GENIUS FORUMS

Mikiel wrote:

"The process of natural selection IS intelligence responding adaptively to all situations. This is God (Consciousness) immanent in all forms of creation, including all individuals of all species."

I hope the forum will acknowledge a perfectly constructed, perfectly punctuated and perfectly spelled sentence!

Mikiel, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!

brokenhead wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:Consciousness isn't everything. So it can't create everything.

This means nothing, Kelly. The conclusion does not follow in any sensible way from the premise.

Any x that is not the totality of all things is finite. A finite thing cannot be the cause of all things, because it cannot be the cause of itself. This follows from the absolute truth of interdependent origination.

KJ: You are asking how the Totality comes into existence, ie. what causes it. But if you realise that it includes all causes, the question vanishes. There was no time when it wasn't.

BH: I often disagree with Anna, but this is what I am disagreeing with at the moment. The Totality includes all effects.

And all causes.

According to Kevin, it cannot include anything uncaused.

Because things by definition are caused, there are no uncaused things to include in the totality.

Your statement that there was no time when it wasn't is correct, but only in the sense that time itself had a beginning, in the sense that it too was caused.

I can't think that time applies to time. Causation means change, which means time.

It was caused, therefore it is an effect, and so is a part of the Totality.

You are conceiving of time as a finite thing that is separate from causation. It is not; it's causation. The causeless aspect of the Totality is the timeless aspect. It is not a finite part, but a 'face' of the Totality. There are only these two aspects.

The Totality itself is only infinite in the sense that time is a part of it, not that it is eternal as well, meaning temporally infinite, which it cannot be, since it is entirely caused.

This sentence is unclear. After the first comma, does "it" refer to the subject or object?

KJ: This shows that you, like many people, think of causation as a chronological process. That is, time necessary for causation rather than the other way around.

BH: Time can be argued out of existence leaving just cause and effect and our perception of it, which we call time. This is my understanding of Julian Barbour's work.

Time is, as Douglas Adams put it, an illusion, Wednesdays doubly so. Neither are actually there at all. There is only the beginningless moment.

KJ: If God is everything, then explain to me exactly what God can worship?

BH: God is clearly not everything. To say God is everything or everywhere is one of those catechism pieces of horse shit that is used to hammer reasoning and questioning out of young minds so they will grow up to be compliant members or organized religion and tithe it for life. Such "education" borders on child abuse.

That may be so, but if I define God to mean the Totality, then I have good reason to do so. The reason the Totality cannot worship is because there is nothing apart from itself. It cannot praise or blame. This is the reasoning behind Shantideva's statement, 'To whom can I give thanks?'

KJ: The instinct of worship and submission to an external authority is the work of the Devil-mind, not of the God-mind.

BH: This is silly, too. Any instinct to worship God, and not men, women, things, or money - that is, God and only God, which is not and does not include any of these things, has nothing to do with any "Devil," assuming you know what or who the Devil is.

What are you defining God to mean?

You can properly love the part of people that is of God, but you worship and submit to a personal God only, not a vague and dead Totality and not any other logical conclusion, nor any abstract concept such as "the rational mind" or "truth."

Yes, that's the sense of worship that Anna is also conveying, and why I relate it to the Devil-Mind.

Your understanding of God (the Totality) is false. Being by definition Everything, it includes life and death. So it isn't itself living or dead. Nor can it worship, for the reason given.

Alex Jacob wrote:Mikiel wrote:

"The process of natural selection IS intelligence responding adaptively to all situations. This is God (Consciousness) immanent in all forms of creation, including all individuals of all species."

I hope the forum will acknowledge a perfectly constructed, perfectly punctuated and perfectly spelled sentence!

Mikiel, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!

Fuck you very much, Alex. I hope you will will not assume I am angry and offended if I call you a condescending asshole, hypothetically speaking, of course.
It tickles me how so many of you here are so school-marm-ish about the technical correct-ness of grammar, punctuation and spelling (gps) here. You know my priorities on the above.

So, again, you divert attention from the substance of the post to such (shall I say it again?... yes...) pedantic trivia.

