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.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 7.
A quick access source for any curiosity you have left is HB's AynRandLexicon, freely available on the web.
The essential issue, in terms Ayn Rand added to philosophical clarity, is:
"Primacy of existence over primacy of consciousness".
If you learn that distinction and its significance, it may give you a new understanding of the issue you are arguing about.
And I hope you can learn to open your mind a bit longer to explore for clearer understanding an idea which prima facae appears disagreeable to you before dismissing it out of hand. You have nothing to loose and can still disagree in the end.
I have greatly accelerated my learning and growth as I have practiced that approach.
Include me out.
And yes I agree with most of what you wrote, which why I proposed some alternate definitions from the ones you are using in what you wrote.
It seems a waste of time to change someone's stated operating definitions and then proceed to argue eloquently (if not heatedly) against things they are not actually saying or implying or agreeing with in the least.
I offered redefinitions in order to rescue some concepts from traditional religion. I believe that there are valid and useful meanings to them that can serve a well-lived life.
But you just took my writing and changed every definition I gave for the words God, spirituality etc back to the irrational definitions that they have been given by mystics and supernaturalists.
Then you presented all the reasons that I have that have required me to redefine them in order to develop a rational secular spirituality (much like Rand redefined "sacred" to reclaim a meaning that she frequently like to use).
I know it is hard to do, but if you don't grant common premises such as spirituality and mysticism are inherently connected or God must be a supernatural being or spirituality is only the domain of religion, then you can begin to look at some of these things differently than "they" would have see them. This is very like what has been do to concepts like rights and capitalism in the social/political sciences.
So again, if you start from and stay with the definitions I propose as you read through what I wrote, you can avoid imputing to my statements, and then working to disprove, meanings that they only have if you use go back to the definitions that I take issue with in the 1st place.
I think we are more in alignment than you are allowing yourself to see here.
Cheers
I find Rand's fiction much more compelling than her philosophical writings. I think that's how we're wired. It may have to do with mirror neurons; when we see something dramatized, we put ourselves in the place of the character we're watching. Thus, the image of grieving mothers at Newtown is much more powerful than the actual statistics which show gun ownership reduces violent crime rates.
I haven't studied it but, I suspect dogs have mirror neurons and cats don't. Your dog reads your moods and understands you. Your cat doesn't care.
Your discussion of your spirituality necessarily means that you consider your self not only as a corporeal entity, but also connected to a spirit, (whatever that is). You or any other human that has ever existed or currently does so can not point to, illustrate, nor show the repeatable measurement of anything that is a spirit, regardless of your convolution and conflation of words and thoughts, what you term as "some good quality thinking". Objectivism begins with the principle that Existence exists and A=A. Nothing in that principle accepts or allows for something termed as spirit.
If you fear or doubt your abilities as a human and feel that you must " 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.", quite obviously you have not understood the principles or anything else of Objectivism.
God, spirituality, infinite reservoir of power and energy can not be married with nor adjusted to fit within the philosophy of Objectivism. There are no contradictions in Objectivism, only those that have self doubt and a fear of Individualism.
Although Einstein would never admit it in the scientific world I am sure he realized that our perceptions of existence would evolve the more we observed it.
And when I said "identity" I meant in the Objectivist metaphysics context. The Law of Identity: A is A. In this way, everything that exists has Identity.
And what ever created it is obvious abet we still have the chicken and the egg enigma to contend with here. As to existence always existed makes no sense to me...no matter how far back one could go...there had to be a beginning and endings are not predestined...the creativity of conscious life might play a small roll here, so long as we create order, abide by the physical laws and not just make it up on our own...which is the direction we are headed. Also the obvious conclusion to make about being aware of it's creation is in fact it's specificity...
Re read my first statement about those that reject knowing because is can not be completely...I do not take this view.
And one last point; Identity only applies to Conscious Beings...those human like entities that are clearly not conscious rely on ego...a made up identity in the brain...nothing else, except our immortal energies might retain some form of identity...this is hard to prove but it is obvious to me when considering our conscious connection to the ether via our Minds...not our heads, our bodies nor our thoughts.
First, though perhaps not completely known (at any given point in time), Existence and everything that exists is "knowable," because it exists with an identity, a specific nature and certain actions.
Also, I think we have to be careful of statements like "Consciousness governs Existence" and "what ever created it, was aware of it's creation" - even if only metaphorical. Consciousness and awareness are characteristics of living beings, so certainly Existence includes consciousness and awareness (as attributes of particular entities), but Existence itself doesn't possess these capabilities, nor do they exist in some disembodied form.
Also I don't think a creator or origin or "inventor" of Existence is a necessary concept, because Existence (in some form) can be reasonably be viewed as eternal and infinite.
Einstein understood that "Consciousness" governs Existence and more than likely what ever created it, was aware of it's creation and the evidence lies in the details of existence. These details, (physical laws), are so specific and mathematically precise that if it were one digit, one decimal place off...existence wouldn't exist.
It's mind blowing, however, the pagan pre-conscious view and expression of it is not helpful at all to the rational, objective, observant mind. The conversation needs to be elevated in a new from with different language... therefore eliminating the mystically humanized descriptions and phrases that reference things unseen.
It is my assertion that Quantum physics might provide not just the answers but the language to articulate what is self evident.
I'm sure many along with our good friend Zenphamy will still say...GobbelyGook.
Somehow we need to show that the physical laws are not a strangle hold upon the creativity of man but provide the means inwhich we can create.
So what part of connecting deeply and totally with Reality on all levels and striving passionately, intellectually and intuitively to align every aspect of my self and my life with it occurs to you as irrational?
What is irrational (and highly ineffective) is reliance on self without regard to as full an integration with the widest context Reality as is possible to me.
That endeavor, perhaps the most important one we undertake as going human concerns, is not to be taken for granted or approached lightly. It is a discipline - and takes work, practice and a highly-developed set of skills.
This continual effort by many to marry religious belief with fact and reason based Objectivism, regardless of how flowery the language, is simply emotionally caused fear of reliance on self. Self doubt indoctrination.