Why Are Jews Liberals?
I'm hoping buyer's remorse on Obama will finally cause a Jewish shift to the right.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB100...1116901498.html

Remind me, Snuff - what exactly IS a liberal?

Is a liberal one who believes in liberty for all, as long as what he does harms nobody?

Or is a liberal one who believes the Feds should do everything for us, from cradle to grave?

Or...?

This guy is crying in his beer because so many jews have chosen Humanism over Judaeism...I say
get over it...

Liberal = Liberated from traditional sources of authority and committed to the common good...@rla

The author is whining......about what really, he doesn't make clear....he writes:

What I am saying is that if anything bears eloquent testimony to the infinitely precious virtues of the traditional American system, it is the Jewish experience in this country. [b]Surely, then, we Jews ought to be joining with its defenders against those who are blind or indifferent or antagonistic to the philosophical principles, the moral values, and the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.

He's a conservative...change makes him uncomfortable....


I think most American Jews align with the Dems because they're very concerned about civil rights in our nation.
As rla said, they're more attached to a "humanistic" philosophy (guided by religious principles) than by religious dogma.

I completely understand why most Americans Jew are Dems.

To heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, lift up the fallen, care for the poor, the innocent, the widow and the orphan! This guy doesn't go to the Synagogue at all or he would hear that litany over and over every single week. The Republicans are concerned with self-sufficiency. The Jewish religion is concerned with community and social justice, and helping others who are without resources. What I don't understand is how can a Jew be a Republican?

Is it more difficult or less difficult to just be a Person first, for someone born into a Jewish family than someone born into some other religion, to simplyfy let's say Catholic?

after being in chains for years that showed suffering

why do people hate Jews just because they work hard and whine

as oppose to just sit on their sofa and whine?

Jews were not allowed to touch the soil, so they became bankers and jewelers etc as slaves

blacks were not allowed to touch money so they worked the soil as slaves

each saw suffering the lazy never have seen

Well said, Heart! My father was Jewish---and a republican----he resented having to pay income tax.....

It's harder rla. If it wasn't, there would be no Jews left in the world.

"...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

- Mark Twain
(“Concerning The Jews,” Harper’s Magazine, 1899
see The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Doubleday [1963] pg. 249)

“if we were forced to choose just one, there would be no way to deny that Judaism is the most important intellectual development in human history.”

- David Gelernter, Yale University Professor

“It is against their own insoluble problem of being human that the dull and base in humanity are in revolt in anti-Semitism. Judaism, nevertheless, together with Hellenism and Christianity is an inalienable component of our Christian Western civilization, the eternal “call to Sinai” against which humanity again and again rebels.”

- Herman Rauschning, The Beast From the Abyss, pp. 155-56

“What is the Jew?...What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!
The Jew - is the symbol of eternity. ... He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear.
The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”

- Leo Tolstoy
(What is the Jew?
quoted in The Final Resolution, pg. 189, printed in Jewish World periodical, 1908)

Are Jews less likely than others to refuse to be a God in order to be a Person?

Jews itself cannot be just one word

there are a few different types of Jews

Jews as a positive
Jews as a negative
Jews as caring feeling liberals with heart
Jews as the stereotype blood suckers who own the money and power (though I thought that was the Pope?)

Jews in the US are different from Jews in Israel
Jews in Israel killed Rabin, the liberal peacewanter

Jews in the US want peace
Jews are fractured

Jews are a state of mind in lots of cases, over a state of God

Some Jews could be said to have heard what Ted Kennedy said in his eulogy of Bobby
"saw wrongs and tried to right it"
"Saw suffering and tried to heal it"
etc.

Jews, I would say, are the least likely to "play God". There is a saying in Judaism about "not telling God how to run the universe".

Jews concern themselves with life over any after-life, they do not proselytize and it's difficult to become a Jew if you weren't born a Jew.

Jews concern themselves with being the best person they can be, and that includes all the previous mentions of social justice that I listed above. As Ted Kennedy found in his Catholic faith, it is in the works of life where one finds meaning and for him "redemption". Jews aren't big on redemption, that only happens once a year....that would be when Jews take inventory of the year and seek forgiveness FROM OTHERS WHO ARE LIVING, before they can even approach what they deem to be "God" for any kind of forgiveness. An afterlife, is something that will take care of itself....life is to be lived first.

