Philosophy Now Forum

Gustav,

You mount a wordy defence of your decision not to elaborate on the values you advocate and why you hold them dear, all of which amounts to: you are [Harry Baird is] too lazy to research them yourself, and they can't be "absorbed" in summary anyway - and all of which is/was potentially longer than the elaboration on your values would have been in the first place! All I can do in response, really, is to shrug and say "Whatever". Hey, it's your thread, and your thesis: if you are unwilling or unable to actually defend that thesis, whilst at the same time spending countless words explaining why not, then that's (literally) your problem, not mine. You say in response to uwot that you could do it, so, really, just go ahead and do it, man! I don't see the point in wasting words over this, so I won't (is an apology warranted yet?).

Skip,

Skip wrote:But I cannot conduct this life - the only life I know about and have any control over - on the basis of the possibility of an unremembered past which may have rules of which I am uninformed.

Oh, but Skip, I'm not suggesting that you do: merely that you refrain from making assertions ("I did not choose to be born") that you cannot be sure are true.

Skip wrote:In books, I have encountered seven-headed dragons, too

Yes, yes, compelling rhetoric, but you know (and if you don't, then let me inform you) that what I meant was that the book was non-fiction, and included eyewitness accounts of experiences that went to proving the case in point.

Harry: You don't believe in quantum physics? Perhaps you could explain why.

Skip: Because 'believe in' is a statement of faith. I have heard of quantum physics and it's discussed with great seriousness by learned men who appear quite sane in other respects (except for that unfortunate mushroom-cloud incident). I don't understand what they're talking about, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief until something happens to change that balance.

So, do you think that quantum physics should be taught in schools? If so, should it (in your opinion) be taught merely on the basis of your "suspension of disbelief"?

Harry: Aren't you, as a rational human being, obliged to examine the evidence before forming a conclusion?

Skip: Unless they're on trial and I'm on the jury, no. If I thought I owed every theory, every assertion, every legend, every creed, every fad the benefit of thorough examination, I would have to spend my life doing nothing else, and still never get through the A's.

I'm not expecting you to examine *every* theory, assertion, etc, but don't you think you owe it to yourself (and those to whom you write on forums) to come to a judgement at the highest level - that of materialism versus "the other"? Don't you think you owe it to yourself and your audience to assess, as objectively as you can, whether or not there is more to this life than merely "the mechanistic"?

Skip wrote:I never claimed to have an objective opinion. Beware of anyone who does.

But you seem to be claiming things that *require* objectivity, such as that evolution rather than creationism should be taught in schools. On what, if not objectivity, is that claim based?

Skip wrote:At last - common ground!

But Skip, I've been doing my utmost in this thread to explain that there is much common ground between us! Just as there is much common ground between myself and Gustav.

Skip wrote:You still have the numbers - you don't need me.

It's not solely a matter of "need", mate, it's a matter of "want"! Wanting you to be on the side of the evidence!

Felasco: Boiled down to it's essence, atheism is...There is no God, therefore there is no God.

Skip: That may be one interpretation; hardly the essence.

Oh, but I think Felasco is (aside from the circular reasoning, which I don't think it's fair to attribute to atheists) correct. That, really, is the essence of atheism, and it's pretty much central to its definition: the rejection/denial of God.

Don't you think you owe it to yourself and your audience to assess, as objectively as you can, whether or not there is more to this life than merely "the mechanistic"?

The question appears to be, is there something in the real world (not just in our imaginations) that is outside and above the mechanical apparatus of reality which science is so good at exploring?

As a start, it's perhaps helpful to first be very clear about our question. We are asking, does something exist in the real world?

As a next step, we might stand back a bit and question, are we actually looking at the real world? It's assumed that we are, but is this really true?

Or are we doing what Harry suggests to Skip, and instead looking inside of our minds? Are we really looking at the real world, or are we instead looking at our thoughts about the real world?

Let's say we have a big photo album of our family and friends. This photo album can be compared to the symbolic world inside our mind, our mental images of the real world.

In any given moment, where is our attention and focus directed?

1) At our family and friends as they stand before us? At the real world?

2) Or at their picture in the photo album? At the symbolic world?

The question is, does something beyond the mechanistic exist in the real world. It's a great question, but....

If we look carefully, we will see our attention and focus is rarely on the real world, this place we claim to be investigating.

Instead, most often, almost all the time, almost every minute of every day, our focus and attention is aimed at the symbolic world inside our minds.

If Skip is serious about his investigation, should he "assess, as objectively as he can, whether or not there is more to this life than merely the mechanistic" as Harry suggests? Should Skip work on the elaborate pile of symbols he's managing inside his mind?

Or should he instead direct his attention, focus and energy at the real world, the arena under investigation?

Oh, but I think Felasco is (aside from the circular reasoning, which I don't think it's fair to attribute to atheists) correct.

It's not polite perhaps, but imho, it's fair.

The atheist first has to get rid of God (something unbound by the laws of nature, reason, logic etc.) before he can declare reason qualified to analyze whether a God exists.

Reason is only qualified to make such a huge determination if all of reality is bound by a rule system which can be comprehended by reason.

If one first declares this to be so, which can only be done as a matter of faith, then one is free to run the analysis which calculates whether a god being described would be possible within the rule system, the laws of nature and logic etc.

If there is no rule system which is binding on all of reality including proposed gods, then all the clever logic calculations of atheism collapse in to a big pile of noisy irrelevance.

That's just exactly what most of us are not doing. Not speculating anything, not positing anything, not assuming anything - simply rejecting a claim made by someone who has no authority over us.

You are rejecting a claim (which is fine with me) based on a counter claim that human reason is qualified to analyze this particular very HUGE question, and come to a meaningful answer.

In order for human reason to be so qualified, there has to be a reliable rule system which applies to all of reality, and reason has to be able to comprehend those rules.

But, uh oh, wait. Human reason can not even give us the physical dimensions of reality, the arena we are making claims about.

Thus, atheism is making huge claims about an arena it can't define in the most basic manner, and calling that reason.

It's hard to live in the world without using reason to generate meaningful conclusions about claims made by people who want me to obey them.

If someone doesn't believe, they shouldn't pretend they do. If they don't want to obey, ok, they shouldn't obey.

But the solution here is not to replace one form of fantasy knowing with another.

No to both Harry Baird and Felasco. The debate is presented incorrectly.

You seem to think it's two equal and opposite unsubstantiated claims:

There is a god/spirit world. vs There is no god/spirit world.

How it actually happens in the world is:

"LO! I HAVE BEEN UPON THE MOUNTAIN MURDERING A SHEEP AND THE SKY GUY WITH A PENIS THIIIIS BIG TOLD ME TO MAKE YOUS ALL REPENT OR SUFFER ALL KINDS OF TORMENT, SO THERE!"

vs

Giddoudaheah!

And that's my conviction.

You seem to think it's two equal and opposite unsubstantiated claims:

Yes, that's correct.

Atheists (particularly the adamant ones) are making a HUGE claim about an arena that they can't define in even the most basic way. This is fundamentally no different than theism.

1.

An eye. Very clearly an eye. Pristine, extremely clear. Delineated cornea, wet and sparkling like all living eyes. Not human. You know it is an animal. Brown iris, or rather tannish with softer and some darker inclusions. Panning back, you see the fur around the eye, and then the snout and the jowls and the tongue, then you recognize a stunning adult coyote. You see him vignette-like, as if a still image, but clear, and he is looking off in the distance toward something you can't see. Then without moving he looks right at you. Coyote.

2.

You move through the night. It is warm night. There is a breeze that darts deliciously around. It caresses your face and probes the world. Inquisitive breath of night. Stars of icy purity in a warm blue-black sky. You catch a whiff of something. Sweet but with an undertone of pungency. 'Like datura on the winds of summer'. Ah yes. THAT smell. The quintessence of female. Devi. Night-goddess. The scent flows in through the nostrils and fills the living frame, pulses into the blood.

Heartbeat drumming and sound of drumming some distance off. There must be a bonfire, you think. You move toward it with inevitable motion. The throb of drums that are heartbeats. Adventure of the night. Then it is as if you stand before a door and inside there is a whole world of flaming life, but wonderfully feminine life. The body of woman. Naked dancing women and girls. You stand before the 'gate' of vaginal reality: Devi-Loka. Nothing else to do but enter and participate just like entering the vaginal space, Vagina-Loka. A reality, a world, a sphere where female sex rules, determines, controls. It's Earth but seen as if from one color-octave lower. You feel yourself and now you have a splendid member fit for a Senegalese prince! but like you, your flesh and your color. Erect and proud you enter the flesh-world of women like a strutting Brahmin, this world all brownish and tan in amber light, warm amber light like the last rays of the sun, but in the shadows of this bonfire girl-world the soft, pulsing light is richly magenta.

