Conversation Between Post-Something and spiltteeth

  1. Post-Something
    Actually, I just read in some post that you were trained in psychoanalysis?
    I've been reading Frued and Jung for the past 3 months, racking my mind..did you study psychology?

    Anyway, when you say in the ramadan thread that a religious claim is a completely different form of knowledge to a scientific one, can you explain to me what a religious claim could be defined as? How it should be interpreted? a story, truth, art? what purpose does it serve other than to offer meaning for the individual?
  2. Post-Something
    Wow! That's really admirable actually! I'm really happy for you that you found something spiritual to connect with. I know I wish I could. Although, I think if I was literate enough to read Heidegger and Hegel, I would probably have to have my own deity just to keep me going through their writings.

    As for art, I like art. I think it's a very important human characteristic; to explore the self outside of the self. In fact, I wish I kept up my drawing and painting. Your stuff is very good though, very individual.

    What was your poison of choice may I ask?
  3. PART 3
    Then I read that book Being as Communion and I thought, from a philosophically perspective, not that it makes it true, but IF Christianity was true, it would solve so many philosophical conundrums with what I consider a breath taking elegance.
    Then I read the desert fathers, which aren't the judgmental pricks that many Christian are, I like them. It all eventually lead me to communism via beryaev, then through Jung (whom I mostly reject) and William James it lead me to the mysticism of the Orthodox Church.Add a bit Kierkegaard and Unumuno, and I realized belief must come first.
    And I've remained sober, a miracle, have a framework that I consider elegant and rigorous, and I've even had my little experiences, which are personal - although no voices or burning bushes. I know it's bizarre, irrational, and absurd, but ...in a nutshell, that is why I believe. It wasn't by way of analysis or logical apprehension, it was by way of desperation.
  4. PART 2
    At the same time I read alot of philosophy, although I hate post-modernism. I was really influenced by Heidegger's ideas of how subjectivity exists, and his ideas that because we exist within the gap between objectivity and subjectivity, we are 'guardians of the universe' in that sense, since this gap creates the something from the void. Then I read about Hegel's idea that an "I" can only exist with a "you" with creates a third term : "we." I know I'm bastardizing this terribly, but his idea that there must be 3 referents for something to exist, and only than it exists relationally.Well, this is the basis for a triune god, not even God can exist by himself, he IS a community. tbc...
  5. Thanks! Are you into art?
    As for God...Well, actually I used to be a hard core atheist. But I developed a drug problem. went to prison, got out, tried to stay sober a million different ways, tried therapy etc Finally I joined a 12 step group. The 12 step group I belong to is mostly vehemently anti-religious and anti-Christian, but they said if I wanted to stay sober I had to get a "relationship with a higher power" and pray. I told them str8 out I was an atheist. But I was so desperate I suspended my judgment and, without believing, prayed twice a day every day -WITH an open mind - after two whole years I began to have an actual experiential relationship with...somthing. Some Christian i Heard said maybe truth wasn't a theory or an abstraction, maybe it was a person I could relate to, if their was a God He is too abstract to talk about/experience... to be continued..
  6. Post-Something
    I like your style, your art and your posts.
    Can I ask a question though, how did you find God? And how do you justify God's existence to yourself?
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