But, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ...'
If God is so 'little' aa to know me 'specifically' then it follows that he is big enough to know everything and everyone that has ever existed or will exist.
I'm not laying exclusive claim to the attention of the Deity.
Where does all this 'dualist' either/or stuff come from?
ISTM that our human suits come with a more or less standard issue "information broadcast and reception" capability. There are custom type suits that come with chromosomal, endocrinological, neurological and physiological modulators but in general - in general - most of us are wired to send and receive information on a narrow bandwidth that is only perceptible by one or all of our senses.
Our bodies aren't just something we wear. They are us I'd suggest just as our 'spirits' or 'souls' are, if we can use that traditional language.
…
Our Lord Jesus Christ didn't wear a meat suit for 33 years then discard it. There is a man in heaven.
…
Matter matters.
If we believe in 'the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come' then it involves a glorified body.
I'm pretty much with A Feminine Force on this. Our bodies are vehicles, they are not "us" in the same way as our spirit or soul (which is kind of what those two words suggest). The question of whether our glorified bodies bear any resemblance (or substance) with our earthly bodies always struck me as being primarily of theological interest, and wasn't something in which I ever felt very invested.
What if mysticism is simply a matter of being able to "tune" to some of these frequencies outside the bandwidths that our earth suits are set by default within?
yes, in terms of mysticism, I agree absolutely - it is part of the same universe as connection with a reality which is inherent in the observable, without itself being observable.
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
If I've got the idea correctly, then the claim would be that if God existed God would not be God.
Think of the various D&D pantheons: within the game, they exist. But they are just characters in the game, they do not transcend the game.
Or, in Wittgenstein's terms, "If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him."
Eh? I'd have thought that a God who ceased to exist if I didn’t believe in him would be less of a God, myself.
I don't know with what intent Garasu is making those arguments.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
... Our bodies are vehicles, they are not "us" in the same way as our spirit or soul (which is kind of what those two words suggest).
Thank you for this. As one who has attended the deaths of three of her closest loved ones, I can emphatically say that once they are gone, they are gone. Once the animating consciousness, energy or principle (call it what you will) has ceased its activity in the body, what remains is most definitely not them. There is no confusing them with, say, a sleeping version of themselves. They are simply not present in the body.
The question of whether our glorified bodies bear any resemblance (or substance) with our earthly bodies always struck me as being primarily of theological interest, and wasn't something in which I ever felt very invested.
Me neither. As fearfully, intelligently and as wonderfully as we are made, there are still "glitches in the code" so to speak. I do believe that we are active participants in the biological testing and upgrading of the human suit and in this sense we are agents of Grace. God has eternity, and I believe we do as well, and so it's not a matter of any real interest or urgency for me.
What if mysticism is simply a matter of being able to "tune" to some of these frequencies outside the bandwidths that our earth suits are set by default within?
yes, in terms of mysticism, I agree absolutely - it is part of the same universe as connection with a reality which is inherent in the observable, without itself being observable.
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
What if it's both?
Like one station on the dial closer in to the standard communication frequencies of long-, short- and micro-waves is better suited to a kind of peer-to-peer bioresonant communication (thinking of stories of people in the wilderness who believe they are alone on a trail but can "sense" another human following them), and other stations further out on the dial, harder to access, are more suited to transmission of full-on sensory experiences of the unitive and transformative type?
This reminds me of someone I used to know who said he could pick up radio stations on his false leg. My dad had a hearing aid which could pick up conversations from the neighbours on their cordless phone (in the days before mobile phones).
This reminds me of someone I used to know who said he could pick up radio stations on his false leg. My dad had a hearing aid which could pick up conversations from the neighbours on their cordless phone (in the days before mobile phones).
As dismissive as this kind of observation might sound, I believe the mechanics of these types of experience, just because they are not well understood by us, are still grounded in reality.
I follow some Youtubers who use ayahuasca and yopo and mimosa, and such plant alkaloids that lower the blood/brain barrier to our endogenously manufactured dimethyltriptamine (DMT). ISTM that a chemical like this has the ability to crank the dial "to eleven" as it were. And some of these people spend an entire year trying to dial back to default.
Unlike them, though, every experience that has imposed itself upon me (I have never gone looking for these moments) has happened spontaneously and entirely outside any kind of chemical intervention.
Believe me, it's much easier to integrate this stuff if you can just explain it away with "I was drunk/high/asleep/on pain meds" than if you are having to spend weeks months and even years testing and retesting your experience against accumulated and validated information in order to properly fit it into a coherent narrative or overall picture of how reality functions.
