Cain's Sacrifice.

[John D. Brey]

Fractal patterns with various degrees of self-similarity have been rendered or studied in visual, physical, and aural media and found in nature, technology, art, and architecture. . . "A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole."​

​

Wikipedia, Fractals.​

When we cut through the read tripe that's the hoi polloi's rendering of the scriptural text, we find that what's actually said is nothing like what we've been fed. It's fair to say that for a really long time the living word has been passed over for dead. As noted in another recent thread, the scripture is, for one, written in something like Biblionics (akin to Ebonics), rendering its true meaning utterly veiled to those without a symbiotic relationship to the spirit, ethos, and pathos, of the written word. Likewise, the written scripture comes with its own unique key to deciphering its actual meaning. That key is the fact that since the scripture comes from a still living root, its meaning sprouts out of self-similar, iterated, and detailed, patterns, which are fractal manifestations of both the larger, and the smaller, growths, each part being a larger, or reduced-size, of the whole.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Fractal patterns with various degrees of self-similarity have been rendered or studied in visual, physical, and aural media and found in nature, technology, art, and architecture. . . "A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole."​

​

Wikipedia, Fractals.​

When we cut through the read tripe that's the hoi polloi's rendering of the scriptural text, we find that what's actually said is nothing like what we've been fed. It's fair to say that for a really long time the living word has been passed over for dead. As noted in another recent thread, the scripture is, for one, written in something like Biblionics (akin to Ebonics), rendering its true meaning utterly veiled to those without a symbiotic relationship to the spirit, ethos, and pathos, of the written word. Likewise, the written scripture comes with its own unique key to deciphering its actual meaning. That key is the fact that since the scripture comes from a still living root, its meaning sprouts out of self-similar, iterated, and detailed, patterns, which are fractal manifestations of both the larger, and the smaller, growths, each part being a larger, or reduced-size, of the whole.

The larger fractal pattern for which the story of Cain's sacrifice is a smaller, self-similar motif, is the heathen cult-sacrifice of children (Isaiah 57:5) which acts as the lead up to the eventual sacrifice of a righteous adult as an apotropaic, totemic, offering to a tribal deity (Genesis 4:7).

Abraham's religion-founding sacrifice of his fathering-organ (ritual circumcision) is taught throughout Jewish mystical writings to be symbolic of the offering of the firstborn. His offering of the fathering-organ both speaks of his willingness to engage in child-sacrifice (since sacrificing the organ required to father the child is ipso facto the offering of the child by eliminating the flesh representing the possibility of his conception and birth), while it also acts, in the scripture's accounting, as a precursor to the eventual sacrifice of the full-grown Isaac at the Akedah.

In this way, the Bible's formative story of Abraham, his circumcision, and the Akedah, at least in the hands of the great sages of Jewish mysticism, becomes a crystalline or fractalized metaphor whose shape and dimensions are part and parcel of the self-similar iterations of religious communal practices observed throughout ancient history and anthropology in the child-sacrifice practiced by the heathen cults, eventuating in the eventual apotropaic-offering of a righteous adult ("virginity" often acting as the symbol of this righteousness) as a totemic sacrifice/gift to a tribal deity.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The larger fractal pattern for which the story of Cain's sacrifice is a smaller, self-similar motif, is the heathen cult-sacrifice of children (Isaiah 57:5) which acts as the lead up to the eventual sacrifice of a righteous adult as an apotropaic, totemic, offering to a tribal deity (Genesis 4:7).

Abraham's religion-founding sacrifice of his fathering-organ (ritual circumcision) is taught throughout Jewish mystical writings to be symbolic of the offering of the firstborn. His offering of the fathering-organ both speaks of his willingness to engage in child-sacrifice (since sacrificing the organ required to father the child is ipso facto the offering of the child by eliminating the flesh representing the possibility of his conception and birth), while it also acts, in the scripture's accounting, as a precursor to the eventual sacrifice of the full-grown Isaac at the Akedah.

