The divine anxiety

[Jayson]

I don't notice your observation as I don't see things that I don't know as evil, dark, or black holes.
What you seem to have is a perspective which gives you a personal identity with existence as you experience it and one that appears to work for you well.
Nice!

I don't see it from that lens, however.
I don't believe in any gods as existing entities or forces, and further, I wouldn't care even if such do exist.
It would be akin to a vagabond's concern for kings.

Regarding our causal perception; I don't think we're all that blind.
Each generation of humanity builds on the previous with the findings before them given as inheritance.
By consequence, this creates a perpetually accelerating expansion of awareness and information.
At the rate we are going right now, should nothing catastrophic take place, at 80 I'll be unto the "current" generation of that time as my great great grandfather is to me now.

And by stating that I don't think we're all that blind...we're just now hitting the forced threshold of globalization.
The last time you had a massive paradigm shift from one socioeconomic infrastructure to another you had the Bronze Age and the Dark Age (two separate occasions of confined small groups evolving into socioeconomic state nations).
If you were of the "old" way, the new social paradigm of state-nations was quite often "your" peoples death.

So far...we're not rushing off to this level yet.
The EU has taken place without massive war.
Instead, this paradigm shift seems to be more economically impacting rather than physically impacting (borders, city building concept development, etc...).

As such, I would venture to suggest that we, today, have a massive range of lateral causal attention due to a forced requirement of global connection and high sensitivity between networked socioeconomic infrastructures beyond any in recorded history.

In fact, one could argue that the very nature of the merging globalization age in its beginning stages today is the very reason and center of contention between core debates of humanity between isolated solidarity (any construct of society which wedges a strong devotion to an "us" of a small group against a mass range of the world as "them") vs. globalized utilitarianism (all being seen as needing consideration with respect to choice and impact of choice therein).

Meanwhile, during the Bronze Age, isolated solidarity reigned supreme and was the fuel by which successful civilization was accomplished at all.

[jam2001]

Jayson I must not be communicating as well as I thought. I never said anyone had casual knowledge or awareness. Really I do not use philosophy with politics although I have no criticisms of those who do. I am trying to relate causality to the main theme of this thread of divine anxiety.I think quazelcoatl was expressing the age old perplexing question of where do good and evil come from. It is an anxiety because it has never really been resoLved since socrates began wondering. I do confess to have a belief in God but I do not think that should disqulalify anyone from any philosophy. From a philosophical standpoint it is still a very valid concept for a first cause. Granted science aand religion do not really communicate on this. Both camps are entrenched in the rightreousness of their position and the falseness of the other.I was trying to associate dark and evil with things that are beyond our awareness of causality and that alone. Really I was saying I don't think they exist either, its just the names we give our fear of the unknown. In this way science and philosophy reflect the pigheadness of our congress in the USA. I am happy at my age to have finally come to some beliefs that I think are very reasonable and I thank you for acknowledging that. I respect your interest in socio political realms as many of the greatest philosophers have. Probably because at the age of 56 I have learned to do without much of what others worry about and yet delight in the goals of my kids and their similar ideas. The whole vietnam era was enough for me I leave all the rest to you younger folks and like to reatrict my philosophy to first causes as well as cosmology.

[Jayson]

To cut right down to the meat of it:

where do good and evil come from.

From push and pull of our amygdala which never, never, never stops.
Again, religion is the attempted control method of this...ergo the analogy I keep using of gas and a gas regulator.

[jam2001]

They are the same energy. They only appear different because we see them with different perspectives from the same center point. Much llike past and future or up and down.We attach different names to the same energy depending on how we see it. Coming and going is the same energy as it moves past my center point. Cause and effect are names I give to same energy from my perspective.

[Jayson]

Chemically, our emotions are radically different physically.
Conceptually, we can manufacture levers that are useful, such as what you are saying, but biologically - such is not the case.

