My Fundy Ex-Wife

[Antlerman]

Hi AM.

 

This is cool stuff, and the kind of language use I'm trying to use and foster in my spheres. It seems to me something that, with effort, individuals can grow into. Perhaps as a society we can foster this. This is what you seem to be getting at.

 

Developmentally, this is appropriate for those in or heading into middle age, but little kids brains are very concerete-absolute, and children thrive under strong social norms. For older children, teens, and even those in their 20s, it is developmentally appropriate to be attracted to and merge into a group identity. Some never leave this stage. Individuation is generally hard work!

 

As a society, we might become more friendly toward individual differences and experiences, but it seem to me that there is at least one biological force--social development--that naturally moves us into the exact opposite for a time. This is developmentally normal. It serves a purpose. So that up-and-coming generation will, ironically, always be closing down individualism*. Do you have any thoughts on that?

 

- Phanta

 

* Teenagers are often described as "becoming individuals", but it is more accurate, in my view, to describe them as "separating from their parents/family norms and testing the world. Most teenagers find a non-family group to lose themselves in pretty darn quick, and suddenly look just like their same-age peers in the group...not so individual.

Sweet. This is some good stuff you bring up. Here's some thoughts on it...

 

(DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING IS MY OPINION UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED)

 

What you are saying about general developmental stages is true. And if you look at societies as a whole through out history, they follows the same pattern of development as individuals do, moving from the sensorimotor stage, to preoperational stage, to concrete operational, to formal operational, to further stages of formop, etc. Human societies began in an archaic stage, being part of the eco-system (corresponding to sensorimotor stage of an infant), to the magic stage (properational), to the mythic stage (concrete operational), to the rational stage (formal operational), etc. Each transformation to the next stage for the individual replaces, but incorporates the previous in the advance upward through development. Societies follow this same pattern of development, this same pattern of Evolution, but at a much slower rate.

 

As societies by and large have transformed from one stage to the next (from archaic to magical, from magical to mythical, from mythical to rational, from the rational to the ...), the effect on the individuals in the society at each stage is inherited and transmitted through culture to the individual to the general overall conscious of the whole. So that individuals pass through various stages of development from age 7 - 12, from age 12 up, etc, the effects of the overall consciousness is imparted to them through society and culture. In other words, children raised in a society and culture with a globally conscious, pluralistic worldview will in fact grow into to that thinking, in the same way as those in the stages between magical and mythical societies' children had a higher evolved (developed) consciousness than those raised in the magical stage, or the children of rational parents growing up to see the world non-mythically, and so on.

 

The key is recognizing that society is a whole, culture is a whole, the individual is a whole. Each following the same patterns of evolution and stages of development. And the other key realization is that none of these operate independently, and each affect each other. Society affects the culture, affects the individual; the individual the cultures, affect the society, the culture affects the natural world, the natural world affect the individual, and so on and so forth. Bio-cultural feedback loops. Not just in matters of culture affecting biology through sexual selection, but the natural world affecting societies, affecting individuals affecting cultures, affecting biology, and so on. Add to this then the whole matter of spirit in the natural world, and you have quite the complex system going on.

 

So in short, I don't think the personal stages of development will set any ceiling on how far we go as a species in our overall development of consciousness can go. We are affected by much, much more than just our biology.

[Guest end3]

Before everyone get's too happy.....don't be surprised if upon death you find yourself in the throneroom of a Myth.

 

[NotBlinded]

Before everyone get's too happy.....don't be surprised if upon death you find yourself in the throneroom of a Myth.

 

What am I gonna do with 70 virgins? Oh...not that myth?

 

You could also find yourself in a hospital nursery!

[Legion]

You could also find yourself in a hospital nursery!

You could also find yourself non-existent.

 

I have a sudden strange urge to hear some Metallica. Enter Sandman maybe?

[NotBlinded]

You could also find yourself non-existent.

Legion, that is impossible you know. One can't have an experience of non-existence.

[Legion]

You could also find yourself non-existent.

