Philosophy Now Forum

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm "What is this force which initiates the big bang instantaneously from a body at rest or materiality into movement?"

That's a question scientists can't ax, but one philosophers love to convince you they know the answer to. What I like to do is hit philosophers with the same kind of questions they believe are answered by positing 'god', about the nature of 'god' itself. Things like 'where did 'god' come from', to which they answer 'it always was', and then I hit em with this: 'what is it about 'god' that makes it causeless, that can't also be about the universe, which you claim needs a cause.'

What is a 'philosopher', to you? And,

What is 'god', to you?

If you want to ask questions and/or make claims, then you NEED to be able to define the words you use.

When you learn what the 'God' means or refers to, EXACTLY, then the answer to the above questions are almost instantly KNOWN.

The reason so-called "scientists" can NOT so-called "ax" that question is because the thought that things happened that way is just ILLOGICAL and ABSURD, and way to LUDICROUS to have even occurred, let alone even be explainable.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm What I'm tryna do here is make it difficult to talk about what this 'god' is if it is explained and described to be something separate from the universe.

WHY would you or ANY one else even begin to ASSUME ANY thing could be separate from thee Universe, Itself?

By the way, thee True, Right, AND Correct answers to ALL of the above questions is ALREADY KNOWN.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm For one thing, to do so - speak of this 'god' as a transcendent subject - would be to immerse oneself completely in metaphysical speculation... and in doing this, can cannot know they are going in the right direction (due to the nature of metaphysical speculation itself).

LOL AGAIN, WHY would you even begin to going towards this ASSUMPTION.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm If they can't know the right direction, they can't know the wrong direction, either.

SO, WHY ASSUME ANY thing AT ALL?

WHY NOT just LOOK AT and DISCUSS ONLY what ACTUALLY exists INSTEAD?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm But as it stands, the available data collected by cosmologists, in being compared and contrasted to other possible explanations for the same phenomena, suggests the big bang model as the most accurate.

LOL How BLIND you ARE.

If that is the "most accurate" to you, then you are NOT LOOKING AT what IS.

ONCE AGAIN, how about 'you', adult human beings, STOP ASSUMING, GUESSING, and THEORIZING about what COULD BE and just concentrate on what IS, INSTEAD?

If you did, then you will NOT be SO Wrong, SO OFTEN, as you CLEARLY ARE.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm But it's not without problems. It's just with less problems than other competing theories.

WHY produce ANY THEORY to begin with?

Thee ACTUAL Truth of things is, literally, 'STARING YOU IN THE FACE', as some would say.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm Empirical evidence aside, there are glaring, common sense problems, intuited problems, that are philosophical by venue, but without risking metaphysical hypothesis. Obviously, how can something come from nothing? Remember you can't check this question by positing 'god', because the same question can be axed about it, and you've taken two steps back.

AND, you can NOT so-called 'check' this question by positing "big bang". To do so is JUST AS RIDICULOUS.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm Now I'm no physicist, but if you are axing me, I answer thusly: there is always something, nature, and the only 'divine' characteristic of this nature is that it is eternal.

Now, THERE IS a CLAIM, which is IRREFUTABLE.

And, what is JUST AS OBVIOUS is that 'always something' is just what the word 'God' could mean or just have been referring to, EXACTLY.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm Other than this, there is no transcendental purpose to its existence, and it exists as a perfect, causally air-tight machine that works with absolute necessity. No accidents, no chaos, no beginning and no end. These concepts are confused and muddled... forms of what spinoza called inadequate knowledge, but they are necessary nonetheless because of the kinds of creatures we are (emotional and experiential knowledge, while incomplete, is 'built in' our nature). It takes a great degree of a priori reasoning to clear these inadequate ideas of the mind and arrive at a true conception of what nature (god) is and how it works.

Talking about clearly inadequate ideas, WHEN will 'you', human beings, clear your inadequate ideas of what the 'mind' is EXACTLY?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm "Also, If the universe is infinite, what is "now?" Does now "exist"? How do you define "now" in an infinite universe?"

This is a strange question and I'm not sure how to answer it.

To answer that 'normal' question is an EXTREMELY SIMPLE and EASY process.

What is 'now' is whatever 'you' define 'now' as. Which is just the EXACT SAME process for EVERY other word in use.

