The problems of God

GracieRuth said:
muir:
First, tales and parables are the best and most appropriate form in which to encode values. A story can easily incorporate paradox, where prose can only present paradox as a conflict. But what I really wanted to share is that the WHOLE PURPOSE of the Pharisaical movement was to take Judaism from the priests and rabbis and give it back to the common man.
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There are methods for transmitting knowledge down through the ages which is very effective and there are methods for impacting a lesson on the subconscious

What i was alluding to was a method of maintaining authority over people....a model of governance

It's an old method which predates the idea of a jewish people and it has been used down through the ages, right across Europe and further afield. I do think that some jews have played an extremely important role in undermining that method and in creating a fairer world

The dynamic of power is a human problem but because of the importance of the Pauline christian cult and other transmissions of jewish cultural ideas such as freemasonry, jewish history has ended up taking a central role in many non jewish cultures as well, albeit often distorted by people with an interest in using a version of it for their own ends
What i'm fascinated by is the sub strata of meaning beneath the surface, often ritualistic side of religion....the esoteric stuff!

Jewish mysticism has some fascinating stuff going on for example qabalah which i think adds much more depth of meaning to religious texts

I personally believe this stuff should be given to everyone but it has often been jealously guarded. Sometimes it was kept secret for fear of persecution but sometimes it is kept secret to create an information assymetry and a monopoly on power
 
GracieRuth said:
Am I the only one who has problems with this?
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Names have deep significance....maybe not so much anymore, but in the past they were very important

The hebrew alphabet has deep significance: 22 letters, 22 paths on the qabalistic tree of life, 22 cards in the major arcana of the tarot. Also there's numerology.

My understanding of qabalah (and i'm a novice so i might be wrong here) is that you kind of build up so many connections between things that your brain eventually kind of spasms and you have a rapture....an ecstatic experience

It seems that the eastern spiritual methods for example forms of meditation are designed to empty the mind, whereas the western esoteric tradition is more about filling the mind up, but both have the same aim: to bring about enlightenment....to engage with God...however you want to define that

These ideas in the west have transmitted from ancient Sumer, Egypt and Israel and from possibly further afield. With trade and the movements of people it seems ideas have travelled back and forth between China, India and the west (via the middle east), along routes such as the spice routes, for example: Taoism, Yoga, Tantra, Qabalah etc all these ideas have been moving around and cross pollinating different cultures

I know some people value mainstream religion, but behind the mainstream interpretations it seems there are intriguing 'truths'; without tapping into those the surface interpretations often seem, to me, like an empty vessel with nothing in it; that process requires the right keys
 
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INFJ LOGIC ALERT
 
I was assuming that her main problem is that writing a name of God (especially the ineffable most holy name of God) in an impermanent medium (like an internet forum) is strictly forbidden in Jewish tradition. (Remember, GracieRuth is Jewish.)

Also, I'm not so sure that the letter shin symbolizes the spirit. Wikipedia at least says nothing about that. It does say that the name of the letter literally means sharp, that it can be used as a relative pronoun, and that it can represent another name of God (which is often translated as Almighty but probably better rendered as Sufficient) that He revealed to Abraham before revealing the Tetragrammaton to Moses.
 
InvisibleJim said:
INFJ LOGIC ALERT
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I agree with the arian heresy that Jesus was just a man but a wise teacher. You might find that a lot of INFJ's have similar views

I think his teachings have been taken literally by Paul who was allied to the controlling authorities such as the Herodian royal family and was looking at ways to limit jewish resistance to occupation and the control of the authorities; Paul has corrupted the message and adapted and packaged it for a gentile market and sold the idea around the greek speaking world by giving it elements that gentiles would relate to for example: miracle working, the virgin birth, death and rebirth

Pauls new cult was a total break from the Jerusalem church and it veered towards pre-existing cults such as the cult of mithra. Later Roman Catholic theologians had trouble explaining the similarities between the jesus story and the older mithra story....they called it the work of the devil, but the answer was simple: it was a corruption

