₦airaland Forum

^^I really wonder who the "us" were in the statement "let us make make man after our own image and likeness."

Such "us" that could come down and "stroll with man in the garden. . ."

Such "us" that became worried that "behold, the man has become as one of us. . ."

Sometimes these myths have a real hidden meaning which may be pointing to a staggering truth.

If mankind can be involved in human and animal cloning as well as planetary engineering today already, it is not inconceivable that other more ancient civilizations built this world. Not that I say it is certain: I say it is not inconceivable.

Kay 17:
Intelligence is the element for creation.

I do think the universe should begat things essential to its continual existence, to which there is no thread of connection between that and life itself. Life is a tiny tiny fraction of the universe, located in a most obscure part of it. Thus, intelligence, a byproduct of life is as insignificant as life is to the universe.

You are not in a position to state what quantum of life may be in the universe, given that you, like the whole of humanity, have yet to step a single inch outside our own galaxy alone, not to speak of the hundreds of billions of galactic systems in the known universe alone.

In light of this, humanity is not in a position to make the judgement that life is insignificant to the universe.

What if future developments and advances in knowledge reveal galactic civilizations who have been engaged in the galactic engineering of the universe long before we ever knew? What if our planet and our world is a mere experiment - a laboratory, being used by such civilizations as a test case? The possibilities are limitless.

Do not think the propositions above to be outlandish: even scientists on earth are already studying planetary engineering: in a few decades scientists will be practicing engineering distant planets to suit human habitation - and from such studies entire manipulations of larger cosmic systems may become possible.

We are living in a bubble and we simply do not know and should not limit what may exist outside the bubble: i repeat - for all we know, we are lab rats.

^^^ That is simply selfishness.

Kay 17:
@deepsight, good question

But at what purpose is the universe aiming at?

What do you think? What's your own view - Do you think the universe is purposeless?

1. Do you think the universe does things that are inessential to its existence?

2. If not; in what regard is the presence of sentient intelligence essential to the universe's existence?

MyJoe:
I can think of a case right now - the protesters currently shutting down France and intimidating their government. Along with their backers in the Socialist Party, they are, in my opinion, very very unintelligent. What we have here is a deplorable inability to make a distinction. The government wants to extend retirement wage by making workers work two years more, the workers want to retire early, the students want workers to retire early so there will be more vacancies for graduates. Why the government wants to do it – to save the pension system and by extension, the civil service, does not matter to the protesters. They are unable to make a distinction between elitist government policies and those that will be benefit the people in the long run. The government is unpopular, so anything it does must be opposed. They are unable to tell when an unpopular government does something good.

It may not necessarily be unintelligent. I think what you are referring to is more the sort of wisdom and vision which statesmen should have.

People on the other hand, have many very selfish reasons for doing the things that they do: and those selfish reasons are not necessarily unintelligent by reason of being short-sighted only. Sometimes people deliberately deploy intelligence to achieve a limited, short-term, selfish interest: and this is done with full awareness of the bigger picture.

Pastor AIO:
Sir, you might as well ask why the universe should exist at all.  I do not think that intelligence is something that the world does not need.  Far from it, it is at the very essence of phenomenal existence.  This whole universe can be said to be made up of Intelligence and Information.

Exactly what I am trying to drive at. Forgive my penchant to make everything about proof of the existence of God: but I believe that the presence of intelligence in the universe is evidence of the existence of the ultimate intelligence - or better still i should very carefully say - the intelligence that permeates all things. . .which is God.

Advance Intelligence?  What is that?

Well again I beg your forgiveness in advance but it seems to me that some of the qualities of intelligence that you pointed out could be present in a little creature - such as a Beaver that constructs a dam, or the collective intelligence of ants that cultivate livestock and create air-conditioning systems in their ant-hills.

There however seems to be a degree of sentience that makes it possible to recognise and contemplate more advanced or abstract concepts and this is what I referred to as advanced intelligence.

Needless to say, for all the dams it may construct, a beaver is most unlikely to be able to contemplate further mathematics, quantum physics or philosophy. I feel that this is not just a question of brain size - it is, in my view, also a question of the degree of sentience that a creature is capable of. Its like addressing different operating systems with different capacities altogether.

Anyhow, the reason i brought up the question of intelligence being evidence for the existence of God is simply that if not related to that question I cannot see that this is a thread for the Religion Section.

Relative to the environment where this die has been cast, the proper question should probably be why intelligence should exist at all: more so advanced intelligence.

I am still wondering whether the universe comes up with things that it does not need.

^^^ Or maybe special understanding and the unction from the Holy Ghost is required.

