Blessed are the poor in spirit

[Alex Jacob]

[PS: Diebert was, at one time in his life, a Christian. For all kinds of different reasons he does not attach that designation to himself now. He consideres certain writers, perhaps CS Lewis, to be 'baby's milk' in comparison to what he now understands.]

[Luke Breuer]

[PS: Diebert was, at one time in his life, a Christian. For all kinds of different reasons he does not attach that designation to himself now. He consideres certain writers, perhaps CS Lewis, to be 'baby's milk' in comparison to what he now understands.]

Perhaps this is not the thread for it, but I would love to learn more about why Diebert dispensed with his faith. I wonder if he knows of how about Lewis and Freud dispensed with their religious beliefs, and why Lewis returned while Freud did not. (The Question of God is a fantastically interesting book.)

I am not insulted by things called “baby’s milk”, but I do expect such statements to be backed up with solid reasoning and perhaps evidence. Otherwise, they are self-defeating. :-p

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Luke,

Don't jump on the Diebert bandwagon too quickly. He is intelligent and makes good insights of his own, but he has never quite understood exactly what QRS are on about, so he can't speak for them very well at all. Actually to be specific, there is no exact QRS philosophy as Dan, David, and Kevin are each different - saying QRS is just shorthand for what they either basically have in common or is in the ballpark of at least 2 of them. It is best to only consider what each means by directly what each says.

Logic is held to the highest regard here, and don't worry about being too direct; that's the way we like it.

Yes, welcome to the board. You do seem to be a good addition.

[Luke Breuer]

Don't jump on the Diebert bandwagon too quickly. He is intelligent and makes good insights of his own, but he has never quite understood exactly what QRS are on about, so he can't speak for them very well at all. Actually to be specific, there is no exact QRS philosophy as Dan, David, and Kevin are each different - saying QRS is just shorthand for what they either basically have in common or is in the ballpark of at least 2 of them. It is best to only consider what each means by directly what each says.

I wasn’t aware I was jumping on anyone’s bandwagon. :-p I will pursue discussions as long as the discussion remains sufficiently rational and salient, such that I think I am increasing the value of the conversation. I would greatly enjoy hear someone rationally explain why he abandoned his faith; I have found that such explanations inevitably reveal misunderstandings of the faith, at least for Christianity. If there are too many misunderstandings of sufficient intensity, abandoning one’s faith is akin to clearing toxins from one’s system. However, this does not necessarily indicate that all forms of the Christian faith are toxic. That is a much harder claim to demonstrate. :-)

Logic is held to the highest regard here, and don't worry about being too direct; that's the way we like it.

Yes, welcome to the board. You do seem to be a good addition.

Thanks! I like to tell people that in my family, there are no opinions, just facts—some of which are wrong.

[Bob Michael]

What are you using to differentiate between these two kinds of love?

A fully rehabilitated sixth sense or intuitive faculty.

[Luke Breuer]

A fully rehabilitated sixth sense or intuitive faculty.

How well can you describe/define this "intuitive faculty"? That is, can you describe your intuition in any way other than "magic"? I have some ideas of my own, but I want to hear yours. :-p

[Bob Michael]

How well can you describe/define this "intuitive faculty"? That is, can you describe your intuition in any way other than "magic"? I have some ideas of my own, but I want to hear yours. :-p

"The Sixth Sense. For Jonathan Edwards, then, the divine light is a "real" sense, a "true" sense, a "sense of the heart," not of the mind, as real and as true as are the senses of natural things, of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, but "vastly higher," a sixth sense.....A man with such a sense does not "merely rationally believe that God is glorious, but he has a sense of the gloriousness of God in his heart"; has not a speculative notion of God's holiness, but a "sense of the loveliness" of it; has not the judgment that God is gracious, but a sense of His graciousness." (M. X. Lesser - 'Jonathan Edwards')

[Luke Breuer]

Have you any idea what the divergence/convergence of various people's "sixth senses" are? How are they similar and how do they differ?

[Bob Michael]

Have you any idea what the divergence/convergence of various people's "sixth senses" are? How are they similar and how do they differ?

So far as I'm concerned most people's sixth sense or intuitive faculties have been permanently destroyed, rather than them being nurtured and finely-formed, by their childhood conditioning, never to be reborn to and rehabilitated. And I know of no one personally who has been genuinely reborn and is consciously and painstakingly rehabilitating either of these things.

