Fire And Brimstone

[Burl]

[romansh]

On a more positive note

 

 

[Burl]

Very nice, Romansh. The idea of approaching conscious contact with the divine as the removal of intellectual barriers to truth rather than the erection of logical scaffoldings has a Popperian ring to it. I see the tower of Babel (one side of it, anyway) in the illustration.

 

Alma shows the danger of egoism. I think she would have escaped the doll room if she had held the door open for the tricycle boy, and avoided the temptation entirely had she not stopped to write her name.

[romansh]

Very nice, Romansh. The idea of approaching conscious contact with the divine as the removal of intellectual barriers to truth rather than the erection of logical scaffoldings has a Popperian ring to it. I see the tower of Babel (one side of it, anyway) in the illustration.

 

Alma shows the danger of egoism. I think she would have escaped the doll room if she had held the door open for the tricycle boy, and avoided the temptation entirely had she not stopped to write her name.

 

I must admit my interpretations of the two metaphors are completely at odds to yours ... but that is OK

[Burl]

I must admit my interpretations of the two metaphors are completely at odds to yours ... but that is OK

Please elaborate. I think we have demonstrated we are both capable of considering an idea even if we do not choose adopt it.

[romansh]

Yours ... very simply (my initial reaction) we are trapped by our desires.

 

As to your comment on ego ... quite often we hear comments about other people's egos etc. Sometimes we have a need to control our egos. Who is it that is trying to subdue our own ego? While I readily admit an ego is a model of what we perceive as our thought patterns (chemistry/physics patterns), I would not be without those patterns.

 

The second video ... for me was a recognition of the illusion of dualistic thought. We are connected regardless of how we might perceive of ourselves as separate.

 

Traditional religions concretize that thought, panentheism subtly enables that illusion to persist.

Edited August 1, 2016 by romansh

[Burl]

Alma is a parable or teaching story; a narrative which invites moral and spiritual interpretations and instruction, but has no clear conclusion. Yours is very good.

 

Consciousness is an illustration. I don't usually see things in a dualistic pattern, so my view was a bit different.

[romansh]

So do you see people as morally responsible for their actions?

 

And despite the title ... I don't think my posted video was primarily about consciousness ... hence the the line "I am separate"

Edited August 1, 2016 by romansh

[Burl]

So do you see people as morally responsible for their actions?

 

And despite the title ... I don't think my posted video was primarily about consciousness ... hence the the line "I am separate"

Yes, I think people are responsible for their actions.

[romansh]

Yes, I think people are responsible for their actions.

I would like to be clear here morally responsible?

[Burl]

I would like to be clear here morally responsible?

Morally, ethically, spiritually. Completely responsible. What are you trying to leave out?

 

I strongly suspect you are not a double predestination Calvinist :-)

[romansh]

Morally, ethically, spiritually. Completely responsible. What are you trying to leave out?

 

I strongly suspect you are not a double predestination Calvinist :-)

 

Nope I am closer to a monist.

And you are exhibiting (at least from my perspective) patterns of dualist thought.

[Burl]

Nope I am closer to a monist.

And you are exhibiting (at least from my perspective) patterns of dualist thought.

Is that bad? And what is it?

[romansh]

Is that bad? And what is it?

 

The fact that you ask the question is that bad? belies the claim that you usually don't see [think] in dualistic patterns.

 

And what is it? It is an observation.

[Burl]

What is a dualistic pattern?

[romansh]

What is a dualistic pattern?

 

good/evil (bad)

 

moral/immoral

 

God being somehow separate ie traditional theistic beliefs, and to a lesser extent in panentheism

 

Are some of examples of dualistic patterns of thought.

 

Having said that I find language quite dualistic so to some extent that people accept dualism is not that surprising.

[Burl]

Is it communicative/noncommunicative or communicative/vague?

[romansh]

Is it communicative/noncommunicative or communicative/vague?

 

I am not sure of your point.

[Burl]

I am trying to get you to explain this dualistic thing. Antonyms don't make it understandable to me.

 

Dualism has a specific meaning in Christianity of a struggle between two opposing forces. This is rejected. Evil is not the opposite of good, it is the absence of good. There is one good, but a large number of possible evils. Evil is like a shadow and has no essence, but can be easily observed under the right conditions.

[romansh]

I am trying to get you to explain this dualistic thing. Antonyms don't make it understandable to me.

 

Dualism has a specific meaning in Christianity of a struggle between two opposing forces. This is rejected. Evil is not the opposite of good, it is the absence of good. There is one good, but a large number of possible evils. Evil is like a shadow and has no essence, but can be easily observed under the right conditions.

 

"This is rejected" By whom? Even secular folk find themselves thinking as particular actions as evil

 

Are you suggesting the sun when it creates a weather pattern that destroys a city etc is evil somehow or at least the pattern is evil?

[Burl]

People do speak broadly at times. The orthodox, philosophical Christian definition of evil being the absence of good goes back to Aquinas and probably Augustine.

 

When speaking of actions sin would be the Christian term.

 

When speaking of the weather the term would be suffering.

 

Sin is not necessarily suffering and neither are necessarily evil.

 

My interest is in your spiritual conceptions. How does dualism get me closer to understanding those?

[romansh]

I will try another tack ... here is a quote from Joseph Campbell from the Power of Myth ...

 

... But the ultimate mystical goal is to be united with one's god. With that, duality is transcended and forms disappear. There is nobody there, no god, no you. Your mind, going past all concepts, has dissolved in identification with ground of your own being, because that to which the metaphorical image of your god refers to the ultimate mystery of your own being, which is the mystery of the being of the world as well.

 

Absence of evil goes as far back as the neoplatonists, I gather

 

Like I said before six people and half a dozen opinions as to what spiritual is.

 

You must be reading something I did not mean to say in what I wrote.

 

So a destruction of city is not evil?

OK.

[Burl]

I understand your idea of duality better now.

[hoghead1]

Yours ... very simply (my initial reaction) we are trapped by our desires.

 

As to your comment on ego ... quite often we hear comments about other people's egos etc. Sometimes we have a need to control our egos. Who is it that is trying to subdue our own ego? While I readily admit an ego is a model of what we perceive as our thought patterns (chemistry/physics patterns), I would not be without those patterns.

 

The second video ... for me was a recognition of the illusion of dualistic thought. We are connected regardless of how we might perceive of ourselves as separate.

 

Traditional religions concretize that thought, panentheism subtly enables that illusion to persist.

 

I disagree. Panentheism is not dualistic thought. Panentheism eschews all forms of dualistic thinking. God and the universe are understood as one reality, not two separate ones. Mind and matter are understood as one reality, not two separate, independent realms. The subject-object dichotomy is transcended by the principle of relativity or essential relatedness.

[hoghead1]

I will try another tack ... here is a quote from Joseph Campbell from the Power of Myth ...

 

 

Absence of evil goes as far back as the neoplatonists, I gather

 

Like I said before six people and half a dozen opinions as to what spiritual is.

 

You must be reading something I did not mean to say in what I wrote.

 

So a destruction of city is not evil?

OK.

That's maybe how Campbell sees it: but in the Christian mystical literature, unity with God did allow for retained personal identity. The "ego" has not been dissolved. Rather, the defenses or barriers have been lowered so that the creature can enjoy a richer direct, immediate flow of God's feelings into itself. In some of the literature on experimental meditation, the object of contemplation does seem to disappear, but I posit that is because one has transcended the subject-object dichotomy, moved from an I-it relationship to an I-thou relationship, is experiencing the empathic bond that always existed between the two, though normally not paramount in consciousness.