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]

Andrew said, " just call me Noah!" LMAO.

The rest of the world said, " dude! You are a friggin' narcissist!"

Okay, okay, I truly get why many people would say this! But alas, please allow me to expand on why this is NOT an accurate assessment of that initial statement. But first, let's define narcissism: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism

Clearly, the initial statement in itself is not narcissistic by these definitions. No where is the theology outlined in this thread focused on me. There is nothing particularly special about me; I have not argued for any type of spiritual privileged access, I claim no unique spiritual abilities; I've not asked for money; nothing is being sold by me. 

In this thread I've argued that God exists and that ALL things exist and have their source  in God. EVERYTHING! Good, evil, the whole bloody thing exists in and be cause of God. When terrible things happen it is because God wills it to happen. In this thread though, I've argued that the evil that happens is not directly GOD doing it per se; but rather, God allowing for the limited freewill that humans have. Let me give you a personal analogy from my business this week. My customer asked me to repaint his garage floor and I was reluctant as i know there is a high failure rate with that particular substrate. I asked this customer to please hire out the removal of the previous finish by a pro cleaning company and then I would apply a two part epoxy. On the Monday when I went back to work I found he had went and bought some do it yourself stripper and a new technology one part epoxy. Because I am doing a huge project for him I agreed to do all this project his way but I kind of new something would not go well. The stripper worked as directed but the colour they chose for this one part epoxy ended up making this product to go on like coloured kool-aid. IOW's it did not cover and it is only  spec'd for 2 coats maximum. The point being: I knew in advance that his choice to not follow my PRO instructions would lead to failure but out of respect for his choice I proceeded anyway. This IS exactly the situation God is in when dealing with sentient beings that have types of freewill. As I've explained though--there are protocols in place to deal with ALL the complexities of life on this planet and in the universe/s.

Now let us explore who believes  that god exists and that god is good today. And we shall not redefine good and perhaps even use a good father metaphor. We can see that by these standards Christianity does not believe in this God; nor does Islam ( we know that a good father only chastises his children for correction; we know good fathers are not bigots); nor does Judaism as we know good fathers don't use their children to make examples of. Buddhism does not believe in a God so they don't rate either by the standard I laid out. Atheists obviously can't rate here. This covers a HUGE percentage of people alive today who don't believe in God in the two specific ways I defined. The closest I can see to being close is Hinduism as they do account for the goodness of God and perceived reincarnation as a possible rational way of dealing with human choice and action. But that religion in general does not respect woman in the way God would want and has offered up a terrible system in practice when it comes to the idea of reincarnation: the caste system. So, I would argue that only a very small percentage of that demographic even comes close to meeting the two criteria I laid out. It seems indeed, that there are very very few people alive today who believe in God as laid out here. 

And just for fun : 

HELP WANTED: 

it's a job that will last for a thousand years cleaning up the bloody mess humanity has made out of their terrible choices on this planet. There is no pay per se, but the bread will sustain you and you will be very very pleased with its taste and energy giving qualities. Yes, you will need it! You must be willing to get along with all people and you will have already shown a willingness to do this in your life. This is an anti-capitalist venture, period! Please leave that baggage at the door!

[Layman Pascal]

I saw a do-it-yourself stripper once.  Wild.  Red-haired.  But she didn't work as directed.  Something about having "free will".  I left disappointed but wearing 2 coats (maximum).  

By my definitions there are no non-believers in God -- although there are sectarian infidels who believe that it is possible to have different beliefs on this subject.  To "have no Gods before Me" is to under "Me" as something which exceeds the mundane issue of having different opinions.  Anyone with a soul or a culture has God -- the quadrant-exceeding, multi-ontological apex signifier of existential surplus.

Piety (which is a kind of optimism necessary for personal and social well-being, the attitudinal root of participatory conviviality and progressive intention) requires us to reference all things to the Apex Reference ("God").  That includes disasters.  But we must also have a theodicy -- a way of having a good conscience despite evil things.  So, one way or another, we have to attribute evil to God and also exonerate God in order to have healthy culture.

But I pause to remind everyone that "No God" is a perfectly acceptable Name of God.  

What about the free will / total knowing thing?  Well, we first have to make sure that we are not fools in the sense of imagining that the future exists.  Only the present exists.  There is no "place" for the future or past to be.  So even an omnipotent being does not know what does not exist.  Or rather he knows that it does not exist.  Thus God must not be the reader who has skipped ahead in the Magical Book of the World (as is natural to assume when print literacy dominates human society) but rather the potential coherence of the total resonating intelligence of the currently existing multidimensional complexity.  The maximal description of the emergence from current tendencies.  God knows that dropped rocks will fall on the Earth.  In that same sense God knows what the hell you might be up to.  But these are anticipatory tracks.  In our Crowley mode we might think of them as "true will" tracks.  And yet under the conditions of complexity it is not possible for any system to cross the "threshold of computational equivalence" and become the future perfect legislator of any other system.  We are full of surprises. This is a limited free will. And our moral well-being behooves us to embrace at least a limited notion of unpredicted responsiblity.  

To one who asks:

How do I know God exists?  Or that God is Good?

We may well answer:

It would be stupid to have faith in the "one who may or may not exist and might not be good" but it would be even dumber to not have faith in "the self-existing and implicitly good one".  Only the God who is God by your own definition has any validity.  A lot of dudes like Descartes can be theologically redeemed if we understand them in this fashion.

As for Hinduism -- there is no disrespect for women that must be understood within it.  Rather it is build on top of misogynistic and anti-life problems in the social and domestic life.  There is a nail in its tire -- not a problem with the blueprints of the car.  Catholicism has a problem with molesting boys.  Mohemmadens have a problem with blowing people up and shame-killings.  Russian are dicks.  There are cultural problems all over but they are not, I would say, being unpacked from the mythology and religion of the people.  Their religiosity is a function of their humanity.  Where they are inhuman or thwarted in their humanity they behave irreligiously no matter what they pay lip service to.

Amen.

[andrew]

Don't worry Layman, I am completely grounded in Camus, Hemingway, McCarthy, etc., and have been for a very long time! It is not my intention here to offer anybody hope! lol

But the cat came back! 

Hallelujah!

P.S. I liked Crowley best when he was climbing mountains!

[andrew]

We love coincidences here on the Noah thread! We've pointed out that the myth of angels and their knowledge correlates to human technological advancement; that population explosions correlate to angelic beings in human forum mating with the talking monkey. Now we also know that the myths state the the angels are celestial ( multi-dimentional ) bookkeepers ! That they are profilers! That there isn't a hair on your head that God doesn't know about because of the astute profiling ability of these beings! And lo and behold; what does technology come up with in 100 years? The MIP-civ! 

WOW! Now say that backwards!

[Edward theurj Berge]

And the third industrial revolution of the Commons. In common parlance, so to speak, where hydrogen is the first born of the Big Bangers (formerly known as the Elohim).

[andrew]

Oh come now Edward and be witness to the symbol between Jesus H (and) Christ! That H is also the first letter in Halo is another remarkable coincidence! lol

[Edward theurj Berge]

And Hellfire!

[Edward theurj Berge]

You've been living like a little girl
In the middle of your little world
And your mind, your tiny mind
You know you've really been so blind
Now's your time to burn your mind
You're falling far too far behind

[andrew]

I see your imaginary pagan fire devil with a 300 foot wall of ice: 

and everyone knows there are only Wildlings north of the wall………………...