Afterthoughts on Recent God Post
The recent discussion around religion, God, spirituality and Rational Philosophy was extraordinarily thought-provoking for me. Thank you to all who participated.
I have given much thought over the last 25 years to reconciling the meaningful and practical spiritality I choose to make of central importance in my life with my deep grounding in Objectivism and related thought.
Inspired by the recent discussion I have made and attempt to streamline and essentialize the framework I have come to (as of today...ever-evolving).
I want to share it here, and humbly request response, feedback, support and challenge. I believe it contains some good quality thinking. You tell me:
GOD
At any rate, how to streamline and essentialize this...? Ok, I define God as capital R Reality, as a whole in it largest all-inclusive sense. All-that-is. Not each part, process and subset thereof, but EVERY part, process and subset thereof, taken as the single fundamental greatest Unity.
In my spiritual practices (everything I do to build, maintain and grow my relationship with God = my spirituality), I consider 2 aspects of God.
One is what I call Presence, which is the very quality of Beingness which pervades and is shared by Everything That Exists. Through meditation and prayer (not in the traditional sense of that word) and other spiritual practices, I can feel and connect to that infinite reservoir of power and energy to recharge and turbo charge myself to rise above and perform beyond my own finite store of power and energy.
The second aspect is Grace or Spirit or Flow, as you will. This is the intricate field of interlocking beginningless and endless causual connections - The Way of Things. This is where I seek guidance, data and direction beyond my finite store of knowledge and understanding and my limited capacity for wisdom, insight, forsight, intuition and creativity. It is the realm of everything that I don't know that I don't know. It is where what I need to know - when I need to know it, to live at my peak performance and direct
my actions and my life optimally - unfolds as I need to know it in every next Emerging Reality. (My job is to pay attention [LOVE that phrase!], let go of the best-guess snapshot in my head of how reality should be, and continually integrate that data into my ever evolving strategies and next steps.
I have given much thought over the last 25 years to reconciling the meaningful and practical spiritality I choose to make of central importance in my life with my deep grounding in Objectivism and related thought.
Inspired by the recent discussion I have made and attempt to streamline and essentialize the framework I have come to (as of today...ever-evolving).
I want to share it here, and humbly request response, feedback, support and challenge. I believe it contains some good quality thinking. You tell me:
GOD
At any rate, how to streamline and essentialize this...? Ok, I define God as capital R Reality, as a whole in it largest all-inclusive sense. All-that-is. Not each part, process and subset thereof, but EVERY part, process and subset thereof, taken as the single fundamental greatest Unity.
In my spiritual practices (everything I do to build, maintain and grow my relationship with God = my spirituality), I consider 2 aspects of God.
One is what I call Presence, which is the very quality of Beingness which pervades and is shared by Everything That Exists. Through meditation and prayer (not in the traditional sense of that word) and other spiritual practices, I can feel and connect to that infinite reservoir of power and energy to recharge and turbo charge myself to rise above and perform beyond my own finite store of power and energy.
The second aspect is Grace or Spirit or Flow, as you will. This is the intricate field of interlocking beginningless and endless causual connections - The Way of Things. This is where I seek guidance, data and direction beyond my finite store of knowledge and understanding and my limited capacity for wisdom, insight, forsight, intuition and creativity. It is the realm of everything that I don't know that I don't know. It is where what I need to know - when I need to know it, to live at my peak performance and direct
my actions and my life optimally - unfolds as I need to know it in every next Emerging Reality. (My job is to pay attention [LOVE that phrase!], let go of the best-guess snapshot in my head of how reality should be, and continually integrate that data into my ever evolving strategies and next steps.
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But much like the current commonly accepted irrational mis-definitions of concepts such as rights, capitalism, logic, selfishness, etc., some words need to be resucued from such abuse and reasonably reattached to real things. That is why I feel justified reworking definitions of God, spirituality, etc.
Perhaps you mean that you are working to become more rational in your integration of knowledge so that your actions will be more to your and rest of humanity's liking? Be happy with your quest but beware of the subtle tiny dishonest little things that can creep in when you are not really careful. Whether you find what you want to find or not, you will learn something about existence.
God is not stated as a name in the Bible. God has a name - "Ahura Mazda".
