Discerning God's Will

This lends credence to the old adage, “Agnostics are just atheists who can’t commit.” I jest, of course. Agnostic seems like a very appropriate description of your beliefs.

But I can prove that there isn’t a gay rhinoceros in my car. It wasn’t there when last I looked, it’s rather difficult to imagine how such a state of affairs could exist, and how do you know that there is a gay rhinoceros in my car anyways?

I’ve always said that science doesn’t disprove God – it just doesn’t need God. Some people need God in their lives, and that’s fine. Sadly, they come to a rude welcoming party when they try to enter scientific discourse with such beliefs.

Ask yourself what’s a desire and what’s will.

If you were in a state of highest awareness, experiencing deepest love and utmost beauty, total peace and joy (as God does) then what would be there for you to desire and will?

Essence to me is the very source of existence, the fundamental building block of existence, and the closest thing to describe it with English word is ‘awareness’. Of course there are countless states of awareness, from the non-aware, via relatively aware (human state of awareness is just one of many), to the absulute one (that of God).

Now, I’d not like to get into details of comparing a human life and dog shit, but yes, they are of same essence, but that was not the point I was making, the point is that the more aware one becomes the less consciously damaging/harmful one becomes to living life, because one is aware that life is a process, a process of progressing from lowest state of awareness to the highest one. And life does so via experiencing, which is the one and only true teacher of ‘becoming’.

More perhaps later. Good night.

Emm… not really.

First, I was just filling in a definition for Boyan, but…

You have been told by Christians to not fear God nor the “adversary” or “Devil”. Fear is pretty much an issue of Judaism and much more of Islam. And the concern is that out of fear of the adversary, one must pursue the “Ideal state of living” == “God”, so as to avoid the adversary. It is saying to pursue perfection so as to avoid suffering and death.

Within that definition, the idea of “God’s will” would mean “what the goal of the Ideal life would require of you so as to accomplish it and avoid the bad”. It could be stated as “what God wants of you” and “what ignoring God consequentially brings”. Such language was not at all uncommon in ancient writings.

That is only one definition of “God”, but it isn’t an irrational one.

To Boyan

I am more me now than i ever will be. The atoms and/or energy (essence, as you define it) in my body, upon my death, will disperse and reassemble into something else, say a tree, but does that mean i am a tree? No. It is not merely the atoms that make me, me, but the unique combination of them that make me, me. therefore, when i chop down a tree, I do not chop myself down.

Total peace and joy, nothing wrong with that, but let me ask you this, do you have total peace and joy? I doubt it, but if so, did you always have it? If not, did you desire it? If so, I bet your desire compelled you to seek after it, and eventually, after much anguish and turmoil, you found it. Thus, desire was not an obstacle to acquiring peace and joy, but a catalyst, a prerequisite to obtaining it. Total peace and joy are nearly impossible to acquire for any extended length of time in this world, no matter what kind of drugs and/or faith your on. the best we can hope for is a little more contentment than discontentment, a little more joy than sorrow. Try as we may, we can never fully detach ourselves from the bad things going on around us, even if we could, that would also mean detatching ourselves from the good things.

I am not against detachment per se, nor am i for it. It is a good way to keep you from being disappointed. Everything in life has it’s pros and cons, therefore, it’s probably best that we don’t get caught up in things too much. But by the same token, if your not going to engage in them at all, you may as well be a corpse, but your probably not advocating total withdrawal from the world, right?

To James S Saint

What about Christian hell. Many people turn to Christianity out of fear of going to hell. I often hear Christians say, if I don’t believe in Christ, I might go to hell, but if I don’t believe in Buddha, and it turns out Buddha was right, not much will happen to me. Therefore, I stand to risk more by believing in Buddha than Christ. Of course, they forget about Mohammed when they say this.

