No Trinity in the NT

[Windwalker]

I strongly disagree; I'll be honest and say I find it silly. What's the Trinity a metaphor for, that matters?

And you see, you don't want a metaphor to be a metaphor. You want it to be a descriptor. And which point, its a dead metaphor, and God is no longer God. What is the metaphor for, "Openness". If you codify and define Openness, it's no longer Openness. A metaphor is open. A descriptor is closed. Once you have made a metaphor a descriptor, you have replaced Openness, or God, with yourself. Reality then is a project of yourself on Reality, and how you think about Reality becomes defined to the mind as reality, thus breaking you free from reality into your own imagination. Literally, not metaphorically here, you are literally creating God, or Reality, in your own image.

I know my way around the arts ─ literature, languages, history, philosophy ─ so I'd hardly argue against them.

Are you yourself and artist, per chance?

Dancing's emotional.

But it is vastly more than emotion. It's existential. It is expressive of being. If you persist that things where emotions are part of them are inferior to reason and rationality, you will quickly find yourself out of touch with the reality of being human. That becomes a dissociation. The reason I asked are you yourself an artist, rather than being versed about the arts as an observer of them, is because there is something in the act of art itself that goes far, far, far beyond and deeper than mere emotions. Yet you seem to want to dismiss all these things this way. This is puzzling to me. Why?

That translates as, Religion is emotional, not reasonable, doesn't it?

Nope. No it does not. It translated into religious experience is ineffable, beyond calling it emotions. It engages the "whole person". And that is key: Whole Person. Whole, includes, but is not limited to emotions. If you are thoughts, and reason only, then you are not engaging the whole person. You are in dissociation if that is all that is ever pursued or developed in us.

That sounds like why people get drunk ─ so as to feel and not think. We all need that occasionally, but only as recreation.

That is absolutely false. These are to make our minds clear, not cloud them with intoxications. They are to gain knowledge of ourselves and reality, not escape it. They are to engage the whole person, including the intellect, the emotional, the artist, the creative, the physical, as well as the spiritual in the experience of Life itself. And you call it 'getting drunk"? Again, why?

 

[blü 2]

And you see, you don't want a metaphor to be a metaphor. You want it to be a descriptor.

Not quite. I want it to be a metaphor for something that can be expressed in descriptors. Metaphors can be either colorations of the known, or steps on the way to knowing. When their use leaves the listener still not understanding (whether or not the speaker can't articulate in descriptors), the question 'What does that mean?' is always legitimate. A purported hint at an answer is not an answer.

And which point, its a dead metaphor, and God is no longer God.

Since I have no idea what real thing, what thing with objective existence, the term 'god' is intended to denote, I've never got that far. Imaginary gods I comprehend readily, but real ones?

What is the metaphor for, "Openness".

As for a window, or a person?

If you codify and define Openness, it's no longer Openness.

Of course it is! It's a word with denotation. Only words that rely on connotation have the vulnerability you suggest, and that only in emotional contexts.

A metaphor is open. A descriptor is closed.

My very point ─ what are we actually talking about? Romance or fact?

Reality then is a project of yourself on Reality, and how you think about Reality

Objective reality is what you can see out that open window. 'Internal reality' isn't anyone else's reality, since it can be just about anything, and something else in a minute's time.

Literally, not metaphorically here, you are literally creating God, or Reality, in your own image.

I doubtless have various vices, but creating gods isn't one of them. (Well, no, I once found I'd created a god, actually. When I drove a cab in my student days, and a good fare came along in an unlikely situation, I noticed I'd started murmuring 'Thanks, TG' where TG stood for 'Taxi God'. It had been spontaneous and unconscious, 'TG' tag and all, and, I dare say, was my solution to DG Rossetti's dictum, 'The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank'. But I've been clean ever since, and anyway he or she wasn't in my image.)

Are you yourself and artist, per chance?

Not really, if you leave out being a parent. I've sold some poetry and some radio scripts in my life but only for fun.

If you persist that things where emotions are part of them are inferior to reason and rationality, you will quickly find yourself out of touch with the reality of being human.

I don't knock emotions ─ I wouldn't be without 'em. But I like to know what's being talked about.

There is something in the act of art itself that goes far, far, far beyond and deeper than mere emotions.

Awww! You ol' romantic you! I'm almost envious!

Yet you seem to want to dismiss all these things this way.

No I don't. I want to talk about them in meaningful terms, to go beyond Gosh! and Wow! and understand what's going on. WHY do I find van Gogh's self-portrait so mesmerizing? Why does La Giaconda not work for me? I can describe the techniques that make Tennyson's best work tick, but I find Heaney far more elusive, though just as important. I don't mean that such talents can be reduced to mechanism; but the professional artist worries about these things and I'm curious too.

It translated into religious experience is ineffable, beyond calling it emotions. It engages the "whole person".

Again the area where we differ ─ it doesn't engage the intellect, it doesn't drive for understanding, analysis, meaningful description.
.

 

[blü 2]

I don't think I will ever understand why the Trinity is seen as a Big Thing, let alone why it so incenses so many people.

Because it's the product of ancient politics, wholly inconsistent with the NT, and incoherent into the bargain, but you're allowed to sell it to children?

Once one overcomes the hurdle of believing an Uncreated God Creator of Existence and actually making him somehow a central belief, it should come without even a mention that he transcends any human conception of quantity or delimitation.

I'll let you know when I overcome that hurdle. First I'll have to find out what real thing the word 'god' denotes.

Logical contradictions were left behind once that belief in a creator God was accepted.

I can see the justice of your remark, but if it were widely accepted the theologians would be out of business.
.

