Santa V God

[Tao_Equus]

When confronted with spirit, equally real to those who understand and intuit

I think this to be the crucial to understand nub of the matter of faith. This word "intuit". You see intuit is a creation of the psyche that has no meaning or basis outside of precedent. I believe what you refer to as intuition to be conditioning. Genuine intuition of the type you imply does not exist. What you really draw on is an established way of thinking.

Tao

 

[seattlegal]

I think this to be the crucial to understand nub of the matter of faith. This word "intuit". You see intuit is a creation of the psyche that has no meaning or basis outside of precedent. I believe what you refer to as intuition to be conditioning. Genuine intuition of the type you imply does not exist. What you really draw on is an established way of thinking.

Tao

Hehehe! Shall I break out the koans to help you understand intuition?

The Zen stick {or fish } can also teach intuition in the conditioning manner you mentioned, but it is not the only way to learn intuition and spontaneity. You have the opportunity to learn intuition every day. Back before civilization came along and put up all the warning labels/signs on the dangerous stuff, people had to rely on their intuition for their very survival. I think we have devolved greatly from our ancestors in that respect.
{Is there a link between this and the rise of atheism?}

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hehehe! Shall I break out the koans to help you understand intuition?

The Zen stick {or fish } can also teach intuition in the conditioning manner you mentioned, but it is not the only way to learn intuition and spontaneity. You have the opportunity to learn intuition every day. Back before civilization came along and put up all the warning labels/signs on the dangerous stuff, people had to rely on their intuition for their very survival. I think we have devolved greatly from our ancestors in that respect.
{Is there a link between this and the rise of atheism?}

But this was exactly my point. This is not 'genuine' intuition but behaviour learned from precedent. Genuine intuition would appear spontaneously without prior cause, it would not be learned. Anything that is learned is not intuited but taught and this is the case with intuited ideas of spirituality. Learning that 2 or 3 kinds of bitter red berries all give you gut ache teaches you that other bitter red berries might do the same. So when you find a new red berry thats bitter you are conditioned, you are not experiencing intuition. Juantoo expresses intuition of spirituality as though it were independent of learned behaviour. But it is not. In fact I would say because of the prevalence of spiritual thinking in all cultures/societies it would be impossible to make a claim of intuitive revelation. The notion is common knowledge at such a young age that remaining uninfluenced in order to receive a genuine intuition would be about as likely as suddenly talking in a brand new and comprehensive language that has no relationship to any other.

tao

 

[seattlegal]

But this was exactly my point. This is not 'genuine' intuition but behaviour learned from precedent. Genuine intuition would appear spontaneously without prior cause, it would not be learned.

I see your point. Perhaps a better term would be intuition can be cultivatated. It's something that you already have to one degree or another, but many don't recognize it or realize it. It can be cultivated to the point that your conscious mind can recognize it, rather than remaining mostly subconscious.

Anything that is learned is not intuited but taught and this is the case with intuited ideas of spirituality.

Does a child learn to walk, talk, or crawl when it reaches a certain stage of development, or is it a purely intuitive process, or a mixture of both? (Usually a mixture of both.)

Learning that 2 or 3 kinds of bitter red berries all give you gut ache teaches you that other bitter red berries might do the same. So when you find a new red berry thats bitter you are conditioned, you are not experiencing intuition. Juantoo expresses intuition of spirituality as though it were independent of learned behaviour. But it is not.

Perhaps not recognizing it is something we are conditioned into/taught? Cultivating it would then be a process of unlearning.

In fact I would say because of the prevalence of spiritual thinking in all cultures/societies it would be impossible to make a claim of intuitive revelation.

I disagree. I wasn't brought up in any religious paradigm, yet became spiritual without being conditioned into it. Looking back to my agnostic youth, I can recognize intuitive/spiritual thinking I had, but did not recognize at the time.

