God Is Self-contradictory. Hence, God Doesn’t Exist.

[lightgigantic]

"****** He does have a mind – actually there is a break down of our own subtlr body that is mind, intelligence, false ego and spirit (each one is successively more subtle than the previous) god (and liberated persons also) have all these minus the false ego"

What is "false ego" precisely? What also is "spirit"? And what is the distinguishing factors betwixt "mind" and "intelligence"?

****** False ego is material identity (I am this body and the things related to it are mine - a conception that is over-ridden by death) mind is what we like and dislike and intelligence is the ability to fufill/avoid those likes/dislikes. And spirit is the ulitimate identity that is untouched by these things, which are merely perverted reflections of its potencies operating on the principle of illusion (thus we have real mind, real intelligence and real ego)

"******What cause can be traced to matter? That’s why I mentioned earlier that causes are either conscious or mysterious due to a few lacking elements of knowledge"

Yet if mysterious they are, can you not answer without error that this material world demands consciousness? For if it is mysterious as you truly claim, you have no foundation to suggest either way. Moreover, simply because an action has a conscious cause does not mean we must stop there, also. For what caused the conscious cause?

***** You will find that consciousness caused something that is conscious - like you came from a mother and father etc - therefore consciousness is seen to be a cause of consciousness and never a cause of matter

And what caused that which caused the concious cause? Et cetera, et cetera. Even if as we can ask "what causes air?"

******The difference is that consciousness is never seen to come from matter




"******Not necessarily – just like if you are sick and go to a pharmacy and try and be your own doctor you do not invalidate medicine even though medicine was applied – application means correct application, hence spiritual life is often not just a scripture but also those who are more successful in application (ie saintly persons)"

Yet then for the non-saintly person, religion is superfluous? Or how do we not know that it is simply through cultivating "saintly virtues" that we are not deceiving ourselves? For there exists many saints in this world and they no more agree on all things than any other person is.

*****There is argument even among successful medical practioners but they can be judged by the results of curing illness - similarly the self perception of the successful performance of religious principles is that the vices of a person are naturally subdues by a higher taste (as opposed to a display of will power or a binary sense of repulsion

"****** Yes – but again its just like there are two ways to touch your nose – the easy way and the hard way"

Yet if the hard way gives true knowledge and the easy way gives only faith, must not we accept the hard way?

******What is the true knowledge given by the hard way?

"***** Even they worked out of an existing paradigm of medicine, albeit a some what primitive one, hence they ar enot reallly original doctors but reformers of knowledge"

Yet they still took the effort to almost completely start medicine as we know it today.
In essence, they are the closest we get to an "original doctor" outside of possibly some clever caveman which we know no name of.
But nonetheless, it stands to reason that there was once a human being who oringally sought to cure the body.

*****either that or someone taught him

"****** BTW there are three methods of acquiring knowledge and each is acceptable according to its proper application – direct sense perception (good for looking out for cars before crossing a street but not so good for science)
- mental speculation (good for things within our realm of rumination, like medicine for instance, but not good for things that exist outside our realm of verification, like the dimensions of the universe etc)
-Hearing from authority – even a lot of mental speculation operates on this principle – you go to university, etc to learn – the poin tis that fact is already established and one applies this method to acquire the process of perceiving it"

Yet does not authority's rightness or wrongness hinge upon the first two?

****No. When most people get a polio vaccination they know nothing about its direct workings or technical application. Like this there are many examples

That is, an authority which cannot be verified by either the first or the second, is not an authority which can be trusted.

*****The point is that an authority verifies things by their direct perception - just like a compositor of polio vaccinations has a special vision by merit of his qualification, so do others in other fields of knowledge

Similarly, if we find the authority lacking, we must discard of it.

******I agree

Does not this also reduce authority to simply those who have come to knowledge through the first two in the past? But is impossible to rely on alone?

******Because we are limited our endeavours are limited - like for instance a house, despite being finite is practically infinite for an ant, the same of a country for a horse, and we also have our own limited sphere of human examination which seems unlimited but is actually an insignificant speck of the material cosmos (which is actually finite) - in other words there are somethings to be learnt that can only be acquired exclusively by the third process, and applying the other two is fruitless


"****** Once a body or work is established then a person is no longer required to re-invent the wheel – even contemporary threads of empiricism operate on the same principle – what contemporary doctor who is highly competant doesn’t go to university? "

I do not deny this at all. Only that originally, doctoring necessitated an independent-from-authority speculative field and which, periodically, must be renewed, and in fact, has been being renewed in modern medicine, as much of our efforts are currently based in research work, not "knowledge from authority".

*****I was suggesting that medicine can be examined by empiricism but the nature of the universe in relation to god cannot be because both the universe and god are beyond our capacities to properly speculate on


"****** Why does it seem like that? "

If all doctors and lawyers and boxers and gardeners, originally had to seek information themselves, and not from an authority, it would stand that priests were originally philosophers, and thus the books we have of holy knowledge must be human, and not divine, in nature. Moreover, even if it was from God, it wouldn't matter, as we'd have to verify it through thought and observation.

******It would make a difference if it came from god - just imagine the difference if medical researchers somehow established their knowledge 1500 years ago - in otherwords a person who has knowledge has power and the person who can receive that knowledge becomes empowered -

"****** A transcendental object is eternal – its not uncommon to encounter even an etheist who will admit that the universe requires eternal elements (they will say these elements are not conscious though)"

How is a transcendental object eternal?

***** It is not subject to material degradation or definition

Can you give me an example of an argument you have to prove such? Not that I, for one, am arguing that eternal things do not exist, merely I do not regulat ethem to any supposed notion of "transcendental".

****How could a transcendental object not be eternal? In what way would it then be transcendental?



"*****How do you form a comprehensive notion of cosmic will?"

A cosmic will would be manifest outside of necessity, but on whim. Existence, on the other hand, seems to be based on necessity.

*****Outside of necessity? So what exactly is a cosmic will manifesting?


"****** You may decide to go for a walk or decise not to go for a walkl but the walking capacity you have is constant outside of your will"

It is indeed, but the eternity of this existence means that it cannot have a genesis.

*****within eternity things can be manifest or dormant, just like the ability to walk exists even in a resting person

"****** The laws of result are also eternal – in otherwords no matter what cosmic annhilation or creation is taking place, in otherwords regardless whether the laws are put in a dormant or active state, they always remain in the same functional capacity – there is a whole different aspect to the nature of the spiritual world but that is a bit beyond us at the moment because it requires that liberated perception to understand it – in otherwords there is a distinction between the material and spiritual worlds according to their functional existence even though both are eternal"

Then if the law of result is eternal, God cannot remove it, nor is he the creator of it. That is to say, it is a principle that even God must be subject to or is part of.

*****Unless god is eternal - just like an eternal fire would also have eternal heat and eternal light



"****** What exactly is it that you want to know about god – of course all things cannot be answered – just like fire requires at least two things, dry wood and a match, knowledge requires a qualified speaker and a qualified listener (whether it is spiritual or material knowledge)"

You claimed previously that God manifested and can unmanifest (and has unmanifested) the law of result and various other laws. You then claimed that you did not know how. Well, as you just asked me to ask anything, and seemingly are not sure if you know how or not, I will ask again: How did God do the above?

*****How does god withdraw and apply laws of result? How does a monarch do the same thing regarding the laws of his state? If it wasn't sufficient for god to do these things by his will he wouldn't be independent.


"Well let me ask you this: Does a thought have a cause?

******* yes,"

And the thought's cause also has a cause? And so on and so forth?

****** A material thought is related to a material cause and a transcendental thought is related to a transcendental cause - in otherwords there is a difference between lateral and cyclic time

"****** But at the same time you cannot go to an artificail insemination clinic and demand that you become your own father because the answer is that that position is already taken"

This is true. But I am failing to see your point here.

******The living entity by constituitional position can nver replicate god's potencies just as a person can never become their own father due to the constitutional position of being a man's son



"****** All variety is not illusory – it comes in two varieties – true and false"

Define each and give me an example of both? Moreover, are you claiming that heterogeny exists in God?

Anything we perceive as material is a perversion or corruption of something spiritual - variety exists in the material world (varieties of false concepts of life that revolve around being seperate from god - all the different life forms etc) and the spiritual world (varieties of application to the connection to god's service)


"****** Application by scripture and saintly persons – how do you know that honey is sweet?"

I have tasted it. Yet what experience or argument applied from scripture points to his "transcendent beginning and endness"? And specifically the transcendent aspect of that? Moreover, how are you certain that it points to that?

******Scripture gives an indication of the objectr and the menas to perceive it just as tasting honey is the correct application to perceiving the taste of honey - if you don't do the application you will never really know


"***** Is a rope snake as real as an actual snake?"

Certainly not, but conditional does not imply rope snakehood.

*****It does in the sense that in conditional life we define our self by conditions and encounter great pain/loss/suffering etc when those conditions are revealed to be temporary - in other words we invest temporary conditions with eternal values and suffer accordingly


"***** It becomes more complete – or more perfect (no end to perfection)"

Pleasure also speaks of a lack of perfection, for to be pleased is to be displeased,

******This is a material definition because material pleasure is characterised by its binary opposite

and an infinite being also cannot have any of its attributes lesser at one time than another.

*******Unless all of god's potencies are infintely competing with each other he is not infinite


"****** All baseballs that hit all balls are transcendental because they require consciousness to hit anything – otherwise a baseball bat could sit in a room full of balls for a million years and not hit a thing"

Yet the medium is in matter. How does transcendence control matter if it is not material and connected with the material?

*****Consciousness activates matter just like a person wearing a shirt activates the shirt


"****** Why bother going to university to become a doctor?"

For at times, it may indeed be wiser. The path of philosophy one can be sure of the knowledge, but the path of religion one must simply rely.

*****You are talking of unqualified teachings - if a teaching is qualified and credible why strut it out the hard way out of an egoism of false independence?



"****** We are weak because we have a tendency to adulterate perfect processes"

How can that which is perfect and made by a perfect beings, be imperfected by imperfect beings?

******Even a good thing applied incorrectly gives bad results

"****** We caused its failure, hence it is constantly being re-established"

If God was perfect, he could not fail even when met with the fallible.

******* But we are only temporarily fallible - ultimately all living entities make it back to the spiritual world - its just a question of when - after all you have an eternity to make it there - god didn't fail

"******* yes, from scripture, scriptures change according to time place and circumstance – just like there are many different types of visual art in different cultures (according to time, place etc) but if you assembled an exhibition of different pictures of trees from different cultures it would be easy to pick out the key elements – in other words despite all the variety there are some integral qualities"

Some integral qualities in a mix of differentness. Is this truly a perfect system? One without flaws?

*****Its not that they are all equal, just like all methods of education are not equal - even though university may be superior to kindergarten it is not superior to put a 4 year old in a university

"**** then we wouldn’t have free will and hence wouldn’t be conscious – he offers religion, which you can accept or reject according to your free will – beyond that you just get the school of hard knocks of material existence for a spiritual education "

Yet as I asked: Is God free and without ignorance?

*****I thought you were referring to the living entity - if god is not free from ignorance it would make ignorance stronger than god

 

[Prince_James]

AAF:

"Re: Nothingness, of course, is not the infinitely small. It’s the absolutely small; and hence it can be used to limit the infinitely small. And so, it seems to me, we agree or very close to agree on this point."

Yes. We can use it as a limit to the infinitely small by stating that it is "the absolutely small" or "so small as to be without space, to no longer be small, but to be nothing at all, with which the infinitely small must be compared to by virtue of being 'one' away from".

But yes, we seem to generally concur on this.

"Re: I would say it’s ZERO, according to these rules:
http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/AllB...sOfInfinity.asp
And that is why it's possible to obtain the ultimate limit (i.e. nothingness) by dividing some given quantity ad infinitum."

Unless I am sorely mistaken given the answer provided, is it not saying those are the -possibilities- that could be shown? Three answers are provided and it seems speculative, rather than absolute, which would be so.

Whereas I would argue - and I am by no means a mathematician, and thus admittedly, I lack the capacity to argue on said level - that any number divided by infinity (uncountable or uncountable) could not be zero, on the foundation that this is not how division works. That is to say, division seeks a number which, if multiplied by the same number as the divisor, equals the number which the quotient is being sought for. If the very simple example of 8/4 we find the answer 2, which if multiplied by four, is 8. What, however, would be if we took 4/infinity as 0? Well, anything - including infinity - multipled by 0 = 0, so we would not find proof for our answer!

"Re: Euclid’s ELEMENTS is not only about circles, squares, and the like, but also about spheres, cubes, and the like. And so this sublime type of geometry is fully equipped to deal effectively with every problem in the three-dimensional SPACE, i.e. absolute space."

Okay. You got me there. I had forgotten it also covered three dimensional shapes, and of course, those aspects -would- cover the real world, and cover the real world on our level better than any other version of geometry. The plane geometry would not, though.

"Re: The key term, here, is IDEAL. As defined earlier, the ideal limit is the limit towards which the strength of the infinite series’ main attribute tends to increase. The closer an element to this ideal limit; the stronger its relative attribute with respect to preceding elements. Consider the series (1, 2, 3 …). The biggest number of all natural numbers is the ideal limit of this series, because the true elements (i.e. the natural numbers) get bigger and bigger and bigger indefinitely as they approach this ideal limit. In the same way, the largest space of all space is the IDEAL limit of infinite space, because it’s the attribute whose relative strength gets stronger and stronger and stronger as an endless series of spatial volumes or sizes approaches this ideal limit indefinitely. It should be obvious, therefore, that the concept of ideal limits is very important for analyzing infinite series and identifying clearly and precisely their varying properties or attributes."

I shall concede my objection on the grounds that you are correct. This sort of "ideal limit" we may speak of and which is exceedingly fruitful to reference.

"By contrast, phrases like ‘without limit’ and ‘without boundary’ is mere tautologies and different names for infinity and shed little or no light at all with regards to the chief attribute or characteristic of the infinite series or the type of infinity in question. "

It is here I would disagree. Without defining infinity "without limit and boundary", a chief aspect of infinity is misunderstood. Without realizing that infinity cannot have an end, we have no conception of what "infinity" means, that it does not simply mean "gigantic", but it means a boundless expanse, either physical or mathematical, that cannot be reached no matter to what extent one moves or counts. If this is not understood, even the notion of its ideal limit cannot be understood, as the quality which things are approaching would not be conceived, not only not properly, but at all.

"Re: That is true. The key word, here, is IDEAL. Future eternity is always ideal, and can never be realized as actual entity, not even one single moment of it. That is because, no matter how long the world exists, recent past time is simply added to past eternity; and future eternity gets none of it! "

This is also very true. The future is never reached by definition of being the future! Which leads one to an interesting philosophical mind game, also:

If the future can never be reached, does this imply that it is infinitely far from us, although the next moment is immediatly next to ours?

"Re: The perfect smell itself is the ideal, here; and hence there is no need to associate any ideal with it. More importantly, it’s possible to have many different kinds of good smell, each has its own absolute ideal. Since ideals are always defined in terms of one single attribute. And good smell has many defining attributes."

So "good smell" would have a different ideal than "bad smell" instead of just an ideal for "smell as a whole"?

Hmmm, perhaps we can speak here of two types of ideals. The ideals which do have physical and/or mathematical existence, but which can never be reached, and the ideals which do not, but can be spoken of in regards to the attribute things are progressing towards. That is to say, though it sounds oxymoronic, there are "actual ideals" and "non-actual ideals".

Light Gigantic, I'll respond to your post now. So if you're reading this, mine is on the way.

 

[Prince_James]

lightgigantic:

"****** False ego is material identity (I am this body and the things related to it are mine - a conception that is over-ridden by death) mind is what we like and dislike and intelligence is the ability to fufill/avoid those likes/dislikes. And spirit is the ulitimate identity that is untouched by these things, which are merely perverted reflections of its potencies operating on the principle of illusion (thus we have real mind, real intelligence and real ego)"

How is this ego "false"? How are we not this body and how are the things related to it "not ours"?

And should not mind be more than simply "taste"? As well as intelligence "the capacity to avoid"? For what about computation? Meomory? Et cetera?

How is spirit our "ultimate identity"? In what way is this so? And how do we have an "ultimate identity"?

"***** You will find that consciousness caused something that is conscious - like you came from a mother and father etc - therefore consciousness is seen to be a cause of consciousness and never a cause of matter"

Then you have once again contradicted yourself? You said that consciousness is at the cause of all material things. Now you are saying that consciousness is never a cause of matter. You also state then that all matter has cause in matter? And therefore consciousness and matter are distinct to the point they do not even create one another? Then the ultimate reality is both?

"******The difference is that consciousness is never seen to come from matter "

Well here's something: Can you present evidence of any consciousness existing outside of an organic creature? Can you show us a disembodied intelligence?

"*****There is argument even among successful medical practioners but they can be judged by the results of curing illness - similarly the self perception of the successful performance of religious principles is that the vices of a person are naturally subdues by a higher taste (as opposed to a display of will power or a binary sense of repulsion"

Are not they vices only within the paradigm of the system? For instance, there are some religions - primarily in the East - that obsess themselves over non-violence. In the WEst, we find it manly, heroic, and virtuous, to be violent, and glamorize our military heroes of yesteryear and today. In fact, we idolize the justly violent.

Anyone following the rules of a system can manifest that system's demands so long as they are possible. The system of one scripture says "do this", and another "does this", and this success can be found. This does not imply that the scriptures are truthful or applicable to real life, nor contain some sort of "transcendental message".

"******What is the true knowledge given by the hard way?"

To know is to not only "hear from authority", but to have a justification for that belief, by being able to either see and demonstrate the physical concept, or be able to think of and convey the idea. Here's a mundane example:

Suppose one has a refridgerator.

Suppose one has milk in said refridgerator.

A wise man comes up to one and says, "My son, there is milk in this refridgerator."

Now, this may be so. In fact, -it is- so. There is in fact milk there. But how do you know? If one says "there is milk there", and one opens it up and finds it, did one -know- this or only -presume- this? It would seem clear that one only presumed this, even if one was right. ONe could have just as well been wrong. But if one says to the wise man, "Thank you, teacher, but I shall see for myself" one can have indeed true knowledge by simply opening the refridgerator and seeing for oneself whether or not milk exists, and if it does or does not, one will have a justified true belief - the epistemological foundation for truth - that such is the case. It may have been more "practical" to listen to the sage, but the only way to become a sage oneself is to see for sure.

"*****either that or someone taught him"

If he was taught, then that being - human or not - found knowledge directly.

"****No. When most people get a polio vaccination they know nothing about its direct workings or technical application. Like this there are many examples"

But the authority must have either empirical or mental justification to be an authority, and if it does not rest on that, then it is not an authority.

"*****The point is that an authority verifies things by their direct perception - just like a compositor of polio vaccinations has a special vision by merit of his qualification, so do others in other fields of knowledge"

Yes, but -that- authority rests on that. And if we do not know that they are good, we -cannot- trust them one hundred percent. We cannot know beyond practical concerns that a doctor is good, unless we ourselves are a doctor. This is fine, as this isn't needed practically, but epistemologically, we are wrong in assuming the doctor is qualified.

"******Because we are limited our endeavours are limited - like for instance a house, despite being finite is practically infinite for an ant, the same of a country for a horse, and we also have our own limited sphere of human examination which seems unlimited but is actually an insignificant speck of the material cosmos (which is actually finite) - in other words there are somethings to be learnt that can only be acquired exclusively by the third process, and applying the other two is fruitless"

Yet if these things are only to be learned by the third process, do we even learn them at all? For it becomes a matter of hearsay the further one goes down. "My teacher heard from his teacher which heard from his teacher which heard from his teacher" is very much a matter of "the blind leading the blind". In fact, if it is outside our ken to learn other than through this, then I would even go as far as to say it is not worth learning at all, because we never -truly- learn, only -pretend- to this knowledge. For if we do not have an absolute proof of what is being learned, and we can justify this, we do not have anything at all. We have conjecture, opinion, but not truth. Similarly, it stands to reason that if it is true, it is indeed knowable through application of knowledge.

Also, what is your argument for this material existence being finite?

"*****I was suggesting that medicine can be examined by empiricism but the nature of the universe in relation to god cannot be because both the universe and god are beyond our capacities to properly speculate on"

How are they beyond our capacities to properly speculate on if t hey are all there is? That would seem to be the -essence- of knowability? In fact, if you are the thing, how can you be limited?

