tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post4876398420822090832..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Fleshlights & I-AMmissariesGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26894840657473645942014-03-05T13:13:44.469-08:002014-03-05T13:13:44.469-08:00Magister: something about hearts and this time of...Magister: something about hearts and this time of year, and I don't mean Valentine's Day, although that's no accident either.Christina Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03026226686936294936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-86653860150617374742014-02-27T12:19:33.864-08:002014-02-27T12:19:33.864-08:00Hmm... My mind flows to the Voice at Jesus' ba...Hmm... My mind flows to the Voice at Jesus' baptism, and to the Transfiguration and why that was necessary. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased." "Hear him."<br /><br />Almost as if Jesus' positional reality has more to do with our frame of reference. We see Him lifted up from the earth before he was lifted up on the cross. We hear a voice from above condescending to His Son. Heaven came to earth, and the Son of Man returns to Heaven, bringing captives in His wake of glory.<br /><br />I'd like to sort it all out all properly, but I kind of like the satisfying mystery of its completeness.Joan of Argghh!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14729682908266300507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89417552673208877662014-02-27T08:13:37.795-08:002014-02-27T08:13:37.795-08:00MOTT/Tarot has the nice image of the Hanged Man, i...MOTT/Tarot has the nice image of the Hanged Man, i.e. suspended, to render the equipoise between above and below. It seems to me this is an image of Adam before the Fall and Christ, afterwards. <br /><br />Would this be a good image of the Son of Man? It seems we run into problems when we assume that up>down and down>up are an either/or. With Christ, we have both movements happening at the same time. This is like the mathematical image, Bob, of two interpenetrating cones. <br /><br />It's as if Christ was walking on earth upside-down, with his feet in heaven. That is, he was walking right side up, but not, obviously, to those who see like to imagine their heads in the clouds -- like Dawkins, perhaps.<br /><br />I was admitted to the cardio unit at our local hospital last week. No major problems, but talk about a fleshlight. For the first time, I became intimately aware of my own transience. For real. Our bodies don't last forever.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-85836249477451436632014-02-27T06:47:46.396-08:002014-02-27T06:47:46.396-08:00At the time I was returning to Catholicism after t...At the time I was returning to Catholicism after twenty-years of Protestantism, one of the things that brought me back was the appeal of Catholicism's "both/and" over Protestantism's "either/or". <br /><br />One of my earliest and best essays was written about the "People of the Book" and the Huh-Huh Lady in my neighborhood. Will have to dig it up. When I wrote it, I didn't quite know what I was trying to say. I wonder if that has changed?<br /><br />In the month before 9/11 I experienced something that I described to friends as a "slow motion breakdown." I felt like I was going to start screaming and that if I did, I would never stop. 9/11 pushed that and me into a very dark place for the next year. I couldn't even look up at the stars in the night sky. On the outside I looked normal and functioned enough to keep the family going in Germany while my husband was gearing up to go to war, but it was noticeable to me.Christina Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03026226686936294936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-33847771879539183582014-02-26T12:55:27.069-08:002014-02-26T12:55:27.069-08:00From yesterday's post: as things are always fa...From yesterday's post: <i>as things are always falling apart and reconstituting.</i><br /><br />My experience right now. Feels like coherent schizophrenia.tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26604738316417312822014-02-26T12:37:48.784-08:002014-02-26T12:37:48.784-08:00And of course, there's the opposite - destroyi...And of course, there's the opposite - destroying all images of a person and every reference to their name in order to erase them from history. Wasn't that a Jewish practice as well? Though I'm sure lots of cultures have done the same.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-33936537447998325912014-02-26T12:35:39.187-08:002014-02-26T12:35:39.187-08:00Yes, I think Boyarin references that phenomenon. ...Yes, I think Boyarin references that phenomenon. <br /><br />I wonder if putting Lenin's body on permanent display was a communist perversion of the same impulse? I guess for a materialist, that's the only eternity.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-7205957402198508582014-02-26T12:21:48.725-08:002014-02-26T12:21:48.725-08:00Hi Bob,
