Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

The Trouble With Faith...


SairB

Recommended Posts

It's good to see you back End. You know, as I look at what you read and how you respond to it, I see a strange transformation going on within your mind. It seems to me that you must have a bizarre private language.

 

In any case, good to see you back, strange buddy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's good to see you back End. You know, as I look at what you read and how you respond to it, I see a strange transformation going on within your mind. It seems to me that you must have a bizarre private language.

 

In any case, good to see you back, strange buddy.

 

Thanks Legion,

 

Yeah, sometimes people can't see the concept for the different perspective. I will try to elaborate in stepwise sentences rather than leaping bounds so that AM can see what he is closed himself to.

 

I appreciate the friendship.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well End, I think A-man dances on the edge, or kinda pushes the envelope. I think he's sophisticated enough to recognize that we and our world are infused with paradox. However I think he sometimes slips past paradox and ventures into blatant and self-negating contradiction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was speaking in terms of neo-athiesm, which pretty much slams the door on all things God. Heck, what was it the astoundingly deep thinker, Richard Dawkins called Pantheism? Sexed up atheism? [/sarcasm] To me, that is placing atheism as the defining truth. There is no God, and anything that smacks of any type of theism is delusion, as he so famously made it a popular view to the world.

 

It's interesting to me that Dawkins has come to be portrayed in the media as someone with a very simplistic and dismissive attitude to belief - as someone who is essentially missing the point of religion and just saying, "I don't get it, therefore it's invalid." This hasn't been my impression at all. Although of late he has certainly blotted his copybook by prominently displaying his upper-middle-class white hetero male privilege, having read a couple of his books and also heard him speak (will be doing the latter again in about a month) I actually felt greatly inspired by his approach to finding hope, gratitude and a sense of wonder in a world without deities.

To be clear, my impression of Dawkins came from my early exposure to him at the time of his book The God Delusion. I pretty much don't expose myself to popular media as I find it mindless drivel, like listening to Jr. High School students blathering on about the affairs of classmates. My impressions are my own. I listened to God Delusion on audio book a friend loaned me, and I even gave a chance again not that long ago. I found my regard of him at that time in that work of his to be less than it even was at first. It seems sophomoric to me. As one friend of mine getting his PhD in philosophy said to me, "I just wish he would quit doing his whole Ex-Christian thing on the world stage". In other words, his impression was that he was simply doing personal processing and not speaking knowledgeably. I can definitely see his point. He is hardly a philosopher.

 

That said however, I am willing to give him the benefit of doubt that over time he may have actually matured some. Sam Harris was pretty outrageous at first, claiming that moderates in religion are responsible for fundamentalism. Today however, he is not too terribly from from the camp I'm in, from what I understand. He too was doing his processing on the public stage. Hell, if you look at what I said here on this site up to today, you will see a definite evolution of perspectives. The thing that I have such a hard time with Dawkins is that his "thoughts" are really more political rhetoric and is used that way by those wanting to tear religion a new one. I can't tell you how much I find the use of the word "Delusion" bantered about to be nothing but empty rhetoric used as a pejorative. It has no philosophical value at all. Maybe Dawkins has become reasonable. I don't know. It's hard for me to see past my personal dislike of him. But if you see otherwise for yourself, of course then by all means take what good you can find that resonates with you in positive ways no matter the source.

 

There are plenty of internet atheists out there who claim that it's "just" the lack of belief in gods, but for me, atheism is in fact a positive affirmation that the universe is godless, and is all the more beautiful and amazing for being so, as well as making a whole lot more sense.

And I very much agree with you in this. Once I removed God as the anthropomorphic deity of Judeo-Christian mythology, suddenly nature became stupendously wondrous. Just to see nature as it is, without imposing some Sky-God doing magic to keep it all working like some puppeteer in the sky, it was really a moment of spiritual awakening for me. So your point is hardly lost on me at all! Again though, atheism is really 'not-God', in an anthropomorphic sense. I don't accept that view of God, yet I don't stop there in saying God therefore does not exist. Nor do you actually if you consider yourself a Pantheist.

