tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post8083461007642728303..comments2024-03-28T13:15:29.740-07:00Comments on Metacrock's Blog: God and ConscousnessJoseph Hinman (Metacrock)http://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-19794391414336463552010-09-11T09:43:17.382-07:002010-09-11T09:43:17.382-07:00Meta: "We cannot speak directly about God bec...Meta: "We cannot speak directly about God because we can't have direct absolute knowledge about God. . . God is beyond the threshold of human understanding. . . But it would be foolish to try and decide what God can do an[d] what he can't do. . . God doesn't have to be a big man in the sky to have a form of consciousness. Its' a higher level of consciousness, one we can't understand, but it's still consciousness. . . But God is beyond our understanding."<br /><br />Given all the we don't know or understand about God, or can't know or understand about God, how certain can we be that we can even know of God's existence? It seems like the line between God and the unknown (or the unknowable) is a very thin line indeed.<br /><br /><br /><b>we don't have to understand to know. We can't UNDERSTAND, but we can KNOW through experience.</b><br /><br />Top put it another way, after all of God's (incorrectly applied) anthropomorphic attributes have been stripped away, all that's left is an ethereal, mysterious, formless concept of being or consciousness or whatever. God just "is." If God just "is," then isn't every religious leader and every religious text that ever existed simply an attempt to try and decide what God can and can't do, to articulate God's desires, and to predict what God will do in the future?<br /><br />8:07 PM<br /><br /><br /><b>Mystical experience cuts through the crap.</b>Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-53784020931328612642010-09-10T20:07:28.977-07:002010-09-10T20:07:28.977-07:00Meta: "We cannot speak directly about God bec...Meta: "We cannot speak directly about God because we can't have direct absolute knowledge about God. . . God is beyond the threshold of human understanding. . . But it would be foolish to try and decide what God can do an[d] what he can't do. . . God doesn't have to be a big man in the sky to have a form of consciousness. Its' a higher level of consciousness, one we can't understand, but it's still consciousness. . . But God is beyond our understanding."<br /><br />Given all the we don't know or understand about God, or can't know or understand about God, how certain can we be that we can even know of God's existence? It seems like the line between God and the unknown (or the unknowable) is a very thin line indeed.<br /><br />Top put it another way, after all of God's (incorrectly applied) anthropomorphic attributes have been stripped away, all that's left is an ethereal, mysterious, formless concept of being or consciousness or whatever. God just "is." If God just "is," then isn't every religious leader and every religious text that ever existed simply an attempt to try and decide what God can and can't do, to articulate God's desires, and to predict what God will do in the future?Brap Gronkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03075378067530053755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-31776455908981746472010-09-10T01:18:45.055-07:002010-09-10T01:18:45.055-07:00I think that is a very acute insight Tiny.I think that is a very acute insight Tiny.Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-65961148928631332112010-09-09T18:50:56.735-07:002010-09-09T18:50:56.735-07:00I just hit on something similar.
One aspect of ...I just hit on <a href="http://peacefulturmoil.blogspot.com/2010/09/ajahn-punnadhammo-ponders-why-is-there.html" rel="nofollow">something similar</a>. <br /><br />One aspect of the problem I think you are having in general in getting through to people is that miscalculations made by one or two generations of theologians can cast a long shadow. The longer their errors linger the more likely they are to start devolving into even worse ideas. And everyone just assumes "this is tradition, it's what people have always believed." So when you try to put out something that draws on other aspects of tradition as well as new insights and knowledge, there is a massive wall of resistance from both Christians and skeptics.tinythinkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137637122776756669noreply@blogger.com