[jam2001]

There is diversity in all things. But chemicals and biology have never had the potential to be even recognized as good or evil. An animal is not evil when it kills for territory it is presumed to be acting withour much ability to choose. Good and evil have always been considered to need choice. And that is kind of my point. I am not judging choice I am only saying that they are names I give to my usefullness of an energy as it enters my awareness. But the energy is nothing but energy.

[jam2001]

And as my awareness grows so does my perception of causality change. Suddenly that which had been considered as evil is now seen as good. Which shows the relativity of it all.

[Jayson]

And as my awareness grows so does my perception of causality change. Suddenly that which had been considered as evil is now seen as good. Which shows the relativity of it all.

Absolutely.

[jam2001]

I thought we could see eye to eye on this. But what I would like to offer, if there is a God who has unlimited awareness then His perception of causality would include neither good or evil.

[Jayson]

Sure, I don't care.
I have few thoughts regarding gods in concept separate from the people who believe in them.
1. I don't believe in gods.
2. I don't care about if gods are real or not.
3. If there are gods, I don't care if they are good or evil to me, or to some other people.

1 and 2 are just emotional expressions; I don't have an emotional drive of interest, nor any sense of emotion which compels me to believe in gods.
3 is simply practical, in my mind; if there were gods - things which were massively over the power and imaginable comprehension of humans - then it would be inefficient in emotional conservation to spend my time concerning over the justice or injustice of their actions.
If there are gods, then apparently whether they are good or evil...the world is what exists as it does now, as it has before, and as it will in every manner that occurs.
The environment around my life is seemingly unaffected by any difference of my knowledge of their good or evil plots.

[jam2001]

I think you are not seeing the forest for the trees. I am not advocating a belief in God. I am trying to explain the limitaions of human perception relative to a greater perceptive power. I use the term of God to help one imagine someone aware enough to see beyond the limits of good and evil that so many are constrained by. How can you understand the limits of your perception if you have nothing but animals to compare them to. We as a race are certainly on this slow evolutionary expansion of awareness that has allowed some of us to get glimpses of what lies beyond our current limits every now and then. Unfortunately the world has a tendency to pull us back from time to time. Being able to imagine a far greater awareness can help to keep the goal of expansion even when we cannot see over the wall. Maybe you do not need this kind of help but I do. No matter how you cut it we are limited beings. Expanding yes but limited always. I unerstand your equation in terms of any awareness emotional, mathematical or dimensional. We see everything from our limited perspective of a persona in time and space. If you have another perspective I would like to hear about it. But knowing the limits of my perspective helps me to identify the illusions that it can create. I believe that good and evil are just such illusions. If you "care" not for them it implies an emotional detachment but not an intellectual one. I am different than you, in that I cherish and embrace my emotions as a source of joy in my life. Perhaps that is why I need an intelllectual detachment from illusion. If there is one thing that can keep us from expanding our awareness it is illusion. I think Mr. Spock would agree that it may be easier to abandon the emotions to avoid illusion but easy is often overrated.

[jam2001]

If therefor the divine anxiety is really an illusion then we have a good handle on overcoming the anxiety.

[Amorphos]

Predetermininative?
As in, what's the reason the boundaries are what they are? (And we'll just save time and take it all the way back to 0 time when it all began for this question.)

I meant predetermined so I took it that ‘predeterminative’ if I had spelled it right, would have been a better use of language for something which is that which determines.

What I was alluding to is the idea that something from the outside is operating upon the line of transformation. That is; factors derived from the environment affect changes to the internal line DNA would take ~ as it would otherwise have evolved by itself [the latter being what you appeared to be describing].

Let us say ‘the hands that mould the clay’ or the clay which moulds itself, its probably both [nature/nurture].

----

if there is a God who has unlimited awareness then His perception of causality would include neither good or evil.

Perception is a focus, a centralisation of thought towards the particular, one cannot perceive ‘all’. unlimited awareness would include e.g. my awareness and all other peculiars of the case. I suppose we could think of awareness as something out there which we all tap into when we focus our perceptions? Then as I don’t think we can separate awareness from mind and consciousness, that would place all of our minds as out there rather than ours. In fact I’d say that would mean such a mental entity would not belong to anyone [which I rather like actually].