[Luke Breuer]

And I know of no one personally who has been genuinely reborn and is consciously and painstakingly rehabilitating either of these things.

Do you know of anyone non-personally who has been genuinely reborn? Perhaps someone on these forums? It is hard to understand a phenomenon when there is only one data point.

[Robert]

Was my assessment fair and accurate? Honestly, I was trying to be precise in what I said. I admit that I do not understand at all what the QRS position is in its 'deeper sense' (if indeed it exists). But I think I have accurately described their use of 'reason' to grasp 'the totality', et cetera.

I can only reply in semi monk-like mode; there's nothing to grasp, nothing to accurately describe. You won't be satisfied, I know.

Robert, if one is, say, preaching to certain folks, the chances are high that one will only reach those folks who already 'vibrate' at that frequency, right? Do you think it happens that someone who has a strict 'QRS' viewpoint all on the sudden sees some blinding light, hears a voice that comes out of nowhere, and gets established on a radically NEW path? I think we are partisans of our own parties. At the very least we are here participating...and it all stays reasonably civil, doesn't it?

Anything's possible I suppose, there's not much certainty about how one person's mind will lead them to behave or what they'll act on. And it is all an act, don't you think?

And if I serve an unwitting function for your party, well that's all for the very good, right?

It couldn't possibly be any other way. The same goes for your party too, of course.

[Bob Michael]

Do you know of anyone non-personally who has been genuinely reborn? Perhaps someone on these forums? It is hard to understand a phenomenon when there is only one data point.

In 9 years of considerably heavy internet discussion forum activity, I've run across no one who I feel was genuinely and fully reborn. I may be wrong here but this is my best feeling on the matter.

However, the following 6 men I find were most definitely reborn or twice born individuals, and this fact is very clear to me from studying their shared experiences of their rebirth processes. Which were very helpful in my going through and understanding my own rebirth and breakthrough. Of course there were many others who were also helpful to me. Though I also find that none of the following men ever became totally self-transparent, nor were they perfect living embodiments of the Truth or perfectly driven and guided by life's 'holy spirit'.

J. Krishnamurti, U. G. Krishnamurti, Gopi Krishna, Eckhart Tolle, Osho, and Bill Wilson. Various men's shared experiences in the book 'The Varieties of Religious Experience' by William James was also very helpful to me early on in my journey.

[Alex Jacob]

"I would greatly enjoy hear someone rationally explain why he abandoned his faith; I have found that such explanations inevitably reveal misunderstandings of the faith, at least for Christianity. If there are too many misunderstandings of sufficient intensity, abandoning one’s faith is akin to clearing toxins from one’s system. However, this does not necessarily indicate that all forms of the Christian faith are toxic. That is a much harder claim to demonstrate."

Myself, inspired by the prospect, have begun a Novena in the Late Egyptian style, with prayers and recitations and candles and incense, strange repetitive and neurotic (a la Freud) movements as well as plates and vessels filled with crushed aromatic herbs, and adamant prayer to the Queen of Heaven that I finally get some information about the spiritual innards of this Illustrious and Reverand Dutchman. While it is true that I incorporate elements of Rites of Isis into my devotionals, gleaned from the 11th chapter of The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, still I am not without appreciation of the Solar Logos who often appears to me in the form of a Radiant Child holding, as it were, the Orb of the Earth.

Is someone gonna make popcorn?

[Alex Jacob]

Robert writes: "I can only reply in semi monk-like mode; there's nothing to grasp, nothing to accurately describe. You won't be satisfied, I know."

Oh I'm satisfied, don't you worry. Sat-is-FIED! The outcomes of Pure Reason are pure satisfaction!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

No, you don't know that at all. You're making it up and trying to get away with lying like all that calls itself "Christian" these days.

Please articulate and defend this statement.

You appear to turn the situation on its head. Lets try to trace it back and point out it was you making assertion couched in language of certainty and the factual. Allow me to give an example:

• "I do know that Jesus did not speak like the translated version of Eckhart" - "Jesus came as a doctor not just for the soul"

Which translation of Jesus, based on which historical, theological or archaeological method are you referring to here? How old or schooled are you in these matters anyway? Not that it really matters but again it's you who claims knowledge of how Jesus spoke or when or how he existed. Your faith demands perhaps not to think further. I do not have such limits imposed and I suspect neither had Eckhart and many others embedded in each and every tradition and culture. Freethinkers! Feel free to read or reject them - it doesn't matter.