Whatever mysticism ends up being, it's neither fun nor easy once the event has concluded.
I'm not an atheist. There may be some deity or creator or something. I don't know.
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
This is a line of thought that was refuted in the nineteen fifties at the latest.
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I'm not an atheist. There may be some deity or creator or something. I don't know.
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
This is a line of thought that was refuted in the nineteen fifties at the latest.
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I am with Gamma Gamaliel on bodies, but our bodies do not just have the three dimensions we are used to but have the fourth dimension of time as well and this our concious mind has limited access to. If we have eternal life it requires movement outside those dimensions. I do not know how this makes sense, but it is life but not as we know it at present.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
"I suppose if you can state it then it must be true" right back at you.
I'm prepared to show my position is coherent using mathematics (set theory). Can you do the same? For example, how many magnitudes is "many"? An eye is an order of magnitude smaller than a face - can anything take in an eye and a face simultaneously? Presumably something a bit more sophisticated can take in two orders of magnitude? So where is the logical limit?
Ah, but if you know you're right you can just dismiss these questions as fantastic out of hand?
(Note: something that could be mistaken for your opinion, and which is true, is that anything capable of completely understanding any finite space-time continuum cannot be part of that space-time continuum.)
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I don't know about that. Dude named Benoit Mendelbrot might have had something to say about that.
But, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ...'
If God is so 'little' aa to know me 'specifically' then it follows that he is big enough to know everything and everyone that has ever existed or will exist.
I'm not laying exclusive claim to the attention of the Deity.
Where does all this 'dualist' either/or stuff come from?
I'm not an atheist. There may be some deity or creator or something. I don't know.
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
This is a line of thought that was refuted in the nineteen fifties at the latest.
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I don't know with what intent Garasu is making those arguments.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
The point that I think I was making is that God is not a being amongst other beings, even one greater than which cannot be imagined. Similarly, God's will is not something I have to factor in to my life in the way that I need to take account of my boyfriend's (boss's, king's...) wishes. Which, in one sense, is how God exists but is al!so the way in which God exists.
If that makes sense?
I may have just confused myself! It's easily done.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
The point that I think I was making is that God is not a being amongst other beings, even one greater than which cannot be imagined. Similarly, God's will is not something I have to factor in to my life in the way that I need to take account of my boyfriend's (boss's, king's...) wishes. Which, in one sense, is how God exists but is al!so the way in which God exists.
If that makes sense?
I think I would agree with what you're saying; but I think negative theology on its own needs some sort of positive payoff. As it stands it rather invites the question of what way God's will does factor into our lives.
I think one can spell it out, with reference the doctrines of creation and God as the good, but it might take longer than a convenient post on a discussion board.
@A Feminine Force and @Pease, I've seen my Dad's my Mum's my Gran's, my late wife's and my mother-in-law's dead bodies.
Sure, their dead bodies didn't look like them but you could tell that it had been them.
Does it come down to our 'experience' though or the witness of scripture and tradition / Tradition which does teach the resurrection of the body rather than disembodied spirits or reincarnation. Sorry @Feminine Force.
I don’t know how that works but it's what we find in scripture and the witness of the Church down the centuries.
@A Feminine Force and @Pease, I've seen my Dad's my Mum's my Gran's, my late wife's and my mother-in-law's dead bodies.
Sure, their dead bodies didn't look like them but you could tell that it had been them.
Does it come down to our 'experience' though or the witness of scripture and tradition / Tradition which does teach the resurrection of the body rather than disembodied spirits or reincarnation. Sorry @Feminine Force.
I don’t know how that works but it's what we find in scripture and the witness of the Church down the centuries.
@A Feminine Force and @Pease, I've seen my Dad's my Mum's my Gran's, my late wife's and my mother-in-law's dead bodies.
Sure, their dead bodies didn't look like them but you could tell that it had been them.
Does it come down to our 'experience' though or the witness of scripture and tradition / Tradition which does teach the resurrection of the body rather than disembodied spirits or reincarnation. Sorry @Feminine Force.
I don’t know how that works but it's what we find in scripture and the witness of the Church down the centuries.
I'll go with that.
I don't know what it comes down to. I take the authority of my life as it reveals itself to me through experience over someone else's thoughts or experience, traditional, scripture or anecdote. If I am to regard my life as a sacred gift from God then I have to put my faith in that first.
I would expect you to do no less.