New discoveries such as the dead sea scrolls and the Nag hammadi library are now allowing a reassesment of the story of Jesus and the events of that time. So called 'miracles' can now be seen in a less literal but no less interesting light

Jesus wasn't turning water into wine, he was changing people into a more enlightened state through his teachings in the same way that alchemists were transforming themselves spiritually when they were turning 'base metals' into 'gold'

It suited the Roman church to get people to believe in miracles as it made their minds more pliable, in the same way that they supressed ideas that put the sun at the centre of the universe: a bending of the truth and a bending of peoples perceptions of reality
 
magister343 said:
I was assuming that her main problem is that writing a name of God (especially the ineffable most holy name of God) in an impermanent medium (like an internet forum) is strictly forbidden in Jewish tradition. (Remember, GracieRuth is Jewish.)

Also, I'm not so sure that the letter shin symbolizes the spirit. Wikipedia at least says nothing about that. It does say that the name of the letter literally means sharp, that it can be used as a relative pronoun, and that it can represent another name of God (which is often translated as Almighty but probably better rendered as Sufficient) that He revealed to Abraham before revealing the Tetragrammaton to Moses.
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All people have equal validity in my eyes. Gracie and muir are equally valid as humans........as is magister. Ideas however are a different matter.

I think it should be acceptable to question ideas whether cultural or religious. Of course this might anger a person, because their ego has attached importance to a certain identity, but that person and me and everyone else on this planet is on a journey of evolving perceptions and that process requires questioning

For example Gracie was talking about how the pharisees challenged the authority of the sadducees and how this was a good thing because it allowed things to evolve

Now you can bet your ass that at the time the sadduccess said to the pharisees 'how dare you behave in this blasphemous manner' and 'cease your offensive behaviour' but if they had ceased their behaviour then mankind would be stuck at that stage of its development

Everything is in flux including religion.

We look at water as it flows in streams; if you were ancient enough and saw the world through geological eyes you would see the glaciers flow like water and even the rocks flow like water!

Just because things seem entrenched now doesn't mean they are immutible. We must be free to question things! I'm not being disrespectful.....in my own way i'm paying the greatest respect, even if it doesn't feel like it, because i am recognising that which is beneath the surface cultural gloss, that which is shared

And shin does represent spirit! It has 3 prongs like fire....its all designed....hebrew is an incredibly clever alphabet and has deep significance. Look into Qabalah if you're interested....there are layers behind layers behind layers of meaning
 
muir said:
It's an old method which predates the idea of a jewish people and it has been used down through the ages, right across Europe and further afield. I do think that some jews have played an extremely important role in undermining that method and in creating a fairer world
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As we just finished the season of Chanukah, the importance of freedom and self determination is foremost in my mind. I'm impressed that you are aware of this; although Tikkun Olam (repair of the world) is a central motif in Judaism, Christians are usually unaware of its importance. The most common Chanukah sermons wind around the notion that freedom for ourselves is not enough; we will not be truly free until all mankind is free.


What i'm fascinated by is the sub strata of meaning beneath the surface, often ritualistic side of religion....the esoteric stuff!

Jewish mysticism has some fascinating stuff going on for example qabalah which i think adds much more depth of meaning to religious texts

I personally believe this stuff should be given to everyone but it has often been jealously guarded. Sometimes it was kept secret for fear of persecution but sometimes it is kept secret to create an information assymetry and a monopoly on power
Click to expand...

The only real purpose mystical writings have for mystics is reassuring us that we are not alone in the world. I read mystical stuff when I was young, but it didn't really challenge me -- it basically just repeated things I knew. These kinds are writings are actually for the benefit of NON-mystics, an attempt to take noetic but ineffable experiences and relay them to people who do NOT have mystical experiences. There are a number of problems with this, which has often resulted in such works being witheld.