In this way, the Bible's formative story of Abraham, his circumcision, and the Akedah, at least in the hands of the great sages of Jewish mysticism, becomes a crystalline or fractalized metaphor whose shape and dimensions are part and parcel of the self-similar iterations of religious communal practices observed throughout ancient history and anthropology in the child-sacrifice practiced by the heathen cults, eventuating in the eventual apotropaic-offering of a righteous adult ("virginity" often acting as the symbol of this righteousness) as a totemic sacrifice/gift to a tribal deity.

In the same manner in which the scripture veils the origin of man's Fall, by means of the metaphor of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge (throughout the Tanakh when a man has sex with a woman he's said to come to gain knowledge of her), so too, tilling the soil, or earth (adamah) is symbolic for tilling the woman's soil to be "fruitful" and multiply (just as the till is used to plant seeds and multiply plant life). The metaphor used in Genesis 4:3, for what Cain offers to the Lord "fruit of the ground" פרי האדמה, is a metaphor for the sacrifice of the fruitfulness come from knowledge of the women whom Cain comes to know; he offers the "fruit" of the adamah he's tilled in his being fruitful and multiplying.

Where the fractalized nature of the scripture's formative narratives is taken into account, nothing is so obvious as the fact that like the ancient heathen who offered the fruit of their loins prior to offering up the righteous adult who manifests as the apotropaic gift to the god or gods, so too, Cain offers up the fruit of his loins, he practices child-sacrifice, such that when God responds poorly to his offering, he fixes his gaze on a righteous adult able, so to say, to affect the divine reward the child-sacrifice failed to generate. Where the exegete is knowledgeable concerning these necessary isagogic nuances, he's able, so to say, to properly exegete verses 6 and 7 without bollixing them up or being disingenuous to the literal text.

Why are thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, a sin-offering חתאת lieth against the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.​

We know from the next verse that Abel is lying against the door listening to the discussion inside. And true to the word of the deity speaking to Cain, Abel is willing, as was Isaac in the same situation, to be an offering for Cain, able, so to say, to redeem Cain from his problematic birth. (The nature of that problematic birth, and the offering of Abel, was dealt with in a thread here some years ago by the name of Cain's Sanctification).

The Masoretes' absolute unwillingness to read the Hebrew text of Genesis 6 and 7 in a literal manner accounts for the bastardized reading that translates "sin-offering" חתאת as "sin" (in most translations) therein producing a hapax since nowhere else in the entire Tanakh is hattat חתאת translated as anyting but as a "sin-offering." Unfortunately, translating it properly is dangerous so far as the Masoretes are concerned, since that could lead an exegete to realize that Cain is offering his offspring, and not fruit and vegitables, prior to his offering of Abel. That simply won't do since it could lead an objective exegete to realize that there's a direct, symbiotic, fractal, relationship between Cain practicing child-sacrifice prior to offering up his righteous adult brother in order to accrue what all the child-sacrifice couldn't, and Abraham practicing the self-same ritual child-sacrifice (brit milah), prior to Isaac's "desire" being coterminous with Abraham's willingness to offer him to God as a living sacrifice or gift.

Happy are Israel who bring a favorable offering to the blessed Holy One, offering up their sons on the eighth day.​

​

Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Lekh Lekha 1:93 a.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

The Masoretes' absolute unwillingness to read the Hebrew text of Genesis 6 and 7 in a literal manner accounts for the bastardized reading that translates "sin-offering" חתאת as "sin" (in most translations) therein producing a hapax since nowhere else in the entire Tanakh is hattat חתאת translated as anyting but as a "sin-offering." Unfortunately, translating it properly is dangerous so far as the Masoretes are concerned, since that could lead an exegete to realize that Cain is offering his offspring, and not fruit and vegitables, prior to his offering of Abel. That simply won't do since it could lead an objective exegete to realize that there's a direct, symbiotic, fractal, relationship between Cain practicing child-sacrifice prior to offering up his righteous adult brother in order to accrue what all the child-sacrifice couldn't, and Abraham practicing the self-same ritual child-sacrifice (brit milah), prior to Isaac's "desire" being coterminous with Abraham's willingness to offer him to God as a living sacrifice or gift.

