Religion & Physics. XXIc.

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
81

This would not be my agenda.

A

82

This is not an agenda but doing what is necessary to accomplish a necessary beneficial goal. An agenda would be like trying to change ILP. But all I’m doing is attempting to add an alternative that doesn’t interfere with the status quo but allows an aditional option that furthers the cause of philosophy being defined as the love of wisdom as opposed to the love of ridicule and condemnation…

83

Hello Nick:
Quote:
O- First, I doubt that “The sacred teachings” share some unity over the centuries. Each generation, it seems brings along it’s own concerns and views them through the lenses of what was said before, but this doesn’t mean that Moses and Paul are speaking about the same things. The Messiah means a different thing for the jew than it does to the christian. You might see this division as secular, but I see it as essential, as it is here that jews and christian split. There are certain foundamental teachings, essential teachings, that establish the identity of “christianity”, for example. At the essense of christianity is a belief in the divine identity of Jesus. was he the Christ? It is essential that this answer is clear or “Christianity” would be a false name.

— The diagram shows that there is a great span in understanding between the highest in the esoteric part on the left and the lowest in the exoteric divisions on the right.
O- Let’s get past what the diagram shows. The question is does the diagram shows the truth? Does it show what really happened? Just because the information is presented as a diagram does not force me to give it any priviledges, and as of right now, to me at least, the case it proposes is wishful at best.

— I don’t think you appreciate this great span of human being that separate the exoteric from the esoteric.
O- I suppose this relates to your “levels of Human” theory. Again Nick, nice theory, but even the best of errors drip of logic.

— The essential teaching is re-birth. Everything else is secondary to it.Without re-birth, the teaching serves no purpose other than on the secular level.

Paul speaks of this and how it relates to sleep but since the Bible is more often read from a secular perspective, the depth of what Paul expresses falls on deaf ears.
Quote:
1Corinthians 15 12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?O- Here is the “essential teaching”. The central subject is not whether Jesus had a re-birth, but has he been raised from the dead. This has to do with the Pharisee/Saducee controversy alluded in Acts. 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.O- If you deny the literal interpretation that Jesus was wholly human, wholly dead and then wholly alive again, not as a aghost but as a normal person. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.O- This is the part you must pay attention to. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.O- Not that Jesus was re-born, but raised from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futileO- Second time he makes this point.; you are still in your sins.O- He means that the wages of sin is death, and so since only in Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are suppose to find forgiveness for our sins, if he has not been raised, how will we be raised in turn? If we are raised it is because our sins are forgiven. If not, then that is because our sins are not forgiven and if not then we are simply in our sins rather than in Christ. You can call this a “secular understanding” but it is clear as day in what he has said so far and in the context he says this. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.O- “Fallen asleep” is a state that resembles death but that is not death. Remember the little child? As such, we could say that Paul, for example, is not dead, but asleep. Is this really where all that “Sleep” talk has come from? This is your biblical source? 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.O- How can this be in question? 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.O- That is the “day of the resurrection” when all that when to sleep will awake. 27For he "has put everything under his feet."O- And made him judge.[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.O- Jesus is under God as we are under Jesus.

— Jesus speaks of being born again as the goal.
O- If you’re referring to John 3, again, an easier and less convoluted explanation exist. Baptism. Once again, Jesus life serves as the paradigm. As in the end of Mark “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” Therefore the goal is baptism, which is to be born of water and the Spirit.

— Buddhism has its 4 Noble truths and its Eightfold Path. If you consider the ancient excercises related to this, it is obvious a change of being is the goal.
O- Not the same goal. In fact the opposite. One is eternal Life, the other the end of reincarnations, or to put it in another fashion the one looks for rebirth/baptism in his path towards the resurrection, his salvation. The other departs from the opinion that the Christian salvation is the Buddhist condemnation, or reincarnation. He desired Nirvana, which is not the same as Eternal Life, or Life in Heaven.

— A genuine religion must serve the needs of people on all levels of spiritual development. Some only want consolation for their personal experiences with suffering and that of their loved ones. Others like Simone Weil desire understanding at the expense of consolation. A real religion has within it and knows how to serve the gamut of these needs.
O- That is an opinion. Did God tell you what a “genuine religion must be like?