"******It would make a difference if it came from god - just imagine the difference if medical researchers somehow established their knowledge 1500 years ago - in otherwords a person who has knowledge has power and the person who can receive that knowledge becomes empowered - "

Becomes empowered but does not have that knowledge in full as they cannot justify it. And God, at the very least, would have to have had that knowledge that justified way, demonstrating that it is the true path, because even God would have to gain it through.

"***** It is not subject to material degradation or definition"

How does it not have a correlate to degragation or definition? What aspect of this proves this?

"****How could a transcendental object not be eternal? In what way would it then be transcendental?"

Consciousness is transcendental. The objects of consciousness are thoughts. Thoughts come and go. They are not eternal. Hence, thought are transcendental objects which are not eternal.

Moreover, though I hate to pull this, but the onus of proof is on you, the affirmer, not I. That is to say, in order to claim positively that transcendental things are eternal, you must prove that this is so, not I prove that transcendental objects are not eternal. That presumes you are right to begin with.

"*****Outside of necessity? So what exactly is a cosmic will manifesting?"

Contingency. For instance, on a personal scale, I do not have to currently be involved in writing this, therefore, this entire process is contingent and not necessary. God, on the other hand, would by necessity exist, for he cannot not exist.

"*****within eternity things can be manifest or dormant, just like the ability to walk exists even in a resting person"

Yes this is so. Potential and possibility can exist in eternity. But existence, if it is eternal, cannot have a genesis in a will that precedes it and makes it come into being.

"*****Unless god is eternal - just like an eternal fire would also have eternal heat and eternal light"

But this "law of result" is also eternal. God himself being eternal would not diminsih the eternity of "the law of result". In fact, we would probably have to state that both God and "the law of result" are the same thing, for if God can only be subject to himself, and he is subject to the law of result, the law of result must be (a part) of him. That is, that the law of result is a divine thing.

"*****How does god withdraw and apply laws of result? How does a monarch do the same thing regarding the laws of his state? If it wasn't sufficient for god to do these things by his will he wouldn't be independent."

Yet as we have shown, if God does not have the law of result eternally, he cannot even take away the law of result, or put it back if he does manage to do so.

"****** A material thought is related to a material cause and a transcendental thought is related to a transcendental cause - in otherwords there is a difference between lateral and cyclic time"

Even so, the transcendental cause would itself have a cause, would it not? And then the material thought would have a cause, would it not? And so forth and so forth?

"******The living entity by constituitional position can nver replicate god's potencies just as a person can never become their own father due to the constitutional position of being a man's son"

All right. I do not deny this. The part cannot be equal to, or greater, than the whole. This seems logical enough.

"Anything we perceive as material is a perversion or corruption of something spiritual - variety exists in the material world (varieties of false concepts of life that revolve around being seperate from god - all the different life forms etc) and the spiritual world (varieties of application to the connection to god's service)"

Yet then if you claim that variety can exist in perfect unity, how can you say that the varieties of material are not founded in a realness? If there can exist variety in God, why is the variety of material existence "false"? Similarly, if there is indeed variety in God, then is not his "mistaken view of the sun" aspect perfectly viable? That is to say, if we say God changes, and he has variety, why can we not say with veracity that he does? ANd not that he is "outside time" or some other (silly) argument?

Moreover, how can there be varieties of application to the connection of God's service, if there is only one way to apply GOd's service to God, if God is one?

"******Scripture gives an indication of the objectr and the menas to perceive it just as tasting honey is the correct application to perceiving the taste of honey - if you don't do the application you will never really know"

In this specific case, might you list what scripture says on the subject? For therein resides the argument/process to support this, apparently.

"*****It does in the sense that in conditional life we define our self by conditions and encounter great pain/loss/suffering etc when those conditions are revealed to be temporary - in other words we invest temporary conditions with eternal values and suffer accordingly"

Simply because we are capable of mistaking things does not make them less real. The realness of their temporality was never different, only our perception of this was wrong. It does not imply that the things about us are any less real beacuse they are temporal, only that we were fools to not realize this.

"******This is a material definition because material pleasure is characterised by its binary opposite"

If pleasure increases, relative pleasure beforehand was less than what it was, was it not? Thus not perfect. Perfect implies no capacity to be greater. It implies -the ultimate-. This is not simply material, but the very foundation of what "perfection" is.

"*******Unless all of god's potencies are infintely competing with each other he is not infinite"

If they are competing with eachother and beating one another, then they are never infinite, and thus God is never infinite. God must either have no competing potencies - that is, no potencies that can contradict eachother - or he is in a state of flux outside his capacity to be infinite and perfect and thus he is not God. Your definition requires God to be -riddled- with flaws.

"*****Consciousness activates matter just like a person wearing a shirt activates the shirt"

Yet how can it activate something that is completely different from it? Or are you imply there is some connection betwixt matter and transcendence? That they can be in contact somehow? That one -can- power the other? And if so, how does it?

"*****You are talking of unqualified teachings - if a teaching is qualified and credible why strut it out the hard way out of an egoism of false independence?"

Because even if the teacher -is- qualified, the teacher can only point the way, not give one knowledge. Until one knows it for oneself, the teacher is as distant as the object of sought-for-knowledge.

"******Even a good thing applied incorrectly gives bad results"

Can God not create something that is beyond the capacity to be incorrectly applied?

"******* But we are only temporarily fallible - ultimately all living entities make it back to the spiritual world - its just a question of when - after all you have an eternity to make it there - god didn't fail"

Simply b ecause a mistake can be rectified in an eternal time frame, does not mean that the mistake did not happen. An eraser does not erase the mistake, only the manifestation of that mistake.

"*****Its not that they are all equal, just like all methods of education are not equal - even though university may be superior to kindergarten it is not superior to put a 4 year old in a university"

Yet could not God so make something which all people, regardless of intelligence, could understand? For instance, even children understand cause and effect. Could God not make something similar for that for scripture?

"*****I thought you were referring to the living entity - if god is not free from ignorance it would make ignorance stronger than god "

Not free from ignorance. We can assume that. But is God free + free from ignorance?

 

[witnessjudgejury]

GOD IS ALL THINGS
GOOD AND EVIL.
but he chooses good and justice.
wake up.
How can you think GOD is self contradictory if he didn't put it in you to think such a thing.

Wake up

 

[lightgigantic]

Prince_James

"****** False ego is material identity (I am this body and the things related to it are mine - a conception that is over-ridden by death) mind is what we like and dislike and intelligence is the ability to fufill/avoid those likes/dislikes. And spirit is the ulitimate identity that is untouched by these things, which are merely perverted reflections of its potencies operating on the principle of illusion (thus we have real mind, real intelligence and real ego)"

How is this ego "false"? How are we not this body and how are the things related to it "not ours"?

*****There are many indications that the ultimate designation of the self is not the body - the body is a covering of the self, and when you identify with the covering it is false, just like if you think that a shirt is conscious because a conscious person is wearing it. As for things related to the body not being ours it is just like the distinction of utilising something as opposed to conceiving of it in terms of possession (or the binary opposite - renunciation)

And should not mind be more than simply "taste"? As well as intelligence "the capacity to avoid"? For what about computation? Meomory? Et cetera?

*****Computation is a subcatergory of intelligence. So is memory - these functions enable one to fulfill desires

How is spirit our "ultimate identity"? In what way is this so? And how do we have an "ultimate identity"?

*****It is ultimate because it doesn't change, just like the wind can carry all sorts of aromas, the spirit soul can carry all sorts of bodiuly designations yet remain untouched by them - the ultimate identity, as far as conditioned life enables one to detect, is the sense of "I" - even though you have a completely different body than when you were 5 years old you still conceive of yourself as the same identity (at least your mother still thinks you are the same person and legally you are the same person)

"***** You will find that consciousness caused something that is conscious - like you came from a mother and father etc - therefore consciousness is seen to be a cause of consciousness and never a cause of matter"

Then you have once again contradicted yourself? You said that consciousness is at the cause of all material things. Now you are saying that consciousness is never a cause of matter. You also state then that all matter has cause in matter?

***** I didn't proper;y explain myslef - I was saying that consciousness is never seen to come from something that is not conscious - as for matter we cannot trace its cause (at least by empiricism) but, at least as far as scripture is concerned, it is explained that matter is caused by consciousness, more specifically god's consciousness, namely the external potency


"******The difference is that consciousness is never seen to come from matter "

Well here's something: Can you present evidence of any consciousness existing outside of an organic creature? Can you show us a disembodied intelligence?

*****There is the consciousness we have in a dreaming state (which bears no reference to our gross body), there is waking consciousness (subtle and gross body combined) and there is dreamless sleep (an absence of consciousness) - unless consciousness is superior to these three states how is it possiblt to enter in and out of it with the same sense of self "I was dreaming/I was awake/ I was neither awake nor dreaming)?


"*****There is argument even among successful medical practioners but they can be judged by the results of curing illness - similarly the self perception of the successful performance of religious principles is that the vices of a person are naturally subdues by a higher taste (as opposed to a display of will power or a binary sense of repulsion"

Are not they vices only within the paradigm of the system? For instance, there are some religions - primarily in the East - that obsess themselves over non-violence. In the WEst, we find it manly, heroic, and virtuous, to be violent, and glamorize our military heroes of yesteryear and today. In fact, we idolize the justly violent.

*****Its not a true idea, if you examine history you can find examples of both everywhere - generally there is a popular notion that takes the form of historical romanticism that shapes our perception of culture and their history but it is more a function of popular culture than bonafide historical enquiry.
...But the gist of your statement is true - during different time, places and circumstances there are different teachings, but this is similar to the art exhibition idea I mentioned - there are many ways to paint trees, some ways are more accurate than others, but they can all be catergorised as tree paintings - religion can be defined by the same general principle

Anyone following the rules of a system can manifest that system's demands so long as they are possible. The system of one scripture says "do this", and another "does this", and this success can be found. This does not imply that the scriptures are truthful or applicable to real life, nor contain some sort of "transcendental message".

******They do if the culminate in the idea of surrender to god, or if they present the means where that surrender might be possible to perform ("OK before we begin can everyone please stop killing each other and having sex with other people's wives?")

"******What is the true knowledge given by the hard way?"

To know is to not only "hear from authority", but to have a justification for that belief, by being able to either see and demonstrate the physical concept, or be able to think of and convey the idea. Here's a mundane example:

Suppose one has a refridgerator.

Suppose one has milk in said refridgerator.

A wise man comes up to one and says, "My son, there is milk in this refridgerator."

Now, this may be so. In fact, -it is- so. There is in fact milk there. But how do you know? If one says "there is milk there", and one opens it up and finds it, did one -know- this or only -presume- this? It would seem clear that one only presumed this, even if one was right. ONe could have just as well been wrong. But if one says to the wise man, "Thank you, teacher, but I shall see for myself"

****What if one is mistaking a toolbox for a fridge? In other words direct perception only works if the perception is correct - this is why knowledge based on direct perception has its value, like say in crossing the road, but is not the best tool in all circumstances, particularly in realms of subtle knowledge

one can have indeed true knowledge by simply opening the refridgerator and seeing for oneself whether or not milk exists, and if it does or does not, one will have a justified true belief - the epistemological foundation for truth - that such is the case. It may have been more "practical" to listen to the sage, but the only way to become a sage oneself is to see for sure.

*****Therefore hearing from spiritual authority is aimed at enabling one to come to the platform of correct perception, otherwise your perception has no value - like for instance a lusty man will constantly be viewing all women in term s of their sexual capacity and will also define his own sense of worth according to his ability to score the trappinigs of sexual vitality- this vision is far from truthful and certainly doesn't help him in old age


"*****either that or someone taught him"

If he was taught, then that being - human or not - found knowledge directly.

*****Found it in the cas eof empiricism, had it in the case of god

"****No. When most people get a polio vaccination they know nothing about its direct workings or technical application. Like this there are many examples"

But the authority must have either empirical or mental justification to be an authority, and if it does not rest on that, then it is not an authority.

*****It is an authority because it is seen to work - in otherwords you judge hearing from authority by the reults it produces - it requires a judgement of quality from the hearer to determine whether they will "hear" the authority or not - if you think the authority has no value you will not hear

"*****The point is that an authority verifies things by their direct perception - just like a compositor of polio vaccinations has a special vision by merit of his qualification, so do others in other fields of knowledge"

Yes, but -that- authority rests on that. And if we do not know that they are good, we -cannot- trust them one hundred percent. We cannot know beyond practical concerns that a doctor is good, unless we ourselves are a doctor. This is fine, as this isn't needed practically, but epistemologically, we are wrong in assuming the doctor is qualified.

*****I agree but I am not clear what you are indicating with the last sentence

"******Because we are limited our endeavours are limited - like for instance a house, despite being finite is practically infinite for an ant, the same of a country for a horse, and we also have our own limited sphere of human examination which seems unlimited but is actually an insignificant speck of the material cosmos (which is actually finite) - in other words there are somethings to be learnt that can only be acquired exclusively by the third process, and applying the other two is fruitless"

Yet if these things are only to be learned by the third process, do we even learn them at all? For it becomes a matter of hearsay the further one goes down. "My teacher heard from his teacher which heard from his teacher which heard from his teacher" is very much a matter of "the blind leading the blind".

**** if a person with vision gave a blind person a gold coin and that blind man gave it to another blind man and that blind man gave it to another etc etc the last blind man still has a gold coin as long as th eprocess of giving and receiving goes on in an unadulterated manner - this is how religion works and in the presence of adulteration, fails - it is described as a descending process of knowledge as opposed to an ascending (or empirical) mode of knowledge - it is only hearsay for as long as one does not develop the real faith to apply it - it is the subtle difference between theoretical knowledge of scripture and full realisation of the conclusions

In fact, if it is outside our ken to learn other than through this, then I would even go as far as to say it is not worth learning at all, because we never -truly- learn, only -pretend- to this knowledge.

*****Pretending to learn is theoretical - Like I may know it is bad to steal because you get punished but if I still steal my knowledge is only theoretical - what you are actually learning in religion is that god is the source of everything and that everything emmanates from him and the best path is to engage in his service - inotherwords this become more and more apparent as one progresses in spiritual knowledge

For if we do not have an absolute proof of what is being learned, and we can justify this, we do not have anything at all. We have conjecture, opinion, but not truth. Similarly, it stands to reason that if it is true, it is indeed knowable through application of knowledge.

*****Therefore the success of religion is when the self becomes perceptable in relation to god - before then there may be so much theory and trials of application

Also, what is your argument for this material existence being finite?

*****Well the material creation is greater than us in one sense so it is practically infinite - that's the point - just like how do you propose to inform an ant that the house is finite - it requires superior perception or hearing from authority because it refers to an object beyond direct cognition

"*****I was suggesting that medicine can be examined by empiricism but the nature of the universe in relation to god cannot be because both the universe and god are beyond our capacities to properly speculate on"

How are they beyond our capacities to properly speculate on if t hey are all there is? That would seem to be the -essence- of knowability? In fact, if you are the thing, how can you be limited?

*****We are inextricably connected to it in one sense but our consciousness does not enable us to see the entire manifestation - like if you see a circle you understand that it is a continuous line that is connected - but if your vision only enables a perception of a small fragment you perceive a slightly curved line

"******It would make a difference if it came from god - just imagine the difference if medical researchers somehow established their knowledge 1500 years ago - in otherwords a person who has knowledge has power and the person who can receive that knowledge becomes empowered - "

Becomes empowered but does not have that knowledge in full as they cannot justify it.

******If knowledge comes via the knowledge of application it becomes justifiable

And God, at the very least, would have to have had that knowledge that justified way, demonstrating that it is the true path, because even God would have to gain it through.

*****God doesn't require to learn anything because his consciousness is perfect and complete and can even manifest other independent and perfect and complete units without suffering loss


"***** It is not subject to material degradation or definition"

How does it not have a correlate to degragation or definition? What aspect of this proves this?

******Just because matter degrades does not mean that spirit degrades - just because matter has form does not indicate that spirit does not have form

"****How could a transcendental object not be eternal? In what way would it then be transcendental?"

Consciousness is transcendental. The objects of consciousness are thoughts.

***** The symptom of consciousness is thoughts

Thoughts come and go. They are not eternal. Hence, thought are transcendental objects which are not eternal.

*****When thoughts go from the body, the body goes - matter follows spirit because it is directed by it

Moreover, though I hate to pull this, but the onus of proof is on you, the affirmer, not I. That is to say, in order to claim positively that transcendental things are eternal, you must prove that this is so, not I prove that transcendental objects are not eternal. That presumes you are right to begin with.

****** I am just at the position of establishing theoretical terms - if you don't accept that transcendental objects are distinct from matter, what would be the purpose of the distinction?

"*****Outside of necessity? So what exactly is a cosmic will manifesting?"

Contingency. For instance, on a personal scale, I do not have to currently be involved in writing this, therefore, this entire process is contingent and not necessary. God, on the other hand, would by necessity exist, for he cannot not exist.

******Still not clear what you are trying to say - The material cosmos indicates free will but god as the conscious maintainer does not manifest free will?

"*****within eternity things can be manifest or dormant, just like the ability to walk exists even in a resting person"

Yes this is so. Potential and possibility can exist in eternity. But existence, if it is eternal, cannot have a genesis in a will that precedes it and makes it come into being.

*****Just like you cannot seperate sunshine from the sun you cannot seperate consciousness from will -you cannot seperate an object from the qualities by which you can perceive the object

"*****Unless god is eternal - just like an eternal fire would also have eternal heat and eternal light"

But this "law of result" is also eternal. God himself being eternal would not diminsih the eternity of "the law of result". In fact, we would probably have to state that both God and "the law of result" are the same thing, for if God can only be subject to himself, and he is subject to the law of result, the law of result must be (a part) of him. That is, that the law of result is a divine thing.

*****The laws of result are constant with god - its just a question of which laws are being applied in a particular circumstance - this enables the distinction between the spiritual and material realms

"*****How does god withdraw and apply laws of result? How does a monarch do the same thing regarding the laws of his state? If it wasn't sufficient for god to do these things by his will he wouldn't be independent."

Yet as we have shown, if God does not have the law of result eternally, he cannot even take away the law of result, or put it back if he does manage to do so.

******Just like the law of result for a commercial trust fund is distinct from the law of result of a jail even though they are both concomitant factors of the will of the king - there is a variety of laws of result for a variety of situations

"****** A material thought is related to a material cause and a transcendental thought is related to a transcendental cause - in otherwords there is a difference between lateral and cyclic time"

Even so, the transcendental cause would itself have a cause, would it not?

*****Not if its eternal - I have to ask, do you think that the material world innvolves eternal elements, regardless whether you think they are conscious or not?

And then the material thought would have a cause, would it not? And so forth and so forth?

How do you explain the universe unless it is tied to something that is either causeless or eternal?

"******The living entity by constituitional position can nver replicate god's potencies just as a person can never become their own father due to the constitutional position of being a man's son"

All right. I do not deny this. The part cannot be equal to, or greater, than the whole. This seems logical enough.

*****This illustrates the danger of applying one's own onotology to the ontology of god

"Anything we perceive as material is a perversion or corruption of something spiritual - variety exists in the material world (varieties of false concepts of life that revolve around being seperate from god - all the different life forms etc) and the spiritual world (varieties of application to the connection to god's service)"

Yet then if you claim that variety can exist in perfect unity, how can you say that the varieties of material are not founded in a realness?

*****The falseness is that it is taken to be something that it is not - just like water exists but if you are looking for it in the desert its due to an illusory concept of what one can expect to find in a desert

If there can exist variety in God, why is the variety of material existence "false"?

*****Because we apply eternal values to its temporary nature

Similarly, if there is indeed variety in God, then is not his "mistaken view of the sun" aspect perfectly viable? That is to say, if we say God changes, and he has variety, why can we not say with veracity that he does? ANd not that he is "outside time" or some other (silly) argument?

*****The changes are not so ridiculous - like for instance if you watch the sun set and think that life as we know it on earth will cease to exist because the sun just disappeared and soon the surface will be overcome by sub zero temperatures you have attribuited a false variable to a real object - if you observe a solar flare from the sun you have observed a true variable of a real object


Moreover, how can there be varieties of application to the connection of God's service, if there is only one way to apply GOd's service to God, if God is one?

**** The same person may be a friend to his buddies, the apple of his wife's eye, an enterprising factory owner to his employees etc etc - just because we are one person doesn't mean that everyone relates to us in the same way


"******Scripture gives an indication of the objectr and the menas to perceive it just as tasting honey is the correct application to perceiving the taste of honey - if you don't do the application you will never really know"

In this specific case, might you list what scripture says on the subject? For therein resides the argument/process to support this, apparently.

