Adam & Logic, 2nd Edition

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simpleas said:
Gary Sheldrake;12749451:
As humans we have the ability to create, I believe the first ever created paintings were of human hands in a cave. What I don’t know is how we got knowledge of language, agriculture etc.
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Good Morning Simpleas: These are just ideas that I subscribe to of course, but I think language and agriculture are things we developed over time. All creatures have some basic form of communication between them. As humans, we specialize in cognition because we lacked the dietary specialization that other primates had. When we moved down from trees, we couldn’t specialize in certain berries and plants that we left behind in the tree canopies. So we had to become more creative and adaptive. Certain forms of pre humans or hominids did have specialized diets, and these died off as climates changed and removed these food sources over vast periods of time. But our ability to improvise enabled us to carry on and build on our specialty of building on cognition.

It is thought by some that humans made sounds at each other around campfires as entertainment, and over time learned to assign sounds to objects or activities or natural phenomenon such as storms and such. Once we had a few words, we built on them. When we created language, we created a new dimension in the experience of the world around us, or a new incursion into dimensionality. This is what God is doing by building on experience to make new experience.

Over time, we observed that seeds from plants created new plants and this is a rather simple yet profound observation. From there, agriculture may have developed, and this I think may have caused the great sin that separated us from other creatures. Because when you start harvesting crops, you have to build silos to keep things in, and once you are storing things, you have to start getting very sophisticated in ways to protect what is
“yours” from other humans and other creatures. This may have developed a very keen or heightened sense of what is mine vs what is yours (ownership) among humans. The sense of ownership is a great evil and the root of most suffering when you think about it. Other creatures don’t suffer from it to the extent that we do.
But the idea of growing from it as you say, how do you fit in the idea of us having a soul?
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I don’t believe that you and I have a soul. I think there is only one soul and you and I are simply apertures through which the one soul creates experience. At the core, I think you and I are one, and this is why Jesus talked about when we do something to the least of our brothers, we do it to him. This is also why he could very truthfully offer bread and wine as being him, because all things are in fact Him. Bread and wine were simply a demonstration of a very intrinsic truth. If this is true, God is everything. This is why Jesus said you can be one with the Father as He was one with the Father. Because you are. We don’t “become” one with God, rather, we come to a realization that you always were one with God. Christ said He is the vine and we are the branches. A vine and it’s branches are
not different things. They are one thing that grows and reaches out and makes life, beauty and experience. The sense of separation caused by agriculture and the subsequent heightening of the idea of mine vs. yours also enhanced the idea of you vs. me, which has caused us a deep sense of separation and insatiable loneliness. I am offering the idea that this may be the source of original sin. In truth,
Random question : have you read Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken?
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I will check it out.

All the best,
Gary
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Gary_Sheldrake said:
simpleas;12753568:
Gary Sheldrake;12749451:
Good Morning Simpleas: These are just ideas that I subscribe to of course, but I think language and agriculture are things we developed over time. All creatures have some basic form of communication between them. As humans, we specialize in cognition because we lacked the dietary specialization that other primates had. When we moved down from trees, we couldn’t specialize in certain berries and plants that we left behind in the tree canopies. So we had to become more creative and adaptive. Certain forms of pre humans or hominids did have specialized diets, and these died off as climates changed and removed these food sources over vast periods of time. But our ability to improvise enabled us to carry on and build on our specialty of building on cognition.

It is thought by some that humans made sounds at each other around campfires as entertainment, and over time learned to assign sounds to objects or activities or natural phenomenon such as storms and such. Once we had a few words, we built on them. When we created language, we created a new dimension in the experience of the world around us, or a new incursion into dimensionality. This is what God is doing by building on experience to make new experience.

Over time, we observed that seeds from plants created new plants and this is a rather simple yet profound observation. From there, agriculture may have developed, and this I think may have caused the great sin that separated us from other creatures. Because when you start harvesting crops, you have to build silos to keep things in, and once you are storing things, you have to start getting very sophisticated in ways to protect what is
“yours” from other humans and other creatures. This may have developed a very keen or heightened sense of what is mine vs what is yours (ownership) among humans. The sense of ownership is a great evil and the root of most suffering when you think about it. Other creatures don’t suffer from it to the extent that we do.

