If that's the case, then why use the term "God" to describe this at all? What reason do you have to use it?
I use it as a means of communicating with others who understand God as being a reality.
Yes. Can you show me a belief that is not?
Hmm. It seems to me that you're talking about knowledge, but while taking away any tool we have to obtain knowledge. To me, this is contradictory.
I am not talking about knowledge; I am talking about
seeing, without thought, without belief, without knowledge.
I take it you're not a fan of history, then. That's fine - different strokes for different folks. I do disagree with your idea that "spirituality" is distinct from religion, though.
I am neither 'for' nor 'against' history. It is simply that it is not a living experience. It is fine, but it is still dead.
Religion is the vehicle, but spirituality is the experience itself that is beyond all religion. Religion is about doctrine and belief, while the spiritual experience is about neither. It is about the spiritual experience.
And what's wrong with either of these things?
In terms of the apprehension of reality, they are obstacles. Reality itself cannot be encapsulated by an encapsulator, because the menu is not the meal, and because the encapsulator (ie; the self) does not actually exist.
Right - there's no point "embarking on a path" for something that's readily at hand.
You're trying to make a false equivocation here, and I'm not buying it. There's a big difference between accepting something because the evidence is so overwhelming that you never bother to question it and accepting something simply because you never bother to question the complete and utter lack of evidence for it.
Yes, but where your original analogy fails is that the kind of evidence for the New World does not work to demonstrate the existence of God.
Fine; so we're "immersed in water". This doesn't imply we can't measure the water.
You will only end up with a
description of water, without any real understanding about its true
nature.
There is a famous Buddhist story about a man fatally shot with an arrow. A doctor, passing by, stops to remove the arrow, but the man protests, inquiring about the kind of wood the arrow is made of; about the kind of bird whose feathers are attached to the arrow; about the man who made the arrow, and on and on. By the time these questions are answered, the man would be dead, instead of paying attention to his immediate predicament.
IOW, all your fancy analogies about being immersed in evidence weren't really correct, were they?
I never said we were immersed in evidence; I said we are at one with the divine essence itself, whether we think so or not. The nature of the divine essence is such that it is beyond the five senses. No evidence provable by ordinary means is available, and yet, the divine essence is right in front of you.
Great - then it's beyond knowledge as well. Any concept of God, including the one you've described here, can be rejected as being totally without foundation.
An experience is not a concept.
After all, if you can know about a thing enough to talk about it at all, then it's not "beyond the senses" or "beyond reason".
Yes, it is. Talking about it is not the actual reality. That has always been the problem. Scripture is not the spiritual experience; it is ABOUT the spiritual experience. It cannot be intellectualized. Jesus tried to tell his audience that they were mistaken to think they would find eternal life within the scriptures. He knew they had the cart before the horse. Therefore, we go and get the spiritual experience FIRST. That way, we know what we are talking about.
In contrast with the ancient Greeks, "moderns" also don't see earth, air, fire and water as elements. Guess what? The ancient Greeks were wrong and the "moderns" are right.
Not really, as the modern's view of these things is a revival of the ancient view.
That's a foolish statement. "Ancient man" had just as much acquired knowledge as we do; it's just that their acquired knowledge was more often of poor quality.
Modern man has quite a refined knowledge, and in abundance, but we are further away from spiritual fullfilment than ever. Why do you think that such intuitive spiritual views such as Gnosticism, Zen, Yoga, etc, are all enjoying renewed interest? Because they nourish man's spiritual hunger where 'knowledge', as superior as modern man's is, cannot. In fact, it has become a great obstacle to such fullfilment, because it is a fragmentation of reality, rather than an apprehension of its wholeness intact as it actually exists.
