Life, a Curse or a Blessing? (PHI-214)(4-2)

Comment by Roman Kozlowski on November 26, 2009 at 4:49pm

Jeff

You have deliberately bound yourself to live within the constraints of a religious doctrine, you are therefore less free to express your will, for example, if I want to I can freely say that Jesus is a wanker, but you can’t, can you? This is because you’ve allowed your very being to be overtaken and controlled by your belief along with the rest of your life. I can express greater free will without such inhibitions simply because I read the bible differently to you, as an amalgam of esoteric and metaphoric information.

As far as a moral code is concerned, as separate from a religious (doctrinal) code, of course I as a human being have my own standards, a code that is personal only to me, I’m pleased to say made and refined only by me, and fully known only by me. You on the other hand reflect a conditioning herd instinct to which you’ve naturally succumbed and not felt the need to brake out from and just be yourself, really ‘yourself’.

Comment by Roman Kozlowski on November 26, 2009 at 5:12pm

Youstbi

As far as whether life is a curse or a blessing? Well, the very word ‘curse’ and ‘blessing’ I can understand in one way, while religious believers will understand it in another way. You must therefore accept that not everyone here is a believer in a ‘biblical’ God as you appear to assume. Allowing acceptance and involvement of others opinions is I think the best way to go, especially if one is striving for true expression from all to be taken seriously.

Comment by david thurman on November 26, 2009 at 6:13pm

"if I want to I can freely say that Jesus is a wanker,"

ROFL, I bet even Jesus would laugh at that one.....If i'm not sure it some where in the bible. "Everyone is a wanker so get over yourselves priests, your the biggest wankers in that you don't think you are wankers."

I believe that is in first David THAT book wasn't cannonized because of the wanker phrase. What' the Greek for Wanker any way...

Comment by david thurman on November 27, 2009 at 8:45am

Jim I like what you've written a lot. You've given a full view of our shared blessing and curse. You and I and people like us have an ability to experience empathy to it's full depth. This is a very very old part of who we are. as a species. If we had no words, no long term memories, no sense of past, present, future it would simply to experience the now undivided in a very heightened way. Watch a school of fish, how do they know when to turn together? The time that it takes for light to bounce off their fellow fish, hit their eyes, their brain to process the turn happens at the speed of light or near it. We have to process a whole bunch of other things so we can't do what fish do. Empathy is a foreshortening of that process of the percieved gulf we have between ourselves and others our brains break that down and it allows us to not only percieve from a different perspective but to feel it, and to percieve it as if are looking through another set of eyes.
I did one exercise and it helped me tremendously to understand the empathetic nature of who we are. It's buddhism backwards. I shut my brain down completely, forgot all my experiences I imagined myself never having such experiences. I then placed my self in Daniel Dennett's shoe's in how he sees the world. The only reality I could see was purely objective, no concept of God, purely logical, Not fully defined in that I understood everything but a world that was a rational world only. Emotions were eliminated as being of any value, only reason was of value. the very idea of God was absurd. I shut down the whole framework of my emotions as much as one can just to see what he was seeing. This was my moment of undertanding in what Buddha was saying when he says self is an illusion. I rolled that very flat 2 dimensional view looked very closely at what was going on with him and then allowed my emotional channel to turn back on. I did this a couple of times. Enlightenment for me is understanding this then I could grasp what Buddha was saying. It was Buddhism backwards is the best way I can describe it. I'd write more but when I use the word Panentheism it really doesn't capture fully as a descriptor of how I see, it's an approximation. I might also say, After going through this I now have a much better sense in how everyone sees the world and i'm much more compassionate in how i approach all of this as well.