The battle rages between evolution and creationism (now euphemized to "intelligent design.") I offer a succinct solution suggesting that the process of natural selection is intelligently designed by omnipresent consciousness manifesting locally in each form, individual and species.... and...
you condescendingly applaud my rarely correct 'gps' .
See... as I've said several time before, I could use my "Word Perfect" program and it would all come out as advertized.
Thing is, it is inconvenient and would only be ego-driven... to make the extra effort to "look good." Since I've lost that particular ego function... well, truth is I really don't give a shit about this all-important trivia which so turns you on. Savvy?

Brilliant, mikiel, and you are right, Alex can be such a pompous ass.

Carl G wrote:Brilliant, mikiel, and you are right, Alex can be such a pompous ass.

Yes he can. And he can also write the most brilliant critique of the sorry state of logic-depedent pseudo-enlightenment as dogmatically 'enforced' by this little cult and swallowed by "believers" of the "QRS Philosophy" ... a false idol in place of true dialogue on enlightenment.
Well, I'm about to miss one of my favorite local bands, The Renegade Saints, now about to play for "The Eugene Celebration."
See Y'all later. I''ll check in occassionally over the weekend.

Carl, when G-d commands and empowers YOU to save a whole forum, to reconnect them with the Living Springs of True Spirituality and the Prophetic Mission; to help each and every one of them to finally get a girlfriend, a job and a volume of Pablo Neruda's love poems, then we'll see if YOU don't act like Pompous Asshole from time to time...

The ends justify the means, Carl...

Ah, Alex feigns reproach and hurt with such dramatic flair; I am almost convinced he really feels these!

Well done, my shamanic jew friend, you have won back my admiration!

Yes, mikiel, by his efforts -- and yours -- we are rescuing many from the morass of logical thinking! Enjoy your musical interlude!

The battle rages between evolution and creationism (now euphemized to "intelligent design.") I offer a succinct solution suggesting that the process of natural selection is intelligently designed by omnipresent consciousness manifesting locally in each form, individual and species.... and...

Well, Mikiel, I was about to express my annoyance at your saying that intelligent design is merely a euphamism for creationism, but then you yourself quite succinctly express your own belief in intelligent design and even use the very phrase.

The only thing lacking in your position is that natural selection is by no means adequate and there is more to it than that. But that is just a detail.
Are you on the side of the materialists or not?

"Well done, my shamanic jew friend, you have won back my admiration!"

Oh Carl---you are too easy! (Can I git a capital 'J', s'il vous plait?)

Did you mention...music?!

mikiel wrote:It tickles me how so many of you here are so school-marm-ish about the technical correct-ness of grammar, punctuation and spelling (gps) here. You know my priorities on the above. So, again, you divert attention from the substance of the post to such (shall I say it again?... yes...) pedantic trivia.

It's about communicating as clearly and simply as possible.

Laying out one's ideas in a streamlined, structured manner assists people to follow those ideas.

It reflects the quality and clarity of one's thought.

By contrast, a jumbled-up heap of words tied together, with lots of quotation-marks to insinuate more obscure meanings, and plenty of ellipses to suggest unspoken ideas, presents as a confusing pile of odds and ends. The reader is forced to make unnecessary extra assumptions as to the meaning of the jumble. They are hardly likely to know exactly what the meaning of the jumble is.

The battle rages between evolution and creationism (now euphemized to "intelligent design.") I offer a succinct solution suggesting that the process of natural selection is intelligently designed by omnipresent consciousness manifesting locally in each form, individual and species.... and...

Thomas McFarlane, who you regard as a reliable source as to your Master's idea of consciousness, wrote:

Wolff's term "Consciousness" here does not mean consciousness as opposed to unconsciousness. Nor does Wolff use the word "Consciousness" here as a consciousness involving any particular structure or mode of experience, such as the structure of intentionality, or the mode of our typical experience based on the distinction between subject and object.

Italics added.

In other words, his view is that THAT does not itself make plans, and is not itself intelligent.

See... as I've said several time before, I could use my "Word Perfect" program and it would all come out as advertized. Thing is, it is inconvenient and would only be ego-driven... to make the extra effort to "look good." Since I've lost that particular ego function... well, truth is I really don't give a shit about this all-important trivia which so turns you on. Savvy?

It's not about looking good. It's not about impressing people with a pretty appearance. It's about communicating clearly.

Iolaus wrote:KJ: Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution.

AO: Either the universe with its laws and elements, and the life forms, required an intelligent input to bring them forth, or they did not. Since you believe that there is no consciousness but what evolves in life forms such as ours,

KJ: There you go again.