My reference was not to, "playing God."

I'm thinking of the way Nietzsche and others dealt with the death of God so characteristic of the mid 19th century
to the mid 20th century and the continuing growth of radical theology which often assumes the death of God as
a cultural event...

But Nietzsche had a complicated view of "The Jew". He actually saw the Jewish people through three separate stereotypes, and in two different groups of Jews. There were the German Jews and those fleeing Eastern European pogroms (the schtetle Jews) and found them vulgar, superstitions and barbaric. He's right. They were comparatively speaking because they lived in squalor in Russia and had very little refinement that was shown in the German and Austran Jews. It is much the same with the Native Americans here in the US, it's all fine and well to meet with Native Americans who are running casinos or live close to westerners, but if you've never been to some of the outlying reservations you would not know that there are many Native Americans that live in dirt and squallor with animals, children and trash everywhere. Where everyone is usually drunk and many nights lie in their own urine with a bottle still in their hand where they passed out. This is not our view of the Native American stereotype, but I've seen both sides, and they are both true....even if it is our fault (if it can be our fault). When Neitzsche saw the influx of Eastern European Jews that is what he saw as superstitious and barbaric.

Nietzsche seems to have thought that the modern Jew (as those he saw in German/Austria) was a remarkable breed, and had to be kept out, not for the sake of modernity, because he thought that Jews were the only "religion" capable of coexisting with modernity since the Greeks. He was fighting for a group of people, namely Germans, not for personhood! He feared the Jews only because he believed them capable of superceding the weaker German race and becoming ubermenschen....yet it also puzzled him that they didn't take advantage of what they "could" do....they instead refused to be the leader of decadence. Nietzsche didn't understand this.

Furthermore, I think you misinterpret Neitzsche when you only say "God is dead"....as if he were happy with that outcome. He was remarking that it was humanity that killed God, it was God's sympathy with humanity that killed God, and now the only thing left was for humans to become Gods themselves.

Is it harder to become a person if you come from a Jewish family? If you believe Nietzsche you find no conflicts with modernity in modern Judaism and you find that it was Nietzsche's philosophy that called for the sacrifice of personhood for state, and then, the sacrifice of personhood for ubermenschen a.k.a. a sort of reincarnation of man as God.

If not, can you explain a bit more what you mean?

It has been a long time since I studied Nietzsche's work...I'm taking his statement at face value that, "One must
refuse to be a God in order to be a person...At the time that I was looking into some of his writing, I was convinced
that his ideas were distorted by the Natzi political thinkers...I don't think his concept of striving for excellence meant
striving for Godliness or rightousness...

Perhaps rla, perhaps.

I think his quote "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star." is one of the best quotes I have ever heard, and in this regard, it is because of the choas inherent in being a Jewish person in a world that is forever tossing Jews around that makes Jews dynamic and yet always remembering their own values....which happen to be all about being the best person they can be, and helping others do the same.

Fascinating. I'm going to have to catch up on my Nietzsche. I never read his works. Jung considered him someone who devled into the Unconscious deeply but was not grounded and was swept away.

The root question I have though, is why do you think that it is Jewish people who act as God rla?

Personally (not a Jewish position), I believe that we are all God, in that we create life as we live it day by day. If you can call that deity, I'm not sure if you look at deity as broadly as I do. There is something preternatural about humans, whether from an interference outside of our known evolution or because we have created ourselves, over the ages to manifest our own synchronized dance with the universe....and to the best of my ability to judge, become capable of the maintenance of the "soul' after death....to what end I am not sure. It's no more insane or sane to believe that than to believe we came to exist at all.

What Jews believe is also very complex, and not homogeneous, so it's not clear to me where you would get the idea that Jews believe that they are Gods. Even the article speaks only of Orthodox faith penned out over centuries and not at all what most Jews would deem to be the truth. In fact, I find the authors claims on social positions to be false and unsupported. I don't think that Jews accept laws such as stoning and killing as in the OT, so from that change alone it is evident that Judaism evolves. The Orthodox must concede that point or they must accept all of the OT laws and the spirit of those laws as well. They do not. Some laws they work around, like lighting and such for the Sabbath, so they are rejecting the spirit of the law while only partially accepting the whole of the law. That's already giving ground to the evolution of thought. Any claim being made by the ultra Orthodox (a small slice of Jewish thought) must be viewed in this context and challenged on that basis.

