WOF: Three or four things that Are on my mind.

[Shaolin Wookie]

Hi Shaolin Wookie,



There is no requirement for there to be other sentient beings in order for God to exist. All that is required is for God to be sentient of himself.

If we have not trained our mind to perceive in a non-linear fashion we cannot conceive of a phenomenon without a linear cause.

HAHA....there's a reason our minds to perceive things in linear fashions concerning cause and effect, dude.

It goes the way with this world that causes beget effects.

I think we can consider that case closed.

I still think the Hebrews got it wrong, syntactically, and it's Am I?

And, in order for "I" or self-identity to function or even exist, there must exist a separation between the operative and the operation.

It is possible this inability to measure both at the same time occurs due to limitations in our measuring devices or due to limitations in how we are conditioned to perceive. It is not necessarily a condition of the phenomenon.

At any rate, to say the phenomenon does not exist unless WE (humans) are able to measure it is not quite accurate. The only requirement for something to exist is that there is a sentience of the phenomenon. If Tao/God is sentient and this sentience perceives the phenomenon then it exists regardless of whether humans perceive it or not.

From another perspective, just because something is not perceived/measured does not mean it will not affect humans. Humans could not perceive/measure x-rays, gamma rays, or other unknown phenomena at one time, but these phenomena certainly affect humans.

Therefore it is incorrect to say that God/Tao does not exist if man cannot measure Him/It!

Not quite. See, X-rays are there, we only need the technology to measure them. God does not submit to these criterion, for he is immaterial (hence, incomprehensible and immeasurable). Are you suggesting we just need a God Detector?

Your conclusion is here is also inaccurate. At best you may only say that YOU cannot sense, see or experience God/Tao. It is an assumption that it is impossible to know the “ultimate predication of things”, and a false assumption at that. Because you cannot and you know of no one else that can, does not mean it cannot or hasn’t been done. In fact God/Tao CAN be known and the experience has been recorded by many individuals.

Individuals with preconceived notions of how god functions, who believe in spirituality, and can provide absolutely no evidence to corroborate what they feel (it's just an emotion). There was a chick in college who stalked me for 3 years, was bipolar, and when she wasn't taking her meds, thought she was a druid priestess. Whenever I hear of these individual, direct experiences of god, I automatically think UFO abductions, bipolarism, and paranoid schizophrenia. Sounds rough, I know. But many prominent religious leaders were epileptic, paranoid schizos (think Paul, or perhaps Caesar [he trained to be a high priest as a youth]).

As I have written elsewhere, the descriptions by these individuals of God/Tao vary due to the manner in which the experience/knowledge of God/Tao is apprehended by the mind and the ability of the individual to express themselves. .

Actually, linear thining is natural. It helps the young mind make sense of the world. It isn't conditioning. As a matter of fact, religious conditioning vies against this progression, and "trains the mind to think in a non-linear fashion" as you suggested earlier. In other words, religion trains you to think unnaturally.

That last statement I consider true beyond all contradictiuon.

We tend to not explore that which we believe to be beyond reason or that which we consider unreasonable, forgetting or not understanding that there is a manner of perceiving that exists prior to discursive thinking. The consequence of this is we no longer are able to perceive clearly, that is, we perceive with preconceived notions. These preconceived notions filter reality/experience for us and therefore we only perceive what we want to or expect to perceive and not what is actually occurring.

I think this statement is ridiculous. (I hope you don't think I'm being disdainful. This is an argument, and I'm not going to waste words, so it might sound abusive). According to this thesis, General and special relativity would never have arisen. People constantly question the existence of things, and their non-existence. Consider the technological revolution of the past century. The world does not even look like a former shade of itself anymore. Seventeenth century time-travellers would never recognize New York City....

I do agree with that last part. But it's part of being a living creature. You select to remember, and choose to observe what is germane to you. (Natural selection wouldn't favor the transcendental poet. He'd get eaten by every predator on earth). Everything else is dross. But I don't think this has any place in this argument.

