Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Cathal]

“Gethsemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, where, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus Christ underwent the Agony in the Garden and was arrested before his crucifixion.”

The spirit of the forest in Native American times might have been a pun in which the way a 200-year-old tree isn’t relevant is a parody of anyone yearning for posthumous fame. So a limitation of paraphiliac websites might be just how irrelevant we our to the 2200s!

The personal age of Jesus:

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Redwood tree: “Authentic records do indicate, however, that at least some individuals reach the age of 2,000 years. The average age of mature trees of this species is from about 800 to 1,500 years.” nps

The idea of capitalist gun rights might come full circle as if an individual might really need a palace rather than just a mansion were they to isolate in a palatial gun control zone without access to public parks!

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Swiss Guards in the Vatican

An ironic problem with vigilante drug killings in the Philippines is the risk of inciting sympathy to killed drug dealers as if Christianity can be even more vengeful with proportional sentences to avoid “leaving a mess” with dead bodies as the mafia might say! If drug gangs don’t fight back it can be too good to be true if there’s a risk of sympathy ploy in how they can’t trust their own customers not to betray them much like police stings in consenting to withstand casualties.

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Prince of Persia: Forgotten ancient temple ruins

[initial_origin]

To estimate what or who God is, you will need to define what "God" is, and associate qualities to this God.

By saying that the universe is God manifested, what exactly are you asserting? That the universe is conscious? That this God's anatomy is made up of atoms and molecules?

I see you discuss the concept of God being "external", so I understand you are also trying to establish the scope of God. External to the universe, you mean? What is your basis for claiming that God is not partially or completely external? Is it observations of the qualities of God in action?

I do think it is easy to approach this question with questionable logic. The attributes of God would not be dependent on whether we, God's dependent creations, will find it easy to conceive of Their qualities.

A scenario in which God could be both good and free is if They elected to rectify injustices at chosen times. Because wrongs are not rectified conspicuously and immediately does not mean they are not rectified at all.

In theory, if there is an omnipotent God, They could conceivably be as capricious as they wanted, that is what omnipotence is. Their created and dependent beings would be totally and irrevocably dependent on Their mercy.

As for your concept of heaven, it does look like you are conceptualizing about a supernatural spiritual environment through the lens of mortal, logical realities. The idea of exhaustion, fatigue, and stress would conceivably not apply to an environment and state of being that is not bound by mortal limits.

The concept of heaven is understandably something easy to brush off as "too good to be true". But, before finalizing your attitude toward the concept, you must also consider the alternative case. What if, heaven is real, but you brushed off the possibility of it being real which resulted in your missing out on it? That would conceivably be a very disturbing decision, the ultimate bad decision of all ages. A land in the presence of the source of all peace, joy, harmony, love, beauty, with no disease and no sorrow? In the case that is real, why would any lifeform want to miss out on that?

In the pursuit of a concept or knowledge of God, motives are probably important to evaluate and prioritize. In the case there is a creator, would you want to associate yourself with Them just to earn goodies and pleasures? Or would you want to learn as much about them as you can and attempt to align yourself with their vision and intention? These are just ideas to stimulate your thinking on this.

Omnipotence would not necessarily disqualify someone from suffering. Omnipotence includes the power to allow oneself to suffer, especially for specific purposes. Omniscience includes the knowledge of all experiences, which entails all wisdom.

The idea that a "a single energy living through all conscious entities" is a definition of "God" may be an incomplete idea. By this definition, anything that is shared by all conscious entities could be defined as "God". How should one differentiate the shared qualities from "God"? All conscious beings have DNA, is DNA God? These are questions to examine closely.

How much information is contained in the "sole tenet" of pantheism, and how much information is omitted?

What is the origin of the golden rule? Is it something that humans decide to abide by, or is it natural law?

This YouTube video may provide some thought-provoking ideas. It is called "Is There a God? What Science Says" by Mood for Thought

[Sy Borg]

To estimate what or who God is, you will need to define what "God" is, and associate qualities to this God.

Which, as you suggest, is beyond difficult. Religions make claims as if they were absolute, but they only reflect a particular perspective of stuff that is far beyond human abilities to comprehend.

By saying that the universe is God manifested, what exactly are you asserting? That the universe is conscious? That this God's anatomy is made up of atoms and molecules?

That would mean that the universe is self-creating and self-sustaining. That there is no creator outside of the universe's reality. In answer to your last question, no. Atoms and molecules make up only a small portion of reality. Most of is purported to be dark matter and dark energy, but these are not agreed on.