AO: Go again with what?

Make assumptions as to what I think. I don't think I've ever said that consciousness could only happen by evolving as it has evolved on earth.

But I suppose the main thing to ask here is, why are you equating the scientific theory of evolution with the logical principle of causation?

The rest of your post, which is about proving that I have a belief system based on the former, could have been avoided if you asked that question.

I clarified, re Darwinian evolution, that we have two possibilities. Either everything has arrived by chance in a mindless universe with no explanation even for the existence of matter, or it required the input of a mind and intention. There are no other possibilities. Your worldview, as I understand it (I don't say it is a belief system!) requires that there be no such mind or intention, therefore you must be dependent upon the Darwinian form of evolutionary theory or your worldview is wrong.

Now I see why you posted the Huang Po extract. 'Mind' for Huang Po is not consciousness, but the nature of all things. It's a word to describe the nature of all things, including what is experienced in consciousness.

KJ: But you could say that cause and effect is a form of evolution,

AO: Certainly cause and effect are part of any evolutionary process.

Wrong. Cause and effect completely permeates evolutionary processes. There is no evolutionary process that isn't a causal process. But causation and evolution are not identical: a causal process is not necessarily an evolutionary one.

One should reason about everything, but things can be first experienced, and then reasoned about.

[snip]

I can know the universe requires a God without understanding all there is to understand.

If you don't understand all there is to understand about the nature of the Universe (the Totality), then you don't understand it at all.

KJ: If you respected truth and rationality, you'd not have these long discussions spouting all your speculations about God, but say you don't know God from a bar of soap.

AO: But I do know God.

I'm sorry that you haven't a clue.

KJ: You are asking how the Totality comes into existence, ie. what causes it. But if you realize that it includes all causes, the question vanishes. There was no time when it wasn't.

AO: Perhaps it vanishes for you. I am not so easily satisfied.

Then you are a fool for not being satisfied by reasoning. Yes, Anna, stop quibbling. Look at the definition. Think about it. Stop spouting more defensive garbage. Please, think. Give us all a break from your emotional goulash.

Look at the definition. The Totality includes all things. It includes everything. The Totality is defined as all things. There is no thing whatsoever that is not included in the Totality. There are no causes outside it. All causes are within it.

So what causes the Totality makes no sense. It cannot be caused, because there is nothing beyond, outside, or apart from it, to cause.

I agreed with you that instinct is not the way to know God, but not that one cannot know God intuitively.

One can, but only after having followed reasoning all the way to the end, and knowing all there is to know about the Totality.

KJ: The instinct of worship and submission to an external authority is the work of the Devil-mind, not of the God-mind.

AO: One can surrender voluntarily to God as it is probably the wisest course and comes of an alignment of self with God, a merging. One empties oneself. A most delicate and rare thing. It is one of the reasons Jesus likened this relationship to the ravishment of a bride in the bridal chamber.

You are talking of the ego.

Kelly,

This follows from the absolute truth of interdependent origination.

What's this?

The logical principle of causation.

Link here.

mikiel wrote:The process of natural selection IS intelligence responding adaptively to all situations. This is God (Consciousness) immanent in all forms of creation, including all individuals of all species.

Anything which is everywhere does not exist in the purest sense of the word, it would be emptiness. One could leave it completely out of the equation and nothing changes - apart from having less spurious ideas left to get emotionally attached to.

Natural selection functions rather dumb and coarse, most of the time. Calling it intelligence isn't doing anyone a favor.

Iolaus wrote: Evolution as taught in academia has certain propositions about definitely needing no input of any consciousness and that atoms and molecules and chemical reactions are fully sufficient to account for the universe and the life forms.

You inserted the word definitely here which seems incorrect. According to common models consciousness is defined as a result of various biochemical reactions. Any other model of consciousness, the ones you imply, have just not arrived yet in the scientific world. Why would you expect science to take these non-existing models into consideration?

Again, you seem to blame science for not being biased enough while its core function is to limit itself to what can be predicted and measured.

