contact - do you love your father?

The initial post that started all this was the idea of proof..Equating the inability to prove you loved your father,with the inability to prove the existence of God. In the sence that God was used in the movie,when they said that some high percentage of the worlds population believed in a deity.Part of my argument is that you can't claim a huge majority,if the majority isn't in agreement as to what they believe,they are actually a bunch of minorities bunched by fuzzy logic into a group that donsn't have internal concensus. Of the characteristics that you have pointed too,none are testable.

My other point is that it is more likely that we actually could find an approximation of proof that one person loves another,at least you have something to test,and more of a concensus of what you are testing for.


In conclusion, I am implying that the quandary in the movie is not an equal argument as the existance of God is harder to prove than love is.

 

I see what you're saying a little more clearly now. So far, you seem to understand me too. None of the qualities I listed are testable.

It's difficult to find good grounds for a test though, since you can never actually get inside someone's head. Observing behavior is a solution, but I'm not sure if that would be adiquate. What, exactly, should we be looking for when someone demonstrates love? How do you see an intentional state? And, most importantly, how is that knowledge more firmly grounded than theology and metaphysics? Of course, you don't have to answer any of these. I don't think anyone can claim to know any one of those questions, at least not with certainty. But I would like to know what you think, just generally. I'm not sure that love is any easier to prove than God.

 

In one of my earlier posts I said it might be possible to check brain activity patterns and possibly some hormone levels and correlate them with the state of being in love...I doubt if the science is that good yet ,but it may be possible.

Taking back to my point of veiw.I don't think that belief in God provides any useful data.It doesn't provide guidance that we can't get at logically,and often to the contrary those that have belief are often just as immoral, or more so, than non-believers. I would be more inclined to put stock in the subjective God concept if there were an actual example of a group of people that were demonstrably better off for believing...that you could see it from the outside.

So far all I get is the "you have to believe first" If I have to convince myself first before I can benefit, then I could come up with a better fantasy than that.I have seen many different people convince themselves of several strange ideas without evidence. I understand doubt and paradox.I can see so many flaws in both the concept and real effects of religion that I have no desire to try to ignore the absurdity of the commonly held God concepts.

Of course there is some remote possibility that there is some sort of God,but it is so improbable that it certainly isn't worth the time and energy that we are all spending trying to bend over backward and accept other's weird superstition.

 

You're right. My unconscious self is greater than my conscious self and has it's own personality and identity. It's called God, and God's my buddy. There is still a definite identity for both of us. Me and God, or God and I for all you english majors.

 

You might try joining your concious and unconcious together.The searation things leads to all kinds of confusion...like thinking part of you is God. If there really was a God I would think it would have to be much greater than part of you.Furthermore I think that by becoming one with yourself you might be closer to any big picture type truth out there.

This is actually one of my problems with the limitations of thinking God is out there somewhere and separate.

 

I know many theologians say God is not extended, but I was just going off what The Bible itself states. God being in a finite body but possessing infinite power, infinite knowledge, and, most oddly, infinite presence make no sense whatsoever. I was just buying into the concept for the sake of the argument. I believe many of those enlightenment philosophers asserted God was not extended because an extended God was too irrational a concept for them to believe in, i.e., they wouldn’t believe because it was absurd.

I believe that you and the Matthew McConaughey character are asserting the same thing about love: it is a thing that exists and affects people—makes them do things. I can’t agree with that at all. Love is merely a word referring to a definition. We use the word to describe things. Even if we can reduce “love” down to a specific firing of a specific neural connection, that neural connection isn’t “love”; it is merely that specific neural connection. Love is merely a label we project onto it.

Not that I can observe. Since I can't observe it, I assume it doesn't exist. However, there is the very slight possibility that I'm wrong.

 

Agreed, it seemed to completely contradict the entire point of the movie.

 

All of me is from God. This means this message that I write is from God as well- part of God's intent for me and you.

Of course.

Knowing your true self is Good.

I like this quote (more or less accurate) "Think of God's being as having a center located nowhere and a boundary that surrounds everything."

 

An extended thing can still be infinite, but that seems to be beside the point now. Your real point is below:

I've never seen the movie, so I couldn't tell you if I agree with Matthew McConaughey. I can try to explain my position better, however. First, the meaning of a word has little to do with the thing it describes. Some words don't even refer to things but rather to events, states of affairs, qualities, or a very large number of other things. But if you want to know what a word means, in most cases, a word means its use in language. If a word did actually mean the thing it refers to, then the meaning of words wouldn't change over time. Furthermore, when a thing is destroyed, the word would cease to mean anything. And that is obviously not the case.