He suffered his whole life. He was plagued by almost daily migraine headaches. He had syphallis, manic depressive disease and eventually psychotic breaks. Yet, he was probably the most introspective person of his time.....and likely, all of that introspection, may have been enough to cause a psychotic break. If you peer too far into the abyss of ego, you will likely lose a little bit of sanity. It is better to look within and realize the hungry nature of the self, feed it two things.....with reckless abandon the pleasures from time to time, and as a steady diet feed it through expenditure of the self by giving to others.

I never made an assertion about this. I only asked the question...I have discussed the, "Death of God" with
several Christians and a few persons who didn't identify with any religion but never with someone well versed in
Judeaism and also a practicing Jew. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts...

The Truth about Christian Zionists
September 18, 2009
Norman Podhoretz, a former liberal who saw the light decades ago and became a conservative, recently wrote a book "Why Jews are Liberals". He traces the history of the Jewish people and its tragic past in Europe. He believes... More

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/0...ian_zion_1.html

I should have made myself clearer. As fascinating as I find what you've said about Nietzsche I find this whole thread fascinating and particularly what you've said about this subject heart.

I am drawn even more to your speculations about the meaning of existence from a Jewish perspective and from your own unique (individual) perspective. I have long "felt" that we are all a part of God and so the statement that "We are all God" finds resonance with me. At the risk of losing whatever credibility I may have I want to cite my own first psychedelic experience with LSD many decades ago. (BTW I have long since given up such reckless behavior). But back then I experimented as did my generation and I still remember a remarkable "hallucination".

All around me I could see every aspect of normal reality made up of a kind of "texture". At first it was barely detectable. A kind of light tracery on every surface making it look like everything had a before un-noticed texture. In looking closer I was startled to find the tracery or texture to actually be a pattern of tiny living "eyes". These "eyes" were everywhere and on every living and presumably every non-living thing.

It was on or "in" the bark of the trees and and made up of its woody "barkiness". On the leaves and therefore made up of its "greeney leafiness" as those leaves stirred in the breeze. It was "in" and of the air and partook and was moving in its invisible and blue "airiness". Tiny eyes everywhere not particularly staring at anything I could discern but almost dreamy in their consciousness. They were in the ground and were the "eyes" of ground and of rock. What was even more startling to me was when I looked at my own hand. My own skin had its own texture made up of those dreaming eyes.

Since that "trip" I've speculated on the nature of existence and though I have to go to work right now I'd like to come back and say more if I don't unintentionally distract this thread.

Apparently the American Stinker will print anything as long as it leans sufficiently to the right in the right reactionary way...

I always thought Papa Bush had been hitting the LSD whenever he talked about a thousand points of light...(joking)

To continue...

Since that "trip" I started exploring the notion that we are all "God". The trip suggested that a consciousness exists in all things even minerals. There have been writings, some in Myth but others in Philosophic musings that the growth of Crystals for example suggests a rudimentary consciousness. And of course there have been studies showing that plants respond in ways that show a higher form of consciousness. But between those two states (Mineral and Plant) we draw an arbitrary line. We say that Minerals are not "alive" and Plants are.

But what if Consciousness to any degree is in fact "Life,"... and visa versa? If then Minerals show signs of "Consciousness" (IE "awareness of their surroundings") then they would be alive by that definition though to us they seem "inanimate". Science has long been unable to find the point when "Life" began on Earth. Many theories about amino acids and the building blocks of life setting the stage for life to "arrive" have not born fruit yet. The latest theory suggests "life" somehow arose elsewhere and was transported to earth by a meteor. But what if "life" was always here even in Earth's molten phase? And just further developed more complex manifestations as conditions, elements, and temperatures allowed? Water in its liquid state would allow this "development" to accelerate by bringing together these elements and compounds much more quickly than without water's fluidic nature.

But I want to jump ahead whatever the truth is about the above speculations. Many philosophers including Jung, C.S. Lewis, and I might add William Bramley (author of the Gods of Eden) have speculated on this idea of a Supreme Being (or Supreme Spirit) from which our essential being on a spiritual level came about. I won't go into all their ideas here right now but I found a particularly interesting take in Jung's autobiography "Memories, Dreams, and Reflections".