I don’t believe that you and I have a soul. I think there is only one soul and you and I are simply apertures through which the one soul creates experience. At the core, I think you and I are one, and this is why Jesus talked about when we do something to the least of our brothers, we do it to him. This is also why he could very truthfully offer bread and wine as being him, because all things are in fact Him. Bread and wine were simply a demonstration of a very intrinsic truth. If this is true, God is everything. This is why Jesus said you can be one with the Father as He was one with the Father. Because you are. We don’t “become” one with God, rather, we come to a realization that you always were
Click to expand...
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one with God. Christ said He is the vine and we are the branches. A vine and it’s branches are
not different things. They are one thing that grows and reaches out and makes life, beauty and experience. The sense of separation caused by agriculture and the subsequent heightening of the idea of mine vs. yours also enhanced the idea of you vs. me, which has caused us a deep sense of separation and insatiable loneliness. I am offering the idea that this may be the source of original sin. In truth,

I will check it out.

All the best,
Gary

Good Morning Simpleas: Some of what I am saying is better represented here. It only takes 3 minutes:

youtube.com/watch?v=wU0PYcCsL6o

All the best,
Gary
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Gary_Sheldrake said:
simpleas;12753568:
Gary Sheldrake;12749451:
Good Morning Simpleas: These are just ideas that I subscribe to of course, but I think language and agriculture are things we developed over time. All creatures have some basic form of communication between them. As humans, we specialize in cognition because we lacked the dietary specialization that other primates had. When we moved down from trees, we couldn’t specialize in certain berries and plants that we left behind in the tree canopies. So we had to become more creative and adaptive. Certain forms of pre humans or hominids did have specialized diets, and these died off as climates changed and removed these food sources over vast periods of time. But our ability to improvise enabled us to carry on and build on our specialty of building on cognition.

It is thought by some that humans made sounds at each other around campfires as entertainment, and over time learned to assign sounds to objects or activities or natural phenomenon such as storms and such. Once we had a few words, we built on them. When we created language, we created a new dimension in the experience of the world around us, or a new incursion into dimensionality. This is what God is doing by building on experience to make new experience.

Over time, we observed that seeds from plants created new plants and this is a rather simple yet profound observation. From there, agriculture may have developed, and this I think may have caused the great sin that separated us from other creatures. Because when you start harvesting crops, you have to build silos to keep things in, and once you are storing things, you have to start getting very sophisticated in ways to protect what is
“yours” from other humans and other creatures. This may have developed a very keen or heightened sense of what is mine vs what is yours (ownership) among humans. The sense of ownership is a great evil and the root of most suffering when you think about it. Other creatures don’t suffer from it to the extent that we do.

I don’t believe that you and I have a soul. I think there is only one soul and you and I are simply apertures through which the one soul creates experience. At the core, I think you and I are one, and this is why Jesus talked about when we do something to the least of our brothers, we do it to him. This is also why he could very truthfully offer bread and wine as being him, because all things are in fact Him. Bread and wine were simply a demonstration of a very intrinsic truth. If this is true, God is everything. This is why Jesus said you can be one with the Father as He was one with the Father. Because you are. We don’t “become” one with God, rather, we come to a realization that you always were
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
one with God. Christ said He is the vine and we are the branches. A vine and it’s branches are
not different things. They are one thing that grows and reaches out and makes life, beauty and experience. The sense of separation caused by agriculture and the subsequent heightening of the idea of mine vs. yours also enhanced the idea of you vs. me, which has caused us a deep sense of separation and insatiable loneliness. I am offering the idea that this may be the source of original sin. In truth,

I will check it out.

All the best,
Gary

Thanks for your thoughts, some seem pretty reasonable.

When you say : If this is true, God is everything

Are you thinking about Pantheism? I’m not sure, so best ask first. I’m never to clear on God is everything and God is in everything. Like God is in us, and the Eucharist, but I also think God is in animals and nature in some way, but I don’t think we can say God *is *everything, because we then could worship anything as God, rather than just the one God, that is in everything.
What is the major difference of God being in everything v God is everything…

The mine v yours theory is very true, it seems to be the most powerful weapon humans have used against each other. Maybe Adam and Eve fell into that mind trap…
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simpleas said:
Gary Sheldrake;12766307:
simpleas;12753568:
Thanks for your thoughts, some seem pretty reasonable.

