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………….

[Layman Pascal]

1.

Thanks for the kind words about my improvised "mytho-colloquial" rendition.

Anyone with children will readily understand how parents, trying to explain abstractions to kids, will easily wander into territory of surreal and ludicrous "details" about the least important parts of any story! As if "boat architecture" and "zoo administration" were the central issues which the ancient seers were trying to pass along as esoteric spiritual food for pondering!

2.

Nonetheless, I have now seen the film and found it both moving (in parts) and a poor film (in parts). It was much more for children, much more "Neverending Story" than I anticipated. I thought it shone in some of its visual depictions and in its elucidation of the bio-cultural pathology common among Middle Eastern societies (when under stress immediately narrow your understanding of god, becoming willing to die and start plotting to kill girls "for their own good").

It also does a decent job of hinting at the uniquely Semitic concept of the "improvement of god through interaction with humans". The Jews, with their unique blend of emotion and argumentative linguistics, tell a long story about how the crazy, dangerous, "terrible boss" God is slowly made into a more stable and more ethical force through the bickering of prophetic wise-guys. This is a profound element.

3.

Perhaps the most generally useful aspect of the film will prove to be its visual presentation of scientific and evolutionary creation accompanied by a narration of Christian mythology. Have the two strands ever been run so close together in such a prominent public fashion?

4.

Now -- was religion the worst thing to happen to God?

I always distinguish between religion (the trans-genre coherence generated by cultural flourishing, characterized by a unique flavor, socially duplicating the personal function of spirituality and enhancing the ability of citizens to embodied the "excess power" produced by vital cultural harmony) and pseudo-religion (consisting of more or less culturally-pathological habits associated with the veneration of actual religious phenomenon from other cultures and time-periods).

If we make that essential distinction then religion is truly the living body of the Divine!

I've rambled enough. Just wanted to touch back in. Love & light.

[Joseph Camosy]

Layman writes:

It also does a decent job of hinting at the uniquely Semitic concept of the "improvement of god through interaction with humans". The Jews, with their unique blend of emotion and argumentative linguistics, tell a long story about how the crazy, dangerous, "terrible boss" God is slowly made into a more stable and more ethical force through the bickering of prophetic wise-guys. This is a profound element.

Jung does a fairly good job of explaining this in "Answer to Job."

Layman Pascal said:

[Layman Pascal]

Well, I'll have to take a peek. I only recently learned that Job is now believed to have been a piece of public theater (a la Festival of Dionysus) which was not transcribed into the Old Book for quite a while.

Having grown up with Jewish comedy I find it hard not to hear that irascible, faux-neurotic argumentation of Woody Allen, Jon Stewart, etc. even in figures like Abraham. The image of them roaming around the countryside, debating with the Big Other is just too easy. 

This is probably a good conversation in which to bring up Nietzsche's thorny assertion that the God of the New Testament is spiritually inferior to the God of the Old Testament because he has lost his capacity to deify and reflect the temperament of a people... and receded into abstraction, invisibility and a virtual lack of interest in the world. There is a strong streak of healthy "ishta guru yoga" the great pagan cultures -- even the monotheistic pagans. 

[andrew]

Hey there, Mr. Pascal! Well, on point number 4 i was being a tad facetious. Certainly, humans must be capable of LL gatherings where they share with one another brilliant ideas about their maker! Although, the cynic in me does think that this hasn't happened all that often. 

I was thinking about the ocean/wave metaphor today and it dawned on me that the ocean must have attributes of the waves. How could it be otherwise? How is it so impossible that the energy of all things doesn't think and feel in some way; albeit in a way the waves could never comprehend. 

At the very least, i think that Wilber should give serious consideration(re) to his UL stance only idea of god. I have noticed that the Integralites fall into two broad categories: those who are non-theistic and those who are sympathetic to some form of theism. Integral is far from conclusive on this issue and i hope that the Dem's in this movement don't project the climate change is undebatable gambit onto this issue. Sorry, won't work folks! Having said that, i am writing on this thread as a way to get this stuff out of my system and i am not asking anyone to believe a thing of what i write here. I will endeavour , however, as best i am able, to offer up for posterity, a complete explanation for every thing that has happened on this planet over the millennia.

Well, Christendom does God is dead pretty well! I've offered in the past that that is one of the reasons the west was able to transition to modernism, and beyond. 

Next up: megalithic stone builders!

[andrew]

Here is a link to the Noah story from the reluctant messenger:

http://reluctant-messenger.com/history10.htm

A note on that site: for anyone interested in exploring this line of inquiry, this site at the very least, is a one stop depository for most of histories books on this topic. You won't have to slug it out searching for this stuff in various libraries . I should mention that i get completely why he framed these ideas in a fictional format.