He speculated that our "being" is God's way of exploring Himself from an almost infinite number of unique perspectives. In fact he postulates that these infinitely unique perspectives with free will constitute an ongoing act of creation! The Aborigines of Australia speak of "The Dream Time" when all humanity partook in creation and it is by no means unique to them. Many of the oldest legends suggest the same thing.

Imagine two humans standing on the Serengeti Plain and observing its teeming life. The herds of animals. The predators waiting in the tall grass. The birds flying overhead and the cloud topped mountains in the distance all under the vast blue sky illumined by the sun. Each human would be standing slightly apart from the other and would see almost the same scene. But it would be slightly different for each one and that is not to take into account the filter of unique thoughts and feelings through which each was "experiencing" it.

Without the human perspective - the self-aware free willed angle - the scene and that world would be less than it was with it. The blue sky and green grass. The clouds and the animals and everything else would all still be there presumably. BUT it would not be "experienced" in the same way. The "scene" with all its unique emotional and thoughtful impact would not "exist". Therefore by our very existence and our observation we have added something to the universe - to creation.

My "trip" back in the sixties where I saw the "eyes" in everything even my own skin, suggests to me that by my very experience I was observing the universal consciousness of existence and participating in creation just by existing and observing.

Through my own unique being and unique consciousness even through my created "eyes" I added something (however infinitesimally small) to all that is.

Just some musings.

Trou, this imagery seems consistent with General System's Theory:

Every thing that is, is in motion
Everything that is, is itself and its relations to a larger whole
Everything that is, is emerging into higher levels of Organization

If that is what "General Systems Theory" states then I would agree. But I find the jargon you use "flies over my head" and doesn't convey to me all that you MAY mean. I am not criticizing you, it is just that I do not possess the scientific or acedemic experience to fully understand your terminology. Or is it that you do not take into account all that you yourself are saying?

If you are saying that "life" is a fundamental characteristic of the matter and energy existing in Space-Time (meaning every thing from the sub-atomic to the largest structures and energy patterns in the universe). And that as such it will "naturally" act to "emerge into higher levels of Organization," I would agree. But it still misses something IMO.

"What is it that makes life, life?" What then is the fundamental definition of living?

I submit it is "awareness". That life itself is awareness and visa versa.

If as my trip suggested, my own unique consciousness is embedded in this living universe made up of matter and energy that is itself conscious. Then the question would be who or what is that "I" that is conscious of looking out from my "created" eyes that so to speak are also made up of "living particles"?

Unless you are suggesting that my own consciousness is just a result of "living particles" organizing themselves into an aggregate form, "Me," it would seem that there is something else besides the world of matter and energy existing in Space Time. If all things great and small from the simplest basic "String" to Star Clusters spanning millions of Light Years are themselves conscious and exist as Lewis suggests "for themselves" and as you suggest "are themselves" as well as having relations to the larger whole. Then what is the larger whole? Is it an aggregate consciousness or a "being" in and of itself? If it is a "being" as in a smaller example I think of myself as a being, it may be true that I could not function in this physical universe without this living vehicle (my body). But am "I" (The one who is conscious of himself) my body?

If not. Then "I" am still something else.

I refer of course to a "spirit" that uses this living body. I know this seems an unnecessary leap past the purely logical conclusion that I am what makes me up and no more.

It seems far enough to postulate that all things are living, and even hinting that "we" are greater than the sum of our parts by virtue of the "unintended" consequence of sufficient complexity giving birth as it were a higher form of consciousness. Ergo - "US" as individual beings.

But too many things are still unexplained for me to accept even this advanced way of looking at the universe as sufficient. It may be true enough in itself and represents a great leap forward in Scientific Thought. And I would submit will eventually lead to what I am postulating. That though all things are "alive" (conscious) so are all that do not fit the definition of "things" (however complex).

In essence, that there is more in the heavens and the earth than is dreamed of in our philosophies.

Just more "thoughts" (whatever "they" are).

In my opinion, it is living that makes life, life...if it is, it is both structure and process...

"Structure and process". Both drive each other? That is too mechanistic rla. There must be awareness for this to "hold water".

IMO.

Everything that is, is relative...

Human beings can be alive without being aware but they can not be fully alive withour being aware. In a comma, a person is to some extent, organismiclly aware though not perceptually/conceptually aware...Being perceptually/conceptually aware and being aware that it is I who is aware is a higher level of awareness than non-human mammals are likely to achieve...

