Culture writes:
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Is this a challenge, Culture?

THE CONCEPT or THESIS--proposition, necessary assumption, postulate
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Many, not just me, who accept the process philosophy and theology of Professor Alfred North Whitehead think of GØD (GOD, or as most write it, God) simply as that which is.in the process of becoming. No other verb, other than the verb 'to be', applies to GOD.

WHAT GOD IS NOT
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GOD, for me, is neither a he, nor a she--nor even one who behaves as a perfect super-personal, three-dimensional being who exists separate and apart from what is. GOD is not, necessarily, connected with, or confined to, any organized religion.

While I can sense creation as the indirect evidence of GOD, GOD is not something which can be sensed in the usual sense of the word. GOD does not do things to and for us in the same way loving parents will. But GOD does things in and through us if we open ourselves up to this possibility.

WHAT GOD IS
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GOD is that which operates around, in and through persons and the total universe, more like a moral, ethical and loving principle. Think of the universe as a spiritually-based quantum computer (QC). Now think of each of us a localized and personal quantum computer (PQC).

WILL POWER--the human ability to will love or hate, to say yes or no to GOD
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As individual PQC's, or persons, the universe is ours to accept or reject. If we--and here, I include all moral ethical and loving people, even those who may call themselves agnostics and atheists--agree, without hypocrisy, to morally, ethically and lovingly connect with the universal QC and with other human beings, life in the here and now will become more and more beautiful. All the knowledge, wisdom and power necessary to live life to the full is already available as part of the process. In all things, including death, this GOD-like process and principle is at work helping us to reject evil, embrace the good, and become who we already are.

We are also free to embrace evil, to choose nihilism, which says that life is without meaning, and to reject who we are.

If there is even the slightest possibility that life is a wonderful and eternal process, for what reason would anyone choose nihilism?

Not choosing to label myself outside of the spirit, I suppose I could be called a something a who or what or one of those, but then labels are made by label makers who think about where God is, be it inside or outside all around or nowhere at all.
You put your right foot in, you put your left foot in...you do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around.....

Anyway, mans best guess about God, when God is not within every thought feeling and action is always separate from God.

One of the greatest teachers of all was a living example of being present within the world, with all awareness emanating from spiritual presence and without actually being dead at the time.... go figure.

Most religious preachers in the West believe in a physical transformation into a spiritual beingness, which follows some kind of moral life that requires a physical death of the body.
The Eastern pundits of spiritual living speak of the death or transformation of the Ego rather than the physical body which changes every aspect of thought feeling and action in physical life creating Heaven on Earth, or physical transformation into the spiritual being that was represented by the life of Jesus.

His resurrection wasn't necessarily an example that one had to die on a cross of self sacrifice to be the Son of God but rather that the body is not the basis for life but the spirit behind the illusions of identification with the body and self prescribed moral values.

The Hindus have long taught that being non-violent is not a moral ideal. The little old lady who puts poison on her roses to keep bugs off her flowers may not have a violent bone in her body in terms of certain moral boxes prescribed by the masses. In effect the act of poisoning small creatures because they interfere with ones life style and personal references about who is greater on the ladder of Gods creatures is still a personal reality and the morality within personal realities are often not cognizant of the greater picture.

Man still tries to place his ideals of morality on top of a greater morality which exists as a balance of nature and creation.
Man imagines in his reality that if he lives a perfect life he will be rewarded with a life that is greater than his physical life, but in effect man struggles to keep his ideals rather than to surrender his ideals to a greater ideal than his own, the ideal which created him in the first place.
We still try to imagine that ideal within the restraints of our own ego.

The scientific method follows these steps

1) Observation
2) Hypothesis
3) Prediction (based on the Hypothesis)
4) Testing (of the Prediction)
5) Analysis
6) Rational debate
=> Goto 1)

Further, any hypothesis must be 'falsifiable'. Religious faith is not.

Lindsay you are not taking a scientific viewpoint at all.

The 'God Hypothesis' proposed by Richard Dawkins is one attempt at
formulating a scientific hypothesis. All the evidence ever collected
tends not to support such a hypothesis.

It is akin to beliving that a fixed luminiferous aether exists after the
evidence of the Michelson-Morley inteferometer experiment.

If I posit, as Russell did, that there is an interplanetary teapot floating "out there", would you take me
seriously? If I point to certain ancient writings supporting my claim based on no evidence other than repeated assertion and stories about the meanderings of the teapot through the Great Emptiness, would my claims
be worthy of any more respect?

If the answers to the previous questions are "yes", you are seriously deluded. If the answers are "no", consider the differences between the teapot and a deity chosen at random.

Why is it that people have no problem with us[1] questioning (for example) unsubstantiated claims about
politics, but not about religion?

Belief in the supernatural is the absolute antithesis of reason.
I, personally, value reason and rationality over mysticism and
superstition.

Culture comments Did I say I believe in the supernatural? The natural that I experience, all the time and with all my senses, is super enough for me. With people like Carl Jung, I do not believe in GOD, I experience GOD with every breath I take. BTW, I have experimented with trying to live without breathing. It does not work.

EXPERIMENT ON BREATHING
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Let's do a double-blind experiment on the value of breathing.

Let's get a hundred breathers in one group, and a hundred, who will agree not to breathe, in another. Would you like to be in the non-breathing component in the double-blind study?

The "faith" of the late--just died, at 82--cosmologist and agnostic Robert Jastrow.

You experience God but do not believe in God? Sounds all a bit out of whack to me.