****Lists on the subject of application? Not sure what you are asking for ... scriptural quotes? Practical examples of religious practioners, both successful and unsuccessful in their applications?


"*****It does in the sense that in conditional life we define our self by conditions and encounter great pain/loss/suffering etc when those conditions are revealed to be temporary - in other words we invest temporary conditions with eternal values and suffer accordingly"

Simply because we are capable of mistaking things does not make them less real. The realness of their temporality was never different, only our perception of this was wrong. It does not imply that the things about us are any less real beacuse they are temporal, only that we were fools to not realize this.

*****Yes - that is the correct description of illusion - just consider the irony that if a person is handed a warm bag of fat and blood they will be repulsed but to attain the same material combination packaged in the form of a young woman's breast they will form into queues


"******This is a material definition because material pleasure is characterised by its binary opposite"

If pleasure increases, relative pleasure beforehand was less than what it was, was it not?

****Doesn't make it any less pleasurable - like if you have a great holiday and then have an even better holiday next it doesn't make the previous one miserable

Thus not perfect. Perfect implies no capacity to be greater. It implies -the ultimate-. This is not simply material, but the very foundation of what "perfection" is.

*****Then what is the basis of "no end to perfection" or "he is a perfectionist "

"*******Unless all of god's potencies are infintely competing with each other he is not infinite"

If they are competing with eachother and beating one another, then they are never infinite, and thus God is never infinite. God must either have no competing potencies - that is, no potencies that can contradict eachother - or he is in a state of flux outside his capacity to be infinite and perfect and thus he is not God. Your definition requires God to be -riddled- with flaws.

*****What would you compare god to declare that his qualities are finite? If you don't anything that is more strong or more creative than him by what definition is he finite and hence limited?


"*****Consciousness activates matter just like a person wearing a shirt activates the shirt"

Yet how can it activate something that is completely different from it?

****Isn't a shirt completely different from our bodies?

Or are you imply there is some connection betwixt matter and transcendence? That they can be in contact somehow? That one -can- power the other? And if so, how does it?

*****Lol - if I could answer that I would be god - anyway there is a whole subtle science mentioned in scripture about how the life airs are maintained by the soul (pranayama) but I find the descriptions a bit too difficult to comprehend and not really practical to the current age (which tends to be excessively grossly materialistic)


"*****You are talking of unqualified teachings - if a teaching is qualified and credible why strut it out the hard way out of an egoism of false independence?"

Because even if the teacher -is- qualified, the teacher can only point the way, not give one knowledge. Until one knows it for oneself, the teacher is as distant as the object of sought-for-knowledge.

*****Therefore there is the teaching of application

"******Even a good thing applied incorrectly gives bad results"

Can God not create something that is beyond the capacity to be incorrectly applied?

*****Yes but we are free to ignore it

"******* But we are only temporarily fallible - ultimately all living entities make it back to the spiritual world - its just a question of when - after all you have an eternity to make it there - god didn't fail"

Simply b ecause a mistake can be rectified in an eternal time frame, does not mean that the mistake did not happen. An eraser does not erase the mistake, only the manifestation of that mistake.

*****Well suppose you were dreaming that you were being eaten by a lion and the next day you dream you are a king- when you wake up what difference do these dreams make to your conscious self?


"*****Its not that they are all equal, just like all methods of education are not equal - even though university may be superior to kindergarten it is not superior to put a 4 year old in a university"

Yet could not God so make something which all people, regardless of intelligence, could understand? For instance, even children understand cause and effect. Could God not make something similar for that for scripture?

*****He does - therefore you can see that all religion (bonafide that is) moves society in recognizing that god is the ultimate cause

"*****I thought you were referring to the living entity - if god is not free from ignorance it would make ignorance stronger than god "

Not free from ignorance. We can assume that. But is God free + free from ignorance?[/QUOTE]

******Free from ignorance in the sense of being free from a degraded concept of existence - god never accepts a material existence like we do

 

[AAF]

lightgigantic: “Yes the president is free and so is god - but still you see that powerful persons tend to behave in a certain predictable way - for instance how many times in the past ten years has the president came over to your place for dinner?………”.

Re: I’m free too, you know! And I would keep my right not to invite him in, for the time being! I’m too busy arguing with you and trying to make a good theologian out of you to host any V.I,P.!


lightgigantic: “…That’s right - the mind is limited because it is a material phenomena - in other words the mind has a beginning and an end - but since god is transcendental one must apply a transcendental process to understand him (which begins with obedience to him) - basically god is different than matter so one cannot expect to understand him by applying the same process one applies to understand matter (ie it relies on a different epistemology). BTW - you're calling the saints "bogus" - I don't suppose you have done any research to justify your claims - If I say science is bogus wouldn't you at least expect me to give substantial evidence for my claims - I get the impression that you are poss ……..”.

Re: That ‘poss’ is not my dictionary; what is it, Boss? Anyway, the above argument is invalid for very simple reason. The human mind is the sole source of the concept of God. There is absolutely no other way for humans to arrive at or come up with such a notion of a Supreme Being beyond their senses except through the use of their imaginative mind. And so humans are responsible for it and must use their limited powers of mind to examine its scope and validity. Anything less is just playing lazy and irresponsible on the part of the human mind.


lightgigantic: “…But I won't really be humble then - I will just be pretending to be humble –lol…..”.

Re: That is right. ‘LOL’ @ your previous claim!


lightgigantic: “…Sometimes people require kind words and some times they require the stick - an intelligent person knows how to apply this to time place and circumstance”.

Re: I would not disagree with such splendid wisdom in the management of people!

 

[lightgigantic]

lightgigantic: “Yes the president is free and so is god - but still you see that powerful persons tend to behave in a certain predictable way - for instance how many times in the past ten years has the president came over to your place for dinner?………”.
Re: I’m free too, you know! And I would keep my right not to invite him in, for the time being! I’m too busy arguing with you and trying to make a good theologian out of you to host any V.I,P.!

So are you saying the only reason the president hasn't come to your place for dinner is because your standards are too high?

lightgigantic: “…That’s right - the mind is limited because it is a material phenomena - in other words the mind has a beginning and an end - but since god is transcendental one must apply a transcendental process to understand him (which begins with obedience to him) - basically god is different than matter so one cannot expect to understand him by applying the same process one applies to understand matter (ie it relies on a different epistemology). BTW - you're calling the saints "bogus" - I don't suppose you have done any research to justify your claims - If I say science is bogus wouldn't you at least expect me to give substantial evidence for my claims - I get the impression that you are poss ……..”.
Re: That ‘poss’ is not my dictionary; what is it, Boss? Anyway, the above argument is invalid for very simple reason. The human mind is the sole source of the concept of God. There is absolutely no other way for humans to arrive at or come up with such a notion of a Supreme Being beyond their senses except through the use of their imaginative mind. And so humans are responsible for it and must use their limited powers of mind to examine its scope and validity. Anything less is just playing lazy and irresponsible on the part of the human mind.

Well I guess we can also disregard people's minds and electrons since these too are beyond direct perception and must also be fictional characters .......

But more to the point, you have to establish what people are perceiving in the name of god to prove it is false - for instance if I see a rope and call it a snake you can pick up the rope and reveal it for what it is.
What objective phenomena are people in all cultures and all times perceiving that enables them to come up with the notion of god or something godlike, despite vast barriers of communication and geography? Wouldn't you expect a function of imagination divorced from objective perception to be isolated or beyond being unified as a catergory (like we have the term "religion"). I don't think you have done an exhaustive study of this, nor do I think you are likely to, but I think it should be obvious that just because you do not see something doesn't mean much, particularly if you don't apply the appropriate epistemology to approach the ontology



[/QUOTE]

 

[Prince_James]

lightgigantic:

"*****There are many indications that the ultimate designation of the self is not the body - the body is a covering of the self, and when you identify with the covering it is false, just like if you think that a shirt is conscious because a conscious person is wearing it. As for things related to the body not being ours it is just like the distinction of utilising something as opposed to conceiving of it in terms of possession (or the binary opposite - renunciation)"

What is the difference betwixt "possessing" something and "utilizing" it?

Similarly, what do you suggest proves that we are "not the body"?

"*****Computation is a subcatergory of intelligence. So is memory - these functions enable one to fulfill desires"

So you view desire as the root of all thought and all processes which allow for thought?

"*****It is ultimate because it doesn't change, just like the wind can carry all sorts of aromas, the spirit soul can carry all sorts of bodiuly designations yet remain untouched by them - the ultimate identity, as far as conditioned life enables one to detect, is the sense of "I" - even though you have a completely different body than when you were 5 years old you still conceive of yourself as the same identity (at least your mother still thinks you are the same person and legally you are the same person)"

The sense of "I" can be conceived of as the result of continuum of experience. Does this necessitate that we have an "ultimate identity" instead of simply a temporal identity that can shift dramatically? For instance, amnesiacs are pretty much different people because that continuum is destroyed by erasing the memory of it. They awaken as a person alone in a strange land. They remember only things untouched, like language, but cannot be the same person as they have no foundation for personality or anything of the like. Indeed, would not this be very same if we had different incarnations? I might have been John Jangle Jingleheimer Schmidt in my last life, but it matters not, as no such memories include a reference back to that.

"***** I didn't proper;y explain myslef - I was saying that consciousness is never seen to come from something that is not conscious - as for matter we cannot trace its cause (at least by empiricism) but, at least as far as scripture is concerned, it is explained that matter is caused by consciousness, more specifically god's consciousness, namely the external potency"

Understood.

"*****There is the consciousness we have in a dreaming state (which bears no reference to our gross body), there is waking consciousness (subtle and gross body combined) and there is dreamless sleep (an absence of consciousness) - unless consciousness is superior to these three states how is it possiblt to enter in and out of it with the same sense of self "I was dreaming/I was awake/ I was neither awake nor dreaming)?"

A dreaming state only requires sleep. Consciousness does not need to be "superior" because it can be aware of images and fantasies that can take over when we are deprived of all sensory preception. One need only the continuum of awareness. Similarly, when consciousness is not present at all, but resting in dreamless sleep, when we awaken we simply return to consciousness, that is all. It is telling that during the time we have no continuum of awareness, we hold no memory nor perception of that time, but only realize a time has passed by external cues.

Where are the aspects of a "disembodied consciousness" in this? A consciousness existing apart from a body?

"*****Its not a true idea, if you examine history you can find examples of both everywhere - generally there is a popular notion that takes the form of historical romanticism that shapes our perception of culture and their history but it is more a function of popular culture than bonafide historical enquiry.
...But the gist of your statement is true - during different time, places and circumstances there are different teachings, but this is similar to the art exhibition idea I mentioned - there are many ways to paint trees, some ways are more accurate than others, but they can all be catergorised as tree paintings - religion can be defined by the same general principle"

There is a pretty big difference betwixt a total commitment to non-violence and one which glorifies heroic violence. Are you claiming that religions can differ on these aspects and still be "true" in the sense they claim "some truths in common with another"?

"******They do if the culminate in the idea of surrender to god, or if they present the means where that surrender might be possible to perform ("OK before we begin can everyone please stop killing each other and having sex with other people's wives?")"

What makes this "truthful"? Why ought one "surrender to God"?

"****What if one is mistaking a toolbox for a fridge? In other words direct perception only works if the perception is correct - this is why knowledge based on direct perception has its value, like say in crossing the road, but is not the best tool in all circumstances, particularly in realms of subtle knowledge"

If one is mistaking a toolbox for a fridge, then no amount of authority can fix the problem, either. You must fix the preceptual problem and seek out its cause because you can continue, even if an authority helps along the way.

"*****Therefore hearing from spiritual authority is aimed at enabling one to come to the platform of correct perception, otherwise your perception has no value - like for instance a lusty man will constantly be viewing all women in term s of their sexual capacity and will also define his own sense of worth according to his ability to score the trappinigs of sexual vitality- this vision is far from truthful and certainly doesn't help him in old age"

How is it far from truthful? What is a woman's - or a man's - inherent value? In fact, what is value outside a conscious being's evaluation of said value?

Moreover, if perception can be warped, one could claim that the spiritual authority can similarly hold a warped view, and therefore coats it in his viewpoint, rather than an objective one. In fact, it would be far more fruitful to simply abandon any viewpoint and to look at it with an honest hope for objective truth.

"*****Found it in the cas eof empiricism, had it in the case of god"

If God k nows something, it must only be through perception or cogitation himself, must it not? He cannot have heard it from a higher authority than him.

"*****It is an authority because it is seen to work - in otherwords you judge hearing from authority by the reults it produces - it requires a judgement of quality from the hearer to determine whether they will "hear" the authority or not - if you think the authority has no value you will not hear"

If it seems to work, then it is only vindicated by its empirical results, which again, draw us back to knowledge being empirical or mental. Similarly, even if it does work, an investigation into it will prove a fuller knowledge, and one truly justified truly on a true belief.

"*****I agree but I am not clear what you are indicating with the last sentence"

What I am indicating that, despite practical matters, we ought to never accept any authority without checking every single claim and knowing every single thing about it. That is to say, we ought to, for 100 percent truth, become philosophers, not simply adherents.

"**** if a person with vision gave a blind person a gold coin and that blind man gave it to another blind man and that blind man gave it to another etc etc the last blind man still has a gold coin as long as th eprocess of giving and receiving goes on in an unadulterated manner - this is how religion works and in the presence of adulteration, fails - it is described as a descending process of knowledge as opposed to an ascending (or empirical) mode of knowledge - it is only hearsay for as long as one does not develop the real faith to apply it - it is the subtle difference between theoretical knowledge of scripture and full realisation of the conclusions"

Yet you have just proven the point as to why it is worthless: If one is blind, one can never be certain that what one is holding is actually a gold coin, and not simply an imitation. If we do not know this, we cannot say we even believe in it fully, for we have no foundation for that. Moreover, the faith is only self-referential because it necessarily colours one's experience.

But we are not blind. We can open our eyes and see whether it is really a gold coin we are holding or simply a wooden one painted gold. In fact, in order to know anything, we must do such.

"*****Pretending to learn is theoretical - Like I may know it is bad to steal because you get punished but if I still steal my knowledge is only theoretical - what you are actually learning in religion is that god is the source of everything and that everything emmanates from him and the best path is to engage in his service - inotherwords this become more and more apparent as one progresses in spiritual knowledge"

It becomes such because you claim that it is so. One can claim that the purpose of this life is to do ten thousand different things, and so long as you claim this is so, one can make any experience validate this. In fact, people do it every day. People who think money is the only value, look at everything in terms of money.

Any system which places one thing as value, and obsesses over that value, can make anything relate back to that, and reenforce it.

"*****Therefore the success of religion is when the self becomes perceptable in relation to god - before then there may be so much theory and trials of application"

See my statement immediately above.

"*****Well the material creation is greater than us in one sense so it is practically infinite - that's the point - just like how do you propose to inform an ant that the house is finite - it requires superior perception or hearing from authority because it refers to an object beyond direct cognition"

Yet but how do you know -for certain- that it is finite? For on the other hand, I can present to you, I do believe, a compelling argument for why it must be infinite and that finitehood is absurd in the material sphere.

"*****We are inextricably connected to it in one sense but our consciousness does not enable us to see the entire manifestation - like if you see a circle you understand that it is a continuous line that is connected - but if your vision only enables a perception of a small fragment you perceive a slightly curved line"

But it stands to reason that one can correct this simply by looking and thinking. By investigating and considering. In fac, human beings seem to be naturally apt to do this, as it is often that people think about such things as God and the like, when they view such things as the night sky.

"******If knowledge comes via the knowledge of application it becomes justifiable"

Give a savage a rifle and he tell him how to work it and he might kill something, but might think that he was given this by a God which has empowered him with the power of a dragon to spew fire and thunder that kills people. He might have "the application", but no knowledge. This would be the same thing if God told us something we could "apply" but not know.

"*****God doesn't require to learn anything because his consciousness is perfect and complete and can even manifest other independent and perfect and complete units without suffering loss"

So God can now create things out of thin air and add to that which was all ready infinite? More and more he seems to be doing things which are not only impossible to us, but impossible to him, if your defintions are correct. An infinity cannot be added to, as it is all ready beyond addition. Moreover, even if God does not investigate and cogitate as we do, his knowledge is based on the same things, as his knowledge of sensory things would come through infinite sensual knowledge, whereas his knowledge of mental things would come from infinite mental knowledge.

"******Just because matter degrades does not mean that spirit degrades - just because matter has form does not indicate that spirit does not have form "

This is true. But what do you have to prove that spirit does not degrade and spirit has form?

"***** The symptom of consciousness is thoughts"

Define?

"*****When thoughts go from the body, the body goes - matter follows spirit because it is directed by it "

I am not sure how this answers my demonstration of a non-eternal transcendent object? ANd how does spirit direct matter?

"****** I am just at the position of establishing theoretical terms - if you don't accept that transcendental objects are distinct from matter, what would be the purpose of the distinction?"

The distinction is being put forth here because you claim it exists. I myself have no knowledge nor belief regarding "transcendental objects". In fact, the only transcendence I am aware of, is Kant's Transcendental Idealism.

"******Still not clear what you are trying to say - The material cosmos indicates free will but god as the conscious maintainer does not manifest free will?"

No. That whims are not consistant with the necessity of existence. That is to say, that a will does not cause it, because the will would be contingent and not necessary.

"*****Just like you cannot seperate sunshine from the sun you cannot seperate consciousness from will -you cannot seperate an object from the qualities by which you can perceive the object"

One can indeed separate consciousness from will, free or limited. For will is consciousness directed towards action, whereas we can speak purely of cogitation.

"*****The laws of result are constant with god - its just a question of which laws are being applied in a particular circumstance - this enables the distinction between the spiritual and material realms"

The law is impossible not to apply at all times and in all places. For to not apply it would be to not act, as there'd be no results.

Or here's a question for you: What is a cause without an effect? Not an effect without a cause, but a cause without an effect?

"******Just like the law of result for a commercial trust fund is distinct from the law of result of a jail even though they are both concomitant factors of the will of the king - there is a variety of laws of result for a variety of situations"

So now there are multiple "laws of result"? I should have you validate their differences and how they are different? For different manifestations of the same law do not imply a multiplicity of laws, only a difference in the situation.

If John murders Bill then Janes murders Ann, do we speak of "different laws of murder", or "the law of murder being applied in different situations"?

"*****Not if its eternal - I have to ask, do you think that the material world innvolves eternal elements, regardless whether you think they are conscious or not?"

Yes. I in fact affirm that material existence as a whole is indeed eternal, but not causeless. That is to say, it is caused by its eternal absurdity of not-existing and its eternal opposition to its absolute opposite, nothingness. Similarly, I view the necessity of an infinite-regress of causes and effects as necessitating this eternity and therefore perpetual cause as opposed to causeleness.

Moreover, a transcendent thought's cause if transcendent, would still require a cause, because it would be a transcent thought, which would have been prceded by another thought, et cetera, et cetera.

"How do you explain the universe unless it is tied to something that is either causeless or eternal?"

See above for a brief version of my argument. Also to add: If a causeless cause can exist, then there is no reason to say that everything which exists is not a causeless cause. More specifically, we can just say the universe is causeless, and leave it at that, and not address a God. It also destroys that which it attempts to uphold: Casuality.

"*****This illustrates the danger of applying one's own onotology to the ontology of god"

It is the danger of only taking the necessary truth that we are part of God to assume that we are all God. No, certainly we are not a God with infinite power, although he would cease to exist if we should, by virtue that it would destroy his aspects of eternity and infinity.

"*****The falseness is that it is taken to be something that it is not - just like water exists but if you are looking for it in the desert its due to an illusory concept of what one can expect to find in a desert"

So if we take water for what it is - a molecular bonding of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom - which will one day not be water and a day beforehand was not, then it is "real" because we do not mistake it?

"*****Because we apply eternal values to its temporary nature"

Then it is not false in and of itself, only in our minds.

"*****The changes are not so ridiculous - like for instance if you watch the sun set and think that life as we know it on earth will cease to exist because the sun just disappeared and soon the surface will be overcome by sub zero temperatures you have attribuited a false variable to a real object - if you observe a solar flare from the sun you have observed a true variable of a real object"

But it stands to reason that if there is indeed variety in God, that we have found that many of our conceptions which you declared wrong, may well be right. As they hinged upon a unity which now you claim is not present.