[Layman Pascal]

Integral provides a lot of general strong support for "2nd person" access to Divinity but that is balanced out by an equal or stronger desire to distance themselves from "merely mythical" spirituality. And if we add that to the tendency, among people who are sensitive to Causal and Nondual forms of Divinity, to be less actively interested in subtle forms (including souls & luminous deity forms) then we end up with a certain very natural minimization of "the person of God". There may even be some quite legitimate arguments as to why the ocean does not have the qualities of waves. 

But on the other hand, we should be extremely suspicious of any automatic reluctance in ourselves and others to "anthropomorphize" -- in the sense of a healthy, normal function of transference which operates to co-evoke the subtle agency of "peak sapience" for both individuals and cultural zones. 

I argue regularly that "no god" should be understood as a totally viable and peculiarly appropriate contemporary Name of God. We must start to unlearn the distinction between theism & non-theism... in order to work with the depth of both concepts. But that does not yet tell us how to make the best cultural and personal usage of the totemic and locally skewed "person" of the Divine. 

Using something like the Wilber-Combs lattice we would expect at least four types of potentially valid "divine personifications" indexed across a half-dozen cultural phases, adapted to the local cultural field's stylistic patterns and then manifesting in either a relatively healthy or relatively culturopathic form.

But that's a book waiting to be written... 

Now, about those megaliths?

[andrew]

Very nice elucidations, Mr Pascal! I have no quarrel per se; however, i do wish to point out that i have never come across overt terms like subtle, causal, or non-dual in the The Koran, The Bible, or the Torah.

Before i get to the megaliths, there are a few things i want to touch on here, as theurj brings them up in other threads. For the time being, anyone can check out Graham Hancock, David Icke, or Michael Tsarion. These guys have dome a fair amount of research on this topic although i believe that they all assert an E.T. hypothesis for this phenomenon.

Killer funny on the tutteji site! And that made me think of real estate. I posted a link on the Rifkin site about a young woman who builds small eco homes. According to some theists,, this woman, if she did not believe some specific version of god, would be fried and tormented in utter abject anguish for eternity for not believing in any specific version of this psychopathic god. Conversely, atheists quite correctly use this argument to deny any existence of god. This is an interesting gambit from both sides. Really? There is no other alternative? No other way to try and understand and make sense of what is going on here on this planet? Okay, Wilber tries! lol

There was a pick posted of Wilber's house. Now we can probably assume that Kenny owned that house and was free to do with it as he pleased. For the sake of this analogy, let's imagine that Kenny leased out the house for a year and that a huge party was thrown by the leassee's. Surely, Ken would be justified in seeking removal of these tenants; and probably, even restitution. Let's imagine even further that Kenny had the wherewithal and knowledge to even build this house. Surely, as the builder, and owner, he would have known every aspect of the science and technology needed to build this house and maintain it. He would also be smart enough to have had insurance, and would certainly have had protocol in place if any tenant did cause unwarranted damage to his home. 

I humble suggest that god is an awesome homebuilder! That god knows how to build homes and knows how to maintain them! And on occasion, when thieves and drunken braggarts move into one of god's houses, that there are protocols in place to deal with these regrettable occurrences. That god has withdrawn for an age is no specific argument against this owners existence. Occurrences have to be allowed to run there course; in the meantime, our choices and actions do mean something. 

In my opinion, it is not so much what one believes that matters to god; but rather, what resides in ones heart. And it is the heart that will usually dictate action. And what is needed now more than ever is some good gluten free (wheat) action! Enough of the tares!

[andrew]

Opps, the fallibility of it all! Obviously, the people partied so hard at Ken's place that they wrecked it! lol

Now, sure, one could argue that Ken would have never leased the place out in the first place. Nevertheless, owners do run into people who occasionally wreck their places. Or, sometimes people err in judgement and think people are kosher when in truth; some of these folks are a little bit shady. DA, Cohen, etc.

[Layman Pascal]

1.

The "Magic Books" of the Old Kingdoms are sources of great danger and great opportunity. We have carried them with us through history largely because they exhibit generalized utility. Like computers and phones they can used by almost anyone for almost any purpose. They are history, science, spirituality, mysticism, astrology, Law, romance, philosophy, adventure, poetry, etc. all in one. Consequently their God is blurred out between gross, subtle, causal and nondual. Only will time and depth of analysis do we discover that several specific things exists where a singular mass was previously invoked.

And (although the true Dionysian culture is trans-genre... not pre-genre) we should be attentive to the flavor and force of non-generic cultural artifacts as something which the future will and should contain.

2.

I am loathe to describe David Icke and Graham Hancock as "researchers" -- but I think they do promote and represent two things of great value

(a) certain un-integrated facts which fall outside of mainstream archaeo-history

(b) subtle realm supplementation for gaps and discrepancies in the gross record.

As you say,the "ET" hypothesis is crude, clumsy, unnecessary and unproven (NOT impossible). It is much simpler and more elegant and much more empowering to ask ourselves how human beings would have to have been in order to produce the same effects.

