But, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ...'
If God is so 'little' aa to know me 'specifically' then it follows that he is big enough to know everything and everyone that has ever existed or will exist.
I'm not laying exclusive claim to the attention of the Deity.
Where does all this 'dualist' either/or stuff come from?
ISTM that our human suits come with a more or less standard issue "information broadcast and reception" capability. There are custom type suits that come with chromosomal, endocrinological, neurological and physiological modulators but in general - in general - most of us are wired to send and receive information on a narrow bandwidth that is only perceptible by one or all of our senses.
Our bodies aren't just something we wear. They are us I'd suggest just as our 'spirits' or 'souls' are, if we can use that traditional language.
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Our Lord Jesus Christ didn't wear a meat suit for 33 years then discard it. There is a man in heaven.
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Matter matters.
If we believe in 'the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come' then it involves a glorified body.
I'm pretty much with A Feminine Force on this. Our bodies are vehicles, they are not "us" in the same way as our spirit or soul (which is kind of what those two words suggest). The question of whether our glorified bodies bear any resemblance (or substance) with our earthly bodies always struck me as being primarily of theological interest, and wasn't something in which I ever felt very invested.
What if mysticism is simply a matter of being able to "tune" to some of these frequencies outside the bandwidths that our earth suits are set by default within?
yes, in terms of mysticism, I agree absolutely - it is part of the same universe as connection with a reality which is inherent in the observable, without itself being observable.
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
If I've got the idea correctly, then the claim would be that if God existed God would not be God.
Think of the various D&D pantheons: within the game, they exist. But they are just characters in the game, they do not transcend the game.
Or, in Wittgenstein's terms, "If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him."
Eh? I'd have thought that a God who ceased to exist if I didn’t believe in him would be less of a God, myself.
I don't know with what intent Garasu is making those arguments.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
... Our bodies are vehicles, they are not "us" in the same way as our spirit or soul (which is kind of what those two words suggest).
Thank you for this. As one who has attended the deaths of three of her closest loved ones, I can emphatically say that once they are gone, they are gone. Once the animating consciousness, energy or principle (call it what you will) has ceased its activity in the body, what remains is most definitely not them. There is no confusing them with, say, a sleeping version of themselves. They are simply not present in the body.
The question of whether our glorified bodies bear any resemblance (or substance) with our earthly bodies always struck me as being primarily of theological interest, and wasn't something in which I ever felt very invested.
Me neither. As fearfully, intelligently and as wonderfully as we are made, there are still "glitches in the code" so to speak. I do believe that we are active participants in the biological testing and upgrading of the human suit and in this sense we are agents of Grace. God has eternity, and I believe we do as well, and so it's not a matter of any real interest or urgency for me.
What if mysticism is simply a matter of being able to "tune" to some of these frequencies outside the bandwidths that our earth suits are set by default within?
yes, in terms of mysticism, I agree absolutely - it is part of the same universe as connection with a reality which is inherent in the observable, without itself being observable.
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
What if it's both?
Like one station on the dial closer in to the standard communication frequencies of long-, short- and micro-waves is better suited to a kind of peer-to-peer bioresonant communication (thinking of stories of people in the wilderness who believe they are alone on a trail but can "sense" another human following them), and other stations further out on the dial, harder to access, are more suited to transmission of full-on sensory experiences of the unitive and transformative type?
This reminds me of someone I used to know who said he could pick up radio stations on his false leg. My dad had a hearing aid which could pick up conversations from the neighbours on their cordless phone (in the days before mobile phones).
This reminds me of someone I used to know who said he could pick up radio stations on his false leg. My dad had a hearing aid which could pick up conversations from the neighbours on their cordless phone (in the days before mobile phones).
As dismissive as this kind of observation might sound, I believe the mechanics of these types of experience, just because they are not well understood by us, are still grounded in reality.
I follow some Youtubers who use ayahuasca and yopo and mimosa, and such plant alkaloids that lower the blood/brain barrier to our endogenously manufactured dimethyltriptamine (DMT). ISTM that a chemical like this has the ability to crank the dial "to eleven" as it were. And some of these people spend an entire year trying to dial back to default.
Unlike them, though, every experience that has imposed itself upon me (I have never gone looking for these moments) has happened spontaneously and entirely outside any kind of chemical intervention.
Believe me, it's much easier to integrate this stuff if you can just explain it away with "I was drunk/high/asleep/on pain meds" than if you are having to spend weeks months and even years testing and retesting your experience against accumulated and validated information in order to properly fit it into a coherent narrative or overall picture of how reality functions.
Whatever mysticism ends up being, it's neither fun nor easy once the event has concluded.
I'm not an atheist. There may be some deity or creator or something. I don't know.
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
This is a line of thought that was refuted in the nineteen fifties at the latest.
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I'm not an atheist. There may be some deity or creator or something. I don't know.
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
This is a line of thought that was refuted in the nineteen fifties at the latest.
