only one correct religion with the truth?

[Sochi]

Sochi;12035837:

now I understand the disconnect.

What disconnect?

So the question is, Is Truth subjective?

Considering that "objective’ is a concept subjectively apprehended, what else can it be? But that is invisible as a dynamic if you conceptualize dualistically. Truth is not conceptual, though we entertain many concepts about it.

or is it that we can only relate to Truth subjectively?

Subjective truth/Truth isn’t a relationship, it is what you are, if you bother to look beyond your belief system.

If there is such a thing as Truth and it is compromised by my filters how could anyone ever know that ‘truth’ exists?

Are you made in the image and likeness of God? If “yes,” then what you are, before your thoughts about that, is where to look.

So you deny the possibility of arriving at Truth via philosophy? or via revelation?

Well, are you talking about ascending structure, arguing from concepts to a conclusion, or are you talking about Knowledge by Identity, which is sometimes mistakenly called “infused knowledge?” Philosophy, the love of wisdom, can be conceptualized about, but may only be found after one surrenders to the impossibility of a thinker thinking it. That might take intense work, trauma, or, rarely, Grace. That last might encompass the others, however.

sounds like my sig is more profound than I thought.

It is as profound as you wish to make it, relative to your perspective. Mine is from one point, so your “sig” doesn’t apply. Also, it is a statement from incomplete considerations regarding what a “point” might be.

Thanks for your note.

 

[daler]

So (PJM +belief) = FACTS, while (data+critical thinking) = falsehood, heresy, error, refusal, sin, etc for the rest of the litany of not PJM’s opinion.

Hey, now understand. You just won’t accept that your rationalized opinion is just that, and refuse to look at how it is so. But you don’t seem to be able to account for why, when I totally knew and believed what you do, something changed my vision to a larger picture. I guarantee it wasn’t any “devil.” That must terrify you, and your only defense is to exhort me to shrink back by conversion and repentance. Do you really think that is even on the table? Not unless you submit me to the Inquisition, and I’m pretty certain that every such conversion was false, and done only to get relief from intolerable suffering. Don’t you agree? But maybe a few were honest and just died. And you won’t even go to sources from people in your own faith. So how is this supposed to be a conversation? It is just a rant on your part.

. I outgrew a similar shoe and received the same accusations, which only reinforced that I had no desire to return to the controls of a fear-laden, spiritually foot-binding system of constraint, designed to impose its will upon the fearful and submissive who lacked the courage and insight to find truth for themselves and liberate their own souls from the spiritual decay which is the cause of so much of the suffering of humanity today.

. Peace be upon those who take up the journey.
.

 

[PRmerger]

So you received your training before that, and such is your basis of comparison?

And your picky rebuttal, because damn straight there would be one, of what I might say would prove the thread thesis, or even go towards it? I have absolutely no stake in provoking your opinion on the matter PR. Who gives a hoot what a Protestant says about that, anyway? What does the Mass mean to you? That might have some merit in revealing, while the other is intellectual fencing with a hypothesized someone. And it certainly wouldn’t go to the thread topic.

As I said, you are an accomplished diversionary. In your mind, given the above assessment of catechesis PR, I’m already wrong and–by extension of your claim–so is the Church. I won’t pander to that.

Ah, so you were poorly catechized as I so accurately stated.

The answer, Sochi, is quite easy: the Mass is found everywhere in Scripture. And Scripture is everywhere in the Mass.

I am so saddened that you couldn’t even answer that very basic question.

It isn’t really the fault of the good nuns and priests who taught you that you didn’t learn very well and were poorly catechized. It was, unfortunately, the culture of the Church at that time that they were unable to provide nourishing food for the flock.

You are clearly a product of that environment.

:sad_yes:

 

[PRmerger]

Regarding how we look at any particular experience:

Ken Wilber suggests that we can look at 4 aspects of any aspect of human experience or “holon.” By looking at our experiences through all 4 of these 4 perspectives, we both gain greater insight into their totality/nature, and avoid falling into the more common traps of believing that the perspective we are naturally drawn to is the “one right” perspective.

In brief summary, each and every experience we have as human beings can be understood through 4 perspectives, consisting of a matrix of two binary choices: interior/exterior vs. individual/group. As a matrix it might look as follows (figure 1.):

Figure 1.