"**** The same person may be a friend to his buddies, the apple of his wife's eye, an enterprising factory owner to his employees etc etc - just because we are one person doesn't mean that everyone relates to us in the same way"

Yet if God is singular and our relationship to him is singular, it stands to reason that we can only relate to God in one way. It is because of relative positions in a relative system that we can be different things to different people. God would always be the same thing to all things.

"****Lists on the subject of application? Not sure what you are asking for ... scriptural quotes? Practical examples of religious practioners, both successful and unsuccessful in their applications?"

No, the specific argument for God's transcent quality of being without beginning and end and how one can perceive this. You did not provide the argument but spoke of it being in scripture, so please, present that as it semes you will not argue it yourself?

"*****Yes - that is the correct description of illusion - just consider the irony that if a person is handed a warm bag of fat and blood they will be repulsed but to attain the same material combination packaged in the form of a young woman's breast they will form into queues"

Do you then deny that relation of things has reality? That a breast really is different than a "warm bag of fat and blood"?

"****Doesn't make it any less pleasurable - like if you have a great holiday and then have an even better holiday next it doesn't make the previous one miserable"

In comparison, it most certainly does. It also means one can be more pleased. In either case, one's past pleasures are diminished in light of this, as well as demonstrating that one did not have something perfect to begin with.

"*****Then what is the basis of "no end to perfection" or "he is a perfectionist "

"No end to perfection" generally means that limited beings cannot reach an ultimate perfection, and really, not perfection at all, because it has flaws. A perfectionist is a relative term that means someone that wants everything "just right".

"*****What would you compare god to declare that his qualities are finite? If you don't anything that is more strong or more creative than him by what definition is he finite and hence limited?"

By what definition? The definition of infinity. For even if there is "nothing greater than God" - which could not be shown to be so, if he is at all limited, as by definition there is a possibility for such - he himself does not live up to the definition of infinity, and thus he is simply "greatest" and not "unlimited".

That is to say, even if there is such a thing as "the greatest thing", it would still be infinite unless it had no bounds and limits whatsoever nor could diminish in quality and thus become non-infinite. That is to say, no matter how great something is, greatness cannot make something infinite.

The tallest man alive is nearly three metres in height. This does not make him infinite because "no human being's height has ever reached his", only the greatest of things, which can be surmounted one day.

"****Isn't a shirt completely different from our bodies?"

Not really. We are both matter. The process is very physical. Matter over matter. Fabric over flesh.

"*****Lol - if I could answer that I would be god - anyway there is a whole subtle science mentioned in scripture about how the life airs are maintained by the soul (pranayama) but I find the descriptions a bit too difficult to comprehend and not really practical to the current age (which tends to be excessively grossly materialistic)"

All right. So you have no idea how transcendence controls/powers matter? Then how can you claim that it is true?

For instance, how would you refute this notion, taken from Gottfreid Leibniz, that indeed mind and body are distinct, and not only that, but despite the -appearance- of coordination, there is in fact none such at all, but it is in fact God that has ordained that matter should mimic, without connection, the mind, and likewise the mind matter when such is applicable. It is like two identical clocks being set to run next to eachother in absolute harmony, though neither causes the other, but in fact the cause of the clock maker, God.

How do you refute this notion and instead affirm that ti is consciousness that controls matter?

"*****Therefore there is the teaching of application"

And if the application's principles are not understood, it is all in vain. Just as the savage with the rifle.

"*****Yes but we are free to ignore it"

IF we are free to ignore it, it is hardly perfect.

"*****Well suppose you were dreaming that you were being eaten by a lion and the next day you dream you are a king- when you wake up what difference do these dreams make to your conscious self?"

Very little. Only memories of the experience and the emotions and thoughts in said experience.

"*****He does - therefore you can see that all religion (bonafide that is) moves society in recognizing that god is the ultimate cause"

Yet religion still causes confusion.

"******Free from ignorance in the sense of being free from a degraded concept of existence - god never accepts a material existence like we do"

What I am asking is whether God is both free from ignorance and has a free-will. Does God have both qualities?

 

[lightgigantic]

Prince James:

"*****There are many indications that the ultimate designation of the self is not the body - the body is a covering of the self, and when you identify with the covering it is false, just like if you think that a shirt is conscious because a conscious person is wearing it. As for things related to the body not being ours it is just like the distinction of utilising something as opposed to conceiving of it in terms of possession (or the binary opposite - renunciation)"

What is the difference betwixt "possessing" something and "utilizing" it?

*****Whats the difference between renting and buying?

Similarly, what do you suggest proves that we are "not the body"?

******When a person dies you can understand that what you knew of them has gone even though they may be lyind dead right in front of you – a dead person and a living person are composed of the same material ingredients – also we have the same sense of “I” despite the body undergoing so many changes – literally every second your body undergoes a change yet we can proceed through a hundred years of such changes of bodies and still have the same sense of “I”

"*****Computation is a subcatergory of intelligence. So is memory - these functions enable one to fulfill desires"

So you view desire as the root of all thought and all processes which allow for thought?

*****Yes, of course you can have subtle desire (fame, intelligence etc) and gross desire (sex) , and also selfish desire (what is good for me) and extended desire (what is good for others) but it is all desire – there is even material desire and spiritual desire, qualified by one’s perception of self

"*****It is ultimate because it doesn't change, just like the wind can carry all sorts of aromas, the spirit soul can carry all sorts of bodiuly designations yet remain untouched by them - the ultimate identity, as far as conditioned life enables one to detect, is the sense of "I" - even though you have a completely different body than when you were 5 years old you still conceive of yourself as the same identity (at least your mother still thinks you are the same person and legally you are the same person)"

The sense of "I" can be conceived of as the result of continuum of experience. Does this necessitate that we have an "ultimate identity" instead of simply a temporal identity that can shift dramatically? For instance, amnesiacs are pretty much different people because that continuum is destroyed by erasing the memory of it. They awaken as a person alone in a strange land. They remember only things untouched, like language, but cannot be the same person as they have no foundation for personality or anything of the like.

***** Does identity shift dramatically? In the case of an amnesiac why is it possible for an amnesiac to recover unless there was a superior sense of self? Or how is it possible to have two completely different ideas of self (one while dreaming and one while awake), unless there was recourse to a third superior element?

Indeed, would not this be very same if we had different incarnations? I might have been John Jangle Jingleheimer Schmidt in my last life, but it matters not, as no such memories include a reference back to that.

******There are very good reasons why you don’t have a conscious remembereance of your previous life – the first thing is that we are in a medium of ignorance, characterised by forgetfullness – its very difficult for people to remember what they were doing last week, what to speak of last lifetime. Also a previous life means a previous mind and intelligence as well as body – in otherwords one’s previous incarnation was arrived at due to a desire to exploit material nature in a particular way and this incarnation is different again – in essence what you are saying is right – it doesn’t matter what you used to be but rather what you are now – BTW there are interesting incidents, more so for persons like yourself deeply immersed in empiricism, of people recalling incidents of their past life in ways that there current experience can not grant – like one that comes to mind of an old lady who could suddenly speak french and give detailed information about the people and streets of a medieval village despite never having ventured out of her country – they did research and her statements tallied with heavily archived historical evidence – other incidents are here
http://www.geocities.com/richard_holmes/reincarnation/faq.htm#a



"*****There is the consciousness we have in a dreaming state (which bears no reference to our gross body), there is waking consciousness (subtle and gross body combined) and there is dreamless sleep (an absence of consciousness) - unless consciousness is superior to these three states how is it possiblt to enter in and out of it with the same sense of self "I was dreaming/I was awake/ I was neither awake nor dreaming)?"

A dreaming state only requires sleep.
**** obviously, just like developing a sense of self that innvolves both body and mind requires that you are awake

Consciousness does not need to be "superior" because it can be aware of images and fantasies that can take over when we are deprived of all sensory preception.
******you mean you don’t see or hear things in dreams? The point is that the mind is superior to the body because it is more subtle

One need only the continuum of awareness.
*****But the difference between dreaming and being awake is a break in that continuum if you accept the body as the self

Similarly, when consciousness is not present at all, but resting in dreamless sleep, when we awaken we simply return to consciousness, that is all. It is telling that during the time we have no continuum of awareness, we hold no memory nor perception of that time, but only realize a time has passed by external cues.
**** There is an awareness that we had no awareness in dreamless sleep – another break in the continnum of the body as self, or even the mind as self …

Where are the aspects of a "disembodied consciousness" in this? A consciousness existing apart from a body?
***** In one instance a person is thinking I am this body (awake) in another they are thinking I am this mind (dreaming) and in another they are aware that they are not aware (dreamless sleep)




"*****Its not a true idea, if you examine history you can find examples of both everywhere - generally there is a popular notion that takes the form of historical romanticism that shapes our perception of culture and their history but it is more a function of popular culture than bonafide historical enquiry.
...But the gist of your statement is true - during different time, places and circumstances there are different teachings, but this is similar to the art exhibition idea I mentioned - there are many ways to paint trees, some ways are more accurate than others, but they can all be catergorised as tree paintings - religion can be defined by the same general principle"

There is a pretty big difference betwixt a total commitment to non-violence and one which glorifies heroic violence. Are you claiming that religions can differ on these aspects and still be "true" in the sense they claim "some truths in common with another"?

****** I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing – there are martial persons and there are intelligent persons everywhere – there are also mercantile persons and a labouring class as well – all of them are glorified in different ways because they have different duties, like for instance it is sinful for a general to not display violence at the appropriate time and it is sinful for a priest to display violence – they could both be glorified or condemned according to their nature as opposed to the qualities they display – for instance in Bhagavad gita arjuna is condemned because he refuses to fight – and the reason is that he is a kstariya (solider on a battle field), which leads to a discussion on how the four types of people work differently according to different qualities


"******They do if the culminate in the idea of surrender to god, or if they present the means where that surrender might be possible to perform ("OK before we begin can everyone please stop killing each other and having sex with other people's wives?")"

What makes this "truthful"? Why ought one "surrender to God"?

******The first principle of surrender to god is to not be sinful, or technically called vikarmic, ie engaged in acts that deliver results unbeneficial to oneself and others. Why one ought to do that is because it is in one’s best interest – there are many places and situations we don’t want to be in and ways how to get there


"****What if one is mistaking a toolbox for a fridge? In other words direct perception only works if the perception is correct - this is why knowledge based on direct perception has its value, like say in crossing the road, but is not the best tool in all circumstances, particularly in realms of subtle knowledge"

If one is mistaking a toolbox for a fridge, then no amount of authority can fix the problem, either.

*****Unless they say “That is not the fridge, its over there” – inotherwords hearing from authority works when you accept them as an authority and don’t say “Hey I know what a fridge is”

You must fix the preceptual problem and seek out its cause because you can continue, even if an authority helps along the way.

*****How do you propose to do this on the platform of direct sense perception in a way that is not completely painful (at least compared to accepting an authoritative piece of information)


"*****Therefore hearing from spiritual authority is aimed at enabling one to come to the platform of correct perception, otherwise your perception has no value - like for instance a lusty man will constantly be viewing all women in term s of their sexual capacity and will also define his own sense of worth according to his ability to score the trappinigs of sexual vitality- this vision is far from truthful and certainly doesn't help him in old age"

How is it far from truthful?
******* What he is seeing is his lust – just like a person with blue glasses sees everything blue – everything is not actually blue, the glasses are blue – in otherwords vices affect our perception of reality

What is a woman's - or a man's - inherent value?
****** spiritual spark, servant of god etc etc – on a conditioned level though a living entity is endeavouring to fulfill their own agenda –

In fact, what is value outside a conscious being's evaluation of said value?
*****Well if you are seeing things as blue and have blue glasses on is it accurate to simply say “everything is blue”

Moreover, if perception can be warped, one could claim that the spiritual authority can similarly hold a warped view, and therefore coats it in his viewpoint, rather than an objective one.

****Therefore you often find that religious principles have a tendency to be coated in a political agenda, so it requires high discrimination to determine what are actual religious principles

In fact, it would be far more fruitful to simply abandon any viewpoint and to look at it with an honest hope for objective truth.

*****How do you propose that we abandon all values? Even to say “abandon all values” indicates an agenda of values – in other words how do you propose to examine what you are looking with?

"*****Found it in the cas eof empiricism, had it in the case of god"

If God k nows something, it must only be through perception or cogitation himself, must it not? He cannot have heard it from a higher authority than him.

******Correct


"*****It is an authority because it is seen to work - in otherwords you judge hearing from authority by the reults it produces - it requires a judgement of quality from the hearer to determine whether they will "hear" the authority or not - if you think the authority has no value you will not hear"

If it seems to work, then it is only vindicated by its empirical results, which again, draw us back to knowledge being empirical or mental. Similarly, even if it does work, an investigation into it will prove a fuller knowledge, and one truly justified truly on a true belief.

***&***The difference between hearing from authority and empricism is that you save useless labour – for instance if a person says “It is cold at the beach” so one person stays home and decides not to go to the beach and the other goes to the beach, discovers it is cold, and comes home, they both arrived at the same benefit – they both understand that it is too cold at the beach – the difference is that the first person didn’t waste his time – now you can counter that by saying “what if the authority has a false perception” – god doesn’t have a false perception, being free from ignorance, and a transparent medium (ie god’s pure representative) works out of the same principle


"*****I agree but I am not clear what you are indicating with the last sentence"

What I am indicating that, despite practical matters, we ought to never accept any authority without checking every single claim and knowing every single thing about it. That is to say, we ought to, for 100 percent truth, become philosophers, not simply adherents.

*****So if I say every human is mortal, are you obliged to examine every person on record and in history before you agree with that? In other words because we have limited senses our direct perception and empirical capacity is also limited


"**** if a person with vision gave a blind person a gold coin and that blind man gave it to another blind man and that blind man gave it to another etc etc the last blind man still has a gold coin as long as th eprocess of giving and receiving goes on in an unadulterated manner - this is how religion works and in the presence of adulteration, fails - it is described as a descending process of knowledge as opposed to an ascending (or empirical) mode of knowledge - it is only hearsay for as long as one does not develop the real faith to apply it - it is the subtle difference between theoretical knowledge of scripture and full realisation of the conclusions"

Yet you have just proven the point as to why it is worthless: If one is blind, one can never be certain that what one is holding is actually a gold coin, and not simply an imitation.

*****He can if he goes to buy something with it

*******If we do not know this, we cannot say we even believe in it fully, for we have no foundation for that. Moreover, the faith is only self-referential because it necessarily colours one's experience.

But we are not blind. We can open our eyes and see whether it is really a gold coin we are holding or simply a wooden one painted gold. In fact, in order to know anything, we must do such.

******But the example of the blind man is that his seeing is useless – just like our seeing is useless in examining the greater universe or god, until we accept the epistemology for perceiving them – kind of similar to the earlier statement about seeing through lust and the blue glasses


"*****Pretending to learn is theoretical - Like I may know it is bad to steal because you get punished but if I still steal my knowledge is only theoretical - what you are actually learning in religion is that god is the source of everything and that everything emmanates from him and the best path is to engage in his service - inotherwords this become more and more apparent as one progresses in spiritual knowledge"

It becomes such because you claim that it is so.

*****Actually it is claimed by scripture and persons who have properly applied scripture – in otherwords it is claimed by both the ontology and the epistemology

One can claim that the purpose of this life is to do ten thousand different things, and so long as you claim this is so, one can make any experience validate this. In fact, people do it every day. People who think money is the only value, look at everything in terms of money.

*****The difference is that money does not include everything – there are many things that money cannot buy – but the moment one comes in contact with god there is no longer any need to seek an exterior object – at least you willnot be forced to seek an exterior object like you will be with money. IN other words satisfaction is the exclusive property of persons who have properly applied religious principles – everything else is just like a monkey jumping from one fruitless tree to another (leaving objects in lamentation and approaching others with hankering)

Any system which places one thing as value, and obsesses over that value, can make anything relate back to that, and reenforce it.

*****Therefore you have different modes of existence – there are certain foods that a pig likes and there are certain foods that you like – is the eating the same? In otherwords despite the happiness that automatically accrues from the senses coming in to contact with the sense objects amongst all living entities there is a gradation of happiness, so you can say that one thing is superior to another. Like for instance would you eat margarine that was made from the fats extracted from human excrement with the same delight as butter?

"*****Therefore the success of religion is when the self becomes perceptable in relation to god - before then there may be so much theory and trials of application"

See my statement immediately above.

*****the point is that seeing god is dependant upon seeing oneself correctly – if you have a false notion of yourself (I am this body and everything related to it is mine) then you you are not qualified to see god because you are only interested in seeing matter


"*****Well the material creation is greater than us in one sense so it is practically infinite - that's the point - just like how do you propose to inform an ant that the house is finite - it requires superior perception or hearing from authority because it refers to an object beyond direct cognition"

Yet but how do you know -for certain- that it is finite?

*****If you hear from a trusted authority. How else? If a doctor says you have leukemia even though you appear to be in reasonably good health are you going to enroll in medical school just so you can get first hand perception of the reality ?

For on the other hand, I can present to you, I do believe, a compelling argument for why it must be infinite and that finitehood is absurd in the material sphere.

******The point is that the entire material universe is practically infinite for everyone except god

"*****We are inextricably connected to it in one sense but our consciousness does not enable us to see the entire manifestation - like if you see a circle you understand that it is a continuous line that is connected - but if your vision only enables a perception of a small fragment you perceive a slightly curved line"

But it stands to reason that one can correct this simply by looking and thinking.

****** If the result of your looking and thinking has only produced a small fragment of a circle how else is anything else going to be revealed?
Inother words if your senses and mind have limitations how do you propose to overcome those limitations with your senses and mind – the conditioned mind is not an unlimited resource, at least in terms of the universe

By investigating and considering. In fac, human beings seem to be naturally apt to do this, as it is often that people think about such things as God and the like, when they view such things as the night sky.

******so the proper application is that one applies this thinking process to the nature of god, or at least mystery – the diametrically opposed example is to use the thinking capacity for exploiting the resources of this material world for one’s own aggrandizement – BTW the two largest patronizers of science are the military and drugs (ie money through patents), just to give you an indication of the values that form the undercurrent of the consensus of our thinking elite

"******If knowledge comes via the knowledge of application it becomes justifiable"

Give a savage a rifle and he tell him how to work it and he might kill something, but might think that he was given this by a God which has empowered him with the power of a dragon to spew fire and thunder that kills people. He might have "the application", but no knowledge. This would be the same thing if God told us something we could "apply" but not know.

*****Then you haven’t taught him application – you taught him operation – if the point is to teach him how to fire a rifle you have domne that application – if the point is to teach him how a rifle works you haven’t taught him that by teaching him how to operate it.


"*****God doesn't require to learn anything because his consciousness is perfect and complete and can even manifest other independent and perfect and complete units without suffering loss"

So God can now create things out of thin air and add to that which was all ready infinite?

*****Does fire create heat out of thin air?

More and more he seems to be doing things which are not only impossible to us, but impossible to him, if your defintions are correct.

*****Impossible for him? On what basis do you draw what he can and cannot do?

An infinity cannot be added to, as it is all ready beyond addition. Moreover, even if God does not investigate and cogitate as we do, his knowledge is based on the same things, as his knowledge of sensory things would come through infinite sensual knowledge, whereas his knowledge of mental things would come from infinite mental knowledge.

*****the limitations of god are not even known to god – its not correct to call such lack of knowledge ignorance though, because it never innvolves an illusory sense of self

"******Just because matter degrades does not mean that spirit degrades - just because matter has form does not indicate that spirit does not have form "

This is true. But what do you have to prove that spirit does not degrade and spirit has form?

*****I guess it depends whether you accept that it is integral that there must be something which does not degrade (regardless whether it is consciousness or not) and if so, does it have form. If it doesn’t have form, how did form develop from something that has no form?


"***** The symptom of consciousness is thoughts"

Define?

*****Because you are conscious you think – this is distinct from dull matter

"*****When thoughts go from the body, the body goes - matter follows spirit because it is directed by it "

I am not sure how this answers my demonstration of a non-eternal transcendent object? ANd how does spirit direct matter?

****Non-eternal transcendental object is a contradiction – all transcendental things are eternal, otherwise they wouldn’t be distinguished from matter.
How does spirit direct matter? How do control your hands? How do you lift up a table?
How is it impossible for a table to move by itself? How is it impossible for a dead man’s hands to move?


"****** I am just at the position of establishing theoretical terms - if you don't accept that transcendental objects are distinct from matter, what would be the purpose of the distinction?"

The distinction is being put forth here because you claim it exists. I myself have no knowledge nor belief regarding "transcendental objects". In fact, the only transcendence I am aware of, is Kant's Transcendental Idealism.