Legion, that is impossible you know. One can't have an experience of non-existence.

How dare you point that out! Who are you to point out flaws in my thinking!

 

You just wait till you find yourself non-existent. I’ll be right there too... laughing.

[Antlerman]

You could also find yourself non-existent.

Legion, that is impossible you know. One can't have an experience of non-existence.

It depends. Haven't you ever put someone on extinction? You could ask them what the experience of non-existence is like, but then you'd be making them exist by talking to them. This is why you will never know.

 

Wait... I forget you don't get humor. Just forget it.

[NotBlinded]

You could also find yourself non-existent.

Legion, that is impossible you know. One can't have an experience of non-existence.

How dare you point that out! Who are you to point out flaws in my thinking!

 

You just wait till you find yourself non-existent. I’ll be right there too... laughing.

 

Cool! We can laugh, drink and party to the non-existent hours of the non-existent morning! This could go on until infinity!

[NotBlinded]

You could also find yourself non-existent.

Legion, that is impossible you know. One can't have an experience of non-existence.

It depends. Haven't you ever put someone on extinction? You could ask them what the experience of non-existence is like, but then you'd be making them exist by talking to them. This is why you will never know.

 

Wait... I forget you don't get humor. Just forget it.

 

That's not me that doesn't get humor...it's Hans! Sheesh, some people!

 

Now can you please explain your joke above? Does it deal with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

[Shyone]

You could also find yourself non-existent.

Legion, that is impossible you know. One can't have an experience of non-existence.

How dare you point that out! Who are you to point out flaws in my thinking!

 

You just wait till you find yourself non-existent. I’ll be right there too... laughing.

 

Cool! We can laugh, drink and party to the non-existent hours of the non-existent morning! This could go on until infinity!

This all reminds me of a Bible passage.

 

KJV 2 Kings 19:35

35. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

 

Other versions make the people that woke up to be the Israelites, but from this passage it sounds like the Assyrians woke up dead!

[Antlerman]

 

That's not me that doesn't get humor...it's Hans! Sheesh, some people!

 

Now can you please explain your joke above? Does it deal with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

You've admitted you are slow getting jokes, after I tried about 15 times to explain one to you.

 

Anyway if I explained what I meant then it would sound like another one of Phanta's parodies of us, and I'm through with being humiliated publicly. You'll just have to figure this one out on your own.

 

 

BTW, I think I may have come up with what I will lead in discussion next week. The Gospel of Q and Early Jesus Communities. I'll hand out excerpts of Q1, Q2, and Q3 to separate smaller groups for discussions about what tone they are hearing and possible social situation the sayings were addressing, and then compare what the small groups think about their samples with what scholars are seeing, and how these were at different times and areas reflecting the social evolution of the early Jesus movements. It touches into how myths are formed, what the purpose for them is, etc. So it deals with critical Biblical scholarship, social formation, myth studies, etc. Fascinating stuff, and definitely insightful into what has been our inheritance from those early years.

 

It would be totally awesome if you could fly up here (you do have access to aircraft... yes? ). It would be great to meet in person, and have you be part of it. In fact, all 5000 members of the site are invited! Of course the church room we use has a capacity for about 75 max. Our usual groups are around 35 in size, with a total of 96 different people who have participated. Been running for about 9 months now. Just trying to help keep it going with the change in leadership. They like me and asked if I could help lead some discussion or give a talk.

 

It's pretty cool. It's like the best of our discussions here, except with 35 people at once. I usually hang out in the parking lot for another hour talking with a core group of about a half dozen people, digging way deeper than in the general discussions. It'll be different leading, than participating. We'll see how it goes....

[NotBlinded]

This all reminds me of a Bible passage.

 

KJV 2 Kings 19:35

35. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

 

Other versions make the people that woke up to be the Israelites, but from this passage it sounds like the Assyrians woke up dead!

HA! Dawn of the Dead!

[NotBlinded]

 

That's not me that doesn't get humor...it's Hans! Sheesh, some people!