Now, you accuse me of believing either one of two things: (1) that "love" refers to an intentional state and (2) that "love" refers to a brain state. I believe neither of these things, although they are not far from the truth. I don't believe (1) because intentional states are private, so they cannot possibly be the object of scientific inquiry. I don't believe (2) because saying that "love" refers to a brain state makes it seem as if the meaning of the word refers to a thing, a system of neural connections in the brain. In fact, I believe that the word "love," by itself, refers to nothing. It only acquires meaning when put into the form of a proposition, such as "I love you." The word only means something when it's being used in a specific context. When I say, "I love you," I am inviting the person I said it to to demonstrate love towards me. That's what makes it meaningful. If I said it to, say, myself, then it would be meaningless, which other people would let me know by giving me strange looks and calling me crazy. Keep in mind that "love" does not actually mean "l-o-v-i-n-g" but rather what "loving" can be reduced to in terms of action.

 

No one has ever found the physical entity that accounts for the phenomenon of gravity. There are observable phenomena which are surprisingly consistent and predictable, and there are theories about the subatomic realities (gravitons) that allow for the phenomena, but no one has found a graviton or ladled up a bucketful of gravity in order to prove that it physically exists. And yet, everyone believes in gravity. Once you know what the attributes of gravity are, once you recognize the predictable events that fall under the influence of gravity, then there is no doubt that gravity exists. Belief or disbelief has no influence whatsoever on the existence of gravity. Gravity exists.

It may be the same with God. There may be a primal spiritual entity called God which serves as the non-physical center of gravity of every particle in order to hold it together, or maybe God is the existence/consciousness/bliss that corresponds to "the good in everything," or may God is the ever-improvisational self-composing song of existence that you and I and everyone and everything are performing, or maybe God is, in part, the real you that inhabits your body and forms the span of your years.

Who knows?

Maybe once you set aside your habitual preconceptions in order to know, directly, what the Theists are trying to talk about, once you set aside your habitual preconceptions in order to know, directly, what the attributes of God are, once you recognize the predictable events that fall under the influence of God, then there is no doubt that God exists. Belief or disbelief has no influence whatsoever on the existence of the reality referred to as God.

It may also be true that the "God" of the Atheist truly does not exist. But maybe the non-existant "God" of the Atheist is nothing at all like the all-existant God of the Theist. Maybe the Atheist's god and the Theist's God are two completely different things that share the same name. Maybe the Atheist's and the Theist's understanding of what God is differs as fundamentally as a turtle's and a bird's understanding of what flight is.

Who knows?

Peace and Love

 

Nice Post

 

That is a stupid movie.

 

Thank you.

 

You're right in that gravity cannot be perceived directly but only, rather, through inferrence. But you're talking as if by seeing something is the only way we can know of it. I still know that 2 + 2 = 4 is meaningful even though I've never seen a "2," "+," "=," or "4." What, in princliple, is the difference between Aristotle's theory that a rock falls to the ground by its own volition and the modern theory of gravity? Absolutely nothing. But gravity is a universal law, and we know that to be true. So, it needs to be formulated theoretically to make any sense at all. I say "needs to be" because it's absolutely necessary. That's because the "theoretical world" is the world of mathematics. So, everything necessarily must reduce to a sophisticated version of A=A. God, on the other hand, is a completely different story than numbers or gravity.

Well, you're saying that you might be right, which means that you imply that you might be wrong. It seems to all come down to a matter of faith for you. "I might be right; I might be wrong, but I choose to believe anyway," seems to be what you're saying. Once you believe, you see all the evidence you need to confirm your faith. I always found this a bit curious myself. Kind of like the way Marxists can't pick up a newspaper without seeing class struggle at work, while anyone else wouldn't. Or how Freudians see the Oedipal Complex in case studies that a most other psychologists today wouldn't. But besides that fact, it seems strange that real faith would need any sort of confirmation at all. I mean, isn't faith absolute trust? And why would absolute trust need conditional evidence? But maybe I'm just putting words in your mouth. Anyway, let's get on to the real argument.

