Face of god...

[enlightenment]

enlightenment hi

yeah that always got me too, jesus made his own mother pregnant with himself! *gasps*

as for the pregnancy, presumably there is a spiritual connection at conception right, so given that science can make an egg think it has been impregnated - so to say, it is quite possible that god could do a similar trick without having to even touch her [which would be impossible as he has no physical body].

Yeah.

But thinking about that for a second.

Does it not sound all a bit far fetched, to you.

In reality?

 

[Resigned]

Resigned



So far so good. But if the knowledge of good and evil predates man, what is it? What defines good and evil without any connection with man on earth?

Words are concepts given labels, nothing more. In the context of these discussions, good and evil are abstract or non-material concepts and as such are only meaningful in the context of human descriptions. So your question above is a really great one. I think the answer is that there is no definition of good and evil prior to god allegedly preparing the so-called “test” for A&E, (not the cable station).

As far as good and evil, of course these are subjective issues. What is evil in some cultures is the norm in others, and vice versa. We think the 9/11 acts were evil, those who perpetrated it and their supporters do not think they were evil. The bias is what it is, and the only standard one can go by is what causes the least amount of harm should be considered the greatest amount of good. I would argue that the al-Qaida acts were evil because even if they were done in a sense of vengeance for real or imagined violations to the peace and prosperity of al-Qaida, the act itself did not either rectify those violations nor did they lessen their incidence. But the concept of "good and evil" itself is irrelevant taken out of the context of human perspective. We define what is good and what is evil, and it's rarely black and white.

 

[_Z_]

no, in that language yes, however if we consider it in terms of everything being expressions of infinity from the quantum level up + infinite intellect [whatever that may be], then it is not so far fetched. simply put reality is like an ocean from which all things arise.

i do see the difficulty in translating that into a fertilised egg + consciousness, but i have an answer if interested.

 

[enlightenment]

Just a thought, but let me throw this out to those that buy into the whole impregnation of mary, and jesus being her son, and being the son of god.

Have you ever considered that if god is all knowing he would know that one day man would advance to the level of science were a women can be impregnated without physical contact from a male. He would also know what future scientific finds that we are going to discover.

*Thought*

If he knows of them, then if we run with your beleif, then is it possible that he somehow used those same methods to create this immaculate conception?

 

[_Z_]

If he knows of them, then if we run with your beleif, then is it possible that he somehow used those same methods to create this immaculate conception?

how would he use methods of the material world? [remembering that god is not physical] in a sense we are all born of immaculate conception, if not then none can be...

here is my answer from my last post ~ even if not interested lols. i think it will help answer that too.

add the points up...

1. we have universal evolution, from the big bang onwards. this i feel can only be mirroring ‘something’, i call that something infinity.
1.b. i cannot see how you can get something from nothing, the laws and principles of existence themselves must predate that which goes by them.

2. reality is composed of the physical and the non physical. information itself does not exist yet we know it has an effect in the world. equally laws do not exist, yet we know they effect the world entirely.

3. to the ocean; so we have existence + the infinite ocean, the material grows within it. now we take the body and brain, it seemingly is its own entity, most of consciousness can be accounted for in terms of workings of the brain. there is one major ingredient missing ‘awareness’! the fact that you do exist, there is a you sitting there reading this, where science would say you don’t exist, we are merely chemical robots [this i think of as the ‘sleepwalker’ aspect of our being].

4. now let us look at what infinity is [in the least of what it is], as we can class info and awareness as not physical, yet fundamental to who and what we and existence are, then to what do they belong. as i see it there is nothing else bar infinity and its transient expressions [that is the entirety of reality], hence anything that we can classify as non material [where mass is empty, so what exactly is material?_!], is of the infinite.
5. so the ‘ocean’ is aware, it is an infinite recourse to which all that resides in it pull.

...so to answer the question, when an egg is fertilised [artificially or not] it is already within awareness [and infinite intellect {at least}]. as it grows [note; infinity is expressed in many ways parallel to that, from inspiration to thought] reality is working in parallel, that of the material and the infinite. a fully grown human [or animal] has grown from the very first point [note this fans of abortion] to its adulthood along this parallel path, where the mind is a composite of its physical and eternal components.

 

[enlightenment]

how would he use methods of the material world? [remembering that god is not physical] in a sense we are all born of immaculate conception, if not then none can be....

How??????

He is god. He can do almost anything, no?

So surely he could do a piddling little thing like this?

I dunno, have you ever considered god to be a being in a biological sense, rather than an invisible entity? Have you ever considered that rather than a creator, you might actually be speaking of the plural, creators..