 

Now can you please explain your joke above? Does it deal with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

You've admitted you are slow getting jokes, after I tried about 15 times to explain one to you.

 

Anyway if I explained what I meant then it would sound like another one of Phanta's parodies of us, and I'm through with being humiliated publicly. You'll just have to figure this one out on your own.

Her parody really bothered you? So that means that you're just a fuddy-duddy now? Bummer. You're ashamed? If so, I'll back off AM.

 

There are planes around here, but I don't fly. I'm a slow-joke-getting-no-airplane-flying weenie!

[Antlerman]

 

That's not me that doesn't get humor...it's Hans! Sheesh, some people!

 

Now can you please explain your joke above? Does it deal with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

You've admitted you are slow getting jokes, after I tried about 15 times to explain one to you.

 

Anyway if I explained what I meant then it would sound like another one of Phanta's parodies of us, and I'm through with being humiliated publicly. You'll just have to figure this one out on your own.

Her parody really bothered you? So that means that you're just a fuddy-duddy now? Bummer. You're ashamed? If so, I'll back off AM.

 

Oh. I hope not. I truly admire you, AM. Very much. I enjoy reading your ideas, and get a lot out of them (when I understand them...my shortcoming when I don't, not yours.)

 

Phanta

Of course I was joking with NB, but as usual, it went sailing right over her head in a blinding flash of light.

[Antlerman]

There are planes around here, but I don't fly. I'm a slow-joke-getting-no-airplane-flying weenie!

Meaning, you don't fly them, as in behind the cockpit, or you won't fly in them as a passenger because they cause you great fear and trepidation due to the alarming number of human casualties, both in the sky and on the ground, being the little exploding-sky-torpedoes-packed-with-humans that they are?

 

So I'm assuming you won't be here Tuesday due to your morbid fear of airplanes that no amount of Xanax in the world could help you overcome? How do you live girl? How do you live?

 

 

P.S. This - is - humor. Humor.

[Antlerman]

 

Edit: This post shows an edit button right after posting, but not the posts from yesterday. Anyone know what is going on? Or is it my computer acting crazy?

 

Phanta

That's normal behavior. You usually have a 2 hour window that you can edit in, once you've gotten the edit capability after X number of posts. A subscribing member has it all the time.

[NotBlinded]

Oh. I hope not. I truly admire you, AM. Very much. I enjoy reading your ideas, and get a lot out of them (when I understand them...my shortcoming when I don't, not yours.)

 

Phanta

Of course I was joking with NB, but as usual, it went sailing right over her head in a blinding flash of light.

 

 

 

[NotBlinded]

There are planes around here, but I don't fly. I'm a slow-joke-getting-no-airplane-flying weenie!

Meaning, you don't fly them, as in behind the cockpit, or you won't fly in them as a passenger because they cause you great fear and trepidation due to the alarming number of human casualties, both in the sky and on the ground, being the little exploding-sky-torpedoes-packed-with-humans that they are?

 

So I'm assuming you won't be here Tuesday due to your morbid fear of airplanes that no amount of Xanax in the world could help you overcome? How do you live girl? How do you live?

 

 

P.S. This - is - humor. Humor.

You are soooooo-like

 

*moves head side to side*

 

not funneee!

 

*snaps*!

 

I don't mind flying in helicopters and I would really like to fly in military jet (weeeeeeeee!), but a large plane filled with people I don't know and that I can't get away from...I don't think so!

[Legion]

You are soooooo-like

 

*moves head side to side*

 

not funneee!

 

*snaps*!

You go girlfriend!

[Guest end3]

I would say in my mind at the time it was trying to understand what God wanted or was doing, or not doing. Put it this way, it was far better, far healthier for me to conclude that God had nothing to do with anything going on in my life, or the world for that matter - and I'm am referring specifically to events, and not some 'general light that shines'. It's that whole business of 'what is God trying to show you thing', or "God has a plan for you in this" stuff.

 

To think that way about God leads someone to an irreconcilable conflict of reason, emotions, and faith. It was vastly simpler to say "everything that happens is in my control, or what isn't is just the events of life. God has no dealings in it as an active player." The alternative was to end up hating God, which was not in me to do. It would be to say I hate beauty, which is what God was to me before and beyond the whole anthropomorphic myth definition of God. The perception had to go to preserve the spirit of the Heart that I embraced in me and the world.

 

If you have time AM, I would like to discuss this. From what I read, you were having angst over the role of God, but remained faithful to that "it" inside of you? Now, how, after the experience, do you, or did you, interpret that will.

[Antlerman]

I would say in my mind at the time it was trying to understand what God wanted or was doing, or not doing. Put it this way, it was far better, far healthier for me to conclude that God had nothing to do with anything going on in my life, or the world for that matter - and I'm am referring specifically to events, and not some 'general light that shines'. It's that whole business of 'what is God trying to show you thing', or "God has a plan for you in this" stuff.

 

To think that way about God leads someone to an irreconcilable conflict of reason, emotions, and faith. It was vastly simpler to say "everything that happens is in my control, or what isn't is just the events of life. God has no dealings in it as an active player." The alternative was to end up hating God, which was not in me to do. It would be to say I hate beauty, which is what God was to me before and beyond the whole anthropomorphic myth definition of God. The perception had to go to preserve the spirit of the Heart that I embraced in me and the world.

 

If you have time AM, I would like to discuss this. From what I read, you were having angst over the role of God, but remained faithful to that "it" inside of you? Now, how, after the experience, do you, or did you, interpret that will.

Boy, YoYo's thread has sure sprouted wings. Won't he surprised when he returns.

 

If it helps to offer a context in response, it may answer the question. My experience of "God", or non-dual ONENESS, happened prior to becoming a Christian. It was because of that that I began my search of understanding and knowledge. Being from a Christian culture, it seemed to make sense to talk with a minister about this spiritual encounter. And after numerous lack of hearing anything useful, I ran into a cock-sure fundamentalist who had all the answers! For numerous reasons beyond just my spiritual quest, I fell into that (it offered a system of strict structure that was lacking in my personal life). So what essentially happened is that as I learned "the Truth™", I studiously applied myself to knowledge of The Truth™, while trying to conform what was in my heart, to the conflicting information that was being put into my head about God. It was conflicting with what was in my heart. "But that's not the spirit of what I experienced", was the complaint of my heart to my reasoning mind with all the doctrines of God being put into my head. It never went away, impossible to set aside except for short term only, in favor of conforming it to the Truth™ written in the infallible, inerrant, authoritative Word of God™.

 

So after I left them and moved to the more mainstream Evangelical churches, which still had the same basic anthropomorphic god myths, like trying to 'teach you something', thing I mentioned, it became a matter of real conflict for me in having learned to frame my experience within that myth system. I couldn't reconcile my 'beliefs' about God (and I mean that as theological understandings), with what was in my heart. I still embraced its Beauty and Love, but to imagine that some willful, specifically intentional in matters of events reasoning God-mind behind it was 'doing this,' not doing that, trying to do this, etc created that moment of choice. That idea had to be wrong. Those notions were wrong. They were the result of people projecting human thought and action onto Deity. I had to preserve Beauty by removing the theological god of the Christian system.

 

And eventually, because I couldn't ever quite remove those bible god conceptions I had worked so diligently force fit the Divine onto in order to conform to God's Word™ in order to be saved and go the heaven™ to be with "Him" whom I loved, in a moment of liberation and realization some 6-7 years ago now, what last vestiges of the myth god that had it's hold in "God", were broken, and Beauty opened up in the World inherently, that it existed and in far more liberal and liberated ways that when ever attached with the God of the Bible theologies and doctrines. I became an atheist.

 

I was now free to build without fear, and what happened was the truth that was in my heart all along was allowed to grow without that baggage of old myths. It's been a long road for me since that to where I am today, but its been one of freely exploring within my mind to understanding to the point where I can rationally accept that existential self, that Spirit, that Beauty that is within and without, without violating either. This is why I say the myth system didn't work for me. My questions, my understanding couldn't fit backward into that for me, tried as I did out of the mistaken view that my experience of God had to conform to the Correctly Revealed Word of God. But like a living thing that breaks free to the light or dies trying, it never stopped.