 

[LuisDantas]

Because it's the product of ancient politics, wholly inconsistent with the NT, and incoherent into the bargain, but you're allowed to sell it to children?

I don't understand why people are socially allowed to teach children to believe in the god of Abraham, and I did not even know of the two other reasons.

I still find the trinity rather inconsequential.

I'll let you know when I overcome that hurdle. First I'll have to find out what real thing the word 'god' denotes.

Despite the many people who claim otherwise, it seems to me that the only real thing that an useful deity might be is a source of constructive inspiration.

It is just so darned obvious to me...

I can see the justice of your remark, but if it were widely accepted the theologians would be out of business.
.

That does not really bother me...

 

[blü 2]

I don't understand why people are socially allowed to teach children to believe in the god of Abraham, and I did not even know of the two other reasons.

One reason I can think of is that then someone would have to stop them and there'd be a heck of a fuss. My own solution is to keep improving education.

I still find the trinity rather inconsequential.

But on a religious forum, yah gotta talk about something.
.

 

[Windwalker]

Not quite. I want it to be a metaphor for something that can be expressed in descriptors.

Then why have a metaphor at all? Why not just speak in flat, factual language all the time? It would far more to the point. Who really cares about inspiration and possibilities?

Metaphors can be either colorations of the known, or steps on the way to knowing.

But what if that something is wholly beyond knowing? Then what? Do you imagine you can flatten the universe into nothing but boxes?

When their use leaves the listener still not understanding (whether or not the speaker can't articulate in descriptors), the question 'What does that mean?' is always legitimate.

No. You are missing the point. What it "means" is always changing, always evolving with you! That is the point. If you look for a static truth, you miss the fact of change! You change, constantly. We all do. That is growth. That is evolution. I would suggest trying to embrace that, and let loose a little on your grip of trying to find some security in stable facts. Even those you will find, change. They always have. They always will.

A purported hint at an answer is not an answer.

It is never meant to be an answer! It's meant to be a pointer in a direction. You find what has meaning and value to you with it. That is the point of a metaphor. Not an answer, but a suggestion.

Since I have no idea what real thing, what thing with objective existence, the term 'god' is intended to denote, I've never got that far. Imaginary gods I comprehend readily, but real ones?

Yes, well, like everything else, God is a metaphor. Some imagine that as an old guy in the sky with a white beard. That's the limits of their imagination. What's yours? What's mine? Keep going, and going. Beyond all that, then you begin to see and find all these words mean only as much as stones in the stream we step across to find the other shore.

As for a window, or a person?

What's on the other side of that window? Can you know? That's what openness is. The vast, infinite, undefined expanse. If you name it, you destroy it.

Of course it is! It's a word with denotation.

It is not meant to be! And that is what you miss. It is meant as a metaphor. It is meant to be open-ended, for you to insert your thoughts, and the exploration of them into it. It is meant for you to soar and find truth and meaning in yourself. That is the point of all of this. The point we miss when we think we need to find answers to find meaning.

I'll break in my response here and may circle back if I feel inspired more.

 

[blü 2]

Then why have a metaphor at all? Why not just speak in flat, factual language all the time? It would far more to the point. Who really cares about inspiration and possibilities?

I have no argument with inspiration, lateral insight, sleeping on a problem, I know them all, though it'd be nice to be even better acquainted.

But that's no barrier to analysis, understanding, integration with other understandings. As I pointed out, producers of art, including great art, written, dramatic, painted, plastic, architecture, whatever, rarely have technique far from their minds.

But what if that something is wholly beyond knowing? Then what? Do you imagine you can flatten the universe into nothing but boxes?

Then by definition it's wholly beyond knowing. That means it has no actual manifestations that we can examine to see if we can black-box it, no real qualities at all; so time to pour a rum and watch the news.

It is never meant to be an answer! It's meant to be a pointer in a direction. You find what has meaning and value to you with it. That is the point of a metaphor. Not an answer, but a suggestion.

Ahm, here we differ. You seem to want things BECAUSE they have no explanation; and that seems to me to mean emotional states. Which can be more important or less, and this seems to me to be the latter by definition ─ to have no meaning is to be meaningless.

What's on the other side of that window? Can you know?

I address that question with two of my assumptions: that a world exists external to the self, and that the senses are capable of informing us about that world. (The third one is that reason's a valid tool.) On that basis, so far so good.

That's what openness is. The vast, infinite, undefined expanse. If you name it, you destroy it.

That's not in my book. My book says, If you can't name it, you haven't understood it. (But Rilke agrees with you. In his poem Le Magicien (he wrote quite a few poems in French, though they don't compare to the German) he wrote, "Le mot agit, et nul ne le reprend. / Soudain, à certaines heures, ce qu’on nomme / devient ... quoi ? Un être ... presque homme, / et on le tue, en le nommant." ('The word acts, and nothing holds it back. / Suddenly, at certain hours, that which you name / Becomes ... what? A being ... almost man / And you kill it in naming it.') Oddly, the German version, Der Magier, has no parallel to that.)

It is meant as a metaphor. It is meant to be open-ended, for you to insert your thoughts

It ain't a metaphor unless it's a metaphor for something. If that something is simply being excited about new emotional states, well, that's fun, but as I've just shown, it can be articulated.

It is meant for you to soar and find truth and meaning in yourself.

My book says 'truth' is conformity with reality; and that reality's the same thing as the realm of the physical sciences. If there's evidence of more, of other dimensions, nature with other rules, well, those things then become part of that realm.

The point we miss when we think we need to find answers to find meaning.

