Maybe we can have this topic here and kerich can have his endless diatribe in the first thread. Hope nobody minds if I pull a few posts from there and put them her to give a basis for the discussion. It is pointless in version I

We seem to have a circular debate going on about this topic. It was God as known by the Abrahamic religions or it was nature or maybe man as a seperate unit to the other things. How about another theory.

There is no god as defined by any Abrahamic religion. (Islam Hebrew, Christian). They stopped widening their knowledge of the world centuries back and as the rest of the knowledge base grew they were less and less able to confine reality to their dogma. So there MUST be much more complex interactions and processes than a (slightly evil) Santa Claus-like deity who goes around drowning the world when it doesn't agree with him.

There is no way the god or driving spirit of the world I live in could be simple enough to be described by pre-Christian Hebrews. Simply no way. Or by Jesus who was, by the way, a pre-christian Hebrew, spoke in a manner pre-christian Hebrews understood and only referred to subjects they had experience with

Because Christians have developed the box mentality (Cutting off new ideas and defending the old no matter what was actually happening) our knowledge of what the spiritual or metaphysical link we actually have with our world is retarded and still bogged down by the politics of everything from the crusades to the city states of Rome to the Quakers.

I suspect there are metaphysical intelligences but they have complex links that are more subtle than we have previously been able to understand. They have more control of their own agenda than we understand and may not require us to support them at all.

I have a big, long theory but that will do to start. I will add two more posts and then leave it open. And I don't care if you are offended just keep to theme. I am selfish enough to want ideas on the subject rather than the personal harangues in the first one.

You may have a point although I would think Lucifer is more representative of the evolution we actually have proof of in science. If you free the basic idea of Lucifer from the various superstition and from having a limited human definition you can extend the idea of a fallen angel to a wider term of living force that is a driving spirit buoying an ongoing of life that didn't start out with a knowledge of what it's physical, material interaction would be.

It may be proposed that the evolution of life from various cellular beings is a process of learning and gaining complexity of something that did not have it's basis in the material.

The battle between creationists and post-darwinists is the battle between two parts of the same culture which are limited in the terms of their conversation to widely divergent roles. One says it must be god because their theory of god is limited to that almost Santa Claus character I spoke of before. The other says it must be merely physical for the same reason. Having been limited to the understanding of a simplistic god-thing by years of indoctrination they now throw the baby out with the bathwater.

One of my theories about the limiting ideas within old religions (although Abrahamic religions are not so old in terms of religion} is they limit themselves to very simplistic ideas such as evil, Satan and so on. The idea of evil in the these terms comes back constantly as cultural moral values or the a reaction to other cultures who are considered threatening or about to be consumed and similar human things. A god who had developed over the time the earth has would not see us in those terms

We have been constrained by the dogmatic crushing of all other thought over several hundred years and so have been forced to use these childish and flawed terms to describe much wider ideas and experiences and so are now well beyond a point where they do more than amuse anyone not still heavily indoctinated in the belief system.

I will risk alienating everyone's knowledge base and please just diregard this if it does. I see a form of driving force similar to the concept in the Quabbalah of Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur although the Sephirah is equally limited by the time and culture which spawned it

For anyone not into quabbalah> I have grabbed this off the internet. I have limited my point to this part of the theory because it diverges into a spray of idea where complexity of the idea replaces the acknowledgment of a limited database and theoretical gaps.

In the beginning...

there was AIN, a complete void and vacuum. Not simply "nothing," but not even the existence of "nothing" itself -- absolute, incomprehensible nada. For convenience, AIN is God.

At some point AIN began to "concentrate" (since we can't even conceive of it, we can't say exactly what happened or why) and "created" AIN SOPH, which is infinity in existence, which is to say something forever, even if that something is nothing (confused?). AIN is the idea of infinity, while AIN SOPH is infinity. For convenience, AIN SOPH is the Waters.

Then AIN SOPH "moved" and created AIN SOPH AUR, "the limitless light. AIN SOPH AUR is the Light.

You can see it's relation to the Hebrew ideology but move it to the premise that something extended life into matter long ago and has been extending itself ever since and it moves beyond the Abrahamic limitations of tribal eartyh creation theory to take up an evolutionary stand


I grabbed that from here http://www.graveworm.com/occult/qabala/cosmo.html and chopped a few abstractions out to avoid diluting my point.