Now, if you would like to KNOW what the word 'now' means or refers to, in a way that fits in perfectly with EVERY other word and definition, or in other words fits in with an Unified Everything, then we can LOOK AT that also, if you so wish to.

'Now' exists, OBVIOUSLY, in two ways:
1. As a word used to describe some 'thing'.

2. As the 'thing' known as that moment when 'now' is being comprehended.

How 'now' is defined in an infinite Universe is the EXACT SAME way, as there can ONLY ever be just One infinite Universe, of which 'you' are in, NOW.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm I'd therefore like to run what I call the 'wittgensteinean what-would-it-look-like-to-be-wrong' test, to check it out.

Suppose you were watching a movie that began at some point and will end in the future... but you started watching it in the middle, and you don't know when it will end. The movie is finite, meaning it had a beginning and will have an end.

If I were to ax you the same question you axed me, above, how would you answer?

What, EXACTLY, does the word 'ax' mean or refer to, to you?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm That is, if I were to ask you to describe what, and how, your experience of a 'now' would be like, would the fact that the movie was finite, make your answer any different?

Wouldn't you just answer 'this present moment', regardless of at what point you began watching, and whether or not you know when it will end?

'do not look behind the word. Look at the way we use the word in our everyday lives' - fictitious wittgenstein quote from a movie

But it's something he would certainly say.

WHY do 'you', posters, here use "others" to LOOK AT 'the world' and define/describe 'things' for 'you'?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm So I'm thinking that your question is bordering on nonsensical if you are axing it with a philosophical tone.

What do the words 'a philosophical tone' actual mean or refer to, to you?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm 'the present moment' is the answer... but you have to stop your line of questioning there and think only about how we use the word 'now' in everyday speech. Other, more technical uses of the word 'now'... say as to represent a point on a line in mathematical terms, engenders a different kind of use of the word, and the meaning of it here is determined by a different kind of language-game evoking different kinds of possible meaning.

The biggest problem of philosophy is producing a kind of cross-contamination of language games...

What does the word 'philosophy' even mean or refer to, to you?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm forcing words that have family-resemblance into unusual contexts in which our understanding of the word becomes confounded. You can recognize this on a case-by-case basis by axing the right kind of questions about that particular use of language.

Philosophy doesn't solve anything, nor does it produce knowledge.

OF COURSE NOT. ONLY 'you', human beings, (known to 'you', human beings) solve 'things'. And the ONLY 'things' that can be 'solved' are 'problems', and AGAIN 'you', human beings, (known to 'you', human beings) are the ONLY things that create or produce 'problems'.

Also, 'you', human beings, are the ONLY (known to 'you') things that produce 'knowledge'.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm These are for the natural sciences. Rather what it does is seek to clarify concepts and analyze language. Imagine if half the questions axed by the philosophers of old, weren't even real questions.

Always ax: 'what would it look like if I was wrong'....

Which is a question you do NOT appear to ask "yourself" to often here "promenthean57".

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:18 pm and half of your questions would disappear into thin air when you realized you wouldn't notice a difference.

If you would NOT notice a DIFFERENCE, then either you are BLIND, or you KNOW, for sure, what thee True, Right, AND Correct answer is, EXACTLY.

Age if you don't leave me alone I am going to kill myself, and then you will be guilty of conspiracy to commit homicide.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:34 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:43 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:09 pm

The act of creation is a necessity that requires God's will. It makes possible the completion of God as No-Thing into every-thing comprising the different levels of reality. This is why the fulness of creation is considered the "Body of God." God is simultaneously both ONE and THREE.

God is love. Its three elemental forces of creator, maintainer, and destroyer exist unified as ONE beyond the limitations of time and space. The necessity of creation or the great cycle of time, requires the division of the ONE into THREE within the action of creation.

Where creation is God's will, Divine love or the energy of grace is that which consciously maintains levels of reality before it is destroyed and the great cycle begins again. Man has the unique potential to consciously evolve by being attracted to God's love in contrast to God's will natural for animal life. When a person experiences it, they have experienced God's grace and the necessary impetus to consciously evolve. Doing this requires the suspension of imagination which governs our lives. Since imagination is our lives, it doesn't want to die so the natural cycles described in Ecclesiastes 3 continue unchanged. The form changes but the essence remains the same.

