What type of god do you belive in (1 Viewer)

[snakybus]

Pressies from Santa.
While I'm happy to risk her eternal damnation by not getting her baptised, I just think it'd be mean to deny her that special Christmas buzz. How about you, Mr. Hobby Horse?

Hobby Horse?

Wel I didn't get my little one baptized either and I'm thinking of not going for Santa either but I dunno really. She's pretty smart, she'll probably figure it out straight away.

 

[egg_]

Hobby Horse?

Ah I'm only slagging - "science is a human endeavour and therefore flawed" is a favourite subject of yours, that's all, funny to see you argue with someone else the same way you typically argue with me ... maybe I'm just jealous

I'm thinking of not going for Santa either ... She's pretty smart, she'll probably figure it out straight away.

A kid doesn't have to believe in a really real Santa to enjoy it, leastways I didn't. I remember sitting up a tree with Deirdre Doyle, my next door neighbour, and discussing the existence of Santa Claus, and we agreed we "kinda" believed in him (this was after probably 2 years of Richard Murphy claiming that there was no Santy) ... which I guess meant we knew in our heads there was no Santa, but he still had a place in our hearts. Same as god for most grown-ups, I guess. I must say found the appearance of presents in the morning kinda magical even when I was just pretending for the sake of my younger brothers

 

[chickenham]

Santa is the idea of benevolent spirits writ large. We like the idea long after we realise that 'he' doesn't exist.... think about it. All this kicking against a blanket concept called 'religion' is very adolescent.

Egg, where did you grow up?

 

[egg_]

Egg, where did you grow up?

Just across the river from Wexford town. Why?

 

[chickenham]

Just across the river from Wexford town. Why?

Arr, the name Deidre Doyle brings back memories. What are the odds of there being TWO Deirdre Doyles in the world?

 

[BC]

How about unicorns, leprechauns and Santa Claus? Do they all exist too?

they do not exist in my reality currently. they do for some other people however.
A man who is doing his True Will has the intertia of the Universe to assist him.
Nature is a continuous phenomenon, though we do not know in all cases how things are connected.
Science enables us to take advantage of the continuity of Nature by the emperical application of certain principles whose interplay involves different orders of idea connected with each other in a way beyond our present comprehension.
Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers. even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the past, and every step in his progress extends his empire. there is no reason to assign theoretical limits (i.e., except - possibly - in the case of logically absurd questions) to what he may be, or to what he may do.
every man is more or less aware that his individuality comprises several orders of existance, even when he maintains that his subtler principles are merely symptomatic of the changes in his gross vehicle. a similar order may be assumed to extend throughout nature.
Man is capable of being, and using, anything which he perceives, for everything that he perceives is in a certain sense a part of his being. he may thus subjugate the whole Universe of which he is conscious to his individual Will.
every force in the Universe is capable of being transformed into any other kind of force by using suitable means. there is thus an inexhaustable supply of any particular kind of force that we may need.
the application of any given force affects all the orders of being which exist in the object to which it is applied, whichever of those orders is directly affected.
a man may attract to himself any force of the Universe by making himself a fit receptacle for it, establishing a connection with it, and arranging conditions so that its nature compels it to flow toward him.
Man's sense of himself as seperate from, and opposed to, the Universe is a bar to his conducting its currents. it insulates him.
there are three main theories of the Universe: dualism, monism and nihilism. these are reconciled and unified in this trinity: Infinite Space, the infintely small and atomic yet omnipresent Point, which are both manifest. one conjunction of these infinities is a Unity which includes and heads these things. all true Gods are attributed to this trinity.
the Microcosm is an exact image of the Macrocosm; the true spiritual process is the raising of the whole man in perfect balance to the power of infinity.
with regard to monotheism, our purest conceptions are symbolised in mathematics. "God is the Great Arithmetican / Great Archetect" / "Grand Geometer". it is best therefore to prepare to apprehend Him by formulating our minds according to these measures. by "God" here it is meant The Ideal Identity of a man's inmost nature. something ourselves that makes for Internal Coherence.
the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm is called in the language of Mysticism "Union with God". there are three main methods of invoking any Deity. the first consists of devotion to that Deity, the second is straightforward ceremonial invocation, and the third method is the dramatic method (which appeals to the aesthetic sense - this is the method of catholic christianity). these methods work like this: in the first case, identity with the God is attained by surrendering or suppressing all irrelevant parts of yourself. in the second method, identity is attained by paying special attention to the desired part of yourself (its is postive as the first is negative). in the third method, identity is attained by sympathy.

