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………….

[Edward theurj Berge]

I'm actually with you on 'spirit' but not so much 'god,' as the latter carries all that ethnocentric and metaphysical baggage. Spirit is one of the 3 main words of this forum, but the other two words ground it.* Also see this post and following on my Christian comrade Caputo. Yes, on can even be Christian but in a postmetaphysical way.

So while I'm with you on postmetaphysical religion some of what you propose still adheres to the metaphysical way, like this notion of god as a personal sovereign. And light beings that can be devoid of bodies. And divine plans from some Platonic realm.

Speaking of metaphysics, light is not a source but an effect of material processes. And no, light is not an equal and complementary expression to embodiment, like spirit to matter, or left to right hand quadrants. There are material sources that do not produce any light, like black holes. The whole wesoteric tradition is based on the metaphyiscal premise of Light as source. We had a member who has since left very much into this light as metaphysical god-source. Even the Bible does not claim light as the source. In the beginning "darkness was upon the face of the deep." Light came later.

* I like how Sam Harris, an avowed a-theist who meditates and still promotes spirituality, notes that the root of the word spirit is breath. A very embodied spirit indeed.

[andrew]

I don't have a lot of attachment to my theory Edward. It's not my intention to disrupt this site. As granted, i will keep my theological musings on this thread only. It should only take me another couple of weeks to finish every thing i want to say here, and i'm done with it.

I never claimed, though, that light was the source of all things. I've clearly stated that god is unfathomable. That not even the angels know what god is. But, it's not my wish to get into pointless disputes over things that can't be known at this point in time.

BTW., Sammy is right about the root of the word spirit, imo. That meditation offers exceptional in sight into the nature of the human mind. Imo, though, it offers inconclusive evidence for god's existence or non-existence.

Here is a link to just one of the atrocities committed by our elites:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/American_Indian_Holocaust

I post this to hi-light the fact that those in power don't value human life or the earth in general. 

This guy posts over at truth dig and he sums it up pretty well:

Why "skyscrapers" anyway, though? The height of proposed wooden buildings doesn't appear to be any factor at-all in the projected "efficiencies" described here. Is it just more phallo-centric expressions of the idiotic "dominance" paradigm?

Anyhow, our Standing Relatives' Lives are their own, as is the Place they have in Earth's Whole Living Arrangement. The "civilized" conceit to-the-contrary-notwithstanding, Trees' Lives are not 'disposable' at the whims of tame two-leggeds....without their having to 'experience' the natural consequences of such relentlessly "self"-referential folly, anyhow. So cutting Trees down and sawing them up, just so domesticated Humans can maybe prolong for awhile the agony of the Planet-wasting "civilization" disease in its terminal throes, is only more evidence of how inextricably so many are entangled in the "self"-induced illusion of "superiority

[Edward theurj Berge]

I continue to support you in saying what you want. But I must still question it. And show that one can accept religion and even Christianity without that certain metaphysics.

Perhaps this thread based on a book Keller edited might be of help. Therein a relation is shown between religious idealism (“false unifications”) and conservative polity. And here's Keller from the first post in this thread:

"Such progressivism does not need consensus on whether God is the name of the possible, its source or its realization, whether God is omnipotent, weak or alluring. It does need concurrence on the formal criteria of progress: the actualization of social, ecological and planetary relations of justice with sustainability. Such rhizomatic radicality is not about uprooting our traditions but about exposing them to our confounding togetherness—as species, peoples, genders, sexualities, races, religions, even—Lord help us—our Christianities. [...] The more theology absorbs the methods of deconstruction and pluralism, the more the opposition between secularism and religion can itself be deconstructed. And as Jim Wallis has pointed out, 'the secular left will give up its hostility to religion and spirituality, or it will die.' And this is politically crucial. For that hostility contributes to an evangelical stereotype about Godless humanists, etc. But the more we heal that hostility, the less we constructive theologians sound like Christians to evangelicals."