Having said that, I love and respect your life as it is revealed to you, and we don't have to agree or have the same thoughts and experiences in order to do as Christ commands us.
It's OK with me if you think I am wrong or all balled up or crazy or dangerous or destined for perdition. I feel pretty certain you won't tie me to a stake and barbecue me. This forum is a do over for me of one of those nasty experiences and I would say it's been going great for a couple of decades so far and I thank you from my heart for that.
I understood the aim of evangelism not to be convincing people of the truth of the claims, but to be getting people to believe the claims. Or, in more evangelical(?) parlance, to believe *on* them.
Could you describe to me the difference between "believing the claims" and being "convinc(ed) of the truth of the claims" - to me they're two ways of saying exactly the same thing.
As I recall, previous discussions we've had addressing belief, truth and knowledge haven't resolved anything. They've tended to go the same way as your exchanges with ThunderBunk.
Doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. I'm only interested in religious claims that are objectively true - and therefore, at least in principle, amenable to external evidence.
In other words, I want a God who exists even if I'm an atheist. It's just the way my mind works.
In the past, I think I suggested that this wouldn't change just by considering different arguments. So here's a different argument to consider:
Believing the claims about God and Jesus is something a person would organise their life around (ie becoming a believer). Being convinced of the truth of the claims leads to gaining knowledge about the claims - whether this knowledge has any further, profound, effect on your life is a different question. I suggest that it's possible for a person to have knowledge of the truth of these claims and it to have no significant effect on their life. (Or consider the idea that the Devil knows that the claims about God and Jesus are true.)
It also strikes me that "I want a God who exists even if I'm an atheist" sounds like you want to be convinced of the truth that God exists, even if you don't believe in God, which to me implies that being convinced of the truth about God, and believing in God, are not the same thing.
What if mysticism is simply a matter of being able to "tune" to some of these frequencies outside the bandwidths that our earth suits are set by default within?
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
What if it's both?
Like one station on the dial closer in to the standard communication frequencies of long-, short- and micro-waves is better suited to a kind of peer-to-peer bioresonant communication (thinking of stories of people in the wilderness who believe they are alone on a trail but can "sense" another human following them), and other stations further out on the dial, harder to access, are more suited to transmission of full-on sensory experiences of the unitive and transformative type?
I think I'd reply with a possibly unsatisfying "possibly".
In the "narrow" meaning of mysticism, probably not. From the (current) Stanford entry on Mysticism (Mystical Experiences):
It is common among philosophers to refer to “mystical experience” in a narrow sense: a purportedly nonsensory or extrovertive unitive experience by a subject of an object granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense-perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection. A unitive experience involves the eradication of a sense of multiple discrete entities, and the cognitive significance of the experience is deemed to lie precisely in that phenomenological feature.
In contrast to a more inclusive definition of “mystical experience”:
A purportedly nonsensory awareness or a nonstructured sensory experience granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of ordinary sense-perception structured by mental conceptions, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection.
It might be possible to look at these two definitions as representing the two circumstances that you describe, in effect being different degrees of the same thing. Although treating quasi-established definitions in this way doesn't always go down well with people looking to circumscribe the boundaries of those definitions. But I also bear in mind the transformative effect or goal (immediate or ultimate) of these experiences.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I don't know about that. Dude named Benoit Mendelbrot might have had something to say about that.
@A Feminine Force and @Pease, I've seen my Dad's my Mum's my Gran's, my late wife's and my mother-in-law's dead bodies.
Sure, their dead bodies didn't look like them but you could tell that it had been them.
Does it come down to our 'experience' though or the witness of scripture and tradition / Tradition which does teach the resurrection of the body rather than disembodied spirits or reincarnation. Sorry @Feminine Force.
I don’t know how that works but it's what we find in scripture and the witness of the Church down the centuries.
I'll go with that.
I don't know what it comes down to. I take the authority of my life as it reveals itself to me through experience over someone else's thoughts or experience, traditional, scripture or anecdote. If I am to regard my life as a sacred gift from God then I have to put my faith in that first.
I would expect you to do no less.
Having said that, I love and respect your life as it is revealed to you, and we don't have to agree or have the same thoughts and experiences in order to do as Christ commands us.
It's OK with me if you think I am wrong or all balled up or crazy or dangerous or destined for perdition. I feel pretty certain you won't tie me to a stake and barbecue me. This forum is a do over for me of one of those nasty experiences and I would say it's been going great for a couple of decades so far and I thank you from my heart for that.