You're talking about emotional states again. May we both continue to find satisfying examples of them! Those AHA! flashes when you see through the maths problem or the chess problem; or have that insight into WHAT produces the stunning moment in music or lit or acting or painting or ...

I'll break in my response here and may circle back if I feel inspired more.

Do we have much more to discuss? It's been most enjoyable.

 

[Windwalker]

I have no argument with inspiration, lateral insight, sleeping on a problem, I know them all, though it'd be nice to be even better acquainted.

A good meditation practice is the place to start.

But that's no barrier to analysis, understanding, integration with other understandings.

In fact, I'd argue it actually aides in that. Often as we try to figure crap out, we end up chasing our tails at a certain point. That's the thing, that "certain point". Critical analysis, I'm all for. I earn my living doing that. But once we move beyond the relatively simple questions, then, especially then you need to 'defocus' the eyes a bit, if not more, in order for a larger picture to begin to emerge.

And that's what I'm talking about when you start approaching questions dealing with absolutes, like "infinity," or "God". Once you start butting up against that, all this analytical stuff will begin to disintegrate. That's what I'm trying to communicate in her our pleasant discussion. All logic and analysis breaks down at that point, and there is a reason for that I'll explain.

As I pointed out, producers of art, including great art, written, dramatic, painted, plastic, architecture, whatever, rarely have technique far from their minds.

Well, actually.... the greatest moments in an artist's life is when they let go and break into things they never imagined possible. They end up cutting a new groove into the fabric where none had existed before. And then others follow and explore along that groove. These things are not predefined in the universe. They are created. And novelty is the key!

So, if you are stuck repeated the same old worn grooves, using your mind in the patterns handed down to your through culture, through language, etc, you are in fact not truly producing anything new. Even though it may be beautiful and inspiring, it's variations on a theme. Creating a new theme, now that's the height of inspiration, and it's never one you can set up to create. It happens when you don't try. There are lessons to all of life in that understanding.

Then by definition it's wholly beyond knowing.

It's not beyond knowing. It's beyond defining and truly being able to talk about. Comprehension and apprehension are two different things, but both are knowing.

That means it has no actual manifestations that we can examine to see if we can black-box it, no real qualities at all; so time to pour a rum and watch the news.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! What do you mean it has no actual manifestations? Of course it does! That we can't define the undefinable, does not mean it's not real! Goodness. Can you really define a sunset, and retain the totality of the experience in your thoughts and words? Is a memory, a thought, an idea, even remotely the same as tasting it in your mouth, in your eyes, in your ears, in your body, in your soul? Can you really communicate all that in words?

Ahm, here we differ. You seem to want things BECAUSE they have no explanation; and that seems to me to mean emotional states.

Well, not exactly. I just have found that all my thoughts, all my analyzing, all my categorizing, etc, is in fact wonderful, and powerful, useful, practical, an advantage over uncritical thought. But there are limits to it! There is an edge you hit, and that edge is yourself and your own mind and all that goes into making it what it is. But beyond that edge, is Reality.

In no way am I saying do away with critical thought. No way! Embrace it. BUT, realize it is ultimately a tool of the mind, not the key to Truth itself. That Truth itself, is not a propositional truth for the mind, but Existence, Being. It is that kind of knowing that embraces the rational, but transcends it. That is what I am talking about.

Which can be more important or less, and this seems to me to be the latter by definition ─ to have no meaning is to be meaningless.

Yes, but just because you cannot define something, does not by any stretch mean it has no meaning. Quite the contrary! When it is a Mystery, in the big sense of the word, as we examine it, look at it this way and that, turn it upside down, hold it in this light and that... each and every time we do this, we are extracting more, and more, and more meaning from it! This is what the undefinable does! It is that against which we discover and create meaning for ourselves!

I address that question with two of my assumptions: that a world exists external to the self, and that the senses are capable of informing us about that world. (The third one is that reason's a valid tool.) On that basis, so far so good.

I would agree with the above, with the qualification that our senses only and ever will give us a perception of what that is, that includes ourselves within that perception. We never see it "as it is" outside ourselves. Whatever we think we see, has a reflection of ourselves indelibly embedded within it.

That is inescapable. So ultimately, God, or Reality, is not something that is outside of us. We are God, seeing God, if you want to look at it that way. How did Carl Sagan say this? "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself". What we end up knowing, is not something outside ourselves, but ourselves! As the mystic would say, "To know God is to know yourself. To know yourself, is to know God". It's the latter that really strikes to the heart of all of this.

I'll break here. Not for any particular reason, other than to see where this leads from here. I'm enjoying our conversation. You have a good mind.

 

[blü 2]

A good meditation practice is the place to start.

I've tried meditation, commended by various of my friends. Works for them, not for me, I found - just boring. Not that I didn't learn a couple of useful relaxation techniques though.

when you start approaching questions dealing with absolutes, like "infinity," or "God". Once you start butting up against that, all this analytical stuff will begin to disintegrate.

No, it simply means, change to a lower gear and keep going. Infinity is a maths problem and the clever but tendentious Cantor tried to use it to find a place for a god to live. Since there are no infinities in reality, you could argue he succeeded.

All logic and analysis breaks down at that point

Not for me.

the greatest moments in an artist's life is when they let go and break into things they never imagined possible.

Well maybe, but eg Shakespeare simply regarded himself as a businessman who wrote for money first. The magnificent Sonnets demonstrate technical mastery both of English usage and formal rhetoric, to frame the genius that must have been fairly effortless, seeing there's so much of it. (He had his offdays, of course, and he got gnarly with age, but that'll happen to Roger Federer too.)

