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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.
Right on. Parading about, shouting, spiritual ostentation are sure signs of spiritual immaturity. It’s the sort of behavior that one gets from people who are insecure in a belief or practice; or, who have just found what they believe is “the Way” and want to share it with everybody, regardless of appropriateness (“Everybody must get stoned!”). The loudest believers are not examples of the final fruit, they’re often not even unripe fruit. Legitimate spiritual paths are beset by such people because people have to start somewhere and beginners tend to want legitimation. Schools based on knowledge of this natural human characteristic have built-in forms and methods to minimize this sort of behavior in their students and to turn away students who would fall into it.
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.
Right on. Parading about, shouting, spiritual ostentation are sure signs of spiritual immaturity. It’s the sort of behavior that one gets from people who are insecure in a belief or practice; or, who have just found what they believe is “the Way” and want to share it with everybody, regardless of appropriateness (“Everybody must get stoned!”). The loudest believers are not examples of the final fruit, they’re often not even unripe fruit. Legitimate spiritual paths are beset by such people because people have to start somewhere and beginners tend to want legitimation. Schools based on knowledge of this natural human characteristic have built-in forms and methods to minimize this sort of behavior in their students and to turn away students who would fall into it.
Clearly you’re just jealous because you haven’t found your own flying horse.
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.
Right on. Parading about, shouting, spiritual ostentation are sure signs of spiritual immaturity. It’s the sort of behavior that one gets from people who are insecure in a belief or practice; or, who have just found what they believe is “the Way” and want to share it with everybody, regardless of appropriateness (“Everybody must get stoned!”). The loudest believers are not examples of the final fruit, they’re often not even unripe fruit. Legitimate spiritual paths are beset by such people because people have to start somewhere and beginners tend to want legitimation. Schools based on knowledge of this natural human characteristic have built-in forms and methods to minimize this sort of behavior in their students and to turn away students who would fall into it.
Clearly you’re just jealous because you haven’t found your own flying horse.
Interesting that Mario would use that particular metaphor since it was Mohammad who is said to have ridden a flying horse (Burak was its name) to heaven. You’d think a Christian would talk about a flying fish.
Now, write of this inexperience, not of some claims of hearsay turned into truth.
The interesting part is, Mario, that none of us are denying the occurrence of your experiences. Obviously all those events did take place in some form, what we are questioning is your interpretation of those events. Of course we also realize that you are embedded within a narrative devised by centuries of christian faith and that you rationalize those experiences within the matrix of that belief system.
You claim that you encountered “the devil” in your room (this conclusion is based on assumptions about the nature of the events) and you claim a light coming from pages of the bible (again these are subjective accounts of some phenomenal events). All of the other various experiences which you link directly to biblical sources are biased interpretations of events that in the experience of any other person would surely be viewed differently. That’s the nature of the narrative structure and its influence on the understanding of those individuals who live life under its particular spell (catholic christianity in your case).
You ask “us” above to “write of this inexperience” - well in the context of The Narrative I have done what I can above. To speak directly to the “inexperience” is about as productive as people speaking about (or for) god, it’s all subjective interpretation and nothing of value can actually be said about either - and in that sense they are synonymous subjects.
Mario if God is existential, what exactly is he made of?
I hope it’s chocolate chip cookies. THAT would be a god worth worshipping!
Or at least taking communion. That’s an idea worth passing on to the Vatican. Make the wafers taste like chocolate chip cookies. Really hook the youth.
Mario if God is existential, what exactly is he made of?
According to John 4:24, God is “spirit.” According to I Timothy 6:16, God lives in “unapproachable light.” Assuming that John and the writer of I Timothy were actually on to something and that the nature of God was revealed to them in some manner, this is about as close as the New Testament gets to telling us the actual substance of God. “Spirit” I take to mean incorporeal personality, which would include consciousness and some form of organized information, perhaps coded in some way in the “unapproachable light” of I Timothy. A being who dwells in light would be some form of organized energy, if one were to try to explain his nature in our language. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.
Bacon and chocolate chip cookies wouldn’t last long in unapproachable light, so I think those descriptions are somewhat lacking.
Mario if God is existential, what exactly is he made of?
According to John 4:24, God is “spirit.” According to I Timothy 6:16, God lives in “unapproachable light.” Assuming that John and the writer of I Timothy were actually on to something and that the nature of God was revealed to them in some manner, this is about as close as the New Testament gets to telling us the actual substance of God. “Spirit” I take to mean incorporeal personality, which would include consciousness and some form of organized information, perhaps coded in some way in the “unapproachable light” of I Timothy. A being who dwells in light would be some form of organized energy, if one were to try to explain his nature in our language. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.
Bacon and chocolate chip cookies wouldn’t last long in unapproachable light, so I think those descriptions are somewhat lacking.
Or they were just guessing and making shit that appealed to their views of god, which were no doubt based on the views of others that they had been exposed to. Which is exactly what you are doing.
Or they were just guessing and making shit that appealed to their views of god, which were no doubt based on the views of others that they had been exposed to. Which is exactly what you are doing.
I was just discussing the question. The question was asked of Mario, and he had not responded yet, so I responded. If no believer responded, some atheist would say “guess they don’t have an answer to that question.” When some believer responds, some atheist says “you’re just making up shit.” Oh well.
Anyone who thinks that the experience of God turns someone into a paper-doll person knows nothing about God or themselves.
If God wanted us all to be the same, then he would have created us that way.
No two human faces are the same.
Likewise, and even more so, no two personalities are the same.
And, God is a unique personality himself. He is a living God, who “delights in playing among the sons of men”.
I am not the only person to have claimed direct experience of God. And, the others who have claimed this rare thing are overwhelmingly unique “characters”, who God used according to their characters.
For example, David was a murderer and an adulterer, who became a repentant king, a writer of the Psalms; and his child of adultery became Solomon, the wisest man to have ever lived.
When I had my first direct experience of God, I was a hippie with five girlfriends, not some saintly person kneeling in church.
But, following this first experience (and a few others), I spent five years in a monastery being a loving, meek, and prayerful man.
Now I am thirty years out of the monastery, and once again in the world of stupid men, ignorant of God, as I once was.
And, all that I am telling them is that God exists, and I know it.
It is a great error to think that God is chiefly concerned with us becoming religious saints of unquestionable character, for it usually takes a cloistered life to achieve such an existence, and it is a somewhat selfish existence.
Mario if God is existential, what exactly is he made of?
According to John 4:24, God is “spirit.” According to I Timothy 6:16, God lives in “unapproachable light.” Assuming that John and the writer of I Timothy were actually on to something and that the nature of God was revealed to them in some manner, this is about as close as the New Testament gets to telling us the actual substance of God. “Spirit” I take to mean incorporeal personality, which would include consciousness and some form of organized information, perhaps coded in some way in the “unapproachable light” of I Timothy. A being who dwells in light would be some form of organized energy, if one were to try to explain his nature in our language. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.
Bacon and chocolate chip cookies wouldn’t last long in unapproachable light, so I think those descriptions are somewhat lacking.
Check out canto 33 in Paradisio.
“Not that the living light I looked on
bore more semblances than One
which cannot be since it is ever as it was before
But as my sight, by seeing learned to see,
the changes which in me took place
transformed the single changeless form for me.”