AFF
I'm not saying you are ballsed up or crazy, but I am saying that from the perspective of received tradition, your views appear to be somewhat unorthodox or idiosyncratic.
That doesn't mean I believe you are bound for perdition nor even that I should seek to convince you otherwise.
All I can do is state things as I see them and for better or worse I see them through the lens of Holy Tradition. I don't see that as in any way impairing my judgement or personal integrity.
An iconographer will paint according to strict rules and in line with a received tradition but their personality still comes through in some way.
Same with those of us who adhere to a received tradition of whatever kind, be it RC, Orthodox, Protestant or whatever else.
I understood the aim of evangelism not to be convincing people of the truth of the claims, but to be getting people to believe the claims. Or, in more evangelical(?) parlance, to believe *on* them.
Could you describe to me the difference between "believing the claims" and being "convinc(ed) of the truth of the claims" - to me they're two ways of saying exactly the same thing.
As I recall, previous discussions we've had addressing belief, truth and knowledge haven't resolved anything. They've tended to go the same way as your exchanges with ThunderBunk.
Doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. I'm only interested in religious claims that are objectively true - and therefore, at least in principle, amenable to external evidence.
In other words, I want a God who exists even if I'm an atheist. It's just the way my mind works.
In the past, I think I suggested that this wouldn't change just by considering different arguments. So here's a different argument to consider:
Believing the claims about God and Jesus is something a person would organise their life around (ie becoming a believer). Being convinced of the truth of the claims leads to gaining knowledge about the claims - whether this knowledge has any further, profound, effect on your life is a different question. I suggest that it's possible for a person to have knowledge of the truth of these claims and it to have no significant effect on their life. (Or consider the idea that the Devil knows that the claims about God and Jesus are true.)
It also strikes me that "I want a God who exists even if I'm an atheist" sounds like you want to be convinced of the truth that God exists, even if you don't believe in God, which to me implies that being convinced of the truth about God, and believing in God, are not the same thing.
I understand the concepts here, but for me, the phrases "believe the claims" and "believing in the truth of the claims" both imply mere intellectual assent - neither of them to me implies any action as a result of that belief.
You misunderstand my point about God existing even if I were an atheist. What I mean is that the existence of God is something you can be right or wrong about - even if you have no means of knowing which. Obviously (to me), if one is convinced of the claims about God, one cannot be an atheist. What I mean is, if God exists, he still exists even if I'm wrong about his existence. It's not just a thing that's true or false for me.
I'm not saying you are ballsed up or crazy, but I am saying that from the perspective of received tradition, your views appear to be somewhat unorthodox or idiosyncratic.
"Somewhat". You are very generous. I've been called much worse. Thank you.
That doesn't mean I believe you are bound for perdition nor even that I should seek to convince you otherwise.
Likewise. I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. I'm looking for the experience where I am safe to express what's been going on "in here" without fear of inquisitorial-type consequences. This viewpoint of mine isn't new to me, it's just been waiting for a chance to say "I'm a Christian too!" without somebody forcibly ejecting me from society or even my life.
I am beyond grateful for the kindness and patience the Shipmates have shown me over the years, and every disagreement is an opportunity for me to experience the feeling of safety in a group.
All I can do is state things as I see them and for better or worse I see them through the lens of Holy Tradition. I don't see that as in any way impairing my judgement or personal integrity.
Nobody said that it does and if I have ever given you that impression, then I apologize. I have absolute faith in your soul competency, as much as in my own, to reveal to you what you need to know, experience and understand.
@Pease …
Does it come down to our 'experience' though or the witness of scripture and tradition / Tradition which does teach the resurrection of the body rather than disembodied spirits or reincarnation. Sorry @Feminine Force.
I don’t know how that works but it's what we find in scripture and the witness of the Church down the centuries.
I'll go with that.
In this instance, Tradition appears to me to be more certain about the matter than scripture. (For example, 1 Corinthians 15:44.) I find at least some paradox, mystery or tension about this issue. I also note in the following (your response to A Feminine Force's post), that you drop the reference to scripture.
…
All I can do is state things as I see them and for better or worse I see them through the lens of Holy Tradition. I don't see that as in any way impairing my judgement or personal integrity.
An iconographer will paint according to strict rules and in line with a received tradition but their personality still comes through in some way.
Same with those of us who adhere to a received tradition of whatever kind, be it RC, Orthodox, Protestant or whatever else.