I am not specifically attacking your belief. I have absolutely no
problem with you believing what you believe, as long as at is not
harmful to others or at odds with reality. On the other hand, I do not
share your beliefs, nor do I consider religious beliefs in general to be
rational. On the gripping hand, religious belief /should not/ be given a
special position of immunity from criticism. That road leads to
intellectual dishonesty and suppression of free thought.

If you want to live in fantasy world or find that some delusions enable
you to live.. well that's between you and your therapist. I guess it's
like the trick of reducing apprehension of public speaking by imagining
the audience naked, so long as you freely aknowlege that you're using a
fantasy and it is in no way real then no harm done.

However if you use fantasy as a basis for morality, jurisprudence,
social order etc then that's just not on, abstract belief admits no analysis,
interrogation or challenge. That is a very real and present danger.

I don't think you understand Lindsay's interpretation of God Culture. Lindsay is essentially saying that God is in fact what might be thought of as a moral set of principles and ideals working in reality but does not exist in regular reality as we know it.

Rather that this 'being' exists in a multidimensional fashion that is unobservable through modern day methods. You have to remember most scientists theorize there are ten dimensions, most scientific methods only focus on three.

So the proposition by Lindsay is not that of the traditional omnipotent God, but rather somewhat like how the string theory works. Although we do not observe the strings, they exist and affect our lives, whether or not we are aware of their effect. Thus Lindsay is saying that this God is not a traditional God but rather a thing which exists in the universe and affects us, perhaps not structured like a traditional organism but rather connected to every part of the universe.

Its late and I'm tired so I hope I have made my explanation clear enough.

Although I have some serious doubts about what is moral when you consider morality is based on perception. Also, my explanation is not an endorsement of this theory, just an explanation of Lindsay's often cryptic posts.

I have amended my signature Lindsay, although I'm not happy paraphrasing a concept which relies of examples from so many fields of science. I understand your concepts and have been willing to talk about them with you, but the responses barely ever answer the questions posed. What you believe God is to you is rarely what others believe, so the only constant you can derive is an appreciation of the common attributes of awe and strangeness in the Universe. Everything spinning, the favouring of spheres as a form, the size of things, the speed of our increase in knowledge, fads coming and going like tides, group behaviour, fate, luck, all of these have everything to do with the belief in a God.


How does this image effect your beliefs? Do you find it relevant to what God is?

Max, thanks for your interpretation of my theology (unitheism/panentheism). Sounds good, to me.

Keep in mind that I always try to keep an open mind. If there is a guy called God--an almighty, merciful, loving and heavenly father--out there, or wherever, I am very willing to hear from and meet with Him, any time. BTW, at the church I attend we often use the Sanskrit expression, "Namaste", as a greeting to one another. The word is derived from Sanskrit (namas): to bow, obeisance, reverential salutation, and (te): "to you"

It literally means: I bow to you. It can mean, the GOD in me, looks to see the GOD in you."

You add, "...Also, my explanation is not an endorsement of this theory, just an explanation of Lindsay's often cryptic posts."
If my posts appear to contain any hidden, secret or mysterious messages, keep in mind: I intend transparency. And I will gladly accept any help you, or any one, are willing to give.

Not true, what he states as his belief or sometimes intentions (when he doesn't want to be judged) is what alot of people believe. I think a more interesting approach would be to ask yourself, does he really believe what he says. I think he talks alot and says a lot of things but lacks commitment to the moment because he is always looking for something to change, and to the past for the frail identities he keeps protected.



The god in me acknowledges the God in you, it's a statement, or recognition of truth rather than a greeting or an intention or more importantly, its not an afterthought or a mindless pleasntry.
It comes from the acknowledgment of knowing the One God or consciousness that flows through all things.

The Sanskrit language is a resonant language expressing a deep knowing and feeling, contrary to what language expresses today in its vague imaging that is either disconnected or emotionally twisted in all things. In other words people today often hide their feelings and take no position or are not committed to anything when they speak for fear of offending and being offended. Its a way to be transparent or invisible, to hide from conflict and be noncommittal or co-dependent.
The Sanskrit language was created around the imaging of reality that exists in the connection between God and the manifest. In other words when man began to fade from its intuitive knowing and experience, language was developed to communicate the missing pieces.
Religious preachers often tell their congregations that God knows everything, every thought, every feeling and every action that you do. This is actually true if you consider yourself as God it would seem that we should know everything about ourselves and not be able to hide from ourselves.

Sanskrit was developed out of a need to assist fading intuition or what some might call psychic awareness. Not unlike the language of the scriptures which Jesus spoke of to his early childhood teachers. He explained that each letter in each word had a vibrational resonance and meaning of its own.
Similarly each of us has a particular vibration and as such we can know everything about ourselves if we tune into it, but identity is given to what we understand in relationship to what we have been told and conditioned to believe about ourselves by our parents and our peers.
Sometimes we are so far removed from ourselves we have hidden our own insecurities and beliefs about ourselves behind false ideas and high hopes created from deep stresses of low self esteem.