As for atoms and molecules being fully sufficient to account for the universe in the eyes of certain scientists: such remark only shows your ignorance of modern physics. There's still a lot unknown and even the current popular models go way beyond the atom to reach for quite esoteric realms. The main concern for a scientist are calculations and predictions. All other things are just not a topic unless it leads to formulating new theories that could lead to new predictions. This is for example a problem with the 'many-worlds' model in quantum-physics. It's a valid model only there's no way to measure anything, so scientifically it's pretty close to worthless although worth mentioning in the text-books as there is sound math involved. This might all change soon though, who knows.

That that you use the word pseudo-science is a give-away as to a rigid attitude.

No, the term is well defined and describing very precise anything claiming to be science but not following its method. Your reaction on the word seems to express a defensive attitude - as if your favorite babies are insulted to be no 'real men'. Get over it, Anna, many of the favorites I nourished I had to let go as plain wrong. And that's the real spirit of science - to be able to dismiss what first was valued, what we had such high hopes for, and move on. I'm afraid the rigid attitude is all yours.

What I have read on the topic comes from quite intelligent people, scientists and others, who are analyzing the data most profoundly.

Intelligence and 'profound' analysis are in itself no indicators of valid science. Actually one could assert that pseudo-science is produced as a rule by unusually intelligent people and their conclusions appearing as 'profound'. That's an important part of the underlying psychology, I suspect.

One might not agree, but to call it pseudo-science indicates a complete unwillingness to engage the actual issues. It is a form of ad hominem.

If one could point out precisely where the scientific method is not followed and what the bad consequences are of that neglect then the term 'pseudo-science' is well justified. Calling something pseudo-science doesn't mean the research can never become properly scientific. It doesn't dismiss the speculation, the hypothesis or any anecdotal evidence. It might actually fuel science on longer term with new ideas and directions. Error itself should never be dismissed, the cause of the error should be understood instead as that causes education.

It's important to understand this about science, while I do realize not every 'science supporter' plays by the self-imposed limits of science. That is because most people are ignorant, no matter if they revel in science or pseudo-science.

Tell me, do you think human nature has changed fundamentally since the middle ages, and the time of Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno?

All the trouble at the time was not because of suppression [ a convenient myth ] - it was mainly about blind ego corrupting even the brilliancy of those few good men.

What is the difference with meteorology, prediction of weather patterns and such? Is the weather 'unguided' or 'blind'? Do the models deny Thor and his hammer? From the weather forecast point of view: does it really matter?

I'm not sure I understand your point. What relation has weather, which is damned complex, got to do with the evolution of living cells?

This was in response to your statement about a kind of evolution in which processes are unguided and blind and accidental which religious people would have difficulty accepting. My question was if these people would have similar problems with seeing meteorology [studying the evolution of hurricanes or atmospheric oscillations that run for years] as blind or unguided by a guiding intelligent principle that decides "rain here", "storm there".

As you should be able to see, for the weatherman the presence of a conscious weather control is not important for his predictions. He's therefore not suggesting to pray when a storm is coming. That doesn't mean he thinks you shouldn't.

No, science is about discovering what is expected by the theory or model underlying the experiment. If this expectation is not being met, a new model has to be made, new experiments designed and new tests being done. A discovery is not about something turning up and meaning something all by itself.

One can find article after article, the whole history of the theory, in which each new discovery is quite unexpected.

That was not my point. If it's unexpected then it means the model is faulty or incomplete. The unexpected find has no isolated 'meaning', it doesn't even invalidate the current model until a competing model is successfully formulated that encompasses the old one as well as the new discoveries.

All unexpected finds in the context of evolution have caused the theory to become more refined or adjusted at various places but no competing model has ever been constructed that could explain the millions of finds. So therefore evolution theory is dominant, successful and its core tenets mainly go unchallenged.

The last thing I am is a strict fundamentalist. I have no idea how consciousness produced living things.

But you're rather sure consciousness does it. Doesn't that sound familiar to 'God created the earth in seven days but I don't know how - I just believe'. Or: 'God wrote the Holy Book himself, I don't know how, or what the errors mean'.

....the inner workings of the cells is not only so much more vastly complex than any possible random process could create

Thereby suggesting you know exactly what random processes can or cannot create. This rigid thought is exactly what science is trying to challenge! Anyway, science doesn't have even a convincing model what 'random' actually is, where it comes from. It's just a term to describe certain observations, like those not possessing any detectable pattern.

It looks quite exactly like a team of engineers designed them.

