Richard Dawkins Facepalms at Deepak Chopra

[Shad]

Final thoughts:

Which 'Christianity'? Problem with what you are saying is that Cusa, in pointing toward the experience of divine union, transforms orthodox Christian belief into mystical Christianity. The orthodox Christian never ventures into the area of divine union. The closest he gets is as a submissive and obedient subject to God. Never would he say he has an inherent divine nature. Why? Because he thinks of himself as an artefact of God; a 'made' creat-ure, like a clay figurine, into which God breathes his life, and so is completely dependent upon God as a separate entity, his own nature not being divine, but of a sinful nature, flawed from the very beginning, and in need of divine guidance and correction. Only the mystic comes to the realization of his own inner divine nature, and professes his 'God consciousness' as his own. Cusa's brand of Christianity is definitely mystical, and not of the orthodox-believer's variety, and thereby transforming it completely. So no, there is no traditional 'subscription to Christianity' in the orthodox sense.

Orthodox Christianity is heavily invested in mysticism, again demonstrating you know nothing about Christianity. Read 2 Peter 1:4, John 1:12-13, John 3:2, Peter 1:23, John 3:9, John 3:6, Hebrews 2:1, Romans 8:29, Acts 13:33; 1 Peter 1:3, John 15:14-15. Pick up the scripture you are attempting to talk about and read it. All combine clearly refute your claims about Christianity. Nicholas's views are based on scripture....

In modern psychological terms, the orthodox Christian believer is essentially an other-directed individual, while the mystic is an inner-directed individual. The difference is huge. Cusa's divine union can never be the experience of the other-directed type. It is an inner, transformative experience where the conditioned mind is transcended and unconditioned mind comes into play. This is the crux of the spiritual experience and the pathway to Higher Consciousness,

'where the observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation merge into a single Reality'. This is none other than Cusa's, or any mystic's, experience of divine union.

Again pure sophistry since Nicholas ideas are based on scripture not Deepak's claims of HC. Again you are attempting to make Nicholas say what you want in order to give your idea credibility but do nothing other then demonstrate a caricature of Christianity you have created rather than based on learning about what you are talking about.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Is this bullpoop:

Expecting me to watch a video over an hour long is.

Perhaps, you are learning from him.

 

[godnotgod]

Orthodox Christianity is heavily invested in mysticism, again demonstrating you know nothing about Christianity. Read 2 Peter 1:4, John 1:12-13, John 3:2, Peter 1:23, John 3:9, John 3:6, Hebrews 2:1, Romans 8:29, Acts 13:33; 1 Peter 1:3, John 15:14-15. Pick up the scripture you are attempting to talk about and read it. All combine clearly refute your claims about Christianity. Nicholas's views are based on scripture....

Show me where orthodox Christian beliefs and doctrine point to the following description of the mystical experience:

"The place wherein Thou art found unveiled is girt round with the coincidence of contradictions, and this is the wall of Paradise wherein Thou dost abide. The door whereof is guarded by the most proud spirit of Reason, and, unless he be vanquished, the way in will not lie open."

Nicholas of Cusa

Cusa's Christianity was neo-Platonic.

 

[godnotgod]

Orthodox Christianity is heavily invested in mysticism...

Right, as the empty husk and window dressing of true mystical experience. I think you mean 'mumbo jumbo'.

Only those who eat the menu instead of the meal would think so.

 

[godnotgod]

Orthodox Christianity is heavily invested in mysticism, again demonstrating you know nothing about Christianity. Read 2 Peter 1:4, John 1:12-13, John 3:2, Peter 1:23, John 3:9, John 3:6, Hebrews 2:1, Romans 8:29, Acts 13:33; 1 Peter 1:3, John 15:14-15. Pick up the scripture you are attempting to talk about and read it. All combine clearly refute your claims about Christianity. Nicholas's views are based on scripture....

Bull! You clearly don't know what you are talking about! Cusa was a mystic, and all mystics base their view* on a direct inner experience with the divine nature, and never on scripture or doctrine that lies outside of oneself. Scripture is always secondary to the experience, as it is used only to support the experience itself. The mystical experience is a living, first-hand affair; scripture is always a second-hand account of the mystical experience.

None of your examples reflect the mystical experience (ie 'divine union'). Here are a few that actually do:


I and the Father are one.
John 10:30

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:21

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; but it is they that bear witness about me,
John 5:39

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn [inward] and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:3

*An authentic mystic's view is not his own personal view; the experience itself is impersonal, ie; beyond the personal; it is the view of the divine nature, and the view of the divine nature is that of a Universal View. Why else do you suppose Cusa is saying that Reason must be vanquished: it is because Reason is the view of man, not that of God.

