Timeless existence

[lifegazer]

Lifegazer,

Ok, in an effort to cut the cheese (maybe I didn't say that very well), my own interest pertains to perspectives on soul.

What are your base beliefs? It will benefit future discussions if I know what you are... be it an atheist, agnostic, christian, hippy, or lucifer himself.
I'm curious as to why you - who I intuitively assumed (shame on me for assuming anything) to be an atheist - would have an interest in the 'soul'. Do you acknowledge the existence of life apart from the matter it is housed within?
I'm genuinely interested and will not condemn you for your base beliefs. However, perhaps I will force you to question them. Scared?

Do you take your understandings of the soul from the religious thoughts of others or is there a scientific, common man, and simple explanation.

I hope this cheeses you back on. It's 'food' for thought.

I wish you'd ask me straight-forward questions. Your post gave me a headache, trying to figure out the precise meanings within it.

Let me tell you a few things about my philosophy which may - or which may not - answer your questions about the "soul" of existence...

I reason that God is existence. God is not form. God is without form or body. God is without volume or position. God is without solidity.
Hence, I can only relate the existence of God to spirit.
As humans, we have been duped into thinking that existence has extension and position. But it doesn't. Even quantum-mechanics tells us this.
Existence is without definite position and extension. Indeed, particles exist as their whole potential until observed. A single electron, for example, will affect receptors on two paths until an observer takes a gander (observes).

No thing exists as a definite entity in space and time. And certainly not God itself, the essence of those things.

God is existence but has no body. God has soul or spirit. God cannot be embraced with a hug. But God can be embraced by love and realisation. Only [intangible] feelings and thoughts can embrace the reality of [the intangible] God.

What of "us" then? Who are we?
I have told you already. We are God, lost within the dream, as ordained. God loses absolute self-awareness and voluntarily throws itself into relative self-awareness.

"We" do not exist. Yet "I" do.
In other words, we are God, lost to itself within a dream of the world.

When Jesus said that "I and the father are one", he was really saying that only God exists.

 

[uruk]

"Processes" seen within perception do not count to refute a philosophy which recants process as a reality. Does it?

Translation: It is so because I say it is so.

Sorry does'nt cut it around here.

There is proceses involved in god's imagining this existance. It Does not matter wether this existance is real or not, god is imagining it. Therefore god is "doing" something:"doing" something means there is change in god.


You just said a few post back:

Now, if you want to ask me how God creates a whole realm of imaginary things within a singularity of awareness, then I won't be able to answer. Only God itself (not lifegazer) can answer that.

Translation: I don't know how god can change without changing.

Looks like dogma, smells like dogma, tastes like dogma. Must be dogma

 

[Atlas]

What are your base beliefs? It will benefit future discussions if I know what you are... be it an atheist, agnostic, christian, hippy, or lucifer himself.

I am myself. Half God, Half Man, Half Wit.

I'm curious as to why you - who I intuitively assumed (shame on me for assuming anything) to be an atheist - would have an interest in the 'soul'. Do you acknowledge the existence of life apart from the matter it is housed within?

I acknowledge -- in the skeptic's sense of that word.

I'm genuinely interested and will not condemn you for your base beliefs. However, perhaps I will force you to question them. Scared?

On my last night as a Christian, I swore I could hear demons laughing. I was scared then. If you're not one of them, I can probably handle the fear of introspection.

Your post gave me a headache, trying to figure out the precise meanings within it.

Originally posted by Fillipo Lippi
Where's that irony meter?

Here is what I can tell you lifegazer. I have the soul of a poet, I just don't have the skill. I could be an atheist, if only I would try harder. For me, true objective reality is a bleak airless moonscape. I breathe life into it by exerting my power of subjective reality.

Originally posted by Me - Atlas
This perspective on soul I call, Transcendent Soul. It arises out our awareness of objective reality through a process of: appreciation. It takes in the sunsets and the night sky and expresses itself in the poetry, art, and all the great works of man. It is unquestionably real in it's feelings and it's acts. It contemplates the universe and it's own place therein in self referential celebration. It is the child of human language and feelings and the father of science, philosophy, art and religion.