The primary difficulty is that whatever gets written down in NOT the same as the experience. The Tao which can be expressed is NOT the eternal Tao. Thus, anything that can be learned from a book will never be accurate.

A common secondary problem is that without the sort of personality to understand mystical language, the ordinary person inevitably butchers the meaning. We've all seen examples of times when those who think concretely turn something into a rigid literalism, and completely miss the point.

So I am one of those who thinks works like the Kabbalah should not be read by just anyone. If they are read at all, it should be by those who understand them. The difficulty HERE is that if we mystics spend all our time on the heavenly plane (where we have our talents) we neglect to cultivate our existence on THIS plane (where we usually suck). This is why the Rabbis prohibited study of Kabbalah to Torah scholars over forty -- because we need to spend those years getting grounded in ORDINARY spirituality.

I don't personally study the Kabbalah. In fact, last weekend my Taoist friends were asking me about this, and I answered, "I could if I wanted to, but why spend the time when I can just open up my front door and listen to the birds and learn all the same things?"

Esoteric wisdom is nice, but highly overrated. What matters is what we DO, how we treat others. You don't need to read mystical writings to cultivate yourself as a better person.
 
The questions you ask define the areas in which you will look, so taking time and even asking questions about the questions you are asking can be a useful strategy for getting creatively great solutions.
 
muir said:
Names have deep significance....maybe not so much anymore, but in the past they were very important
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Absolutely. And especially in my culture, where the sacred name of G-d is to be protected from blasphemy. I know you didn't mean to be offensive, but to take the tetragrammaton and insert another letter in the middle is a desecration to us. However, I wasn't chiding you about blasphemy, as I recognize that you had no such terrible intent in your heart.

My concern was with the particular kind of reasoning being used. It's simply fallacious. We Jews are not immune to this -- you can open the Passover Haggadah and read the words of Rabbi Yossi the Gallilean:
Rabbi Yossi the Galilean said: "How do you know that the Egyptians were struck by 10 plagues in Egypt and 50 plagues at the sea? Because regarding the plagues of Egypt it says: 'The magicians said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God' (Exodus 8:15). While at the sea it says: 'And the Jewish people saw the great hand which God had used in Egypt, and the people feared God, and they believed in God and in Moses His servant' (Exodus 14:31). How many plagues did they receive with the finger? Ten. Therefore if in Egypt they received 10 plagues then at the sea (when smitten by God's hand) they must have had 50 plagues.'"
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Now either you are going to see that his reasoning is nonsense, or you won't.

I'm just reluctant to spend any more time on this. My post was basically an "I don't want to be bothered. Anyone else want to take this on?"
 
GracieRuth said:
As we just finished the season of Chanukah, the importance of freedom and self determination is foremost in my mind. I'm impressed that you are aware of this; although Tikkun Olam (repair of the world) is a central motif in Judaism, Christians are usually unaware of its importance. The most common Chanukah sermons wind around the notion that freedom for ourselves is not enough; we will not be truly free until all mankind is free.




The only real purpose mystical writings have for mystics is reassuring us that we are not alone in the world. I read mystical stuff when I was young, but it didn't really challenge me -- it basically just repeated things I knew. These kinds are writings are actually for the benefit of NON-mystics, an attempt to take noetic but ineffable experiences and relay them to people who do NOT have mystical experiences. There are a number of problems with this, which has often resulted in such works being witheld.

The primary difficulty is that whatever gets written down in NOT the same as the experience. The Tao which can be expressed is NOT the eternal Tao. Thus, anything that can be learned from a book will never be accurate.

A common secondary problem is that without the sort of personality to understand mystical language, the ordinary person inevitably butchers the meaning. We've all seen examples of times when those who think concretely turn something into a rigid literalism, and completely miss the point.