How would a biological cell look like when it would be designed by engineers? You sound like you just report what you feel and nothing more.

So much so that I wonder if perhaps that isn't what happened. Something like great disembodied intelligences that are several steps removed from the Godhead literally designing the stuff. But, I speculate...

It's possible and it's on my mind too at times. But these great disembodied intelligences might also manifest through reason and science, through random processes and cause us to wonder if they really exist or if they are an artifact of the way our brain functions. They probably keep quiet about it and just smile ;)

Aside from that, I don't see why you think the evolution theory doesn't require this or that as extra element. The theory is not presented like that anywhere.

Oh, yes it is. That is exactly how it is presented, that is why Dawkins calls himself an intellectually fulfilled atheist, and it is exactly what is insisted upon by the most famous academics like Dennett.

But strictly spoken it's not a complete theory. The beginning of life is mainly a model still and for example some of the more finer interactions between DNA and RNA are considered a mystery still. What these scientist mean is that they don't see any lack in the scientific method as they apply it currently that's preventing them to advance their research, to reach for further completion.

But Occam's Razor requires that we shouldn't add elements without sufficient reason. For now, the theory and the predictions work fine without adding theology to the model. In that respect it's successfull.

It is certainly the very strong preference of the majority of today's positioned scientists that they not have any messy metaphysics in the model. However, the model isn't tenable. Of course it's successful - what faith isn't?

It's successful in making exact predictions and seeing the evidence turn up. Which faith is like that?

That being, can the laws of probability account for the mindless and purposeless evolution of life forms?

I think the idea that it's "mindless" or "purposeless" is a human reaction, a personal evaluation. It's not like that for people like Dawkins. Science doesn't conclude some 'mindlessness' or 'purposeless'. It's not in its vocabulary.

For the implication is that if I reject this theory, which you admit is tentative as all theories are, then it must mean that science bores me!

No, I was wondering why anyone with an interest in science could somehow suggest there's a better scientific theory than evolution somewhere to work with.

Science for me is nondifferent than theology. It is a form of worship. I believe science will prove the existence of God and spirit and have thought so for years.

If you're worshiping science then you already found your God. Your never-ending search for more evidence of the divine is your liturgy, your church. Not the 'hard-nosed' scientists are the real fundamentalists - you are!

On second thoughts: I think many scientists and pseudo-scientists do exactly the same as you here. It's ancient human nature after all.

Alex Jacob wrote:Carl, when G-d commands and empowers YOU to save a whole forum, to reconnect them with the Living Springs of True Spirituality and the Prophetic Mission; to help each and every one of them to finally get a girlfriend, a job and a volume of Pablo Neruda's love poems, then we'll see if YOU don't act like Pompous Asshole from time to time...

The ends justify the means, Carl...

Alex, so many in the fold already have difficulties.

Christians learn the art of dating wrote:Dwindling congregations and a lack of experience in relationships have left many churchgoers struggling to find a partner, according to clergy.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of worshippers signing up to internet dating sites, but clergy are concerned that they are losing personal skills, such as flirting and reading signals.

...

Christian Connections asked churchgoers for chat up lines that they had used, or that had been used on them. Examples included:

'Now I know why Solomon had 700 wives. He never met you.'

'You float my ark.'

'I didn't believe in predestination until tonight.'

'Let me sell you an indulgence - it's a sin to look as good as you.'

'The name is Will. God's Will.'

As an historical aside, theologians now conclude that Adam and Eve could not have been black. They reason that even God could not get a rib away from a black guy.

Diebert, Darwinian theory does pose a challenge to religious ideas, especially the absolutist variety. It confronts theology and religious cosmology with the strong likelihood that the entire belief system began from primitive vestiges, cobbled together other elements the devising culture encountered in its historic voyage, many from 'fucking the opposition', then got worked-over more consciously by the 'vatum' (priests and poets), until it finally met the early statesmen who of course put their own special spin on it.
___________________________________________________

It is not so much how it happens (development of sophisticated life-forms and complex organs) but THAT it happens, and the 'platform' that allows for it to happen. Somewhere in the I-Ching, I think under the hexagram of The Receptive, the idea is mentioned that 'though nothing was consciously planned out, everything develops in remarkable ways as if planned out to the last detail', this being the main quality of the Receptive, the compliment of the Creative principal. Sometimes I think it is not so much a conscious force that has pre-planned everything, but more like an eventuality that is always tended towards.