Tell Simone; if I suspend my disbelief I find that I can enter into any narrative providing it's not tedious. There is no guarantee that if I suspend my disbelief I will not be assailed by an evil belief.

The society where I was lucky enough to be born and reared taught me to be sceptical. Reason is my only safeguard against evil beliefs.

I can worship an Orthodox icon and a Catholic statue because basic Christian truth whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, is reasonable truth.

Why believe or disbelieve? The only way to verify is trough impartial seeing. All these poor kids indoctrinated into Antifa, BlM, Communist idealism etc are victims of emotional corruption. It cannot be helped. Our choice is whether or not to fall victim to attacks on our ego.

The emotions and intellect should work together. The intellect protects the emotion but it is the emotion which is attracted to value. When they work together, facts and value, a person begins to understand.

There Comes

If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,

there comes
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;

if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.

The whole trick is learning how to "see" with conscious attention free of preconception. This struggle against acquired habits is very difficult.

During waking consciousness there is no such thing as "impartial seeing free of preconception" . In the sort of dreams where the ego is an observer there is impartial seeing. In the other sort of dreams , which more resemble waking consciousness, the ego chooses what the ego will do or react to.

The claim in the poem "There Comes" presumes some better knowledge than reasoning can be accessed by some sort of meditation. Meditation works by releasing us for a brief duration from focused thinking and this is beneficial. Ego is not entirely absent during meditation and we could not live without our egos not can we live in a permanent state of meditation.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 10:59 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:34 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:43 pm

Tell Simone; if I suspend my disbelief I find that I can enter into any narrative providing it's not tedious. There is no guarantee that if I suspend my disbelief I will not be assailed by an evil belief.

The society where I was lucky enough to be born and reared taught me to be sceptical. Reason is my only safeguard against evil beliefs.

I can worship an Orthodox icon and a Catholic statue because basic Christian truth whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, is reasonable truth.

Why believe or disbelieve? The only way to verify is trough impartial seeing. All these poor kids indoctrinated into Antifa, BlM, Communist idealism etc are victims of emotional corruption. It cannot be helped. Our choice is whether or not to fall victim to attacks on our ego.

The emotions and intellect should work together. The intellect protects the emotion but it is the emotion which is attracted to value. When they work together, facts and value, a person begins to understand.

There Comes

If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,

there comes
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;

if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.

The whole trick is learning how to "see" with conscious attention free of preconception. This struggle against acquired habits is very difficult.

During waking consciousness there is no such thing as "impartial seeing free of preconception" . In the sort of dreams where the ego is an observer there is impartial seeing. In the other sort of dreams , which more resemble waking consciousness, the ego chooses what the ego will do or react to.

I may be misunderstanding you in reference to waking consciousness. As I understand it there are four qualities of consciousness. The first is called sleep as if in a bed at night. The second is waking sleep often called consciousness in which a person lives their life through interpretations as if in a dream. The third is with conscious attention as opposed to the interpretations of waking sleep. The fourth is with objective consciousness in which a person sometimes experiences in short flashes. Is this what you meant?

The claim in the poem "There Comes" presumes some better knowledge than reasoning can be accessed by some sort of meditation. Meditation works by releasing us for a brief duration from focused thinking and this is beneficial. Ego is not entirely absent during meditation and we could not live without our egos not can we live in a permanent state of meditation.

Reason is without force. The power for a human being to do something comes from the emotions and the body. Reason is a guide but must convince the emotions and the body to follow its guidance. Christianity and Plato describe how human emotion has become corrupt and now produces negative emotion. We are not born with negative emotions. They are acquired in life normally by copying The whole purpose of Christianity is to make possible freedom from Plato's cave and negative emotions which deny normal human conscious evolution. Humanity needs help. The Christ brought it by means of the Holy Spirit. Simone explains it in her usual laconic fashion which makes the most profound understandable.

"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves."
"In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances... imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified."

When I read this I think of Mary Magdalene. She was rebel and got herself involved with all sorts of expressions of negative reactions. The energy of the Christ temporarily filled the void. It enabled her to "see" herself and what she was doing in relation to the needs of her essence. Is it any wonder that experiencing this shock she followed the Christ?