Happy are Israel who bring a favorable offering to the blessed Holy One, offering up their sons on the eighth day.​

​

Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Lekh Lekha 1:93 a.​

Since the commonwealth of Israel is clearly a macro-image of the micro-iterations presented in Cain and Abraham, we must wonder, or exegete, our way to finding the Abel/Isaac, of the macrocosm presented in the reduced-size copy that is Cain and Abraham? In other words, just as Cain and Abraham begin with child-sacrifice, or at least a representation, or ritualization of it (Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Lekh Lekha 1:93 a), and then graduate to the sacrifice of a righteous adult in order to garner from God the protection and favor the child-sacrifice didn't really affect, so too, Israel, as the macrocosm of the microcosm, must, will, or has, graduated, from brit-milah as ritual child-sacrifice, to the sanctified offering of a tsaddik, a righteous adult, who will divine from God the protection and favor that wasn't forthcoming from ritual circumcision, ritual child-sacrifice, alone.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Since the commonwealth of Israel is clearly a macro-image of the micro-iterations presented in Cain and Abraham, we must wonder, or exegete, our way to finding the Abel, and or Isaac, of the macrocosm presented in the reduced size copy that is Cain and Abraham? In other words, just as Cain and Abraham begin with child-sacrifice, or at least a representation, or ritualization of it (Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Lekh Lekha 1:93 a), and then graduate to the sacrifice of a righteous adult in order to garner from God the protection and favor the child-sacrifice didn't really affect, so too, Israel, as the macrocosm of the microcosm, must, will, or has, graduated, from brit-milah as ritual child-sacrifice, to the sanctified offering of a tsaddik, a righteous adult, who will divine from God the protection and favor that wasn't forthcoming from ritual circumcision, ritual child-sacrifice, alone.

"Cain brought from the fruit of the soil, as is said: from the fruit of the tree (Genesis 3:3).​

​

Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Be-Re****, 1:54b.​

Using precisely the exegetical techniques spoken of earlier in the examination, the Zohar splices Genesis 3:3 together with Genesis 2:17, in order to use the fractal iteration from another part of the scripture in order to better understand the whole once the two factal parts are united. Professor Daniel Matt's commentary on the sentence spliced together above is as follows:

1477. from the fruit of the tree. The verse continues: in the middle of the garden, God said: Do not eat from it and do not touch it, lest you die." See Genesis 2:17: As for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it, for on the day you eat from it, you will surely die.​

Throughout the Zohar, the original sin is conceded to be sexual congress between the serpent, Adam, and Eve. Nevertheless, neither Professor Matt, nor the Zohar itself, draw the unmistakable connection between these thing and Cain offering up the fruit of sexual congress, i.e., child-sacrifice. The mind of most exegetes serves the ideological and or religious tradition of his orthodox upbringing such that even when a truth is staring him or her in the face, that truth is mute if it doesn't lend itself to the preconceived orthodoxy the exegete is serving.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

"Cain brought from the fruit of the soil, as is said: from the fruit of the tree (Genesis 3:3).​

​

Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Be-Re****, 1:54b.​

Using precisely the exegetical techniques spoken of earlier in the examination, the Zohar splices Genesis 3:3 together with Genesis 2:17, in order to use the fractal iteration from another part of the scripture in order to better understand the whole once the two factal parts are united. Professor Daniel Matt's commentary on the sentence spliced together above is as follows:

1477. from the fruit of the tree. The verse continues: in the middl of the garden, God said: Do not eat from it and do not touch it, lest you die." See Genesis 2:17: As for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it, for on the day you eat from it, you will surely die.​

Throughout the Zohar, the original sin is conceded to be sexual congress between the serpent, Adam, and Eve. Nevertheless, neither Profesor Matt, nor the Zohar itself, draw the unmistakable connection between these thing and Cain offering up the fruit of sexual congress, i.e., child-sacrifice. The mind of most exegetes serves the ideological and or religious tradition of his orthodox upbringing such that even when a truth is staring him or her in the face, that truth is mute if it doesn't lend itself to the preconceived orthodoxy the exegete is serving.