They end up cutting a new groove into the fabric where none had existed before.

Ah, the doom of mathematicians, who 'know' that if you haven't thought of it by 30 you won't think of it! May we all be exceptions!

These things are not predefined in the universe. They are created. And novelty is the key!

Again, the history of maths shows more transparently than many that 'there are ideas whose time has come' and if Galois hadn't published first on what's now group theory, Abel would have, or Lobachevskii and Bolyai developing a non-Euclidean geometry virtually simultaneously &c. (And some have said Poincaré would have opened the relativity door if Einstein hadn't, but they must know something I don't.) Come to think of it, you could argue that the history of science fiction shows the same thing.

So, if you are stuck repeated the same old worn grooves, using your mind in the patterns handed down to your through culture, through language, etc, you are in fact not truly producing anything new.

I accept that I had more energy back then than now, and those comfortable grooves get more tempting with the years; but kicking around with grandkids and reading and writing keep the brain active, so I'm not complaining.

That we can't define the undefinable, does not mean it's not real!

At the very least, then, we have no idea what, exactly, is real. And that defines the job in hand ─ find out!

Can you really define a sunset, and retain the totality of the experience in your thoughts and words?

You really are a romantic, aren't you! But yes, I like a good sunset as much as the next dude; and I already know how it works. (Have you ever seen the famous 'green flash'? I saw it on two occasions when we lived in the Pacific islands long ago.)

Can you really communicate all that in words?

Quite right. You can't eat a cookbook.

But there are limits to it! There is an edge you hit, and that edge is yourself and your own mind and all that goes into making it what it is. But beyond that edge, is Reality.

Ahm, I wouldn't have put it like that. I'd have said that objective reality's on the other side of my skin, wherever I am.

That Truth itself, is not a propositional truth for the mind, but Existence, Being.

Ergo sum.

Yes, but just because you cannot define something, does not by any stretch mean it has no meaning.

I'll start by pointing out that by your own statement you can't give me an example without defining it.

When it is a Mystery, in the big sense of the word

... then start by getting your sticks in a line. What am I trying to do here? What do I know? What do I suspect I don't know? Am I the problem? What's my first hypothesis? How to test it?

We never see it "as it is" outside ourselves. Whatever we think we see, has a reflection of ourselves indelibly embedded within it.

No doubt about it. We've evolved to interpret sense data in quite specific ways that aren't part of the landscape, as it were. (I poemed it once.) The idea that this body of atoms is distinct from the other bodies of atoms around it and should be called a 'tree' is an interpretation. That another body is also a tree, and that this makes 'two trees', are likewise conceptual takes we automatically impose on the data ie by extracting meaning we impose meaning. The first step towards increasing objectivity is to be aware of this.

So ultimately, God, or Reality, is not something that is outside of us.

Yes and no to that one. External reality is the source of my air, water, food, friends, shelter &c. I survive or fail in it, and that's why I've evolved as I am.

We are God, seeing God, if you want to look at it that way. How did Carl Sagan say this? "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself".

Why do we need this 'god' notion? Man does the seeing, feeling, thinking, doing. Man gets excited or bored, delighted or appalled, loves or rejects. It was always up to us and it still is.

Or so it seems to me!

 

[Windwalker]

I've tried meditation, commended by various of my friends. Works for them, not for me, I found - just boring. Not that I didn't learn a couple of useful relaxation techniques though.

That depends what type of practice you tried. Not everyone responds the same to the different techniques. There are sitting meditations, standing, walking, meditation with movement (Tai Chi for instance), meditation with music, meditation in silence, etc, etc, etc. The key is not the practice, but actually entering into meditative states, however you can get there. It is in the state itself, where these things begin to open. Trust me, when you are there, it's anything but boring! Let the light show begin! And then you move into different stages, deeper and deeper levels. "Relaxation" is a side effect, but relatively minor in comparison to what goes on in there.

Here's an interesting and accurate discussion about those stages you may find interesting: STAGES OF MEDITATION

No, it simply means, change to a lower gear and keep going. Infinity is a maths problem and the clever but tendentious Cantor tried to use it to find a place for a god to live. Since there are no infinities in reality, you could argue he succeeded.

You believe there is a boundary around all manifest reality? Then what is beyond that boundary? Nothing? Isn't that "nothing" infinite then? A way to think about this is that all manifest reality is like drawings or dots seen on a piece of paper. Without that paper, the dots would not exist. Without light there would be no dark, and vice versa. Infinity is that paper. This is familiar in the Buddhist description of Emptiness. In nondual terms, "Emptiness is not other to form, and form is not other to Emptiness". That Emptiness is the Infinite. Infinite exists at every single point along any given line. It's not 'out there' at the end of it.

Not for me.

Maybe not yet anyway. It certainly does for many others who have taken it to its limits, like Einstein, Heisenberg, Plank, and so forth. Here's a collection of their writings that go into that very thing. There really is no conflict between these things, only limits, possibilities, and the great Mystery itself we find ourselves within, and within us all. Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists: Ken Wilber: 9781570627682: Amazon.com: Books

At the very least, then, we have no idea what, exactly, is real. And that defines the job in hand ─ find out!

What comes to mind here is the saying that the meaning of one's life is not found at some destination point, but the whole path itself, the journey itself is the destination. If you're trying to "find out" the meaning to the big questions of existence, what do you imagine happens when you find it? Poof, you blink out of existence? My point is, rather than chasing that carrot on a stick out in front of you, just stop and reach out with your hand and eat the damn thing where your standing right now. You don't have to 'arrive' at an understanding to just be now, in the moment. That's "knowing" without knowing.