Do you, Diebert, have a sense of a divine? A sacred or divine spirit that is operating in this creation, on all levels? Or, do you regard all of that as hallucination, mistaken view?

[quote="Alex Jacob"
Do you, Diebert, have a sense of a divine? A sacred or divine spirit that is operating in this creation, on all levels? Or, do you regard all of that as hallucination, mistaken view?[/quote]

Yes.

Iolaus wrote:

The battle rages between evolution and creationism (now euphemized to "intelligent design.") I offer a succinct solution suggesting that the process of natural selection is intelligently designed by omnipresent consciousness manifesting locally in each form, individual and species.... and...

Well, Mikiel, I was about to express my annoyance at your saying that intelligent design is merely a euphamism for creationism, but then you yourself quite succinctly express your own belief in intelligent design and even use the very phrase.

The only thing lacking in your position is that natural selection is by no means adequate and there is more to it than that. But that is just a detail.
Are you on the side of the materialists or not?

I am a lay scientist and a mystic equally. I understand the process of natural selection, adaptation and mutation *as* the Intelligence of the Unverse (God) manifesting locally as a perpetually ongoing process. There are *very* subtle and complicated factors at work constantly in, for instance the changes in genetic code (DNA interacting with RNA for instance,) and how these changes are passed on to progeny as "gifts" of better adaptation to very specific changes in the environment. This process IS intelligenge at work.

What in the above, then, would you say is "inadequated" (as a close-up of the process of natural selection) such that there "must be more to it than that." Are you familiar with the intricacies now revealed in the field of genetic study and discovery? If not, how is it that you say it is inadequate in its explanations of genetic adaptation?

Kelly Jones wrote:

mikiel wrote:It tickles me how so many of you here are so school-marm-ish about the technical correct-ness of grammar, punctuation and spelling (gps) here. You know my priorities on the above. So, again, you divert attention from the substance of the post to such (shall I say it again?... yes...) pedantic trivia.

It's about communicating as clearly and simply as possible.

Laying out one's ideas in a streamlined, structured manner assists people to follow those ideas.

It reflects the quality and clarity of one's thought.

I am not interested your school-marm rap on grammar, spelling punctuation... sentence structure... etc... yawn! You have your style and priorities for "correctness" and I mine. There is no need for you to fix me as I ain't broken. I often prefer a "shamanic style" of "stream of consciousness" which your type calls "run-on sentences." I actually chop them up some for easier digestion... use the occassional period, etc. Not, for sure, up to your exacting standards. Yet there is a lot more tolerance for paradox in my style than in strictly "correct" protocols... not to mention your insistence on "either/or" logic, when "both/and" describes, for instance the nature of consciousness better.

(more yada yada on correctness... deleted.)

The battle rages between evolution and creationism (now euphemized to "intelligent design.") I offer a succinct solution suggesting that the process of natural selection is intelligently designed by omnipresent consciousness manifesting locally in each form, individual and species.... and...

Thomas McFarlane, who you regard as a reliable source as to your Master's idea of consciousness, wrote:
What an ass! Also a very poor listener. I have no "Master." And I said recently that such a Teacher as Merrell-Wolff can point the Way but no one can walk the walk for you. You are good with the dagger, but it is a straw man you are stabbing. I *always question authority.

Wolff's term "Consciousness" here does not mean consciousness as opposed to unconsciousness. Nor does Wolff use the word "Consciousness" here as a consciousness involving any particular structure or mode of experience, such as the structure of intentionality, or the mode of our typical experience based on the distinction between subject and object.

Italics added.
He goes on to say:
...Rather, the meaning of the term "Consciousness" here is THAT which is the primordial ground and essential nature of all modes and forms of experience, both subjective and objective. In Wolff's words,

The One, nonderivative Reality, is THAT which I have symbolized by 'Consciousness-without-an-object.' This is Root Consciousness, per se, to be distinguished from consciousness as content or as state, on the one hand, and from consciousness as an attribute of a Self or Atman, in any sense whatsoever. It is Consciousness of which nothing can be predicated in the privative sense save abstract Being. Upon It all else depends, while It remains self-existent.

