Beyond the Duality of Blind Belief and Blind Denial

[PoeticUniverse]

Some like Simone Weil and Einstein are attracted to the light of the eternal unchanging. But at the same time

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -”
― Heraclitus

Is this a contradiction or can it be reconciled by a higher quality of reason? Can constant change and the eternal unchanging exist together or is it impossible due to the law of non-contradiction?

Good observation!

We do note that no particular state remains even for an instant (Planck Time?), continual change being ubiquitous; so, if there is an absolute unchanging eternal basis (and not relationalism as in my poem about no absolutes) the the Eternal 'IS' transmutes in such a way that it can ever return to itself, so to speak, as in some topological type way, perhaps, but probably more so as in what we call the laws of nature that appear to be reversible.

Parmenides is a generous monist in that he has the 'IS' transmuting although he notes that it doesn't have to, but I suppose that because it is 'energetic' it has to change. It appears that 'Stillness', being a kind of a cousin of 'Nothing', cannot happen, so, strike it, too, off the list of what's possible.

[Sy Borg]

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny. This is the norm for life in Plato’s cave. What of the minority who finds all these arguments to be insufficient? Do they have an alternative leading to the possible escape from Plato’s Cave?

Probably not. Chances are that neither does anyone else escape the cave - not yet.

While the situation is more polarised than in the past, there are MANY who do not blindly believe any narratives, who choose to keep an open mind.

From my standpoint, religion and science have been wrong so often it would be naive to take all that they claim on face value.

Perhaps some have escaped the inner slavery of Plato's Cave. We just don't know them. But for those who believe escape is possible, would you agree that the first step is a change of attitude and the humility to accept like Socrates that "I know nothing" and begin conscious efforts to know thyself or having the experience of knowing thyself from this impartial attitude?

I don't think a human holding a true perspective is any more possible at this time on Earth than it would be for an individual to build a space station. We simply don't have the resources or "equipment", ie. senses and brainpower for the job. We do, however, have terrific senses and brainpower for the purposes of procreation. Hence 8 billion people, the numbers rapidly growing, while the rest of nature shrinks and degrades.

[Pattern-chaser]

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny...

...and also those who are not blind, who are aware of what they know, and what they don't, but who conclude that God does [not] exist?

Another resident of Plato's Cave who believes they are free and able to consciously choose.

Please don't do that. Please don't talk down to me, as if I am some fool who has been bamboozled, while you dispense your superior understanding from on high. I would prefer to discuss this issue, and avoid (your) condescension, if that's OK with you?

[Nick_A]

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny...

...and also those who are not blind, who are aware of what they know, and what they don't, but who conclude that God does [not] exist?

Another resident of Plato's Cave who believes they are free and able to consciously choose.

Please don't do that. Please don't talk down to me, as if I am some fool who has been bamboozled, while you dispense your superior understanding from on high. I would prefer to discuss this issue, and avoid (your) condescension, if that's OK with you?

I am not talking down to you. The thread asks a simple but deep question: Has anyone here experienced the cosmic religious feeling Einstein described? You apparently have not so prefer to change the subject and deny a personal God concept. That is your opinion and the thread asks for those who have gone beyond opinion in the need to experience, to "feel," the cosmic religious feeling which inspires some dedicated scientists to devote their lives to understanding the logic that reveals universal purpose as opposed to arguing opinions over details. How is this considered talking down? It is your opinion.

[Nick_A]

Some like Simone Weil and Einstein are attracted to the light of the eternal unchanging. But at the same time

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -”
― Heraclitus

Is this a contradiction or can it be reconciled by a higher quality of reason? Can constant change and the eternal unchanging exist together or is it impossible due to the law of non-contradiction?

Good observation!

We do note that no particular state remains even for an instant (Planck Time?), continual change being ubiquitous; so, if there is an absolute unchanging eternal basis (and not relationalism as in my poem about no absolutes) the the Eternal 'IS' transmutes in such a way that it can ever return to itself, so to speak, as in some topological type way, perhaps, but probably more so as in what we call the laws of nature that appear to be reversible.

