Does God Hide From Us -- Or Do We Hide God From Us?

[Sunstone]

Right out of the starting gate, @Sunstone I rated your post as funny because it really did strike me as more than slightly ironic. Then again, almost everything does. *bursts into laughter*

Where to begin?
The key here is "come away from" and so is necessarily within the domain of critical analysis. This is where the normal conscious mind tries to compartmentalize the experience in neat terms that fit understanding. The simple fact is, having been through this numerous times, that the individual does not know what they have experienced but the conscious mind has to come up with something and more often than not, because the experience is so divorced from normal experiences they determine that it is from some kind of god.

In those terms, but in those terms only, there would be some truth to the assumption. But... and it's a rather large but, it is just an assumption the conscious mind superimposes on the experience.

Again, in those terms, for sure, but again, only in those limited terms. Reality, quite fortunately, isn't quite so binary. In larger terms, the conscious self has simply created a fantasy that papers over what they are grappling to understand in order to understand. It's akin to shooting oneself in the toe, really. I will admit, that due to the incredible nature of the experience, one cannot easily understand it and so the leap to some kind of deity is fairly common, natural and not unexpected. It's all part of the cognitive process. With luck, that process with not stop there however.

While this is true, presented in this way, one comes to understand that "the oneness of all things" is itself an illusion, a stepping stone, as it were to an even greater understanding. To understand a greater picture of reality, one does need to go through this phase. On that, I will agree.

Oh well, just smack me if my drool is getting on the carpet. I have broad shoulders.

I'm not at all sure what your post has to do with the OP, Paul.

 

[YmirGF]

I'm not at all sure what your post has to do with the OP, Paul.

You're joking, right?

 

[Altfish]

Of course.

Well god isn't exactly looking after Puerto Rico at the moment is she; so the analogy fails.

 

[allfoak]

Well god isn't exactly looking after Puerto Rico at the moment is she; so the analogy fails.

Not true.
Can a child blame a parent for something that is not their fault?

 

[Altfish]

Not true.
Can a child blame a parent for something that is not their fault?

So god is not all powerful and all knowing?

 

[Aiviu]

One of the more curious things about our noble and esteemed species of spear-chucking, fur-challenged super-apes is that our normal, everyday waking consciousness divides the world into self and not-self.

When we see a tree, for instance, we not only see the tree, but we have a nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the tree is not-us. When we have a conscious thought, we have a similar nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the thought is us -- or at least a part of us.

Now, in some relatively rare instances, people experience an abrupt end to that self and not-self way of perceiving the world while yet their awareness or experiencing in some sense continues. And when that happens, self and not-self perceiving is replaced by a perception of "oneness". That is, a sense or feeling that all things are somehow, on some level, indiscreet and really just one thing. This is sometimes called, "the mystical experience".

Some people -- but not all -- who have had such an experience come away convinced that their experience was one of god. That is, an experience of -- among other things -- a sentient agent ("Agent" being something that has a will).

Let's make a leap here and suppose for a moment that these people are correct, and that the mystical experience really is an experience of god. What would that mean to the notion that god hides from us?

Wouldn't there now be a sense in which it could be said that "we hide god from us", as opposed to saying "god hides from us"?

After all, who here is responsible for dividing the world into self and not-self -- and thus obscuring "the oneness of all things" -- if not our own consciousness?

Your carefully considered thoughts, comments, observations, and mouth-frothing rants are welcome!

Does a "We hide from God" count too?

Because thats what we do ..... thats what we do.

 

[allfoak]

So god is not all powerful and all knowing?

Romans 8:20
For the creation was subjected to frustration and futility, not willingly [because of some intentional fault on its part], but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope

 

[Windwalker]

Before the modern era, it was a default go-to position however..

Sure, yes. Only because the center of gravity was the mythic stage and its particular frameworks of reality. There were of course individuals who were ahead of the times, and were they to have such experience they would probably not go running off and converting to mythic systems, "You were right, baby Jesus in the sky is literally real!." It's kind of hard to unbake a cake once it's been baked. They would instead try to understand it within their normal frameworks of reality, for better or worse.

