Dec 30, 2023·edited Dec 30, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
Superiority is one of the foul fruits of Arbitrary Hierarchy. It is also a plea of most Tyrants. In order to develop a sense of this worthless trait, "Superiority" those who want to claim it must view themselves as "Separate" from the One Consciousness.
Rupert Spira has said in many ways that God is the True Self within each of us. While we are intellectually centered, it's easy for us to have that sense of separateness, except with regular people, there's the Heart. Within that space, we have the experience of Love; a realization that we don't really exist as Separate Beings, but are all one Being wanting to view itself from Separate Experiences.
Excellent post Tereza! Very important truths to meditate on.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on my response to Faith below, talking about how it's logically possible that God exists if the world does not. When I use the word 'ego' I don't mean it as egotistical, I just mean the 'belief' that my self is separate, a flesh-encapsulated mind or soul, depending on the terminology of atheism or religion. I do think of the ego-self as a drop that contains the whole ocean. Maybe that's similar to the Chrysalis.
There is a bit of difference from the "experience" of Reality and the Truth. Mostly what I say about this topic is not from a "belief" or a system of thought, but rather an attempt on my part to describe what my experience has been. So, I don't want to step on anyone else's ideas about God. Your post brings up a lot of interconnected concepts; one that stands out to me most is the sense of "duality," most human perception appears to express. My experience of inner reality is that there is no such thing as "Out There" there is only what the Experience is. You have probably read my early posting on Individualized Sovereignty:
I attempt to use Spiritual Mystic Knowledge from ancient writings, particularly ones that I have an interconnected experience with, in order to defeat Political and Psychological manipulations we have become anesthetized to accept. Here is a excerpt that may be most important:
The condition of the sovereign “being” is a projection of the one-self into a physical birth; it is experienced by and for the Sacred Self. Human existence is a product of this sovereign experience. The true nature of Being is formless, yet it is all there ever was, or could be. All physical forms are caused by a formless reality that is standing behind it. Temporarily participating in this experience called “human,” each experience of being are a focal point of infinite awareness. This makes each human being sovereign because the experience is observed from the vantage point of the Eternal Self; clothed in the ideation of Individual Hood. The Eternal “I,” True Being; that is both The Observer and The Observed, is One coming from Oneness. To stand within and observe the One in its myriad forms through Life; within the expression of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss. The fastest route to realization of this truth is Love. Our whole basis for Identity should be that of the formless nature of Consciousness; not human labels, or status based on appearances, since these are always transitory.
I often state that there is no Duality; there is really only ONE thing, and that's consciousness, the fastest route to experience it in purest form is Love.
I've called Atheism "the religion of no God" forever. Many of them carry an official card declaring their Atheist status and are militant in their proselytizing that there is no God. Pretty intolerant of deists, and dogmatic, just like any other religion. I loved TCIM when I was studying it, but I could never understand it really. Still have the Teachers Manual which, oddly, I found easier to read.
That's a great way to put it! I'm just reading the Teacher's Manual again myself, after finishing the year-long workbook for maybe the seventh time. I agree that it is easier to read. I've just hit the two pages out of 1500 where I disagree, on whether Jesus is necessary for healing. But it describes Jesus as a symbol that's used because it's a language the listener can love. I think that was true for Helen Shucman but not for me. As it says, there's a form of the Course for every language and symbol where they change but the content stays the same.
And I differ on all the parts of God--Father, Son, Holy Spirit--being personified as male. That makes no sense to me.
God is not in a "body" (except the manifestations of Source Energy into this physical world that are living things, including animals and humans). It is NOT a "He" with the appearance of an old man!!! And it certainly isn't up there in the clouds with male genitalia! Lol! Fantasies for children and the ignorant! And to sustain Patriarchal power and authority.
You write from a position of knowledge, Faith, about things that can't really be known. That's a lot of authority to claim, that doesn't allow for other possibilities. We certainly agree, all of us I'm sure, that God isn't an old man in the clouds. But what God is, is certainly open to discussion. And my question was whether we should discuss the kind of God we'd be willing to entertain the possibility of. To define that God your way is the same as orthodox religions, to provide an answer and shut down the question. Even though your answer is different, the intent is the same.
"But what God is, is certainly open to discussion."
Trying to define what god is seems as futile to me as trying to define what money is, as is so well emphasized in your fascinating book, which I have almost finished for a second time.
If I were forced to answer, I'd probably say that the concepts of god, like money, are tools. And like all tools can be, as they evidently have been, used in many different ways.
I don't know if I've counted indent lines correctly to be responding to both Guy and Geoff here, but let's try. Guy! Glad you came up for air and used that breath to read my essay!
St. Augustine said something like "I don't know which is more ridiculous, to deny God or attempt to define Him." In that case, I saw his ridicule as keeping others from challenging the Catholic Church's implicit definition of God, including the assumed use of 'Him.'
I think perhaps the word God is too loaded to be discussed without pushing either for or against. I think I'll try another time to define the realm of possible realities. That should be easier ;-)
I read "Confessions," and "De Civitatis Dei" many long decades ago and all I remember is his comment about chastity and that I was underwhelmed about the rest of them, to say the least. I never had the temptation to reread any of it.
It has lately dawned on me that a lot, if not all, of the writings of antiquity are not only often apochryphal but could easily be "propagandical." I mean, how else would these things be "handed down" to us commoners, and who had the motives and means to promote such "profound wisdom" but those would aspire to rule us?
Clearly, "Saint" Augustine ("August?"...) was a propagandist at a minimum though he probably couldn't have helped to express a modicum of wisdom at times.
A second time! The first person who read and loved my book just sent a note that he's reading it again. His copy was an old one with a cartoon drawing by a friend that was later turned into the illustration on the cover. That's so cool!
To paraphrase the 17th century Anglican theologian, JAT Robinson said, "God is by definition the ultimate reality. It's pointless to debate whether reality exists. The interesting question is what Reality/ God is like."
There are conceptions of God I completely reject, which includes all the ones that are congruent with the world. But I'm positing a third logical explanation for reality and, since there are only three, I think it's worth considering--not accepting, but holding as a possibility.
I am not only reading it a second time (~250 pages in), but I referred, on another thread, to your treatment of Haiti and the idea that the successful slave rebellion was undone with the imposition of debt slavery.
This led me to making another comment somewhere on this thread; the one about another criminal authoritarian, (sorry for the redundancy), EU pres von der Leyen who descends from a long line of powerful slave masters and god perverters.
"The interesting question is what Reality/ God is like."
I think it would take someone full of hubris to even think of tackling such a consideration. Like I believe you said, somewhere here, paraphrasing, "these things are unknowable" and I would add, by such limited creatures as us, especially with the tools we have (e.g., words), and even if we could know it to any degree, we would never understand any significant part of it.
That was the point of my Lucian comments since evidently a lot of old guys felt the same, and few could be classifid as dummies.
Hello Goeff. Gautama would concur. Well, he did, actually, because Gautama was adamant that the non-discussion of god was integral to reducing suffering. He was recorded chastising a disciple who went against that idea. (Buddhism is quite far from much of Gautama taught/said.) In his discourses he was asked many times about the existence of God and re-incarnation, and much like Tereza's arguments, did not answer them and so discounted any answer that becomes the foundational divisive reality we are living in. The question is unanswerable. And I see answering it, yea or nay, as the single most effective spiritual by-pass technique ever by abdicating personal responsibility to make the world less difficult and using another authority: Bible or atheist bibles like the Guru Papers. What is answerable is the possibility of reducing suffering more effectively when defined concepts of God or-not God, such as in the case of the Jack, are not used to cite an authority over another.
Is God possible? Sure. And by definition, even that definition is impossible while we are standing on earth and in the physical reality that Jack has dogmatically and authoritatively asserted is the only reality.
I had resolved, henceforth, to avoid threads dealing with such things until your comment came along, so here I am, breaking my resolution, but yet with gratitude! I've resigned myself to the idea that we humans have extreme limitations and that many things are both unknowable and incomprehensible, and thank gawd, cuz otherwise they'd probably be highly intolerable!
Thank you my friend, and may you have a Blessed New Year!
PS: I'm saving your excellent comment for future reference.
Dec 30, 2023·edited Dec 30, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
excellent piece! There's always been something about atheists who love to brag about being atheist that has made me uncomfortable. You hit the nail on the head with your subtitle "The theology of superiority". That's it. The smugness, the looking down their noses at the "ignorant", the "superstitious", and in some case just outright hostility at anyone who does not accept their dogma. It's ironic that that kind of atheism is the very thing that they rail against: ignorance, superstition, and dogma!
Atheism is just another religion, in a sense. ALL religions are only systems of BELIEFS, usually considered related to the non-physical/Spiritual/Afterlife subjects. As beliefs, they have no intrinsic reality. Beliefs/ideas/concepts are basically just one's imagination at work. We can imagine dragons and unicorns and Hobbits and all manner of other things, but that doesn't make them real, at least not in THIS dimension! Religious ideas or beliefs about God being an old man with a long white beard sitting on a throne in the clouds and with winged angels playing harps and trumpets is no different that beliefs in unicorns, but I suppose there are some who actually believe that nonsense. But the point here is that beliefs are NOT reality. NO religion is reality. NONE! ZERO! This is why there are SO MANY different religions. If what they believed was actually true, everyone would believe in ONE religion. Their religion would have a factual basis. But no. Every religion is different because they are ALL made up! Atheism is just the religion that fantasizes that there is NO God in the clouds or wherever. Perhaps that nothing exists outside of what can be perceived with the physical senses? That is just another FANTASY! Those people are ignorant of, or denying, all the laboratory-confirmed evidence of psychic phenomena and non-physical realities. They are not to be taken any more seriously than the God-in-the-clouds True Believers!
This post is really about a process for discussing the questions, not one answer vs. another. Anytime that the other side is judged as having a lower character, i.e. ignorant or falling for fantasy, we're making ourselves superior, not our ideas. I've explained how it could be logically possible for God to exist outside of what can be perceived with the physical senses. Tell me why my explanation isn't logical, don't denigrate my ability to think. That's not an argument, it's an attack on character.
Being ignorant of something or believing in something that turns out not to be "factual" (i.e. "fantasy") has absolutely nothing to do with one's character, or intelligence, or anything else. No human can have direct knowledge of more than the tiniest fraction of what there is to know about in this universe (of perhaps 100-billion-trillion stars, or more, plus all their planets, black holes, etc! And that's just in OUR "dimensions" of it!). We are, in effect, all just floundering around in a world of endless things and situations, and our extremely narrow window of awareness only lets us bring up into waking consciousness just the smallest part—what is "in front of us" at any given moment. This is by design, so that we may have a more full/in-depth, intense experience of this physical world. If we maintained the Consciousness of the vast Whole that we came from, we would be in "Cosmic Consciousness", but that isn't the point. Instead, our focus of awareness is very narrow and in the moment: "Be Here Now".
There is much more that we can reconnect with, however: the aspects ofctge universal Whole that is in the non-physical realms or world of Spirit. That is what has inspired so many humans through to ages to attempt to inform others that there IS a greater Reality than this physical manifestation. Most of the world's "scriptures" (writings) and "holy books" are attempts to describe That-Which-Cannot-Be-Described in a effort to INSPIRE people to also seek to experience that Other Reality. Religions are supposed to foster or assist that expansion of consciousness, but they almost invariably become codified institutions that function for their own benefit, at least in the formal "organized" religions. How many hours do good, obedient followers of a religion spend reading a book or listening to a sermon or engaging in some ritual instead of spending time connecting inside to that Higher Frequency Energy of Spirit/ Source Energy? In some religions they make the effort, but in many, the situation is comparable to sitting around reading a cookbook instead of preparing and eating the meal!
"The Kingdom of Heaven is Within".
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven . . . "
Jesus didn't tell his disciples to go read scriptures. He came here to CONNECT THEM with that EXPERIENCE within!
religion is not only about belief, at least to me it's not. It's about experience that verifies the "belief" as you call it. Belief without experience doesn't last long for me. Experiences confirm the precepts of the religion.
All knowledge has two aspects: intellectual understanding and experience. Without both, it's not knowledge. Intellectual understanding without experience is just something the intellect can play with. Experience without the intellectual understanding is incomplete knowledge at best and confusing at worst. Religion or spirituality is a type of knowledge but only if both components, intellectual understanding and direct experience, are lived in a person.
Well said. The Course is a year-long program of experiments. The meditations are usually some form of reconsidering your habits of blaming others. I think of forgiveness as giving forward the benefit of the doubt, that I would do the same in another's position. And then it's seeing what your experience tells you.
The Course defines revelation as that momentary flash of experiencing Oneness. It strengthens confidence but, as an experience, it can't be conveyed. The miracle is every time you recognize that you and someone else are not at odds, but share the same goal. That's completely under your own control, and changes the whole world.
I love that you create such interesting posts from comments sections of previous pieces. And your only dogma -- that I am not superior to you and vice versa -- is one I wholeheartedly believe in too. #thebeigeofreason ✨💕🙏🏾
I will respond below directly to your words, putting my words in brief, shorthand, CAPS—so excuse the grammar, it will be compressed, but I trust understandable. Once I complete this response here I will cease responding and save my time and energy to launch my new Free Friends Forum that will contain, at some point, topics germane to our discussion/debate here. I hope you and your readers will attend.
Ok, I will dive into your words below WITH CAPS REPLY.
TEREZA, JAN 3, 10:55AM
Thanks for weighing in, Jack, and for providing a way to help clarify my thoughts--not just on the topic but more importantly, on the process for coming to agreement. I'm also going to do one that looks at this more generically called How to Have Better Arguments.
I won't go into much detail here because I already did that with my post. But let me apply some of the systematic process to this discussion in the form of questions:
1) How do you define forum and how does it differ from a lecture series?
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FORUM: “A SPACE/TIME ONLINE WHERE ALL PERSONS ARE INVITED TO EXCHANGE THEIR PARTICULAR PERSPECTIVES IN WRITING AND IN CONVERSATION ON IDEAS/BELIEFS, THE ENTIRE PROCESS BEING PROPOSED, FACILITATED & CONTROLLED BY SOME PARTICULAR, RESPONSIBLE PERSON(S).
