honestly: you are right and i apologise. it is just the title of this thread that in my opinion could really have lead to a very interesting discussion. but i have to get lost ...
No apologies necessary; if you see an intriguing path that hasn't been taken as yet, why not get the ball rolling? Getting lost can be fun.... have a good one
ok. i give it a try. human beings have been contemplating on one or the other form of a super human entity since thousands of years. there were forms of such belief which see super human entities in trees, stars and there were more abstract forms which acknowledged a not so much personifiable "being". in many spiritual traditions you can find specific small groups who seemed to go further than "believing" and desired "experiencing". this includes christian mysticists as well as indian yogis. in the last century mankind became able to study phenomena on very low scale, below the nuclear level. and they had astonishing findings, one of them being the overhelming importance of the observer in subnuclear processes. the pure act of "watching" became crucial for the outcome of experiments. in the beginning of this century some physicists try to merge subnuclear science with what the above mentioned spiritual experts claim to have found. consciousness enters the equation. now the different forms of believing in a superhuman being, in "god", have a position in all this development. when your child starts to draw it will first not really "get it" as it might want. there will be more or less strange beings on the paper with funny hands and strange heads. over time the child will learn how to make the picture more adequate to what it wants and what it sees. to me it is the same with beliefs in god. people start with some father-like or super-heroe-like image and over time develop a more "adequate" picture. on this road the seeker will realise that the very concept of a god that is independent of the seeker is not really matching. finally the opinion of seekers converge. be they christian, buddhists, hindus or muslims. only early stages of the spiritual journey allow for conflicting religions. so, why won't god heal amputees? my personal opinion is that mind rules over matter, but it is very difficult and a lot of work to actually come to a position where one can freely transform it. and i would assume that once you have accomplished this you are already so much merged into god that you do not care much about your physical presence anyways. at least historic figures seem to indicate that. final thing to mention. as a parent you cherish the early drawings of your child as much as the later. (picasso once said he could draw like raphael at age 12, but it took him a life time to paint like a child). there is nothing "bad" about the early pictures. i actually assume that at some stage of spiritual development one realises that the different pictures do not differ at all and that it was just another picture to see "development". finally experience merges into what one might call complete tautology or maybe "god".
I essentially agree with this point of view. What you describe is a form of Lamarckian evolution, whereby ideas and memes are passed on from sender to receiver with natural selection influencing the mix. This process unfolds quickly in generational time, but painfully slow from an individual perspective. (Unless you are a receiver and just got walloped. That's quite an experience, let me tell you.) The analogy of the child's drawing is a very good one. If humanity itself is the child, and humanity continues to mature and learn as knowledge accumulates, then each new iteration of the drawing should bear higher correspondence to reality. As unschooled children, it was natural for us to start crudely; even Mozart and Da Vinci had to begin somewhere. The idea of spiritual convergence also fits with my tongue-in-cheek 'Alpha Centauri' hypothesis, the gist of which is that God waits for us on a distant star. By the time we develop sufficient technological means to reach Him, we will have found spiritual enlightenment as well. The two forms of advancement go hand in hand; without sufficient enlightenment, technology will eventually destroy us. Headlines like this one leave little doubt. Spiritual convergence is a sort of mandate, just as vanquishing cancer is a mandate. (Whether God owns a lazyboy on Alpha Centauri, or even exists at all, is irrelevant by the way; the hypothesis is meant to highlight the notion of long-run evolutionary purpose. Maybe we are following a path that all sentient life follows, assuming they don't knock themselves out of the tournament.) Re mind over matter: I suspect we will eventually shed our reverence for supernatural trappings, for the same reason we no longer believe in witch doctors. (Except at the Fed.) Reality itself is so compelling, and so amazing, that we don't need to gussy it up with illogical deus ex machinas. Truth is stranger than fiction, and more wonderful than fiction to boot. A sci-fi magnate (I forget who) observed that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. In this sense, we have access to magic... real magic. The fake stuff doesn't compare. Moving stuff around with your mind? It's already been done. Regenerated limbs? Dramatically extended life? Superhuman strength? Oasis in the desert? Just a matter of time. Who needs supernatural powers? Don't we already have them in a sense? What I want to know is, why isn't it possible to conceive of a deeper reason for reality's existence without insisting