Realizing their personal Jesus is a mask of God, may prompt a believer to desire experience what is behind the mask. They may desire to experience God directly. They may want to become a mystic and experience God exactly as an intelligent rabbit or spider might experience God. — Art48
I recently mentioned the verses to two different believers in Jesus. Both denied that Jesus ever said that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. After being shown the verses, both denied that Jesus meant that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. — Art48
Regarding Kant, Schopenhauer noted that since we are a thing-in-itself, it should be possible to directly experience at least one thing-in-itself, i.e., our own existence. If God is our ultimate ground of existence (per Vedanta, Ekhart, & other mystics), we are capable of experiencing the God-behind-all-masks.The problem with God-behind-all-masks is the classic problem with Kant's reality-behind-all-appearence. — plaque flag
But some perspectives can be false, as when we see a mirage and think we are seeing water. If God is ultimate ground of all existence, then I agree that God is already something we are looking at. But most of the time, we don't see God. Rather, we see people and places and things.I suggest that appearance should not be understood as a blanket thrown over reality but simply as that reality from a perspective. Consciousness is not illusion or screen but the being of the world itself. Along these lines, God is already something we are looking it from different perspectives. — plaque flag
Regarding Kant, Schopenhauer noted that since we are a thing-in-itself, it should be possible to directly experience at least one thing-in-itself, i.e., our own existence. — Art48
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/What we experience are the perceivable features of individual objects. It is through the act of thinking that we are able to identify those features through the possession of which different individuals belong to the same species, with the other members of which they share these essential features in common.
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Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual.
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The species has no existence apart form these individual organisms, and yet the perpetuation of the species involves the perpetual generation and destruction of the particular individuals of which it is composed. Similarly, Spirit has no existence apart from the existence of individual self-conscious persons in whom Spirit becomes conscious of itself (i.e., constitutes itself as Spirit).
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Arguing thus, Feuerbach urged his readers to acknowledge and accept the irreversibility of their individual mortality so that in doing so they might come to an awareness of the immortality of their species-essence, and thus to knowledge of their true self, which is not the individual person with whom they were accustomed to identify themselves. They would then be in a position to recognize that, while “the shell of death is hard, its kernel is sweet” (GTU 205/20), and that the true belief in immortality is
a belief in the infinity of Spirit and in the everlasting youth of humanity, in the inexhaustible love and creative power of Spirit, in its eternally unfolding itself into new individuals out of the womb of its plenitude and granting new beings for the glorification, enjoyment, and contemplation of itself. (GTU 357/137)
Reflecting on the incidents led me to the idea that there are two very different types of Jesus: 1) New Testament Jesus and 2) personal Jesus. New Testament Jesus is the Jesus of scripture, the character described in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and other New Testament books. Personal Jesus is the Jesus as imagined by some person. Everyone who believes in Jesus believes in their own personal Jesus. The relation of the believer and personal Jesus is identical to the relation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Sherlock Holmes; it’s identical to the relation of J. K. Rowling to Harry Potter. — Art48
I suggest that we might think of God/Jesus as an object seen from different 'perspectives.' — plaque flag
Would you say that about any other person? In what context is a person an object? — Quixodian
I suggest that we might think of God/Jesus as an object seen from different 'perspectives.' A personality is a position in 'interpretative/hermeneutical space.' — plaque flag
Something like a cosmic film director or super CEO who can be conveniently blamed for all the bad stuff that happens in the world.
This is why any authentic spirituality, I contend, must necessarily be apophatic - the way of negation, the cloud of unknowing. — Quixodian
The point is to enact loving-kindness, not to make it object of a theory about it. — Quixodian
a belief in ...the inexhaustible love and creative power of Spirit — plaque flag
It's nothing personal. It's a philosophical observation. — Quixodian
That is why any real spirituality requires participation, not just empty words, and requires an inner transformation, metanoia, real conversion (and not just flag-waving). — Quixodian
Sacred, then, is the highest essence and everything in which this highest essence reveals or will reveal itself; but hallowed are they who recognize this highest essence together with its own, i. e. together with its revelations. The sacred hallows in turn its reverer, who by his worship becomes himself a saint, as likewise what he does is saintly, a saintly walk, saintly thoughts and actions, imaginations and aspirations, etc.
In the foremost place of the sacred, then, stands the highest essence and the faith in this essence, our "holy faith."
I'd say that a person's personal Jesus incorporates some of the religious community's picture of Jesus.I suspect that there's a third Jesus - that of the religious community a person belongs to. Often based on a priest's or preacher's version. Many followers are too 'frightened' to formulate their own notions and surrender to the account of a compelling and authoritative apologist or cleric. — Tom Storm
Would you agree that the idea that personal Jesus is a mask implies that at least some of personal Jesus' characteristics must be inaccurate and, thus, should be negated? (Negated in the sense that a person ceases to believe those characteristics apply to the God behind the mask?This is why any authentic spirituality, I contend, must necessarily be apophatic - the way of negation, the cloud of unknowing. — Quixodian
I'd say that a person's personal Jesus incorporates some of the religious community's picture of Jesus.
I think we agree. How we decide to count the number is not important. — Art48
led me to the idea that there are two very different types of Jesus: 1) New Testament Jesus and 2) personal Jesus — Art48
I try to look through the surface associations of terminology with my X-ray structuralist goggles. The passionate communist is as 'spiritually' motivated as the born again Christian on fire with Jesus.
The heroic is the numinous. Or call it the ego ideal. Many phrases are good enough once the structural role is grasped. Stirner called it the sacred and the highest essence. It's as if we are programmed to decide upon and enact a heroism. — plaque flag
:up:That's a fascinating notion and rings true for me. — Tom Storm
I already quoted Feuerbach — plaque flag
Does the blessing include those who make junket? — Banno
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