Gary and all:
You want to talk about God, eh? Well, nobody can accuse you of being
trivial.
Gary said:
Here's my take on "God" under MOQ. Pure Quality is
both the ground of being that created/gave the
universe its structure, and it is the goal of being
that we humans are reaching up to when we have any
sort of mysticall experience. Our idea of "god" is a
static pattern which is may start as a mystical
experience.
DMB says:
My take on "God" comes from lots of places, but in terms of the MOQ I think
that God is DQ and SQ is God's creation. Ultimately, they are both divine
and are One. I quite agree that DQ is the source and the goal of creation.
As far as our ideas of the creator, I like Joe Cambell's pithy description.
He said that "God is the ultimate archetype". Based on that and lots of
other thoughts like it, I think our "ideas" about go way back into social
level, at least.
Gary said:
But, when we try to understand that experience of
pure Quality we have to interpret it within our
culture/s mythos and our own metaphoric ideas. All
this is going on at the 4th level, the level of
intellect.
DMB says:
Adding to what I said above, I think one of the most remarkable features of
the intellectual level is skepticism about God. Isn't that what got Socrates
in trouble? Didn't Galileo's trouble stem from his percieved contradiction
of Biblical truth. Didn't the scientific revolution and the rise of
rationality lead to the "death of God"? I think so. But yes, people in the
present should and ought to interpret mystical experience through the 4th
level and I feel quite certain that such an interpretation would both defy
and explain the traditional, pre-modern concepts of God.
Gary said:
So, when we go to interpret our experience
what we will understand will be affected by how
evolved we are personally and how evolved our culture
is.
DMB says:
Yes. It couldn't be any other way. And in spite of all the talk about pure
DQ, the interpretation is crucial. It has to be given meaning or such
experiences will not have a lasting effect. Even mystical experience needs
static latching or it will, in some sense, be forgotten.
Gary said:
The experience of mystically reaching Quality is
potentially there for anyone, but what a person brings
back from that height is affected by what kind of
personality they were before they had the mystic
expericnece.
DMB says:
Right on. I know, or rather knew, people who interpreted their experiences
within the context of fundamentalist religion and came to believe that "The
gifts of God" could not be found outside the church, as if the precher done
it for 'em. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord and pass the gravy! (Americanism)
Gary said:
An aside: When I first encountered Ken Wilber what
excited me was that he asked: what is the best a human
being theoritically could be?
DMB says:
Exactly. He and lots of other thinkers are eager to point out that a person
can have a spiritual life AND still have respect for intelligence, science,
evolution, and lots of other things that tend to be rejected by traditional
religion. To enter that church, one need not check their brains at the door.
Traditional religion may have opened the heart, but the next stage involves
the mind and beyond.
Thanks,
DMB
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