Today we speak words that have meaning or relevance to personal experience, beliefs and judgments. Take Cow for instance. If you never saw a Cow the word would be meaningless. In order to have some kind of comprehensive understanding someone would have to tell you what a cow was but then it wouldn't be your experience, it would be an experience of a description given through someone elses nervous system, which contains filters of personal judgments and beliefs. ( imagine that everything you know has been told to you and you have accepted it without personal experience)
If you could without any filters project the essence of the Cow, its habits, its feelings, its smell, its language or the sounds that it makes into anothers conscious awareness it would come a bit closer to the resonance that Jesus spoke of when he said letters and language have resonance. The Sanskrit language was used in such a way.
Today the word God no longer holds much value to the conscious awareness because the awareness is so far removed from the vibrational content from which it originally came, but is more focused on the quagmire of personal judgments and beliefs. Because the mind is so far removed from any association to the living vibration within ones self, it is difficult to find comprehensive association to anything outside of ones self without creating it through experience and those experiences are filtered through personal beliefs and judgments, and often taught to us by another who carried their own backpack of filters and stresses that were their beliefs and judgments.
Innocence is now understood as a lack of reasoning rather than an open mind or a clear mirror that hasn't been sullied by the layers of conflict that exists in emotional attachment, fear, greed and systems of personal measure that maintain beliefs of human value that are cast not only upon ourselves but each other.


You are transparent......So much in fact you might have lost the ability to see yourself.

Fair enough, but the way I see it, it comes down to this:

Pantheism includes a god, that is considered holy and is worshipped, right? If it is not
and it is only an awe for nature, I do not see how much different this is to paganism.

It is ridiculous to insist that to understand a fork one must consider a god-of-forks,
likewise it is ridiculous to insist that to understand nature there must be a god-of-nature.

Culture, you say, "Fair enough, ..." What do you mean when you say this?

BTW 1: Point me to threads where you tell us where you stand--philosophically, theologically, sociologically, etc.

BTW 2: ABOUT PANTHEISM, ECT: I respect moral, ethical and loving pantheists and pagans in the same way that I respect atheists of the same quality of character.

BTW 3: You may ask: What is my attitude towards immoral, un-ethical, evil, sinful and totally unloving people--towards themselves and other? For example, hardened criminals. Some of whom who may even call themselves Christians/Jew/Muslims, etc.? Many leaders of the Italian mafia call themselves "Christian". They expect and are usually given, Christian burials.

Regardless of what happens to be the philosophy/theology/sociology/whatever, which happens to motivate people, for very selfish reasons I want sinful and evil people to become moral, ethical and loving people--for their own good as well as ours.

In my career, I have counselled with quite a number of criminals. With a fair measure of success, I have worked to make them better people. Why? Because they make much better neighbours, they cost society a lot less in taxes, and they usually go on to contribute to the greater good of society. Don't forget, St. Paul was

DEEDS-NOT-CREEDS CHRISTIANITY
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Anytime anyone asks me: Are you a Christian? My usual response is: Ask my neighbour and any others with whom I associate. Christianity is more about the way we live than it is about what we believe. For me, it is about deeds, not creeds. If a creed helps me to be a better person, I will cherish it; if not, I will drop it.

BTW 4: Culture, how much do you actually know about the basic teachings of Jesus and Paul? Their message, embedded in the Gospels, is a very universal and inclusive one. If you will take the time to read--preferably in a modern version--Luke and Acts (also by Luke), you will get the universal sweep of the Gospels. This is NOT a lot of reading. Do not get hung up on things which, taken literally, seem contrary to reason. Read with the mind of a poet. Allow for allegory and metaphor.

ABOUT THE LATE CHARLES TEMPLETON, TORONTO
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BTW 5: If you have not heard of Charles Templeton--cartoonist, journalist, editor (Toronto Star), writer, inventor, actor, evangelist, etc., you may want to check out http://www.templetons.com/charles/jesus/
It tells us about the work of the agnostic, the late the Rev. Charles Templeton--an old friend of mine, with whom, over the years, I had many a chat.
Despite his agnosticism, he was a life-long admirer of the life and work of Jesus.
His writings give us the essential teachings of Jesus, without us having to wade through a lot of detail. In addition, his book, FAREWELL TO GOD is most interesting.

BTW 6: Without denying anyone the right to their sincerely-held beliefs, long ago, I said farewell to the same God.

So then you are in reality, a Christan with acronyms?

Problem with your interpretations Lindsay is that you are talking about morality and sinfulness. If a soldier kills another soldier, he is both a hero and a villain.

Villain is the way the son of the father will see that soldier, hero is the way the countrymen of that soldier will see that soldier. What is evil to one person is good to another. A wolf kills other animals and to the family of the animals - that wolf is evil, but without the wolf, animals would kill the plants and eventually, we would all die.

Nature is in balance, you are trying to apply ethics to something which exists in harmony by animals following their natural tendencies. Nature does not need your ethics, it has created balance over billions of years of perfection. While humans may be polluting the earth now, things will eventually balance out again.

I am curious as to why you always ask members to state their position. I can understand asking that about religion (I am an atheist by the way) but in other fields such philosophy the answer is an ever evolving one.

I have read most of your posts on brainmeta and I think you are a good man, however your often inclusion of unitheism or pneuma sound like you are seeking platform to preach from. Now I could of course just not read your posts, but every now and then you post little gems to ponder and its well worth the read :-)

If my previous posts seem aggressive, do not mistake this for disdain for your belief in god it's just that
my view is there's absolutely no credible evidence or even an encouraging
suggestion of one. So why hypothesize one at all?

If you manage to create space for the possibility of a God, great. But
that doesn't prove a thing to those of us who are primarily persuaded
by facts, rather than by people and their opinions and is
therefore pretty irrelevant.

There's nothing that stops me from contemplating unproven hypotheses,
where there are suggestions that make it plausible (not just
possible).

The fact that 5b of 6b share the opinion that a God exists encourages
me to investigate why people hold these beliefs, not that they are
correct.

