I’m getting so goddamned bored with my life that I think I better concentrate on getting in touch with God, for the thrill of it. What could be more exciting than being a prophet?
There are just too many theories of him out there, though.My iron rule is: I can never accept a God in whom I do not believe rationally. A lot of these theories fail, by that criterion. Badly. Embarrassingly.
…………………………………………………………..
The only one that doesn’t is Alfred North Whitehead’s. Math genius turned philosopher. Wrote the last great metaphysical systematic theory of Everything.
A genius who well knew the Einsteinian paradigm shift. And knew his quantum physics.
Because he lived through their intitiation & early development.
………………………………………………………….
To get to know this guy, you must read the invaluable Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, conversations he had with a journalist while teaching at Harvard.
To make sure he’s o.k. in the head, in his personal life.
These dialogues were held mostly at student-faculty get togethers he & his devoted wife held at their home, serving yummy baked goods & tea, mostly. They are the words of a life-long tee-totaler whose reputation is cleaner than any other other philosopher’s.
§ “There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.
§
§ The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.
§
§
§ Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of the infinitude.
§ Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment in recognition of the pattern.
§ A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.
§ Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion.
§ Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by our bodily experience.
Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies;
we could not very well have civilized life without clothes,
but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.
§
§ No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not
§ act on some sort of high, idealistic motives,
§ and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
§ ………………………………………………….
His books are much underapprecitated, I feel.
I once in awhile get the odd idea that they somehow solve all my intellectual difficulties .
…………………………………………………………
His god is , do not laugh, bipolar.
Having a physical and a mental “pole”…
The mental provides all potentialities, all possibilities, but in a kind of …abstract way.Not actual.
The physical is an experimenter who uses his creatures---whom he himself did not create --- to spy on, get inside them, experience what they do, so as to become actual & conscious himself.
…………………………………………………………….
No, god didn’t create the universe. Or himself. He was the “first accident of Creativity”, the Ultimate.
What’s his game? Intensity of experience. For himself. To achieve this, he sucks in every thing, every person’s, immediate experience, savors and enjoys it, and sends it back, purified. All the “time”, everywhere, forever.
He evolves along with us in his actuality. His potentiality, consisting of all possible potentials which he shares freely with his “creatures”, sort of inviting them to partake of them, is eternal.
…………………………………………………………………………………
In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence.
…………………………………………………………………….
Thus the universe is to be conceived as attaining the active self-expression
of its own variety of opposites of its own freedom and its own necessity,
of its own multiplicity and its own unity,
of its own imperfection and its own perfection.
All the opposites are elements in the nature of things, and are incorrigibly there.
The concept of God is the way in which we understand this incredible fact that what cannot be, yet is.
………………………………………………………………………
And to him, it was just a concept. God.
God had one purpose for Whitehead: to explain , to justify his metaphysical mutterings by being somehow necessary, intellectually…for the whole system to hold together….
……………………………………………………………………………..
I have no intention of proselytzing…I just like this conception…
God as ground of our being, guarantor, and also our constant compainon & sufferer. Sort of fatherly.
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Natalie K. Munden
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Comments
You and him glue.
You glue fallen hair.
Thank you for glue
You 'hold things'`
and we ponder`
together. Yes.
`
I am gone.
I'm thirsty.
Buy, ay wino.
`
No tease Kerry?
I tried to comment.
I get these "squares"`
`
Then- No comment.
`
Every comments sticks
It just sits on the scroll.
No chew Red Mule Baci.
Tobacco- if swallowed?
You no get ER/and ER.
You get tummy\heaves.
`
a editor bites James M.E.
on his knee.
because James M.E. burp,
and has gross bah hiccups.
`
in the shower
the editor smiles, finding
one brown hair
`
`
Beware though.. I have just done a piece for tomorrow on Celibacy for another 'channel" and the God people are hanging their hats up there..
“I am awaiting a faithful "Young in Spirit" lady to join with me in the following of our Heavenly Father. Our relationship would be to grow close and develop a "till death do us part" celibate union. Looking 4ward 2 being with an active and attractive lady of CHRIST!”
Sorry but Celibacy is not the new black for me but God will always be the colour in my life.
HUGGGGGG
since he saved my life in the war.
he carried me 20 miles in his briefcase,
easily negotiating borders of strife & suspicious
atheistic soldiers wanting to shoot a theist.
a.n. could talk his way out of a plastcic bag.
which is where he, ironically, ended up,
alas. a barnes & noble bag,
brung home for all the
wrong reasons, about
15 yrs ago or so.
jane; whitehead's god crys, sighs, laughs his ass off,
gets bored, gets tricky, trying to "lure" (al's word)
us into more exuberant life.
linda: whitehead, of course, agreed with you.
he said, "religion is a solitary pursuit"
whitehead's god, when sending it back "purified"
has no say over whether we act or learn on it.
purification doesn't mean anything moral,
dont worry...it means INTENSITY.
but you know who said all knowledge begins
with emotion.
ash: yeah, he is a hidden treasure in the canon.
he would not wish anyone to defer to him.
he believed in process.
all is process.
truth is
something arrived at in flux...
the "eternal things" are NOT truths, just...
possibilities... potentialities...
A. North never practiced it! He had a devoted lovely
firecracker of a wife who jazzed up his mild ways...
taught him how to enjoy life.
Can you flesh that out a bit, James. I really do not understand what you mean by “believe rationally.”
In the context of “believing in gods”…how can there be anything rational?
And “accept” a god?
It seems one either chooses to “accept” that a particular god (or description of a god) is correct…or chooses to “accept” that a particular god (or description of a god) is not correct.
Since there is damn near nothing to go on…I do not see how “rational” actually comes into the picture. But if you are willing to share, I would love to hear more from you on the subject.
Whitehead was immersed in religion throughout his life and the pattern of a god with intent inbuilt into his nerve system, it seems, inevitably imposed itself on his view of the universe and so it bacame fundamental in his outlook. Like a very comfortable upholstered armchair with all the comforts of a standard cultural system he settles the universe into it and finds it safe and very pleasing. Like that abstract of a face which is not a face, a god controlled or even present in the universe is not observable to the careful mind. There is no doubt that there are predictable interactions between energy and matter and those predictable interactions form patterns in observant minds but to generalize that into an anthropological artifact labeled god is more than I can accept. It is putting a face into a circle with dots and lines.
me the photographer walks main street looking for the elusive James E.
smile.
Rated.
http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/indonesian-arrested-not-believing-god-033823599.html
A man in Indonesia has been arrested and possibly sentenced to 5 years in prison for not believing in God. People can be very fierce in their refusal to face the fact that the universe has no care about the existence of humanity. If a creature does not fit the environment, it ceases to exist and is turned back into the raw materials to create a creature that does fit. It's just a matter of mechanics. An inferior part is discarded. No doubt that's a very brutal way to solve problems but it seems to work amazingly well and it has nothing to do with good or evil. People don't like the idea that they are not somehow special and they do terrible things to people who point that out.
"Process theology." They say. Makes sense to me.
Have you looked at Religious Science/Earnest Holmes? http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Science_of_Mind.html?id=Y45W8kh25FMC
Not a Harvard guy, but I like the way he puts a lot of things. "God is part of us, but we are not all that God is."
I have trouble thinking about God like a Father. I'm more into the Holy Spirit.
Reason and rationality are just methods of persuasion. They aren't particularly good methods of creating meaningful experience, which is what holds sway with me. I hope you can experience getting a little more in touch with God. I think it's a good thing to aim for.
attempt using as templates to rule our specific moment, dipping our fingers into this hot gooey stuff as all get out truth, then assemble our world of meaning, our art, if you will.
Do we come full circle to play creator; we must, as the world we see is immeasurably awful -- the ghouls in Washington, the faceless corporate fools, issuing their control of worlds that they can not know, the whole deal that makes us want to sketch lines on our personal caves, make that fire -- and in our dozing near slumber, look at these scrawled lines and measure the world around us ....only to be awakened by a threat and decide to add -- or delete -- these drawings, this stab into the infinite that is our measure of truth, balanced by our emotions, thought and filtered sense of what we think we see that just may well touch another.
Acts of love? Hope? Blind faith?
"You don't have to yell, Jim," God whispers gently in his ear, startling him. "I'm right here. I always have been."
I'm not not making fun of you. I just don't understand your 'rational' rationale. I could never have found him or him me if I took your approach. My priest said something I liked the other day. He said science is one way of knowing; faith is another way. I can't explain or persuade and I'd never try to, but the way I feel about it is it's like an empty, unsatisfying feeling deep inside that nothing can fill, not food or sex or drugs or anything else; when you've tried everything and that feeling's still there, it's because he's been waiting patiently for you to find him. Or as C.S. Lewis more elegantly put it: “If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
Alfred North Whitehead sounds like an amazing man. Fun too. But why go through others; why use their experiences. Why not go directly to the source? Ask him if he's there.
