God or Man: the Source of Higher Values

[Nick_A]

Greta

I get along well with some theists, some of whom have called me names, but we worked it out. There is not much to criticise about your ideas because they are patchwork and formative, often unorganised and contradictory. I don't much care about them; I have other interests.

So Nick, I simply dislike you as a human being - no hard feelings, we can't like everyone. I cannot make this more clear. I don't hate you, just as I don't hate centipedes, Bobbit worms and snakes - I just find them rather revolting and would prefer that they not be near me.

All you know of me our my ideas which are not original but learned from sources far greater than me who I quote. You are repulsed by ideas which open the human heart to the religious emotion as opposed to acquired negative emotions. Religious emotion invites and encourages the natural human attraction to eros. You prefer metaphysical repression in order to increase the influence of secularism which isolates Man from its source replacing it with the Great Beast. They are poison to you. I support them and have provided links for those who may need to further contemplate the human condition. You prefer to keep the attraction to eros out of education leading to metaphysical repression, and I support those efforts furthering human being.

Nick_A wrote:
"The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact." Malcolm Muggeridge

That is just a misanthropic truism claimed to be fact without a skerrick of evidence or justification, a weak and invalid axiom based on the most jaundiced possible perspective. It's is what happens when one allows an analysis to be skewed by emotion - so the flawed analyst will believe that only the angles they focus on are real, in this case, Muggeridge's famous misanthropy.

A curious characteristic of the secular mind represented by Greta is the belief that all the horrors we all know of that have occurred in the world over time are somehow correctable by the same quality of being that created the problem. All those who recognize the human condition are considered exponents of misanthropy. From this perspective Jesus was also an exponent of misanthropy.

One reason I like Malcolm Muggeridge is because of the purity of his conversion. He had the heart and intelligence to admit the futility of the path he was on in his need for meaning.

https://jimmylong.net/2013/11/23/the-un ... man-heart/

The story of Malcolm Muggeridge’s life is quite interesting. He went from being a heavy drinking, womanizer with communist sympathies to being a devoted Christian who used his powerful intellect and deep faith to write some of the most profound books of the last century. He lived through the horror of two world wars and saw firsthand the brutality and depravation that occurred under dictators like Joseph Stalin. He also knew the depths of his own sin and thus cherished the salvation secured for him on the cross.

Muggeridge wrote, “The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” What is he saying here? He means that the sin nature of human beings is self-evident. The pages of history are filled with example after example of human cruelties ranging from hurtful words on a child’s playground to the loss of nearly 3,000 in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The advent of the 24-hour news cycle has only heightened out awareness of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Our technological advances have provided new opportunities for cyber-bullying and email scams, and have created new venues for purveyors of child pornography. Great strides in scientific achievement have merely made it possible for radical regimes bent on annihilation of have the ready means of accomplishing their diabolical goals……………………………….

Human being is double edged. It is capable of both the greatest compassion and greatest atrocities. Simone Weil, a former atheist, put it this way in reply to the famous observation from Marx: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” She wrote “revolution is the opiate of the masses.” Recognition of the human condition is not misanthropy, it is a sign of human intelligence.

The Greta mind is concerned about what Man does. She believes it will change through the means of progressive education. The religious mind is concerned with what we ARE. We know we can become human if we begin to recognize the human condition for what it is and for that we need help from above.

[osgart]

Neither God or man is the source of higher values. There is no Great Beast, nor is there a God. Higher values are realized through the hearts desire for justice, and above that deserved compassion. If you have no such desire, than you will be blind to those values. Higher values rest in the heart moreso than the intellect. The nature of mankind is fixed upon the temporal reality, for the eternal can not be proved. In the eyes of the secular, this life is the prize. Secular people do have deep affection for their own kind and their posterity.

As to what type of person you are, secular, or religious makes no difference. Those positions are convictions about the nature of reality, not the intents of the heart.
Great good, and great evils can come from both.

Existence dont care about anyone's morality, nor survival, nor prosperity. It just arbitrarily is there with total indifference. Everyone creates who they are going to become, or they fall into who they are. Higher values exist in the conception of those higher values. And in the conception of them is great peace and power of being, only in the becoming of them. And whether you fall or create your becoming, its entirely your choice as to who you are. Its just that some people throw away the choice.