******The definitions of matter do not enable us to fully explain everything that we perceive in this material world – to begin with it doesn’t even enable us to perceive what we are perceiving with

"******Still not clear what you are trying to say - The material cosmos indicates free will but god as the conscious maintainer does not manifest free will?"

No. That whims are not consistant with the necessity of existence. That is to say, that a will does not cause it, because the will would be contingent and not necessary.

*****Still not clear – what is the necesity of existence? What is an example of something that is not caused by will (that doesn’t have a mysterious cause)?

"*****Just like you cannot seperate sunshine from the sun you cannot seperate consciousness from will -you cannot seperate an object from the qualities by which you can perceive the object"

One can indeed separate consciousness from will, free or limited. For will is consciousness directed towards action, whereas we can speak purely of cogitation.

*****That is a seperation of theory –You can indicate the sunshine and the sun also in the same way - I mean to say where is the example of consciousness that doesn’t have will – the very moment you perceive will is the moment you can perceive consciousness just as the sunshine indicates the sun


"*****The laws of result are constant with god - its just a question of which laws are being applied in a particular circumstance - this enables the distinction between the spiritual and material realms"

The law is impossible not to apply at all times and in all places. For to not apply it would be to not act, as there'd be no results.

****Even a king applies different “laws” for the jail and normal functioning society – violating one set of laws brings you under the purview of the other

Or here's a question for you: What is a cause without an effect? Not an effect without a cause, but a cause without an effect?

****** Illusion – just like you may be under th e impression you are having baked beans for breakfast but at the breakfast table you find toast – the anticipation of baked beans had no effect because it was illusion

"******Just like the law of result for a commercial trust fund is distinct from the law of result of a jail even though they are both concomitant factors of the will of the king - there is a variety of laws of result for a variety of situations"

So now there are multiple "laws of result"? I should have you validate their differences and how they are different? For different manifestations of the same law do not imply a multiplicity of laws, only a difference in the situation.

If John murders Bill then Janes murders Ann, do we speak of "different laws of murder", or "the law of murder being applied in different situations"?

******In short the law of the material world relies on force and the laws of the spiritual world rely on choice, much like the distinction between the laws of jail and the laws of society – for instance if you violate laws in the material world you get a result, regardless whether you want the result or not – like if you over eat you get a stomach problem and have to fast for three days

"*****Not if its eternal - I have to ask, do you think that the material world innvolves eternal elements, regardless whether you think they are conscious or not?"

Yes. I in fact affirm that material existence as a whole is indeed eternal, but not causeless.
That is to say, it is caused by its eternal absurdity of not-existing and its eternal opposition to its absolute opposite, nothingness. Similarly, I view the necessity of an infinite-regress of causes and effects as necessitating this eternity and therefore perpetual cause as opposed to causeleness.

******Seems like you are saying that time is eternal, but cannot ascribe eternity to matter – unless you can delineate what exactly it is that is eternal


Moreover, a transcendent thought's cause if transcendent, would still require a cause, because it would be a transcent thought, which would have been prceded by another thought, et cetera, et cetera.

*****So if the body making that though is an eternal object it wouldn’t be any other way


"How do you explain the universe unless it is tied to something that is either causeless or eternal?"

See above for a brief version of my argument. Also to add: If a causeless cause can exist, then there is no reason to say that everything which exists is not a causeless cause.

*****If you see a table made from a tree that came from a seed that came from another tree etc – how can you not ascribe I tto a cause?

More specifically, we can just say the universe is causeless, and leave it at that, and not address a God. It also destroys that which it attempts to uphold: Casuality.

*****But you haven’t even established exactly what is the cause of all causes, so how can you determine what could constitute the original cause and what cannot – once again this is a difficult matter to approach by limited sense perception


"*****This illustrates the danger of applying one's own onotology to the ontology of god"

It is the danger of only taking the necessary truth that we are part of God to assume that we are all God.
No, certainly we are not a God with infinite power, although he would cease to exist if we should, by virtue that it would destroy his aspects of eternity and infinity.

*****Which just leaves us with the mysteries of a causeless universe – not sure what you are saying – obviously we are god yet obviously we are not?


"*****The falseness is that it is taken to be something that it is not - just like water exists but if you are looking for it in the desert its due to an illusory concept of what one can expect to find in a desert"

So if we take water for what it is - a molecular bonding of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom - which will one day not be water and a day beforehand was not, then it is "real" because we do not mistake it?
*****a further inquiry in to the reality of water would be where did it come from – ie trace the cause of water

"*****Because we apply eternal values to its temporary nature"

Then it is not false in and of itself, only in our minds.

*****hence the root of illusion is false ego


"*****The changes are not so ridiculous - like for instance if you watch the sun set and think that life as we know it on earth will cease to exist because the sun just disappeared and soon the surface will be overcome by sub zero temperatures you have attribuited a false variable to a real object - if you observe a solar flare from the sun you have observed a true variable of a real object"

But it stands to reason that if there is indeed variety in God, that we have found that many of our conceptions which you declared wrong, may well be right. As they hinged upon a unity which now you claim is not present.

******* I didn’t declare them as wrong – scripture did


"**** The same person may be a friend to his buddies, the apple of his wife's eye, an enterprising factory owner to his employees etc etc - just because we are one person doesn't mean that everyone relates to us in the same way"

Yet if God is singular and our relationship to him is singular, it stands to reason that we can only relate to God in one way. It is because of relative positions in a relative system that we can be different things to different people. God would always be the same thing to all things.

The above mentioned person is one person, not a dozen. Its not like one person relates with the man in all ways


"*****Yes - that is the correct description of illusion - just consider the irony that if a person is handed a warm bag of fat and blood they will be repulsed but to attain the same material combination packaged in the form of a young woman's breast they will form into queues"

Do you then deny that relation of things has reality? That a breast really is different than a "warm bag of fat and blood"?

*******relation does certainly bear a reality but it can also operates under the guise of truth and illusion also – materially what is the difference between a bag of blood and fat and a breast? The only difference is in the mind of the seer – for instance a man visiting a strip bar views breasts in one way and a cancer surgeon views them in another, and a woman views them in another way yet again

"****Doesn't make it any less pleasurable - like if you have a great holiday and then have an even better holiday next it doesn't make the previous one miserable"

In comparison, it most certainly does. It also means one can be more pleased. In either case, one's past pleasures are diminished in light of this, as well as demonstrating that one did not have something perfect to begin with.

*****So in otherwords persons who face increasing advancements in the good things of life are haunted by horrible memories?



"*****What would you compare god to declare that his qualities are finite? If you don't anything that is more strong or more creative than him by what definition is he finite and hence limited?"

By what definition? The definition of infinity. For even if there is "nothing greater than God" - which could not be shown to be so, if he is at all limited, as by definition there is a possibility for such - he himself does not live up to the definition of infinity, and thus he is simply "greatest" and not "unlimited".

That is to say, even if there is such a thing as "the greatest thing", it would still be infinite unless it had no bounds and limits whatsoever nor could diminish in quality and thus become non-infinite. That is to say, no matter how great something is, greatness cannot make something infinite.

The tallest man alive is nearly three metres in height. This does not make him infinite because "no human being's height has ever reached his", only the greatest of things, which can be surmounted one day.

******So what if you came went to measure the man and found that he was slightly taller than the three metres so you went to extend your tape measure but then he grew another length slightly higher – in other words what if you sepnt an eternity trying to draw a tape measure against an eternally increasing person

"****Isn't a shirt completely different from our bodies?"

Not really. We are both matter. The process is very physical. Matter over matter. Fabric over flesh.

*****So there is no difference between you and your shirt? If you were drowning it would be sufficient just to pull your shirst from the water?


"*****Lol - if I could answer that I would be god - anyway there is a whole subtle science mentioned in scripture about how the life airs are maintained by the soul (pranayama) but I find the descriptions a bit too difficult to comprehend and not really practical to the current age (which tends to be excessively grossly materialistic)"

All right. So you have no idea how transcendence controls/powers matter? Then how can you claim that it is true?

******I have an idea but I don’t have the practical ability to replicate it – I have an idea how a woman bears a child when pregnant but I cannot do it – if that’s what you feel you must know to understand god, read about it yourself and apply the appropriate epistemology (BTW god doesn’t mention that knowing every aspect of how he moves the universe is the best way to know him – in fact it is indicated that it is a waste of time because of our limited senses versus the gigantic universal maintenance.

For instance, how would you refute this notion, taken from Gottfreid Leibniz, that indeed mind and body are distinct, and not only that, but despite the -appearance- of coordination, there is in fact none such at all, but it is in fact God that has ordained that matter should mimic, without connection, the mind, and likewise the mind matter when such is applicable. It is like two identical clocks being set to run next to eachother in absolute harmony, though neither causes the other, but in fact the cause of the clock maker, God.

How do you refute this notion and instead affirm that ti is consciousness that controls matter?

***** I am affirming that it is god’s consciousness that directs matter, and also the living entity too, although we have the added option of free will (inother words god reciprocates with our desires)


"*****Therefore there is the teaching of application"

And if the application's principles are not understood, it is all in vain. Just as the savage with the rifle.

*****Again – it depends what you are trying to teach by application – if all you want to teach is operation you have taught the correct application by indicating where the trigger is etc – if your aim is something else you require a different application


"*****Yes but we are free to ignore it"

IF we are free to ignore it, it is hardly perfect.

******If we couldn’t ignore our free will would be imperfect

"*****Well suppose you were dreaming that you were being eaten by a lion and the next day you dream you are a king- when you wake up what difference do these dreams make to your conscious self?"

Very little. Only memories of the experience and the emotions and thoughts in said experience.

****The point is that an eraser only erases things that bore a mark – if illusion doesn’t actually bear a mark on the soul, where is the question of erasure?

"*****He does - therefore you can see that all religion (bonafide that is) moves society in recognizing that god is the ultimate cause"

Yet religion still causes confusion.

****Therefore there must be problems with application


"******Free from ignorance in the sense of being free from a degraded concept of existence - god never accepts a material existence like we do"

What I am asking is whether God is both free from ignorance and has a free-will. Does God have both qualities?
***Yes

 

[AAF]

GOD IS ALL THINGS
GOOD AND EVIL.
but he chooses good and justice.
wake up.
How can you think GOD is self contradictory if he didn't put it in you to think such a thing.

Wake up

Hello witnessjudgejury:

So He is (GOOD & EVIL)! That is good. I like it!
For, as you can see (GOOD + EVIL), together and at the same time, are the proud PARENTS of all contradictions; right?
'Wake up' & 'smell the coffee!
http://samuel-beckett.net/Waiting_for_Godot_Part1.html

:m:

 

[AAF]

lightgigantic: “The point, that you are failing to address, is that you accuse the established authorities of monotheism of concoction, but to accept your proposals we also have to accept your concoctions - so what is the difference?……….”.

Re: Concoction means ‘putting together ingredients’. Whether Monotheists do or do not concoct; this is not an essential premise of my argument. And I didn’t make it. You made it, probably, in an attempt to create some sort of a straw-man argument. And that is the difference!


lightgigantic: “…The exact nature of your concoction is that you say the monotheistic god has a material cause - that's why I say you are out of your league with this thread - you want to establish that the monotheistic god is a concoction but you don't accept god even theoretically therefore you think you are at liberty to concoct whatever you like in the name of theoretical definitions (In science this is called bad practice)……………”.

Re: Again, I didn’t make the premise. You made it in order to create a straw man! I said time is the primary condition for the existence of every thing, including the existence of God. And this has nothing to do with matter and causality. But it has everything to do with absolute first conditions. Your claim, therefore, is false. Because, if God was a consequence of time, He would exist by logical necessity and I would not be here arguing with you about His non-existence.


lightgigantic: “…- your real issue is that you contend the authority of scripture, but instead of addressing that you dress up your ideas in the guise of pseudo-logic……”.

Re: I don’t contend it. I’m absolutely convinced that it has no authority at all to begin with. Hence, put aside this ‘pseudo-authority’ of your holy books! And start to address the real issue, i.e. the contradictory nature of your God’s conception.


lightgigantic: “…All you can say is basically "The whole notion of god is made up - it is your imagination - therefore I just proved it because I said it was your imagination"…….To which we can reply "Who cares for your opinions"……”.

Re: That is your false claim. Since there is nothing fundamentally wrong of making notions up. What is wrong with the notion of God is its irresolvable contradictions. And because His concept is contradictory, God cannot exist, except, perhaps, in your imagination. That is the real issue. Do disagree?

 

[AAF]

Prince_James: “Unless I am sorely mistaken given the answer provided, is it not saying those are the -possibilities- that could be shown? Three answers are provided and it seems speculative, rather than absolute, which would be so. Whereas I would argue - and I am by no means a mathematician, and thus admittedly, I lack the capacity to argue on said level - that any number divided by infinity (uncountable or uncountable) could not be zero, on the foundation that this is not how division works. That is to say, division seeks a number which, if multiplied by the same number as the divisor, equals the number which the quotient is being sought for. If the very simple example of 8/4 we find the answer 2, which if multiplied by four, is 8. What, however, would be if we took 4/infinity as 0? Well, anything - including infinity - multiplied by 0 = 0, so we would not find proof for our answer!………”.

Re: The general rule is that any number divided by ZERO is equal to INFINITY, except ZERO divided by ZERO, which is undefined. This rule is logically consistent and involved no contradictions or paradoxes. And so just as (0/1, 0/2, 0/3, & 0/4) give the same result of ZERO, (1/infinity, 2/infinity, 3/infinity, & 4/infinity) give the same result of ZERO and cannot be distinguished from each other. Finally, ZERO multiplied by INFINITY gives ZERO divided by ZERO, which is according to the above exception is UNDEFINED. In short, the biggest PROBLEM, here, is not INFINITY, but the UNDEFINED 0/0, which cannot be defined in any way without some fatal contradiction or blatant absurdity. That is because the rule of (ZERO divided by any number is equal to ZERO) & the rule of (any number divided by ZERO is equal to INFINITY) collide with each other at 0/0. And so 0/0 must remain undefined.


Prince_James: “…Okay. You got me there. I had forgotten it also covered three dimensional shapes, and of course, those aspects -would- cover the real world, and cover the real world on our level better than any other version of geometry. The plane geometry would not, though......".

Re: I agree that the plane geometry would not; but the road from PLANES to SOLIDS is so open and straightforward that it is possible to say, 'give me a square, and I will give you the geometry of the world'!


Prince_James: “…I shall concede my objection on the grounds that you are correct. This sort of "ideal limit" we may speak of and which is exceedingly fruitful to reference. It is here I would disagree. Without defining infinity "without limit and boundary", a chief aspect of infinity is misunderstood. Without realizing that infinity cannot have an end, we have no conception of what "infinity" means, that it does not simply mean "gigantic", but it means a boundless expanse, either physical or mathematical, that cannot be reached no matter to what extent one moves or counts. If this is not understood, even the notion of its ideal limit cannot be understood, as the quality which things are approaching would not be conceived, not only not properly, but at all…..”.

Re: I agree that "without limit and boundary" is a very important definition of infinity.


Prince_James: “…This is also very true. The future is never reached by definition of being the future! Which leads one to an interesting philosophical mind game, also: If the future can never be reached, does this imply that it is infinitely far from us, although the next moment is immediately next to ours?………..”.

Re: Its nearest element, as mentioned above, is tantalizingly close! But future eternity is defined in such a way to make it impossible for its elements to be realized. The amazing thing about the notion of future eternity is that, unlike the concept of past eternity, it's completely free of contradictions and uncontroversial and almost everyone ought to believe in it, even the Creationists and the Doomsday Folks. And so it must be smelling good!


Prince_James: “…So "good smell" would have a different ideal than "bad smell" instead of just an ideal for "smell as a whole"? Hmmm, perhaps we can speak here of two types of ideals. The ideals which do have physical and/or mathematical existence, but which can never be reached, and the ideals which do not, but can be spoken of in regards to the attribute things are progressing towards. That is to say, though it sounds oxymoronic, there are "actual ideals" and "non-actual ideals". Light Gigantic, I'll respond to your post now. So if you're reading this, mine is on the way”.

Re: Light Gigantic has his BRAIN completely filled with the verses and the passages of his sacred VEDAS to have a free space in it for anything else; trust me! YES, it’s quite possible and logical to classify ideals according to their subject, their object, or their degree of idealism, so to speak. However, as exemplified by the case of Plato many centuries ago, ideals are extremely seductive and should not be used either to demote or to deny physical reality in any way. After all, physical reality is the primary reference in this case. And, therefore, ideals make sense only as limits to actual objects and real elements.

 

[Prince_James]

AAF:

"Re: The general rule is that any number divided by ZERO is equal to INFINITY, except ZERO divided by ZERO, which is undefined. This rule is logically consistent and involved no contradictions or paradoxes. And so just as (0/1, 0/2, 0/3, & 0/4) give the same result of ZERO, (1/infinity, 2/infinity, 3/infinity, & 4/infinity) give the same result of ZERO and cannot be distinguished from each other. Finally, ZERO multiplied by INFINITY gives ZERO divided by ZERO, which is according to the above exception is UNDEFINED. In short, the biggest PROBLEM, here, is not INFINITY, but the UNDEFINED 0/0, which cannot be defined in any way without some fatal contradiction or blatant absurdity. That is because the rule of (ZERO divided by any number is equal to ZERO) & the rule of (any number divided by ZERO is equal to INFINITY) collide with each other at 0/0. And so 0/0 must remain undefined."

I am afraid you are a bit mistaken here. According to many resources I am reading, mathematicians usually proclaim that 1/0 does not equal 1/infinity which then equals 0/0, but that it simply is undefined owing to the fact that it leads to absurdities. Do you have any specific resources that perhaps I am not finding here? Moreover, would not we get this as an answer if we took what you said as true regarding divison by infinity?

5/infinity = 0. 0 * 5 = 0. Hence 5/infinity != 0?

"Re: I agree that the plane geometry would not; but the road from PLANES to SOLIDS is so open and straightforward that it is possible to say, 'give me a square, and I will give you the geometry of the world'!"

How do you figure? I am intrigued by your rationale.

"Re: I agree that "without limit and boundary" is a very important definition of infinity."

Good, good. Then I think we may well have come to the truth regarding infinity's definition and the nature of the ideal-limit of infinity.

"Re: Its nearest element, as mentioned above, is tantalizingly close! But future eternity is defined in such a way to make it impossible for its elements to be realized. The amazing thing about the notion of future eternity is that, unlike the concept of past eternity, it's completely free of contradictions and uncontroversial and almost everyone ought to believe in it, even the Creationists and the Doomsday Folks. And so it must be smelling good!"

Yes. Although I think it also does us well to keep in mind something that would keep us from Zenoesque paradoxes, for if we applied this same principle to space as "just as one cannot reach the next moment in time before it becomes the present, so too can you not reach the next position in space before it becomes 'here', hence movement from 'here' is impossible, ergo motion is impossible", we'd be committing, of course, an aggregious fallacy.

That is to say, a future eternity does not demand the ever present "nowness" as implying a lack of flow in time, which some may wrongly conclude, but rather that relative to the present, the future is always at least one moment ahead, and though we may relative to our past reach the future, we can never reach the future free from our present.

In the past year, the concept of "The Now" has somewhat become a "hot button" topic in the philosophy forum here on Sci. I think I shall make a topic on what we are discussing now there, to attempt to defuse some improper philosophizing.

"Re: Light Gigantic has his BRAIN completely filled with the verses and the passages of his sacred VEDAS to have a free space in it for anything else; trust me!"

He is very religious, clearly, but he is an okay chap so far. The discussion at the very least is progressing and he is not at all insensible.

"YES, it’s quite possible and logical to classify ideals according to their subject, their object, or their degree of idealism, so to speak. However, as exemplified by the case of Plato many centuries ago, ideals are extremely seductive and should not be used either to demote or to deny physical reality in any way. After all, physical reality is the primary reference in this case. And, therefore, ideals make sense only as limits to actual objects and real elements. "

You struck the ideal nail on the ideal head, my good man. The one flaw of Plato was that denigration and demotion of the real for the ideal which eventually lead to a sort of religious apathy in later years with the physical, every-day, world.

But what say you to my concept that some ideals can be construed as not only ideals in the way that other ideals allow us to speak of "progressing towards an ideal", but can be construed as actual physical truths, as well? For instance, I am of the view, as I have claimed a few times prior, that space itstelf demands an infinity, as well as past eternities, for several reasons which I have put forth. Supposing they are true, do we not therefore have to conclude that the ideal of both space and time would not only be a quality towards which things progress, but also a thing which actually exists in the normal sense, even though each would be beyond our capacity to reach?