Yeshua was a Jewish mystic. Mystical utterances can seem nonsensical, even irrational, to the rational mind. A classic example of a paradoxical statement is Yeshua's own:

'Before Abraham was, I Am'

Typically, the Zen koan is seemingly nonsensical as well, because mystical utterances bypass Reason, short-circuiting the thinking mind.

'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'

 

[godnotgod]

If there is nothing that is actually moving or interacting, then why do you say my mind is moving? There should be no mind to move. Obviously something is moving.

"Yoga is the state of no-mind....

Patanjali says just look. Let mind go, let mind do whatsoever it is doing. You just look. You don’t interfere. You just be a witness, you just be an onlooker not concerned, as if the mind doesn’t belong to you, as if it is not your business, not your concern. Don’t be concerned! Just look and let the mind flow. It is flowing because of past momentum, because you have always helped it to flow. The activity has taken its own momentum, so it is flowing. You just don’t cooperate Look, and let the mind flow.

For many, many lives, million lives maybe, you have cooperated with it, you have helped it, you have given your energy to it. The river will flow awhile. If you don’t cooperate, if you just look unconcerned — Buddha’s word is indifference, upeksha: looking without any concern, just looking, not doing anything in any way — the mind will flow for a while and it will stop by itself When the momentum is lost, when the energy has flowed, the mind will stop. When the mind stops, you are in yoga: you have attained the discipline. This is the definition: YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND. THEN THE WITNESS IS ESTABLISHED IN ITSELF.

When the mind ceases, the witness is established in itself. When you can simply look without being identified with the mind, without judging, without appreciating, condemning, without choosing — you simply look and the mind flows, a time comes when by itself, of itself, the mind stops.

When there is no mind, you are established in your witnessing. Then you have become a witness....Then you are not a doer, then you are not a thinker. Then you are simply being pure being, purest of being. Then the witness is established in itself."

Source – Osho Book “Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega, Vol1

http://www.captizen.com/osho-patanjali-yoga-sutra-yoga-cessation-mind/

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Yes the entertainment version of science that we see on television is a problem, but not near as much of a problem as what we are teaching children in school.

This is true. After all, the ridiculous myth of "The Scientific Method" cannot anywhere be so reinforced as it is in the misguided attempts to educate the public we find in pre-college science courses.

What children are being taught is driving them into confusion about who they are, when it should be making things more clear.

What children are being taught consists of a dumbed-down version of the sciences compared to what they should be, not some misleading worldview based upon the sciences. The problem is that they aren't being taught to adopt a truly scientific worldview.

 

[godnotgod]

You can show me all the proofs of evolution that exist and it would not impress.


It doesn't seem to matter that evolution has been proven true.

It may not matter at all, but you asked for proof, and I provided it. What you think about the proof is another matter, but the FACT remains: Evolution is a FACT.

However, it does matter if you have been believing that life suddenly appeared all at once on Earth via the wave of a magic wand.

 

[allfoak]

However, it does matter if you have been believing that life suddenly appeared all at once on Earth via the wave of a magic wand.

To whom?

 

[Runewolf1973]

However, it does matter if you have been believing that life suddenly appeared all at once on Earth via the wave of a magic wand.

How else would all this maya or illusion appear out of nothingness if not by some work of magic?

 

[godnotgod]

How else would all this maya or illusion appear out of nothingness if not by some work of magic?

Well, it appears that the beginning of what became this world through time and space, occurred at the moment of the Big Bang. So we have both cosmic evolution and biological evolution. Only the BB was instantaneous.

But as for magic, which would be more of a feat? to create a material world out of nothing, or simply to manifest an illusion, which includes Time, Space, and Causation, out of nothing?

Bottom line: the BB was an event in consciousness, which does not exist in Time or Space, and is Causeless.

 

[godnotgod]

To whom?

Why, to the believer, of course, and if he still clings to his belief after the facts have been waved in his face, then he shall simply have to remain ignorant and in denial.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Well, it appears that the beginning of what became this world through time and space, occurred at the moment of the Big Bang. So we have both cosmic evolution and biological evolution. Only the BB was instantaneous.

But as for magic, which would be more of a feat? to create a material world out of nothing, or simply to manifest an illusion, which includes Time, Space, and Causation, out of nothing?

Bottom line: the BB was an event in consciousness, which does not exist in Time or Space, and is Causeless.

They both sound nonsensical to me. For one thing, energy cannot be "created", it only changes form. I would say that whatever energy exists in the universe today has always existed in some form. Those forms did manifest...but they manifested out of some other form of energy, not out of nothingness and not out of consciousness.

