AT-AT the pinata

[Dan From Smithville]

Thanks for the responses everyone. It tells me I'm too tame if I'm not breaking ground. I see myself like this:

View attachment 29926

But looks like I'm more like this:

View attachment 29927

Is that Avril Lavigne?

 

[siti]

...that's what I meant when I originally coined the term "Assert nothing; insert everything."

OK...er...are we talking about discussing theological concepts? 'Cos you have posted this in the theological concepts forum and your OP doesn't seem to address theological concepts at all...I'm not being negative, just trying to figure out what it is you want us to 'take a swing' at???

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

OK...er...are we talking about discussing theological concepts? 'Cos you have posted this in the theological concepts forum and your OP doesn't seem to address theological concepts at all...I'm not being negative, just trying to figure out what it is you want us to 'take a swing' at???

Mainly my religious and Philosophical beliefs. The confusion came in in that we got a bit off-topic.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Is that Avril Lavigne?

Yes.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I think excellence of character is demonstrated by attempting Critical Thinking and not trying to fight the progress that is our evolution. I find these beliefs often quite compatible with liberalism.

I also think wisdom can be gained by being in touch with one's own faults and inner monster.

Taking aside pitchforking and primitive behavior from others, what's stopping me from making my God a degenerate female demon named Raspberyl from a video game called Disgaea who loves sandwiches and is very very old but never ages, with the hopes that I come closer to the mark than having a more Abrahamic picture?

 

[siti]

Mainly my religious and Philosophical beliefs.

But you don't seem to have said what they are...am I missing something here? Apart from suggesting that a conservative Christian can't also be a critical thinker and that oldies aren't necessarily goldies when it comes to religions...I can't see that you have either asserted or inserted anything really...???

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

But you don't seem to have said what they are...am I missing something here? Apart from suggesting that a conservative Christian can't also be a critical thinker and that oldies aren't necessarily goldies when it comes to religions...I can't see that you have either asserted or inserted anything really...???

My bad. I posted above.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

And besides the above content I just posted:

Potentially, my heaven is 50 prevent unlocking nuggets of wisdom in this life. The other 50 percent is an (actual) afterlife

Afterlife beliefs: Christian Universalism (but not a Christian)
What heaven is actually like: Not sure.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Since I joined the forum, I bounced around various progressivist ideas about God and even the afterlife. Eventually I kind of had a self-revelation: My religion is progressivism, as bizarre as it might sound.

Definition as it would apply to me:
Progressivism - Wikipedia

Doesn't matter what else I might call myself. I believe in God, but you can label me various things such as "Christian Universalist", maybe even "Unitarian Universalist" as well, maybe even "panentheist" as I'm starting to ponder.

Some of my personal ideas which only necessarily apply to me:

1. Science is important.

2. The greatest truths tend to come from within.

3. It is technically possible to be both learned and foolish.

4. That being said, education is still important.

5. I believe in peaceful reform in the world. It tugs at my heartstrings with a sense of hope.

 

[siti]

My bad. I posted above.

OK - right - no wonder I missed those - I deliberately avoid threads with more than a dozen or two unread posts - I don't have the attention span to catch up - and I had not noticed the shorter (and theologically more interesting) one about Raspberyl.

Since we are in a 'theological concepts' forum I'll have a go at the panentheistic 'nature' of Raspberyl...the problem you will have with that is that people will immediately assume that you intend to claim that Raspberyl IS God, when in fact what you mean (if I can be so bold as to tell you what you mean) is that Raspberyl is an excellent metaphor for God (aka a reality that is, paradoxically, at once more fundamentally mundane and more fundamentally transcendent than we could possibly describe in literal terms). Then you could write a story - or better yet a whole series of stories about Raspberyl and her metaphorical dealings with the rest of the reality that she encompasses...but people will start to believe or disbelieve based on a preposterously literalistic interpretation which is not what you intended at all. Eventually, you will die having mostly been dismissed as deluded and heretical during your lifetime by people, most of whom never even bothered to actually read your stories but just went off what other people who had also never actually bothered to read them claimed you were claiming.

After you have died, you may, perhaps, be proclaimed a 'prophet' or even 'messiah' and it will be suggested that you - of all people - were specifically chosen by Raspberyl to reveal the panentheistic truth about the nature of the deity...@@@ventism (as I - being the first Pope of this new religion have decided it should be called in your honour) will take off - and earn me millions of dollars whilst the poor deluded fools who do actually read your books but fail to understand a single word of it continue to pour in contributions in the hope of receiving spiritual and material blessings from a character in a story book that was written with the intention of helping people to reason their way to a deeper appreciation of their own place in the great panentheistic reality that is so grand we can only talk about it metaphorically...

Some people will get really pissed off at the hypocrisy of all this and they will splinter off into a thousand sects, each emphasizing a different aspect of the 'big picture' you tried to paint for them...they'll all spend their time arguing the toss over this Raspberylian doctrine or that one and all of them will completely miss the point...nevertheless they will have fun calling each other rude names in the RF @@@ventism forum and debating whether the name is really anything to do with you and how it should be pronounced - or even whether you - let alone Raspberyl really existed...

