors or explanation-routes since they are simply poetic references. The term 'god' is becoming more and more useless though. It confuses the issue.

I tend to see the good sense in the terms used in Vedanta. Simply put, whatever 'god' is (the ultimate Brahman or *highest universal principle*) is beyond comprehension except in some sort of poetical state-of-mind or perhaps visionary state. That is why one needs to understand *personal god* or Ishvara.

My own view is that people do not focus on the right thing which is not a thing at all. It is existence. That things exist. That being exists and that there is no alternative to it. How can things exist? What is existence? Where is existence occurring? Mediation on those ideas, or is it a perception? leads the mind to unusual realizations.

I also believe that we could focus more on thinking about the nature of our own *world* as one among any number of different *worlds*. I mean discreet worlds with their own rules and conditions. We can only think about our own world comparatively, or if we try to think comparatively (intuitively, speculatively, imaginarily) then we see that the *rules* of our world are peculiar to this world -- but other worlds (planes of existence) could very well have different rules. Christianity is aware of *3 worlds* and this fits into an older and often universal vision: the world we are in, a hell-realm, and a heaven-world.

Our own world is strung between these two poles -- or in any case we tend to see things in this way. It could be infinitely better but it could certainly be infinitely worse. We are stuck into a world of biological flesh and the vehicle of our being and our apperance here is in these strange mortal encasings (σῶμα = sôma = “body”). But other sorts of vehicles and 'bodies' are conceivable. Which is what I think the notion of 'angel' refers to: a being with some other sort of body. A more enduring vehicle. One that is less bound to the rules that determine flesh-bodies -- so fragile and that always come to bad ends (as being food for other creatures unless, as we do, we poison the corpse so to have the illusion that it is not consumed). (Embalming).

It seems possible to me that just as our world (the vast space of the creation, the entire universe) exists (and seems absolute to us) it is not impossible that any number of different manifestation could well exist. If one exists (ours) why not any number? The fact that one exists is entirely miraculous when it is meditated on. How did it come into being? An impossible or fruitless question: it could never not have existed. Existence exists, and being exists. There is no alternative.

It is quite possible that any of us actually live simultaneously in various *realms*. Certainly we are more locked into this one than to those others. Yet it seems to me that conscious awareness -- when such is stimulated -- tends to *see* other possibilities. We are certainly locked into our sense that we are *individuals* and separate atomized units. But even this can be challenged.

As to the way the world has formed (the entire Cosmos and of course, as in your image of the Earth) most certainly did not arise out of randomness. You demonstrate with the static image that random conditions exist. But the entire manifestation is certainly directed and not random. The issue seems to be in how that is explained. Was order inherent and latent before things came to be? Or are all things rather being *pulled* toward the forms and order that they take? Does it matter?

I also do not have any particular problem with the idea of reincarnation. But I would tend to see it as a simultaneity of being. Since *time* is a condition of our limited existence, and we cannot escape it, we are *stuck* imagining a beginning and an ending. But in the ultimate sense time must be a sort of illusion. What is a *soul*? What is the *conscious spark* that the Vedantists refer to? In relation to our experience we exist in a time-frame. But in a far larger scale we could well exist in numerous different ways. And then as the Vedantists and the Rishis say (who seem to have gone far in these speculative moods) we cannot be else but parts and fragments of divine being if *awareness* is seen and grasped.

[Belinda]

...you prefer to believe the rules of operation are extra-mental.

He's not stating a "preference," B, as if we have any alternative. We don't.

It's true to say that our ability to perceive the rules is mental. But it's not true that the realities the rules indicate are mental.

"That I see gravity working" is a statement about my mental operation. But it's not true to say, "Gravity is a mental operation."

By means of reasoning and efficient quest for knowledge one much increases one's options regarding what to believe. Henry reasons well but he is too stubborn to broaden his vision.

[Immanuel Can]

...you prefer to believe the rules of operation are extra-mental.

He's not stating a "preference," B, as if we have any alternative. We don't.

It's true to say that our ability to perceive the rules is mental. But it's not true that the realities the rules indicate are mental.

"That I see gravity working" is a statement about my mental operation. But it's not true to say, "Gravity is a mental operation."

By means of reasoning and efficient quest for knowledge one much increases one's options regarding what to believe. Henry reasons well but he is too stubborn to broaden his vision.

He's actually quite reasonable.

Sometimes, being "open to options" means only "being loose, credulous and unfocused"; that's kind of the opposite of being "reasonable."

[Dubious]

"How could any of this have come about out of a flurry of random happenings?"

First of all (and just for the record), I'm a "he," not a "she."

And secondly, I'm curious to hear how you might attempt to answer the bolded question in the above quote?

And lastly, it's not just that the unthinkable order of the universe arising by chance is riddled with mathematical improbabilities, no, it's also how quantum physics seems to be suggesting that the universe is "mind-like" in nature, thus loosely implying the plausibility of a Berkeleyan-ish form of panentheism.