Parmenides is a generous monist in that he has the 'IS' transmuting although he notes that it doesn't have to, but I suppose that because it is 'energetic' it has to change. It appears that 'Stillness', being a kind of a cousin of 'Nothing', cannot happen, so, strike it, too, off the list of what's possible.

Could it be that the universe or this forever changing machine is the body of God but the quality of consciousness that emanates the body is the eternal unchanging? Constant change within time and space functions within the eternal unchanging beyond the limits of time and space.

[Nick_A]

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny. This is the norm for life in Plato’s cave. What of the minority who finds all these arguments to be insufficient? Do they have an alternative leading to the possible escape from Plato’s Cave?

Probably not. Chances are that neither does anyone else escape the cave - not yet.

While the situation is more polarised than in the past, there are MANY who do not blindly believe any narratives, who choose to keep an open mind.

From my standpoint, religion and science have been wrong so often it would be naive to take all that they claim on face value.

Perhaps some have escaped the inner slavery of Plato's Cave. We just don't know them. But for those who believe escape is possible, would you agree that the first step is a change of attitude and the humility to accept like Socrates that "I know nothing" and begin conscious efforts to know thyself or having the experience of knowing thyself from this impartial attitude?

I don't think a human holding a true perspective is any more possible at this time on Earth than it would be for an individual to build a space station. We simply don't have the resources or "equipment", ie. senses and brainpower for the job. We do, however, have terrific senses and brainpower for the purposes of procreation. Hence 8 billion people, the numbers rapidly growing, while the rest of nature shrinks and degrades.

Are you suggesting then that humanity is doomed through its own ignorance to blindly follow the cycles of nature described in Ecclesiastes 3 like other animals in which dust becomes dust? The cosmic religious feeling is just an objectively meaningless form of psychological compensation. There is nothing to escape to; just the never ending war over opinions.

[Ecurb]

To each his own. Perhaps Simone Weil has a "desire which burns perpetually with in (her) for an infinite and perfect good," but the rest of us will have to muddle through with finite and imperfect good. Heck, bat .350 and you'll lead the National League in hitting!

Maybe the quest for infinite and perfect goodness worked for Acquinas and Assissi, but infinity seems a bit of a stretch for me, as does perfection.

I agree. Only a rare few can need and act upon a cosmic religious feeling which inspires what Simone needed. It isn't for everyone.

Jacob Needleman asked:

does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure?

Was Simone expressing a sick mind needing professional help or do I have the sick mind for so often preferring pleasure? A person really has to ask themselves what they are willing to sacrifice for the experience of truth.

"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..." This is the opening of George Orwell's famous essay, "Reflections on Gandhi". Link:
(https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-or ... on-gandhi/)

Saints are, perhaps, required to seek "infinite and perfect goodness" and "universal truth". It is not so clear, however, whether they (or the rest of us) are sailing on the "ship of fools". The Conquistadors sought El Dorado. It didn't exist. Their quest was noble, but foolish.

In the essay, Orwell suggests that many people assume that most of us abandon the quest for El Dorado (and Sainthood) because it is too difficult. Orwell disagrees.

it is too readily assumed that ‘non-attachment’ is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

Those of us who aspire to be humans instead of saints may think that "goodness" is always relative, never "perfect". We may think that truth is always conditional and contingent, never eternal and universal. Does this consign us to the "ship of fools"?

I honor Assissi and Acquinas for their quest, just as I honor Francisco de Orellana for his. Orellana failed to find El Dorado, but he discovered the Amazon. Assissi, Acquinas and Weil never discovered perfect goodness or universal truth, but their quest was fruitful in other ways. Perhaps the journey is worthwhile, even when we never reach the destination. Nonetheless, I cannot but suspect that Orellana sailed on the Ship of Fools.

[Pattern-chaser]

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny...

...and also those who are not blind, who are aware of what they know, and what they don't, but who conclude that God does [not] exist?

Another resident of Plato's Cave who believes they are free and able to consciously choose.

Please don't do that. Please don't talk down to me, as if I am some fool who has been bamboozled, while you dispense your superior understanding from on high. I would prefer to discuss this issue, and avoid (your) condescension, if that's OK with you?