You really are a romantic, aren't you!

Guilty. I'm also a pragmatist too, but am a mystic and poet at heart.

Ahm, I wouldn't have put it like that. I'd have said that objective reality's on the other side of my skin, wherever I am.

But isn't that reality part of you and you part of it? Rather than dividing it up into dualistic terms, inside and outside, subject and object, what it really comes down to just participation. You can't logically say that there is a reality "out there" outside yourself. That's really only just a construct of the mind, ultimately. We experience ourselves as distinctly other, but that is ultimately an illusion of the mind to believe that reflects the actual reality of us.

Ergo sum.

Cogito ergo sum? Yes, actually. I think Descartes' statement is not understood very well by most. It goes to what I am saying. That every construction of the mind, everything we think or believe to be true can be doubted or deconstructed to the point where everything cannot be held to be true, except for the fact that there is someone doing the doubting. A term for that can be found in the mystical traditions of the Witness, or the Seer, that Subject doing the seeing. If we can't know the reality of anything else, we can know, or rest in the fact that I AM, I exist.

Then from there, all the rest becomes understood as relative truths. They are relative to our own set of human eyes we are using. So dualism, is real, because that is our relative reality as humans. It is not however absolute Truth.

I'll start by pointing out that by your own statement you can't give me an example without defining it.

I will grant this. I have an image in my mind, an impression of the experience that I try to put words around it. But I also understand that that imagine in my mind, is in fact just that: an image of my mind of an experience. I'm not defining the 'transcendent' in this case as "this", but rather taking various impressions of it that my mind creates and talk about those, as 'fingers pointing' to something wholly beyond my thoughts or impressions. I can create any number of images and talk about it any number of ways, but the key I recognize that my thought it not defining what it is! If I do that, and the temptation is there, then it is not longer open, but closed. I reduce God, in other words, to an idol of the mind, a reflection of myself as the Absolute. If you come to the end of Infinity, it's now finite. God is not longer God.

Here's an interesting quote from the mystic Meister Eckhart that points to this. "I pray God make me free of God that I may know God in [his] unconditional being". You see the inherent paradox here? Move beyond the limits of our ideas, into something that exists wholly beyond their abilities to comprehend. Call that Openness, whatever you may.

... then start by getting your sticks in a line. What am I trying to do here? What do I know? What do I suspect I don't know? Am I the problem? What's my first hypothesis? How to test it?

Oh yes, do all that, then in the end when you then trying to examine all those and deconstruct them, what are you left with? That's what I'm talking about. "God beyond God", to quote Eckhart again.

No doubt about it. We've evolved to interpret sense data in quite specific ways that aren't part of the landscape, as it were. (I poemed it once.) The idea that this body of atoms is distinct from the other bodies of atoms around it and should be called a 'tree' is an interpretation. That another body is also a tree, and that this makes 'two trees', are likewise conceptual takes we automatically impose on the data ie by extracting meaning we impose meaning. The first step towards increasing objectivity is to be aware of this.

Alight then. We are completely in agreement here! I am saying however that there is an end to dialectical reasoning. That goal of objectivity begins to fuzz out and blur and blend aways into holistic patterns in which distinctions like these fall no longer suffice. This is when you move into paradoxical thought, or Integral modes of consciousness as Jean Gebser describes. If you feel so inclined to learn about that, if you don't know it, I think this presentation I came across recently will be helpful and enlightening. It's over 40 minutes long, but if it's interesting to you I'd say it's worth watching:

(I'm hoping you do, since it's completely fascinating to me!)

Yes and no to that one. External reality is the source of my air, water, food, friends, shelter &c. I survive or fail in it, and that's why I've evolved as I am.

Yes, this is true. This is a valid dualistic perception. But it is a perception. All is One, is also a perception, Monism in other words. Nonduality on the other hand embraces both, "all is one, and all is many" paradoxically. Here's another great explaination of what this "pardoxical" nondualism actually is, clearing up a lot of popular misunderstandings. https://ngakpa.org/library/not-duality-is-not-non-duality/

Here's a great quote from it:

The key seems to be not taking the aggressive approach of doing away with or denying duality. Instead dualistic conceptions are rendered unproblematic. They are only problematic as long as they are taken as definite reference points. When they are experienced as opened ended reflections or “appearances,” then they can simply arise and dissolve as one aspect of the texture of experience. If we do not grasp onto dualistic conceptions, if we do not revolve around them, if we do not identify with them, if we do not build our world around them, then they are not problematic. The practices of our path aim at getting to know the non-dual texture of experience within which dualistic conceptions arise. The more we are able to communicate with that non-dual texture then the less problematic dualistic conceptions are. They can simply come and go. They can impart their intelligence and even reflect non-duality more starkly by indicating it to us when we have trained. It is a more ambiguous space to allow dualistic conception to exist than is monism. In monism everything is defined, tidy, captured in exalted spiritual language. In non-duality, both monism and dualism exist as temporary partial reflections of reality – flavors of the moment.The key seems to be meditation practice, there is the experience where non-dual experience and dualistic conceptions could take place simultaneously and non-problematically, the situation is self-liberated.​

This is what I am getting at. In just reading this again, I see I have been touching on all these points all along in discussion with you. And yes... somewhere in all this we can get to this stuff about the Trinity. There's a certain groundwork of understanding that you have to look at it with, and that groundwork is nonduality. We can get to that later if you wish.

Why do we need this 'god' notion? Man does the seeing, feeling, thinking, doing. Man gets excited or bored, delighted or appalled, loves or rejects. It was always up to us and it still is.