The exegetical conundrum is exponentially worse if the truth that's mute for the exegete speaks a powerful word against the orthodoxy of the exegete. If, subconsciously, the exegete perceives the dilemma a true and literal interpretation of the text offers up, then often, not only will the exegete ignore the voice of the text, but he will often place an interpretive fence around the text so that his fellow exegetes not stumble into a truth his orthodoxy (and perhaps there's too) can't conscience. Creating these safety barriers, these fences around the Torah, is one of the primary purposes of the Masoretes' and their exegetically malfeasant Masoretic Text.

Importantly, the "malfeasance" is less about the fence around the Torah, and more about the expressed idea that there isn't a fence, i.e., that the exegetical fence, or guardrails, are the plain truth and nothing but the truth. If, as is sometimes the case, the Jewish interpreter concedes that he can't, or won't go, where the literal text leads, that's fine and good. But too often, the Jewish interpreter believes, or argues, that the Masoretic rendition is the literal and complete meaning of the text, which, as the Zohar proves (which is why many orthodox Jews reject the Zohar), is provably false if a person is true to the literal Hebrew of the text.



John

 

[walt]

It's very hard for me to understand what you're saying with all those words, could you please express your point in one sentence?

 

[John D. Brey]

It's very hard for me to understand what you're saying with all those words, could you please express your point in one sentence?

There's a real danger there since what I'm saying is definitely not for the faint of heart. I would rather my lingo be indecipherable to anyone who's faith and understanding of the scripture might be harmed rather than helped with where a study like this is heading. There are things in this thread that are far outside Jewish and Christian orthodoxy. That's dangerous ground. There's no desire on my part to weaken the faith of a Christian or a Jew with anything said. And yet there's a strong likelihood that that's precisely what could happen if a Christian or a Jew understood what's being said.

It would be better if, having grasped some modicum of what the thread is getting at, you asked for clarification on a particular point?



John

 

[walt]

There's a real danger there since what I'm saying is definitely not for the faint of heart. I would rather my lingo be indecipherable to anyone who's faith and understanding of the scripture might be harmed rather than helped with where a study like this is heading. There are things in this thread that are far outside Jewish and Christian orthodoxy. That's dangerous ground. There's no desire on my part to weaken the faith of a Christian or a Jew with anything said. And yet there's a strong likelihood that that's precisely what could happen if a Christian or a Jew understood what's being said.

It would be better if, having grasped some modicum of what the thread is getting at, you asked for clarification on a particular point?



John

I still don't understand but that's okay,Thank You so much for your explanation.

 

[GoodAttention]

The exegetical conundrum is exponentially worse if the truth that's mute for the exegete speaks a powerful word against the orthodoxy of the exegete. If, subconsciously, the exegete perceives the dilemma a true and literal interpretation of the text offers up, then often, not only will the exegete ignore the voice of the text, but he will often place an interpretive fence around the text so that his fellow exegetes not stumble into a truth his orthodoxy (and perhaps there's too) can't conscience. Creating these safety barriers, these fences around the Torah, is one of the primary purposes of the Masoretes' and their exegetically malfeasant Masoretic Text.

