Oh, and by the way, I’ve been lumped before, and in far less distinguished company. 
No need for sarcasm, I was just offering a reading suggestion so that you may better understand the relationship between Godhead and mythology.
JustPlainBryan
You’re right. I’m sorry for being snarky. I seem to have been spending too much time in the PIT recently. I shouldn’t let that color my reactions to innocent suggestions.
Tris
Thanks. Metaphors are fine, though I think you inderestimate your reason. I think my questions now shfit to what I referenced in my last post:
Do you feel that your apprehjension of God is primary and your reactions to the mythic structures secondary? It would seem so from your post above, but I don’t want to just assume.
Hmm – I think I need to explain “primary”. It can indicate both “first” and “most important”. I’m really curious about both, but if I understand your posts at all it is clear that your personal apprehension of God is more important to you than the mythic structures. What I am trying to understand, I guess, is how “clear cut” is that line.
Which brings us back, neatly enough, to the second meaning of “primary”. I’m assuming you didn’t wake to consciousness being aware of a personal apprehension of God (but if I’m wrong here, please correct me). So, do you think that when you experienced the numenous, and brought to that moment the limitaions and graces of your humanity, did your prior exposure to mythic structures of “God” in any way color your apprehension, or do you feel that the personal revelation was entirely untinged by such mythic shades?
No worries, Spiritus Mundi. I’ve been a little frazzled myself these past few days.
I always loved this story. I don’t think this was in any way bad (some folks scoff at ruining the “magick” for the kids). Pa was such a proud man. He wanted the kids to know that he had worked hard and that he sacrificed what he could to make them happy. He suceeded there too. To go and see him was always a good thing. I miss all of us grandkids staying over because he insisted. As you pointed out, those memories are classic. He didn’t “ruin” anything as far as I’m concerned.
I’m really enjoying reading through your posts jjrt. . . .
DaLovin’ Dj
Spiritus,
You are one tough congregation to witness to, I gotta tell you.
The change from discontent, socially conditioned intellectual Christian believer, to awestruck lover of God was immediate, and based on what I cannot offer as evidence to you. A miracle of light, and warmth, and love. Cold wind, and dark clouds, and the grim grip of my intellect were overcome. (And reasserted themselves rather quickly, I might add, only to be gently set aside by the complete and absolute repetition of the original miracle, two weeks later.)
So, in answer to your question, all the elements of Christian faith were present prior to my “conversion” to real faith, except the actual emotional assurance that God was someone. Now, I was a grown man, already familiar with Judaism, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and a minor understanding of Zoroastrianism, but by far, my greatest intellectual familiarity was with American Protestant Christianity.
It seems intellectually dishonest not to say that my social experiences and early training were likely to assert themselves as a framework to understand the indescribable experience of the presence of the Living God in my heart. It would have been a lot of thinking, and philosophizing to rearrange my mind to “correct” my theology in the presence of this being I was calling Lord Jesus. And the Lord did not seem to want this from me. I have often said, before that day I had so many questions, that faith was impossible for me. I always wanted answers to theological riddles. On that day, I got no answer. But I stopped having questions.
I don’t feel qualified, or emotionally predisposed towards defending Christian Doctrine as an intellectual position. It all seems so unimportant. God loves me. The rest is . . . trivial. And what message has God given me? Not to speak of the sin of other sinners, that’s for sure. He gave me no words to give you. But I have read words, attributed to Him, in the Bible which I think are the same message. And now and then, I read the works of Lao Tzu, or Buddha, or St. Francis, and find the same voice, with the same message. Love me, love each other, and be joyful that love alone is enough.
I am sure that I cannot lead another soul to . . .
You know, I don’t think I can lead a soul at all. But I cannot lead a mind anywhere I have never been. So, when I speak of the love of God, I speak of my Lord, Jesus, because I am here, and this is where I met Him.
Of course, rhetorically, it’s all very slippery, and insubstantial, and lacking in logic or observational rigor. But, that isn’t the point, to me. I have found a number of places in life where being smart wasn’t all that big a deal. This ends up being one of them. Understanding is nice. Knowing is cool, too. But loving, and being loved is much better.