LECTURE: ONE PERSON TALKING TO A GROUP OF PERSONS WITH LITTLE OR NO INTERACTION.
Are there areas where other participants could change your mind? "Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism" seems like you already have your answers and the title you proposed elsewhere, "Authoritarian Belief Systems vs. Voluntarism" is certainly not a debate but pre-determining implicit assumptions set up as a straw man for your definition of Voluntarism.
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THE TITLE ( "Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism") APPLIES ONLY TO THE TWO PERSONS CREATING THE FORUM, JACK & MARTIN, & IS MEANT TO SIGNAL TO OTHERS THE IDEAS/BELIEFS OF THESE TWO WHO WILL BE PROPOSING, FACILITATING, & CONTROLLING THE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS/BELIEFS. THE TITLE ALSO SIGNALS THE KINDS OF IDEAS/BELIEFS THAT WILL BE PROPOSED FOR EXAMINATION & EXPLICATION.
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"Authoritarian Belief Systems vs. Voluntarism" ARE A SET OF IDEAS/BELIEFS WE MIGHT PROPOSE TO BE DISCUSSED (I HAVE NOT NOMINATED THESE YET). YOUR CONTENTION THAT THIS SET OF IDEAS/BELIEFS ARE “certainly not a debate but pre-determining implicit assumptions set up as a straw man for your definition of Voluntarism.” WE WOULD ASSUME YOU WOULD RECORD FOR YOUR ENTRY ON THE DISCUSSION & IT WOULD BE DISCUSSED IN THE WRITTEN AND CONVERSATIONAL FORUM.
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2) What's the question we're debating? I think questions should be framed as open-ended, not with only two pre-determined answers, usually yes or no. Working backwards, since you never state the question, I'd say it's implicitly "Is your belief in the authoritarian system of ACIM inferior to my belief in myself?"
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I PROPOSED A NUMBER OF PROPOSITIONS (& QUESTIONS?) IN OUR EXCHANGES SO FAR WHICH YOU GENERALLY HAVE REFUSED TO RESPOND TO, PROPOSING CRITICISMS ON YOUR OWN TANGENTS INSTEAD. IN MY FREE FRIENDS FORUM I MIGHT PROPOSE AS AN IDEA/BELIEF TO BE DISCUSSED: “RENUNCIATE, ILLUSION BELIEF SYSTEMS LIKE ACIM & THEIR AUTHORITARIAN NATURE” AND ALL CAN DISCUSS/DEBATE THIS EACH WITH THEIR WRITTEN AND VERBAL EXPRESSIONS.
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YES, I DO CONSIDER IT TRUE THAT “[anyone’s] belief in the authoritarian system of ACIM [is] inferior to [the] belief in [yourself]. I CONSIDER THE ACIM IS AUTHORITIARIAN BECAUSE IT UNDERMINES SELF-TRUST & REPLACES IT WITH A DISEMBODIED COMMANDER WHOSE DAILY “LESSONS” ARE A MIND CONTROL PROGRAM (SEE THE CIA CONNECTION).
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3) I continue to invite you to reframe the question, if that's not what you meant. Within the implicit (and loaded) question there are many other questions to which the answer is assumed. Do I believe in the Course? Is the Course a belief system? Is it authoritarian? Who is the authority, if so? How do you define authoritarian?
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AGAIN, YOU PAY NO MIND TO MY WORDS IN OUR PREVIOUS EXCHANGES, WHERE I HAVE DEFINED IDEAS LIKE “BELIEF” & WHICH DEFINITION YOU AGREED WITH & THEN DISMISSED TO GO ON TO CLAIM YOU HAVE NO BELIEFS INCLUDING IN THE ACIM. SO YES, FROM THE DEFINITION OF BELIEF YOU AGREED WITH, ACIM IS A BELIEF; & MY ANALYSIS IS, YES, IT IS AUTHORITARIAN AS DEFINED IN THE GURU PAPERS:
“Belief systems that are unchallengeable, and the idea that someone or something other than the individual necessarily knows what’s best, or right, or proper for a given person. Mental or psychological authoritarianism comes from an inner urge to obey someone or something that is viewed as higher, more powerful, morally superior, or more knowledgeable—or to be that for someone else. Preaching renunciation and self-sacrifice is by definition authoritarian—it means an authority telling you what you’re supposed to renounce. If a person buys this ideology, then detaching from possessions, relationships, and even one’s identity can at first make one feel better because they are the usual sources of psychological pain. Taking on beliefs because they alleviate conflict is part of the unconscious code underlying authoritarian control.”
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4) The one term you define is belief. And you apply it to my study of the Course five times. 'BELIEF' BY YOUR DEFINITION, WHICH I'VE AGREED TO USE, IS RECOGNIZED BY ITS EMOTIONAL AFFECT [CAPS my emphasis]. So despite my protest that I don't 'believe' in the Course, you insist that I'm angry, offended, emotionally charged--retrofitting my state of mind to your definition of 'belief.'
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YOU SAY, AGAIN, YOU AGREE TO MY DEFINITION OF “BELIEF” AS YOU DID BEFORE IN OUR EXCHANGE: “BUT WE CAN GO WITH GRIFFITHS.” [YOUR WORDS, YOUR CAPS] & THEN IMMEDIATELY, AS USUAL, DISMISS OUR SUPPOSEDLY SHARED DEFINITION!!!!
YOU APPARENTLY DO NOT RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE CONTRADICTING YOURSELF WHEN YOU WRITE “despite my protest that I don't 'believe' in the Course”.
IF YOU ACTUALLY DID SHARE MY DEFINITION AS YOU STATE YOU DO, THEN OBVIOUSLY YOU DO BELIEVE IN ACIM. HERE AGAIN IS THE DEFINITION:
“What I mean by a ‘belief system’, then, is simply a set of propositions held to be true, to which some emotional charge (affect) is attached and which gives more or less cogent expression to a general sense of how the world is.”
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NOTE: THE SECOND, FINAL PART, IS BELOW UNDER THE TEREZA'S POST. I DID THIS BECAUSE THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR MY POST IN ONE PLACE.
That's an interesting way to put it, kevin. I've talked about beliefs we get from the Bible in the existence of evil and our superiority to others being the basis of 'civilization.' So even when people reject the concept of God, they hold onto the concept of evil. That's really what the Bible is about, not who God is, but who we can hate or feel like we're better than. So atheists keep that part but put it in secular terms.
That's probably not your mother, though. How did she hold onto the dogma of the church?
Similar to my mother who was a Lutheran of Nordic extraction who converted to Catholicism as a child, then saw through the hypocrisy and manipulation of priests.
Meanwhile most of the political troubles in the world are being caused and/or supported by back-to-the-past adherents of the "traditional" religions, especially the three world dominant Middle Eastern semitic religions. Such was indeed always the case.
And of course, the caste system is like arsenic in milk in the Hindu religion, as Gandhi said. Perhaps the most blatant example of superiority in religion.
Another thing about statements like "I'm sorry you were offended" is the use of the passive voice, i.e. the lack of agency. That's always a warning sign.
Then there's this variant, which is even worse: "I'm sorry IF you were offended."
I am still not finished with watching this video, just about 7 minutes left (I will read the article next). But first, thank you for composing and sharing this piece, most of all because it involves your personal responses.
Second, it sounds to me from the exchange that a) Tereza was in discussion with a person who (knowingly or not) is suggesting people believe in nothing at all. Alternatively, Tereza was in discussion with a person who (knowingly or not) isn't actually saying anything like what they claim to intend i.e. telling a person to 'believe in oneself' and that's that, nothing further. Which is like saying nothing at all, when without any more context.
Third - and this is maybe incidental - I was writing my Goethe piece (in mind) in the days before you published this one, and only finished typing it earlier today. And then I sat down this evening to watch the rest of your video. I mention this because your discussion partner quoted Goethe. Regardless :) Let more people learn about him (Goethe), and also read Tereza's work.
Thanks for watching shaqer and please post the link to your Goethe piece! Jack had many quotes I liked, including Voltaire's on defining terms, I'm not going to reject those whose name he takes in vain ;-)
Had Jack been suggesting people believe in nothing but themselves, and been giving me the same credit, I would have been fine with what he was saying. We each have our own authority, are our own authority. But it seemed to me that he was claiming absolute knowledge that there was no God, and saying anyone else's reasoning or experience was weak-minded superstition. That's what seemed like a dogma to me.
I am happy to be put into the same sentence as Goethe! Practically rubbing shoulders!
Tereza, I had watched the first five minutes or so of the video on youtube, and only caught up with the rest yesterday.
Yes, you are correct. Certainly to tell a person to trust their own self is paramount. It's just that it is dangerous (heck, giving any advice is dangerous). I felt Mr. Jack was being insincere for whatever reason. And I will certainly give similar counsel: trust yourself, inquire of yourself, believe in yourself etc. But I'm wary of doing that with people on the internet I don't know personally. But maybe there is a time for that and I will come to it.
When mean people want to upset me they will sometimes call me a 'lighthouse' in that I try to guide people. And yes, my feelings do get hurt sometimes during dialogue, when I am upset by ill-intention or witlessness or ignorance of another, either to myself or to others. And I let them know....Let 'em have it I say :) But being gentle is good if I think it is worth it, so long as it doesn't compromise others along the way.
As you allow, I am sharing my synchronous (to me) Goethe piece, regardless of all else. Again, the malfeasant are not so clever as they think. Thank you Tereza.
(I typically publish first drafts, am trying to improve my writing, and frequently go back to correct typos)
As I wrote on your stack and in a note: I really enjoyed this, shaqer. Fascinating that Goethe adopted Islam. Thanks for sending me here and I'll look for a place to use this in mine because I think it's important.
And I think your counsel is wise, to trust in yourself. It's hard to think of when that isn't good advice.
Much to respond to above, and will do so a limited amount more within the next few days in addition to what I am placing here now.
For now I will only point out one of your many (I will show more in my post after this one) inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions from our earlier exchanges that is repeated in this post I am replying to now.
Below, first, is by me.
JACK
“Quickly, going on definitions to give us a stable base, can we agree on this one regarding "BELIEF"?
“What I mean by a ‘belief system’, then, is simply a set of propositions held to be true, to which some emotional charge (affect) is attached and which gives more or less cogent expression to a general sense of how the world is.” “Towards a Science of Belief Systems” by Edmund Griffiths
You have a "belief" in A Course in Miracles as I have a "belief" in reason and the scientific method to which I think we are both passionately attached.
Agree?”
Here is your reply to my above from our earlier exchanges:
TEREZA
“My definition of belief is making up your mind about something in advance of knowledge in the form of facts or experience. BUT WE CAN GO WITH GRIFFITHS. As I thought I stated clearly (and maybe so insistently you thought my feelings were hurt) I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE COURSE, I DON'T BELIEVE IN BELIEVING, [CAPS my emphasis] I other than my sole dogma that I am no better than you.
Then this is from the current post on this belief topic:
“THREE TIMES I DENY THAT I HAVE BELIEFS, other than in the equal goodness of all people. [CAPS my emphasis] So I’m left arguing for something that I don’t believe.”
I trust this will show you and your readers what you do. FIRST, YOU AGREED TO GO WITH MY DEFINITION OF BELIEF, as the capitalized phrases above show, then you promptly dismissed it. This is, I hope, a clear example of what you have mainly done in our exchanges. You do not address the many points I put to you—ALMOST NEVER. Rather, what you do is go off on your own tangent, never paying attention to my ideas and quotes unless it is to straw man them.
Now consider the definition of belief I consider the best, neutral definition that we can agree on, and which you agreed with, and then totally dismissed with your “devisive” [sic] rhetoric:
“a ‘belief system’, then, is simply a set of propositions held to be true, to which some emotional charge (affect) is attached and which gives more or less cogent expression to a general sense of how the world is.”
This definition of belief, IF you would actually deign to use it with me, would permit us to examine “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM) and compare it to my preferred, and I hope to show, SUPERIOR (there I go again with my “humanism of superiority”!) “A Course in Reality” which actually is the book “The Guru Papers” (which specifically, and to me, convincingly, critiques ACIM from my humanist, non-transcendental perspective, showing ACIM wins minds through authoritarian self-distrust—SEE GOETHE QUOTE AT END).
TO ALL: My next entry which will be exclusively on what we have exchanged before this post and this post here. I will isolate passages of my words and Tereza’s words and give my response to them illustrating my above claim of her many
“inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions”.
After my next response, I will not turn anymore to what Tereza will write in reply to this entry here. I consider once I have put on record my critique of Tereza’s “inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions”; and Tereza’s likewise critique of my “devisives” [sic], etc.—I will stop there and go on to discuss/debate specific ideas which I trust Tereza will agree to do.
(Sic: “devisives” a misspelling? I think you meant a play on “devices of rhetoric” to a “divisives” neologism, plural noun? Thus “divisives”--not “devisives”?)
What I want to do next is what Voltaire recommends which is to define our main terms. Once we have agreed on definitions, then we can begin to argue/discuss them and see where we agree and disagree. We have a beginning, I hope, with the term “belief” which we both have agreed on.
My goal in this exchange is to briefly state my definitions of key terms of the Human Condition and my understanding of its two main Conditioner classes: the Lust for Sex/Dominance/Control and the Fear of Death/Abandonment/Engulfment.
I will show how these two Conditioners are differently responded to by “Authoritarians” (to be defined) and by Voluntaryists (to be defined) and why the Voluntaryist’s way should be everyone’s choice.
I will show how Authoritarianism operates on collective, infallible, transcendental revelation (be that religious or political) ultimately based on physical/mental coercion (win/lose) while Voluntaryism operates on individual, fallible, human reason based on physical/mental voluntary exchange (win/win).
I will not go too far in this exchange on Teresa’s Substack but shortly move it over to my new Free Friends Forum, coming soon, tentatively titled:
Abandoned To Ourselves—Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism
Which phrase by Rousseau comes from this quote:
“The serious study of Man, of his natural faculties and their successive developments . . . . research into political and moral life. . . . considers what we would have become, abandoned to ourselves.” Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
And that phrase of Rousseau’s might have come from:
“Suppose that God, abandoning mankind to ourselves, had effectively prescribed no rule of life for us, and had subjected us to no law.” Principles of Natural Law by Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
I invite Tereza and all her readers to join our Forum to continue our intercourse :).
“There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate whenever they meet.” Eric Hoffer
Let us see if we are of the same species, Homo sapiens voluntaryiens (etymologically: Earthly Ones, Wise with Free Will—note: no Transcendental opt out and taking full responsibility for our freedom), and our offspring can be born and borne.
I will let dear uncle Kant have almost the last say whose words for me define the true, non-spiritual/transcendental, “Enlightenment” and the only one worth achieving. By the way, typical even of today’s intellectuals, he preached but did not practice true Enlightenment (becoming your own sole Authority), since he believed only “scholars” like himself could legitimately disobey Authority; all the rest of humanity—peasants—must obey.
“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”--that is the motto of enlightenment.” An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant (1784)
Finally, to counter Tereza’s “I don’t trust myself but I do trust in all of you. That’s my only faith.”, I summon Johann first:
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” Goethe
Then from A Course in Reality, The Guru Papers:
“Making God the ultimate force to please does not promote self-trust. Once self-trust is undermined, this creates an “authoritarian personality” that seeks to follow those who “know better.” Those who know better, of course, are the guardians and interpreters of the sacred Word.”
Sapere Aude! Trust yourself first and last; and only then, if they prove trustworthy, others.
Thanks for weighing in, Jack, and for providing a way to help clarify my thoughts--not just on the topic but more importantly, on the process for coming to agreement. I'm also going to do one that looks at this more generically called How to Have Better Arguments.
I won't go into much detail here because I already did that with my post. But let me apply some of the systematic process to this discussion in the form of questions:
1) How do you define forum and how does it differ from a lecture series? Are there areas where other participants could change your mind? "Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism" seems like you already have your answers and the title you proposed elsewhere, "Authoritarian Belief Systems vs. Voluntarism" is certainly not a debate but pre-determining implicit assumptions set up as a straw man for your definition of Voluntarism.
2) What's the question we're debating? I think questions should be framed as open-ended, not with only two pre-determined answers, usually yes or no. Working backwards, since you never state the question, I'd say it's implicitly "Is your belief in the authoritarian system of ACIM inferior to my belief in myself?"
3) I continue to invite you to reframe the question, if that's not what you meant. Within the implicit (and loaded) question there are many other questions to which the answer is assumed. Do I believe in the Course? Is the Course a belief system? Is it authoritarian? Who is the authority, if so? How do you define authoritarian?
4) The one term you define is belief. And you apply it to my study of the Course five times. 'Belief' by your definition, which I've agreed to use, is recognized by its emotional affect. So despite my protest that I don't 'believe' in the Course, you insist that I'm angry, offended, emotionally charged--retrofitting my state of mind to your definition of 'belief.'
5) By doing this, you repeatedly take authority over my thoughts and feelings. I can't trust myself to know what I believe or not because I don't even know how I feel. YOU are the authority on how I feel. So I shouldn't trust myself but should defer to your authority.
6) You state that you 'believe' in rationality and voluntarism yet you don't apply the same definition of belief, on which we've agreed, to yourself. Is it an emotional attachment?
7) Jack, you're asking me to explain my term devisives a third time. Why, when you didn't read the first two?
In conclusion, you're asking me to place my trust in you and your chosen authorities, and abandon my trust in my own ability to think and know myself, including my emotions. To me, that's inherently contradictory.
THE CONCLUDING PART OF MY POST THAT STARTED ABOVE.
YOU BELIEVE THE PROPOSITIONS (SOME, ALL?) IN THE ACIM (I HAVE READ PARTS OF IT AS HAVE THE AUTHORS OF THE GURU PAPERS WHO QUOTE IT ACCURATELY AND EXTENSIVELY—I HAVE CHECKED) ARE TRUE, YES?
“It [ACIM] calls the world we live in an illusion to be transcended and is specific about calling all separation an illusion. It likewise denigrates the self and self-centeredness with such statements as “Either God or ego is insane.” Its central message is that through surrendering to God’s will, which is pure love, illusions will evaporate and one will be eternally at one with God. The essential methodology used to achieve this is forgiveness.” The Guru Papers
FROM THE ACIM “WORKBOOK FOR STUDENTS”
“LESSON 1
Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything.”
“LESSON 10
My thoughts do not mean anything.”
“LESSON 24
I do not perceive my own best interests.”
“LESSON 32
I have invented the world I see.”
“LESSON 77
I am entitled to miracles.”
“LESSON 128
The world I see has nothing that I want.”
“LESSON 129 p.1,738
Beyond this world there is a world I want.”
“LESSON 163
8 There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their
salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion.”
“LESSON 249
Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss.”
TO ME. ALL OF THESE QUOTES FROM ACIM SUPPORT THE CLAIMS MADE ABOVE IN THE QUOTE FROM THE GURU PAPERS.
---
YOUR WORDS DO EXPRESS EMOTIONAL CHARGE, YES? YOU ARE AMBIVALENT, CONTRADICTORY, MAKE ACCUSATORY ASSUMPTIONS, & RESORT TO NAME CALLING (taken from earlier exchanges):
“You've never read the Course but are taking Joel and Diana's secondhand interpretation of it as fact.”
[HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT I HAVE NEVER READ ACIM? AS A MATTER OF FACT, I HAD READ PARTS OF IT MANY YEARS AGO AND AM READING IT AGAIN NOW.]
“I'm not easily offended and I don't think you could if you tried.”
““I'd have to say--despite my own experience that the Course continues to be worth my time and study--silly me! Obviously I've been brainwashed. I'm too dumb to realize when I'm being manipulated.”
“Certainly when I took quotes from Joel and Diana and applied them to me, they were pretty insulting. And that's why I did that, to show that theirs was an attack on the character of the person studying the course….”
“I know you're not trying to offend me and that you really don't understand why what you're saying through Joel and Diana is offensive.”
“However, it doesn't offend me because I have a life I'm extremely happy with.”
“I guess I'll need to amend my statement that you couldn't offend me if you tried.”
“it's curious that you don't recognize what you're quoting as a secondhand insult, which is a more cowardly way to insult someone”
---
AND THAT THESE PROPOSITIONS ABOVE GIVE YOU A GENERAL SENSE OF HOW THE WORLD IS, YES?
----------------
5) By doing this, you repeatedly take authority over my thoughts and feelings. I can't trust myself to know what I believe or not because I don't even know how I feel. YOU are the authority on how I feel. So I shouldn't trust myself but should defer to your authority.
---
I AM GUESSING YOU MEAN “By doing this” IS THIS?: “retrofitting my state of mind to your definition of 'belief.'” [from 4) above] I AM GUESSING YOU ARE FEIGNING A STATE OF MISTRUST AND BLAMING IT ON ME BECAUSE OF WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN?
--------------------
6) You state that you 'believe' in rationality and voluntarism yet you don't apply the same definition of belief, on which we've agreed, to yourself. Is it an emotional attachment?
---
WHY DO YOU STATE THIS, ON WHAT GROUNDS, WHAT WORDS OF MINE? IT APPEARS YOU DO NOT READ WHAT I WRITE. YES, I DO APPLY THE ABOVE DEFINITION OF BELIEF TO MYSELF AND ALL PERSONS AS I CLEARLY STATED IN OUR EXCHANGE:
“You have a "belief" in A Course in Miracles as I have a "belief" in reason and the scientific method to which I think we are both passionately attached.”
---------------------
7) Jack, you're asking me to explain my term devisives a third time. Why, when you didn't read the first two?
---
NO, I DID NOT ASK YOU TO EXPLAIN YOUR TERM DEVISIVES [sic]. HERE IS WHAT I WROTE:
““DEVISIVES” A MISSPELLING? I THINK YOU MEANT A PLAY ON “DEVICES OF RHETORIC” TO A “DIVISIVES” NEOLOGISM, PLURAL NOUN? THUS “DIVISIVES”--NOT “DEVISIVES”?)”
---
In conclusion, you're asking me to place my trust in you and your chosen authorities, and abandon my trust in my own ability to think and know myself, including my emotions. To me, that's inherently contradictory.
---
NO, I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO PLACE YOUR TRUST IN ME AND THE GURU PAPERS (TGP). I DID ASK YOU TO READ THE CHAPTER IN TGP ON ACIM BUT IT SEEMS YOU HAVE NOT DONE THAT. IT DOES SEEM CLEARLY APPARENT TO ME THAT YOUR THINKING IS CONFUSED, AMBIVALENT, AND EVEN CONTRADICTORY; AND THAT YOU DO NOT SEEM TO KNOW YOURSELF, ESPECIALLY YOUR EMOTIONS.
------------------------
CODA
After reading the ACIM as the quotes above from it partly show, I have come to the conclusion that spending 20 years on ACIM would not be nearly as useful for your, Tereza (or anyone else’s), personal development (self-actualization is the term I use) as reading persons like Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Erich Fromm, Eric Hoffer, Julian Jaynes, Joel Kramer, Diana Alstad, and other humanist, individualistic (most are), free thinkers. I find it amazing you believe ACIM’s propositions i have posted above—assuming you do? Maybe you do not?
As I wrote in my last response:
“After my next response, I will not turn anymore to what Tereza will write in reply to this entry here. I consider once I have put on record my critique of Tereza’s “inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions”; and Tereza’s likewise critique of my “devisives” [sic], etc.—I will stop there and go on to discuss/debate specific ideas which I trust Tereza will agree to do.”
And this is what I will do. I will not reply any more, Tereza, to your responses to my words here. I will end our exchange on your Substack here with best wishes.
And I invite your and your interested readers to join our Forum of Free Friends:
Abandoned To Ourselves—Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism.
Those interested, please email Jack: responsiblyfree@protonmail.com and I will put you on our email list to invite you to our first Forum session.
“We are free to the degree: we will ourselves to be; take the responsibility to be; allow others to be; and trust ourselves to be.” Nowhere Now Here
Glad you've figured out what would be most useful for me to spend the next 20 yrs on ;-) And that following your advice would prove that I trust myself and not some authority. I wish you success with your forum, Jack, and hope that we're ending our discussion here on good terms.
I have many of those Humanist writers’ digital books to keep you busy your next 20 years:), asketh and ye shall receive (though it will not be channelled, except through the Internet). I think there is even a Stoic Daily Year Workbook similar to the ACIM version you might want to turn your channel dial to, occasionally?
Yes, I wish no animosity between us. I too hope we are ending our discussion on your platform on good terms and with good faith that we both mean well towards the world concerning what I term my most important idea: Responsible Freedom.
Other than your association with Jeff J Brown, committed promulgator and hagiographer of Saint Mao the Democider, most of what I have viewed of your mind online, aligns approximately with mine.
However, I am left baffled that my last and final post did not summon an apology from you on your misreading of our agreed upon definition of “Belief” and on clear proof of the “emotional charge” in your words to me which you refuse to take responsibility for. It seems you still believe you did not do the things I showed you did with your own words.
I will put no more of my words on your Substack about this recent exchange between us and hope you will join our Forum of Free Friends when a topic we choose motivates you to do so.
Oh Jack. Just because I agreed to a definition of belief doesn't mean I agreed that it applied to my relationship to the Course. I've said again and again that I don't believe in the Course, not by your definition of belief or any definition of belief. You, however, have said that you believe in humanism, reason and atheism. Since it's your definition of belief that it's emotionally charged, doesn't that mean your relationship to those ideas is emotionally charged, not mine?
Which would you prefer, that I apologize for being angry and offended, or that I was never angry or offended? I know that I said I would need to reconsider that you couldn't offend me, but on reconsideration, I still wasn't offended. I just don't have any emotion attached to our disagreement. But I also have no desire to continue it, either here or on your forum. I hope it's everything you want it to be.
And yes, you DO have “emotion attached to our disagreement” as I DO; and your disaffected alienation from your feelings is something I think you should recognize and acknowledge and do something about.
I suspect your 20 years in ACIM has contributed to your refusal to admit your feelings—perhaps part of the “all is illusion” “garbage can of Eastern religion” (see below quote).
I, and you, and every human being, is motivated by emotion (etymology, to move out of), whether we “believe” this or not. See Jaak Panksepp who developed the sub-field of “Affective Neuroscience” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6344464/
“We heal ourselves by giving others what we most need.” Sherry Turkle
“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.” Thomas Szasz
“Illusion is the great garbage can of Eastern religion where one can get rid of anything one doesn’t like by making it unreal.” Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad, The Guru Papers
You asked us listeners/readers to, without authority beyond your faith in us, to judge the arugment. Bold of you and I like it.
I was pretty much laughing through the argument 'he's right she's emotional' because it was clear to me that you weren't being emotional and simply argued with energy about how belief is not something that has an effective argument. (To paraphrase.) And then Jack argued, with his belief undaunted, that he didn't believe your argument because of his belief in the Guru Papers and others. (Has he read _Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West_ by John Ralston Saul. Excellent book, imo.
And the exchange is a truly great example of the solid evidence behind Jung's observation of the projection of the shadow, in this case the anima onto you.
And the exchange, not really a conversation or argument in that at least one half wasn't listening, confirms once again my experience that people who argue their 'truth' with the belief that that don't have beliefs are futile. Are you going to join the group? It might be interesting, in a way to confirm whether or not your perception of the nature of his denied authoritarianism avoids circular arguments and echo chambers.
The final exchanges also reminded me of the challenge I saw in Chomsky, that I called the Chomsky Paradox in a past substack. The position of arguing against the invalidity of authoritarian structures while fundamentally believing in just such an authoritarian structure.
Lots of stuff comes up for me, including Luther's castigation of reason and logic because they require something to hook into. And the most authoritarian reasons often hook into their irreligious belief as if that was logical! RotFL. Someone commented about the religion of atheism. Yes! I've said something similar for a long time. Or the religion of science or economics.