Sir you don't need to undertake a pilgrimage to answer that question.

@ Inesqor - I had written my perceptions of the legend of Eden to Mad Max sometime ago -

Could it be that the legend related in Genesis regarding the fall of man in Eden is not a reference to an event that occured in this world, but rather describes the departure of the spirit of mankind from the eternal spiritual realm into the world of matter?

This would tally with many things. A forbidden fruit would be the world of matter. Entering into it would bring about knowledge of good and evil, as presumably there is no evil in the realm from which the spirit came. Or there is just pure neutrality. Casting out man from the garden would be sending the spirit out of the spiritual realm into the world of matter. Wearing animal skins is a clear indicator of the physical bodies that man must wear to live in the physical world. Such bodies bear close resemblances to animal bodies. It is instructive that the fruit is given by the woman, since it is by women that we are born into the world of matter. On top of all that God promises that if man eats the fruit he shall die. It is certain that death is only known to man once he has entered the world of matter. Above all the reference to the Lord God strolling in the Garden and communing daily with man there on a one to one basis indicates that this was a spiritual realm where God's presence was.

Most instructively however, the TREE OF LIFE was said to reside in the garden. Crucially, it is said to be guarded by cherubs and a flaming sword after the fall of man. That says it all; it could not have been this earth. It was another realm. The ultimate realm.

1. What do you think of this interpretation and -

2. If it finds rhyme with you, what then would you say the role of the snake actually was?

Pastor AIO:
Is this thread nonsensical?

^^ 

Pastor AIO:
I don't think that the title of this thread is a very good one. It should perhaps say, the symbolic significance of the Snake, not the spirituality of the snake.

InesQor:
The thread is a misnomer.

Poetic licence, friends. That's what's in the title. Notice the spelling chosen for "Spirituali[b]tie[/b]". . .

I doubt I misapprehended anything, though.

Okay. Was the Eden Snake Lucifer? How can we contextualize the punishment given to that snake as against Lucifer then?

^^^ Apologies; you seem to have misapprehended my post altogether. Never mind, and apologies for disturbing you.

Moment of One
[From a set of three poems titled "Unison"]

Now
Utter utter strength
Endow
Final final length

Feel
Very very BE
Kneel
In life’s final sea

Know
The meaning of the dream
Flow
God’s eternal team

[From a set of 4 Poems titled "The Lifedream"

The Lifetimes

Landing in the world
Scenes past fast washed away
My memories of eternity
Locked in life’s deep cave

Going through the deaths
While one stands and lives
I have known the deaths
That passion only gives

What will be the prize
The arrow and the bow
The tired tired eyes
The wonder and the woe…

A Serene Naught

At passion’s strenuous height
We’re nearly near the light
When we reach that core
Passion struggles no more
The jerky climax wrought
A serene naught

A perfect beauty one
To light it lost its crown
Mother of being is naught
A serene naught

And serene wrought
The essence of all BE
The bastion of light it brought
For all men to see…

From the woman’s womb
Where we dwelled serene
To the woman’s tomb
Is life’s final win…

Black Satisfaction

When I become hot
Sweating and needing inside
Shivering for that body
Wanting so much that essence
Only the thick hot naught
Hot and dark inside
Cynosure of her body
Will capture my fluorescence

Ditto is with life
It jerks, it creeps it thunders
Thrusting its hot wonder
Into the sticky darkness
Which is death, deep under

To fully comprehend
This ironic bend
It is from same darkness
That Light and BE is wrought
From inside her woman wetness
Is every baby brought…

So we work and play
While light is through the day
We work our way to sleep
The serene darkness deep

In this doctrine stands
Existence’s whole bastion
We will wander lands
Until black satisfaction

Origin

A stagnant nothingness of black
No time, no space, just dark
Mother of being is naught
The bastion of light this fought

Perfect, serene and tempered
Beauty unremembered
The bastion of light dismembered
Beauty darkly rendered

From such a state serene
Did commence our being
The force of light to hover
The unseen divine lover

ORIGIN
Existence Original

[The next three poems form "Origin: Existence Original] - Oh, these were written in a sober state, I recall. . .