 

[godnotgod]

They both sound nonsensical to me. For one thing, energy cannot be "created", it only changes form. I would say that whatever energy exists in the universe today has always existed in some form. Those forms did manifest...but they manifested out of some other form of energy, not out of nothingness and not out of consciousness.

...at least not out of ordinary, conditioned consciousness.

Both the scientific and the theistic view hold that the material world was 'created', do they not? And don't we now know that all 'matter' is really energy?

Could it be that both energy and matter come and go (ie; are manifested) in a cyclical pattern, cycles being the pattern we see all throughout nature? At the moment, the cycle is in the 'on' phase, when Everything is manifest. If that is so, then Nothing must be the 'off' phase. Behind both phases is Absolute Nothingness.

Why do you say that energy cannot have come out of consciousness?

Nonsensical, you say? Do you really suppose the universe can be explained in a manner that 'makes sense'? As I tried to explain to the other gentleman, the universe is neither rational nor irrational; it is non-rational.

Tell me: is energy a form of information?

 

[Runewolf1973]

...at least not out of ordinary, conditioned consciousness.

Both the scientific and the theistic view hold that the material world was 'created', do they not? And don't we now know that all 'matter' is really energy?

Could it be that both energy and matter come and go (ie; are manifested) in a cyclical pattern, cycles being the pattern we see all throughout nature? At the moment, the cycle is in the 'on' phase, when Everything is manifest. If that is so, then Nothing must be the 'off' phase. Behind both phases is Absolute Nothingness.

Why do you say that energy cannot have come out of consciousness?

Nonsensical, you say? Do you really suppose the universe can be explained in a manner that 'makes sense'? As I tried to explain to the other gentleman, the universe is neither rational nor irrational; it is non-rational.

Tell me: is energy a form of information?

The universe is composed of energy. That energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only change form. So that energy does not "come and go" out of nothingness which would mean the absence of energy, it changes states, changes forms. Just because our primitive brains are unable to make rational sense of the universe does not mean that the universe itself is irrational. To make bold claims like "everything is pure consciousness" without evidence to back up those claims is irrational.

 

[allfoak]

Why, to the believer, of course, and if he still clings to his belief after the facts have been waved in his face, then he shall simply have to remain ignorant and in denial.

Of Course.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

To make bold claims like "everything is pure consciousness" without evidence to back up those claims is irrational.

It certainly is. This reification of consciousness is clearly a religious belief, and throwing in a bit of pseudo-science doesn't make the claim any more credible.

 

[godnotgod]

The universe is composed of energy. That energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only change form. So that energy does not "come and go" out of nothingness which would mean the absence of energy, it changes states, changes forms. Just because our primitive brains are unable to make rational sense of the universe does not mean that the universe itself is irrational. To make bold claims like "everything is pure consciousness" without evidence to back up those claims is irrational.

In the Cave Allegory, a metaphorical claim is made of a Sun existing topside, for which no factual evidence exists, other than that the other prisoners must go see for themselves to validate the claim. 'Seeing' the Sun is immediate, and comes prior to thinking about it. The same is true of the claim of the presence of Pure Consciousness, but as Osho tried to explain, a state of 'no-mind' must first come about. Universal Consciousness is not apparent nor provable to the thinking mind. 'Thinking' is a property of limited mind, not that of universal consciousness.

The claim is only 'bold' to the mind that cannot understand the claim, just as Quantum Physics was (and continues to be) bold and paradoxical to modern minds, though they are steeped in Reason, Logic, and Analysis.

The problem is not that brains are primitive or that the universe is irrational. It is that the intellect cannot yield the desired outcome. The universe is not rationally-based, and so is neither rational, nor irrational. It's understanding comes via a non-rational approach, while factual knowledge still comes via Reason, Logic, and Analysis.

re: 'created': both science and religion see a material universe as having been 'created', but cannot explain the source of the original material. You just stated, however, that the 'universe is composed of energy', and that it can neither be created or destroyed, which at least addresses the 'material' part of the claim. Are you now no longer a materialist, as previously claimed, and if you are now an 'energist', are you then saying that the universe is an eternally existing entity?

repeat: is energy a form of information?

 

[godnotgod]

It certainly is. This reification of consciousness is clearly a religious belief, and throwing in a bit of pseudo-science doesn't make the claim any more credible.

Belief is a product of thought. The realization of universal consciousness does not come about via thinking; it is beyond the thinking mind. Therefore it cannot be a religiously-based claim.

 

[godnotgod]

Of Course.

So you accept that evolution is fact?