 

Sorry if you hear a tone in my recounting of all this. There was a great loss and injustice towards Spirit that was happening in this "We've got the Truth™" mentality Religion. So that's my basic story.

[Guest end3]

So your experience and subsequent faith did not match Christianity....the larger overview. Your experience seems given to you, but you are saying that it was born from within, a choice from within? Perhaps perceived from within no doubt, as our own spiritual experience is objective?

 

So you are saying, and I think this is key, that your experience had no basis for explanation and in that you maintain that faith......which I think is admirable.

 

But, every time we talk about this, you place my faith and experience in something, something that is well documented, and that I have experienced verbatim as described, as invalid to a yet undescribed myth?

 

This is what just doesn't sit well with me K. I do not deny your sincerity, nor experience, but I can't find myself in your shoes prescribing something that lacks a larger peer group and condemning something as only myth.

 

I can though, through my understanding, claim that "it" remains sovereign. Do you think that the writers of the bible put sovereign in there to cover themselves?

[Antlerman]

So your experience and subsequent faith did not match Christianity....the larger overview. Your experience seems given to you, but you are saying that it was born from within, a choice from within? Perhaps perceived from within no doubt, as our own spiritual experience is objective?

You can say it was given to me if you wish, but I desired something. In great crisis of soul what was 'there' (out there/in here) manifest. It was outside and inside, living in and out, etc.

 

So you are saying, and I think this is key, that your experience had no basis for explanation and in that you maintain that faith......which I think is admirable.

 

But, every time we talk about this, you place my faith and experience in something, something that is well documented, and that I have experienced verbatim as described, as invalid to a yet undescribed myth?

No I don't. I have not invalidated your experience, and in fact on the contrary, I validated it. See here:

 

And here's the funny thing, I don't think I could have had this understanding except through my interpretation of being touched just for seconds by Jesus. Interesting, huh.

 

Way to go AM....it's a good day brother.

If you understand the universal nature of it like this, to the point you extend it to those beyond the religion, then I'd say you have seen it. I just wouldn't call it Jesus, but that's OK if it's how you want to call it.

I've been careful to note that for me, I found that system inadequate - for me. I absolutely believe that certain people within those larger system can and do experience real "God", just as people in systems of magic (pre-mythic stage) may. I've tried to communicate that in my responses. This does not invalidate your experience, as I've said. In fact I'm going to repost what I said earlier in entirety, highlighting key points stating this:

 

I don't know what to add K. I see some relationships in your last post that can be reconciled to mine, but I feel like you can see from here my prospective should you wish. Great conversation.

I can see it from your perspective. I often argue the case that it's the truths behind the language, underneath the system, the nature of reality to the participant as expressed through the symbols that we need to try to hear and through that find common truth together. I hear you expressing an existential truth to you through a system of symbols that helps connect it for you to your reasoning mind.

"How do we talk about it to ourselves, how do we talk about it to others?"

 

At the same time, I hear you hearing me express that from in me with how I am trying to frame an understanding of it and/or communicate its essence existentially to me, likewise using a system of language to understand it within.

What we are largely talking about are the ways of talking about it, not really the nature of the experience itself.

Why I like to talk about the ways of understanding/approaching discussion of it, to ourselves and with others, is because I am a keenly aware of the power of a system of language to either help or hinder our understanding and subsequently affect our experience to one degree or another.

 

Why I focus on the difference between the mythic and the rational systems is because of where we are at as participants together in our societies and within our culture. The problem with the rational systems is that in its break from the mythic systems, where the pursuits of art, culture, and science (subjective, inter-subjective, objective) were all processed and consequently limited through that umbrella system of myth, is that it not only differentiated from that mythic system, and subsequently split these 'big three' into separated fields of interest, it chucked out the baby of spirituality with the bathwater of mythological thinking. Ways of talking about spirituality subsequently are now either seen as regressive (going back to systems of magic or systems of gods), or pseudo-scientific jargon (New Age). In other words, there is little room to talk about spirituality within the current context of a modern age of reason and science.