Where I breathe life into objective reality, you take out it's substance. For you it is an essentially illusion. The mystics agree that it is an illusion. And, in a way, I can agree as well. Since I cannot remove all aspects of my own subjective apprehension of objective reality, what I do experience is a delusion of it. I try to make it a good one. And science both grounds and lofts my delusion.

My appreciation of reality still allows me many precious feelings. Those feelings of Oneness, awe and wonder at it all. I do not run from these feelings. I do not think true atheists linger on them as I do. But I call them what they are: Feelings. It is feelings, more than thought, that get us through our day. They are the truer texture. Rational thought is dry. Yes it is also wonderful, but when you have an elevating insight, it's because you feel elevated. The thought was the mechanism to provide the feeling. So for delight, you return. I often try through spoken and written words to elicit the feelings of loftiness. That is why you catch me playing with words, their power to elicit all kinds of feelings, besides the ideas they represent.

I'll quit now because it's no fun talking about the lofty without reaching it.

I probably needed a cheesy joke or something.

Hey, if you decide whether "We are God" means we have soul or we are souls, or whatever... - let me know.

 

[lifegazer]

Sorry does'nt cut it around here.

Apparently, the only thing which will "cut it around here" - as far as God is concerned - is a miracle. How ironic, considering we are trying to decipher existence using sober rationale alone.

There is proceses involved in god's imagining this existance.

Not physical processes. Remember that physical (relative) reality is an effect of this God. Not its cause.

It Does not matter wether this existance is real or not, god is imagining it. Therefore god is "doing" something:"doing" something means there is change in god.

There is a change in what God is doing. There is not a change in what God is. You've failed to note this fatal flaw in your reasoning.
What God is doing does not alter God's actual essence.

It's like saying, for example, that you are the same entity whether you are in the kitchen or the bedroom. You might do different things in different rooms, but you are still you. Not quite a perfect analogy, but sufficient to show that God's identity is not bound up in what God actually does, but in what God is as a whole, potentially.

Translation: I don't know how god can change without changing.

Incorrect. Actual translation: I don't know how God creates specific sensations upon its own awareness. I just know that God does. The awareness of abstract sensation, by an entity, must be self-imposed by default. The universe knows nothing of abstract experience, least of all how to impose it upon specific objects.

Looks like dogma, smells like dogma, tastes like dogma. Must be dogma

Materialism is the biggest enemy of mankind in the 21st century.
It's the biggest dogma of our time. In the West, anyway.

 

[lifegazer]

I am myself. Half God, Half Man, Half Wit.

Never do things by half.

I acknowledge -- in the skeptic's sense of that word.

Then I embrace you as a true seeker or even as a true skeptic. So many of these people here are just anti-God but won't openly admit it.

On my last night as a Christian, I swore I could hear demons laughing. I was scared then. If you're not one of them, I can probably handle the fear of introspection.

I despair for religious people. The fanatical sort. They do not have minds of their own. I know, however, that you do. There's hope for you, whatever the truth may be.

Here is what I can tell you lifegazer. I have the soul of a poet,

I know that.

I just don't have the skill.

You had enough skill to convince me otherwise.

I do not think true atheists linger on them as I do. But I call them what they are: Feelings. It is feelings, more than thought, that get us through our day. They are the truer texture. Rational thought is dry. Yes it is also wonderful, but when you have an elevating insight, it's because you feel elevated.

Study Hitler. You don't even need to understand German. Just watch him. Watch his passion. Watch his expression. Watch his tone. The man was a genius. The only thing lacking was a credible philosophy behind his feelings.
Feelings are worthless without sound reason. Indeed, feelings without sound reason are fatal.

I'll quit now because it's no fun talking about the lofty without reaching it.

Several people have reached the peak of expressing lofty feeling.
To do that without dry reason is either fatal or meaningless.

Hey, if you decide whether "We are God" means we have soul or we are souls, or whatever... - let me know.

God is intangible spirit and God is all that exists = 'we' have a soul/spirit (since we are God).