 

[egg_]

Well, the Deirdre Doyle I used to know could piss standing up, right out the leg of her shorts. Same girl?

 

[chickenham]

The Deirdre Doyle I knew could make deaf people blind. I don't know about any pissing thing.

 

[egg_]

they do not exist in my reality currently.

Naw, I mean that part of "reality" that we all share, the part where the houses and rocks and bottles of stout are. Y'see, when most people say that something "exists", they mean "exists in our shared reality", not "exists inside my head"

Now I have some idea what you mean by some of this:

A man who is doing his True Will has the intertia of the Universe to assist him ...

but a lot of it seems like it's lifted from Deepak Chopra or some other such bollocks.

For instance:

he may thus subjugate the whole Universe of which he is conscious to his individual Will.

So I might be able to shoot lasers out of my eyes if I just try a little bit harder?

 

[BC]

no. one is constrained by certain factors in the "shared reality" (i would say the parameters of this are much less distinct than you assume) you are speaking about, but these factors are neither well understood nor well defined. deepak chopra i have never read, as such i cant comment on any similarities or differences between his opinions and my own. although much of my opinions on these subjects take heavy influence from certain philosophers (spare, crowley, wittgenstein, hassan i sabbah, blake, heraclitus etc.)

 

[BC]

what a great thread this is, i must say. physics, insults, big pictures, ontology, crude sexual gossip, hilarious failed attempts at quoting other users... ahhh, this is the good stuff. hitslikeagirl: your anger is a sexy odour, will you marry me? ms.b.haven: you are my favorite car crash. its moments like these that make my life as an unemployed, fat, lazy drug-addict worthwhile. bless.

 

[snakybus]

Hmm, that's pretty interesting stuff Brian Conniffe, you should write a book on physics. Here, I like this line:

a man may attract to himself any force of the Universe by making himself a fit receptacle for it, establishing a connection with it, and arranging conditions so that its nature compels it to flow toward him.

I know it sounds a bit hocus pocus, but Bob Moog talked about something along these lines in a documentary. he was saying that the relationship between man and machine, whether as creator of the machine or as someone using it, created a third distinct energy - in the case of his machine, the Moog, music. And he said that science hasn't yet explained this "loop" of energy/emotion/information/whatever.

I dunno, maybe he smoked too much but it was a nice idea and it lead me to think about the fact that music isn't energy in the scientific sense - but it has more far-reaching and powerful effects, no doubt.

What is music? Information, I guess. And then I started thinking that maybe the only constant or eternal thing in our world is information. For example, ones and zeroes on the internet convey my thoughts from my brain to yours.

Everything you see and touch is in flux. Even the window pane in my room here is, over time, flowing downward because of gravity (glass is a fluid, just like the earth's techtonic plates are). And the cells that make up my brain, for example, aren't the same as they were when I was a baby - so in a different way my physical concept of identity is also in flux. All that's preserved is information.

My body's cells are like the Liverpool team - it's not the same team in any way as in the 70s, but it's still Liverpool, because of the name and strip - information. I'm only the same person I was 30 years ago because of information - my name, my memories, my concept of who I am, my genetic information.

This got me thinking about genetic information. According to Richard Dawkins, there is an allele (information-providing section of a chromosome) for, I think, histamine production, that's in peas and also in cows. Although millions of years have passed and millions of cows and peas have died, this piece of information has survived. It's pretty cool when you think about it.

Hmm, you could apply this to nearly anything actually. Or could you?

 

[RSJ]

I'm so glad i took haven off ignore this week - she's twice the dumb twat i remember her being.

Hats off to inbreeding!

 

[ms.b.haven]

cheers for that