— If Purple Womabitism can reveal itself as having initiated with a conscious source, it can be done.
O- How can Wombatism or Buddhism or the others not mention “reveal” their conscious source? How can any religion reveal God? It isn’t like that advertisement that says: “Got Milk?” where the person “reveals” by the milk moustache that they indeed have milk or had it at any rate.

— It is not a matter of belief in God but in the quality of the God/Man relationship. Where I value the distance between them and the necessity of the growth of our own being for the sake of raising ourselves through first admitting our nothingness, those like Bob prefer to unite them on a secular level or bring God down to its level and validate the human condition.
O- Well I am sure that you two will one day agree on this “essential religion”, since you both have it…right?
— It is just an alarm clock that helps one along the path towards awakening. It does arouse “hope” but not hope IN something, but hope as a normally suppressed human quality or objective connection with conscious life.
O- Hope is hope my friend. And if it is like an alarm that helps you then I reserve the right to say that sometimes an alarm can violently strike the eardrums. You said that you got your butt kicked, and that you must admit is an image of violence. So based on that choice of words came my comments. Either way, violent or not, the idea is that this is not a and thing at all.

— Sympathy or empathy? There is a big difference. Where sympathy does not require a trancendental explanation, I believe when this degree of empathy expresses itself, it is beyond just animal emotion but something that indicates becoming human.
O- Sympathy. Empathy is detached in that, while you can sense their emotions you do not feel them. A doctor can say to you: I can see that you’re upset”. Without being sympathetic to why you’re upset.
In this sense, empathy brings a substandard of human. One who may feel and yet be detached from them. As such, that person is perhaps merciless. We ask: “Don’t you have any sympathy for their situation?” We do not ask: ”Don’t you have any empathy for their situation?”

---- But we define exaggeration by the standards of sleeping people.
O- You’re barking at the wrong tree. After more than 30 posts on this matter, you have failed to convince me that there is ANY REALITY TO THIS STATE YOU CITE. It seems to me, with what you’ve presented, that such state is an aberration, a misuse of language; an abuse of language perpetrated by those with incredible sensibility. But from the particular experiences of you or Weil, one cannot perform a proper study. It is not that I don’t care about the questions you’ve raised. I field them with sympathy. But like a Wittgenstein, my observation has been that perhaps all these problems you see are psychological problems you bring, not physical problems that humans find themselves to be in. Your case to make your opinion a truth has been to propose an “essence”, but this essence is so malformed and free of substance that it seems to me to originate more on a wish that this be so than on a person’s careful observations.
This is why I kept harping you about going into other religions. If a person has gone beyond simply supposing similarities and moved to a true sympathy, an effort to see how the shoe feels like on your foot, then that person, in my book knows enough as to not over reduce the actual experience of others and do injustice to their particular experience by diminishing their experience by implying a common ground that may not exist.
If my hypothetical person experiences the same “union with God” in all religions (and a good sample must be taken, so that if we reason some 2,000 religions then at least 200 religions should be tried. Not just 2), then and only then can he speak of a common essence, an esoteric link under the exoteric appearances they have taken.

— Perhaps from being more aware, she is also expressing the results of the experience of human feelings.
O- She is expressing HER FEELING but that does not allow us to jump and now say that HER FEELINGS can pass as the measure of HUMAN FEELINGS so that all human expressions of feelings are compared to hers as the mean.

— If humanity were awake, war would be impossible simply because it is inhuman.
O- This is a value judgment. Perhaps you should consider the prevalence of war not the result of humanity sleeping because “it is inhuman”, but that it is prevalent because there is nothing so human as war. Should we say the same for ants, or chimpanzees?
“If chimpanzees were awake, war between them would be impossible because it is unchimpanzee.”
Ecclesiastes 3:
18
I said to myself: As for the children of men, it is God’s way of testing them and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts.
19
For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity.
20
Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return.
21
Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts goes earthward?
22
And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?

— Yet as we are, it is an acceptable periodic occurrence.
O- It is acceptable because the alternative, one’s annihilation, is unacceptable. Before 9-11 people would not have thought about a war with anyone as justified. Now, after the events, wars are just or unjust as they are related to the perpetrators of that day. If the war in Iraq is unjustified it is because it bears no relation to that day.
In Fear, we strike most deadly…

— Some might protest and the majority may view their awareness, if indeed it is not just a conditioned response, as an exaggeration but at the same time it may be more human from a greater conscious perspective.
O- Perhaps but who judges this perspective?

