Philosophy Now Forum

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:25 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 10:04 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:56 am Animal man lives as a slave to desires while conscious Man can have free will and serve a universal purpose.

Since you constantly keep proclaiming all this it is fair to ask what universal purpose are you serving by your existence or is it just talk and nothing else...as if I wouldn't know!

I'm learning how to see. It is very difficult to do. Once I can see as a human being then just being normal serves a universal purpose.

Humans see in all kinds of ways without necessitating anything so grand as a universal purpose upholding it. If there were such a thing, or akin to it, it may more fundamentally be inflected within the process of evolution itself. If that's the measure, it's not only human life but all of flora and fauna that may be considered possessing some of the conditions which presuppose a universal purpose.

Dubious

Humans see in all kinds of ways without necessitating anything so grand as a universal purpose upholding it. If there were such a thing, or akin to it, it may more fundamentally be inflected within the process of evolution itself. If that's the measure, it's not only human life but all of flora and fauna that may be considered possessing some of the conditions which presuppose a universal purpose.

Consider life in the jungle. Everything eats everything else from the simple one celled creatures to the great cats. This great living machine is proof of a universal purpose to initiate creation.

“About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.” -- Albert Einstein,

Modern science is concerned with pragmatic efforts which make money as opposed to the traditional search for truth. Science can enable technology to create better televisions and sex dolls but as a whole cannot open to the great laws which sustain our universe. There is no money in it and a lot of ridicule. Consequently science as a whole is far from making the efforts to prove the necessity for a universal purpose. Better sex dolls offer inadequate partial compensation

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:34 pm V A

The brain as a receiver of data from 'outside' is very common knowledge.

The brain and it senses receives impressions from the external world. The mind receives impressions from a higher reality then what the senses can interpret. The mind and the brain; do you know the difference?

Generally I always use brain with mind.
The brain is the core of the mind which emerge from the convergence of the brain, the physical self within an environment.

The brain and mind receives data from the external world which the brain/mind co-create.
Whatever is 'a higher reality' than the reality the self is part and parcel of, is an illusion generated from the brain/mind.

It is very evident, the brain/mind generate tons of empirical illusions of the senses,
https://michaelbach.de/ot/
It is also evident, the brain/mind generate logical illusions related to thinking.

What is not so evident is the brain/mind also generate transcendental illusions from ideas [ungrounded thoughts]. These are often the 'higher reality' you mentioned, the most common one being the illusory God.
If God is not an illusion, then there should be obvious direct empirical evidence to justify God exists as real. But there are no convincing evidence so far.

V A

What is not so evident is the brain/mind also generate transcendental illusions from ideas [ungrounded thoughts]. These are often the 'higher reality' you mentioned, the most common one being the illusory God.
If God is not an illusion, then there should be obvious direct empirical evidence to justify God exists as real. But there are no convincing evidence so far.

As I've witnessed it, atheism lacks the humility necessary to experience proof

"Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong."

- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417

Atheists are intelligent. They use the binary mind very well. But as intelligent as they are, how many know what the supernatural part refers to much less are open to experience it but prefer blind emotional denial of it?

With such a powerful denial for the evolution of religion, I cannot see how modern secular society can allow it to evolve as Einstein explained. Evolution will only be possible for the small minority who have experienced it and who understand what it means to open the supernatural part of themselves

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm
Can religion evolve?

Evolution brought you to a place where you are aware you have evolved as a concept known.
So as this concept is conceived and known, it is the immediate end of evolution.

For there is nothing higher than human sentient awareness.

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Dontaskme wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2020 9:07 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm
Can religion evolve?

Evolution brought you to a place where you are aware you have evolved as a concept known.
So as this concept is conceived and known, it is the immediate end of evolution.

For there is nothing higher than human sentient awareness.

.

Are sentient beings conscious? Einstein suggests that the next step in the evolution of religion is conscience which we apparently have as a potential. now we live by desires and appetites.