Let's explore the possibility that you might be wrong for a second. As I said before, gravity, like "2," is something that is universal, meaning that it is true, in principle, in all possible worlds. Now, as you said before, I might be right, or you might be right, implying that you can conceive, in principle, of a possible world in which God does not exist, where the functions God performs are not performed by God but rather through a variety of natural, even material, processes. If that is the case, then God cannot be like a number or like gravity. Nothing about God, then, is analytically true. So how, then, can God fit in to the scheme of mathematics, the theoretical realm, which is where God would have to be located. Even if you're not going to give up your position that God exists, you at least have to give up on the idea that God is, in any way, like gravity.

Show me one "preconception" in my argument. If you cannot, then you make at least one more preconception than I do: that God exists.

You can call your God "Hesus Ali Boddhavista" for all I care, but if that word refers to the same thing as the Judeo-Chrstian God, then I know what you're talking about just fine. If you are referring to a drastically different God, let me know.

 

Dear Common Sense,


Thank you for your thoughtful, challenging response. It is reassuring to know that someone else is thinking about this stuff. And whether you believe it or not, when you allow for any inherent limitations of perception, thought and language, it seems to me that you and I agree, far more than either of us realizes.


But please let me clarify.

I am not necessarily equating God with numbers or gravity, not exclusively anyway. What I meant to point out is the basic idea that there are non-physical aspects of reality that everyone accepts as irrefutably true. Things like gravity, time, space, the purely abstract patterns called (and expressed through) numbers, the relationships between rates of vibrations that make up music, and even more qualitative things we have not discussed in this thread.


These non-physical aspects of reality, these abstractions, if you will, actually define reality a lot more than one realizes. I believe it is wise to be aware of their existence, be aware of the essence of what they are, and, even more importantly, to be conscious of the possibilities once you have accepted the reality of these, and other, abstractions. What is most important, however, is the realization that the essential quality of human life, individually, collectively, historically, etc. is inseperable from the essential quality of one's consciousness of the abstract reality, and its immediate effects upon one's relationships with one's fellows and with reality itself.


Put much more simply, while reality itself is a single unified whole, there are many vitally essential aspects of reality that have no physical existence. One is wise to be aware of them, and one's life is better for knowing them. These "things" are Love, Truth, Consciousness, Creativity, Wisdom, Compassion, Bliss, Peace, Harmony, Unity. There are more, of course, but these are vital. You can put them together and know them as God, if you like, or you can know God through them, if you would rather think of it that way, or you can just accept them as they are without any theological premise, but I would suggest that you never try to live without them.

Well, faith simply is. Moreover, I believe that all ideas about God are statements of faith (whether God is or is not a he, she, it, they, you, I or we, a noun or a verb, a spark in the psyche, or all reality itself, or something else entirely).


I am, the same as you are, well aware of the limitations of unexamined faith. The difficulty with misplaced, or rather, incomplete faith (such as Marxism and Freudianism, as you suggest, as well as militant Fundamentalism, Wahabism, Neo-Conservatism, Nihilism, etc.), is that it offers, maybe even insists upon, a limited consciousness, a limited perspective that does not provide for, or even allow for an even bigger picture. When that happens, people eventually get lost and tend to act in contradiction to their better nature.


I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I am deeply concerned that Humanity may be in danger of falling to that kind of limited consciousness. I would love to know that there are intelligent, good-hearted people out there who are actively seeking, and finding, the bigger picture. I can only offer my thoughts and my perspective in the hope that it may help.


As far as the Judeo-Christian-Islamic, Western, Monotheistic religious tradition is concerned, it is my cultural and spiritual heritage just as it is yours. The tradition may bear the scars of historic flaws, ignorance and intolerance, injustice and violence, since it has been practiced by imperfect human beings for a very long time, but I know there is also something inexplicably, phenomenally, transcendently good and hopeful, divine even, that lives within the tradition itself. There is something worth knowing here.

As I said, I don't really equate God with gravity, I just wanted to illustrate that a common belief in something for which there is no proven physical existence may actually describe reality.


I am well aware that I may be wrong about all of this. We may both be wrong.

The one preconception in your argument is this: God does not exist.


I am sure you understand, this too is a matter of faith, all statements about God are a matter of faith.


To be fair, there are really only two (and a half) answers to the question of God's existence. Yes or no (and "maybe, I don't know yet"). If you are inclined to say yes, then everything you view through your faith supports your faith. If you are inclined to say no, then nothing you view through your faith supports the other guys faith.


However you are inclined to believe, you will find evidence which supports your belief. Of course, it is important to remember, reality exists, regardless of our beliefs.

