The only symbolic realm I can conceive of yet is that of a yoga-system, of which only the first pose is established. Logic would suggest that following the expansion there should be a contraction, a taking-in, but i am not sure that this would serve. Rather another stretch outward, more manifestly manifest - the first one commanded time into being, the second is in time. And a third one, encapsulating the subject instead of in balanced duality in trifold expansion. A movement, an arrow is formed and the questioning lords are now suddenly finding very strange and threatening answers.
The turbulence of this Thing is getting heavy. I have to deal with it or kill it. [size=85]
I’ve gone too metaphysical on this.
This God must include humble things, wood.
Growing towards the light does not have to be instant
its conception was instant but the sap of it flows perhaps slowly
as all is entangled light imagine the light of the sap in the tree
so philosophy may seep upwards to the light.
I ought rather have asked, I think, What is that which your New God most manifests as, as representation… of? These Gods seem to arrive because we call to them, we enquire in such a (profoundly) overflowing manner that this energy leaves us, gather at the edges and distills into the appeoach of a new form(-al image). To me, this image condenses as it does precisely because this condensation emerges from within a certain (symbolic-metaphorical) realm of affective (and otherwise) sensibilities and precepts, which are gathered together through the sheer force of fixed intentionality. Thus it is our intentionality which catalyzes these possibilities under which these objects gather, but these possibilities themselves emerge from somewhere else. I think the form of the God qua emergent being-ness, presencing, is a clue hinting toward the delineated boundaries of this exteriority-itself. And I think the understanding of these boundaries can serve highly fruitful ends to our self-conceivings and reflections, especially as where tends to better afford a concretizing of intention, precisely because it is HOW this exteriority manifests qua exceptionality and (initially at least) impenetrability that gives us a sense of the infra- and super-structural architectures of our own subjectivity(-as-condition/s of/for object-ification).
These Gods being then manifest Icons given into the possibility of informing us, retroactively and through an almost (transcendentally) dialectical methodology of subtle reciprocal refractions and retroactions (which can perhaps be expressed best as an Hegelian meta-dialectic of over/re-inscribing of conditionality qua inscription), of our very own possibilities and potentialities themselves.
The very possibility of an (“metaphysical”) ahistorical principle of extra-situational and meta-contextual unity upon which our very historicity qua Being-in-the-world is mapped - the “universal” (de-centered, disperse, infinite) axes around which our (always already) particular(ly situated) actualizations turn.
I am careful not to make the form too explicit, more explicit than it appeared to me. The perpetual lightning, seemingly frozen in time but active as a lightning strike in every moment, is what comes closest to an image. And these beams spanned the world from horizon to horizon.
Indeed this must somehow be the case. There is a forging of a reality between the self and what Lacan called the Real, the unformed, unexperienced, uninterpreted – it is as if this God is a vessel to hold a dominating type of interpretation in place. Yes in fact I think this is what Gods normally are, not just this one. But where from this emerges – I imagine it has much to do with the state of the world – not only what the subject wants from the world, but also what the world can expect of the subject.
I would agree. And I am still struck by the specific nature of what emerged. It strikes me that one of the things this form conveys is that there is not only work to be done, but that it can be done, must be done.
All Gods represent overarching thought-structures. Most Gods wear masks to appear as “truth” instead of simply the power of a concept. It seems the face of this God was relatively naked. And it is interesting that in the aftermath of the experience the concept “Chokmah” came into my head. I’ve known this story for a long time:
“The Spiritual Experience of Chokmah is the Vision of God
Face-to-Face. The tradition I received has it that one cannot
have this vision while incarnate i.e. one dies in the process.
One Hasidic Rabbi liked to bid farewell to his family each
morning as if it was his last - he feared he might die of ecstacy
during the day. In the “Greater Holy Assembly”, three Rabbis
pass away in ecstacy, and in the “Lesser Holy Assembly” the
famous Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai passes away at the conclusion.
There is a fairly widespread belief that to look on the naked
face of God, or a God, means death, but fortunately there is no
historical evidence to suggest that the majority of Kabbalists
died of anything other than natural causes. Having said that, I
would not like to underplay the naked rawness of Chokmah;
unconstrained, unconfined, free of form, it is the creative power
which sustains the universe, and talk of death is not
melodramatic.” ( digital-brilliance.com/kab/nok/q10.txt )
This danger exists because there is no context in the devout mind (such as of the rabbi) to interpret the raw presence of cosmic force. Perhaps what I saw could only be seen by someone who has been destroyed and reborn so many times as I.
And I think that the main thing preventing such a principle from becoming operative is a grave lack of spiritual and philosophical boldness. Which is what the great majority of the seven billion humans alive now seem to suffer from. That we do not is strange… we should savor this exclusion, this standing outside what is possible… as long as where we stand is still “outside”!