Anyone who says that life matters less to animals than it does to us has not held in his hands an animal fighting for its life. The whole of the being of the animal is thrown into that fight, without reserve.” (Elisabeth Costello, in J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals)

This past weekend during a series of lectures I presented in Germany a number of people asked questions of the sort, "Isn't it about time we accept that animals are sentient and that we know what they want and need, and stop bickering about whether they are conscious, feel pain, and experience many different emotions?"

She is describing the natural animal need for self preservation. Is there anything of greater human value in the process of human evolution religion serve other than human sentient awareness?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 12:03 am

Are sentient beings conscious?

A sentient being is a concept known, by the only knowing there is which is consciousness.

Einstein suggests that the next step in the evolution of religion is conscience which we apparently have as a potential. now we live by desires and appetites.

To have a conscience is an appearance, it’s an idea known by the only knowing there is which is consciousness.
The idea that there is such a thing as a “human evolving spiritually with potential” is a known fictional story appearing in consciousness the only knowing there is.

She is describing the natural animal need for self preservation. Is there anything of greater human value in the process of human evolution religion serve other than human sentient awareness?

It’s not known if an animal has a sense of duality, in that it feels a sense of self consciousness because animals have no concept of human language which is just a fictional appearance within consciousness...the human use of the word SELF in the animal story is attributing human concepts onto the animal as if the animal itself has a knowing sense of self that it needs to preserve...in reality there’s just the sense of pain ...there is no knowledge that the animal has a sense of self that it can identify with the pain as belonging to the animal...or that it can work out a way to eliminate its pain ..for the animal, there would be just the sensation of pain.
Compare that with pain felt by the human. The human would be able to say this is my pain....and yet in reality, there’s just the sensation of pain ..with the added sense there is a SELF to whom the pain is happening to...however, in reality both the human and the animal are only conceptual ideas of consciousness....in which there is the sensation of pain in the moment....known by the only knowing there is which is consciousness itself.

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Obviously we've reached an impasse. You believe in the dream of separation and I believe in the unity of the realities of I and AM, wholeness and fragmentation, made possible through conscience as the next stage in human evolution

As you know some people assert that all lives matter. It would be the result of conscience. Yet we know it isn't true. Only selective lives matter. A Seattle super sonic announcer was fired for asserting that all lives matter. Intolerably old fashioned

https://www.prosportsdaily.com/articles ... 31679.html

Grant Napear was fired by his radio station and resigned as the Sacramento Kings TV play-by-play announcer Tuesday after his tweet over the weekend saying “All Lives Matter” amid the George Floyd protests was met with backlash.

Napear, a graduate of Syosset High School on Long Island, tweeted “All Lives Matter…Every Single One!” on Sunday after former Kings star DeMarcus Cousins asked the 60-year-old for his view on the Black Lives Matter movement.

The phrase, “All Lives Matter,” is seen as mocking the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2013 as a campaign against systematic racism and violence toward black people.

Black Lives Matter has become the driver of protests over police brutality and racial injustice all over the country after Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died at the hands of police last week in Minneapolis.

If humanity were capable of experiencing conscience then all lives would matter. But we exist as fallen Man driven by desires and appetites so in reality only selelctive lives matter. It begins with abortions and works its way up to deciding which lives matter. If this is the human reality what could be more normal than war deciding which lives have value/

I remember years go when i first learned that no one is doing anything. With Man on earth everything happens. Before this I thought life was absurd but now it was obvious that it was all logical. After my usual grumbles of deniaI I had to agree.Iife on earth is just the collective mechanical expression of human being

If Man became capable of its now atrophied potential for conscience, then a person wouldn't be fired for asserting that all lives matter. But since we are as we are and lacking conscience, we decide which lives have value and which do not. Not everyone agrees so if your life doesn't have value, you are out of luck.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:30 pm Obviously we've reached an impasse. You believe in the dream of separation and I believe in the unity of the realities of I and AM, wholeness and fragmentation, made possible through conscience as the next stage in human evolution

There is no knowledge of unity without the idea of separation. The knowledge of opposites is the artificial divider, and so the division is totally illusory, but necessary if consciousness is to become lucid within it's own dream, which is to become aware it is dreaming. The real reality is, there is no one dreaming itself alive, just as no character in a nightly dream has any reality to it whatsoever. And is why knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of itself. The wall that divides two opposite sides of knowledge is not actually there except as a mental conceptual construct no one is making.

