The Debate of God.

[Maitho]

And do you believe that thought and feeling can exist beyond breath?

Do mean after death? Assuming you don't want my original answer of "I can't be certain without experiencing it myself", I would say that I have experienced what some may call "supernatural" instances. But I believe that any spirits I may have been in contact with were not ever human, but have been in a spirit-state for eternity. As for a "human soul", I can't pretend to know. But I suppose that the belief of reincarnation makes a lot of sense. There is merit that I can see in every after death belief though.

Do you mean feeling emotionally, beyond physical touch? If so then yes. I feel people can have emotional connections and know each other well enough to "finish each other's sentences".

I'm sorry I'm not completely sure what you're asking.

 

[Thief]

Do mean after death? Assuming you don't want my original answer of "I can't be certain without experiencing it myself", I would say that I have experienced what some may call "supernatural" instances. But I believe that any spirits I may have been in contact with were not ever human, but have been in a spirit-state for eternity. As for a "human soul", I can't pretend to know. But I suppose that the belief of reincarnation makes a lot of sense. There is merit that I can see in every after death belief though.

Do you mean feeling emotionally, beyond physical touch? If so then yes. I feel people can have emotional connections and know each other well enough to "finish each other's sentences".

I'm sorry I'm not completely sure what you're asking.

Most of us go through this life with no instance of 'spiritual' experience.
But each of us will die.

I suspect, those who make no consideration, won't do well in the next life.
Anyone having gone before us will have the advantage.
The language, the territory and the scheme of things.

We exit this life naked and under the mercy of whatever is standing over us, during that last hour.

I do further suspect, the manner of thought, feeling and action we do here and now.....
draws that Item when the hour comes.

If not....then no one is waiting for you.

(I don't discount reincarnation...but see no need of it.)

 

[cottage]

Are you still thinking of 'true reality' as an object of knowing, and where there exists a knower of the known?

This requires the existence of a self, and true reality to exist somewhere 'out there' as an object.

Now you're talking concepts, and all we have are dancing shadows on the walls of Plato's Cave.

Even the self becomes an object of knowing, and can you see the dilemma therein of all the various selves?

Where there is a concept of a separate self, what follows is the concept of the world as composed of separate 'things'. Both are illusions.

The mind is a self-created principle. All of the problems inherent in seeing things as they are originate from this fact.

The question was: “So, if no experience is true and nothing can be determined by appealing to supposed innate knowledge, where then is this supposed ‘true reality to be found?”

Numerous times you have invited me to go see for myself this supposed ‘true reality’. So I’m asking you where I’m to go and how it is to be done?

 

[cottage]

As a discussion in it's current form...it is pointless.
We are suppose to be discussing....God.

It would be best to set religion and dogma aside.
It would also help to drop any redundant rhetoric not focused....on God.

While it’s quite true that the thread has been highjacked to some extent (and by responding to those posts I’m partly responsible), I must point out that religion and other faith-based beliefs are dogmatic. People believe in God from faith alone, or as revealed truths (which are subjective), and in addition many also reason to God. But no one believes-in God through reason alone, though they may also believe through reason that there is a God. Even a sceptic like me concedes that the classic arguments to God, teleological, cosmological, and ontological, have some merit and are not easily defeated, especially when considered together. But how many people would cite those arguments alone as the reason for their belief in God? None, I suspect. And that is because an argument minus faith is just an argument, a metaphysical hypothesis that might be true or false, and faith-based beliefs can make no admission of the latter possibility, since it is that very omission that defines them.

 

[cottage]

The true nature of reality itself (as compared to beliefs or philosophies about reality) cannot be false or mistaken.

Look at that sentence. What you are doing here is appealing to logic by saying: if x is x then it is x; or, if a thing is true then it cannot be false. And I entirely agree, but my argument with you is that you don’t know to be true what you claim to be ‘true reality itself’.

You seem to be *****-footing around and playing it safe within the confines of your Reason, whose ultimate position is that, in the end, no one can know what is real with certainty. You seem to be stuck in the world of doubt, which is not a bad thing, actually, but you seem locked into the idea that doubt is the final destination, a position even of some nobility. The idea in Plato's Cave Allegory is that there is a true reality that is beyond the shadow of any doubt. Certitude itself is not dogma. It is only dogma when belief is treated as absolute truth, which, again, is the point both Osho and Kant were essentially making.