HOWEVER, since I feel about CS Lewis the way you feel about Whitehead, here's more (re. Christianity):
I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it. That is not the point at which Faith comes in. Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.
Burgess,Christine Deleon, The Cameleon,Dillard
I enjoyed this piece and will check out this gentleman. Thank you for sharing him with us.
When I was dying, there was a bluegrass song I used to sing a lot "I hear the angels calling through heavens open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore." That's how I felt - half in this world and half in the next. I was peaceful, and I got taken care of in some extremely improbable and wonderful ways. That has strengthened my faith a lot.
I like all the religions, especially Hinduism, Christianity, and Shinto. Like Buddhism, Judaism, and Native American-ism, too. Very much. Sufism, yep. I could go on but I won't bore you (I hope).
When I see people being kind and charitable, they are religious to me. Organized religion is such a good place for people to hide that are evil deviants of all stripes. Sometimes people are so gullible. So, I don't care who people say they are, when I hear them spouting hatred and cruelty, I say, they're off my list.
I'm a Jungian, and Carl Gustav Jung said that God exists and has a shadow, just like all people do. That makes a lot of sense to me. Zoroastrianism has two Gods - one good and one evil. That makes a lot of sense to me, too.
Oh - and I believe that God is female and male. That only makes sense, doesn't it?
Again, thanks for the post.
I usually don't feel 100% comfortable with any religion or philosophy. I believe God gave us brains, and emotions, etc. in order to use them.
I believe we know vastly more than we can access just by thinking. We routinely access all kinds of stuff intuitively. Now, we can examine these intuitions rationally until we forget to breathe and we'll likely only scratch the surface or else oversimplify, because intuition is layers and layers deep. Intuition contains elements of instinct, which has come to us in our DNA over the centuries. It has elements of stuff we read and hear and hear about and think about and pick up snippets of from hither and thither, all of it matriculating into the soup that has a way of separating the crap from the cream - now that's where the mystery comes in that you MUST have faith in or we'll extract it from you inquisitorily with red hot pliers and other vays to mek you tawk. My guess is the "way of separating the crap from the cream" is what is commonly called a "bullshit detector." new graf.
Now, it is my believe, based on a faith I freely divulge here without need of red hot pliers or other vays to mek me tawk, that intuition and strictly rational analysis interact continually, and the occasional conclusions resulting from this interaction eventually move into the soup for testing and acceptance or rejection, most likely out of sight of our furiously rational scrutiny. Awright, OK OK OK (thanks, Leo) this is where I make my pitch with the collection plate: new graf.
This soup, if it isn't Gawd his/her self, is our liaison with a collective unconscious, a common soup of intuition that can be found in the basic tenets of the world's great religions, which is either the next level of reaching The Light or is in fact The Light. As you may have surmised by now I could carry these steps on and on perhaps to infinity but to no more enlightening end than merely a repetition of The Light over and over until someone flips off my switch. new graf.
Is The Light Love, as we hear from myriad sources again and again? I'm inclined to believe it is, if only because without this expansive-yet-variably definable concept we'd be pretty lonely and frightened little folk, would we not? And we do some pretty stupid, silly and horrific things to each other when this concept is disregarded. So love is not only one of those vital core values, it is THE core value. Admit this or ve vill get out ze red hot pliers, no? new graf.
So why and how do I pray to this soup I (and you had better) call Love? It can't hear me or do anything to make me rich or well or save me from evil. It's just an idea. Big deal. But I do and it does, help me. I think maybe because the soup and my DNA talk to each other. We know our minds are capable of vastly more than most of us can apply at any given time, especially if we try. In fact, the harder we try sometimes the harder applying our minds effectively seems to get. When I reach these imbroglios I become almost panicky and revert to one of my inner children, the one that calls for his mommy and daddy when things get really scary. I'd suck my thumb if I could be sure it hadn't recently been somewhere of questionable hygiene. Instead I call upon my inner parents, my inner Gawd, that Gawd of Love that loves me and everyone else. And then I feel better. If I'm in bed trying to get to sleep I usually soon fall into a peaceful sleep. If it's morning and I don't want to get up, my inner Gawd, if called upon, gives me a shot of energy and up I get, itching to get to this computer to connect with the world of words and the people who use them. last graf.
