What is it you believe?

Cambo · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 1:26 pm Post subject:

A while ago I was watching George Carlin ramble about Time and I realised I could forge a very accurate metaphor for my personal beliefs about God using Time. This is gonna get pretty philosophical, but here goes.

We tend to think about Time purely in terms of its measurement, because that is what is most useful to us. We need the pattern of days, hours, weeks and years to organise our lives, and that's fine, but that's not really what Time is. These measurements are fairly arbitrary divisions we create, based mostly on celestial events (the passage of the earth around the sun, and before that the shifting of the constellations). Remove the Sun, remove the heavens, remove the observers of the Sun and the Heavens, even remove events or sequences of any kind, and you've got....eternity. Which does not exist independently of all the sequential events that give Time meaning to us. Those things happen within eternity. Everything that ever happens is a piece of eternity.

My personal belief: I think eternity is conscious and self-aware, and that is God. And humanity and everything else are pieces of that consciousness. God does not create us or act upon us: we simply arise from God, as the celestial events arise from the matter of the universe. And we are a part of God as a second is a part of eternity- an arbitrary division, distinct only due to perspective.
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peter · Posted: Mon May 27, 2013 9:10 am Post subject:

This is the true 'mind before matter' belief of the ancient mystery schools that has the Mind or Word as the primary existence followed py a 'pecipitation' of all else that follows in a 'descending' sequence of spiritual through to material. Matter if you like is the final precipitate in this chain but is essential in the creation of, well....us, so that the Creation may be observed and thus given true Existence. What will follow in thier teaching is a gradual return to the Idealism and intimate connectedness of former times, as before when we were not imprissoned within the confines of our own skulls. ie a return to Oneness with God.
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....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

Menolly · Posted: Mon May 27, 2013 5:07 pm Post subject:

Peter, your description sure sounds like a description of the Ten/Eleven Sephirot (סְפִירוֹת‎) of Kabbalah to me.
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Orlion · Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 2:06 am Post subject:

I believe I'm thirsty Cheers

Also, it appears as if Menolly is correct on Peter's description, though I'd throw in a dash of Gnosticism/Hermeticism as well.
_________________
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville

I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!

"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley

Menolly · Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 5:11 am Post subject:

As I have said before, in formal worship I am most comfortable in a traditional Jewish setting. However my own personal beliefs are immensely panentheistic (not pantheistic) as well. I am not well versed in kabbalistic teachings, though. But what little I have read tends to resonate for me.
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peter · Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 9:03 am Post subject:

Exactly Menolly - The idea of the 'Secret History' is that Hermeticism, The Cabbala, Gnosticism, Shamenism and many other now sidelined belief systems all drew on ancient knowledge of the descending (and ascending) hierarchy of Mind through Spirit to matter and of the essential 'oneness' of the Creation. This was given in the form of initiatory Knowledge to adepts of the Mystery Schools, initiations that involved the symbolic death and subsequent rebirth of the entrant into the 'true' nature of being. (nb This about exhausts my understanding of the idea, which is at best in my case gleaned from the reading of a few questionable books Wink

).
_________________
http://jhfv.blogspot.co.uk/

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

Morning · Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:43 pm Post subject:

I believe in myself.
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Ardet nec Consumitur.

peter · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 4:01 am Post subject:

Risky!

( Wink

)
_________________
http://jhfv.blogspot.co.uk/

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

Morning · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 11:16 am Post subject:

Less than believing in anyone else Big Grin

_________________
Ardet nec Consumitur.

sgt.null · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:16 pm Post subject:

I believe in time as an abstract
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“life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

Orlion · Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:49 pm Post subject:

I believe... I'm thirsty! Cheers

_________________
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville

I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!

"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley

Wosbald · Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2015 11:02 pm Post subject:

+JMJ+

I believe the children are our future.

Rock Band

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Linna Heartbooger · Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 12:36 am Post subject:

See.. now I want to involve a tune and be like, "I believe I can fly!"

Then I'd be like, "and don't anyone tell me differen--- AAAAAAAHHHHH!"
_________________
"We human beings do real harm. History could make a stone weep." -Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

deer of the dawn's anti-recommendation of "Gilead"
My anti-recommendation of the same. (hers is shorter!)
Both are on the Watch's excellent "Anti-Recommendations of your Favorite Books" thread.

'"He will wipe the tears from all faces." It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required.' -Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Orlion · Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 3:23 am Post subject:

Avatar · Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 5:31 am Post subject:

It's my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs. Very Happy

--A
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Don't believe everything you think.

peter · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:08 pm Post subject:

I believe that mankind will achieve immortality.

I believe that we will achieve omniscience - and that the nature of reality, of being, when we have complete knowledge and understanding of it, will transpire to be above and beyond anything our current cognitive architecture is capable of accomodating.

I believe that the passage of time will be demonstrated to be illusory as will 'change' of any kind. What Is simply Is.

I believe we are the eyes through which the Universe sees itself, the ears through which it hears itself.

I believe we are truly the brightest young thing around.

I believe we will look into the face of God and see our own faces reflected in his Image.
_________________
http://jhfv.blogspot.co.uk/

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard