Virgin Birth Myths

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Dontaskme
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:28 am
If I understand you, and whatever you yourself name your "usual fare" , this is pantheism. Me, I am a pantheist.
No thing is born good or bad...these are ideas artificially superimposed upon no thing.

When a child is born... we do not name that child I ...no child has ever been born named I ...it is given a separate identity, this is how the false separate self is born, while the real SELF I is what's actually alive here, not the name-tag.

We are given this label (our pet name) ...and then use the word I when ever we discuss or communicate with others...isn't that strange? we all use the same impersonal I

We hardly ever use our personal name when communicating with others... because we know instinctively that it doesn't exist in reality. We know it's just an appearance, coming and going in the unborn immutable SELF

.
Belinda
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:11 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:28 am
If I understand you, and whatever you yourself name your "usual fare" , this is pantheism. Me, I am a pantheist.
No thing is born good or bad...these are ideas artificially superimposed upon no thing.

When a child is born... we do not name that child I ...no child has ever been born named I ...it is given a separate identity, this is how the false separate self is born, while the real SELF I is what's actually alive here, not the name-tag.

We are given this label (our pet name) ...and then use the word I when ever we discuss or communicate with others...isn't that strange? we all use the same impersonal I

We hardly ever use our personal name when communicating with others... because we know instinctively that it doesn't exist in reality. We know it's just an appearance, coming and going in the unborn immutable SELF

.
True. Does this fact relate to myths that purport to tell truths about human life?
Last edited by Belinda on Tue Feb 06, 2018 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Belinda
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Belinda »

Dontask me wrote:
There is no such thing as a ''pantheist'' anywhere living in the universe. This is an artificially constructed concept upon and within Empty Consciousness. It has no reality whatsoever in and of itself.
The ''sense of separation'' is created right there in that idea...the idea there is a ''pantheist''
That is true. However it's nice to explore ideas as ideas.


Evil can only arise in the sense of ''separate self'' ... there is no evil in reality whatsoever in and of itself. This too is a mental construct. Undo the sense of ''separate self'' and all evil will melt away like a salamander in the sun.
That too is true. Evil is not something that exists apart . However we do suffer, and usually we don't like to suffer, so we describe it as "evil".
The mind does this to itself, if it can create something, it can un-create something.

The problem of evil is easily solved...stop creating it in the first place.
But to name something as 'evil' or as 'good' does not affect the suffering very much. If you or I , each a benevolent person, could stop evil then we would. True, some anaesthetists do hypnotise patients not to feel pain. Maybe this skill will become better known.
No person is ever evil...it's all the conscious mind of opposites. Beyond the play of opposites is the Immutable SELF that can never be destroyed.
True, although your "beyond" is loaded with unasked questions! The idea that evil is absence of good is optimistic, and is exemplified among many other illustrations by the famous painting of Christ as the Light of the World.

The Light can put out the darkness... but the darkness can never put out the
Light, it can obscure the Light temporally but never extinguish it entirely.

You can put Light into the dark, but you cannot put dark into the Light...because there is only LIGHT..and darkness is an appearance of that LIGHT.
I agree.Please see my comment above.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:37 pm
But to name something as 'evil' or as 'good' does not affect the suffering very much. If you or I , each a benevolent person, could stop evil then we would. True, some anaesthetists do hypnotise patients not to feel pain. Maybe this skill will become better known.

There is no 'you' to stop anything happening, the 'you' is the happening.

Pain is unavoidable, there is no one to stop pain from happening, pain is in the moment, it is only when there is the sense that the pain is happening to a ''me''... does the suffering arise.

Claimed pain is suffering, obviously because pain is unpleasant...pain is real...but suffering is an abstract concept, an illusion.
No one ever suffered from eating chocolate.

Believing you are your emotions is the suffering, knowing you are not your emotions is enlightenment, the end of suffering. While emotions come and go...you do not, you the immutable unborn self.


That which appears to physiologically suffer...NEVER suffered from it's physiological suffering....because it can endure anything...and is why death exists, it's a brief rest bite, a brief relief from the story of I exist...the forgetting of memory...If we forget to remember who we are, which is source and never have we been removed from source...if we forget that, then we'll suffer....physiologically.

.
Belinda
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:18 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:37 pm
But to name something as 'evil' or as 'good' does not affect the suffering very much. If you or I , each a benevolent person, could stop evil then we would. True, some anaesthetists do hypnotise patients not to feel pain. Maybe this skill will become better known.