Why use the word "Gawd?" Oh, I dunno. I could pray to my Inner Soup Which is Closer to The Light Than Any Other Way I Can Imagine, I suppose. Gawd's more of a code word, I guess. OK? OK? OK? So mote it be.
This particularly intrigues me:
"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil."
have stimulated the great erudite of OS
as usual you are the instigator
and give us a place
to create our own position papers
on the nature or lack of the divine
I envision you with a smile on your face
wondering who will come on here today
and see this post and commentary
and add a new slant to the conversation
but I am only a simple poet
who writes of love and loving
my theories of divinity
are in the eyes of those I love
and I am moony eyed myself today
as I am finding a new love
and working on a way to honor him
in my poetic way
rated with love
STARTING WITH THE MOST RECENT. WORKING BACKWARDS…
ROMANTIC P…
WELL, aha, “I am finding a new love
and working on a way to honor him
in my poetic way”…this fella aint got a chance
in “hell” of not being completely utterly en-
chantingly captured in your loving cosmic embrace.
Yeah, I am an instigator, and I am smiling big.
Ha.
FERNSY; yes, whitehead is a guy that came along with a mighty
Perspective , but was utterly misunderstood because of his somewhat…opaque…way of writing. Also he made up a lot of new words, which the old philosophy types didn’t like. He is challenging, but if you get his vibe, he will totally turn your world upside down..
“"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." That is classic whitehead. You yearn for him to elaborate, but he never does…
So I shall…
Process. Unending movement , not only of evolution, nature, etc, but also human thought.
Let’s say we arrive at a “truth”. It is only “true” in the moment it is elaborated. Once it is expressed, it becomes , of course, sent off into the future…to be processed…to be elaborated…to be fine tuned…
Example: physicists are now finding that Einsteinian relativity has some faults…
It does NOT make the truth that turned out to be a half truth
“untrue”…just incomplete…
As for art, he said , we of course impose patterns on existence. This is what human perception & intellection does. Things “are”. But they “are” not in a vacuum. They are observed. Indeed they must be, if they are to be art. You say it reflects whoever creates. But who creates, when you create. Is it you? What is it that creates? Certainly not just an isolated human being,travelling in the “vale of tears” with gumption & hope. No..art comes from that place inside where all is one and one is all. Where we somehow catch the vibe of the universe . Which is not us. Yet IS us.
Also, given your interest in god, I'd love to hear what you think of my most recent post, if you have time.
BRAZEN>> thank u for the complement and thanks for realizing how damn lucky we are to have good old os. Though it is being a bitch today, very slow..
And
WREN: I too adore Jung. God has a shadow, sure. Shall we call a spade a spade and say it is “satan”?
Satan to me is a turning away from community, from universality, from the realization that WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER… in order to, as you wisely say, become selfish and ignorant and mean and low.
As for boring me, don’t worry…this kind of talk is what is NOT boring to me…all else is kinda pale compared to discussing philosophy & metaphysics..
“when I was dying”, hm..? tell us more. We are all kinda worried about that.
Wm/ a naughty boy. Had some experimentation with nitrous oxide. And actually verbalized all his mystical experiential findings.
Going to yr blog now………………………..
Damn fools are doing: CLINGING , HOLDING DESPERATELy to ridiculous notions of Father Savior, or, in the new age, Mother savior. Belief is clinging.
Faith is letting go. Opening yourself intellectually, emotionally, sexually, intuitively, to the sheer Mystery of creation. It doesn’t matter how you stand theologically. You gotta admit it is a mystery. Every moment is a new thing. There is such a thing as NOVELTY, one of Whitehead’s favorite words….but where does the NEW come from? I don’t know. It just comes, every moment, at me. If I am a religious zealot, I guard myself against anything fresh and uplifting,, because I wish to remain secure in my “belief”
FAITH is the attitude of: let’s see what’s gonna happen..i am open to anything….because I know that it ALL MEANS SOMETHING, somehow, even if it is only to me.
Jan, you upset Matt’s epiphany.
I shall address that in due time…………………………………………
How do you like this Thoreau quote, quite relevant:
Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades
but how to make men of themselves.
They learn to make houses;
but they are not so well housed,
they are not so contented in their houses,
as the woodchucks in their holes.
WHAT IS THE USE OF A HOUSE IF
YOU HAVEN'T GOT A TOLERABLE PLANET TO PUT IT ON? —
IF YOU CANNOT TOLERATE THE PLANET THAT IT IS ON?
GRADE THE GROUND FIRST.
If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!
Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)
This is why I love and adore you.
