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The Tao vs. God?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Scarlett Wampus
psychonaut
Gah! What a question!
...yes? Because...gah!
To begin with it is generally spoken about in terms of negative qualities, i.e. that it is mystery within mystery and cannot be described. As a symbol it represents what we do not know, perhaps can not know in the normal meaning of knowing and it is the unknown factor in everything that we do know. It is basically a symbol representing perpetual mysteriousness.
"The Tao is utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes". - [SIZE=-1]Li Tao-ch'iin[/SIZE]
...yes? Because...gah!
To begin with it is generally spoken about in terms of negative qualities, i.e. that it is mystery within mystery and cannot be described. As a symbol it represents what we do not know, perhaps can not know in the normal meaning of knowing and it is the unknown factor in everything that we do know. It is basically a symbol representing perpetual mysteriousness.
"The Tao is utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes". - [SIZE=-1]Li Tao-ch'iin[/SIZE]
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
If either were real wouldn't one encompass the other?
Perhaps. Which do you think might be the better symbol for the ultimate mystery or the nature of things?
Good points! How does that make the Tao a better symbol for the ultimate mystery or the nature of things?
Smoke
Done here.
The Tao is much, much better than God.
God is spoken of, all too often, in positive terms. God is this, God did that, God said this, God wills that, God spoke to my heart. The great mystics taught that you can't approach God in positive terms -- such terms limit and circumscribe God -- but average believers, hierarchs, and theologians have trouble with that. They seem to want an anthropomorphic god, one like themselves but more powerful, and what they end up with is something that isn't much of a Mystery at all; it's nothing but a glorified man.
The Tao preserves the Mystery.
A collection of quotes on the subject:
God is spoken of, all too often, in positive terms. God is this, God did that, God said this, God wills that, God spoke to my heart. The great mystics taught that you can't approach God in positive terms -- such terms limit and circumscribe God -- but average believers, hierarchs, and theologians have trouble with that. They seem to want an anthropomorphic god, one like themselves but more powerful, and what they end up with is something that isn't much of a Mystery at all; it's nothing but a glorified man.
The Tao preserves the Mystery.
A collection of quotes on the subject:
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant."
[/FONT]
"In the West, however, theologians would continue to talk and explain. Some imagined that when they said 'God,' the divine reality actually coincided with the idea in their minds. Some would attribute their own thoughts and ideas to God -- saying that God wanted this, forbade that and had planned the other -- in a way that was dangerously idolatrous."
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(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]
"In the West, however, theologians would continue to talk and explain. Some imagined that when they said 'God,' the divine reality actually coincided with the idea in their minds. Some would attribute their own thoughts and ideas to God -- saying that God wanted this, forbade that and had planned the other -- in a way that was dangerously idolatrous."
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(Karen Armstrong)
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"The divine is not human; it is something quite different. And it is not noble or sublime or spiritualized, as one likes to believe. It is alien and repellent and sometimes it is madness. Or so I have found it."
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([FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]Pär Lagerkvist[/FONT])
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"When we use the word 'holy' today, we usually refer to a state of moral excellence. The Hebrew kaddosh, however, has nothing to do with morality as such but means 'otherness,' a radical separation. ...Now the seraphs were crying, 'Yahweh is other! other! other!'"
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(Karen Armstrong)
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"The one who makes the idols never worships them, however tenderly he may have molded the clay. You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity. Gods must keep their distances from men."
[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"The one who makes the idols never worships them, however tenderly he may have molded the clay. You cannot have knowledge and worship at the same time. Mystery is the essence of divinity. Gods must keep their distances from men."
[/FONT]
(Zora Neale Hurston)
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"No man hath certainly known, nor shall certainly know, that which he saith about the gods and about all things; for, be that which he saith ever so perfect, yet does he not know it; all things are matters of opinion."
[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"No man hath certainly known, nor shall certainly know, that which he saith about the gods and about all things; for, be that which he saith ever so perfect, yet does he not know it; all things are matters of opinion."
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[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif](Xenophanes of Kolophon)
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[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"The way that can be walked is not the eternal way;
The names that can be named are not the eternal Name."
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[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans serif]"The way that can be walked is not the eternal way;
The names that can be named are not the eternal Name."