Personally, I am definitely of the intuitional school that the entire cosmos emerges from the mind of god. Actually you can pick any number of different metaphors or explanation-routes since they are simply poetic references. The term 'god' is becoming more and more useless though. It confuses the issue.

I tend to see the good sense in the terms used in Vedanta. Simply put, whatever 'god' is (the ultimate Brahman or *highest universal principle*) is beyond comprehension except in some sort of poetical state-of-mind or perhaps visionary state. That is why one needs to understand *personal god* or Ishvara.

My own view is that people do not focus on the right thing which is not a thing at all. It is existence. That things exist. That being exists and that there is no alternative to it. How can things exist? What is existence? Where is existence occurring? Mediation on those ideas, or is it a perception? leads the mind to unusual realizations.

I also believe that we could focus more on thinking about the nature of our own *world* as one among any number of different *worlds*. I mean discreet worlds with their own rules and conditions. We can only think about our own world comparatively, or if we try to think comparatively (intuitively, speculatively, imaginarily) then we see that the *rules* of our world are peculiar to this world -- but other worlds (planes of existence) could very well have different rules. Christianity is aware of *3 worlds* and this fits into an older and often universal vision: the world we are in, a hell-realm, and a heaven-world.

Our own world is strung between these two poles -- or in any case we tend to see things in this way. It could be infinitely better but it could certainly be infinitely worse. We are stuck into a world of biological flesh and the vehicle of our being and our apperance here is in these strange mortal encasings (σῶμα = sôma = “body”). But other sorts of vehicles and 'bodies' are conceivable. Which is what I think the notion of 'angel' refers to: a being with some other sort of body. A more enduring vehicle. One that is less bound to the rules that determine flesh-bodies -- so fragile and that always come to bad ends (as being food for other creatures unless, as we do, we poison the corpse so to have the illusion that it is not consumed). (Embalming).

It seems possible to me that just as our world (the vast space of the creation, the entire universe) exists (and seems absolute to us) it is not impossible that any number of different manifestation could well exist. If one exists (ours) why not any number? The fact that one exists is entirely miraculous when it is meditated on. How did it come into being? An impossible or fruitless question: it could never not have existed. Existence exists, and being exists. There is no alternative.

It is quite possible that any of us actually live simultaneously in various *realms*. Certainly we are more locked into this one than to those others. Yet it seems to me that conscious awareness -- when such is stimulated -- tends to *see* other possibilities. We are certainly locked into our sense that we are *individuals* and separate atomized units. But even this can be challenged.

As to the way the world has formed (the entire Cosmos and of course, as in your image of the Earth) most certainly did not arise out of randomness. You demonstrate with the static image that random conditions exist. But the entire manifestation is certainly directed and not random. The issue seems to be in how that is explained. Was order inherent and latent before things came to be? Or are all things rather being *pulled* toward the forms and order that they take? Does it matter?

I also do not have any particular problem with the idea of reincarnation. But I would tend to see it as a simultaneity of being. Since *time* is a condition of our limited existence, and we cannot escape it, we are *stuck* imagining a beginning and an ending. But in the ultimate sense time must be a sort of illusion. What is a *soul*? What is the *conscious spark* that the Vedantists refer to? In relation to our experience we exist in a time-frame. But in a far larger scale we could well exist in numerous different ways. And then as the Vedantists and the Rishis say (who seem to have gone far in these speculative moods) we cannot be else but parts and fragments of divine being if *awareness* is seen and grasped.

Unexpectedly, the way you described your views here, I agree with almost all of it with a few minor exceptions, as usually occur, especially as regards time which strangely does seem illusional to our senses, but is actually an indispensable function inherent in every process. Just as space measures the distance between objects, time measures the distance between events, being fundamental to any process at any scale. I can easily imagine space, in that sense, as a derivative of time in which these ruptures first occurred. Randomness too is a somewhat flaky subject and can never be qualified as an absolute. If it were, nothing could ever coalesce into a controlled creation. Conversely, if randomness didn't exist to a very essential degree, the universe would have been pre-ordered, predestined including all of its ramifications in which almost nothing could be considered imperfect having literally proceeded from the mind of god.

Anyway, just to mention that we aren't, seemingly, so far apart, at least, not on this subject being quite unanticipated in how our various views align.

[Belinda]

He's not stating a "preference," B, as if we have any alternative. We don't.

It's true to say that our ability to perceive the rules is mental. But it's not true that the realities the rules indicate are mental.

"That I see gravity working" is a statement about my mental operation. But it's not true to say, "Gravity is a mental operation."

By means of reasoning and efficient quest for knowledge one much increases one's options regarding what to believe. Henry reasons well but he is too stubborn to broaden his vision.

He's actually quite reasonable.

Sometimes, being "open to options" means only "being loose, credulous and unfocused"; that's kind of the opposite of being "reasonable."

Of course. One has standards.

[attofishpi]

Of course.