We are conditioned from birth to perceive in a discursive manner. Experience/Knowledge of God/Tao is a direct experience and not something easily communicated in a linear manner. In like kind, the KNOWING we obtain of God/Tao occurs in the experience itself.

I don't like this line of thinking. I never have. You question the gamut of experience/perception based on what experience/perception has given you first, in order for you to question its validity. This is like the skeptic's credo. Fun to read. But logically untenable.

This is a misunderstanding of God/Tao; God/Tao exists because he has knowledge/sentience or himself! Others are NOT a necessity!

They are. If I'm born alone in a black cave, fed through some kind of nanotechnological feeding device (don't ask), and have a sense perception inhibitor of another nanotechnological sort, and am never able to feel, touch, taste, smell, see, or hear anything outside of myself, or even of myself, I will never develop any kind of identity. For all I know I could be running through a forest, hitting every tree on the way there, but I'll never know it. I have no input. Hence, there is no development.

This is pretty demonstrative of the tyranny of cause and effect.

It is your conclusion that “involves gross assumption and presumption”. This is because you have not made a comprehensive study of the subject. Once again, as I have written elsewhere, spiritual knowledge does fall within the observational purview of science. The observations of those mystically inclined do indicate repeatable experiences according to specific contexts. Variations in many descriptions may be attributed to the difficulty in communicating non-discursive experiences in a discursive manner as well as individual variations in intelligence, historical era, cultural differences and ability to communicate.

As an example, consider the variations that would occur when a number of individuals attempt to describe the same painting or the taste of an orange. Each description will be limited by these variables. The ability to describe the experience of God/Tao is determined by these very same factors. With each of these experiences, the experience of a painting or the taste of an orange, the description is NOT comparable to the direct experience itself. The description is NOT the thing itself! This is where the scientific mind becomes confused and hence makes ridiculous statements about topics they are not educated to comment upon. It is like a scientist who claims an orange has no taste, yet refuses to taste one for himself, because then he cannot be objective about it! The knowledge of the taste of an orange occurs when the orange is actually tasted, until then all the scientist may do is record the claims of those who have tasted an orange. Perhaps one may claim, well an orange may be held and measured physically and therefore can be said to exist. I would respond, take an actual measurable orange away from the example. Let us postulate a group of people who have tasted an orange, but do not actually have one in their possession. The fact they cannot produce one for the scientist to measure does not demonstrate they have not tasted one. One of these individuals may say to the scientist, “Well go here and do this and you will find an orange to taste.” If the scientist refuses to “go here and do this” in order to taste an orange, it would be inappropriate for him to state that oranges do not exist and they have no taste, since he refused to make the effort to have the experience for himself! His conclusion concerning oranges then, are made from an ignorance of the subject.

I love how if you take a strong stance against religion and spirituality, and don't curb your distaste for it, people will very quickly say: "Well, only if you made a serious study of the subject."

Well, ****, I've studied it almost 20 years (first five years don't really count, except as brainwashing), half-in, half-out, and never half-assed. My greatest gripe with religion is that 99% of the people who profess it, or profess to disbelieve in it, display 5% sincerity on the topic. That goes for many of the people on this board. Hopefully, I figure if I stir up enough ****, someone might acutally begin to exercise their brain cells. that's why I love to argue this subject, and why many people hate to do so. (Not talking about you, SB).

Do you wonder why I keep arguing with you guys?

I love discussing this topic. I may not be a believer. But I am sincere in my interest and research into it.

Please don't make that mistake again.

[WinterPalm]

Greetings..

Global Warming? whether it is as described or as criticized.. we can only improve our living conditions and our environment by addressing it as if it is very real..

Those that choose to do nothing, assumimg global warming to be a conspiracy, are gambling with their children's future.. forget the arguement of "real or not", just work to improve the only planet we have.. time spent arguing and criticizing is better spent doing something beneficial..

Be well..

That is exactly it! It doesn't matter if we are doing it or not...the issue is that we are polluting and destroying, less gas consumption and related pollution will only be a good thing. Less toxic waste into the oceans will be a good thing. Doesn't matter if you are conservative, liberal, religious, scientific, or a hippie, life will be better with less pollution!

[SanHeChuan]

WinterPalm

life will be better with less pollution!

Can't agrue with that!

But are there really any current alternatives that will have less impact on the environment, or are we jumping the gun, because we are too scared not to make a change.

[SunBeam]

DUDE!!! Can't believe all the anti-christian posting!. Well, I could not address all the points presented against "God" religion, it would take too long but I must state that you may not be looking at some of the stories in the Old Test, the way that they are meant to but looked at.

God is Holy (set apart)
He reveals himself to man, man does not seek him
He is self existing (Elohim) or (I Am, That I Am)
He does not need us, we need him
Man often gives lip service to following Him but it's serious business.

...and although there are a lot of "Harshness" and punishment handed out,
there is also mercy and grace even in the Old Test for those willing to take it.

I could write a long, long, long break down of all of this (I did a study on the so called mean God, nice God of Old and New Test) but I think I'll chill on this

check out REASONS.ORG nice science for those interested.

[SanHeChuan]

So because God is nice some times, that makes up for all the horrible things He did.

That's like a battered wife who says, but I know he Loves me.

[kwaichang]

Your argument is flawed as you are human and imperfect. Who are you to question God you have no idea of the master plan . The word of God is corrupted and in all of your so called "LOGIC" condemn the god for the acts of man. Your MA teacher teaches you if you question his method you will learn but not as well as you could or should. There is evil in in the world even with out God or Christianity. Look at the Mayans and the Chinese and the Russians look at Lenin MaoTse Tung and others . You are confused by your own ego in thinking you are wiser than God. KC

[SanHeChuan]

Oh OK so it's the MASTER PLAN that makes killing children OK, or was the killing of the first born Children of Egypt mans doing.

The word of God is corrupted and in all of your so called "LOGIC" condemn the god for the acts of man.

Are you saying that the bible is corrupted? If so then why base your religion on it?

MA teacher teaches you if you question his method you will learn but not as well as you could or should.

IF you don't question then you don't learn. You maybe able to regurgitate what your told, but to apply it you have to understand it and to understand it you have to question. People who never question are the stupidest kind of people.

There is evil in in the world even with out God or Christianity.

I never said it was the source of evil or the only evil, but does one evil lesson another?

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi Shaolin Wookie,

there's a reason our minds to perceive things in linear fashions concerning cause and effect, dude. It goes the way with this world that causes beget effects.

The material world functions according to cause and effect. That does not demonstrate against the ability of mind to function in a non-linear/non-discursive manner. Non-discursive thought must be learned. If an individual does not make the effort to learn this manner of thinking they are in no position to be critical of it. It is no different than criticizing those who have had the direct experience of eating oranges without ever eating one yourself.

…in order for "I" or self-identity to function or even exist, there must exist a separation between the operative and the operation.

There is no requirement for self-awareness to create a separate “I” in order to being to occur. The “I” we experience as ourselves is an illusion of the discursive mind. One way of illustrating this is to consider who you think you are this moment, the “I” you consider yourself to be. This “I” is different from the “I” you considered yourself to be 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. To be sure there is a continuity of identity, but this continuity occurs as a process of the discursive mind as it gradually changes over time. If you were to suddenly jump from the “I” you considered yourself to be when you were 10 years of age to the “I” you consider yourself to be today, you would find yourself confused as to your identity. Your 10 year old “I” would not recognize itself as the same being if it suddenly jumped to age 40 or 50 years old. This is because there is no continuity of “I” even if the “I” belongs to the same being. Your older “I” could only make the adjustment of a sudden jump because of its memory of the 10 year old “I”. If there was no memory of the 10 year old “I” the older “I” would not experience a continuity of identity and would not consider the 10 year old “I” the same being. Who we think we are is an illusion, an artificial construct used to interact with the material world, but it is not our inherent being. It is similar to an actor playing a role in a film. For a temporary period the actor “pretends” to be another identity while always retaining his original being.