Comment by david thurman on November 27, 2009 at 10:28am

I might add that none of the above really makes much sense unless you know that I'm an absolutist naturalist. Infinite No control there doesn't need to be. So the concept or word God as the control makes no sense from my perspective. This is a hard concept to wrap around in that to wrap around it is to allow for no control. Then God as a conceptual word at this level God as the Creator/Artist, Familial Parent begins to make sense. All metaphors that don't allow for a definitive controlling God, nor a conceptualization of no control that can be definable and thus controllable in and of itself. This is my problem with a reductionist view of no control, it's extremely limited and only true in context of the observer. To understand this at a deeper level is to embrace it and allow for the process rather than attempting to define the process. Art is the human expression of this in a deep way. For us, folks like you and I is that we can grasp the abstractive in pretty deep ways, but that is not separate from the Concrete, so we need to always be working towards balancing that in healthy ways, where the abstract and concrete are undivided. I moved into a very beautiful natural setting to help me do this. Being like you and I it's easy to get pulled around in Urban and Suburban environments and in some ways lose sight of who we are. Nature helps me to balance that out and forces me to connect in very concrete visual experiential ways. So daily tasks at hand don't get interfered with by my natural tendency to abstract. This ability eventually is what Killed Godel, he could abstract deeply but he was somewhat disconnected from the concrete that lead to some psychological issues for him and he starved himself to death out of fear of germs. So for me it's always trying to stay grounded in some fashion or another is my personal struggle and one that i'm aware of.

Comment by Jeff H on November 27, 2009 at 12:11pm

Roman,

Do you remember doone's conversation titled "Jesus was a Wanker" a while ago. If you search for it, it shows up but when you go to it the page can't be found, but you and I both contributed to it. I didn't have a problem with any facet of Jesus being human, I just said that what ever He did, He didn't sin. There launched in to whole discussion into masterbation and "The Sin of Onan" (which wasn't masturbation). Either you a liar and throwing out the term for "shock value" or forgetful and doing the same. I'll chose to believe the later.

Why is it that the "New Atheist" have to go for some shock or personal attack when they find themselves behind in an exchange, It seems to be considered some kind of "Double Jump" like in a video game when in fact it is just unseemly.

Sometimes you seem very congenial, and sometimes you are so full of yourself it gives me gas. You say you follow you own morale code. Bull.... You take in information just like everyone else and process it, and then work it into your life or discard it. You may modify it and tint it with your life experience, but it isn't your own creation. You didn't make it up. I am exactly the same as you. If you can't give me credit for having my own thoughts just because they don't line up with yours, or because I happend to find wisdom in a source different then one you consider wise is egotistical and intolerent. (You are far more "Holier then Thou" then I)

If you want to talk about what you believe, fine. Please don't tell me what or how I think. I can't believe I have to suggest to a Cognitive-Therapist "Use I statements. They communicate much better the YOU statements, which typically are designed to demean or blame, and don't contribute any real meaning to the conversation at hand."

Comment by david thurman on November 27, 2009 at 12:56pm

JIm all spot on. Don't forget that as you have a sense of your conceptual and experiential coming together it's driven biologically. It's funny to think we perceive an abstract concept as being true, and it's somehow disconnected from biology, as we see biology and perceive that it is separate from the abstract. Get caught in the one and well we can become disconnected, get ground down into the many and that too feels flat meaningless so balancing between these two at the same time is not easy and I think takes a lifetime and one can never perfect it in that we can't control it but simply only can be aware of it. I am just sending out a word, don't forget your biological nature is all it's not rational not too. .

Comment by Jeff H on November 27, 2009 at 1:56pm

I finally got that conversation to come back up and it was your's after all. seems really unlikely you could have just forgotten it..

http://www.redefinegod.com/forum/topics/855906:Topic:36291?page=1&commentId=855906%3AComment%3A36338&x=1#855906Comment36338

Comment by PH214 Youstbi Djuanvat on November 28, 2009 at 3:22am

Dear Jim,
thank's jim! you seem pretty into this religious philosophy (which is good). If i may know what is your religious background?
I don't really classifying religion 1.0 2.0 or anything haha.. I personally believe everyone has their own marathon track. Religion 1.0 , 2.0 or even no religion can brings a person to an enlightenment and closer to God.


Dear Jeff,

I spotted on words, "Jesus was a wanker" haha! Do you think he did things like college dudes do? (He could be a very famous Frat boy in Alpha&Omega fraternity since he could turn water to an alcoholic beverage / wine :p —just a joke, no intention to disrespect The Lord)

Youstbi

Comment by Jeff H on November 28, 2009 at 12:58pm

Have you ever considered using the 12 Steps as a path to deepening an understanding of God. (Modified to be more generic, and not only apply to addicts. Some people put "sin", some use "things outside my influence", you can put whatever is right for you.

* Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over _____________- that our lives had become unmanageable
* Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
* Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
* Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
* Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
* Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
* Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
* Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
* Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
* Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
* Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out
* Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others who are hurting, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

I don't think there is anything harmful to anyone of those steps.

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