God and stuff

[Apech]

I woke up this morning thinking - if God is ineffable/unknowable (stick with me I'm not usually a god botherer) - then it would be as true to say 'that which is unknowable is god'.  In other words we have those things we know, those thing that we don't know yet but may come to know (the unknown) - and that which in itself is unknowable.

 

So if we imagine ourselves on an island which comprises the 'known' world, and that the surrounding ocean is the unknown (with the flotsam and jetsam washed ashore being those new things we come to know) - then when we ask the question 'how did this come to be like this in the first place?' - or 'what is making this continue to exist?' -  the answer is in the unknowable.

 

So its a kind of puzzle to wonder how things came to be and how they persist.  A religious person bows in awe at such a question but the mystic says 'I am the unknowable'.

 

No idea why I woke thinking this - but there you go.

 

Any comments?

[Marblehead]

The knowable universe is only 4% of the totality of what is thought to be the entire universe.

 

So we can know 4%.  The other 96% is unknowable.

 

We can think we know but we really don't.

 

Sure, one could consider that 96% to be God.  I call it the unmanifest Dao.

 

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Marblehead said:

The knowable universe is only 4% of the totality of what is thought to be the entire universe.

 

So we can know 4%.  The other 96% is unknowable.

 

We can think we know but we really don't.

 

Sure, one could consider that 96% to be God.  I call it the unmanifest Dao.

 

 

 

Not the unknown = 96% that's not god, but the unknowable.  

[Marblehead]

1 minute ago, Apech said:

 

Not the unknown = 96% that's not god, but the unknowable.  

I'll accept that.

 

[liminal_luke]

We can speculate about the ratio of what we know to what is knowable but as yet unknown.  If you forced me to speculate I`d type a decimal point and then start hitting zeros and I wouldn`t let up on the zero key, well, ever.  I mean, really -- we know so very, very little.

 

Don`t even get me started about the relative percentage of the known (or the unknown but knowable) versus the unknowable: that question doesn`t even make sense.  The part of our brains that uses a calculator has no business even getting close to the unknowable.  We can`t figure out the unknowable but we can embody it.  To be more accurate, we can come to be aware that we are an embodiment of the unknowable.  We can carry this awareness of the unknowable around with us as we go to work and do the dishes and parent our children.  We can leak ineffibility into the world like a busted canister of invisible gas, until everyone around us is suffused with an infinitely subtle fluorescence.

Edited September 23, 2018 by liminal_luke

[Apech]

One thing I learned recently is that the ancient cosmological models such as that in Genesis, the abhidharma mandala and the Lo Shu and so on - are not primitive forms of scientific cosmology but more maps of the known by which to orientate yourself.  Maps of the island of the known (with the unknown usually as a void or sea or wasteland).

[Jeff]

13 minutes ago, Apech said:

One thing I learned recently is that the ancient cosmological models such as that in Genesis, the abhidharma mandala and the Lo Shu and so on - are not primitive forms of scientific cosmology but more maps of the known by which to orientate yourself.  Maps of the island of the known (with the unknown usually as a void or sea or wasteland).

 

How would that work with something like Genesis when you start out presupposing a God, then say that he created heaven and earth, with the earth being void? Where is the known part orientation?

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

 

How would that work with something like Genesis when you start out presupposing a God, then say that he created heaven and earth, with the earth being void? Where is the known part orientation?

 

 

Not sure I understand the question but ... heaven, earth, sun, stars, animals and vegetation are the known.  Void and without form is the unknown and god the unknowable.

 

In most of these ancient cosmologies there is up, down, and either four or eight directions which are characterised by the qualities of the known - such as the four elements and such.

[liminal_luke]

Whether it makes cosmological, mystical or theological sense I don`t know, but I love the idea of an ancient map with the known parts densely notated surrounded by a large wasteland designating the unknown.  A potent image.

[Apech]

If it helps watch this from about 9:45 mins onwards.

 

Chaos = unknown

Cosmos = known

Temple is model of the cosmos and so on.

 

 

[Gerard]

8 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Any comments?

 

Easy:

 

1. You create God

2. You create your own reality

3. This reality is the creation of your own + the combined creation of others

4. It's all part of a 'shared' purpose

 

Again, better finding this stuff out through personal practice via self-realisation rather than "thinking."

 

Mantra:

 

mind creates reality

mind creates reality

mind creates reality

mind creates reality

everything is yin and yang

everything is yin and yang

everything is yin and yang

everything is yin and yang

most humans live in a state of non-unified consciousness (unawakened)

most humans live in a state of non-unified consciousness (unawakened)

most humans live in a state of non-unified consciousness (unawakened)

most humans live in a state of non-unified consciousness (unawakened)

most humans live in a state of non-unified consciousness (unawakened)

most humans live in a state of non-unified consciousness (unawakened)...