Conscious awareness is directed now lower, to the primal center. Spirit moves not soaringly above and abstractly over, but lowerly and down into. You enter the throng of dancing women and girls. You are yang to the ocean of delirious yin. Entering Yoni-Land it is as if you enter with the entire body of yourself, your member pushing irreverently into the soft resistance of femininity. You feel glory in your whole being. Satisfaction, union. You plunge in. The world envelopes you in a warm, tingling blanket of feminine warmth. You are the Raj in this play. King of Kings in a pure, female world.

3.

But the party begins to end. From out of the sides of the visualized image pulses in a whitish-grey light with a slight tawny tinge. It seeps out and 'pollutes' the gorgeous amber-colored light with its reddish undertones. It 'defeats' the pulsing magenta. A grey, cold light like overcast Winter. Flat, characterless. All on the sudden the beautiful body loses its supporting color, that 'prop' of color which made it appear so attractive. But worse than that, this grayish-yellowing light, like advancing fog, ages the splendor of young female bodies. Now, the imperfections in the flesh are seen. The fresh yonis of healthy girls look pasty, clammy, and no longer young but old. It happened far too quickly, sadly, and the vibrant Devi-Loka with its hot breath and inviting glances shifts from Devi-Loka to Yama-Loka, a decay-zone in a world of encroaching death. And all the bodies become old bodies, and all the fresh, flowered yonis rotten, collapsed and even hideous vaginas whose smell, as of rotting meat, overwhelms you. But more than 'rotten meat' it is the smell of old sex, and here all kama and kama's possibilities melds with antithesis. You are now in a death-realm peopled with dying hags. Your own sex and flesh is now pathetically irrelevant. You would run from the very idea of 'sex' now. It has become non-eroticism incarnate. You are old now too and the light of this world is dimming.

4.

Hospital. Shadow-realm. Ending. Prostrate, you now appear on the stage of death-theatre. Not the 'star' but one of hundreds in a weird factory of pain and destruction. You hear inarticulate phrases from dying lips rehearsing shadowed memories from lives lived and now extinguishing. So strange it is unbearable. This is the point in the drama where everything catches up, where there is no next turning in the road and no next horizon. No more resurrected or reconstructed 'hope', no further possibility. It's the final end and, unlike before, there is no way to turn away from it. The eye must face it as the eye becomes it. Death will be lived. You are blanketed in it but it's blankets of lead, finality, fate. The 'logical end of every motion that proceeded it'. Groans among frail memory and gibberish wails, sobs, whining, negotiations with invisible time-signatures and among death-rattles. Darkly lit, the grey shadows encroach. The tones darken toward black, like dark water. Prostrate, needles penetrate flesh but flesh too weakened even to bleed. What comes out is yellow liquid and it moves through clear tubes to plastic sacks. The attendants are like robots: they sidle up, perform their mechanical rituals on your grey flesh, and then move on down the line.

As if kept going by the habit of hope, you resolve, again, in this darkening dusk to stay a little longer, to hold on. But all of a sudden it just becomes impossible. There is a clanging sound. A flock of dark birds flies up from a twisted skeleton tree. You dissolve in death.

5.

You wake. Your nose in the green. You are breathing. Scent of grass, herbs, dark damp earth. Fresh after-rain smell. Morning. Soft, clear light of morning. Dawn. 'Usha'. She is said to be a girl too. Water trickling. A brook. The singing of flowing water. A gurgle like laughter, soft laughter, child's laughter. It is Dawn herself. A frolicking child. But no, no girl is really seen. These are imagined images. Just sensations made symbols. No laughter, no dawn, no green, no awakening light, no grass, no herbs, no laughing water, nor even, really, you. And yet you are there, witness, participant. New feelings altogether. 'When breathing felt like something new'. There are no words though because this is wordless realm. Here, things are known, not articulated. Words are the past, now is being.

Direct sense, awakening, dawn, beauty supernal, the promised sense of life, the cup overfilled, the golden glow inside not outside. Laughter innocent. Irresistible. Laughter is the song that pulls your heart and you laugh, you sing, you are rejoicing. Never before fully felt but yes intuited. Longed for. The receding yellow brightness behind every desire, now awakened awareness of home at last. An imagined world takes form. Every imagining is a vessel holding incomprehensible content yet formless ultimately. Here, in ultimate, but ultimately imagined, the eye conceives worlds of beauty. It is 'as if'. As if green, watery, fresh, opening, jewel-like, radiant, wonderful, illumined.