A good example of the danger of the ideologues who deny their ideology. And to me atheism being one of the funnier ones. Well maybe funniest.
Now I get to cite an authority. Jung commented, paraphrased, that with the discussion of God it comes to end when someone has had the experience of God and the other hasn't. And then this one:
"There are no longer any gods whom we can invoke to help us. The great religions of the world suffer from increasing anemia, because the helpful numina have fled from the woods, rivers, and mountains, and from animals, and the god-men have disappeared underground into the unconscious. There we fool ourselves that they lead an ignominious existence among the relics of our past. Our present lives are dominated by the goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic illusion. By the aid of reason, so we assure ourselves, we have conquered nature." Jung, C.G. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: 1964. ISBN 0385052219, p101
I love being able to cite authorities to people citing authorities while claiming they aren't authoritarian. It seems I have begun 2024 a bit obstreperously here, instead of on my own writing. Well, except that I am writing about woke and authoritarianism.
I enjoyed this as a weird kind of Punch and Jody show, because Jack was throwing misses and thinking he was scoring while being tagged himself by Tereza the aikido master and not seeing that either. Funny stuff.
I'm glad you caught the humor in this, Guy. Yes, when Jack kept saying I was angry, I wanted to point out how funny I found it but didn't think that would go over well. You're exactly right, imo, about the projection. It seemed like everything he was accusing me of, he was doing. He planned a discussion group among people who already agreed, brought his 'Bible' on the topic, but then invited heathens to join so he could convert them. That's not a discussion.
I would still say that reason and nature/ intuition is a false dichotomy but we've been down that road before. What Jack invoked was no more 'reason' than the CovidCon invoked 'science.' I always felt the Church's prohibition against reason and defining God was authoritarian. It would show up that their God makes no logical sense.
More fodder for future episodes! Thanks for laughing with me. I like your analogy.
This was great, Goeff! Sorry I didn't read it until after my next post but I think I have a place for it coming up. What a facility with words! Almost to a fault ...
Good one Tereza! I could not help but laugh out loud at your cock crow statement. "Patience is a virtue" my aunt would always tell me because I don't have many, but as a practitioner I see you have many patience :)
Hahaha! Nice line! Glad that someone appreciated my cock crow statement that I slyly threw in there ;-) I can always count on you to get the slightly snarky nuances.
Dec 31, 2023·edited Dec 31, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
This may seem a bit off topic but bear with me here. A point I'm trying to make is that whether god exists or not we can all be certain that the concept has been, and probably will be forever, perverted to the benefit of the global bankster mafia, so beware!
Read on...
Following a link about the 6 scandals in crime life biography of Ursula von der Leyen, who according to Wikipedia, is a "German" physician and politician serving as the 13th president of the European Commission since 2019.
She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding successive positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as minister of defence. Von der Leyen is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its EU affiliated group, the European People's Party (EPP).
"Her father Ernst Albrecht held guilty in 1978 Celle Hole terrorist bombing, but slid on it, like Ursula with:
plagiarism - consulting & vaccine grift, & husband in vax biz - war crimes profit - Belgium bribe extortion"
Tribunus Bruxellae on X: "@DagnyTaggart963 6 scandals in crime life biography of Ursula von der Leyen Her father Ernst Albrecht held guilty in 1978 Celle Hole terrorist bombing, but slid on it, like Ursula with: plagiarism - consulting & vaccine grift, & husband in vax biz - war crimes profit - Belgium bribe extortion https://t.co/O9xCdwmS32" / X (twitter.com)
Her father, descended from Jews, was a "German" politician of the Christian Democratic Union …“Christian,”… get it?
And I also I came upon this…
[The S Carolina slave owner (200 of them)] Ladson believed strongly in religious instruction to maintain discipline among the slaves and built his own chapel on the plantation that could accommodate around 100–110 slaves at a time. He stated:[12]
I am satisfied that the influence of this instruction upon the discipline of my plantation, and on the spirit and subordination of the negroes has been most beneficial. Their spirits are cheerful, as I judge from their gaiety of heart, and the respect for the overseer, and drivers, is evidenced by, generally, a ready obedience to orders.
— James H. Ladson, "The Religious Instruction of the Negroes" (1845)
[James H. Ladson] and other members of the Charleston planter and merchant elite played a key role in launching the American Civil War. Among Ladson's descendants is Ursula von der Leyen, who briefly lived under the alias Rose Ladson.
Dec 31, 2023·edited Dec 31, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
One of her forebears was the S Carolina slave owner, J.H. Ladson who believed strongly in religious instruction to maintain discipline among the slaves and built his own chapel on the plantation that could accommodate around 100–110 slaves at a time. He stated:[12]
I am satisfied that the influence of this instruction upon the discipline of my plantation, and on the spirit and subordination of the negroes has been most beneficial. Their spirits are cheerful, as I judge from their gaiety of heart, and the respect for the overseer, and drivers, is evidenced by, generally, a ready obedience to orders.
— James H. Ladson, "The Religious Instruction of the Negroes" (1845)
[James H. Ladson] and other members of the Charleston planter and merchant elite played a key role in launching the American Civil War. Among Ladson's descendants is Ursula von der Leyen, who briefly lived under the alias Rose Ladson.
Funny, I've always believed in God since childhood, but when I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, I realise that that is not the God I envision. Someone on Substack opined recently that the God of the OT is not the same as the God of the NT.
I do agree that most Atheists are very dogmatic about there being no God and very condescending towards anyone who doesn't agree. I hate how they use the term 'sky daddy' to belittle believers.
My own dear Father claimed to be Agnostic, rather than Atheist. His point being that he doubted there is a God, but could not say with certainty either way.
I think that the God of the NT became more subtle but didn't change character from the God of the OT. James Carroll, a devout Catholic, writes about that in Constantine's Sword. The premise of the NT is that humanity is so sinful and worthless that the only way God can forgive us is with a blood sacrifice--not ours because we don't even count. All our blood and pain and loss is just what we deserve. So Jesus, the only one God really loves, voluntarily comes down to satisfy the bloodlust of a bloodthirsty God.
And then after Jesus rises from the dead, he sends Europeans out to subdue all the nations. The Davidic dynasty, represented by Jesus, went behind the scenes where the manipulations of the WEF and Illuminati and Black Nobility are a shadow puppetmaster, not visible. Just my theory.
I've called myself a gnostic before, defined as believing that God is knowable. I've thought of agnostic as saying that we can't and will never know if God exists. But in a sense, they're both the same.
“I've called myself a gnostic before, defined as believing that God is knowable.”
Hi, Tereza. The small g-word (gnostic) and the capital G-Word (God) in the same sentence are like flypaper to me, so I just have to chime in. But rather than respond to the definition in your quoted sentence, let me take you up on your request to “let me know if you disagree with my methods of productive dialogue.” I chose this quote because it exemplifies the one sliver of your method that, for me, is what you call a “communication truncator”, and that’s your use of definitions.
If I were to write a book titled, say, “How to Dismantle a Paradigm,” I’d begin by rejecting the *automatic* process of defining key words. Yes, my inerrant professors forced this practice on me, and I admit they were substantially correct, and that in the vast majority of mundane arguments, defining terms is essential. In matters of law and academic scholarship especially, definitions dominate. However, in the contrarian spirit I think we both share, let’s for a moment give some consideration to ditching this sage advice, especially for conversations involving ethereal topics. For those of us who have a scholarly bent—vocational or avocational—we love a juicy definition. However, in lofty conversations with the brilliant but earthy personality types—I’m thinking, for example, Joe Rogan, not Russell Brand—I wonder if using plain English along with the unavoidable Greek rooted borrow words and relying more on context works better to maintain the flow and avoid those communication truncators. Personally, I wish all conversations in this life were like those in my reveries/incarnations spent in the Library of Alexandria or in the Hall of Akashic Records at the feet of philosophers of renown. But alas, it ain’t so (except during those rare OOBEs).
Maybe this is a result of living in a podcast/YouTube world for too many years, but my own experience is that coming across a definition, especially a definition of a very large and very abstract concept, just stops me dead in my tracks. If I’m reading a textbook or listening to an academic at a conference, then I expect specialized language, including definitions (or neologisms, which I love), but even in that context now I almost always get hung up on the definitions. For whatever reason, they set off my own urge to become hypercritical and I end up staring at the print definition (or into the Void) and thinking of all those semantic/logical/historical weaknesses in the damned definition while formulating a right proper putdown. In conversation, when anyone starts defining terms, I subconsciously shift from conversation mode to debate mode, which, of course, is not a bad thing…so long as the other person realizes that for me rational debate is a matter of life or death.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it is ever wrong to spring a definition on me, but it’s very likely that a definition, no matter how small or seemingly innocuous, will become the entire focus of my attention, and if it has even the slightest flaw I won’t even get around to the argument or the conclusion.
Perhaps we might learn from mathematics that some things are simply “undefinable”— division by zero, for example, or the square root of a negative number. Allowing these undefinables to exist does not, at least as a matter of convention, bring math to a halt. In fact, just the opposite: undefinables allow math to push on and do the things it’s good for, albeit mostly within the confines of human cognitive limits. Capital-G “God”—actually a term I avoid—along with other “words that are beyond words”, like “gnosis”, while I might continue to spill ink (or waste electrons) over them, will, in this realm, remain forever as undefinables. Because in this evil world with its genocidal god—I just had to throw that in—despite my yearnings, I’ll just have to get comfortable with The Mystery. I may just have to be satisfied with patiently waiting for gnosis through grace, even though I’d much prefer using word-play to trick or annoy some Aeon—I’m looking at you, Sophia—into spilling the beans.
Oh Jack, I'm so happy that my flypaper let me know you're still a fly on the wall of my stack!
I was reading in my morning Course meditation this morning that the true purpose of bodies is communication. If purpose exists, that struck me as true, whether or not bodies really exist.
I go into this more in my next post but I don't use definitions as something authoritative or agreed upon. I just need to know what you mean when you use a word in order to understand what you're saying about that concept. This is the prerogative and responsibility of the person framing the question. If that word doesn't have the same meaning to the other person, I encourage them to translate it in their mind to the other person's definition or another word that captures the same concept to them. It's the concept that's important, not the word.
As always, my use of upper and lower case are deliberate ways of differentiating between the etymology of a word rather than the social construct it became as a proper noun. That also goes for catholic, originally meaning all-inclusive, or united states as a federal (bottom-up) coalition of sovereign entities.
The word gnosis comes from knowing, isn't that right? So it seems like it would need to have originated as someone claiming knowledge or someone participating in a process of gaining knowledge. In either case, it seems to assume that knowledge is knowable.
I'm open to another word to describe someone who thinks [insert other concept word] is knowable. But since you know what I mean when I say gnostic, we can talk about the concept and you can translate it into plain English or a less loaded term for you.
And maybe there's a distinction to be made with lowercase words that addressed Nefahotep's idea that a sovereign individual should never use 'I am' statements followed by a noun. Maybe it could be only proper nouns that are limiting? If I were to say I'm an Anarchist, that could mean the whole web of historical and social constructs. But if I say I'm an anarchist and define that etymologically as favoring rule by rules, rather than by rulers, it's less clumsy than spelling out the whole definition with all the qualifiers.
As for the other abstract term, I define God as ultimate Reality, whatever that is. I'd capitalize Reality to distinguish it from the reality in the world, something I also pay a lot of attention to per my definition of socio-spirituality as taking a hard look at the reality IN the world while questioning the Reality OF the world.
Many, if not nearly all people who use the term God mean the creator of the world, and my definition is opposed to that because it has the assumption in it that the world is Reality. Synonyms for God in my definition would be Purpose and Meaning. Do they exist or not? That's an important conversation to be able to have, but if we start from the assumption that Meaning and Purpose are ineffable, we might as well not have a body, aka be dead--to put it bluntly. Our understanding of meaning and purpose can't go anywhere outside our own head.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to think out loud with someone whose thought process I respect so much! I'm planning to do an every-other Sunday on spirituality, starting with the question What is Reality? So this will be helpful in that process.
Thanks. You have studied this way more than I have. I am a novice and will continue to read your posts with interest and an open mind.
My father was always quoting Jesus (turn the other cheek, and all that), but he was a pacifist and couldn't come to terms with how the clergy could support war (after all, "thou shalt not kiil" doesn't come with any caveats). I think that's where his disillusionment came from.
I do love these types of "discussions". As a Voluntarist, I am disappointed in Jack. (for the reasons you so eloquently pointed out) On the God question, I always come back to the way we COULD all be "Shards Of The Creator". A concept I stumbled on while reading the first 400 pages of the 2000 page "The Urantia Book". One thing I am sure of: I AM GOD. One way or another. Happy New Year!
I also consider myself a voluntarist, as Jack rightly assumed. Also called anarchy, community self-governance or small scale sovereignty.
'Shards of the Creator' is a great phrase. I talk about the mosaic God--not the God of Moses but the one where we're all fragments of glass that make up the whole picture.
I have the Urantia book but didn't make it as far as you. Friends of mine have studied it for years but it doesn't speak to me.
Well, it only spoke to me until around page 400. I stopped years ago, and never had the strong desire to pick it back up. However, it did add a few "mosaic" pieces to my search for relevance in this Universe. Happy New Year to you as well. It's gunna be another great year. As Bill Hicks famously said.... "It's all just a ride".
Superiority is one of the foul fruits of Arbitrary Hierarchy. It is also a plea of most Tyrants. In order to develop a sense of this worthless trait, "Superiority" those who want to claim it must view themselves as "Separate" from the One Consciousness.
Rupert Spira has said in many ways that God is the True Self within each of us. While we are intellectually centered, it's easy for us to have that sense of separateness, except with regular people, there's the Heart. Within that space, we have the experience of Love; a realization that we don't really exist as Separate Beings, but are all one Being wanting to view itself from Separate Experiences.
Excellent post Tereza! Very important truths to meditate on.
Well put, Nefahotep.
