While I definitely stand behind what I said, there's no doubt that I put it in a cheeky frame. I reckon somebody could read what I wrote and assume I placed very little value in the company of others. It certain didn't sound very friendly. And I suppose, in all honesty, in the past 5 or 6 years I haven't properly emphasized being and receiving good company. If I were to guess, I'd say that hanging out with Jesus would have been a memorable time. How else would he have been recognized as a Messiah if not because of the impression he made? He was just a man, but he was obviously a shining example of one, who transcended the categories of his time, and magnetically altered the direction of thoughts.
Reading your post made all this come to life in an uncommon way for me. I began to wonder what the moods of the evenings were like when he told the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. Were these jovial evenings in the homes of close friends? Or were they more serious affairs, in discussions where political stances were less shared? Probably a little of both. It seems that Jesus was a little cheeky, too.
I wonder what you think a good friend is, and when you think it feels especially animating to be in his or her company. And I wonder what you think a good leader is, and when you think it is a good time for his or her guidance. I think about these things sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if I might help a friend or a leader "win the minds" of some people just to help him or her see a passion through to another state. That's an amazing thing to watch. Would I have helped Jesus set the mood for this parable? One can be confident of one's knowledge, and effective in seeing his will through, without being boastful. When you pass through a threshold, and start creating what you believe and believing what you create. It's probably beautiful to see that bloom inside someone else.
In my way, I was trying to celebrate fraudulence in my post. Being borne through a series of romantic feelings and find connections in unexpected places is intensifying! And how could we do it without a sleight of hand somewhere along the way.
Jesus may have said "Seek, and ye shall find", but he also asked for the mother of all foundational presuppositions: that there is One God and One Truth. That throws a considerable wrench in the game of seeking and finding.
Now, I suppose we probably disagree over a couple of the things I've just written, but I want you to know that I really like a lot of what you've written -- and even especially the things you've said about truth. But my truth isn't yours, and neither would it have been Jesus' even if I was hanging with him back in teh day. The truth is the most multiplicitous thing the imagination can reach for.
hard rep
You've asked me a question that's never been asked of me, and isn't likely to be asked again soon: what makes a person holy? I suppose a person who is recognized as holy would have an ascetic code of her own. How couldn't she? But I also suspect that their are significant swaths of that code which would be unknown even to her most close friends and advisors. Perhaps it doesn't matter though, because the most productive moments in the creation of holiness come along only once in a while, and she just has to be ready for those. And what would she do in those moments? Well, the guidance of purpose-driven, reflective, and intentional awareness is wildly overstated. It's probably a lot more like Coltrane, inventing new feelings because you're suddenly in a groove, and the trans-individual and trans-situational present is blaring and somehow extra malleable, and others are eager to play along. It probably doesn't feel anything like "winning minds" (so, I'll answer that earlier question: No, I wouldn't do that; what's the point?). It probably feels more like sharing mind. And each of these moments is definitely fleeting. Holiness is hitting that jackpot repeatedly, and then somehow getting those moments threaded onto history, so someone can recognize you as "holy."
It's a dangerous thing to be remembered, because if you are, then you probably have people repeating things they learned from you. You can call these doctrines... the difference is one of degree, not of kind. It's probably best to fess up to it, then exorcize the **** out of it before it repeats too far, and creates too much homogeneity.
So I guess I don't follow some ideas very well, like time travel for example. Dr. Who in his Tardus being able to dial up any place in time and space and just "go there". Stuff happens once, if you weren't there it's just done and can't be changed. Same thing with a lot of other ideas we can imagine. We don't invent "truth" by thinking. Well, except for the things we can make true within our heads by creating a sort of idea or belief, and then it's only "true" as a fact of our mind's self. It can be "true" that you love someone, or something, or that you are angry about someone or something. Even Jesus described this kind of "truth" in his statements about how we should choose to exercise our own faith, or virtue, or conscience. It is a study for every day of existence for a human being to exercise those powers of self-creation or choice.
It's probably the prejudice of my scientific training that keeps me from believing that the external universe has multiple incoherent forms or "Truth". If there is a "God", he is what He is. If He is a sentient being, as I suppose, who can care or choose, or exercise any power that is beyond my own, it would follow that those things are beyond my ability to make things the way I would choose. So, admittedly, I don't think I can really "make up" my own "God", and I imagine that the "God" I believe in might be in a lot of ways different from what I suppose, and I might be in for some surprises if I ever get to know Him.
I suppose God is a male, for example, a Father. But that there is a Mother right there, too. I assume a lot of male terms to be sorta inclusive of the female . "Mankind" is inclusive of all people. I would attribute a lot of Godlike characteristics to a Mother in heaven, but reserve a respect for a Father in heaven that preserves my notions of propriety about stuff. In Mormonism, there is problem with the concept of God that practically requires a male God to have a female, equal, partner. It is a projection of a notion of family unity.
I can see the danger we all face in projecting notions into the great beyond of what we want to believe, but while realizing the limits of my actual power of observation and interpretation of the Universe, I will provisionally suppose the more coherent sort of idea pending better information.
What you term "The Mother of All Foundational Presuppositions", that there is One God and One Truth, might be pretty accurate as an analysis of the world beyond our reach, or capacity for data collection or direct observation. At least it is coherent with our foundational presuppositions of our ideas of "Science", that the natural or demonstrable world must be described by principles or laws that don't vary with time and space. . . .
Mormons are not strictly "monotheistic", any more than they are strictly "evidentiary" in belief. The "one God" translates as our having one Father in Heaven, as a human family, even if we might have different mothers, for example. The "one Truth" relates to the specific plan adopted by our Father for our progress and development. It is presumed that if any of us "opt out" of that plan, we lose the benefits of the proposed progress that would follow from our adherence to it. Mormons in the theoretical development of their "faith" chose to allow that our Father has a Father as well, and to believe that the plan in place has been repeatedly successful in previous applications. So the logic fails to claim a God that can "make up" foundational laws for the Universe, but who has observed valid principles and applied them successfully. Such a God, logically, is not a "Creator" of the Universe, but an intelligent being who is willing to learn and apply that learning to do good stuff. Still, many Mormons do suppose their God to be a "Creator" in the sense of operating on a scale, with competence, to organize galaxies and develop planets fit for human habitation. And, actually, yes, however illogically, Mormons still believe somehow that their God is the supreme, sovereign Creator of everything, and therefore is the One God with the One Truth.
The question, however, has not been so thoroughly addressed that we could be absolutely informed that there are not other such Creators out there somewhere with their own Creations, and perhaps organized on varied principles. We just have not been able to go there and see that.
uhhhmmm. . . . . ahem. . . . . what thread is this?
aaaallllllll rrriiighty. . . . "liberals" securing tyranny. . . . . how very kind and generous would be a God who would create a universe, a sort of trap on a grand scale, and impose a universal sort of governance system on it that we can not "opt out" of. Do we really want Obama and a bunch of idealistic grand planners defining our existence, even on a global scale.
nope, if anyone wants to be my God, the plan has got to actual freedom, actual liberty, and a lot of ancillary rights that preserve our basic "humanity". I want my own doctor,
AND the right be be my own doctor and with free commerce secure any medicines, any foods, any materials, any tools, any books, any knowledge that might possibly be useful in preserving my right to try to live in this world.
NR".