I see human beings as more evolved than other animals in terms of greater separation of parts and
greater integration of parts. The greater integration of perception, conception, feeling, intending
and acting generates greater levels organization/awareness...this more than that I hear you speaking of is what I refer to as the spiritual domain which transcends the physical, psychological, sociological,
cultural, economic and technological domains...That is, the spiritual domain results from integrating the other domains (structure and process)...truth and beauty exist in simplicity.

IMO. You are using a lot of concepts here which you do not fully or clearly define. It makes it hard for me to understand what you are actually saying.

For example, the "spiritual domain" you refer to sounds like a "result" of structure and process organizing (or integrating) elements of something that already exists; "awareness". Perception, conception, feeling, intending and acting are all elements of life (consciousness). If awareness (at whatever level) already exists then where does it (awareness) come from? You seem to be saying that aliveness and awareness on some fundamental level just "is". Due to... what? Relativity?

I am saying that this "spiritual domain" exists before matter and energy begin "organizing and integrating" and in fact are the primal cause. That matter and energy both came into existence because of "spirit" (consciousness) and both infuse the structure and the process.

Truth and beauty. Hmmm.... Well I do believe the truth is "simple" but also "complex" and that the concept "beauty" is something that can be discerned only by consciousness. Without "awareness" being at a certain level of advancement (complexity) the "beauty" of lets say of a sunset or a woman is non-existent. This is what I mean by our adding something to creation just by existing as an individual self-aware being. Our ability to conceptualize stems from our ability to "image -in" on a sort of "mirror" in the mind where we can become aware of ourselves as something more than a combination of urges and instincts. As an "I" we can "imagine" ourselves in a hypothetical situation in the future for instance. We can desire that situation or want to avoid it and we can therefore create a future reality by intention and action.

I do believe that there are "levels" of awareness and that they inform structure and process towards greater awareness. You call it organization and to a certain extent I agree. The greater organization (complexity) the more awareness it is possible to manifest. But there must be awareness first or it is all about chance inanimate particles forming "life" through simple randomality. This makes no sense at all IMO. There must be intention at the very least and intention is an element of life, of consciousness. For it to already be there from the beginning it must already exist. Unless you are suggesting that along with relativity intention "just is".

Trou, perhaps you don't give sufficient weight to the concept of Aggregation.

When one adds together a Mama and a Papa and three of their individual children, one has created a new existence--a family or the Gestalt notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...

When several families are aggregated and other necessary and sufficient conditions are met, a community is created...

What was there before the community was created? Going back as far as recorded history, the concept of community was there before the actuality of community...Indications from archeology
and anthropology suggest that the process of famillying evolved prior to the process of languaging
or naming it as such...

Structure and process have a system's relation to each other. The habit of thought of reducing the universe to a series of cause and effect relations ignores the given that everything that is, is in motion. Part-whole relations are as significant as cause and effect relations. The relations between and among entities are more important than the essence of the entities...

Trou, are you familiar with Jung's The Red Book? Google the title and checkout the NY Times article
about it...

I have read many Jewish authors who believe this too. It is a prominent belief in Reform/Progressive Judaism.

The idea is that there is no way to evolve/grow unless you have some other person or growing entity that is also evolving. The things that make us grow/evolve are all the emotions, both good and bad, that we experience. We only learn through the ups and downs of life.

In the "Haggadah" (not the one for Passover/Pesach, but the one in "The Other Bible") is a mystical text of the Mishnah, that describes God talking to the angels. He is about to create the new universe and humans. The Angels ask him why he is doing this again when it has failed so many times he tried it before. He says that this time he realizes his mistake, and the mistake was to create the world without injecting the possibility of error or mistakes, that is what will make this time around successful. In the Haggadah, God has a realized that he doesn't want to create another herd of cows, he wants to create inherent errors, so that growth occurs....suggesting that he needs this too.

I use all of these terms lightly....I think it's much more important to focus on creating our own lives and let the natural progression of death teach us the rest. Yet, it's interesting to pontificate, even if we can't, and probably shouldn't, know what the meaning of life is all about.

Jung mentions it in "Memories, Dreams, and Reflections," but no I didn't know about the article. I've just read it. Thanks for the tip. It is fascinating. I look forward to reading the "Red Book".