Well, that’s a different idea of God’s will than I was refering to. I was refering to God as a supreme being, who punishes those who don’t repent and/or do “good works”. Who reveals himself to his “children” via revelation, or wants us to figure out what it dislikes/likes via reason, and observation of the laws of nature, or something. They call this natural law, I think. One, God tells us what is good/evil, and punishes those who transgress It’s will. Two, God sets laws of nature, and leaves it up to man to discover them, though trial and error, and/or reason. Of course, there are laws of nature, no doubt, but they’re not as cut and dry as certain philosophers and scientists would have you believe. There may even be exceptions to gravity, nevermind the laws that supposedly govern societies. And there’s usually more than one way to use the things of this world. It’s not so crystal clear how God (if it exists) intended us to use the things of this world.

That’s a very abstract view of God. If that’s what you mean by god, why don’t you just say ideal person? Well, there’s your problem. Just who/what is the ideal person, and why should i asspire to be like him/it. Can I achieve this lofty ideal, in spite of my desire to say… be lazy, or not pay taxes (I’m assuming hard work and paying taxes are attributes of your ideal person).

To Boyan

Another one of your errors, in my opinion, is your trying to root concepts such as good, bad, right, wrong, etc, in reason, and the law of non contradiction (don’t hurt the tree, because the tree is of the same essence as you), rather than where they belong, in emotion, in love and hate.

I will deal with the problem of Kantian morality in another topic.

Perhaps too little space and time to come accross as intended, but I’ll try, again.

Saying we are of same essence is not same as saying that all forms, which are of same essence, have equal value. Of course that a living aware being bares more value than the one who’s unconsious or barely so.

The very level of awareness is a display of “value”, in sense of how far certain beign came into its progression.

If you are merely a formation of atoms, which will decompose into something else when you die,is still an open question even for science.

I, for one, believe in a (immortal) soul. Which in its essence is no different than essence of everything, but it’s a kind of formation of essence which obtaines its own existence on top of whole existence (individualization, rising of “I”).

Every living thing has a soul, and the being who’s more advanced is aware of its own soul. Some might see it as personal mind. Fine too.

So, if you are hurting a tree, or a forest, of course you are not really doing same level of damage as hurting another conscious living being. Well, if you’d hurt every tree on this planet then we’d run out of breathable oxygen and ultimtely you’d hurt every human being… but that’s beyond my point. My point is that any harm done to another is done to self too, because progression of awarenes in self is that way stalled, if not put backwards, because one cannot advance in own awareness if one doesn’t understands what makes life function better and better. Reaching a state of awareness in which love, beauty, joy and peace is experienced is impossible via creating destruction and pain.

As for evil existing, which seems to be your observation and/or belief. Well, I’d say that true evil simply cannot exist, since it would destroy itself the very moment it would come into existence (since true evil means no love, and what could possibly hold such existence together in desire and will to keep existing). Evil, as we observe it, is not true evil, it’s simply outcome of imperfect awareness. And it’s natural. And it’s also natural that we fight against all that’s “bad” (that which is againsst life and its ideal progression), but not with another ignorant action, but via understanding it first by self and then by positively prolonging that understanding to others, so that other too see there is no need for harming, and know where life wants to lead them.

As per will and desire, I really don’t understand from where your conclusion about what I mean with them. Of course will and desire are necessary for all relative existence, in fact, these two are the two major fundamentals for relative existence to advance into a more and more perfect state fo beingness, where one day soul unites with God in state of absolute perfect beingness.

Desire and will are like Yin-Yang of relative creation.

I am from Europe, Slovenia, English being my third language, and perhaps what I am saying is truly coming accrosss way different than the way I mean it. And if this is happening, I apologize.

Hell was the Judaism concept of Gehenna, the burning trash bin outside the holy city. Christianity merely renamed it. But Jesus’ entire endeavor was aimed at helping people avoid being thrown into the burning trash bin by the “spirit” that does that (angry emotionalism). It is the same concept as a police chief telling his officers to not break the law and be nice to the people so that they will not become a cast out (from the corp), lose their privileged position, and have to suffer like normal people. Jesus “toured Hell” so as to “open the gates”, forgive, an let people be free again. Jesus was the “anti-Hell”

When a Christian, (not quite the same thing as Jesus), tells you that you might “go to Hell” if you don’t take Jesus’ advice, he is merely trying to warn you of what society (more specifically Judaism) does to their own people when society thinks ill of people.