Gods I think are just personifications of things we see in the world, maybe they represent something, but then we should be debating that rather than illusions pertaining whatever it is.

If therefore the divine anxiety is really an illusion then we have a good handle on overcoming the anxiety.

I don’t think divinity is itself anxious, the anxiety concerns what potentially may occur to it in living form. ..but that anxiety probably only happens when it is in living form, if say we consider that I am seeing the notion as if I were about to be born [so I wouldn’t want bad things to occur]. Divinity is I’d assume in some manner of equivalent state to complete ignorance about where it has yet to be or has yet to become. it’s a before an after thing.
Hmm I don’t know there, I wouldn’t think divinity is ignorant or anything like that, yet that’s how all life is born so I assume there’s a twist of some kind?

_

[jam2001]

I really cannot speak to the history of DNA. I think something is always acting on it and that is a good thing. It seems to me that evolution only occurs through collision. Whether that means expansion or extinction is dependent on random collisions. Perception is a focus. We can think of it in many ways but prove none of them. Whether collective or distinct makes little difference if my expansion requires acts of my will to expand or contract it. I think most people prefer to contract. I do agree that awareness is in the mind or more accurately the brain. Because the brain is in me I lean towards a more distinct understanding of awareness. I was not speaking of gods. Good and evil are; merely subjective evaluations of usefulness that we have been taught. The teaching perspective typically is a communal one handed to us. But before discussing divinity it needs to be defined. Do you mean being? As in a preexisting awareness that might be anxious about its birth in physical form?

[Jayson]

I think you are not seeing the forest for the trees. I am not advocating a belief in God. I am trying to explain the limitaions of human perception relative to a greater perceptive power. I use the term of God to help one imagine someone aware enough to see beyond the limits of good and evil that so many are constrained by. How can you understand the limits of your perception if you have nothing but animals to compare them to. We as a race are certainly on this slow evolutionary expansion of awareness that has allowed some of us to get glimpses of what lies beyond our current limits every now and then. Unfortunately the world has a tendency to pull us back from time to time. Being able to imagine a far greater awareness can help to keep the goal of expansion even when we cannot see over the wall. Maybe you do not need this kind of help but I do. No matter how you cut it we are limited beings. Expanding yes but limited always. I unerstand your equation in terms of any awareness emotional, mathematical or dimensional. We see everything from our limited perspective of a persona in time and space. If you have another perspective I would like to hear about it. But knowing the limits of my perspective helps me to identify the illusions that it can create. I believe that good and evil are just such illusions. If you "care" not for them it implies an emotional detachment but not an intellectual one. I am different than you, in that I cherish and embrace my emotions as a source of joy in my life. Perhaps that is why I need an intelllectual detachment from illusion. If there is one thing that can keep us from expanding our awareness it is illusion. I think Mr. Spock would agree that it may be easier to abandon the emotions to avoid illusion but easy is often overrated.

I wasn't intending to suggest that I haven't any emotional investment.
The only regard to lacking emotion that I was referring to was regarding gods.
In the same way, just because I lack any emotional drive towards homosexual attraction, this does not infer that I lack sexual drive itself.

The cardinal center of what I have been discussing is that our magnified sensory of emotion mixed with our magnified quality of identity (what a cup is, what a dream is, what the universe is, what "I" am, what "you" are, what existence is, etc...) and our increased capacity of causal forethought is what is the very cause of religion; being that with all of this increased amplitude and frequency, especially in an cognitively associative capacity, there is a greater rattling upon the bamboo stick as it is racketed upon the ground.
Following the bamboo stick analogy, religion is the means of interpreting how to move the body and the swinging of the bamboo stick to maintain control over the stick as we swing it around.
One way will say to swing it slower, another will say to take pauses, another will say to move the body with the rattling of the stick, another will instruct how to become stronger in an idea of resisting the rattling, and another will push for focusing upon the time after the stick is done being racketed as the coping method of the rattling during racketing, etc...

A stick is a simple thing.
Existing as a human is far more complicated, especially when it comes with a brain function which creates identity, and subconscious emotional recognition therein, of existence itself.

Regarding our limits:
Now personally, I don't see a need for gods to comprehend the idea of extending our capacity beyond our limit, or understanding that we have one.
Humanity has done this with and without gods.
Gods will probably always be with humans; I don't see a means of stripping that out unless we have a radical evolutionary change to our biology that is as radical as the difference between H. Erectus and H. Sapiens Sapiens.
How we reach beyond our limit is by our imagination.
We imagined to fly; impossible; and then we did.
We imagined to be in space; impossible; and then we did.
We imagined knowing the order of nature; impossible; and then we did (and still are).

When we write stories of grand civilizations, be they aliens or fantasy, and imagine of them that which is far beyond our reach today - we set the bar of what we then reach for.
Star Trek is one of the easiest examples; the Martin Cooper, the inventor of the first mobile phones openly states he saw the tricorder being used by Captain Kirk and it inspired him to make a mobile phone.
Look at us today, we haven't a tricorder, but we have this brilliant result that is just short of a tricorder (and in some ways, better than).

H.G. Wells outlined atomic bombs fictionally (chain reacting, perpetually exploding bombs).
And it was only after reading his idea of atomic bombs that physicist Leo Szilard then had the inspiration for a neutron reaction - which permitted for the creation of the atomic bomb.

[Jayson]

Quentz,

That is; factors derived from the environment affect changes to the internal line DNA would take ~ as it would otherwise have evolved by itself [the latter being what you appeared to be describing].

Of course; I wasn't intending to suggest isolation.
That's impossible.
The simplest example of this is that being on Earth, for us, cannot be ignored.

That said, I don't see it as predetermined.
Everything is malleable; it is just a gradient of how quickly malleable one thing is compared to another.
Throw shale at a cliff and eventually you will make a mark on that cliff that some archaeologist will find later. However, the alteration to the shale that you are throwing will be instantly witnessed by you even in the first throw.

[jam2001]

I can't help but think from your assertions that religion is a natural or even necessary thing. However why do you think this exaggeration of identity and emotion is a bad thing. You have not led me to believe it confuses anything. If you enjoy feeling why not feel as much as you can? But the real question you have left unasked is who is exaggerating and who has the causal forethought. Whoever or whatever that is what denies it the ability or right to do as it pleases? Do you see some great truth that this somehow confuses? Or why do we have this capacity to exaggerate?

[Jayson]

I didn't say it's a bad thing; nor was I ever stating it confuses anything.
Where did that impression come from?

But your question also doesn't apply to me.

If you enjoy feeling why not feel as much as you can?

Regarding gods?
Let me try this out and see how it works for you; perhaps it'll make sense then?

If you enjoy sex, why not have as much sex as you can?
Ergo, be gay and straight!

err...
I can't just be theistic anymore than I could just be gay or straight.
It's not like I can just pick one and go with that.
(Well, I suppose I could, but then I would be a miserable person for living a liar's life.)

But the real question you have left unasked is who is exaggerating and who has the causal forethought.

Exaggeration would be causal forethought.
There's really little difference between H.G. Wells exaggeration and forethought.
They are two names of imagination and only apply subjectively to the scenario.
What is forethought in one case is exaggeration in another, or to another, etc...

Whoever or whatever that is what denies it the ability or right to do as it pleases?

Generally other people in count more than "you" stop "you" from doing freely whatever you "please" if what you "please" is problematic and needing to be stopped in their view.

Do you see some great truth that this somehow confuses? Or why do we have this capacity to exaggerate?

