John Chang the Magus of Java
I just don’t get your approach… I posted it and called it “the best explanation”, you then avoid reading it for 3+ weeks, then ask me what it “means to me”, that doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to talk about this stuff, but instead someone who wants to “save the foolish sinner from their own foolishness, being led astray by THE DEVIL!”
But okay, sure, im mind wiping all previous comments in the thread - Let’s start here though. Can you understand why someone would call this story “more logical and coherent” than the mainstream story(s) of Christianity? Why or why not?
I thought this was the Law of One discussion?
Or was that all just you saying “im going to continue not wasting my time with SATANIST NONSENSE!”
Maybe im misreading you, that’s just how it’s felt to me
More complex than the Church^tm could ever admit
I think it’s basically what those two pieces talk about, plus whatever is going on with John Chang. I posted it so you all could interrogate yourselves, not me.
What do you think about the worldview presented?
As I said in my suggestion, they’re the best (most coherent, wholistic, and logical) explanation/interpretation of the spiritual nature undergirding reality that I’ve found so far
Why does anything exist?
No no no no no don't reach for that word. There's no 'reason'. That's teleology and teleology will stitch your eyelids shut.
Why do we have atoms? Because atomic matter is more stable than the primordial broth. Atoms defeated the broth. That was the first war. There were two ways to be and one of them won. And everything that came next was made of atoms.
Atoms made stars. Stars made galaxies. Worlds simmered down to rock and acid and in those smoking primal seas the first living molecule learned to copy itself. All of this happened by the one law, the blind law, which exists without mind or meaning. It's the simplest law but it has no worshippers here (out there, though, out there - !)
Some great answers and lines of thought here! - will edit back in a response when I get a minute later tonight
Edit) sorry, I’ve had my entire family over for the last week, nary a minute to spare - looking to get back to this soon m80
At the same time the sinner is responsible for abusing that design by partaking with sinful motive.
How could one’s motive be sinful prior to one understanding the concept of sin? That’s what we call “non compos mentis” in the human justice system…
Any luck with them swans then? (Reading the piece that is)
They already have boundaries, roles, and an awareness of each other...
Dogs also exhibit all of these characteristics but we don’t (truly) regard them as beings capable of moral choice.
they know trust, they understand consequences, and they feel the effects of their choices.
Going to have to disagree with this based on my understanding of the story - would you say a fish “knows” water? In the same sense that a fish is immersed in water, Adam and Eve were immersed in “trust” while in the presence of God, but I don’t know if it can be said that they “knew” trust… does anyone really know what trust is before they experience trust being broken? Furthermore, I don’t think you can say they understood consequences or felt the effects of their choices - that’s kind of the entire point of their eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge…they didn’t “understand” they were naked until they ate the fruit - they were (apparently) completely innocent regarding the consequences of their choices up until that point.
Onto the tree itself:
Moral awareness isn’t something the tree suddenly gives them - it’s already there. The tree just shows how their wills line up... or don’t... with God.
a Dualistic or rather LoO approach would/does make the tree something ironically manipulative. It is adversarial in its nature. The Tree becomes a device of external moral coercion, a shit test of obedience against an opposing force (or polarity). Free will is paradoxically manufactured.
The "One source" approach is the tree of knowledge is relational and participatory. The tree is a mirror to the human will.
So then why were we forbidden from the tree’s fruit? If the fruit is what allows us to align ourselves with God (or atleast, what allows us to “know” how aligned we are with God) it makes no sense that He would forbid us from it, no? It sounds like humanity without the FotToKoGaE would basically be like robots, who were capable of performing actions but with no capacity for moral accounting. They could kill but had no idea killing was “unaligned with God’s will”. Idk, maybe you’d be willing to expand on what role you see the Tree playing in God’s plan? Were we always meant to eat of it? Or was that the first time we fucked up?
The duality we see... good versus evil... that’s really just a story we tell ourselves. It’s a projection, a way of trying to explain what’s really happening when our will is out of alignment.