There is no 'you' to stop anything happening, the 'you' is the happening.

Pain is unavoidable, there is no one to stop pain from happening, pain is in the moment, it is only when there is the sense that the pain is happening to a ''me''... does the suffering arise.

Claimed pain is suffering, obviously because pain is unpleasant...pain is real...but suffering is an abstract concept, an illusion.
No one ever suffered from eating chocolate.

Believing you are your emotions is the suffering, knowing you are not your emotions is enlightenment, the end of suffering. While emotions come and go...you do not, you the immutable unborn self.


That which appears to physiologically suffer...NEVER suffered from it's physiological suffering....because it can endure anything...and is why death exists, it's a brief rest bite, a brief relief from the story of I exist...the forgetting of memory...If we forget to remember who we are, which is source and never have we been removed from source...if we forget that, then we'll suffer....physiologically.

.
All right then, let's simply say that there is suffering going on. For obvious reasons this mind/body at Belinda's keyboard cannot feel the suffering of the body at DAM's keyboard.
The mind/body at Belinda's keyboard however feels sympathy for the mind/body where suffering is happening at DAM's keyboard, and labels it as evil.

Identifying persons as parts of a whole is tangential to my thesis that myths tell useful narratives, and that myths become outmoded.
Nick_A
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Nick_A »

Seeds wrote:
It was offered up to Nick_A as a plausible response to his accusation that there is no one here capable of providing an explanation for a process that begins with an immaculate conception and then concludes with a virgin birth.

However, because it does not resonate with his own personal take on reality (even though it makes perfect sense from a “Berkeleyanish” point of view), it just isn’t intellectually satisfying to him.

Therefore, it can only be concluded that no matter what anyone says to him, he will still insist that no one here is capable of providing a logical explanation for the issue he brought up.
It isn’t that people are incapable but rather they are closed to what I call the necessary reconciliation between science and religion. Science is true and the essence of religion is true. Truth cannot be in opposition. People who understand this try to find out the cause of the conflict. Could the virgin birth be acceptable to science? Yes, but we are far from any collective appreciation. As is seen on this thread, there is too much opposition to contemplating the problem

From the preface to Jacob Needlman’s book “Lost Christianity.”
What is needed is a either a new understanding of God or a new understanding
of Man: an understanding of God that does not insult the scientific
mind, while offering bread, not a stone, to the deepest hunger of the
heart; or an understanding of Man that squarely faces the criminal
weakness of our moral will while holding out to us the knowledge of how we can strive within ourselves to become the fully human being we are meant to be– both for ourselves and as instruments of a higher purpose.
An understanding of God that doesn’t insult the scientific mind already exists. Consider why there are no posters on this site willing to express a non-secular scientific explanation for the virgin birth. They are driven away. I was hoping to meet someone on this thread more open to what would enable the virgin birth and its relationship to the Immaculate Conception. An all powerful being having a need to juggle around a woman’s inside just is not scientifically satisfying. Yet trying to appreciate the virgin birth from a secular perspective seems equally empty. Is there an alternative or are we limited to arguing pre-conditioned opinions?
Belinda
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Belinda »

This last post from Nick(above) does indicate to me that Nick is a Biblical literalist.

Since The Bible was printed , and many ordinary people became able to read it the peculiar authority of the written word of The Bible has bedazzled many people . Such people , such as is Nick, are unable to see that books in The Bible are the work of men and have been edited by men for publication.

No book in The Bible as we know it is like a book of science. True, much of The Bible narrates events which purport to tell actual history. Other parts of The Bible are parables such as Jesus excelled in.A few bits of The Bible are lists of moral rules and regulations. No part of The Bible is state of the art modern reasoning and knowledge. However, since The Bible was printed it has shared the authority of the printed word with science ; and this is a big reason why people such as Nick mistakenly regard The Bible as the same definitive source for actual events as any scientific manual.

It was not always so. Before The Bible was printed and before it was translated from Latin laymen could not understand what the priests were reading to them. Listening to 'the word of God' was therefore a practical ritual and nothing to do with personal belief. By contrast the lay people believed in the results of their experience regarding the weather, farming and hunting technologies, and crafts such as weaving. Science grew from the practical life experiences, not from religious rituals.