Importantly, the "malfeasance" is less about the fence around the Torah, and more about the expressed idea that there isn't a fence, i.e., that the exegetical fence, or guardrails, are the plain truth and nothing but the truth. If, as is sometimes the case, the Jewish interpreter concedes that he can't, or won't go, where the literal text leads, that's fine and good. But too often, the Jewish interpreter believes, or argues, that the Masoretic rendition is the literal and complete meaning of the text, which, as the Zohar proves (which is why many orthodox Jews reject the Zohar), is provably false if a person is true to the literal Hebrew of the text.



John

As a child I remember playing in the backyard and if a ball or frisbee would go over the back fence it meant we had to play a different game.
But I knew my neighbour would always throw it back to us, even if I could hear them play with said "toy" first.

Some of my friends had neighbours who were elderly, and so they got permission to go over the the fence or walk around to their house to retrieve what was lost. They loved to hear us play because it reminded them of their grandchildren.

At one friend's house we could never play in the backyard, and if we did we would have to concentrate so much not to lose the ball over the fence because that family would always keep the ball from themselves.

But life goes on, and since he lived a few blocks from a pool with a water-slide a ball doesn't seem so important, at least not during summer.

 

[John D. Brey]

It's very hard for me to understand what you're saying with all those words, could you please express your point in one sentence?

"Jesus is King and Mighty God."




John

 

[John D. Brey]

"Cain brought from the fruit of the soil, as is said: from the fruit of the tree (Genesis 3:3).​

​

Pritzker Edition, The Zohar, Be-Re****, 1:54b.​

Using precisely the exegetical techniques spoken of earlier in the examination, the Zohar splices Genesis 3:3 together with Genesis 2:17, in order to use the fractal iteration from another part of the scripture in order to better understand the whole once the two factal parts are united. Professor Daniel Matt's commentary on the sentence spliced together above is as follows:

1477. from the fruit of the tree. The verse continues: in the middle of the garden, God said: Do not eat from it and do not touch it, lest you die." See Genesis 2:17: As for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it, for on the day you eat from it, you will surely die.​

Throughout the Zohar, the original sin is conceded to be sexual congress between the serpent, Adam, and Eve. Nevertheless, neither Professor Matt, nor the Zohar itself, draw the unmistakable connection between these thing and Cain offering up the fruit of sexual congress, i.e., child-sacrifice. The mind of most exegetes serves the ideological and or religious tradition of his orthodox upbringing such that even when a truth is staring him or her in the face, that truth is mute if it doesn't lend itself to the preconceived orthodoxy the exegete is serving.

Afterward they brought an offering, each from his own side, as is written: It came to pass at the end of days that Cain brought an offering to YHVH from the fruit of the soil.​

​

Ibid.​

Daniel Matt's commentary:

1473. ויהי מקץ ימים (Vayhi mi-gets yamim), It came to pass at the end of days. The phrase מקץ ימי (mi-qets yamim) is usually taken to mean in the course of time, but here Rabbi Shim'on focuses on the literal meaning.​

More literal still, the Hebrew text reads, "And from the end of days," such that where the offerings in the narrative are taken as self-similar, iterative, microcosms, of the macrocosm, the text is saying that what follows is going to be a miniature, ritualistic, image, of what will take place at the "end of days," which is to say in Messianic times: the days of the Messiah. "And it came to pass in the last days' - Every place where it is said in the last days - it is the days of the Messiah" (Redak).



John

 

[Dave Watchman]

1473. ויהי מקץ ימים (Vayhi mi-gets yamim), It came to pass at the end of days. The phrase מקץ ימי (mi-qets yamim) is usually taken to mean in the course of time, but here Rabbi Shim'on focuses on the literal meaning.
More literal still, the Hebrew text reads, "And from the end of days," such that where the offerings in the narrative are taken as self-similar, iterative, microcosms, of the macrocosm, the text is saying that what follows is going to be a miniature, ritualistic, image, of what will take place at the "end of days," which is to say in Messianic times: the days of the Messiah.

In his commentary on Joel 2:30 (3:1), Rabbi David Kimchi (Radak) writes,

היה אחרי כן - כמו והיה באחרית הימים

which is translated as,

"And it came to pass afterwards" - like "and it came to pass in the last days."