 

So what I see, what I hear, is that people such as you who experience spiritual connections with the world around them and in them, is that the strength of

that

outweighs the gains that might come from changing systems because it helps connect the experience of that to themselves that they would loose if they abandoned the system altogether.

It 'makes sense' to them, it is 'true', through the virtue that it offers them a system to talk about it, to have a somewhat functional system in order to frame some understanding of it for them within. There really isn't a lot of other relatively cohesive functional systems out there established to the degree that it can accommodate a larger society, or even influence greater culture. And hence, why there is in part such a struggle to move ahead in our evolution as society and culture and individuals within those.

 

So it's from within that perspective in dialogs such as we're having, that listening to the existential heart within the other person, not simply objectively evaluating the 'facticity' of the language, but the 'truthfulness' of the heart through subjective interpretation, I feel will be what plays a vital part in our moving forward together as a society and as a species itself.

It seems to be a symptom of our culture that we have collapsed the art of listening, and reduced it down to a simple evaluation of objective facts, of scientific reality as opposed to 'untrustworthy' subjective 'truth'. That is easier by far than subjectively interacting, but is itself out of step with *real* reality.

 

Where we are at, hopefully anyway, is to begin to loosen our grips on our systems of language as representing absolute reality, and talking diaolgically, as opposed to monologically.

I feel it's important for us to progress in our language in how we talk about spirituality in the individual and society, in order to move us past sociocentric and ethnocentric mindsets that keep us alienated from each other

(and from something in ourselves), just as much as it was important to move away from heliocentric and geocentric language in understanding the natural world.

 

That's my interest in arguing for my point of view in this, but it requires recognizing that literalness in interpretation is harmful and unnecessary. Hopefully it will catch on, but I think an important part of people's willingness to do so will revolve around an openness to the importance and validity of the spiritual nature of existence for many people, regardless of the systems used to express it.

So, it seems your reading my thoughts about the system as not an absolute truth in itself, but a stage in how we talk about things, is being interpreted an invalidation of your experience. But clearly, despite what I have so clearly and carefully explained so far, your take my questioning or rejection of the system as an invalidation of your experience, to me, shows that perhaps, as one of the reasons I make my arguments themselves, is that you tie the experience with the language, rather than seeing the language as a way to talk about it.

 

And the problem with tying the language, or the system, as of equal validity with the experience, is that that, is what leads to ethnocentric, sociocentric, religiocentric, thinking. To reject the system - is to reject God! I'm not doing that End. I'm not tying God to any system.

 

This is what just doesn't sit well with me K. I do not deny your sincerity, nor experience, but I can't find myself in your shoes prescribing something that lacks a larger peer group and condemning something as only myth.

You've misinterpreted, misread what I've said. You are apparently tying your experience to the language about it, and my rejection of the language is interpreted by you as a rejection of the validity of your experience.

 

I can though, through my understanding, claim that "it" remains sovereign. Do you think that the writers of the bible put sovereign in there to cover themselves?

Oh, there choice of words to express it can be a whole discussion in itself. I don't think however they put them in there to accommodate modern Christianities war with science over sources of authority.

[Guest end3]

We have come a long way in this discussion, and I appreciate the time you have spent to consider my thoughts, verily. I am just going to have to camp on what you have stated. When I was younger, I would have been more apt to get on board. And I do think I can see what you are saying, that perhaps the language is just that, but an apple is an apple because it is that all the way through. I can't see yet, and qualify possibly, that the language is not specific to the truth. For me, it is. There in lies the discomfort for me. If it becomes apparent for me, your path, then I shall boldy move forward.

 

I just had to put it out there for me.

 

Thanks again.

[Guest end3]

Well maybe, because I do find parts of the versions of Chief Seattle's speech ring true to me.