Jan F. Brouwer containment thread - Religion, God, and Theology

Jan F. Brouwer · 07-21-2012, 11:06 AM

It's highly questionable if babies live in samadhi. To be in samadhi you have to have (self) consciousness. Babies are not aware of the state of consciousness they're in. Their self is not yet divorced from the maternal matrix. They are still fused in the world of the mother. Some therefore call it the uroboric state, which is some sort of paradise, but it is nothing compared to the enlightened conscious state of samadhi.

The baby is not a little yogi living the blessed life of a Buddha. When he is divorced from the mother or when his needs and wants are thwarted he is in deep suffering and screams like hell.

A part of individuation is to unbond from the mother. This is, especially for males, very difficult because of the sex drive, which keeps the male attached to the female. But for mystical sovereignty some sort of detachment from the mother has to take place. This is the prerogative of growing older. It happens sooner or later in life.

Splendour · 07-21-2012, 11:09 AM

Deep.

You should read M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled.

He's a psychiatrist that travels from atheism to Buddhism to Christianity.

He has an interesting chapter where he discusses the womb.

Splendour · 07-21-2012, 11:18 AM

Quote: The Ouroboros or Uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.

The Ouroboros or Uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.

The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end (compare with phoenix). It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. The Ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. It is also often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism. Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros as having an archetypal significance to the human psyche. The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn state", depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual child.

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

Jan F. Brouwer · 07-22-2012, 11:33 AM

Suppose you were in a terminal stage of cancer and you had no more than eight weeks to live. Suppose you had the possibility to save a considerable number of people by killing someone. Would you do so?

ECT scans done of the brain of people who are solving this ethical issue have shown that there are two types of answers to this question. When the prefrontal lobes of the neocortex light heavily, people tend to give the rational answer to this question: "yes, I will kill this one (or more) person(s) if I can save thereby many others." This is a fully rational answer. Since ethics is all about relativa it is in the same scale as lethally testing animals to develop medicines against severe diseases: the lesser evil has to yield before the greater good.

But with people who answer this question with 'no, I will never do that. It is in no circumstance right for me to kill', the deeper emotional (limbic) parts of the brain light up in the ECT scan. It seems that with these people the voice of the heart has a greater say in the matter than the voice of the head.

It is hard to decide which one (the voice of the heart or the voice of the head) is the right answer to the question, though we often think that in ethics it's all about intuition. Intuition is not always better than rationality. Older parts of the brain are not more to be trusted simply because they are older. In other words: ethics is not always (or not solely) about emotions.

ganstaman · 07-22-2012, 11:49 AM

How is this related to religion, God, or theology?

Jan F. Brouwer · 07-22-2012, 11:54 AM

Most theists think ethics is inconceivable without religion and God. One may question this assumption, though. Scientific research into questions like this one, shows us how our mind works, when involved in ethical questions.

Jan F. Brouwer · 07-22-2012, 12:15 PM

It's perhaps questionable if animals have ethics. Ethics are about making a DECISION between different degrees of right and wrong in a given circumstance (like in the example). An animal cannot decide. It merely acts on instinct. Possibly we may call its acting 'good', but since it has no alternative in acting, the notion of 'good' and 'evil' do not pertain to animals. We need a self-conscious mind to make choices between detrimental and preferrable behavior. It may well be that the origin of ethics is rooted in animal instinct (like some ethologists try to prove with the behavior of primates), but ethics are, I think, a further conscious and human development of instinctual behavior and arrive fairly late on the scene of (cultural and biological) evolution.

RoundGuy · 07-22-2012, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jan F. Brouwer

Most theists think ethics is inconceivable without religion and God. One may question this assumption, though. Scientific research into questions like this one, shows us how our mind works, when involved in ethical questions.

You're in the wrong forum. No one here would ever question this statement.

Splendour · 07-23-2012, 12:32 PM

Quote from BrainMind.com

THE TRANSMITTER TO GOD

Introduction
"It has been declared that god is dead, that spirituality is an "opiate" for the people. And yet, there is a scientific, neurological, and genetic foundation for religious belief, spirituality, and paranormal phenomenon, including the experience of gods, demons, spirits, souls, and life after death. There is historical and scientific evidence demonstrating the participation of "god" in the destruction of previous civilizations, and in the last century, Hitler's rise to power."