Science on the one hand tends to be progressive and self-correcting whereas more religious viewpoints tend to get quagmired in dogmatic certainties.

That's not necessarily true of all religion. Many are about provoking conversation and new thought, rather than limiting students to rote memorization and strict vows to never use their minds, as well as their genitals.

Fixation on deity generally does not go beyond that deity due to the nature of deity itself. You're at the source, where else is there to go? So, it can be a very real dead end to further growth.

That's a good question, and I'll answer that with a quote from the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart. "I pray God make me free from God, that I may know God in his unconditioned being". Where is there to go? "God beyond God," is how he described it.

What really is the factor is the individual as the vessel that holds such an experience. One may take it as a total validation of all their beliefs, whereas to another it may shake their beliefs to the core, provoking them to think beyond their own thoughts and ideas. I of course, land in the latter company. Anyone who concludes, "It was this, period!," is stuck at their beliefs, reducing God to their ideas about God.

 

[Altfish]

Romans 8:20
For the creation was subjected to frustration and futility, not willingly [because of some intentional fault on its part], but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

 

[Windwalker]

IOW, the difference between "God" and a hallucination comes down to nothing more than personal inclination and cultural priming?

If you read that in what I posted, you certainly must have been hallucinating, or at least engaged in wishful thinking.

Speaking of which, it can be rightly said that "reality" is a mass hallucination, a product of the systems of thought we adopt. All experience ends up being translated by the conventions of our collective frameworks of thought, only allowing in what can generally fit close-enough. Your experience of "reality", even in the most mundane ways is a hallucination as well.

As a simple example, you look at a "tree" and your mind says "Tree". But is your perception of the tree and how your mind holds what a tree is, the actual reality of a tree? It certainly is not. The solidity of forms is a type of hallucination putting something there that isn't inherent to the thing itself. It only "appears" as a tree. And so in the same way when you have a transcendent experience, it "appears" as God to our minds.

But we don't worry about that too much, since as a convention of thought it serves us well enough to not have to peel back the bark and take a deeper look, so to speak. When it comes to an extraordinary experience such as we call the transcendent, we have a little harder time translating it because it's not as commonplace in culture as a tree is to us, or some simple emotion, or thought, or idea. So some may cynically proclaim it's an hallucination, while ignoring the fact that everything else they accept is real is a hallucination of the mind as well. It's sort of like the pot calling the kettle black.

When you have such an experience, to try to dismiss it as a common "hallucination", such as a schizophrenic may have, does not work as they are not of that same order. That dismissal is part and parcel of not allowing in what doesn't fit into models of reality we have conventionally adopted. Critically speaking, if you ask anyone who has had an hallucination versus a mystical experience, they are not the same. But in reality, our thoughts about mystical experience, as well as any mundane experience, are not the true reality of the thing itself, only a reflection of ourselves overlaid on the experience, and an illusion of the mind as reality.

But conventionally you accept the reality of a tree because you can feel it. Ditto. Some just understand the reality of it at different levels, some trivially, some miles deep. Some may translate God as a guy in the sky, another the fabric of Reality itself.

 

[RedDragon94]

One of the more curious things about our noble and esteemed species of spear-chucking, fur-challenged super-apes is that our normal, everyday waking consciousness divides the world into self and not-self.

When we see a tree, for instance, we not only see the tree, but we have a nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the tree is not-us. When we have a conscious thought, we have a similar nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the thought is us -- or at least a part of us.

Now, in some relatively rare instances, people experience an abrupt end to that self and not-self way of perceiving the world while yet their awareness or experiencing in some sense continues. And when that happens, self and not-self perceiving is replaced by a perception of "oneness". That is, a sense or feeling that all things are somehow, on some level, indiscreet and really just one thing. This is sometimes called, "the mystical experience".

Some people -- but not all -- who have had such an experience come away convinced that their experience was one of god. That is, an experience of -- among other things -- a sentient agent ("Agent" being something that has a will).

Let's make a leap here and suppose for a moment that these people are correct, and that the mystical experience really is an experience of god. What would that mean to the notion that god hides from us?

Wouldn't there now be a sense in which it could be said that "we hide god from us", as opposed to saying "god hides from us"?

After all, who here is responsible for dividing the world into self and not-self -- and thus obscuring "the oneness of all things" -- if not our own consciousness?

Your carefully considered thoughts, comments, observations, and mouth-frothing rants are welcome!

Unity in diversity. God the Trinity.

We are connected to creation because we are apart of it. It takes special understanding to see the spiritual concepts behind what fallen creation is trying to communicate. This multiplicity in unity that we find when in meditation is what God feels out in eternity. One divine community of three in unison.

This being said, don't just connect to nature. Connect to God.

 

[Ashley Mathura]

One of the more curious things about our noble and esteemed species of spear-chucking, fur-challenged super-apes is that our normal, everyday waking consciousness divides the world into self and not-self.

When we see a tree, for instance, we not only see the tree, but we have a nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the tree is not-us. When we have a conscious thought, we have a similar nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the thought is us -- or at least a part of us.

Now, in some relatively rare instances, people experience an abrupt end to that self and not-self way of perceiving the world while yet their awareness or experiencing in some sense continues. And when that happens, self and not-self perceiving is replaced by a perception of "oneness". That is, a sense or feeling that all things are somehow, on some level, indiscreet and really just one thing. This is sometimes called, "the mystical experience".

Some people -- but not all -- who have had such an experience come away convinced that their experience was one of god. That is, an experience of -- among other things -- a sentient agent ("Agent" being something that has a will).

Let's make a leap here and suppose for a moment that these people are correct, and that the mystical experience really is an experience of god. What would that mean to the notion that god hides from us?

Wouldn't there now be a sense in which it could be said that "we hide god from us", as opposed to saying "god hides from us"?

After all, who here is responsible for dividing the world into self and not-self -- and thus obscuring "the oneness of all things" -- if not our own consciousness?

Your carefully considered thoughts, comments, observations, and mouth-frothing rants are welcome!

I tend to agree, I think somehow we have forgotten our relationship with God.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

The idea of oneness to everything only really has merit when considering "everything" to be some fundamental building block of all matter and energy, and that everything is, therefore, composed of all the same building blocks.

Otherwise, a simple question can douse it all... for example: Are you ONE with your own feces? If so... then why not rub it all over your face? Go ahead... you are ONE with it. You are composed of the same fundamental, spiritual "stuff", right? Then do it. What is stopping you? After you do that... go stick your head into an alligator's mouth. You are ONE with him/her, after all... so what do the consequences matter to all your combined spiritual "stuff"? That tree you saw earlier - why not eat it? You are ONE with the tree, I don't see a reason to separate yourself from it any longer - can't get much closer than the tree being right in your belly. In fact, what is the reason that we place any value on any particular object more so than any other object? It is all ONEness, right? Why not drink gasoline? Eat shards of glass? Breathe primarily Carbon Monoxide 24/7? Sleep on lava?

If it doesn't work like that, then perhaps one should ask oneself WHY it doesn't work like that.

 

[sayak83]

If you read that in what I posted, you certainly must have been hallucinating, or at least engaged in wishful thinking.

Speaking of which, it can be rightly said that "reality" is a mass hallucination, a product of the systems of thought we adopt. All experience ends up being translated by the conventions of our collective frameworks of thought, only allowing in what can generally fit close-enough. Your experience of "reality", even in the most mundane ways is a hallucination as well.

As a simple example, you look at a "tree" and your mind says "Tree". But is your perception of the tree and how your mind holds what a tree is, the actual reality of a tree? It certainly is not. The solidity of forms is a type of hallucination putting something there that isn't inherent to the thing itself. It only "appears" as a tree. And so in the same way when you have a transcendent experience, it "appears" as God to our minds.

But we don't worry about that too much, since as a convention of thought it serves us well enough to not have to peel back the bark and take a deeper look, so to speak. When it comes to an extraordinary experience such as we call the transcendent, we have a little harder time translating it because it's not as commonplace in culture as a tree is to us, or some simple emotion, or thought, or idea. So some may cynically proclaim it's an hallucination, while ignoring the fact that everything else they accept is real is a hallucination of the mind as well. It's sort of like the pot calling the kettle black.

