See how this grabs you.
We are here, existing in a physical world, this is our purpose, to be here so that God can look out of our eyes.
Without me, without you, He wouldn’t know what it was like to have my (and your) thoughts, emotions, experiences. He would not know what it was like to be physical without us.
Our job is just to be. That ain’t a hard thing to do. Lucky us.
I don’t know how things are for you, but its seems like for many of us, it is a rather tough job.
God is a spirit. The Spirit. Because you are from God, you are made in his Spirit, and it is in you.
You are also a man. You were born from a mother and a father. You cannot escape your flesh while on earth. Yet your spirit always resides within you on this earth. The entire purpose of life is to live for your spirit, not your flesh. You cannot serve both. So, you are supposed to use your flesh and do works with it that please your spirit, God, who is within you. You do this by practicing the seven virtues in all of your affairs, not resisting violence, aka, turn the other cheek in ALL OF YOUR AFFAIRS. Never fight. Jesus did not fight, was not hostile. He was meek, even as they drove the nails into his perfect wrists.
So the point of life is to succumb your flesh to your father in its entirety. See your flesh as literal food for your spirit. Do not let your spirit eat bad fruit, which is what you will beget if you engage in the seven deadly sins and do not repent.
These are Leo Tolstoy’s ideas, who is a key character in Christian Anarchism. I identify with being a Christian Anarchist.
I understand that many do not have an easy life. I really do believe however, that even a hard life is made harder by the mind’s ability to give us it’s outlook as something that is real. Like dwelling on our misfortune instead of looking for any bright side.
If I could have one wish granted, it would be that everyone be satisfied with things as they are.
I don’t know how you know these things, or could, but it sounds good.
This is not possible. The most persistent demands upon our life is the flesh. We all meet them each and every day. Food, water, shelter, bathroom, etc. demands most of our time during our daily life ; that of our self, and our loved ones. The flesh is a megaphone, and the spirit a still small voice. The spirit places no daily demands upon us … not anything like the flesh.
Thank you for your reply. I do not agree with everything you said, but who ever does that anyhow? It seems your heart is in the right place and that pleases me about you.
What is God on this view, other than “the being that depends upon us to know or do anything”? Sounds like an anti-god to me: An omni-weak, omni-ignorant being that depends upon the universe moment to moment for it’s continued existence.
That’s probably not what you meant, but that’s the first thing I think of. So what do you mean?
I remember when I used to think like this too: Something is true because it makes you feel good imagining it is true. But then when someone would ask me to demonstrate it is true beyond just imagining that it is I’d always get stuck.
I guess some of us aren’t as lucky as others.
You are a very rare person. You asked what I meant. I cannot think of another time when anyone ever asked me that question about anything I said.
God to me is not other than me. Everything is God. So really, there is no God, for who would He be God of? Himself? So if there is no God, then I guess you could say He is everything you said He sounds like being.
I really believe that “God” is consciousness. Everything is created by consciousness, so that makes sense. Consciousness is everywhere, so that makes sense again.
To forestall any quandary about that statement, The whole physical universe is "inside " my head. Think on how we don’t see until the signal from the eye hits our brain, same for hearing, feeling, smelling, etc. All in the head. All we sense is always in the head. Consciousness creating.
Okay?
Okay. It just sounds like atheism with an affection for spiritual-sounding language now, but I’m fine with that.
I’m not quite sure what you are describing when you say, “…I used to think like this too,” so I can’t comment on that right now.
Your comment about some not being as lucky as others however, I can comment upon.
Mind tends to create problems where none exist - especially at night. Just letting things be as they are and not taking it as a personal affront seems to make created problems disappear and thus life becomes much easier. There is nothing to do.
My comment about this being so seems to me as being very fortunate. Thus the “lucky us.” Just think if everything we worried about turned out ot be true. Unlucky us.
Yes, I understand. I don’t think anyone alive has not gone through some pretty rough times. Sore throats alone are distastful and not enjoyable.
That problem I addressed in an earlier post, but I will repeat the gist of it here too.
What makes life so difficult is not accepting what "is’. As if it shouldn’t be that way and must be changed come Hell or high water. And it is Mind that is so determined that what it sees as reality is really what “is” instead, that causes life to be much more difficult than need be. It doesn’t help that we are enthralled with Mind’s nonsense and accept what it says as God’s truth.
I’m glad it sounds good to you. It is the knowledge of life.
Like I said, it’s not possible to disown your flesh, but that’s not the point. The point is to try and feed your spirit with good fruit. You make good fruit when you practice the seven heavenly virtues in all your affairs. When you make these good fruits with your flesh, by practicing the virtues, you are feeding your spirit, which is GOD WITHIN YOU. God is not an external force, God is within you peacefully, it’s your spirit. When you make bad fruit, give in to lust, forget to swallow your pride, or become too wrathful, you make bad fruits. The seven deadly sins. But eating bad fruit is okay! Everyone accidentally eats some bad fruit once in a while. It doesn’t kill you because your spirit is Godly. But … if you eat bad fruit all the time you’ll get sick and die quicker than if you try your best to eat good fruit.
I think there is some truth in this, however…however much a child who is being repeatedly sexually abused is adding to the toughness of his or her life by dwelling on his or her misfortune, this experience does not fit well with…
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I am glad that some people are not satisfied. I think their disatisfaction leads to and can lead to improvements. Others, yes, I wish they were satisfied, or even more clearly, I wish they realized what was making them disatisfied and they focused on that instead of hurting others.
It refers back to a time in my life when I had not fully grasped the manner in which we often come to believe something not because it is true but because we want to believe it is true. Thinking [in part] becomes a psychological defense mechanism building walls between “I” and all that might be disturbing.
But how any particular mind makes a distinction between the way things are and the way they ought to be is often predicated on the extent to which the way things are is making their own particular life miserable.
There may well be “something to do” about it but in doing it there is the potential for risks as well as rewards. So we rationalize doing nothing instead.
But this is all rooted in dasein and it is often difficult to make others see the world the way we do because they have not been in the world the way we are.
But I can see where your advice makes sense sometimes. You have to let go of changing something that cannot reasonably be changed. And we sometimes need luck if we are going to be successful in doing so.
I have come to see and believe that very few people can use intellectual reasoning, but instead use emotional reasoning. This agrees with what you said in that many people WANT it to be that way, so they believe that it is.
This is probably true, but there is a caveat that must be considered. The way things “are” is what is. Many have no knowledge of this concept, and thus cannot distinguish between what “is” and what the mind is creating of what “is.” Unfortunately, most people believe that what the mind is creating is what “is.” It is not. So the “problem” becomes a La Brea tar pit. No way to “fix” it.
Most problems do not exist at all. I would say that nobody has any problems at all, but to explain that statement fully would take more explaining than I care to go into right now. It has to do with our inability to understand the “big picture.” We don’t have all the facts. Our minds are too limiting.
“dasein” is obviously a typo that I cannot decipher. But maybe I can respond without having to know the definition? No one can see the world the way we do unless they have abilities we do not have. I have read stories of a person that could do this, but I have no direct knowledge.
We are born alone. By that I mean that we alone have the experience of our birth, and it will be so at the tme of our death. In fact, all of our experiences are ours alone. We do not know what others suffer, or if they do. We do not know their joy. In that sense, we are always alone.
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