Christianity

[Fairy]

If God is "nothing but the whole" and the whole has no contrast by which to be distinct then the whole is simultaneously nothing for the whole is indistinct.

God is not limited to thingness for if God was limited to thingness than God would not be God as God would be subject to a higher thing.

God is not limited to thingness metaphysically speaking hence the dilemma of a purely rational interpretation that seeks to avoid paradox.

Something is limitation. Whereas Nothing is unlimited.

You’re doing well

If God was limited to nothingness than God would not be God for the void would supersede God. Thus God is both something and nothing...and neither. God could take form as evidenced by Christianity.

Wonderful!

I totally agree.

[Belinda]

Yes really. God, Love, is not. All there is, in this context, is feelings expressed through words. About brute facts.

Feelings? No. The nature of recursive distinctions resulting in an isomorphic identity...yes. But I doubt you understand that sentence, and I really don't blame you.

So...

You negate God and Love, but something negated must first exist and the terms, such as the ones you emphasize, are so broad that effectively you could spend infinite life times negating how, what, when and where they occur.

I don't negate those feelings. Yes by the way. You are plainly emotionally attached to what you say. I can't anyway. I just state the brute facts. The world is riven with unspeakable acts caused by hurt feelings. That's one.

God is not necessarily good like you and I feel about good. God aka Existence Itself includes not only the harmless gazelle but also the flesh eating wasp.

Morality is a late biological development. Language about fellow -feeling and sympathy is the language of morality. Two heroic/tribal narratives:-

From The Battle of Maldon (lines 312–321, modern English translation):

“Will shall be sterner, heart the stronger, courage the greater, as our strength lessens.
Here lies our lord all hewn down, the good man in the dust.
Whoever thinks now to turn from this battle will forever lament it.
I am old in years—but I will not turn away;
I intend to lie beside my lord, by the man so dearly loved.”

Old Testament (2 Samuel 10:12) — Joab rallying the troops before battle:

“Be strong, and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God.
The Lord will do what seems good to Him.”

I would now compare the tribal/heroic narratives with post-Axial Age narratives about human sympathy and fellow feeling.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Not really...this is just logic...something that is not your strong suit and why you project emotions on to others and call it reasoning.

Try to be attached emotionally to a concept such as the "negation of negation" as founded in intuitive logic...

You deceive yourself.

You claim rationality and yet provide nothing but assertion, as evidenced by your response...who is really the deceived one?

This said by a man who believes he is ongoingly assaulted by aliens.

You are using logic in the service of unexaminable beliefs. You are not just using logic by any means. It's all rhetoric. And you feel it. You use logic in a way reminiscent of infinitesimal calculus. Everything becomes indistinguishable before it disappears, black is white, if you look at it closely enough.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Feelings? No. The nature of recursive distinctions resulting in an isomorphic identity...yes. But I doubt you understand that sentence, and I really don't blame you.

So...

You negate God and Love, but something negated must first exist and the terms, such as the ones you emphasize, are so broad that effectively you could spend infinite life times negating how, what, when and where they occur.

I don't negate those feelings. Yes by the way. You are plainly emotionally attached to what you say. I can't anyway. I just state the brute facts. The world is riven with unspeakable acts caused by hurt feelings. That's one.

God is not necessarily good like you and I feel about good. God aka Existence Itself includes not only the harmless gazelle but also the flesh eating wasp.

Morality is a late biological development. Language about fellow -feeling and sympathy is the language of morality. Two heroic/tribal narratives:-

From The Battle of Maldon (lines 312–321, modern English translation):

“Will shall be sterner, heart the stronger, courage the greater, as our strength lessens.
Here lies our lord all hewn down, the good man in the dust.
Whoever thinks now to turn from this battle will forever lament it.
I am old in years—but I will not turn away;
I intend to lie beside my lord, by the man so dearly loved.”

