'Energy' is just the result from matter reacting with itself. And,Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pmIf you are missing something, and I am not saying you are, what you might be missing is the fullest explanation of what you yourself seem to be supporting with your own reference to an infinite regress -- if that infinite regress proposes that when one has completed it one is (to put it colorfully) *in the presence of God*.henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 9:09 pmIf God is not synonymous with the Creation, if God and Creation (or existence) are two, not one, then I'm missin' sumthin' in your posts (cuz it seems to me you're sayin' the two are synonymous).
One would then have to answer: If God created the universe of expanding matter, and indeed if he created all that is (whatever it all really is, which may not be anything at all except power or force (or thought?) -- after all what is matter? I thought that the physicists said that matter is just an appearance and behind mater is just energy? But I also think that no one has any explanation of what 'force' or 'energy' is and what it is is a complete mystery);
'Force' is just what 'energy' does to drive or move 'matter'.
What does the word 'it' refer to here, EXACTLY?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm If God created the universe and everything in it, how will you explain God's relationship to it?
And, what do you mean by "If"?
God, Itself, IS creating the Universe, Itself, ALWAYS, right HERE and NOW.
'God', Itself, IS thee Creation, Itself.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm As a completely exteriorized energy? As something part-and-parcel of God? To what degree does God inhabit or infuse the *world* that God created ex nihilo? Is some part of God in the creation? If so, in what way?
There is absolutely NOTHING created from NOTHING. And, there is absolutely NO way God could be outside or beyond thee Creation, Itself. ALL-OF-THIS is ALL VERY SIMPLE and VERY EASY to UNDERSTAND, ACTUALLY.
And, just like EVERY other human-made 'religion' what IS ACTUALLY False, Wrong, and Incorrect can be CLEARLY SEEN here, as well as what IS ACTUALLY True, Right, and Correct can ALSO be CLEARLY SEEN here.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm [The Vaishnavas have an interesting and intuitively plausible way of defining the 'material world' that we live in. They defeine it as "God's external energy', to be distinguished from 'God's internal energy'. The object for them is to move, or be moved, from the external energy to the internal energy -- and that is the object of spiritual life and indeed of existence. Hell (the hell-worlds) is defined by them as being on a farther point of God's external energy. And samsara is a form of hell-existence. And one is in samsara (voyaging without a guide) because one is under the spell of nescience. That is, one does not have the proper (interiorly revealed) knowledge. Knowledge has to dawn in one, in any one of us, before we can *see* what really is, and what really is true about our life here. Many can't or don't. They exist then in 'darkness' which means lack of knowledge and awareness.]
NOT AT ALL. This is because there is NO "Mind of God", just like there is NO "human mind", and just like Creation, Itself, IS God, Itself, so to is thee Mind, Itself, God, Itself. But FURTHER EXPLANATION is needed before 'you', human beings, are yet ready to UNDERSTAND and SEE this Fact.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm The intelligent design people go so far as to say that *the idea of all things* had to preexist the creation of all things, and in this sense God must be the architect of all that is possible and all that is real and takes shape, right? This will sound like trivialization but we will be forced to agree that a ham & cheese sandwich had to exist within the Mind of God, would we not? So too the milkshake.
But when ALL-OF-THIS is FULLY UNDERSTOOD what ALL-OF-THIS essentially and VERY SIMPLE comes down to are IRREFUTABLE conclusions like the one you just expressed here, that is; God is Existence, Itself.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm Just as the supernova and those far-off clouds that contain a billion galaxies . . .
Still, I am pretty sure that you are not capturing (because it is hard to express) what I mean when I say that God is Existence.
And, it is this 'rising up', through thee continual evolutionary process, to and towards thee (Truly OPEN) Mind, WHY words like 'up-lifting', 'en-light-ening', and 'spirit/s' are used.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm You take it to mean what has been created. And you are right that some part of that idea is expressed in pantheism (that we live in God's body). Quite literally this is what the Jains conceived: that we live, literally, within the body of God. And in the course of (I think 86,000 incarnations, they even world out a number) we move through soul-evolution from the lower parts of God's body to the higher part, eventually residing in the 'mind' or the 'intelligence' of God. And that is where Eternity is.
EXCEPT, that there is REALLY just One BIG, and True, Picture. Which, when one learns and understands HOW to RECOGNIZE and SEE properly, correctly, and FULLY, then that one KNOWS when "others" are SEEING and SPEAKING this SAME One True VIEW and STORY.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm So it seems to me that everyone works with (what I call) an imagined picture.
The Truths and the Falsehoods can be CLEARLY SEEN and EXPLAINED, VERY SIMPLY and VERY EASILY.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm The idea of the *world* (and all successive worlds) is only and always an IDEA held in the mind, in the imagination, of man.
But when the Picture MATCHES Reality, then the Picture is MORE than just a picture.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm But the picture is not the reality. The picture is just a picture.
You can say and mean 'things', truthfully, but this does NOT mean that 'thing' IS ACTUALLY Truthful.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm I would say that there is, and I mean this truthfully, no way to provide a *real picture* because no picture is ever real.
HOW to OBTAIN and PROVIDE thee One and ONLY REAL Picture is a very SIMPLE and EASY process. One just needs to learn HOW to do and achieve this first. And, 'you', adult human beings, in the days when this was being written, were just another step UP along the evolutionary path of coming to KNOW thy Self. But, 'you' are SO CLOSE and are on the verge of stepping off the eighth and second last step and stepping up to the ninth and last step, TO HEAVEN.
And just like words can paint a picture, your words here a painting a picture of just what you ASSUME is real and true, and NOT necessarily ACTUALLY REAL nor True, AT ALL.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm A picture is a reference, an allusion, or a metaphor.
SEE, when one SEES the REAL and True Big of FULL Picture, then what I have been SAYING and POINTING OUT here will make far more and even PERFECT sense.
WHY do you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE that Reality, Itself, can NEVER be 'pictured' by 'you'?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:36 pm This is why, of course, I make an effort to explain to Immanuel Can that the Christian Story requires an exegesis, and this exegesis can only take shape through a gnostic analysis. I do not mean a Gnostic analysis as in the Gnostics. But an application of a unique capability of analysis -- a way of seeing through symbols and pictures to a Reality that cannot ever be pictured. Only (I guess) intuited.
Is this because you can NOT YET picture Reality, EXACTLY, "yourself"?