You can believe what you like, but if you invoke mysticism you are just going down a pathway to risibility.
Mystics employ poetry as a means of self agrandising flim flam, in which the gullible are most suseptible. It can all be dismissed as easily as all fakery. It all points to wishes and dreams of the imagination.
The trick is to know that Gandalf was never a real person. To be able to understand that the dedicated friendship, loyalty and perseverance of Samwise Gamgee, tells a story of how we can be better people whilst knowing that he never existed is called growing up in the universe.
Mag. That’s Shintoism. I’ve always liked those people. We all have spirit families.
When I need help in the hell realms, I simply talk to people, and their spirit families are there.
They assess the situation and decide whether I’m worth defending or protecting.
Yes, but about the need to use language to categorise, name and fix everything, to set boundaries and isolate ‘things’.
You can believe all you like, but your tendency to attack what you don’t appreciate is telling. You are projecting and I have the feeling that your projection is so quick that it hinders your ability to read what I actually said. You trigger on certain words and react before you have considered what was said, or what you have read.
The two types of attention are not the same, but your brain is so focused on one that you can’t distinguish them. If you see everything as separate it is the opposite of seeing things as interconnected, is it not? It is the difference between a specialist and a generalist. We tend to value the specialist over the generalist, but the latter weaves everything together to create a larger picture.
It is also the difference between the narrow-minded and broad-minded. It is the difference between the violent and the caring, the powerful and the wise. And seems to be the struggle that humanity is caught up in.
Your attempt with Gandalf and Samwise Gamgee to explain how you see things is, to be honest, so self-explanatory, that I’m amazed that you give it as an example. Every child knows that, but it is when people get caught up in the ‘ultra-rational’ that everything becomes binary: Yes or no. Up or down. Fiction or non-fiction. Real or unreal.
That is, you may have noticed (or not), is not where I am.
Not that is just your prejudice. I apreciate far more than you will know.
I’d be willing to bet that I have a better handle on what is or is not “western” or otherwise that you do.
You have a casual idea that, for some reason, you think “western” has some sort of special meaning in this context.
You also seem to have a cognitie dissonance between what is western and what you regard as mystic, as if westerners have led off in a different direction - even losing their way…
I rely on my studies in anthroplogy, archaeology, history and philosphy. I also refect upon my wide travels.
And upon your rather predictable reaction that anyone that disagrees with you must be lacking in knowlege. Meh.
Yes, everychild but you? You still latch onto a medieval notion of the big daddy in the sky.
The only difference epistemologically between Sam and Gandalf on one hand and God and Buddha on the other is that the authorship of these fictions is not remembered in the latter
I thought you had become more reasonable over time, but you obviously have no time for nuance or to try and understand what I mean. The conversation is over, despite us having a lot in common, despite a few differences.
Sad!
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@Mr_Reasonable … some weirdo stole your line.
Right you are, Bob, especially regarding your earlier comment of it just being “metaphor.”
Part of what Jakob referred to as being the alleged “insight” I acquired from my alleged encounter with God back in 1970…
(as described in the PN post I linked to earlier in this thread)
…is that the skeptics who are critical of anything having to do with what the mystics’ symbols and metaphors “point to” (i.e., anything with a “metaphysical” or “supernatural” tinge to it),…
…play an important role in helping to maintain the integrity of the (dream-like) “illusion” of objective reality.
And even though it is highly ironic in light of what I am attempting to convey with my cosmic theory,…
…the point is, that for practical reasons, we’re not supposed to know about what truly awaits us beyond the veil of death (at least not with any irrefutable certainty).
For, as I pointed out to HumAnIze, if what awaits us, post-death, is anywhere near as wonderful as what I am suggesting it to be, then if it were not kept hidden from us, we would surely be tempted to seek it out prematurely.
In which case, the earth would soon be drained of the very means (i.e., human bodies and brains) by which God awakens her children (new eternal souls) into existence.
I mean, if we humans knew – beyond any doubt – that at any time we wished, we could safely enter into a higher dimension of reality that makes this earthly dimension seem like some kind of a hell in comparison,…
…then what do you honestly think we would do?
I guess my ultimate point is that even though some of us have had experiences resembling that which is depicted in, for example, the famous Flammarion Engraving,…
…it is nonetheless vitally important…
(for the sake of the propagation of new souls)
…that the majority of humans do not have such life-altering (life-disrupting) experiences.
For it is crucial that most humans remain firmly under the thrall of the, again, (dream-like) “illusion” of the “bubble of reality” that the dude in the image is peering-out from,…
…and thus not be drawn into the nether-realms of an abnormal mind-set, like, for example, the chain-smoking guru, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj…
…who allegedly implored his followers to:
“…Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind …”
…so that like him, we too can sit around in our underwear all day and dispense impractical platitudes while the world comes to a complete standstill because no one is thinking about achieving anything.