[/FONT]
(Laozi)
The concept of a personal god is unnecessary and implausible. Everyone believes in his own god, the one created in his own image, but most scoff at the gods of others. When we aren't attached to a particular god-image, it's easy to see how limited and unnecessary that god-image is -- and that's true of every god-image. Attachment to any god-image is a kind of delusion or willful fantasy that leads one away from contemplation of the Mystery.
PureX
Veteran Member
For me, these are not the same things, at all. The "tao" is NOT GOD. The tao is the way that existence reflects that divine mystery that we in the west call "God". The tao is not deity. The tao is reality. Specifically, it's the way reality IS. Taoists view reality as a reflection of a divine and profoundly unknowable mystery, and they choose not to label that mystery "God" out of respect, and as a remembrance of their own limitations relative to it.
Smoke
Done here.
It seems that way. Even the greatest gods are limited in ways that remind one of the people who made them.
Good point! But has some suggestion been made that the Tao is God?
To clarify, are you suggesting there is such a thing as a thought that is not symbolic?
DarkSun
:eltiT
Thought is symbolic. That's her entire point. By labelling and classifying every little thing in our lives, we tend to devalue them to a degree.
I saw an interview the other day, where a person who had lived in solitude for some time came to realise this fact. She was hiking up to the summit of a mountain, when a beautiful fly with numerous shimmering colours decided to place itself on her hand. She looked down and thought: "Gee, that's a fly," when really, without the labelling it with the stereoptype of a "fly", this creature was truly something.
I think it's similar with Taoism. The Tao is believed to be the order by which the universe runs. It's incomprehensible and any attempt to label it and define it, goes against that very fact. By calling the "Tao", "God", you're effectively giving something, which by nature, has no nature, a nature by which to have. The concepts contradict one another.
I saw an interview the other day, where a person who had lived in solitude for some time came to realise this fact. She was hiking up to the summit of a mountain, when a beautiful fly with numerous shimmering colours decided to place itself on her hand. She looked down and thought: "Gee, that's a fly," when really, without the labelling it with the stereoptype of a "fly", this creature was truly something.
I think it's similar with Taoism. The Tao is believed to be the order by which the universe runs. It's incomprehensible and any attempt to label it and define it, goes against that very fact. By calling the "Tao", "God", you're effectively giving something, which by nature, has no nature, a nature by which to have. The concepts contradict one another.
Smoke
Done here.
Not for me. either.
To me, this is reversed, at best. The Tao is, as you say, "the way reality is." All of reality. The Tao is greater than God; the greater isn't a reflection of the lesser. The gods people imagine might be a reflection of the way reality is, but not the reverse.
Exactly. That's the Mystery.
Or to no degree.
Scarlett Wampus
psychonaut
If Tao represents perpetual mystery and ultimate mystery sounds like it would be perpetually perplexing, its a very...straight forwardly obvious symbol of ultimate mystery. Better, well, mmmf.
With this thing of comparing Tao and God as symbols. Well, what about starting with stratching a fork across a china plate by describing what the symbol of Tao often represents? Here: -
Tao = The way things are, the order of the universe
Tao = The way things should be, how to live in harmony
Tao = The inexhaustible, infinite, infallable and ineffable source & container of all things
Tao = Dark potent emptiness
Tao = Mystery, as the gate to all of the above
Would someone care to scrape their fingernails across a blackboard and describe what the symbol of (the most common) God represents?
PureX
Veteran Member
I thought that the opening post was suggesting that they ("God" and "tao") were somehow synonymous terms.
PureX
Veteran Member
Thought is not symbolic, it's actual. Thoughts are often comprised of symbols, however.
PureX
Veteran Member
Most taoists would agree with you, I think. But I was talking about "God", as opposed to "the gods". The former being the western idealization of the Divine Mystery: the alpha/omega, the source of all that exists. The latter being the imaginary personalities we ascribe to otherwise uncontrollable and inexplicable natural phenomena. Taoists often discuss, and accept as natural, the various gods that human beings invent and use in the course of their daily lives. Most taoists, however, would not discuss or presume to grasp "God" as we in the west tend to define imply that God is.