I think he also characterized the Yahweh egregore as a pathological narcissist. Viewed through a psychological lens, he's an unpleasant and pathological character to say the least.
You've opportunely seen this, but Dawkins said more than the least. If one literally reads the bible, which is perhaps the least useful of ways to do so, it's hard to disagree.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
In any case, you will find Islam will not disabuse atheists who believe it is just another benign effort to understand the universe. It's insulting to their absolute reality, but militarily advantageous not to give away any sign of it. ;-) I'm not joking.
The articulation of theology often boils down to an attempt to articulate religious outlook My mom once had some insights on this. I can hardly do justice to her insight. since Allah is a deity of fiat. Truth is arbitrary with respect to anything but his own power.
I recall reading there is no intervention of saints because your fate is solely determined by him and nothing else is relevant to your fate. We are not, in other words, participants in creation just a result. Gosh, where did I put that Koran? Only Allah knows
You'll also find a lot of references to being the slaves of Allah. You may infer I'm not an employee. [I kid] Islam is to be respected.
Because so many people don't have that answer, I will be having a Truth Summit centered around Islam in February, almost certainly starting Feb 12. Very interesting. Interviews with the top people exploring Islamic ideology and history.
Fascinating! If these are the "divine" equivalent of human personality disorder, what would the "divine" equivalent of a psychologically healthy human look like? And how would you square that portrait with the world that we actually have? (Of course, that assumes this world was made by the real God, and not a lesser being.)
I'll leave that first task to the real mystics. ;) As for the second, I think the state of the world shows us that the world is such that God's creatures have enough freedom to create or become the gods of our nightmares.
My training tells me that there is no substantial difference between the "divine" and an everyday being on Earth. An optimum psychological state (Tone 20.0 - Games - in our system) for a person would be the same for a god. Our struggle is to understand ourselves well enough to achieve some progress (at least) in that direction.
I am reminded that the only gods that seem to "matter" are the 3 versions created in one very small dot of all geographical earth, exclusionary to perhaps thousands of human groups developing withiut benefit of such benevolent guidance.. Further, that those 3 versions all insist that said omnipotent all-powerful creator would choose to identify sexually as male.
Totally agree that different nations have a national character and this deserves to be explored. I have often thought that Celts are different than other white people, in Europe and also in North America. To the extent that the accusation of whites being "hokey" or "corny" Are true, the Irish and Scots-Irish are decidedly not. Midwesterners, who have more German and Scandinavian roots, are a lot cornier than Celtic southerners. I don't know if this is true in Canada, though: when I think of Celtic Canadians the first three people that come to mind are Kevin McDonald, that guy in the Tam O'shanter on the cover of that Barenaked Ladies album, and Nardwuar.
The Celts were a tough nut to crack, historically, hence the Romans' retreat and Hadrian's wall. The Holy Roman Empire got the Irish in the end, and the Irish form of Catholicism is especially oppressive and crazy-making, in my opinion, because of its emphasis on the sin of even thinking bad thoughts, even if you don't act on them. Just the thought is a sin! Consequently, a lot of Irish-Catholic men are especially repressed, and I don't mean sexually. It's a kind of negativity repression that manifests in this imposing, aggressive friendliness. Think Eddie Banya from Seinfeld.
Also: unlike other Northwest Europeans, who skew honest/credulous, the Irish tend to be both highly honest and highly skeptical---a unique combination.
Hubbard wrote about this in his 1951 book Science of Survival. He spoke in terms of Tone Level; individual, educational, societal. The most dangerous psychopaths sit at around 1.1 (Fear being 1.0). Punishment-drive societies sit at 1.5 (Anger). Belligerent but potentially successful societies are at 2.0 (Antagonism). You could have societies all the way up to around 4.0 (Enthusiasm) but such don't seem to exist at this time.
Dabrowski's levels evade me. I could probably figure out his meanings, but my work is focused on introducing people to Hubbard's work more that it is trying to understand everyone else's. In Hubbard's system, attitudes about God are part of the 8th Dynamic - Infinity. A person can be at different tone levels, or approaches or attitudes, on different dynamics, or on any particular subject within a dynamic. Look at how many of us tend to differ, for instance, between our attitudes towards love and marriage (2nd Dynamic) and work, sports and politics (3rd Dynamic).
When I want to get a better idea of ancient (more fundamental?) ideas about gods, I go to Dena Merriam, who has written about Hindu (and related) beliefs over a considerable period of our history. It should be recognized that in ancient times it appears that the planet was populated with more "free spirits" than exist here today. Thus, experiences that we consider supernatural or magical really happened in the old times.