[Nick_A]

Neither God or man is the source of higher values. There is no Great Beast, nor is there a God. Higher values are realized through the hearts desire for justice, and above that deserved compassion. If you have no such desire, than you will be blind to those values. Higher values rest in the heart moreso than the intellect. The nature of mankind is fixed upon the temporal reality, for the eternal can not be proved. In the eyes of the secular, this life is the prize. Secular people do have deep affection for their own kind and their posterity.

As to what type of person you are, secular, or religious makes no difference. Those positions are convictions about the nature of reality, not the intents of the heart.
Great good, and great evils can come from both.

Existence dont care about anyone's morality, nor survival, nor prosperity. It just arbitrarily is there with total indifference. Everyone creates who they are going to become, or they fall into who they are. Higher values exist in the conception of those higher values. And in the conception of them is great peace and power of being, only in the becoming of them. And whether you fall or create your becoming, its entirely your choice as to who you are. Its just that some people throw away the choice.

How can you be so sure that there is no great beast and there is no God? Plato describes the Beast

Simone Weil Weil gets the term "Great Beast" from Plato. Specifically, this passage from Book VI of his Republic (here Plato critiques those who are "wise" through their study of society):

I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes...

The Great Beast is society. If it didn’t exist as a living organism, sociology wouldn’t exist either.

Is God as described by Plato and Plotinus as beyond time and space a reality? We may not be able to verify God but we cannot deny how God is described by Plato and Plotinus.

Do values as universals exist as ideas in the world of forms described by Plato and necessary to sustain a conscious universe? If they do it is logical to contemplate how they would involve into creation and be perceived by man as selective subjective interpretations.

Is it logical for natural Man to invent higher values which do not further the survival of the fittest? I do not see why. It is more logical that they are remembered and if that is the case, they have a higher origin. The point is that contemplating the relationship between above and below opens the mind. What is learned from below and what is remembered from above? How can we know?

[uwot]

You are concerned with idolatry...

What have I said that makes you think so?

You associate the idea of religion with a personal god which is really idolatry.

Again: What have I said that makes you think so? If you're going to make up stuff up about me, could it at least be some super-power or that I have irresistible sexual charisma?
Thanks in anticipation.

You seem to deny that the essence of religion can refer to the Good as Plato described it or the ONE as Plotinus described it.

Seem to? Based on what?

You only concern yourself with idolatry while avoiding the deeper ideas in religion as they relate to the objective relative quality of human being in the context of universal meaning and purpose.

No, no, Nick_A, something is confusing you. I suspect it is your scriptal incontinence that causes juxtapositions of mutually exclusive oxymorons which results in sentences which are over extended and undermined by their inevitable semantic incoherence. For instance; nobody who understands what the words 'objective' and 'relative' actually mean would put them so close together except for a laugh.

But you’re not as bad as Greta.

Good of you to say so. If I discover someone you're not as bad as, I shall return the compliment.

[Dontaskme]

Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything. One is infinitesimally small and big at the same time.



The Mandelbrot set is the set of complex numbers for which the function does not diverge when iterated from, i.e., for which the sequence, etc., remains bounded in absolute value..~ the wikki man...the man with the google goggles knows all, sees all, is all.





11 Dimensions - Mandelbrot Fractal Zoom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujvy-DEA-UM

Also see .. 12 Dimensions of Consciousness (full version)

______




Also see...The dark side of the Mandelbrot set



The electric universe, gravity fallacy-

[Reversed] Edge of Infinity - Mandelbrot Fractal Zoom Out

The Edge of Infinity - Mandelbrot Fractal Zoom

Eye of the Universe - Mandelbrot Fractal Zoom

The Mandelbrot Set - The only video you need to see!







.

Now.

Let's dance like no one is watching, that's the only real magic.



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[Nick_A]

DaM

Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything. One is infinitesimally small and big at the same time.

You lost me. How is this the source of higher values regardless of when we dance?

[Nick_A]

You are concerned with idolatry...

What have I said that makes you think so?

You associate the idea of religion with a personal god which is really idolatry.

Again: What have I said that makes you think so? If you're going to make up stuff up about me, could it at least be some super-power or that I have irresistible sexual charisma?
Thanks in anticipation.