Another way to think of the Ego, is a Chrysalis and not the final form of manifested Being.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on my response to Faith below, talking about how it's logically possible that God exists if the world does not. When I use the word 'ego' I don't mean it as egotistical, I just mean the 'belief' that my self is separate, a flesh-encapsulated mind or soul, depending on the terminology of atheism or religion. I do think of the ego-self as a drop that contains the whole ocean. Maybe that's similar to the Chrysalis.
There is a bit of difference from the "experience" of Reality and the Truth. Mostly what I say about this topic is not from a "belief" or a system of thought, but rather an attempt on my part to describe what my experience has been. So, I don't want to step on anyone else's ideas about God. Your post brings up a lot of interconnected concepts; one that stands out to me most is the sense of "duality," most human perception appears to express. My experience of inner reality is that there is no such thing as "Out There" there is only what the Experience is. You have probably read my early posting on Individualized Sovereignty:
https://nefahotep.substack.com/p/individualized-sovereignty-and-political
I attempt to use Spiritual Mystic Knowledge from ancient writings, particularly ones that I have an interconnected experience with, in order to defeat Political and Psychological manipulations we have become anesthetized to accept. Here is a excerpt that may be most important:
The condition of the sovereign “being” is a projection of the one-self into a physical birth; it is experienced by and for the Sacred Self. Human existence is a product of this sovereign experience. The true nature of Being is formless, yet it is all there ever was, or could be. All physical forms are caused by a formless reality that is standing behind it. Temporarily participating in this experience called “human,” each experience of being are a focal point of infinite awareness. This makes each human being sovereign because the experience is observed from the vantage point of the Eternal Self; clothed in the ideation of Individual Hood. The Eternal “I,” True Being; that is both The Observer and The Observed, is One coming from Oneness. To stand within and observe the One in its myriad forms through Life; within the expression of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss. The fastest route to realization of this truth is Love. Our whole basis for Identity should be that of the formless nature of Consciousness; not human labels, or status based on appearances, since these are always transitory.
I often state that there is no Duality; there is really only ONE thing, and that's consciousness, the fastest route to experience it in purest form is Love.
I don't think I have read that post, thank you for sharing.
I've called Atheism "the religion of no God" forever. Many of them carry an official card declaring their Atheist status and are militant in their proselytizing that there is no God. Pretty intolerant of deists, and dogmatic, just like any other religion. I loved TCIM when I was studying it, but I could never understand it really. Still have the Teachers Manual which, oddly, I found easier to read.
That's a great way to put it! I'm just reading the Teacher's Manual again myself, after finishing the year-long workbook for maybe the seventh time. I agree that it is easier to read. I've just hit the two pages out of 1500 where I disagree, on whether Jesus is necessary for healing. But it describes Jesus as a symbol that's used because it's a language the listener can love. I think that was true for Helen Shucman but not for me. As it says, there's a form of the Course for every language and symbol where they change but the content stays the same.
And I differ on all the parts of God--Father, Son, Holy Spirit--being personified as male. That makes no sense to me.
God is not in a "body" (except the manifestations of Source Energy into this physical world that are living things, including animals and humans). It is NOT a "He" with the appearance of an old man!!! And it certainly isn't up there in the clouds with male genitalia! Lol! Fantasies for children and the ignorant! And to sustain Patriarchal power and authority.
You write from a position of knowledge, Faith, about things that can't really be known. That's a lot of authority to claim, that doesn't allow for other possibilities. We certainly agree, all of us I'm sure, that God isn't an old man in the clouds. But what God is, is certainly open to discussion. And my question was whether we should discuss the kind of God we'd be willing to entertain the possibility of. To define that God your way is the same as orthodox religions, to provide an answer and shut down the question. Even though your answer is different, the intent is the same.
💙❤️💜
"But what God is, is certainly open to discussion."
Trying to define what god is seems as futile to me as trying to define what money is, as is so well emphasized in your fascinating book, which I have almost finished for a second time.
If I were forced to answer, I'd probably say that the concepts of god, like money, are tools. And like all tools can be, as they evidently have been, used in many different ways.
I don't know if I've counted indent lines correctly to be responding to both Guy and Geoff here, but let's try. Guy! Glad you came up for air and used that breath to read my essay!
St. Augustine said something like "I don't know which is more ridiculous, to deny God or attempt to define Him." In that case, I saw his ridicule as keeping others from challenging the Catholic Church's implicit definition of God, including the assumed use of 'Him.'
I think perhaps the word God is too loaded to be discussed without pushing either for or against. I think I'll try another time to define the realm of possible realities. That should be easier ;-)
I read "Confessions," and "De Civitatis Dei" many long decades ago and all I remember is his comment about chastity and that I was underwhelmed about the rest of them, to say the least. I never had the temptation to reread any of it.
It has lately dawned on me that a lot, if not all, of the writings of antiquity are not only often apochryphal but could easily be "propagandical." I mean, how else would these things be "handed down" to us commoners, and who had the motives and means to promote such "profound wisdom" but those would aspire to rule us?
Clearly, "Saint" Augustine ("August?"...) was a propagandist at a minimum though he probably couldn't have helped to express a modicum of wisdom at times.
A second time! The first person who read and loved my book just sent a note that he's reading it again. His copy was an old one with a cartoon drawing by a friend that was later turned into the illustration on the cover. That's so cool!
To paraphrase the 17th century Anglican theologian, JAT Robinson said, "God is by definition the ultimate reality. It's pointless to debate whether reality exists. The interesting question is what Reality/ God is like."
There are conceptions of God I completely reject, which includes all the ones that are congruent with the world. But I'm positing a third logical explanation for reality and, since there are only three, I think it's worth considering--not accepting, but holding as a possibility.
I am not only reading it a second time (~250 pages in), but I referred, on another thread, to your treatment of Haiti and the idea that the successful slave rebellion was undone with the imposition of debt slavery.
This led me to making another comment somewhere on this thread; the one about another criminal authoritarian, (sorry for the redundancy), EU pres von der Leyen who descends from a long line of powerful slave masters and god perverters.
"The interesting question is what Reality/ God is like."
I think it would take someone full of hubris to even think of tackling such a consideration. Like I believe you said, somewhere here, paraphrasing, "these things are unknowable" and I would add, by such limited creatures as us, especially with the tools we have (e.g., words), and even if we could know it to any degree, we would never understand any significant part of it.
That was the point of my Lucian comments since evidently a lot of old guys felt the same, and few could be classifid as dummies.
Hello Goeff. Gautama would concur. Well, he did, actually, because Gautama was adamant that the non-discussion of god was integral to reducing suffering. He was recorded chastising a disciple who went against that idea. (Buddhism is quite far from much of Gautama taught/said.) In his discourses he was asked many times about the existence of God and re-incarnation, and much like Tereza's arguments, did not answer them and so discounted any answer that becomes the foundational divisive reality we are living in. The question is unanswerable. And I see answering it, yea or nay, as the single most effective spiritual by-pass technique ever by abdicating personal responsibility to make the world less difficult and using another authority: Bible or atheist bibles like the Guru Papers. What is answerable is the possibility of reducing suffering more effectively when defined concepts of God or-not God, such as in the case of the Jack, are not used to cite an authority over another.
Is God possible? Sure. And by definition, even that definition is impossible while we are standing on earth and in the physical reality that Jack has dogmatically and authoritatively asserted is the only reality.
Hey Guy, thanks for that!
I had resolved, henceforth, to avoid threads dealing with such things until your comment came along, so here I am, breaking my resolution, but yet with gratitude! I've resigned myself to the idea that we humans have extreme limitations and that many things are both unknowable and incomprehensible, and thank gawd, cuz otherwise they'd probably be highly intolerable!
Thank you my friend, and may you have a Blessed New Year!
PS: I'm saving your excellent comment for future reference.
😀😄
excellent piece! There's always been something about atheists who love to brag about being atheist that has made me uncomfortable. You hit the nail on the head with your subtitle "The theology of superiority". That's it. The smugness, the looking down their noses at the "ignorant", the "superstitious", and in some case just outright hostility at anyone who does not accept their dogma. It's ironic that that kind of atheism is the very thing that they rail against: ignorance, superstition, and dogma!
Atheism is just another religion, in a sense. ALL religions are only systems of BELIEFS, usually considered related to the non-physical/Spiritual/Afterlife subjects. As beliefs, they have no intrinsic reality. Beliefs/ideas/concepts are basically just one's imagination at work. We can imagine dragons and unicorns and Hobbits and all manner of other things, but that doesn't make them real, at least not in THIS dimension! Religious ideas or beliefs about God being an old man with a long white beard sitting on a throne in the clouds and with winged angels playing harps and trumpets is no different that beliefs in unicorns, but I suppose there are some who actually believe that nonsense. But the point here is that beliefs are NOT reality. NO religion is reality. NONE! ZERO! This is why there are SO MANY different religions. If what they believed was actually true, everyone would believe in ONE religion. Their religion would have a factual basis. But no. Every religion is different because they are ALL made up! Atheism is just the religion that fantasizes that there is NO God in the clouds or wherever. Perhaps that nothing exists outside of what can be perceived with the physical senses? That is just another FANTASY! Those people are ignorant of, or denying, all the laboratory-confirmed evidence of psychic phenomena and non-physical realities. They are not to be taken any more seriously than the God-in-the-clouds True Believers!
This post is really about a process for discussing the questions, not one answer vs. another. Anytime that the other side is judged as having a lower character, i.e. ignorant or falling for fantasy, we're making ourselves superior, not our ideas. I've explained how it could be logically possible for God to exist outside of what can be perceived with the physical senses. Tell me why my explanation isn't logical, don't denigrate my ability to think. That's not an argument, it's an attack on character.
Being ignorant of something or believing in something that turns out not to be "factual" (i.e. "fantasy") has absolutely nothing to do with one's character, or intelligence, or anything else. No human can have direct knowledge of more than the tiniest fraction of what there is to know about in this universe (of perhaps 100-billion-trillion stars, or more, plus all their planets, black holes, etc! And that's just in OUR "dimensions" of it!). We are, in effect, all just floundering around in a world of endless things and situations, and our extremely narrow window of awareness only lets us bring up into waking consciousness just the smallest part—what is "in front of us" at any given moment. This is by design, so that we may have a more full/in-depth, intense experience of this physical world. If we maintained the Consciousness of the vast Whole that we came from, we would be in "Cosmic Consciousness", but that isn't the point. Instead, our focus of awareness is very narrow and in the moment: "Be Here Now".
There is much more that we can reconnect with, however: the aspects ofctge universal Whole that is in the non-physical realms or world of Spirit. That is what has inspired so many humans through to ages to attempt to inform others that there IS a greater Reality than this physical manifestation. Most of the world's "scriptures" (writings) and "holy books" are attempts to describe That-Which-Cannot-Be-Described in a effort to INSPIRE people to also seek to experience that Other Reality. Religions are supposed to foster or assist that expansion of consciousness, but they almost invariably become codified institutions that function for their own benefit, at least in the formal "organized" religions. How many hours do good, obedient followers of a religion spend reading a book or listening to a sermon or engaging in some ritual instead of spending time connecting inside to that Higher Frequency Energy of Spirit/ Source Energy? In some religions they make the effort, but in many, the situation is comparable to sitting around reading a cookbook instead of preparing and eating the meal!
"The Kingdom of Heaven is Within".
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven . . . "
Jesus didn't tell his disciples to go read scriptures. He came here to CONNECT THEM with that EXPERIENCE within!
religion is not only about belief, at least to me it's not. It's about experience that verifies the "belief" as you call it. Belief without experience doesn't last long for me. Experiences confirm the precepts of the religion.
All knowledge has two aspects: intellectual understanding and experience. Without both, it's not knowledge. Intellectual understanding without experience is just something the intellect can play with. Experience without the intellectual understanding is incomplete knowledge at best and confusing at worst. Religion or spirituality is a type of knowledge but only if both components, intellectual understanding and direct experience, are lived in a person.
Well said. The Course is a year-long program of experiments. The meditations are usually some form of reconsidering your habits of blaming others. I think of forgiveness as giving forward the benefit of the doubt, that I would do the same in another's position. And then it's seeing what your experience tells you.
What comes back to me, again and again, is that there are no accidents and no villains. Nothing could have proven that to me more clearly than the exercise I did with 'the face of evil': https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/forgiving-hitler that resulted in this complete turnaround: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/my-hitler-journey.
The Course defines revelation as that momentary flash of experiencing Oneness. It strengthens confidence but, as an experience, it can't be conveyed. The miracle is every time you recognize that you and someone else are not at odds, but share the same goal. That's completely under your own control, and changes the whole world.
I love that you create such interesting posts from comments sections of previous pieces. And your only dogma -- that I am not superior to you and vice versa -- is one I wholeheartedly believe in too. #thebeigeofreason ✨💕🙏🏾
Hi Tereza
I will respond below directly to your words, putting my words in brief, shorthand, CAPS—so excuse the grammar, it will be compressed, but I trust understandable. Once I complete this response here I will cease responding and save my time and energy to launch my new Free Friends Forum that will contain, at some point, topics germane to our discussion/debate here. I hope you and your readers will attend.
Ok, I will dive into your words below WITH CAPS REPLY.
TEREZA, JAN 3, 10:55AM
Thanks for weighing in, Jack, and for providing a way to help clarify my thoughts--not just on the topic but more importantly, on the process for coming to agreement. I'm also going to do one that looks at this more generically called How to Have Better Arguments.
I won't go into much detail here because I already did that with my post. But let me apply some of the systematic process to this discussion in the form of questions:
1) How do you define forum and how does it differ from a lecture series?
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FORUM: “A SPACE/TIME ONLINE WHERE ALL PERSONS ARE INVITED TO EXCHANGE THEIR PARTICULAR PERSPECTIVES IN WRITING AND IN CONVERSATION ON IDEAS/BELIEFS, THE ENTIRE PROCESS BEING PROPOSED, FACILITATED & CONTROLLED BY SOME PARTICULAR, RESPONSIBLE PERSON(S).
LECTURE: ONE PERSON TALKING TO A GROUP OF PERSONS WITH LITTLE OR NO INTERACTION.