And this from Keller on Faber on god as differential nondualism:

“When he collates differance with divinity […] this difference signifies a self-deconstructing otherness. Yet is does not destroy rationality, or even the categorial scheme. […] Faber in this way continues the Whiteheadian struggle to capture in language a difference between God and the world, or one and the other, without reinscribing the settled boundary between them—or erasing their difference. This differential nondualism [...] translates for him into 'God's in/difference.' One must not lose that inaudible slash, else 'in/difference' will be confused with the chilling apatheia. […] Thus 'this negative assertion paradoxically requires that because God is indeed nothing beyond all differences, God thus appears only in differences.' […] Faber's divine in/difference morphs into difference itself, the difference so radical as to be comprised by the 'essential relationality' of all differences” (190).

In the next post Faber concurs:

"From Faber's chapter he notes that what is necessary “after the ecologicial death of God [is] the mystical move of becoming-animal, becoming multiplicity. This unio mystica […] [is] the consummation of all unity into the realm of multiplicity. […] It is the khoric realm of a paradox where we have to go through divergences, bifurcations, and antinomies all at once. […] In this mystical in/difference, everything is only in difference” (227-28).

Also check out Keller's Face of the Deep, where she re-writes the creation story from Genesis. Caputo used it in the following from p. 2 this thread:

"The opening verses of Genesis make no use whatever of a metaphysical distinction between an eternal, infinite and supersensible being creating finite, temporal being, which is an un-Hebraic conception that is unconceivable outside of the two-worlds schema that Christianity inherited from Hellenistic metaphysics."

"Caputo, in his chapter of TWOG “The Beautiful Risk of Creation,” reflects on the Genesis myth. He uses Catherine Keller's Face of the Deep to show how herstory [in history] is left out. She refutes creatio ex nihilio and instead posits creatio ex profundis. In the former's beginning something was created from nothing. In the latter there was already something there, and that something, according to the Bible itself, was the barren earth, the darkness over the deep waters and the restless air. It is from these elements that Elohim molded, as with clay, into lifeforms. Subsequent Christian interpreters completely left out these primal elements in their narrative, instead reducing them to 'nothing.' And Keller ascribes the feminine to these primal elements, hence, the elimination of herstory by the later, second half of the second-century, metaphysical creatio ex nihilios."

[andrew]

I appreciate your being respectful here theurj. I would not argue against 100 or so years of academia kicking the crap out of god! lol I do also wish to point out that this thread is no where anti-religion per se. Just like Wilber, though, it alludes to the religions being somewhat correct and somewhat incorrect . Of course, in this thread, what's true and false about the traditions is being questioned.

I would also add that this thread completely agrees with archetypal  energies, allegories, myth, analogy, fable and so on. That these are all integral to our past religious experience. However, it differs in that it still concedes the possibility of home ownership. Ironically, a foundational premise globally that is being denied to god. And for the purposes of this thread, humanity couldn't ask for a better landlord, and it's a tragedy that some of the tenants here think they are doing god some kind of favour when they commit all manner of atrocity.

I was thinking about starting a thread about why conditions on this earth don't seem to be any better even with 50 years of feminine empowerment. It looks, somewhat, that when women get into positions of power, they seem to be behaving no differently  than ye old phallocentrics.. Perhaps that's a thread you might start? I would ask any women reading to read that sentence carefully . Positions of power being the operative words.

[Balder]

Jay Michaelson, author of Evolving Dharma and Polytheism and Nonduality, has a new article on the Noah film.

[andrew]

This one too:

http://forward.com/articles/195386/why-evangelical-christians-are-r...

I can get a sense of what Aronofsky did with the story.

[andrew]

Here are some links to rational theology:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theology

Women would not have what they have today if it were not for Christian suffrage. This proves that Christian's can be progressive but have in recent decades been corrupted by their clergy on two main issues: money and environment. 

I liked the part towards  the end where they mention that any alternate metaphysics of these traditions will not be taken to too kindly. No shit! It's their mean psychopathic god or no god!