And the answer is, for me anyway, that "God" represents the "edge" of a dualistic reality. I refer to God as "the Face we put upon the Infinite". It's that "image" of our minds in a dualistic framework that objectifies Reality in order for our minds to hold and examine it, like an ornament in our hands reflecting the rays of light hitting it. God is not that ornament, but shows the Light through it. Beyond that Face, is the Mystery, out of which all of this arises and returns. "God beyond God".

Of course, if god is an uncomfortable word to use because it sounds like Zeus or something, feel free to use some other word that conveys that same transcendent quality.

 

[blü 2]

That depends what type of practice you tried.

My meditating friends said, as you've done, Hey, then try this one, that one! I started out looking for some aspect or other that would grab my interest, bearing their product descriptions in mind, but there was nothing that grabbed me.

You believe there is a boundary around all manifest reality?

No more than the surface of a sphere (in this case a hypersphere) is bounded.

Then what is beyond that boundary?

As I said, there is no boundary. The boundary is between the subjective and the objective, the conceptual and the imaginary as to the (external) realm of the physical sciences,

That Emptiness is the Infinite. Infinite exists at every single point along any given line. It's not 'out there' at the end of it.

As a metaphor for 'really really big' perhaps, or perhaps as part of an emotional state of unspecific awe or the like. But not as an accurate statement about reality.

the great Mystery itself we find ourselves within, and within us all

By now you'll have divined that this isn't how I see it. And a lady once gave me a Ken Wilber book ─ 'A Brief History of Everything' or something like that ─ but I was annoyed by his to me baseless self-confidence from the start ─ he airily asserts what he needs to demonstrate instead ─ and shortly just put it aside.

What comes to mind here is the saying that the meaning of one's life is not found at some destination point, but the whole path itself, the journey itself is the destination.

Completely agree ─ enjoy the trip. But the meaning of life is found in Darwin, not in Wilber. A place in the society of your tribe, a partner and usually kids, the raising and launching of those kids, and with your spare time you can write Shakespeare, publish special and general relativity, found a church or a corporation, just watch sport and drink beer. The things that delight and satisfy us aren't the main show.

Guilty. I'm also a pragmatist too, but am a mystic and poet at heart.

Keep enjoying the trip!

But isn't that reality part of you and you part of it?

No. I'm this subjective thing peering out of my eyes and trying to work things out, and reality is outside me, taking scans of my brain to see what lets me think.

Rather than dividing it up into dualistic terms, inside and outside, subject and object, what it really comes down to just participation.

I'd say I do both at the same time. I'm totally absorbed in my book or DVD or grandkid, but behind that is always the inside / outside duality.

You can't logically say that there is a reality "out there" outside yourself. That's really only just a construct of the mind, ultimately.

I don't think so. Or more technically, that question is unanswerable since you first have to assume your answer's correct before you can show its correctness. So this is where my assumptions do the work.

So dualism, is real, because that is our relative reality as humans. It is not however absolute Truth.

Inside is self, outside is reality, and nowhere is there absolute truth.

I'm not defining the 'transcendent' in this case as "this", but rather taking various impressions of it that my mind creates and talk about those, as 'fingers pointing' to something wholly beyond my thoughts or impressions.

That emotional and information-free state we discussed earlier.

Here's an interesting quote from the mystic Meister Eckhart that points to this.

That's nice for him. Doesn't work for me.

in the end when you then trying to examine all those and deconstruct them, what are you left with?

An emotional state ─ apparently an enjoyable one.

That goal of objectivity begins to fuzz out and blur and blend aways into holistic patterns in which distinctions like these fall no longer suffice.

If they don't suffice, you apply for another grant and try another tack. The more we understand about the real world, the more interesting it gets. Mysticism in that sense is a dead end, though apparently lots of fun for the players.

Jean Gebser

Later, perhaps.

The key seems to be not taking the aggressive approach of doing away with or denying duality.

Which duality, exactly? It doesn't look like the subjective / objective duality I own to. If it's Cartesian duality, mind+soul / body, that's refuted so effortlessly that I hope it means something else.

And yes... somewhere in all this we can get to this stuff about the Trinity.

*Chuckle*

"God" represents the "edge" of a dualistic reality. I refer to God as "the Face we put upon the Infinite".

I'm on another ship altogether.

Of course, if god is an uncomfortable word to use because it sounds like Zeus

Goodness no! Zeus and Dionysos and Aphrodite are wonderfully simple gods, of conquest, orgy and the relation of the sexes. They're easily understood. It's these danged gods without qualities, that live beyond Cantor's ω, that I hold in low esteem.

 

[Windwalker]

My meditating friends said, as you've done, Hey, then try this one, that one! I started out looking for some aspect or other that would grab my interest, bearing their product descriptions in mind, but there was nothing that grabbed me.

It's really a matter of finding what works for you, if you have a desire to explore the interior landscapes in the first place. If you have no desire for that, then no technique is going to be very effective, except maybe just to 'relax' a little.

That's not meant as a value judgment, just a recognition of differences for different people. If no reason has manifested itself to go that path for someone, then they're unlikely to be motivated to 'go beyond' into themselves to see what's there. It may be their current needs exists in other areas of the lives and self-exploration on that level isn't that important to them. It could be a matter of fear, or even terror of going into the deep parts of psyches (it can be terrifying to many), it could be that something has blocked them somehow, or any number of reasons.

I do believe we all have that interior landscape however, just how many really go and explore that universe is the actual question, not whether it exists or not.

As a metaphor for 'really really big' perhaps, or perhaps as part of an emotional state of unspecific awe or the like. But not as an accurate statement about reality.