Or..or... god could have used man to do the deed.

Plenty ways.

 

[enlightenment]

Indeed, since god can achieve that which seems impossible, he could have magicked Jesus up, without needing to go through the whole process of being nine months in a human womb.

Why didn't he do that?

Was the DNA of Mary crucial in some manner?

 

[_Z_]

How??????

as in last post.

He is god. He can do almost anything, no?

if he creates the world in one way then the world is what it is, he cannot then create it in another way without first destroying what he has already made [in his all-perfection!]. infinity is no magician and even if it were in some way, there are logical restrictions.

have you ever considered god to be a being in a biological sense

yes i consider ‘him’ to be all biological beings [and all other physical entities { and none of them].

to find the universal aspect; ‘it’ = either neither and both.

Or..or... god could have used man to do the deed.

what would be the difference? i mean between that and any other ‘deed’?

Indeed, since god can achieve that which seems impossible, he could have magicked Jesus up, without needing to go through the whole process of being nine months in a human womb.
Why didn’t he do that?
Was the DNA of Mary crucial in some manner?

to magic jesus up he would have to un-create the entire universe! [for reasons stated above].

i don’t see why one person is any more special than another, so mary why? he doesn’t mind suffering on the cross and yet he expects purity in birth [and from a married woman?]?

 

[enlightenment]

See when you actually think about the immaculate conception, Noah's Ark, and adam and even, doesn't it all start to unravel a little for you, and seem like a lot of fairytales?

Just a question...

 

[_Z_]

indeed, i am not a christian i am a universalist/anarchist/paganish so that is exactly what i think.


...no offence meant. i only mean that in the literal context of such stories.

 

[enlightenment]

indeed, i am not a christian i am a universalist/anarchist/paganish so that is exactly what i think.


...no offence meant. i only mean that in the literal context of such stories.

None taken. As you may have guessed, I am of the view that these stories are little more than allegories, methaphors, etc, anyway. All of them. Seems quite a mix you have going on there, anyway!

What are your primary principles?

 

[Nick_A]

See when you actually think about the immaculate conception, Noah's Ark, and adam and even, doesn't it all start to unravel a little for you, and seem like a lot of fairytales?

Just a question...

To the contrary, once the mind opens a bit, they all make perfect sense.

 

[enlightenment]

To the contrary, once the mind opens a bit, they all make perfect sense.

Lol.

I am waiting on a smilie ....

 

[wil]

See when you actually think about the immaculate conception, Noah's Ark, and adam and even, doesn't it all start to unravel a little for you, and seem like a lot of fairytales?

Just a question...

Of course it is metaphor...it is the only the fundamentalist atheist and the literalist that think otherwise.

Great discussion on this on the BBC last nite with 200 years after Darwin... fundamentalist atheist...love that term.

 

[bananabrain]

What unites you all is that you all beleive in the same god. Surely that is the most important thing. Surely the rest is 'dressing', by comparision?

it should be, but it is what we believe G!D wishes us to do that puts us in conflict, or from my PoV, how we believe G!D wishes us to behave to other people. this is why in my view you lose your moral authority if you have a conversionist agenda, because, fundamentally, you believe that there's only one way to be "right" and in G!D's good books. i have a problem with that attitude within my own religion, let alone other peoples'.

So far so good. But if the knowledge of good and evil predates man, what is it? What defines good and evil without any connection with man on earth?

that's quite the cosmic question. kabbalah has an answer, but i'm not sure it translates all that well into terms which would make sense to an atheist.

Evolve religion, of a sort? Okay, what should go, and what is bad? And who decides?

well, that's been tried quite a few times, hasn't it? inevitably, reform ends up throwing the baby out with the bathwater and this has happened in the case of quite a few different religions at different times including my own. in the end, all i can really say is that the only one who can really decide what to do or not to do is the individual. the community is important, of course, but sometimes one has to be strong enough to stand up to the community. sometimes one is right and sometimes, unfortunately, one is wrong.