The purpose of Ch’an and other systems of thought is to work towards the realization that operative and operation are merely different aspects of the same non-dual condition of being. Duality is an artificial construct which serves a purpose, but it is not the essence of being. The inherent non-duality of duality may be illustrated by Yin-Yang. Yin-Yang may be viewed from the perspective of duality, Yin AND Yang, operative AND operation, or it may be viewed from the non-dual perspective as Yin-Yang. Within Yin-Yang the quality of Yin and the quality of Yang are inherently the same principle. Each principle occurs or is experienced as Yin or Yang according to the perspective of mind, NOT as an inherent quality of the principle. Yin IS Yang and Yang IS Yin.

…X-rays are there, we only need the technology to measure them. God does not submit to these criterion, for he is immaterial (hence, incomprehensible and immeasurable). Are you suggesting we just need a God Detector?

You presume God/Tao is not there because YOU are unable to detect him/it. You assume because you cannot detect him/it and because you don’t believe it is possible to detect him he cannot be detected. This is an erroneous view. God is immeasurable, and he is incomprehensible to the discursive mind, but he is NOT incomprehensible to the non-discursive mind. He just may not be comprehensively described discursively. This is because he exists outside the limitations of the discursive world of cause and effect. If you have not learned to perceive according to the non-discursive mind you will not perceive God/Tao in an unobstructed manner. Since you have not had the experience of perceiving in an unobstructed manner you cannot understand the experience, just as someone who as not eaten an orange cannot understand the taste of an orange.

Individuals with preconceived notions of how god functions, who believe in spirituality, and can provide absolutely no evidence to corroborate what they feel (it's just an emotion). There was a chick in college who stalked me for 3 years, was bipolar, and when she wasn't taking her meds, thought she was a druid priestess. Whenever I hear of these individual, direct experiences of god, I automatically think UFO abductions, bipolarism, and paranoid schizophrenia. Sounds rough, I know. But many prominent religious leaders were epileptic, paranoid schizos (think Paul, or perhaps Caesar [he trained to be a high priest as a youth]).

Some of your point cannot be denied, but you are comparing apples to oranges here. Many individuals experience emotional disturbances that create delusions, others have transcendent experiences they are unable to integrate into their identity and belief system, this may cause some disassociation from material reality and/or confusion about what has been experienced because there has been no foundational context established for the experience. These are the apples. Oranges are the individuals who do NOT experience flights of fancy or disassociate from material reality due to their transcendent experiences. These individuals do have an appropriate context for their experiences and do NOT use their experiences as a means to gain power and control over others. (I would concede these individuals are few and far between.) It takes a certain amount of skill and ability to be able to integrate transcendent experiences and to communicate them in an understandable manner to those who have not had the experience for themselves. At any rate, all individuals need to have the experience for themselves in order to fully understand them.

It is foolish to blindly follow anyone who professes knowledge of God/Tao. Critical thinking is still necessary to discern psycho-babble and psycho-pathology from the sincere individuals who seek to have and understand transcendent experience. Even when a sincere person is discovered they are not to be blindly followed. Transcendent experiences are to be individually experienced and are validated by the direct experience. The advice and lessons of true teachers should be considered as a finger pointing the way towards acquiring the direct experience and not as strict rules to be blindly followed.

God/Tao must be directly experienced to be known. This direct experience has nothing to do with the social and cultural rules that often attend organized religions.

Actually, linear thinking is natural. It helps the young mind make sense of the world. It isn't conditioning. As a matter of fact, religious conditioning vies against this progression, and "trains the mind to think in a non-linear fashion" as you suggested earlier. In other words, religion trains you to think unnaturally.