You sum it up for me very well when you speak of ‘The idea in Plato's Cave Allegory.’ Yes, the ‘idea’ is just that, an idea, and yet you seem unable here to distinguish between a metaphysical notion and certain truth (ie ‘beyond a shadow of any doubt’).
And I’m baffled as to what you mean by these confused and contradictory statements: “Certitude itself is not dogma.” And then this: “It is only dogma when belief is treated as absolute truth, which, again, is the point both Osho and Kant were essentially making.” The meaning of certitude is where a thing is true because it cannot possibly be false and thus it is absolute by definition. And that statement of yours is not the point that Kant was making. He argued that we cannot think our way beyond the objective world: he was not denying our ability to reason about the world (which in fact is what he does throughout the Critique). No experience is necessary and yet ‘the world (whatever it is) exists’ is necessarily true. So in that sense we can speak in absolute terms about the world right up to the point where the world no longer exists.

Read again:

"Zen is a finger pointing to the moon, but is not the moon itself"

You keep focusing on the pointing finger, and not to what it points to.

So, what does the ‘finger’ point to? I’ve been asking this question of you since I-don’t-know-how many-post-ago.

 

[cottage]

I don't see any issue with Osho's example of Kant's position in the context of the mystical view [of Zen]. All he is saying is that knowledge based on reason once held as certain, is later shown to be incomplete or untrue. Zen does not have this problem because Zen is not based on reason, and is not a philosophy. It is not a product of reason, but a direct reflection of the true nature of reality itself.

A discussion of Kant's Account/Limits of Reason from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states:


"We certainly fall into error if we think reason can know a world beyond the senses. Indeed, Kant insists that such knowledge would corrupt practical reasoning...

For finite beings, reason is not transparently or infallibly given to consciousness (as some rationalist philosophers seemed to think), just as it cannot deliver transcendent truths."

This is clearly a statement about the limits of reason, which is what Kant was attempting to demonstrate. Osho states that 'reason is very limited'.

They are saying the same thing.

You repeat and confirm what I’ve already said to you, while still wanting to misrepresent Kant!
Kant is most assuredly not rejecting logic and reason. As an empiricist his argument is aimed at the rationalists who believe it is possible to argue beyond the world of experience through pure reason alone. Kant draws a distinction between the world and how the world appears to us but he does not mean a world separate from appearances, and the ‘limits’ of reason to which Kant refers is that supposed ability to go beyond or outside the objective empirical world! In the very first chapter of the Critique Kant says this: “That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” And he adds: “But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience.” He speaks of the “raw material of our sense impressions that we convert into knowledge of objects”. In other words experience plus reason lead us to knowledge. But as a qualified empiricist he is not in any event claiming certain knowledge.

Now Zen, in fact, does claim to 'know a world beyond the senses', and it does claim to 'deliver transcendent truths', simply because, in going along with the argument against reason, it does not rely on, nor is it limited by reason. In fact, reason actually is an obstacle and must itself be transcended. Zen short-circuits the rational mind and leaves one only with direct insight into the nature of reality.

No, this is not a belief system; it is direct experience, without any doctrine involved. In Zen, there is no time for doctrine; no time for thought. Zen is immediate and spontaneous.

'pondfrogleapsplash'

The above is a concise description of the Zen doctrine. But it is, just as you say, ‘a claim’, a metaphysical speculation, which in this instance is being elevated to the level of an obsession or a faith.
Perhaps I’m not getting it across very well that the essence of my dispute with you is that you have taken on trust a metaphysical hypothesis as certain and true, and when you say things such as ‘go see for yourself’ or ‘there are two kinds of certainty’ I find it difficult to think of you as being serious.

 

[cottage]

What???!!! Scheme???!!! There is a PLAN to the Universe? There is a PURPOSE?

Maybe you just meant to say something more akin to 'pattern'. 'Scheme' implies a 'schemer' with intent.

Perhaps you’ve not come across it before but ‘The scheme of things’ is just a figure of speech that refers to the bigger picture or the totality. No grand plan or purpose is meant or implied by the term.

 

[Thief]

While it’s quite true that the thread has been highjacked to some extent (and by responding to those posts I’m partly responsible), I must point out that religion and other faith-based beliefs are dogmatic. People believe in God from faith alone, or as revealed truths (which are subjective), and in addition many also reason to God. But no one believes-in God through reason alone, though they may also believe through reason that there is a God. Even a sceptic like me concedes that the classic arguments to God, teleological, cosmological, and ontological, have some merit and are not easily defeated, especially when considered together. But how many people would cite those arguments alone as the reason for their belief in God? None, I suspect. And that is because an argument minus faith is just an argument, a metaphysical hypothesis that might be true or false, and faith-based beliefs can make no admission of the latter possibility, since it is that very omission that defines them.

Do you ever (yes.... you do) read postings I make at this forum?

I don't believe in God because of scripture, congregation or fear of death.

I believe for the 'evidence' of the stars above, the earth and everything around me, and science that points the way.

Someone once said...'I think, therefore I am'.

God is not allowed to say..."I AM".....?
(let there be light)

 

[Thief]

Perhaps you’ve not come across it before but ‘The scheme of things’ is just a figure of speech that refers to the bigger picture or the totality. No grand plan or purpose is meant or implied by the term.

And the creation of Man is a large scheme of things.
Each one of us becoming a unique perspective on life and living.
Then we go back to God.

Ignoring the overall to avoid admitting to something...'obvious'?

 

[godnotgod]

[/color]

You repeat and confirm what I’ve already said to you, while still wanting to misrepresent Kant!
Kant is most assuredly not rejecting logic and reason. As an empiricist his argument is aimed at the rationalists who believe it is possible to argue beyond the world of experience through pure reason alone. Kant draws a distinction between the world and how the world appears to us but he does not mean a world separate from appearances, and the ‘limits’ of reason to which Kant refers is that supposed ability to go beyond or outside the objective empirical world! In the very first chapter of the Critique Kant says this: “That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” And he adds: “But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience.” He speaks of the “raw material of our sense impressions that we convert into knowledge of objects”. In other words experience plus reason lead us to knowledge. But as a qualified empiricist he is not in any event claiming certain knowledge.

I assume you mean 'certain knowledge' of the world as an object of knowledge. There is a difference between such knowledge (the world of facts) and the experience of knowing, or gnosis. The former is arrived at via of acquisition, while the latter is arrived at via subtraction, and then more subtraction, until one arrives at nothing. It is a process of emptying (kenosis), rather than a filling up. Once the obstacles of the thinking mind are subdued, another kind of conscious awareness comes into play. This other conscious awareness is not apparent to the rational mind, and cannot be discovered by reason. Zen calls this other conscious awareness 'Big Mind', as compared to 'monkey mind', being a reference to the constant jumping about of the thinking mind. What is needed is the stilling of the mind, not its activity.

It is no wonder that reason cannot claim 'certain knowledge' since, by its nature, it is a divisive system of investigation. No matter what 'conclusion' it may come to, it always self-reflects with doubt.

The mystic, on the other hand, never attempts to divide reality in order to analyze it as a means of coming to some 'conclusive' idea about it; all he can do is to see it as it actually is, intact. Seeing it as it actually is eliminates any doubt as to its true nature. Here, then, is certitude. It can be no other way.

At any rate, and to cut to the chase as regards the original point: Osho is simply trying to say that systems of rational thought can be regarded and touted as true for some time and then fall into disrepute when new information is uncovered, and in that sense, are limited systems.

Zen does not have this problem, simply because it is a reflection of the nature of things in their purest sense. That does not change over time as new philosophies do.

The Ninth woodcut , 'Reaching the Source', in a series called 'Ten Bulls', describing the steps to Enlightenment, is a condition and statement of 'seeing things as they are':


9. Reaching the Source

Too many steps have been taken returning to the root and the source. [Because, in reality, one has never been separated from the Source from the beginning]
Better to have been blind and deaf from the beginning!
Dwelling in one's true abode, unconcerned with that without --
The river flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red.

Comment: From the beginning, truth is clear. Poised in silence, I observe the forms of integration and disintegration. One who is not attached to "form" need not be "reformed." The water is emerald, the mountain is indigo, and I see that which is creating and that which is destroying.

 

[godnotgod]

Perhaps you’ve not come across it before but ‘The scheme of things’ is just a figure of speech that refers to the bigger picture or the totality. No grand plan or purpose is meant or implied by the term.

I have heard both phrases, and interpret each differently, 'the scheme of things' being 'the bigger picture', but with intent.


[COLOR=#0]'When people talk about the scheme of things or the grand scheme of things , they are referring to the way that everything in the world seems to be organized.'
[/COLOR]
the scheme of things; the grand scheme of things
eg: 'We realize that we are infinitely small within the scheme of things.'

the scheme of things the grand scheme of things definition | English dictionary for learners | Reverso Collins

 

[godnotgod]

[/color]

The above is a concise description of the Zen doctrine.

The Zen doctrine is a 'doctrineless doctrine', as it describes itself, 'a finger pointing to the moon, but not the moon itself'

But it is, just as you say, ‘a claim’, a metaphysical speculation, which in this instance is being elevated to the level of an obsession or a faith.

You are stretching the meaning of the word 'claim' to fit your pigeonholing it into your catalogue of religious belief systems, when Zen clearly is outside of those parameters. That is precisely what makes it Zen. Just because something is a claim does not necessarily make it a speculation. Speculation is exactly anti-Zen, as Zen is a spontaneous experience beyond all thought. You continue to interpret it through the glass of Reason and Analysis, and in so doing, are just going round in circles. When you can at last still the workings of your thinking mind, things will appear quite differently to you, because you will cease forcing reality to conform to Reason. The problem with the approach of Reason is in its very first step.

Perhaps I’m not getting it across very well that the essence of my dispute with you is that you have taken on trust a metaphysical hypothesis as certain and true,...

Zen is not a metaphysical hypothesis. It is not philosophy. It is not metaphysics, all of which involve rational thought. It is none of those systems. It is the direct seeing into one's own nature. Once this is seen and understood for what it is, there is no doubt. Only certitude about what is true remains, but it is not a certitude born of the thinking mind. That is the certitude that becomes the target of the sceptic.

Reality is just one way. There is no room for hypothesis, speculation, or debate here. Having said that, it is also not a dogma, since dogma is an outcome of doctrinal belief. Put simply, once again, it is the seeing of things as they are, not as one reasons that they are. Can you get a glimpse of this?

...and when you say things such as ‘go see for yourself’ or ‘there are two kinds of certainty’ I find it difficult to think of you as being serious.

I just explained the 'two kinds of certainty'; as for going to 'see for yourself', that is the only way you will 'see for yourself'. No one is dictating a doctrine to you that you must believe in because there is no doctrine to dictate to you. There is only reality as it exists right under your nose in this very moment, without any speculating about it, without any belief in it; only the direct seeing into its nature.

Can you do that?

It is paradoxical that, for one to enter into certitude about the nature of reality, one must first experience great doubt and humility. The certitude in question is not a moral certitude, where one assumes a position of 'right' against another side considered as 'wrong'.

Now stop attacking the pointing finger and go see for yourself. Just leave your baggage of Reason, Logic, and Analysis behind. You can reclaim their dead carcasses when you return.

 

[otokage007]

i am a muslim and believe that God exists however i don't need to argue that he exists, because by convincing you that he exists won't make God any more real than he is, there are about 6 billion people who believe in God. if your questions are honest and sincere i'd like to hear them.

Isn't one of the duties of a muslim to convince others bout god's existence? Just asking and sorry if ofended.

 

[waitasec]

So this 'God' of yours uses your last breath as leverage to get what he wants in a coup de gras?

Sounds like a devil to me.:seesaw:

:spit:

excellent retort!!!!

why do some not consider the obvious. the last breath scenario seems rather
manipulative....and not to mention it seems to come off as a passive agressive way of saying...
"haha, you'll see and i can't wait for you to be put in your place"

 

[godnotgod]

:spit:

excellent retort!!!!

why do some not consider the obvious. the last breath scenario seems rather
manipulative....and not to mention it seems to come off as a passive agressive way of saying...
"haha, you'll see and i can't wait for you to be put in your place"

Ah, thank you for putting the finishing touches on that one. I had it on the tip of my brain, but it would'nt materialize.

And then, afterwards, the 'saved' will sit on the edge of heaven in their celestial rockers sipping cappucinos and peering into the pit of hell, watching the condemned writhe in agony, and thinking they are getting exactly what they deserve.

Strange. I could swear that's already going on right here on earth.

 

[Thief]

:spit:

excellent retort!!!!

why do some not consider the obvious. the last breath scenario seems rather
manipulative....and not to mention it seems to come off as a passive agressive way of saying...
"haha, you'll see and i can't wait for you to be put in your place"

Actually it's a very poor retort.

As a serious event pending....laugh all you want.

 

[waitasec]

Actually it's a very poor retort.

As a serious event pending....laugh all you want.

maybe to you...but see, that doesn't matter to me
thanks, i will laugh

:biglaugh:

 

[godnotgod]

maybe to you...but see, that doesn't matter to me
thanks, i will laugh

:biglaugh:

"If we may credit certain hints contained in the lives of the saints, love raises the spirit above the sphere of reverence and worship into one of laughter and dalliance: a sphere in which the soul says:

Shall I, a gnat which dances in Thy ray, Dare to be reverent?"

Coventry Patmore, 'The Rod, The Root, and The Flower'
*****
....and so the question becomes:

Is It Serious?
by Alan Watts

"I can find out whether the world is serious or not only by personal experiment, that is, if the answer can be found at all. I may take the Lord God at his word, stop asking impertinent questions, and prostrate myself at the foot of the Throne. Or I may gently call his bluff and wait-- poker-faced, trembling, or eagerly confident. It may well be that the Lord will play with me to the final microsecond of the last moment-perhaps with a long and terrible silence, perhaps with all the plagues and pains of the flesh, perhaps with visitations from subtly convincing prophets and preachers, and doubtless, at the Very end, with the kindly priest and his Last Rites. On the surface, it will seem that I am just resisting divine authority, that I am refusing to let Love into my heart, that I am proudly repressing that inner voice of the terrified conscience, urging me to melt and run weeping and screaming to Heaven in sorrow for my sins. But if there is a man of such spiritual courage as to call the Lord's bluff, what he is actually refusing to believe, what he will not take seriously, is not the Lord but his maya, [ie; 'illusion'].

He will not admit that agony and tragedy, that death and hell, fear and nothingness, are ultimate realities. Above all, he is not admitting the final reality of separateness, of the seeming distinction between man and cosmos, creature and Creator.

To the orthodox this courage will seem blasphemous, and to the skeptical and secular-minded it will seem to be wishful, since such persons have a view of reality that is grimmer by far than even Jonathan Edwards' conception of the Angry God. For the secularist imagines the universe beyond and outside man to be essentially dead, mechanical, and stupid. With him it is high dogma that nature cares nothing for human values, but is a system of confusion which produced us by mere chance, and therefore must be beaten down and made to submit to man's will. Now, there is something in this view of the universe which is akin to states of consciousness found in psychosis. The vision of the world as a Malicious System which eggs you on with hopes, just to keep you alive, and then grinds you horribly to bits. In this state there is no luminosity in things. Faces, flowers, waters, and hills all look as though they were made of plastic or enameled tin-the whole scene a tick-tock toy shop, a nightmare of metal and patent leather, garish under reflected light alone. Other people aren't really alive; they're mocked-up mannequins, automatic responders pretending to be alive. Even oneself is a self-frustrating mechanism in which every gain in awareness is balanced by new knowledge of one's ridiculous and humiliating limitations.

Those who, outside mental hospitals, like to see things this way persuade themselves and others that this attitude is somehow not only realistic but heroic. In philosophical arguments they can always one-up the religious or metaphysically inclined by a show of being down-to-earth and hard-boiled. Perhaps it is just a matter of temperament that some people simply cannot take that view of things; for me it has always seemed peculiarly odd that there is anything at all. It would have been so much easier and so much less effort for there not to have been any universe, that I find it impossible to think that the game is not worth the candle. A cosmos that was not basically an expression of joy and bliss would surely have found some way of committing suicide almost at the beginning, for there is not the least point in surviving compulsively.

But, alas, the Lord is supposed to be totally devoid of wit or humor. His official utterances, the holy scriptures, are understood as if they were strictly Solemn Pronouncements-not, perhaps, to be taken quite literally, but certainly as bereft of any lightness of touch, innuendo, irony, exaggeration, self-caricature, leg-pulling, drollery, or merriment. Yet what if this show of solemnity is actually a sort of dead-pan expression? If the Lord is said to veil his glory, lest it be too bright for mortal eyes, might he not also veil his mirth-perhaps as something much, much too funny for men to stand?

If, then, as Dante suggests, the angels' hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity sounds like the laughter of the universe, what is the Joke?"
*****

excerpted from: Alan Watts; 'Is It Serious?'

You can read the entire essay here:
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times]
http://www.shannonfarm.org/dojo/serious.html[/FONT]

Enjoy!







​

 

[Thief]

The two lines of the essay are a poor starting point.

Personal experience?....as by counsel of angel?
What?...the glory of the sky above is not enough?
What?...the earth and all it's wonder is insufficient?

These are not personal experiences. We share them.

That some say nay to God is not wrought for lack of evidence.

Nay saying comes from the heart and mind....and betrays the spirit.

btw....God being the source of our being.....would be the creator of humor.
Who do you think He laughs at?

 

[waitasec]

These are not personal experiences. We share them.

let me ask you this...
is your relationship with your wife (assuming you have one)
the same as your relationship with you child (assuming you have one)?

is the experience of each of those individuals the same?

i certainly hope not.