I see duality far more integral to Creation… and im not just talking about human perception either. Dark is just as real as Light - when we perform the Dual Slit experiment, we see not just constructive interference producing Light spots, but simultaneously destructive interference producing Dark spots. Cold is just as real as Hot, Up is just as real as Down - yes, duality is, almost definitionally, a “relational” notion, you must know “Thing” to understand “not-Thing”, I just don’t see how that leads to the conclusion duality is “not real”
Moral awareness isn’t something the tree suddenly gives them - it’s already there. The tree just shows how their wills line up... or don’t... with God. They’re not blank slates or naive, I think they’re fully relational agents from the start. Meaningful choice was already part of who they were.
What does moral awareness without God even look like? The only thing that comes to mind to describe such a scenario is something along the lines of “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”…. I might give you something along the lines of “they had amoral awareness”, but “moral awareness”? Without the “knowledge of Good and Evil?” I don’t get how such as thing would be possible
I think this duality notion might be the thing to try and drill into? If you’ll forgive what im sure will be a tangled mess of thoughts.
when it comes to reconciliation, whatever is false is obliterated. They do not merge together say... or integrate.
Yes, duality is an epiphenomenon of finite, misaligned perception encountering a unified reality. It is experientially real, but not ontologically fundamental.
I agree with this, regarding what is false - but I don’t believe duality is false. Let me ask how you integrate the following (which you’re surely familiar with) into your beliefs:
> I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
That strikes me as indicating that “Creation” (as we, in our finitude, can know it) is a dualistic place via design. I’ve infact raised this in the c/Christianity community, seeking an answer that made more sense than this. Yes, yes, I know some men, very important men, labeled these ideas “Heresy”, but these discussions to me are about making an appeal to our God-given gift of reason, not an appeal to “authority”. Forgive the tangent lol. It’s all to say, the best argument I found was based on the notion of Creation being, well, created, ”all good”. And, to cut a long story short, while that sentence can be the Truth in isolation, I don’t find it convincing wholistically, I find it to be a “pushing off of responsibility”. If an omniscient being comes up with a plan to create Creation, He knows what that entails. He thus creates both Good, and Evil, and existence is all the richer for it (as I believe can be read in the Bible, and as I believe the HH/LoO stuff just kind of…updates for our time the same divine wisdom) and trying to skeeve the existence of evil off onto “Satan”, Adam, Eve, the Nephilim, you, me, whoever! just does a disservice to the true majesty of God’s creation. It’s a simplifying of the story for children. We all have a role to play, including those “vessels meant for destruction”
The garden always had choice.
Did it though? Without “knowledge of Good and Evil”, what kind of choices could even be made? - “What should I eat right now?” “What should I call this animal?” - I see the choices we are capable of in a state of innocence are far more restricted than the state that came after, don’t you? They were like perfect Children at that point, babes…your baby doesn’t know right from wrong, and no parent would punish a baby for their choice made in innocent ignorance
Anyway, think I can cut myself off there, hopefully enough of that gets through lol. I’ll just say, i quite appreciate this conversation. If I ever come across combatively, it’s just because of how important I actually think the subject is. Cheers
I feel there is a lot of truth in the hidden hand stuff spirit-wise, but that he obfuscated some real story details. I don't believe his account of yahweh history.
Interestingly enough, it’s quite close to what many of the first Christians believed.
What has convinced you to think the “israel” written about in a book ~2000 years ago is the same thing as the country founded by terrorists in the year 1948?
List the top three contradictions in your view, but note that if they are reconciled in the text that you apparently still haven’t finished reading, 5 years after I first linked it to you, I will be starting each sentence with “what are you, retarded?”
Right, the language is shared but our ontology is different. My lens shows me relational experience, monistic in its purpose. But the Hidden Hand and Law of One show a dualistic system. I think the HH/LoO must show a dualistic system so that they may justify themselves. BUT I think with the view I'm presenting, it does render them unnecessary.
Do these texts not present a picture in which the duality of physical existence (something I think is undeniable) ultimately reconcile in the monad (aka God)? That’s how I read them certainly.
Misalignment naturally arises from our own perceptions, and the catalyst for transformation is our encounter with that truth
Does this picture you paint not imply that up until that encounter with truth, Butters/we are immersed in a very real (in the sense that it can be experienced) untruth? If he never believed “she loves me”, then the truth (and furthermore, the perspective that truth brings) that “she doesn’t love me” wouldn’t be something he could experience, right?
