I agree, but we need to leave a space for "unexplainable" in our deduction, even when we are trying to explain everything, therefore your 4 definitions of "god" can not cover all possibilities. — farmer
But I think "there might be something that is unexplainable" is a more gentle presumption than "anything is explainable". — farmer
Because any influence would give somewhere to start an explanation. — Pfhorrest
It’s nothing more than giving up. — Pfhorrest
Wanting to admit an influential but unexplainable God is just wanting to declare that something is inherently a mystery just because. It’s nothing more than giving up. — Pfhorrest
not because we can prove or explain it — Yellow Horse
But perhaps if we extinguish the light, we become aware of a vast space which is dimly lit - we can't see it in the same kind of detail, but we can sense its vastness. And that there is a kind of light inside the dark. — Wayfarer
you have a lit area, but past the light you have the impression of things moving around in the dark that you can't see. So the only way to see them is either to drag them into the light, or shine a light on them — Wayfarer
I like your analogy, it reminds me of the idea that the Christ is the light of the world. Wherein the light is not the light we see with our eyes, or known to science, but a spiritual light, which by its illumination animates life and consciousness, is the very quick of these things.the point of the metaphor was that you can see things that are in within the circle cast by your lamp.
The most archetypical kind of transcendentalist opinion is belief in the supernatural. "Natural" in the relevant sense here is roughly equivalent to "empirical": the natural world is the world that we can observe with our senses, directly or indirectly. That "indirectly" part is important for establishing the transcendence of the supernatural. We cannot, for example, see wind directly, but we can see that leaves move in response to the wind, and so find reason to suppose that wind exists, to cause that effect. Much about the natural world posited by modern science has been discovered through increasingly sophisticated indirect observation of that sort. We cannot directly see, or hear, or touch, or otherwise observe, many subtle facets of the world that are posited by science today, but we can see the effects they have on other things that we can directly observe, including special instruments built for that purpose, and so we can indirectly observe those things.
Anything that has any effect on the observable world is consequently indirectly observable through that very effect, and is therefore itself to be reckoned as much a part of the natural world as anything else that we can indirectly observe. For something to be truly supernatural, then, it would have to have no observable effect at all on any observable thing. — Pfhorrest
The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and aromas, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, intellect and ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
The intellect is to be abandoned. Ideas are to be abandoned. Consciousness at the intellect is to be abandoned. Contact at the intellect is to be abandoned. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the intellect — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is to be abandoned.
Then Ven. Maha Kotthita went to Ven. Sariputta and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side.
As he was sitting there, he said to Ven. Sariputta, "With the remainderless stopping & fading of the six contact-media [vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, & intellect] is it the case that there is anything else?"
[Sariputta:] "Don't say that, my friend."
[Maha Kotthita:] "With the remainderless stopping & fading of the six contact-media, is it the case that there is not anything else?"
[Sariputta:] "Don't say that, my friend."
….
[Sariputta:] "The statement, 'With the remainderless stopping & fading of the six contact-media [vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, & intellection] is it the case that there is anything else?' objectifies non-objectification.
The statement, '... is it the case that there is not anything else ... is it the case that there both is & is not anything else ... is it the case that there neither is nor is not anything else?' objectifies non-objectification.
However far the six contact-media go, that is how far objectification goes. However far objectification goes, that is how far the six contact media go. With the remainderless fading & stopping of the six contact-media, there comes to be the stopping, the allaying of objectification.
But what it is, is unknowable to the discursive intellect. We might say that it is a form of gnosis that completely transforms our understanding of the nature of things. — Wayfarer
Now, whether to take that on faith or not - I don't claim to have any direct familiarity with such states or to have realised such higher states of being. — Wayfarer
I like 'falsifiable' theories, but doesn't this notion of falsifiable depend on the uniformity of nature? A theory makes some bad predictions or leads to a disaster, so we abandon it. But maybe the world will change so that the theory becomes vital. — Yellow Horse
What you're saying, is that whatever is not empirically detectable can't be considered real. Basically, and I know you will object to this, this is empiricist positivism - that only what can be known or detected by the senses (augmented by instruments) is real or able to be considered. — Wayfarer
However this excludes as a matter of definition the domain of what is subjectively real. — Wayfarer
Of course, you do allow for the reality of what you consider to be ecstatic states of being, which you (fallaciously, in my view) equate with Nirvāṇa. — Wayfarer
we cannot help but tacitly make such an assumption by our actions, choosing to search for the uniformity we presume is in there somewhere, or not. — Pfhorrest
We can't help ourselves, as Popper saw. We creatively project structures/uniformities on the world. So where is the choice you mention? — Yellow Horse
Nice text, clearly written by someone who has conceived of being as spirit, or flame. Finishing with the realisation of the decent and return to the source.Below is nice quote from Sartor Resartus
So it really sounds like what I mean by ontophilia. — Pfhorrest
I don’t view the objective and the subjective as cleanly separated. Empirical experience is inherently subjective; objective reality as I construe it is just the limit of accounting for more and more such experiences, gradually removing subjective bias in the process. In holding reality to consist entirely of empirical stuff, I’m denying that there is anything utterly beyond subjective experience, affirming that objective reality is made of the same stuff as our subjective experiences; it’s just ALL of them, rather than only some. — Pfhorrest
While talking with a friend recently about buried spiritual scrolls, it occurred to me that their role as forgotten/repressed wisdom 'was' the message. — Yellow Horse
It's much more like Eastern religious practices, with much less emphasis on belief - doxa - and more in developing wisdom - gnosis. — Wayfarer
clearly written by someone who has conceived of being as spirit, or flame. — Punshhh
I don’t view the objective and the subjective as cleanly separated. Empirical experience is inherently subjective; objective reality as I construe it is just the limit of accounting for more and more such experiences, gradually removing subjective bias in the process. In holding reality to consist entirely of empirical stuff, I’m denying that there is anything utterly beyond subjective experience, affirming that objective reality is made of the same stuff as our subjective experiences; it’s just ALL of them, rather than only some. — Pfhorrest
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