 

[Atlas]

Study Hitler. You don't even need to understand German. Just watch him. Watch his passion. Watch his expression. Watch his tone. The man was a genius. The only thing lacking was a credible philosophy behind his feelings.

Yow! While this man could evoke feelings, it wasn't by his words so much as his own emotion and forceful histrionics. To say "The only thing lacking was a credible philosophy behind his feelings", misses his depravity and the contempt he had for humanity. You meant something else than credible. Perhaps you meant: moral and ethical.

Feelings are worthless without sound reason. Indeed, feelings without sound reason are fatal.

You miss Love and Art. I would say without feeling the human race and most animal species would die off.

Several people have reached the peak of expressing lofty feeling. To do that without dry reason is either fatal or meaningless.

Filippo Lippi was giving you a hard time earlier. Have you ever seen a painting by the real Filippo Lippi or a Botticelli? Check out the Renaissance. While you are there look at Michaelangelo too. There is nothing meaningless in the expression of lofty feeling. Greig, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - meaningless?

The Church employed some dry reason to come up with Transubstantiation. It's philosophical magic changed the bread and wine into the real body and blood of Christ. Aquinas reached back Aristotle for his argument on how God becomes the substance without changing the form of the bread and wine. It was an intellectual masterpiece. Not exactly meaninglessness, but most likely untrue.

Pythagoras was a Greek in opposition to the Platonic school. He knew there were more valuable things to be learned from Nature than in postulating the grand idea from which all else could be deduced. His rightful heirs are Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. These were men of reason - but they were inspired, and what's more they did the hard work necessary to craft their ideas with proof and further testable hypotheses.

Your ideas come from personal insights that seem true to you. No doubt they have been accompanied by feelings of truth. But you are playing at being Aquinas here - finding God in a piece of bread. Ultimately your ultimate reality will collapse because it offers nothing but a repainting of the theoretical theistic canvas. It is church stuff, reclaiming the same one God but this time bigger and righter than anyone ever thought of before.

For over a thousand years the church revealed a God from which all could be deduced. The world it deduced was much darker than the light it claimed. Don't make the same mistake. Start with the world around you. Use inductive reasoning. It builds on prior knowledge forming ever larger generalizations on proofs. It made the world brighter with electricity and medicine. You will too if your ideas prove out and have real world significance. Calling it all an illusion and just leaving it there without any moral, ethical or guiding life strategy is not helping.

If I suddenly seemed harsher here take some advice. Don't tell anyone to study Hitler. It undermines your message and will almost always offend the sensibilities of your reader.

 

[uruk]

There is a change in what God is doing

But if god is "doing" something then god experiances time.
You were the one equating time with change.
I can't help it if you can't keep track of your definitions

 

[RussDill]

Insults? You've gotten off lightly George. Think of it more as another plea to up the quality of your responses. Get off that slope before you hit rock bottom.

I'm frightenend now...what if lifegazer gashes out and says I'm brainwashed, *and* I can't spell? I don't know how I would look at myself in the mirror.

Talk reason. Use it to support what you say. And say relevant things only.

Imagination is a process that a mind engages in. Physical/non-physical, doen't matter, it is still something the mind engages in. Otherwise, you would not need a mind for your reality, and an "imagined" (by your definition) universe would exist all on its own.

 

[lifegazer]

Yow! While this man could evoke feelings, it wasn't by his words so much as his own emotion and forceful histrionics. To say "The only thing lacking was a credible philosophy behind his feelings", misses his depravity and the contempt he had for humanity. You meant something else than credible. Perhaps you meant: moral and ethical.

Of course. I was merely pointing out that an unsound philosophy, passionately embraced and acted upon, is a dangerous thing. The emotions must be serfs to reason. Yet so many of us allow our reason become slave to our emotions.

You miss Love and Art. I would say without feeling the human race and most animal species would die off.

Filippo Lippi was giving you a hard time earlier. Have you ever seen a painting by the real Filippo Lippi or a Botticelli? Check out the Renaissance. While you are there look at Michaelangelo too. There is nothing meaningless in the expression of lofty feeling. Greig, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - meaningless?

Art is wonderful. The point here though, is that philosophy has to keep emotion at arm's length lest she take control of our reason.
This is imperative.