Most "adepts" saw God as a formless being who had created all that exists at some date in the very distant past. He visits Earth in many different forms, and thus He (She) is known by many different names and images. This aligns with the idea of reincarnation, where one being can visit Earth multiple times, each time in a different form and with a different name. This teaching approaches a level of believability, though I think that even this idea was imposed by the actual "gods" who were merely ETs trying to control and influence the population in different ways.
Any perception of God beyond these rather high-minded ideas from the ancient world are likely to be corruptions shaped by society, education, or individual tone level. And so we get God in various parent roles, both loving and very much otherwise.
Most of us today have been given a "God" who is essentially psychopathic. By spiritual research done to date, there is no evidence that this universe (including biology) was created by a single being with a comprehensive plan or creative vision. There is really no evidence that creation has any particular plan or purpose at all. It's more like a collection of games made up by children to amuse themselves for a few hours, then left behind but not destroyed. It is a cluttered, disorganized room. It makes no real sense and was never intended to. And so people take whatever mythologies they are given and try their best to make sense of it all from their own frame of reference.
Free spirits , huh. How about "always connecting with other beings in a fully conscious world"? Because of course , the dead matter worldview is preposterous and flies in the face of reason. It flies in the face of experience too, if you have ever has a pet of any kind, you know this in your heart. A state of wonder is required to allow it to happen, that's all. If a child is told everything is dead, how can you have empathy for death? how can you wonder...the mind recoils....dead matter. Don't you believe it.
The research I am aware of does not get us all the way to the Buddhic or Vedic ideal of full connection and full consciousness. That is because so much of life has lost so much consciousness that some of it seems irretrievable in any reasonable amount of time. But that doesn't mean that a good amount of restoration is not possible.
I have seen it and experienced it. i think there is active effort to stunt it. there was an almost 4 year old boy at a park with me and his very christian mother....a butterfly needing a rest from the blustery day....came close to the boy....it was beautiful..."hold out your hand and be very still" i suggested....it landed on the back of his hand. he was so happy....we discussed their short lifespan, and he asked if it would go to heaven. (and really what kind of stupid "heaven" dosen't have them?)"Oh no" I thought, i have read many a bible. she said no, they do not have souls and just die. it was cruel, his face scrunched up in pain, and he cried so broken heartedly......the connection was broken. i have observed the worldview thrust on people by their religions , is designed to stop potential connections.
You think her ignorance of the existence of butterfly souls was caused by her religious education? My cognizance of butterfly souls was caused by my religious education.
Just the very nature of your being on here, as well as your esoteric knowledge of belief that is easy to discern from only perusing your posts, puts you in a subset of people much smaller than the one which “butterflies-just-die-mom”
I think it just as likely that her emotional intelligence level led to talking to a four-year old that way. Carlin’s “ Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that,” comes to mind.
That said, my father was loved by all especially his four children for his wit and kindness, did tell this 7 y.o. he would spend an eternity in hell for stealing a pencil. This affected me for decades, and in my mind was an unusually cruel thing to say to a child, yet has been said 1,000,000 million times over as a direct result of religious education.
I do not think, i know this is true, because she and i discussed it. if we just allow experience to be what it IS , then we will not need religion, or religious education at all. that is what i go by , experience. the problem with education , is, it so easily can and will for certain become dogma. experience is personal to the individual and cannot. education = control= temptation, for any top down power structure.
"Education" done at a low tone level, is not really education at all, but indoctrination. Done at a higher tone level, it gives new skills and abilities and allows a generation to transmit its knowledge to the following generations. Education is a very important part of human society and human survival. But like all things, it can be perverted for lower purposes.
well, what do you think the energy of the soul IS? it is i think a fractal energy field. what does it run on? in the material world it will need some sort of fuel to maintain the current of energy. human cells have tiny engines inside them called the mitochondria. sodium and potassium, calcium and magnesium both are examples of what is called ion pumps, that are used to create energy. Electricity in the dimension of matter, energy needs fuel. no fuel, no fungal network , no communication, simple as that. consciousness may still indeed exist, but it cannot make itself known on the level needed to be heard. Water can store emotions, Light can store data (as in fiber optic cables) silicon, can store and modify data as well….Air or Aeither which hosts energy of another kind (multiple kinds i am told) has not been much studied since Nicola Tesla.
I think the essence of the "soul" is a creative being. It makes its own energy. It does not need chemistry or light or atoms or anything else to do it. When you look at any piece of life you are looking at pure creative potential, surrounded by its huge collection of "stuffed animals" that it likes to carry around with it, like a little girl with her fuzzies. Most beings don't feel comfortable without a body around them, it seems.