These are religious dogmas that you have been duped into embracing, Sochi.

 

[Servant19]

So (PJM +belief) = FACTS, while (data+critical thinking) = falsehood, heresy, error, refusal, sin, etc for the rest of the litany of not PJM’s opinion.

Hey, now understand. You just won’t accept that your rationalized opinion is just that, and refuse to look at how it is so. But you don’t seem to be able to account for why, when I totally knew and believed what you do, something changed my vision to a larger picture. I guarantee it wasn’t any “devil.” That must terrify you, and your only defense is to exhort me to shrink back by conversion and repentance. Do you really think that is even on the table? Not unless you submit me to the Inquisition, and I’m pretty certain that every such conversion was false, and done only to get relief from intolerable suffering. Don’t you agree? But maybe a few were honest and just died. And you won’t even go to sources from people in your own faith. So how is this supposed to be a conversation? It is just a rant on your part.

Hello Sochi,

I hear where you’re coming from

Would you say that the “application” and “expression” of Faith in the form of deeds which produce an empirically evident benefit for those that are affected by the said deed, is an approach to subjective proof?

And if these same deeds are expressed as a collective body of peoples across the globe, is meandering closer to objective Truth?

Thanks



.

 

[Matthew_Light]

And if these same deeds are expressed as a collective body of peoples across the globe is meandering closer to objective Truth?

I think what Sochi is saying, is that all concepts, including of course concepts of an external, objective world, all beliefs, all thoughts, arise within our own irreducibly subjective nature.

What Sochi and I would likely agree on is that subjectivity and God are one and the same mystery. And I could support this view from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Baha’i writings (as well as those of Hinduism and Buddhism, naturally!)

 

[Sochi]

Hello Sochi,

I hear where you’re coming from

We’ll see, lol!

Would you say that the “application” and “expression” of Faith in the form of deeds which produce an empirically evident benefit for those that are affected by the said deed, is an approach to subjective proof?

I would say that application and expression are human traits which inevitably produce consequences. Being what we are, rationalizing creatures, we use religion or science or something to explain experience. So whatever we do constitutes empirical evidence going to “proof” of our paradigm. Look at cargo cults: they believed that building effigies of airplanes which one day during WWII appeared on their island would bring more, like decoys near a duck blind. The arrival of more airplanes “proved” the efficacy of their effigies. Do you think that because we are “modern” and “civilized” that we don’t make the identical error within our own circumstances? Look even on this thread!

And if these same deeds are expressed as a collective body of peoples across the globe, is meandering closer to objective Truth?

It is meandering toward consensus belief and consensus effigyism, if you will, in so many cases. Is it total error? Of course not. Or even mostly not. Nothing happens not based on Reality. But what the mind can and does do to interpret and attribute results and consequences is remarkably clever, and extremely varied. Have you read any of the books on the nature of belief as a phenomenon, not to mention the ones on stupidity, errors inherent in language, everyday logical fallacies taken for truth, the nature of stage magic, common optical illusions, etc etc? And very interestingly, it might be added that pointers to Truth may be buried in the misundertanding or ignorance of the subtexts of so many Holy Books. Ever read Nicoll’s The New Man? One begins to understand the idea of worshiping in ignorance and seeing through a glass, darkly.

Being able to deal with less than 1% of the total spectrum, our mindbodies are radically selective in what they admit as “real.” Not even a majority of what the senses pick up are even remotely conscious. Couple that with the survival need of accepting family values at an unconscious level as we grow up, and we come off way more as semi aware automatons than awake and aware free agents. Go back to post 824 and read the quote from RA Heinlien.

It is radically accurate, insofar as rational activity. It discounts mysticism by omission, especially the trans cultural aspect that has yielded a common exegesis of the human condition regardless of any other factors. But on the chart above, that aspect of human experience doesn’t even register, or is blithely subverted into associations with a religion, philosophy, or even madness. And yet it is about the only thread of mystical sanity in the history of this Race.

As for “objective Truth,” on deep inspection, Truth, Reality, or the synonyms for those can only be subjectively apprehended and by a different category of “knowledge” than what applies to faith and rationality. About the most radical discovery a human can make is to awaken to the recognition that objectivity is completely and only conceptual. And that has corollaries. This is inexplicable to anyone who hasn’t seen it for themselves, and crazy obvious to any who have. “Objectivity” is a useful tool as an idea and tool to navigate commonality, which has its source in another direction entirely than that to which it is usually attributed.