Laughter again. It's tickling in the heart. Nothing and no one to fear anymore. Irresistible. You laugh along. Then, it's as if you are sitting in a field (your preferred place of beauty) and you are not alone. Yet you never were, either. Someone is there, someone you know. Someone with whom you are profoundly related. A part of. A personality indeed. Female, it would seem. Every soul blown like a bee through frozen Winter has a source to which it is related infinitely.

• 'Where have you been, traveller? I left you just for a second and you ran off!'

It is weirdly cliche, even ridiculous. You try to understand and answer with your mind but cannot as mind cannot calculate the sense of it.

• 'You dreamed a long dream. You were home in forever, outside time, in liquid-aware reality self-glowing. You fell asleep and dreamed. Like a moth to the red flickering flame. To the pulsing heart, two hearts pulsing. The drumming of impassioned hearts, but beating flesh hearts. Impostor parents! Masquerading as your spirit-parents. Incestuous portal, curious desire. Interpenetrated flesh. Sticky flesh reality into which you biologically dreamed yourself. The Portal, yoni-land and lingam-land, inviting but strange flesh. Daddy, mommy, daddy, mommy sexy adventure-dream and then: the Portal opens in birth and you cryingly live, born between piss and shit and mommy love. A flesh-bubble in an imagined world.
  
  "Where have you been, traveller? What did you do? Who did you see? Just how was it for you? You followed the beating heart and again you lived in flesh. Now, you are home again with those who love inconceivably you".

So, Skip, basically, you're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

But I sense that you're unappreciative of my attempts to challenge you, so, if you'd prefer, we can end this exchange.

Skip wrote:What I reject is the notion that souls need saving. I don't think they're in peril, just from being in the world. What I reject is original sin: that we are born bad.

It may be possible to reinterpret fundamental parts of the Christian message in to a form you'll find less offensive.

If you wish, we can toss out the label "Christian" at the same time, as it's likely anything with that label will be unwelcome. Imho, it's not important what we call it.

Let's start with the story of Adam and Eve. A key clue of a deeper meaning of this story may be the central role of the apple of knowledge. Isn't it interesting that this ancient fable which begins the story of western civilization focuses on knowledge, something that was hardly in abundance thousands of years ago?

What is knowledge? It's symbolic representations of the real world residing in the minds of human beings. That is, knowledge is thought.

We are thought. Our entire physical body could be replaced by the medical experts, but if our data was preserved, what we experience as "me" would be sustained. We are the data, we are thought.

If we reinterpret the Christian message as being a story about what we actually are, a story about thought, it becomes much more interesting (imho) and much less offensive to modern audiences.

We might recall that the Abrahamic religions were cooked up thousands of years ago, long before science based modern culture. So what we're doing here is translating ancient understandings out of the cultural language of the original founders, in to the cultural language of today.

The Adam and Eve story attempts to tell the tale of human beings emerging out of the animal kingdom, where experience of reality is direct, in to the realm of thought (apple of knowledge), where experience of reality is increasingly symbolic.

If you observe very carefully, you'll see that most of the time you aren't really engaging reality directly, but rather engaging your thoughts about reality. I walk in to your office, and what you really see is not me as I am in this very moment, but what you see instead the Felasco database you have in your mind, containing history of Felasco, your opinions and impressions, etc. You see the past and future, both of which are thought, and not so much what is happening in reality right now, the only thing which is not thought.

This insight is crucially important because it reveals the central issue of all religion, our relationship with reality. As human beings became thought, this relationship became ever more second hand, and thus arose the desire to "get back to God", that is, recover the psychic unity we once had with reality.

Seen this way, original sin is a term the ancients coined in an attempt to describe a fundamental fact of the human condition, we are all born in to thought, in to this second hand diluted relationship with reality.

In order to understand Jesus, we have to first understand something about the nature of what we are, thought. Thought in inherently divisive. As example, consider the noun, whose function is to conceptually divide reality.

Because we are made of something that is inherently divisive we experience reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else". This fundamental illusion is the source of most of our personal and social problems.

Jesus is attempting to relieve the pain of the "original sin", our journey in to the second hand divisive experience of thought, by pointing us toward love, a form of surrender (die to be reborn) which eases the personal pain which arises from the illusion of separation, and helps ease the social chaos arising from the experience of division too.

At this point in human history, it's not too hard to see the Book Of Revelations and it's end times stories are also about thought. Sooner or later, one way or another, we are going to blow up civilization due to our inability to manage the fruits that are increasingly falling from the tree of knowledge. Maybe nuclear weapons will be the vehicle, maybe genetic engineering gone wild, maybe some other knowledge project gone off the tracks in to calamity.