Whose to say that god and satan are not equal opponents, locked in some perpetual and cosmic battle between good and evil?

well, that's surely axiomatic. monotheists generally all agree that it's not an equal struggle and certainly my particular brand doesn't consider ha-satan to be in conflict with G!D at all.

personally i don’t think god would speak to anyone. to do so simply set that person aside from all others

well, moses thought the same, in fact. but the act of speaking to G!D, surely, changes one to a significant degree. after moses came down from the mountain, he had to wear a veil because his face had becomed transfigured with light to a disturbing degree.

as a father i wouldn’t treat my children so.

but G!D does not always Act in father-mode; sometimes G!D Is Acting in teacher-mode, or king-mode or other, more subtle ones. in such modes of action, different modes of communication are necessary. teachers often broadcast, kings tend to have special advisors, coaches work individually with groups. but when G!D Acts as a parent, that is an individual communication for each of us in our own special way.

infinity has and cannot have a face, hence an infinite being cannot.

there are two assumptions there, both unwarranted - you're acting as if you've created a valid syllogism.

if god isn’t an infinite being then his face has limited size but would be very big and a bit hard to miss really lols.

there is a mystical text known as the "shiur qomah" that does precisely this. what it does is make the measurements so vast so as to nuke your perceptions of size; it's a technique, really.

why is god seen as some kind of adolf hitler that would kill you just for looking at him, the literal interpretation is just absurd. god is nice!

it's not like that. we're talking about the Source of All power here - do you stick your head in nuclear reactors? no? and if you did, would it be your fault or the nuclear reactor's fault. don't be silly, mate.

reality is composed of the transient and the infinite, any kind of beginning throws up logical paradoxes e.g. who creates the creator and what happened before and what will happen after. sure god may have created other universes both before and after, but this doesn’t get past infinity paradoxes, there may not be an infinite amount of creations, secondly you cannot create something from nothing.

we are in highly speculative realms here, so i don't think you're in a position to say whether something is or isn't. i'm just saying how i understand it and how judaism sees it. judaism does not have a problem with paradox, no sophisticated belief system does. yet paradox appears to be built into the universe, you even get it in maths, which is as neutral as data gets. i suggest you read a book called "the mystery of the aleph", by a mathematician called amir aczel, which goes into this in some detail. furthermore, the idea that something can be Created from nothing is just that - unique. it is only G!D that could Do this and it is only G!D that Has. yet at the same time time has no meaning for G!D. that in itself is paradoxical.

however everything is an expression of the infinite so nothing is not of god in origin. can we see then a creation that is continual and ever-present? for me that brings g?d into the here and now, i see everything as ‘live’ in this way. for this reason i feel it is my duty to update my understanding continually, and to take each circumstance anew.

i feel the same way, for many of the same reasons. in fact, this supports the idea that Creation is both a one-off and a continuous process, which is, of course, itself a paradox.

this is yet another reason why truth cannot be written in stone, the bible, torah and koran [and all other such texts including the pagan ones!] all have truth in them, however it was truth ‘then’ not so much now.

give me a "for instance" from the Torah.

i feel we should stop seeing things in stops and starts, beginnings and endings. i cannot think of a religion or scientific philosophy that has not got it all wrong on this point - if i may.

we see spirals and, in effect, a five-dimensional hypercube. my researches into jewish mysticism have been most revealing on this point.

it is simply impossible to have infinity X realities or universe [and where would we draw the lines if it were?]

well, we can't, that's the point. but G!D Can.

we would still get stars and planets, life would begin from single celled creatures etc.

that is by no means certain.

As far as good and evil, of course these are subjective issues. What is evil in some cultures is the norm in others, and vice versa. We think the 9/11 acts were evil, those who perpetrated it and their supporters do not think they were evil. The bias is what it is, and the only standard one can go by is what causes the least amount of harm should be considered the greatest amount of good. I would argue that the al-Qaida acts were evil because even if they were done in a sense of vengeance for real or imagined violations to the peace and prosperity of al-Qaida, the act itself did not either rectify those violations nor did they lessen their incidence. But the concept of "good and evil" itself is irrelevant taken out of the context of human perspective. We define what is good and what is evil, and it's rarely black and white.

to be precise: human perceptions of good and evil are necessarily subjective and relative; it is Divine Perceptions (and the laws in which they are captured) that are more absolute and essentialist in approach, which is why they can appear so odd to us with our subjective points of view.

As you may have guessed, I am of the view that these stories are little more than allegories, metaphors, etc, anyway. All of them. Seems quite a mix you have going on there, anyway!

the word Torah means "teaching" as well as Law. if it doesn't teach you anything, what is the point? the garden of eden story is absolutely fundamental to my worldview, my view of humanity, my philosophy, my concepts of dimensional space-time and my concept of free-will. that, for me, makes it a great deal more than "allegories and metaphors".

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[Nick_A]

Lol.

I am waiting on a smilie ....

Out of curiousity, what do you think an open mind is? Can it be open to anything you are not open to now? Do you think you have an open mind?