Are there areas where other participants could change your mind? "Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism" seems like you already have your answers and the title you proposed elsewhere, "Authoritarian Belief Systems vs. Voluntarism" is certainly not a debate but pre-determining implicit assumptions set up as a straw man for your definition of Voluntarism.
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THE TITLE ( "Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism") APPLIES ONLY TO THE TWO PERSONS CREATING THE FORUM, JACK & MARTIN, & IS MEANT TO SIGNAL TO OTHERS THE IDEAS/BELIEFS OF THESE TWO WHO WILL BE PROPOSING, FACILITATING, & CONTROLLING THE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS/BELIEFS. THE TITLE ALSO SIGNALS THE KINDS OF IDEAS/BELIEFS THAT WILL BE PROPOSED FOR EXAMINATION & EXPLICATION.
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"Authoritarian Belief Systems vs. Voluntarism" ARE A SET OF IDEAS/BELIEFS WE MIGHT PROPOSE TO BE DISCUSSED (I HAVE NOT NOMINATED THESE YET). YOUR CONTENTION THAT THIS SET OF IDEAS/BELIEFS ARE “certainly not a debate but pre-determining implicit assumptions set up as a straw man for your definition of Voluntarism.” WE WOULD ASSUME YOU WOULD RECORD FOR YOUR ENTRY ON THE DISCUSSION & IT WOULD BE DISCUSSED IN THE WRITTEN AND CONVERSATIONAL FORUM.
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2) What's the question we're debating? I think questions should be framed as open-ended, not with only two pre-determined answers, usually yes or no. Working backwards, since you never state the question, I'd say it's implicitly "Is your belief in the authoritarian system of ACIM inferior to my belief in myself?"
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I PROPOSED A NUMBER OF PROPOSITIONS (& QUESTIONS?) IN OUR EXCHANGES SO FAR WHICH YOU GENERALLY HAVE REFUSED TO RESPOND TO, PROPOSING CRITICISMS ON YOUR OWN TANGENTS INSTEAD. IN MY FREE FRIENDS FORUM I MIGHT PROPOSE AS AN IDEA/BELIEF TO BE DISCUSSED: “RENUNCIATE, ILLUSION BELIEF SYSTEMS LIKE ACIM & THEIR AUTHORITARIAN NATURE” AND ALL CAN DISCUSS/DEBATE THIS EACH WITH THEIR WRITTEN AND VERBAL EXPRESSIONS.
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YES, I DO CONSIDER IT TRUE THAT “[anyone’s] belief in the authoritarian system of ACIM [is] inferior to [the] belief in [yourself]. I CONSIDER THE ACIM IS AUTHORITIARIAN BECAUSE IT UNDERMINES SELF-TRUST & REPLACES IT WITH A DISEMBODIED COMMANDER WHOSE DAILY “LESSONS” ARE A MIND CONTROL PROGRAM (SEE THE CIA CONNECTION).
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3) I continue to invite you to reframe the question, if that's not what you meant. Within the implicit (and loaded) question there are many other questions to which the answer is assumed. Do I believe in the Course? Is the Course a belief system? Is it authoritarian? Who is the authority, if so? How do you define authoritarian?
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AGAIN, YOU PAY NO MIND TO MY WORDS IN OUR PREVIOUS EXCHANGES, WHERE I HAVE DEFINED IDEAS LIKE “BELIEF” & WHICH DEFINITION YOU AGREED WITH & THEN DISMISSED TO GO ON TO CLAIM YOU HAVE NO BELIEFS INCLUDING IN THE ACIM. SO YES, FROM THE DEFINITION OF BELIEF YOU AGREED WITH, ACIM IS A BELIEF; & MY ANALYSIS IS, YES, IT IS AUTHORITARIAN AS DEFINED IN THE GURU PAPERS:
“Belief systems that are unchallengeable, and the idea that someone or something other than the individual necessarily knows what’s best, or right, or proper for a given person. Mental or psychological authoritarianism comes from an inner urge to obey someone or something that is viewed as higher, more powerful, morally superior, or more knowledgeable—or to be that for someone else. Preaching renunciation and self-sacrifice is by definition authoritarian—it means an authority telling you what you’re supposed to renounce. If a person buys this ideology, then detaching from possessions, relationships, and even one’s identity can at first make one feel better because they are the usual sources of psychological pain. Taking on beliefs because they alleviate conflict is part of the unconscious code underlying authoritarian control.”
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4) The one term you define is belief. And you apply it to my study of the Course five times. 'BELIEF' BY YOUR DEFINITION, WHICH I'VE AGREED TO USE, IS RECOGNIZED BY ITS EMOTIONAL AFFECT [CAPS my emphasis]. So despite my protest that I don't 'believe' in the Course, you insist that I'm angry, offended, emotionally charged--retrofitting my state of mind to your definition of 'belief.'
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YOU SAY, AGAIN, YOU AGREE TO MY DEFINITION OF “BELIEF” AS YOU DID BEFORE IN OUR EXCHANGE: “BUT WE CAN GO WITH GRIFFITHS.” [YOUR WORDS, YOUR CAPS] & THEN IMMEDIATELY, AS USUAL, DISMISS OUR SUPPOSEDLY SHARED DEFINITION!!!!
YOU APPARENTLY DO NOT RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE CONTRADICTING YOURSELF WHEN YOU WRITE “despite my protest that I don't 'believe' in the Course”.
IF YOU ACTUALLY DID SHARE MY DEFINITION AS YOU STATE YOU DO, THEN OBVIOUSLY YOU DO BELIEVE IN ACIM. HERE AGAIN IS THE DEFINITION:
“What I mean by a ‘belief system’, then, is simply a set of propositions held to be true, to which some emotional charge (affect) is attached and which gives more or less cogent expression to a general sense of how the world is.”
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NOTE: THE SECOND, FINAL PART, IS BELOW UNDER THE TEREZA'S POST. I DID THIS BECAUSE THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR MY POST IN ONE PLACE.
My mother was an Irish Catholic who turned protestant and then atheist. She held on to the dogma of the church in her atheism
That's an interesting way to put it, kevin. I've talked about beliefs we get from the Bible in the existence of evil and our superiority to others being the basis of 'civilization.' So even when people reject the concept of God, they hold onto the concept of evil. That's really what the Bible is about, not who God is, but who we can hate or feel like we're better than. So atheists keep that part but put it in secular terms.
That's probably not your mother, though. How did she hold onto the dogma of the church?
Similar to my mother who was a Lutheran of Nordic extraction who converted to Catholicism as a child, then saw through the hypocrisy and manipulation of priests.
Fascinating
Meanwhile most of the political troubles in the world are being caused and/or supported by back-to-the-past adherents of the "traditional" religions, especially the three world dominant Middle Eastern semitic religions. Such was indeed always the case.
Modi in India is using the same toxic game plan.
And of course, the caste system is like arsenic in milk in the Hindu religion, as Gandhi said. Perhaps the most blatant example of superiority in religion.
Another thing about statements like "I'm sorry you were offended" is the use of the passive voice, i.e. the lack of agency. That's always a warning sign.
Then there's this variant, which is even worse: "I'm sorry IF you were offended."
Great examples, Mark!
I am still not finished with watching this video, just about 7 minutes left (I will read the article next). But first, thank you for composing and sharing this piece, most of all because it involves your personal responses.
Second, it sounds to me from the exchange that a) Tereza was in discussion with a person who (knowingly or not) is suggesting people believe in nothing at all. Alternatively, Tereza was in discussion with a person who (knowingly or not) isn't actually saying anything like what they claim to intend i.e. telling a person to 'believe in oneself' and that's that, nothing further. Which is like saying nothing at all, when without any more context.
Third - and this is maybe incidental - I was writing my Goethe piece (in mind) in the days before you published this one, and only finished typing it earlier today. And then I sat down this evening to watch the rest of your video. I mention this because your discussion partner quoted Goethe. Regardless :) Let more people learn about him (Goethe), and also read Tereza's work.
Thanks for watching shaqer and please post the link to your Goethe piece! Jack had many quotes I liked, including Voltaire's on defining terms, I'm not going to reject those whose name he takes in vain ;-)
Had Jack been suggesting people believe in nothing but themselves, and been giving me the same credit, I would have been fine with what he was saying. We each have our own authority, are our own authority. But it seemed to me that he was claiming absolute knowledge that there was no God, and saying anyone else's reasoning or experience was weak-minded superstition. That's what seemed like a dogma to me.
I am happy to be put into the same sentence as Goethe! Practically rubbing shoulders!
Tereza, I had watched the first five minutes or so of the video on youtube, and only caught up with the rest yesterday.
Yes, you are correct. Certainly to tell a person to trust their own self is paramount. It's just that it is dangerous (heck, giving any advice is dangerous). I felt Mr. Jack was being insincere for whatever reason. And I will certainly give similar counsel: trust yourself, inquire of yourself, believe in yourself etc. But I'm wary of doing that with people on the internet I don't know personally. But maybe there is a time for that and I will come to it.
When mean people want to upset me they will sometimes call me a 'lighthouse' in that I try to guide people. And yes, my feelings do get hurt sometimes during dialogue, when I am upset by ill-intention or witlessness or ignorance of another, either to myself or to others. And I let them know....Let 'em have it I say :) But being gentle is good if I think it is worth it, so long as it doesn't compromise others along the way.
As you allow, I am sharing my synchronous (to me) Goethe piece, regardless of all else. Again, the malfeasant are not so clever as they think. Thank you Tereza.
(I typically publish first drafts, am trying to improve my writing, and frequently go back to correct typos)
https://open.substack.com/pub/srr5v/p/sideline-on-goethe?r=2tl0fw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true
As I wrote on your stack and in a note: I really enjoyed this, shaqer. Fascinating that Goethe adopted Islam. Thanks for sending me here and I'll look for a place to use this in mine because I think it's important.
And I think your counsel is wise, to trust in yourself. It's hard to think of when that isn't good advice.
Addenda: I wrote essentially my entire Goethe piece today. except for the images.
Happy New You Year, Tereza!
Much to respond to above, and will do so a limited amount more within the next few days in addition to what I am placing here now.
For now I will only point out one of your many (I will show more in my post after this one) inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions from our earlier exchanges that is repeated in this post I am replying to now.
Below, first, is by me.
JACK
“Quickly, going on definitions to give us a stable base, can we agree on this one regarding "BELIEF"?
“What I mean by a ‘belief system’, then, is simply a set of propositions held to be true, to which some emotional charge (affect) is attached and which gives more or less cogent expression to a general sense of how the world is.” “Towards a Science of Belief Systems” by Edmund Griffiths
You have a "belief" in A Course in Miracles as I have a "belief" in reason and the scientific method to which I think we are both passionately attached.
Agree?”
Here is your reply to my above from our earlier exchanges:
TEREZA
“My definition of belief is making up your mind about something in advance of knowledge in the form of facts or experience. BUT WE CAN GO WITH GRIFFITHS. As I thought I stated clearly (and maybe so insistently you thought my feelings were hurt) I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE COURSE, I DON'T BELIEVE IN BELIEVING, [CAPS my emphasis] I other than my sole dogma that I am no better than you.
Then this is from the current post on this belief topic:
“THREE TIMES I DENY THAT I HAVE BELIEFS, other than in the equal goodness of all people. [CAPS my emphasis] So I’m left arguing for something that I don’t believe.”
I trust this will show you and your readers what you do. FIRST, YOU AGREED TO GO WITH MY DEFINITION OF BELIEF, as the capitalized phrases above show, then you promptly dismissed it. This is, I hope, a clear example of what you have mainly done in our exchanges. You do not address the many points I put to you—ALMOST NEVER. Rather, what you do is go off on your own tangent, never paying attention to my ideas and quotes unless it is to straw man them.
Now consider the definition of belief I consider the best, neutral definition that we can agree on, and which you agreed with, and then totally dismissed with your “devisive” [sic] rhetoric:
“a ‘belief system’, then, is simply a set of propositions held to be true, to which some emotional charge (affect) is attached and which gives more or less cogent expression to a general sense of how the world is.”
This definition of belief, IF you would actually deign to use it with me, would permit us to examine “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM) and compare it to my preferred, and I hope to show, SUPERIOR (there I go again with my “humanism of superiority”!) “A Course in Reality” which actually is the book “The Guru Papers” (which specifically, and to me, convincingly, critiques ACIM from my humanist, non-transcendental perspective, showing ACIM wins minds through authoritarian self-distrust—SEE GOETHE QUOTE AT END).
TO ALL: My next entry which will be exclusively on what we have exchanged before this post and this post here. I will isolate passages of my words and Tereza’s words and give my response to them illustrating my above claim of her many
“inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions”.
After my next response, I will not turn anymore to what Tereza will write in reply to this entry here. I consider once I have put on record my critique of Tereza’s “inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions”; and Tereza’s likewise critique of my “devisives” [sic], etc.—I will stop there and go on to discuss/debate specific ideas which I trust Tereza will agree to do.
(Sic: “devisives” a misspelling? I think you meant a play on “devices of rhetoric” to a “divisives” neologism, plural noun? Thus “divisives”--not “devisives”?)
What I want to do next is what Voltaire recommends which is to define our main terms. Once we have agreed on definitions, then we can begin to argue/discuss them and see where we agree and disagree. We have a beginning, I hope, with the term “belief” which we both have agreed on.
My goal in this exchange is to briefly state my definitions of key terms of the Human Condition and my understanding of its two main Conditioner classes: the Lust for Sex/Dominance/Control and the Fear of Death/Abandonment/Engulfment.
I will show how these two Conditioners are differently responded to by “Authoritarians” (to be defined) and by Voluntaryists (to be defined) and why the Voluntaryist’s way should be everyone’s choice.
I will show how Authoritarianism operates on collective, infallible, transcendental revelation (be that religious or political) ultimately based on physical/mental coercion (win/lose) while Voluntaryism operates on individual, fallible, human reason based on physical/mental voluntary exchange (win/win).
