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The ideas are so vague I don't get what's being said, exactly.

"We are not part of the universe completely owned, but the whole universe partially possessed." Teilhard

Sounds like someone a Native American shaman would say. — Gregory

Similar ideas can be found in every philosophical, religious, spiritual, and mystical tradition.

"Faith can create its own reality, so blocking faith for this reason (a desire to be objective), other options are opened up, which people will say is faith still. — Gregory

Is that what Teilhard is saying? I don't get that from the quote. Maybe you should give us more to work with.

Well my point was that philosophy seems to be nothing but deconstruction. What do you know for sure after studying philosophy? Is the only way faith? As a Catholic priest Teilhard had to have believed in the power of faith. But if people are going to create a reality with their minds, why choose the Christian faith? And are the only options Pyrrhonism or faith? I envy Hegel who could write masterpieces of theology which in his mind was logic and science

There is The Secret, Napoleon Hill, and other more mild versions of "create your reality". Currently I am reading Reroute Your Thoughts

What do you know for sure after studying philosophy? — Gregory

If things go well you:

• Know how to express your ideas clearly
• Understand what values are important to you
• Know what ways of thinking about things are the most useful for you
• Gain a better understanding about other people's values and beliefs
• Understand the unexamined assumptions you use in your thinking
• Learn to be more tolerant
• Can impress chicks. Well... no... sorry.

When push comes to shove, it's all about awareness.

Is it about being in this world, or being apart from it, generally? I listen a lot to religious chants. They all seem to offer different ways. The old Gregorian chants presents the intellectual part of the beatific vision, which is really interesting, but it doesn't arose the love it is suppose to, which is supposed to be the main act in heaven. My personal favorite is sitar music

If things go well you:
Know how to express your ideas clearly
Understand what values are important to you
Know what ways of thinking about things are the most useful for you
Gain a better understanding about other people's values and beliefs
Understand the unexamined assumptions you use in your thinking
Learn to be more tolerant
Can impress chicks. Well... no... sorry. — T Clark

This is the same thing that occurs with rigorous, good therapy! The unexamined life...

Plus, philosophical discussions are very helpful in impressing the dudes. At least in my experience. I therefore conclude that it can impress chicks as well.

This is the same thing that occurs with rigorous, good therapy! The unexamined life... — uncanni

Maybe from therapy or meditation one could also hope for peace.

Plus, philosophical discussions are very helpful in impressing the dudes. At least in my experience. I therefore conclude that it can impress chicks as well. — uncanni

I haven't seen that my philosophical skills have impressed anyone much. Luckily, at 67 I don't have to worry about that.

I haven't seen that my philosophical skills have impressed anyone much. Luckily, at 67 I don't have to worry about that. — T Clark

I'm 66, and I don't really worry about impressing anyone either, but it's nice to know when others appreciate our intellectual prowess or the application of a bit of our knowledge... ;-}

others appreciate our intellectual prowess or the application of a bit of our knowledge — uncanni

You've come to the wrong place. On the forum all you'll find is lesser minds jealous of our brilliance.

Teilhard had no religious faith so his religious standing sadly was unauthoritative, and his scientific standing incidentally is nil. That doesn't stop him as a private individual offering any sort of philosophy of course.

As I'm not familiar enough, the quote you give is insufficient - owned by whom, possessed by whom?

Also why do you call it "deconstructuralist"? I expect that for shamans it is anything but.

I am 33, and have a therapist (pretty one too). She keeps saying that I have free will in everything I do, even when it doesn't always feel free. It's making me think a lot. Teilhard? He believed that we own the whole universe partially thru our bodies, instead of owning a part of the universe (or bodies) completely. But if we don't own our bodies completely, where is the free will? For him, evolution was everything, so he probably didn't have Christian faith. But what of Hegelian faith? Hegel used what he thought was reason to create a theology of reason. I don't know enough about Derrida to have used his word properly, but it seems to me reason is around almost every corner to cast doubt on science, religion, and common sense. Reduce everything to the rubble of doubt..

Hegel gave an interesting analyses of previous modern philosophers: "Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz have all indicated God as this nexus (of the soul and body). They meant that the finitude of soul and matter were only ideal and unreal distinctions; and so holding, these philosophers took God, not, as so often is done, merely as another word for the incomprehensible, but rather as the sole true identity of finite mind and matter". So some person named God is the glue between our souls and the world energy. I read a Martin Ball book recently that said we are God. Like instead of a Trinity and one Incarnation, we have billions of persons in God and they all get incarnated. I don't know how we reconcile that with doing wrong, since God can't sin.

Yes, unfortunately I've noticed a lot of nastiness and definsiveness on this forum; this makes me very sad. I was looking for a place to have a lively exchange of ideas with generous, curious intellectuals. I just don't understand why folks get so nasty. I did research on trolls a while back and I learned a lot. I will not stoop to that level. I'm just too generous and curious. ;-}

Yes, unfortunately I've noticed a lot of nastiness and definsiveness on this forum; this makes me very sad. I was looking for a place to have a lively exchange of ideas with generous, curious intellectuals. — uncanni

I am normal; you can talk to me.

...in fareness to others on the forum, as well as the forum itself, that defensiveness and/or anger is unfortunately a microcosm of where much of society seems to be... . There are a lot of angry people out there.

Obviously there are numerous reasons for that, self-awereness and Freudian ego probably topping the list. The current political environment too.

Aristotle said (in paraphrase) the greatest gift we could give to ourselves is to 'know thyself'.
The lack thereof could speak to some of your concern...

You are both too kind to write what you have written!! I'm liking it more and more around here! I've been longing to find a place where we can go DEEP on the ideas, and this may be that place.