Lacewing wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:54 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:13 pm I am waiting for both LaceWing and IC to return to this conversation — their contributions are essential at this point.

Apologies and thanks. For now, I am not feeling inspired or compelled to write on this forum. Happy new year!

I admit this seems a bit odd, but I respect your choice and for whatever reason. I was waiting for your response -- you asked me to answer the questions you posed -- in order to begin a closer analysis of what I understand your position to be. As I said, and as I say, this description has far less to do with anything personal and much more to the surrounding ideas that we embody. And when I say *we* I mean myself and all of us. So, though I analyze you, and the origin of the ideas you embody and express, because you embody a vital and powerful mode of thought, I am aware that I am talking, also, and I could even say *predominantly*, about myself, but I think it best to say *ourselves*.

I have some ideas how to proceed.

I have also read with interest what Promethean75 has recently written and, again, I will try to focus on the origin of the ideas he holds which he takes to be true and also *truths* in his (I gather) ethical efforts to combat the false-view of those who hold to the (so-called) god-hypothesis. It is interesting to me that, I think naturally, I understand Nick's counter-proposals, they make sense to me, but is this because I have simply harmonized with language-conventions? (as Promethean believes the case to be). I wouldn't dismiss this assertion out of hand insofar as language is a *system* and has been established for *purposes*.

But the deep intuition of (predominantly the Vedic philosophers) I do not think can be dismissed as mere language-creations. And yet these vast and complex metaphysical descriptions are *imagined* in the sense that I use the word: concocted as Stories to communicate ideas/truths which can only be alluded to. What other choice do we have? And any assertion about *meaning* (that something means something) will involve the same process. *Meaning* is extracted through a unique intellectual-perception process. It is not at all the same as science facts.

So in a sense I must agree with Promethean that it is specific scientific knowledge of specific things and events that is perhaps the only description that we can all agree on -- that we are duty-bound to agree on and which we have no alternative but to agree about. The metaphysical descriptions? They are as varied as poems.

Friedrich Nietzsche — 'How good music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy.'

Alexis

But the deep intuition of (predominantly the Vedic philosophers) I do not think can be dismissed as mere language-creations. And yet these vast and complex metaphysical descriptions are *imagined* in the sense that I use the word: concocted as Stories to communicate ideas/truths which can only be alluded to. What other choice do we have? And any assertion about *meaning* (that something means something) will involve the same process. *Meaning* is extracted through a unique intellectual-perception process. It is not at all the same as science facts.

We can find facts we agree on like water is H20. But what do scientific facts mean? We may know a lot of facts but what do they mean? Education is full of facts which makes a person appear important to others but what do they mean?

The intellect needs facts while the heart needs meaning. A person can learn facts in a text book but how does one learn objective meaning which is apparently hidden from us? Are we really on a ship of fools described as described by Plato caught up in the battle of opposing opinions?

Subjective meaning as in marching against the enemy temporarily solves the problem. But for those concerned with experiencing objective meaning the need is still there. Is there a way to enable a person to put scientific facts into the conscious perspective of objective meaning for those few who have experienced it?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:01 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 10:59 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:34 pm

Why believe or disbelieve? The only way to verify is trough impartial seeing. All these poor kids indoctrinated into Antifa, BlM, Communist idealism etc are victims of emotional corruption. It cannot be helped. Our choice is whether or not to fall victim to attacks on our ego.

The emotions and intellect should work together. The intellect protects the emotion but it is the emotion which is attracted to value. When they work together, facts and value, a person begins to understand.



The whole trick is learning how to "see" with conscious attention free of preconception. This struggle against acquired habits is very difficult.

During waking consciousness there is no such thing as "impartial seeing free of preconception" . In the sort of dreams where the ego is an observer there is impartial seeing. In the other sort of dreams , which more resemble waking consciousness, the ego chooses what the ego will do or react to.

I may be misunderstanding you in reference to waking consciousness. As I understand it there are four qualities of consciousness. The first is called sleep as if in a bed at night. The second is waking sleep often called consciousness in which a person lives their life through interpretations as if in a dream. The third is with conscious attention as opposed to the interpretations of waking sleep. The fourth is with objective consciousness in which a person sometimes experiences in short flashes. Is this what you meant?

