Noah

[andrew]

Aronofsky has a new pic out. I know that some folks in this community are a fan of his work so up this post goes. I am going to use this post, if nobody objects too strongly, to write all i know about that story. It's something i spent a lot of time investigating and i've never really talked about it. First, let me say for those of you who don't know me that i don't identify myself as a Christian and haven't for over 30 years. I was raised secularly and couldn't really tell you what a church was when i was sixteen, let alone wonder about god. I think though, as far as i can remember, that i've always had this strange feeling that something was very much wrong on this planet, and that , that feeling goes right back to childhood. Now, to be fair, there was a brief period of time in my early 20's when i did identify with evangelical Christianity, but a year or so after sensing the corruption within that institution, i became what i now call an independent. I am still this way today; spiritually and politically.

Please be aware that very little that i post here will be from my imagination directly, most everything will come from the history of human literature on this mythology. Now i'm quite sure i hear Julian's voice in the noosphere saying, ' Andrew, this is just silly," well, perhaps, but this has been a part of my path, Aronofsky choose this subject matter, and without seeing the film, i can reasonable guess that it will not reflect what is said in these books. 

It should be noted, that at the time Jesus lived, The Book of Enoch was  part of the religious canon. Most people within that community believed strongly in those stories as far as my study of history shows, and that Jesus quoted from these stories a number of times, mentioning that his return would be surrounded by events that were just like what happened in those days. I'll certainly return to this later. 

Now, i am not really interested in challenging histories orthodoxy on humanities past .That is not what this is about, but what i do think is somewhat possible though, is the idea that prior to the development of the written word, history gets a little bit murkier. By saying this, i am not suggesting there was a global flood, i am just suggesting that things are a little more unsure the farther back one goes from the written word. Obviously, this premise would be throughly attacked by historic fundamentalists; i don't care!

Okay, i am going to stop here for now, so The Book of Enoch and the story of god and angels! lol The first place to start on these myths………….

[andrew]

Hi Joseph, 

i think the only intellectually honest way, at the monument, to talk about the primacy of consciousness, panpsychism, agape, eros, love, telos, is to  frame the conversation within a faith matrix. Personally, i would never ask any scientist to believe this based on the methods they use to understand the material world. Having said that, there are many good scientists out there that, on a personal level, share this belief (or something like it).

So, for posterity, i am thinking of calling the ideas in this thread the God/Jesus matrix. Or, perhaps, the third Christian turnip! lol  Re-visioning Christianity on its own terms for the 21st century. But out of respect for this forum, i will endeavour to keep these reflections over here. In my universe, we would all grow up secularly free to discover the mystery of god, and , to never codify those experiences into institutions. Hey turnips are cheap, too! Almost free:)

[Joseph Camosy]

Andrew, we may be coming at the "Noah" narrative from differing points of view, that's all.   This is not only not a problem, but is essential.

One last quote to illustrate the perspective that I most resonate with:

If the individual stands over against the primitive Yahweh­ affects within him; if he allows them to live without repressing them and without identifying with them; if he struggles to extract the images of meaning that lie embedded in them; if he patiently and diligently seeks the way of individuation which the unconscious both reveals and withholds-then his efforts will have a gradual transformative effect on Yahweh. He will be offering himself as a crucible for the transforma­tion of the dark God and contributing his widow's mite to the cosmic drama of continuing creation.

Edinger, E. F. (1984). The creation of consciousness : Jung's myth for modern man

Basically the task is to resolve the problem of opposites, whether they be at work, at home, on an internet forum (in the form of differing opinions), within my own psyche or that of the collective unconscious.

In psychological terms, the incarnation of God means indi­viduation. To the extent that one becomes aware of the transpersonal center of the psyche, the Self, and lives out of that awareness, one can be said to be incarnating the God­ image. This experience involves encounter with the opposites. The Self is a union of opposites. When it first emerges into consciousness the opposites split apart and the ego is  faced with the conflict of their opposition. Jung says:

All opposites are of God,  therefore man must bend to this burden; and in so doing he fInds that God in his  "opposite­ness" has taken possession of him, incarnated himself in him. He becomes a vessel fIlled with divine conflict.52

51. C. G: Jung,  Mysterium  Coniunctionis, CW 14, par. 492.
52. Ibid., par. 659.

[andrew]