Are you back to this inaccurate mantra about 'emotional states'? Why? If you have no experience with this yourself, how do you support this? Where are your researchers who call these 'altered states of consciousness' (ASC) "emotional states". I know of no researcher into this who calls them this. Can you cite for me one who does? If not, then you need to drop calling them that as it is inaccurate and conflicts with reality.

Again, if anything this Emptiness I am referring to could be called, it would be an "emotion-free state". That other mystical experiences may have emotions arises within them, that is no different that emotional states arising during any activity in life. You don't call those emotional states too just because you may have emotional responses, do you? If so, then all of your life in general is an "emotional state" since you are constantly having emotional responses to everything!

By now you'll have divined that this isn't how I see it. And a lady once gave me a Ken Wilber book ─ 'A Brief History of Everything' or something like that ─ but I was annoyed by his to me baseless self-confidence from the start ─ he airily asserts what he needs to demonstrate instead ─ and shortly just put it aside.

Oh my. That was quite the response! I of course find there is a great deal of substance and depth and support to his metamodels in his presentation of Integral theory. "Airy" would be the dead last word I would ever use to describe his work as a philosopher! In fact, it doesn't fit at all.

Completely agree ─ enjoy the trip. But the meaning of life is found in Darwin, not in Wilber.

I completely disagree that the meaning of life is found in either of them! You find the meaning of life in Darwin? How? Science is a philosophy to you? There is a whopping big difference between something being factual, and the meanings that we take from them. Darwin was not about discovery meaning! Nor is Wilber either. He doesn't get into teaching meaning. He teaches maps and models from post-postmodern frameworks. What meaning you find in them will be entirely up to you!

A place in the society of your tribe, a partner and usually kids, the raising and launching of those kids, and with your spare time you can write Shakespeare, publish special and general relativity, found a church or a corporation, just watch sport and drink beer. The things that delight and satisfy us aren't the main show.

And this touches on what I addressed in the first part of this response. To some people, the purely practical matters of life are the 'main show'. To others, especially those who have had some sort of powerful peak experience or another that opened that world to them, it becomes the sole focus of one's life to explore the depths of being itself, beyond the daily mundane matters (as important as those may be). To others the mundane is all there is. There are many paths, not just 'one right one'.

No. I'm this subjective thing peering out of my eyes and trying to work things out, and reality is outside me, taking scans of my brain to see what lets me think.

No, this is factually wrong. Your eyes you are peering out of are conditioned by language, culture, personality types, economic realities, developmental stages, including cognitive, and a whole mess of other factors that create the lens through which your eyes function and tell your reasoning mind what it can and cannot see. You don't see those filters, as they are part of that subject itself. You don't see the eyes you look through, but assume they are just holes that let's light in, undistorted and unfiltered directly into your brain. That is wholly wrong.

All of reality to us, is a mediated reality. This 'objective' reality we think we see, very much is a reflection of the subjective self. It is unavoidable. What we end up with is the objective world as perceived by the linguistic mind. You could say "objectivity" is relative objectivity, or a quasi-objective truth. In reality, it probably would be best described as consensus reality. That puts you into the external world, and the external world into you. There can be no pure dualism or separation.

Or more technically, that question is unanswerable since you first have to assume your answer's correct before you can show its correctness. So this is where my assumptions do the work.

You shouldn't be making assumptions here. I'm not. What I am saying is based on a great deal of research into these areas. Just one quick example here will expose some of this to you: Wilfrid Sellars (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Inside is self, outside is reality, and nowhere is there absolute truth.

Inside and outside are relative reality. Absolute truth is glimpsed in the knowledge of this realization. But that Truth can never be grasped by the mind and held any other way than an "unproblematic paradox".

That emotional and information-free state we discussed earlier.

The correct way to describe it, from one who has experience with this would be the opposite of your assumption about it. It is an emotion-free contentful state.

That's nice for him. Doesn't work for me.

It's nice for me too! It's how I would describe my personal experience as well.

An emotional state ─ apparently an enjoyable one.

*sigh* Really? Are you serious here? Isn't this kind of like dismissing a woman by saying she's "hysterical"?

 

[blü 2]

It's really a matter of finding what works for you, if you have a desire to explore the interior landscapes in the first place.

Seems I don't find interior landscapes alluring. But as I said, I'm grateful for my meditation adventures because while I was always reasonably good at relaxing, now I relax at will.

I do believe we all have that interior landscape however.

I warmly wish you great enjoyment of yours. It's not on my lists of quests.

Are you back to this inaccurate mantra about 'emotional states'?

If the durners are indescribable, ineffable, that sort of thing, then they're not information states so what else can they be? (As you might guess, if there's research I'm not familiar with it.)

I completely disagree that the meaning of life is found in either of them!

Thought you might.

You find the meaning of life in Darwin? How?

In survival and breeding, as I mentioned ─ the basics, the things deepest in our evolution. But in referring to 'a place in one's society' I should also have involved the male idea of hunter / provider / breadwinner. That's another male basic.

Science is a philosophy to you?

Science has a philosophy, of course, and I find it interesting, just as I find the philosophy of maths interesting. But I was using Darwin as shorthand for our evolved nature, the basics of which, if anything does, answer 'the meaning of life'.

To others, especially those who have had some sort of powerful peak experience or another that opened that world to them, it becomes the sole focus of one's life to explore the depths of being itself,

If that's them, then they should go for it. No argument from me. I don't claim a monopoly on Truth. But I have my own view, as you've seen.