The notion is common knowledge at such a young age that remaining uninfluenced in order to receive a genuine intuition would be about as likely as suddenly talking in a brand new and comprehensive language that has no relationship to any other.

tao

Infants and children make up their own brand new and comprehensive languages all the time! It's really a quite common occurrance.

Like Paladin already mentioned, some of the things children say/think are really quite profound. It's the cultural constructs that makes children learn to not ask such questions and explore such ideas. It's culturally labelled "immature and childish," naive, and unsophisticated, so I would say that the culture is biased away from intuition. (The preponderance of warning labels is evidence for it, imo.)

 

[Ciel]

Tao,

How did you ever get to the point where you are now if it were not through your own intuition of what makes sense to Tao? Taken on whatever terms you wish to name it........

Remember you dishonour yourself when you dishonour the intelligence of others who have experienced outside your own understanding.

- c -

 

[Tao_Equus]

I see your point. Perhaps a better term would be intuition can be cultivatated. It's something that you already have to one degree or another, but many don't recognize it or realize it. It can be cultivated to the point that your conscious mind can recognize it, rather than remaining mostly subconscious.

Cultivated is just a fancy word for conditioned.

Does a child learn to walk, talk, or crawl when it reaches a certain stage of development, or is it a purely intuitive process, or a mixture of both? (Usually a mixture of both.)

This is a hard wired genetic imperative. Nothing to do with the higher functions of the recently developed human brain.

I disagree. I wasn't brought up in any religious paradigm, yet became spiritual without being conditioned into it. Looking back to my agnostic youth, I can recognize intuitive/spiritual thinking I had, but did not recognize at the time.

For to grow up free from the influence of religious paradigms you would have to have been brought up in total isolation from the concept of God, is this the case?

Infants and children make up their own brand new and comprehensive languages all the time! It's really a quite common occurrance.

Very funny but you know well that is gobbeldy gook.

Like Paladin already mentioned, some of the things children say/think are really quite profound. It's the cultural constructs that makes children learn to not ask such questions and explore such ideas. It's culturally labelled "immature and childish," naive, and unsophisticated, so I would say that the culture is biased away from intuition. (The preponderance of warning labels is evidence for it, imo.)

Children are often thinking about things for the first time and can come out with a simplicity that is touching. But that has nothing to do with intuition as discussed.

tao

 

[Tao_Equus]

Tao,

How did you ever get to the point where you are now if it were not through your own intuition of what makes sense to Tao? Taken on whatever terms you wish to name it........

By rational deduction from what I have learned.

Remember you dishonour yourself when you dishonour the intelligence of others who have experienced outside your own understanding.

- c -

Well if you think that then you would do well to remember that your are claiming this experience for the billions who hold a spiritual set of beliefs. So when I state, as I have, that I believe I have experienced what people call spiritual intuition and I believe it to be a part of the human psyche built by conditioning are you saying that I am somehow unique and incapable of the experience billions of others claim?

tao

 

[Netti-Netti]

Cross-cultural research on primitive religions suggests that much of humankind's religious imagery involves enduring archetypes. There is a fair amount of discussion of that in The World's Religions by Huston C. Smith. The book is widely considered a classic in the field of comparative religion and is often required reading for introductory comparative religion classes at the undergraduate level.

To the extent that the same kinds of religious imagery has historically shown up in cultures that are far removed from each other, one might reasonably conclude that the underlying archetypes are functionally independent of social environment and logically orthogonal to cultural reinforcement, social norms and habits or doctrinal belief systems.

This obviously undercuts the cultural artifact theory that suggests that faith and religiosity are merely products of social learning.


Suffice it to say that a comparative study of archetypes for various religious traditions is important if the idea is to get a picture of human culture.

 

[Tao_Equus]

.... one might reasonably conclude that the underlying archetypes are functionally independent......

Or are drawn from universal principles.