King David, Paul and Jesus, who are they, what do we really know about them? Even if they were for some reason not some composed character in a mythological sense, it still doesn't take away from the requirement to think and judge for yourself. Only you can decide who reads or sounds as someone with skill, with understanding about the topic. No one can help you there, you're all alone!

Lastly, when Jesus said “Not my will but Thine be done.”, I’m not sure he has zero will at play

It has nothing to do with zero will compared to a full will. Please give it more thought than you have appeared to have done until now. The whole point is the realisation of the illusion of will, only this can lead to "pure" thinking - "pure" heart - "pure understanding". The concept of personal will is a construct like everything else. It's a barrier erected against god, against reality. It doesn't mean action can not appear like being initiated and decided by a "person" after consideration inside some "inner sanctum". But such ripples and reflections are ever moving targets.

The idea of detachment I have recently taken from scripture is that Christians must attach first and most strongly to God via Jesus

Some interesting conversation on this dynamic but then in a more general sense you can find on the forum host's Reasoning Show episode The purpose of gurus.

There is a difference between, “Jesus inspired me to think about this” and “this is what Jesus was saying”. Does this make sense?

Jesus inspired you to write that He did not speak like the translated version of Eckhart? Is that what you're saying then?

Would you be willing to direct me to some writings that explain the “babeness” of Lewis’ writings?

You're asking for the moon. The moment you will put away his books because you found out the limitation and contradictions he had to uphold, that moment you've outgrown him as philosopher.

But still, two examples of the hundreds:

We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle (from Myth Became Fact" )............If ever a myth had become a fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. - from Surprised by Joy

He tries to explain all the surrounding stories, copies and events which have so many similarities in moral, story and execution by being "lesser" version of the real thing. He forgets the skewed perspective of looking through the lenses of a dominant theology, positioned for many centuries before his time against the pagan version. This means he cannot even begin to question the relativity of his own time and age. And the modern reader just ignores vast bodies of something called "comparative religion".

Jesus... a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. - from Mere Christianity

The "Lewis trilemma". Can you spot the logical fallacy?

[Luke Breuer]

In 9 years of considerably heavy internet discussion forum activity, I've run across no one who I feel was genuinely and fully reborn. I may be wrong here but this is my best feeling on the matter.

Would you be willing to dig into the “reborn” idea some more? It is interesting that you later use the phrase “totally self-transparent”; I’m not quite sure what the “self-” means, but I have been described by people as very transparent. They consider that a bad thing but I do not. Usually I am transparent, but I can become opaque if I need to. (Oddly enough, this reminds me of Jesus “hiding” himself, although transparency in heart is not the same as transparency in physical form.) You might like the paper, The Unreliability of Naïve Introspection.

Is someone gonna make popcorn?

Only if you can convince me that your system is very consistent and interestingly complete. :-p

[Luke Breuer]

Lets try to trace it back and point out it was you making assertion couched in language of certainty and the factual.

How careful are you to insert exactly the correct protocol words into what you speak? I can play that game, but it isn’t very much fun. If I “couch” my statements in certain/factual language, that simply means that I am willing to defend what I say in a somewhat formal way. How could it mean more than that?

Which translation of Jesus, based on which historical, theological or archaeological method are you referring to here? How old or schooled are you in these matters anyway?

I shall be precise in what my argument required: not that Jesus existed, but that some corpus be identified as his sayings, and that he was consistent in his thoughts. I am familiar with things such as the Jesus Seminar; I am also somewhat familiar with Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which threatens to upheave much of what some people think they know about the Bible and how it came to be.

Not that it really matters but again it's you who claims knowledge of how Jesus spoke or when or how he existed.

Was Eckhart making no such claims? Perhaps he did not so explicitly, but at least I was led to believe, by his writing, that he thinks he is speaking for the God described in Christian holy texts.

Your faith demands perhaps not to think further.

After a few back-and-forths, I hope to pleasantly surprise you by replacing “perhaps not” with “you”. One could say that the biggest reason I started posting in this forum was to “think further”. I have long since gotten tired of hearing my voice or reading my words for the same of hearing/reading them: I want the mettle of my ideas tested and also enjoy testing the mettle of others’ ideas.