I am not talking down to you. The thread asks a simple but deep question: Has anyone here experienced the cosmic religious feeling Einstein described? You apparently have not so prefer to change the subject and deny a personal God concept. That is your opinion and the thread asks for those who have gone beyond opinion in the need to experience, to "feel," the cosmic religious feeling which inspires some dedicated scientists to devote their lives to understanding the logic that reveals universal purpose as opposed to arguing opinions over details. How is this considered talking down?

It isn't. This is "talking down":

Another resident of Plato's Cave who believes they are free and able to consciously choose.

I will try again to offer my original point. Your OP says this:

As we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny...

...and I disagree that this issue "boils down" to the two extremes you mention - blind belief or blind denial. There are those who have an interest in these matters, but are not as blind as you describe. There are those, as I said before, "who are not blind, who are aware of what they know, and what they don't". And by this I mean that such people are aware of their own ignorance - to the extent that any of us can be - but seek to learn. I hope that I am such a person.

The thread asks a simple but deep question: Has anyone here experienced the cosmic religious feeling Einstein described? You apparently have not so prefer to change the subject and deny a personal God concept.

Wrong on both counts. My own religious/spiritual position is that I am a Gaian Daoist. I believe that God is the 'soul' of the universe, just as the physical universe is Her 'body'. I believe that God is universal, and an emergent property of the universe, not a creator-God. So my beliefs actually gel quite well with Albert's "cosmic religious feeling".

You have made the straw-man-mistake, and misunderstood what I was getting at. Because I challenged your ideas of how people are "blind", you assumed I disagreed with everything else you wrote. Not so.

[PoeticUniverse]

Could it be that the universe or this forever changing machine is the body of God but the quality of consciousness that emanates the body is the eternal unchanging? Constant change within time and space functions within the eternal unchanging beyond the limits of time and space.

Conscious awareness is perhaps ever an intrinsic subject and never an object and thus it could be that the unchanging One of Consciousness is coterminal with the ever changing body but not cosubstantial with it, which accords well with Parmenides' startling idea that shocked and rocked the Philosophic World to its foundations, which idea also has us traversing a Block Universe.

"blind"

Omar Khayyam has it as:

Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried,
Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?”
And—“A blind understanding!” Heav’n replied.

(He might have used 'implied' rather than 'replied', since it didn't reply, but we get the meaning.)

Rumi and I have it as:

Why do we wander around in the dark,
In the middle of the night like this?
Well, if we knew the answer to that one,
We would have been home some hours ago.

[PoeticUniverse]

I believe that God is universal, and an emergent property of the universe, not a creator-God. So my beliefs actually gel quite well with Albert's "cosmic religious feeling".

Your suggestion of an emergence/evolution of a higher being does well to avoid the difficulty of having some great complexity as First and Fundamental, since its parts would have to precede it, although I'd think that such higher beings would be yet to come, as the universe is only about .02% through its paces.

[Nick_A]

I will try again to offer my original point. Your OP says this:
Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:58 pmAs we’ve all witnessed debates over the existence and relevance of God within society boils down to those who blindly believe and those who blindly deny...

...and I disagree that this issue "boils down" to the two extremes you mention - blind belief or blind denial. There are those who have an interest in these matters, but are not as blind as you describe. There are those, as I said before, "who are not blind, who are aware of what they know, and what they don't". And by this I mean that such people are aware of their own ignorance - to the extent that any of us can be - but seek to learn. I hope that I am such a person.

Perhaps you understand the concept of debates over the existence of a God concept differently than I do. My experience is that debates are not designed for truth but a means to express the imagined self importance of superiority. A discussion could serve the purpose of understanding but a debate over God concepts just invites emotional hostility. So maybe I’m just reacting to my experiences with this word.

It has also been proven to me through the experiences of brilliant men and women that the more they know, the more they realize they don’t know so cannot understand. So in reality, they know nothing. If this is what you meant, then I read you wrong.

Wrong on both counts. My own religious/spiritual position is that I am a Gaian Daoist. I believe that God is the 'soul' of the universe, just as the physical universe is Her 'body'. I believe that God is universal, and an emergent property of the universe, not a creator-God. So my beliefs actually gel quite well with Albert's "cosmic religious feeling".