 

[Ciel]

So when I state, as I have, that I believe I have experienced what people call spiritual intuition and I believe it to be a part of the human psyche built by conditioning are you saying that I am somehow unique and incapable of the experience billions of others claim?

tao

Indeed spiritual intuition is part of the human psyche, you see it on your own terms as conditioning. I see it through the eyes of divinity as love. There are many different levels of access to the spiritual. It is your view that is unique to yourself, and I thank God for the freedom to express my own uniqueness also. In freedom of expression all are equal. Would you have yours as the only voice that matters when I understand you put yourself forward as one who cares about human rights in this world.

peace - c -

 

[Tao_Equus]

Indeed spiritual intuition is part of the human psyche, you see it on your own terms as conditioning. I see it through the eyes of divinity as love. There are many different levels of access to the spiritual. It is your view that is unique to yourself, and I thank God for the freedom to express my own uniqueness also. In freedom of expression all are equal. Would you have yours as the only voice that matters when I understand you put yourself forward as one who cares about human rights in this world.

peace - c -

If your nose is running, you are coughing and sneezing it is fair of me to deduce from medical study that you have a cold or if there is a high pollen count that you suffer hay fever. You are free to believe that it is a pepper sprite that has possessed you. Likewise there are psychological causes that explain belief. I have at no point sought to attack any individual or their beliefs but to set out a non supernatural causation for the phenomenon of belief in human culture. I cannot help it that it may challenge your core beliefs but the only alternative to me setting them out is to not set them out at all. So what am I to do? My voice is far from the only one here, in fact I think it would be fair to say if anyone is really being challenged here, as well as outnumbered, it is me. I cannot help it that what I say is a powerful argument, it would be that with or without me expressing it. But I am not casting doubt on anybody's integrity merely trying to put forward a case for what I see. Nobody is forced to read nor respond.

tao

 

[Paladin]

But Tao! If you pull the blanket off how shall I sleep?

 

[Tao_Equus]

But Tao! If you pull the blanket off how shall I sleep?

lol, perhaps I should start signing off with the name "gooseberry"?



tao

 

[Snoopy]

Well, because you need both oil and vinegar to make a proper salad dressing. {Even if the vinegar has been made with sour grapes and the oil has been refined to the point of tastelessness. }

Well, I wasn’t suggesting one or the other. I was suggesting one might usefully use both. And perhaps one can also have ciabatta and mozzarella. Each one is a legitimate ingredient. The more the viewpoints the more "solid" the hologram we linguistically label as “reality.” Pass the Barolo.

s.

 

[Paladin]

Something that has been going round my head lately:

Unless we reside within a belief system, we cannot find the criteria for failure. A life without authority puts us in direct contact with the effect of our life, our actions, our thoughts and feelings. Without the screen of belief we have direct perception of the world in which we exist.

How do we live without belief? We live without the conflict of my ideas with your ideas. We live without the competition of self with other. We live without resistance to the movement of life.

In the moment we relinquish all authority, all conditioning, all projections of memory, both inner and outer, we are an empty vessel that is filled spontaneously with life itself.

Steven Harrison, This Shimmering World: Living Meditation

 

[Snoopy]

Actually, it's already been done by Stephen J. Gould.

I’m guessing he’s rather pre-dated by (amongst others?) Nagarjuna and Dogen (in my particular line of ignorance).

I think the trouble resides in trying to determine the nature of reality.

Exactly.

Science says "if it is real, it can be measured, handled and manipulated."

Clearly insufficient on its own, IMO. As is any other single “approach.”

s.

 

[seattlegal]

Cultivated is just a fancy word for conditioned.

Alrighty then.

This is a hard wired genetic imperative. Nothing to do with the higher functions of the recently developed human brain.

Are you sure this process cannot be enhanced by nurturing?

I disagree. I wasn't brought up in any religious paradigm, yet became spiritual without being conditioned into it. Looking back to my agnostic youth, I can recognize intuitive/spiritual thinking I had, but did not recognize at the time.

