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What is strange is how you misstate, misrepresent and/or totally misconstrue anything that you disagree with.
Since our reality IS God, then science is finding out a lot about God. I look to science to GROUND my beliefs about God in reality and rationality, NOT magic and superstition. What is irrational is to look to the human-created beliefs about God without discernment and taking everything ancient humans have said about God as truth. When you claim to employ discernment but you use NO standard for Truth, then that is NOT discernment. That is self-deception.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
if someone dismisses the wisdom and mastery given to us by sages across time and space and culture as "magic and superstition" then it is clear they don't understand or value what is on offer.
When someone dismisses known scientific evidence about the constraints on our reality in favor of magic and superstition that is supposedly part of the "wisdom and mastery given to us by sages across time and space and culture" that is irrational and self-deceptive sophistry.
if someone dismisses the wisdom and mastery given to us by sages across time and space and culture as "magic and superstition" then it is clear they don't understand or value what is on offer.
Personally, I don't dismiss the wisdom and mastery of sages - on the contrary, I have studied many and I've adopted various practices in accordance with their views. But they are human beings; they are not perfect. They can occasionally have false beliefs. I believe that they have mystical experiences and I am not in a position to judge the meaning of these experiences. But having a mystical experience is no guarantee that the experience will be interpreted correctly - indeed, there is no guarantee there even is any such thing as a particular "correct" interpretation that can be universalized in such a way as to apply consistently to other people.
People - including sages - are always embedded in history and culture. People can be wrong about moral questions. Entire cultures can be wrong about certain moral questions. At various points in history, the dominant global paradigm of morality could be morally wrong. Some aspects of morality can shift, depending on circumstances, but other aspects virtually never shift. E.g., if slavery is morally wrong today, then it was always morally wrong. I don't think there was ever a time when slavery was universally accepted but, even if there did happen to be some point at which every single person on the planet - including slaves themselves - considered slavery to be a morally acceptable practice, I'd say it was still, nonetheless, morally wrong. Universal ignorance of the moral wrongness might make the practice understandable and perhaps even forgivable to some extent, but ignorance would not make it morally right. Just as our mastery of technology can progress over time, our mastery of morality can progress as well. Now that we know that the Earth is a sphere, we can say with confidence that it was always a sphere, even back before people knew that it was. Now that we know that slavery is morally wrong, we can say with confidence that it was always morally wrong, even back before people knew that it was.
I don't dismiss the wisdom and mastery of sages, but I don't uncritically accept them as perfect human beings either. I approach their teachings just as I would approach any other teachings: With a dose of the healthy skepticism required for critical thinking.
MPhD thinks that Jesus was in perfect sync with God's consciousness and was, thus, morally perfect. I'm not at all convinced of that, but I accept the possibility that it might be true. I think it is far more likely that Jesus, if he existed at all, was a sage who - like all sages - had some excellent insights but was, nonetheless, a fallible human being. I think the greatest honor we can bestow upon a sage is to approach their teachings with our own critical-thinking skills in light of our own culture and period of history. I don't think that any true sage would want blind allegiance to written words. Even if Jesus was, in fact, the perfect bridge to God's consciousness and was thus a savior of human souls, I'd bet my life that even he would not want blind allegiance to any holy book purporting to immortalize his words.
But if we don't adopt blind allegiance, then what is the alternative? I'd say it is some degree of critical thinking, and critical thinking involves adopting some healthy level of skepticism, and it involves taking into account the information that one has learned and what one can learn about the natural world. If a wide, intricate web of historical information happened to corroborate the idea that Jesus performed various miracles and arose from the dead, then I would feel a need to rank my confidence in the whole Christ narrative a bit higher than I do (e.g., on a 0-10 scale between certainty against and certainty in favor, I might rate my level of confidence around 4, rather than 1 or 2 where it is at the moment). But, as it is, virtually every bit of the Christ narrative comes from one source so, given that so much of the narrative implies assorted violation of natural laws as we know them today, my confidence in the Christ narrative remains down around 1 on the scale (i.e., not certainty, but fairly high confidence that the narrative, overall, is mostly fiction). I can see that a great many people feel spiritually inspired by the story, and I believe that art can often give access to "subjective truths" that are hard to access in any other way, but I think it is generally not a good idea to conflate these emotional/intra-subjective truths of art with inter-subjective truths of history and science. Sages tend to be good with the intra-subjective truths, but not necessarily no so much with the inter-subjective ones.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 02-20-2018 at 07:48 AM..