Don't feel a need to answer relative to my ideas. I am interested in the whole scope of people's theories.

I suggest you beat it sundog, and yes, I know you are actually _ _ _ _ _ _. I have the same right to respond to ZZ's posts, as he does to respond to mine. Get out of my sight!

I simply responded to his last post to me, as he responded to mine.

I am telling you to butt out.

Smiles, folds his arms and waits for someone who has an opinion on the topic at hand

My theory of the evolution of everything seems like a big theory full of threats to core values but it is an extension of them on many points.

I base it around the immense body of knowledge we have of metaphysical things we cannot describe and the unrolling evidence of science which has gone from blind evolution to an evolution that supposes some other force and changes on shorter time scales than previously thought.

Perhaps the evidence of the touch of an underlying metaphysical component or even individual need of the creatures in question at the time

I know it is a skeletal thing as far as theories go but it is just to jump start a few thoughts in people who might be concerned that the world just sorta happened because of the tendency to need a god we recognize or nothing.

You have no authority to move the god damn topic. LOL


Do you have delusions of grandeur now prelate?

Beat it.

The idea the there may be form of metaphysical being or intelligence which is not dedicated to a chosen people can be a little threatening also but to get this far I suggest we have long had an altruistic relationship with the metaphysical on many levels.

Enough levels for the dogmatic religions to get very good results in the years they have worked with their version of god. It might suggest that God is adult enough not to be too bothered by our mistakes, It is unlikely that given our state of manifest primitiveness at the time we could have done better even with more information. They did very well for a long and still would be doing well if they hadn't been determined to remain the sole arbiters of all things

People get very precious about the core values of a belief and find it hard to realize that the religion, and they, can benefit from the debate even if change and growth grow out of that debate I suspect

I had hoped you would find that "new topic" button on the page.

You mentioned "quabbalah" (hard to find a 'correct' spelling, huh?) and I had traveled this path previously. I have some documentation somewhere I may be able to dig up again.

As I remember it is a form of mysticism which appears to be at the heart of several if not many major religions.

From this point, I have posted the poem about the blind men and the elephant. From my perspective, each religion has looked at a part of said elephant and built a dogma based on their inspection. This leaves the rest of the elephant to yet be discovered.

It would be safe to say that what mankind actually knows, provable facts and truths, is less than what he has yet to learn.

What is supernatural?
What is Love?

My early answer was that Love was a universal truth. Is it provable? Not in the normal scientific sense - at least not at this time, but we daily see the effects of it and see "it" in action.

Enough for now.

_________________

The spelling thing will always be a problem because I am lazy

You are right about this. The elephant and the blindman proposal is a core idea in my world view (no better than any one's of course)

I said before that we have a word like love that has too much baggage attached and need a new one to define which thing we are talking of. As you also suggest we have a long way to go.

I believe we are making better pace lately. The rate of information sharing and gathering is like nothing we have ever known so the new definition and it's attendant word will evolve. Probably as we watch. I wish I had more time in my life there are wonderful things in amongst all the disasters

There's really no need for a new word. How many words does our language support that can be used to describe the physical aspect of bonding? Hundreds, probably. If the word "love" is confined to the spiritual nature of bonding, then there really isn't any problem. How do you distinguish what is physical from what is spiritual? Physical things die, spiritual things don't. Therefore, you only know you have loved, if you always love. If what you are engaged in stops, then it wasn't love at all. It was just an activity that was entertaining for a period of time.

When I bond spiritually with my father, with my mother, with my brother and sister and wife and sons and daughters, it's called love. When I physically bond with my wife, it's just plain old sex. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. Coitus/copulation/<insert your preferred euphemism here> can be elevated by a spiritual bond, but it is separate and distinct from it.

Cheers and God bless,
enegue

Totally agree on the sexual as against spiritual term.

I guess the definition of the word love we have now can be extended is we find more about our metaphysical links with life in the future. I have not totally decided that the "it" we find in that growth will be all about love. It may be a little colder and less positive in "it's" big picture. I am not proposing it will be, just not closing off the possibility.