An interestingly entangled and, in some aspects, graceful round of wrestling (e.g. the description of God being evidenced in one's life by a space). It is difficult to get any grip on these matters by use of language, but by the same token it can be worthwhile trying to communicate about them. I am not sure about all the ideas, but that matters little.
"Identity is a jealous god": this is a fine encapsulation of much that is troublesome, both ancient and modern. (See also "mind—when configured in defense against and defiance of reality—is the root of all evil").
The "purgatorial processing" is a fitting description for my own experiences, which are similar to those described in the footnote.
Regarding our responses to tragedies and losses, of course (?) that which you describe in respect of your brother's passing is not the only possibility - one could also react in an embittered, hardened, even vengeful way. I guess that, even in the case of such reactions, the 'good' is still there somewhere in that God's allowing us free will to respond as we do is a loving act, as it would not be loving if our responses were dictated or determined.
(And if God's love has bestowed free will upon human beings, might He also have bestowed it upon spiritual entities also? - this would allow for the notion of evil being at large in the cosmos as a force/forces).
Thank you and happy birthday! Evil lives within a mob. That rings true to me when I consider the social engineering of the past few years. When it boils down to it, you can't hide the evil that was done to people in the name of 'The New Normal' and 'Build Back Better' and other advertising slogans like 'Safe and Effective'. What to do about it is a daily question that people like yourself help me answer.
Your terms are not at all clear. You might take time to provide some definitions, particularly if you feel the need to redefine widely held terms, such as evil. I like M. Scott Peck's definition from his book People of the Lie, but I'd entertain others if they were made explicit. I simply don't know exactly what you mean by evil, and I'd like to.
I'd argue that the creation story of Valentian Gnostic Christianity makes more sense than whatever jewish ghosts you want to wrestle with here. That said, the only thing I can say with certainty about Gnostic Christianity is that we can't be certain what it was and is, given the early roman church fathers' libel, slander, and thousand years of successful cover-up.
Furthermore, Gnostics varied wildly in their beliefs, the same as different denominations of "normal" Christianity--Calvinists and Catholics both claim Christianity, but predestination versus free will are about as theologically opposed as can be, and using the same umbrella word for both of them ("Christian"--which I believe literally means "follower of Christ") is at best unhelpful.
I don't have much time for a binary sexing or gendering of God; that said, most people raised in protestant circles (at least the strict LCMS lutheran ones I experienced) take no issue with a fatherly/masculine/male God, in the sense of creation as divine insemination or physically superior authority figure. It's also worth noting that some Gnostic schools took this far too literally for me to entertain (bodily fluids and sex magic).
If I never heard the names Freud and Jung, and never had to think about their ideas ever again, nothing of value would be lost to me. In retrospect, their remarkable widespread adoption and staying power in people's minds seems forced at best, much like Marx.
None of this is intended as a put down; in my opinion, your thought power and interest in these concepts is guaranteed to encountering the limits of language, making this more difficult.
You have a great deal of insight into the Antagonist (for lack of a better term, although I do not conflate the serpent, Lucifer, Satan, and the devil--it's not at all clear to me that they are different terms for the same entity). But accepting the occasional bold claim (such as from Big Mother, that time and matter are Satan's domain) prima facie is a lot to ask, intellectually.
These claims can quickly add up to the point where I have no idea what you mean by the terms "good/evil," "God," and "Christian" particularly if you're breaking from consensual conceptions.
I'm inclined to follow your path of thought on this, but in this article at least, I can't see your footsteps. And I'm personally tired of ghosts from the 19th century dominating 21st century discussions, especially from a cocaine fueled professional fraud like Freud.
Jung could be considered more useful--if only for his grounded acknowledgement of metaphysical phenomena such as synchronicity--and perhaps the two are inseparable, but: if you know the birth of psychiatry (see: Psychiatry, The Science of Lies by Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist) with Mesmer and Freud, you might be inclined to consider it the most poisoned tree of all time, and whatever fruit supposedly came from it to be therefore the most poisonous fruit ever.
I'm eager to be done with wrestling with ghosts and their spells. We've been mesmerized enough by Mesmer. The fact that our most important terms have been obfuscated to the point where I felt the need to write all this is not indicative of a fruitful line of thought.
(Notable that Job's sin, which he is forced to confess at the end, is that he used words without knowing their meaning.)
As humanity sees mother nature and the devastation she provides as well as the beauty she ensnares us all in, humanity projected supposed evil as the causation. I believe, Somewhere in there the feminine aspect archetype is formed. The “New Age” concordance is due to some truth within it. Primitive man was more in tune with the reality of nature’s cataclysmic gifts. I have read by other authors of the phallic problem. It is my understanding, it involves humanity’s disconnection from natures reality.
The problem of evil was solved by the great philosophers/theologians of the "process" school, beginning with Alfred North Whitehead, but culminating in Dr. David Ray Griffin's God, Power & Evil. Hint: God is NOT omnipotent.
I just discovered you, Jasun, via a mention in an essay by Laurent Guyenot and look forward to reading your work. I commend Griffin's G, P, & E to you. Peace.
thx again for this link; was exposed to the 'Richard Day' tapes back in the day; but never bothered to pay much attention to them. Now, i am! Cheers!!!
An interestingly entangled and, in some aspects, graceful round of wrestling (e.g. the description of God being evidenced in one's life by a space). It is difficult to get any grip on these matters by use of language, but by the same token it can be worthwhile trying to communicate about them. I am not sure about all the ideas, but that matters little.
"Identity is a jealous god": this is a fine encapsulation of much that is troublesome, both ancient and modern. (See also "mind—when configured in defense against and defiance of reality—is the root of all evil").