 

To experience the divine not as a relationship with an anthropomorphic personal being, a projection of our own consciousness, but as a sense of connection with the universe that creates, sustains and destroys us, all with glorious indifference - that, to me, is pantheism. Is this sexed-up atheism? Perhaps so.

You should be careful that when I speak of God as an Archetype of our Consciousness not to confuse that with a literal belief in an anthropomorphic God. To try to explain that, which is beyond the average Christian understanding of the role of God in human faith systems, a deity figure functions as a symbolic form of unrealized potentials that we sense "by faith" exist within us and within the world, of we are part. Because humans live in a dualistic world of subject and object, we take that sense within us and in the world which transcends rational frameworks and essentially put a dualistic face on That. The forms those take are highly symbolic, taking what the brain has learned to do through our evolution, and the subconscious mind puts these highly symbolic forms to the experience of that ineffable. Someone might see Christ, or Krishna, or God, etc. As the quote I gave a few posts ago says, that through identification with that symbol, that Archetype, the individual becomes that in themselves. "Belief in", is really identification with. And through that direct identification, we become that.

 

You can have those who literally believe these are external beings, because they are largely understanding reality in mythological frameworks. These Archetypal symbols are literally gods they are interacting with. To those in a rational understanding, they recognize they are Archetypes of our own internal, unrealized potentials of higher Self that are already fully ours in our Nature, just yet unrealized by the conscious mind. In meditation for instance you become directly exposed to this forms, which brings them into sight of the conscious mind. This is very different that 'looking outside yourself' for answers. It is looking within to see what is in you, but hidden and masked underneath all our created mental frameworks of what we consider "reality".

 

As for Pantheism, what that is is essentially recognizing the Divine as you say, but rather than placing it as transcendent to the natural world as in traditional theism, it place the Divine in immanence within the world. "God" is right here, everywhere, in all things. God is not outside the world, but within it. I very much appreciate that, and yes it does agree with what atheism says in part that there is no God "out there". That's as far as it goes. There is also a blending of those views that I identify with, when I am thinking and speaking in dualistic terms. That is Panentheism. God is transcendent to the world, and immanent within it. It is essentially the philosophy of the neo-platonists like Plotinus, and the realization of the mystics of world religions. God transcends the natural world, and through a path of ascension into direct apprehension of the Divine Nature, that God pours out into the world as manifest form. A saying of this is, "From the many to the One, and from the One to the many". Form from Formlessness. The world is manifest God.

 

This is if I am speaking dualistically. Ultimately there in only That, with no subject and no object. The nondual. If legion says he hears contradiction, then it is in that. It is impossible to even speak of nonduality and be accurate. The second you define it, it is an object and not That. God is an object. God is not That, but is a manifest form of that. A Face upon the Infinite, is how I put it. That Face, is our Nature. We are That.

 

I appreciate this discussion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I too appreciate this discussion. Thanks SairB for starting it and AM moving it here for discussion!

 

I do not wish to de-rail the thread but the last couple of posts of Sair's and AM have mentioned Dawkins.

 

Although I do not necessarily support all his statements, in my opinion it is the hard line atheists who are helping bring some balance to the fundie side of religion. This in my opinion is likely to bring a far quicker change to societys' attitudes than less vocal means. For instance, I have found in years of being involved in committees etc that when a committee gets a member/members who lean to the extreme in one direction the only way balance is achieved is to have someone extreme in the opposite direction.

 

The Dawkins/Harris molds to me have been the ones that have helped champion this balance not only to christianity/religion but in helping promote the process of free thought. I see particularly in the USA a drastic need for this, with what I see in the breed of fundie christianity that seems to haunt your country to the level of US Government. Rationality is totally missing!

 

Also how many lurkers at this site (the number of which has drastically increased on checking counters) are here because of Dawkins, his books or his likes?

