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A bunch of people from around the world, without education or talent, lying to each other through the writing of regurgitated sentences and paragraphs, and trying to destroy our deepest truths, is so uncool.
Now I know we’re on to something interesting. Thanks for your stamp of anti-approval, Mario.
Finding something other than one’s own silly opinions is cool.
I could go on for hours about what is cool.
A bunch of people from around the world, without education or talent, lying to each other through the writing of regurgitated sentences and paragraphs, and trying to destroy our deepest truths, is so uncool.
Your post cinema is jammed and stuck replaying Mel Gibson’s biography of the night he received his first DWI.
Mr. B:
I demure: this fits born again and other forms of initiation into a Big Narrative, but that isn’t the same as enlightenment, spiritual awakening, etc.; rather, it’s the moment when a person chooses the particular prison they will live inside. Whether it’s the dungeon or the penthouse, it’s still a prison if you can’t go outside and smell the roses or coffee or mulch or horseshit or…. Although passing through a Big Narrative may be a prerequisite to passing out of it.
Prison is a matter of perspective. If one lived in a swamp eating bugs and getting skin rashes, maximum security prison life might sound pretty appealing.
For thousands of years, ascension into a narrative was a step up over a life imprisoned in nature… it was the opportunity of a short, brutish lifetime to be a part of one. The Shiny New Narratives weren’t prisons, they were starships that traveled beyond the mundane world. The smarter narratives were successful and its egos ate better and had more little egos.
What happens when a generation comes along for whom this is not good enough anymore? People will eventually become more mature as individuals than the narrative they sprang from. If they don’t have a springy, adjustable narrative (likely not) they will want to leave it behind. That’s when the Golden Age becomes the Golden Cage.
There was a time when all those words applied to becoming a narratively conscious ego in a big club of other egos. Now, here we are later in the process and words like enlightenment need to mean something new. That can mean a new and better narrative but the real enchilada is cognition of the narrative process itself and its role in our development. That way, we can make the narrative work for us instead of the other way around. So, yes… a prerequisite to passing out of it. We should be proud to be here at this momentous threshold. And terrified, for we are not the first to be here at the threshold but we could be the first to cross it. In many ways, we already have.
Or, to quote the caterpillar, “It’s a matter of who is in charge, you or the words.”
Several sources make a distinction between open and closed cultures (or narratives), noting that all are closed in some ways but some are totally closed in that they contain means of explaining away anything that doesn’t seem to fit. That they treat all events as instances of their narrative rather than evidence that could could for or against it. Open cultures allow for conscious development or evolution of their narratives.
A bunch of people from around the world, without education or talent, lying to each other through the writing of regurgitated sentences and paragraphs, and trying to destroy our deepest truths, is so uncool.
Fancy that! All this coming from someone who thinks that the theory of evolution is about rocks spontaneously coming to life - what a joke you are Mario!
I was going to write that you probably didn’t understand 99% of what Nhoj’s Triune Scheme involves, but then I noticed your sad and plaintive cry from the biblical wilderness in which you wander moaning about Nhoj “trying to destroy our deepest truths.” Your whimpering was sort of endearing because it shows that you know that your theological beliefs are nearing the end of their storybook lifespan. You can already see the deeper truth which encompasses not only your own christianity but all the religions the world over are contained within the Big Narrative which has controlled the minds of people for far too long bringing misery and misfortune to all those who fell under its hypnotic spell, this in spite of the well-meaning and humanistic narratives of the words of Jesus.
Anyway Mario, it’s quite awesome that you can see the writing on the wall - think of it as fulfillment rather than destruction . . . that’ll help you to cope.
“Hearsay” is exactly what makes an atheist an atheist.
Direct experience of something is the exact opposite of hearsay.
When have I ever claimed “hearsay” as a foundation for my claims about God?
When has an atheist ever claimed direct experience as a foundation for theirs?
There is only one question for atheists:
Is it possible that God exists?
The fact that atheists say there is not such a possibility, and remain in their “hearsay” claim of certitude to the contrary, makes atheism built upon a foundation completely without actual knowledge of anything.
And, that makes every post of an atheist a “whimper”.
To define my posts as such is just another lie and step deeper into ignorance.
God exists. I know it through direct experience, not hearsay. I have said this from day one. And, not one of you “atheists” have ever provided a rebuttal to my claim based upon something other than the opinions of a group of like-minded inexperienced people.
God exists.
You are inexperienced of this. Fine.
Now, write of this inexperience, not of some claims of hearsay turned into truth.
“Hearsay” is exactly what makes an atheist an atheist.
Direct experience of something is the exact opposite of hearsay.
When have I ever claimed “hearsay” as a foundation for my claims about God?
When has an atheist ever claimed direct experience as a foundation for theirs?
There is only one question for atheists:
Is it possible that God exists?
The fact that atheists say there is not such a possibility, and remain in their “hearsay” claim of certitude to the contrary, makes atheism built upon a foundation completely without actual knowledge of anything.
And, that makes every post of an atheist a “whimper”.
To define my posts as such is just another lie and step deeper into ignorance.
God exists. I know it through direct experience, not hearsay. I have said this from day one. And, not one of you “atheists” have ever provided a rebuttal to my claim based upon something other than the opinions of a group of like-minded inexperienced people.
God exists.
You are inexperienced of this. Fine.
Now, write of this inexperience, not of some claims of hearsay turned into truth.
In other words, stop lying.
I don’t usually pay much attention to your posts because you just seem a little off, but I just had a thought regarding what most of your posts are about and thought I’d share.
All of your posts talk about “experiences” of God. Your view of God is completely subjective and internalized. That is why atheists and intellectual types cannot accept your view. If God can only be experienced internally and personally as you keep implying then there is no way for God to be objectively observed and therefore cannot be ruled out as being nothing more than an hallucination or self-realized projection. In other words, you will never convince a rational person using that argument for the existence of God.
I know, it doesn’t really matter, but I just had that thought. Carry on.
Mario, your post solidified for me a nagging unformed thought that’s been rattling around the back of my mind.
I count myself as a spiritual atheist / agnostic (depending on your definition of God). Sam Harris interests me because he’s said himself, even as an atheist (or whatever-ist), that spirituality is arguably one of the most important human pursuits.
What discourages me is that when I look around I don’t see a lot of evidence of the transforming nature of spirituality. I see plenty of Average Joes who appear, to my mind at least, to be sort of everyday saints. People that live a quiet, humble life in constant service to others without any expectation of repayment. Yet these people often aren’t spiritually inclined in the least.
Then I frequently see a parade of grandiosity, spiritual “thrill seeking”, cliquishness and unhealthy perseveration among the loudest of the spiritually inclined, no matter the discipline. If there were a God, a Light, an Ultimate Truth, Source, whatever term you want to use, what are the odds that knowing this truth would lead you to a life of shouting at non-believers that they’re a bunch of stupid-heads?
To my mind that idea is colder and harder to accept than the strictest atheism - that there is a spiritual Truth out there, but it’s not worth getting to know. And really, if you use many of the loudest believers as an example of the end fruits of spiritual practice, this is the conclusion you might come to.
I hold out the most hope for secular Buddhist practices. From my limited experience, this discipline seems to produce a relatively larger number of people I would want to emulate. As you’ve said, burt, judge by the fruits and all.
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