Status of religion and spirituality forum

Welcome back, Felix.

It’s impossible to know if that is God or not. It could be God or it could be a chemical or mechanical process. It neither provides support/evidence for the existence of God nor does it provide support/evidence against the existence of God.

Hi Phyllo,
I’d suggest that it may provide support/evidence for both God’s existence and our existence in and of matter. Again, we are back at words trying to describe what is wordless. The experience is the proof of it’s reality. No explanatory words can actually confirm or deny a wordless, heartfelt experience. My problem with much that is said in religious debates is that they do not ground their arguments in the natural human experience of evolution, that, in preference for specious metaphysical explanation, such arguments eschew physical reality.

I agree with you in your assessment
My thing is that we have evolved. You think about gothic cathedrals in Europe for example, with their trilliums stained glass windows-- there wasn’t just an aesthetic reason, but a practical reason in that barely anyone knew how to read.
Religion was in ancient times a way of life, how you lived life. It wasn’t a conclusion after a meditation. It was an oral tradition tied to the very identity of your group, tribe, family, language…what else. We don’t have that anymore.
Christianity was for centuries just a name placed on a myriad of beliefs. Pagan beliefs were rolled, when possible (who was that? Gregory?) into the umbrella of the name “Christianity”.
These are scenarios, lives, I can no longer envision. The world is too small now.

I missed informed discussions. Whether for or against, my problem has been that it seems that belief has become unhinged. Yeah, sure, religion was a way of life based on an oral tradition, but every religion eventually achieved a moment of self reflection when it wrote for itself precepts. I admire Nietzschean religion-- you know the BELIEF on the Overman, The Will to Power, The Eternal Return. Sure, if he had examined himself he might have seen the Lutheran root for a lot of these beliefs.
I don’t know. I hope to find more discussions that interest me.

I was referring to here in relation to history experienced on the human scale. I appreciate quantum mechanics theoretically as well as it’s products, but I don’t expereince it directly. Anyway, that’s off my point which was that history is like the experience of the sacred is unrepeatable.

The Wiki entry on sacred includes this:

To me, use of the term sacred in this way recognizes the subjective aspect in the experience of event or object that sets it apart from the profane.

A cogent argument that has a clear connection to liberal theology.

Religion is a human experience. If we expect religion to be any more rational than people are, we’re gong to be disappointed. Then again, I meant rationality there as narrowly defined as something that can be argued coherently for. Depth psychology and now neuro-science supports Blaise Pascal’s aphorism that “'The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of… We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”

The human brain’s attempts to achieve homeostasis among diverse body parts may be an inbuilt metaphor for some religious endeavors–the thought of achieving a plenitude of one thing comprised of an ultimate variety of things–the Oneness of all in the physical realm.
In the experience of evolution we are engaged in creative outcomes for human destiny.

All mental content begins as biochemical activity.

I’m not sure about those propositions per se. I imagine you have developed those ideas elsewhere on the board. But, it’s true that cognitive science is developing a case for how our embodied point of view forms the basis for how we conceptualize things including metaphors about ultimate reality.

Thanks. I think cognitive science is on the right track.

is it really the same?
How come the chemicals become a person?

They don’t always become a person; they could become a duck or a frog. Being human is a product of specific genetic and memetic evolution.

Ierrellus,

But I think that one must first believe in God in order to think that way, Ierrellus. Would you agree or disagree?
There was a time when I believed in God so God was the one who acted upon me. I have shed that skin since coming to ILP ~ in other words, ILP has ruined me lol (we sacrifice something to gain something else) albeit I was entertaining strong doubts in the first place.

Now I can state what you say above and change the word “God” to nature.

To see Nature as here and now one must see Nature as reaching humans through their physical realities, not though some abstract, metaphysical speculations. Reminds me of Buber’s Ich and Du ~ an I and Thou relationship.

Phyllo,

I agree.
It might also be a Designing God’s (though a deists’s) indirect way of influencing relationship with It.
The outcome is still the same though - it cannot be proven either way. It is our desires and needs which create our personal realities.

Arc,
The deterministic trajectories of growth and development of stem cells convinces me that nature cannot be considered fortuitous business.On Natural religion Emily Dickinson ends her poem with “Instead of going to heaven at last/I’m going all along.” Thus I opt for a religion that is involved in our natural state as beings that evolved from chemical activity to creatures who can speculate on our place in the universe. That for me is sufficient proof that there is a God Who is involved in all creative processes. Galileo regretted the fact that religions as practiced have little to do the nature of reality as science proposes. So why not espouse a religion that is here and now, hands and feet real?
What causes our desires and needs?

Does enlightenment end with the realization of being at one with all that exists or can there be more to it than that?
Is enlightenment a passive word? I mean does it end with that realization or is there more to follow?
What does the truly enlightened person being infused with that light do next ~ if anything?

There is an eastern philosophy statement of understanding about the concept of enlightenment.

BEFORE enlightenment: Chopping wood and carrying water.
AFTER enlightenment: Chopping wood and carrying water.

My take on the term is that enlightenment isn’t passive. It is being in sync with the “nature” of all that is. Our day-to-day life may not change at all, but HOW we think of it does. It might even change how we choose to live - or not. For me, it isn’t about being happy but in finding contentment with who, what, and how I am.

Hi Tent,

I have always found that statement to be meaningful and wise.

That is what I was getting at. We do not sit surrounded by our numinous laurels and do nothing.

There is another word for enlightenment or a moment of enlightenment. It is a great word. What is it? :-"

There’s a bunch of 'em. I love the poem in your signature line.

I think another good word for enlightenment is atonement–at-one-ment.
Love Blake!!! He taught me much.