The whole story from beginning to end, from Adam and Eve, through Jesus, to the end of times, is the story of what we actually are, data, knowledge, thought.

The fundamental weakness of philosophy, and thus philosophy forums, is that it concerns itself with the content of thought instead of the far more interesting and central question of the nature of thought.

We are thought. The properties of thought are the fundamental driver of the entire human story.

Imho, all religions are striving to tell this story, and the differences that exist between religions arise out of the wide variety of cultural situations the story tellers found themselves in.

What I've attempted to do here is translate this fundamental story out of the ancient cultural context that gave birth to the Abrahamic religions, in to a more modern cultural context.

Gustav, good writing but... what is it? A dream? A metaphor for (spiritual) life? Literal fragments of some man's life cycle? (Yes, my mind is literal, it is not content with ambiguity).

Felasco wrote:If there is something which is omnipotent and the Creator of all, such an entity would be the creator of the laws of logic as well, and thus would not be bound by those laws. Or at the least, we could not assume it to be so bound.

Hi Felasco,

A belated welcome to the thread. Thanks for joining in.

I have an issue with what you wrote above - not so much with the possibility that God is unbound by logic, but with the notion that logical arguments with respect to God cannot be sustained. It seems to me that if we are to *define* God in some particular way, then we *are* binding Him to logic, because definitions are part of the system of logic that is our language. Sure, if we are to say, "God is some supreme but undefinable 'thing'", then we might be able to work with your suggestion that we cannot hold Him to logic [although even "supreme" is a "binding" of sorts to the logic of definitions] - but if we are to say, "God is the omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the universe", then - well, can't you see that this is a logical statement, which binds God to its logic, *assuming the definition holds*? It seems to me that the only way out of any problems (e.g. the problem of suffering/evil) associated with that description/definition is not the "unbinding" (or, if you will, "transcendence") of logic, but *illogic*, in which case, the problem lies not with the atheist noting said illogic, but with the theist defining God in illogical ways. If God is beyond logic, then why would we try to describe Him with logical language?

Harry wrote:Gustav, good writing but... what is it? A dream? A metaphor for (spiritual) life? Literal fragments of some man's life cycle? (Yes, my mind is literal, it is not content with ambiguity).

It is a number of things, actually.

First, an Upanishad is a tract or a scripture that deals with a language description of an aspect of 'reality'. An Upanishad is a later scripture, a secondary or tertiary reconsideration of some other, more original, more basic, scriptural and revelatory thoughts or perceptions. What seems to me curious is that the 'original revelations' (say within Indus Valley religions which are very old) deal with rather basic things: the growth of crops, the warding off of evil and trouble (famine, disease, etc.) and the ritual structure of religion is quite focussed within attaining and maintaining physical well-being. It is only later, and often quite a bit later, as the original texts (or oral transmissions) are mulled over, that a quite radical reinterpretation of the text is brought out. Harold Bloom, in another context completely, speaks about clinamen ('swerve') as a way to refer to the evolution of ideas and forms. So, we may take a stand that is a 'swerve' from any established orthodoxy and in doing so we move an idea-system, or religious conceptions, in new directions.

I would make a few comments about Felasco's recent ordering of thought in relation to Genesis with this idea of clinamen in mind. To be more specific, he mentions 'ancients' who dealt in an idea of 'original sin' but, at least according to my understanding, the Christian notion of 'original sin' has only limited relationship to its Jewish context. The idea evolved and in this sense as an 'Upanishad'. The notion of an absolute evil is a Christian 'swerve' and in this sense the Christian Satan is a creation of Christianity. Those 'ancients' are more properly men similar to St Paul and not really so ancient. Jews see it all differently and Judaism is a religion of 'repair' of things broken. It is not as divided and tragic as Christianity.