That's what I think and that's what I think the research that has been done on this so far tells us. It aligns with the fact of reincarnation, with many NDE stories, and various other data, both modern and ancient. It gives us our basic source of "magic" and many other phenomena. Of course at the level of biology, all these other biochemical and energetic factors come into play. But those are rather crude mechanisms compared to what the creative being, by itself, is capable of.
The think to consider is that religions do not represent GOD.
I am a firm believer in the existence of Almighty GOD. I am also of the view that GOD has nothing to do with religion and has been gravely misrepresented by religious groups, who are in fact political parties of old (as in before democracy/communism/tribalism/pantheon or whatever adherence to tradition as a moral authority or hierarchy) that claimed to represent groups of like-minded sheep.
It seems to me, though, that the power structure of the religion , say top down hierarchical or lateral, more like the native people of the usa....where each person meets their own spirit guide and then continues in private having dialogue, maybe consulting shaman....The non abrahamic gods, excepting maybe egyptian priests of aton and zoroaster.....has that fixed, unquestionable, top down form are, as we can see, magnets for the corruptible and bad faith dealings. They are indeed made up of individuals, however, the power structure plays a huge role in hiding and protecting the corrupt. Lateral power structures have no such shelter. The top down ones, no matter how pure the intentions verily tempt the fates, enhancing the potential for non life affirming acts due to the blind faith protection , and the high social status protection. Pre top down structure....any fantasy power could have, will be much harder to pull off. And more difficult to escape from the fallout. Respect is earned by reputation, then reputation becomes everything.....
I'm reminded of From Yahweh to Zion: Jealous God, Chosen People, Promised Land...Clash of Civilizations, by Laurent Guyenot.
https://archive.org/details/from-yahweh-to-zion-laurent-guyenot
This book came to mind for me as well....
I recall Laurent Guyenot judging Yahweh psychopathic. But reading this article he appears to have schizoid characteristics as well...
I think he also characterized the Yahweh egregore as a pathological narcissist. Viewed through a psychological lens, he's an unpleasant and pathological character to say the least.
You've opportunely seen this, but Dawkins said more than the least. If one literally reads the bible, which is perhaps the least useful of ways to do so, it's hard to disagree.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Even your comments make me get out a dictionary lol
I appreciate this - and of course Islam comes to mind with the last of the gods.
What is it about Islam that you seem to be saying the connection to the Psychopathic god is so much easier than Christianity or Judaism.
What is particularly Psychopathic about Allah that isn't also a characteristic of Yahweh?
In any case, you will find Islam will not disabuse atheists who believe it is just another benign effort to understand the universe. It's insulting to their absolute reality, but militarily advantageous not to give away any sign of it. ;-) I'm not joking.
The articulation of theology often boils down to an attempt to articulate religious outlook My mom once had some insights on this. I can hardly do justice to her insight. since Allah is a deity of fiat. Truth is arbitrary with respect to anything but his own power.
I recall reading there is no intervention of saints because your fate is solely determined by him and nothing else is relevant to your fate. We are not, in other words, participants in creation just a result. Gosh, where did I put that Koran? Only Allah knows
You'll also find a lot of references to being the slaves of Allah. You may infer I'm not an employee. [I kid] Islam is to be respected.
Because so many people don't have that answer, I will be having a Truth Summit centered around Islam in February, almost certainly starting Feb 12. Very interesting. Interviews with the top people exploring Islamic ideology and history.
Fascinating! If these are the "divine" equivalent of human personality disorder, what would the "divine" equivalent of a psychologically healthy human look like? And how would you square that portrait with the world that we actually have? (Of course, that assumes this world was made by the real God, and not a lesser being.)
I'll leave that first task to the real mystics. ;) As for the second, I think the state of the world shows us that the world is such that God's creatures have enough freedom to create or become the gods of our nightmares.
My training tells me that there is no substantial difference between the "divine" and an everyday being on Earth. An optimum psychological state (Tone 20.0 - Games - in our system) for a person would be the same for a god. Our struggle is to understand ourselves well enough to achieve some progress (at least) in that direction.
I am reminded that the only gods that seem to "matter" are the 3 versions created in one very small dot of all geographical earth, exclusionary to perhaps thousands of human groups developing withiut benefit of such benevolent guidance.. Further, that those 3 versions all insist that said omnipotent all-powerful creator would choose to identify sexually as male.
and those gods may not at all be fitting the the descendants of the children who followed their ancestors or very different kinds of gods.
