A culture or nation cannot establish a supportable framework of principles while it remains without will to be intolerant of anything. A culture, to remain a culture, must establish capacity to recognize for itself that which is morally right from that which is wrong. A culture that would avail and preserve decent human freedom and dignity needs to assimilate a moral philosophy or theosophy that does not bend over to tolerate such deviance as would undermine human freedom and dignity. It is by promoting misguided tolerance under an unthinking banner of "diversity" that paganists, militant atheists, disloyal crony corporatists, militant homosexuals, muslims, and destroyers of marriages and families are destroying and enserfing America. To salvage America, to salvage human freedom and dignity, churches must focus more on that which is helpful to the cause and less on dogma that is so often irrelevant, dissonant, meaningless, or destructive of respect for the building blocks of a society that would entrust human freedom and dignity under an inviting, caring, and guiding God (or Source of decency).
.
A society that seeks to endure needs to assimilate around broad contours for a philosophy concerning what is right versus wrong. Such a society can either entrust such determinations to trusted elites, or it can entrust such determinations to adults who have grown up with, and bonded their identities to, such philosophy. The first way leads to collectivist societies that entrust little liberty to the mass of citizens, and instead tends to rule the details of their lives under arbitrary regulations. The second way avails more freedom to families and their heads, to learn from their own experiences and insights. That is, the second way accords the masses with more freedom and dignity. For the second way, household heads are in need of guidance, not in need of dogma that tells them their every thought and action has been "predetermined" by some meta function --- either of God or Nature. Nor does science, logic, or good faith necessarily support such dogma.
.
If God needs man and man needs God, for what sensible, good, logical, or empirical reason should one need the other, but only a wind up toy? The way human history has thus far unfolded, the wind-up-toy (pre-deterministic) way of thinking seems to drive both fundie religionists and militant atheists. I ask: If the goal is an America that avails decent respect for the freedom and dignity of individual citizens, then why should dogmatists (whether religious or atheistic) insist that only their way of thinking about fundamental aspects of beingness should be accepted as "objective," "logical," "intelligent," "scientific," "archeologically supported," "proved by prophets," or "non-blasphemous?"
.
Except perhaps as "ommm," no single word conveys meaning unless applied in a relational context with other words. To convey meaning as The Word, God conveys logos to mortals in context. No single word --- not even "truth," "justice," "cause," or "determine" --- conveys meaning by itself, absent a context and a recipient.
7 comments:
RE: "But where would such a morality originate?"
I agree with you, that morality originates with God. However, I don't agree that matter is all there is in an evolutionary world. I think God's interests, which are superior to matter, change in qualitative appreciation of feedback, sort of like a painter changes his mind as he paints. I don't think thought processes are "merely" chemical reactions in the brain --- even though I do think many measurable aspects of thought processes do entail measurable reactions in the brain. Measuring tests indicate that consciousness of thoughts lags behind what the (spiritual) cosmos has already determined such thoughts should be. Many people assume this evidence scientifically disproves any role for God or spirituality, or for a meaningful human relationship with God. I disagree. Such a leap seems to me to be far too greedy. Such a leap may make sense if one assumed the soul or spirit must be confined to the perimeter of a body's flesh or brain. But I see no good reason to make such an assumption. Rather, I would conceptualize that God has capacity to experience qualitative apprehensions from a variety of overlapping, interconnecting, re-iterative contexts and perspectives. Your "I-ness" is of the qualitative cosmos, and is not limited to the perimeter of your mortal body or mind. When a body perishes, God's capacity for re-iterating perspectivistic experiences does not perish, and, after all, that seems to be all our mortal bodies are: temporal temples or avatars for God's use in experiencing and giving qualitative, observational feedback. Yin and yang, back and forth between perspecitives of the whole and of the parts..
.