All I am saying is, God (or reality, if you prefer) exists beyond the limitations of perception, thought and language. I ask that you please entertain the idea that maybe the Atheist's and the Theist's understanding of what God is differs as fundamentally as a Kindergardener and a PhD's understanding of what mathematics is.

Who knows?

 

Varuna

Einstien found the physical entity that accounts for the
phenomenon gravity.
Its called mass.
Mass warps 3d space. 'pinching into gravity wells
the 3 dimensional grid of space'
Gravitons are dead my friend....just a fill in theory for those who do not accept space as a thing in itself.
We know mass warps space because we HAVE SEEN IT.

Thus your argument falls down,,for WE HAVE NOT SEEN..this god you
speak of.
Yes it may exist..Occam is not foolish enough, like many, to say that
something does exist without at least some corroborating independent evidence.

And occam suggests the HABITUAL PRECONCEPTIONS you speak of are
that THERE IS A GOD AS DESCRIBED BY RELIGION.
These preconceptions are conditioned into us from birth. Constantly
We are surounded by 'houses of god' [churches] Great men of god die and they are held up to the world as saints in all world media.
The greatest nations live by IN GOD WE TRUST..ONE NATION UNDER GOD.
WE are SO CONDITIONED that the most common exclamation of suprise is.
OH MY GOD

In nearly every culture, children are overtly preconditioned for life with the belief that there is a god and that you just choose the flavour of your religion and you are set.
Occam suggests that ALL RELIGIOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF GOD ARE CRAP.

There may or may not be a 'god' as human being quaintly call a directing influence within or behind reality.
MANY believe there is...But belief is not FACT..Belief is a state of mind..
about a possible thing.
NOT A 1ST HAND DESCRIPTION OF THE THING ITSELF.

There is no human that can show it as a fact.

Insufficient data.

Occam

 

Things like peace, love, and truth don't have an independent existence outside the mind, so I'm not arguing that those things don't exist. God has to exist independently from the mind. So, if you put all of those things together, you don't get God. I could just as easily include things like war, dissonance, evil, falsity to that list. What you do get is a great deal of but by no means all the contents of the mind.

Marxism and Freudianism do allow for "the big picture." It's not the fact the Maxists, Freudians, and Pentecostals don't "get it." The trouble is they do "get it," and more specifically that "it" does not correspond with the way reality actually is and that they're willing to disregard disconfirming evidence, preferring instead to beg the question and come up with ridiculous ad hoc hypotheses.

That's not a premise in the argument. That's not even the conclusion. But I will make an argument concluding that God does not exist shortly.

Right. That's the problem. If you believe, you find all sorts of evidence supporting your conclusion, but there's no guarantee that the way things work in the real world corresponds even close to the way your world theoretically works in your head. With things like gravity, we are certain that all things everywhere will act in a way that complies with gravity, all other things considered. A man who believes that when he drops a pencil it falls to the ground by its own free will still has to put up with the fact that when you plug the appropriate variables into a formula, you can predict exactly how fast the pencil will fall. The formula doesn't mention anything about the consciousness of pencils, volition, Aristotle, or anything but the variables and operators necessary for proving the formula. So, it doesn't matter what you believe the cause behind the numbers is, the numbers are like that necessarily. With God, that is obviously not the case. So that rules out all precise statements of identity we can make about God. And something that lacks precise predicates is either nothing at all, or a very shady thing that's probably not worth our attention, a vague pseudo-theory at best, like astrology.

You just said a mouth-full there and some of it is just contratrary to common sense, and I mean things you learn just by being in the world for about two seconds.

How can reality, what exists, be beyond perception? My body, this room, the laptop I'm writing on are, then, by you reasoning not real, do not exist. That makes no sense at all.

But it's this thing about an Atheists' God and a Theists' God that I find interesting, and you seem really intent on it so let's explore that a little. Now, to avoid confusion, let's just dispell of this math analogy to begin with. The five-year-old obviously doesn't understand anything about set theory or non-euclidian geometry yet, but he could go out and learn all those things in about 15 years. Obviously, no one can "teach" me to believe something. That doesn't make any sense. If you try to teach someone something and they don't know that fact afterwards, then you obviously never taught that person, even though you tried to. The reason is that there is no criteria to meet for believing something like there's criteria for knowledge. It seems that I can just arbitrarily start and stop believing things whenever I feel like it. Now I believe that a man is eating ice cream in Moscow; now I don't. Now I believe in God; now I don't. I fail to see how this severely alters my perception of the world, but let's suppose that it does.

