God and existence

How about an "I don't know" option? That's my vote.

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I think any concept of God should imply the supernatural... or else what's the point?

Belief in anything supernatural is ridiculous.

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echi, What about OBSERVATION of the supernatural? Is that rediculous?

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Well... If we're going to discuss the subject, seriously, then I should retract my "ridiculous" comment. Let me just say that I find the idea to be pretty meaningless.

"Observation of the supernatural?"
Yes. I would consider that ridiculous, I mean, meaningless, also. But then, I am not sure what you are really asking. Are we talking about ghosts, or what?

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echi wrote:

I think any concept of God should imply the supernatural... or else what's the point?

Belief in anything supernatural is ridiculous.

Yes, I agree. Organized religions have highjacked the term "god" and monopolized it to refer to the supernatural, and it is anathema in their eyes to take their myths and symbols in any but a literal interpretation. Therefore, I say that god is not a concept; it is a totally sybjective experience; it is a way to view the world and ourselves; it is an altered state of consciousness.

The late philosopher Alan Watts claimed that the early Christians wrestled with the problem of Christ; ironically, they didn't know how he would fit into their religion. Their answer, Watts said, was to kick him upstairs, that is, to make him supernatural and separate from nature, a step that, in my opinion, emasculated Christianity.

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Watts in your post... Campbell in your sig line. I like you, already.

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I remember a time when this question, and its answer truly
mattered to me very, very much. Not today though. I've
lived to a point where whether there is or there is not, it is
going to be just fine by me. I live my life the way I live it
because that is WHO I AM, not because I fear retribution
nor because I want adulation or approval. I won't live in fear
of some sort where if I displease a/anyone's/someone's image
of a fiery Hell and damnation kind of God ... I'll be cursed
forever with no hope of redemption. A God who happens to
bear a disturbing resemblance to a human being has got it
all backwards. I prefer to think that perhaps, in some way,
(in our beauty within) we are like our Creator, rather than
the other way around. To hear some people tell it, God is
more pissed off at the world and at us, than I've ever
been ABLE to be towards any human being, ever. I just
don't want any concept of a God who resembles a human.
I want a God we can strive to resemble (on our good days).

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Adding this in here.

"...The sequence of creation of the universe from nothingness, culminating after six days in humans, is not so far adrift from Big Bang theory, as I understand it, except that as scientists we are allowed to answer questions about what happened before the Big Bang by saying we don't know, rather than that God did it..." Steven Rose ("atheist biologist") reviewing his intro to the Canongate edition of Genesis. FT Weekend 20 Sept 1998.

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echi wrote:

Watts in your post... Campbell in your sig line. I like you, already.

Thanks, echi.

Watt's books helped me in the '60s interpret my spiritual experiences, when little else was available, and the genius of Joseph Campbell put it all together.

Campbell's thesis that all religious symbols and myths can be taken metaphorically, and that the metaphorical interpretations provide a deeper meaning to the myths than a literal interpretation, means that religion can be used as a unifying force rather than the more common divisive force.

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coluber2001 wrote:

echi wrote:
Watts in your post... Campbell in your sig line. I like you, already.

Thanks, echi.

I'm with echi--I like ya, too.

Your last two posts express my own thoughts quite accurately.

Quote:

Campbell's thesis that all religious symbols and myths can be taken metaphorically, and that the metaphorical interpretations provide a deeper meaning to the myths than a literal interpretation, means that religion can be used as a unifying force rather than the more common divisive force.

Exactly!!! I've not read those authors, but I do agree with what you've said they said.

I don't see 'truth' as having to be 'factual and actual'--'truth,' IMO, is what is reliable, consistent, perfectly applicable in all cases, and without prejudice.

I definitely have no use for the word 'supernatural.' I think it is a non-word. What could it possibly describe? To humanly assume that one has understanding of all natural things, so that anything not understood is deemed 'supernatural,' well...that's just the ego talking, once again. I never believe anything my ego tells me because I've caught it in a lie one too many times to trust it anymore.

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Detach the concept of a God from any religious preconditions, and two definitions arise:

1) First Cause

or

2) Higher Being

Neither the existence of any of those is knowable unless it reveals itself to us...

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Brilliantly expressed Ray.

While I have problems with the 'personal savior' of christianity--God is definitely a personal experience that beyond our choice of time, place, or method.

It's truly a mystery from every perspective.

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Existence of what IS "knowable" ? So what? What does
anything really prove, what does that say? Do we each
see the exact same thing upon looking out of the same
window? Do we understand anything that we see for
what it truly is? Honestly, what do we know for sure?
How much of the genuine existence of the electron has
actually been proven both physically, electronically &
personally to you? The world as we know it turned round
& round all during the years just chugging along while the
entire human race was absolutely certain that the planet
we inhabited was FLAT. Stupidity is accepting that simply
because we learn something new, that we have any
understanding about what that means. I feel certain that
there exists a more clarified/ purified form of life than me.
Does that make it so? Of course not. Does that make it
true for me? I guess if I DECIDE to believe something
based on absolutely no factual evidence whatsoever, it
could be considered true for me. But who else would care?
Isn't it all a sequence of subjective choices?

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Yes, I think it is. But such an idea is often hard to express to someone who hasn't yet seen things from that particular angle.

It's hard for most to let go of the idea of some sort of 'absolute' whether it be of a faith nature or scientific, instead.

