If God is Omniscient then Human is not free.

...and some will understand critically...

 

Dear Gorski, I told it a few posts earlier: a 4D brain cannot understand an nD entity, where n is infinite.

Let me put in philosophical terms (you are a philosophy professor, if I recall correctly, if not, I apologize): do you think that an ant can understand you when you talk about Kant, for example?

 

I think that sums it up.

 

Socrate, only a proverbial "God" can sound as cocky as you - and IF s/he exists, then "it" may have reasons to do so... but...

Any Human, given time and motivation, i.e. decent education/chances in life, can understand these issues, if not seriously IQ challenged...

But but but...

 

Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence

Culture's influence on intelligence

The Jose and Bellamy (2011) article examined students in the US, New Zealand, China, and Japan and the different ways that parents influenced their children’s persistence. The results indicated that US parents valued incremental theory of intelligence the most, Chinese parents encouraged their kids the most and were most persistent, and New Zealand parents had more significant levels of frustration. The more parents supported incremental learning the more the children were persistent on the task. The main claim that the researchers made was that Asian parents motivate their children to learn in a different way than Western parents do. This study was not so much about levels of intelligence than the way that culture shapes learning and intelligence. It, evidently, varies across cultures. Lastly, Wentzel (1998) conducted a study also assessing how parents shape children’s ways of learning and motivation to learn. Parents and culture had an influence on children’s value of intelligence and learning and motivation. The main idea was that parents set their expectations for their children through their confidence in them, the nature of children’s intelligence, and achievement-related values.

Researchers can not particularly assign intelligence to one culture over another. Additionally, the studies imply that socio-culture plays one of the biggest roles in school achievement, educational motivation, learning abilities, and thus intelligence. That is, these children value what their parents, community, or culture values. This also shapes the way that they learn, the way that they approach problems, and how they value learning and certain educational skills. The main findings are that the way children learn, and thus their intelligence, is shaped by their culture and environment.

 

Yen, you can sell this to your lover, your children and alike...

However, in a non-intimate surrounding - how are you going to "not communicate via language/Spirit"?!?

This kind of mysticism never helped anyone - except the elitists of the worst kind, with their "closed circle initiates", as in "only for the chosen few"...

 

It looks like English, but I don't even understand the sentences. Man, I must be really stupid and Yen master must have seen the light. All praise Yen!

Edit: I mean. All glory to Yen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Qq31ucGy0

 

@gorski: I see you're fantastic at dodging questions and give elusive answers. You'd be a very good politician.

@TCM: you take a small hand of people and apply that to general population. How smart is that?

 

Nope, we had this discussion before and Yen knows it: his position is elusive and vague and so on... Eastern, that is.

Mine is "Western", inclusive, clear and out in the open, tested from all angles all the time...

(Western) Science is inclusive, universal, connecting, interested in that which is common!

(Eastern) Mysticism is the opposite. There is no running away from it.

"Feeling" is exclusive! Either you feel like me or you don't. Period! After you state you don't feel the same way - clobbering tools are taken out of the closet...

In Science one can debate, share etc. etc.

Principles, laws, paradigms etc.

v.

"deep insights that have to be felt and cannot be linguistically expressed"...

Go figure.

Sounds like art to me. And as art - it is fine... But no more than that. It must know its limit and here it is!

 

What's with this view of science to be elite[1] or claiming to know everything?

The most important statement a scientist can make is "I don't know". It is expressively this humbleness, to not claim you know something when you don't, that is lacking in all religious followers and "spiritualists".

"Science is the only true way to progress" is a whole different claim than "science knows everything".

That science _is_ the only way to progress is self-evident in the fact that all of modern technology - technology all science bashers themselves use - couldn't exist without it. You cannot doubt the scientific method while reaping all its benefits.

That science _doesn't_ know everything is also self-evident in the fact that we're still doing science, i.e. there is still unknown stuff to be discovered.

Filling gaps in knowledge with unprovable superstition is the hallmark of being unscientific.