I do not have such limits imposed and I suspect neither had Eckhart and many others embedded in each and every tradition and culture. Freethinkers! Feel free to read or reject them - it doesn't matter.

Thinking freely does not mean one abandons standards of evidence, nor rationality. One may question the exact nature of both of those—something I have done in my past and continue to do so—but I have yet to find someone who seemed grounded in reality or Reality, who denied the importance of either.

Only you can decide who reads or sounds as someone with skill, with understanding about the topic. No one can help you there, you're all alone!

This thinking could be dangerous. On the one hand, I might be able to agree, but on the other hand, it sounds like justification to live however you wish to live, as long as you can soundly rationalize it. How do you fight the rationalization instinct that is extremely common to the types of folks who frequent this forum?

It has nothing to do with zero will compared to a full will. Please give it more thought than you have appeared to have done until now. The whole point is the realisation of the illusion of will, only this can lead to "pure" thinking - "pure" heart - "pure understanding". The concept of personal will is a construct like everything else. It's a barrier erected against god, against reality. It doesn't mean action can not appear like being initiated and decided by a "person" after consideration inside some "inner sanctum". But such ripples and reflections are ever moving targets.

When you say this, are you under the impression that you are inline with what the Bible says, or do you not care? I reference scriptures such as Numbers 24:13, Proverbs 16:3,9, Psalm 37:4, John 6:38, 1 Corinthians 9:17, and James 4:13-16. The idea I get is the of all the possible choices I can make, only a subset of them are in accordance with God’s antecedent will—that all live/be saved—while all of them are in accordance with God’s consequent will, which is evidenced in Romans 9. God’s antecedent will doesn’t necessarily always happen, while his consequent will necessarily happens, 100% of the time. There could be a possible world where God’s antecedent will always happens, but I do not know of any scripture which says his antecedent will necessarily happens, nor that this is that possible world.

All that technical language supports my claim that A) we can choose to be vessels of glory of vessels of wrath, B) there are choices we can make while still being vessels of glory. In other words, I disagree with the theology that there is one path God has chosen for us, from which any deviation whatsoever is sin. Some deviations are sin, but the set of (mutually exclusive) possible actions which are aligned with God’s antecedent will has cardinality greater than one.

Jesus inspired you to write that He did not speak like the translated version of Eckhart? Is that what you're saying then?

No, I am saying that one must absolutely trash what the standard Protestant (I am not sure about the Apocrypha) Bible has Jesus saying, in order to support what Eckhart says.

You're asking for the moon.

You appear to contradict yourself in the very next paragraph:

But still, two examples of the hundreds:

How is asking for a good sampling of “the hundreds” equivalent to “asking for the moon”? You seem to be abusing hyperbole.

He tries to explain all the surrounding stories, copies and events which have so many similarities in moral, story and execution by being "lesser" version of the real thing.

Is this never a pattern found in human behavior? Clearly, one needs to establish which version was closest to the real thing, but you would appear to be dismissing the whole enterprise as useless.

He forgets the skewed perspective of looking through the lenses of a dominant theology, positioned for many centuries before his time against the pagan version. This means he cannot even begin to question the relativity of his own time and age. And the modern reader just ignores vast bodies of something called "comparative religion".

C.S. Lewis does compare religion; would you elaborate on how you think he does it poorly? Are you entirely sure C.S. Lewis does not account for any “relativity of his own time and age”? Perhaps you would be willing to explain how you account for said relativity in this age?

The "Lewis trilemma". Can you spot the logical fallacy?

I am aware of the criticism, but calling it a “logical fallacy” is once again treading on dangerous ground. It is equally valid to say that Lewis made assumptions that either A) most people miss, or B) were not explicitly stated, but underlay enough of his work to be sufficiently obvious to the competent reader. This makes the issue not at all one of logical fallacy, but challenging a premise, based not on consistency of a possible world, but by testing whether this actual world is that possible world, using evidence.

[Pam Seeback]

And I know of no one personally who has been genuinely reborn and is consciously and painstakingly rehabilitating either of these things.

Do you know of anyone non-personally who has been genuinely reborn? Perhaps someone on these forums? It is hard to understand a phenomenon when there is only one data point.