But at @@@mas-time they'll all get together, stuff themselves silly with roast beef in your honour (I know you like roast beef) and say nice stuff for a change - until they've had one over the eight and then they'll start asserting - or inserting - or both - with other people's partners...

You get the picture? I think its best for those who actually think deeply about such matters to keep our Raspberyls to ourselves to some extent. My Raspberyl is more explicitly pantheistic than panentheistic - we can discuss why next if you want - but this thread is already too long - and too familiar a story - I think.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Why Raspberyl matters to me is I feel she demonstrates the concept of Yin & Yang better than an Abrahamic picture of God:

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes.

She is very good looking. I favor the petite ladies, though it is not set in stone.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

She is very good looking. I favor the petite ladies, though it is not set in stone.

She keeps herself up pretty well for her age. (I think she's about 35 now)

 

[Dan From Smithville]

An interesting aspect of my worldview is that I value constructive criticism to a pretty great extent as part of my beliefs. So for those who have seen enough of my posts to feel like they "know" me, what are some things you think I should work on? I ESPECIALLY want to know in regard to religious and philosophical beliefs and mentality. I'll list some obvious ones, though you can expand on them:

1. I need to focus on creating less threads and on posting content on other people's threads in the form of replies. Which is kind of ironic considering this is a new thread itself, but yeah. I will start this now.

2. I think my humor is sometimes too much of Blue Humor.

3. I'm continuing to work to be a bit less self-centered and improve my writing style.

There are also a couple of subjects I may never come to full grips with such as:

1. Accepting that there is such a thing as more than credible Conservative Christian critical thinkers as admittedly, sometimes it seems like an oxymoron to me.

2. Loving belief systems based on seniority if it is not shown how said seniority has impacted the world in a positive way.

~I hope the staff allows this topic as I think I'm ready and thick-skinned enough to handle it.

@dybmh Feel free to take a swing.

Life can be like the pinata. A lot of times you swing and you miss or the broomstick bounces off, but sometimes you hit it good and a whole world of treats opens to you and all those around you.

That is about as close as I can come to theological conceptualizing, using the materials at hand.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

She keeps herself up pretty well for her age. (I think she's about 35 now)

Oh yeah. That's really old. But she does keep herself well.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Life can be like the pinata. A lot of times you swing and you miss or the broomstick bounces off, but sometimes you hit it good and a whole world of treats opens to you and all those around you.

That is about as close as I can come to theological conceptualizing, using the materials at hand.

I see.

I'm going to admit to something since I'm usually brutally honest on here. I may have mildly misunderstood how deep a subject goes earlier today in a different thread. I still argued the subject, and think said arguments may have contained a hidden nugget of wisdom or two, but it just goes to show I'll probably never get concrete enough an understanding of the universe without peer feedback.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I see.

I'm going to admit to something since I'm usually brutally honest on here. I may have mildly misunderstood how deep a subject goes earlier today in a different thread. I still argued the subject, and think said arguments may have contained a hidden nugget of wisdom or two, but it just goes to show I'll probably never get concrete enough an understanding of the universe without peer feedback.

I often get a lot out of what others post and do not know if I need to delve deeper than I do, especially in areas where my knowledge is less developed. No one can know everything, but that does not mean that you cannot know something and that something may be very useful to others.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I often get a lot out of what others post and do not know if I need to delve deeper than I do, especially in areas where my knowledge is less developed. No one can know everything, but that does not mean that you cannot know something and that something may be very useful to others.

Life drives me crazy sometimes as I keep thinking, "What if I have to learn the truth in this life, and if I don't, I won't have an afterlife or will have a very very bad one?" Then you start thinking how in life, you are running out of time all the time to figure things out, your clock is ticking to figure out the universe's and religion's mysteries. You fight to hold on knowing the end and what will happen, and you just need reassurance that eventually, it's okay to give up.

 

[siti]

Why Raspberyl matters to me is I feel she demonstrates the concept of Yin & Yang better than an Abrahamic picture of God

But I think you are making the mistake I was trying to illustrate...the "Abrahamic picture of God" you mean is the one that most 'believers' uncritically espouse without ever having read it understandingly...if you read the OT part of the Bible with a genuinely open mind - the "Abrahamic God" is very yin and yang IMO - apologists for the religions that have grown up around the stories will try to justify the apparent inconsistency, opponents will call 'him' capricious and fickle - but the story really is about how yin/yang, give/take, unpredictable and ultimately incomprehensible the nature of nature really is - I think. But most people translate ehyeh asher ehyeh as "I AM that I AM" - I interpret it as "I shall become whatever I shall become" (Exodus 3:14).

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

But I think you are making the mistake I was trying to illustrate...the "Abrahamic picture of God" you mean is the one that most 'believers' uncritically espouse without ever having read it understandingly...if you read the OT part of the Bible with a genuinely open mind - the "Abrahamic God" is very yin and yang IMO - apologists for the religions that have grown up around the stories will try to justify it, opponents will call 'him' capricious and fickle - but the story really is about how yin/yang, give/take, unpredictable and ultimately incomprehensible the nature of nature really is - I think. But most people translate ehyeh asher ehyeh as "I AM that I AM" - I interpret it as "I shall become whatever I shall become" (Exodus 3:14).

Interesting.