Thanks

I enjoy your posts, Servant. You ask interesting questions that provoke useful considerations. It beats being preached at–by many orders of magnitude. Given that we are made in the image and likeness of God, it is tragic in some ways that the miracle of self knowledge can be short circuited by an overlay of inculcation. As Picasso and Einstein state in so many words, from their nearly extremes of aesthetics and reason, all children are unique geniuses. Most have that genius trained out of them by the leveling effects of educations of many kinds. Some survive. Some escape. And some wake up. Thank you!
.

 

[Sochi]

I think what Sochi is saying, is that all concepts, including of course concepts of an external, objective world, all beliefs, all thoughts, arise within our own irreducibly subjective nature.

What Sochi and I would likely agree on is that subjectivity and God are one and the same mystery. And I could support this view from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Baha’i writings (as well as those of Hinduism and Buddhism, naturally!)

Yes.

 

[PRmerger]

It beats being preached at–by many orders of magnitude. Given that we are made in the image and likeness of God, it is tragic in some ways that the miracle of self knowledge can be short circuited by an overlay of inculcation. As Picasso and Einstein state in so many words, from their nearly extremes of aesthetics and reason, all children are unique geniuses. Most have that genius trained out of them by the leveling effects of educations of many kinds. Some survive. Some escape. And some wake up. Thank you!
.

The above sounds suspiciously like…someone…is preaching at me.

One has to wonder why you feel you get to preach, Sochi, but you don’t like being preached at?



Why do you reserve for yourself the right to do something to which you object in others?

 

[Sochi]

. I outgrew a similar shoe and received the same accusations, which only reinforced that I had no desire to return to the controls of a fear-laden, spiritually foot-binding system of constraint, designed to impose its will upon the fearful and submissive who lacked the courage and insight to find truth for themselves and liberate their own souls from the spiritual decay which is the cause of so much of the suffering of humanity today.

Interesting that you use the idea of feet. They are, as you might know, the symbol of understanding. I don’t know which belief system you grew up in. None of them are perfect, and none completely wrong. For my part I learned much of great and deep use and experienced many blessing growing up in the Catholic school system. I wouldn’t be what I am today without it. Even if the credentials of my teachers are disparaged on here, they were or are the best they can be. I respected them all, honored a few as exceptional, an honor embellished by the accolades of a wonderful community.

So I’m sorry for the parts of your experience that caused you grief. But all experience is ultimately fuel for transformation. We can only be grateful for that. And here we are, darned if we ain’t

Peace be upon those who take up the journey.

Amen. Much of it is not pleasant, by any means, or worse. And yet, …

One meets the most unique individuals taking steps. It is all such an adventure, yes?

 

[daler]

Interesting that you use the idea of feet. They are, as you might know, the symbol of understanding. I don’t know which belief system you grew up in. None of them are perfect, and none completely wrong. For my part I learned much of great and deep use and experienced many blessing growing up in the Catholic school system. I wouldn’t be what I am today without it. Even if the credentials of my teachers are disparaged on here, they were or are the best they can be. I respected them all, honored a few as exceptional, an honor embellished by the accolades of a wonderful community.

So I’m sorry for the parts of your experience that caused you grief. But all experience is ultimately fuel for transformation. We can only be grateful for that. And here we are, darned if we ain’t
Amen. Much of it is not pleasant, by any means, or worse. And yet, …

One meets the most unique individuals taking steps. It is all such an adventure, yes?

Sochi,
. The virtues inherent in the churches, synagogues, ashrams, and mosques are all good when true to the original, but when these become institutionalized for the sake of the parties benefitting from the institutions, to the detirment of the people they are intended to serve, fraught with hypocrisy, double-talk, schism, and other evidences of decay, it is time to abandon ship.

. Like the fellow in the movie JAWS said: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat!”

. Soooo… looking around us, at the world, the increasing devastation of the forests, the lands, the seas, the climate, the … … … is it possible that all of these are signs?

. If the tree is still giving fruit that is edible, that is all right and good. Our spiritual tastebuds will confirm the ripeness. We all grew up on some very good teachings brought to us through some very fine souls, who did their jobs very well with what they had. Not taking anything away from them. Thank you God for their spirit of sacrifice, their love and dedication to train little sea urchins like me.