What do you think about what you've read?

And... did you dream?

I also think the "mystic core" of the major religions hold surprisingly similar ideas about creation and the meaning of life.

Bramely (author of "The Gods of Eden") speculates on a similar reason for the Supreme Spirit to create innumerable "spirits" who become immersed in the physical universe they helped create. What I find particularly fascinating is the idea that an infinite universe requires an infinity in which to place it. AND that WE who each have an imagination, therefore possess within our own minds our own "little" infinity.

As an amateur writer I have had some of the most mystical experiences in my life writing. Matching or even exceeding the "psychedelic phase" in my twenties (at least in regards to emotional intensity). Characters of mine seeming to take on a "life" of their own and saying and doing things I had not intended them to say or do. More than once it has changed the direction of the chapter and even affected the direction of the entire book(s). Re-write, re-write... While amazing to me it is it seems a normal occurrence according to professional writers. It gets very personal.

JK Rowling for instance said in an interview that she was agonizing over the possible death of one of her characters as she was writing it and had become frozen at wanting to avoid the grief it would cause her. The interviewer was puzzled at this and seemed incredulous that a writer would react as though an "invented" character was a real person. Rowlings explained that like many writers she had come to love her characters and had felt as though they had their own lives.

I guess I have come to believe as you heart that we create our own lives to a large degree. And perhaps to an even larger degree than many suspect. If the real stories of our lives span many "lifetimes" (as I believe they do) then we may be our own "authors" even of those things we believe we were just "dumped" into. As Jim Morrison says in "Riders on the Storm".

"Into this house we're born... into this world we're thrown...

Like a dog without a bone... an actor out alone...

Riders on the Storm..."

Perhaps... But perhaps it is also true you do not give sufficient weight to "causes". I agree "we" evolved from the animal into human (self-aware) in a nest of the group and our relations with one another may have greatly contributed to that evolvement.

I am not dismissing relativity if you mean it in the way I think you mean it. IE that the relationships affect and mold the individual (particle or being). But I think you are not taking into account the premise of those relationships and trying to reduce them to purely mechanical or chemical or to nuclear physical kinds of "processes". Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that way a dead end in sofar as you abandon the very premise you seem to be making. That all matter and energy inherently act to organize into higher levels of "organization". You are hinting at some inherent property of matter and energy that sounds a lot like "intent" and yet suggesting that this is not the cause of that organization.

If intent is there I repeat where does this astonishing characteristic of matter come from? You seem to propose it either just is or is somehow inherent in relativity alone.

In my opinion, it is living that makes life, life...if it is, it is both structure and process...[/quote]
"Structure and process". Both drive each other? That is too mechanistic rla. There must be awareness for this to "hold water".

IMO.
[/quote]

Everything that is, is relative...

Human beings can be alive without being aware but they can not be fully alive withour being aware. In a comma, a person is to some extent, organismiclly aware though not perceptually/conceptually aware...Being perceptually/conceptually aware and being aware that it is I who is aware is a higher level of awareness than non-human mammals are likely to achieve...

I see human beings as more evolved than other animals in terms of greater separation of parts and
greater integration of parts. The greater integration of perception, conception, feeling, intending
and acting generates greater levels organization/awareness...this more than that I hear you speaking of is what I refer to as the spiritual domain which transcends the physical, psychological, sociological,
cultural, economic and technological domains...That is, the spiritual domain results from integrating the other domains (structure and process)...truth and beauty exist in simplicity.
[/quote]
IMO. You are using a lot of concepts here which you do not fully or clearly define. It makes it hard for me to understand what you are actually saying.

For example, the "spiritual domain" you refer to sounds like a "result" of structure and process organizing (or integrating) elements of something that already exists; "awareness". Perception, conception, feeling, intending and acting are all elements of life (consciousness). If awareness (at whatever level) already exists then where does it (awareness) come from? You seem to be saying that aliveness and awareness on some fundamental level just "is". Due to... what? Relativity?

I am saying that this "spiritual domain" exists before matter and energy begin "organizing and integrating" and in fact are the primal cause. That matter and energy both came into existence because of "spirit" (consciousness) and both infuse the structure and the process.