I don't see a confusion with any of our abilities.
Why do we have the ability to exaggerate?
A) Lie
B) Imagination

More detail needed?
We care to lie because we have empathetic response (we can sense a "bad vibe" when approached) and emotionally driven desire to assemble into social roles, typically of normality but not always, and have the causal forethought that aids in playing out variable solutions to obstacles.
We have an imagination for related reasons of variable solutions to obstacles, as well as the capacity/

Now, if instead, you are asking me why we can have the ability for causal forethought in such a manner as we do (which is really where the ability to exaggerate is made possible), then I would point to our neurological difference from a Chimpanzee; whereby in the Chimp they have the world's highest short term memory response observed (there's not possibility yet conceived of a human matching a Chimpanzee's short term memory), yet they lack anything beyond around 12 hours of planning.

[jam2001]

I really cannot understand why you think I want you to be theistic? As for sexuality you are either gay or straight and many people are both. If you have some proof that any person is only one or the other I would sure like to hear it. Your dependence on biological detemination is totally without proof and lacking a wealth of socilogical and psycholoogical data. I do sense a sincere fear of a moral failure in your description of a wretched fellow because it seems that you believe you are unable to grow or learn anymore than you already restrict yourself to. Again I ask what is this great truth that you would belie if you experimented? I mean really comparing being theistic to being gay or straight is so far removed from reality as to be joke. I cannot understand how you could depend so greatly on biochemical realities as to even think a lie exists. How does chemistry know truth? But no I was not asking why we have the ability for causal forethought I was asking who was having it. Simply pointing out that chimpanzees are trying to discover it does not answer who is having it in your mind or anyones mind.So I will ask it again who is having it and why does that person not have the right to command any biochemical responses the way I manage any appetite for food?

[Jayson]

I really cannot understand why you think I want you to be theistic?

Your suggestion was to feel as much as possible.
The only emotion I stated lacking was an emotional drive to believe in gods.
Ergo, I can only conclude the emotion you would suggest I feel would be the only emotion I lack; the emotional drive to believe in gods.

As for sexuality you are either gay or straight and many people are both. If you have some proof that any person is only one or the other I would sure like to hear it. Your dependence on biological detemination is totally without proof and lacking a wealth of socilogical and psycholoogical data. I do sense a sincere fear of a moral failure in your description of a wretched fellow because it seems that you believe you are unable to grow or learn anymore than you already restrict yourself to. Again I ask what is this great truth that you would belie if you experimented? I mean really comparing being theistic to being gay or straight is so far removed from reality as to be joke. I cannot understand how you could depend so greatly on biochemical realities as to even think a lie exists. How does chemistry know truth? But no I was not asking why we have the ability for causal forethought I was asking who was having it. Simply pointing out that chimpanzees are trying to discover it does not answer who is having it in your mind or anyones mind.So I will ask it again who is having it and why does that person not have the right to command any biochemical responses the way I manage any appetite for food?

You are a strange person to me.

*sigh*
Alright.

As for sexuality you are either gay or straight and many people are both. If you have some proof that any person is only one or the other I would sure like to hear it.

I didn't say a person was only one or the other.
I stated that if I were one and had no emotional drive to the other; then I could not just jump out and say I'm the other honestly.
And homosexuality in neurological formation of brains due to genetic alterations is known.
We can make, for instance, female mice homosexual in labs by altering the FucM gene and lowering estrogen which then causes the brain to develop less akin to female mice and more akin to male mice brains.

Your dependence on biological detemination is totally without proof and lacking a wealth of socilogical and psycholoogical data.

No. It's with some proof.
I'm not saying there can't be people that are biologically one sexual orientation and choosing another due to psychological conditions.

Again, my point was that I cannot just choose a different sexual orientation as if I'm choosing a different cereal.
Your suggestion on "feeling as much as possible" was unto like asking me to just flip a switch somewhere in my sexual orientation.
It's an emotion.
Not a cognition.

I do sense a sincere fear of a moral failure in your description of a wretched fellow because it seems that you believe you are unable to grow or learn anymore than you already restrict yourself to.