[I have a sense that the event in the Garden of Gethsemane, which would be impossible in any mythology in any previous time in human history, represents an extremely significant event for the people who perceived or imagined it, who turned it into a story, who 'rehearsed it' mentally, and this Event represents a radical 'swerve' in relation to how God is conceived and understood. For example, speaking about Krishna in his mystical gardens of Vrindavan: Krishna is Vishnu incarnate. The very source of Creation itself. He incarnates on Earth in his 'lila' (play or possibly even 'game') of pastimes and activities. Were Evil (in demonic form) to have entered his Sacred Garden it would have been impossible for him to have been defeated, or captured, or humiliated, or killed. Krishna would have turned the tables on them and in the end destroyed them, thereby (following myth) to have liberated them. The worst demon when killed by Krishna is immediately liberated and freed. The fact that some people envisioned a situation where terrestrial evil overcame God Himself, in my mind, represents (mythologically if you will) an extremely dangerous juncture in conception. It would seem to signify a period of unimagined transformation and even possibly catastrophic transformation. I have a sense that 'we', i.e. we Westerners who honor these stories and in who they live and breathe, are all 'captured' by these processes and that they are 'inevitable' to us and for us. In relation to this, it does not at all surprise me that so many, now, wish to disassociate themselves from the Story. To jettison 'Christianity' and what, at its core, it represents and proposes. I suggest there is a 'psychology' in operation in this will to get out from under, or to get out of a 'responsibility'. But I also would suggest: There is no turning back. There is only going forward.]

We often are burdened with the assumption that there is some 'original revelation' from which all subsequent revelations follow in descending order. But in actual point of fact we seem to be 'building up', modifying, revisiting, reinterpreting all of our ideas, and all possible ideas, about who, what and where we are and what we are to do here. I am trying to relate this actually to my last post to uwot and the quote offered by the hyper post-modernist Michael Taussig:

• "How naturally we entity and give life to such. Take the case of God, the economy, and the state, abstract entities we credit with Being, species of things awesome with life-force of their own, transcendent over mere mortals. Clearly they are fetishes, invented wholes of materialized artifice into whose woeful insufficiency of being we have projected soulstuff. Hence the big 'S' of the State. Hence its magical attraction and repulsion, tied to the Nation, to more than a whiff of a certain sexuality reminiscent of the Law of the Father and, lest we forget, to the specter of death, human death in that soul-stirring insufficiency of Being. It is with this, then, with the magical harnessing of the dead for stately purpose, that I wish, on an admittedly unsure and naive footing, to begin."

We have to, I think, come to understand that we are very much indeed creators within these structures of ideas. In this sense we are all 'writing our Upanishads'. The Christians that Skip detests, and quite rightfully in many ways, represent and hold to a 'motion' that is 'anti-clinamenal'. They just won't 'swerve' with the times! But with all the swerving going on generally, all the atoms in the pot are bashing together in a sort of untempered chaos, so this is to be expected. Where is it all going? What will be the end of it?

I have also become aware, here in this present conversation and also through participation on 'other forums' which you certainly know about, that I have been informed at a very basic level not by ideas received through philosophy and specific philosophical study (this came later in my life), but by various literal 'revelations'. I think this is one of the reasons why I cannot fit within any particular philosophical school of thought and why, at a certain point, I see 'philosophizing' as futile.

More specifically, and to concretize this notion of 'revelation', and in regard to that strange piece of writing you asked about (A Dream of Birth---An Upanishad): influenced by my recent readings in Indian Religion, I was reminded that at a fundamental level I am influenced by certain ideas and conceptions (about life, existence, being) that are visionary and are not 'rational'. One of these ideas is that 'we' choose incarnation into what we know as 'here'. How this happens, or why this happens, is indescribable, but the principal draw to this 'plane' (and this is a very Vedic idea, or late-Vedic and Upanishadic) is that we flow into this world through sexual desire. This whole world is an Erotic expression and eroticism underlies everything. It is literally 'Devi-Loka' ('realm of the feminine goddesses') in this sense and eroticism is given a feminine cast, naturally (as is Maya, the binding force in Hindu mythology and metaphysic). Prakriti (loosely matter) is the female body, is the womb, is the 'yoni', and in this sense we are all of that 'body' and are all female. Spirit in this sense, and some forms of 'masculinity', are 'opposed' to the body and to the feminine. And as we all know, tragic though it is, to manifest in 'body' here is also to eventually live death. So, in this sense, we are in resistance to 'the female' insofar as we resist and try to weasel out of death.

In some schools of yoga, yoga practice ('sadhana', which has a wider meaning than just practice and is more the sum of the way that one lives) is literally reversal of the motions of consciousness that led us into birth in this realm. I link this to the ideas about 'salvation' that were brought up previously and which, naturally, few seem to have any desire to probe or understand. Salvation in this sense is disincarnation. There are many schools of yoga and renouncer philosophy that, in one way or another, deal on this theme, practice, idea, possibility. We are in a very real sense 'strung up' between the notion of immanent Heaven and Heaven-to-come. This is our 'crucifixion' too.