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QA, what you you mean by an absolute? I have always heard and read of god as omniscient, omnipotent, and incorporeal. If god is an absolute, then she is unchanging. She may perhaps be the energy behind the big bang or the "music of the spheres, " but all material life as we know it moves and changes. (Perhaps she is not an absolute but gives the universe a tweak now and then to right it on its course.)

I do agree with Babs that religion and belief in god is totally subjective. One could share the experience in words, if one could find those words, but one could not claim that another person's experience of god would be the same as the speaker's.

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Kara wrote:

QA, what you you mean by an absolute?

I don't mean something like 'my absolute truth' or even a 'shared absolute reality'....

It's deeper than any level than we deal with in human life--whether mundane or enlightened. It's not about perceptions or understandings--that is what makes it 'absolute.'

Change is the only constant--I totally agree. But by saying 'absolute' I don't mean 'static' or 'undynamic.' Because this 'absolute' is a living absolute. It is not a tweaker but rather a sustainer.

Think about that which we call 'life': basically the carbon-based organic cycle of the earth's food chain. The food chain is a living thing; it is a dynamic, everchanging, constantly renewing cycle that is alive in itself--although within that cycle, the 'links' are born, live for a time and actively partcipate, then die (and passively participate). We all eat and we all make waste. We all live and die. Yet our death is a vital component of the bigger life that is our earthly ecosystem. Waste is fertilizer and necessary for growing food--it is something we 'donate' when alive and actually become when we die (although modern funerary preparations kind of throw a kink in the system, IMO).

Life is the absolute. The absolute sustains the relative within it. It is always there--without it there is nothing at all.

I'm not a physicist, but I do know that light is somewhat of an absolute, although I'm sure they don't call it that. But when they get down to the bare bones structure of what we know and understand--it's all basically one thing in one of two forms: light. Protons or waves (I think).

That is an absolute. It is energy: both the force and the work (mind and matter, spirit and material). Creator and creation are of the same essence--our limited understandings and ideas cannot splinter that absolute. It is actually the absolute that splinters our delusions and that, also, is why it is an absolute. We recognize it as 'truth' and 'reality.'

My truth may not be your truth, yet if we both sincerely hold on to our truths (in the purest sense), do we not actually share that truth? Truth is always truth--it is the light and we are the prism. The rainbow is many colors but it is still just light.

Quote:

One could share the experience in words, if one could find those words, but one could not claim that another person's experience of god would be the same as the speaker's.

No doubt--although the words are very hard to find, from my experience. And I certainly agree that one's person's experience is unique to them--that's the beauty of the whole thing, to me. There is an absolute, and it exists for all of us. But for each of us, it is ours and ours alone. And yet it is what binds us all together--through our individual experiences and private journey with God we will realize our unity...

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Hello Kara dear - nice to "see you" How are you? It
has been such a long time since I've been active on
the computer & been absent from A2K for what feels
like eons. Me & my health problems, but I believe I
have them on the run and I feel a good health streak
is coming my way. If my body betrays me again
with any more streaks of bad health, then I will
agree with Frida Kahlo when she said: "When I die,
burn this traitorous body of mine" With a note that
she left saying "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope
never to return."

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I think that's a little too general... "what god" "what religion" and even so... i think that it's the own individuals expiriences and perspective on life that determines what is "real" and what really "exists" and so forth... I really don't belive that anything is "factual" but, I think there is a basic level of truth based off of the senses... anyways, to ask everyone else if something that in this "basic level of truth" requires faith, well... it seems ridiculous. Faith is something you have on your own, not from others... I think...

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queen annie wrote:

coluber2001 wrote:
echi wrote:
Watts in your post... Campbell in your sig line. I like you, already.

Thanks, echi.

I'm with echi--I like ya, too.

Your last two posts express my own thoughts quite accurately.

Quote:
Campbell's thesis that all religious symbols and myths can be taken metaphorically, and that the metaphorical interpretations provide a deeper meaning to the myths than a literal interpretation, means that religion can be used as a unifying force rather than the more common divisive force.

Thanks for your comments, Queen. I think one problem with taking religious myths and symbols literally is that, "If I'm right then everyone else's religion must be wrong." If you take the symbols as symbols metaphorically, then you see that everyone is saying almost the same thing using different symbols. There are many exceptions, but I won't harp on those. Campbell that many cultures, for example, the Roman Empire, after conquering a people, would use syncretism, that is, the combining of religions. They would say, "The God that you name so-and-so we call so-and-so." Or the God of the conquered people would become a local god within the Roman theology. I Prefer that to invading the land and slaughtering all the people who won't convert to your religion.
Exactly!!! I've not read those authors, but I do agree with what you've said they said.

I don't see 'truth' as having to be 'factual and actual'--'truth,' IMO, is what is reliable, consistent, perfectly applicable in all cases, and without prejudice.

I definitely have no use for the word 'supernatural.' I think it is a non-word. What could it possibly describe? To humanly assume that one has understanding of all natural things, so that anything not understood is deemed 'supernatural,' well...that's just the ego talking, once again. I never believe anything my ego tells me because I've caught it in a lie one too many times to trust it anymore.

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I think that in ordinary consciousness we see everything as having an opposition: up/down, good/bad, light/dark, etc. In the altered state of mind or "cosmic consciousness," as Alan Watts would say, the eternal or absolute principle comes into play. Time has no meaning and all opposites are resolved, as ego is dissolved. However, the absolute or eternity without the manifestation of the world into opposites is nothing. It's just empty space, not even that. So the absolute or eternal is beyond conception, but it underlies everything in the here and now.

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God and existence

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