Christianity

[seeds]

You just don't get it, do you? Consciousness can not push atoms around. End of discussion.

Nonsense!

Every time you raise an arm to scratch an itch on your head, it represents a situation where consciousness (your own consciousness) is pushing a vast number of atoms around.

Indeed, this,...

You're using words like "ridiculous and nonsense" far too often to the point where they can come back to haunt you.

I call it as I see it.

Furthermore, in case you hadn't noticed, I apply those terms just as much to certain aspects of the world's religions as I do to hardcore materialism's chance hypothesis.

Consciousness cannot push atoms around - certainly not by your example!

Of course it can.

Wiggle your toes, and then realize that that's an instance of the "fluid-like" essence of your mind and consciousness extending down from your brain and "saturating" the ubiquitous network of your body's nervous system in such a way that not only provides you with your general awareness of your body from head-to-toe,...

...but also provides you with your ability to "feel" the other phenomenal features of the universe via your sense of touch (which is an inherent aspect of the mind and not the body).

And more to the point, this body saturating extension of your consciousness also gives you control over your body's muscular system so that you can cause your body (which is a conglomeration of atoms) to do whatever your conscious will wants it to do.

And that is something that takes a newly born human, years to fully master, as is witnessed in a child learning to walk...



So, my example is perfectly valid.

Consciousness provides the intent as does instinct which triggers the nerve impulses to the muscles which moves all the atoms in your arm. It's all very materialistic.

So then, when that self-aware aspect of your inner being (your "I Am-ness") exercises a personal "desire" to willfully move your arm in order to bring that bottle of beer up to your mouth with the goal of acquiring a pleasant "feeling" buzz, you suggest that that's basically not much different than "instinct, triggering nerve impulses"?

Really, Dubious?

Okay, then how about when a lucid dreamer willfully (and consciously) chooses (desires) to transform her dreams from an experience of shopping in a city mall to that of lying on the beach of a beautiful tropical island, again, is that also just "instinct, triggering nerve impulses"?

Come on now, Dubious, you're not even making the slightest effort to understand where I'm coming from.

I mean, you chided me for using the words "ridiculous and nonsense" too often, yet here you are, egging me on to use them again.

The world needs more science and less Bishop Berkeley who knows nothing of the mind of god or whether god even exists.

It never ceases to amaze me how skeptics such as yourself rigidly assume that just because you personally have never experienced a reason for believing that God exists, it therefore unequivocally means (or proves) that no one else - in all of history - has ever had such an experience.

And furthermore, I don't know how many times I've brought this up in other threads, but if you weren't so closed-minded about this stuff you would realize that science (quantum science) seems to be suggesting (to the metaphysician) that universal matter appears to be constructed from a "mind-like" substance that is capable of becoming absolutely anything "imaginable" (just like the substance that forms our thoughts and dreams).

So, if I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Bishop's theory.
_______

[Walker]

Relevant enough?

Nah, I have no idea what you're on about.

No problemo.

[Age]

...however, just let the implications of those nuggets sink in and see how perfectly they apply to the above illustration.

It would be helpful if you'd elucidate, in prose, what your diagram means. It is not strikingly obvious to me.

I thought I had already done that, Alexis, in this post...

viewtopic.php?p=600242#p600242

...where I offered you the following explanation of the illustration:

...I personally believe that the main and most "relevant nugget" that can be mined and isolated from the "Christian Story" is the fact that Christian metaphysics proclaims that we humans are the "offspring" (children/progeny) of the Creator of this universe, who have each been created in the image of said Creator, of which is clearly depicted in the following illustration...



Indeed, the illustration metaphorically implies that in our present form, we are what I call the "Ultimate Seeds" of the "Ultimate Lifeform" (God), with God being the fully-fruitioned "adult version" of that which we are the seeds of.

In other words, our minds contain the encapsulated ["seed-like"] potential of eventually being able to create (post death) a universe out of the living (mental) fabric of our very own being, just as God has done with the living (mental) fabric of his (her/its) own Being.

I don't know how I can make the possible truth of reality any clearer (or more "natural" and "organic") than what is implied in the illustration.

Perhaps the illustration is too straightforward?

I guess I just don't understand why you're having a problem deciphering its obvious (in your face) meaning.

If you are truly interested in analyzing my take on this situation, then have a look at my website where I definitely attempt to elucidate it all with "prose," along with over a hundred more illustrations I uploaded from a book I self-published back in 2008.