SPIRITUALITY: I just finished watching an old televised conversation between Stephen Hawking, Arthur Clarke, and Carl Sagan. I don't agree with that part of Hawking's conceptualization which boils down to an unnecessary assumption of materialistic pre-determinism. I did like Clarke's reference to the need for both spirituality and science. All three recognized a need for a moral philosophy. I agree with you to this extent: There is a need to assimilate in reverential reference to a common Source of moral guidance, and I think that Source is not entirely predetermined, at least, not consciously so. In my concept of spirituality, God DOES have capacity to change his mind in determining contemporaneously whether or how to answer our prayers, qualitative apprehensions, and interpretive observations. The reason we are not measurably able to notice how or when He does so is because each change is a holistically conserving change. Thus, the only experiences we have must be reconciled and renormalized to every change God synchronizes for our sustaining context or environment. That is, we have no standard outside the measurable cosmos we inhabit by which to measure how God may alter the unfolding direction of the cosmos in response to the quality of our apprehensions. People often wonder, why, then do bad things happen to human bodies? Well, God functions as a synchronizing reconciler, while our bodies are mortal and eventually must perish. To say that God has all the power, knowledge, and interest that have been accumulated up to the present is not to say that God has power to make a rock that is so heavy that He cannot lift it.
GOODNESS: I believe each particular communication of goodness remains Good so long as God deems it so. However, when we speak of communication, we implicate words, often calling God "The Word." But a word that were deployed outside relational context would be meaningless (except possibly as noise or music, as in the case of "Ommm"). To convey meaning as The Word, God conveys logos to mortals in context. No single word --- not even "truth," "justice," "morality," "cause," or "determine" --- conveys much meaning by itself, absent a context and a recipient. In that respect, the yin and yang, give and take, back and forth aspect of the realtionship between holistic God and imperfect mortal creatures or perspectives of God necessarily entails a contextual, interpretive, subjective relationship.
.
OBJECTIVITY: I take it as "objective" that Beingness and God exist. However, I don't see any way to get around a conundrum: such objectivity would be meaningless "to me" were my subjective self not entailed. People used to search for the material representation of an "essential," thing-in-itself, ultimate building block. While I respect that God applies rules (for "relational absolutes") that facilitate our measurable experiences of our neck of the cosmos, I don't think there abides any ultimate, existential, purely material, thing-in-itself-building-block. Or, if there is, I suspect it is nothing more than math, being related and unfolded by a meta essence that is beyond our measure, i.e., the "mind of God."
.
CENTRALITY OF FAMILY: What you seem to be concerned about is mankind's need for relatively fixed rules of society. I respect that need. I also respect that the form of man may, over millions of years, change. Presently, my "reception" guides me to believe God "wants" to guide humanity so that individuals can relate to one another in relatively decent freedom and dignity. The only way I see to facilitate that is to regard the family as a more important institution than the collective. A collective that diminishes the family also diminishes and de-humanizes mankind. So I think religious and spiritual figures of speech that celebrate the family under a loving and inviting God are of vital importance. However, I don't have wisdom or insight to confidently say that many present ethics must be absolutely valid for all time. After all, for all we know, God may tire of humanity in its present form. Even so, God abides, and that is the Source of meaningfulness. So long as a culture inculcates respect and humility before an inviting and assimilating God, it will find a moral path for its individual members. When a culture denies God and instead looks to elites to become the source for pronouncing what is moral, then it becomes more susceptible to totalitarian collectivism.
.
RE: "God has a plan for this universe, and is working to complete His plan."
Well, thinking linearly, what happens when God completes the plan? For my part, I suspect He pulls out another canvas. To me, the good news is that we participate. Moreover, as iterative aspects of an Immortal, I suspect some aspect of ourselves is perpetually recycled to God's use. Some experience this as deja vu. Some deny it. Another possible way of thinking about it: If "you" truly are unaware when your body perishes, then "you" will not notice time. Even were it to take a trillion trillion trillion years for another world to reproduce another iteration of "yourself," it would seem like no more than the BLINK of an eye. You would find yourself reborn, wondering: How did "I" get here?
VIBRATIONS ON LOAN FROM NO-MATERIAL-THINGNESS:
Good Vibrations: Music builds from harmonies of vibrations, therewith producing and attracting varieties of appreciative feedback, or principled consciousness.
Bad Vibrations: Noise dements and repels harmonies, therewith repelling principled consciousness and leaving rage in its wake. In building a framework of good vibrations, people naturally incline to good faith cooperation. In building a framework of bad vibrations, demented people unite with demented people, raging to impose arbitrary and despotic legalisms that spit against the wind of prevailing vibrations. A Constitution that attunes to a culture of decency avails paths to happiness. A bureaucracy that is organized from a hierarchy of thugs, that attunes to a culture of rot, avails paths to corruption, rage, moral anarchism, and cultural strait jackets. America floated so long on good vibrations that her people forgot what is needed to sustain them. We failed to guard the borders of our music.