Truth and beauty. Hmmm.... Well I do believe the truth is "simple" but also "complex" and that the concept "beauty" is something that can be discerned only by consciousness. Without "awareness" being at a certain level of advancement (complexity) the "beauty" of lets say of a sunset or a woman is non-existent. This is what I mean by our adding something to creation just by existing as an individual self-aware being. Our ability to conceptualize stems from our ability to "image -in" on a sort of "mirror" in the mind where we can become aware of ourselves as something more than a combination of urges and instincts. As an "I" we can "imagine" ourselves in a hypothetical situation in the future for instance. We can desire that situation or want to avoid it and we can therefore create a future reality by intention and action.

I do believe that there are "levels" of awareness and that they inform structure and process towards greater awareness. You call it organization and to a certain extent I agree. The greater organization (complexity) the more awareness it is possible to manifest. But there must be awareness first or it is all about chance inanimate particles forming "life" through simple randomality. This makes no sense at all IMO. There must be intention at the very least and intention is an element of life, of consciousness. For it to already be there from the beginning it must already exist. Unless you are suggesting that along with relativity intention "just is".
[/quote]

Trou, perhaps you don't give sufficient weight to the concept of Aggregation.

When one adds together a Mama and a Papa and three of their individual children, one has created a new existence--a family or the Gestalt notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...

When several families are aggregated and other necessary and sufficient conditions are met, a community is created...

What was there before the community was created? Going back as far as recorded history, the concept of community was there before the actuality of community...Indications from archeology
and anthropology suggest that the process of famillying evolved prior to the process of languaging
or naming it as such...
[/quote]
Perhaps... But perhaps it is also true you do not give sufficient weight to "causes". I agree "we" evolved from the animal into human (self-aware) in a nest of the group and our relations with one another may have greatly contributed to that evolvement.

I am not dismissing relativity if you mean it in the way I think you mean it. IE that the relationships affect and mold the individual (particle or being). But I think you are not taking into account the premise of those relationships and trying to reduce them to purely mechanical or chemical or to nuclear physical kinds of "processes". Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that way a dead end in sofar as you abandon the very premise you seem to be making. That all matter and energy inherently act to organize into higher levels of "organization". You are hinting at some inherent property of matter and energy that sounds a lot like "intent" and yet suggesting that this is not the cause of that organization.

If intent is there I repeat where does this astonishing characteristic of matter come from? You seem to propose it either just is or is somehow inherent in relativity alone.
[/quote]

I think nature is intelligent and I also think that nature IS intelligence. I think that as human kind gradually observed explicit patterns in nature they named the process intelligence and the more systematic observation they engaged in the more intelligence they observed and the more intelligent they became and the more intelligent they became the more they systematized this observing process
and thus created science and accumulated scientific information. The universe is a system of emergent intelligence. I think too often it is the naming of this process, God that sets up an artificial
dychotomy...if there is a creative process, then there must be a CREATOR...

So you acknowledge "Intelligence" in nature. What then is "Nature"? And if "Nature" has or IS "Intelligence" where did that Nature come from?

We still have to confront the "Great Presumption" of science. That somehow through chance inanimate particles organized themselves first into "Life" (Nature?) and then into such a structure that they were able to perceive themselves.

This is preposterous. You yourself admit that if a creative process exists then there must be a creator. I am merely saying that a way of understanding this creative process is to conceive of "Spirit". I am not saying I know what this "Spirit" is, but it must be something that either exists alongside the physical or imbues or "affects" matter from the very beginning.

I agree we can get lost in terms like "Soul," and "God," but maybe better terms are "Spirit" or perhaps "Mind"? I know that scientific thinkers recoil in horror from such terms - fear ridicule and the loss of grants. But the String Theorists have already crossed the line. So unless science is going to halt at the threshold of the unknown and betray its "reason d' etre" someone is going to have to take the plunge into the premise that Space-Time at its very fundamental level seems to made up of THOUGHT.


Just some "Thoughts".

I think nature is intelligent and I also think that nature IS intelligence. I think that as human kind gradually observed explicit patterns in nature they named the process intelligence and the more systematic observation they engaged in the more intelligence they observed and the more intelligent they became and the more intelligent they became the more they systematized this observing process
and thus created science and accumulated scientific information. The universe is a system of emergent intelligence. I think too often it is the naming of this process, God that sets up an artificial
dychotomy...if there is a creative process, then there must be a CREATOR...[/quote]

So you acknowledge "Intelligence" in nature. What then is "Nature"? And if "Nature" has or IS "Intelligence" where did that Nature come from?