More here: http://brainmind.com/TransmitterToGod.html

Jan F. Brouwer · 07-23-2012, 01:53 PM

Pursuit is a term someone might use who thinks there is 'something' to get out there, that isn't here already. Getting from 'here' to 'there' might be a trick the time/spatial mind is playing on us. The mystical seems to have a dynamic of its own, beyond time/spatial duality, beyond 'pursuit' and 'non-persuit'. Even when we are pursuing something when we meditate, -whatever this might be-, it is more or less, being a Grace, out of our control.

We may surrender to its dynamic, though, which brings it, paradoxically, again, to some extent, within our control. Not pursuing it might prove to be more worthless than pursuing it. There seems to be some intrinsic worth in surrendering to the pursuit. The stock broker eventually leaves the stock market when his investments fail to yield any dividend. So it is with the pursuit of love and happiness. Somewhere we must have the feeling that there is some dividend being payed out to us (be it ever so small) and that other pursuits either don't pay out or don't pay out as well.

Splendour · 07-23-2012, 03:46 PM

What if there's an order to the pursuit?

What if love and joy (the bible uses joy not happiness) have to follow truth?

jon_midas · 07-23-2012, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splendour

What if love and joy (the bible uses joy not happiness) have to follow truth?

I'm not sure that truth is a prerequisite for love and joy. Think about someone that is completely delusional (ex: on a permanent LSD trip) that thinks the world looks like the chocolate factory in willy wonka. They likely have love and joy but their world is not based on truth.

jon_midas · 07-23-2012, 04:18 PM

Was just watching this one last night from Sam Harris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeJrc...eature=related

He is basically arguing that morality/ethics CAN be quantified by science - and that evolution can be responsible for the development of these social concepts in order to achieve the best chance of survival for our species. Pretty interesting viewpoint IMO.

EnlightenedRaise · 07-24-2012, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jan F. Brouwer

Pursuit is a term someone might use who thinks there is 'something' to get out there, that isn't here already. Getting from 'here' to 'there' might be a trick the time/spatial mind is playing on us. The mystical seems to have a dynamic of its own, beyond time/spatial duality, beyond 'pursuit' and 'non-persuit'. Even when we are pursuing something when we meditate, -whatever this might be-, it is more or less, being a Grace, out of our control.

i would say it's more like a trick we have played on ourselves.

you pursue when you meditate?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jan F. Brouwer

We may surrender to its dynamic, though, which brings it, paradoxically, again, to some extent, within our control. Not pursuing it might prove to be more worthless than pursuing it. There seems to be some intrinsic worth in surrendering to the pursuit. The stock broker eventually leaves the stock market when his investments fail to yield any dividend. So it is with the pursuit of love and happiness. Somewhere we must have the feeling that there is some dividend being payed out to us (be it ever so small) and that other pursuits either don't pay out or don't pay out as well.

the answer to the paradox lies in perfection's pursuit of itself.

i wonder, does perfection ever not chase its own tail?

in the act of pursuing, we succumb to the illusion that it was never there.
in the act of surrendering, we acknowledge that control was never within our grasp.

does the stock broker leave the building, or does he wait off-stage, behind the curtain?

to want, or to refrain from want..
is there a traversable middle ground?
can we be free from wanting and not-wanting?

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is there not "intrinsic value" in Life itself?

can we be content, in simply Being?

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can We actively "flow" within that mystical dynamic, or does It passively "flow" within Us?

does the Realization of that answer arise from our Action, or Inaction?

Or...

is that Mystical Dynamic... ME?

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love to you..

Splendour · 07-24-2012, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jon_midas

I'm not sure that truth is a prerequisite for love and joy. Think about someone that is completely delusional (ex: on a permanent LSD trip) that thinks the world looks like the chocolate factory in willy wonka. They likely have love and joy but their world is not based on truth.

It is if you're a devout Christian theist.

Jesus Christ gave us the divine order when he said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

Love and joy are the Life but they follow the Truth in the statement above and the Truth is embodied in the way of a Person: Jesus Christ.

I admit...he's a hard act to follow but if you give up all fear you'll get better at it.