3017amen: Yes, the usa is an unhappy place right now, and expressing a lot of emotional anguish/dispair/hopelessness. Maybe that's where much of the anger comes from. I'm working hard on not "acting out."

PoeticUniverse: Normal!!! You are probably more normally Extraordinary than you are extraordinarily Normal.

Well thank you kindly for the gracious compliment I'm not worthy.

On the other hand poetic universe inspires me every time I read his poems... !!

You'll be fine here on this forum!

On the other hand poetic universe inspires me every time I read his poems... !! — 3017amen

Now you're asking for it!

Life’s a continual cosmic energy dance,
From an ultimate underlying happenstance.
We’re immersed in matter’s universal rhythm;
Therefore, we must all participate in the dance.

For the others, who ignore life’s romance:
Ignorance, like shadow, has no substance.
The shade is removed by the light within—
Feel the rhythm of the universal dance!

Like the moon, challenge night and gain the light;
Like the rose, suffer the thorn—gain the fragrance;
Of life, surrender to live forever—
Enlightened more than a thousand suns.

Go forward go forward, have no tear
For without illumination one has fear

Go forward go forward, have no tear
For without illumination one has fear — 3017amen

S.O.U.L
Push forward, and deeper, beyond thy fears;
We guide thee, we lift thee, we dry thy tears;
We’re illumination beside thee—of
The Spirits Of Unconditional Love.

Love takes two
two becomes one
While crowds say three
We still lift thee

Giving numbers are you
Stealing them a crime
Allow the passage of time
For love to be true

Love takes two
two becomes one — 3017amen

Inspired by Shelley's style:

— The Love Story of the Earth and the Moon —

I am thy moon, thy constant satellite,
Thy crystal paramour of day and night.
Above and below, and within thy sight,
I whirl around you in loving delight.

In a magnetic dance, I whirl and twirl,
Attracted to you, the liveliest world;
Around you as a necklace I’m aswirl—
Wear me as thy crystalline gem impearled.

Wherever thou orbits ‘round Apollo,
I must twirl and whirl, hurry and follow;
Dust I gather, meteors I swallow,
Ranging far and wide through space not hollow.

Thy romantic beam, as Cupid’s arrow,
Pierces my heart and kills my sorrow,
Injecting life and love for tomorrow;
Henceforth, I’ll shine with this life I borrow.

Around you I whirl, a necklace of pearl,
Trailing afterimages of my world,
Adorning you, thy bosom bountiful,
With crystalline gems of another world.

Oh, moon, thy Earth would wobble like a top
With your steadying influence not,
In turns quick of searing and freezing ruins,
Unto dying soon, without you, oh moon!

As twin planets, our orbits must convolve;
Into each our tidal motions dissolve.
Around a common center we revolve—
The focus from which our passions evolve.

As twin planets, each other’s way we pave,
With the push-pulse of the graviton wave.
We’re captured, but not as each other’s slave,
For to the sun our orbits are concave.

To your lines of flux my path I align—
I’m your constant paramour, crystalline;
Your world pours life on mine, on mine!
Dearest Earth, I must be thine, must be thine!

A magnetic beam emanates from thee,
Attracting me, holding me, kissing me;
Tidal love washes freely over me,
Linking you and me for eternity.

Basking warmly in your reflected light,
I’m bright, oh, so radiant in your sight!
In the love and light of your spirit bright
I need not ever face the endless night.

Your vibrations travel without a sound,
Circling from all directions to surround;
This affection touches me ‘round and ‘round
And closely binds me to you—I’m love-bound!

We’re as different as midnight and noon,
Yet drawn close by the force of Earth and moon;
As lovers we merge in a sweet eclipse,
When world meets world as a kiss on our lips.

Oh, as your shadow of love covers me
I am full, so full in the shade of thee;
When we overlap, that union is us;
The you is in me, the me is in thee!

As moon and Earth, we bathe in radiance,
Cleansing our hearts in love’s grand alliance;
Around and around each other we dance,
Entranced by the whirl of our dalliance.

My blood runs warm with the sun’s heat at noon.
My spirit is swept by thee, swelling moon.
Space surrounds us. The tides flow through us.
Global rhythms are always playing our tune.

When the sun burns out, and, soon after,
When the Earth grows cold from that disaster,
When galaxies die and rotate no more,
Then what remains is our love, thereafter.

Hegel and Heidegger were self-proclaimed theologians not backed by identifiable authority. As can any of us be, if we want. The point being as a guide for those who propose to base their own thinking on them, e.g specific churches. As for who would be authority in the sense I have in mind, they have to look to the basis of what would carry their teachings, and I think they haven't been.

I looked up deconstructionist and a strong version of it seems to mean that words only "mean" other "meaningless" words. . This, being nominalist reification, is a version of fundamentalism in effect. Therefore it doesn't get us anywhere.

Hume far overdid "scepticism" and people take him and the likes of Derrida too seriously, so we have to do lots of homework to rescue the reputation of philosophy from the opprobrium which on the basis of its substance it should never have been laid open to.

On this forum we are all talking to all of each other, fortunately.

Gregory. On the book that you read that states: "we are God". Perhaps the concept may sound strange to us who are used to western ways of thought. But, in Hinduism, in the Vedantic philosophical school of thought of Sankara his non-dualism claims that this "atman" ( = any human being) is none other than that "Brahman" ( = God).

If we are all persons with God's nature, and are billions of incarnations, we can read modern liberal Christian works on Jesus, in which they say Jesus only at the end realized who he was, as spiritual readings into our own lives. If this is all true, than my mother (God) gave birth to God (me). Interesting

By choosing to have children someone decides to incarnate God into a confused physical creature. If we knew if God was good we would know if life is good. Are we good asked Socrates