To pose a question to the floor: if we just acknowledge the
possibility of God, on what basis do you hypothesize his/her
existence? Why do you bother?

Balance may be seen subjectively here as a natural force beyond the misgivings, expectations, and destructive forces of the human imagination and action....somewhat Godlike....
However if humanity ignores the origin of the palette with which this picture is painted, and the canvass on which this picture is painted by assuming greater authority than nature, the results may be that nature many not emerge to be so graceful or forgiving as to resurrect this earth to any of its former glory.
The God like balance is in the hands of those who use it, and we definitely are connected physically and psychologically to nature. Tho the universe may continue, we can destroy this planet beyond its ability to be repaired. The Balance then will be that like anything else that doesn't last forever within the created cosmos, creation will go on and remember what was created but have its attention on what is happening in the present moment with what is being created.

Nature is often seen as a force outside of humanity, where we are playing within its environment. Even the ignorant American Indians knew better than to overpopulate or to strip the resources of their environment. They tried to live with nature rather than to try and control it. Inherently their teachings were passed on with great care to preserve the spiritual bond that existed between the animal species and the material landscape of the earth with the forces of nature which supported their choices to grow and expand in understanding of themselves rather than to grow and expand in egocentric delusions of being more powerful than nature itself.
But as it is now becoming more evident nature will support humanity in destroying itself and its environment beyond any ability to repair itself because nature has and will surrender itself to the nature in Humanity.

Morality should extend itself to natural law rather than man made laws and expectations that protect personal greed at the cost of the world we live on.

I remember a certain story of Moses leading his people to the promised land, performing miracles along the way there was always this one guy who complained about the circumstances. Every time the people came to a point where their faith became thin and they were uncomfortable this guy would come and b*tch to Moses saying "Wheres your God now Moses?!"... Something would inevitably change to support their faith but this guy was always poking at Moses and trying to get everyone to support his disbelief and lack of faith as a personal challenge to God. Eventually, one day during one of his b*tch sessions, Moses told one of his close associates to kill him and end his and everyone elses misery. It changed the mood of the journey after they removed the negativity of that one man and scripture never said anything bad about Moses taking that life.
What Moses was chastised for was the brief moment he got angry and doubted God, for which he was forced to wander in the desert until his eventual death.
Nature really abhors a vacuum and always rushes in to fill it. Nothing happens when there is no energetic impulse.
Humans are at the helm of a ship that is not responding well to apathy, but it is to the energetics of greed.
Spiritualists are waving flags of morality from the bleachers of a cosmic game where they cheer God on like God is some great player coming to rescue them from their own stupidity, while the active players take what they can ignoring their own fate in the destruction of their playground.

Human moralities are more concerned with the rising cost of taxes, the quality of ones neighborhood and the support of societies that encourage the support of the ego through co-dependence.

Morality created by humans never will include personal sacrifice unless it's to become a martyr.

Culture, et al: Note the revision I made to my 09:54 AM post.

Max, you write Because I believe it is OK to defend oneself, family and community, I am not a pacifist. I have had army and navy training. I was part of the militia, for years. At 12, I saw action in WW 2 . In 1942 submarines attacked the island on which I was born. I saw 60 young men lose their lives. Check out http://www.bellisland.net

IMO, a soldier who kills while defending himself, family and community is doing necessary and painful evil. It would also be evil if he got killed in the process. Animals, do the same kind of evil--on an ongoing basis. They do it to survive. But animals, because they lack the power of intention--the doing of evil, consciously--do not sin.

ONLY FULLY HUMAN BEINGS CAN SIN
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Sinning is one of the privileges we have for being thinking, or human, beings. Interestingly, the Greek for human being is 'anthropos'. It's root meaning, in Greek, is "one who looks up in awe."

NECESSARY EVIL IS NOT SIN
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Not all evil is sin. Sin involves the deliberate and conscious use of evil for selfish purposes; it involves killing with an attitude such as: I like killing; it is fun. Instead of getting arrested, I will get a medal and be looked on as a hero. And do I ever enjoy getting revenge on those *F&%@&%G B@$T@RD $

I noticed you changed:

for very selfish reasons I want sinful and evil people to become moral, ethical and loving people--for lower taxes and better neighborhoods

to

for very selfish reasons I want sinful and evil people to become moral, ethical and loving people--for their own good as well as ours.

Your question presumes that I think of GOD as a him/her, and as just at the stage of being a possibility.

Because I speak of the fact of GOD, as revealed by science, GOD, for me, is not just a possibility, but is as real as the existence of the cosmos, and the next breath I take from it, and give back to it.

BTW, keep in mind that for me, as a unitheist, GOD is not a him or a her, or even a heavenly, out-there-and-human-like father. Even theists--at least the sophisticated ones I know--agree that God is without gender and does not exist as a being out there.

THE VALUE OF SELF-EVIDENT EVIDENCE
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For me, existence is real and self-evident. So is GOD. Yesterday, with tongue in cheek. I spoke of us doing a double blind study on the nature and value of taking that next breath. Is it necessary for us to kill people to prove that breathing is necessary to human life? The necessity of breathing is self evident. So is GOD, as Spirit (the breath of life).

Sometimes, with a on my face, I say to atheists: If you really do not believe in GOD, why do you keep on breathing the Spirit?
How about it Culture? How come you keep on breathing?
BTW, I hope you do. It could give you time to build up more and more good karma.

BTW, I like the doctrine of karma. To me, it makes a lot of rational sense--not unlike the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Protestants! In your rejection of karma and purgatory, you blew it. You could have just reformed it, okay?