For to grow up free from the influence of religious paradigms you would have to have been brought up in total isolation from the concept of God, is this the case?

That's a two edged sword that cuts both ways, Tao, that can be applied equally towards atheism, agnosticism, theism, deism, pantheism, statism, and just about any other ism out there.

I had heard of the concept of God as a child, and I had heard of the concept of atheism as a child. However, I received no conditioning towards God belief as a child, but did receive conditioning towards atheism via the scientific literature I read as a child. If I understand your hypothesis correctly, my childhood conditioning should have swung me towards atheism. However, I'm not an atheist.

Infants and children make up their own brand new and comprehensive languages all the time! It's really a quite common occurrance.

Very funny but you know well that is gobbeldy gook.

Gobbeldy gook? Here are some scientific abstracts and articles regarding this phenomena known as Idioglossia.

Ginny and Gracie Go to School - TIME
Autonomous languages of twins. [Acta Genet Med Gemellol (Roma). 1987] - PubMed Result
Prevalence and developmental course of 'secret language' - International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders

Like Paladin already mentioned, some of the things children say/think are really quite profound. It's the cultural constructs that makes children learn to not ask such questions and explore such ideas. It's culturally labelled "immature and childish," naive, and unsophisticated, so I would say that the culture is biased away from intuition. (The preponderance of warning labels is evidence for it, imo.)

Children are often thinking about things for the first time and can come out with a simplicity that is touching. But that has nothing to do with intuition as discussed.

tao

Why? Because you declare it to be so? How closely have you observed children without your blinders? {Apparently not enough to be able to even recognize the idioglossia phenomenon. (I didn't know the proper name for this phenomenon until I googled it, but I have observed children enough to be able to recognize and identify the phenomena through my observations.)}

 

[cyberpi]

Speaking about observation and interaction, I'd like your take on this:
Wheeler's Delayed Choice Experiement.
(Probably belongs on the science board.)

In what context? Here are a few... takes:

1. There is information in a photon that can not be physically observed (measured).
1a. Similar to the uncertainty principle.

2. There is information in a photon that can not cause anything because if it did then statement (1) would be broken.
2a. Causality is upheld... the observer caused it.
2b. Who should care which slit it went through... or which slit the photon was made to appear to have gone through... the source, or the observer?

3. The information that can not be observed is the perfect history, or the exact state.
3a. The fantasies of 19th century science linger on in textbooks and schools.

4. The information that can not be observed by any means is by no means ever destroyed.
4a. No energy was ever destroyed.
4b. Thermodynamics was upheld.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Netti here is a start on looking at what I have attempted to say from the anthropohistorical perspective: My commentaries are in black.

http://www.pni.org/research/anomalous/classif_art/pjsa/culture.html

This phenomenon is, of course something which is extremely common in certain so-called preliterate cultures particularly where the 'diviners' and ‘indigenous healers’ (e.g.- the sangomas in South African Blacks in ) are
regarded as having the ability to apprehend information by other than the conventional, sensory means or to influence events without using the recognized physiological or physical mechanisms. For example, Tedder found that all thirty preliterate cultures reviewed, believed that such mechanisms (i.e. psi) could he used to cause evil, and Levy-Bruhi has pointed out that unnatural deaths in the primitive tribes were attributed to people who held grudges against the victim.
Parapsychological j of S.A. 1982, 3:1, 1-5

As you can see here in this study there was a 100% conformity. I have read similar studies done in Brazil and in Papua New Guinea where again there is 100% conformity. If you wish I will dig them up. This is 3 areas remote from each other where primitive tribal cultures all share exactly the same supernatural ideas.




There are several parapsichiatric issues relating to this.

Firstly, the methods used by the ' indigenous healer' involve a great deal of superficially irrelevant ritual. Such rituals usually involve carrying out complex sequences of actions. This may, in fact, be regarded as the non-psi ("magic") components that may create a special environment or altered state of consciousness conducive to the occurrence of that allegedly elusive phenomenon, psi.