In other words, Rabbi David Kimchi believed that the two phrases were synonymous.

And elsewhere, regarding the phrase "in the last days" (באחרית הימים) which occurs in several verses, including Isa. 2:2, Rabbi David Kimchi wrote,

"And it came to pass in the last days" - Every place where it is said "in the last days" - it is the days of the Messiah.
והיה באחרית הימים - כל מקום שנאמר באחרית הימים הוא ימות המשיח

"The Days of Messiah ="The Gospel era.

Peter was saying they were in the Gospel era, in the Days of Messiah.

How many 2024 predictions have already failed? How many HAVE to fail before people realise?

I have no idea what you're saying here. But I do have an idea about what your idea is on "Peace peace" - and you manage to throw in a whole bunch of what you claim are biblically prophesised violent episodes that should be predictable to anyone reading the bible (the way you do). In other words...

www.christianforums.com

I saw that.

"Jesus is King and Mighty God.

Peaceful Sabbath.

 

[John D. Brey]

Afterward they brought an offering, each from his own side, as is written: It came to pass at the end of days that Cain brought an offering to YHVH from the fruit of the soil.​

​

Ibid.​

Daniel Matt's commentary:

1473. ויהי מקץ ימים (Vayhi mi-gets yamim), It came to pass at the end of days. The phrase מקץ ימי (mi-qets yamim) is usually taken to mean in the course of time, but here Rabbi Shim'on focuses on the literal meaning.​

More literal still, the Hebrew text reads, "And from the end of days," such that where the offerings in the narrative are taken as self-similar, iterative, microcosms, of the macrocosm, the text is saying that what follows is going to be a miniature, ritualistic, image, of what will take place at the "end of days," which is to say in Messianic times: the days of the Messiah. "And it came to pass in the last days' - Every place where it is said in the last days - it is the days of the Messiah" (Redak).

What follows, "And from the end of days," in the text of Genesis 4, is Cain practicing child-sacrifice prior to the impotence of that child-sacrifice eventuating in the "sin-offering" חתאת that's his adult brother Abel. Similarly, Abraham practices ritual child-sacrifice (brit milah) prior to offering up his adult son at the Akedah. Finally, the nation come from Abraham's loins, i.e., Israel, practices ritual child-sacrifice (brit-milah) right up until, when, in the first century of the current era, ritual-circumcision (offering up the firstborn) doesn't appear to be as apotropaic as they would like (since the Romans are about to destroy them) so that they, like Cain before them, and Abraham after Cain, offer up an adult son of Abraham who's their own brother. They offer him as a salvific-gesture, and at the very taunting of the high priest no less: "It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not" (John 11:50). What occurs at the end of days (the days of Messiah) mimics, i.e., is a self-similar iteration, of what occurs immediately after Genesis 4:3, where, "the end of days" (the days of Messiah) is mentioned for the first time.



John

 

[Elihoenai]

Genesis 4:8

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

1 John 3:12

12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.


The Wicked Cain Lives while the Righteous Abel Dies. The Wicked Cain Slays the Righteous Abel. Does this mean that it is Determined by Elohim/God that the Righteousness be Slain/Sacrificed by the Wicked?

 

[blü 2]

When we cut through the read tripe that's the hoi polloi's rendering of the scriptural text, we find that what's actually said is nothing like what we've been fed. It's fair to say that for a really long time the living word has been passed over for dead. As noted in another recent thread, the scripture is, for one, written in something like Biblionics (akin to Ebonics), rendering its true meaning utterly veiled to those without a symbiotic relationship to the spirit, ethos, and pathos, of the written word. Likewise, the written scripture comes with its own unique key to deciphering its actual meaning. That key is the fact that since the scripture comes from a still living root, its meaning sprouts out of self-similar, iterated, and detailed, patterns, which are fractal manifestations of both the larger, and the smaller, growths, each part being a larger, or reduced-size, of the whole.