— Yes, IMO this is where it must start; the recognition of our nothingness. I know how offensive this appears.
O- It is not a matter of actual offensiveness, but a logical one. Because the premise may lead to a certain conclusion does not mean that in turn the premise is validated or valid to begin with. Nietzsche would have argued that indeed we do have two perspectives, but who can say that Simone’s perspective of a slave is more valid than the master’s?

— This is why Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman is so hard to deal with.
O- The superman was never a slave but a critique of the slave perspective. Remember who was his foe.

— First things first. What is the metaphysical value for an unaware person starving to death.
O- Suppose that we survive a terrible plane crash on snowy mountain tops. All the passengers have died except for us two. What would be the metaphysical value for the unaware person to starve to death? Ask me then. What price is it that a man should win the world but lose his own soul?
A woman finds no work at the factory and is hungry. So she becomes a prostitute. What benefit can there be in starving to death?

— Only those who have the need and courage to begin as Simone says to “Annoy the Great Beast.”
O- Yet I was quoting you. Don’t you seek to annoy the Beast?

— This is like the old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” To get to the other side. It seems as if you are describing what a chicken or dog does, But perhaps a human being has the potential to be more then a reactive animal.
O- No. I am describing why I got to the computer. I wanted, I desired and therefore I did. The effect is me on a computer; the cause is me, my desire, my will.

84

Hello Nick:
Quote:
O- First, I doubt that “The sacred teachings” share some unity over the centuries. Each generation, it seems brings along it’s own concerns and views them through the lenses of what was said before, but this doesn’t mean that Moses and Paul are speaking about the same things. The Messiah means a different thing for the jew than it does to the christian. You might see this division as secular, but I see it as essential, as it is here that jews and christian split. There are certain foundamental teachings, essential teachings, that establish the identity of “christianity”, for example. At the essense of christianity is a belief in the divine identity of Jesus. was he the Christ? It is essential that this answer is clear or “Christianity” would be a false name.

— The diagram shows that there is a great span in understanding between the highest in the esoteric part on the left and the lowest in the exoteric divisions on the right.
O- Let’s get past what the diagram shows. The question is does the diagram shows the truth? Does it show what really happened? Just because the information is presented as a diagram does not force me to give it any priviledges, and as of right now, to me at least, the case it proposes is wishful at best.

— I don’t think you appreciate this great span of human being that separate the exoteric from the esoteric.
O- I suppose this relates to your “levels of Human” theory. Again Nick, nice theory, but even the best of errors drip of logic.

— The essential teaching is re-birth. Everything else is secondary to it.Without re-birth, the teaching serves no purpose other than on the secular level.

Paul speaks of this and how it relates to sleep but since the Bible is more often read from a secular perspective, the depth of what Paul expresses falls on deaf ears.
Quote:
1Corinthians 15 12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?O- Here is the “essential teaching”. The central subject is not whether Jesus had a re-birth, but has he been raised from the dead. This has to do with the Pharisee/Saducee controversy alluded in Acts. 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.O- If you deny the literal interpretation that Jesus was wholly human, wholly dead and then wholly alive again, not as a aghost but as a normal person. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.O- This is the part you must pay attention to. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.O- Not that Jesus was re-born, but raised from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futileO- Second time he makes this point.; you are still in your sins.O- He means that the wages of sin is death, and so since only in Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are suppose to find forgiveness for our sins, if he has not been raised, how will we be raised in turn? If we are raised it is because our sins are forgiven. If not, then that is because our sins are not forgiven and if not then we are simply in our sins rather than in Christ. You can call this a “secular understanding” but it is clear as day in what he has said so far and in the context he says this. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.O- “Fallen asleep” is a state that resembles death but that is not death. Remember the little child? As such, we could say that Paul, for example, is not dead, but asleep. Is this really where all that “Sleep” talk has come from? This is your biblical source? 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.O- How can this be in question? 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.O- That is the “day of the resurrection” when all that when to sleep will awake. 27For he "has put everything under his feet."O- And made him judge.[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.O- Jesus is under God as we are under Jesus.

— Jesus speaks of being born again as the goal.
O- If you’re referring to John 3, again, an easier and less convoluted explanation exist. Baptism. Once again, Jesus life serves as the paradigm. As in the end of Mark “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” Therefore the goal is baptism, which is to be born of water and the Spirit.

