Post #106,898
6/22/03 3:59:39 PM
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Question:
This is not to say the near-side collective consciousness does not take an interest in your personal life, just as you take an interest in specific components of your body. You could interpret this collective as a "personal God", but not as an ultimate God, just a next step consciousness, itself an element of a collective on the infinitely long path to becoming God - a journey in which all entities are engaged, whether they like it not. What leads/has lead you to believe this (specifically the bit about the path to becoming God)? More specifically, is there evidence?
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance - Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation. BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #106,906
6/22/03 6:35:01 PM
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Evidence? I thought we were discussing religion.
In observable space, you may notice that life and consciousness continue to become more and more complex with the passage of time. From molecules to cells to fungus to fish with organized nervous systems, and beyond. Now increasingly complex social structures organized by high speed communications - human "cells" begin to congeal into a super-organism.
Is not what we experience here below a shadow of higher orders? "As above, so below". The tendency to organize into organisms of greater and greater complexity would prevail, until a level where all are One, and One is God, no?
Now, lets take a look at a practical item, "reincarnation". Of course, if you subscribe to "scientific reality", you simply discount any and all stories of people with seeming knowledge of past events, posessing characteristics of people who have died, or levels of knowledge they should not have at their age, but this stuff keeps bubbling up anyway.
So our conciousnesses are cells, so to speak, of a larger far more complex collective consciousness. As with the body, cells are continuously dying and being created anew. So the elements of a person disassociate at various levels upon death, and the material of consciousness (soul, if you would) returns to the collective where it contributes to the collective's advancement.
New cells are created, and they incorporate stuff that has returned, so collective experience is gradually incorporated into new cells. Now, perhaps sometimes the stuff used hasn't had time to properly mix, like cards returned to the deck for a new deal, but the shuffle isn't that good, so some sequences in the deck are the same as in the old deal. It's a new person, but the new person incorporates some direct awareness of one who has returned.
All this stuff has been worked on for thousands of years by many cultures, and there's a fair degree of consensus in esoteric texts worldwide. Most of it takes a lot of digging though, because it's been obscured by the curse of "Organized Religion". All of this stuff detracts from the power structure of "authority".
The enlightment of Saint Thomas certainly wsn't welcomed by the church, but he kept quiet so they let it ride. No organizational religious structure controls the "gateway to heaven", it's an entirely individual thing and they cannot control it (but they sure want you to think they can), and no book contains the whole truth and final word. We're just learning, bit by bit, and "authority" is trying to burn it as we do.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #106,909
6/22/03 8:00:54 PM
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Not necessarily
Is not what we experience here below a shadow of higher orders? "As above, so below". The tendency to organize into organisms of greater and greater complexity would prevail, until a level where all are One, and One is God, no? Not in my book. The tendency to organize into organisms of greater and greater complexity only necessitates diversity, not unity It doesn't require that there's any being more complex than Man, and if it did, that doesn't require that a God or Gods encompass "lower" life forms, anymore than Man encompasses invertebrates. In other words, the One (highest, most complex being) may be God, but that doesn't necessitate "all are One". And, as a toss-off side note, I whole-heartedly reject the use of "as above, so below" as an axiom of Reality. Just FYI.
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance - Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation. BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #106,917
6/22/03 9:18:43 PM
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From the viewpoint of "God is Without Limit" . .
. . it follows that All is included within God. If you say God is not All, then you are placing limits on God.
Of course, in the Pagan viewpoint, placing limits on god is routine. You draw a line around the hunk of All you wish to deal with and give it a name and personality. Now you have a "god" (an aspect of nature or natural forces or human characteristics or whatever you want to deal with) defined in a way which allows you to describe it's relationship with other similarly defined entities and how they relate to humanity, all in human terms. Such deliberately circumscribed definitions do not, however, invalidate All, which they are defined parts of.
So are you limiting God in the Pagan manner, or is God limitless, thus All Encompasing?
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #106,949
6/23/03 1:53:20 AM
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I think I made it clear earlier in this thread...
...that (in my understanding) God has chosen to limit himself. Creation is a distinct dualistic act; the concept that there is something "not God". I'm not saying every religion or theology believes this (far from it), but it seems to be supported in OT/NT Hebraic thought. So the phrase "from the viewpoint of 'God is Without Limit'" brings us right back to my earlier post (with Ross) about what one means by "omnipotent", and how that is more often an axiom of one's system than a conclusion.
So I'd take issue with the humanist viewpoint that *I* am placing limits on God; I am not the inventor of Christianity or Judaism for that matter. None of my theologizing comes from some Nietzschean proto-theos where I just woke up one day and decided to create a Deity. It comes from an honest investigation (and reconciliation) of the witness written down in the OT and NT--I happen to have found those authors to be reasonably accurate, and believe what they testify to. Do all "Christians" feel the same way (i.e. wrt Christian epistemology)? No. But they don't have to in order to gain the benefits of the contract.
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance - Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation. BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #106,927
6/22/03 10:02:51 PM
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To speak of Reality!
[Heh] as if you possessed the slightest knowledge of what That might Be - is precisely that hubris from which 'we' began the unending wars of opposing Ones Who Profess to Know. Like du jour. Cosmic Liars Dice?
To similarly, imagine that you possess the means for concluding.. something (!) about such an idea as, "as above so below" - is another example of this same class of thought, only worse: presuming to 'prove' a negative via simple digital logic. [Hah - Loop0: recursive non-enlightenment\ufffd in Jahweh-script] Seems a lot like,
I don't like Bach! OK now we know about you. What about Bach?