The claim in the poem "There Comes" presumes some better knowledge than reasoning can be accessed by some sort of meditation. Meditation works by releasing us for a brief duration from focused thinking and this is beneficial. Ego is not entirely absent during meditation and we could not live without our egos not can we live in a permanent state of meditation.

Reason is without force. The power for a human being to do something comes from the emotions and the body. Reason is a guide but must convince the emotions and the body to follow its guidance. Christianity and Plato describe how human emotion has become corrupt and now produces negative emotion. We are not born with negative emotions. They are acquired in life normally by copying The whole purpose of Christianity is to make possible freedom from Plato's cave and negative emotions which deny normal human conscious evolution. Humanity needs help. The Christ brought it by means of the Holy Spirit. Simone explains it in her usual laconic fashion which makes the most profound understandable.

"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves."
"In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances... imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified."

When I read this I think of Mary Magdalene. She was rebel and got herself involved with all sorts of expressions of negative reactions. The energy of the Christ temporarily filled the void. It enabled her to "see" herself and what she was doing in relation to the needs of her essence. Is it any wonder that experiencing this shock she followed the Christ?

Mary Magdalene was fortunate that she had Jesus as her mentor. Many people are subjected to bad influences. Religious people as we well know are sometimes bad people. It is the duty of educationists to make children strong and self- reliant so the children can recognise the good fruits and the bad fruits.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:13 pm Here, my wife has Christmas vacation and we are trying to take advantage and get outside (the sun is finally shining). I am waiting for both LaceWing and IC to return to this conversation — their contributions are essential at this point.

Poltergeist 2 voice: "I'm baaack."

What can I do for you?

"The metaphysical descriptions? They are as varied as poems."

Exactly!

The next thing you'll hear them say is something like this: well even though all these religions and spiritualisms are different in particular historical detail, storyline, and narrative, there's something universal that they all share, so there has to be something to it all that transcends each particular one'.

But has anyone ever answered this observation with: 'yes, and that thing they all share is a generic lack of critical thinking, an absence which inevitably leads them all to the same general errors.'

So ironically, it's the collective, mass confusion that's so extensive throughout, which leads them to the assumption that this has to be more than just opinion.

Take the example of the battle of the gods. How many gods have there been throughout history. Right. Now despite all these religion's disputes over the true god, each religion recognizes the fact that each religion has its god... so now they're thinking: 'damn there must be something to this if cultures all over the world develop their religions independently of one another. There must be some kind of inherent intuition that there is a god, or else there wouldn't be so many religions.'

But what if the explanation for this was as simple as, say, Freud's theory of that 'cosmic father figure' archetype that we never quite grow out of?

(Also see Feuerbach's 'the essence of Christianity'. It's absolutely delicious.)

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:01 pm

Lacewing wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:54 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:13 pm I am waiting for both LaceWing and IC to return to this conversation — their contributions are essential at this point.

Apologies and thanks. For now, I am not feeling inspired or compelled to write on this forum. Happy new year!

I admit this seems a bit odd, but I respect your choice and for whatever reason. I was waiting for your response -- you asked me to answer the questions...

Those weren't actually the questions I was referring to when I noted what you hadn't answered.

No problem.

For me -- in general, with this forum -- the incessant repetition, stagnancy, and ‘Who’s on First?’ confusion can become tiresome and uninteresting. In which case, it’s a relief to step out of it.

That's all.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:49 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:01 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 10:59 am

During waking consciousness there is no such thing as "impartial seeing free of preconception" . In the sort of dreams where the ego is an observer there is impartial seeing. In the other sort of dreams , which more resemble waking consciousness, the ego chooses what the ego will do or react to.

I may be misunderstanding you in reference to waking consciousness. As I understand it there are four qualities of consciousness. The first is called sleep as if in a bed at night. The second is waking sleep often called consciousness in which a person lives their life through interpretations as if in a dream. The third is with conscious attention as opposed to the interpretations of waking sleep. The fourth is with objective consciousness in which a person sometimes experiences in short flashes. Is this what you meant?

The claim in the poem "There Comes" presumes some better knowledge than reasoning can be accessed by some sort of meditation. Meditation works by releasing us for a brief duration from focused thinking and this is beneficial. Ego is not entirely absent during meditation and we could not live without our egos not can we live in a permanent state of meditation.