You seem to deny that the essence of religion can refer to the Good as Plato described it or the ONE as Plotinus described it.

Seem to? Based on what?

You only concern yourself with idolatry while avoiding the deeper ideas in religion as they relate to the objective relative quality of human being in the context of universal meaning and purpose.

No, no, Nick_A, something is confusing you. I suspect it is your scriptal incontinence that causes juxtapositions of mutually exclusive oxymorons which results in sentences which are over extended and undermined by their inevitable semantic incoherence. For instance; nobody who understands what the words 'objective' and 'relative' actually mean would put them so close together except for a laugh.

But you’re not as bad as Greta.

Good of you to say so. If I discover someone you're not as bad as, I shall return the compliment.

You associate the idea of religion with a personal god which is really idolatry.
Again: What have I said that makes you think so? If you're going to make up stuff up about me, could it at least be some super-power or that I have irresistible sexual charisma?
Thanks in anticipation.

I have never read you discuss the essence of religion. I’ve only read you condemn personal God concepts.

For instance; nobody who understands what the words 'objective' and 'relative' actually mean would put them so close together except for a laugh.

Man’s being in contrast to other forms of life on earth evolves as well as adapts. Evolution is the change of what a form of life IS as opposed to adaptation which refers to how a form of life changes in response to external conditions. Conscious Man and animal Man are two different qualities of being. They are objectively relative.

Like Greta, you prefer to condemn first and think later. I find it beneficial to think first without denial.

[Dontaskme]

DaM

Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything. One is infinitesimally small and big at the same time.

You lost me. How is this the source of higher values regardless of when we dance?

If there's just everything which there is..then everything is already a given including higher values.

Humans are the reflection of God's energy light ..the shadow self is always below the castor, so you are right in saying it's top down and not bottom up...it is our fall from grace that is the cause of our selfishness which in turn gives rise to the beast because we are not selfless enough to balance the power of shadow and light distribution and transformation of both polarities as being one and the same energy. It has been the cause of the rise and fall of every human civilisation. We are not civilised until we see the God in our self, rather than being separate or some distant unattainable thing we must earn.


.

[uwot]

I have never read you discuss the essence of religion. I’ve only read you condemn personal God concepts.

You have not read me condemn anyone's personal god concept. I have repeatedly said that any interpretation of the phenomena that is not contradicted by the evidence could be true. What you may well have seen me do is condemn anyone's insistence that their own personal god concept is true. Particularly if that concept is demonstrably false, and even more if there is an accusation of stupidity, irrationality, lack of subtlety, or any claim that the person promoting the concept is in any way superior to those that hold a different view.

Man’s being in contrast to other forms of life on earth evolves as well as adapts. Evolution is the change of what a form of life IS as opposed to adaptation which refers to how a form of life changes in response to external conditions. Conscious Man and animal Man are two different qualities of being. They are objectively relative.

I think 'different' describes spiritual and bodily change less contentiously.

Like Greta, you prefer to condemn first and think later. I find it beneficial to think first without denial.

Well​ there ya go: you accuse us of not thinking. What Greta and I do is challenge before we condemn.

[Nick_A]

Uwot

You have not read me condemn anyone's personal god concept. I have repeatedly said that any interpretation of the phenomena that is not contradicted by the evidence could be true. What you may well have seen me do is condemn anyone's insistence that their own personal god concept is true. Particularly if that concept is demonstrably false, and even more if there is an accusation of stupidity, irrationality, lack of subtlety, or any claim that the person promoting the concept is in any way superior to those that hold a different view.

That’s not the way it works in my case. The premise for my philosophical beliefs begins with Plotinus conception of the ONE outside the limitations of time and space. My whole philosophy is built upon the premise that the ONE involves into nous (three) beginning the involutionary process of creation. It explains how God is simultaneously one outside the boundries of time and space and three within time and space which seems to disturb people so much. Three (the interaction of the three elemental forces) in turn serves as the basis for the levels of reality which sustain creation limited to time and space. I’ve verified that this concept is repulsive to secularism which must struggle against it to sustain its bottom up philosophy of everything arising from nothing. My philosophy must be considered irrational, stupid, with a lack of subtlety. The World takes this position. I believe it to be true because it answers my questions as to universal meaning and purpose as well as the purpose of Man within it. I discuss philosophy from that perspective. I know it is abhorrent and people prefer arguing details rather than contemplating wholeness as the ancients did. I know very well why secularism must condemn this approach. The top down approach threatens the modern supremacy of the bottom up approach used by secular progressive thought. I side with those striving to keep the great ideas active within society for the benefit of those who need them regardless of how they are scorned.