When you have such an experience, to try to dismiss it as a common "hallucination", such as a schizophrenic may have, does not work as they are not of that same order. That dismissal is part and parcel of not allowing in what doesn't fit into models of reality we have conventionally adopted. Critically speaking, if you ask anyone who has had an hallucination versus a mystical experience, they are not the same. But in reality, our thoughts about mystical experience, as well as any mundane experience, are not the true reality of the thing itself, only a reflection of ourselves overlaid on the experience, and an illusion of the mind as reality.

But conventionally you accept the reality of a tree because you can feel it. Ditto. Some just understand the reality of it at different levels, some trivially, some miles deep. Some may translate God as a guy in the sky, another the fabric of Reality itself.

I am joining the Windwalker fan club. Your posts are a joy to read.

 

[YmirGF]

I am joining the Windwalker fan club. Your posts are a joy to read.

He is a genuine RF treasure.

 

[sayak83]

The idea of oneness to everything only really has merit when considering "everything" to be some fundamental building block of all matter and energy, and that everything is, therefore, composed of all the same building blocks.

Otherwise, a simple question can douse it all... for example: Are you ONE with your own feces? If so... then why not rub it all over your face? Go ahead... you are ONE with it. You are composed of the same fundamental, spiritual "stuff", right? Then do it. What is stopping you? After you do that... go stick your head into an alligator's mouth. You are ONE with him/her, after all... so what do the consequences matter to all your combined spiritual "stuff"? That tree you saw earlier - why not eat it? You are ONE with the tree, I don't see a reason to separate yourself from it any longer - can't get much closer than the tree being right in your belly. In fact, what is the reason that we place any value on any particular object more so than any other object? It is all ONEness, right? Why not drink gasoline? Eat shards of glass? Breathe primarily Carbon Monoxide 24/7? Sleep on lava?

If it doesn't work like that, then perhaps one should ask oneself WHY it doesn't work like that.

Differences are important and are important. That is why I object to "treat others as you would yourself" maxim. But differences are easy to see, the similarities and connections are harder to perceive but they are arguably even more important. The world is described in Hinduism as a giant tree with a billion branches and quadrillion leaves of diverse forms and phenomena on which we perch, yet all these branches connect with each other and eventually unify in a trunk that is often hidden from view when one looks down from the canopy. Is this not how the world is?

 

[Windwalker]

He is a genuine RF treasure.

Oh damn... you're making me blush.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Let's make a leap here and suppose for a moment that these people are correct, and that the mystical experience really is an experience of god. What would that mean to the notion that god hides from us?

Wouldn't there now be a sense in which it could be said that "we hide god from us", as opposed to saying "god hides from us"?

Our hiding from God could only mean that we had created the fiction in the first place.

If God hides from us (for obvious reasons), that's scenario that fits with the evidence, or rather the lack thereof. There is no evidence to suggest there is no God/Creator, and the same can for evidence that there is one. The only thing we CAN say is that there is no evidence (other than hearsay) for a revealed God, which virtually rules that possibility out.

And as I've said before, the only difference, from out perspective, between agnostic-atheism and agnostic-deism, is hope.

 

[blü 2]

When we see a tree, for instance, we not only see the tree, but we have a nearly unshakeable sense or feeling that the tree is not-us.

All the animals I can think of have evolved to have a sense of self, a sharp awareness of the body's boundaries in relation to its surroundings. Survival is one of the two great Darwinian imperatives, 'I' am what has to survive, and so it seems seriously basic to distinguish 'me' from 'not-me', 'me' from 'tree'.

Now, in some relatively rare instances, people experience an abrupt end to that self and not-self way of perceiving the world while yet their awareness or experiencing in some sense continues.

This reminds me of out-of-body experiences, something we can now reproduce and study in the lab.

So I wonder how much of it is simply explicable perceptual change, a disorienting of our usual mechanisms such as the research shows for OOBs?

This is sometimes called, "the mystical experience".

In this, too, it resembles OOBs.