There is too much easy throwing around of the word "heretic." A person of good faith who seeks truth in the signs around him need not be called names. This is American THINKER. If all one does is regurgitate dogma, that does not make him a believer or a thinker. One who just regurgitates fond words, without the understanding of a thinker, does not "know" anything. Rather, he simply makes himself more like a wind up robot. Or a holographic projection from the edge of the universe, without participatory dignity or will. If God is simply the predeterminer, then He may just as well be called the uncaring and indifferent Nature-Deity. God then becomes just another word for predetermined Nature. Empathy, intuition, thinking, feedback appreciation: they are the common roots of what is entailed in our relationship with God. I cannot believe God would give us brains and then tell us we must not use them to think. To suggest one must "believe" precisely as some knowitall interpretor says in order not to be a heretic is to condition people to become unthinking sheep -- precisely the kind of unreflective people who are most easily waylaid by would be despots, like Obama, or the pedophile from the 7th century.
I'm not seeing much coherence or communicable meaning in a suggestion that "we are predetermined, yet free to choose." To be saved, must I believe the unique Son of God was named Yahshua? May I instead believe He was named Yeshua? Or Jesus? Must I believe He was born in the year 1 A.D., or may I believe He was born in 4 or 6 B.C.? Must I believe He was blond haired and white, or may I believe he was brown haired and darker complected? I believe in God, and I believe God avails us with signs all around. But I don't believe in God as a petty tyrant. Nor do I believe that Jesus was a petty tyrant, or that any petty tyrant could be a substitute for God. I do, however, believe in the wisdom imparted through Jesus. I just don't fully agree with your interpretation of that wisdom. You seem to think I seek to substitute myself for God. I don't see it that way. I see myself as a very, very imperfect perspective of the Holism that is God. If your way of thinking works for you, that's fine with me. What I am here mainly concerned with is preserving inspiration for an American society that respects the freedom and dignity of individuals and families, not centralizing governments and their easily corruptible chieftains or pretended mouthpieces of God.
A lot of wealth is made via disloyal crony corporatism, buying corrupt favors from governments and politicians under Chavezian pretense of organizing and looking out for the little people. Dirty money funds both Dinos and Rinos. This is not market based competition, unless competition for buying politicians is considered a "market." The consequence is that unimaginable amounts of wealth are applied to lead useful idiots and apologists for an aristocracy down a primrose path. It's not "fairness" that leads me to believe regulations for crony corporatists need to be rewritten. It's the fact that the kind of distribution of wealth we have for blue blood establishment financed Repubtards in America has now funded the demographic destruction of America. The Tea Party cannot compete in terms of funding to counter the apologists who seek to defend the status quo, which is destroying decent middle class freedom and dignity. Take a look at this:
http://www(dot)ritholtz(dot)com/blog/2013/03/wealth-inequality-in-america/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29
While we're giving credit to "who built that," we might pause to give some credit --- less to ourselves, less to our collective, less to materialism, and more to the Source of inspiration. A lot of people are loathe to credit just deserts to anyone, anything, or any Source. The way they discredit such credit is to discredit a notion of Will (as in free will, participatory will, or contemporaneous determination). They reduce consciousness of ideas ... to thoughts ... to electrical impulses ... to predetermined, unfolding materialism.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else´s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." - Oscar Wilde
But what about the Source of the unconscious (the Collective Unconscious)?
"The whole personality of man is indescribable. His consciousness can be described, but his unconsciousness cannot be described. The unconsciousness, and I must repeat myself, is always unconscious. It is really unconscious. And so we don't know our unconscious personality. We have hints, we have certain ideas, but we don't know it really. Nobody can say where man ends. That is the beauty of it, you know.. It is very interesting. The unconscious of man can reach God knows where and there we are going to make discoveries." - C. G. Jung
This idea of Jung's seems to pertain to what those deterministic materialists who try to reduce the Mind-soul to the machine fail to grasp, and it may be why they never seem to apprehend the participatory aspect of Will. So long as we don't appreciate the Source from which our credit derives, there seems little reason to appreciate credit.
Post a Comment