— Buddhism has its 4 Noble truths and its Eightfold Path. If you consider the ancient excercises related to this, it is obvious a change of being is the goal.
O- Not the same goal. In fact the opposite. One is eternal Life, the other the end of reincarnations, or to put it in another fashion the one looks for rebirth/baptism in his path towards the resurrection, his salvation. The other departs from the opinion that the Christian salvation is the Buddhist condemnation, or reincarnation. He desired Nirvana, which is not the same as Eternal Life, or Life in Heaven.

— A genuine religion must serve the needs of people on all levels of spiritual development. Some only want consolation for their personal experiences with suffering and that of their loved ones. Others like Simone Weil desire understanding at the expense of consolation. A real religion has within it and knows how to serve the gamut of these needs.
O- That is an opinion. Did God tell you what a “genuine religion must be like?

— If Purple Womabitism can reveal itself as having initiated with a conscious source, it can be done.
O- How can Wombatism or Buddhism or the others not mention “reveal” their conscious source? How can any religion reveal God? It isn’t like that advertisement that says: “Got Milk?” where the person “reveals” by the milk moustache that they indeed have milk or had it at any rate.

— It is not a matter of belief in God but in the quality of the God/Man relationship. Where I value the distance between them and the necessity of the growth of our own being for the sake of raising ourselves through first admitting our nothingness, those like Bob prefer to unite them on a secular level or bring God down to its level and validate the human condition.
O- Well I am sure that you two will one day agree on this “essential religion”, since you both have it…right?
— It is just an alarm clock that helps one along the path towards awakening. It does arouse “hope” but not hope IN something, but hope as a normally suppressed human quality or objective connection with conscious life.
O- Hope is hope my friend. And if it is like an alarm that helps you then I reserve the right to say that sometimes an alarm can violently strike the eardrums. You said that you got your butt kicked, and that you must admit is an image of violence. So based on that choice of words came my comments. Either way, violent or not, the idea is that this is not a and thing at all.

— Sympathy or empathy? There is a big difference. Where sympathy does not require a trancendental explanation, I believe when this degree of empathy expresses itself, it is beyond just animal emotion but something that indicates becoming human.
O- Sympathy. Empathy is detached in that, while you can sense their emotions you do not feel them. A doctor can say to you: I can see that you’re upset”. Without being sympathetic to why you’re upset.
In this sense, empathy brings a substandard of human. One who may feel and yet be detached from them. As such, that person is perhaps merciless. We ask: “Don’t you have any sympathy for their situation?” We do not ask: ”Don’t you have any empathy for their situation?”

---- But we define exaggeration by the standards of sleeping people.
O- You’re barking at the wrong tree. After more than 30 posts on this matter, you have failed to convince me that there is ANY REALITY TO THIS STATE YOU CITE. It seems to me, with what you’ve presented, that such state is an aberration, a misuse of language; an abuse of language perpetrated by those with incredible sensibility. But from the particular experiences of you or Weil, one cannot perform a proper study. It is not that I don’t care about the questions you’ve raised. I field them with sympathy. But like a Wittgenstein, my observation has been that perhaps all these problems you see are psychological problems you bring, not physical problems that humans find themselves to be in. Your case to make your opinion a truth has been to propose an “essence”, but this essence is so malformed and free of substance that it seems to me to originate more on a wish that this be so than on a person’s careful observations.
This is why I kept harping you about going into other religions. If a person has gone beyond simply supposing similarities and moved to a true sympathy, an effort to see how the shoe feels like on your foot, then that person, in my book knows enough as to not over reduce the actual experience of others and do injustice to their particular experience by diminishing their experience by implying a common ground that may not exist.
If my hypothetical person experiences the same “union with God” in all religions (and a good sample must be taken, so that if we reason some 2,000 religions then at least 200 religions should be tried. Not just 2), then and only then can he speak of a common essence, an esoteric link under the exoteric appearances they have taken.

— Perhaps from being more aware, she is also expressing the results of the experience of human feelings.
O- She is expressing HER FEELING but that does not allow us to jump and now say that HER FEELINGS can pass as the measure of HUMAN FEELINGS so that all human expressions of feelings are compared to hers as the mean.

— If humanity were awake, war would be impossible simply because it is inhuman.
O- This is a value judgment. Perhaps you should consider the prevalence of war not the result of humanity sleeping because “it is inhuman”, but that it is prevalent because there is nothing so human as war. Should we say the same for ants, or chimpanzees?
“If chimpanzees were awake, war between them would be impossible because it is unchimpanzee.”
Ecclesiastes 3:
18
I said to myself: As for the children of men, it is God’s way of testing them and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts.
19
For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity.
20
Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return.
21
Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts goes earthward?
22
And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?