So I am one of those who thinks works like the Kabbalah should not be read by just anyone. If they are read at all, it should be by those who understand them. The difficulty HERE is that if we mystics spend all our time on the heavenly plane (where we have our talents) we neglect to cultivate our existence on THIS plane (where we usually suck). This is why the Rabbis prohibited study of Kabbalah to Torah scholars over forty -- because we need to spend those years getting grounded in ORDINARY spirituality.

I don't personally study the Kabbalah. In fact, last weekend my Taoist friends were asking me about this, and I answered, "I could if I wanted to, but why spend the time when I can just open up my front door and listen to the birds and learn all the same things?"

Esoteric wisdom is nice, but highly overrated. What matters is what we DO, how we treat others. You don't need to read mystical writings to cultivate yourself as a better person.
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I understand what you're saying and thanks for taking the time to explain your perspective

What i was focussing on before was when people with privaleged information hoard that information because it gives them power. That process is as old as the hills it seems.

We are often told that we are living in the 'information age' and technology like the internet can be a great leveller

The extent to which people are open to mystical experience is really an individual thing, but what we can ensure as a society is open and equal access to information.

That's what i'd like to see and my views spring from my political views, which i won't go into here!

Concerning your final comment.......

I think that we are more able to cultivate ourselves into better people in a free and open society; I also think that such a society encourages better behaviour towards others. Its the imbalances whether in knowledge or wealth that cause the rifts.
 
GracieRuth said:
Absolutely. And especially in my culture, where the sacred name of G-d is to be protected from blasphemy. I know you didn't mean to be offensive, but to take the tetragrammaton and insert another letter in the middle is a desecration to us. However, I wasn't chiding you about blasphemy, as I recognize that you had no such terrible intent in your heart.

My concern was with the particular kind of reasoning being used. It's simply fallacious. We Jews are not immune to this -- you can open the Passover Haggadah and read the words of Rabbi Yossi the Gallilean:


Now either you are going to see that his reasoning is nonsense, or you won't.

I'm just reluctant to spend any more time on this. My post was basically an "I don't want to be bothered. Anyone else want to take this on?"
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I pointed to a door...its up to others whether they want to explore behind it or not
 
Ifeelishouldthink said:
The questions you ask define the areas in which you will look, so taking time and even asking questions about the questions you are asking can be a useful strategy for getting creatively great solutions.
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Interesting...i'll try it once my head stops spinning! :)
 
On the meaning of the letter SHIN...

I have never heard of shin referring to spirit. However, as I am not all knowledgable, I tried looking this up. The only websites I could find that connected shin to spirit were christian sites.

I went to www.askmoses.com since the Orthodox are masters of this particular type of knowledge, and the scholar there simply repeated what I had already been taught: Shin is short for Sha-dai (almighty) which is part of the name Abraham used for G-d. Thus, inserting a shin in the middle of the tetragrammaton is not only blasphemous, but far worse, it is redundant. :D :D :D

If this is truly important for anyone, I can always call my rebbe and ask him personally, as I know this stuff is something he really gets into.

Oh, just a tidbit... Deuteronomy 16:2 instructs Jews to observe Passover at "the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name." There are three valleys in Israel which converge, forming a geographic Shin. The Temple Mount is at the base. Cool, eh?
 
muir, you are raising a lot of very reasonable points. I read about historical censorship as a way to control orthodoxy, but I don't really think of that as power mongering. For myself, I've grown up in a world where I could read anything I wanted, and some of it was dangerous stuff and hurt me. I am politically very much in favor of freedom of information -- but I view it as the lessor of two evils. First, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. But more to the point, the internet is flooded by crap that people actually believe simply because it's in print.

If you visit the yahoo religious chat rooms, you will be absolutely pounded by people misusing information, quoting things out of context, rendering the figurative concretely, reasoning atrociously, and neglecting to have any discernment whatsoever about what sources are reliable. Mankind is just STUPID. Having more information has definitely not made us any smarter. It has just made disinformation easier to disseminate.

So, we weigh the benefits against the drawbacks. I conclude as you do that an open society is better. But I'm SO aware of its flaws.
 