Most of the writings Books, Psalms, Gospels, and Etc; refer to God as "Lord" or "Father".
There are some historical tidbits there but not enough to call the Bible an historical text.
The Bible is a book that is written as a guide to the spiritual mind. A manual for meditation to transcend this reality and Light the Fire of human mind. This is all done in a positive way. There is no instant gratification but an on going discipline to create a better person through one's own daily visualized meditation.
This is not new age palaver, but old and new testment teachings. Read it without a prejudical viewpoint. You must also do some reading of historical theological material to read the Bible in a new light. Light and Fire are the key terms. Those are they keys in reading the text of the Bible.Go to the following link: https://www.youtube.com/user/bdona4556
And Jaynes!! What a brilliant scientist. His book shook part of my world and affirmed the rest when I read it almost 30 years ago. I am actually rereading it now!
I didn't know about the new book. I will check it out. Thanks.
What a spectacularly rich post this has been. I have profited immensely aleady - in many currencies.
So you think it would be better to say: Existence didn't create itself?...Ok...
It doesn't make sense to me that it always existed, like some prefer to think.
I would enjoy continuing the conversation live by phone or video. You game? If so, let's move to email.
Kimsawyer@thewealthsource.com
Your number one makes me think of "as above so below"...so why not it the macro world...only not as dramatic as what we see in the quantum world...I suppose anything we learn or observe changes something along the way...although that is just a suspicion here. There seems to be 2 or more camps in quantum physics, each going in different directions according to my observations)(so to in Einstein's time as well)...quantum physics has a long way to go yet...hell if it was so easy or settled, we'd get bored.
As far as consciousness and the mind...I refer to Julian Jaynes...A new book out now about his work and much easier to read: gods, Voices and the bicameral mind. by Marcel Kuijsten. I'm a 1/4 was through and it articulates what I've been saying better than I have been...of course his work has progressed for some years now after his passing...there is more proof in his pudding so to speak.
There were several other name brand dictionaries, btw, that had the same definition when I searched. Language IS an evolving system, you realize...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iNjy...
Of course it's not completely knowable, that's why it's rejected...silly...but it's why we try...without that much...we would get bored and die.
There is nothing convoluted nor confusing about the specificity of existence.
I spent one whole semester at the Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota before I decided I'd rather go to Troy State in Alabama.
I recall four dorm friends and I (and now I'm thinking there may have been one other guy) walked south along a four-lane by the school and turned onto a street where a houses faced a slim body of water with houses on the other side.
According to Google Maps, that would have to be Sylvan Drive with houses that faced Whitaker Bayou.
I don't think that house is there anymore. It had a Spanish-looking reddish tile roof that looked like that (I think) on Al Capone's mansion in Miami.
It was very sturdy with concrete floors and brick walls and wide open with doors and window frames all gone.
What spot? Can't remember. Another house may be there and I'm not sure if I can see a shadowy clearing between trees.
https://www.google.com/maps/@27.35421...
I just watched the Livestream of the first two 10am general sessions from OCON - Sat & Sun.
I highly recommend them for significant insight.
They cost $195 for the whole conference worth of general sessions - running through Thursday.
The first addresses the Objectivist Movement 2.0.
This is NOT Objectivism 2.0 as they emphasized. But rather its about increasing awareness and appreciation for Rand and her philosophy as an effective movement on a ever growing scale to have significant influence.
The second addresses issues of "sanctioning" and interacting with other groups to advance the movement in our culture.
The first defines the terms and gives insight into the goals, strategies, tactics and open issues.
The second discusses the history of conflicts and the reasoning behind some of them - more openly that in the past. All private conversations are not revealed, as is appropriate, but many issues are clarified.
The next four: Mon-Thurs. should provide equally informative and enlightening. It demonstrates an approach to the issues - not just conclusions. It demonstrated thinking principles in action.
I don't think the concept "invent" is meaningful with respect to existence. It's an out of context term.
Just like "creation of the universe" is a contradiction in terms. Creation requires something to manipulate that is ones starting point. "The Universe" refers to everything - leaving nothing for "creation" to change into something "created". That's what a contradiction in terms is. And that's meaningless misuse of language.
Words like invent and create come from a human context of use. These examples contradict that context.
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