Totally agree that different nations have a national character and this deserves to be explored. I have often thought that Celts are different than other white people, in Europe and also in North America. To the extent that the accusation of whites being "hokey" or "corny" Are true, the Irish and Scots-Irish are decidedly not. Midwesterners, who have more German and Scandinavian roots, are a lot cornier than Celtic southerners. I don't know if this is true in Canada, though: when I think of Celtic Canadians the first three people that come to mind are Kevin McDonald, that guy in the Tam O'shanter on the cover of that Barenaked Ladies album, and Nardwuar.
The Celts were a tough nut to crack, historically, hence the Romans' retreat and Hadrian's wall. The Holy Roman Empire got the Irish in the end, and the Irish form of Catholicism is especially oppressive and crazy-making, in my opinion, because of its emphasis on the sin of even thinking bad thoughts, even if you don't act on them. Just the thought is a sin! Consequently, a lot of Irish-Catholic men are especially repressed, and I don't mean sexually. It's a kind of negativity repression that manifests in this imposing, aggressive friendliness. Think Eddie Banya from Seinfeld.
Also: unlike other Northwest Europeans, who skew honest/credulous, the Irish tend to be both highly honest and highly skeptical---a unique combination.
Psychopathic god reminded of Fauci.
Hubbard wrote about this in his 1951 book Science of Survival. He spoke in terms of Tone Level; individual, educational, societal. The most dangerous psychopaths sit at around 1.1 (Fear being 1.0). Punishment-drive societies sit at 1.5 (Anger). Belligerent but potentially successful societies are at 2.0 (Antagonism). You could have societies all the way up to around 4.0 (Enthusiasm) but such don't seem to exist at this time.
Dabrowski's levels evade me. I could probably figure out his meanings, but my work is focused on introducing people to Hubbard's work more that it is trying to understand everyone else's. In Hubbard's system, attitudes about God are part of the 8th Dynamic - Infinity. A person can be at different tone levels, or approaches or attitudes, on different dynamics, or on any particular subject within a dynamic. Look at how many of us tend to differ, for instance, between our attitudes towards love and marriage (2nd Dynamic) and work, sports and politics (3rd Dynamic).
When I want to get a better idea of ancient (more fundamental?) ideas about gods, I go to Dena Merriam, who has written about Hindu (and related) beliefs over a considerable period of our history. It should be recognized that in ancient times it appears that the planet was populated with more "free spirits" than exist here today. Thus, experiences that we consider supernatural or magical really happened in the old times.
Most "adepts" saw God as a formless being who had created all that exists at some date in the very distant past. He visits Earth in many different forms, and thus He (She) is known by many different names and images. This aligns with the idea of reincarnation, where one being can visit Earth multiple times, each time in a different form and with a different name. This teaching approaches a level of believability, though I think that even this idea was imposed by the actual "gods" who were merely ETs trying to control and influence the population in different ways.
Any perception of God beyond these rather high-minded ideas from the ancient world are likely to be corruptions shaped by society, education, or individual tone level. And so we get God in various parent roles, both loving and very much otherwise.
Most of us today have been given a "God" who is essentially psychopathic. By spiritual research done to date, there is no evidence that this universe (including biology) was created by a single being with a comprehensive plan or creative vision. There is really no evidence that creation has any particular plan or purpose at all. It's more like a collection of games made up by children to amuse themselves for a few hours, then left behind but not destroyed. It is a cluttered, disorganized room. It makes no real sense and was never intended to. And so people take whatever mythologies they are given and try their best to make sense of it all from their own frame of reference.
Free spirits , huh. How about "always connecting with other beings in a fully conscious world"? Because of course , the dead matter worldview is preposterous and flies in the face of reason. It flies in the face of experience too, if you have ever has a pet of any kind, you know this in your heart. A state of wonder is required to allow it to happen, that's all. If a child is told everything is dead, how can you have empathy for death? how can you wonder...the mind recoils....dead matter. Don't you believe it.
The research I am aware of does not get us all the way to the Buddhic or Vedic ideal of full connection and full consciousness. That is because so much of life has lost so much consciousness that some of it seems irretrievable in any reasonable amount of time. But that doesn't mean that a good amount of restoration is not possible.
I have seen it and experienced it. i think there is active effort to stunt it. there was an almost 4 year old boy at a park with me and his very christian mother....a butterfly needing a rest from the blustery day....came close to the boy....it was beautiful..."hold out your hand and be very still" i suggested....it landed on the back of his hand. he was so happy....we discussed their short lifespan, and he asked if it would go to heaven. (and really what kind of stupid "heaven" dosen't have them?)"Oh no" I thought, i have read many a bible. she said no, they do not have souls and just die. it was cruel, his face scrunched up in pain, and he cried so broken heartedly......the connection was broken. i have observed the worldview thrust on people by their religions , is designed to stop potential connections.
