The Debate of God.

[Curious George]

No, Kepher (or Xeper, Xepher). It is a Setian saying, and English translation of the Egyptian scarab which means "I am come into existence", or "I am", or "Become".

Gotcha, I just thought that since Thief is speaking about a particular deity that godnotgod would be more likely to suggest something of that sentiment. Whereas thief would be more likely to use the morning sun god which symbolized the similar.

 

[Thief]

No.

I will grant that the biblical God spoke this to Moses, but that is only a belief that cannot be verified. However, what CAN be verified is one's own divine nature, which is 'I AM'. So, to return to the issue at hand, no, there is nothing to capitulate to. Why? Because I maintain no position of defense or offense as you do. I have no doctrine to defend which must be surrendered to an external 'Almighty God'.

Do you understand?

To say I AM....'you' must exist that you can say it.

Thought indicates .....person.
Are 'you'...still denying the world and calling it illusion?

If the creation is an illusion.....then so too, God.

THAT is false.

 

[Thief]

Gotcha, I just thought that since Thief is speaking about a particular deity that godnotgod would be more likely to suggest something of that sentiment. Whereas thief would be more likely to use the morning sun god which symbolized the similar.

My God would be the Almighty.
The term is self explanatory.

I do believe in the after life...and in that life...hierarchy.
God's will would be greatest, and coupled with the power of creation...
stacked deck.

 

[Curious George]

My God would be the Almighty.
The term is self explanatory.

I do believe in the after life...and in that life...hierarchy.
God's will would be greatest, and coupled with the power of creation...
stacked deck.

I have read your posts, posits, conjectures and replies
I am aware of at least that which, on here, you convey.

Hence, my remark is still fitting. One over many.
It fits.
Perhaps not with puzzle-like equivocation.
But, certainly more than many over one or many as one.

 

[godnotgod]

My God would be the Almighty.
The term is self explanatory.

I do believe in the after life...and in that life...hierarchy.
God's will would be greatest, and coupled with the power of creation...
stacked deck.

Sorry, but mere belief is not reality. Belief can be true, but can also be false. You may be preparing to jump headfirst into an empty pool. All you really know for certain is that you are here, now. No one knows about a pie in the sky cotton candy heaven after death. That is pure conjecture.

 

[Curious George]

All you really know for certain is that you are here, now.

and, couldn't this just be shadows?

 

[Gui10]

''God'' is a only a word. Nothing else. It is a result of missinformation. The first individuals who came up with this concept were uneducated (compared to us, of course). It was one of many attempts to answer many questions and turned out to be the most popular one.

edit: i just feel like correcting some grammar sometimes

 

[cottage]

In case your not understanding, I'm telling you, once again, that what is true of the world that is not available from facts about the world is that it is not made up of separate things and that it is illusory, both of which are understood without factual knowledge, and which contradicts factual knowledge. Time, space, and causation are also seen as 'facts', but in reality, do not actually exist. They are merely conceptual overlays.

I asked you what is true of the world that is not available from facts about the world, and you reply by rejecting facts! What you’ve done is to put up an empirical argument in order to knock it down! You speak of ‘contradicting factual knowledge’, which means you must assume facts in order to say they are illusory. The second point to be made is that there is nothing contradictory in the notion of the contingent world being divisible and extended (unless you want to say it isn’t contingent, and in which case it is for you to demonstrate that it isn’t). As expected you’ve shown there is nothing you can say, no argument you can make, without reference to the experiential world.

The true nature of the world cannot be known via 'facts', all of which are products of the rational mind. The true nature of reality is beyond fact and reason, although fact and reason are useful tools in navigating the world we live in. The lines of longitude and latitude, which we call 'facts', superimposed upon the earth, help us know our relationship to other points on those lines, but they are not real. We have accumulated a body of knowledge called 'facts' about such things as gravity, light, etc., but we still do not know what these phenomena actually ARE. We thought we had facts about atoms, but as it turns out, all our so-called facts which came to us via classical science have been upturned by Quantum Mechanics. The more 'facts' we accumulate about the world the less we actually understand about it's true nature. Reason, logic, analysis, and all manner of conceptual thought cannot pierce through this mystery. None of it. It must all go first before any insight can be gained, unless, of course, we are satisfied with mere factual knowledge.

One minute you’re speaking in absolute terms and making definite assertions about true reality and the next minute you’re appealing to Quantum Mechanics, which is bizarre when your argument is that all facts and science is illusory! If the essence of your argument is that the phenomenal world is illusory then whatever Quantum Mechanics concludes is also part of that illusion.
And what does this statement actually mean: The more 'facts' we accumulate about the world the less we actually understand about its true nature. So what is it we understood about the world’s ‘true nature’ that the accumulation of facts has since undone?
Also I must also point out that if we were ‘satisfied with mere factual knowledge’ there would be no such thing as epistemology, metaphysics and formal logic. What is crystal clear to me is that you need the factual world as the whipping boy, and yet without it you plainly have nothing to say!