The original post in this thread is about Eckhart's doctrine of poverty of unborn spirit, wherein a man is stripped even of his idea of will, whether it be of his own, or of God's:

A great master says that his breaking-through is nobler than his emanation, and this is true. When I flowed forth from God, all creatures declared: "There is a God"; but this cannot make me blessed, for with this I acknowledge myself as a creature. But in my breaking-through, where I stand free of my own will, of God's will, of all His works, and of God Himself, then I am above all creatures and am neither God nor creature, but I am that which I was and shall remain for evermore."

Where there is no will, there can be no birth/re-birth, for there is no energy of the idea of self to catalyze the emanation or circle of matter that is the appearance of the egg/sperm of self. Eckhart addresses the unreadiness of most to hear this wisdom of this complete transcendence of will.

If anyone cannot understand this sermon, he need not worry. For so long as man is not equal to this truth, he cannot understand my words, for this is a naked truth which has come direct from the heart of God.

[Luke Breuer]

The original post in this thread is about Eckhart's doctrine of poverty of spirit, wherein a man is stripped even of his idea of will, whether it be of his own, or of God's:

There is a world of difference between having one’s own idea of “will” change, and having anything that could be called one’s own will, disappear. Eckhart appeared to be arguing for the latter.

Where there is no will, there can be no birth/re-birth

Are you disagreeing with Bob Michael when he claims that re-birth is important?

[Dennis Mahar]

One could say that the biggest reason I started posting in this forum was to “think further”. I have long since gotten tired of hearing my voice or reading my words for the same of hearing/reading them: I want the mettle of my ideas tested and also enjoy testing the mettle of others’ ideas.

In the ordinary course of events, it's hidden from who you are, from 'who you're being'. You're unaware of it. It's the 'who you're being' which you don't know. And it's not merely that you don't know this 'who you're being'. It's worse than that. It's that you don't know that you don't know this 'who you're being'.

This 'who you're being' isn't located in what you know. Rather, it's located in how you've strung together what you know. It's not what you know. It's how you hold everything you know - and you don't know how you hold everything you know, and you don't know that you don't know how you hold everything you know.

It's your epistemology. Not what you know but how you hold what you know.

That feeling you always have. That thing going on in the background which tells you 'something's wrong'. It's embedded in the way you've organised everything you know.

It's always there. Even though hidden, even though forgotten, it's always shaping, always bending, always molding, always skewing your life. Forgetting it's there as not what you know but rather what shapes what you know and therefore what shapes the way you think. It's as unique as your fingerprint, as specific as the pattern in your iris, as personal as the configuration of the taste buds on your tongue. Yet you just can't see it. You've forgotten it's there.

The possibility is becoming senior to your epistemology.

look up: soliloquy.
look up: oblivious

[Luke Breuer]

Yet you just can't see it. You've forgotten it's there.

Instead of quoting only one thing and writing your own soliloquy, would you please quote several things I've said and explain how they all contribute to a justification for what you have said? You have a categorization scheme in your head which I cannot access; your providing several pertinent examples of what I've said—verbatim, not paraphrased—will help me understand you better.

[Dennis Mahar]

Instead of quoting only one thing and writing your own soliloquy, would you please quote several things I've said and explain how they all contribute to a justification for what you have said? You have a categorization scheme in your head which I cannot access; your providing several pertinent examples of what I've said—verbatim, not paraphrased—will help me understand you better.

Yes, that's it exactly. thankyou.
It's your coping thing.
the way you deal with it.
your winning formula,
that's always/already unsatisfactory.

[Luke Breuer]

If "winning" is positively correlated with gaining wisdom then yes sir, I want to win!

[Dennis Mahar]

If "winning" is positively correlated with gaining wisdom then yes sir, I want to win!

you can't, there's nobody here.

what was the originating incident that set you seeking.

[Bob Michael]

Would you be willing to dig into the “reborn” idea some more? It is interesting that you later use the phrase “totally self-transparent”; I’m not quite sure what the “self-” means, but I have been described by people as very transparent. They consider that a bad thing but I do not. Usually I am transparent, but I can become opaque if I need to. (Oddly enough, this reminds me of Jesus “hiding” himself, although transparency in heart is not the same as transparency in physical form.)

By self-transparency I mean having the capacity to see through oneself which is to be totally free of all of one's false parental and societal conditioning, which would leave one a fully authentic and autonomous human being. Perhaps one might say a pure spirit.

BEYOND A NEW EARTH: The Birth of a Super-Conscious Brain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYqeeQXdI0s