Our human makeup

Originally posted by Iron Monkey
i'm guessing that you think poetry is a waste of good paper😛

Not at all. However, when someone tries to put on the mask of credibility then they have to be at least factually in the right ball park...

Originally posted by bbarr
Thanks, I hope you've been well. Although 'nous' is often loosely translated as 'mind', this is a mistake. 'Nous' refers to a type of intuitive knowledge of general principles or essences, and there is a debate whether this knowledge is to be taken as something like the direct deliverance of an intuitive faculty or if it is just the knowledge that results fro ...[text shortened]... nd thereby counts as a good human being) if one reasons in accord with the virtues.

Thanks.

I am becoming more and more convinced that the only proper spiritual language is poetic (ala Hafiz or Kabir) or deliberately paradoxical (ala Zen koans), or both. Tathata—the just-so-suchness, of which I also inseparably am—is ultimately ineffable because it is prior to conceptualization, and is experienced in a state of clear-mind before thinking. All mental representation (except for bare sensory perception) is added, with the “loopiness” that that, too, is itself an aspect of tathata; and that is often exactly where Zen koans strike to elicit an ego-collapsing that results in just being lively-aware without even the notion of “I” being aware.

If nothing else, that’s a short example of how convoluted it gets trying to talk about it.

One of the problems is that we often get hooked on all the mental associations we have attached to a word, even when it is being used metaphorically. There are words like tao or logos or tathata or brahman that I no longer translate into some single word in English because of that.

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Palynka once said that the first time he caught himself actually thinking in another language, without translating, he realized that his whole perspective changed. That piqued my interest, from a “contemplative” point of view, and so I am trying to actually thoroughly learn another language. For various reasons, I chose Spanish. One of my daily exercises with it is to try to compose a few lines of “contemplative” poetry, searching out metaphors that I personally might be unlikely to use in English; or create short “mantras.” Putting out in a language is more difficult than taking it in, speaking and writing more difficult that hearing and reading. I’m also using Rosetta Stone, and I try to translate a bit of poetry from, say, Octavio Paz, and my wife and I read to each other in Spanish, and then translate as we must.

The more I immerse myself in that, the less time I’m going to have on here.

Be well, in the simple bliss of being.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Not at all. However, when someone tries to put on the mask of credibility then they have to be at least factually in the right ball park...

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
drives my green age...

—Dylan Thomas

Then somebody decides that is some kind of propositional truth-statement, and writes up a creed about how flower-stems are really a kind of fuse through which the life-force (the “spirit”?) flows...

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In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.
That one was with God in the beginning.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...

—The Gospel of John

Then somebody decides...

Originally posted by josephw
Do you think there might be some christian atheists out there too?

You should Google evolution. It's amazing how much information is out there about it. But you won't find a bit of truth in any of it. All it does is create more questionable "theories" with no end in sight of any meaningful answers.

Technically, there could be Christian atheists - those who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, without thinking that he is a deity. In practice, they'd probably want to call themselves something else to avoid confusion with the Jesus-as-God Christians.

There is too much evidence for evolution for me to discard it simply on your say-so. You are certainly incorrect to claim that there is not even a bit of truth in it. Just the fact that viruses adapt and become resistant to certain medicines ought to raise a mental flag and stop you from making such a sweeping statement. Even most Christian apologists are forced to concede that what they call 'micro' evolution indeed occurs.

Also, I think when you say "no end in sight", you are just struggling with the idea that science changes as new evidence is discovered. I'm not sure why you would expect otherwise.

Originally posted by vistesd
[* Or do you mean that the soul is some kind of natural/supernatural interface?[/b]

I am more inclined to go with this description. It is at the very "heart" of our being in that all aspects of our being interact directly with it. It is only through the soul that the body/spirit can communicate.