Or, how about this guy?..
If everyone were to fully adopt Jesus’ lifestyle of no sex, along with his lopsided focus on the afterlife, then all human life on earth would cease to exist in about a hundred years.
Anyway, that’s where the role of the hardcore skeptics (such as you know who) comes into play.
Despite the fact that the skeptics haven’t the slightest clue of what the truth of reality may actually be,…
…nevertheless, the sheer self-assured hutzpah of their mocking of anyone who insists that there may be more to reality than what our five bodily senses allow us to experience,…
…is what reinforces the doubt about such things, which, in turn, helps to keep humans focused on the – down-to-earth – task of making and raising babies (again, new souls) on this side of the film of the bubble.
Btw, what I am calling the “film” of the bubble is simply a metaphor for the impenetrable “veil” that’s spread across the threshold of death.
Or, perhaps more accurately, I suggest that the “bubble” of reality depicted in the Flammarion Engraving, is simply a metaphorical representation of the interior reality of God’s mind, with the “film” of the bubble simply being a representation of the outer wall (or membrane) of God’s cosmic “womb.”
However, to be even more accurate,…
…I (the endless metaphor man 
) suggest that the “film” (or lifted “veil”) depicted in the engraving is simply a representation of the all-encompassing boundary that delineates where God’s personal mind ends, and where what lies beyond it begins – which, in truth, is simply other incorporeal minds that are just like God’s mind, as seen below…
Now let the inevitable (yet purposeful) mocking (by the clueless) commence. 
There are other ideas,
“In The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail , the authors put forward a hypothesis that the historical Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had one or more children, and that those children or their descendants emigrated to what is now southern France. Once there, they intermarried with the noble families that would eventually become the Merovingian dynasty, whose special claim to the throne of France is championed today by a secret society called the Priory of Sion.”
I always liked this story, like the idea that Jesus was the last of the Pharaohs.
Since there is no historical evidence fo the Biblical story, who knows?
Where I think there is validity to your idea of Godliness, I dont think your pictures do a good job of illustrating your point… they dont seem divinely inspired, they are messy and the message comes across as quite trivial. Where is the glory?
Of course there are other ideas, but the question is, are these other ideas anything other than a continuation of the same old divisive mythological nonsense handed down to us from ancient minds? And if so, then we need something new.
And in response to your suggestion that Jesus may have had kids, whatever the actual truth about Jesus may be, the vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus was celibate, and that’s all that matters.
Please tell me what you think my “idea of Godliness” actually entails?
The few illustrations that I have thus far uploaded to this forum are but a tiny fraction of the approximately 120 illustrations I created and included in a 285 page book I self-published back in 2008, titled: “THE ULTIMATE SEEDS - An Illustrated Guide to the Secret of the Universe” of which you can get the general gist of if you visit my website at:
So, you would have to view them all in the context of the book to truly determine if whether or not they convey the message I am offering.
And, yeah, some of them may be “messy,” but I’ve never claimed to be a great artist, so I did the best I could.
Besides, they’re not meant to be great works of art, but more in the realm of being illustrative diagrams.
Now, how about you explain to me what you think is “trivial” about the notion that every human ever awakened into life on this planet since humans first became humans, are not only in possession of the gift of eternal life,…
…but also, are each imbued with the exact same powers and potential as the Creator of this universe?
Is that “trivial” information to you?
Furthermore, what can be more “glorious” than the fact that we are each equal family members of the highest species of being in all of reality? – the same species of being as God?
What’s not “glorious” about that?
What do you mean by – “Where is the glory?” ???
Anyway, here I was thinking that you and I were having a pleasant conversation, but I see that I must have said something to compel you to insult me.
Oh well, I’m pretty new to this site, so I guess it’s going to take me a while to determine the psychological status of its members.
He didn’t say “Hey, everybody be a virgin like me” — but he also didn’t say “Hey, you are worthless unless you procreate.” He also said to pray for heaven to be built on earth. His command was/is to love each other … treat each other the way we want to be treated … because that is how you build heaven (The Kingdom) on earth. You wanna know what heaven is like? Do that. 
One way to start is to appropriately represent your supposed opponent’s position.
You first.
How about we simultaneous?
@Seeds I am in a bad mood these days. Sorry about that.
i didnt say your idea was trivial, and lacking glory, I said it about the pictures. I think you know that.
I disliked one of your cartoons that depicted the evolution of the idea of God, I didn’t think that was accurate. I subscribe to the model depicted in the image above, and think the pyramids and the Egyptian pantheon represent something much older and more advanced than what you suggest, namely actual living Gods.
I don’t think a God who demands absolute submission is a more advanced idea than the Eye of Horus.
Thats one of the issues I have with your images.
You also seem to contradict yourself by saying in one place that we are the same as God, and in another that depicting God in human form is primitive. And you skipped, in your diagram, over the Hebrew God.