Damn fools are doing: CLINGING , HOLDING DESPERATELy to ridiculous notions of Father Savior, or, in the new age, Mother savior. Belief is clinging.
Faith is letting go. Opening yourself intellectually, emotionally, sexually, intuitively, to the sheer Mystery of creation. It doesn’t matter how you stand theologically. You gotta admit it is a mystery. Every moment is a new thing. There is such a thing as NOVELTY, one of Whitehead’s favorite words….but where does the NEW come from? I don’t know. It just comes, every moment, at me. If I am a religious zealot, I guard myself against anything fresh and uplifting,, because I wish to remain secure in my “belief”
FAITH is the attitude of: let’s see what’s gonna happen..i am open to anything….because I know that it ALL MEANS SOMETHING, somehow, even if it is only to me.
Well, that is one way of looking at those two words. Here’s another for your consideration.
In religious or philosophical discussions, it appears that “belief” and “believe” are words used to disguise the fact that a guess is being made about the unknown. Apparently “I guess there is a GOD” or “I guess there are no gods”…doesn’t have the punch for theists and atheists that “I believe there is a GOD” or “I believe there are no gods.”
So they use the verbal disguise.
“Faith”, it seems to me, is simply insisting that the guess cannot be wrong.
Lady vic: sigh back & back atcha.
FRANK: You are absolutely right until the end.
Faith does not have anything to do with holding onto an intellectual truth. it is simply letting go..to an incomprehensible order than embraces your being, that IS your being…it is nothing to “trust” in…trust is a human concept…God, if he exists, is . that is what God is. As they say somewhere in that damn book they carry around, the religious weirdos, the ones who think religion is not a SOLITARY pursuit,
I am that I am.
God told moses that.
In philosophy we study the idea of Being. Be is a problematic word in our language.
Being is not a thing. Being is be-ing. As opposed to not being.
We ARE. We be.
This force, this power, comes from beyond us. It is not ours.
The everlasting advance into novelty…into newness…this is Being….
I only speculate, weakly, about what the source of this could be.
Belief? Bah. Belief is stagnant. It creates religions. Religions are dinosaurs, fossils, roaming our land.
I hate religion.
I believe we know vastly more than we can access just by thinking.
(THAT NEEDS GO UNSAID! GLAD U SAID IT THO)
INTUITION? YES, THIS IS THE POWER THAT GOES UN-ANALYZED IN OUR DEEP HARD ANALYSIS OF HUMAN KNOWING. THE JOKER IN THE DECK………….
INTUITION AND RATIONAL KNOWING ARE IN CONSTANT INTERACTION
IN A HEALTHY HUMAN BEING…WELL SAID…UNFORTUNATELY THERE IS A BIAS FOR RATIONALITY THESE DAYS…FOR A FEW HUNDRED YEARS…AND THAT IS GOOD…BUT TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS A BAD THING..
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS IS A FINE PARADIGM, CUZ IT IS REAL.
I HOPE SOMEDAY FOR COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. I STRIVE AND TOIL FOR IT, AS DO YOU, WITH YOUR SOUP .
THE LIGHT IS NOT ONLY LOVE. LOVE IS AN ASPECT OF IT. THERE IS ALSO WILL. WILL TO …WELL, LOVE…AND KNOWING…THERE IS TRUTH, BEAUTY, AND GOOD. TRUTH COMES FROM KNOWING, WHICH IS A POWER OF THE SPIRIT. GOOD COMES FROM WILL, WHICH IS A POWER OF THE SPIRIT. BEAUTY? AH, THAT IS FROM THE BLISS. THE BLISS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF EXISTENCE.
YOUR INNER SOUP REMINDS ME OF MY OWN PERSONAL GAWD.
HE LIVES
BEHIND
MY HEAD.
BEHIND MY EYES…
Why use the word "Gawd?" Oh, I dunno. I could pray to my Inner Soup Which is Closer to The Light Than Any Other Way I Can Imagine, I suppose. Gawd's more of a code word, I guess. OK? OK? OK? So mote it be.
YEP CODE WORD.
What you seem to describe as faith appears to me as merely optimism which is a delightful emotional attitude which frequently results in some success and some failure. It does garner energy for further attempts at solutions but is no guarantee of success.
Jung's viewpoint that all minds are somehow mysteriously joined has appeal to me only in that human minds have frequently common working processes and common cultural antecedents but to assume there are actual working unconscious connections is something I find too extraordinary to be believable.