What do you think “Supreme Being” meant? “Supreme [state of] Being.” The “punishment” is by consequence. It is really the rest of Reality that is doing the harassing (the ambiguous “adversary” aka Satan). The religions are (when not merely politicking) advising what to do to avoid disaster in your life and more directly, in the life time of a society (not so much an individual). The idea of “eternal good or bad” is referring to a society stuck in and endless cycle.

Ask the Jews and Catholics. It was their way of speaking to their people thousands of years ago. Who’s fault is it really that you thought you could read 3000 year old text from a foreign people writing to their own children in their own way of speaking, with such a casual and superficial purview?

Seriously, get on a Catholic forum, realizing that all Catholics don’t think alike, and pose the question, “If God represents the most ideal life/being, “the Supreme [state of] Being”, then…?” You can’t do that on a Jewish site. You wouldn’t be allowed.

I would go with you, but I got banned for life for my single comment disfavoring Obama, the Failing Pharaoh.

To Boyan

“Saying we are of same essence is not same as saying that all forms, which are of same essence, have equal value. Of course that a living aware being bares more value than the one who’s unconsious or barely so.”

Really, I think a lizard would beg to differ. I’m sure he values his life more than he values yours.

“The very level of awareness is a display of “value”, in sense of how far certain beign came into its progression.”

That’s just your opinion. I value my friends and family more than I do others. Is that because I’m less aware than you, or simply because my values are different than yours? Sociopaths may be highly aware of other peoples thoughts and feelings, yet they don’t sympathize with them. So by your definition of value, if beings far more intelligent and conscious than ourselves needed to farm us for food, or use us as slaves to mine cryptonite for their rocket ships, you would be ok with that, you would lay down your life for them. Although I can’t prove this, I bet if you built an intelligent robot, capable of understanding others thoughts and feelings, it would be incapable of valuing itself, or others, unless you programmed values into it. Awareness is not necessarily the same thing as love.

“If you are merely a formation of atoms, which will decompose into something else when you die,is still an open question even for science.
I, for one, believe in a (immortal) soul. Which in its essence is no different than essence of everything, but it’s a kind of formation of essence which obtaines its own existence on top of whole existence (individualization, rising of “I”).
Every living thing has a soul, and the being who’s more advanced is aware of its own soul. Some might see it as personal mind. Fine too.”

Like you said, it’s debatable. Perhaps there is an aspect of our consciousness that lives on after death, but unless you remember what your life was like before you were born, how can you be certain? I can’t seem to recall ever having lived a past life. There are arguments on both sides. For now, scientists can’t fully explain the phenomenon known as near death experiences, nor can they explain consciousness in purely mechanistic terms. Yet our consciousness is effected by our environment. If you were to perform a lobotomy on someone, the flame of consciousness could be harmed, or even extinguished. Perhaps our consciousness is just a machine, far too complex and intricate for us to comprehend at this stage of our development, or maybe our consciousness can’t be reduced to mere mechanics, but I don’t think our consciousness is synonymous with matter and energy. Maybe an aspect of our consciousness is composed of something we can’t percieve with the five senses. Something beyond the physical plane.

“As for evil existing, which seems to be your observation and/or belief. Well, I’d say that true evil simply cannot exist, since it would destroy itself the very moment it would come into existence (since true evil means no love, and what could possibly hold such existence together in desire and will to keep existing). Evil, as we observe it, is not true evil, it’s simply outcome of imperfect awareness. And it’s natural. And it’s also natural that we fight against all that’s “bad” (that which is againsst life and its ideal progression), but not with another ignorant action, but via understanding it first by self and then by positively prolonging that understanding to others, so that other too see there is no need for harming, and know where life wants to lead them.”