Either way, to echo A Feminine Force, I don't see this as calling into question your judgment or integrity. We (at least most of us on these forums) are as free to choose our authorities as we are to author our posts.
Comments
I don't believe in your personal little deity who knows you specifically.
But, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord ...'
If God is so 'little' aa to know me 'specifically' then it follows that he is big enough to know everything and everyone that has ever existed or will exist.
I'm not laying exclusive claim to the attention of the Deity.
Where does all this 'dualist' either/or stuff come from?
I think I would concur with this take on mysticism, but only because (as I recall A Feminine Force's previous posts), this capability provides access to a unitive and transformative experience of an underlying reality. Otherwise it's more akin to an alternative communication medium.
I think Wittgenstein's quotation is pertinent as a commentary on the manner of God's existence, rather than on whether God exists. One cannot settle the question of God's existence by inspecting all the components within the time-space continuum nor by inspecting the notional set of all similar continua.
Thank you for this. As one who has attended the deaths of three of her closest loved ones, I can emphatically say that once they are gone, they are gone. Once the animating consciousness, energy or principle (call it what you will) has ceased its activity in the body, what remains is most definitely not them. There is no confusing them with, say, a sleeping version of themselves. They are simply not present in the body.
Me neither. As fearfully, intelligently and as wonderfully as we are made, there are still "glitches in the code" so to speak. I do believe that we are active participants in the biological testing and upgrading of the human suit and in this sense we are agents of Grace. God has eternity, and I believe we do as well, and so it's not a matter of any real interest or urgency for me.
What if it's both?
Like one station on the dial closer in to the standard communication frequencies of long-, short- and micro-waves is better suited to a kind of peer-to-peer bioresonant communication (thinking of stories of people in the wilderness who believe they are alone on a trail but can "sense" another human following them), and other stations further out on the dial, harder to access, are more suited to transmission of full-on sensory experiences of the unitive and transformative type?
AFF
As dismissive as this kind of observation might sound, I believe the mechanics of these types of experience, just because they are not well understood by us, are still grounded in reality.
I follow some Youtubers who use ayahuasca and yopo and mimosa, and such plant alkaloids that lower the blood/brain barrier to our endogenously manufactured dimethyltriptamine (DMT). ISTM that a chemical like this has the ability to crank the dial "to eleven" as it were. And some of these people spend an entire year trying to dial back to default.
Unlike them, though, every experience that has imposed itself upon me (I have never gone looking for these moments) has happened spontaneously and entirely outside any kind of chemical intervention.
Believe me, it's much easier to integrate this stuff if you can just explain it away with "I was drunk/high/asleep/on pain meds" than if you are having to spend weeks months and even years testing and retesting your experience against accumulated and validated information in order to properly fit it into a coherent narrative or overall picture of how reality functions.
Whatever mysticism ends up being, it's neither fun nor easy once the event has concluded.
AFF
God if God exists knows every single subatomic particle and every set of subatomic particles in this universe. Because any being or phenomenon deserving of being God cannot be limited by scale either large or small. If you think God cannot know anything smaller than galaxies, your idea of God is too little.
I mean, I suppose if you can state it then it must be true. Back in the real world, things that work at one scale can't simultaneously work at scales many magnitudes smaller.
I'm prepared to show my position is coherent using mathematics (set theory). Can you do the same? For example, how many magnitudes is "many"? An eye is an order of magnitude smaller than a face - can anything take in an eye and a face simultaneously? Presumably something a bit more sophisticated can take in two orders of magnitude? So where is the logical limit?
Ah, but if you know you're right you can just dismiss these questions as fantastic out of hand?
(Note: something that could be mistaken for your opinion, and which is true, is that anything capable of completely understanding any finite space-time continuum cannot be part of that space-time continuum.)
I don't know about that. Dude named Benoit Mendelbrot might have had something to say about that.
AFF
Agreed, agreed, agreed.
Apologies. Classic "Knight's move" thinking. (Thanks, ADHD!).
The point that I think I was making is that God is not a being amongst other beings, even one greater than which cannot be imagined. Similarly, God's will is not something I have to factor in to my life in the way that I need to take account of my boyfriend's (boss's, king's...) wishes. Which, in one sense, is how God exists but is al!so the way in which God exists.
If that makes sense?
I may have just confused myself! It's easily done.
I think one can spell it out, with reference the doctrines of creation and God as the good, but it might take longer than a convenient post on a discussion board.
Sure, their dead bodies didn't look like them but you could tell that it had been them.
Does it come down to our 'experience' though or the witness of scripture and tradition / Tradition which does teach the resurrection of the body rather than disembodied spirits or reincarnation. Sorry @Feminine Force.
I don’t know how that works but it's what we find in scripture and the witness of the Church down the centuries.
I'll go with that.
Ditto.
I don't know what it comes down to. I take the authority of my life as it reveals itself to me through experience over someone else's thoughts or experience, traditional, scripture or anecdote. If I am to regard my life as a sacred gift from God then I have to put my faith in that first.
I would expect you to do no less.
Having said that, I love and respect your life as it is revealed to you, and we don't have to agree or have the same thoughts and experiences in order to do as Christ commands us.
It's OK with me if you think I am wrong or all balled up or crazy or dangerous or destined for perdition. I feel pretty certain you won't tie me to a stake and barbecue me. This forum is a do over for me of one of those nasty experiences and I would say it's been going great for a couple of decades so far and I thank you from my heart for that.
AFF
In the past, I think I suggested that this wouldn't change just by considering different arguments. So here's a different argument to consider:
Believing the claims about God and Jesus is something a person would organise their life around (ie becoming a believer). Being convinced of the truth of the claims leads to gaining knowledge about the claims - whether this knowledge has any further, profound, effect on your life is a different question. I suggest that it's possible for a person to have knowledge of the truth of these claims and it to have no significant effect on their life. (Or consider the idea that the Devil knows that the claims about God and Jesus are true.)
It also strikes me that "I want a God who exists even if I'm an atheist" sounds like you want to be convinced of the truth that God exists, even if you don't believe in God, which to me implies that being convinced of the truth about God, and believing in God, are not the same thing.
In the "narrow" meaning of mysticism, probably not. From the (current) Stanford entry on Mysticism (Mystical Experiences): In contrast to a more inclusive definition of “mystical experience”: It might be possible to look at these two definitions as representing the two circumstances that you describe, in effect being different degrees of the same thing. Although treating quasi-established definitions in this way doesn't always go down well with people looking to circumscribe the boundaries of those definitions. But I also bear in mind the transformative effect or goal (immediate or ultimate) of these experiences.
Elsewhere: It was Mandelbrot (with an "a"), but yes, this does sound like the self-similarity of the Mandelbrot set. (And there's an animation.)
I'm not saying you are ballsed up or crazy, but I am saying that from the perspective of received tradition, your views appear to be somewhat unorthodox or idiosyncratic.
That doesn't mean I believe you are bound for perdition nor even that I should seek to convince you otherwise.
All I can do is state things as I see them and for better or worse I see them through the lens of Holy Tradition. I don't see that as in any way impairing my judgement or personal integrity.
An iconographer will paint according to strict rules and in line with a received tradition but their personality still comes through in some way.
Same with those of us who adhere to a received tradition of whatever kind, be it RC, Orthodox, Protestant or whatever else.
I understand the concepts here, but for me, the phrases "believe the claims" and "believing in the truth of the claims" both imply mere intellectual assent - neither of them to me implies any action as a result of that belief.
You misunderstand my point about God existing even if I were an atheist. What I mean is that the existence of God is something you can be right or wrong about - even if you have no means of knowing which. Obviously (to me), if one is convinced of the claims about God, one cannot be an atheist. What I mean is, if God exists, he still exists even if I'm wrong about his existence. It's not just a thing that's true or false for me.
"Somewhat". You are very generous. I've been called much worse. Thank you.
Likewise. I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. I'm looking for the experience where I am safe to express what's been going on "in here" without fear of inquisitorial-type consequences. This viewpoint of mine isn't new to me, it's just been waiting for a chance to say "I'm a Christian too!" without somebody forcibly ejecting me from society or even my life.
I am beyond grateful for the kindness and patience the Shipmates have shown me over the years, and every disagreement is an opportunity for me to experience the feeling of safety in a group.
Nobody said that it does and if I have ever given you that impression, then I apologize. I have absolute faith in your soul competency, as much as in my own, to reveal to you what you need to know, experience and understand.
AFF
In this instance, Tradition appears to me to be more certain about the matter than scripture. (For example, 1 Corinthians 15:44.) I find at least some paradox, mystery or tension about this issue. I also note in the following (your response to A Feminine Force's post), that you drop the reference to scripture.
Either way, to echo A Feminine Force, I don't see this as calling into question your judgment or integrity. We (at least most of us on these forums) are as free to choose our authorities as we are to author our posts.