No, this is factually wrong. Your eyes you are peering out of are conditioned by language, culture, personality types, economic realities, developmental stages, including cognitive, and a whole mess of other factors

So what? That's all in here and the world is out there. I live in the self, and that's the only pou sto you get.

All of reality to us, is a mediated reality. This 'objective' reality we think we see, very much is a reflection of the subjective self.

That simply means, doesn't it, that objective reality is out there and what we make of it is in here. Which is what I'm saying.

You shouldn't be making assumptions here. I'm not.

I probably expressed myself badly. Let me start again. Can I demonstrate that a world exists external to me? Can I make a case reasoned from evidence to defeat solipsism, to show I'm not an element in a Tron game or a dream in the brain of SuperAlien? No I can't, not unless I've already assumed a world exists external to me. Can I demonstrate that my senses are capable of informing me about that world? Of course I can't, since I need to assume that it does, in order to gather any evidence in support of it. Can I show that reason's a valid tool? No, because I can't use reason to validate reason until after my demonstration. So I ASSUME that a world exists external to me, I ASSUME my senses are capable of informing me of it, I ASSUME that reason's a valid tool. Let me know it that's still unclear. (The idea goes back to Descartes, but mine isn't a mirror of his.)

Inside and outside are relative reality.

I don't mind if we call it 'objective reality' and 'subjective reality' ─ but it's still 'out' and 'in'.

Absolute truth is glimpsed in the knowledge of this realization.

No such thing as 'absolute truth'. Or to expand that a bit, No such thing as an absolutely correct statement about objective reality. All of our explorations of (objective) reality are empirical and inductive. All our models and theories ('in' work) must conform to 'out' when tested. If they don't then 'out' wins, not the model, not the theory. This is the nature of science and I can't think of any way round it. We might have a Grand Theory of Everything, a lovely 'in' construct with a brilliant description of 'out'. But nothing protects it from counterexamples that we may find tomorrow ─ or may never find.

But that Truth can never be grasped by the mind and held any other way than an "unproblematic paradox".

*Sigh*. I'd have understood that better if you'd knotted it into a quippu. I find no denotation in it at all, that is, it tells me nothing.

Really? Are you serious here? Isn't this kind of like dismissing a woman by saying she's "hysterical"?

If it doesn't denote, then the best it can do is connote ie convey an emotional state.

This conversation is fascinating, but without wishing to cut it off early or such, I think we now understand each other's views. I could envy you your enthusiasm and zip for your subject too; but it's not my subject and I have this tiny suspicion that my subject isn't yours.

Live long and prosper, by golly!

 

[Sanzbir]

It was simply an objective observation, not an endorsement.

It could be the most ridiculous idea ever made and it still wouldn't change the fact that it was a bedrock of the most successful religion of all time.

In what possible way could a core belief of the most successful religion in history be described as a 'self-inflicted wound'?

I think you two are just using different definitions of "wound". Muslim-UK clearly means it as a "wound" in that Christianity adopted a doctrine he believes is false or destructive to their own spiritual development, whereas you seem to be viewing it in terms of the success or popularity of the religion as a whole.

It's like someone saying "Stalin's purges severely wounded Russia." and another person stating "Not at all!! It seemed to work great for Stalin." Both are viewing wounding in a different light.

 

[Desert Snake]

Technically, 'Jesus is God' is more in the bible , than a "trinity".

Hence the op is de facto correct.

 

[Desert Snake]

What the trinity idea does, is separate the aspects of the godhood, however it all means 'God'.

 

[Muffled]

I'm not the only one saying the Trinity is an incoherent doctrine. The Catholic Encyclopedia and the OxDCC said it long before I did. And if you examine image No 6 from the Wikipedia 'Trinity' page (also reproduced above) you can see for yourself what the problem is.

Or are you using a different definition of 'Trinity' from the two I cited in the OP? If so, please set it out.

As for the quotes I set out in which Jesus denies that he's god either on earth or in heaven, I'd have said that evidence made it game over.
.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church has made a lot of error over the years so would you say you also believe in indulgences because they did?

I believe that qualifies as wishful thinking. Your arguments are so good that i figure I have won the argument and the game is over in my favor.

 

[Muffled]

So was the idea that Jesus pbuh was a spirit and never made flesh. I'm talking about when the Church decided the status of who was Divine, and when that decision was taken.

I believe that concept is not Biblically supportable while the concept of the divinity of Jesus is.

 

[Muffled]

The issue of the interrelationship of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is really not clear even in the 2nd century church, and it took until the 4th century for the church to try and iron this all out, thus "the mystery of the trinity". IOW, it wasn't clear even from the 4th century on as the belief was and is that they are somehow intertwined, thus there not being three different gods.

BTW, an excellent book that covers this is "How Jesus Became God" by Bart Ehrman, and he well gets into the confusion of this relationship.

I don't believe there is any confusion in the Bible about this but certainly the Qu'ran is not lucid when it comes to this subject and the minds of men are often easily confused by their own thinking so that even simple things become too complex for them.

 

[blü 2]

I believe the Roman Catholic Church has made a lot of error over the years so would you say you also believe in indulgences because they did?

No, I don't believe in indulgences. But my argument against the Trinity is derived by examining the doctrine of the Trinity and observing that three separate 'persons' can't each separately be 100% of the single person 'God'.

As you can see, my argument is not an argument from authority. But it's worth noting that authority accepts it as correct.

I believe that qualifies as wishful thinking. Your arguments are so good that i figure I have won the argument and the game is over in my favor.

Then explain to me how three separate 'persons' can each be 100% of the single 'person' God and I'll hand you the palm.

Because then you'll have won. But you haven't won anything yet.