By evil I meant suffering. I think I have uncovered what I percieve to be the major defect in your thinking Boyan. I thought you said that some things in the universe are unconscious? Now your telling me that not only are atoms conscious, but they’re capable of love, and willing themselves into existence? That’s preposterous! You are anthropomorphizing nature. That’s a very poetic, childlike way of percieving the universe, reminiscent of the way primitive man used to percieve the universe. I believe it’s called Animism. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest that matter is conscious and capable of love. Let me ask your this, do you equate matter and the laws of physics with consciousness and emotions? When atoms come together, do they do so out of love, and when they go apart, do they do so out of strife? When a volcano erupts, is the volcano angry? When a cloud rains, is the cloud sad? The answer is no! All these things just happen automatically. As far as we can tell, a twig just exists. It snaps apart because the weight of your fingers was too much for it to bear. It doesn’t consciously say, well, i’m a twig, i’m supposed to break now. Where is your evidence that it says that?

“I am from Europe, Slovenia, English being my third language, and perhaps what I am saying is truly coming accrosss way different than the way I mean it. And if this is happening, I apologize.”

I thought you were Eastern European, I have a friend from Serbia named Boyan. Perhaps that’s a sign from the universe, lol. Your English is fine, it’s your topsy turvy, upsidedown philosophy I’m having trouble with.

Oh, by the way, I define love as the desire to make other LIFEFORMS happy, not as existence, or consciousness. Let me ask you this, do you occasionally feel sorry for broken, inanimate objects? I suppose everything is an animate object to you, hence your Animism. In a way, I don’t want to take your innocence from you. You have a peculiar and very beautiful way of seeing the world, albeit a little crazy.

To James the Saint

Of course, Christ came to save people from his fathers wrath, but his father wanted blood. Someone had to pay for all that sin, so if it wasn’t humanity, it was the poor lambs (animal sacrifice), or his only begotten son, Yeshua the Demigod.

So none of it was literal, it was all figurative. Well, I don’t really want to get into this with you. I’m not a biblical scholar. All I have to say is that 99 percent of Christians disagree with you.

Trust me, I know, I once was one, sorta. Most Christians would scoff at your idea of a “supreme being”. The vast majority of Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe that God is a personal, historical being, with human emotions like love and hate. This is all just your highly peculiar, figurative, abstract and philosophical interpretation of the literal, concrete, mythological text known as the bible. Anyway, it was them whom i was addressing, not you and your highly idiosyncratic Christianity.

Yeah, who knows what the nomadic, Canaanite Jews were really thinking when they wrote the bible. Who knows what they meant by all those ancient hebrew/hyksos words. I have no clue, and I don’t care either. As for Barrack Obama, I’m not sure if he’s the reincarnation of Akhenaten, or if his mother was a porn star, or if his real name is Barack Obama or “Barry Soetoro”, but he’s definitely falling in the polls. Yeah, fuck the new world, and so on and so forth.

The vast majority is vastly gullible - and consequently deluded always, in every age.

-WL

That is the Jewish version.

I said nothing of it being MY religion. I said talk to the Catholics. The Protestants are very largely superficial whereas the Catholics have a deeper mix. Boyan was talking about one particular and rational understanding on the subject.

The vast majority within any and every large group have no real understanding of the precepts of the foundation. Scientism is no different.

If you are going to bitch about people, at least have the maturity to find out what they are talking about first otherwise you are really only arguing with your own imagination, as fun as that might be.

As this thread is on “Discerning ‘God’s’ Will”, it is a bit silly to now argue that God doesn’t exist or go into how much you hate Christians. If you are going to discuss God’s will, then at lest temporarily accept some notion of a God to discuss besides your fantasy version that obviously would have no will or true influence (non existent).

To James the Saint

Ok fine, nevermind Jehova or the Demiurge (whom i was also addressing). How do we discern your God’s will? Who is he/she/it and how do we know what he/she/it wants?

That has been the subject of very serious debate at the highest levels of society for thousands of years, thus obviously it isn’t a simple minded resolution even if the real answer is simply stated.

My personal opinion, whether that particular understanding of “God” is correct or not is to;

Clarify, Verify, and Remember the Hopes and Threats toward the Maximum Momentum of Self-Harmony.

To explain something extremely metaphysically founded with a mere few words;

1) Awareness - Clarify, Verify, and Remember - necessarily for all living organisms so as to “see” their situation (Mygod == your personal situation).

2) Motivation - Hopes and Threats - the discernment required to make a decision of direction to take by any living being.