If 'you', "seeds", were Truly interested in learning and understanding how and why your take on this situation is false, wrong and incorrect, then let us proceed in an open, honest, peaceful, and harmonious discussion.

Otherwise just remain CLOSED, in and with your OWN BELIEFS and ASSUMPTIONS here.

Here's the link: http://www.theultimateseeds.com/
_______

[Belinda]

...however, just let the implications of those nuggets sink in and see how perfectly they apply to the above illustration.

It would be helpful if you'd elucidate, in prose, what your diagram means. It is not strikingly obvious to me.

I thought I had already done that, Alexis, in this post...

viewtopic.php?p=600242#p600242

...where I offered you the following explanation of the illustration:

...I personally believe that the main and most "relevant nugget" that can be mined and isolated from the "Christian Story" is the fact that Christian metaphysics proclaims that we humans are the "offspring" (children/progeny) of the Creator of this universe, who have each been created in the image of said Creator, of which is clearly depicted in the following illustration...



Indeed, the illustration metaphorically implies that in our present form, we are what I call the "Ultimate Seeds" of the "Ultimate Lifeform" (God), with God being the fully-fruitioned "adult version" of that which we are the seeds of.

In other words, our minds contain the encapsulated ["seed-like"] potential of eventually being able to create (post death) a universe out of the living (mental) fabric of our very own being, just as God has done with the living (mental) fabric of his (her/its) own Being.

I don't know how I can make the possible truth of reality any clearer (or more "natural" and "organic") than what is implied in the illustration.

Perhaps the illustration is too straightforward?

I guess I just don't understand why you're having a problem deciphering its obvious (in your face) meaning.

If you are truly interested in analyzing my take on this situation, then have a look at my website where I definitely attempt to elucidate it all with "prose," along with over a hundred more illustrations I uploaded from a book I self-published back in 2008.

Here's the link: http://www.theultimateseeds.com/
_______

Seeds, why do you prefer humans to the status of "ultimate seeds" and not for instances sewer rats, or tree colonies?

[Harry Baird]

My focus was on the elephant in the room earlier, but just for completeness, here's the answer to this supposed "logic" of Mr Can's:

Now let's see if we can get you to understand that "have meaning" doesn't automaticallly entail "mean something real." I don't see you riding any unicorns. But "unicorn" is a word with meaning.

Your insipid analogy between justice and unicorns fails because justice is an abstract concept, whereas unicorns are tangible entities. An abstract concept cannot not exist - its very meaning is its existence - whereas it is possible that no tangible entity picked out by a noun like "unicorn" exists. So, yes, in the case of "justice", "have meaning" very much automatically does entail "means something real".

[Harbal]

Indeed, the illustration metaphorically implies that in our present form, we are what I call the "Ultimate Seeds" of the "Ultimate Lifeform" (God), with God being the fully-fruitioned "adult version" of that which we are the seeds of.

In other words, our minds contain the encapsulated ["seed-like"] potential of eventually being able to create (post death) a universe out of the living (mental) fabric of our very own being, just as God has done with the living (mental) fabric of his (her/its) own Being.

I don't know how I can make the possible truth of reality any clearer (or more "natural" and "organic") than what is implied in the illustration.

Is that your own theory, or did someone else come up with it?

[Belinda]

Indeed, the illustration metaphorically implies that in our present form, we are what I call the "Ultimate Seeds" of the "Ultimate Lifeform" (God), with God being the fully-fruitioned "adult version" of that which we are the seeds of.

In other words, our minds contain the encapsulated ["seed-like"] potential of eventually being able to create (post death) a universe out of the living (mental) fabric of our very own being, just as God has done with the living (mental) fabric of his (her/its) own Being.

I don't know how I can make the possible truth of reality any clearer (or more "natural" and "organic") than what is implied in the illustration.

Is that your own theory, or did someone else come up with it?

Harbal, it was Seeds who wrote that, not I. I replied to Seeds in my subsequent post in which I disagreed with her.

[Harbal]

Harbal, it was Seeds who wrote that, not I. I replied to Seeds in my subsequent post in which I disagreed with her.

Yes, I know it was Seeds; I must have taken the quote from your post rather than Seeds'. Sorry about that.

[Belinda]

I have done the same thing myself. These quotation boxes take some decyphering!

[Immanuel Can]

This is one sick puppy with whom we're dealing.

I said none of what you attribute to me, of course.

Straw man and ad hominem in one response? With a further red herring thrown in, by way of leaping past the legitimation problem as if you've solved it, when clearly you've not been able to?

That's the trifecta.

One does not usually see "the triple." I'm sort of flattered.