Hey Spiritual Leo. Sometimes a person will say something, and I have to mull it over a while before I know quite what I want to say in reply. My apologies if this is kind of old. You said:
I just wish that we would use our compassion, intelligence, and information to take ourselves into a blissful reality. Peace is achievable on the individual level, so we have the ability to achieve it universally. I just really think we all need to work together instead of making competitions and competing against..
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I'm all for a more cooperative society. However, our instinctual nature constantly gets in the way, and I really don't see this as changing. We all have a biological imperative to procreate our genes. The more dispersed the genes, the less likely a human being will help that person. This is why there is the saying, "I would gladly die for an identical twin, two brothers, or eight cousins." Cooperative civilizations arise when a society is made up of a kinship group. Cooperation dissolves when others in society are not recognized as kin.

You will always have a variety of people who have a greater or smaller idea of who is kin.
Some will see only themselves as family.
Some see only their immediate family as family.
Some have a sense of extended family.
Some have a sense of tribe.
Some have a sense of nation as family.
Although pretty rare, some have a sense of species as family.

For the kind of cooperation to exist that you want, most people would have to perceive all humanity as family, and it's just not the case. Oh I know it's very trendy right now to "Love Humanity." But the overwhelming number of people who claim to love humanity in truth can't even handle loving the bitch who lives next door. They are posers.

It is similar to the question asked of Jesus, Who is my neighbor? And Jesus rattled the chains by suggesting that a pagan Samaritan could be a neighbor.

Next point, it really only takes a very few number of selfish people to screw up society for everyone else. This needs no elaboration.

And so, I'm afraid we will always have wars, whether with bombs or with economics or with writings. There are many things I would like to be true but aren't. I would like for Middle Earth to have been a historical place, but it's not. Peace would be nice, but there will never be peace.

I take comfort in noticing that Human Beings tend to be at our very best when things are at their very worst. The 9-11 bombings were an atrocity. But my memory of that day is filled with unexpected acts of kindness and solidarity from complete strangers, of the heroism of the first responders, of the intense feeling of "Family" that we all as americans felt for the first time in a long, long time.
 
GracieRuth said:
On the meaning of the letter SHIN...

I have never heard of shin referring to spirit. However, as I am not all knowledgable, I tried looking this up. The only websites I could find that connected shin to spirit were christian sites.

I went to www.askmoses.com since the Orthodox are masters of this particular type of knowledge, and the scholar there simply repeated what I had already been taught: Shin is short for Sha-dai (almighty) which is part of the name Abraham used for G-d. Thus, inserting a shin in the middle of the tetragrammaton is not only blasphemous, but far worse, it is redundant. :D :D :D

If this is truly important for anyone, I can always call my rebbe and ask him personally, as I know this stuff is something he really gets into.

Oh, just a tidbit... Deuteronomy 16:2 instructs Jews to observe Passover at "the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name." There are three valleys in Israel which converge, forming a geographic Shin. The Temple Mount is at the base. Cool, eh?
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That's because you haven't got the esoteric knowledge :D :D :D
 
GracieRuth said:
muir, you are raising a lot of very reasonable points. I read about historical censorship as a way to control orthodoxy, but I don't really think of that as power mongering. For myself, I've grown up in a world where I could read anything I wanted, and some of it was dangerous stuff and hurt me. I am politically very much in favor of freedom of information -- but I view it as the lessor of two evils. First, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. But more to the point, the internet is flooded by crap that people actually believe simply because it's in print.

If you visit the yahoo religious chat rooms, you will be absolutely pounded by people misusing information, quoting things out of context, rendering the figurative concretely, reasoning atrociously, and neglecting to have any discernment whatsoever about what sources are reliable. Mankind is just STUPID. Having more information has definitely not made us any smarter. It has just made disinformation easier to disseminate.