Esoteric societies giving rise to virtually superhuman "creators" seems significantly more sane and desirable as an hypothesis -- but it must address itself to both conventional and unconventional data-sets concerning megalith builders and other "doers and seers" of pre-antiquity.

3.

Our god (whom we have a voluntary role in artistically generating) OUGHT to be an "awesome homebuilder".

How else could he do us honor?

We require homes, and solutions to homelessnesss, and solutions to the home-ness of the World and the other planets. Our God must be a brilliant architect, community planner, designer, etc. Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright are just pale intimations of how awesome a builder our God "must" be!

Amen.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Perhaps check out Bryant's post on mytho-poetic thought? While we can retrofit mythical beliefs with our metaphorical and/or allegorical elaborations, most folks see the likes of Job and Noah as literal. And those folks think our mytho-poetics is just more Satan. It ain't going to 'help' them one bit, i.e. help them to not enact all the misanthropy, ethnocentrism, genocide etc. Mytho-poetics is for us educated folk to feed our own bubbles.

To phrase it in kennlingus, by what means do we get folks to develop past literal interpretations of the Bible, Koran etc.? At a certain point we tell children that Santa Claus isn't a real person but stands for the spirit of giving. At what point do we do the same with the Bible? If not, we get these folks in government trying to turn back the progress we've made in terms of human rights, separation of church and state, and on and on. Did you see the recent Supreme Corp ruling on $ = speech? And how they'll likely give corp's religion to deny contraception?

[Edward theurj Berge]

To answer my own question above, we can still leave people to believe whatever they want, including a literal belief in the Bible. But we create law to prevent them from imposing those beliefs on others. And we create law by electing representatives committed to progressive laws like separation of church and state, equal rights, etc. And we elect those kinds of people by framing our ideas in such a way as to manipulate the uninformed majority of voters. Even those who register Democrat, who are often poor or lower-middle class, struggling to get by and have no time for education or 'self-development.'

Those of us with the rare opportunity for things like mytho-poetic reflection then need to get politically active to support ideas and candidates that keep progressing. And fight like hell those that don't, or we will get reenactments of Noah, to wit, the regressive takeover of Congress and the Supreme Corp, and laws giving corps religion. Only now the Noah story is drowning most of us in poverty, disease, hunger, depression, hopelessness. Have you seen the Ryan budget? There is the mytho-poetic result of literal belief in the Bible and/or other metaphysical structures (like capitalism). Glory be unto God and the rich, and damn the rest of us lazy, fallen bastards who get what we deserve.

[andrew]

Yes, i'm aware of the recent ruling and it is truly sickening.

I'll focus on points of agreement first. We both seem to be in agreement that traditional metaphysics as its been told to humans through their religions is regressive, hostile to civil society, and is full of all manner of genocide and atrocity.

That modern metaphysics has become a carbon copy of the old ways once again. I have pointed out that the structure of global finance is indeed, symbolically, the same as the old roman church. 

I have tried to show that the god i've experienced in my life has no quarrel with postmodern values. Egalitarianism, gender equality, dignity and respect to those of differing sexual proclivity, care of the house called earth, to name but a few. The reason i am able to wiggle this thread in on this site is because postmodernism correctly asserts that we can't really know the true nature of reality. And, if one asserts that they are 100% sure of the nature of reality, then, they have a blind spot in their psyche and are not enacting from a post modern awareness. 

Obviously, this thread is more problematic when dealing with post metaphysics. Here, i lose the argument, and, i have no quarrel with that; but if, traditional metaphysics has always misrepresented god; then an alternative metaphysics could, possibly, be considered. That is what i am aiming at here. 

Maybe a dart board analogy might help. I personally don't fault people because they think that their particular dart hits the bulls-eye of truth. Wilber dart thinks so; so do the privileged access traditions ; hell, Icke thinks his dart has hit the mark; atheists think their darts are the most friggin' rad! So, why can't i, for posterity, lay out my claim and throw my dart at the board, too!

So, god is the keeper of the estate, and all those who seek 'him' in goodwill and charity will find rest for their soul. That the airplane called god has not mysteriously vanished from the sky never to be found again as some would have us all believe; that we share this earth with truly magnificent light beings who have always been here; that at certain times and places we share this earth with beings who are corrupted because of regrettable acts by some of these light beings; that there is a plan in place for the redemption of these souls; that there has and always were protocols in place to deal with any such circumstance; that when traditional metaphysics proffered ethnocentric versions of god; those versions were corruptions of the consequence of the left hand path protocols; that when traditional metaphysics proffered the love of god for a chosen few they  erred and were walking the left hand path; that withdrawal for an age is no proof of god's non-existence.

And how hard has it been to dupe the talking monkey you ask? Only two consistent lies: that god is not good ( unless we redefine good as being a psychopath) and that god doesn't exist!