No, no, not at all Joseph, i was not at all implying that you were being intellectually dishonest, not for a moment. I was simply stating my perspective on metaphysics, which i think is a valid one, which certainly doesn't invalidate your perspective in the least. God lives and dies in all of us:)

[Edward theurj Berge]

To riff on Joseph's comment about God or the Real not fitting into categories, I offer this book for this thread: Jung and tarot: An archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols. There is a free Google book preview here. She chose the Marseilles deck because it does not have accompanying text to categorize the symbols into some system like the Golden Dawn or BOTA. Also the following from the introduction might be a message for our desire to continually categorize into ever more complex meta-systems. That the practice just might be to bring awareness into deeper contact with the unconscious via symbol rather than higher and more complex abstract categories. Just maybe.

"Intellectual categories are a way of systematizing our experience of this nonverbal world. [...] Each such system is useful [...] but each in unique. [...] But to superimpose these many grids, one atop the other, would be to distort their symmetry and destroy their usefulness" (6).

I'm wondering if the Trump Judgment might fit the Noah story?

[Joseph Camosy]

Theurj,

You wrote:

Also the following from the introduction might be a message for our desire to continually categorize into ever more complex meta-systems. That the practice just might be to bring awareness into deeper contact with the unconscious via symbol rather than higher and more complex abstract categories. Just maybe.

The way around is the way through.  Any philosophical system or coherent categorization scheme must allow for iterative self-deconstruction (as well as for transgressive recontextualization).  The question then becomes where one "chooses" to stop the chain of signification.  To offer a geometric analogy, any element of a cube (taken itself as an object of inquiry and attention) can be seen as another entire cube.  Taken iteratively, we have fractal expansion to infinity.  This is just the way things are for human reason. 

However, where improvement CAN be made is that for any chosen domain or level or field of inquiry (where you choose to stop the infinite fractal chain of signification and thus make your object of inquiry), the categorization scheme needs to allow for a coherent circumambulation of the object of inquiry from a comprehensive set of orthogonal perspectives, for it is by this circumambulation through all the categories that we work to resolve the aporia or problem of the pairs of opposites.  My hypothesis is that with this orbiting, something can arise, constellate or happen.  My intuition tells me that this may be what Derrida was attempting, but I need to do more research in this area.

Now if you combine this fractal philosophical-geometric categorization scheme WITH symbolic imagery whose meanings are inexhaustible, THEN you have something.  :-)

Joe

theurj said:

To riff on Joseph's comment about God or the Real not fitting into categories, I offer this book for this thread: Jung and tarot: An archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols. There is a free Google book preview here. She chose the Marseilles deck because it does not have accompanying text to categorize the symbols into some system like the Golden Dawn or BOTA. Also the following from the introduction might be a message for our desire to continually categorize into ever more complex meta-systems. That the practice just might be to bring awareness into deeper contact with the unconscious via symbol rather than higher and more complex abstract categories. Just maybe.

[andrew]

Hey guys, thanks for showing some interest in this seedy little theistic thread, i appreciate that. Coincidentally, as i write this, i am sitting beside three books: The Hard Questions, by S. Piver; The Practice of Kindness; and, A Walk Through The Tarot, by Pollack. But, i do want the vig you you guys owe me for my amazing theological insights here! lol

I'd be interested in any further thoughts you might have on the Taroh as it relates to the story of Noah. 

Anyway, The God Jesus Matrix, has two foundational premises:

- one will always err when one tries to integrate God and Mammon. The human ego is too prone to delusion on this issue. The trading of goods and services must be premised on the collective good of the global commons and healthy maintenance of one of  God's houses- The Earth. Any teaching that tries to integrate God and Mammon, will fail in the end.

- the second premise is that the love of god will always be distorted and corrupted when anyone tries to limit that love to any ethnocentric group. 

[Joseph Camosy]

To follow up on this:

I'm wondering if the Trump Judgment might fit the Noah story?

The jist of what I have been saying is YES, the "Judgment" trump and all of the other trumps apply as well.    Images, being inexhaustible mysteries in their own right can be CHOSEN (via attraction, desire, reason, intuition, or affect) as your object of inquiry or entry point regarding the Noah narrative.  But then, as I wrote above, this now becomes the CENTER for a new circumambulation to take place - an orbiting through all the categories via orthogonal perspective taking.