Old Testament (2 Samuel 10:12) — Joab rallying the troops before battle:

“Be strong, and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God.
The Lord will do what seems good to Him.”

I would now compare the tribal/heroic narratives with post-Axial Age narratives about human sympathy and fellow feeling.

You keep redefining words. God is not Existence. Sure, you can make it so metaphorically, poetically. I'm not talking about your God, akin to Einstein's, I'm talking about the Christian metaphor God = love, compared with a theoretical God who actually was.

Morality was a biological development from the Cambrian at the latest, despite there being no rabbits. You will, of course, have seen Frans de Waal's peerless 12 year old demonstration of morality in capuchins. And we've known about rat empathy for 14 years. Is that what you mean by late?

[MikeNovack]

Morality was a biological development from the Cambrian at the latest, despite there being no rabbits. You will, of course, have seen Frans de Waal's peerless 12 year old demonstration of morality in capuchins. And we've known about rat empathy for 14 years. Is that what you mean by late?

Thank you.Yes, "morality" is something needed by all social animals. Social animals engage in co-operative activities where individuals have roles,expected behaviors, and have expectations the other individuals will be doing their part. Morality is the learned set of rules and how the function so that "in situation X do Y (or don't do Z)" usually including behaviors to bring individuals straying from the code back to it (mutual training). I believe use is made of the primitives "if something feels bad/unpleasant, stop doing what you are doing" and "if it feels good/pleasant, keep doing what you are doing. Those and the feeling "anticipation"might be enough.

Social animals have "culture", morality is part of that culture. Just as evolution functions by competition of individuals within a species, cultures within the species are also competing.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

God knows how bad it is metaphysically! I'm glad I can't see that deeply. Is there metaphysical kindness that can resolve it?

Yes! Cut it from your psyche as Alexander did the Gordian Knot; strike until the deed is done until all of metaphysics becomes an empire of the mind, a multitudinous, psychic melodrama of infinite vistas where nothing further can be added or any decrement ever able to compromise its holistic completeness. Such is the nature of infinity along with its side-kick, eternity. By doing what god disallows you will have moved beyond his petty strictures to encompass what he never wanted you to see; Adam & Eve are proof of his inferiority! Such is the nature of an active, striving metanoia having partitioned into a wisdom beyond which there is no greater and all the love memes of the bygone becomes a superfluous long lost melody rarely sung.

Sorry! I had an urge to get on to the bullshit bandwagon!

When did you last get off?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Cut it from your psyche as Alexander did the Gordian Knot; strike until the deed is done until all of metaphysics becomes an empire of the mind, a multitudinous, psychic melodrama of infinite vistas where nothing further can be added or any decrement ever able to compromise its holistic completeness. Such is the nature of infinity along with its side-kick, eternity. By doing what god disallows you will have moved beyond his petty strictures to encompass what he never wanted you to see; Adam & Eve are proof of his inferiority! Such is the nature of an active, striving metanoia having partitioned into a wisdom beyond which there is no greater and all the love memes of the bygone becomes a superfluous long lost melody rarely sung.

Strike in that way you kill yourself — and Man. That which is named “soul” is that part of man’s being that conceives of metaphysics — meaning, symbol, metaphor. Only Man does this. And it is, if you will pardon the word which arouses so much contempt, that part of man that is divine and has a relationship with divinity — also metaphysical in essence.

Cut that away and in my view you perform a violent and destructive act. The object is to purify (or exalt) metaphysical vision, not excise it.

The education and awakening of the soul is not a process of bringing it into correspondence with physical structures (like the external world), but a process or rightly affecting its movement and motion. Ascent.

It is a unique and different process altogether than material-physical alignment. The term “intelligible” and “intelligibility” refer to an activity undertaken by the soul — something more than simple perception and much thinking.

[Dubious]

God knows how bad it is metaphysically! I'm glad I can't see that deeply. Is there metaphysical kindness that can resolve it?