Reason is without force. The power for a human being to do something comes from the emotions and the body. Reason is a guide but must convince the emotions and the body to follow its guidance. Christianity and Plato describe how human emotion has become corrupt and now produces negative emotion. We are not born with negative emotions. They are acquired in life normally by copying The whole purpose of Christianity is to make possible freedom from Plato's cave and negative emotions which deny normal human conscious evolution. Humanity needs help. The Christ brought it by means of the Holy Spirit. Simone explains it in her usual laconic fashion which makes the most profound understandable.

"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves."
"In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances... imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified."

When I read this I think of Mary Magdalene. She was rebel and got herself involved with all sorts of expressions of negative reactions. The energy of the Christ temporarily filled the void. It enabled her to "see" herself and what she was doing in relation to the needs of her essence. Is it any wonder that experiencing this shock she followed the Christ?

Mary Magdalene was fortunate that she had Jesus as her mentor. Many people are subjected to bad influences. Religious people as we well know are sometimes bad people. It is the duty of educationists to make children strong and self- reliant so the children can recognise the good fruits and the bad fruits.

The education you refer to is normal progressive education which strives to teach the outer man or the personality intoits desired norms.

Christianity (not man made Christendom) seeks to awaken the inner man or essence to its conscious potential. Mary Magdalene was awakened in her essence.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:47 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:49 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:01 pm

Reason is without force. The power for a human being to do something comes from the emotions and the body. Reason is a guide but must convince the emotions and the body to follow its guidance. Christianity and Plato describe how human emotion has become corrupt and now produces negative emotion. We are not born with negative emotions. They are acquired in life normally by copying The whole purpose of Christianity is to make possible freedom from Plato's cave and negative emotions which deny normal human conscious evolution. Humanity needs help. The Christ brought it by means of the Holy Spirit. Simone explains it in her usual laconic fashion which makes the most profound understandable.

"Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves."
"In no matter what circumstances, if the imagination is stopped from pouring itself out, we have a void (the poor in spirit). In no matter what circumstances... imagination can fill the void. This is why the average human beings can become prisoners, slaves, prostitutes, and pass thru no matter what suffering without being purified."

When I read this I think of Mary Magdalene. She was rebel and got herself involved with all sorts of expressions of negative reactions. The energy of the Christ temporarily filled the void. It enabled her to "see" herself and what she was doing in relation to the needs of her essence. Is it any wonder that experiencing this shock she followed the Christ?

Mary Magdalene was fortunate that she had Jesus as her mentor. Many people are subjected to bad influences. Religious people as we well know are sometimes bad people. It is the duty of educationists to make children strong and self- reliant so the children can recognise the good fruits and the bad fruits.

The education you refer to is normal progressive education which strives to teach the outer man or the personality intoits desired norms.

Christianity (not man made Christendom) seeks to awaken the inner man or essence to its conscious potential. Mary Magdalene was awakened in her essence.

There are good schools and bad schools. Good schools and good teachers aim to help students awake to their inner essences.

How else would you go about awaking people to their inner essences other than by teaching them?

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:51 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:47 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:49 pm

Mary Magdalene was fortunate that she had Jesus as her mentor. Many people are subjected to bad influences. Religious people as we well know are sometimes bad people. It is the duty of educationists to make children strong and self- reliant so the children can recognise the good fruits and the bad fruits.

The education you refer to is normal progressive education which strives to teach the outer man or the personality intoits desired norms.

Christianity (not man made Christendom) seeks to awaken the inner man or essence to its conscious potential. Mary Magdalene was awakened in her essence.

There are good schools and bad schools. Good schools and good teachers aim to help students awake to their inner essences.

How else would you go about awaking people to their inner essences other than by teaching them?

Just for information, the word 'education' once meant; to draw out, so good 'educators' would be finding, and drawing out, the potential within. Instead of 'trying to' fill them with 'things', knowledge or information, that is really going to be of NO use at all to them.

"The metaphysical descriptions? They are as varied as poems."

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:49 pm The next thing you'll hear them say is something like this: well even though all these religions and spiritualisms are different in particular historical detail, storyline, and narrative, there's something universal that they all share, so there has to be something to it all that transcends each particular one'.