The "purgatorial processing" is a fitting description for my own experiences, which are similar to those described in the footnote.
Regarding our responses to tragedies and losses, of course (?) that which you describe in respect of your brother's passing is not the only possibility - one could also react in an embittered, hardened, even vengeful way. I guess that, even in the case of such reactions, the 'good' is still there somewhere in that God's allowing us free will to respond as we do is a loving act, as it would not be loving if our responses were dictated or determined.
(And if God's love has bestowed free will upon human beings, might He also have bestowed it upon spiritual entities also? - this would allow for the notion of evil being at large in the cosmos as a force/forces).
I trust it was a happy birthday.
Thank you and happy birthday! Evil lives within a mob. That rings true to me when I consider the social engineering of the past few years. When it boils down to it, you can't hide the evil that was done to people in the name of 'The New Normal' and 'Build Back Better' and other advertising slogans like 'Safe and Effective'. What to do about it is a daily question that people like yourself help me answer.
Your terms are not at all clear. You might take time to provide some definitions, particularly if you feel the need to redefine widely held terms, such as evil. I like M. Scott Peck's definition from his book People of the Lie, but I'd entertain others if they were made explicit. I simply don't know exactly what you mean by evil, and I'd like to.
I'd argue that the creation story of Valentian Gnostic Christianity makes more sense than whatever jewish ghosts you want to wrestle with here. That said, the only thing I can say with certainty about Gnostic Christianity is that we can't be certain what it was and is, given the early roman church fathers' libel, slander, and thousand years of successful cover-up.
Furthermore, Gnostics varied wildly in their beliefs, the same as different denominations of "normal" Christianity--Calvinists and Catholics both claim Christianity, but predestination versus free will are about as theologically opposed as can be, and using the same umbrella word for both of them ("Christian"--which I believe literally means "follower of Christ") is at best unhelpful.
I don't have much time for a binary sexing or gendering of God; that said, most people raised in protestant circles (at least the strict LCMS lutheran ones I experienced) take no issue with a fatherly/masculine/male God, in the sense of creation as divine insemination or physically superior authority figure. It's also worth noting that some Gnostic schools took this far too literally for me to entertain (bodily fluids and sex magic).
If I never heard the names Freud and Jung, and never had to think about their ideas ever again, nothing of value would be lost to me. In retrospect, their remarkable widespread adoption and staying power in people's minds seems forced at best, much like Marx.
None of this is intended as a put down; in my opinion, your thought power and interest in these concepts is guaranteed to encountering the limits of language, making this more difficult.
You have a great deal of insight into the Antagonist (for lack of a better term, although I do not conflate the serpent, Lucifer, Satan, and the devil--it's not at all clear to me that they are different terms for the same entity). But accepting the occasional bold claim (such as from Big Mother, that time and matter are Satan's domain) prima facie is a lot to ask, intellectually.
These claims can quickly add up to the point where I have no idea what you mean by the terms "good/evil," "God," and "Christian" particularly if you're breaking from consensual conceptions.
I'm inclined to follow your path of thought on this, but in this article at least, I can't see your footsteps. And I'm personally tired of ghosts from the 19th century dominating 21st century discussions, especially from a cocaine fueled professional fraud like Freud.
Jung could be considered more useful--if only for his grounded acknowledgement of metaphysical phenomena such as synchronicity--and perhaps the two are inseparable, but: if you know the birth of psychiatry (see: Psychiatry, The Science of Lies by Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist) with Mesmer and Freud, you might be inclined to consider it the most poisoned tree of all time, and whatever fruit supposedly came from it to be therefore the most poisonous fruit ever.
I'm eager to be done with wrestling with ghosts and their spells. We've been mesmerized enough by Mesmer. The fact that our most important terms have been obfuscated to the point where I felt the need to write all this is not indicative of a fruitful line of thought.
(Notable that Job's sin, which he is forced to confess at the end, is that he used words without knowing their meaning.)
As humanity sees mother nature and the devastation she provides as well as the beauty she ensnares us all in, humanity projected supposed evil as the causation. I believe, Somewhere in there the feminine aspect archetype is formed. The “New Age” concordance is due to some truth within it. Primitive man was more in tune with the reality of nature’s cataclysmic gifts. I have read by other authors of the phallic problem. It is my understanding, it involves humanity’s disconnection from natures reality.
Your resolute surety that God must be the sum of all things is uncurious, which is curious for such a curious person.
Maybe not for a 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯. But certainly for a person with so much curiosity.
Thank you for this.
I found this particular interpretation useful,
https://www.spiritofthescripture.com/id1105-jobs-ending-much-better-than-his-beginning-an-esoteric-lesson-for-humanity.html
https://www.spiritofthescripture.com/id1078-jobs-friends-the-mental-astral-and-physical-bodies-and-the-root-of-suffering.html
https://www.spiritofthescripture.com/id1069-an-esoteric-interpretation-of-job-ascension-of-the-self-through-suffering.html
Happy birthday
The process thinkers say no.
The problem of evil was solved by the great philosophers/theologians of the "process" school, beginning with Alfred North Whitehead, but culminating in Dr. David Ray Griffin's God, Power & Evil. Hint: God is NOT omnipotent.
Is God mortal also?
Whitehead et al say no.
Norman Mailer believed in a non-omnipotent God also; it implies finiteness which implies form which implies mortality; i prefer my solution.
I just discovered you, Jasun, via a mention in an essay by Laurent Guyenot and look forward to reading your work. I commend Griffin's G, P, & E to you. Peace.
this stuff is gold; thx 4 link!
thx again for this link; was exposed to the 'Richard Day' tapes back in the day; but never bothered to pay much attention to them. Now, i am! Cheers!!!
good stuff here, thx 4 link!