 

[cottage]

But my argument, including, or especially due to, transcendental experience, is that it does not exist (actually, it neither exists, nor not-exists, both being merely conceptual descriptions).

I understand you to be saying that the world has real, concrete existence, and am therefore asking for the reference you are using to determine that.

I certainly wasn’t referring specifically to any supposed mystical experiences but just experience generally. A transcendental argument (phil) is inferential but is also deductive and proceeds from a necessary pre-condition, in this case it is self-contradictory, ie anti-sceptical, to say ‘the world does not exist’ when the very question concerns our understanding of the contingent world, ie that something exists.

And the notion of a thing existing and yet not existing is also a concept, and an absurd one!

 

[cottage]

What you 'see' is that there are no separate 'things' apart from the observer, as our ordinary, conditioned mind tells us there are. How do we know that is true reality? Because there is nothing between the observer and the observed to distort vision. There are no concepts, beliefs, opinions, thought, about what we see to get in the way. We, ourselves, are true reality itself, or shall we simply say, 'reality', as there is no 'other'.

I like the example of what 'river' is. Our conditioned mind tells us it is a real 'thing'; our unconditioned mind shows us only the action of waterflow.

This is all pure faith, speculation, or both. And it is also doctrinal in its form and repetition. You say a thing, such as: ‘How do we know that is true reality?’ and then, instead of explaining how you simply proceed with a series of assertions. You say there is a vision but you are unable say what this ‘vision’ is. A few posts back I remarked that in my view this is all about bulking up the advocate’s own obsessive beliefs in order to keep doubt at bay. And the reason I think that is the case is because you surely can’t be expecting to convince people of what you claim when all we’re getting are analogies, parables, special pleading, unsupported assertions and arguments that run to contradiction. So in conclusion I would say this is psychological rather than philosophy, faith rather than metaphysics.


(2483) You said: "But if you spontaneously respond, and you turn to look at the moon, prior to your forming any thought about what you see, is there a subject/object? That is to say, does there exist the see-er of a purported object called 'moon', or is there only the act of 'moonseeing' itself, with no 'moon-see-er'?"

We can, purely for the sake of argument, remove the seer-er from the equation but you are still claiming that there is an ‘act of seeing’, which is a thing done; so something is seen. I’m asking you what is seen, independent of any see-er, if you like, and particularly how you justify your claim that what is seen is true reality? In sum, and no matter how you present it, there is an act of faith required as the objective is presupposed.

 

[Curious George]

And the notion of a thing existing and yet not existing is also a concept, and an absurd one!

I am thinking he is going for something like the Forms here. I would have suggested the Antitheses of the Forms but with the notion of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas I would categorize godnotgod's, from my dualistic perspective, as a yogi-Forms schema/ta

 

[godnotgod]

and, couldn't this just be shadows?

If they are, what is the reference by which you determine that? You see what I mean?

 

[Curious George]

If they are, what is the reference by which you determine that? You see what I mean?

I would assume that you hold that shadows themselves act as sattva and we could through understanding this hope to find truth in both the microcosm and the macrocosm.

 

[godnotgod]

This is all pure faith, speculation, or both. And it is also doctrinal in its form and repetition. You say a thing, such as: ‘How do we know that is true reality?’ and then, instead of explaining how you simply proceed with a series of assertions. You say there is a vision but you are unable say what this ‘vision’ is. A few posts back I remarked that in my view this is all about bulking up the advocate’s own obsessive beliefs in order to keep doubt at bay. And the reason I think that is the case is because you surely can’t be expecting to convince people of what you claim when all we’re getting are analogies, parables, special pleading, unsupported assertions and arguments that run to contradiction. So in conclusion I would say this is psychological rather than philosophy, faith rather than metaphysics.


(2483) You said: "But if you spontaneously respond, and you turn to look at the moon, prior to your forming any thought about what you see, is there a subject/object? That is to say, does there exist the see-er of a purported object called 'moon', or is there only the act of 'moonseeing' itself, with no 'moon-see-er'?"

We can, purely for the sake of argument, remove the seer-er from the equation but you are still claiming that there is an ‘act of seeing’, which is a thing done; so something is seen. I’m asking you what is seen, independent of any see-er, if you like, and particularly how you justify your claim that what is seen is true reality? In sum, and no matter how you present it, there is an act of faith required as the objective is presupposed.

Faith may indeed be present prior to seeing, but seeing is not dependent upon belief. Quite simply, there is no doctrine in reality itself, and seeing is a direct reflection of reality; therefore, there is no doctrine in seeing either. Faith is merely a state of mind conducive to seeing, but is not the seeing itself, just as a finger pointing to the moon is not the moon itself.

What I am saying here is that there is a marked difference between faith and belief.

Belief clings.
Faith lets go.

You keep asking 'what is seen'?, but in seeing, there is no object nor a see-er of objects. There is no self or other; no this or that. Seeing itself is the end experience. So, as I stated, there are no separate things to be seen, since separate things are an illusion. You are looking for something to grasp when there is nothing to grasp. Put a stop to your grasping mind and just see, without seeking something to see. To do so puts the discriminating mind in motion once again, wherein it creates fragmentation of reality. Reality is not fragmented; it is One, and that which sees is nothing less than the universe itself seeing itself through its own eyes. The self-created mind concocts the illusion that it is a separate observer of something observed.

It is neither psychology, philosophy, faith, nor metaphysics: it is simply and purely the seeing of reality as it actually is. Can you do that without forming a single psychological, philosophical, metaphysical, or doctrinal thought, and just see? Nothing more; nothing less.

 

[godnotgod]

I would assume that you hold that shadows themselves act as sattva and we could through understanding this hope to find truth in both the microcosm and the macrocosm.

As for the first part of your question, try reading this:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/hinduism-dir/83861-true-nature-universe-what-maya.html

As for the latter part, I refer to Rumi:

"You are not just the drop in the ocean, you are the mighty ocean in the drop"

...and to the Third Zen Patriarch:

"Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinion"

PS: I'm not lecturing; just passing on something I've read and have come to understand.

 

[Thief]

Sorry, but mere belief is not reality. Belief can be true, but can also be false. You may be preparing to jump headfirst into an empty pool. All you really know for certain is that you are here, now. No one knows about a pie in the sky cotton candy heaven after death. That is pure conjecture.

And billions of copies designed to learn....produce unique souls with unique perspectives....
is not evidence to you the scheme of things?

Then evidence means nothing to you.

You are top of the line life form?...no One greater than you?

Life after death cannot happen and all of these souls crumble into nothing?

And that double talk of yours isn't working.

 

[Thief]

''God'' is a only a word. Nothing else. It is a result of missinformation. The first individuals who came up with this concept were uneducated (compared to us, of course). It was one of many attempts to answer many questions and turned out to be the most popular one.

edit: i just feel like correcting some grammar sometimes

No spiritual life?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

''God'' is a only a word. Nothing else.

While the word 'God' is a concept that is meant to represent a reality beyond the mental construct, 'that' for which the concept stands is itself not a concept.

When the mortal mind's subject - object method of experiencing reality is transcended and the mind has ceased separating itself from reality through always employing a mental representation of it instead of the real thing, direct apprehension of reality is all there is, i.e. one is one with the underlying unity of the apparent multiplicity seen and experienced by the thinking mind.

Call it God, Nirvana, Brahman, Tao, etc., the reality is forever on the other side of the concept meant to represent cosmic reality.

 

[Curious George]

As for the first part of your question, try reading this:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/hinduism-dir/83861-true-nature-universe-what-maya.html

As for the latter part, I refer to Rumi:

"You are not just the drop in the ocean, you are the mighty ocean in the drop"

...and to the Third Zen Patriarch:

"Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinion"

PS: I'm not lecturing; just passing on something I've read and have come to understand.

I do not feel as though you are lecturing, but if you think I said something different than you posted think again.

However your last quote does show more wisdom than my "through understanding..."

But some would suggest to understand everything and then to forget everything would be ideal.

And though you certainly have a different approach than most, I certainly can appreciate your point of view and even more, I would suggest I can understand. Do not think because I choose to live separate, that I am different.

 

[Gui10]

No spiritual life?

It has nothing to do with what I implied about there being no god.

While the word 'God' is a concept that is meant to represent a reality beyond the mental construct, 'that' for which the concept stands is itself not a concept.

When the mortal mind's subject - object method of experiencing reality is transcended and the mind has ceased separating itself from reality through always employing a mental representation of it instead of the real thing, direct apprehension of reality is all there is, i.e. one is one with the underlying unity of the apparent multiplicity seen and experienced by the thinking mind.

Call it God, Nirvana, Brahman, Tao, etc., the reality is forever on the other side of the concept meant to represent cosmic reality.

The deffinition of god, in the general sense, according to the dictionary (check the merriam webster website deffinition of the word god) does not ''represents a reality beyond the mental construct''. It appears the english language does not have a word for ''a reality beyond the mental construct''. There might be a word and I do not know it, but ''god'' does not mean that. You might WANT it to mean that, but it doesn't. I personally think new words need to appear if we want to be clear about these questions, the word ''god'' is used too broadly in my opinion. I'm talking about the creater concept of the word god.

And I honestly dont like this kind of arguing, unless you (personally, you) believe that there IS a god, theres no point arguing semantics.

Finally, if you DO believe in a god, there is absolutely no way I can change your mind, but as long as you are not part of a ''god guided religious entity (Christianity, Islam etc)'' I do not mind so much.