Also: I have begun to conclude that we are influenced at a more profound level (than we may know) by Symbols and Images than by 'words'. It is all quite problematic for by expressing meaning through Symbols we tend to concretize the symbols, and then the symbol becomes not a vehicle for 'meaning' but a kind of 'trap of awareness'. I do not think that we can really understand where we are and what we are and even who we are only with words. It is as Felasco says: we function within symbol-systems, or consciousness mediated by language, and so we are not quite 'in' reality. The most powerful metaphors, it seems to me, are those that push us back to some inner and core experience which, in fact, offers us 'the Vision' of what this is all about. That is how it has been for me. Vision, I was made to understand, comes in immense 'blocks'. You may spend a lifetime trying to interpret it and make sense of it, but in this sense when 'God' speaks, the language of God is not words, it is something like 'psychic events'.

A belated welcome to the thread. Thanks for joining in.

Thanks, been enjoying your posts, so here I am, trying to join in the fun.

I have an issue with what you wrote above - not so much with the possibility that God is unbound by logic, but with the notion that logical arguments with respect to God cannot be sustained.

Ok, listening...

It seems to me that if we are to *define* God in some particular way, then we *are* binding Him to logic, because definitions are part of the system of logic that is our language.

Well, if we define him as being an all powerful creator wouldn't that make him the creator of logic too, and as all powerful, unbound by his creation?

....but if we are to say, "God is the omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the universe", then - well, can't you see that this is a logical statement, which binds God to its logic, *assuming the definition holds*?

I want to agree with your point in regards to omnibenevolent. If God is said to be nice, but then he does naughty things, there would appear to be a logical contradiction, unless....

An omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the universe is not bound by logic, as such a definition suggests he would not be. Omnipotent seems to suggest such an entity can be both nice and naughty at the same time, or do any damn thing he pleases, and the concept of contradiction would be irrelevant.

The word "supernatural" means above the laws of nature, right? Atheists have to get rid of this concept before they can proceed with their analysis. And the only way to get rid of it is with faith.

Thus, I conclude theism and atheism are fundamentally the same, and what differences do exist are on the surface level. It's as if we're both in the same army, but I have a green uniform and you have a blue uniform, and so we argue about which color is better.

If God is beyond logic, then why would we try to describe Him with logical language?

Because we are not supernatural, and logical language is all we have?

Thanks Harry, I hope this will be the first of many exchanges.

You may spend a lifetime trying to interpret it and make sense of it, but in this sense when 'God' speaks, the language of God is not words, it is something like 'psychic events'.

Maybe this is a clue? Maybe we shouldn't spend a lifetime trying to make sense of it, given that a head full of noisy symbols may drown out the next psychic event?

Gustav wrote:[T]he principal draw to this 'plane' (and this is a very Vedic idea, or late-Vedic and Upanishadic) is that we flow into this world through sexual desire. This whole world is an Erotic expression and eroticism underlies everything

I sense this too, although I think it is only fair to point out the existence of asexual people - I wonder what you make of that phenomenon in this context.

I also sense that sexuality is one trap by which we are ensnared here, and that many forms of sexual activity, particularly those leading to climax, drain us of vital energy.

But your post was skilfully executed, and shows off the flexibility of your "unattached [to any particular paradigm]" approach.

Felasco wrote:Well, if we define him as being an all powerful creator wouldn't that make him the creator of logic too, and as all powerful, unbound by his creation?

Quite possibly, although there are some who would say that God is subject to logic rather than creator of it. I'm not sure which view is correct.

Felasco wrote:I want to agree with your point in regards to omnibenevolent. If God is said to be nice, but then he does naughty things, there would appear to be a logical contradiction, unless....

An omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the universe is not bound by logic, as such a definition suggests he would not be. Omnipotent seems to suggest such an entity can be both nice and naughty at the same time, or do any damn thing he pleases, and the concept of contradiction would be irrelevant.

OK, but if He is both nice and naughty at the same time, then He is *not* omnibenevolent, is He, since omnibenevolence entails being nice all the time, and naughty none of the time? He is, in that case, something else, and it would be wrong for us to define Him in a way that He is not. That's all I'm saying, really - that if we define God in a particular way, then either God meets that definition (in a "logical" way), or the definition is wrong. If He is so trans-rational that He cannot be captured in a (rational) definition, then we ought not to attempt to do so.

I ought in my previous post to have quoted this subsequent line from your prior post, because this is really what I was taking issue with:

Felasco wrote:In such a case, all logical analysis either promoting or defending any religion goes out the window as any such analysis depends upon the rules of logic being binding on the subject at hand.