Ritual is a vital aspect of the conditioning. Whether it be Buddhist meditations, Catholic bead counting, or Evangelical speaking in tounges a high degree of ritual behaviour serves to re-inforce and give structural legitimacy.

Secondly, the ‘magical thinking’; that allows members of such 'primitive’ tribes to regard extrasensorimotor phenomena as normal , is perceived as an example of possible schizophrenic though disorder by the official diagnostic system of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). While ‘magical thinking’ (e.g. telepathy, clairvoyance) can certainly be symptomatic of psychosis, and is particularly common in schizophrenia , there is a need for psychiatrists to be aware of the of the background of their patients. In this regard, the APA itself recognizes that 'magical thinking' can be normal in primitive cultures.

In the same way believing in the miracles of the saints or of Jesus are a normalised acceptance of supernatural belief. Because religious beliefs have become normalised behaviour they are socially acceptable which gives them cultural acceptance but by no stretch of the imagination can they be viewed as facts.

Thirdly, the belief in external agencies, such as the sangoma or black magic, being able to induce certain occurrences, makes essential the perception of bewitchment within these cultures as normal and not a delusion, per se. Similarly, the ego-defence mechanism of projection in which defective behavior or thinking within oneself is attributed to external agencies, indigenous in the primitive culture.

This deals specifically with the belief that what people are seeing is outside agency of the type that Cyberpi especially seems fond of describing. It is not, it is a self-validating aspect of the psyche which though can be agreed upon by people sharing the same set of beliefs will not be observed by a neutral observer.

Fourthly, Eisenbud stresses the remarkable consistency of specific facets of the belief in psi phenomena in the preliterate culture. He emphasizes that with the advance of Westernized scientific endeavour such phenomena have been rejected and ridiculed as the defective beliefs of the 'primitives’.

Neppe, V.M. & Ewart Smith, M.

Likewise 5000 years from now the chances are that today's cultural norms of religion will be viewed as naive and primitive.

Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute: PSYCHIATRIC INTERPRETATIONS OF SUBJECTIVE PARANORMAL PERCEPTION
ESP ‘feeling’ or ‘impression' or the paragnost suddenly and often spontaneously obtains an impression inside his head of an event which turns out to be contemporaneous (i.e. in the present.), precognitive (i.e. in the future) or rarely retrocognitive (i.e. in the past). This is usually auditory or visual, but is sometimes just described as 'meaningful', not involving specific modalities.
Frequently, such an 'impression' has a great deal of conviction. It is usually fragmentary and it is often coloured by the conscious or unconscious images, memories or emotions of the percipient 7. As with the hallucination proper, the interpretation of such a pseudohallucination should be in holistic context.

An 'impression' or 'feeling' nay become strongly fixed in the experients belief system. It may become a belief, the truth of which is firmly held, despite others regarding such a belief as patently untrue or extremely unlikely. The experient may, further, not regard such an impression as illogical. In this instance, the 'impression’ may apparently fulfill qualities of a delusion. To other members of his culture it would regarded as a 'false’, fixed belief that is held against objective and obvious contradictory proof to the contrary.


This deals with what spirituality actually is. Pseudohallucination. Because billions of people have their own unique experience of this does not give it credibility. In fact quite the contrary. The huge variance to be found in the particular paradigm of the individual combined with the similarities of expression show it to be a part of human brain function. Just because we can be logical does not mean that we always are.


I have only just started putting together the qualifications you have demanded Netti and to be honest if I were to post some of what I have looked at I believe I would be stepping over the boundary into offensiveness. It saddens me that I will be forced to be very careful about what i post for fear of people thinking I am calling them all nutters. If it is any consolation I have long considered myself to be a loony.


tao

 

[Snoopy]

I sometimes feel that way about some of the threads I start.

Well no-one makes you start them do they, ya loony???!!!


s.