NOW, OF WHAT PRACTICAL VALUE IS ALL THIS TO US?
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My main interest in this thread is this: Taking actions, in cooperation with this Spirit, which will produce more and more good--for me, others, and the world in which I live. I do what I call MAPPing.

MAPP stands for meditative, affirmative and positive praying. For some time now I have abandoned the use of the traditional methods of praying.

That is, I no longer pray to, or ask, a reluctant God out there, as follows:

Thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven, and thus solve all our problems for us. Give us all the food, clothing and shelter we need. Give us wise and moral leaders who will give us a strong and healthy economy. Heal all the sick in the hospital. Give us food to feed the hungry, bring peace, stop terrorism, etc., etc.

HERE IS THE METHOD I NOW USE
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Any number of times throughout each day--even as I write these words--I do the following: I simply tune, turn on and connect with GOD in the same way as I connect with my personal computer.

I think of GOD, as I have already said, as being like a quantum computer--filled with all the knowledge, wisdom and power necessary at any time.

This knowledge, wisdom and power enables me to get things done in and through me--physically, mentally and spiritually.

Speaking only for myself: Over the years I have noticed that when I do this, in the spirit of moral and ethical love, things happen. Sometimes, it take a while to hatch the egg. Over recent weeks a small group of us have been working on making the barter system work on a larger scale than we have accomplished in the past. We have approached governments, businesses and charities--for example the Family Life Foundation--set up a system so that we can work closer together for the greater good.

Just today--without going into detail--three significant things have happened. One example: I got word from the HQ of our http://www.universalbartergroup.com which we helped organize, that two donors have donated over $50,000.00 worth of capital to serve the purposes of the Family Life Foundation as we develop programs designed to create prosperity, through meaningful employment for more and more familie

Yea... I think you have what can be at best called, pseudo ethics. You say that because someone intends something good, this removes them from guilt. Hitler had nothing but good intentions and look at the chaos he did. You killed people, the commandments clearly state, Thou Shall Not Kill.

It does not say, Thou Shall Not Kill In such and such circumstances with such and such intentions, just Thou Shall Not Kill.

I already told you, what is evil to one person is good to another. Your definition of evil is certainly very different from Hitlers or Bush's. Yet, you seem to think your definition is the right one and we should all go along with it. Everyone has their own definition of evil.

Truth is Lindsay, there are only perceptions, you say you have justified killing with your intention - but it goes against these commandments from god, therefore you knowingly sinned, fully conscious of what you were doing.

All of these ethics seem like a load of bs to me, its selective logic and I don't buy it.

"...Thou Shall Not Kill"?

Max, in basic Hebrew, the sixth commandment does not say: "Thou Shalt not kill."
It says, "Thou shalt not commit murder--the intentional killing of another human being for evil and selfish purposes.

Are you not aware that Moses killed thousands of people? If he was told, by God, not to kill, period, why would he go on and on disobeying his own recording of the commandment?

THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS
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If you want to dialogue--even debate--with me about the validity of unitheism, process philosophy, psychology, pneumatology, theology, the political economy and the like, please set up a thread to do so.

However, here I want to reserve, so to speak, this thread for, GOD. Here I will do my personal MAPPing--but I do not want to exclude anyone. I invite you to do the same.

I just got the call from GOD--Her name is Jean: "DINNER!!!"
Back, later.
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BACK
Regarding exercises: I have always been active--gardening and the like--and, because I found the process--when I tried it once or twice--boring, I assumed that I did not need to exercise, regularly. I was wrong.

Sometime ago, inspired by my daughter (now 52 and looking like she is in her 30's) who can contort her body like the pros, I began to think--meditate?--about the nature and value of yoga.

Eventually, in 2005, (I was then 75) and feeling low in energy, especially in my legs, I began using the FIVE TIBETAN RITES
http://www.mkprojects.com/pf_TibetanRites.htm

BTW, before I found the Rites on the Web, I discovered that I already had the booklet. it was in my library, hidden on a shelf in my garage, of all places. A note inside indicated that it was given to me, in 1993, by a member of the community who took my lectures on meditation (part of the PNEUMATOLOGY and meditation program I gave since 1964). Was I led to it, by GOD-within, when I needed it?

Since 2007 I have added more moves to the system. I can sincerely say that I have received excellent results from this process--physically, mentally and spiritually. My belt size is now 32--the size it was in my 30's. No more "love handles" or "spare tire". Recently, because of the unusual Toronto weather, I have had to shovel lots of inches snow, and more than once a day. No problem with energy. It has also helped me deal with a blood-pressure problem and a high PSA problem.

Since 2005 I always begin my day by using the TIBETAN RITES +. All kinds of productive thoughts, and questions, come to mind. Then I check the media--including two national papers to which I subscribe.

Any number of times throughout each day--even as I write these words--I do the following: I simply tune, turn on and connect with GOD--as the goodness, order and design of the universe--in the same way as I connect with my personal computer.

I think of GOD, as I have already said, as being like a quantum computer--filled with all the knowledge, wisdom and power necessary at any time.

This knowledge, wisdom and power enables me to get things done in and through me--physically, mentally and spiritually.

Ok let me rephrase the question then, what basis do you hypothesize the FACT of God? God revealed by SCIENCE, surely you jest!



You can call GOD whatever you like, but the very fact that you believe in GOD in whatever form, raises the question of 'what basis do you have for your belief?"