To be honest Nick, I have a really hard time seeing what you are attempting to show me. You may even feel that about what I am showing you, but I don't know what you are seeing. For me there is no divide, except in this conception. Prior to human language there's just the pure simplicity of not-knowing presence knowing itself. So from that premise I see there is NOBODY here, in the sense of a separate self, rather, there's just WORDS here...words that are heard as sound, sourced from the silence of not-knowing presence, and known by that source the only knowing there is, and as each concept arises in that knowing, it is interpreted as meaning by association. It's a human language that has artificially superimposed a self upon what is in reality without a personal separate self.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:30 pm
If humanity were capable of experiencing conscience then all lives would matter. But we exist as fallen Man driven by desires and appetites so in reality only selelctive lives matter. It begins with abortions and works its way up to deciding which lives matter. If this is the human reality what could be more normal than war deciding which lives have value.

But it couldn't have been any other way for the human experience, because to be a human, and know you are human, is the belief that you have some form of control over the environment by enforcing change by methods of manipulation in order that one can organise the reality in which you live in relation to whatever specification meets with your requirements. And so it's the law that what you want you usually get, for that is the power of the mind, it is the will of consciousness to express itself as it so wills to do so by manifesting it's will as an appearance, it's a show within itself. All life literally has to take on the nature of itself only, just as wood takes on the nature of the fire when it is exposed to it. And so without the fire of the sun, there would be no MATTER at all. All matter appears because of fire and all matter returns to the fire from which it appears. Those that mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind.
All knowledge is essentially MENTAL....if you say you know, then you are mental. Animals don't live in the mental realm of ego, so they are not mental, animals are pure beingness. So it's really ok to call your humaness animalistic.


If all lives matter then we'd all be vegans. However, consciousness experiencing itself as and through the human mentality, discovered the art of fire starting, which prompted the act of cannibalism upon matter itself, which is pretty much what life does all the time anyway, for life to MATTER it has no other way of sustaining itself.

The only thing evloving Nick is electronic technology, where the conscious dream of experiencing the power of having human control in favor of self preservation is then flipped on it's side and given away in favor of experiencing the rise of the machines that are just more artificial appearances within our collective consciousness.



Nice doing business with you, no thanks, I'll mind my own business if it's all the same to you.

.

Dam

There is no knowledge of unity without the idea of separation. The knowledge of opposites is the artificial divider, and so the division is totally illusory, but necessary if consciousness is to become lucid within it's own dream, which is to become aware it is dreaming.

Am I correct to say that for you the elemental forces of yin and yang is totally illusory but necessary for a dream. But why the dream as opposed to consciousness? Are you suggesting that consciousness is a dream? Consciousness is governed by laws and dreams re governed by imagination. Are you saying they are the same?

But it couldn't have been any other way for the human experience, because to be a human, and know you are human, is the belief that you have some form of control over the environment by enforcing change by methods of manipulation in order that one can organise the reality in which you live in relation to whatever

Yes, this is what distinguishes conscious man from animal man. Animal man like all animals reacts in response to worldly and comic influences. Comscious man consciously connects above and below or man with the direction of his origin. Animal life is limited to respond to earthly influences serving the animal purpose while conscious man connects the earth with higher consciousness originating from above.