Well there ya go: you accuse us of not thinking. What Greta and I do is challenge before we condemn.

Those like you and Greta challenge by arguing details and avoiding the big picture which cannot exist for secularism. It is like a person looking at a jig saw puzzle with its pieces spread out on a table. You will argue the pieces and how they look and try to fit them together to match your preconceptions. It cannot be done. Universalists are open to the big picture and the logic of involution creating the pieces while secular progressives limit themselves to the logic they define as evolution. Universalists know that involution and evolution are complimentary processes but the secularist must deny involution. To be open to the idea questions the validity of secularism so must be denied and condemned.

Universalists like me begin with the big picture which must be condemned and see if the pieces fit together to match the big picture.

[Nick_A]

DaM

Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything. One is infinitesimally small and big at the same time.

You lost me. How is this the source of higher values regardless of when we dance?

If there's just everything which there is..then everything is already a given including higher values.

Humans are the reflection of God's energy light ..the shadow self is always below the castor, so you are right in saying it's top down and not bottom up...it is our fall from grace that is the cause of our selfishness which in turn gives rise to the beast because we are not selfless enough to balance the power of shadow and light distribution and transformation of both polarities as being one and the same energy. It has been the cause of the rise and fall of every human civilisation. We are not civilised until we see the God in our self, rather than being separate or some distant unattainable thing we must earn.


.

One major difference we have pertains to the nature of human being. If I understand you rightly you believe that we are one (God) but just have to remember it. In contrast I believe I am the wretched man. Rather than one, I am many. We have the potential for I AM but as of now my self is We Are. From this perspective it is far better for me to begin with admitting my plurality rather than imagining a unity that doesn't exist for me

[uwot]

My whole philosophy is built upon the premise that the ONE involves into nous (three) beginning the involutionary process of creation. It explains how God is simultaneously one outside the boundries of time and space and three within time and space which seems to disturb people so much.

Which is fair enough; we're all trying to make sense of a baffling existence we find ourselves in.

Those like you and Greta challenge by arguing details and avoiding the big picture which cannot exist for secularism. It is like a person looking at a jig saw puzzle with its pieces spread out on a table. You will argue the pieces and how they look and try to fit them together to match your preconceptions.

What people generally do is start with a premise, that is plausible enough: some god created the universe, or the universe was created by some natural process that we don't understand, for example. Then they will spin a yarn that combines some demonstrable facts with a bit a guesswork to create a broadly coherent narrative-one that at least makes sense to them. The mistake that people often make is to confuse coherence with truth; they believe that because it makes sense, it is the case. The real headbangers then get confused by others who won't accept the entire story and in some cases become defensive, or even abusive, when the story is challenged.
For all I know, your story is correct, but if so, it is correct because it conforms to reality and not because it makes sense to you. It is this conformity to reality, the annoying details you complain about, that you have to demonstrate, not the coherence of your big picture.

Universalists like me begin with the big picture which must be condemned and see if the pieces fit together to match the big picture.

Not so, but you are likely to be condemned for condemning others who question the pieces of your philosophy.

[Dontaskme]

DaM



You lost me. How is this the source of higher values regardless of when we dance?

If there's just everything which there is..then everything is already a given including higher values.

Humans are the reflection of God's energy light ..the shadow self is always below the castor, so you are right in saying it's top down and not bottom up...it is our fall from grace that is the cause of our selfishness which in turn gives rise to the beast because we are not selfless enough to balance the power of shadow and light distribution and transformation of both polarities as being one and the same energy. It has been the cause of the rise and fall of every human civilisation. We are not civilised until we see the God in our self, rather than being separate or some distant unattainable thing we must earn.


.