I personally think many. I was one of them!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Also how many lurkers at this site (the number of which has drastically increased on checking counters) are here because of Dawkins, his books or his likes?

I personally think many. I was one of them!

 

That's a good point, Realist, and I think here you've touched upon why (no matter how distasteful they may make themselves to some people, and no matter how much they may stick their necks out for the axe of bad press) the Dawkinses and Hitchenses and Harrieses of this world are so necessary. Since reading The God Delusion, I have encountered other, more balanced, more deeply philosophical works on atheism, but it was Dawkins' uncompromising yet remarkably elegant prose that not so much turned me into an atheist, but made me realise that at the time, I already was one. More than that, too, it has at least in part been the excitement, wonder and sheer joy at the magnificence and intricacy of nature that have shone through his more scientifically focussed works (in particular The Greatest Show on Earth) that helped me on the path to realising my pantheistic leanings.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also how many lurkers at this site (the number of which has drastically increased on checking counters) are here because of Dawkins, his books or his likes?

I personally think many. I was one of them!

 

That's a good point, Realist, and I think here you've touched upon why (no matter how distasteful they may make themselves to some people, and no matter how much they may stick their necks out for the axe of bad press) the Dawkinses and Hitchenses and Harrieses of this world are so necessary. Since reading The God Delusion, I have encountered other, more balanced, more deeply philosophical works on atheism, but it was Dawkins' uncompromising yet remarkably elegant prose that not so much turned me into an atheist, but made me realise that at the time, I already was one. More than that, too, it has at least in part been the excitement, wonder and sheer joy at the magnificence and intricacy of nature that have shone through his more scientifically focussed works (in particular The Greatest Show on Earth) that helped me on the path to realising my pantheistic leanings.

 

... e.g. how quickly would progress for women have moved without the "at the time" volatile suffragette movement?

 

.... and I also think once one has found sites like ex-C after initially making the break from Christianity after reading the likes of Dawkins,Harris etc ... the balance of belief systems is found in the wide mix of ideas here! That is the great thing about this site, yet somehow we mostly get along. (until the fundie preaching starts!!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These of course are true and good points. I too have said that I'm grateful for someone to stand up to the pseudo-science garbage that comes out of fundamentalist Creationist nonsense. Kudos to Dawkins for that, and for that aspect of the materialist/rationalist crowd to offer a real response to those who falsely claim rationality. To Dawkins credit, I am being told by my partner that Dawkins has mellowed a bit form those early days where I grew a distaste for him, and that I should read his latest book, that it's actually quite good.

 

I have always respected him as a biologist, and to stand up as he has to the Creationists was in fact helpful to me as well. But with everything I suppose there is that baby in the bathwater. His whole God is a Delusion crap is bathwater. It is only true for one very narrow subset of religious belief, those whom he goes after in his challenges of pseudo-science. I personally consider them pseudo-religion as well. That's why they have this sick need to falsely present supposed evidence of God. They have nothing else to offer.

 

So, I do respect Dawkins on the one hand, but I dislike it when he is cited as some authority on understanding religion. That is how he used, and I find that unfortunate for dialog. That's why I very much appreciate seeing a topic like this now, versus that typical anti-religion rhetoric.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well End, I think A-man dances on the edge, or kinda pushes the envelope. I think he's sophisticated enough to recognize that we and our world are infused with paradox. However I think he sometimes slips past paradox and ventures into blatant and self-negating contradiction.

Examples?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're killing me Smalls. I see higher realization is being further joined with the structure of collective truth. You and I would be embedded in the wood of the tree, supporting those that are the "new growth". Ours is one of becoming stronger in the things that we know as more close to absolute truth than for example, a small limb being blown back an forth. Certainly it could be relative, but only if there were competing Absolutes.

How perennial philosophy of you. I like it! All you need do is see that Christianity can be one path up that mountain, and not the peak itself, as it says in my signature line. I say evolve the understanding of Christ in a modern world to shed it of its myth, then you are closer to seeing that single bright moon more clearly.