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I am with Gamma Gamaliel on bodies, but our bodies do not just have the three dimensions we are used to but have the fourth dimension of time as well and this our concious mind has limited access to. If we have eternal life it requires movement outside those dimensions. I do not know how this makes sense, but it is life but not as we know it at present.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
"I suppose if you can state it then it must be true" right back at you.
I'm prepared to show my position is coherent using mathematics (set theory). Can you do the same? For example, how many magnitudes is "many"? An eye is an order of magnitude smaller than a face - can anything take in an eye and a face simultaneously? Presumably something a bit more sophisticated can take in two orders of magnitude? So where is the logical limit?
Ah, but if you know you're right you can just dismiss these questions as fantastic out of hand?
(Note: something that could be mistaken for your opinion, and which is true, is that anything capable of completely understanding any finite space-time continuum cannot be part of that space-time continuum.)
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I don't know about that. Dude named Benoit Mendelbrot might have had something to say about that.
But, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ...'
If God is so 'little' aa to know me 'specifically' then it follows that he is big enough to know everything and everyone that has ever existed or will exist.
I'm not laying exclusive claim to the attention of the Deity.
Where does all this 'dualist' either/or stuff come from?
I'm not an atheist. There may be some deity or creator or something. I don't know.
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
This is a line of thought that was refuted in the nineteen fifties at the latest.
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I don't know with what intent Garasu is making those arguments.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
The point that I think I was making is that God is not a being amongst other beings, even one greater than which cannot be imagined. Similarly, God's will is not something I have to factor in to my life in the way that I need to take account of my boyfriend's (boss's, king's...) wishes. Which, in one sense, is how God exists but is al!so the way in which God exists.
If that makes sense?
I may have just confused myself! It's easily done.
Comments
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
But, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ...'
If God is so 'little' aa to know me 'specifically' then it follows that he is big enough to know everything and everyone that has ever existed or will exist.
I'm not laying exclusive claim to the attention of the Deity.
Where does all this 'dualist' either/or stuff come from?
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
Thank you for this. As one who has attended the deaths of three of her closest loved ones, I can emphatically say that once they are gone, they are gone. Once the animating consciousness, energy or principle (call it what you will) has ceased its activity in the body, what remains is most definitely not them. There is no confusing them with, say, a sleeping version of themselves. They are simply not present in the body.
Me neither. As fearfully, intelligently and as wonderfully as we are made, there are still "glitches in the code" so to speak. I do believe that we are active participants in the biological testing and upgrading of the human suit and in this sense we are agents of Grace. God has eternity, and I believe we do as well, and so it's not a matter of any real interest or urgency for me.
What if it's both?
Like one station on the dial closer in to the standard communication frequencies of long-, short- and micro-waves is better suited to a kind of peer-to-peer bioresonant communication (thinking of stories of people in the wilderness who believe they are alone on a trail but can "sense" another human following them), and other stations further out on the dial, harder to access, are more suited to transmission of full-on sensory experiences of the unitive and transformative type?
AFF
As dismissive as this kind of observation might sound, I believe the mechanics of these types of experience, just because they are not well understood by us, are still grounded in reality.
I follow some Youtubers who use ayahuasca and yopo and mimosa, and such plant alkaloids that lower the blood/brain barrier to our endogenously manufactured dimethyltriptamine (DMT). ISTM that a chemical like this has the ability to crank the dial "to eleven" as it were. And some of these people spend an entire year trying to dial back to default.
Unlike them, though, every experience that has imposed itself upon me (I have never gone looking for these moments) has happened spontaneously and entirely outside any kind of chemical intervention.
Believe me, it's much easier to integrate this stuff if you can just explain it away with "I was drunk/high/asleep/on pain meds" than if you are having to spend weeks months and even years testing and retesting your experience against accumulated and validated information in order to properly fit it into a coherent narrative or overall picture of how reality functions.
Whatever mysticism ends up being, it's neither fun nor easy once the event has concluded.
AFF
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I'm prepared to show my position is coherent using mathematics (set theory). Can you do the same? For example, how many magnitudes is "many"? An eye is an order of magnitude smaller than a face - can anything take in an eye and a face simultaneously? Presumably something a bit more sophisticated can take in two orders of magnitude? So where is the logical limit?
Ah, but if you know you're right you can just dismiss these questions as fantastic out of hand?
(Note: something that could be mistaken for your opinion, and which is true, is that anything capable of completely understanding any finite space-time continuum cannot be part of that space-time continuum.)
I don't know about that. Dude named Benoit Mendelbrot might have had something to say about that.
AFF
Agreed, agreed, agreed.
Apologies. Classic "Knight's move" thinking. (Thanks, ADHD!).
The point that I think I was making is that God is not a being amongst other beings, even one greater than which cannot be imagined. Similarly, God's will is not something I have to factor in to my life in the way that I need to take account of my boyfriend's (boss's, king's...) wishes. Which, in one sense, is how God exists but is al!so the way in which God exists.
If that makes sense?
I may have just confused myself! It's easily done.