I have made no statement indicating that linear thinking is inappropriate according to its proper context. In the material world linear, discursive thinking is a necessary skill to develop in order to adequately navigate life. Linear discursive thinking is only one aspect or quality of mind. It is limited according to its context. Direct, unobstructed experience of God/Tao occurs in a non-discursive manner. I have used numerous metaphors to describe this such as happiness, the taste of an orange or the viewing of a painting. These are experiences that must be directly experienced in order to comprehensively understand them. The same occurs for experience of God/Tao. If a person does not make the effort to have the direct experience their critical comments have no validity because they are commenting upon experiences for which they have no real knowledge. As I have previously stated, it is similar to an individual being critical about another’s experience of tasting an orange while never actually tasting one for themselves.

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi Shaolin Wookie continued,

I stated:

We tend to not explore that which we believe to be beyond reason or that which we consider unreasonable, forgetting or not understanding that there is a manner of perceiving that exists prior to discursive thinking. The consequence of this is we no longer are able to perceive clearly, that is, we perceive with preconceived notions. These preconceived notions filter reality/experience for us and therefore we only perceive what we want to or expect to perceive and not what is actually occurring.

I think this statement is ridiculous. (I hope you don't think I'm being disdainful. This is an argument, and I'm not going to waste words, so it might sound abusive) . According to this thesis, General and special relativity would never have arisen. People constantly question the existence of things, and their non-existence. Consider the technological revolution of the past century. The world does not even look like a former shade of itself anymore. Seventeenth century time-travellers would never recognize New York City....

This does not preclude one from having conditioned views that regulate what they will accept as worthy of investigation. You appear to have fixed views about this subject. These fixed views limit your ability to fully understand the topic. These fixed views affect your ability to consider information that contradicts your fixed view. This is not a quality of mind that is unique to you, it occurs with all humans. There are numerous examples available to demonstrate scientists are affected by this limitation as well. Subjects they consider closed, thinking they are fully understood, are examples of closed mindedness that affects their ability to explore beyond what they consider reasonable.

I wrote:

We are conditioned from birth to perceive in a discursive manner. Experience/Knowledge of God/Tao is a direct experience and not something easily communicated in a linear manner. In like kind, the KNOWING we obtain of God/Tao occurs in the experience itself.

I don't like this line of thinking. I never have. You question the gamut of experience/perception based on what experience/perception has given you first, in order for you to question its validity. This is like the skeptic's credo. Fun to read. But logically untenable.

This is an excellent example of my previous point. You have a fixed view and cannot understand a clearly worded example that refutes your view. My examples may be directly experienced to prove the point. I return you to the example of happiness and the orange. You will be unable to understand the experience of happiness or the taste of an orange unless you have had the experience yourself. These experiences occur in a non-discursive manner. They are communicated in a discursive manner. When a non-discursive experience is discursively described the non-discursive experience gets confused with the discursive description. The description is NOT the thing itself. A description of the experience does not GIVE you the experience. A description is merely an inadequate indication of what the direct experience is LIKE not what it IS! The fact you are apparently unable to understand this simple point demonstrates how your fixed view will not allow you to consider what you have determined to be unreasonable.

I wrote:

This is a misunderstanding of God/Tao; God/Tao exists because he has knowledge/sentience or himself! Others are NOT a necessity!

They are. If I'm born alone in a black cave, fed through some kind of nano-technological feeding device (don't ask), and have a sense perception inhibitor of another nano-technological sort, and am never able to feel, touch, taste, smell, see, or hear anything outside of myself, or even of myself, I will never develop any kind of identity. For all I know I could be running through a forest, hitting every tree on the way there, but I'll never know it. I have no input. Hence, there is no development.

This is pretty demonstrative of the tyranny of cause and effect.

You are assuming here. You do not fully understand the qualities of mind so you cannot know this will occur. Since the mind’s function is thought, thought will occur; we just do not know how thought would be manifested. It is just as likely the mind would create qualities of thought and artificially separate them from itself as God/Tao has done. It is possible discursive thought would occur spontaneously, since this is an inherent quality of mind. Once discursive thought occurs there is subject and object and the mind is free to create its own world of separate phenomena. The only reason our dreams occur according the context of material experience is because this is the primary context experienced by the discursive mind. There is no reason to believe this is the only way we dream. It is at least possible the mind translates non-discursive experience into a discursive context in order to make the dream more understandable to the limited perception of our mind.