 

Remember we are only manifestations of the Absolute. I AM, but I am only in part.

Be careful saying this in your church! :HaHa: They have an available cross in the front of the church they might nail you to!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Dawkins/Harris molds to me have been the ones that have helped champion this balance not only to christianity/religion but in helping promote the process of free thought. I see particularly in the USA a drastic need for this, with what I see in the breed of fundie christianity that seems to haunt your country to the level of US Government. Rationality is totally missing!

 

Also how many lurkers at this site (the number of which has drastically increased on checking counters) are here because of Dawkins, his books or his likes?

I personally think many. I was one of them!The Dawkins/Harris molds to me have been the ones that have helped champion this balance not only to christianity/religion but in helping promote the process of free thought. I see particularly in the USA a drastic need for this, with what I see in the breed of fundie christianity that seems to haunt your country to the level of US Government. Rationality is totally missing!

 

 

Madalyn O'Hair wasn't a good spokesperson for atheism either, yet she definitely got folks talking. If Dawkins makes people at least think, something is accomplished.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're killing me Smalls. I see higher realization is being further joined with the structure of collective truth. You and I would be embedded in the wood of the tree, supporting those that are the "new growth". Ours is one of becoming stronger in the things that we know as more close to absolute truth than for example, a small limb being blown back an forth. Certainly it could be relative, but only if there were competing Absolutes.

How perennial philosophy of you. I like it! All you need do is see that Christianity can be one path up that mountain, and not the peak itself, as it says in my signature line. I say evolve the understanding of Christ in a modern world to shed it of its myth, then you are closer to seeing that single bright moon more clearly.

 

Remember we are only manifestations of the Absolute. I AM, but I am only in part.

Be careful saying this in your church! GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif They have an available cross in the front of the church they might nail you to!

 

Actually, OT Israel and the Cross paint this picture adaquately. Few people notice the biology in the tree analolgy.

 

Per your example of children needing rules/law, I would argue that morality comes from God.

 

So you take the growth of a tree as that is the pertinent analogy in the Bible. Even if qualities of God are innate due to the creation being a function of God, in a practical sense, what does it mean if it is not understood. In enters the manifestations and their reality. Back to the tree.

 

If you look at the growth of your average tree, guessing here, you have a structure built first followed by limbs, leaves, and fruit perhaps at some point. Now, if you take this and apply it to the church or morality in general, there would need to be a morality before morality with grace, the trunk and then symbiotic qualities that a tree exhibits in nature.

 

Essentially, you have layers of moral humanity laid down to form the trunk or structure of the tree we all are now joining. NOTE that when belonging to the tree for a time, that one would be incorporated into the rings and move deeper in the tree to at some time become the heartwood. Note also the qualities of the heartwood. One, that it is essentially dead, and also plays the role of structure to carry the nutruients and water(Life and Spirit) to the limbs and leaves that are not yet as strong......being blown back and forth in the wind. I would hope scripture would be coming to mind for you atm.

 

So, you were mentioning "relative structures". The point is that morality is predestined to succeed by theologic understanding as well as scientifically in that "morality" for biology is that that supports life. Evolution and morality match in a sense becauise that is what grows both physical and spiritual successfully.

 

Let me recap. OT Israel would be the rules/Law/structure for the First Leaf, Christ, to hang upon to bear fruit. As we join and become leaves, and are then laid in the matrix we become stronger in the principles of morality and are surrounded with a "cloud of witnesses" (rings upon rings) that at some time essentially become dead to themselves yet alive in the structure that supports the tree. You remember Paul stating that he did not have the excitement of being a new Christian, but says perservere. And the scripture that I mentioned about being blown back and forth?

 

Of course it could be mythic as you say, but seems like a pretty damn good account of humanity....one that even the JK Rawlings (sp?)couldn't conceive of.

 

It matches K. It places evolution and morality together in the same type. Predestination, structure, freewill, it's all there. And especially for Legion, entailment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Par .... and like you say "The world makes a lot more sense when you realize there's no-one in the wheel house."