Many of the different views as to the nat...Hi Bob,<br /><br />Many of the different views as to the nature or natures of Jesus, expressed in the various Christianities that are now called heresies, have been recently recapitulated within segments of the Chabad community, trying to come to grips with the fact that the Rebbe they believed to be the Messiah seems to have died, as far as we can tell on this material plane.Gandalinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09196550750055246901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-61082146172338536412014-02-26T12:21:31.702-08:002014-02-26T12:21:31.702-08:00Kind of like faith and works. It doesn't real...Kind of like faith and works. It doesn't really require faith for the neo-Platonic ascent or for satori or moksha, just work; but it does require faith to believe in the Incarnation. Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40045723109010996482014-02-26T12:04:48.201-08:002014-02-26T12:04:48.201-08:00I neglected to include a passage Boyarin cites by ...I neglected to include a passage Boyarin cites by the scholar of Kabbalah, Moshe Idel, about two "main vectors" in the history of Jewish mysticism, <br /><br />"the apotheotic and the theophanic. The former represents the impulses of a few elite individuals to transcend the human mortal situation through a process of theosis, by ascending on high, to be transformed into a more lasting entity.... In contrast to this upward aspiration is the theophanic vector, which stands for the revelation of the divine in a direct manner or mediating hierarchies."<br /><br />So there it is, up and down.<br /><br />"Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-2287482203198121052014-02-26T11:56:29.442-08:002014-02-26T11:56:29.442-08:00And indeed, early IsraeliteChristian hybrids strug...<i>And indeed, early IsraeliteChristian hybrids struggled with just this issue: is Jesus from the downside up or the upside down?</i><br /><br />Yes, John 6 has Jesus talking about being the Bread the comes down from heaven as well as Him asking what they will think if they seeing Him ascending back to where He was before. <br /><br />Bend the arms of the cross down and you've got the Rocket Man. He's the ultimate up-arrow.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-3492297565432021582014-02-26T11:43:44.797-08:002014-02-26T11:43:44.797-08:00or the genome that transcends our supposedly "...<i> or the genome that transcends our supposedly "selfish" genes. Thus, if Richard Dawkins' thesis is true, it is self-negating, since the generous truth transcends his selfish DNA</i><br /><br />Poetic. mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89322674029283808552014-02-26T11:24:08.803-08:002014-02-26T11:24:08.803-08:00I tend to agree it is both. Being in Dharmic circl...I tend to agree it is both. Being in Dharmic circles, I find the man-to-God movement often falls short (at least in one lifetime). And the pronounced sages whom are of the alleged God-to-man movements often fall short even more so. The humble saint is the X factor that falls somewhere in between.<br /><br />Came across this <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Being-Different-Challenge-Western-Universalism/dp/9351160505/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1393431586&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow">fascinating read</a> this week. Makes a good case against religious universalism.tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-12332083200304348152014-02-26T11:16:58.465-08:002014-02-26T11:16:58.465-08:00It seems to me that Catholicism emphasizes the God...It seems to me that Catholicism emphasizes the God-to-man movement, while Eastern Orthodoxy emphasizes the man-to-God movement, i.e., theosis.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-25055211407729432572014-02-26T10:05:16.630-08:002014-02-26T10:05:16.630-08:00I wonder if the whole point is that he is both?
I...<i>I wonder if the whole point is that he is both?</i><br /><br />I've always thought so. I hadn't realized there was any serious dispute, but of course there would be. Whenever there's an antinomy, it seems as though some if not most people choose one side or the other, and completely miss the point where they come together and it all makes sense.<br /><br /><i>Another part of me wants to regard religion-as-such as one vast body of knowledge, data, and experience.</i><br /><br />Yes; God must necessarily be God-of-all, not just a god of a select few. I do find the abstract symbols helpful; it may be a scientific approach, but it's also a very fruitful method of understanding.<br /><br />Now that I think of it, the symbols remind me of being in art school, where we were taught to see the abstract shapes hidden within famous artworks. Learning how they interact and what effect those interactions create was a key in learning both how to understand art, and how to create it.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.com