When you say : If this is true, God is everything
Click to expand...
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Are you thinking about Pantheism? I’m not sure, so best ask first. I’m never to clear on God is everything and God is in everything. Like God is in us, and the Eucharist, but I also think God is in animals and nature in some way, but I don’t think we can say God *is *everything, because we then could worship anything as God, rather than just the one God, that is in everything.
What is the major difference of God being in everything v God is everything…

The mine v yours theory is very true, it seems to be the most powerful weapon humans have used against each other. Maybe Adam and Eve fell into that mind trap…

I believe that the following post by WMW will help clarify things.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=12738038&postcount=558
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Gary_Sheldrake said:
I don’t believe that you and I have a soul. I think there is only one soul and you and I are simply apertures through which the one soul creates experience. At the core, I think you and I are one, and this is why Jesus talked about when we do something to the least of our brothers, we do it to him. This is also why he could very truthfully offer bread and wine as being him, because all things are in fact Him. Bread and wine were simply a demonstration of a very intrinsic truth. If this is true, God is everything. This is why Jesus said you can be one with the Father as He was one with the Father. Because you are. We don’t “become” one with God, rather, we come to a realization that you always were one with God. Christ said He is the vine and we are the branches. A vine and it’s branches are
not different things. They are one thing that grows and reaches out and makes life, beauty and experience. The sense of separation caused by agriculture and the subsequent heightening of the idea of mine vs. yours also enhanced the idea of you vs. me, which has caused us a deep sense of separation and insatiable loneliness. I am offering the idea that this may be the source of original sin. In truth,

I will check it out.

All the best,
Gary
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The very existence of time which we experience implements that our experiences are continuous and this is against the very notion of one soul.
 
simpleas said:
Gary Sheldrake;12766307:
simpleas;12753568:
Thanks for your thoughts, some seem pretty reasonable.

When you say : If this is true, God is everything
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Are you thinking about Pantheism? I’m not sure, so best ask first. I’m never to clear on God is everything and God is in everything. Like God is in us, and the Eucharist, but I also think God is in animals and nature in some way, but I don’t think we can say God *is *everything, because we then could worship anything as God, rather than just the one God, that is in everything.
What is the major difference of God being in everything v God is everything…

The mine v yours theory is very true, it seems to be the most powerful weapon humans have used against each other. Maybe Adam and Eve fell into that mind trap…

Good evening Simpleas: Just to be clear, I want to make sure that it’s understood that the ideas that I post are my own, and I offer them as something to think about. It is never my intent to sell anyone on any of these ideas. I do think you could worship anything as God, but I don’t think worship is helpful in the first place. I personally don’t worship anything. I think it would be better just to handle everything with care and treat everything as though it was sacred, and that includes ourselves (if we can do that). This is something I work on every day, with varying degrees of success.

As for God being everything, I would offer the following explanation. We take it that we are something separate, because the experiences that we have seem personal. In tis regard, I think we confuse sentience with consciousness. Consciousness is something far more vast. I think consciousness is transpersonal and there is really only one consciousness that pervades everything - rocks, trees, planets, birds, animas and you and I of course. And I think God is consciousness rather than a deity, and our minds are simply an interface between sentient experience and consciousness. To find God, I am offering the idea that you have to lose the idea of “self,” because there is only one “self” and that is what we call God. This is what I think Jesus meant when he said "“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” So, I believe that as long as we hold on to the idea of an individual or personal self, we are missing the point. We can clearly look around us and see that all things are fractal in nature, and being fractal in nature, all things are visible in the source and the source is visible in all things. It is all “the source” building on itself and growing in size and complexity. This is an intrinsic truth that can be seen and demonstrated mathematically in the Mandelbrot Set, which is usually of more interest to mathematicians than spiritualists, but you can clearly see what I mean:

youtube.com/watch?v=0jGaio87u3A

The Spiritus Mundi is not an alien word to Christianity. It is said to be the soul of the world, and we are of course part of it (in my opinion).

This is also a reply to Bahman in post 680.

Again, I always remind anyone I converse with on these matters that I have absolutely no credentials with regard to spiritual matters, and I in no way invite anyone to believe the things I believe. This is simply my reasoning and I just enjoy the conversations.