 

Because of that it also makes the world that much more special and much more reason to be treasured and enjoyed in the little time we have! Many christians are that glued on an afterlife they are blind to living the present!

 

Anyway, I might be getting this discussion off track!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Par .... and like you say "The world makes a lot more sense when you realize there's no-one in the wheel house."

 

Because of that it also makes the world that much more special and much more reason to be treasured and enjoyed in the little time we have! Many christians are that glued on an afterlife they are blind to living the present!

 

Anyway, I might be getting this discussion off track!

 

Not really off track, I would say - one of the main questions I raised in the OP was why the "best bits" of religion can't be experienced from an earth-bound perspective, so to speak.

 

I've seen Christians respond dismissively to the notion that life takes on a greater meaning when you see it as finite - but that strikes me as a bit like saying that no experience matters unless it lasts forever. They claim that 'ultimate' fulfilment requires eternal life, but they're usually not very clear on what 'ultimate' fulfilment actually means. Knowing that we're going to die is no reason to despair. If, as seems likely, consciousness ceases with death, it's not like we'll be around to mourn the loss!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

. If, as seems likely, consciousness ceases with death

 

... which is the most likely reason human kind is no further advanced in finding "the truth" of the life after death issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Par .... and like you say "The world makes a lot more sense when you realize there's no-one in the wheel house." Because of that it also makes the world that much more special and much more reason to be treasured and enjoyed in the little time we have! Many christians are that glued on an afterlife they are blind to living the present! Anyway, I might be getting this discussion off track!

Not really off track, I would say - one of the main questions I raised in the OP was why the "best bits" of religion can't be experienced from an earth-bound perspective, so to speak.

I'm glad you brought it back to this. I recall in my first post I said there were other points in your OP I wished to address but just offered one quick thought which turned into a more protracted discussion on that. I had wanted to get back to this.

 

I'll ask what are those 'best bits' to you? I am completely with you in finding "God" in nature. In fact, I found their anthropomorphic demanding sky deity to leave me flat when it came to that. It was like trying to relate emotionally to a warlord. But the verses of the Bible that always spoke were those surrounding nature. "The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, night unto night showeth knowledge...."; "When I consider the heaven, the moon and the stars... what art man that thou art mindful of him....", and so forth. These resonated with what I experienced in the material world, touching the Divine through the beauty of creation.

 

And yet, I never heard this sort of deep connection with nature from the pulpit with them. There was no 'God in the world', aspect for them. It was all seeking escape from the world. The world was evil and corrupt, and the entire affair of their relationship to God was a narcissistic one, "God save ME!". It was all about sinners and salvation, not beauty, light, and truth present in the world, which I saw and experienced in my own soul, even though those parts of the religion in fact were present within their scriptures as well. For me, I joined up the religion seeking a greater establishment of that sense of God in nature, to build upon that innate connection. But I had to find it for myself there, as it wasn't really present in the community in that way.

 

So even though God in the world (what pantheism emphasizes) is present in the Bible and the Christian religion in places, it isn't the dominant feature in their dogma. To your question, can this good bit be experienced from an earth-bound perspective? I would say of course yes. But there is a component missing I feel. Transcendence of self. I believe an aspect of the human spirit is to reach for the clouds in themselves, to transcend their own nature into what it perceives within the world as the Divine. It is to touch that within, as well as without.

 

Pantheism appeals to that spiritual aspect of ourselves which desires that connection, without the superfluous trappings of mythic deities demanding our fidelity like some cosmic warlords. But to me, I want to be the Universe in myself, fully. Pantheism doesn't offer that transcendent component, which I feel is equally a part of what part of ourselves is attracted to religion for. But to be sure, I agree that the Divine is not owned by religions, and that it is more than possible to free those good parts from religion. In fact, I believe we should be responsible to the world to do so. We are being true to what is in our hearts to the world itself. But to demand it be from an "earth-bound perspective" only, is to impose a certain doctrinal position from the outset and risk becoming just as limiting to the human spirit as Christian dogma is, IMHO.

