"God" in the Postmodern Era

The word Apocalypse is one of those incredibly complex concepts.

Most users of the word likely see it as a synonym for Armageddon … feel comfortable with the association of catastrophe … annihilation of humanity and planet.

For me … there is enough wiggle room for alternative explanations.

For example … what would an apocalyptic metamorphosis of human consciousness look like?

Apparently the word apocalypse stems from the Greek language.

Phyllo … thank you for softening your posture … if only a tiny bit and only temporarily … on this incredibly complex issue.

The Western Psyche has always called for action … demanded action … reaction … action … reaction.

This behavior created a relentless cycle of action … reaction. When desired results were not achieved the action/reaction turned hostile and violent. The hostility and violence has persistently increased … both in scope and damage.

There is a subtle difference between the Western Psyche and the Chinese Psyche. While not always perceptible the kernel of the Chinese Psyche is non-action … the Chinese expression for this phenomenon is called Wu Wei.

Super Chakra expressed the intent of Wu Wei as: … paraphrasing

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youtube.com/watch?v=JMzwdbRTysM&t

gods real because he determines actions
(of humans)

Which is why the West advanced scientifically and technologically, while China stagnated.

The outward focus produces progress.

The questions that remain : Is there psychological progress of individuals in the West? and Is it the same, better or worse than the psychological progress of individuals in China?

maybe god equals psychological progress

they say god is a verb. Or a path.

Phyllo … surely there exists a practical explanation of Western progress and Chinese stagnation.

So many Western scholars/intellectuals marvel at how feudalism survived in China for 2,000 years or so. A valid question … particularly in light of what was happening in the West at the same time.

The answer may be as I stated in my last post … the kernel of the Chinese Psyche is non-action.

Let me take the statement … surely there exists a practical explanation of Western progress and Chinese stagnation to a more abstract level of thought … purely hypothetical of course.

China and the Chinese have been “treading water” … have been in a “holding pattern” … for a considerably long time. Why?

Perhaps waiting for the West to catch up spiritually.

Surely that last sentence will elicit a snort of contempt. :slight_smile:

The explanation seems to be the outward emphasis of Western religion and philosophy. The Western God produces an ordered world and mankind is allowed to use and change it through action.

The Eastern religions and philosophies emphasize changing oneself rather than the world. The world is not so ordered and understandable.

Is it ahead spiritually? You give no reasons why we should think so. Any evidence to support that idea?

I posted this in Manni’s OP this morning … have you read it?

In the NT Jesus tells us the “Kingdom of God is Within” … why the need for churches and hierarchy of leadership.

Are you not the one who keeps saying that very few have a spiritual understanding?

Are you saying that the Chinese do?

Again, what is your evidence? How is this Chinese spirituality manifested?

This also may explained why the Chinese viewed Buddhism as a brother … more than a stranger …
and assimilated some of it into Confucianism and
Taoism when it first entered Chinese territory. Contrast this response from the Chinese to Buddhism with the Chinese reaction to Christianity.
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Some may find fault with the above, and fault can be found with it in terms of what we in the western world consider a journey, but we experience outer directional journeys, because the trend is going out. Inner journeys are untrustworthy because of lack of how we define verification. The influence of the east was much more prevelant in early western thought, and in the east the movement away from it , caused by technological displacement is much less noticeable.

But eventually, regardless, the original authority will have less relevance, and futurism may truncate it where, to the point where causation will break the chain , and changes will occur. This is why tracing the successive forms is so muddy. Zen insists the chain to be unbroken, it is only our knowledge that’s lacking.

Thanks for the paraphrase, very much, for me, it was a jewel of confirmation of interitoriality, of those missing pieces, which can not be outwardly confirmed.

Phyllo … I would have to write a rather long book to describe my experiences … experiences that triggered intuitions … for my 11 years in China … all of which included being married to a Chine woman with roots in the peasant class.

Perhaps a few data references may help:

  1. About 50% of Chinese people are still rural.

  2. A significant percentage of urban Chinese people are first generation removed from the rural class.

  3. Chinese peasantry has never acquired a taste for organized religion … never in the history of China … despite being endorsed by several emperors … Qinglong comes to mind.

  4. Mao Zedong was visibly and persistently aversive to any form of organized religion … yet his mother was a devout Buddhist. Yet when sister death was knocking on Mao Zedong’s door he is quoted as saying “God is calling me”.

  5. Chinese society … 1.3 billion people … has social problems/challenges … yet recent social unrest has been spotty … and you will have a hard time finding a police person carrying a gun.

  6. Apparently 17-18th century … the time of Enlightenment … around the time of Leibniz … European scholars/intellects … asked themselves … how is it that such a sophisticated civilization (Cathay/China) could evolved without organized religion. The Tang Dynasty is considered the Golden Age by some … at the same time Europe was experiencing the Dark Age.

For a decent summary of the history of thought in China go here …

thoughtsofamisfit.weebly.com/his … china.html

Interesting, just a conjecture, or maybe even some kind of synch
. Was thinking about Lejbnitz around the same time, married to
an Asian woman all my life. But Liebnit’z idea of perfect spherical spheres, after all mathematically untenable apart from limits to absolute curvature-means the gaps in the chains of being are only relative to the various functional equivalents, whereas verification being impossible. This is why absolute authority fails, except by a set up of kindred master-tutor lineage. In that case, the pronouncements, as fragmented as they are, in Koans, do not need functional equivalents. The master passes down the knowledge the same way Leibnitz was able to understand a proto atomism handed down by the Greeks.

Seems Leibnitz is another enigma. He was one of the first … perhaps the first European mathematician/scholar … to receive the Chinese book … the I Ching … claimed by some as the oldest book on earth. He received a copy of the book … probably translated into Latin from Joacquim Bouvet … a Jesuit missionary in China … successor to Matteo Ricci. Apparently Bouvet’s theory known as the figurists … en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figurism … tickled his curiosity as well.

How much of Leibnitz’s intellectual output stems from the I Ching … murky waters indeed!

Like the idea of Judgment Day, karma through multiple lives seems to be the result of the psychological need for justice where justice is not evident in the empirical world.

Whether or not God is actually evolving or changing, the concept of God is. In fact, there is archaeological evidence that suggests that before people believed in God, they believed in Goddess. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_goddess In other words before God was symbolized as male, as in the Bible, God was imagined to be female.

True, but psychological need does not necessarily detract from the idea of long term goal conscious goal setting. And since that goal may be forgotten or revise for accommodating imminent perceptions, does not change the fact that perceptions have motive, self realization and effect in simultenious, transcendent realms of experience.

Therefore the imminent psychology does not contradict it’s origin: . That IT has been cut away, does not mean that IT is not there.

The mistake the logicians of the Middle Ages made was denying variable interpretations, and seekingHIS identity in terms of either/or, male/female, is/isn’t.
They probably understood the changing aspects of the way adherents could understand, but they did not figure the extremely sudden development of the Enlightenement.

Errata: In the last paragraph, the sentence should read: ‘only in terms of’ in stead of ‘in terms of’.

The ontological uncertainty of the postmodern era we are living in is strikingly illustrated by this article: scientificamerican.com/arti … imulation/ If we can’t be sure about whether or not we are mere players in a computer simulation, what can we say about ultimate reality?

Yes, but that does not detract for the argument for returning to a pre simulation, unless all was simulated to begin with, in which case there is no argument.

Assuming that a simulation occurred, how would one return to a pre-simulation?