Sunday, September 18, 2011

Believe is a tricky word


I directly sense that I have purpose. So, how could I be given such purpose, had Beingness no purpose to give? When one considers just the relation between oneself and the Author of oneself, one finds astonishing smilarities in all serious religious dogmas, regardless of time or place. It's only when dogmas are injected with all manner of apologies and rationales for mortal elites, officiators, intermeddlers, and interlopers that there comes literalistic un-sanities between oneself and one's God.

It's only in respect that there is a Reconciler that connects our consciousness that it makes sense for us to heed an assimilating command: Be empathetic! Without participation of a Reconciler, beyond logic, but the basis for logic, there would be no medium or meta-field by which we could be empathetic.


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"Believe" is a tricky word. In materialistic terms, belief is neither verifiable nor falsifiable. In materialism, one feigns to "know." That is, to measure and verify. In moral consciousness, one models qualitative concepts, which one accords aspects of respect. That respect is felt in qualitative sense, not entirely reducible to measurable sense. In qualitative sense, a believer is also, necessarily, a doubter. To represent that one is a believer, doubter, agnostic, or atheist doesn't convey much that is quantitatively meaningful. It only conveys one's general orientation at a particular time and place. Depending on purpose, I can as easily pose as believer as I can pose as agnostic. When purpose is moral, I'm believer (or, at least a believer in a basis for morality --- regardless of whether I refer to that basis by some term other than "god"). When purpose is scientific, I'm agnostic, looking for material confirmation. Confusion reigns as people try to "measure" that which is meant to be meaningful only in qualitative sense, i.e., when they conflate philosphies of morality and science, as if one concept should unify and explicate both.

It's generally asserted that Darwin rejected that there is a plan or purpose to evolution.  Well, one can agree that God abides, apart from any set or detail-able plan, yet rationally intuit that God Interposes Guidance based on appreciations of unfolding feedback --- back and forth between the holistic field and its particular expressions. No mortal can materially prove the contrary to such intuition --- not in fact, nor in probability. One can respect science and evolution, without surrendering one's soul to nothing more than the best snake oil salesman in the jungle. For scientific purposes, Darwin verbalized (properly so), that he was agnostic; for moral purposes, the "logos of his actions" easily signified a more believing orientation. Indeed, it's hard to see how a self aware being could entirely or possibly avoid representing an orientation for reconciling moral choices and beliefs. To reconcile is to unify. How does one purpose or propose to "unify" the purely qualitative, except in intuitions of a Inter-Purposeful Unifier, beyond materialism?

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To not acknowledge higher values is to lean to the uncivilized, barbaric, degenerate, sociopathic, less than human, less than decent.  On the other hand, to acknowledge higher values that should guide us as we try to assimilate and reconcile decent civilization is to beg a question: Is the Source of such higher values an unconscious Principle, an appreciative, Conscious Being, or, depending on alternating of context and point of view, both? If a Principle, it is of such meta nature that the logic availed to mortals is inadequate to make reconciling adducements from it certain. If a Conscious Being, there is no assurance that the way it reconciles how to unfold its favors may not flux, even sometimes be fickle, depending on apprehensions of feedback and empathies of sacrifice. If of unknown, hypothetical, or propositional character, or of both the character of Principle and of Conscious Beingness, then it invites us to a kind of "trivalent logic," wherein the How of things can be subjected to empirical testing, while the Why or Choice of things is subjected to conditioned, hypothetical, circular, and intuited empathies. Since binary logic will not pierce it, to prove how to derive "ought" from "is," and since we have no choice but to choose among "oughts" in order to try to reconcile ourselves with decent civilization, we have no choice but to consult, and to be receptive to, our conditioning, intuitions, and empathies in respect of how our choices should be reconciled. Insofar as we are not able to prove, consult with, or be receptive to, an inanimate higher Principle, to what, then, do we feign to be receptive to in our meditations and prayers, if not to a higher form or field of Conscious Beingness, aka, God? Bottom line: Except upon a common intuition, implication, reference, or shared conscious receptivity to, God, we have no basis by which to seek to respect, assimilate, or reconcile otherwise unreconcileable desires and choices.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So long as those who lead our civic religion lead us to look at gov as a candy store --- instead of as a limited means for preserving a framework for freedom --- special interests will continue to join to overwhelm our gov. Given this situation, it makes about as much sense for whites to decline to join the raiding as it makes for Americans to keep being trade patsies for other nations. Until those who evidently own our politicians begin to look out for what is good for preserving freedom in America, there's not much point for Americans to respect their efforts to monopolize the blame game against Whitey. That game is just their distraction for selling middle class freedom down the drain. For goodness sakes, why should a white ghetto be any less "entitled" to affirmative action than a black or hispanic ghetto? The answer is: either stop with the entitlements or stop with the race pandering.

Anonymous said...

WWJD? Would Jesus covet, steal, or force the property of others in order to use it to perform "charity?" Would Jesus sneak around the will of the majority in order to derail its democratic traditions? No. Why is this so hard for collectivists who want to replace religious charity with governmental forced redistributions? Ainos want a new priesthood for forcing charity --- sometimes in pretense to the poor, but more significantly to cronies. When one considers just the relation between oneself and the Author of oneself, one finds astonishing smilarities in all serious religious dogmas, regardless of time or place. It's only when religious and secular dogmas are injected with all manner of apologies and rationales for mortal elites, officiators, intermeddlers, and interlopers that there comes literalistic un-sanities between oneself and one's God.

Anonymous said...

Re: "One group's "truth" and "morality" are as worthy and valid as another's." Which group promotes this as an excuse for thuggery or connivance? Answer: Ainos (i.e., Rinos and Dinos). Electing Rinos won't remove the menace of post modernist thinking. It's no good to say one choice is as good as another, for we have the choice to make one better than the other. There is a Reconciler. That's the inside fact that ordinary, decent Americans need to get square with.

Anonymous said...

Regarding thermodynamics: If You find a way to derive moral principles purely from the laws of physics that happen to constrain the universe we find ourselves in, you would be the genius of all time. You're not going to derive "ought" from "is" in pure logic. That is not to say that you cannot "rationally" intuit a path that unfolds from is towards ought. Only that you need to be empathetically receptive to a quality of reality that is beyond physics in order to reconcile that rationality. The way past the amoral limitations of physics and beyond the moral madness of post modernism is to practice being receptive to a higher, reconciling, purpose driven Source. When one considers and projects the relation between oneself and the Author of oneself, one finds astonishing smilarities in all serious religious dogmas, regardless of time or place. It's only when religious and secular dogmas are injected with all manner of apologies and rationales for mortal elites, officiators, intermeddlers, and interlopers (that is, for making theft and mind enslavement sound good) that there comes literalistic un-sanities between oneself and God.

Anonymous said...

Re: Hitchins --- "... shocked to read that he said 'the consequences are so dire, that even if we're not sure, we should act as if it is'."

It's a head scratcher. Sounds a bit like Pascal's wager. Pascal argued a similar notion about God: that even if God were only minutely possible, the best wager would be to act as if true. I don't buy that particular argument, because it's hard to see what could not be rationalized under it. Hitchens would never buy Pascal's wager, so why does he buy a similar wager regarding Mother Earth? I assume it's because he "intuits" a higher probability in the truthiness of AGO. Problem is, how does he calculate the comparative probabilities? After all, I doubt he puts much stock in intuition.