 

I've seen Christians respond dismissively to the notion that life takes on a greater meaning when you see it as finite - but that strikes me as a bit like saying that no experience matters unless it lasts forever. They claim that 'ultimate' fulfilment requires eternal life, but they're usually not very clear on what 'ultimate' fulfilment actually means. Knowing that we're going to die is no reason to despair. If, as seems likely, consciousness ceases with death, it's not like we'll be around to mourn the loss!

I agree with your criticism of Christianity in this regard. They are, supposedly, on a path of ascension, to God, out of the world. That fails to embrace God in the world. To me, to live their lives in hopes of escaping life is to never once fully touch the face of God in the living. It is to never know themselves as part of the world. It is to live in a sort of hatred of themselves. It is to live in a world of dissociation.

 

The good that modern science and reason has done in part is to expose us to the world again. That is positive and necessary. But to simply switch from a path of ascension to the transcendent, to a path of descension into the immanent, into the world, is to basically do the same thing. It cuts one off from that Paradox of Reality, as Legion likes to refer to. To me, this quote from Sri Ramana Maharishi sums it up, "The world is illusory; Brahman alone is real; Brahman is the world". That is the paradox. It is both transcendent and immanent, not one or the other; not a dualistic reality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do think the 'best bits' of religion are readily available to unbelievers. We just have to realize that they don't need to come from beyond what we can already know and experience.

 

I will preface with this:

 

To limit the limitless to word symbols and metaphor is to participate in what Wilber calls "necessary dualism," of which, in my humble and naive option, is an affront to the mystery of spirited life.

May all that is Beautiful, Wise and True have mercy on these frozen words! It chills me to voice;

"Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence."

~Unknown

 

In repose to the 'best bits' of religion as being available to unbelievers. I agree, whole heartily!

 

One of the better 'bits' I have gleaned from Perennial Wisdom is that there is a "universal" experience of which we Are--not as separate, as apart or even a part. I'm convinced that consciousness (call it what you will) is not contingent on belief. Consciousness is an unconditional universal experience of Aliveness.

The condition in which humankind finds itself is not due to any transgress or sin. Life is like life is because life is--no stings attached!

 

I'm convinced that you are correct, SairB, that we "have to realize" the 'best bits' (the better notions). That "these realization" must come from "beyond" what we can know and experience, gives me no concern if by beyond you mean a spatial beyond--"there is on out there out there" any longer.

 

Unmasking the gods (archetypes) ie discovering the patterns of manifestations that reality represent has been for me the first part of my spiritual journey (what a metaphor--taking a trip but never leaving the farm).

 

When we leave the realm of archetypes behind, it is said, that we encounter the mystery of the myth of enlightenment. The shift of perception and perspective, the shadow of ignorance and delusion dispelled. And the "best bit" of all is the free relinquishment of all attachments to symbols and illusions, both secular and religious.

 

The dissolution of soul in Spirit--authentic mysticism, formless awareness. The inner Light is no longer separate from the Light; The Ground Of Being Is One; Atman And Brahman Are Experienced As One (yes, the upper case is symbolic metaphor).

 

Is all this "tail chasing" beyond rational thinking? Yes.

 

"Beyond" in term of perception and perspective! Which is another "best bit" of Perennial Wisdom.

 

Maslow found that the same experiential response which have previously been thought to be triggered only in the religious contexts ie. mystical experiences, could also be triggered by other stimuli, such as love, aesthetics, creativity, compassion, etc.

 

"Frequently reported triggers of peak experiences include meditation, psychedelics, listening to music, prayer, observing nature and quite reflection. Other door ways to such experiences include childbirth, being present at the death of a loved one, near death experiences, fasting, vision quests, ceremonies and rituals, holotropic breathing, extreme physical exertion..." (France Vaughn Shadows of the Sacred).