Fortunately we are each permitted to limit our horizons to the small self-generated halo about our unanointed heads. I suspect that this is a self-limiting protection against biting off more than a one can chew.
Unless of course, such a one gets to be a President or something - then there's no protection for the others :( Oh well. (What 'others' (?))
Ashton who 'likes' the Hungarian proverb,
The believer is happy The doubter is wise
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Post #106,931
6/22/03 10:17:09 PM
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G_d exists, we see or dont see in different ways
I know there is one but based on cause and effect personally, can I describe but an imperfect personal view of the entity I call as G_d? Not very effectivly. All religious writing are lensed thru the human writing them. If Ezekiel saw a spaceship what woukd be his point of reference? If a modern American saw a temporal representative created for a specific reason to nudge the anthill again, what would be the description? A lot of Alien encounters out there. Either one believes or does not, organizes their life around their understanding of that belief or decides there is nothing else and organizes their lives around self referencing morality. Either way we are both significant to the cosmos and insignificant both at the same time. We matter, my personal belief is that we retain our memories of everything we do and have enternity to contemplate them, with that in mind it drives my personal actions. thanx, bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
As the Poets have mournfully sung. Death takes the innocent young, The rolling in money, the screamingly funny, And those who are very well hung. W.H. Auden
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Post #106,941
6/22/03 11:15:00 PM
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If you Could 'describe'
-- what would be the point of "attempting to Know that which is not describable but Is" (or by any number of better chosen words) ?
There's nothing in 'Christianity' or any other -ism (read for comprehension, that is) - which prevents one from investigating what is all around; those who think there is such imprecation: are neither Christ-ians nor even good mimics. So no one is tied to the LCD of Whatever early conditioning and inculcation of fixed mindset has happened by accident of birth. Except by choosing dumbth - an active choice.
Aquinas is merely one of the known! ones who "went beyond" the narrow caricature of It All - that caricature which today represents most of what people imagine Christianity is 'about'. Ever thus - the literal mind is the herdsman of conformity and shallowness; to make up a religion with a decent chance of longevity (as L. Ron grokked to fullness):
You must have the dumbed down (Win MErde) version for the mass, and then escalate the level to er Clear. Always there are the esoteric, mesoteric and exoteric 'circles' about any Idea. Of course, as to LRon, when the basis for the formation of The Group - is exploitation$ of the gullible.. well what kinda karma might that earn?
You already know this stuff, or nothing I could say would make the slightest sense [heh]: which I submit as prina facie 'proof' that proselytizing ever only gains converts of the shallowest kind. If'n ya can't [== won't! because you be Lazy] figure it out for yourself -?- nobody Can "give it to you" cha cha cha.
Gotta Love.. Cosmic Humour
Ashton
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Post #106,947
6/23/03 1:42:38 AM
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And once again, you're doing the very thing you rail against
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance - Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation. BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #107,033
6/23/03 4:01:35 PM
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Heh.. only if you imagine
that I'm selling Salvation (too!) - merely by applying *niti.. niti.. across the board of popular dabblings in the Grand Guesses - obv a more popular pastime than the NYT Sunday Crossword, we see.
I guess that some folks really have to believe that the girl Was sawed in half, then artfully reassembled by The Great Tetrazzini.. to appear in the fish tank behind the curtain.
Carry on. I'll have the haddock. (On my plate, not my bumper thanyouverymuch) Have no need to invent ways to scare myself into Line.
* not this.. not this..
I Who Be
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Post #106,912
6/22/03 8:27:28 PM
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I may notice, or I may notice something different
As Gould is fond of pointing out at great length, the theme of life over long periods of time is simply greater diversity. Sometimes that means becoming more complex. Sometimes less. For instance parasites tend to perfect themselves through minimalism.
The increasing complexity that we are so fond of noticing is just the leading edge of an expanding variety of forms of life. However for all of history, and for the forseeable future, the bulk of life by number, mass, and sheer variety are single-celled bacteria.
Cheers, Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not" - [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #106,914
6/22/03 9:02:00 PM
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Unless you look at the smallest viable unit.
In particular parasites are minimalist because they aren't complete. They cannot be regarded without their host. All other life is just as interdependent, though not so immediately so.
A human body is made up of a great many separate lifeforms, and some are pretty independent too. The whole cannot survive without all the parts. Where do you want to draw the line to individuate this? A white blood cell probably feels pretty individual. It's all in how you want to look at it.
No living being can survive without the others. Even simple single celled photosynthetic plants cannot survive alone, because they'd eventually drown in their own waste product, oxygen, and at points in the distant past came fairly close. Fortunately, some fungi like item developed into larger and more complex critters called "animals" to sop up some of that oxygen (yes, fungi are genetically considered animals).
So taking the world organism as a whole, since that's the smallest viable unit, it is growing in complexity. Increasing diversity is part of that, as is the development of it's leading edge cells, which we are pleased to presume are ourselves.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #106,933
6/22/03 10:24:19 PM
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The smallest viable unit is smaller than that...
The ecosystems at hydrothermal vents are self-contained enough to survive indefinitely if we went away.
The ecosystems living deep inside rock (basically just a few bacteria over a huge volume - possibly as much as half of the Earth's biomass) again wouldn't notice for a while if we destroyed everything upstairs.
And note that neither of these units needs us, and the more stable one (rock-bacteria) is not very diverse.
We still lose.
Cheers, Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not" - [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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