All the best,
Gary
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Bahman said:
The very existence of time which we experience implements that our experiences are continuous and this is against the very notion of one soul.
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Good Evening Bahman: I don’t understand the logic in this, but I may be missing the point in what you posted. It would certainly not be unreasonable for one soul to have a few billion different apertures through which it comes to know itself. The ocean has countless waves that seem to be something in and of themselves, but a wave is just what the ocean is doing in the place where the wave is. Likewise, you could simply be what God or the universe is doing at the place where Bahman is sitting. Every drop of water that splashes up from the ocean seems to be something separate, but when it recedes back to the ocean, it is simply the ocean. There is no individual drop. Even clouds are simply the ocean over the ocean, and as far as any water may travel, it is one with its source when the journey ends. It was never anything else really.

Or as the Hindus would say: “One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things.”

All the best,
Gary
 
Gary_Sheldrake said:
. . . as the Hindus would say: “One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things.” . . .
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What this means is that all creation, in its manifold individual manifestations derives its being from Him, who is Being itself.
That being reflects the glory of our Father, His beauty, goodness, and truth.
The sparks are not the the eternal joyous Font of eternal Life.

Gary you are not God. In Christ we find the Way to participation in the Love that is the Source of all this wonder.
 
Is it silly to concentrate on our beginning? What is the benefit of understanding someone’s actions at the dawn of human history?
I do not know how readers will answer those questions. I do not know if any readers care about those questions. I do know that there are times when some people wonder why life seems so mechanical? And why does the gift of beauty brighten our lives? Could it be that beauty is a forgotten part of our human nature?

Going back to our beginning as a human species, we, because of the first three chapters of Genesis, can find logical clues in the life of the first human fondly known as Adam. The first clue is obvious. Genesis 1: 1 refers to God Himself creating the universe and its creatures. In our present lives, we see beauty as good. God sees the goodness in His creation. We see the beauty in our universe because of God’s goodness. The beautiful harmony of creation is intelligible.

In the dramatic shift from Genesis 1: 25 to Genesis 1: 26, we find that a single element of creation (a human) is actually created in the image of God. Being in the image of God, this first human shares in God’s spiritual nature. Adam did not become God. Our decomposing anatomy definitely tells us that humans are not God. Regarding Adam’s original beauty, the Catholic Church teaches that Adam received the extra gift of not having to suffer or die. This did not make Adam perfect. It was more like a preservation of Adam’s original material beauty in addition to making life easier without suffering and dying. Besides Adam’s material beauty, his spiritual beauty existed because he was in a loving relationship with his Creator.

Returning to today’s world, we can wonder about the original beauty of the Garden and its first two real human inhabitants. Actually, we do not have to “wonder” because the first human was there and the first three chapters describe the life of the first two humans and, more importantly, why the beauty of Adam’s soul was lost.

Knowing what changed Adam is very important because we do not want to make the same mistake.
 
Gary_Sheldrake said:
Good Evening Bahman: I don’t understand the logic in this, but I may be missing the point in what you posted. It would certainly not be unreasonable for one soul to have a few billion different apertures through which it comes to know itself. The ocean has countless waves that seem to be something in and of themselves, but a wave is just what the ocean is doing in the place where the wave is. Likewise, you could simply be what God or the universe is doing at the place where Bahman is sitting. Every drop of water that splashes up from the ocean seems to be something separate, but when it recedes back to the ocean, it is simply the ocean. There is no individual drop. Even clouds are simply the ocean over the ocean, and as far as any water may travel, it is one with its source when the journey ends. It was never anything else really.

Or as the Hindus would say: “One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things.”

All the best,
Gary
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This is simple to explain. Consider that there is only one consciousness. Now consider two individuals each performing an activity at the same time observing each other. Experiences happen in consciousness and it has a duration. This means that it is logically impossible that both persons share the same consciousness since consciousness is either in use with one or another. The only way to escape this problem is to say that duration is an illusion. But one has to come with a correct prescription that how things seems ordered since duration is the very concept that keep things ordered.
 