 

Maslow and others have thought that peak experiences can be taught, what they look like, and how they are connected with a good life and psychological health.

 

When these experiences are grounded in real experiences they can give people permission to be conscious of them.

 

Enlightenment at least in the Eastern sense cannot fully be understood in the absence of direct everyday experience.

 

Glimpses through (or beyond) chinks in the wall of subject/object dualism.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wife and I had a good talk last night on faith. Her sister is slowly improving although still in ICU. She was wondering why one person gets deathly ill and another goes untouched.

I remarked "see why I don't think there's anyone in charge?" and to my astonishment, she agreed. She finally admitted she was a "Pascal's wager" christian. I didn't go into debunking that myth and was quite happy with the progress (from god punishing her for marrying me).

 

Enlightenment at least in the Eastern sense cannot fully understood in the absence of direct everyday experience.

 

And there you have it. I haven't in my many years of experimentation experienced anything I consider "beyond" so to speak, and that leads me to believe maybe it's not there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wife and I had a good talk last night on faith. Her sister is slowly improving although still in ICU. She was wondering why one person gets deathly ill and another goes untouched.

I remarked "see why I don't think there's anyone in charge?" and to my astonishment, she agreed. She finally admitted she was a "Pascal's wager" christian. I didn't go into debunking that myth and was quite happy with the progress (from god punishing her for marrying me).

 

Enlightenment at least in the Eastern sense cannot fully understood in the absence of direct everyday experience.

 

And there you have it. I haven't in my many years of experimentation experienced anything I consider "beyond" so to speak, and that leads me to believe maybe it's not there.

 

I'm glad to hear that Lisa in Charlotte is improving!

 

Par, you're right, nothing is "beyond"--as in "out there." "There's no one in the wheel house" watching over us.

 

The only "beyond" I can muster is that:

 

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

~ From Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot

 

From a psychological perspective authentic mystical experiences are characterized by an identification of our real being with the best part of ourselves or "something higher"-- "something more."

 

One can become conscious that this "something" is continuous with a more of the same quality, operative in the environment around us.

 

Although such experiences may have powerful effect on our living, William James questions their objective truth. Here in lies the rub, the "baggage" to which SairB alludes.

 

In reference to the theoretical works of various theologies he says;

 

They all agree that the 'more' really exists; though some of them hold it to exist in the

shape of a personal god or gods, while others are satisfied to conceive it as a stream

of ideal tendency embedded in the eternal structure of the world. They all agree, moreover,

that it acts as well as exists, and that 'something' really is affected for the better when you throw

your life into its hands. It is when they treat the experience of 'union' with it that their speculative

differences appear most clearly. Over this point pantheism and theism, nature and second birth,

and grace and karma, immortality and reincarnation, rationalism and mysticism, carry on inveterate disputes.

 

~W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: New American Library, 1985), 385

 

James goes on to say that "apart from all religious considerations, there is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any time aware of...."

 

What I must go "beyond" all traditional categories of metaphysics--including God, immortality, the soul, mind, body, and knowing. They simply cannot stand up to the scrutiny of critical thinking, not in their fundamental, per-critical, ontological notions, they are an embarrassment to Truth.

 

As Ken Wilber states: "Reality is not a perception, but a conception; at least in part. Ontology per se just does not exist. Metaphysics is then a broad name for the type of thinking that can't figure this out. Or, metaphysics is thinking that falls prey to the myth of the given."

 

Par, may Lisa experience 'more' improvement! Pascal's wager is mute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll ask what are those 'best bits' to you? I am completely with you in finding "God" in nature. In fact, I found their anthropomorphic demanding sky deity to leave me flat when it came to that. It was like trying to relate emotionally to a warlord. But the verses of the Bible that always spoke were those surrounding nature. "The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, night unto night showeth knowledge...."; "When I consider the heaven, the moon and the stars... what art man that thou art mindful of him....", and so forth. These resonated with what I experienced in the material world, touching the Divine through the beauty of creation.

