Justin I knew that you were being funny
With all those astrological details, you funny bunny.
Details when true, serve the bigger picture.
And if we forget that, we'll make a messy mixture.
So while riding through space upon this planetary host,
The astrological precept that we must remember most:
Us humans, we have freewill,
The stars incline, they do not rule.
But I am just a living fool,
A such-and-such who don't know much,
A muffin who knows nuthin, who's only puffin.
So don't take me
Too seriously.
Rather:
Worship truth above all else
And come to see it for yourself.
Quote:Belief & knowledge
A cylinder, where storage space isn't an issue ...... perceptive.
How to distinguish beliefs from truths; what are the mental tools to measure and/or otherwise clean the cylinder?
Ahh, the cylinder is such a neat analogy. So like the soul, which is both sphere and thread.
And what a question! my goodness me.
And how to answer...hmm...lets see.
But seeing as I'm short of time,
Sadly I must abandon rhyme.
____________________________
Due to short time, this is going to be a rapid type, no spell check or re-read just type and post, so the reader will have to excuse any lack of clarity and make do.
To help clarify our thinking, and make distinctions clearer, I'll propose some definitions by which to proceed and build a picture.
In expanding our comprehension and refining our intelligence, the effort must me both towards the bigger picture and towards the finer details, and inbetween these two is the correct connection/arrangement/threadwork of all the details to make the bigger picture.
As little tasks serve the greater task, not visa-versa, so details serve the bigger picture. To best understand anything, we must start at the bigger picture, as best we can. Those who hold the most accurate and unified biggest picture, ultimately discern the most accurate finer details.
We do not have to be able to take in the biggest picture, but to believe in it is enough. That is the magic of its effect. To believe in a sum total of all things, even though its infinite, to stretch the mind by this belief that there is a sum total, a unified biggest picture, is the greatest exercise of mind and exercises all its rational and creative faculties. (compare the average IQ of the Ashkenazy Jews and the east Asian Taoists of 105-115 with their centuries of holding and worshiping a God which is a unified bigger picture of existence, to the sub Saharan and Australian natives 65-80 who for centuries have held fragmented Gods most of whom are lesser than the existence they are aware of.) The extent of one's reach of mind and its integration with reality, comprises the potential of one's comprehension. The fineness to which we can discern differences and recognise their relationships is our intelligence, and the correct ordering of these discerned items/facts, that is in their correct adjacencies and additions to each other, towards the bigger picture, is our intelligence and comprehension coming together. Recognising fine differences and their relationships to each other is a long term product of holding a sumtotal big picture. The jews and Taoists didn't train their IQ; it resulted from the effect of their long held belief in a great all encompassing oneness of which all else is divisions.
Within and under that concept let us define and distinguish.
The first attribute of consciousness is awareness so we start with difining and exercising that.
awareness is awareness of self and surroundings.
the first faculty of awareness is the ability to discriminate/differentiate between one thing and another.
this must be exercised to finer and finer degree. divide all discernments further, divide and divide again. maintain the relationships of the divisions.
Also build, add all ones facts/discernments together towards the biggest picture.
this way one is ordering one's knowledge and maintaining ability to finely discriminate and to hold the bigger picture.
keep in mind knowledge is experience; mark what is known as known.
under and as part of that:
Lets assume the following definitions:
And lets be as tight and pure with our definitions as we can be.
Knowledge, is what we know from experience. Not what we assume from experience, or what we interpret or conjecture, just what we know.
For example, if we hear some one say something, even though we heard it clearly, we only know what we heard, we don't know what they said.
Therefor, knowledge ends with us. Knowledge is our experience, nothing more.
So Knowledge, experience proof are the same, are interchangeable terms. And are us.
Knowledge is what we have experienced, what we have been, what we are.
This definition may narrow down what we think we know to only a small percentage, for we assume to know far more than we have directly experienced.
Belief is an unknown conviction.
Now we define faith. Faith is not stronger belief, is not belief of a religious type.
belief and faith are like oil and water, they do not mix.
they have nothing to do with each other except they are different from each other and do not mix together or overlap in any way.
Belief is an unknown conviction; faith is the certainty that one has the ability to know.
eg.
1. Belief is a mathematician who believes he knows the answer to a problem before he has worked it out. The likelihood is if he tries to work it out he will keep doing so until he gets the answer he believes in.
Faith is a mathematician who knows he has the ability to work out the problem and find the answer whatever the answer may be.
eg
2. belief is a man believing he knows who many cows are on the other side of a hill; faith is a man who is sure he has the ability to walk over the hill and have a look for himself and see how many cows are there.
faith includes the worship of truth, whatever the truth may be.
curiosity is the open minded desire to know.
faith is like curiosity turbocharged.
Belief tends not to pursue knowledge, because it believes it already knows, it has a preconceived conviction.
faith pursues knowledge. From faith knowledge comes.
faith is certainty in one's own ability to do and to experience / to know.
faith is a stepping stone between belief and knowledge.
strength is strength-to-do; it comes from faith.
faith is certainty in one's own power.
As god is within all life, and is the power of life, the animation of life. The highest and strongest faith in man is faith in god within oneself. Faith is the certainty and realisation of God within and the using and expressing forth in life of God within.
And on its highest level faith is the raw power of God.
when man knows that God is in himself, then his faith becomes the certainty of God within himself. Faith then becomes the power of God in man. As ultimately is what faith is in man.
Faith is the power of God in man.
Power of God in man realised by man, is faith.
From belief to faith is too big a step for most to take.
there is a step between belief and faith; it is belief in one self; belief in one's own existence.
Belief in self, in ones own existence, is a stepping stone between belief and faith.
It is not irrational to believe in ones own existence, for one can take a reverse bearing, a reference, off one's own thoughts and identify oneself as the observer and the thinker of those thoughts, the consciousness core within.
Just as the eye cannot see itself, it can look for itself over the body but cannot find itself until it takes a reverse reference/ a bearing off what its looking at and realises it is the one that is doing the looking. The conscious soul is like that; it is the one inside that does the observing of its surroundings, including of the thoughts, the emotions and all surrounding things.
So too, belief in an all inclusive God that is the sum total of all things and forces unified, of which all things and forces are parts of that great whole, is not irrational. This is the essence of the Judeo-Christian God and the Tao, it is also the God of science, the unified theory. Such a belief can be an assumption, cannot be wrong, but keeps on going, expanding ever outward, stretching mind forever.
Between this god and ourself lies all existence. all things ordered in their place. And comprehension and understanding becomes easier because all things unknown become subjecture - lying between what we know. Not outside what we know, which is conjecture. Knowing what lies between two knowns or two assumed knowns is easier because it is a gradient, a scale, a spectrum, between the two, but knowing what is outside of what is known is lesspredicatable. subjecture is safe than conjecture.
this is part of why when learning knowledge, doing task, we start at the periphery, the bigger picture and work in towards the centre, the detail.
The man who takes on the extreme jobs in his workplace, learns how to perform the less extreme and average jobs and becomes proficient at his entire field of work without having to experience it, for the whole field of his work is within the extremes. The man who works in the centre with the average jobs, only knows how to do them, he cannot perform the extreme jobs because they are outside of his experience, not within it. This is the same with knowledge. This on the greatest scale is how believing in an all-inclucive God primes the mind to take up knowledge, whereas the lesser partial gods limit the capacity. Religion, comprehension and intelligence are related, though naturally this cannot be proved without occult understanding and skill.
That will do for now, typed real quick and not checked so will have plenty errors/typos,
probably way too much woffle, might clean it up later, so much for shorter posts,
cb