So, to get moving in the way I think can be productive for all of us is, as is often the case, to step back from the specificities of what is said and to examine the larger context in which things are said -- declared in my lexicon, stated as Truth. What I want to point out is, in quite different ways (perhaps different styles?) you and Lacewing seem to me to be in a similar camp. Nick, IC, Quirk and myself are in a quite different camp and though we four have very different ways of explaining our orientations we are in general trying to *hold to* or *preserve* what I describe as a metaphysical orientation. (I am uncertain where to place Belinda).

What 'note', as it were, that comes through your expressions is irony -- play, a devilish lightness -- and for this reason (one superficial reason) I think it fair to identify you with the classic description of Postmodernism. But it is I think a good idea to establish that to say Postmodern in a convenience of speech. In fact what is being referred to is more like expressions of the 'worst features of modernity'. Bear with me because I do not mean to be insulting nor to provoke ire. I simply want to be allowed (to allow myself) to describe things as I see them.

As you know postmodernity results in perspectives (rather vague semi-intellectual stances) involving eclecticism and bricolage. My assertion would be that we need to understand how modernism, in a cultural and semi-intellectual sense, has infected us all and leads to extremely superficial analyses of these larger questions. So, we tend to look at the Stories and to note that they are all rather ridiculous if they are seen superficially. Yet we have not really *seen* them nor understood their real content because we are seeing superficially. So modernism, in this negative sense, produces vast hordes who see superficially. These are the *college educated* of course who imagine themselves educated but in truth (and I could pull up some poignant quotes of Aldous Huxley on the topic of mass-education) have really only been trained to see superficially while very little is actually understood.

Again, I know that what I say here will be taken as insulting but I genuinely do not mean it as such. And I only want to be able to state things are I see them but also as I think they really are. Thus your irony and you flippancy and your cocky self-assurance that you have figured something out, that you recognize an important truth, and indeed that you can make the assertion that with the New Knowledge that you have come into and possess that you represent some sort of advance in Human Progress is, from where I sit, a false claim. It is hubristic. Yet it is very very common. You are repeating a very common depthless trope. For this reason -- but really a larger group of reasons -- I take issue not with you but with the assertion you carry.

Irony, detachment and the playfulness I identify are symptoms of superficiality and I would also regard them as *seductions*. And I think you can easily capture that I think these are the result of intellectual failures not intellectual successes. It is far too easy to be seduced by these attitudes, which are adolescent really and as I say flippant, than to do what I believe is the harder work of gaining better understanding of the inner dimension alluded to. And I would go on to say that the depth-perspective I refer to involves the full man (excuse the gender designation ladies!) and by that I mean the intelligence, the intuition, and what I might refer to as *spiritual seriousness*. So it seems to me that those who are awake in this sense, and by that I do mean the educated (as I would define them) are never ironical and flippant, nor superficial, nor 'detached', but are very very serious and take things very very seriously. (I realize I would have to support these statements with references and quotes).

So what I say is that we have to stop and examine these common attitudes of irony, detachment and the playfulness, and before we could proceed try to get clear about why they exist, what ideological purpose they serve. And I assert that though it does not appear so they very much have ideological purpose! And I describe that by referring to *processes of acidity*. Postmodernity (I apologize for using the word and it is a convenience) operates like an *acid*. It is corrosive. Its function is to further corroding processes. Some part of this is related to multi-culturalism which we have all been exposed to. Too many *Stories* (too many poems) results in seeing them as ridiculously empty, as non-meaningful. So, we have to examine multiculturalism's opposite in order to get insight into a destructive product of multiculturalism. What is that? Cultural integrity and exclusivity. Opposing of irony with earnestness and seriousness. Opposing detachment with identification.

So -- and here I bring our view back to ourselves, the real participants here -- I suggest an examination of our relationships to integrity, exclusiveness, seriousness and identification. For this reason, as I have said in many other places, we notice around us currents and movements that seek to rediscover and reanimate *proper identity*; that seek to define and rediscover cultural affiliation; that attempt to propose alternatives to the non-seriousness and the intellectual non-groundedness that defines our present substantially. I would suggest that non-groundedness and non-seriousness and *detachment* are diseases, not symptoms of health and well-being. They beg for a cure. But let's admit it: to find that cure, to reground oneself in all the important senses (and metaphysically) is like swimming against a strong and over-powering current. How we define what that *current* is, is somewhat complex, but it must be done. That's taking things seriously.