LightGigantic, you are up next.

 

[Prince_James]

LightGigantic:

"*****Whats the difference between renting and buying?"

Ah, so you view liberated people as not construing ownership over material things, owing to their temporal nature?

"******When a person dies you can understand that what you knew of them has gone even though they may be lyind dead right in front of you – a dead person and a living person are composed of the same material ingredients – also we have the same sense of “I” despite the body undergoing so many changes – literally every second your body undergoes a change yet we can proceed through a hundred years of such changes of bodies and still have the same sense of “I”"

So because their physical body is not the sole aspect of their identity, you suppose we have a higher identity? That is to say, despite the fact that the person you knew is physically infront of one if one is say, at their funeral, they are no longer there in a meaningful sense, thus meaning that consciousness is somehow distinct from the body?

"*****Yes, of course you can have subtle desire (fame, intelligence etc) and gross desire (sex) , and also selfish desire (what is good for me) and extended desire (what is good for others) but it is all desire – there is even material desire and spiritual desire, qualified by one’s perception of self "

What about the computation and non-desire based awareness necessary for idle sensory preception? With no desire in mind, simply keeping one's eyes open, and ears alert, to what is around one? Moreover, is the process itself linked to desire, or is desire only the impetus? FOr it would seem that mathematical computaiton, for instance, is not rooted in desire, but the result impetus would likely be practical desire to accomplish something.

"***** Does identity shift dramatically? In the case of an amnesiac why is it possible for an amnesiac to recover unless there was a superior sense of self? Or how is it possible to have two completely different ideas of self (one while dreaming and one while awake), unless there was recourse to a third superior element?"

Identity may indeed shift dramatically such as in the case of the amnesiac, but usually it does not do so by virtue that the continuum necessitates a great deal of time to pass before any real changes occur, although additions to the list of context-based identities can be dramatic and instantneous, such as the addition of "father" to one's list of identities once one's wife gives birth.

Now, as to why the amnesiac can recover, it is very simple: The mind, apparently, can be damaged to the point where memories are lost, but also recovered to the point where those return. This does not necessitate a "third identity" here, merely that the mind can be damaged and recover, just as we do not need a third body to speak of a body being whole, then having an injury, then recovering from said injury. Moreover, with the return of memories one's identity can very dramatically shift, but also it can produce a great problem in reconciling one's new life with the old which was, for a time, non-existent. One becomes then a third new person, but not one which still necessitates a "higher identity".

Similarly, the idea of dream selves usually do not change the sense of self, but rather place the self in odd circumstances. This can be accounted for by the fact that we always presume there is a continuity back to one's last rememberance and do not, generally, presume a dischotomy in the dream world's presentation of reality. But as lucid dreams point out, we can train ourselves to recognize the discrepancies and take control of the dream for a period of time. Moreover, even if we do think we are other people, it is due to circumstances that this generally occurs in the dream, and thus we are not considering our "real life personas". This does not necessitate a third party, either, just a lack of recollection on our part.

"******There are very good reasons why you don’t have a conscious remembereance of your previous life – the first thing is that we are in a medium of ignorance, characterised by forgetfullness – its very difficult for people to remember what they were doing last week, what to speak of last lifetime. Also a previous life means a previous mind and intelligence as well as body – in otherwords one’s previous incarnation was arrived at due to a desire to exploit material nature in a particular way and this incarnation is different again – in essence what you are saying is right – it doesn’t matter what you used to be but rather what you are now – BTW there are interesting incidents, more so for persons like yourself deeply immersed in empiricism, of people recalling incidents of their past life in ways that there current experience can not grant – like one that comes to mind of an old lady who could suddenly speak french and give detailed information about the people and streets of a medieval village despite never having ventured out of her country – they did research and her statements tallied with heavily archived historical evidence – other incidents are here
http://www.geocities.com/richard_ho...ation/faq.htm#a"

Yes, I am aware of such circumstances. They are very interesting and do deserve looking into both scientifically and otherwise. That being said, it would be very difficult to say "she once was this woman", for there are other ways to explain this.

But let's steer away from reincarnation, if only that if there is any evidence of it empirically, it requires more research, and it isn't something we can really speak of philosophically, for even if we can say to have had past incarnations, there is litterally nothing we can gain from them, by virtue of being totally distinct from them.

******you mean you don’t see or hear things in dreams? The point is that the mind is superior to the body because it is more subtle"

No, one must certainly be able to see and hear things in dreams, only that this is not surprising, sinec it is happening in the mind. Do not we think when we are awake and only hear our words in our mind? Not hear them with our ears? This does imply a "superiority and distinctness of consciousness from the body". At no point in our dreams are we truly outside our body.

"*****But the difference between dreaming and being awake is a break in that continuum if you accept the body as the self"

How? We never leave the body. We only become not aware of it.

"**** There is an awareness that we had no awareness in dreamless sleep – another break in the continnum of the body as self, or even the mind as self …"

Actually, there is no awareness that we had no awareness. This awareness is only found after we awaken by external cues, or realize that we are asleep by being shocked into consciousness again. Put a man in a plain, white room, with no possibility of anything being used as a reference for time, and that man could not tell you how long he was asleep, even if he did realize he was asleep at one point, by noticing that he is awakening.

"***** In one instance a person is thinking I am this body (awake) in another they are thinking I am this mind (dreaming) and in another they are aware that they are not aware (dreamless sleep)"

Actually, we never think we are "this body". We only ever think we are "this mind". But as to the third instance, we are not aware that we are not aware ever during that time. By virtue of not being aware, we cannot be aware that we are not aware. We cannot even speak of being there, only that our body was there and that it is the same body that we are entering.

"****** I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing – there are martial persons and there are intelligent persons everywhere – there are also mercantile persons and a labouring class as well – all of them are glorified in different ways because they have different duties, like for instance it is sinful for a general to not display violence at the appropriate time and it is sinful for a priest to display violence – they could both be glorified or condemned according to their nature as opposed to the qualities they display – for instance in Bhagavad gita arjuna is condemned because he refuses to fight – and the reason is that he is a kstariya (solider on a battle field), which leads to a discussion on how the four types of people work differently according to different qualities"

Whereas what you say is indeed true of society, I do believe it is only Hinduism which affirms that each caste can have any spiritual laws specifically for them. But as far as I know, there are also other texts which place as virtues things which do not admit of caste, but which are to be practiced regardless. Non-violence (ahimsa, if I recall my sanskrit terms) is such, if one wants to achieve moksha.

But even so, many other religions do not admit of any of this stuff, and in fact, some explicitly deny the usefulness of non-violence (most of the pagan religions pretty much glorified violence and gave entire Gods over to soldiers and warriors of all types).

"******The first principle of surrender to god is to not be sinful, or technically called vikarmic, ie engaged in acts that deliver results unbeneficial to oneself and others. Why one ought to do that is because it is in one’s best interest – there are many places and situations we don’t want to be in and ways how to get there"

And what if one simply does not wish to get out of this? It presumes that the end is universally appreciated, when in fact, it would also mean the destruction of the self. I'd also point out a contradiction in "acting to do things unbeneficial, but for ultimately our benefit", which simply shifts benefit to a later time, rather than destroys it.

"*****Unless they say “That is not the fridge, its over there” – inotherwords hearing from authority works when you accept them as an authority and don’t say “Hey I know what a fridge is

*****How do you propose to do this on the platform of direct sense perception in a way that is not completely painful (at least compared to accepting an authoritative piece of information)"

All illusions of sense can be discerned as illusions if we look for the causes. For instance, a person could deduce that it is only an illusion that the tower in the distance moves, by saying, hey, I am getting closer to it, so it must take up a larger part of my vision, that is all. Similarly, if one does not do this, but instead simply listens to an authority, one cannot say for sure, as one is simply accepting, which is as bad as accepting the illusion based wholly on oneself.

"******* What he is seeing is his lust – just like a person with blue glasses sees everything blue – everything is not actually blue, the glasses are blue – in otherwords vices affect our perception of reality"

Is not the religious man simply seeing everything in terms of religion? Or the pecuniary man seeing everything in terms of money?

"****** spiritual spark, servant of god etc etc – on a conditioned level though a living entity is endeavouring to fulfill their own agenda – "

Why is this affirmation anymore realistic than "sexual object" or "object which can make me money"? All of these paradigms are consistant and work and are based on presumptions and affirmations before the fact.

"*****Well if you are seeing things as blue and have blue glasses on is it accurate to simply say “everything is blue”"

No, but any pre-value of something demands this.

"****Therefore you often find that religious principles have a tendency to be coated in a political agenda, so it requires high discrimination to determine what are actual religious principles"

Even a religious viewpoint outside of a political agenda still is a placing of value before the fact, or as we have spoken of, blue-tinted glasses.

"*****How do you propose that we abandon all values? Even to say “abandon all values” indicates an agenda of values – in other words how do you propose to examine what you are looking with?"

You are correct in pointing out that seeking to abandon all values is to value something which is therefore contradictory to the statement, but perhaps I should have said, "abandon all values which do not allow us to see an unfiltered, bojective truth". That is to say, to adopt a viewpoint that does not colour things with any preconceived notions, but honestly looks for truth without judgement before that truth is found.

"***&***The difference between hearing from authority and empricism is that you save useless labour – for instance if a person says “It is cold at the beach” so one person stays home and decides not to go to the beach and the other goes to the beach, discovers it is cold, and comes home, they both arrived at the same benefit – they both understand that it is too cold at the beach – the difference is that the first person didn’t waste his time – now you can counter that by saying “what if the authority has a false perception” – god doesn’t have a false perception, being free from ignorance, and a transparent medium (ie god’s pure representative) works out of the same principle"

Yet even if God is supposed to have a "false perception", we cannot know this without testing it. In fact, the one time we did not test it, it is feasible that God had a "false perception". And even if God is right, how do we know it is from God? And again, though it may "save us time", it does not give us true knowledge, which is basically useless anyway.

"*****So if I say every human is mortal, are you obliged to examine every person on record and in history before you agree with that? In other words because we have limited senses our direct perception and empirical capacity is also limited"

Ultimately, yes. Practically, no. I do not suggest that one can be fully philosophic about all empirical statements, and there is a time where we can accept that some statements are truer than others even without full investigation, it is not true knowledge, but something less.

Unless we can point to something that would make it impossible to be otherwise, we must accept only a pragmatic view of such things.

"*****He can if he goes to buy something with it"

If he goes to buy something with it and the other man is blind, he too can be deceived.

"******But the example of the blind man is that his seeing is useless – just like our seeing is useless in examining the greater universe or god, until we accept the epistemology for perceiving them – kind of similar to the earlier statement about seeing through lust and the blue glasses"

Yet as I have pointed out, such is just shifting the paradigm, not necessarily coming to greater truth. All paradigms colour perception and warp things, not provide truth.

"*****Actually it is claimed by scripture and persons who have properly applied scripture – in otherwords it is claimed by both the ontology and the epistemology"

We'll discuss this after you reply to my comments throughout regarding paradigms and the like.

"*****The difference is that money does not include everything – there are many things that money cannot buy – but the moment one comes in contact with god there is no longer any need to seek an exterior object – at least you willnot be forced to seek an exterior object like you will be with money. IN other words satisfaction is the exclusive property of persons who have properly applied religious principles – everything else is just like a monkey jumping from one fruitless tree to another (leaving objects in lamentation and approaching others with hankering)"

It is only when such constancy is valued and not the hankering and lamenting that such appeals to the person. Someone who truly loves money, does not care if the process has fluctuations, and someone who loves God, doesn't care that it does not. In either case, the systems are coherent, and can be used to colour our perceptions utterly.

"*****Therefore you have different modes of existence – there are certain foods that a pig likes and there are certain foods that you like – is the eating the same? In otherwords despite the happiness that automatically accrues from the senses coming in to contact with the sense objects amongst all living entities there is a gradation of happiness, so you can say that one thing is superior to another. Like for instance would you eat margarine that was made from the fats extracted from human excrement with the same delight as butter? "

No, I would not, for such would likely taste disgusting. That being said, a pig might find it quite delectable, and thus I could not say, in contrast to you, that we can speak of superior and inferior in such a case, only superior and inferior relative to the person. Moreover, that God is only delightful to some, whereas not delightful to others, also places it alongside an aim such as money and the like.

"*****the point is that seeing god is dependant upon seeing oneself correctly – if you have a false notion of yourself (I am this body and everything related to it is mine) then you you are not qualified to see god because you are only interested in seeing matter"

We could turn this around and say that when seeing God we have a false perception of ourselves because we are not seeing matter.

"*****If you hear from a trusted authority. How else? If a doctor says you have leukemia even though you appear to be in reasonably good health are you going to enroll in medical school just so you can get first hand perception of the reality ?"

For practical reasons, no. But as regarding truth? Yes. An authority which conflicts with reason, or which makes claims that must be accepted under faith in order for them to be right, is not an authority any philosophic person ought to accept, even if it is right, without first evaluating the claims.

"******The point is that the entire material universe is practically infinite for everyone except god"

I disagree. It is not just practically, but -actually- infinite, for anyone, including God. I believe I put forth a basic idea of my argument later, so I'll look for your response to respond to.

"****** If the result of your looking and thinking has only produced a small fragment of a circle how else is anything else going to be revealed?
Inother words if your senses and mind have limitations how do you propose to overcome those limitations with your senses and mind – the conditioned mind is not an unlimited resource, at least in terms of the universe"

There are ways to find truth mentally that is absolute. For instance, the truths we have discovered about God even in this conversation, such as realizing that the law of result and God must be one in the same, if God is to be at all sensible. Such mental truths are true because of the absurdity of their opposites and the rightness of themselves. This can be found in many other instances, such as the absolute nature of truth, and the universal application of the law of non-contradiction and of identity. Moreover, we can bolster our natural capacities for sensory knowledge in a variety of ways, I.E. telescopes and hearing aids.

"******so the proper application is that one applies this thinking process to the nature of god, or at least mystery – the diametrically opposed example is to use the thinking capacity for exploiting the resources of this material world for one’s own aggrandizement – BTW the two largest patronizers of science are the military and drugs (ie money through patents), just to give you an indication of the values that form the undercurrent of the consensus of our thinking elite "

I would say "the truth" not just "God", but yes. The correct application is to seek philosophy from this. And yes, science ruled by the military and the drug companies is science for a pragmatic reason and that is all.

"*****Then you haven’t taught him application – you taught him operation – if the point is to teach him how to fire a rifle you have domne that application – if the point is to teach him how a rifle works you haven’t taught him that by teaching him how to operate it."

And does not God not teach us anything but the application, if we cannot verify those things on our own? Cannot investigate it to show that it is so?

"*****Does fire create heat out of thin air?"

No. It is actually a shift from potential to kinetic energy. Are you saying God then uses the same thing?

"*****Impossible for him? On what basis do you draw what he can and cannot do?"

Logical reasoning based on the claims of certain attributes.

"*****the limitations of god are not even known to god – its not correct to call such lack of knowledge ignorance though, because it never innvolves an illusory sense of self "

If God doesn't know his own limits - which he couldn't have - then how is this -not- ignorance? Despite not being rooted in an illusory sense of self, it would be a lack of knowledge, I.E. ignorance. Similarly, it would seem impossible for him to not know his own powers of he knows everything.

"*****I guess it depends whether you accept that it is integral that there must be something which does not degrade (regardless whether it is consciousness or not) and if so, does it have form. If it doesn’t have form, how did form develop from something that has no form?"

What foundation do you ahve to suggest to yourself that it is integral that there must be something which doesn't degrade? But also, does not form require a body? And transcence does not have such?

"*****Because you are conscious you think – this is distinct from dull matter"

So are you agreeing or disagreeing then that thoughts are transcendent objects?

"****Non-eternal transcendental object is a contradiction – all transcendental things are eternal, otherwise they wouldn’t be distinguished from matter.
How does spirit direct matter? How do control your hands? How do you lift up a table?
How is it impossible for a table to move by itself? How is it impossible for a dead man’s hands to move?"

Here's a question for you: If consciousness is required for movement, why can there be reflexes in dead creatures? I killed a house centipede once, and in the tissue which had scrunched him up, some non-squished parts moved for several seconds before finally stopping. They were completely severed from the rest of the body and most of the body was destroyed. How then could they have continued to move? Similarly, a giant squid's tentacle was recovered from the ocean, and though it was severed, still twitched and moved. Nor does the fact that one can control one's hands and move things require that consciousness be, again, distinct from matter, specificlaly if it is, as I postulate, a relational quality.

Moreover, thoughts are not eternal, and are transcendent. How then can all things which are transcendent be eternal?

"******The definitions of matter do not enable us to fully explain everything that we perceive in this material world – to begin with it doesn’t even enable us to perceive what we are perceiving with"

Only if we presume the mind and body as truly separate and irreconciable.

"*****Still not clear – what is the necesity of existence? What is an example of something that is not caused by will (that doesn’t have a mysterious cause)?"

Truth, for one.

Example: "There are no absolute truths."

Were this true, the statement would be false. If this is false, the statement is false. This then shows the fact that truth must exist, as the opposite of this statement not only does not have it, but were it false, we fall into the problem of the above. In essence, it is "doubly justified".

Existence, as I believe I argue, is also without will, and not with a "mysterious beginning", but one which we can know for certain.

"*****That is a seperation of theory –You can indicate the sunshine and the sun also in the same way - I mean to say where is the example of consciousness that doesn’t have will – the very moment you perceive will is the moment you can perceive consciousness just as the sunshine indicates the sun"

This I shall agree: All wills are present in conscious beings.

"****Even a king applies different “laws” for the jail and normal functioning society – violating one set of laws brings you under the purview of the other"

This is true, but again, God cannot mitigate a law which he himself depends upon. Other, more contingent laws, God could feasibly change.

"****** Illusion – just like you may be under th e impression you are having baked beans for breakfast but at the breakfast table you find toast – the anticipation of baked beans had no effect because it was illusion"

Precisely. Illusion. Now suppose "effect" were impossible as there is no "law of result", would then God not be capable of producing only this absurd notion of a cause without an effect? That is to say, God relies on the law of result in order to even manifest causes?

"******In short the law of the material world relies on force and the laws of the spiritual world rely on choice, much like the distinction between the laws of jail and the laws of society – for instance if you violate laws in the material world you get a result, regardless whether you want the result or not – like if you over eat you get a stomach problem and have to fast for three days"

You are mistaking the subject, then. What I am saying is taht the law of result demands that effect always follows cause, and without it, there is no cause and effect, and therefore God cannot exist without the law of relation. Not that there might be "spiritual laws" which do not hold here.

"******Seems like you are saying that time is eternal, but cannot ascribe eternity to matter – unless you can delineate what exactly it is that is eternal
"

I am indeed proclaiming that time is eternal, but this also necessitates that matter is eternal, because there cannot be a time when matter did not exist, and ontop of that, for space/matter to be infinite, it could also not have a genesis, as one could never reach infinity, but only be infinite. This is also necessitated by its absolute opposition to nothingness. Whereas nothingness has "no space", its opposite, somethingness, has "infinite space".

"*****So if the body making that though is an eternal object it wouldn’t be any other way"

I am not sure what you mean here?

"*****If you see a table made from a tree that came from a seed that came from another tree etc – how can you not ascribe I tto a cause?"

Very simply: If the laws of casuality can be broken once, why not again? It would only have an apparent cause, but as causality does not hold ultimately, there is no reason to suspect that this cause is in fact real, just apparent.

That is to say, one destroys casuality if one postulates causeless things.

"*****But you haven’t even established exactly what is the cause of all causes, so how can you determine what could constitute the original cause and what cannot – once again this is a difficult matter to approach by limited sense perception"

What is the cause of all causes? Why, the universe. That is what one can answer when we simply say "the universe is causeless", as you say of God. What about God makes him anymore "causeless" than this?

"*****Which just leaves us with the mysteries of a causeless universe – not sure what you are saying – obviously we are god yet obviously we are not?"

We are apart of God but not the totality of God, if God exists omnipresently. That is what I am saying. That we are parts in a whole, but cannot be removed from the whole, lest both of us be destroyed.

"*****a further inquiry in to the reality of water would be where did it come from – ie trace the cause of water "

And until we go back and back and back through all the causes of this and that and this and that, we have a mistaken view of the water?

"*****hence the root of illusion is false ego"

So then material things are real, jsut temporal?