Where I believe in the necessary relativity of being, you see it as illusory. Appreciating the relativity of being enables me to have a working hypothesis of Humanitie’s objective meaning and purpose. Man can evolve from animal man into conscious man. With a dream there is no purpose. Life comes and goes.

All knowledge is essentially MENTAL....if you say you know, then you are mental. Animals don't live in the mental realm of ego, so they are not mental, animals are pure beingness. So it's really ok to call your humaness animalistic.

The universe is mental. Being is relative. Lower forms of life are mechanical. The higher forms have relative consciousness. Plato gave us the divided line analogy which asserts that below the line everything is meaningless The message of all religions is that man has the potential to transform his being from being dominated by animal nature serving a lower purpose or becoming conscious man serving higher purpose

If all lives matter then we'd all be vegans. However, consciousness experiencing itself as and through the human mentality, discovered the art of fire starting, which prompted the act of cannibalism upon matter itself, which is pretty much what life does all the time anyway, for life to MATTER it has no other way of sustaining itself.

If a man eats a cow or a carrot, do cows and carrots matter. If a person becomes able to feel the value that all lives matter, what do they feel? How do they respect it? Why is gluttony considered sin. We all eat but what is our attitude towards eating?

The only thing evloving Nick is electronic technology, where the conscious dream of experiencing the power of having human control in favor of self preservation is then flipped on it's side and given away in favor of experiencing the rise of the machines that are just more artificial appearances within our collective consciousness.

Quite true. Man as a whole is devolving. When machines serve man, it is a sign of evolution. When man serves machines it is a sign of devolution. The trouble is that only a rare few feel the difference anymore.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 5:18 pm Gaffo

yes?

i affirm all men and women - of all races/nationalities - as the same as me and so my sister/brother in humanity.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 5:18 pm If people are all the same it is because the great majority are unawakened. What does it mean to wake up and wouldn't opening to conscience further this aim?

“It is said that soon after his enlightenment, the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the extraordinary radiance and peacefulness of his presence. The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a God?”
“No,” said the Buddha.
“Well, then, are you some sort of magician or wizard?”
Again the Buddha answered, “No.”
“Are you a man?”
“No.”
“Well my friend, what are you then?”
“I am awake.”


The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
Thoreau, Walden

yes i may concur, with your post - or not so much - welcome clarification of your views to solidify my agreement or dis.

and to discuss either way.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:15 am

Am I correct to say that for you the elemental forces of yin and yang is totally illusory but necessary for a dream. But why the dream as opposed to consciousness? Are you suggesting that consciousness is a dream? Consciousness is governed by laws and dreams re governed by imagination. Are you saying they are the same?

To know you are conscious is to be aware you are aware, aware of images/colour and sounds coming and going, so yes, this is known as dreamscape reality.

To be aware you are awareness, is no-thing arising as everything happening here in the instantaneous moment which is always NOW

So of course they are the same. That is,consciousness and the contents of consciousness are the same. Any apparent difference is not actually there.Consciousness or presence is all that is real or we could say it is the reality of experience.

When it is said that the world of apparent differences is 'illusory' it is meant that the separate existence of the world as an apparent object in it's own right, is an illusion. That is, the apparent world/body/mind has no separate reality of it's own, independent of the Consciousness that 'knows' it.

Separation is the illusion Nick. There is no-thing here that can divide what is always and ever not-a-thing/ everything.
Everything is ONENESS

There truly is no one here, now. And there is no here or now. There is nothing.
The experience is aware. But even to say ''this appears to awareness'' assumes a subject object where there is none.
It still implies awareness is here – being aware of (itself) over there.
This is still missing the point.There is not awareness OF the experience. There is awareness AS the experience.

As Shakespeare said, “All things seem but cannot be.” The ‘isness’ in what appears to be an object belongs to Consciousness, not to the non-existent object.

There is no thing higher than human sentient awareness. For the human is an object of awareness itself experiencing the human experience. And while that human experience is KNOWN, there is no other experience happening, because consciousness does not happen to a human, a human is the happening experience of consciousness itself.