"The core of a genuine culture is a worldview, an interpretation of existence and our place in it, as well as of our nature and the best form of life for us."

So if by making the above-statement I have said something *true* then I think it behooves us to challenge our own tendencies to not take things seriously. And I would go further and say that if and when we do that we will find ourselves, once again, very much in the midst of the vital questions. And then when we turn our eyes in seriousness to the cores and essences of our own traditions, we will see that they very very much are involved, and extremely seriously, with the most important questions that can be asked. But we will have to brush off, to shake off, non-seriousness and non-earnestness. We will have to become very serious people.

Here I have offered another *preamble*. Just a rather quick allusion to what we are dealing with. It is preamble because it is simply establishing a platform before any genuine conversation takes place.

Lacewing just referred to "the incessant repetition, stagnancy, and ‘Who’s on First?’ confusion can become tiresome and uninteresting. In which case, it’s a relief to step out of it" except that I could suggest that what she wrote nails, rather cruelly and precisely, what her basic orientation seems to be! That is: going round and round and round in postmodernist circles. (Again please excuse me for being so direct. I do not mean to personally offend and I do mean to impersonally describe and fairly designate).

There is really more to say. It must be said.

In respect to what I quoted at the beginning of this post I would have to mention René Guénon, who is influential in 'traditionalist' circles. His book Crisis of the Modern World had some effect on me and influences my 'metaphysical' perspectives.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:25 am Whatever someone is presenting as 'all that there is', is NOT. So, from that false position, there is distortion, deception, manipulation, blindness... etc. Why wouldn't we question that? It's such an obvious false position, and yet it is carried on and on as if it makes any sense and as if it's true. It's nonsense and it's destructive.

Who's on first?
Who.
Yes, that is what I asked! Who's on first?
WHO!
For the love of God, WHO IS ON FIRST!

So in thinking this over -- what I call your presentation, your group of assertions (as indeed they are) -- my assessment is that you are captured within an eddy

1. A current, as of water or air, moving contrary to the direction of the main current, especially in a circular motion. 2. A drift or tendency that is counter to or separate from a main current, as of opinion, tradition, or history.

that goes round and round and round in circles. Until, of course, something acts on it.

What I would say is that what you are asserting in those paragraphs certain seems true and seems like sound advice, but I think I could successfully argue that in fact it is not good advice. It is really no advice at all. It is simply evidence of being *trapped* in self-assertions that mimic *truth*, that must seem and feel true, but are really false. It is more likely that these self-deceptions will result in distortion, deception, manipulation, blindness (if also perhaps immobility) than in whatever is proposed to be their necessary opposite, which in the case of your ideological assertions is never defined.

So, instead of agreeing with you (in the way you seem to want) I would say that we need to examine your position; what it is, how you got there, what you are doing there, and why you seem to be *stuck* in it.

It would be quite a different thing to focus on all of the good Christian insights and inspiration that could appeal to and apply to anyone. Values that do not require or depend upon theism -- that's the truth. But the Christian story/agenda that claims to know and be aligned with one true divine god/reality that rejects all others -- is a lie.

What I would focus on here is, as per usual, in its ideological assertiveness but which is (according to my understanding) empty assertion without much base. Pretty standard material really.

If there are *Christian insights* they came from Christianity, that is from a source. So does Christianity have a source? And what is that source? How shall that be thought about and examined?

The actual function, as it seems to me, of what you are asserting, ideologically, removes one from that source as a real thing. You seem to propose culling out some *inspiration* while you repress or eliminate that which has inspired. You want to undermine theism but that of course undermines Christianity! It is a strange circular problem you are involved in and for this reason I used the metaphor of an 'eddy'.

But the Christian story/agenda that claims to know and be aligned with one true divine god/reality that rejects all others -- is a lie.

But this implies that the statement you have just made is true.

I think greater insight is needed -- more seriousness -- into why it is that Christianity often defines some of its core truths as more true than others; as necessarily true. But this involves theological discourse.