We still have to confront the "Great Presumption" of science. That somehow through chance inanimate particles organized themselves first into "Life" (Nature?) and then into such a structure that they were able to perceive themselves.

This is preposterous. You yourself admit that if a creative process exists then there must be a creator. I am merely saying that a way of understanding this creative process is to conceive of "Spirit". I am not saying I know what this "Spirit" is, but it must be something that either exists alongside the physical or imbues or "affects" matter from the very beginning.

I agree we can get lost in terms like "Soul," and "God," but maybe better terms are "Spirit" or perhaps "Mind"? I know that scientific thinkers recoil in horror from such terms - fear ridicule and the loss of grants. But the String Theorists have already crossed the line. So unless science is going to halt at the threshold of the unknown and betray its "reason d' etre" someone is going to have to take the plunge into the premise that Space-Time at its very fundamental level seems to made up of THOUGHT.


Just some "Thoughts".
[/quote]

I failed to make myself clear. I'm saying that our dychotomous language, going back to Aristotle,
causes one to assume that if we name something a creative process, then we must posit a creator.
Human beings are systems existing in the larger system of the universe. The smaller system was created by the larger system...both systems are intelligent. They are both in the process of becomming. Everything that is, is in process...some processes are faster than others. Entities that we label structures are mush slower than entities we label processes. Einstein stated that there no
essential difference between structure and process...

Double post

What else would we "posit"? Einstein himself wasn't shy about talking about "God". Everything we talk about requires a "Label," a "Name". To try and avoid that by dodging into "creative processes" is a bit lame if you ask me. You then turn right around and use the label "Entities" anyway. An "Entity" is just another word for "Being" is it not? You can call it a "Structure" and or say that "Structure and Process" are essentially the same, but it seems to me you are resisting the basic premise.

There is something that seems to be aware in what we have heretofore labeled as "inanimate". I say Religion can be confronted by Science to the enrichment of both instead of one destroying the other. But both will have to change some of their "nemeses". Religion acknowledges the "Spirit" and names it "God," but resists all attempts at the scientific process of further understanding as well as eliminating "error". Science is constantly updating in its process of understanding but stops short of acknowledging the possibility of "Spirit" as a primal cause and even as regards the very nature of our existence (Mind). It stops at an artificial boundary it labels the "Physical".

Whether it is Jung, Einstein, or, Brian Greene (String Theorist), etc.. some of the greatest thinkers in Science, Psychology and Philosophy are all along the Watchtower and are all pointing at something else ... out there in the distance...

I guess what I am saying is call it what you want... But... A Rose by any other name is still a "Rose".

Just some musings.

I think the something else is creation itself. Our creativity is what most scares us and causes us to
project it upon the Gods...

Sounds like a reasonable response to me.

A.B.

What else would you expect from The Party of Liars, Thieves, Warmongers, and Traitors? A Party essentially of Sociopaths would want an (OT) Authoritarian version of Religion to combine with an Authoritarian government. The humanism most Jews exhibit is anathema to them. They do not have the same vision of America our founding fathers had nor the same vision most people have. They wrap themselves in the Flag never having read the Constitution and wave a Bible they've never read. They've had it read to them by sociopathic pastors who call for the death of the president. They hate the "other" and have voted against anything Christ would admonish us to do. They are phony Christians and phony Conservatives. They are for the destruction of America as we know it and hate the American people. Everything the Republican Party stands for shouts this from the rooftops. They talk about "freedom". But all they mean by that is they want to be free to lie to, steal from, and kill, whoever they want, and be blessed by their version of "God" in the bargain.

Their "council" is for us all to surrender our freedom and our lives to the very Masters they've already sold their own souls to. I am not surprised they reject "Humanism". They stick with their own.

Just my opinion.

Well... like I said at the start. I think we are all part of God. Miniature versions if you will. Immortal free spirits who are each unique like snowflakes and follow our own paths which makes us more unique still. I'd say as Taylor Caldwell had Christ say in "I Judas". "We are supposed to grow into fit companions for God."

Just my opinion.

*Sigh* As you can see from my above two posts. I have a long way to go to become a "fit" companion myself.