"******* I didn’t declare them as wrong – scripture did"

Then scripture is wrong or we are wrong that there is variety in God. Apparently, we are not wrong about variety in God, so thus the scriptures err?

"*******relation does certainly bear a reality but it can also operates under the guise of truth and illusion also – materially what is the difference between a bag of blood and fat and a breast? The only difference is in the mind of the seer – for instance a man visiting a strip bar views breasts in one way and a cancer surgeon views them in another, and a woman views them in another way yet again"

Does this make it illusionary, or simply valued different?

And what is different betwixt a house and a bridge both made of wood? They have different properties in thiese forms, despite being made of the same substance. If they are allowed to have properties emergent from relation, can we not say "breasts" or any other relational identity does, too?

"*****So in otherwords persons who face increasing advancements in the good things of life are haunted by horrible memories?"

Relative to their present circumstances, they are horrible, yes.

"******So what if you came went to measure the man and found that he was slightly taller than the three metres so you went to extend your tape measure but then he grew another length slightly higher – in other words what if you sepnt an eternity trying to draw a tape measure against an eternally increasing person"

The person at any time would still not be infinite, therefore, not an infinite being. He would only be an "infinitely growing person". This is quite different. It is also not a perfection, as each state is superceded by another, which implies the imperfection of the preceding state.

"*****So there is no difference between you and your shirt? If you were drowning it would be sufficient just to pull your shirst from the water?"

The difference rests in the relation of our matter and how my mind is to be found solely in the relations of my brain and such things.

"******I have an idea but I don’t have the practical ability to replicate it – I have an idea how a woman bears a child when pregnant but I cannot do it – if that’s what you feel you must know to understand god, read about it yourself and apply the appropriate epistemology (BTW god doesn’t mention that knowing every aspect of how he moves the universe is the best way to know him – in fact it is indicated that it is a waste of time because of our limited senses versus the gigantic universal maintenance."

The difference here is at least one can go and see a baby in labour. If one does not know how transcendence controls matter, then one cannot say that it does with any more certainty. Also, it does not stand to reason that we cannot learn everything at least which corresponds to the high truths of logic, if we might not be able to learn everything empirical, because there are an infinite things to learn, but in an infinity of time, we can be on the process forever with that, anyway!

"***** I am affirming that it is god’s consciousness that directs matter, and also the living entity too, although we have the added option of free will (inother words god reciprocates with our desires)"

So God directs matter and not the transcendence of the "living entity"? That is to say, that God moves my hand when I want my hand to move, because he listens to my desires? So you agree with Leibniz?

"*****Again – it depends what you are trying to teach by application – if all you want to teach is operation you have taught the correct application by indicating where the trigger is etc – if your aim is something else you require a different application"

Which one is God teaching us? How to use the rifle or how to know how the rifle works?

"******If we couldn’t ignore our free will would be imperfect"

Must our free will be perfect? It is not created by God.

"****The point is that an eraser only erases things that bore a mark – if illusion doesn’t actually bear a mark on the soul, where is the question of erasure? "

A mental mistake is not only an illusion, but a reality. Giving into ignorance states that one has been deceived and thus made a mistake.

"****Therefore there must be problems with application"

Which should not be if the application is from God.

"What I am asking is whether God is both free from ignorance and has a free-will. Does God have both qualities?
***Yes"

Then your thesis that we cannot have both a free will and be free from ignorance is wrong. God can, so we can. It is possible, therefore not impossible for us.

 

[AAF]

lightgigantic: “How could you possibly detect whether I am lying not whether I answered yes or no? Without a foundation of theoretical knowledge all inquiry is just like leaving one dark corridor to enter another…….”.

Re: I didn’t say ‘lying’, because ‘lying’ presupposes the person in question knows the truth; and I'm not sure you do! And only I asked you; how do you know that your God is full of bliss? You have no evidence for such a claim. You don’t even remotely have evidence for His supposed existence, let alone having Him full of bliss! In the absence of such evidence, what looks for you like knowledge is no knowledge at all and baseless.


lightgigantic: “…My apologies - it was a typo - it should read "imagine if the rules for discussing science limited without the reference to text books……”.

Re: I can imagine that; what is so unimaginable about it? In fact, active researchers, most of the time, have no textbooks, no previous works, and literature to answer their specific questions or to guide their steps into unknown areas. That is why theirs is called ‘ORIGINAL research’.


lightgigantic: “…Basically all you are doing is stating what "you think so", you haven't even made an enquiry into the subject you are trying to debunk - it doesn't make for a very credible presentation……”.

Re: What are you trying to say? You want me to turn the clock back to the Year 1500 B.C. or so and look inside the hyperactive imagination of your ancient gurus, in order to discover their reason for their ‘vigraha’ claim and have you convinced of my credible presentation! Is this a reasonable demand to make? I don’t think so!


lightgigantic: “…And you are the one who is not - the only difference is that your statements are backed up by your perception of what constitutes reality and my statements are backed up by those who have reached a consensus after in depth study and application of the subject……”.

Re: Who are those who have made ‘in depth study’ about the ‘vigraha’; your ancient gurus or their parrots? Their studies and their consensus mean nothing, if it is not based on logic and principles of reason. It’s wrong to tag ‘vigraha’ to the transcendent. It was wrong then; it is wrong now; and it is wrong forever.


lightgigantic: “…But that’s the point you are failing to address - you are examining god on a basis of your examination of your own limited existence - if you are not actually god by any stretch of the definition, what is the value of your "close examinations"……..”.

Re: You have to realize that people have made their God transcendent to save Him from the ravages of laws of nature. And your ‘vigraha’ reverses this process and does no good for your Deity. Rules of logic are bad enough for Him; why do you want to add to them laws of nature?


lightgigantic: “…Matter has form - the question is does transcendental things have form too - you cannot answer this question however because it requires a foundation of theoretical knowledge, which you seem to think you are qualified to override……..”.

Re: Does the transcendent Deity have a ‘vigraha’? Your answer is YES! From it I conclude that you have no real theological foundation; and hence it behooves you to do your homework and to improve your theoretical knowledge in the future, if you really want to be a real guru among your people, which I don’t doubt. Very briefly, if this thing (http://vedabase.net/v/vigraha) tags a ‘vigraha’ to your transcendent God, then you should without hesitation hand it over to the garbage collector in your area!


lightgigantic: “…Actually its interesting that you think the form of god is fit for the garbage when the material form we exist in will end up either as bird or worm stool or ashes -………”.

Re: You can have either His ‘vigraha’ or His transcendence, but not both. And matter is matter, and quite simply cannot exist without its infinite number of forms. By the way, does 'BLISS', in your view, have a ‘vigraha’?


lightgigantic: “…I guess if you don't find anything impractical about accepting definitions drawn from what anyone has said about anything there's no real problem…….”.

Re: Does that mean it has a ‘vigraha’? Does LOVE have a ‘vigraha’? Does PLEASURE have a ‘vigraha’? Does PAIN have a ‘vigraha’? Does HAPPINESS have ‘vigraha’? Answer clearly and briefly, not just play around with words and phrases for no real purpose at all! Otherwise, you'll most likely be branded as ‘gullible’, even though you’re quite intelligent, because of your blind trust in the authority of your ancient and somewhat primitive and naive gurus!


lightgigantic: “…All because I don't blindly trust you - you haven't even picked up a book about a "guru" - your philosophy seems to be "I know what I like and I like what I know"………”.

Re: "I know what I like and I like what I know"; I love that! I told you that you’re quite intelligent, even though you blindly believe in the authority of your ancient and somewhat primitive and naive gurus! Can you imagine what would become of you, if you scrap this bogus VEDIC authority and begin to think freely for yourself? A BEACON of light, a real BEACON of light, I predict!


lightgigantic: “…Sounds like you just gave a very accurate definition of contemporary science”.

Re: Thank you, LIGHTGIGANITC; that is very kind of you!

 

[hyperqube]

i love this argument against God. something cannot come from nothing. yet you obviously exists. if nothing is possible, then surely God is possible.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

i love this argument against God. something cannot come from nothing. yet you obviously exists. if nothing is possible, then surely God is possible.

*************
M*W: Everything BUT god is possible.

 

[Prince_James]

Medicine Woman:

What proof do you have for the notion that "God is not possible to exist"? Moreover, to what extent do you believe that everything besides God is possible? Do you suppose that a square-circle (an object that simulteneously holds all aspects of square-hood and circle-hood in the same manner and at the same time) is possible?

 

[hyperqube]

*************
M*W: Everything BUT god is possible.

where is your reasoning behind such a thought?

consciousness is the first cause of creation. does it mean anything to you that God's name is I AM.

mathematically speaking you cannot traverse an infinite series, so God being infinite all things are present(timewise) simultaneously to him.

 

[lightgigantic]

Prince James:

"*****Whats the difference between renting and buying?"

Ah, so you view liberated people as not construing ownership over material things, owing to their temporal nature?

*******This vision of detachment is not possible (at least with 100% surety ) unless one can see the owner, god – the alternative to not perceiving god is that you wind up attached to matter (and suffer accordingly)

"******When a person dies you can understand that what you knew of them has gone even though they may be lyind dead right in front of you – a dead person and a living person are composed of the same material ingredients – also we have the same sense of “I” despite the body undergoing so many changes – literally every second your body undergoes a change yet we can proceed through a hundred years of such changes of bodies and still have the same sense of “I”"

So because their physical body is not the sole aspect of their identity, you suppose we have a higher identity? That is to say, despite the fact that the person you knew is physically infront of one if one is say, at their funeral, they are no longer there in a meaningful sense, thus meaning that consciousness is somehow distinct from the body?

*****Yes - Life is beyond chemistry


"*****Yes, of course you can have subtle desire (fame, intelligence etc) and gross desire (sex) , and also selfish desire (what is good for me) and extended desire (what is good for others) but it is all desire – there is even material desire and spiritual desire, qualified by one’s perception of self "

What about the computation and non-desire based awareness necessary for idle sensory preception? With no desire in mind, simply keeping one's eyes open, and ears alert, to what is around one?

*****The mind (distinct from intelligence) ascribes a value to those perceptions – for instance a piece of bamboo is not focused on by the intelligence because we do not find it tasty to eat but if you had a termites mind you would love it

Moreover, is the process itself linked to desire, or is desire only the impetus? FOr it would seem that mathematical computaiton, for instance, is not rooted in desire, but the result impetus would likely be practical desire to accomplish something.

*****Are you trying to say that there is no impetus for name, fame and adoration amongst mathmeticians and the like for being the best at their science? Or even on a more basic level the feeling of pleasure at solving a complex problem as opposed to the dissapointment of error strongly indicates desire – how can one begin to accomplish something without desire? – one person may drop out of high school mathmatics and another will go on to become a PHD due to the influence of desire

"***** Does identity shift dramatically? In the case of an amnesiac why is it possible for an amnesiac to recover unless there was a superior sense of self? Or how is it possible to have two completely different ideas of self (one while dreaming and one while awake), unless there was recourse to a third superior element?"

Identity may indeed shift dramatically such as in the case of the amnesiac, but usually it does not do so by virtue that the continuum necessitates a great deal of time to pass before any real changes occur, although additions to the list of context-based identities can be dramatic and instantneous, such as the addition of "father" to one's list of identities once one's wife gives birth.

***When a bank teller goes to sleep he may envision himself as the wife of a medieval norweigien tomato farmer – isn’t that a distinct break in the continuum?

Now, as to why the amnesiac can recover, it is very simple: The mind, apparently, can be damaged to the point where memories are lost, but also recovered to the point where those return. This does not necessitate a "third identity" here, merely that the mind can be damaged and recover, just as we do not need a third body to speak of a body being whole, then having an injury, then recovering from said injury. Moreover, with the return of memories one's identity can very dramatically shift, but also it can produce a great problem in reconciling one's new life with the old which was, for a time, non-existent. One becomes then a third new person, but not one which still necessitates a "higher identity".

*****If I delete your memory banks how can you restore them unless you have a back up somewhere? And if you only manage to salvage 75% of your existing files how does this constitute a new body of work completely distinct from the previous body of work?


Similarly, the idea of dream selves usually do not change the sense of self, but rather place the self in odd circumstances. This can be accounted for by the fact that we always presume there is a continuity back to one's last rememberance and do not, generally, presume a dischotomy in the dream world's presentation of reality. But as lucid dreams point out, we can train ourselves to recognize the discrepancies and take control of the dream for a period of time. Moreover, even if we do think we are other people, it is due to circumstances that this generally occurs in the dream, and thus we are not considering our "real life personas". This does not necessitate a third party, either, just a lack of recollection on our part.

****But while you are dreaming it is real – inotherwords you experience real emmotional responses to stimuli, and these experiences are operating out of a perceived sense of real “I” which is completely different from one’s waking “I” – th eonly difference between the waking I and the dreaming I is that the dreaming I does not have to periodically return to occupying the same recptacle, and thus one can break the waking continnum by dreaming a different state of “I” every time

"******There are very good reasons why you don’t have a conscious remembereance of your previous life – the first thing is that we are in a medium of ignorance, characterised by forgetfullness – its very difficult for people to remember what they were doing last week, what to speak of last lifetime. Also a previous life means a previous mind and intelligence as well as body – in otherwords one’s previous incarnation was arrived at due to a desire to exploit material nature in a particular way and this incarnation is different again – in essence what you are saying is right – it doesn’t matter what you used to be but rather what you are now – BTW there are interesting incidents, more so for persons like yourself deeply immersed in empiricism, of people recalling incidents of their past life in ways that there current experience can not grant – like one that comes to mind of an old lady who could suddenly speak french and give detailed information about the people and streets of a medieval village despite never having ventured out of her country – they did research and her statements tallied with heavily archived historical evidence – other incidents are here
http://www.geocities.com/richard_ho...ation/faq.htm#a"

Yes, I am aware of such circumstances. They are very interesting and do deserve looking into both scientifically and otherwise. That being said, it would be very difficult to say "she once was this woman", for there are other ways to explain this.

****At the very least it indicates that she had a conscious existence in that period of history, which confounds the view that this body at this particular time is the all in all for our conscious existence


******you mean you don’t see or hear things in dreams? The point is that the mind is superior to the body because it is more subtle"

No, one must certainly be able to see and hear things in dreams, only that this is not surprising, sinec it is happening in the mind. Do not we think when we are awake and only hear our words in our mind? Not hear them with our ears? This does imply a "superiority and distinctness of consciousness from the body". At no point in our dreams are we truly outside our body.

*****Dreaming is not outside the body but within the mind/intelligence – dreaming bears no relation to the chemistry of our body, or grossly corporeal sense of “i”

"*****But the difference between dreaming and being awake is a break in that continuum if you accept the body as the self"

How? We never leave the body. We only become not aware of it.

*****Not only not aware of the body, but when you are dreaming you become aware of a completely different body (you can be fat/ thin or even an animal) and its not that you are pretending to be something different, like a fancy dress party, while dreaming you operate out of a completely different sense of “i” – isn’t that a break in the continuum of thinking that one’s grossly corporeal self is the “I”?

"**** There is an awareness that we had no awareness in dreamless sleep – another break in the continnum of the body as self, or even the mind as self …"

Actually, there is no awareness that we had no awareness. This awareness is only found after we awaken by external cues, or realize that we are asleep by being shocked into consciousness again. Put a man in a plain, white room, with no possibility of anything being used as a reference for time, and that man could not tell you how long he was asleep, even if he did realize he was asleep at one point, by noticing that he is awakening

****Of course if you are not aware that you are aware you will not be aware of the time because to be aware of the time is to be conscious – if a person could recall the time they were unaware there would be no meaning to deep dreamless sleep as an example of the being aware that one is not aware.

"***** In one instance a person is thinking I am this body (awake) in another they are thinking I am this mind (dreaming) and in another they are aware that they are not aware (dreamless sleep)"

Actually, we never think we are "this body". We only ever think we are "this mind".

*****Then why does an Irishmen get upset upon hearing an Irish joke unless there is a sense of identifying with the body and not just the mind. The same with all designations of body – age, colour, height, weight etc etc

But as to the third instance, we are not aware that we are not aware ever during that time. By virtue of not being aware, we cannot be aware that we are not aware. We cannot even speak of being there, only that our body was there and that it is the same body that we are entering.

*****If we didin’t detect the absence of awareness there would be no break in the continuum – in otherwords you would snap out of dreamless sleep to the immediate second that you were last conscious and would have no way to detect it unless you looked at a clock or someone told you that you had just risen from a long (or short) sleep


"****** I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing – there are martial persons and there are intelligent persons everywhere – there are also mercantile persons and a labouring class as well – all of them are glorified in different ways because they have different duties, like for instance it is sinful for a general to not display violence at the appropriate time and it is sinful for a priest to display violence – they could both be glorified or condemned according to their nature as opposed to the qualities they display – for instance in Bhagavad gita arjuna is condemned because he refuses to fight – and the reason is that he is a kstariya (solider on a battle field), which leads to a discussion on how the four types of people work differently according to different qualities"

Whereas what you say is indeed true of society, I do believe it is only Hinduism which affirms that each caste can have any spiritual laws specifically for them.

*****The laws are not spiritual – there are two types of laws – sva-dharma (laws that pertain to the body) and sanatana dharma (laws that pertain to the spirit self)


But as far as I know, there are also other texts which place as virtues things which do not admit of caste,

***then they would be presentations of sanatana dharma, or things for everyone to follow

but which are to be practiced regardless. Non-violence (ahimsa, if I recall my sanskrit terms) is such, if one wants to achieve moksha.

**** But then if a king walks around like a human punching bag the resulting violence on the persons who have sought his shelter (robbers, plunders etc) would constitute a bit of violence resulting from his so called non violence – resultant action is a complicated thing, -

But even so, many other religions do not admit of any of this stuff, and in fact, some explicitly deny the usefulness of non-violence (most of the pagan religions pretty much glorified violence and gave entire Gods over to soldiers and warriors of all types).

*****There are different religions for different situations – the general principle religion operates on is that the rituals and ceremonies of religion automatically manifest when persons perceive something more wonderous or greater than themselves (for instance it’s not uncommon for sociologists to attribute our attitude to technology as religious”


"******The first principle of surrender to god is to not be sinful, or technically called vikarmic, ie engaged in acts that deliver results unbeneficial to oneself and others. Why one ought to do that is because it is in one’s best interest – there are many places and situations we don’t want to be in and ways how to get there"

And what if one simply does not wish to get out of this? It presumes that the end is universally appreciated, when in fact, it would also mean the destruction of the self. I'd also point out a contradiction in "acting to do things unbeneficial, but for ultimately our benefit", which simply shifts benefit to a later time, rather than destroys it.

*****Let me clarify the explanation – there is sreyas (long term benefit) and preyas (short term benefit) – successful religious principles operate on the principle of sreyas – any fool can detect what is the best for their immediate pleasure (a fools happiness) but long term happiness requuires a bit of foresight and wisdom (even speaking materially) – hence religious principles actually add to material prosperity, even though material prosperity is not the goal of religion (even if it is accepted as such by the less intelligent religious practioners) – and if you don’t want to get out of karma then you spend an eternity suffering the trials and tribulations of material existence until you do.

"*****Unless they say “That is not the fridge, its over there” – inotherwords hearing from authority works when you accept them as an authority and don’t say “Hey I know what a fridge is

*****How do you propose to do this on the platform of direct sense perception in a way that is not completely painful (at least compared to accepting an authoritative piece of information)"

All illusions of sense can be discerned as illusions if we look for the causes. For instance, a person could deduce that it is only an illusion that the tower in the distance moves, by saying, hey, I am getting closer to it, so it must take up a larger part of my vision, that is all. Similarly, if one does not do this, but instead simply listens to an authority, one cannot say for sure, as one is simply accepting, which is as bad as accepting the illusion based wholly on oneself.

***Basically it’s a question whether you believe your sense or authority – the nature of illusionis that it shapes our perception of the cause – how will examining the cause help a person who sees a rope as a snake and stop them running away?

"******* What he is seeing is his lust – just like a person with blue glasses sees everything blue – everything is not actually blue, the glasses are blue – in otherwords vices affect our perception of reality"

Is not the religious man simply seeing everything in terms of religion? Or the pecuniary man seeing everything in terms of money?

*****Then compare god and money and see which has more value


"****** spiritual spark, servant of god etc etc – on a conditioned level though a living entity is endeavouring to fulfill their own agenda – "

Why is this affirmation anymore realistic than "sexual object" or "object which can make me money"? All of these paradigms are consistant and work and are based on presumptions and affirmations before the fact.

