You do not understand me probably because of some bad experiences with theism. I have basically the same idea of God as Einstein describes.
Plotinust describes it as the ONE. Plato refers to the ONE as the Good. Simone Weil describes the ineffable God.The development from a religion of fear to a moral religion is a great step in peoples lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based purely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on guard. the truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
Common to all types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he want to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
-- Albert Einstein, Science and Religion, NY Times, November 9, 1930.
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith
I am not a theist. I do not believe in a personal God concerned with what I do. I believe in the universe as the body of God. The source of the body is beyond the limitations of time and space. The planet earth is just a small part of this lawful structure we call universe which is sustained by laws and relative consciousness. For some reason you think that those like me who envision a conscious universe must be theists.There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
If those like Einstein, Plato, Plotinus, Simone Weil, and Jacob Needleman have not restricted the human need for meaning and purpose to worldly events or personal gods, why should I? They have realized that the world is part of a much larger whole within which Man has conscious objective meaning and purpose.
This is where self knowledge comes in. A person can verify as St Paul did that they live as a plurality in opposition to themselves with only the potential for inner unity. The fallen human condition which creates this opposition isn’t bad. It is a bad mistake to define it s bad. It is just condition like a broken leg that can be healed. Efforts to heal are the purpose of all the great traditions initiating with a conscious source.people! They exist! They are on this planet! Your words suggest that you honestly cannot see beyond what you're claiming. This is why I keep asking you why you focus on some low-level imaginary "reality" that you weave stories about, in which you tell other people how wretched they are and what they cannot do. Set aside all those stories and beliefs, and in complete stillness OBSERVE yourself doing this.
I reside in Plato’s cave and am the wretched man as described by St. Paul. My advantage over you is my willingness to admit it. It gives me the opportunity to strive for human freedom rather than continue as a slave to attachments on the wall of the cave.
Might it be possible for a conscious person to know that they're already naturally unified?
Nick_A wrote: ↑
Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:03 pm
But how many even know what it means to “understand”?
Do you mean to understand the way YOU DO? Why would your "understanding" be so significant?
Why would it make sense that your view is somehow so conscious and accurate, while most other people's are not? Do you really think the universe is that small and limited? How does that make any sense at all?
I’ve come to accept understanding as taking place when a person reasons, feels, and senses the same thing. When a person does this they understand a phenomenon. But who does it? Normally these connections do not exist so are replaced by imagination. We are thinking one thing while emoting about something while sensing another
It isn’t that the universe is small. What is small is what has become of our power of impartial conscious contemplation which enables our species to have the impartial experience of the lawful enormity of our great universe.