Let's imagine two men, Adam (A) and Tom (T). Adam is an atheist; Tom is a theist. Adam and Tom, as you seem to think, live in completely different worlds, which happen to be exactly the same except for in a few respects. When Adam thinks a thought in his world, he thinks with quotation marks (""), when Tom thinks, he thinks in asterixes (**). So,

A: "It is raining."
T: *It is raining.*

A: "Here is a brown table."
T: *Here is a brown table.*

A: "Two plus two is four."
T: *Two plus two is four.*

Let's say that it is, in fact, raining and that both Adam and Tom do indeed see a brown table before them. If Adam and Tom should ever meet in some trans-dimensional world, they would be able to converse easily about almost any topic. Even if their respective worlds were not exactly alike, they could compare similarities and differences. Perhaps the brown table is located at the corner of 10th St. and 15th St. in Adam's world and at 10th St. and 16th St. in Tom's. If such was the case, then they could still talk about the table. So if Tom said, *God is omnipotent,* then how come Adam could obviously say, "God is omnipotent" right back at him? If they are really talking about different things, then when Tom says, *God is omnipotent,* Adam should just blankly stare at him, wondering what the hell he's talking about. In fact, if we're talking about two completely different things, how is this conversation even possible. Why is it that when you say, *God is omnipotent," I don't just reply that "It's raining out,"?

 

Dear Common Sense,

You have a great gift. Thank you for sharing it. Now, let's open it, shall we?

Isn't it just possible that things like peace, love, and truth do have an independent existence outside the mind? Why is it so difficult to even play with this idea?

Inversely, Why is it necessary to require that God has to exist independently from the mind? The truth of these ideas may be exactly as you state them, but . . .

According to your theology, What is the difference between God (existent or not) and things like peace, love, and truth, and consciousness, creativity, wisdom, compassion, bliss, harmony, etc.? Why is it necessary to separate them on the basis of their relationship to your mind?

Couldn't the human mind, human consciousness, if you will, couldn't this be a facet of some divine reality? Isn't human consciousness a product of the universe that you deny is conscious?

That debate aside, why disregard the reality of your mind? Why disregard those things that are perceivable most easily via the mind? The real question here may be - What is consciousness? Is it merely a by-product of the brain? Is it a synaptic (or a synoptic) harmony that resonates with some ultimate reality which is, in fact, divine?

These are not rhetorical questions. I really want to know what you think. I am thoroughly enjoying this exchange of ideas, and I sincerely hope that, yes, you are too.

You know we are not talking about all the contents of the mind, nor are we discussing the entire spectrum of things that may be conceived within the mind. You know, as well as you know anything, that the unified reality of things like peace, love, and truth is a qualitatively different entity than things like war, dissonance, evil and falsity.

While you're at it, there are other qualitatively different states of mind (intolerance, willful ignorance (no, I am not accusing you of this), anger and hatred) that even the most die hard materialists accept as existent. Why are these more acceptable than a unified spiritual entity expressed through "things" like peace, love, and truth, and consciousness, creativity, wisdom, compassion, bliss, harmony, benevolence, etc.?

I agree.

The difference is, Gravity is a physical phenomenon (masses attract) which consistantly occurs without any known physical mechanism. God is a spiritual reality which does not require (nor does it exclude) any physical correspondence. When one simply accepts the possibility that there may be a spiritual reality infused within the physical, then a self-evident harmony becomes perceivable throughout the entire range of possible existences. This is an unignorable, heart and mind and soul and life-altering fact of existence to those who have experienced it. It is simply impossible to entirely contain it with thoughts, words, or theories, as virtually every mystic of every age and every tradition has stated.

You are right, that makes no sense at all. It appears we have misunderstood one another. What you thought I wrote is very different from what I actually wrote.

Your body, that room, the laptop exist. I don't know why anyone would doubt that for even an instant. But the big idea behind all of this is simple - reality is far more than the mere existance of physical entities (otherwise, to whom am I writing?). The more you look at reality, on its own terms, the more you recognize that this meta-physical dimension of reality exists just as irrefutably as your body, that room and that laptop.

This is why we are here.

Gladly.

It is quite possible that I am mathematically retarded. I have a better analogy based on music theory, if you would rather go that way.