3) Goal - Maximum Momentum of Self-Harmony - the aforementioned “Supreme state of Being”, “God”, or “Holy Spirit”, “Je-hov-ah” (the-holy-spirit); the maximized survival position as well as maximized joy position (ie. “Eternal Heaven”).

Understanding exactly how that works isn’t trivial. If it were, it would have been resolved thousands of years ago. But it doesn’t require taking my word for it. It can be deduced, simulated, debated, and repeatably tested.

It is both the maximum state of existing/being/living as well as the way to get to that state == discerning “God’s” will.

The Hebrews and Jews once described it in different terms as the recursive “flower of life”, complete with pictograms and appropriate reverence.

To James the Saint

From my perspective, your philosophy is very vauge and obscure. Are there any philosophers and/or theologians who’ve endorsed similar ideas?

3. Goal - Maximum Momentum of Self-Harmony - the aforementioned “Supreme state of Being”, “God”, or “Holy Spirit”, “Je-hov-ah” (the-holy-spirit); the maximized survival position as well as maximized joy position (ie. “Eternal Heaven”).

Your notion of God is nothing like the traditional one I’m familiar with.

Realize that mass attraction and gravity principles were very vague and obscure to everyone not all that long ago.

The specific mention and focus on “Momentum” seems to be the only bit that the historic philosophers (including the founders of the religions) seem to have overlooked. They very lightly touch on the need, but display a lack of serious “scientific” understanding on the issue. It is a critical element. I can substantially prove that the concept undeniably belongs there, but most people are still arguing over other tidbits of their faith. No one really knows who to listen to so people make very little progress.

I do my own deducing and originating based as strictly as I can in the logical necessity within Logical Metaphysics. I am a genuine philosopher originating concepts from current concerns and perspectives. I very seldom, almost never, quote some other philosopher’s work. Although I can see from where many historic concepts originated, I don’t accept anything until I can see the validity of the concepts. But I am very aware of how distorted rhetoric has become concerning ancient thoughts, so I hold off judgment until I can see clearly exactly what must be true. I am a judge of “angels”/ideas, not people (“clarify, verify, and remember…”).

You shouldn’t be surprised with that nor with the idea that your notion of God, despite being similar to the most common in the West, is not really what the Middle Eastern originators thought either.

The word “God” is not my word. I didn’t invent the word nor any proposed concept behind it. As I studied, I found a great deal of confusion surrounding the word, intentional confusion. I cut through the clouds, in my usual manner, so as to get to the point. I discovered that many have intentionally obfuscated the entire issue surrounding the word “God” leaving many concepts available. Some of the concepts are valid depending entirely on perspective. So I don’t really use the word much myself unless someone else has.

I invented the word/name “Mygod” so as to emphasize the concept that anyone’s real situation is more of a God to them than anything else could be and is always a little unique to the person. To pray to Mygod means to examine, investigate, inquire of your personal situation when seeking answers (“clarify, verify, and remember…”)

My understanding of the intentions of the ancients comes largely through their words, not the translations that other people have made of them. Even in the Days of Moses, some concepts were already skewed from the days of Ahdam. I can know such things through proper attention and study (so could anyone else staying altruistic in their investigation). In addition to their actual words, logical consistency leads the way and eventually verifies the path.

1. consistency
2. completeness
3. relevance

Those “angels” lead to the truth of what ancient people meant by what they wrote. That doesn’t mean that what they wrote was true or not. But until you really have studied enough to know without much question of exactly what they really meant, arguing that they were right or wrong is a bit immature.

As to your topic question;

You asked an open, “what’s your thought on this subject” type of question, so I answered. I’m not preaching, just explaining my perspective. Boyan was referring to one of the more valid concepts of God, but certainly not the only one. My advised answer includes his concept and probably all other valid concepts as well. But that is something you would have to study very carefully to verify.

The answer appears a bit vague and lengthy because it is new. It is a “whole” concept (“holy”) concerning the make of God. It includes all Secular principles as well as those of ancient religions. It, to my knowledge, is the “real deal”, vague to you currently or not.