Existence is self evident and therefore so is GOD ........ right. Please check my question again.

People believe in something even though they have no
evidence, and they keep on believing it even though they continue to
be exposed to not having evidence or continue to be exposed to
contrary evidence. That's really what the word means. People have a
strange but very strong ability to reinforce and rationalise their
choices, even if their choices are wrong, or even if they don't know
they made those choices but think they did. It becomes part of the
conscious existence of many people.

Personally I believe having a delusion can be quite harmless, and some
people believing in a personal Jesus or believing in 'the will of the
universe, or GOD or believing that if they blow their warts to the moon it
will disappear or believing that newspaper horoscopes can all be
pretty harmless. Sometimes it's not so harmless, when some people
believe that others who don't share the same delusion as them are wrong
and go as far as wanting to actively change that, or believe their
race is chosen and superior, or to believe that their terrorism onto
others is justified, or inflict their beliefs onto innocent children.
That I'll actively oppose when it enters my realm.

Thanks for this agreement.

OK, I have and I will: GOD is all that I experience--physically, mentally and spiritually.

You agree that I can call whatever I like, GOD. So I repeat: all that I experience--and all I can possibly image that I ever will experience--is what I mean when I say, GOD.

This means that I do not "believe" in a god, or the traditional God, as described by most theists. As a panentheist, or unitheist--do a wiki on these words--I experience GOD in all that is.

You ask: "What basis do you have for your belief?"
Is reality itself good enough for you? Is infinity and eternal variety good enough? Even the Bible says, GOD is Spirit (air, wind, breath). Is breath real enough? It also says, GOD is Love. Real enough?The traditional God is too small, for me. This is why I needed a new word.

BTW, check my last post for the practical values I find in using this kind of theological approach. And anyone can benefit from it. without having to hang up their brains.

I tried to tell you Culture, to Lindsay, God is reality.

Reality. If history has taught us anything, it has taught us that reality cannot be imagined. It needs to be observed and discovered. It is why science does the best job of telling us about reality. Pure speculations drawn from no empirical data is almost certainly wrong, the odds of guessing that something that you've never seen any data at all about exists, and being right in detail has got to be far less likely than guessing the lotery numbers every week for the rest of your life.

Sounds more like imagination to me.

As far as the difference between imagination and reality are concerned, try doing the following experiment:

1. Imagine running at full speed for about 10 feet and then hitting your head against the wall with full force.

2. Now, do it.

Any difference?

There are powerful psychological mechanisms acting in and around human minds that make us more propicious to project products of our imagination into the outside world. This is why careful analysis and evaluation of each incident should be undertaken. This is where science and philosophy are called to help us understand the nature and reality of each and every event.

Culture, Max is right about how I conceive of GOD.

IMO, imagination is part of the process of the making things real. This is what makes the universe so GOD-like to me: If we ever got our minds around all of it, we would be GOD. But I kinda feel and hope it never comes to this; it will spoil all the fun of exploration.

Culture, you say, "Sounds more like imagination to me."

Of course it is. Most of us remember John Lennon's: "Imagine all the people..." And I am sure you know that Einstein said that imagination, "is more important than knowledge." I feel that it is so important because it is the beginning of knowledge, and wisdom--the loving and wise use of knowledge. There is a Proverb: "THE FEAR OF THE LORD (GOD) IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM." A better translation is: Deep respect for the highest GOOD is the beginning of wisdom. Am I out of line by suggesting that a good atheist could say this?

THE STEPS TO WISDOM
=====================
In my mind, the steps to knowledge, wisdom and creative action are: I am, therefore, I think and imagine, I wonder, I hope, I believe, I explore, I experiment and, eventually, I will come to know more and more of the laws of life so that I will be prepared to act wisely and well.

Can you "imagine" any steps which I may have missed?

Because of this, here is the way I now "pray", and this is why I prefer to call it "connecting with", or "tuning in to." In the Aramaic language--that is, the language which Jesus and his contemporaries spoke--this is the real meaning of, "slaha" and the modern Arabic, "sla". It is part of the word, "Islam"--surrendering to the imagined will of Allah--the one and only singularity, GOD.

In terms of modern thinking, to what is this kind of--let's Anglicize this--slahaing related?
Max, you will recall that you and I have talked about hypnosis and self-hypnosis, especially the kind recommended by the late Dr. Milton Erickson (For details, wiki, or google). It is the same phenomenon.

BTW, used to achieve immoral ends, slahaing is a very dangerous power. It is dangerous in that, like the energy (GOD as power) in the atom, it can be used to do much (d)evil as well as much GO(O)D.

THE ROLE OF REASON
===================
I agree that reason is a very valuable spiritual tool, but the fact is it is not as nearly as powerful as the imagination. It is said that any conflict between imagination and reason, imagination invariably wins.

Make a note of this: In my humble opinion, we will never overcome the (d)evils of war, crime, poverty, disease, terrorism and the like using reason, alone--even if we back with it with much shock and awe, no matter how brutal.

DOCTORS OF THE IMAGINATION NEEDED
==================================
Of course we need doctors of science--PhD's in chemistry and physics. Without them we would not have all that employment-creating pollution, all that global warming and threat of nuclear holocaust. Science is my shepherd, I shall not want, it makes me to lie down on foam rubber mattresses, and in pools of pollution, it leads me beside the distilled waters, etc...

LET'S TRAIN ImD'S & PnD's
=======================
GO(O)D bless all moral, ethic and loving PhD's, But couldn't we use a few ImD's (artists) now--doctors of the imagination?