that the rules of reality can be bent Yuri Geller style. What if reality is like a PS3 game, where it isn't possible to break the rules or hack the box... but the player can still do amazing things? Would this be so bad? Isn't it actually more of a relief to know that logical rules are in place, than to pine for a fantasy world where shit can just stop making sense? We are still in very early days, I believe. It is fascinating to see. For example, the scientific community is just now waking up--really grasping the fact that popular religions should be challenged. MUST be challenged, if we are to make it for the long haul. The difference between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pat Robertson is merely one of degree; both see the world ending in a glorious ball of fire, to their and their followers' benefit. That ain't cool. But the scientific community is still immature too; logical positivism, for example, is as obnoxious a doctrine as fundamentalism in some ways. It doesn't have the hold it once did, but there are still vestiges. The real advancement--the spiritual convergence that you speak of--will perhaps come when we are able to cast off wrong answers (religious answers) without casting off spirituality in the process. When we recognize that spirituality has deep value as a concept, while shedding ourselves of false illusions and embracing the primacy of logic... that will really be something. p.s. thanks for that--glad you contributed
i have one personal belief system. it works like a pyramid of development. we all start at the bottom and work ourselves up. at each level we gain some idea of the next level above and understand pretty perfectly the levels below. to make that more tangible take again the child analogy. we understand perfectly well how "walking" works and we watch with an empathic smile how it struggles to learn all about it. an analogy for communication with someone on more or less the same level is maybe with your partner. exchanging information, quarrelling, anger, all these happen here quite frequently. then there is communication with a higher level. a spiritual guide for example. someone we respect and see has having further progressed on the road. now this pyramid model can be taken further. in terms of physical reality there were many "models" in place throughout human history and they got more and more precise, touching subnuclear levels and finding out that matter as such seemed to vanish. today there are some findings that indicate that the more intense you look the more united the universe seems to be. now, this "looking more intense" is like moving up on the pyramid. your understanding grows and you get a better picture about the whole. you understand perfectly well all below you (maybe newton's mechanic in this case) and you get some idea of the next levels. ok. now i try a little leap within my position on the pyramid. reading, studying, conversation with spiritual masters indicate to me that it is possible to master matter perfectly. meaning, it is possible to jump out of PS3. now why can't i do it? well, i think i am still to low within the pyramid. the higher you get, the more you master matter. i think that within the ascendence you lose as well the ability to abuse your powers. your feeling of unitedness prevents you from doing harm to the lower levels. actual you eventually lose interest to interfere with their path. you are willing to help them in any way, yet you do not want to take away all the difficulties, since by doing so you'd remove any possibility for them to grow either. you do not remove all obstacles from the path of your child, yet you take care once it faces a too big one. i further assume that at the end of the pyramid you merge with all of it, merge with existence as such. and you realise that there has never been a pyramid. and at this point christ, buddha, and a zen koan finally meet. nevertheless, before you get there you might face laughter and anger, toilets and a coffin ... peace to you.
me thinks all the children in africa dying of hunger and as well the minors incarcerated as scapegoats in undeveloped countries suffering torture and rape on a daily basis wouldn't say the got what they need.
God gives you everything She has: All to all in His image. Then, you want what you think you don't have, and have what you do. That is the meaning of: "When you pray, believe you have recieved it". All has been given to all...already. Jesus
Your wishful thinking is rooted in a basic hidden premise: that in order for the universe to have meaning, that meaning must be manifested on a personal / individual level. This premise is, shall we say, problematic to say the least. tau·tol·o·gy (tô-tà Âl'Ãâ¢-jÃâ) Pronunciation Key n. pl. tau·tol·o·gies 1. Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy. 2. An instance of such repetition. 3. Logic: An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.
Yes, "logic" for "tots, nevertheless, true. What are parables? Some "get it" when truth if phrased in different ways. This is because each requires a unique approach to the healing of mind. The approach that aligns perception with reality is the one that heals. In the example, "all to all", it describes the way God gives....everything, equally. God's giving is not subject to time, thus all has been given already. Logically, then, you are equal to God, choosing to have unequal experiences in a world of your own creation. This required a learning process. I am about the unlearning process back to power. Jesus