Most ordinary people lack the education to even ask of God at all in that they have no real understanding of what they are asking so any answer tends to be misleading. And it has been that way for thousands of years. A great deal of misinformation has been generated (and is still being generated for political reasons).

To James the Saint

Forgive me for being frank, but are you deliberately being obscure? I thought Boyan did a better job of explaining himself than you. Maybe it’s me, but I felt like I recieved a lot of jargon and buzz words (like the kind New Agers and infomercials use), but no greater understanding of your philosophy. Is that because you think your philosophy is far too complex and sophisticated to divulge at a single time and place, or because your affraid I’ll find cracks in your foundation, or because your planning on writing a book and your affraid someone might steal your ideas? LoL

“Maximum Momentum, angels, Mygod, clarify verify and remember, maximized survival position, maximized joy position.”

Jargon

“The specific mention and focus on “Momentum” seems to be the only bit that the historic philosophers (including the founders of the religions) seem to have overlooked.”

Ok, so explain the importance of “Momentum”.

“I am a genuine philosopher originating concepts from current concerns and perspectives.”

That’s great James, that’s great. I also consider myself a “genuine philosopher”. I’m not content in merely parroting the words of dead men. We need a new philosophy for a new age.

“I invented the word/name “Mygod” so as to emphasize the concept that anyone’s real situation is more of a God to them than anything else could be and is always a little unique to the person.”

So people worship, pray to, idealize their situation, even if they’re watching tv, or taking a piss?

“I cut through the clouds, in my usual manner, so as to get to the point.”

Yeah, that’s what I feel like I’m having to do right now, with you.

Well, forgive me for being so blunt, but I want to get to the bottom of your philosophy, but perhaps you should create a new topic entitled the Philosophy of James the Saint, I think we might be off topic.

Being a bit disingenuous are you? “You aren’t explaining enough. I really want to know. - We are OFF TOPIC.”
Yes, I knew trying to explain a subject that I already explained was too deep to get into would be off topic and thus I gave a very brief overview, a bit cryptic due to having to be short. You said it was obscure and commented that the definition that I was using for “God” was different than yours. That particular statement wasn’t off topic, so I fully explained that bit.

I suspect that if you had thought up anything truly original and profound and tried to explain it to the online Magog, you would be far more sympathetic to my situation.

I need specific questions to narrow an explanation to which confusion you might have. What is very clear and obvious to some is totally ambiguous to others. So I don’t attempt to explain something I already know to be probably too obscure until I get a specific question. You have to clue me in a bit on which part of something seems obscure else you are being merely obscure yourself. We are discussing THE most obscured topic known to Man with the possible exception of recent Quantum Mechanics mind games.

I don’t know how a person would “idealize” their situation. The point was merely, as I explained, to attend to their surroundings when they want answers to questions. To “pray” means to “seek of”, similar to “prey” meaning to “seek to capture”.

If you want to know answers, ask specific questions. Don’t be merely coy, obscure, and insinuating. It is your thread. You lead it where you want it to go, else I’m sure now that at your convenience you will blame me for it being off topic. As I stated, I am not preaching, just trying to answer your questions.

{{…and my middle name isn’t “the”}}

It would take us very long time to came to a page where we’d hear each other (what you think I think is not it). You look at things at “microscopic” level where I try to portray a more “general” picture.

I’ll just add this: in a way love and awareness are the two main and universal forces of nature, the way I see it, on most fundamental level gravity is a physical represtation of love (going inward) and light is a physical representation of awareness (going outawards).

To Boyan

In my opinion, gravity could be seen as a physical representation of love, but not as love itself.

Let me ask you this, if gravity (comming together) is a representation of love, than is friction or force (going apart) a representation of strife or hate, or is there no room for strife or hate in your universe?

I suppose it would be boring, if we all percieved the universe in exactly the same way. I have my reasons for seeing the universe the way I do, and I’m assuming you have yours. You have a very figurative, holistic way of seeing things (this could be that, that could be this), I have a more literal, compartmentalistic (is that a word?) way of seeing things (this is this, that is that).

What do you think of Empedocles metaphysics?