To apply a method of science, evidence, to what is basically ritualistic and devotional is a modern deviation from what religion used to be, and does nothing (to put it mildly) for either science or religion.
Dubious
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Dubious »

Dubious wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 12:27 am Why not! We're free to imagine anything we like but in this universe we first strive to discover what nature imagined and actually created. While much of that can seem miraculous it doesn't perform miracles as we usually apply the word....though you may disagree with that.
seeds wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:03 am
Yes, I do disagree with that.

I disagree because I refuse to acquiesce to the idea that the manifestation of a unique individualization of personal consciousness (such as yours or mine) is simply a mundane feature of the universe to be taken for granted when it is indeed a “miracle” in and of itself:
The Dictionary wrote: mir•a•cle
noun
1. a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
A precise description of why it isn’t in the context of our discussion otherwise we’d have over eight billion miracles wandering on the planet with more on the way. I can’t believe real miracles are that easy to reproduce! And what's the miracle anyways since we can explain how life emerges very well these days according to scientific laws which preempts the supernatural!

Dubious wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:03 am However you dichotomize it, minds are reality-based.
seeds wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:03 am
And what exactly is “reality”?

Are you talking about the “reality” of our universe?

Are you talking about a reality that (according to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics) seems to be composed of nothing more than nebulous fields of energy and information that yield-forth three-dimensional phenomena via its interaction with consciousness?

Again (and based on some of our prior conversations), just as you so jadedly take for granted and brush aside the miraculous manifestation of your own personal consciousness, likewise, you also appear to take for granted the fidelity (firmness/certainty) of reality itself...

...a reality that, upon deeper inspection, seems to be “dream-like” in its makeup (as in not as real as our arbitrary definition of the word “real” deems it to be).

So again I ask you, what is “reality”?
Reality for us is the biological infrastructure of our existence and its commonality with the rest of life on this planet the only exception being the size and structure of the human brain. Having created in its wake complex societal networks, there is also the reality of one’s existence within that society where change is inevitable. Our reality is our mortality, its subjugation to nature and the social orders, however advanced, we live in regardless of any wishful thinking beyond those limits.

Dubious wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:03 am I could never accept that conclusion as a zero probability since we don't know what nature can produce by way of consciousness or to what degree.
seeds wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:03 am If you admit that we do not know what nature can produce by way of consciousness and, especially, to what degree...

...then you simply have no business presuming that nature** could not produce a self-aware, incorporeal mind that is capable of creating a universe out of the living mental fabric of its own personal being...

...(which is precisely what certain spiritual concepts of God imply).

**Keep in mind that “nature”...

(or whatever the driving impetus is that sits at the foundation of “ultimate reality” itself)

...could have been functioning (churning out consciousness) so far back into the infinite past that it would make the mere 13.8 billion years of this universe seem like a blink of an eye in comparison.

Which means that it (nature/consciousness/life/mind) has had plenty of time (literally forever, in fact) to evolve into universe creating levels of being.

Now of course you don't have to believe such a thing, but can you at least be open to the possibility?
...only what’s left after barely meaning nearly equivalent to nil. Anything which refers to “ultimate reality” is nothing more than the gold dust of speculation. That intelligent life in this or any other universe could have re-cycled itself endlessly is not beyond conceivable since nature is the ultimate recycling agent where that which ends can begin again from scratch possibly in a completely new manifestation.

Conversely, an infinite sequence of consciousness inflating itself to become an overlord of creation is thoroughly nonsensical. It’s neither implied or contained within any process of nature where any such infinite sequence of consciousness approaching godhead is anathema but seemingly never so in the minds of those who can envision it.
Londoner
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Londoner »

The Dictionary wrote: mir•a•cle
noun
1. a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
I've got to somewhat disagree with 'Dictionary'. An event that was 'not explicable by natural or scientific laws' would suggest that the universe is without order. If it was 'therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency', then it would be suggesting that this divine agency was random and capricious.

However, if the universe always operated in a predictable way, like a machine, then it would be equally meaningless. The 'divine agency' would not be an agent because it never exercised its agency.

But a miracle is not just some inexplicable event, it always comes with a message. It asserts a purpose for the universe, not just in that particular miraculous case but in general.

I do not think this is some purely theological point. Suppose we were discussing consciousness, or human freedom; to assert that these are real is also to assert the existence of a something 'not explicable by natural or scientific laws'. It is to assert that we have agency, that we can and do attach meanings to events.
Belinda
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Belinda »

Londoner wrote:
I do not think this is some purely theological point. Suppose we were discussing consciousness, or human freedom; to assert that these are real is also to assert the existence of a something 'not explicable by natural or scientific laws'. It is to assert that we have agency, that we can and do attach meanings to events.
But there are naturalistic explanations of values. For instance human freedom is explained by reference to the criterion of the uniqueness of the individual. And this value was boosted by Romanticism and individualism which in their turn owe to the naturalistic historical perspective.
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Londoner »

Belinda wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:36 pm But there are naturalistic explanations of values. For instance human freedom is explained by reference to the criterion of the uniqueness of the individual. And this value was boosted by Romanticism and individualism which in their turn owe to the naturalistic historical perspective.
I do not see how that would be an explanation. If I can see anything as individual, then it must have some sort of difference to other things, so in that respect it is unique. This grain of sand is different to every other grain of sand in some respect. Even two objects that were absolutely identical would be unique in that each occupied a unique location in space. To say that humans are also unique in some special extra way is surely to beg the question we are supposed to be explaining.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Arising_uk »

Dontaskme wrote:It's not even a mistranslation. ...
No it really is.
These are all conceptual ideas that can only arise where there is the sense of separate self...as conceived...in this conception...totally illusory, the Self is beyond all human ideas about it....and all human ideas arise in that Empty unborn ONE

To talk about it is to birth it, only the mind is born not the SELF
What are you waffling about?
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Arising_uk
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Arising_uk »

Nick_A wrote:...
It isn’t that people are incapable but rather they are closed to what I call the necessary reconciliation between science and religion. Science is true and the essence of religion is true. Truth cannot be in opposition. People who understand this try to find out the cause of the conflict. Could the virgin birth be acceptable to science? Yes, but we are far from any collective appreciation. As is seen on this thread, there is too much opposition to contemplating the problem
There is no problem, parthenogenesis can occur in other animals but not in mammals and if it could then it would not produce a male. So if you mean by Mary's 'virgin birth' the production of a child with no sexual contact at all then this is just plain false and the conflict quite clearly points to translation errors and changes of meaning during translation.
An understanding of God that doesn’t insult the scientific mind already exists. Consider why there are no posters on this site willing to express a non-secular scientific explanation for the virgin birth. ...
Such as?
...Yet trying to appreciate the virgin birth from a secular perspective seems equally empty. ...
What is it you think should be appreciated?
Nick_A
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by Nick_A »

Arising_uk wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:29 pm
Nick_A wrote:...
It isn’t that people are incapable but rather they are closed to what I call the necessary reconciliation between science and religion. Science is true and the essence of religion is true. Truth cannot be in opposition. People who understand this try to find out the cause of the conflict. Could the virgin birth be acceptable to science? Yes, but we are far from any collective appreciation. As is seen on this thread, there is too much opposition to contemplating the problem
There is no problem, parthenogenesis can occur in other animals but not in mammals and if it could then it would not produce a male. So if you mean by Mary's 'virgin birth' the production of a child with no sexual contact at all then this is just plain false and the conflict quite clearly points to translation errors and changes of meaning during translation.
An understanding of God that doesn’t insult the scientific mind already exists. Consider why there are no posters on this site willing to express a non-secular scientific explanation for the virgin birth. ...
Such as?
...Yet trying to appreciate the virgin birth from a secular perspective seems equally empty. ...
What is it you think should be appreciated?
I would prefer someone new enter the discussion with knowledge of what reconciles the horizontal direction of secularism with the vertical direction of being which concerns the essence of religion. They can intellectually appreciate the logical possibility of the virgin birth. Why do I always have to take the blame for non secular logical philosophical speculation? It would be nice to meet some others with a similar appreciation for philosophy.
surreptitious57
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Re: Virgin Birth Myths

Post by surreptitious57 »

Dontaskme wrote:
There is no you to stop anything happening - the you is the happening here
This to me is the simplest clarification of everything that you have been trying to say. Now I do not accept it even though I have tried to but do
at least understand it. I know this is a truth personal to you and you are not trying to force any one else to accept it. My own truth is to simply
become as detached as possible. I think that yours is also referencing detachment. So we are achieving the same thing albeit in different ways
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