There seems to just now have been a discovery under one of the pyramids, by the way. I cant find much text about it online yet and what I find is censored by one of my browsers.
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One of the most profound questions in science and philosophy is the following: Is there an aspect of reality we are unable to perceive because we are too enmeshed within it? The fact that we can measure, predict, and understand so much of the universe suggests an underlying order, yet at the same time, the more we probe, the more reality seems to resist full comprehension.
We see how the universe behaves differently when observed—this touches directly on quantum mechanics, where measurement seems to affect reality. The double-slit experiment, for example, shows that particles behave as waves when unobserved but act as particles when measured. This leads to questions like:
- Does consciousness play a role in shaping reality?
- Is reality “undecided” until it is measured?
- Are we missing an aspect of reality because we are inside the system we are trying to observe?
Some interpretations, like the Copenhagen interpretation, suggest that reality is undefined until measurement collapses the wavefunction. Others, like many-worlds theory, propose that all possibilities exist, and measurement just determines which branch we experience.
This is a deep epistemological issue—can we perceive ultimate reality if we are part of it? Many thinkers have pondered this:
- Kant argued that we can never know the thing-in-itself (noumenon), only its appearances (phenomena).
- Gödel’s incompleteness theorems suggest that within any given system, there will always be truths that cannot be proven within that system.
- Donald Hoffman’s “Interface Theory of Perception” proposes that our senses don’t show us reality as it is but act like a simplified user interface, hiding deeper structures we cannot grasp.
This could mean that our entire experience of reality is a filtered, constrained version of something more fundamental.
The Implication is: Is There an Unseen Order?
The laws of physics themselves suggest deep structure, and the fact that mathematics so accurately describes the universe raises the question: is the universe fundamentally mathematical, or is math just the way our minds make sense of it? If the former, this hints at a deeper, pre-existing order—perhaps one we haven’t fully uncovered.
What interests me most of all is the role of consciousness in reality**.** If observation alters reality, does that mean consciousness is fundamental rather than emergent? Some theories, like panpsychism, suggest that all matter has some level of consciousness, or that mind and matter are two aspects of the same reality.
And finally, there are hints at hidden dimensions or structures. For example, String Theory suggests there are extra dimensions beyond our perception. And some physicists propose simulation theory, arguing that our reality could be a projection of a deeper computational structure. Or is there a “meta-reality” that we cannot access from within our spacetime constraints?
If reality has aspects beyond our perception, it could be because we are inside the system, and thus limited in what we can measure. It could also be that we lack the cognitive faculties to perceive deeper truths (like how an ant cannot understand quantum mechanics).
In any case, Reality is dynamic and interactive, meaning the act of probing it changes it. So, it is entirely possible that we exist within a structure we cannot fully perceive—and maybe what we call “reality” is just a thin slice of something much greater.
They were being measured / observed both times, but the method of observation changes the results/effects you see—not what is actually going on.
My question, what change about the observation method interfered with seeing the results/effects from before the method change?
It makes sense that if you take a still image, you’re going to see a (let’s call it a) quantum car at rest without knowing how fast it’s going, and if you track its speed with a radar, you’re going to bounce back a speed that cannot tell you where it is right now—or if you even bounced it off the right object (or what the object even is). Unless you have “surround sound” type of globally connected radar, so you get a full 3-D moving image. Connected throughout the universe. Prove me wrong.
Question. The particle accelerators/colliders of the world. Are they in communication with each other? Are their countries pretending to be fighting? Just curious.
I do understand what you mean. Your framing is off.
I presume you mean this picture…
…right?
Well, it was simply meant to be a general (and simplistic) depiction of the evolution of God from the “Western perspective,” though, admittedly, I guess it didn’t dawn on me to include the Kabbalah somewhere between the pyramid and the Trinity as a representation of Judaism.
However, as noted by the little guys in the bottom-right section of the cartoon, I also didn’t include the “Eastern perspective” of God, and simply left it up to the proponents of that perspective to squeeze it in wherever they think it fits in the timeline.
Now with all of that being said, try not to miss the “actual point” of the cartoon which attempts to declare that it’s time for a new and evolutionary leap in our understanding of what God truly is.
I’m talking about a new and “unifying” understanding of the concept of God that can make sense to everyone (even the materialists).
In other words, it is time to fully extricate ourselves from all of the divisive mythological nonsense that has us on the brink of destroying ourselves due to it separating us into incompatible factions.
Why in the world are you telling me that?
Do you actually think that my theory (my “insight”) proposes a God who “…demands absolute submission…”???
If so, then you just don’t understand the theory.
No offense meant, Jakob, but you just don’t yet get it.
Please forgive the graphicness of the following image, but depicting God in human form is the metaphorical equivalent of depicting humans in the form of the bloody glob of placental “afterbirth,” this…
…that was expelled from a mother’s body after the baby was born.
