I never really knew much about Martin Luther and so I enjoyed the Luther biography recently broadcast on PBS. Luther assumed responsibility for his own salvation, removing it from the clergy as part of his revolt against the Catholic Church. I knew that the Baptists preached the notion of each person interpretting the Bible according to his own thoughts. However, it was clear that Luther laid the foundation for fundamentalism.
The Quakers were founded by George Fox who, during his spiritual odyssey, joined the AnaBaptists as they were then known. Quakerism, however, seeks "that of god in every man" and stress meditation and personal inspiration. Although I have been a Quaker, and, in some ways, still consider myself a member of Friends, it is difficult to see god in many men (Biblical sense of man).
Coluber, as usual I learn from you. I particularly like your phrase: " I like the 'there is nothing but god definition,' but it's useless without personal experience transcending the illusion of ego."
This is precisely why I equate GENUINE religion with mysticism. Theology is too conceptual; it attempts to grasp by intellectual effort the nature of an objectified God, a God that is apart from us within a dualistic reality. (an exception might be Paul Tillich's intuited "God above God").
I like to juxtapose the phrase, "every man FOR himself" with its corollary, "everyman IN himself" (i.e., cut off from Reality by his skin).
JL -- I tend to agree with you. Watched a forum based on the thinking of Freud and C. S. Lewis on God and someone -- I was a little sleepy -- said (and they may have been paraphrasing Freud) that there is no scientific proof for God because God is not in the realm of science but belief.
Coluber, I agree. But even "I'm an agnostic" sounds a bit pretentious to me. I'm an atheist, not as an achievement, but as the only (in fact default) alternative to the stuff preached by ideologues of every stripe. Mysticism, as I understand the term, is not an ideology (well, it is for some at the beginning stage of their quest--or transformation). It is, indeed, the COMPLETE absence of ALL ideologies, even those of our everyday culture, i.e., naive realism. My political liberalism is a departure from my "mysticism." But I feel that one cannot live in the absolute context all the time. As a human being, I must share those illusions that challenge injustice, political greed, economic and social exploitation. But spiritually speaking, Reality is beyond all that; there we find no good or bad, beautiful or ugly, just THIS. If Yaweh said "I am that I am," We can say the same, and, collectively, "we are that we are" and "life is that it is", and "this is that it is."
"What is god to you"...
What if we borrow a little from here and there? From the orient we borrow the term Omm, and put it in front of the last two words of Descartes' eureka.
Omm, ergo sum.
Does that make sense?
Let me get back to you on that, in about a year.
Maybe we should ask someone in the language forum. I do not know the exact translation of the latin words, so I am not sure it even makes sense.
The line of thought behind it was that Omm is a term for "everything in harmony". The perfect circle of wich everything is part. We are part of this cirlce, our minds are part of it, and so our thoughts are part of it too. Thus my capacity for though is "god's capacity for thought", or "omm's capacity for thought" if you take my meaning. If this is the case, since we cannot exist without out environment, since we are inseparable parts of the perfect circle, then "Omm, ergo sum" is closer to the truth than "cogitas, ergo sum". I experienc omm, ergo omm is. I am omm, and so is everything else.
I understand. I like "My capacity for thought is God's capacity for thought." Another terminology for the same orientation is "Atman perceives, therefore Brahmin is."
Boy, these alternatives (Ommmm and Atman) really show how puny is Descartes' little "I" (agent of thought).
I feel it is critical, Cyracuz, that readers of our little agreement fest here realize that Ommm, Atman, Brahmin, etc. are not things in the world; they are metaphors for our perspectives on our everymoment experience. They are orientational expressions, ways of organizing and expressing intuitions. Otherwise, we look like New Age "metaphysicians." Heaven forbid.
Yes, we would look like new age metaphysicians had you not tossed in that "heaven forbid" at the end. Now they won't know what to think, wich suits me fine.
As for the rest, I agree completely and have nothing to add except my disdain for descartes little "I", as you put it. It's not a bad thing to chose to prove his point, but compared to Atman and omm it is just fleeting and uninteresting.
Existence - or in Biblical terms, "I am what is."
Or as Yoda would say: What is you are.
Yoda is unambiguously dyslexic.
Yes, but he's also 900 years old.
"...when 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not.. hmm..."
- Yoda
I suppose that after 900 years our brains will scramble a bit also.
God is whatever the human mind wishes "him" to be.
Re: What is God
Welcome to the board rtoo. The Hebrew word for God, Yahweh, (or Jehovah) means 'He who causes to become".
Some words used for God are merely titles. 'God' and 'lord' are two examples. You would think that true believers would use their god's name from time to time instead of the title. Just to be specific, of course.
"A God that let us prove his existense would be an idol."-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Yahweh" is the part of God that is male -- that is obvious, no? What happened to the feminine?