Yes! Cut it from your psyche as Alexander did the Gordian Knot; strike until the deed is done until all of metaphysics becomes an empire of the mind, a multitudinous, psychic melodrama of infinite vistas where nothing further can be added or any decrement ever able to compromise its holistic completeness. Such is the nature of infinity along with its side-kick, eternity. By doing what god disallows you will have moved beyond his petty strictures to encompass what he never wanted you to see; Adam & Eve are proof of his inferiority! Such is the nature of an active, striving metanoia having partitioned into a wisdom beyond which there is no greater and all the love memes of the bygone becomes a superfluous long lost melody rarely sung.

Sorry! I had an urge to get on to the bullshit bandwagon!

When did you last get off?

Well, you know the old saying..."If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"! So I requisitioned some bullshit to do just that!

[Dubious]

Cut it from your psyche as Alexander did the Gordian Knot; strike until the deed is done until all of metaphysics becomes an empire of the mind, a multitudinous, psychic melodrama of infinite vistas where nothing further can be added or any decrement ever able to compromise its holistic completeness. Such is the nature of infinity along with its side-kick, eternity. By doing what god disallows you will have moved beyond his petty strictures to encompass what he never wanted you to see; Adam & Eve are proof of his inferiority! Such is the nature of an active, striving metanoia having partitioned into a wisdom beyond which there is no greater and all the love memes of the bygone becomes a superfluous long lost melody rarely sung.

Strike in that way you kill yourself — and Man. That which is named “soul” is that part of man’s being that conceives of metaphysics — meaning, symbol, metaphor. Only Man does this. And it is, if you will pardon the word which arouses so much contempt, that part of man that is divine and has a relationship with divinity — also metaphysical in essence.

Cut that away and in my view you perform a violent and destructive act. The object is to purify (or exalt) metaphysical vision, not excise it.

The education and awakening of the soul is not a process of bringing it into correspondence with physical structures (like the external world), but a process or rightly affecting its movement and motion. Ascent.

It is a unique and different process altogether than material-physical alignment. The term “intelligible” and “intelligibility” refer to an activity undertaken by the soul — something more than simple perception and much thinking.

Having got the true intent of my post out of the way, it may surprise you to know I have, overall, no objection to metaphysics which can allude to many different ways of thinking and feeling depending on how the meta is appended and applied to physics.

I have no argument, none, against your view of metaphysics either. What I find unnecessary and, in fact, delimiting is how you constantly subsume the natural process of a more refined consciousness under the rubric of soul and divinity. That's too Cartesian for me and adds nothing to what metaphysics can and could be, i.e., it's true power, not inflected or inhibited by some artificial separation of mind & body. Is it because you aspire to that through the ambiance of metaphysics that it must, in your view, presuppose those conditions before it can be fully practiced as a natural brain function?

For me, metaphysics and the mystery of it occuring as an emergence from the exclusively materialistic is a far greater mystery than any quasi-religious deposition soul and divinity which themselves default to mere metaphysical utterances.

Metaphysics is a spectrum of many colors whereas religion only has a few which are mostly fixed. It's one's ability to see into the ultraviolet which creates the Dunamis effect in proclaiming the dormant powers of the physical brain.

[iambiguous]

Just out of curiosity, why do you suppose an existing God [an assumption] sent Hurricane Erin [with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour] on a path that does not threaten either the U.S. or Bermuda? Smack dab between them in the middle.

Imagine if this category 5 hurricane had become another Andrew? Or another Katrina?

Really, what do you suppose prompted Him to spare mere mortals this time?

And what prompted this post was a news segment I was told about in which a woman prayed to God, imploring Him to shift Erin's path away from the U.S. coastline. I really doubt that is actually true but why are some "acts of God" considerably less deadly than others? Talk about mysterious ways.

Then back to this part: https://youtu.be/WxEAb3BNo2Y?si=K1IuT9TTJuI_o9Fq

A black hole 5 billion light years from Earth, with a mass of 36.3 billion suns.

Connect the dots between that and a God, the God.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Yes! Cut it from your psyche as Alexander did the Gordian Knot; strike until the deed is done until all of metaphysics becomes an empire of the mind, a multitudinous, psychic melodrama of infinite vistas where nothing further can be added or any decrement ever able to compromise its holistic completeness. Such is the nature of infinity along with its side-kick, eternity. By doing what god disallows you will have moved beyond his petty strictures to encompass what he never wanted you to see; Adam & Eve are proof of his inferiority! Such is the nature of an active, striving metanoia having partitioned into a wisdom beyond which there is no greater and all the love memes of the bygone becomes a superfluous long lost melody rarely sung.

Sorry! I had an urge to get on to the bullshit bandwagon!

When did you last get off?

Well, you know the old saying..."If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"! So I requisitioned some bullshit to do just that!

My apologies. Seriously. You satirized AJ et al (including myself I'm sure) so well I replied as if you were he. Don't get old, Dubious.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Just out of curiosity, why do you suppose an existing God [an assumption] sent Hurricane Erin [with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour] on a path that does not threaten either the U.S. or Bermuda? Smack dab between them in the middle.

Imagine if this category 5 hurricane had become another Andrew? Or another Katrina?

Really, what do you suppose prompted Him to spare mere mortals this time?

And what prompted this post was a news segment I was told about in which a woman prayed to God, imploring Him to shift Erin's path away from the U.S. coastline. I really doubt that is actually true but why are some "acts of God" considerably less deadly than others? Talk about mysterious ways.

Then back to this part: https://youtu.be/WxEAb3BNo2Y?si=K1IuT9TTJuI_o9Fq

A black hole 5 billion light years from Earth, with a mass of 36.3 billion suns.

Connect the dots between that and a God, the God.

How to square the circle, of His absent presence,

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill;
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

William Cowper (pronounced 'Cooper'), 1773

The same year, "After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt about his salvation and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation." wiki

Been there.

[Dubious]

Just out of curiosity, why do you suppose an existing God [an assumption] sent Hurricane Erin [with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour] on a path that does not threaten either the U.S. or Bermuda? Smack dab between them in the middle.

Imagine if this category 5 hurricane had become another Andrew? Or another Katrina?

Really, what do you suppose prompted Him to spare mere mortals this time?

And what prompted this post was a news segment I was told about in which a woman prayed to God, imploring Him to shift Erin's path away from the U.S. coastline. I really doubt that is actually true but why are some "acts of God" considerably less deadly than others? Talk about mysterious ways.

Then back to this part: https://youtu.be/WxEAb3BNo2Y?si=K1IuT9TTJuI_o9Fq

A black hole 5 billion light years from Earth, with a mass of 36.3 billion suns.

Connect the dots between that and a God, the God.

How to square the circle, of His absent presence,

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill;
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

William Cowper (pronounced 'Cooper'), 1773

The same year, "After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt about his salvation and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation." wiki

Been there.

With a poem like that, one I most admired since early days, if god is just that would be his passport into heaven. What he expresses was never better expressed by any poet before or after. I prefer it even to Alexander Pope's Universal Prayer which is also great but a trifle too moralistic.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Just out of curiosity, why do you suppose an existing God [an assumption] sent Hurricane Erin [with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour] on a path that does not threaten either the U.S. or Bermuda? Smack dab between them in the middle.

Imagine if this category 5 hurricane had become another Andrew? Or another Katrina?

Really, what do you suppose prompted Him to spare mere mortals this time?

And what prompted this post was a news segment I was told about in which a woman prayed to God, imploring Him to shift Erin's path away from the U.S. coastline. I really doubt that is actually true but why are some "acts of God" considerably less deadly than others? Talk about mysterious ways.

Then back to this part: https://youtu.be/WxEAb3BNo2Y?si=K1IuT9TTJuI_o9Fq

A black hole 5 billion light years from Earth, with a mass of 36.3 billion suns.