***** It smore inclusive terminology - Spiritual spark includes all sub catergories such as sexual object – it doesn’t deny the reality of sex object but it does indicate that the sex object is an ontologically weaker proposition (since the current idea of gender, or even age which determines sexual attraction, is not an eternal quality of the spiritual spark)


"*****Well if you are seeing things as blue and have blue glasses on is it accurate to simply say “everything is blue”"

No, but any pre-value of something demands this.

***Why prevalue? Compare wearing blue glasses with not wearing them

"****Therefore you often find that religious principles have a tendency to be coated in a political agenda, so it requires high discrimination to determine what are actual religious principles"

Even a religious viewpoint outside of a political agenda still is a placing of value before the fact, or as we have spoken of, blue-tinted glasses.

*****Then you are assuming that religion is merely another relative way of seeing and not the means of discerning the nature of the absolute truth – which is also a value – there is no escaping values, only the question of discerning which values are greater and which are lesser according to their correlation to truth

"*****How do you propose that we abandon all values? Even to say “abandon all values” indicates an agenda of values – in other words how do you propose to examine what you are looking with?"

You are correct in pointing out that seeking to abandon all values is to value something which is therefore contradictory to the statement, but perhaps I should have said, "abandon all values which do not allow us to see an unfiltered, bojective truth". That is to say, to adopt a viewpoint that does not colour things with any preconceived notions, but honestly looks for truth without judgement before that truth is found.

*****Therefore there is a focus in religion in being free from lust wrath etc etc which colours perception – before you do thi your seeing is tainted , no matter what your IQ

"***&***The difference between hearing from authority and empricism is that you save useless labour – for instance if a person says “It is cold at the beach” so one person stays home and decides not to go to the beach and the other goes to the beach, discovers it is cold, and comes home, they both arrived at the same benefit – they both understand that it is too cold at the beach – the difference is that the first person didn’t waste his time – now you can counter that by saying “what if the authority has a false perception” – god doesn’t have a false perception, being free from ignorance, and a transparent medium (ie god’s pure representative) works out of the same principle"

Yet even if God is supposed to have a "false perception", we cannot know this without testing it.

***So the testing goes on until you understand that god is infallible – therefore the perfection of religion, surrender to god, is a gradual process, even for a practioner who accepts scripture – its not that one jumps on the liberated platform by declaring “I believe”

In fact, the one time we did not test it, it is feasible that God had a "false perception". And even if God is right, how do we know it is from God?

***Understanding god requires a theoretical foundation – ie ascribing qualities to object is the primary means to discerning the object

And again, though it may "save us time", it does not give us true knowledge, which is basically useless anyway.

****If I told you it was cold at the beach and it was cold at the beach how is it not true – even though you are in Belgium would you give a special ontological status to Belgium over China simply because China was not directly perceivable to you?


"*****So if I say every human is mortal, are you obliged to examine every person on record and in history before you agree with that? In other words because we have limited senses our direct perception and empirical capacity is also limited"

Ultimately, yes. Practically, no.

*****So in other words, No?

I do not suggest that one can be fully philosophic about all empirical statements, and there is a time where we can accept that some statements are truer than others even without full investigation, it is not true knowledge, but something less

****How is it possible when it is linearly impossible for us to do “full investigation” – What are the resources of “fulness” that we have access to to perform a “full investigation” – Actually we never do anything in the name of “full investigation”
.

Unless we can point to something that would make it impossible to be otherwise, we must accept only a pragmatic view of such things.

*****So why say that consciousness is a material phrnomena if the chemical make up of consciousness is not apparent to you?


"*****He can if he goes to buy something with it"

If he goes to buy something with it and the other man is blind, he too can be deceived.

******But if purchasing power is proof of a gold coin it is irrelevant

"******But the example of the blind man is that his seeing is useless – just like our seeing is useless in examining the greater universe or god, until we accept the epistemology for perceiving them – kind of similar to the earlier statement about seeing through lust and the blue glasses"

Yet as I have pointed out, such is just shifting the paradigm, not necessarily coming to greater truth. All paradigms colour perception and warp things, not provide truth.

****Are seeing through anger, lust and envy equal in value to seeing without them?
.

"*****The difference is that money does not include everything – there are many things that money cannot buy – but the moment one comes in contact with god there is no longer any need to seek an exterior object – at least you willnot be forced to seek an exterior object like you will be with money. IN other words satisfaction is the exclusive property of persons who have properly applied religious principles – everything else is just like a monkey jumping from one fruitless tree to another (leaving objects in lamentation and approaching others with hankering)"

It is only when such constancy is valued and not the hankering and lamenting that such appeals to the person. Someone who truly loves money, does not care if the process has fluctuations, and someone who loves God, doesn't care that it does not. In either case, the systems are coherent, and can be used to colour our perceptions utterly.

*****The difference is that there are different values – like a person in ignorance has one type of seeing, a person in passion has another and a personin goodness a third – it is only on the platform of goodness that one can actually see things as they are

"*****Therefore you have different modes of existence – there are certain foods that a pig likes and there are certain foods that you like – is the eating the same? In otherwords despite the happiness that automatically accrues from the senses coming in to contact with the sense objects amongst all living entities there is a gradation of happiness, so you can say that one thing is superior to another. Like for instance would you eat margarine that was made from the fats extracted from human excrement with the same delight as butter? "

No, I would not, for such would likely taste disgusting.
****Actually during the submarine siege of Britain during WW2 this is what the british government did – it wasn’t smelly like stool of course,

That being said, a pig might find it quite delectable, and thus I could not say, in contrast to you, that we can speak of superior and inferior in such a case, only superior and inferior relative to the person.
Moreover, that God is only delightful to some, whereas not delightful to others, also places it alongside an aim such as money and the like.

*****The pig illustrates how a living entity can take delight in ignorance –

"*****the point is that seeing god is dependant upon seeing oneself correctly – if you have a false notion of yourself (I am this body and everything related to it is mine) then you you are not qualified to see god because you are only interested in seeing matter"

We could turn this around and say that when seeing God we have a false perception of ourselves because we are not seeing matter.

****Well where is consciousness in matter? Seeing god innvolves also seeing matter but one does not ascribe superior value (ie consciousness) to it but rather sees it as th e property of god

"*****If you hear from a trusted authority. How else? If a doctor says you have leukemia even though you appear to be in reasonably good health are you going to enroll in medical school just so you can get first hand perception of the reality ?"

For practical reasons, no. But as regarding truth? Yes. An authority which conflicts with reason, or which makes claims that must be accepted under faith in order for them to be right, is not an authority any philosophic person ought to accept, even if it is right, without first evaluating the claims.

***therefore religion without philosophy is as useless as science without a sense of the absolute

"******The point is that the entire material universe is practically infinite for everyone except god"

I disagree. It is not just practically, but -actually- infinite, for anyone, including God. I believe I put forth a basic idea of my argument later, so I'll look for your response to respond to.

*******On what basis do you determine the capacity of the material cosmos and also the capacity of god?


"****** If the result of your looking and thinking has only produced a small fragment of a circle how else is anything else going to be revealed?
Inother words if your senses and mind have limitations how do you propose to overcome those limitations with your senses and mind – the conditioned mind is not an unlimited resource, at least in terms of the universe"

There are ways to find truth mentally that is absolute. For instance, the truths we have discovered about God even in this conversation, such as realizing that the law of result and God must be one in the same, if God is to be at all sensible. Such mental truths are true because of the absurdity of their opposites and the rightness of themselves. This can be found in many other instances, such as the absolute nature of truth, and the universal application of the law of non-contradiction and of identity. Moreover, we can bolster our natural capacities for sensory knowledge in a variety of ways, I.E. telescopes and hearing aids.

*****So therefore it is given that one can understand enough about god to qualify for liberation (ie one can know enough about him to be socialised around his service) but that it is impossible to know him in full. There is a name of god, adhoksaja, which means beyond the purview of the senses – this is due to his unlimited potencies

"******so the proper application is that one applies this thinking process to the nature of god, or at least mystery – the diametrically opposed example is to use the thinking capacity for exploiting the resources of this material world for one’s own aggrandizement – BTW the two largest patronizers of science are the military and drugs (ie money through patents), just to give you an indication of the values that form the undercurrent of the consensus of our thinking elite "

I would say "the truth" not just "God", but yes. The correct application is to seek philosophy from this. And yes, science ruled by the military and the drug companies is science for a pragmatic reason and that is all.

******Why can’t the absolute truth be found in god?

"*****Then you haven’t taught him application – you taught him operation – if the point is to teach him how to fire a rifle you have domne that application – if the point is to teach him how a rifle works you haven’t taught him that by teaching him how to operate it."

And does not God not teach us anything but the application, if we cannot verify those things on our own?
Cannot investigate it to show that it is so?

*****No – not everything is up for our scrutiny and verification – because we have a limited mind and body – there are some tricks that you cannot even teach a new dog (such as how to reverse park a semi trailer only using the rear vision mirrors)

"*****Does fire create heat out of thin air?"

No. It is actually a shift from potential to kinetic energy. Are you saying God then uses the same thing?

*****Yes – all potential energy exists in god

"*****Impossible for him? On what basis do you draw what he can and cannot do?"

Logical reasoning based on the claims of certain attributes.

******And if your logic owes its existence to limited experience and knowledge?

"*****the limitations of god are not even known to god – its not correct to call such lack of knowledge ignorance though, because it never innvolves an illusory sense of self "

If God doesn't know his own limits - which he couldn't have - then how is this -not- ignorance?
Despite not being rooted in an illusory sense of self, it would be a lack of knowledge, I.E. ignorance. Similarly, it would seem impossible for him to not know his own powers of he knows everything.

****It is not degrading – like he never becomes a stool eating pig like a conditioned living entity – his case is just of increasing whereas we have the opportunity for fluctuation according to our attitude to free will – that’s the difference between our free will and gods free will


"*****I guess it depends whether you accept that it is integral that there must be something which does not degrade (regardless whether it is consciousness or not) and if so, does it have form. If it doesn’t have form, how did form develop from something that has no form?"

What foundation do you ahve to suggest to yourself that it is integral that there must be something which doesn't degrade? But also, does not form require a body? And transcence does not have such?

*****If there are eternal elements that means they must not degrade, otherwise they would be temporal. Whether it is true to equate form with matter, or whether spiritual things also have form (form that doesn’t degrade) is precisely the question.

"*****Because you are conscious you think – this is distinct from dull matter"

So are you agreeing or disagreeing then that thoughts are transcendent objects?

*******Thoughts are symptoms of a transcendental source – whether the thoughts are material or transcendental depends on the consciousness (conditioned or unconditioned)


"****Non-eternal transcendental object is a contradiction – all transcendental things are eternal, otherwise they wouldn’t be distinguished from matter.
How does spirit direct matter? How do control your hands? How do you lift up a table?
How is it impossible for a table to move by itself? How is it impossible for a dead man’s hands to move?"

Here's a question for you: If consciousness is required for movement, why can there be reflexes in dead creatures? I killed a house centipede once, and in the tissue which had scrunched him up, some non-squished parts moved for several seconds before finally stopping.
They were completely severed from the rest of the body and most of the body was destroyed. How then could they have continued to move? Similarly, a giant squid's tentacle was recovered from the ocean, and though it was severed, still twitched and moved.
*****When you pull a plug from the fan it spins a few moments even though there is no electricity

Nor does the fact that one can control one's hands and move things require that consciousness be, again, distinct from matter, specificlaly if it is, as I postulate, a relational quality.

*****relational to consciousness because a dead person cannot move, at least no where near to the degree that he can be mistaken for a living one


Moreover, thoughts are not eternal, and are transcendent. How then can all things which are transcendent be eternal?

*****eternity is a quality of something transcendental, just like heat is a quality of fire

"******The definitions of matter do not enable us to fully explain everything that we perceive in this material world – to begin with it doesn’t even enable us to perceive what we are perceiving with"

Only if we presume the mind and body as truly separate and irreconciable.

***** The mind and body are recconciable – there is a distinction between the mind and the soul, namely a distinction of eternity

"*****Still not clear – what is the necesity of existence? What is an example of something that is not caused by will (that doesn’t have a mysterious cause)?"

Truth, for one.

Example: "There are no absolute truths."

Were this true, the statement would be false. If this is false, the statement is false. This then shows the fact that truth must exist, as the opposite of this statement not only does not have it, but were it false, we fall into the problem of the above. In essence, it is "doubly justified".

Existence, as I believe I argue, is also without will, and not with a "mysterious beginning", but one which we can know for certain.

*****Then tell what is the truth about consciousness – truth is necessary for existence but if you have only relative truths you have not approached th e superior onotology of existence


"*****That is a seperation of theory –You can indicate the sunshine and the sun also in the same way - I mean to say where is the example of consciousness that doesn’t have will – the very moment you perceive will is the moment you can perceive consciousness just as the sunshine indicates the sun"

This I shall agree: All wills are present in conscious beings.

*****Is this a change in stance form the previous statement?


"****Even a king applies different “laws” for the jail and normal functioning society – violating one set of laws brings you under the purview of the other"

This is true, but again, God cannot mitigate a law which he himself depends upon. Other, more contingent laws, God could feasibly change.

****God is not dependant on laws, just as the sun is not dependant on the sunshine

"****** Illusion – just like you may be under th e impression you are having baked beans for breakfast but at the breakfast table you find toast – the anticipation of baked beans had no effect because it was illusion"

Precisely. Illusion. Now suppose "effect" were impossible as there is no "law of result", would then God not be capable of producing only this absurd notion of a cause without an effect? That is to say, God relies on the law of result in order to even manifest causes?

*****This is why god is both eternal and the cause of all causes and we are merely eternal – an eternal fire produces eternal heat
.

"******Seems like you are saying that time is eternal, but cannot ascribe eternity to matter – unless you can delineate what exactly it is that is eternal
"

I am indeed proclaiming that time is eternal, but this also necessitates that matter is eternal, because there cannot be a time when matter did not exist, and ontop of that, for space/matter to be infinite, it could also not have a genesis, as one could never reach infinity, but only be infinite. This is also necessitated by its absolute opposition to nothingness. Whereas nothingness has "no space", its opposite, somethingness, has "infinite space".

***And that something is god, at the very least you can not define the non-degrading elements of matter that would make it eternal


"*****If you see a table made from a tree that came from a seed that came from another tree etc – how can you not ascribe I tto a cause?"

Very simply: If the laws of casuality can be broken once, why not again? It would only have an apparent cause, but as causality does not hold ultimately, there is no reason to suspect that this cause is in fact real, just apparent.

*****So are you saying that if you see a sportscar cruise down the street you think it was designed by the ferrari company or it just happened due to a freak in the laws of cause without an intelligent designer? Cause can be broken by the appropriate level of intelligence – god’s intelligence is greater than ours


That is to say, one destroys casuality if one postulates causeless things.

****Unless there is a unique quality of the causelessthing that cannot be replicated by any of the effects

"*****But you haven’t even established exactly what is the cause of all causes, so how can you determine what could constitute the original cause and what cannot – once again this is a difficult matter to approach by limited sense perception"

What is the cause of all causes? Why, the universe.

****How do you know that the universe doesn’t have a cause?


That is what one can answer when we simply say "the universe is causeless", as you say of God. What about God makes him anymore "causeless" than this?

****Saying the causeless quality of the universe is bereft of consciousness (ie impersonal) doesn’t explain the phenomena of consciousness -

"*****Which just leaves us with the mysteries of a causeless universe – not sure what you are saying – obviously we are god yet obviously we are not?"

We are apart of God but not the totality of God, if God exists omnipresently. That is what I am saying. That we are parts in a whole, but cannot be removed from the whole, lest both of us be destroyed.

*****Where would you go to be removed from god?

"*****a further inquiry in to the reality of water would be where did it come from – ie trace the cause of water "

And until we go back and back and back through all the causes of this and that and this and that, we have a mistaken view of the water?

****perhaps – if you don’t know what is the cause of water you can experience difficulty in its absence


"*****hence the root of illusion is false ego"

So then material things are real, jsut temporal?

***** yes

"*******relation does certainly bear a reality but it can also operates under the guise of truth and illusion also – materially what is the difference between a bag of blood and fat and a breast? The only difference is in the mind of the seer – for instance a man visiting a strip bar views breasts in one way and a cancer surgeon views them in another, and a woman views them in another way yet again"

Does this make it illusionary, or simply valued different?

****** All of the perceprions are illusory, since it is only by the existence of a soul within the material body that the breast has any value – who is interested in a dead woman’s breast?


And what is different betwixt a house and a bridge both made of wood? They have different properties in thiese forms, despite being made of the same substance. If they are allowed to have properties emergent from relation, can we not say "breasts" or any other relational identity does, too?

*****Without trees (also consciousness) wooden bridges or houses do not exist

"*****So in otherwords persons who face increasing advancements in the good things of life are haunted by horrible memories?"

Relative to their present circumstances, they are horrible, yes.

******Then why bother endeavouring for a once in a lifetime experience since you are obviously just setting yourself up for a horrible experience? If this is really your view think most others would disagree


"******So what if you came went to measure the man and found that he was slightly taller than the three metres so you went to extend your tape measure but then he grew another length slightly higher – in other words what if you sepnt an eternity trying to draw a tape measure against an eternally increasing person"

The person at any time would still not be infinite, therefore, not an infinite being. He would only be an "infinitely growing person". This is quite different. It is also not a perfection, as each state is superceded by another, which implies the imperfection of the preceding state.

*****the difference between god’s form and that of the growing man is that the rope would continually be two inches short, no matter how many pieces of rope you tied to it – in other words he is the form of omnipotency – BTW there’s a whole chapter in the gita (titled the universal form) that goes on all about this

"*****So there is no difference between you and your shirt? If you were drowning it would be sufficient just to pull your shirst from the water?"

The difference rests in the relation of our matter and how my mind is to be found solely in the relations of my brain and such things.

****So there is a difference between you and your shirt, namely consciousness


"******I have an idea but I don’t have the practical ability to replicate it – I have an idea how a woman bears a child when pregnant but I cannot do it – if that’s what you feel you must know to understand god, read about it yourself and apply the appropriate epistemology (BTW god doesn’t mention that knowing every aspect of how he moves the universe is the best way to know him – in fact it is indicated that it is a waste of time because of our limited senses versus the gigantic universal maintenance."

The difference here is at least one can go and see a baby in labour.

****I have never seen a woman in labour but I still have an understanding

If one does not know how transcendence controls matter, then one cannot say that it does with any more certainty. Also, it does not stand to reason that we cannot learn everything at least which corresponds to the high truths of logic, if we might not be able to learn everything empirical, because there are an infinite things to learn, but in an infinity of time, we can be on the process forever with that, anyway!

******The reason one can never know exactly how god moves matter is because that is a quality that distinguishes god from the living entity – you can know enough to trace the source but as far establishing yourself as “god” by being able to observe and replicate god’s potencies it will never work, just as endeavouring to be your own father is not constituitionally possible


"***** I am affirming that it is god’s consciousness that directs matter, and also the living entity too, although we have the added option of free will (inother words god reciprocates with our desires)"

So God directs matter and not the transcendence of the "living entity"? That is to say, that God moves my hand when I want my hand to move, because he listens to my desires? So you agree with Leibniz?

*****The above statement is mostly true, except that there is also the transcendence of our own existence in the equation – because god is assisting us in control of matter we have the illusion of potency in this world

"*****Again – it depends what you are trying to teach by application – if all you want to teach is operation you have taught the correct application by indicating where the trigger is etc – if your aim is something else you require a different application"

Which one is God teaching us? How to use the rifle or how to know how the rifle works?

******lol – he’s not teaching rifle manufacture


"******If we couldn’t ignore our free will would be imperfect"

Must our free will be perfect? It is not created by God

*****It emanated from god, just like heat emmanates from fire – god is eternal and we are eternal but god is the cause of all causes and we are not
.

"****The point is that an eraser only erases things that bore a mark – if illusion doesn’t actually bear a mark on the soul, where is the question of erasure? "

A mental mistake is not only an illusion, but a reality. Giving into ignorance states that one has been deceived and thus made a mistake.

*****Does a rope bite a person if they think it is a snake?


"****Therefore there must be problems with application"

Which should not be if the application is from God.

*****You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink – application requires the appropriate attitude to free will


"What I am asking is whether God is both free from ignorance and has a free-will. Does God have both qualities?
***Yes"

Then your thesis that we cannot have both a free will and be free from ignorance is wrong. God can, so we can. It is possible, therefore not impossible for us.

***But I never said what was possible for god is possible for the jiva (living entity)