. Now the best way I can honor them is to harvest some of the fruits of the Tree which has grown up in the midst of us in this day, the Day of God, as it has been called, and to both share and accept that which other blessed souls have to share, when we meet upon the various paths of our journey out of the darkness from which we flee, running at times like scared rabbits from a wolf, which sometimes appears in sheep’s clothing, I suppose.

. When the wolves are on the move and nipping at our heels, the pain lets us know we gotta pick up our feet…

. Good to know you, mate!
.

 

[Servant19]

We’ll see, lol!

Yes lol…having seen what brother Matthew wrote, maybe I didn’t…this is complex, and I’m a simple kinda guy

I would say that application and expression are human traits which inevitably produce consequences. Being what we are, rationalizing creatures, we use religion or science or something to explain experience. So whatever we do constitutes empirical evidence going to “proof” of our paradigm.

Actually my experiences as a Bahai are quite the opposite.

Its not that “experiences” are rationalized to prove the paradigm, but that the paradigm and guidance being revealed, when applied to society is creating an “experience”, and a “new paradigm”…

As we align ourselves closer and closer to the exhortations of the Bah’ai Writings we see tremendous and positive social change. It is empirically evident, and a stamp of approval on the validity of the guidance to bring about an advancement and a betterment in social conditions.

Look at cargo cults: they believed that building effigies of airplanes which one day during WWII appeared on their island would bring more, like decoys near a duck blind. The arrival of more airplanes “proved” the efficacy of their effigies. Do you think that because we are “modern” and “civilized” that we don’t make the identical error within our own circumstances? Look even on this thread!

I can see what you are saying here. When we assign metaphysical meaning to things that may well be simply a “coincidence” we are bordering on superstitions.

Science and religion MUST go hand in hand. There are sometimes exceptions to this in history. Mysteries are rife. However none of these mysteries should be used to propel us or restrain us from the “work at hand”…unfortunately there are to many apathetic people in the world who are too willing to cling onto these superstitions, as truths, and are thereby unwilling to collaborate with those with new ideas for the betterment of society, for ever-advancement, and so on.

This is termed the “lethargies of society” in the Baha’i texts and we educate our children from a young age to explore the realities of the societies in which they live in and to remove themselves from these lethargies…thereby rendering themselves “on fire with the love of God”

It is meandering toward consensus belief and consensus effigyism, if you will, in so many cases. Is it total error? Of course not. Or even mostly not. Nothing happens not based on Reality. …

It is radically accurate, insofar as rational activity. It discounts mysticism by omission, especially the trans cultural aspect that has yielded a common exegesis of the human condition regardless of any other factors. But on the chart above, that aspect of human experience doesn’t even register, or is blithely subverted into associations with a religion, philosophy, or even madness. And yet it is about the only thread of mystical sanity in the history of this Race.

I understand your viewpoint dear friend

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on empiricism creating belief, rather than the other way round.

I personally understand my Faith in a manner that does not provide explanation or meaning for empirical realities, but rather “creates” new empirical realities and “new paradigms” by investing “meaning” into them…through long term, sustained, precise, systematic effort, all borne out of love for my Creator.

As for “objective Truth,” on deep inspection, Truth, Reality, or the synonyms for those can only be subjectively apprehended and by a different category of “knowledge” than what applies to faith and rationality. About the most radical discovery a human can make is to awaken to the recognition that objectivity is completely and only conceptual. And that has corollaries. This is inexplicable to anyone who hasn’t seen it for themselves, and crazy obvious to any who have. “Objectivity” is a useful tool as an idea and tool to navigate commonality, which has its source in another direction entirely than that to which it is usually attributed.

Yes, I agree, objectivity is tricky to see as a finite being, its all conceptual.

I agree with what Pope John XXIII said

“…If I were born a Muslim, I believe that I would have always stayed a good Muslim, faithful to my religion…”

I enjoy your posts, Servant.

Thankyou dear friend, and me yours

 

[Servant19]

You ask interesting questions that provoke useful considerations. It beats being preached at–by many orders of magnitude. Given that we are made in the image and likeness of God, it is tragic in some ways that the miracle of self knowledge can be short circuited by an overlay of inculcation. As Picasso and Einstein state in so many words, from their nearly extremes of aesthetics and reason, all children are unique geniuses. Most have that genius trained out of them by the leveling effects of educations of many kinds. Some survive. Some escape. And some wake up. Thank you!
.