However, none of the rant has anything to do with the problem. You have no basis for asserting that "injustice" exists at all. And I'm still quite certain you see that.

But until it's solved, you have no basis for launching any accusation, whether against God or merely against me. You need a defensible conception of "justice": and at present, you've got nothing on that.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Yes, but we should be aware that this is a guy who, were his own child or grandchild to refuse to "accept Jesus's sacrifice", would consider that child or grandchild to be condemned to eternal torment in hell. Sure, he'd do his best to proselytise to that (grand)child, but if that failed, he would literally consider that (grand)child to be on an irrevocable consignment to hell. This is one sick puppy with whom we're dealing.

A couple of notes in relation . . .

There are three or four different spheres, as I might call them, that we can consider when thinking about Jesus and about Christianity.

1) For us today we will generally have to focus on the "real Jesus". That is, the real man who lived in Judea at that time. A man born of a woman and with a biological father, various brothers and sisters. This Jesus is a man like any other man of course and is not the 'divinized man' that is seen with other lenses.

2) Then there is the Jesus of invention; of embellishment; and of mythology. It is obvious that the clearest example of this Jesus is that which forms the central core of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. And it is this Jesus, and this Christianity, which is most central to the Occident considering the construction of churches, religious-social community, and a worldview (of the Medieval epoch) known as The Great Chain of Being. This is the Jesus as an incarnation of God and as an 'avatar' of God. That Jesus expands into vast areas of projection and speculation.

3) Finally there is the Jesus of faith. This is the most mysterious or the most strange when you think about it. Each faithful person has a *relationship with Jesus* and understands himself to be a disciple of Jesus and as being discipled. This relationship takes place, obviously, within the inner dimensions of the person, in private thought, meditation, in prayer, and through all the events of living. There are myriad forms of this relationship. However, there is also the communal relationship which takes place in public worship. In our recent modernity (the last 100 years) this has developed alongside mass-communication. So one has to take into consideration a whole new dimension of faith-relationship.

Each and all of these need to be considered and each category is an entire *world* in and of itself.

It is one thing to condemn Immanuel Can for his strict but archaic beliefs. It is another to situate him within a larger, influential movement (of mass religion) and to understand how *he* functions in that world. And also how that *world* impinges on his internal belief and the practice of his faith.

The fact seems to be: He cannot modify his absolutely rigid belief-system though in fact many actively believing Christians do indeed do that. So for example it is quite possible for there to be a 'believing Christian' who has not ever read the Gospels or participated in public worship. There must be, therefore, many different levels of relationship. And of course here I am focusing on the 'personal faith aspect'. Immanuel represent therefore a truer or more acute version of an Evangelical Protestant fundamentalism.

As I have mentioned at other times he has a special luxury: he can literally *hop over* the modern preoccupation with the 'real Jesus' (the man who actually lived, who was part of a community of Judean citizens in a period of time when strict state Judaism was resisted and being modified and indeed the entire cultural world was in upheaval), and he can also *hop over* the Jesus of embellishment: the essential Catholicism and Christianity that informed the Occident for over 1,000 years. He can hop over all of it and disregard it all as 'false' or 'imperfect' or 'misunderstood' and then propose a revisionist reexamination of Jesus in the Gospels (but not in apocryphal Jesus-centered literature nor in Gnosticism) but seen through a lens of strict Bible inerrancy. That is, Bible literalism. And in that literalism no metaphors can be entertained.

As Seeds points out there is a large degree of strange absurdity when the delivered resident of Heaven focuses attention on a beloved child now in the eternal hands of torturing demons. Immanuel has both denied the imagery by saying this is 'Catholic embellishment' but yet confirmed it by saying it will be even worse than what can be imagined. He has taken away with the left hand but then replaced the horror with the right.

But what is most interesting is that by even thinking of a heaven-world or a hell-world we are indulging in a play within our imagination. I think this must be remembered. As far as I know it is not possible to verify, for oneself, what heaven-world await or what hell-worlds await -- except through all the stories that have come down to us (pictures essentially). Those *worlds* exist in Hieronymus Bosch pictorials, which certainly have allusive power, but also in those descriptions that come from other cultures.

And when we are presented with pictorials of this sort it is our psychological selves that receive them and *deal* with them if you will. We might dream of a heaven-world or a hell-world and the dream has meaning for us, but not really as a premonition but as commentary on life here.

What interests me most (and this comes through all my writing) is the contemporary cultural and sociological aspect to all of this. There are millions and millions of people like Immanuel 'out there' who are viewing the world through these lenses. It all takes place in their *imagined world* but they apply it as if it is real to the occurring world of contemporary events and goings-on.

[Nick_A]

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God. ~ Meister Eckhart

How many acorns grow up to become oaks? Very few since most are to be eaten and nourish the earth. How many God seeds grow up to become sons of God? Very few. Most are devoured by life and feed the earth.

[seeds]

Indeed, the illustration metaphorically implies that in our present form, we are what I call the "Ultimate Seeds" of the "Ultimate Lifeform" (God), with God being the fully-fruitioned "adult version" of that which we are the seeds of.

In other words, our minds contain the encapsulated ["seed-like"] potential of eventually being able to create (post death) a universe out of the living (mental) fabric of our very own being, just as God has done with the living (mental) fabric of his (her/its) own Being.

I don't know how I can make the possible truth of reality any clearer (or more "natural" and "organic") than what is implied in the illustration.

Is that your own theory, or did someone else come up with it?

It's mine.

I wrote the first draft of it back in 1970 during a phase of epiphanies that began in 1969.

I self-published a small book about it in the 80's. I then created a video lecture series in the 90's that aired on public access television in Grand Rapids, Mi. for around 7 years (some of which has been uploaded to YouTube). Then, in 2008, I self-published another book about it, of which I've been discussing on various philosophy forums for the last 14 or so years.

Unfortunately (for me), I realized a long time ago that if I take all of the effort that I've put into this project over the last 52 years and combine it with one dollar and fifty cents, it will get me a ride on the city bus.
_______

[seeds]

Seeds, why do you prefer humans to the status of "ultimate seeds" and not for instances sewer rats, or tree colonies?

As Nick_A pointed out,...

(but messed up with his nihilistic interpretation of the concept)

...it's for the same reason that Meister Eckhart...

(a German theologian and philosopher born in 1260 CE)

...allegedly stated the following:

“The seed of God is in us: Pear seeds grow into pear trees; Hazel seeds into hazel trees; And God seeds into God.”

The point being that like any and all self-propagating life forms, God has his own unique "seed" of himself (herself/itself), and we humans are it.

However, to be more concise about it, sewer rats (or dogs, or dolphins, or chimpanzees, etc.) have not crossed a threshold into the necessary level of consciousness and self-awareness that would allow their minds to survive physical death - intact.

In other words, I believe that the mind of a human...

(or any other being throughout the universe who has reached a level of consciousness equal to [or higher than] humans)

...can (and will) survive physical death.

Indeed, that is the whole point of the Eden myth, where ape-like hominids ascended (awakened) to a level of consciousness in which they (by purposeful design) became God's literal offspring "created in God's image," thus prompting God to proclaim to the co-inhabitants of heaven...

"...Behold, the man is become as one of us..."

Now I realize that it's difficult to imagine, but my theory suggests that the higher dimension of reality that exists above and outside of this universe, only consists of self-sustaining (incorporeal) minds...

(i.e., the "us" mentioned in the above Biblical quote)

...who are each capable of creating "reality" (indeed, a universe) within themselves, as is depicted in a series of my fanciful illustrations at this link: http://www.theultimateseeds.com/murmurings.htm

In other words,...

(and in regard to your "sewer rat" query, and assuming you visited the link)

...when our minds are born out of our bodies (born out of our "seedpods") and literally out of this universe via death, we are not going to enter into another ordered setting like the one we are in now.

And if there is no ordered setting consisting of suns, and planets, and land, and oceans, and bodies, and brains, etc.,...

...then under what circumstances could what passes as being called the "mind" of an ocean perch, for example, remain intact (post-death) and survive in a setting sans an ocean and its little perch body?

Again, the point is that only a human consciousness (or higher) is awake enough (self-aware enough) to survive the death of the body and - by divine design - is a family member of the highest species of being in all of reality.
_______

[Harbal]

It's mine.

I wrote the first draft of it back in 1970 during a phase of epiphanies that began in 1969.

I self-published a small book about it in the 80's. I then created a video lecture series in the 90's that aired on public access television in Grand Rapids, Mi. for around 7 years (some of which has been uploaded to YouTube). Then, in 2008, I self-published another book about it, of which I've been discussing on various philosophy forums for the last 14 or so years.

Thank you for the detailed response, Seeds.

Unfortunately (for me), I realized a long time ago that if I take all of the effort that I've put into this project over the last 52 years and combine it with one dollar and fifty cents, it will get me a ride on the city bus.
_______

A labour of love cannot be measured in financial terms.