This is not a view I share.

Nor am I aware of any persuasive way of justifying it.

 

[John D. Brey]

This is not a view I share.

Nor am I aware of any persuasive way of justifying it.

I suspect that there's a persuasive way of justifying the statement you're responding to if I but knew what, more precisely, you're opposed to? There's a certain ethos, pathos, spirit, even a ghost, moving in and out, and around, the letters of the paragraph that make it capable of saying different things to different readers. What did you read out of it that you disagree with?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Genesis 4:8

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

1 John 3:12

12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.


The Wicked Cain Lives while the Righteous Abel Dies. The Wicked Cain Slays the Righteous Abel. Does this mean that it is Determined by Elohim/God that the Righteousness be Slain/Sacrificed by the Wicked?

Why yes. Of course. Jesus of Nazareth was slain by a rather wicked abuse of the law by the interpreters and guardians of that law. The hymn says: "He could have called, ten-thousand angels, to destroy the world, and set him free; he could have called, ten-thousand angels; but he died alone, for you and me."



John

 

[blü 2]

I suspect that there's a persuasive way of justifying the statement you're responding to if I but knew what, more precisely, you're opposed to? There's a certain ethos, pathos, spirit, even a ghost, moving in and out, and around, the letters of the paragraph that make it capable of saying different things to different readers. What did you read out of it that you disagree with?

Reality, aka objective reality, is the world external to the self, which we know about through our senses.

For the entities you speak of to be real, they must exist out there in reality, and not merely as notions in particular brains, indistinguishable (as to their category) from characters and entities in fiction.

Thus if someone asserts the reality of some thing or entity, its existence independently of any brain that holds the concept of it, the appropriate reply is, Show me.

But it doesn't appear to me that you can do that.

 

[John D. Brey]

Reality, aka objective reality, is the world external to the self, which we know about through our senses.

No one has ever come outside of their sense perceptions to see if they, the sense perceptions, bear any semblance whatsoever, to what we sense. In fact, we know for a fact that all that exists outside our sense perceptions is a bloomin buzzin confusion.

"Qualia" is the name for how sensory inputs are perceived, how they feel. Qualia are puzzling. Given that all sensations are created by identical spikes, why does seeing feel different than touching? And why do some input spikes result in the sensation of pain and others don't? These may seem like silly questions, but if you imagine that the brain is sitting in the skull and its inputs are just spikes, then you can get a sense of the mystery. Where do our perceived sensations come from? The origin of qualia is considered one of the mysteries of consciousness.​

​

Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, p. 138-139.​

For the entities you speak of to be real, they must exist out there in reality, and not merely as notions in particular brains, indistinguishable (as to their category) from characters and entities in fiction.

Do you know of any person who has ever been "out there in reality"?

Thus if someone asserts the reality of some thing or entity, its existence independently of any brain that holds the concept of it, the appropriate reply is, Show me.

Here, we come close ---I think ---to being on the same sheet of music. My entire epistemology, all that I engage, is based on the belief that there's nothing out there to Show you. In fact, the timing of your response is pretty good since I was about to start a new thread (I've got everything I needed out of this one) called "Monotheistic Idolatry," with the intention of trying to show that nothing can be known, or posited, to exist, outside the flesh and blood where it's purported existence . . . uh . . . exists. ----Jewish monotheism is idolatry in that it posits a God who can't exist in flesh and blood, and can't even be perceived by flesh and blood. Unfortunately there is nothing or nowhere outside the flesh and blood between the ears. That is where all reality is.

But it doesn't appear to me that you can do that.

People like myself who have come to know Christ Jesus personally, didn't visit him on the Mount of Olives, in space, or on another planet. Every one of us met him in the flesh and blood between our ears. And that meeting is as real as any other reality that exists there, between the ears, since there is nothing and nowhere else.




John