So, we weigh the benefits against the drawbacks. I conclude as you do that an open society is better. But I'm SO aware of its flaws.
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You can't read anything you want....you can't read top secret government documentation. You can't read the central secrets of many orders. You can't read the enron files that got shredded, you can't read the contents of the vaticans secret archives, you can't read the minutes of the bilderburg meetings, you can't read lots of stuff that arguably is in the public interest to know

The internet is making a lot of stuff more available which power elites are not very happy about....just look at the furore surrounding wikileaks

I don't think mankind is stupid, i think different types of people have different strengths which are useful to society.

What i don't agree with is elites hoarding information to use against the people. The state is becoming more intrusive (eg patriot act) and we can see in the lack of transparency regarding the banking sector what can happen when elites use knowledge to their advantage at the expense of others.

This is an old story and religion has seen its fair share of this kind of power mongering
 
One last post will catch me up in this thread. REGARDING PAUL:

It is probably best I talk as little about Paul as possible, because quite frankly I hate his guts, and most of what I have to say would be deeply offensive to Christians. After spending time in meditation to keep my F in control, I would like to offer the following summary: Jesus and Paul taught incompatible ideas.

Jesus (and James, and Peter) was a typical Jew. He believed we should keep the law, that not even a punctuation mark would be tossed out until heaven and earth passed away. (Matt 5:18) When the rich man asked him how to achieve eternal life, Jesus replied, "Ah come on, you KNOW the commandments don't you?" (Matt 10:19) While Jews don't believe the Sinaitic covenant applies to non-Jews, we DO think there are a very few universal morals that bind every human being; a non-Jew can eat ham sandwiches til the pigs come home and not sin, but a non-Jew is still not supposed to thieve and murder and stuff. James and Peter and the bishops of the church specifically addressed this in the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) stating that while gentiles didn't need to become Jews, they did need to observe the universal moral laws, such as not eating meat offered to idols.

Paul didn't just break with this, he actually taught the antithesis. His letters are full of disparaging comments about the law, and remarks that "we are no longer under the law." All of Jerusalem was scandelized by the stories of Paul teaching Jews to forget about Moses and circumcision and halakhah, so much so that even James couldn't save his butt. In his first letter to the church at Corinth (ch 8) he has the audacity to suggest that those who avoid meat sacrificed to idols are simply not spiritually mature, that if you understand that idols are merely statues and not gods, you can feel free to eat the sacrifices. He is giving direct instruction to break the law.

To use a Christian phrase, Paul taught a different gospel than Jesus.

Now I'll say something a little more personal. I realize that to Christians, Paul speaks inspired by the Holy Spirit. He is beloved. It may be impossible for you to understand just how hated he is by Jews. Why? Because we could forgive a Greek who said such things, but not a self-hating Jew. Paul went so far in breaking tradition when he appealed to Rome that he is simply apostate ; to take a Jewish matter before gentile judges gets you kicked out of the tribe and we have a particularly nasty word for such Jews which I am too nice to use even though I'm thinking it. As the Rambam writes:

"Whoever submits a suit for adjudication to gentile judges in their courts, even if the judgement rendered by them is in accord with Jewish law, is a wicked man. It is as though he reviled, blasphemed and rebelled against the law of Moses."
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Enough of Paul. Now you know.
 
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Oh its tough when we are both online at the same time. It's a never ending conversation. Regarding Wiki-Leaks...

One wiki-leak was that before the 2009 Gaza offensive (Operation Cast Lead) that Israel went to both the PA (Fatah) and Egypt asking if they would assume the governing of the Gaza strip once the military actions against Hamas were complete. Both the PA and Egypt declined. There are two implications. The most obvious is that both the Palestinians and the Egyptians knew of the impending military attack and allowed it to proceed. It also implies that Israel really does NOT want to be saddled with the responsibility to govern Gaza, despite typical renditions of Israel as some sort of imperialistic state. Israel's idea was to protect Egypt and the PA by keeping this information under wraps.

So tell me, are things better now that this information is known?
 
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