Hey, I just imagined a new kind of university degree which could be designed to train the imagination. Well! More employment for the academics By the way. if "God is dead", perhaps we need to let the DD's (doctors of divinity) drop dead. Just JoeKing, everyone--An in-joke, eh! My oldest brother (born in 1906--1933) was actually named Joe King.

How about this: As a reward for inventing a more secular replacement for the DD, I will grant myself an ImD--a doctorate of the imagination. While I am at it, I will add a PnD--a doctor of pneumatology (wiki and google).

SOMATOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, PNEUMATOLOGY
==========================================
Interestingly, pneumatology, the mother of psychology, was a required course in many of the European universities in the so-called Dark and Middle Ages, until fairly modern times. It was thrown out, I suspect, by physicalists, (do a wiki) like Dr. Wilhelm Wundt, MD. He was a behaviourist and, ironically, was the brilliant son of an evangelical Lutheran minister. In conflict with his father, he set out to "prove" the non-existence of the "geist" factor--the German for spirit. See the book, The Leipzig Connection.
http://www.sntp.net/education/leipzig_connection.htm

GNOSTICISM
===========
I suppose one could say that I am, or at least choose to be--I hope in the best sense of the word--a humble gnostic, who is more than willing to admit that there is still plenty of knowledge and wisdom, out there, about which I admit to being agnostic.

BTW, I suspect that animals are beings which have little or no imagination. They seem to live in the now with little or no concern about the past and future. As a human being I know that I get more things to go right for me when I follow the steps I outline above

Culture, you say of reality that, "It needs to be observed and discovered. It is why science does the best job of telling us about reality. Pure speculations drawn from no empirical data is almost certainly wrong, the odds of guessing that something that you've never seen any data at all about exists, and being right in detail has got to be far less likely than guessing the lottery numbers every week for the rest of your life."

I agree. But what does the scientist use to trigger the process? I suggest it is the Imagination. Without it, there would be no scientists worthy of the name.

I am not just being amusing when I say: I am relatively certain that, every scientist, like all of us, began in the imagination of his/her parents. And, sad to say, it is perhaps also true that so did every dead-beat and bone-head. Imagination is a powerful force, for good or nonsense. It is imperative that we learn more and more about what it is and how to use it so that we can harness it for GO(O)D.

IS THERE EVER A NEED FOR IMAGINATIVE COOPERATION among what I like to call the the feeling, thinking and willing factors. Or the body, mind and spirit factors. Or the soma, psyche and pneuma factors.
===================================================
I feel, think and will that imagination and reason, under the gentle nurture of faith, hope and love, will get the job done and bring into reality the higher and higher good, ad infinitum, we all, I hope, desire. If we are willing not to stand in the way.

What is a good name for this process? If you want to call it something other than GO(O)D, be my guest. I am all for it. No matter what we call it, my concern is that we do not blow it.

Propitious, I assume is what you meant, and that is a great word for the create a box and fill it with what you expect it will give you in projected results, like the running full speed and then hitting your head on the wall idea.

I have a different approach to the universe thru Science, keeping an open mind rather than absolute denial of spiritual value or the presence of God, because of the current mindset, or judgment, or the lack of current evidence, and any imagined superiority of mental concepts either current or of the future.


"The rise of science served to extend the range of natures marvels, so that today we have discovered order in the deepest recesses of the atom and among the grandest collection of galaxies," writes Paul Davies, PhD., well-known author and professor of mathematical physics, in Evidence of Purpose: Scientists Discover the Creator (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1994)

Systems theorist Ervin Laszlo reports in The Whispering Pond: A Personal Guide to the Emerging Vision of Science (Boston: Element Books, 1999): "The fine-tuning of the physical universe to the parameters of life constitutes a series of coincidences--if that is what they are...in which even the slightest departure from the given values would spell the end of life, or, more exactly, create conditions under which life could never have evolved in the first place. If the neutron did not outweigh the proton in the nucleus of the atoms, the active lifetime of the Sun and other stars would be reduced to a few hundred years; if the electric charge of the electrons and protons did not balance precisely, all configurations of matter would be unstable and the universe would consist of nothing more than radiation and a relatively uniform mixture of gases....If the strong force that binds the particles of a nucleus were a fraction weaker than it is, deuteron could not exist and stars such as the Sun could not shine. And if that force were slightly stronger than it is, the Sun and other active stars would inflate and perhaps explode...The values of the four universal forces [electromagnetism, gravity, and the nuclear strong and weak forces] were precisely such that life could evolve in the cosmos."
Notes Professor Davies: "Quite a list of 'lucky accidents' and 'coincidences' has been compiled...For a recent review see Cosmic Coincidences by John Gribbin and Martin Rees (New York: Bantam:, 1989)." Davies estimates that if--as some scientists maintain--there were no inherent guiding intelligence and cosmic evolution were governed only by the chance operation of strictly mechanical laws, "the time required to achieve a level of order we now meet in the universe purely by random processes is of the order of 10 to the 10th power to the 80th power in numbers of years"..inconceivably longer than the current age of the universe as it is calculated now. Citing these calculations, Laszlo wryly observes: "Serendipity of this magnitude strains credibility," and concludes: "Must we then face the possibility that the universe we witness is the result of purposeful design by an omnipotent master builder?"