We both believe that the universe is the body of God. However you believe the universe is “an emergent property of the universe” while I believe the universe is an emergent property of the consciousness of our source beyond time and space which Plotinus described as the ONE. It is harmful to debate since it invites negativity but can be discussed by seekers of truth

[Nick_A]

Could it be that the universe or this forever changing machine is the body of God but the quality of consciousness that emanates the body is the eternal unchanging? Constant change within time and space functions within the eternal unchanging beyond the limits of time and space.

Conscious awareness is perhaps ever an intrinsic subject and never an object and thus it could be that the unchanging One of Consciousness is coterminal with the ever changing body but not cosubstantial with it, which accords well with Parmenides' startling idea that shocked and rocked the Philosophic World to its foundations, which idea also has us traversing a Block Universe.

"blind"

Omar Khayyam has it as:

Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried,
Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?”
And—“A blind understanding!” Heav’n replied.

(He might have used 'implied' rather than 'replied', since it didn't reply, but we get the meaning.)

Rumi and I have it as:

Why do we wander around in the dark,
In the middle of the night like this?
Well, if we knew the answer to that one,
We would have been home some hours ago.

Nice post. Could you elaborate on what it means to be spiritually blind and why we "wonder around in the dark." It seems that the idea of being spiritually blind permeates all the great traditions with a conscious origin. Yet it is considered foolish by the secular world. Paul describes it in Christianity in 1 Corinthians 2:

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Is it any wonder that the secular world without understanding, must hate the concept of being spiritually blind?

[Sy Borg]

Probably not. Chances are that neither does anyone else escape the cave - not yet.

While the situation is more polarised than in the past, there are MANY who do not blindly believe any narratives, who choose to keep an open mind.

From my standpoint, religion and science have been wrong so often it would be naive to take all that they claim on face value.

Perhaps some have escaped the inner slavery of Plato's Cave. We just don't know them. But for those who believe escape is possible, would you agree that the first step is a change of attitude and the humility to accept like Socrates that "I know nothing" and begin conscious efforts to know thyself or having the experience of knowing thyself from this impartial attitude?

I don't think a human holding a true perspective is any more possible at this time on Earth than it would be for an individual to build a space station. We simply don't have the resources or "equipment", ie. senses and brainpower for the job. We do, however, have terrific senses and brainpower for the purposes of procreation. Hence 8 billion people, the numbers rapidly growing, while the rest of nature shrinks and degrades.

Are you suggesting then that humanity is doomed through its own ignorance to blindly follow the cycles of nature described in Ecclesiastes 3 like other animals in which dust becomes dust? The cosmic religious feeling is just an objectively meaningless form of psychological compensation. There is nothing to escape to; just the never ending war over opinions.

No, I am saying that humans are not the end point of evolution.

[PoeticUniverse]

Could you elaborate on what it means to be spiritually blind…

‘God’ hasn’t been established and most likely can’t ever be because what is supposed to be everywhere is found nowhere, at first by sight, and so the wishing believers turn to another sense, that of feeling/sensation to find the pervading ‘spirit’, and so for some whose wires fire together quite often in this endeavor toward what is hoped for may, to no surprise, obtain a ‘spirit’ answer forthcoming from what’s now been strongly wired together.

‘Spiritually Blind’, then, becomes a kind of desperate claim upon those, such as Mother Teresa, who never felt the spirit of God, turning this supposed ‘handicap’ much towards being a bad label.

And yet, feelings and sensations are but second stories, they being colored by the neurotransmitters of the neurological first storey, whose existence is totally opaque to awareness and introspection.

However, all can have what they want; live and let live! It is only when they preach ‘God’ as fact and truth that they open themselves so widely to being referred to as misleading at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

Even so, well, they have to, as must we all, although abilities vary, since the Cosmos does us, not the other way around, as we are reminded by

“Note that Another resident of Plato’s Cave who believes they are free and able to consciously choose.”

[PoeticUniverse]

the eternal unchanging beyond the limits of time and space.

My illustrated booklet on Parmenides:

https://austintorney.files.wordpress.co ... 50-dpi.pdf