Well, ****, I've studied it almost 20 years (first five years don't really count, except as brainwashing), half-in, half-out, and never half-assed. My greatest gripe with religion is that 99% of the people who profess it, or profess to disbelieve in it, display 5% sincerity on the topic. That goes for many of the people on this board. Hopefully, I figure if I stir up enough ****, someone might actually begin to exercise their brain cells. that's why I love to argue this subject, and why many people hate to do so. (Not talking about you, SB)

I would agree with you concerning sincerity and religion.

I am not discussing organized religion here, but direct experience of God/Tao. Religion serves a purpose in society; if it didn’t it would not exist, however organized religions commonly create limited, flawed and sometimes foolish views of God/Tao.

Organized religion serves a social and emotional purpose for those who need it, but it creates a limiting and confining context for those who choose to transcend the narrow aspects of the social and emotional context. Religions are one means societies use to cultivate social cohesion. Social cohesion is generally a benefit to individuals and that is why cohesive structures occur, however these same structures force individuals to conform to artificial structures that limit human experience and creativity. All societies require common behavior codes in order to provide social cohesion; one consequence of this is it creates a sense of “us and them” which encourages conflict.

Most of the major religions do have indications of the principles I have discussed, but they are hidden within the teaching and are not easily discerned. The majority of adherents participate in the social aspects conforming to rituals and behaviors on a superficial level, but never explore the deeper meanings.

I love discussing this topic. I may not be a believer. But I am sincere in my interest and research into it.

I appreciate your sincere interest, but sincerity is not a substitute for comprehensive understanding. You may have been investigating for 20 years, but your search does not appear to have produced satisfactory results. Your posts appear to reflect resentment, hostility and frustration. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the tone of your posts or, if I am correct, perhaps your attitude is due to the lack of satisfaction with your current belief system. In other words, perhaps you have an inner desire or impetus to want to believe/understand, but have not found a satisfactory means to come to an understanding of God/Tao. I will leave it to you to clarify your position if you so desire.

At any rate I appreciate your continued participation in our discussion.

[kwaichang]

Dont argue with me San argue with God with your poor logic. You cant win as you are flawed in your thinking and true learning comes from training not questions. KC

[SanHeChuan]

God isn't talking calls right now.

But you did address me so..., but I guess you can't justify what God does because as Christian's like you say, He works in mysterious and EVIL ways.

How is it bad LOGIC to think that murder, rape, slavery, and human sacrifice are BAD things?

You could spend a long time training to do the wrong thing for want of the right question.

[kwaichang]

No you could. If Adolph Hitler had beenkilled as a child then many lives would have been saved. But the one that may have been saved could have been far worse. You must know God to call him. I think he is unlisted to thase like you. Try Prayer. KC

[kwaichang]

Do you believe capitol punishment is ok . KC

[SanHeChuan]

Do you believe capitol punishment is ok .

Sure, but i don't believe in killing the family, friends, and neibours of the guilty. And never ever for children.

No you could.

Could what?

If Adolph Hitler had beenkilled as a child then many lives would have been saved. But the one that may have been saved could have been far worse.

Well if we have free will then that is not for God to decide. If we are free to chose between good and evil, he can't kill us before we get to make the choice.

[Shaolin Wookie]

WinterPalm



Can't agrue with that!

But are there really any current alternatives that will have less impact on the environment, or are we jumping the gun, because we are too scared not to make a change.

That's exactly it. It's an issue of convenience. We're happy with the mode of convenience we enjoy. What a hassle it would be to give up our personal freedom in automobiles, where we can drive alone and consume gas like gluttons.

It's why I fear electric cars will never catch on. The recharge is just so inconvenient. But necessity will dictate just how long our convenience will be tolerated.