Wholeness

Right. Holland contrasts the modern democracy with that of ancient Greece. Jefferson could think that the principle that all men are created equal was self-evident because the presupposition that Man was created in the image of God (both male and female by the way) is embedded in Western society by Judeo-Christian cultural history.

Lyssa?

She was a mediogre poster from back in the day.

Ah… Thank you.

A new topic: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=197012

Have you ever explored the bizarre characteristics of Uranus? lol, this is related to a title of a video on YouTube - I just messed with it.
I have never watched that video either - because you were clearly wondering that, hahaha.

Is polish not referring to the ancient greek spirit of mad rage?

I guess Lyssa could have been a mediocre poster compared to some of her greek counterparts.

It seems that unless we take up the issue directly by exhaustive first person research, we are at the mercy of dueling historians whose propositions we evaluate through the lens of the presuppositions we come to the subject with due to our childhood indoctrination.

As early as I can remember I was taught about the evils of state religion and the virtues of the separation of church and state that led to the dark ages. So what’s new here?

I reposted this on the new thread.

The controversy reminds me a bit of the current political debate about the cancel culture. Thus does the world divide our soul on a daily basis. The Tao de Ching reminds us to seek the center.

Lyssa the SHITthyself poster that had to leave because SATIRE decided he does not like Nietzsche after not reading him for the second time and whos posts which made up her argument with SATIRE leading up to her shadow-ban were deleted by the autistic neo-nazi SHITthyself dullard kooks in an attempt to protect their guru. Satyr is a really insecure person because deep down he knows he is a pretentious and unedcuated dullard kook who is just pulling shit out of his arse and throwing accusations left and right like a rabies dog.

Ah… well, there you go!

Rather than talking about God, it makes more sense to me to refer to Ultimate Reality or, even better, the Ultimate Mystery. That, I believe, is what “God” represents.

A phenomenon that in principle eludes unambiguous statement and explanation? Yes, I think that is an apt circumscription, although the apophatic seems to have been well-tried, and fitted as well as anything else.

I think our problem lies in the fact that our vocabulary wears out after a while, especially when words have become empty and lose their dynamic. That is why some mystics used the language of lovers, or used poetry to describe their relationship with that Ultimate Mystery that was so elusive.

Even if it cannot be expressed in words, the Godspell or immediate awareness of the Whole, can be discussed as a real experience. Were this not so, the concept of a God or the God would have faded from our vocabularies over the centuries.

Reply

Right, but the God that can be represented or talked about is not the ultimate one. That one is beyond human comprehension, language and representation. So, in a sense, everything we say about God is wrong. Everything we say about God is at best metaphoric. This includes the statement that God is one and the statement that God is. As absolutely unique and transcendent God is beyond one. One only points to God metaphorically as it were. And since God must be being itself, it cannot be said that God is. Rather, God is the ground of everything that is. In sum, though I am here using words, my words are paradoxical because God is beyond words. Therefore the word God represents that which cannot be spoken, the ineffable, the ultimate mystery.

Yes and…

Yes and we have only to consider the acts of supreme compassion and the heinous crimes committed in the name of God to begin to get some sense of the ambiguity involved in the word.

Those who know God as the Whole of which they are a part will not commit heinous acts in the name of God. Crusaders and inquisitors see Others as separate from God, not as a part of God. Them and us are trademarks of separatism; but the divisions only reflect the divider; they are not in tune with the ultimate Reality. Ambiguity comes from watching and judging the ways of others, not from direct experience of the Whole.

Let’s not forget that wholeness encompasses both the ego ideal and the shadow, the light and the dark, order and chaos. It exceeds the imagination in uniting opposites.

Also there is the fact that, whether we are talking about an entity present at hand, our own selves, or the metaphysical absolute we can only ever know the whole in part.

Felix,
Do you believe the Whole contains what we describe as good and evil, as was noted in the book of Job?

I’d say good and evil are human ways of thinking about loss or gain; and, perhaps have nothing to do with any description of God’s so-called attributes.