Levitra….

It sounds like you practice the nearly-lost Christian mysticism. I’ve read a little about the early Gnostics and their ideas about “The Christ”. Given that flavor of Christianity, I can see how you can reconcile it with Buddhism.

I tried meditative practices back in college and didn’t find is spiritually enlightening in the least. When I read about experiences like the one you describe it always makes me wonder if the experience is genuine (a unique brain state which the preserver feels is significant) but the interpretation is not. Just about every culture has tales of such an experience and always put in terms of whatever happens to be their mythology. I’ve even had one such experience (which I’ll likely blog about later), but I don’t think it was God in any sense.

As far as the gospels, the ones in the Bible are wonderful, full of the living WORD, but there are many not included (for political reasons during Roman Emperor Constantine’s rule in the 4th century, he being a recent Christian convert trying to unify his country and get everyone to have one belief and dutifully pay their taxes), that are absolutely amazing. The Gnostic gospels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gospel according to Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Judas, to mention just some.

I’ve had enlightenment experiences practicing Buddhism, head banging and enlarging epiphanies studying Taoism and quantum mechanics, and a spirit to spirit encounter with the universal principle and power of the Christ. So while I profess Christianity, I do not exclude the study of or interaction with other faiths or followers or scriptures of those paths, NOR do I feel that agnostics and/or atheists are not spiritual – if they were not interested in spiritual growth/awareness, they wouldn’t bother to even talk about it or brand themselves as such as if to say, “No I don’t believe it. Prove it to me!” (smile)

Hey do you have a “follow this blog” gadget somewhere? I don;t see it, but would love to follow, stay in touch.

Thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment.

“As a non-religious dogma free spiritualist Christian with a background in Zen and Taoism…”

Wow, that’s quite a mouthful. Like Snurp, I’d like to hear more about that. Interestingly enough, both Snurp and I tentatively planed on reading some Zen philosophy. What I know of it so far I don’t particularly care for, especially their implicit position that deductive reasoning is not valid, but it’s nonetheless interesting.

If I understand correctly, your comment is not so much an objection of the CA, but a separate argument that the necessary thing cannot be intelligent. I am not a dualist and actually used a very similar argument in defense of monism in a previous debate. I’ve never thought of it in context with the conclusion of the CA.

I will note, however, that the CA doesn’t depend on dualism since the necessary being could be purely material. However it is true that in order for the necessary being to be intelligent, dualism must be true… or does it?

One of the most interesting arguments for God’s existence I’ve ever run across was that of George Berkeley. Part of that argument was an argument for monism. What’s different about his monism is that the one substance is ideas (or mind) and not matter. Matter only exists as an idea within our minds. If he’s right, then everything is, indeed, a top-down creation; minds creating matter for the mind to play with, so to speak.

This makes think that one of these days, sid, I need to get you into post linguistic turn philosophy, or at least some Wittgenstein. It’s difficult reading for the most part, but I think you’ll find a lot of interest in this area, and my background in this area is improving (also, they share a near-universal scorn for Heidegger )

Marvin,

It sounds like you have an interesting perspective on Christianity. In what sense do you consider yourself a Christian? What do you think of Jesus, and of the gospels? Or is “Christian” more of a characteristic of your worldview, one component among others, so to speak?

“There’s one thing that bothers me about this sort of argument that I’ve never really been able into words.”

I have the exact same feeling about the ontological argument. Perhaps I’ll post about that next and we can hash it out.

We are definitely brushing up against the limitations of language here. The word ‘being’ may very well carry implications not intended. ‘Object’, ‘stuff’, and even ‘thing’ do as well. Unfortunately, language is the best means we have of conveying meaning to one another.

I think you are right, Snurp. This is the part of the CA that I’ve been struggling with internally in recent months. Great, there’s a necessary being. But what does that mean? It seems it means so astonishingly little as to be a worthless concept. I’ve pretty much argued that if there isn’t a necessary being within ‘everything that is’, than ‘everything that is’ is that necessary being. I used to think of that as the difference between theism and pantheism. I’m starting to think it’s the difference between “there exists some significant object(s) upon which all else depends” and “stuff exists, but none of it is special.”

In summary, I’d say the MCA is sound (unless nothing exists, which I take as self-apparently false), but its conclusion is worthless. I’ll need some time to reflect before I convince myself that this is correct (or incorrect).