I see you discuss the concept of God being "external", so I understand you are also trying to establish the scope of God. External to the universe, you mean? What is your basis for claiming that God is not partially or completely external? Is it observations of the qualities of God in action?

It's possible that God is entirely subjective.

A scenario in which God could be both good and free is if They elected to rectify injustices at chosen times. Because wrongs are not rectified conspicuously and immediately does not mean they are not rectified at all.

Whose wrongs?

The concept of heaven is understandably something easy to brush off as "too good to be true". But, before finalizing your attitude toward the concept, you must also consider the alternative case. What if, heaven is real, but you brushed off the possibility of it being real which resulted in your missing out on it?

That's just Pascal's Wager. Logically, if heaven is ontic/objective, then one won't be denied for just not believing. Many NDE reports of non-believers are heavenly in nature.

What if heaven is the relative lifetime one may experience in the last few minutes of brain death? Then what you believe would matter - how positive or negative you are, and your attitudes towards death. I suspect this is what the ancient scriptures refer to, but the Chinese whispers (so to speak) of religious ideas over millennia has distorted the original ideas.

Omnipotence would not necessarily disqualify someone from suffering. Omnipotence includes the power to allow oneself to suffer, especially for specific purposes. Omniscience includes the knowledge of all experiences, which entails all wisdom.

How very Catholic. My mother was Catholic and it seemed to me that Catholics love suffering - hair shirt and the like. They see suffering as a path towards personal growth. However, an omnipotent entity has no room for personal growth, no need for it. You can't aim to be a better deity through suffering if you are already perfect.

The idea that a "a single energy living through all conscious entities" is a definition of "God" may be an incomplete idea. By this definition, anything that is shared by all conscious entities could be defined as "God". How should one differentiate the shared qualities from "God"? All conscious beings have DNA, is DNA God? These are questions to examine closely.

Yes, it's incomplete. The conscious emerged from the unconscious. In fact, we conscious humans emerge from unconscious blastocysts. So let's give some credit to our unconscious partners-in-matter.

What do we want!
Mineral recognition!
When do we want it?
Anytime! Minerals don't care!

[Cathal]

Perhaps Buddhism could also function as a sting operation as if you’d to reject Buddhism to realise that an elderly person could have an insurmountably better subconscious sensory perception. In other words no amount of mindfulness in a young person might match an elderly person’s decades of intermittent focus on their surroundings. As such maybe all the paintings of heaven in the clouds might have some truth if the clouds themselves were already heavenly only if you could focus enough on them like an elderly person. Lehar once stated how our skull is behind the night stars but when we think the clouds are behind our skull the clouds might rebel more thoroughly than the little stars in the night sky! So the longer we stare at the clouds the more we can create mountains and valleys of symbolic cloud formations as if each cloud becomes lenticular when moving along with other clouds all becoming more interconnected.

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Maybe a lucid dream of heaven or a near death experience is merely a reminder to focus more on the clouds during sunrise and sunset!

[Cathal]

The concept of heaven is understandably something easy to brush off as "too good to be true". But, before finalizing your attitude toward the concept, you must also consider the alternative case. What if, heaven is real, but you brushed off the possibility of it being real which resulted in your missing out on it? That would conceivably be a very disturbing decision, the ultimate bad decision of all ages. A land in the presence of the source of all peace, joy, harmony, love, beauty, with no disease and no sorrow? In the case that is real, why would any lifeform want to miss out on that?

The idea of eternal heaven might seem unlikely until we remember how there was 3 millennia of apparent hell in the rule of Ancient Egypt. Even if religion might have been a colonial tool for Ancient Egypt it might still have been a self-fulfilling prophecy in how none of their citizens could question the might of their religion. Yet when it comes to Christian forgiveness we can see the redeeming qualities of solipsism in Ancient Egypt in inspiring such meditative temples. As such even if Ancient Egypt was evil in intermittent wars there’s still karma in playing the waiting game where no amount of passive-aggression or criminality or even a 1000-year third reich could temporally outcompete the splendour of Ancient Egypt. As such the idea of almost perpetual evil for 3,000 years in Ancient Egypt can almost function like a foundation and counterweight to catapult a heavenly world of good for the next 3,000 years! When it comes to deforestation a more robust version of eco-tourism might be to build towns and cities in the jungle much like Central Park in Manhattan or Nepal’s mountainous villages in such a way that an urban centre doesn’t actually need a large agricultural hinterland thanks to transport infrastructure.

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Urbanised Mayan Temple in Mexico with an intact rainforest background!