I will not go too far in this exchange on Teresa’s Substack but shortly move it over to my new Free Friends Forum, coming soon, tentatively titled:
Abandoned To Ourselves—Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism
Which phrase by Rousseau comes from this quote:
“The serious study of Man, of his natural faculties and their successive developments . . . . research into political and moral life. . . . considers what we would have become, abandoned to ourselves.” Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
And that phrase of Rousseau’s might have come from:
“Suppose that God, abandoning mankind to ourselves, had effectively prescribed no rule of life for us, and had subjected us to no law.” Principles of Natural Law by Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
I invite Tereza and all her readers to join our Forum to continue our intercourse :).
“There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate whenever they meet.” Eric Hoffer
Let us see if we are of the same species, Homo sapiens voluntaryiens (etymologically: Earthly Ones, Wise with Free Will—note: no Transcendental opt out and taking full responsibility for our freedom), and our offspring can be born and borne.
I will let dear uncle Kant have almost the last say whose words for me define the true, non-spiritual/transcendental, “Enlightenment” and the only one worth achieving. By the way, typical even of today’s intellectuals, he preached but did not practice true Enlightenment (becoming your own sole Authority), since he believed only “scholars” like himself could legitimately disobey Authority; all the rest of humanity—peasants—must obey.
“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”--that is the motto of enlightenment.” An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? By Immanuel Kant (1784)
Finally, to counter Tereza’s “I don’t trust myself but I do trust in all of you. That’s my only faith.”, I summon Johann first:
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” Goethe
Then from A Course in Reality, The Guru Papers:
“Making God the ultimate force to please does not promote self-trust. Once self-trust is undermined, this creates an “authoritarian personality” that seeks to follow those who “know better.” Those who know better, of course, are the guardians and interpreters of the sacred Word.”
Sapere Aude! Trust yourself first and last; and only then, if they prove trustworthy, others.
Thanks for weighing in, Jack, and for providing a way to help clarify my thoughts--not just on the topic but more importantly, on the process for coming to agreement. I'm also going to do one that looks at this more generically called How to Have Better Arguments.
I won't go into much detail here because I already did that with my post. But let me apply some of the systematic process to this discussion in the form of questions:
1) How do you define forum and how does it differ from a lecture series? Are there areas where other participants could change your mind? "Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism" seems like you already have your answers and the title you proposed elsewhere, "Authoritarian Belief Systems vs. Voluntarism" is certainly not a debate but pre-determining implicit assumptions set up as a straw man for your definition of Voluntarism.
2) What's the question we're debating? I think questions should be framed as open-ended, not with only two pre-determined answers, usually yes or no. Working backwards, since you never state the question, I'd say it's implicitly "Is your belief in the authoritarian system of ACIM inferior to my belief in myself?"
3) I continue to invite you to reframe the question, if that's not what you meant. Within the implicit (and loaded) question there are many other questions to which the answer is assumed. Do I believe in the Course? Is the Course a belief system? Is it authoritarian? Who is the authority, if so? How do you define authoritarian?
4) The one term you define is belief. And you apply it to my study of the Course five times. 'Belief' by your definition, which I've agreed to use, is recognized by its emotional affect. So despite my protest that I don't 'believe' in the Course, you insist that I'm angry, offended, emotionally charged--retrofitting my state of mind to your definition of 'belief.'
5) By doing this, you repeatedly take authority over my thoughts and feelings. I can't trust myself to know what I believe or not because I don't even know how I feel. YOU are the authority on how I feel. So I shouldn't trust myself but should defer to your authority.
6) You state that you 'believe' in rationality and voluntarism yet you don't apply the same definition of belief, on which we've agreed, to yourself. Is it an emotional attachment?
7) Jack, you're asking me to explain my term devisives a third time. Why, when you didn't read the first two?
In conclusion, you're asking me to place my trust in you and your chosen authorities, and abandon my trust in my own ability to think and know myself, including my emotions. To me, that's inherently contradictory.
THE CONCLUDING PART OF MY POST THAT STARTED ABOVE.
YOU BELIEVE THE PROPOSITIONS (SOME, ALL?) IN THE ACIM (I HAVE READ PARTS OF IT AS HAVE THE AUTHORS OF THE GURU PAPERS WHO QUOTE IT ACCURATELY AND EXTENSIVELY—I HAVE CHECKED) ARE TRUE, YES?
“It [ACIM] calls the world we live in an illusion to be transcended and is specific about calling all separation an illusion. It likewise denigrates the self and self-centeredness with such statements as “Either God or ego is insane.” Its central message is that through surrendering to God’s will, which is pure love, illusions will evaporate and one will be eternally at one with God. The essential methodology used to achieve this is forgiveness.” The Guru Papers
FROM THE ACIM “WORKBOOK FOR STUDENTS”
“LESSON 1
Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything.”
“LESSON 10
My thoughts do not mean anything.”
“LESSON 24
I do not perceive my own best interests.”
“LESSON 32
I have invented the world I see.”
“LESSON 77
I am entitled to miracles.”
“LESSON 128
The world I see has nothing that I want.”
“LESSON 129 p.1,738
Beyond this world there is a world I want.”
“LESSON 163
8 There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their
salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion.”
“LESSON 249
Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss.”
TO ME. ALL OF THESE QUOTES FROM ACIM SUPPORT THE CLAIMS MADE ABOVE IN THE QUOTE FROM THE GURU PAPERS.
---
YOUR WORDS DO EXPRESS EMOTIONAL CHARGE, YES? YOU ARE AMBIVALENT, CONTRADICTORY, MAKE ACCUSATORY ASSUMPTIONS, & RESORT TO NAME CALLING (taken from earlier exchanges):
“You've never read the Course but are taking Joel and Diana's secondhand interpretation of it as fact.”
[HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT I HAVE NEVER READ ACIM? AS A MATTER OF FACT, I HAD READ PARTS OF IT MANY YEARS AGO AND AM READING IT AGAIN NOW.]
“I'm not easily offended and I don't think you could if you tried.”
““I'd have to say--despite my own experience that the Course continues to be worth my time and study--silly me! Obviously I've been brainwashed. I'm too dumb to realize when I'm being manipulated.”
“Certainly when I took quotes from Joel and Diana and applied them to me, they were pretty insulting. And that's why I did that, to show that theirs was an attack on the character of the person studying the course….”
“I know you're not trying to offend me and that you really don't understand why what you're saying through Joel and Diana is offensive.”
“However, it doesn't offend me because I have a life I'm extremely happy with.”
“I guess I'll need to amend my statement that you couldn't offend me if you tried.”
“it's curious that you don't recognize what you're quoting as a secondhand insult, which is a more cowardly way to insult someone”
---
AND THAT THESE PROPOSITIONS ABOVE GIVE YOU A GENERAL SENSE OF HOW THE WORLD IS, YES?
----------------
5) By doing this, you repeatedly take authority over my thoughts and feelings. I can't trust myself to know what I believe or not because I don't even know how I feel. YOU are the authority on how I feel. So I shouldn't trust myself but should defer to your authority.
---
I AM GUESSING YOU MEAN “By doing this” IS THIS?: “retrofitting my state of mind to your definition of 'belief.'” [from 4) above] I AM GUESSING YOU ARE FEIGNING A STATE OF MISTRUST AND BLAMING IT ON ME BECAUSE OF WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN?
--------------------
6) You state that you 'believe' in rationality and voluntarism yet you don't apply the same definition of belief, on which we've agreed, to yourself. Is it an emotional attachment?
---
WHY DO YOU STATE THIS, ON WHAT GROUNDS, WHAT WORDS OF MINE? IT APPEARS YOU DO NOT READ WHAT I WRITE. YES, I DO APPLY THE ABOVE DEFINITION OF BELIEF TO MYSELF AND ALL PERSONS AS I CLEARLY STATED IN OUR EXCHANGE:
“You have a "belief" in A Course in Miracles as I have a "belief" in reason and the scientific method to which I think we are both passionately attached.”
---------------------
7) Jack, you're asking me to explain my term devisives a third time. Why, when you didn't read the first two?
---
NO, I DID NOT ASK YOU TO EXPLAIN YOUR TERM DEVISIVES [sic]. HERE IS WHAT I WROTE:
““DEVISIVES” A MISSPELLING? I THINK YOU MEANT A PLAY ON “DEVICES OF RHETORIC” TO A “DIVISIVES” NEOLOGISM, PLURAL NOUN? THUS “DIVISIVES”--NOT “DEVISIVES”?)”
---
In conclusion, you're asking me to place my trust in you and your chosen authorities, and abandon my trust in my own ability to think and know myself, including my emotions. To me, that's inherently contradictory.
---
NO, I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO PLACE YOUR TRUST IN ME AND THE GURU PAPERS (TGP). I DID ASK YOU TO READ THE CHAPTER IN TGP ON ACIM BUT IT SEEMS YOU HAVE NOT DONE THAT. IT DOES SEEM CLEARLY APPARENT TO ME THAT YOUR THINKING IS CONFUSED, AMBIVALENT, AND EVEN CONTRADICTORY; AND THAT YOU DO NOT SEEM TO KNOW YOURSELF, ESPECIALLY YOUR EMOTIONS.
------------------------
CODA
After reading the ACIM as the quotes above from it partly show, I have come to the conclusion that spending 20 years on ACIM would not be nearly as useful for your, Tereza (or anyone else’s), personal development (self-actualization is the term I use) as reading persons like Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Erich Fromm, Eric Hoffer, Julian Jaynes, Joel Kramer, Diana Alstad, and other humanist, individualistic (most are), free thinkers. I find it amazing you believe ACIM’s propositions i have posted above—assuming you do? Maybe you do not?
As I wrote in my last response:
“After my next response, I will not turn anymore to what Tereza will write in reply to this entry here. I consider once I have put on record my critique of Tereza’s “inconsistencies, contradictions, avoidances and evasions”; and Tereza’s likewise critique of my “devisives” [sic], etc.—I will stop there and go on to discuss/debate specific ideas which I trust Tereza will agree to do.”
And this is what I will do. I will not reply any more, Tereza, to your responses to my words here. I will end our exchange on your Substack here with best wishes.
And I invite your and your interested readers to join our Forum of Free Friends:
Abandoned To Ourselves—Intending a Humanist, Naturalist, Individualist, Free Trader Voluntaryism.
Those interested, please email Jack: responsiblyfree@protonmail.com and I will put you on our email list to invite you to our first Forum session.
“We are free to the degree: we will ourselves to be; take the responsibility to be; allow others to be; and trust ourselves to be.” Nowhere Now Here
Glad you've figured out what would be most useful for me to spend the next 20 yrs on ;-) And that following your advice would prove that I trust myself and not some authority. I wish you success with your forum, Jack, and hope that we're ending our discussion here on good terms.
I have many of those Humanist writers’ digital books to keep you busy your next 20 years:), asketh and ye shall receive (though it will not be channelled, except through the Internet). I think there is even a Stoic Daily Year Workbook similar to the ACIM version you might want to turn your channel dial to, occasionally?
Yes, I wish no animosity between us. I too hope we are ending our discussion on your platform on good terms and with good faith that we both mean well towards the world concerning what I term my most important idea: Responsible Freedom.
Other than your association with Jeff J Brown, committed promulgator and hagiographer of Saint Mao the Democider, most of what I have viewed of your mind online, aligns approximately with mine.
However, I am left baffled that my last and final post did not summon an apology from you on your misreading of our agreed upon definition of “Belief” and on clear proof of the “emotional charge” in your words to me which you refuse to take responsibility for. It seems you still believe you did not do the things I showed you did with your own words.
I will put no more of my words on your Substack about this recent exchange between us and hope you will join our Forum of Free Friends when a topic we choose motivates you to do so.
Please email me, Jack at: responsiblyfree@protonmail.com to be added to our email list.
“The aim of life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man in the world.” Albert Camus
Oh Jack. Just because I agreed to a definition of belief doesn't mean I agreed that it applied to my relationship to the Course. I've said again and again that I don't believe in the Course, not by your definition of belief or any definition of belief. You, however, have said that you believe in humanism, reason and atheism. Since it's your definition of belief that it's emotionally charged, doesn't that mean your relationship to those ideas is emotionally charged, not mine?
Which would you prefer, that I apologize for being angry and offended, or that I was never angry or offended? I know that I said I would need to reconsider that you couldn't offend me, but on reconsideration, I still wasn't offended. I just don't have any emotion attached to our disagreement. But I also have no desire to continue it, either here or on your forum. I hope it's everything you want it to be.
I prefer the TRUTH.
And yes, you DO have “emotion attached to our disagreement” as I DO; and your disaffected alienation from your feelings is something I think you should recognize and acknowledge and do something about.
I suspect your 20 years in ACIM has contributed to your refusal to admit your feelings—perhaps part of the “all is illusion” “garbage can of Eastern religion” (see below quote).
I, and you, and every human being, is motivated by emotion (etymology, to move out of), whether we “believe” this or not. See Jaak Panksepp who developed the sub-field of “Affective Neuroscience” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6344464/
“We heal ourselves by giving others what we most need.” Sherry Turkle
“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.” Thomas Szasz
“Illusion is the great garbage can of Eastern religion where one can get rid of anything one doesn’t like by making it unreal.” Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad, The Guru Papers
Farewell.
Hola, Tereza and ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
You asked us listeners/readers to, without authority beyond your faith in us, to judge the arugment. Bold of you and I like it.
I was pretty much laughing through the argument 'he's right she's emotional' because it was clear to me that you weren't being emotional and simply argued with energy about how belief is not something that has an effective argument. (To paraphrase.) And then Jack argued, with his belief undaunted, that he didn't believe your argument because of his belief in the Guru Papers and others. (Has he read _Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West_ by John Ralston Saul. Excellent book, imo.
And the exchange is a truly great example of the solid evidence behind Jung's observation of the projection of the shadow, in this case the anima onto you.
And the exchange, not really a conversation or argument in that at least one half wasn't listening, confirms once again my experience that people who argue their 'truth' with the belief that that don't have beliefs are futile. Are you going to join the group? It might be interesting, in a way to confirm whether or not your perception of the nature of his denied authoritarianism avoids circular arguments and echo chambers.
The final exchanges also reminded me of the challenge I saw in Chomsky, that I called the Chomsky Paradox in a past substack. The position of arguing against the invalidity of authoritarian structures while fundamentally believing in just such an authoritarian structure.