Adonai

What spark lit
In the silent
Emptiness
Who lit it
In the brooding
Darkness
Whence did HE arise
Existence realize
Name itself 'WHY'
And become ADONAI

Existence

Mind of Idea
Body insincere
Living in a blue world
Circling a red star
Which is one of many
Burning in the blackness

All around the essence
The meaning of existence

Visions of Light

Steady bands of light
Bands of light in nothingness
The rows of steady white
Bands of light in still darkness

They flow through the remote
The oneness of intelligence
A meaning to connote
The ancient fluorescence

They’re coming from a source
Cynosure of all cause
Bastion of light force
Rector of all laws
The centre that is BE
The origin of me

VISIONS OF LIGHT
Existence Secondary


[The next three Poems form "Visions of Light - Existence Secondary"]

These came through to me on a marijuana high I believe. Don't worry, its been a while and I don't do that no more.

I thought to share some poems i wrote about seven to ten years ago on God. . .Origin. . .and Existence.

Moderator, please do not move to the literature section because these poems are centred on God.

InesQor:
(1) Snakes, physically and essentially, are as spiritual, to the same manner or token, as any other creature; from green grass to elephants.

Why do you suppose that neither green grass nor an elephant is said to be the agent of temptation in Eden?

Why that particular creature, the snake?

Speaking for Christianity, the snake is used to represent a manifestation of sin.

Let's do a philosophical dive here: if the snake is said to lead mankind to the knowledge of good and evil - from which stand point they could have stretched forth their hand to eat of the Tree of Life - the first action rendering mankind as "one of us" - in the words of the supreme deity as conveyed in the bible - and the second potential action holding the possibility to render man 'eternal' in the words of same deity. . .do you think it is apt to view the snake as representative of sin?

Could the snake, taken in this context, not be representative of something even more deep and subtle than that. . .for he leads man to the knowledge of good and evil, rendering man as "one of us". . .and leaving man in a position to eat of the "Tree of Life". . .

Profound powers, and a powerful trajectory, I would say - which is greatly belittled by stating it to be merely "a manifestation of sin."

In this remit, I will also urge you to consider if indeed the fallen angel called Lucifer is the same entity as the snake referred to in Eden?

Particularly when you consider the punishment pronounced by the Genesis deity on the snake: which I am not certain you will readily associate with punishment for Lucifer.

Snakes are spiritual. Hoorah. As spiritual as the very mice they feed on.

Perhaps this is why mice are indicated as agents of temptation, and are said by your bible to be the creature whose head will be crushed by the heel of the bastion of salvation? Come on.

lagerwhenindoubt:
Later on we see the Snake's significance in the Magick-play of the Pharaohs Magicians and Moses rod-turned-snake. in later passages it is used to heal snake-bitten Israelites as quoted below

If Moses was involved in a game of snakes with his powers propelled and derived from the Hebrew God, it seems odd to me that the snake is yet defined as inherently evil by Judeo-Christian Tradition.
 

In other references outside the Bible the Serpent has rich spiritual history, reverence and purpose ranging from creation, protection, wisdom, fertility, medicine, guidance into the after-life in Greek Mythology. Interestingly another commonality that is often seen is the connection between the Woman and the Snake from Eve in the Garden of Eden to the famous Medusa of Greek legend, Minoan Snake Goddess, Snake Witches of Sweden, Blessed Mary an so forth.

I am particularly interested in the association of the snake with that which is termed "evil female sensuality."

I happen to be a man of dreams: such that I see many strange and perplexing visions when I sleep. Often my dreams reveal ordinary or significant life events which occur in reality shortly after the dreams. This has been a pattern throughout my life.

Other than this, the dreams are many times absolutely fantastical and consist of strange and colourful imagery which i do not recognize from my lifetime on this earth. I realise that those images hail from other realms which I may have traversed in the past and will traverse in the future.

The most striking of my dreams are the dreams which locate me in a strange void that makes me wake up in a flurry asking myself repeatedly: where am I. Who am I? What is this place? What is this world? What is God and how could I exist? - - - It is often a very frightening and dislocating experience which I cannot describe but which I think I have mastered such that each time it happens, I answer to myself: " I am a living spirit from God and I am in a world to experience. . . "

Anyhow, that na tori for anoda day. What I purpose to tell you today is the odd dream I had some years back regarding snakes. Anyway I should also say that regardless of how strange my dreams may be, I often awake with a very clear understanding of the meaning of the dream. I often notice that if I do not stop to take a moment to ingest that meaning, it becomes lost after a few moments and I CEASE to remember the meaning of the dream which I apprehended upon waking up.

Any way sha, this was the dream. I was lying down on my bed and I saw two snakes in my bedroom. One snakes was a giant absolutely black thing and it lay on the bed beside me literally in my bosom. The other snake was a giant WHITE snake, with unbelievably beautiful patterns on its back. It lay quietly by the door, far away from me. That was all there was to the dream. However I remember admiring the white snake and thinking to myself how unbelievably beautiful it was.