Idk… I know where you’re coming from regarding dualism, but I don’t see that reconciliation happening at our level of existence. It seems to me that Duality is real, but a reality which ultimately springs from a Monad and is eventually reconciled in that Monad. Duality is almost an epiphenomena of existence. In order for something to “exist” in our physical reality (or to have anything approaching “meaning”), so too must exist the possibility of “ceasing to exist” in that physical reality.
Edit to add
Adam and Eve had some expectations I'm sure, but I'm not sure that the fall was caused or catalyzed by a Satan... rather he just brought their concerns to the front. I think that is the nature of finite beings. The catalyst did not start until they encountered the truth and reality.
See, I have a totally different read on the order of events there. Before satan introduces his “lie”, the Garden is in a state of static and unchanging “Truth”. They had “the truth” but without the option to choose. Untruth didn’t yet exist, according to the story. And thus there was no death, no suffering, and logically, no growth. So I see growth as an epiphenomenon of the introduction of the catalyst of “untruth” in the Garden
Regardless, it is what it is (that is - the current state of things). “Coulda, woulda, shoulda” arguments are arguments I don’t see as having a place in the discussion of the “plan” of an omnipotent and omniscient being.
I trust that the Fall was necessary to escape the stasis of forced innocence
Experiencing sadness is meaningful because it is a choice to align.
Almost like it’s some type of catalyst for growth! And a pre-requisite for growth at that! (Note: someone had to break Butters’ heart to catalyze that growth he experienced). Just as every story needs an antagonist and every achievement requires struggle, I can’t imagine the world where we get all the benefits of “growth” with none of the negatives (e.g. sadness, heartbreak, death, etc.)
Think of the Garden - was existence before the fall more or less static than it is today? Was there more, or less, capacity for growth?
Honestly I agree with most of your takes in isolation, but at the same time I see them re-affirming the content of HH/LoO, while you clearly understand them as doing the opposite, which is interesting
Reality not being static is predicated on choice. If there are no choices being made, you are just an automaton following your (static) programming. Do you think chatGPT measures a statements “truth” before it presents an answer to a query you pose it? Of course not. For “truth” to exist, so must “untruth”. Growth is only possible in the face of death. If old things never died, new things would never grow.
What are your thoughts vis a vis the southpark clip? Do you disagree with the notion it expresses?
Free will is about how aligned one is to the fabric of reality. Aligning oneself to the truth. Not about the capacity to choose two or multiple different pathways.
Except, if you aren’t free to choose between “truth” and “untruth”, then “truth” just about ceases to have meaning. “Reality” becomes a static painting, forever unchanging. You become an automaton. Pretty certain God kickstarted existence as we know it precisely because of how pointless such stasis is.
Well, thats the trap it presents right?
Is it really a trap when they tell you it’s a trap? Isn’t that just a warning at that point?
Like I said to swamp, the reactionary reaction is all but expected on this topic! It’s the easy way out of challenging one’s preconceived notions, and we are nothing if not creatures of comfort.
Sure, but also because the Bible calls satan “the god of this world.” (2 cor 4:4)
Im basically saying “don’t let the author’s word choice (and moreso your reaction to his word choice) overpower/overly taint your ability to understand what is actually being said.” God (as you know Him) still exists, just with the label “Infinite Intelligence” in these pieces
Replace every instance of “yahweh” in the Hidden Hand interview with “satan”, then wait until you’ve actually read it to start formulating responses to the claims. Should help with getting through it.
Or start with the Law of One and see it from the “other perspective” first.
As I said, reading the summaries is counter-productive, way too much context is removed
I just remember it saying evil is merely a "catalyst, a service, a contrast" which never sat well with me.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOM6hOnEBE
I see that line of thought from the perspective shared in this short video
I guess that is the nature of the negative path.
That’s why I recommended reading it in conjunction with the Law of One - there are two sides to the coin called “existence”, where it is made clear that ultimately the path of service to self is a dead end, but a necessary one to allow the foundation of existence, free will
Mfw the guy who thinks the world is 6,000 years old because his book lists some genealogies is busting my balls about mUh “Hollow Earth”
So 5+ years later and you still haven’t read any of the Law of One? And i’m the one who isn’t putting the work into the conversation lmfao? I post things to share, you post things to “convince”, you’re just not very convincing, that’s all. Don’t over think it Freud.