Lots of stuff comes up for me, including Luther's castigation of reason and logic because they require something to hook into. And the most authoritarian reasons often hook into their irreligious belief as if that was logical! RotFL. Someone commented about the religion of atheism. Yes! I've said something similar for a long time. Or the religion of science or economics.
A good example of the danger of the ideologues who deny their ideology. And to me atheism being one of the funnier ones. Well maybe funniest.
Now I get to cite an authority. Jung commented, paraphrased, that with the discussion of God it comes to end when someone has had the experience of God and the other hasn't. And then this one:
"There are no longer any gods whom we can invoke to help us. The great religions of the world suffer from increasing anemia, because the helpful numina have fled from the woods, rivers, and mountains, and from animals, and the god-men have disappeared underground into the unconscious. There we fool ourselves that they lead an ignominious existence among the relics of our past. Our present lives are dominated by the goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic illusion. By the aid of reason, so we assure ourselves, we have conquered nature." Jung, C.G. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: 1964. ISBN 0385052219, p101
I love being able to cite authorities to people citing authorities while claiming they aren't authoritarian. It seems I have begun 2024 a bit obstreperously here, instead of on my own writing. Well, except that I am writing about woke and authoritarianism.
I enjoyed this as a weird kind of Punch and Jody show, because Jack was throwing misses and thinking he was scoring while being tagged himself by Tereza the aikido master and not seeing that either. Funny stuff.
I'm glad you caught the humor in this, Guy. Yes, when Jack kept saying I was angry, I wanted to point out how funny I found it but didn't think that would go over well. You're exactly right, imo, about the projection. It seemed like everything he was accusing me of, he was doing. He planned a discussion group among people who already agreed, brought his 'Bible' on the topic, but then invited heathens to join so he could convert them. That's not a discussion.
I would still say that reason and nature/ intuition is a false dichotomy but we've been down that road before. What Jack invoked was no more 'reason' than the CovidCon invoked 'science.' I always felt the Church's prohibition against reason and defining God was authoritarian. It would show up that their God makes no logical sense.
More fodder for future episodes! Thanks for laughing with me. I like your analogy.
On the futility of assuming that we can effectively communicate and discuss metaphysical ideas via the written word on a comment thread.
Enjoy, everyone!
Intellectual Vanity: The Lost Art Of Admitting Uncertainty
https://substack.com/home/post/p-109023020
This was great, Goeff! Sorry I didn't read it until after my next post but I think I have a place for it coming up. What a facility with words! Almost to a fault ...
I found it stunningly accurate. Well according to my ideas, anyway! : )
It looks like yer the only one what enjoyed it!
We'll fix that in a future post ;-)
Good one Tereza! I could not help but laugh out loud at your cock crow statement. "Patience is a virtue" my aunt would always tell me because I don't have many, but as a practitioner I see you have many patience :)
Hahaha! Nice line! Glad that someone appreciated my cock crow statement that I slyly threw in there ;-) I can always count on you to get the slightly snarky nuances.
This may seem a bit off topic but bear with me here. A point I'm trying to make is that whether god exists or not we can all be certain that the concept has been, and probably will be forever, perverted to the benefit of the global bankster mafia, so beware!
Read on...
Following a link about the 6 scandals in crime life biography of Ursula von der Leyen, who according to Wikipedia, is a "German" physician and politician serving as the 13th president of the European Commission since 2019.
She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding successive positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as minister of defence. Von der Leyen is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its EU affiliated group, the European People's Party (EPP).
"Her father Ernst Albrecht held guilty in 1978 Celle Hole terrorist bombing, but slid on it, like Ursula with:
plagiarism - consulting & vaccine grift, & husband in vax biz - war crimes profit - Belgium bribe extortion"
Tribunus Bruxellae on X: "@DagnyTaggart963 6 scandals in crime life biography of Ursula von der Leyen Her father Ernst Albrecht held guilty in 1978 Celle Hole terrorist bombing, but slid on it, like Ursula with: plagiarism - consulting & vaccine grift, & husband in vax biz - war crimes profit - Belgium bribe extortion https://t.co/O9xCdwmS32" / X (twitter.com)
Her father, descended from Jews, was a "German" politician of the Christian Democratic Union …“Christian,”… get it?
And I also I came upon this…
[The S Carolina slave owner (200 of them)] Ladson believed strongly in religious instruction to maintain discipline among the slaves and built his own chapel on the plantation that could accommodate around 100–110 slaves at a time. He stated:[12]
I am satisfied that the influence of this instruction upon the discipline of my plantation, and on the spirit and subordination of the negroes has been most beneficial. Their spirits are cheerful, as I judge from their gaiety of heart, and the respect for the overseer, and drivers, is evidenced by, generally, a ready obedience to orders.
— James H. Ladson, "The Religious Instruction of the Negroes" (1845)
[James H. Ladson] and other members of the Charleston planter and merchant elite played a key role in launching the American Civil War. Among Ladson's descendants is Ursula von der Leyen, who briefly lived under the alias Rose Ladson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Ladson
For emphasis.: Ladson believed strongly in religious instruction to maintain discipline ...
One of her forebears was the S Carolina slave owner, J.H. Ladson who believed strongly in religious instruction to maintain discipline among the slaves and built his own chapel on the plantation that could accommodate around 100–110 slaves at a time. He stated:[12]
I am satisfied that the influence of this instruction upon the discipline of my plantation, and on the spirit and subordination of the negroes has been most beneficial. Their spirits are cheerful, as I judge from their gaiety of heart, and the respect for the overseer, and drivers, is evidenced by, generally, a ready obedience to orders.
— James H. Ladson, "The Religious Instruction of the Negroes" (1845)
[James H. Ladson] and other members of the Charleston planter and merchant elite played a key role in launching the American Civil War. Among Ladson's descendants is Ursula von der Leyen, who briefly lived under the alias Rose Ladson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Ladson
Funny, I've always believed in God since childhood, but when I read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, I realise that that is not the God I envision. Someone on Substack opined recently that the God of the OT is not the same as the God of the NT.
I do agree that most Atheists are very dogmatic about there being no God and very condescending towards anyone who doesn't agree. I hate how they use the term 'sky daddy' to belittle believers.
My own dear Father claimed to be Agnostic, rather than Atheist. His point being that he doubted there is a God, but could not say with certainty either way.
I think that the God of the NT became more subtle but didn't change character from the God of the OT. James Carroll, a devout Catholic, writes about that in Constantine's Sword. The premise of the NT is that humanity is so sinful and worthless that the only way God can forgive us is with a blood sacrifice--not ours because we don't even count. All our blood and pain and loss is just what we deserve. So Jesus, the only one God really loves, voluntarily comes down to satisfy the bloodlust of a bloodthirsty God.
And then after Jesus rises from the dead, he sends Europeans out to subdue all the nations. The Davidic dynasty, represented by Jesus, went behind the scenes where the manipulations of the WEF and Illuminati and Black Nobility are a shadow puppetmaster, not visible. Just my theory.
I've called myself a gnostic before, defined as believing that God is knowable. I've thought of agnostic as saying that we can't and will never know if God exists. But in a sense, they're both the same.
“I've called myself a gnostic before, defined as believing that God is knowable.”
Hi, Tereza. The small g-word (gnostic) and the capital G-Word (God) in the same sentence are like flypaper to me, so I just have to chime in. But rather than respond to the definition in your quoted sentence, let me take you up on your request to “let me know if you disagree with my methods of productive dialogue.” I chose this quote because it exemplifies the one sliver of your method that, for me, is what you call a “communication truncator”, and that’s your use of definitions.
If I were to write a book titled, say, “How to Dismantle a Paradigm,” I’d begin by rejecting the *automatic* process of defining key words. Yes, my inerrant professors forced this practice on me, and I admit they were substantially correct, and that in the vast majority of mundane arguments, defining terms is essential. In matters of law and academic scholarship especially, definitions dominate. However, in the contrarian spirit I think we both share, let’s for a moment give some consideration to ditching this sage advice, especially for conversations involving ethereal topics. For those of us who have a scholarly bent—vocational or avocational—we love a juicy definition. However, in lofty conversations with the brilliant but earthy personality types—I’m thinking, for example, Joe Rogan, not Russell Brand—I wonder if using plain English along with the unavoidable Greek rooted borrow words and relying more on context works better to maintain the flow and avoid those communication truncators. Personally, I wish all conversations in this life were like those in my reveries/incarnations spent in the Library of Alexandria or in the Hall of Akashic Records at the feet of philosophers of renown. But alas, it ain’t so (except during those rare OOBEs).
Maybe this is a result of living in a podcast/YouTube world for too many years, but my own experience is that coming across a definition, especially a definition of a very large and very abstract concept, just stops me dead in my tracks. If I’m reading a textbook or listening to an academic at a conference, then I expect specialized language, including definitions (or neologisms, which I love), but even in that context now I almost always get hung up on the definitions. For whatever reason, they set off my own urge to become hypercritical and I end up staring at the print definition (or into the Void) and thinking of all those semantic/logical/historical weaknesses in the damned definition while formulating a right proper putdown. In conversation, when anyone starts defining terms, I subconsciously shift from conversation mode to debate mode, which, of course, is not a bad thing…so long as the other person realizes that for me rational debate is a matter of life or death.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it is ever wrong to spring a definition on me, but it’s very likely that a definition, no matter how small or seemingly innocuous, will become the entire focus of my attention, and if it has even the slightest flaw I won’t even get around to the argument or the conclusion.
Perhaps we might learn from mathematics that some things are simply “undefinable”— division by zero, for example, or the square root of a negative number. Allowing these undefinables to exist does not, at least as a matter of convention, bring math to a halt. In fact, just the opposite: undefinables allow math to push on and do the things it’s good for, albeit mostly within the confines of human cognitive limits. Capital-G “God”—actually a term I avoid—along with other “words that are beyond words”, like “gnosis”, while I might continue to spill ink (or waste electrons) over them, will, in this realm, remain forever as undefinables. Because in this evil world with its genocidal god—I just had to throw that in—despite my yearnings, I’ll just have to get comfortable with The Mystery. I may just have to be satisfied with patiently waiting for gnosis through grace, even though I’d much prefer using word-play to trick or annoy some Aeon—I’m looking at you, Sophia—into spilling the beans.
Oh Jack, I'm so happy that my flypaper let me know you're still a fly on the wall of my stack!
I was reading in my morning Course meditation this morning that the true purpose of bodies is communication. If purpose exists, that struck me as true, whether or not bodies really exist.
I go into this more in my next post but I don't use definitions as something authoritative or agreed upon. I just need to know what you mean when you use a word in order to understand what you're saying about that concept. This is the prerogative and responsibility of the person framing the question. If that word doesn't have the same meaning to the other person, I encourage them to translate it in their mind to the other person's definition or another word that captures the same concept to them. It's the concept that's important, not the word.
As always, my use of upper and lower case are deliberate ways of differentiating between the etymology of a word rather than the social construct it became as a proper noun. That also goes for catholic, originally meaning all-inclusive, or united states as a federal (bottom-up) coalition of sovereign entities.
The word gnosis comes from knowing, isn't that right? So it seems like it would need to have originated as someone claiming knowledge or someone participating in a process of gaining knowledge. In either case, it seems to assume that knowledge is knowable.
I'm open to another word to describe someone who thinks [insert other concept word] is knowable. But since you know what I mean when I say gnostic, we can talk about the concept and you can translate it into plain English or a less loaded term for you.
And maybe there's a distinction to be made with lowercase words that addressed Nefahotep's idea that a sovereign individual should never use 'I am' statements followed by a noun. Maybe it could be only proper nouns that are limiting? If I were to say I'm an Anarchist, that could mean the whole web of historical and social constructs. But if I say I'm an anarchist and define that etymologically as favoring rule by rules, rather than by rulers, it's less clumsy than spelling out the whole definition with all the qualifiers.
As for the other abstract term, I define God as ultimate Reality, whatever that is. I'd capitalize Reality to distinguish it from the reality in the world, something I also pay a lot of attention to per my definition of socio-spirituality as taking a hard look at the reality IN the world while questioning the Reality OF the world.
Many, if not nearly all people who use the term God mean the creator of the world, and my definition is opposed to that because it has the assumption in it that the world is Reality. Synonyms for God in my definition would be Purpose and Meaning. Do they exist or not? That's an important conversation to be able to have, but if we start from the assumption that Meaning and Purpose are ineffable, we might as well not have a body, aka be dead--to put it bluntly. Our understanding of meaning and purpose can't go anywhere outside our own head.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to think out loud with someone whose thought process I respect so much! I'm planning to do an every-other Sunday on spirituality, starting with the question What is Reality? So this will be helpful in that process.
Thanks. You have studied this way more than I have. I am a novice and will continue to read your posts with interest and an open mind.
My father was always quoting Jesus (turn the other cheek, and all that), but he was a pacifist and couldn't come to terms with how the clergy could support war (after all, "thou shalt not kiil" doesn't come with any caveats). I think that's where his disillusionment came from.
I do love these types of "discussions". As a Voluntarist, I am disappointed in Jack. (for the reasons you so eloquently pointed out) On the God question, I always come back to the way we COULD all be "Shards Of The Creator". A concept I stumbled on while reading the first 400 pages of the 2000 page "The Urantia Book". One thing I am sure of: I AM GOD. One way or another. Happy New Year!
I also consider myself a voluntarist, as Jack rightly assumed. Also called anarchy, community self-governance or small scale sovereignty.
'Shards of the Creator' is a great phrase. I talk about the mosaic God--not the God of Moses but the one where we're all fragments of glass that make up the whole picture.
I have the Urantia book but didn't make it as far as you. Friends of mine have studied it for years but it doesn't speak to me.
Happy New Year and thanks for commenting, Greg!
Well, it only spoke to me until around page 400. I stopped years ago, and never had the strong desire to pick it back up. However, it did add a few "mosaic" pieces to my search for relevance in this Universe. Happy New Year to you as well. It's gunna be another great year. As Bill Hicks famously said.... "It's all just a ride".