As the Bible says…
“…it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is…”
…and…
*…we shall ALL be CHANGED, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…"
You keep demonstrating that you just don’t understand my theory.
First of all, just as there is only one “god” (one singular “agent”) presiding over the interior reality of your own personal mind,…
…likewise, there is absolutely only one “GOD” (one singular “AGENT”) presiding over this universe.
Any suggestion of there being some sort of “mini-gods” gallivanting around on this planet in the days of the Egyptian pharaohs (or any other time, for that matter) is mythological nonsense.
And secondly, the “actual living God” that my theory proposes is as far above humans in scope and consciousness as humans are above amoebas.
In which case, do you actually believe that the singular living Entity proposed in my theory – a conscious Entity who has created more than a hundred billion galaxies of suns and planets out of the living fabric of its very own being,…
…is “less advanced” than the “Egyptian pantheon of gods”?
Really???
Jakob, I truly appreciate and respect your deep knowledge and highly intelligent views on these matters.
However, as I keep insisting, the time has now come for us to look for a higher (more logical / more accessible) understanding of what we and God truly are,…
…and as fun and interesting as they may be to ponder,…
…I nevertheless must suggest that this…
…and this…
…and, especially, this…
…are nothing more than speculative artifacts that make up the confusing cacophony of what I call the “old paradigm” metaphysics that we need to transcend in order to achieve that higher (more logical) understanding of, again, what we and God truly are.
I saw what was happening before but now it is certain; you cant distinguish between a representation and a thing, and between a source and a manifestation. Your idea is still in kids shoes, you have yet to make with it the first step into thought - you have not yet demonstrated any logic.
Yes, you literally represented the idea of a god to which all must submit as slaves as superior to the idea of the god that is within the human and is accessed through the pineal gland.
Dude your attempts at thinking are so messy… and you seem to really believe that your primitive doodles are superior in conveying the relation of divinity to humanity to the sublime, evolutionarily functional glyph of the tree of life. And you think the precession of the equinoxes is not current.
Don’t think that this comes out of nowhere - you have consistently been dogmatic in favor of an idea that really offers little more than; when you die, you’ll see! At least that is as far as you’ve gotten.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Consciousness on Earth wanes and waxes. Some immortal ideas remain, sometimes shrouded in poetry, sometimes by blinding the poor in spirit to their power by sheer radiance.
Excellent post, Bob, for it hits on many of the questions I’ve been grappling with for decades.
I have personally found that one of the best ways of visualizing the answers to the above questions regarding quantum mechanics is through the analogy of the laser hologram…
We humans function up at the 3-D level of reality, which is represented by the die, the key, and the paperclip (in what the physicists call “local” reality).
Whereas, on the other hand, the hidden level of reality that QM deals with is represented by the correlated patterns of information in the photographic plate (depicted in the middle square) that underpin the construction of the three objects (in what the physicists call “non-local” reality).
And the further implication is that our consciousness sort of functions as an “explicating laser” that metaphorically “shines” into the patterns of quantum information and explicates into 3-D reality whatever it is that the information represents.
I personally think that its simpler than that, with the truth being that whatever the “natural mechanism” is that allows us to explicate the holographic-like, three-dimensional features of our thoughts and dreams into existence when we close our eyes and direct our consciousness (our attention) inward,…
…is the same mechanism that allows us to explicate the holographic-like, three dimensional features of the universe into existence when we direct our consciousness outward.
And if you want to talk about how intimately we (our bodies) are “enmeshed” (entangled) with the universe, take a gander at another feature of the laser hologram…
Indeed, the state of interpenetrating “oneness” that is displayed on the right-hand side of that image, is pretty much what “quantum entanglement” implies.
Oh, and just for the record, I suggest that the “Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” is one of the most ridiculous theories ever conceived by mankind (don’t get me started ).
I think that the analogy of the laser hologram also covers those issues.
I mean, of course there is an “unseen” order.
That’s why the quantum realm is called: “non-local” reality.
Or perhaps Kant’s “noumenal” realm is a better name for it.
Both of which are, again, metaphorically represented by the highly ordered patterns of information in the middle square of the first image of the laser hologram.
Again, see how well my earlier ^^^ suggestions ^^^ address all of these remaining issues.
Yes, like unwitting (yet conscious) participants of an unfathomably advanced and ordered “dream” taking place within the mind of a higher Being, we are, indeed, “inside the system”…
…(and that would be in the same way we were once “inside the system” of our mother’s womb).
However, we will no longer be trapped in said “system” (i.e., God’s “womb”) once we (our souls / minds) are literally “born-out” of it at the moment of death.
As always, I may be wrong, but I challenge anyone to come up with a theory regarding us and God that is more “natural” and “organic” than what I am suggesting.