One major difference we have pertains to the nature of human being. If I understand you rightly you believe that we are one (God) but just have to remember it. In contrast I believe I am the wretched man. Rather than one, I am many. We have the potential for I AM but as of now my self is We Are. From this perspective it is far better for me to begin with admitting my plurality rather than imagining a unity that doesn't exist for me

I can see what you are saying, but for me, it’s all story born of language believed to be real.Reality is real, but the story is a fiction within it, not separate from it...so for human it can look at isness and label it this and that making it appear to have meaning and purpose ....except that this meaning and purpose is a knowledge that is made up out of thin air, this knowledge convinces us that what is made up is actually real, when it’s just fictional story. So nothing is real in the story, as we see things dying and disappearing from our lives which shows us nothing really has any meaning or purpose, and that there’s just an unbounded freedom in every moment and that we can just enjoy the view that is the miraculous mystery of not knowing life living itself....then of course because language evolved, life became a prison for the human mind, but that’s a long story....the internet is full of why earth became a prison planet....that’s why there is a mad urge to unplug oneself from the matrix that has become the human condition...people are beginning to see through the illusion of knowledge.

For me, I don’t know if I am unity or separate....I know nothing except what knowledge dictates, knowledge that has appeared from the same unknown isness. So in essence, it’s all just a story arising and falling away in the consciousness that is a human.

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[Nick_A]

Uwot

What people generally do is start with a premise, that is plausible enough: some god created the universe, or the universe was created by some natural process that we don't understand, for example. Then they will spin a yarn that combines some demonstrable facts with a bit a guesswork to create a broadly coherent narrative-one that at least makes sense to them. The mistake that people often make is to confuse coherence with truth; they believe that because it makes sense, it is the case. The real headbangers then get confused by others who won't accept the entire story and in some cases become defensive, or even abusive, when the story is challenged.

Yes, this is how the great traditions initiating with a conscious source become secularized. That is why I use the term “essence of religion.” “Experts” latch on to the essence and it becomes meaningless. Avoiding the experts in corruption requires inner awareness a person can achieve over time

For all I know, your story is correct, but if so, it is correct because it conforms to reality and not because it makes sense to you. It is this conformity to reality, the annoying details you complain about, that you have to demonstrate, not the coherence of your big picture.

This is the real question. How do we verify? The secularist will say that is what the brain is for. We verify though analysis. A Buddhist would say that we verify reality through the experience of satori or the flash of enlightenemet that coud be the result of working with koans for example. If you want to argue details you’ll never have the experience of satori or gnosis in Christianity.. You will never experience the forest. The trees you will argue over get in the way

But it is the attitude of secularists towards the need for meaning which is most harmful. I had a thread on it called secular intolerance. Jacob Needleman explains in part:

More and more, as I see it now, this heartless way of thinking about God and ultimate reality dominates the mind of the contemporary world. For God or against God, “belief” or “atheism,” it makes no difference unless the inner yearning— or whatever we wish to call the cause and source of the “second breathing” — is there. And it can so easily be there, just as it can so easily be covered over and ignored, perhaps for the rest of one’s life. God or not God, “belief” or “science” — it also makes no real difference for my personal life unless the call of the Self and its need to “breathe” is heard and, ultimately, respected. Not only can thought about ultimate reality make no difference to the world or to my personal life unless we hear and respect the call of the Self, but such empty thought can bring down our personal and collective world, even our Earth itself. When thought races ahead of Being, a civilization is racing toward destruction.

Jacob Needleman: What Is God?

The secular world favors indoctrination over opening to the inner needs of the self and its relationship to its source. Even something as simple as acknowledging a period of silence in the beginning of a school day which respects the call of the self is denied as offensive in favor of indoctrintion.

Consider the idea of the complimentary relationship between involution (the devolution of forces into creation) and evolution (the return of forces to their source) is scorned. That is why this thread is considered naïve. Receiving from above is in accordance with the laws of involution while the belief that man is the source of higher values is the belief in evolution. The person who comes to understand the relationship between receiving from above and building from below will acquire understanding but the world does what it can to deny it since it questions secular dominance.

So that is where we are. We want to argue details and close our minds and hearts to the needs of the self and its relationship to its source which efforts at self knowledge can help reveal. Secularism calls blind denial and the closing of the needs of the self a sign of intelligence.

[Science Fan]

The irony of Nick A is that all of his comments involve nonsensical religious indoctrination, while he claims secularists have closed minds.