Calling it all an illusion and just leaving it there without any moral, ethical or guiding life strategy is not helping.

I agree. But what's the point in discussing such things with people who cannot accept the "dry reason" of God's solitary existence? Who would I be talking to?

If I suddenly seemed harsher here take some advice. Don't tell anyone to study Hitler. It undermines your message and will almost always offend the sensibilities of your reader.

Hitler is an example of what a man can be when reason serves the emotions (of hatred and greed in Hitler's case). I used him to show you that reason is the greater part of man's soul.

 

[lifegazer]

But if god is "doing" something then god experiances time.
You were the one equating time with change.
I can't help it if you can't keep track of your definitions

God never changes. Whatever thoughts God has do not change God. God is a being without form, position, or motion. How could such a being change?

 

[wraith]

Time exists only when it is being perceived by consciousness. Consciousness can only perceive Time if it can perceive change. So Time = Change. Hence, if there was no consciousness, then there is no Time and no change.

Yet, without Time and awareness, there still had to be "something". Can absolute nothingness be even imagined?
Existence has to be boundless would it not? There can't be an existence surrounded by absolute nothingness. At least, I can't imagine such a scenario.

I agree that the mind doesn't change but the contents within the mind does (Maximum perceived benefit). If this wasn't the case, then patterns in our behaviour couldn't arise. eg stopping at a red light.

However, the thing that I have a problem with is that of the nature of God. If we as a human race are the one god, then conformity is where we're heading. Having sex with your girl is equivalent to jerking off or rooting yourself.

All I can say is ◊◊◊◊ THAT!

 

[Tricky]

God never changes. Whatever thoughts God has do not change God. God is a being without form, position, or motion. How could such a being change?

No form, position or motion? That sounds remarkably like the description of non-existence. What does God have? How does it work without form, position or motion? How do you know?

 

[Wudang]

Editted - never mind, misread.

 

[lifegazer]

No form, position or motion? That sounds remarkably like the description of non-existence. What does God have? How does it work without form, position or motion? How do you know?

I've reasoned that God is existence - indivisibly singular and boundless, therefore existing at singularity, without beginning or end = no position and no form = no (real) motion possible.

Distance doesn't exist. Neither does time. Yet existence does.
Welcome to the realm of the spirit that is God.

 

[Upchurch]

I've reasoned that God is existence

I'd just like to reiterate that reason alone does not determine truth.

 

[Atlas]

I'd just like to reiterate that reason alone does not determine truth.

I'd just like to reiterate that reason alone does not determine truth.

I'd just like to reiterate that reason alone does not determine truth.

In a much earlier post you alerted us to the fact that multiple iterations help to determine truth in certain threads. I think thats worth mentioning again.

I think thats worth mentioning again.

Does it feel like it's working?

 

[lifegazer]

I'd just like to reiterate that reason alone does not determine truth.

What sort of a comment is this?

 

[Atlas]

God is intangible spirit and God is all that exists = 'we' have a soul/spirit (since we are God).

Obviously the apparent world exists in the sea of time. That's why we change.

But the soul, isn't that more like God in it's intangibility? Does it operate as an unchanging aspect of ourselves uniting us to our unchanging ultimate reality and giving us insight into it?

Or does it acquire karma, sin, grace or experience through time? And if so, is it equivalent to the living body or self destined for the grave, which is but another illusion for we never were really alive? And since life is but an illusion of the unchanging reality are we, in the larger sense, even having this conversation? And if not, why do you carry on? What is to be gained? What have you gained so far? Am I asking too many questions - what's the limit in one post?

I'm still interested in this side of your story.

 

[Atlas]

I've reasoned that God is existence

Response posted by Upchurch
I'd just like to reiterate that reason alone does not determine truth.

Re Response posted by lifegazer
What sort of a comment is this?

I'd call it a clue.

 

[uruk]

I've reasoned that God is existence - indivisibly singular and boundless, therefore existing at singularity, without beginning or end = no position and no form = no (real) motion possible.

I agree with tricky, this sounds like a discriptin of non-existance.
Thanks Lifegazer for proving that god does not exist.