"Say: Rejoice not in the things ye possess; tonight they are yours, tomorrow others will possess them. Thus warneth you He Who is the All-Knowing, the All-Informed. Say: Can ye claim that what ye own is lasting or secure? Nay! By Myself, the All-Merciful. The days of your life flee away as a breath of wind, and all your pomp and glory shall be folded up as were the pomp and glory of those gone before you. Reflect, O people! What hath become of your bygone days, your lost centuries? Happy the days that have been consecrated to the remembrance of God, and blessed the hours which have been spent in praise of Him Who is the All-Wise. By My life! Neither the pomp of the mighty, nor the wealth of the rich, nor even the ascendancy of the ungodly will endure. All will perish, at a word from Him. He, verily, is the All-Powerful, the All-Compelling, the Almighty. What advantage is there in the earthly things which men possess? That which shall profit them, they have utterly neglected. Erelong, they will awake from their slumber, and find themselves unable to obtain that which hath escaped them in the days of their Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised. Did they but know it, they would renounce their all, that their names may be mentioned before His throne. They, verily, are accounted among the dead. " - Baha’u’llah

(emphasis added by myself)

Thankyou for this interesting dialogue

.

 

[PRmerger]

Sochi,
. The virtues inherent in the churches, synagogues, ashrams, and mosques are all good when true to the original, but when these become institutionalized for the sake of the parties benefitting from the institutions, to the detirment of the people they are intended to serve, fraught with hypocrisy, double-talk, schism, and other evidences of decay, it is time to abandon ship.

I don’t think so. I think that one needs to do is reform the ship. Not abandon it.

Otherwise, to whom would you go?

To another ship that matches the rules that you’ve created, that appeal to you?

No. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave Jesus because of Judas.

 

[Servant19]

I don’t think so. I think that one needs to do is reform the ship. Not abandon it.

Otherwise, to whom would you go?

To another ship that matches the rules that you’ve created, that appeal to you?

No. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave Jesus because of Judas.

That’s the million dollar question I guess…

When a religion looks like it needs a reform, do we reform it using man-made ideologies and principles, trying desperately to mould “some” (not all) of its principles around an ever-increasingly complex and challenging world OR, do you investigate thoroughly the claims of those Individuals who claim to be DIRECT Authors of a New Revelation from God?

Are Gods hands tied, or are they eternally guiding mankind from one Revelation to another?



.

 

[PRmerger]

That’s the million dollar question I guess…

When a religion looks like it needs a reform, do we reform it using man-made ideologies and principles, trying desperately to mould “some” (not all) of its principles around an ever-increasingly complex and challenging world OR, do you investigate thoroughly the claims of those Individuals who claim to be DIRECT Authors of a New Revelation from God?

Are Gods hands tied, or are they eternally guiding mankind from one Revelation to another?



.

Neither of your options are good ones, Servant.

When a religion needs reform you follow in the models of the great saints, such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. Ignatius Loyola.

 

[Servant19]

Neither of your options are good ones, Servant.

When a religion needs reform you follow in the models of the great saints, such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. Ignatius Loyola.

So you’re advocating that the hands of God are tied. He cannot send another Revelation…

(Hey where did your post go btw? Lol)



.

 

[PRmerger]

So you’re advocating that the hands of God are tied. He cannot send another Revelation…



.

God doesn’t need to send another Revelation.

That’s like taking the purest metal and saying, “You believe the hands of God are tied because he cannot make this metal any more pure.”

It’s not that God’s hands are tied–it’s just that the laws of nature and logic (that He created, BTW) don’t allow for something that’s Pure to be added to.

 

[Servant19]

God doesn’t need to send another Revelation.

That’s like taking the purest metal and saying, “You believe the hands of God are tied because he cannot make this metal any more pure.”

It’s not that God’s hands are tied–it’s just that the laws of nature and logic (that He created, BTW) don’t allow for something that’s Pure to be added to.

I thought the whole point of reform was that the metal is no longer the “purest form of metal”

If it’s the purest form of metal, why would a reform be needed?



.

 

[Peter_Plato]

…the efficacy of their effigies…

:clapping: