The Hidden Meaning

[b4i7]

orange slices and fetal spooning...some reason that always gets stuck in my head

[jdbnsn]

I think it's Tool's way of teasing druggies. They often badger people who claim to use drugs to "clear their mind". This is much of what Sober is about, creative enhancement from a subtance that becomes an addiction.

[jdbnsn]

Sorry to keep hashing this thread up, but I love talkin about Tool. So anyway, I've spent years pondering different religions and the meaning of it all just like most everyone, and just like everyone I really don't "know" anything. I can explain nearly any phenomenon scientifically, but I can't ignore the fact that is doesn't fit as the whole story. I was listening to the song Right In Two which is about angels gazing down at humans in disgust at our conflicts for resources. These lyrics jumped out at me:

Angels on the sideline,
Puzzled and amused.
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they're all confused.


Angels on the sideline,
Baffled and confused.
Father blessed them all with reason.
And this is what they choose.

Repugnant is a creature who would squander
the ability to lift an eye to heaven,
conscious of his fleeting time here.


I'm not really religious in the sense of belonging to a specific doctrine (becoming a more and more popular point of view these days) but I am not without some faith and many unanswered questions. These lyrics set off a bomb in my head and suddenly something made sense to me about an old argument. The argument between athiests and non-athiests. The athiest asks "If God exists, then why doesn't he/she/it give us reliable proof instead of possibilities and prophets who speak in parables, so we would know there is a God?" The non-athiests that I have heard answer "Because He/She/It relies on you to have faith in him beyond your doubts, in the words of Christ, "Blessed are those who believe yet have not seen"".

I have suddenly developed a new take on this, and I apologize if this is common knowledge to the rest of you because it's news to me. According to myth, the angels in heaven are not that fond of humans, more to the point they are a bit jealous that God gave humans everything while angels were confined to an eternity of servitude. God's greatest gift to humankind was that of free will, something the angels never had. What would happen to free will if God made an absolutely undeniable presence in the face of humankind? I think Christ's phrase has been misinterpreted. Blessed are the people who have no evidence of God's existance unlike prophets and angels, because they still have free will. If you know for a fact that God exists, you don't have free will to make your own desicions, you are forced to behave as a subject of what you would then know to be your ultimate judge and jury. So the mysterious nature of a God actually protects human's free will, infact it wouldn't exitst without it.

Sorry about the brain dump, had to tell someone...

[Crazy Buddhist]

Blessed are the people who have no evidence of God's existance unlike prophets and angels, because they still have free will. If you know for a fact that God exists, you don't have free will to make your own desicions, you are forced to behave as a subject of what you would then know to be your ultimate judge and jury. So the mysterious nature of a God actually protects human's free will, infact it wouldn't exitst without it.

Sorry about the brain dump, had to tell someone...

Ok, ok .... but ....NO ..... NO ONE KNOWS if god exists or not. Atheists and Theists (believers) logically take identical stances:

Atheists believe in (NOT) God
Theists believe in God

God is described as "indescribable" ! And people are chosing to believe or not believe in this indescribable, ineffable "God" !

No one knows.

Agnostics admit this to themselves: "I don't know" from: A "Not " (latin/greek/sanskrtit) Gnostic "knowing" Greek

None of us know, agnosticism is the only rational position. It is irrational to either believe in God or not believe in God. It's also pointless. We each have to chose how to act for ourselves and carry with us the consequences of our actions (karma) for the time we are alive: be that until the grave or beyond as some believe: but again this is a subject where rationally one can only be agnostic, although, on balance, we have a bit more evidence that death is final than we do that God exists.

If there is a God up there ( ) I am pretty sure he would rather have people around him who have chosen to do the right things in life because they can and not because they are worried about not going to heaven. But frankly I don't give much of a hoot because I know I am a good man and if an all powerful God doesn't see that I don't think thats the sort of inneffable-personage-thingy I want to spend eternity with in any case.

Buddhist

[jdbnsn]

I think you missed my point. It's not about whether God exists or not. It's about the belief that the gift to humankind (free will) is only possible through the lack of evidence in his/her/it's existance. With direct evidence, you would be forced to obey out of fear or praise. Or you could oppose God and suffer the same consequences as Satan. But your free will would be essentially lost.

[jdbnsn]

Seriously I just printed that out. That was Phenominal.

-Jeremy
__________________

Hey thanks!

[Slug Toy]

well, im not religious, but im not atheist either, and im not agnostic. ill let people believe what they want, and ill do my own thing. for the longest time i was very focussed on the sciences, and didnt pay much attention to anything related to spirituality... but thats rapidly changing now. im not about to convert to christianity... but ive had a bit of free time (not anymore... just started my new job) to think about things. ive started contemplating the world and myself a lot more, and im starting to recreate ideas i had a few years ago.

i think "god" is a moot point in all this. i think if you take a real long look at the world and yourself, you eventually figure out that the closest thing to god is us. we are our own "god" and thats good enough in most cases. we are all gods and our perceived reality is our domain.

if i might pull a couple things from my poem/song/whatever that i wrote and posted a while back out of sheer joy, i think it might give for some good thought.



Collide with the smallest part of your conscience
And pose the greatest question ever told
For whose fault is it that life was so accidental
For whose fault is it that water was clear
For whose fault is it that wondrous events unfold
For whose fault is it to be judged at the pole
For whose fault is it that the soul does not remain
For whose fault is it that restores the texture to life
For whose fault is it that I love you


Not a presence was thorough enough to interpret fill but intention was maintained through sound and sight in the form of insight



now i dont want to get into what was going on when i wrote that stuff... i think most people can figure that out without too much trouble. what i DO want to talk about is what i actually wrote, because ill say this... the whole time i wrote that i didnt feel a thing and wasnt thinking at all, and this is practically straight from the heart.

the first "stanza" which i now call "for whos fault" is quite interesting to read as far as im concerned. i managed to mix in things that could be explained as gods fault, and other things that could be explained as your own fault, and others yet that may just seem stupid. ultimately, i think what i was getting at is its no ones fault at all. there are too many possible answer for there to be any literal reason... it is my (most definitely coherent) belief that there is no fault in the universe, just events.

the second "stanza" which i have yet to label... well that one is luckily a little easier for me to explain. i do remember what i was feeling at that point. my underlying message is one of sustained "enlightenment" through introspection... and thats the shortest way i can put it. in a somewhat obscure way, that stanza represents my belief that there is no god except possibly each and every one of us, and how i believe it is important to realize this. if you can reach this level of insight, you can see the world in a new way, and the work and sacrifice and possibly anguish will have been worth it.

those two stanzas contain ideas that are much deeper than i thought i was capable of. not only that, but i now see that these ideas may in fact have a place in this thread because A) i think ideas like this are good to discuss in general and B) im not a psychologist so if im wrong about myself and my thoughts... maybe someone will be able to point it out.

hopefully, though, i just blew someones mind. i really blew my own mind when i read my "poem" the morning after writing it.

[Crazy Buddhist]

I think you missed my point. It's not about whether God exists or not. It's about the belief that the gift to humankind (free will) is only possible through the lack of evidence in his/her/it's existance. With direct evidence, you would be forced to obey out of fear or praise. Or you could oppose God and suffer the same consequences as Satan. But your free will would be essentially lost.

Jon,

I think I didn't. I think I understand your reasoning but it is not logical. No one knows if God, Angels or Heaven exist. Full stop. Lots of people chose to believe either a) that they do or b) that they don't. These statements are logically pretty much identical because "God" is described as "indescribable".

The point is any discussion about God or (Not) God and what he/she/it does or doesn't do or did is meaningless because the word "God" is described as "not possible to give meaning to". Logically it follows that any discussion or argument that makes any reference to or relies upon the idea of God or (Not)God is also meaningless as the word "God" is defined as being indescribable.

Re free will: Most established theistic religions train kids from birth to fear "God" and his/her/it's "retribution" and try and please him/her/it to get to "heaven". So we aren't given free will at all: Our society saps it from us by programming fear into us so deeply that we are at a loss by the time we are adult to know what are our thoughts and what thoughts we have picked up off the floor/from parents/school/TV etc. As alan Watts - one of the greatest philosophers of the last century - wrote in his essay "Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen":

"But the Westerner who is attracted by Zen and who would understand it deeply must have one indispensable qualification: he must understand his own culture so thoroughly that he is no longer swayed by its premises unconsciously. He must really have come to terms with the Lord God Jehovah and with his Hebrew-Christian conscience so that he can take it or leave it without fear or rebellion. He must be free of the itch to justify himself. Lacking this, his Zen will be either "beat" or "square," either a revolt from the culture and social order or a new form of stuffiness and respectability. For Zen is above all the Liberation of the mind from conventional thought, and this is something utterly different from rebellion against convention, on the one hand, or adopting foreign conventions, on the other."

Hope the sun is shining your side of the Pond today. London is wet and cold, after a brief summer that lasted approximately 5 days.

Best

Matthew

Edit: Watts Essay "Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen" is here - it makes interesting reading for anyone of any religion.

[nil8]

Actually Slug, you're tapping into a large part of what Crowley, LaVey & Aquino talk about.
It's said in many different ways.
Every man and woman is a star or thou art god or become the god you were born to be.

Basically, what you're talking about is something called the left hand path. It takes the notion of 'god' and all that entails and puts it into the hand of the practitioner. You are your own god, you create your own existance, and you must work to achieve both.

Many people view this as being egocentrical, and in some forms it is. That being said, many people forget that others can be gods themselves. The notion of 'worship me' in the mature mind turn into 'worship yourself'.

I could ramble on about precursory notions or the various groups I'm affiliated with, but that accomplishes little.

What does matter in all this is to not deny or repress this idea of being your own god. If you express it to those around you through your thoughts and actions, they will either flock to you or hate you, or both.

Watch out for those police raids.

[Crazy Buddhist]

the second "stanza" which i have yet to label... well that one is luckily a little easier for me to explain. i do remember what i was feeling at that point. my underlying message is one of sustained "enlightenment" through introspection... and thats the shortest way i can put it.

Slug - It says all you have to say and does so perfectly. It's beautifully put and your poem too.

Keep walking your walk man, you are following a true path. Jesus, Buddha they all said the same things: "The kingdom of heaven is within", "know thyself" etc etc etc. They didn't woe and scare people with tales of hell, they said "hey if you look inside you will find the answers to the questions you have".