You think her ignorance of the existence of butterfly souls was caused by her religious education? My cognizance of butterfly souls was caused by my religious education.
Butterfly Souls would be a great band name.
Which religious education teaches the existence of butterfly souls. I want to learn more about that one resides.
Just the very nature of your being on here, as well as your esoteric knowledge of belief that is easy to discern from only perusing your posts, puts you in a subset of people much smaller than the one which “butterflies-just-die-mom”
I think it just as likely that her emotional intelligence level led to talking to a four-year old that way. Carlin’s “ Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that,” comes to mind.
That said, my father was loved by all especially his four children for his wit and kindness, did tell this 7 y.o. he would spend an eternity in hell for stealing a pencil. This affected me for decades, and in my mind was an unusually cruel thing to say to a child, yet has been said 1,000,000 million times over as a direct result of religious education.
I found out about them from Scientology. But there are some older teachings that also assert that all living things have souls.
I do not think, i know this is true, because she and i discussed it. if we just allow experience to be what it IS , then we will not need religion, or religious education at all. that is what i go by , experience. the problem with education , is, it so easily can and will for certain become dogma. experience is personal to the individual and cannot. education = control= temptation, for any top down power structure.
"Education" done at a low tone level, is not really education at all, but indoctrination. Done at a higher tone level, it gives new skills and abilities and allows a generation to transmit its knowledge to the following generations. Education is a very important part of human society and human survival. But like all things, it can be perverted for lower purposes.
In my research you can restore full conscious connection by careful care of the soil. terra preta. is living soil. when the soil came to life fully all sorts of things were able to communicate...IF they have electrolytes. it is a very real thing. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2270527-wooden-floors-rotted-by-fungi-generate-electricity-when-walked-on/
So soul communication depends on electrolytes?
well, what do you think the energy of the soul IS? it is i think a fractal energy field. what does it run on? in the material world it will need some sort of fuel to maintain the current of energy. human cells have tiny engines inside them called the mitochondria. sodium and potassium, calcium and magnesium both are examples of what is called ion pumps, that are used to create energy. Electricity in the dimension of matter, energy needs fuel. no fuel, no fungal network , no communication, simple as that. consciousness may still indeed exist, but it cannot make itself known on the level needed to be heard. Water can store emotions, Light can store data (as in fiber optic cables) silicon, can store and modify data as well….Air or Aeither which hosts energy of another kind (multiple kinds i am told) has not been much studied since Nicola Tesla.
I think the essence of the "soul" is a creative being. It makes its own energy. It does not need chemistry or light or atoms or anything else to do it. When you look at any piece of life you are looking at pure creative potential, surrounded by its huge collection of "stuffed animals" that it likes to carry around with it, like a little girl with her fuzzies. Most beings don't feel comfortable without a body around them, it seems.
That's what I think and that's what I think the research that has been done on this so far tells us. It aligns with the fact of reincarnation, with many NDE stories, and various other data, both modern and ancient. It gives us our basic source of "magic" and many other phenomena. Of course at the level of biology, all these other biochemical and energetic factors come into play. But those are rather crude mechanisms compared to what the creative being, by itself, is capable of.
The think to consider is that religions do not represent GOD.
I am a firm believer in the existence of Almighty GOD. I am also of the view that GOD has nothing to do with religion and has been gravely misrepresented by religious groups, who are in fact political parties of old (as in before democracy/communism/tribalism/pantheon or whatever adherence to tradition as a moral authority or hierarchy) that claimed to represent groups of like-minded sheep.
It seems to me, though, that the power structure of the religion , say top down hierarchical or lateral, more like the native people of the usa....where each person meets their own spirit guide and then continues in private having dialogue, maybe consulting shaman....The non abrahamic gods, excepting maybe egyptian priests of aton and zoroaster.....has that fixed, unquestionable, top down form are, as we can see, magnets for the corruptible and bad faith dealings. They are indeed made up of individuals, however, the power structure plays a huge role in hiding and protecting the corrupt. Lateral power structures have no such shelter. The top down ones, no matter how pure the intentions verily tempt the fates, enhancing the potential for non life affirming acts due to the blind faith protection , and the high social status protection. Pre top down structure....any fantasy power could have, will be much harder to pull off. And more difficult to escape from the fallout. Respect is earned by reputation, then reputation becomes everything.....