Or better yet, there is also Alan Watts' analogy of the painting. He says that a single painting can be perceived in many very different but equally valid ways. A chemist or an art restorer may see it as a specific arrangement of specific pigments, mediums, and supports (canvas, wood panel, etc.). An art dealer may see it as an item of specific monetary value. An art historian may see it as a work of specific meaning which has a significant place within its tradition. An art student may see it as an inspiring mastery of materials and techniques. A designer may see it as an arrangement of specific colors which may be applied to his aesthetic intentions. And the artist, of course, may see it in any or all of these ways, or, in even more ways than these. The fact that there are many different "things" seen does not mean that the painting doesn't exist.

It is the same with God. Something called God (Allah, Adonai, The Tao, Bhagwan, Buddha-mind, Jah, etc.) exists. Over the millenia, billions of people have experienced the reality of God, thousands have written, spoken, and tought about the direct experience of God, countless people have rearranged their lives around the experience, and unfortunately, too many of them have suffered and died at the hands of too many more who, erroneously, believe they must fight or kill for the experience.

Aren't you curious about what it is they experience?

I know what you mean. But, there is a difference between hypotheticals, belief, knowledge and experience.

Peace and Love,

 

It's not difficult to play with the idea. Plato played with that one quite a bit. And all the problems with it are very clearly expressed in Parmenides. It can't be hard to find on-line. But I'll spoil the ending; it ends in an infinite regress.

Because if God were conditioned upon the mind, then God could not have created the mind.

You just answered your own question. They are all different words, so they mean different things. Now, could peace, love, truth, etc. connote God, meaning could those things predicate God? I don't see why not. But how would you go about finding that out? I see other problems too. To say that "God is love" is different than saying "God is loving." The former seems to imply that God is actually all particular manifestations of love. The latter, that God participates in love.

You still have to tell me exactly what divine reality is. Reality, as I understand it, is the state of affairs. So how does divine reality differ?

When did I say that my mind is not real? Exactly what it is is hard to say, but I nevertheless know that it's there. You seem to have picked up the idea that I'm a materialist some how. In truth, I'm of the opinion that it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever if the universe is material, psychical, volitional, or something else.

Yeah, it's a good one. This post took a little longer than the last few. Sorry about that. Just needed a bit more time.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unified reality." Now, what really interests me about this paragraph is your use of the phrase "qualitatively different." Even the word "entity" seems a little misplaced. Before continuing let me just clarify something. When I talk about peace, love, and truth, I have usually called them "things" or "something." This is simple linguistic convention. Strictly speaking, it remains to be said whether they are "things" or "entities." Anyway, I find it very hard to conceive of any qualities that "truth" might possess. The quality of truth, of course, comes to mind. But it seems to me that that's a very different thing from the qualities of "red" or "sweet." Now, you may be absolutely right that truth is a quality, but I don't want to say anything until I've thought about it a little longer.

None of those things are any more "acceptable" than any other, except the idea that some or all of those things are a "unified spiritual entity." You're making my world seem very gloomy indeed when it really isn't.

Well then that suggests a big problem to me, for obvious reasons.

Sorry, I misunderstood then.

How do you go about looking at reality on its own terms? What exactly does this entail? Also, I can come up with any damn-fool metaphysical statement I want. I'll make one up right now: "Time is the continuous manifestion of one's will." This is obviously false and I didn't put any thought into it whatsoever. So, let's suppose that metaphysical statements are meaningful. What criteria must true metaphysical statements meet?

I skipped a lot of your post over but only because the answer to this question is "YES!" That's why I need to know exactly what divine reality is.

Hmmm... is there a difference between hypotheses and beliefs? I'll have to think about that one.

 

This is just a thought I am pondering these days. I believe it is true, but I would love to hear what you think.

If one looks deeply enough into reality, on its own terms, without ego, without fear, without desire, one may recognize the universal inspiration found within Love itself, within Truth itself, within Consciousness itself, within Wisdom, Creativity, Compassion, Bliss (Joy), Harmony, Unity, Benevolence, Peace, etc.

When one realizes how these very real things are related to one another, are expressions of one another, are even, in a way, identical with one another, then one "sees," or rather, one knows the reality of God that the faithful refer to as Allah, Adonai, Vishnu, JHVH, The Tao, Bhagwan, Buddha-mind, Jah, etc.

Choose any name that sounds good to you.

Believe it or not, there is nothing esoteric, extraordinary or occult about any of this. You are fully human, so you realize this.

Peace and Love