Tris
Yep. But IMHO what it says is inaccurate.
I’m tempted to just leave it at “what Tris. said” because I cannot match his eloquence.
However, let me refer you back to the comprehension/apprehension comment I made earlier, or, if you prefer, say, “You cannot know (savoir) God; you can only know (connaitre) Him.”
Joe Cool and I differ on a lot of issues, mostly based on our different conceptualizations of what constitutes the critical central issue of the Christian life. On most such issues, obviously at least one of us is wrong. (Or, perhaps, we’re both only half-right, seeing different sides of the same Truth and thinking what we see is the whole Truth.)
But he is my brother in Christ, and I’m proud to call him that. He’s in my prayers, and I know I am in his.
That does not change the fact that we will clash from time to time in religious threads. He knows that, and I know that, and we each know that the other knows that. But it does change how we deal with each other – he’s a kind and compassionate friend to me, and I try to be the same to him. And we both recognize the integrity behind the other’s attempt to stand for the Truth that we both recognize underlies our conceptions of what God wants.
Fred Phelps is a bitter, hate-filled man whose idea of God is something that repels me. But I suspect strongly that at least part of his motivation is to serve the God in whom he believes – and who is at the uttermost extreme of the spectrum that runs from him past His4Ever, Joe Cool, jjrt, DDG, puddleglum, Jodi. RT, me, Tris., andygirl, John Shelby Spong, to maybe Mel White and the Unitarians. (And if anybody feels their place in that spectrum misrepresents their view, forgive me; it’s a quick-and-dirty layout for an example, not intended as a definitive statement.) I think everybody on that list would have at least one point of disagreement with anybody else on it, and several points of agreement, and that virtually all of them (some Unitarians to one side) would call themselves Christians (and the majority of the others as well).
Does that illuminate or obfuscate?
Works for me. Would you care to answer the follow up questions, too? (The issues of primacy, etc. I will repeat or rephrase, if you prefer.)
Having never experienced the noumenous personally, I find myself endlessly curious about how such an event corresponds to/conflicts with/overrides the intellectual, emotional, and mythic belief structures already in place?
By the way,
The tolerance among the hard boiled atheist rationalists, and the doctrinally meticulous Christians around here for my emotional responses to intellectual inquires is deeply appreciated. I do tend to go on a bit, and often end up “releasing butterflies” rather than providing reasoned examinations of my opinions.
To be bluntly honest, I am no where near the state of grace that I portray in my posts. I’m a crotchety old fart, who loves his dinner more often, if not more passionately than his brothers and sisters. But it is a great blessing to me that I can come to these threads, and wave my arms around excitedly crying out, “No, no, it’s about love!” and be accorded a level of respect that constantly stuns me.
It also makes me use an off line editor, and multiple rewrites in order to avoid abusing that unwarranted regard. I must say, the fear of becoming a pedantic self appointed God Hustler is a horrible nightmare for me.
Tris
“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.” ~ H. L. Mencken ~
Spiritus, I didn’t intend to ignore your other comments, but I’m having trouble assimilating what you’re asking (my fault, not yours, I’m sure – I’m feeling a bit dense this week). Might I ask for a rewording?
<aside (to Tris)>
Meaning is conveyed symbologically, sometimes through the symbology of discursive prose, sometimes through a nomenclature of logic, sometimes pictorially, perhaps even through ritual and myth as the OP submits. Your particular theography (heh, heh) employs the symbols with which you’re comfortable. One uses the tools one has.
For some of us, those butterflies are much easier to net than the -to us- arcane jargon of the logicians, or the erudite references to Greek terms, or the Biblical consultations.
</aside>
[sub]Somewhere, a ‘Doper has a framed, glass covered display case with Tris’ posts pinned in attitudes of life, labelled by species and phylum, descriptions of the capture logged dutifully in a Record kept on a small desk beneath the case…[/sub]
Poly
I didn’t think you were ignoring me, I thought you were simply answering one question at a time. But since Tris was getting ahead of you (high-speed witnessing on the SDMB) I thought I’d let you catch up. 