 

Happy Full Moon!

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

8 hours ago, Apech said:

I woke up this morning thinking - if God is ineffable/unknowable (stick with me I'm not usually a god botherer) - then it would be as true to say 'that which is unknowable is god'.  In other words we have those things we know, those thing that we don't know yet but may come to know (the unknown) - and that which in itself is unknowable.

 

So if we imagine ourselves on an island which comprises the 'known' world, and that the surrounding ocean is the unknown (with the flotsam and jetsam washed ashore being those new things we come to know) - then when we ask the question 'how did this come to be like this in the first place?' - or 'what is making this continue to exist?' -  the answer is in the unknowable.

 

So its a kind of puzzle to wonder how things came to be and how they persist.  A religious person bows in awe at such a question but the mystic says 'I am the unknowable'.

 

No idea why I woke thinking this - but there you go.

 

Any comments?

 

You seem to be making a link between the concept of God and  'creation'   .... as  most people do .

 

But they are actually very separate things.

 

'God' is  the   local mores and taboo systems   projected into  the   local collective superego,  then personalised ,  externalised , elevated and  deified 

 

Not being a 'God - botherer', I am sure yu can 'handle '  that .

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Whether it makes cosmological, mystical or theological sense I don`t know, but I love the idea of an ancient map with the known parts densely notated surrounded by a large wasteland designating the unknown.  A potent image.

 

 

'Here there be monsters' 

 

[Lost in Translation]

8 hours ago, Apech said:

I woke up this morning thinking - if God is ineffable/unknowable (stick with me I'm not usually a god botherer) - then it would be as true to say 'that which is unknowable is god'.  In other words we have those things we know, those thing that we don't know yet but may come to know (the unknown) - and that which in itself is unknowable.

 

Welcome to my world.

 

In times like this I fall back to basics. There is heaven and earth, the creative and the effective, the potential and the actual, the non-manifest and the manifest. We can see the transformations but not the causes. We follow yang and yin, but do not know from whence this came or where it goes.

 

I really, really, really want to believe in something. I think that would be very comforting. But I return to "I don't know" and must allow that to suffice.

[Apech]

59 minutes ago, Gerard said:

 

Easy:

 

1. You create God

2. You create your own reality

3. This reality is the creation of your own + the combined creation of others

4. It's all part of a 'shared' purpose

 

Again, better finding this stuff out through personal practice via self-realisation rather than "thinking."

 

 

 

  So your personal practice doesn't involve thinking?

[Apech]

53 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

You seem to be making a link between the concept of God and  'creation'   .... as  most people do .

 

But they are actually very separate things.

 

'God' is  the   local mores and taboo systems   projected into  the   local collective superego,  then personalised ,  externalised , elevated and  deified 

 

Not being a 'God - botherer', I am sure yu can 'handle '  that .

 

 It's not me that makes that connection of God to creation - it's the Bible etc.

 

'local collective superego' that's very Freudian.  And I have to say inadequate.  But then I can handle it

[Fa Xin]

Who says God is unknowable?

Just to play devils advocate. 

 

Couldnt God just as well fall under your category of “not known yet” ?

 

 

Edited September 23, 2018 by Fa Xin

[Marblehead]

1 hour ago, Fa Xin said:

Who says God is unknowable?

Come down here to the Bible Belt.  These folks will tell you all about God.

 

[Lost in Translation]

19 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Come down here to the Bible Belt.  These folks will tell you all about God.

 

 

I've been browsing a rather worthy forum recently. Very different vibe than The Bums.

[Geof Nanto]

I've added some thoughts in response to this discussion here as a new topic. 

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Yueya

[Apech]

9 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

Who says God is unknowable?

Just to play devils advocate. 

 

Couldnt God just as well fall under your category of “not known yet” ?

 

 

 

That would make God part of the unknown - so you could recognise god as a name/form.

 

What I'm suggesting is that when people refer to god they are using the term to stand for what is unknowable - just as with the Dao - it cannot be named but for the sake of talking we'll call it god/Dao.  There is a big difference of course between god a person and an impersonal Dao.  But logically speaking if the unknowable is absolute then it would be both a person and not a person at the same time.

 

 

[Daemon]

9 hours ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

I've been browsing a rather worthy forum recently. Very different vibe than The Bums.

 

 

Sounds interesting.

Which forum?

 

☮️

 

[Lost in Translation]

4 hours ago, Daemon said:

13 hours ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

I've been browsing a rather worthy forum recently. Very different vibe than The Bums.

 

 

Sounds interesting.

Which forum?

 

☮️

 

 

Emphasis added for clarity. If you want to find it then I am sure you will.

[rex]

Tinkle Bells of demanifestation ...

 

Silence

Edited September 24, 2018 by rex
Outta place

[Marblehead]

That's way too much "Holy" for me.