Thus, Consciousness is primary, i.e., it is first, prior to everything. Not before or first in the sense of time or temporal sequence, but prior in the sense of not being secondary to or derivative from anything else.

In other words, his view is that THAT does not itself make plans, and is not itself intelligent.

So you pluck quotes out of context and put your own spin on them .... about "making plans" and "not itself intelligent."
In full context above, conscuiousness is the a-priori Intelligece and Creator of all "things" which then become "objects of consciousness."

Likewise with the aphorisms. You can not grasp the paradox they express from purely rational perspective.
Case in point (Merrell-Wolff):

[Within the bosom of Consciousness-without-an-object lies the power of awareness that projects objects.
•
hen objects are projected, the power of awareness as subject is presupposed, yet Consciousness-without-an-object remains unchanged.
•
When consciousness of objects is born, then, likewise, consciousness of absence of objects arises.
•
Consciousness of objects is the Universe.
•
Consciousness of absence of objects is Nirvana.
•
Within Consciousness-without-an-object lie both the Universe and Nirvana, yet to Consciousness-without-an-object these two are the same.

Enough for now.

"Do you, Diebert, have a sense of a divine? A sacred or divine spirit that is operating in this creation, on all levels? Or, do you regard all of that as hallucination, mistaken view?"

You answer 'yes', ha ha, but is your answer (affirmative to each question, in pro of each) anything more than sophistry? It is clever, of course, but mostly what it stands for is your incapacity to take a stand, to say some definitive, something truthful, about what you yourself believe.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Alex Jacob wrote: Do you, Diebert, have a sense of a divine? A sacred or divine spirit that is operating in this creation, on all levels? Or, do you regard all of that as hallucination, mistaken view?

Yes.

Diebert, I see this as a grave intellectual error. "Sacred" and "divine" are words that have a negative connotation for you. As well they might, since you are European and much closer to the swath of destruction caused by the RC Church. I imagine European history as being much more immediate to Europeans. The "Believe or we shall kill you" Inquisitions seem to have historically diminished by the nineteenth century. But that's a mere 3 or 4 of my lifetimes ago, and while I can and do ignore the RC Church as much as possible, I can see its shadow being more threatening to those nearer to its seat.

Do you think that if you consider seriously what Alex has asked you that you are in danger of becoming Church property? I had a Catholic education up until college, and I knew enough to keep my mouth shut when I had questions about things "sacred" and "divine." Had I not, I fear I might have become Church property, that is, I would have attracted more attention and indoctrination, and would have had the additional psychological burden of defending my thoughts against accusations of impiety at best and heresy more likely.

The most ironic effect of organized religion is that when people reject it, they also reject any notion or sense of the sacred and divine. This is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions. People have let the failures of men ruin their relationship with the divine; they have let their rights be taken away. It seems they do so without putting up a fight. This distresses me.

So Diebert, if considering the "sacred" and "divine" is hallucinatory and mistaken, I still wish for you enough silence against which a still, small voice may be heard.

Alex Jacob wrote:"Do you, Diebert, have a sense of a divine? A sacred or divine spirit that is operating in this creation, on all levels? Or, do you regard all of that as hallucination, mistaken view?"

You answer 'yes', ha ha, but is your answer (affirmative to each question, in pro of each) anything more than sophistry? It is clever, of course, but mostly what it stands for is your incapacity to take a stand, to say some definitive, something truthful, about what you yourself believe.

It's in fact a very precise answer. One senses all these things - you've no idea how far that goes with me - and at the same time the realization, crystal clear is there that it's wrong view, just as hallucinatory as the yellow eye in the sky.

Only then the bigger view opens up which in comparison would make your silly questions seem like an almost forgotten childhood's game.

brokenhead wrote: The most ironic effect of organized religion is that when people reject it, they also reject any notion or sense of the sacred and divine. This is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions....

So Diebert, if considering the "sacred" and "divine" is hallucinatory and mistaken, I still wish for you enough silence against which a still, small voice may be heard.

Brokenhead, I think you misunderstood my reply to Alexandra. Nevertheless my understanding of the sacred and divinity has developed into something that cannot be compared to what you're referring to above. At the same time I do understand what you're saying but you must realize the sacred also 'moved on' to forms you might not easily recognize. Or even appreciate them, as I cannot in many cases. And it's always easier, more pleasant to trace back into the past than to see directly into the present.