 

[Marsh]

Out of curiousity, what do you think an open mind is? Can it be open to anything you are not open to now? Do you think you have an open mind?

To most of us, the only ones with open minds are the ones who think most like us. This is where Atheists and Theists find common ground, the difference being that many Theists acknowledge their own narrow-mindedness, while fundamentalists and (in my experience) most Atheists do not.

Most. Not all.

But most.

 

[iBrian]

Out of curiousity, what do you think an open mind is?

One that, when asked a question, will admit "I don't know".

There's something to admire in agnostics, who when faced with fundamental questions of existence, will admit they don't really know. There's something profoundly spiritual in accepting doubt and uncertainty. In my opinion.

 

[Nick_A]

Well, Marsh and I. Brian, I agree it it is a step in the right direction to admit that we don't know. it becomes more clear when considering this TV interview on a TV series called "Thinking Allowed." Jacob Needleman makes the following point:

SPIRITUALITY AND THE INTELLECT with JACOB NEEDLEMAN

NEEDLEMAN: Yes, but you don't get the sense of great hope with the existentialists, at least some of them. You don't get the sense that there really is a deeper, higher reality. With much of what we call existentialism -- the sense that we are human beings poured like metaphysical freaks, cast adrift in a meaningless universe, and suffering this weird thing called freedom, which brings us this angst and this suffering, and knowing there's no meaning outside ourselves, but still having the guts to stand up and say, that's what I am -- that's existentialism of a kind. That's not what we're speaking about. We're speaking about a vision of human nature which really says there is meaning, great meaning, inside us and outside of us too. And the suffering is that we feel it exists, but we're out of contact with it, and we need to find a way to open to it. It's not exactly existentialism.

MISHLOVE: To contrast existentialism a little bit with what I guess you might call the positive thinking philosophies, there's a view that everything is really all bliss, everything is all perfect already. This comes from many circles of people who are spiritual thinkers. I think Christian Science is one among many who take this attitude towards life. How do you feel about that as a philosopher? Is it too simple-minded?

NEEDLEMAN: There's an ancient and deep truth there, that can degenerate when it's taken in a simple way, in a stupid way, just as the view that this is a tough universe and everything obeys laws and you have to pay for it, can degenerate into some hard, cynical view. Basically the great traditions have always taught that there is something in us which is godlike, and that there is an inherent joy within us; and that yes, like the Buddhists say, you already are the Buddha; or like the Christians say, Christ has already forgiven you, the kindgom has already appeared. But that doesn't mean we are in touch with it. Those who are, have a very deeply well earned joyousness. But those who just take it as an idea, and as something attractive emotionally, may make it look foolish. It can become a very foolish thing, where somebody is saying everything is just fine while the house is burning. Things are not so fine. Even in Buddhism -- the house is burning, the Buddhist says, and you've got to get out of that burning house and realize your inherent Buddha-ness. So yes, when you say, what do I think of it, in its authentic form it's a deep truth. In its perverted forms it can be silly -- just as it's a deep truth that you have to work hard and suffer for understanding, but in its perverted form it makes everything impossible, cynical, tough, as scientism does sometimes -- there's nothing out there, we're here, we're cast adrift, we're going nowhere. Both views are perverted -- what you might call the daydream view, and the nightmare view. They're both fantasies.

MISHLOVE: Somewhere in the middle, then, there must be a place in which developing the intellect to grasp our dual nature -- our physical nature and our spiritual nature -- becomes important. I guess the Buddhists might have referred to this as right thinking.

NEEDLEMAN: Absolutely. The intellect is a very important function in us. It's been twisted, it's been used wrong. It's like an extraordinary tool that's not being used right, or like a computer that's in the hands of a maniac. This is an extraordinary thing, and it's very much part of us. There are many levels of intellect, but even our ordinary level can be used in a different way. For that, we need to have more real experience. The intellect functions well when it feeds on deep, true experiences. And our level of experience is not good. So the more we can have real experiences, the more the intellect has reality to work with. As it is we live on fantasies.

So for me an open mind is able to conceive of our dual nature which would allow us to put many of the biblical parables into a perspective we are not open to. I see how far I am from an open mind. It amazes me how many ridicule it for the sake of glorifying linear associative thought. But to each his own

 

[enlightenment]

Of course it is metaphor....

Okay, well you admit that those examples were all metaphors, right?

Well, I am quite sure that there a millions of theists that would argue otherwise. They really do believe that Noah sailed around in a giant ship, that Jesus died and rose again, etc, etc.

Is that the bible then?

A book, not of literal truth, but of metaphor?