Because I have no capacity to emotionally have a drive to desire gods I'm in a fear of moral failure because I believe I'm unable to grow and learn anymore?

Sorry, no.
I'll be good on the growth; thanks for the concern though.

Again I ask what is this great truth that you would belie if you experimented?

That's an empty sentence.
I don't even know what you are discussing at this part of the conversation.

I mean really comparing being theistic to being gay or straight is so far removed from reality as to be joke.

Why is it a joke?
In principle, it is the same.
As I said above, the choice is an emotional one; not a cognitive one.

I cannot understand how you could depend so greatly on biochemical realities as to even think a lie exists. How does chemistry know truth?

Polygraph.

But no I was not asking why we have the ability for causal forethought I was asking who was having it.

Who has causal forethought?
Many primates, elephants, dolphins, a bunch of others, and humans are at the top (well, we can't test all the hominids that didn't make it so we assume ours was above theirs until someone finds a way to show that one of the hominids topped us).

So I will ask it again who is having it and why does that person not have the right to command any biochemical responses the way I manage any appetite for food?

I never said someone didn't have any ability, or right, to command their biochemical responses (hell, the effect of leveraging that very control is one of my primary studies in religions of humanity...ask Quentz; the guy who opened the thread. He's worked with some of what I've been working on in that regard.).
I specifically said that was what religion was.

You know...question...honestly: is English your second language?
If so; that would explain allot and I could understand this confusion a bit.

[jam2001]

Really you are so deep in denying identity that it is difficult to communicate. You lay down this emotion to believe something, which I accept as your free opinion to be fact. Its not fact. Why on earth would I care what emotions you have or lack. I was referring to the who is having the emotion, who has authority the emotion is irrelevant. I am certain that you find anyone who does not agree with you as strange. To be able to peddle all this emotion to believe stuff you must either be very isolated or surrounded by yes men. Once again in terms of sexuality I care not for anyones orientation I am stating that there is no evidence that it is caused more by biochemistry more than learnd behavior. I agree that you cannot choose one or the other, you may be able to learn one or the other and there is always the presence of atavism in your DNA. But you can choose, and who is choosing and why does that person have the ability to choose concepts that are not material in nature. You keep talking about gods but that concept does not exist in nature so how can you choose to have emotion for it or not. How can biological wiring understand something that is not material. The very idea that choice is an emotion is absurd. Choice may be willed by an emotion but choice is a cognitive act not an emotion. If you think I have language as a second language, how about this guy I have asked twenty times who is choosing and he responds with classes of primates. Classes of primates are not who. They are categories of what's. Really your speach is much ado about nothing. What are you hiding?

[Jayson]

Perhaps you could be more clear about what choice you are referring to.

I'm not really certain how I've upset you, nor do I understand how you arrive at the conclusions of your thoughts that provoke your responses from what I write, but I'm willing to try.
I don't understand, at this point, what your central interest is?

[jam2001]

I think you feel if you have no emotion for an idea, it proves to you that the idea is null and void. Its circular reasoning. I have no emotion for an idea therefor the idea must be false or an illusion. Which affirms that I have no emotion for it. I agree that we are limited to making sense of sensory data but that does not answer anything it creates the problem , for instance we had no concept of germs for centuries but they still existed. We are beings that have the ability to handle all sorts of concepts, ideas and even forms that exist in a completely immaterial way. If we were limited to biochemical or even computer like reasoning this could not be. No effect can exceed the sum of the cause. You say "I have no emotion for an idea" great but before you can have the emotion the "I" must exist who experiences the emotion or lack of it. The abilities of the "I" are what your philosophy is avoiding. That is why I keep asking who or what is the "I". If you end analysis with the circular argument it has no real value in a philosophical sense because it is based on assumptions that you either do not see, do not understand or cannot answer. By the way you are much easiier to understand when you are angry. Its as if an entirely different person is speaking. I like the angry one better.

[Jayson]

Ah, I see where the confusion is coming from.
You were thinking that I have concluded that there are no gods simply because I have no emotional drive to regard any gods.
That is not the case, as they were separate commentaries.