[andrew]

An Integral tangent here:

if we say that modernism deconstructed the old myths and magic books; and theorize that a pre-postmodern learned to reinterpret the myths to include egalitarianism, feminism, ecology, etc., and then; postmodernism realized it HAS to acknowledge space for the divine and integrates the myth lessons of pre-postmodernism; then, post-post modernism ought not; in my opinion, reduce god to one quadrant; but rather, include god in all quadrants; moreover, it could go further and theorize that the quadrants are multi-dimensional and that god pervades that space, also. Well, then, imo, one is really starting to honour the idea of god at that point. Throughout this process we could come to realize notions of sin and immorality as being one of healthy and unhealthy choices. Even at this space we could still say it's a sin to consciously pass on a STD to someone, as one example. And of course, i could give countless more examples. 

[Layman Pascal]

"God" exists in all quadrants for every theorist... whenever they use that word to refer to something which necessarily forms part (foundational & aspirational) of all quadrants. For example: Ultimacy, Divinity, Reality Itself.

"God" exists only in one quadrant for every person who uses that word to refer to something which is particular to one quadrant. For example: Ultimate Self, Ultimate Other, Supreme Energy, Supreme Value.

"God" exists as a provocative-plaything-and-perpetual-object-of-half-illuminating discussion for everyone who does not specify which referent they connect with that word.

Goals of a Higher Discussion on "God":

1. Encourage People to Clarify Their Referents for Their Own Terms

2. Embrace the Historical Tangle Associated with First Tier Superconcepts (e.g. God)

3. Clarify the Tangle by illuminating its structural subcomponents. Deconstruct the realities and perspectives which could contribute... and discover more of these.

4. Intentionally converge all deconstructed elements into a maximally coherent and efficient new superstructural concept.

5. Do all of these things perpetually. 

[andrew]

Noah was a gnostic! For some reason i find this funny.

http://drbrianmattson.com/journal/2014/3/31/sympathy-for-the-devil

For the record, just as this thread is not about theosophy, it is also not about gnosticism with its privileged access philosophies.

[13w6cecaz7s7h]

andrew said:

Noah was a gnostic! For some reason i find this funny.

http://drbrianmattson.com/journal/2014/3/31/sympathy-for-the-devil

For the record, just as this thread is not about theosophy, it is also not about gnosticism with its privileged access philosophies.

yeah very funny indeed ,especially since few "experts" only seemed to notice . in any case noah never lived whether as gnostic or biblical  dude , i mean have you never heard of archaeology ?? there has never been abraham either or all the other bible characters . its all a fairy tale , thats the scientific fact as of now and the newest archaelogical evidence straight out of the "holy" land proves it. its all myth , clever,  crafty,.... for sure but ....myth nevertheless

so any bible discussions need to take the evidence of archaeology into account ,especially of atheist archaeologist like these here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t440bxhn1qA

or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed

or it rests  just as a lot of fantasy talk .

[andrew]

Some angels for you Max Miller: 

Question: if we assume Aronofsky to be an atheist/monied republican like Zappa, with access to integral post metaphysical knowledge, then why would he choose a rather obscure pre-modern belief system(gnosticism) to frame this biblical story?
max miller said:

andrew said:

Noah was a gnostic! For some reason i find this funny.

http://drbrianmattson.com/journal/2014/3/31/sympathy-for-the-devil

For the record, just as this thread is not about theosophy, it is also not about gnosticism with its privileged access philosophies.

yeah very funny indeed ,especially since few "experts" only seemed to notice . in any case noah never lived whether as gnostic or biblical  dude , i mean have you never heard of archaeology ?? there has never been abraham either or all the other bible characters . its all a fairy tale , thats the scientific fact as of now and the newest archaelogical evidence straight out of the "holy" land proves it. its all myth , clever,  crafty,.... for sure but ....myth nevertheless

so any bible discussions need to take the evidence of archaeology into account ,especially of atheist archaeologist like these here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t440bxhn1qA

or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed

or it rests  just as a lot of fantasy talk .