Bahman said:
This is simple to explain. Consider that there is only one consciousness. Now consider two individuals each performing an activity at the same time observing each other. Experiences happen in consciousness and it has a duration. This means that it is logically impossible that both persons share the same consciousness since consciousness is either in use with one or another. The only way to escape this problem is to say that duration is an illusion. But one has to come with a correct prescription that how things seems ordered since duration is the very concept that keep things ordered.
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Good Morning Bahman: Consciousness is simply tuned in to both and tuned into all things at once. Our bodies are only single agents of consciousness, so we only experience one at a time. Again, you have to be careful not to confuse sentience with consciousness. When you and I are observing each other, we are having sentient experiences, and these are specific to the permutations having the experience. Consciousness is much bigger than that. If you were to consider what I am saying as an idea, you would have to take into account that Bahman and Gary are just sensory units that create and participate in experience, but at our core, we are something much larger than that. At our core (in this way of thinking) we are everything, because there would be only one thing expressed as many.

All the best,
Gary
 
Aloysium said:
What this means is that all creation, in its manifold individual manifestations derives its being from Him, who is Being itself.
That being reflects the glory of our Father, His beauty, goodness, and truth.
The sparks are not the the eternal joyous Font of eternal Life.

.
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Good Morning Aloysium - I hope you are well today. What you are saying would be true if it had been written by Christians, however it was written by Hindus, and the central theme of all Hindu or Vedic philosophy is that you are in fact God, living under the delusion that you are not. So, what you are positing above is in fact not the meaning of the Isha Upanishad.

Now, as a Catholic, whether or not I see a common truth between what the people of the Subcontinent have said for 4 or 5 thousand years and what we have been saying for 2,000 years is largely a matter of our ability to comprehend. Which is not to say that your ability to comprehend is not greater than mine. It may well be. I am simply letting you know what I think, and I am not suggesting that you change what you think.

All the best,
Gary
 
Gary_Sheldrake said:
Good Morning Bahman: Consciousness is simply tuned in to both and tuned into all things at once. Our bodies are only single agents of consciousness, so we only experience one at a time. Again, you have to be careful not to confuse sentience with consciousness. When you and I are observing each other, we are having sentient experiences, and these are specific to the permutations having the experience. Consciousness is much bigger than that. If you were to consider what I am saying as an idea, you would have to take into account that Bahman and Gary are just sensory units that create and participate in experience, but at our core, we are something much larger than that. At our core (in this way of thinking) we are everything, because there would be only one thing expressed as many.

All the best,
Gary
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Well, so you believe that time is an illusion yet do not provide a prescription that how things seems ordered?
 
Aloysium said:
What this means is that all creation, in its manifold individual manifestations derives its being from Him, who is Being itself.
That being reflects the glory of our Father, His beauty, goodness, and truth.
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This is a basic truth. God is Being itself which is why He is capable of creating. It is also the reason that Adam has a spiritual principle, that is, an intellective rational soul. To better understand Adam, we need a correct view of Adam’s Creator.

Here is an interesting comment in small print at the bottom of CCC 1730.
“Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.”

Notice that Adam is like God, in the image of God, but, and this is very important, Adam is not equal to God. As Aloysium points out, Adam reflects the glory of the Father, His beauty, goodness, and truth. Adam’s glory is that he is capable of seeking a true relationship with God, his Creator.
 
grannymh said:
Knowing what changed Adam is very important because we do not want to make the same mistake.
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It is also very important to understand Adam, himself, before he freely chose to sever his relationship with his Creator.

As we read Genesis, chapter 2, we find an expansion of Genesis 1: 26-27. I am not sure the why some, not all, people get hung up on two “creation accounts”. :eek:

My Bible uses the heading “Second Story of Creation”. That does not mean that we have to choose between chapter 1 and chapter 2. He means that the author had the intelligence to continue exploration of creation. I really doubt that the Creator was limited to a one-time-only creation of animals.

Chapter 2 has some intriguing details about Adam’s use of his intelligence. One could almost say that Adam had a scientific streak because he practiced the scientific method which is to observe without prejudice. I can picture Adam taking notes of the various differences between trees. Knowing scientists, I am sure Adam was extremely curious about the “forbidden” tree.

I can picture God watching Adam and then deciding to give Adam the task of naming the non-human creatures. Genesis 2: 19
 
Adam reflects the glory of the Creator, His beauty, goodness, and truth.

Adam’s glory is that he has a true relationship with God, his Creator.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Genesis 2: 19-20
 
Bahman said:
Well, so you believe that time is an illusion yet do not provide a prescription that how things seems ordered?
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Good Evening Bahman: I haven’t made any statement with regard to time. From our perspective, it seems as though things happen in serial. Whether it actually happens that way or not is questionable.

All the best,
Gary
 
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