I awoke after that and instantly (this will sound freaking odd but na true o) i could hear a voice in my inner ear and the voice said to me: "the white snake will not approach until the black snake has left your bed."

In that blinding instant I understood the white snake to be representative of two things in my life: wealth and romantic love; and I ALSO understood the black snake to be representative of two things in my life: the wanton love of lewd feminine se.xuality and my absolute profligacy with my resources thereto.

I seem to have been battling the black snake against the white snake all my life: but being a fervent artist, I know the patterns on the back of the white snake will win the day with my spirit.

I apologize that I write these personal inanities: I think its just an odd moment that made me write them.

My most strongest volition is to accept that a Spiritual connection exists between the Snake (Material or Spiritual Symbolism) and GOD at the instance of creation and till this day, wild as it seems, the Serpent is not the Devil. but then again i am straying from the topic.

Deep. Profound. I wish to discuss these in a subsequent post. I have notions regarding this. Something about primordial chaos versus primordial order.

[quote author=Negro_Ntns link=topic=529589.msg6920033#msg6920033 date=1286808409]. . . oh forgot to mention that:

the rituals of sex itself act as a harmonic balancer (healing) or for a transcedental rebirth or renewal.[/quote]. . .Indeed ritual copulation has formed an integral part of many ancient religious systems, and I recall advancing the idea of the balancing powers of s.ex on this forum. I was almost stoned to death.

Negro Ntns - Your contribution is profound.

[quote author=Negro_Ntns link=topic=529589.msg6920017#msg6920017 date=1286808275]I wish to contribute that there are other animals that have similar symbolism but do not approach that of the snake. They are Bull, Eagle, Ram. . . .and so on.[/quote]I seem to recall that some of these animals are said to be the forms of certain animal-beings that inhabit the steps of the throne of GOD - as described within the Grail Message.

Perhaps M_Nwankwo/ Justcool can enlighten us as to what primordial form/ tendency the snake represents.

^ Do pray for the day that you might be as gifted with a mind as vast and mobile as Pastor AIOs.

But for now, it will suffice if you exit this thread with permanence, thanks.

HI Validator - I see that for you it is simply a question of fear. That is certainly a valid point. However there are doubtless many dangerous creatures possessing the danger of venom which are also most quiet and insidious. No such creature has ever been deified in the fashion that the snake has - or involved in legend to any significant extent to the degree that the snake has.

From your example, one would expect creatures such as scorpions and giant tarantulas to be worshiped and made into legend in the way that the snake has. That has not happened.

Again the factor of fear does little to explain the traditions regarding the association of the snake with fertility, se.xuality, sensuality, rebirth, renewal and a host of other notions interwoven within man's spiritual and material consciousness. I am aware that the shedding of the snake's skin forms one of the grounds for its association with rebirth and renewal but that alone is insufficient to demystify the obsession.

What is the spiritual significance of the snake.

I ask this because religious, spiritual, mythical and legendary lore all across the world seem so interwoven with this creature - almost to the degree of universal obsession.

I am certain that there is no other creature that has been so worshiped and reviled by humanity. Many people in modern times consciously or unconsciously associate it with evil. On the other hand, many cultures worship it and regard it as sacred. Snakes occupy a very high status in Hindu traditions.

At all events most people seem to have strong views regarding snakes. There is a wealth of tradition across the globe casting snakes in terms of rites of fertility, renewal, rebirth, se.xuality and sensuality, gods, goddesses and demons, in a fashion that no other creature can rival.

Can we perhaps discuss the varied views regarding the spirituality or significance of the serpent.

[size=5pt]_{Hardened materialists, your valid objections already noted beforehand and accepted, so please leave we the superstitious to this discussion, thanks.}[/size]

What is wrong with you troublesome lot? Did you not see that the curtains have been drawn on this episode?

InesQor:
@Deep Sight: and please my name is InesQor or inesqor if you want. If I'm to restructure your name you may not like what I come up with. Cheers dude.

Sorry I don't know what your view of the short-form I produced is, but I thought it rather cute. Only after your complaint did i look at it again and saw the possible alternative imputation. It really was not intended in any negative way, but fondly only.

InesQor:
DeepSight wants to put a final "ineluctable" cap on an argument that has raged for millenia. And no, its not like he has new evidence. Lolage.

The old evidence is sufficient: however the world is such a sad place that dogma may trump reason for millenia - until you can tell us how or when the King of Assyria came to plunder Damascus AFTER Jesus was born, you simply don't have a hope of a case: cos the prophecy states exactly that about the son to be born of the alma.