Connect the dots between that and a God, the God.

How to square the circle, of His absent presence,

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill;
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

William Cowper (pronounced 'Cooper'), 1773

The same year, "After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt about his salvation and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation." wiki

Been there.

With a poem like that, one I most admired since early days, if god is just that would be his passport into heaven. What he expresses was never better expressed by any poet before or after. I prefer it even to Alexander Pope's Universal Prayer which is also great but a trifle too moralistic.

I can't find Alexander Pope's version, only Pope Clement XI's 1721 one.

My paraphrase of Means' 1899 Antigonish,

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a God who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd come and stay.

AH!

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/ ... sal-prayer

The Universal Prayer

By Alexander Pope, 1738

Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood:
Who all my sense confined
To know but this—that thou art good,
And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And binding Nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.

What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than Hell to shun,
That, more than Heaven pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives,
To enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth’s contracted span,
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round:

Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find a better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so
Since quickened by thy breath;
Oh lead me wheresoe’er I go,
Through this day’s life or death.

This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun,
Thou know’st if best bestowed or not,
And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all being raise!
All Nature’s incense rise!

And its flaw, that the likes of WLC perpetuate yet.

[Belinda]

I don't negate those feelings. Yes by the way. You are plainly emotionally attached to what you say. I can't anyway. I just state the brute facts. The world is riven with unspeakable acts caused by hurt feelings. That's one.

God is not necessarily good like you and I feel about good. God aka Existence Itself includes not only the harmless gazelle but also the flesh eating wasp.

Morality is a late biological development. Language about fellow -feeling and sympathy is the language of morality. Two heroic/tribal narratives:-

From The Battle of Maldon (lines 312–321, modern English translation):

“Will shall be sterner, heart the stronger, courage the greater, as our strength lessens.
Here lies our lord all hewn down, the good man in the dust.
Whoever thinks now to turn from this battle will forever lament it.
I am old in years—but I will not turn away;
I intend to lie beside my lord, by the man so dearly loved.”

Old Testament (2 Samuel 10:12) — Joab rallying the troops before battle:

“Be strong, and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God.
The Lord will do what seems good to Him.”

I would now compare the tribal/heroic narratives with post-Axial Age narratives about human sympathy and fellow feeling.

You keep redefining words. God is not Existence. Sure, you can make it so metaphorically, poetically. I'm not talking about your God, akin to Einstein's, I'm talking about the Christian metaphor God = love, compared with a theoretical God who actually was.

Morality was a biological development from the Cambrian at the latest, despite there being no rabbits. You will, of course, have seen Frans de Waal's peerless 12 year old demonstration of morality in capuchins. And we've known about rat empathy for 14 years. Is that what you mean by late?

Yes , I mean animals with central nervous systems. Unwitting cooperation is present in all life forms including vegetation. Viruses are neither animate or inanimate. Rats and so forth feel and act from instinct . As far as in known Sapiens is the only extant animal that has language to mediate moral codes. human moral codes are founded upon reciprocity as an existential necessity.

If you care to look again at my last post, you see that I have given examples of heroic/ tribal reciprocity one example from the old heroic story The Battle of Maldon and the other from The Book of Samuel. There are lots of other heroic/tribal myths from all over the world. Zionism is one of the extant tribal myths.


I don't so much "redefine words " as compare ideas of what God's being is, and how various notions of God's being affect how people live their everyday lives.

I choose to be pantheist , which is to say concerning God's existence I trust that God and nature are the same. So the God I trust is wholly and solely immanent.

Immanence and transcendence vary in emphasis between notions of God , Immanence is preferred by mystics and liberals while transcendence is preferred by legalists and authoritarians.

(Immanuel Can is able to hold immanence and transcendence in tension and I don't know how he does it.)

You are quite right Martin, my notion of God is like Einstein's.