“Alas, what are you then, my written and painted thoughts! It’s not so long ago that you were still so colourful, young, and malicious, full of stings and secret seasonings, so that you made me sneeze and laugh.—And now? You have already stripped off your novelty and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths: you already look so immortal, so heartbreakingly honest, so boring! And was it ever different? What things we transcribe in our writing and painting, we mandarins with a Chinese paintbrush, we immortalizers of things which let themselves be written—what are the only things we are capable of painting? Alas, always only what is just about to fade and is beginning to lose its fragrance! Alas, always only storms which are worn out and withdrawing and old yellow feelings! Alas, always only birds which have exhausted themselves flying and lost their way and now let themselves be caught by hand—by our hand! We immortalize what can no longer live and fly, only tired and crumbling things! And it is only your afternoon, my written and painted thoughts, for which I alone have colours, many colours perhaps, many colourful caresses and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds:—but no one will sense from me how you looked in your dawn, you sudden sparks and miracles of my loneliness, you, my old loved ones—my wicked thoughts!” (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, last section)
The difference between this God and the rest of them is that it is no longer superior to man. The question then remains if it is truly a God, and if Gods are still possible, or necessary.
A God has been a means to convey value, more than anything else, “hope”. Perhaps because hope is replaced by certainty, God loses his “terrible mask” and is seen for what it is – a great thing – a thing.
Perhaps this invention has only served me to prove to me the unnecessariness of a true concept of God.
Against this God, perhaps as a first antipode to it in a system of derivations, stands its shadow, that which it is not – the cold dak Earth that draws to it all that wishes to forget itself in destructive certainty, the roots of all the resistance against the perfection of order in immediacy.
I fear that much of this is summoned in the dark as the other is seen in the light. This power needs to be rooted, not in Earth, but in - sap. Yes, I was not wrong, a transition needs to be made from electricity into sap. I fear I must begin to learn some chemistry to move any further.
Made in God’s image. Called to Godlikeness. Children of God. “Ye are gods!” Abraham and Moses: They chastize God! Israel: He who strives with God. He who wrestles with God and who God wrestles with. He who gives God a good fight! God to Job: “Stand up like a virile man! Face Me like the man that you are!” Jesus Christ: God made flesh. God incarnate. The fulfillment of humankind.
Anyways. Hard to see that this God of yours is the first to consider humankind a (potential) equal, or even a superior at times.
Interesting examples! Yes, perhaps mine is just one in a long lineage.
The difference would then be just one of gradation, another step in the improvement / making useful of the relationship between man and God.
And another step in making recognizable the nature of the utility of this relationship. I do not require a God to give me or my life meaning – value ontology has made all that sort of mythologizing unnecessary. But apparently there is still the question of a superindividual force, a web between beings, influence. If anything Gods have always been envisioned to ensure victory and dominion.
Mostly such dominion has been of political and military nature – religion and science to serve politics, philosophy (ideation) to serve religion and science.
With the conception of value ontology I have overthrown this order, so that now politics, religion and science (may!) all answer to philosophy. “May”, because so far, not many have understood it, and the various sciences and theoretic fields will certainly resist this subjection, until they cannot any longer resist the power that comes with it.
After all, consider the type of power science and religion have given man so far over his self and his destiny. It has been a very fragile, ambiguous and questionable power, a power that is taken away from him as much as it is given… because both religion and science are rooted in the belief in objectivity, which is antithetical to belief in man as he is.
Oh shut up the lot of you if you don’t put on a Ninja or Pirate costume you’re doomed to hells freezer forever. I will be laughing at you from heaven whilst drinking from beer volcanoes and indulging my carnal desires in stripper factories.
Oh and my God is implicitly bigger than your God. /thread.
No offence, because I can’t lay claim to this either, but I doubt you have the slightest idea what the relationship between God and man is in Biblical terms! Or at least, not a strong enough sense to make a claim like this. (Let’s not forget there are thousands of years of wisdom distilled in those texts… As fun as it may be to run wild with our own fancies a little humility and respect can go a long way…)
Good! I was dwelling on this just the other day. To Job God says “Deck yourself with glory and honour…”
The idea is not that Job is to find meaning in God’s appraisal of him, but in Job’s appraisal of himself. Job has to sense his own strength and dignity or, in a word, value, as a human being. Not sure what you mean by “value ontology” though.
Yes, his value to himself. God was on to something.
Ontology is the science of being. Value ontology is the science of self-valuing as the root of being.
OMG another god. The cosmos is more cluttered with gods than outer space around our earth (more than 36,000 pieces of junk floating around up there). Do we really need another one? Gods bore me.
Turtle - Yes. Not in that he is outside of reality, but in that he is accessed through ‘magical seeing’, i.e. subtle energetic/astral projecting of which many living Gods (such as Allah) are made. That means that he has come into being by my intention, just as Allah has come into being by the intention of his worshippers - which is why Allah is now a very powerful, very real, “supernatural” presence.
Seeing as you and I lack the technology to measure such thought-body (I’m sure its possible to create measuring instruments though) you can only confirm this by actually trying to access the God with a truly focused intention. Though I sincerely recommend that you don’t do it with Allah, because that powerful force (a collective compulsive neurosis, as a spiritual teacher ones described Islam to me) will take hold of you somehow.
Note that you can only effectively pray to Allah and receive his grace if you are truly submissive, if you truly have the wish to submit to a superior power. I have deliberately created an opposite type of God. Submission will not result in contact, only bestowing as prescribed in the OP will enable you to receive the vision. Handily this filters out anyone who doesn’t have anything to give. The problem I see with most religions is that they attract parasites, and over time become aggregates of depravity.
Pretty linearly actually. I only contact him only about five or six times a year, he seems to have grown stronger each time, making it more rewarding to invest.