• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Ask Any RF Member a Question...

4consideration

*
Premium Member
@4consideration .....is it possible that you're really a Yankee?
No. I don't claim to be at all Yankee, but I guess if I took one of those DNA tests advertised as use to discover one's blood ancestry, I'd probably show up as 50% Michiganistanian -- since that's where my dad was from. I grew up in the south, but have lived in various locations around the US as an adult.

The official answer is that I'm a southerner, although I can blend in ok with Yankee's at times. I've learned a few tricks, like to say "guys" instead of "y'all" and "median" instead of "neutral ground."

When I meet someone new, it has happened so many times so as to no longer surprise me, that the person will sometimes play a game of trying to place where my accent is from -- almost never guessing a southern location. This even happens down here in the south.

Most often the guess is Boston, Brooklyn, somewhere in the eastern part of the US.

I suppose that means I could infiltrate Revoltingestan and spy, without anyone detecting "a southerner" is about. I might just be there now. ;)
 

Kirran

Premium Member
Personally, I do not think of god as a being or entity, nor even as a horrifyingly poorly defined "ground of all being".

Instead, I think of the term as a sort of placeholder (somewhat in the sense that x in mathematics can be a placeholder for an as yet to be determined number) for a certain experience. I sometimes call that experience "the mystical experience", and on occasion, I call it "god".

It seems that experience cannot be adequately described to people who have not had it. You can say things like, "the experience can involve a sense or feeling of infinity, a sense or feeling of bliss, a conviction that it is more real than normal experiences, etc, etc, etc". But almost invariably, people who have not had the experience will think you are describing some experience that they themselves have had -- such as a feeling of general well being tinged with a bit of awe while witnessing the stars on a dark, moonless night. That is normal.

Perhaps the closest the average person ever gets to "god" is when they have great sex, but that's still like a very weak echo of "god".

I think the very best thing to say to someone who asks what the god experience is, is to say something along these lines: "You want to know what it is? Then go have it! But don't try to bring it about through first trying to understand it. You simply will not get closer to having the experience by becoming more knowledgeable of it. That sort of knowing is a trap. If you try to understand it, you will hinder or prevent your having it. That is, you might have a "god experience", but it will be the "god experience" that you think you should have. No matter how awesome that experience seems to you -- and it might even seem very awesome indeed -- it will only be a construct of your own mind. By that I mean a construct of your expectations, your preconceptions, your memories and interpretations of your previous god experiences, etc. But if you can put aside expectations, preconceptions, memories, and interpretations of what you should experience, you might at some point have an experience that is not a construct of your own mind. A truly fresh experience. Moreover, the very recognition that you profoundly don't know jack about what the experience should be tends to bring about its own resolution. Follow the discontent you feel not knowing. Do not reject that discontent. Stick with it. A resolution of your discontent might occur." That's the very best thing to say, in my opinion, for it's almost the only thing you can say that might actually help someone -- provided they have the ears to hear it.

Now when I say "the god experience", I do not mean to imply that the experience is of -- or even that it is caused by -- a deity. So far as I know, the genuine experience is actually beyond such mundane concepts as "god" or "deity". However, those are common interpretations that people make of the experience. "I experienced god." Or, "I experienced my God." So, what I sometimes mean when using the term "god" is to refer to a mystical experience that has been interpreted as an experience of a deity. That is, interpreted as a divine being, entity, or (horrors!) "ground of all being". But, so far as I know, the actual mystical experience transcends even such "lofty" interpretations of it as that it is of a deity. The actual experience blows away all concepts, all understanding, all interpretations, all thoughts of it. In comparison to the experience itself, our notion that it is an experience of deity is less profound than the act of attentively peeling potatoes.

I apologize for the length of this, but I was unable to shorten it while still being more comprehensive of my silly views than not comprehensive of them. I hope this has been helpful to you in understanding my ridiculous notions of deity.

This was quite the answer, and that's even giving the fact that I somehow had the premonition to expect an answer that was rather ...profound? thought-provoking? demonstrative of introspection and the development of wisdom? That kind of thing.

Thankyou very much Phil.

On the "ground of all being" fiasco - might the ground of being be ill-defined precisely because cataphatic descriptions do not and cannot apply, as to the god experience you refer to (which may or may not be separate in some sense)?
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
This was quite the answer, and that's even giving the fact that I somehow had the premonition to expect an answer that was rather ...profound? thought-provoking? demonstrative of introspection and the development of wisdom? That kind of thing.

Thankyou very much Phil.

Thank you for your kind words! It means a lot to me that you've found something of value in them.

On the "ground of all being" fiasco - might the ground of being be ill-defined precisely because cataphatic descriptions do not and cannot apply, as to the god experience you refer to (which may or may not be separate in some sense)?

I love your take on that phrase! It's honestly much better in my opinion than Paul Tillich's take on it. As far as I know, the phrase was coined by Tillich, but he created it to express a conclusion he derived from a logical analysis of the notion that God was the Supreme Being. Tillich said that to think of God that way was to make God a creature. It was to raise the question, "Who created God?" In short, Tillich was not expressing an insight into divine nature based on any experience of deity that he'd had, or that anyone else had had, but rather he was expressing a conclusion derived from a mere logical chain of reasoning. I much, much prefer your take on it!
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Do you want me to go into some bs about how it's creative and good for my brain and so on, or just because it's the only outlet I have for releasing illegal perversions?

I rather prefer the latter explanation. :D
 
Top