Another excellent analysis, Gaylenwoof. It is not what may have value in cultural relations that is dismissed as "Magic and superstition," but those elements used as reinforcement to religious practices and ideas that DON'T make sense to those cultural relations, but only to the power and position of self=appointed religious leaders. What I call legendary elements can easily be seen AS simply adornments meant to shift the focus from a message that may really have value in culture to the person or appropriated figurehead of that organization by which those "leaders" can exercise some power.
It is when those legendary elements form the basis for ideas and attitudes that are actually COUNTER to healthy cultural relations that they must be exposed for what they are and the ":sages" dethroned.
...my confidence in the Christ narrative remains down around 1 on the scale (i.e., not certainty, but fairly high confidence that the narrative, overall, is mostly fiction). ....
it doesn't get any more (using your words) "unhinged from reality" than this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
...Let's get things straight . . . Jesus is the Living Word of God NOT the dead Bible. We learn about Jesus, His teachings, and His unambiguous example in the Bible...
or, to quote the opening post:
Moderator cut: quote-mining
Last edited by FredNotBob; 02-20-2018 at 09:39 PM..
Reason: Removed quote-mined post
When someone dismisses known scientific evidence about the constraints on our reality in favor of magic and superstition that is supposedly part of the "wisdom and mastery given to us by sages across time and space and culture" that is irrational and self-deceptive sophistry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
it doesn't get any more "unhinged from reality" than this
It is the wholesale dismissal of the constraints revealed by science that results in being "unhinged from reality."
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
...Let's get things straight . . . Jesus is the Living Word of God NOT the dead Bible. We learn about Jesus, His teachings, and His unambiguous example in the Bible...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
it doesn't get any more (using your words) "unhinged from reality" than this.
Although I don't believe MPhD on this point, I don't really see why you think this idea is completely "unhinged". I assume you are referring to the "Jesus is the Living Word of God" part? Certainly the "Living Word" terminology is fluffy and basically disposable, but his underlying notion of Jesus being perfectly "in tune" (so to speak) with God's conscious is not utterly absurd. If there is a God, and if humans in some sense partake in God's spirit (or, perhaps, are embodies manifestations of God spirit?), then why couldn't there happen to be a particular human who manifests the spirit perfectly (in the sense of being "in tune with" God's spirit). Personally, I don't think that's how the world works, but I don't see why that conception is any more unhinged than your own claims about souls agreeing to be born.
Although I don't believe MPhD on this point, I don't really see why you think this idea is completely "unhinged". I assume you are referring to the "Jesus is the Living Word of God" part? Certainly the "Living Word" terminology is fluffy and basically disposable, but his underlying notion of Jesus being perfectly "in tune" (so to speak) with God's conscious is not utterly absurd. If there is a God, and if humans in some sense partake in God's spirit (or, perhaps, are embodies manifestations of God spirit?), then why couldn't there happen to be a particular human who manifests the spirit perfectly (in the sense of being "in tune with" God's spirit). Personally, I don't think that's how the world works, but I don't see why that conception is any more unhinged than your own claims about souls agreeing to be born.
the unhinged part is to say "the bible is dead" and at the same time he "learns about the living word in the Bible". which is dead.
his posts continually trash holy books (including his own), religion (including his own), God (including his own), and religious people (including his own).
he is anti religious, while being religious himself.
he is anti religion, while belonging to a religion himself.
he is anti holy book, while relying heavily on a holy book himself.
that. the trash talk gets really REALLY old.
here, L8Gr8 sums it up nicely:
Quote:
Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8
... Some people can't handle an opinion different than their own and have to trash talk the other. That's on them. ...
simple litmus test, for whatever we say or feel or think or do, ask ourself, "Does this bring honor to God?"
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 02-20-2018 at 09:05 PM..
it doesn't get any more (using your words) "unhinged from reality" than this.
or, to quote the opening post:
Stop altering my posts by removing the parts that provide the context. You have to quote me in context and that means you cannot leave out anything that is part of the point you are citing.
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