Religion is just a story known within consciousness, religion has no reality no more than a subroutine within a computer has a reality.

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gaffo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 07, 2020 1:03 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 5:18 pm Gaffo

yes?

i affirm all men and women - of all races/nationalities - as the same as me and so my sister/brother in humanity.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 5:18 pm If people are all the same it is because the great majority are unawakened. What does it mean to wake up and wouldn't opening to conscience further this aim?

“It is said that soon after his enlightenment, the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the extraordinary radiance and peacefulness of his presence. The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a God?”
“No,” said the Buddha.
“Well, then, are you some sort of magician or wizard?”
Again the Buddha answered, “No.”
“Are you a man?”
“No.”
“Well my friend, what are you then?”
“I am awake.”


The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
Thoreau, Walden

yes i may concur, with your post - or not so much - welcome clarification of your views to solidify my agreement or dis.

and to discuss either way.

Well if you would like to discuss the evolution of religion we have to agree what is meant by religion and evolution. The esoteric side of Religion is the opportunity for people to gather and practice the methods by which their inner man can develop and feel their relationship with higher consciousness. The exoteric religions teach what the outer man must do to satisfy the demands of a personal god. The esoteric is concerned with the essence of humanity while the exoteric is concerned with what his personality does.

Can man evolve consciously? We've all experienced how times we are more conscious and less at other times indicating conscious evolution is possible.

1 corinthians 15

12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Was Christ able to attain a higher level of being and the value of carrying ones cross? What prevent it? Einstein suggests it is our lack of conscience which denies the opportunity for a person to become normal. If our emotions have become corrupted as all the great traditions assert, conscious evolution is impossible and we remain living the same oppositions. The essential aim of the esoteric traditions is to provide the means to work on their emotions to whatever degree they are capable of so as to experience conscience

Einstein suggest that the next stage in religious evolution beyond fear and morality is conscience. By conscience I don't mean acquired conscience in society by indoctrination. I am referring to objective conscience we are born with and can be remembered.

1948
"One never goes wrong following his feeling. I don’t mean emotions, I mean feeling, for feeling and intuition are one.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 95. – conversation on September 14, 1948)

The trouble is we live with emotions and rarely if ever experience "feelings"

When machines serve man, it is a sign of evolution. When man serves machines it is a sign of devolution. The trouble is that only a rare few feel the difference anymore.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm

The development from a religion of fear to a moral religion is a great step in peoples lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based purely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on guard. the truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.

Common to all types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he want to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.

-- Albert Einstein, Science and Religion, NY Times, November 9, 1930.

The origin of religion begins in the world. The gods control the world and the ancients feared them. Then secularism created morality which are man made interpretations of objective conscience which has atrophied in us

But which has not atrophied in all of us.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm We are evolving into the ability for objective conscience to replace the personal God telling us what is moral in favor of universal truths. Objective conscience must be remembered rather than indoctrinated as with morality

When you learn WHY you have forgot It, then you will KNOW how to retain It.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm Einstein is part of a minority who understand the function of conscience. I know how and why the world must hate them but I do respect and value them. How and what they know must be communicated to the world which denies conscience in favor of egoistic imagination. They will be ignored and persecuted

Can religion evolve? I know Einstein, Simone Weil, Jacob Needleman, and others know its value if Man is to become human.

But human is human. Man is only one gender of human.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm Will art and science retain its belief in truth and awaken cosmic religious feelings or will it sink along with the rest of society into self serving interpretations?

But art and science is mostly only done for monetary gains, so art and science mostly has already sunk to the lowest of levels, along with just about all of the rest of society.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2020 9:08 pm Only time will tell

The answer has already been told.

Will adult human beings reduce doing wrong, and start increasing in doing what is actually right, by starting to once again produce art and do science to reveal the so far hidden Truths of Life, then that remains to be seen.