— Yet as we are, it is an acceptable periodic occurrence.
O- It is acceptable because the alternative, one’s annihilation, is unacceptable. Before 9-11 people would not have thought about a war with anyone as justified. Now, after the events, wars are just or unjust as they are related to the perpetrators of that day. If the war in Iraq is unjustified it is because it bears no relation to that day.
In Fear, we strike most deadly…

— Some might protest and the majority may view their awareness, if indeed it is not just a conditioned response, as an exaggeration but at the same time it may be more human from a greater conscious perspective.
O- Perhaps but who judges this perspective?

— Yes, IMO this is where it must start; the recognition of our nothingness. I know how offensive this appears.
O- It is not a matter of actual offensiveness, but a logical one. Because the premise may lead to a certain conclusion does not mean that in turn the premise is validated or valid to begin with. Nietzsche would have argued that indeed we do have two perspectives, but who can say that Simone’s perspective of a slave is more valid than the master’s?

— This is why Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman is so hard to deal with.
O- The superman was never a slave but a critique of the slave perspective. Remember who was his foe.

— First things first. What is the metaphysical value for an unaware person starving to death.
O- Suppose that we survive a terrible plane crash on snowy mountain tops. All the passengers have died except for us two. What would be the metaphysical value for the unaware person to starve to death? Ask me then. What price is it that a man should win the world but lose his own soul?
A woman finds no work at the factory and is hungry. So she becomes a prostitute. What benefit can there be in starving to death?

— Only those who have the need and courage to begin as Simone says to “Annoy the Great Beast.”
O- Yet I was quoting you. Don’t you seek to annoy the Beast?

— This is like the old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” To get to the other side. It seems as if you are describing what a chicken or dog does, But perhaps a human being has the potential to be more then a reactive animal.
O- No. I am describing why I got to the computer. I wanted, I desired and therefore I did. The effect is me on a computer; the cause is me, my desire, my will.

85

Hello Nick:

In reference to the last paragraph in your last post to me.
Now, this one Nick deserved it’s own response apart from all other distraction.
I understand that you have a strategy that you feel is the best. An applause is in order. Let Buddhism and Esoteric Christianity be divided no more! Let theories be personally verified by those who accept them or who think them.
Enjoy.
My points obviously come from a man that does not feel as you about these matters. That is the quality of our state. But I want to correct your perception here.
First off, you take me as an atheist. Have I said “God does not exist” or more importantly, have I said: “I believe God does not exist”? The answer is no.
My view is quite complex because I have been at this for a lifetime and it is a continued voyage.
Secondly, just because we don’t share the feeling, or because you think I am asleep does not mean that such is the case or that these distinctions show us what is real. These distinctions shows us what is in your theory and nothing more. And because these theories are verified by you, their truth is relative to what you prefer as true.
Thirdly. I disagree with many of the views other are posting about you, though, others seem valid. I do respect your views, even when I attack some of them, as I see fit. I am not God, nor am I a prophet who speaks for God. My faith is my doubt, if that makes sense, so at the end of the day, keep in mind that I never said, nor could ever say if your view is true or false. All I ever uttered were challenges to the solidity you perceived in your theories.

Let us part now, at this point, and see where else our paths may cross.

86

Hi Omar

OK you’re not an Atheist. It seemed that certain of your objections to what I was posting were similar to objections from Atheists. I was wrong.

We have this lifetime voyage in common. :slight_smile:

The question of sleep is not directed at you but mankind including me. I am only referring to the idea as it exists in Christianity, Buddhism, and Plato’s cave analogy for example. Granted, I can only assert this to be true with me.

As far as me preferring what I’ve value as true, this is not always the case. I’ve verified a very odd law of physics for example which states one half pound of chocloate consumed by me transforms into ten pounds of body weight. I’ve verified it but am not too happy about it. :slight_smile:

Yes your faith as your doubt makes sense. In fact I even posted Simone as agreeing with you as to the value of doubt, excluding the visit at the end:

Agreed and that is what made it enjoyable. You didn’t find it necessary to pull the conversation into the mud and for that I do thank you.

Until next time

Stay well