Recent advances in what theoretical physicists call "Superstring Theory" are leading science toward an understanding of the vibratory nature of creation. Brian Greene, PhD., professor of physics at Cornell and Columbia Universities, writes in The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory: (New York: Vintage Books, 2000):
"During the last thirty years of his life, Albert Einstein sought relentlessly for a so called unified field theory--a theory capable of describing natures forces within a single, all encompassing, coherent framework...Now at the dawn of the new millennium, proponents of string theory claim that the threads of the elusive unified tapestry finally have been revealed...
"The theory suggests that the microscopic landscape is suffused with tiny strings whose vibrational patterns orchestrate the evolution of the universe," Professor Greene writes, and tells us that "the length of a typical string loop is..about a hundred billion times smaller than an atomic nucleus."
Professor Green explains that by the end of the twentieth century, science had determined that the physical universe was composed of a very few fundamental particles, such as electrons, quarks (which are the building blocks of protons and neutrons), and neutrinos. "Although each particle was viewed as elementary," he writes, "the kind of 'stuff' each embodied was thought to be different. Electron 'stuff,' for example, had negative electric charge, while neutrino 'stuff' had no electric charge. String theory alters this picture radically by declaring that the 'stuff' of all matter and forces is the same."
"According to sting theory, there is only one fundamental ingredient---the string," Green writes in The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and The Texture of Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004)
He explains that "just as a violin string can vibrate in different patterns, each of which produces a different musical tome, the filaments of superstring theory can also vibrate in different patterns....A tiny string vibrating in one pattern would have the mass and the electric charge of an electron; according to the theory, such a vibrating string would be what we have traditionally called an electron. A tiny string vibrating in a different pattern would have the requisite properties to identify it as a quark, a neutrino, or any other kind of particle...Each arises from a different vibrational pattern executed by the same underlying entity....At the ultramicroscopic level, the universe would be akin to a string symphony vibrating matter into existence."

"Recent Indo-German studies have revealed that fasting can prolong lifespan," reports and article in The Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad, India, January 23, 1995. "The experiments carried out by the Hyderabad Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in collaboration with the Max PLanck Institute for Experimental Endicronology (Germany) noted that fasting conserved a lot of energy. This excess energy could be utilized for the carrying out of other functions of the human body or for keeping the body fit, thus increasing longevity.
During the experiments, which subjected rats to fasting, it was found that the turnover or replacement of internal lining cells, which required a lot of energy was completely stopped. There also was no physiological cell death, and intestinal cells became more efficient in absorbing nutrients, Dr. P. D. Gupta Deputy Director of the CCMB ad leader of the study group said.
"Dr. Gupta said there were instances of Jain munis fasting for more than 200 days.
However, it was found that fasting up to three days stopped 'physiological cell death' completely. Fasting for one or two days intermittently over a period of one month was always beneficial study found."

From The Second Coming of Christ, The Resurrection of the Christ within You Self-Realization Fellowship. (2004) Ultimately it is possible to live by the word of God alone. In a book called Amanzil, about Therese Neumann, the peasant girl from Konnersreuth, Bavaria, taken from an address of Right Reverend Joseph Schrembs, D.D., Bishop of Cleveland, delivered February 12 1928, we find striking facts about Therese Neumann's life relative to living by divine energy.
1. "She possesses the wounds of the crucified Savior. The wounds remain always the same. They neither fester nor heal."
2. "She goes through the Passion of our lord each Friday.'
3. "She repeats the Aramaic words spoken by Christ."
4. "She divines the inner most secrets of her heart."
5. "She takes neither food nor drink. Has eaten no solid food since 1923, except water or a little fruit juice."
But on Christmas Day of the year 1926 she ceased entirely taking any food or any drink, so that almost for two years now, this girl has neither eaten or drunk anything except to receive Holy Communion every morning....The verdict of all the doctors from the University of Berlin, from Prague, from Frankfurt, from Munich--doctors without any faith--is this: 'Deception and fraud are absolutely out of the question in the case of Therese Neumann.' She is not emaciated, despite lack of food since Christmas 1926, and is as healthy looking as anyone around you. On Fridays she loses about eight pounds. Six hours after the vision of the Passion is over, she is back again to her normal weight of 110 pounds."
Therese Neumann lived from 1926 until 1962 without eating food.

Among other Christian saints who lived without eating (also stigmatists) Saint Lidwina of Schiedam, Elizabeth of Rent, Catherine of Siena, Dominica Lazarri, Angela of Foligno, 19th Century Louise Lateau.
Saint Nicholas of Flue (Bruder Klause, the fifteenth-century hermit whose impassioned plea for union saved the Swiss Confederation) was and abstainer from food for twenty years.

Added note: The Vatican discouraged any association with Therese Neumann and hasn't wanted to acknowledge any association of her stigmata or her sudden healing from paralysis or blindness due to her childhood accident as anything special or to do with God.

Evidently it threatens their exclusive rights and claims to holy fame and power..

This does not really make much sense Lindsay.

Culture, you have to understand you are no longer in the realm of science but have ventured into the philosophical, trying to invalidate philosophy with science is like banging your head against a concrete wall. Science deals with how things work, philosophy deals with why. You are trying to use evidence of how something works to invalidate a theory as to why it works the way it does.

The only way you are going to accomplish that with science is if philosophy makes a prediction and then you can evaluate that prediction via the scientific method.

You have no concrete way of distinguishing whether this a dream, computer simulation, etc. These are things of philosophy.

This. What 'this' doesn't make sense? Point out what you consider to be nonsense. I always welcome constructive criticism.

BTW, it has always been my understanding that philosophy is the mother of the sciences, not foreign to it.

About Einstein reference to imagination: Was Einstein's assessment of the importance of imagination wrong?