 

As far as the best bits of religion are concerned, what I think they are is largely what I raised in the OP - a sense of awe and a source of inspiration, a sense of connection and community, and also - what I think so-called 'submarine' Catholics (and, I suspect, the majority of people who say they're religious but aren't particularly observant) find - a sense of comfort at those times in life where it seems like everything is going wrong and we don't know how to deal with anything. As to this last aspect, I think that is what the afterlife represents for a lot of believers - an assurance that no matter how bad things might be now, here on earth, they'll be better eventually, even if we have to wait until after we die.

 

Fifteen years ago, I would have been quite incredulous at the idea that it's even possible to take comfort from embracing the finitude of life. Belief in souls and an afterlife was really the last thing to be let go, so to speak, in the process of my conversion (some would say deconversion, but a conversion is a conversion, after all!) If anything, I now find that the notion of an anthropomorphic god to whom nature sings praises actually leaves me cold - it diminishes, belittles, limits the power and scope of the universe. This, indeed, may be why I have never been a panentheist - that which exists is part of the universe, to give 'universe' its strictest meaning. It is indeed my belief that god, as such, is not something that exists in the universe, but that god essentially is the universe, replete already with more power and mystery than we comprehend, perhaps than we ever could comprehend. Yet we are still part of it.

 

And yet, I never heard this sort of deep connection with nature from the pulpit with them. There was no 'God in the world', aspect for them. It was all seeking escape from the world. The world was evil and corrupt, and the entire affair of their relationship to God was a narcissistic one, "God save ME!". It was all about sinners and salvation, not beauty, light, and truth present in the world, which I saw and experienced in my own soul, even though those parts of the religion in fact were present within their scriptures as well. For me, I joined up the religion seeking a greater establishment of that sense of God in nature, to build upon that innate connection. But I had to find it for myself there, as it wasn't really present in the community in that way.

 

So even though God in the world (what pantheism emphasizes) is present in the Bible and the Christian religion in places, it isn't the dominant feature in their dogma. To your question, can this good bit be experienced from an earth-bound perspective? I would say of course yes. But there is a component missing I feel. Transcendence of self. I believe an aspect of the human spirit is to reach for the clouds in themselves, to transcend their own nature into what it perceives within the world as the Divine. It is to touch that within, as well as without.

 

I certainly agree that there is a strong undercurrent of narcissism in organised religion, particularly the monotheisms. I think that although many Christians are rather fond of the notion of 'dying to self', in a sense, what they ultimately look for is the opportunity to become more fully themselves, or what they think their 'self' should be - an idealised self that ticks all the right boxes for eternal bliss. Thus transcendence of self doesn't necessarily enter the picture.

 

But what, after all, is 'self'? Is it just a construct created by our consciousness, or is it a thing in itself, independent of how we perceive it? This is where any discussion of self and consciousness runs into difficulty, of course, since, coming from a culture heavily steeped in dualism, it's virtually impossible to divest one's language of the kind of self-referencing that cannot help but speak of 'my' body, 'my' mind - as if these things were possessions of a third party, rather than integral elements of the same entity.

 

However, before I digress too far down that particular philosophical path, I do think pantheism offers the opportunity to transcend the self, and in the Christian sense, even to die to the self - perhaps in the most literal way. It is a profoundly humbling thought that all the matter and energy that makes up our bodies has existed, in some form, for all of time, and will go on existing even when 'we' are no longer discrete entities. To meditate upon the fact that I, as a human being, share kinship not only with other humans, but fundamentally with all animals, with all living things, even with the rocks, the earth, the air, the oceans - and even ultimately with the stars, that is truly to think outside the box. 'I' am but a corporeal, conscious manifestation of time, energy, matter and force, the very stuff of the universe briefly condensed into a vessel of experience. What I make of that experience, whether it is truly even possible to literally transcend the limits of my self, whatever that is, remains to be seen, but I am not closed to the potentiality.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.