In other words, what I'm saying is that I think that logical analysis is valid *assuming a correct definition of God* (and that logical analysis can, through contradiction, be used to cast doubt upon or even disprove the correctness of a definition), but perhaps what you're saying is that we should limit ourselves to a very small definition about God, because of the possibility that His nature, being beyond logic, cannot be captured in a logical definition.

By the way, I thought your interpretation of Christianity as a story about humanity moving from direct experience of reality to symbolic experience of reality was very interesting and thought-provoking. One thing I'm curious about is: what do you make of the fact that the tree is described as imparting the gift of not just "knowledge", but "knowledge of good and evil"? Do you see this as significant in any way?

One other thing from an earlier post of yours. You wrote:

"Or are we doing what Harry suggests to Skip, and instead looking inside of our minds?"

I think it would be fairer to say that that is what Gustav is suggesting, rather than I. I suppose I see things a little more literally than that. Gustav likes his Jung, with the idea of symbolism and archetypes and mythologies all of (?) our mind's creation, which I'm not opposed to in moderation, but I also think that there is an objective truth about (spiritual) reality beyond the symbolic - whether or not we can know that objective truth is another matter, of course.

Quite possibly, although there are some who would say that God is subject to logic rather than creator of it. I'm not sure which view is correct.

I have no idea myself of course. I'm just reasoning from the most common definitions of god.

At the least it seems we could say we would have no way of knowing if such an entity would be bound by logic or not, and thus can have little confidence in our logic calculations on the subject. This sort of spoils the philosophy party, but then as philosophers we're supposed to follow the reasoning trail where ever it leads without fear or favor.

Interestingly, a god who was all powerful creator etc and thus unbound by logic could be both bound by logic, and not, at the same time. Perhaps this is a useful consideration, if only to remind us of the possibility that reality may contain many things we simply aren't equipped to grasp.

OK, but if He is both nice and naughty at the same time, then He is *not* omnibenevolent, is He, since omnibenevolence entails being nice all the time, and naughty none of the time?

Yes, if god is bound by logic, this would be a contradiction, agreed. If he's not bound by logic, then contradictions are irrelevant.

If He is so trans-rational that He cannot be captured in a (rational) definition, then we ought not to attempt to do so.

Why is a god who is all powerful and thus unbound by logic not a rational definition? All powerful is a pretty straightforward concept, is it not?

In other words, what I'm saying is that I think that logical analysis is valid *assuming a correct definition of God* (and that logical analysis can, through contradiction, be used to cast doubt upon or even disprove the correctness of a definition),

Wouldn't any such analysis depend upon the target of the analysis being subject to the rules of the analysis system? You know, we can do a meaningfully study of astronomy only because the heavens follow the laws of physics. What if there were no laws of physics, no natural law of any kind? Then the heavens would be utterly unpredictable, and any observation we made would be anecdotal only, revealing nothing about a larger pattern.

but perhaps what you're saying is that we should limit ourselves to a very small definition about God, because of the possibility that His nature, being beyond logic, cannot be captured in a logical definition.

I'm not really trying to define god, or say what the definition should be. I'm just following the reasoning trail suggested by the definition in most common use, all powerful creator etc.

By the way, I thought your interpretation of Christianity as a story about humanity moving from direct experience of reality to symbolic experience of reality was very interesting and thought-provoking.

Thank you. And thank you for getting it, as I can see by your concise summary you did.

One thing I'm curious about is: what do you make of the fact that the tree is described as imparting the gift of not just "knowledge", but "knowledge of good and evil"? Do you see this as significant in any way?

That's a good question, thanks.

My wife is an enthusiastic wildlife rehabber, and our house is continually filled with various wildlife on their way to recovery and release. I find this close association helpful in a comparison with the human experience. Birds and mammals do appear to have emotions, but I don't see morality, the good and evil concept.

Good and evil appear to be yet another dualistic product of the inherently divisive nature of thought.

Is nature good or evil? The question seems nonsensical, as nature is really another word for everything. Perhaps god is a conceptualized personalization of nature? If yes, then perhaps god might be thought of not as a this or a that, but like nature, encompassing all things.

.... but I also think that there is an objective truth about (spiritual) reality beyond the symbolic - whether or not we can know that objective truth is another matter, of course.

Ok, let me interview you now if you are willing.

Why do you think there is an objective truth?

Do you have a sense of what that truth might be?