Sitting in a corner all by yourself, with only your mind to come up with plausible ideas is completely meaningless if you don't go ahead and derive some real consequences from it. You can smoke whatever you wish all day and formulate all kinds of weird ideas. If there is no testable consequence with real effects in the real world as perceived by others, you only wasted a lot of your limited time, exercising your brain with interesting thoughts. It has nothing to do with reality as perceived by everyone else on this planet.

Edit:

[1] If you view it as elitist when scientists require a minimum ability to reason and think critically, when you don't possess those qualities, that's not really elitism on their part. It's like trying to compete in the 100m runs when your body is wider than it is tall. It's merely a fault in yourself than elitism in someone else.

 

Actually, this statement is made out of "duality":

"Once more there is NO duality. You make your statement out of duality. There is no 'I' who could know something 'better'.
Nobody can own the reality.
And the communication is timeless because it is now."

If nobody can "own" reality, then reality is comprehensible and express-able, as it were... No need for mysticism, language is enough.

Of course, one must study to reach various "principles, laws, paradigms" and so on...

But as a principle, what you are saying when advocating "awareness", i.e. a mystical "feeling of Universe" and whatnot, over and above knowledge - is mystical nonsense.

Sorry but it has to be said... as you know, as we have already discussed it before...

The limit of "Western" Science, then, just as we talked about it, is that it is not interested in individuality of an individual but only in that which is common, general, universalisable... Sure, this is where "feeling" starts (and ends) and this can be felt in an artistic expression or intimate, orgasmic relationships. But no more than that, I'm afraid.

If you try to make this a basis for a society - we shall end up at each other's throats, as - for instance - Japanese "religious" masters have proven...

 

OKI, I'll pretend I understood all that... cleverly... masterfully, even...

 

Then you have elevated reality to such an abstract concept that it loses all meaning. And you still have to prove that it is actually so, because you claim insights that are unproven. Where did you get those insights? How can we know they are true if you can only tell us about them, but never actually demonstrate any tangible effect of these insights? Because then we have to step back, look at the reality that _we_ know about the human brain and come to the conclusion that it's nothing more than a mind game of yours.

You may have experiences of certain kinds. That's undoubted. What's in doubt is that those experiences describe a reality different from what we would call reality.

We're just going in circles. If you don't value evidence and reason, how could you ever be conviced of their merits...

 

I think that we as a species, when presented with something that We don't understand (and possibly fear) tend to fill in the gaps. I believe that there is a duality that exists in all of us; But not the sense of science, spirituality, or pholosophy.

We are two halves, drawn in two opposing directions. One side is the primal side of man. Our base instincts, need to feed, reproduce, be safe and warm.

The other side is our need to evolve spiritually. To believe that we are rising above our station in this life, and to believe that our lives have some kind of meaning. How else can we reckon every bit of pain and loss that we experience?

Some call it a spiritual path, some call it a journey. But it is -NOT- the same for all of us. We all need different icons, we all learn at different rates, and our journeys are unique and intimate, often times not shared with anyone.

The question is not "what do you believe", but what works for You.

What gives You comfort and solace in this world?

To Me, that's all that matters. I search for that one thing that makes it easy for Me to get out of bed in the morning.
That unquantifiable essence that enables Me to look at people with compassion and not cynicism and cold calculus.

Every day I search for this. And every day I find enough to survive and still have enough love in My heart to show compassion and mercy to others. That's what drives Me.

What drives You?

 

Kids. At least for now, they are my saviours...

 

I'd rather like this compassion and humanism to not be based on a fear of a fictional hell.

I remember a talkshow where someone basically said, if he didn't have God, he would be running around raping and murdering, which tells a lot more about the person than about the existence of a god.

Whatever good things you feel and do, there is no need for a god to feel and do them. What's better, if people are good because they want to be or because they want to buy a ticket into heaven? Doing good things is much more satisfying if you realize that the reason you do them is not some fictional paradise at the end of the road, but because you freely chose to do them when you could as well do evil thing without any difference after your death.