HOW to conduct the circumambulation itself is another question.  Hillman would advise us to  "stick with the image," thus granting the psyche its autonomy by not trying to reduce it to something else such as a concept or complex, etc...

Joe

theurj said:

To riff on Joseph's comment about God or the Real not fitting into categories,

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here's a review of the film by the leader of the Center for Inquiry. He makes some good points, a few excerpted below.

"One of the persistent criticisms of the so-called New Atheists [...] is that many of their arguments, although directed against religious belief in general, are really relevant only for fundamentalists. Sure, if you interpret the Bible literally, God comes across as a homicidal, genocidal, misogynistic monster, but this crude understanding of scripture is held only by ignorant believers, who, at most, constitute a substantial minority of the faithful."

"Mmm, OK. Well, now there's the perfect opportunity for all those moderate religious leaders [...] to publicize their rejection of the simplistic, literal interpretation of scripture. [...] Indeed, one would think these religious leaders would feel obliged to repudiate the literal interpretation of the biblical story, lest the faithful misapprehend the true nature of God. [...] But we know this is not going to happen. [...] Unless they are leaders of denominations which have expressly moved away from reliance on scripture (e.g., the Unitarians) religious leaders generally keep quiet about their skepticism. Because the dirty little secret of moderate religious leaders is that their authority ultimately depends on the continued loyalty of the naïve believer, that is, the person who does accept these Bible stories more or less at face value, and it would not be prudent to have these believers begin to doubt scripture. [...] Without the authority of scripture to legitimize their positions, religious leaders are out of business."

Same can be said of the Republican Party, but that's another 'biblical' story.

[andrew]

It's not a tenet of the God Jesus Matrix, but my own personal opinion is that the worst thing to ever happen to god was religion! 

I am going to bracket this next part within the context of continued exploration of this topic in this thread. At some point in the churches history the clergy started to argue against what was common knowledge at the time of Jesus, that something happened in antiquity between humans and angels that stirred god to anger. The clergy started to argue that Genesis 6 was referencing the line of Seth. 

Here is a link that talks about this issue: 

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/110/

I make no connection to Mr Missler, nor do i endorse anything that he may believe about religion. I post it strictly in reference to this particular topic. I do believe myself, though, that Genesis 6 is referencing angels (light beings), that Jesus knew this to be true as he is of the same order; and that indeed, god is a psychopath if the Sethite version of events is true. Fortunately, God is not a psychopath, for if he were  we should all tell him to go fuck-off! What is true though, in my opinion, is that God's ways and nature are unfathomable, that even the angels don't really know what god is. That these beings co-exist amongst us in a multi-dimentional universe; and that, some of these light beings occasionally are prone to error, poor judgement , and regrettable decision making. It's true nevertheless, though, that god still loves these angels. Again, fortunately, in an infinite universe, there are always ways to correct any given circumstance. That in this case, the left hand path protocol was fully implemented. We even got ZEP out of the deal!What the future holds i couldn't really say; but i believe we live in a condition where our choices really do matter! That we could make better choices about how we live and treat each other and this would be enough to please the heart of god.

In the article the journalist says the movie is an accurate depiction of scripture. I haven't seen the film ( and probably won't) mainly because i am still very upset that The Wolf of Wall St. was made which would not have bothered me if someone in the Justice department had enough balls to prosecute these Wall St. bankers! Okay, i digress! Anyway, if the film only implies the Sethite version of Genesis then the film is full of shit , imo, of course!

Man, do i ever feel silly writing this crap!lol

[Edward theurj Berge]

"Man, do i ever feel silly writing this crap!"

I understand. When I was a Freemason and GD initiate they (and I) believed in this kind of crap too.

[andrew]

So there is hope for me after all! lol I'll consider this thread a purging! 

[andrew]

Fields of the Nephilim! Awesome, i discovered them about 10 years ago when i called what i am writing here The Nephilim Theory. 

This is another site i have found. He's one of the very few people on earth that i've come across who has walked a similar mental path as myself; as far as investigations along this line of inquiry.

http://reluctant-messenger.com

He posits that reincarnation was a plan that came into play to help redeem the souls of the nephilim. Myself, for some reason, never found reincarnation all that compelling; but this idea did kind of make sense to me.