What would provide us sufficient reason to think otherwise, contrary to all normal intuitions and experience? That would require a very elaborate sort of explanation...how it works, how the trans-generational karmic narrative is controlled and by what it is determined, why we ought to think the universe 'cares' about our alleged "enlightement" through successive cycles...and so on.

I think it actually makes more sense...

Show that, please. Can you show how your theory "makes sense," and should "make sense" to other people? [/quote]


HEY!! Look everyone of what remains of MY statements - sweet fuck all - the COWARD debater - IC strikes again (strikes out pretty much everything I had to say!!)

Tad busy - but I WILL bring back my statements in FULL for you to address.

[Immanuel Can]

Show that, please. Can you show how your theory "makes sense," and should "make sense" to other people?

HEY!! Look everyone of what remains of MY statements - sweet fuck all - the COWARD debater - IC strikes again (strikes out pretty much everything I had to say!!)

It's right above. Nobody's erased it.

But I can see you know that.

Tad busy - but I WILL bring back my statements in FULL for you to address.

Nobody took them away. They remain public, available, and where you put them.

Seriously: do you really think we suppose that you believe it's the moral duty of each interlocutor on this site always to reproduce in entirety everybody's message in full length? If we all did that, then the first message would be 5 lines, the second 10 or more, the third 20, the fourth 40...and so on. There wouldn't be very many conversations of length if we all did that.

You know that. I have no doubt. So maybe that's what you want...to make this conversation short. Or maybe you're just buying time, or hoping to deflect. But I'm not in doubt you know it.

I can wait.

[attofishpi]

To quote W, "Well that was some weird shit."

Here is what IS weird. That God in "his" great wisdom allowed the Bible to sound precisely the same as buy bull in English, the default planetary language and that FUND_A_MENTAL_LISTs think that ALL of the Bible (buy bull) should be accepted as the word of God. That the universe required words to be spoken to form its existence!! To think that God does not want INTELLIGENT people to become sages, and question the Bible - buy bull..

[attofishpi]

Show that, please. Can you show how your theory "makes sense," and should "make sense" to other people?

HEY!! Look everyone of what remains of MY statements - sweet fuck all - the COWARD debater - IC strikes again (strikes out pretty much everything I had to say!!)

It's right above. Nobody's erased it.

A LIAR and a COWARD.

This is PART of what you erased, deal with it:

Think about this, if everyone is born into their current life right now as their first incarnation upon the Earth - is it fair that you were born into your upbringing (in Canada?) whereas some are born into absolute dire poverty and do not have the moral guidance that you have received and yet, according to your faith, will be judged by their actions equally as you.

1. Do you think God must just role the dice prior to everyone's birth as to where they are born - isn't that an extremely unjust system?

[Immanuel Can]

HEY!! Look everyone of what remains of MY statements - sweet fuck all - the COWARD debater - IC strikes again (strikes out pretty much everything I had to say!!)

It's right above. Nobody's erased it.

A LIAR and a COWARD.

Ad hominem...of course... and totally evasive of a very simple question: what rational evidence do you have to support reincarnationism?

This is PART of what you erased, deal with it:

Think about this, if everyone is born into their current life right now as their first incarnation upon the Earth - is it fair that you were born into your upbringing (in Canada?) whereas some are born into absolute dire poverty and do not have the moral guidance that you have received and yet, according to your faith, will be judged by their actions equally as you.

Okay, but it's really not worth dealing with, because it has nothing to do with the reasons for your own belief. Nothing in this question provides even one stitch of evidence for reincarnationism. What you've got here is an objection to somebody else's worldview, but nothing in support of your own.

So to clear that up, let us, for the moment, suppose my worldview were wrong. Then what does your reincarnational theory have to repel Materialism, Evolutionism, Nihilism, Idealism, Panspermia theory, Polytheism, or any other ideology? What you've left is with is only this: that IC might be wrong, but you are wrong too...for you've offered nothing in defense of your view.

Do you think God must just role the dice prior to everyone's birth as to where they are born - isn't that an extremely unjust system?

Why is that even relevant? Who, in your reincarnational view, promises you that your sense of "justice" is going to be satisfied...or should be? You've said nothing to make us believe that's so...so why are you expecting that the world should satisfy your wish for justice?

That's the real question.

So now, give us a rational reason to join you in believing in reincarnationism -- and not believing, instead, in any of those other views.

[attofishpi]

So now, give us a rational reason to join you in believing in reincarnationism -- and not believing, instead, in any of those other views.

Nah cbf. You are not worth.Y of anything related to sage truth about God, you are simply too simple. You will be reborn with all your current knowledge wiped probably into another family of simpleton fundamentalists.

[Immanuel Can]

So now, give us a rational reason to join you in believing in reincarnationism -- and not believing, instead, in any of those other views.

Nah...

The obvious conclusion? You can't.

So you believe in something for which you have no evidence and no rationale. Interesting.