Anyway, to rephrase:
You have pointed out a distinction between the direct apprehension of God (perhaps inspired by an encounter with the numenous) and a comprehension of God. In particular, your OP introduced a model for the development, use, etc. of mythic belief structures as they apply to God.
Now, I think it is fair to say that you did not become self-aware enjoying an innate personal experiene of teh numenous, so at some point all you knew (savoir) of God was what you could comprehend from mythic structures, intellectual investigations, emotional urgencies, etc. In that sense, the mythic structures et al. are primary. They came first, and because nothing had yet come second they were by definition “most important” as well.
But–you now say that “You cannot know (savoir) God; you can only know (connaitre) Him.” This indicates that the apprehension is primary; it is most important.
Now, my curiosity leads my to ask about two things:
[ul][li]What happened in that moment of direct apprehension of the numenous? Was the moment somehow shaped by the very comprehensions it was destined to unseat as your primary avenue towards God? If not, do you think the “details” of your apprehension would have been identical absent the intellectual/emotional/mythic groundwork of your experience (i.e – the apprehension of the numenous was strictly independent of your prior experiences)? [/li][li]In the aftermath of your experience to what extent do you think prior “comprehensions” of God affect your current evaluations of mythic structures, etc. In other words, when Fred Phelps talks about God, you obviously perform some sort of “matching” to determine whether what he says is an “accurate” description of teh being you know (savoir). But is what you know (savoir) the only element you bring to that evaluation (I am assuming it is the primary element, certainly in importance), so what I’m curious about is how your relationships to previously accepted intellectual/emotional/mythic structures of faith has been altered/diminished/superceded by your numenous experience.[/ul][/li]
Hmmm, I have the horrible feeling that i have just spent way too many brush strokes muddying a picture I was trying paint more clearly. sigh
Sorry to take so long to respond, Spiritus. In addition to daily life getting in the way, I took the time to read Lib’s “Love” thread, which may help clarify some of what I need to say.
I tried to essay explaining it to someone without a comparable experience over on the BBBoy Temp. board last winter; I’ll search down the post and repost it here.
Probably. I remain a Christian, after all – because that’s the faith community in which it occurred. But the point is that I don’t believe that that’s the only way in which He can be experienced, and the fact is that that particular mode of explicating Him works for me. I don’t propose that it has to be the way in which it works for others.
No, certainly not. Direct experience of the Divine is something that happens to relatively few, and those who are vouchsafed it seem to “add in” the phenomenological constructs of their own experience – which of course means me as well! The experience itself is independent of any such impedimenta – but everything about a person’s psyche is the result of heredity and environment, and tends to influence how he or she understands what he or she has been vouchsafed.
No, I think my history attests that I use the forms and structures of traditional Christianity to mediate my understanding of my experience. The thing is, I don’t expect that you buy an Aquinas/Aristotle metaphysics as the sole way in which to grasp what I have to say. I know and understand one Source and Ground of Being who is comprised of Love and who interacts with human persons as a Person Himself. In the Biblical accounts, read with some reliance on accuracy (but with the caveat that they are written using First Century narrative techniques and historiography), I see the person of Jesus as exemplifying what God in human form would be like and as an example of how one can live out the ideal human life. And I’m prepared to discuss what my experience was using anybody’s terms and categories if the situation calls for it.
In short, I recognize myth as what it is, but I use it to explicate my intuitive grasp of what is difficult to analyze using standard explicatory techniques. Does that help to make your grasp of what I’m saying and not saying any clearer?
Poly
I was away from the boards for a bit, but I wanted to thank you for your explanation.
Thanks.
What you describe fits pretty closely to the intellectual picture that I have imagined, demonstrating yet again that I cannot think my way to the ineffable. Is there a gnostic in the house.
Are you pun-dering what I’m pun-dering? Aha! That bear quip cinches it. You’re Piers Anthony in disguise, aren’t you?
I’ve been wondering if Xanth will start commemorating the Feast of St. Chad in the new millennium ;), but no. What has surprised me is that none of those present at the Fish Dinner in Memison, er, Pasta Dinner in Fairfax County except Tris and I have commented. Think maybe I should enumerate them and depend on vanity searches?