Firstly, I'm an existentialist and a student of history. There's no room in these for arguments from emotion, especially ones which - as you thought I was doing - then are used to argue an absolute.

As I state regularly around here, I am foremost a transtheist; meaning that I don't care if there are or are not gods (this is the emotional part); this is not why I am interested in religion or spirituality.
If I am pressed, then I would then explain that I don't believe it to be likely for there to be gods (this is the logical part, not related to the emotional part previous).

Even as a young child who was Christian and assumed the god of my parents by default and had never thought about the idea of this god not being true, I was not interested in my god.
I was interested in the nature of being, how to live.
When we studied Jesus and the class would center around the divinity of Jesus, I would be interested in the behavior of Jesus.
When pat question and answer time came and answers to "Why do you love Jesus?" were met with alterations of "Because he first loved me" or "Because he died for my sins", I was responding with, "But what if he didn't?", because to me; that was kind of Jesus' point - unmerited compassion.

I'll cut the tangent there, but my point in that example is that I've never been interested in my relationship to any god personally.
I also don't happen to believe any are existent, but I also do not claim to show that such is the case in argument.
I don't care to convince anyone of such, so I was not stating that I believe gods are non-existent simply because I do not feel an emotional drive towards them.
Again, that logic would make about as much sense as me claiming that because I don't feel an emotional drive towards a sexual orientation that therefore such sexual orientation simply does not exist.
No, sorry if that's what you collected from my comments; but this was not my point.

Also, to be more explicit; I still have a deep emotional drive to be spiritual, and I actively am deeply spiritual.

Hopefully that helps clear some of the confusion up.

So the next part:

The abilities of the "I" are what your philosophy is avoiding.

I wasn't outlining a philosophy.
I have only outlined two philosophies: Bomanism, and Modular Spirituality.
The central focus in the former is a type of relationship with, "I"; the second is more a philosophy of how to build a spiritual philosophy.
My second passion is neurology.

It was not clear to me at all, that you were interested in the identity of, "I".
If that is your interest, simple enough.

That is why I keep asking who or what is the "I".

That is a very long discussion; and perhaps one we should open in a different thread so that we don't completely derail this one.
But in brevity, "I", is a culminating identity held in conceptual focal of our consciousness largely derived from implicit assimilation over time and is not the same as, what in Bomanism I call, "self nature"; but to express it without lingo, "me now", without conception in mind of, "I", as myself.

By the way you are much easiier to understand when you are angry. Its as if an entirely different person is speaking. I like the angry one better.

I wasn't angry, though.
I was flummoxed, and at a loss of the basis of the discourses direction, but now I can see what was causing the confusion and it should be easier.

My primary point in this thread was a discussion of what our "divine anxiety" is.
To loop back, my original and continual focus has been based on this post:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=178005#p2283034

I had no interest in making claims about what does or does not exist in realms of divinity, and certainly would not make such a case based on emotional plea.

[jam2001]

Jason thank you for the candid revelation to the history of your perspective. One of my favorite parts of Neitzche is his commentary on how all philosopphy is a kind of self analysis or confession by each philosopher in examining self. And really how could it be any diffrent. I am interested in hearing more of your ideas on the self or "I". I had many of the same experiences growing up in Catholic school and I too saw my parents as gods. I still strugle with knowing that I inherited my conscience from them. I like the lyrics in a Velvet Underground song where Lou Reed sings " A child who was raise by an idiot and that idiot becomes you". l will have to learn about Bomanism but my passion is in understanding being. For me God is nothing but unlimited being. I am a firm believer that everything else is creating God in our own image and likeness. I think philosophy is more the study of unbuilding others spiritual philosophies or arguments until we find their implicit assumptions. Implicit assumptions are where we find that the ideas do not hold water on their own. For instance how can God be one, if one is a limited unit? That limitaion eliminates that concept from applying to an understanding of God.