"An Indescribable God" found in Trans-Theology
So this has helped me tremendously in respecting other people's views of God and how they even see God in my life. For example, there may be or actually there has been traditional Christians that have disowned me because they don't agree that God is even in my life. They actually. On the contrary, I believe that I'm in cahoots with demonic spirits and I'm a Satanist or something. I don't know. They just think I'm evil is what I'm getting at
It says religion starts from the generalization of final truths, first perceived as exemplified in particular instances, and then they're amplified into a coherent system and applied to interpretation of life. The problem, though, with religion and dogma, is that because they're manmade just like doctrine, doctrine is dogma. It causes us to be very critical of it, and we have to assess doesn't meet things beyond ourselves. And I think that's why we call it general truths, right?
I try to deal with that authentic Godlike space within someone, if that makes sense, because I've seen it in myself. I know it's real in other people, but I don't dare create dogma to dictate what exactly it is at this given point. It's actually indescribable, and I'm trying my best to describe it, but I'm really walking around it because I really can't pinpoint exactly how to explain it
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Well, I'm describing what the indescribable God is, and thus affirming that this God that we're sensing is indescribable. So we're describing something of God. So even in an act of not doing it, we're doing something. And I think that's the part of dogma or philosophy that we're doing. And I kind of want to jump back to Whitehead, and he says something. Let me see if I can grab it quick enough here
You can look at other ways of thinking and religions, and they're not making absolute claims. They're trying to actually make universal claims similar to, like parables. It's open and can be used for many different contexts, depending on the context. But we have Christian dogma being one of the infamous dogmas that are just so finite. They make such bold statements as if they know. And I find this really hard to digest
I think we could fall into that trap of being absoluteist. I don't think this is why heads work, and that's how I try to be as well. So I just wanted that clarification. And I'm interested in this notion of dogma, because if dogma are general truths that come out of concrete personal experiences, that's what we do. Even on an individual basis. We take personal experiences and we create general truth, and we try to live that way
I think that's the call that we are affirming, but in our affirmation as well, we're having to rethink our values, having to rethink what we've seen and believe not to discredit our story but to intensify our story by other stories. So honoring these stories and how it can enhance our understanding of that which is almost impossible to fully describe the indescribable God
Right. And they actually are biased. But by saying that people should think that's a bias because humans, we are not just flesh and bone. What do you think our spirit is? I mean, we're thinking ideas, thoughts is energy. Well, that's how I see it. And that's my perspective. That was another thing I wanted to add. Perspective is more influential than dogma, right. We don't have to all agree
I love how I go, like, from a large thought, and you just somehow go down to the detail. Man, we really should do a podcast in the future. Dr. Reyes, you definitely have partially described it, right? Yeah. Like this poetic description aims to seek a balance not to over describe and not to under describe, but just describe enough to articulate a temporary idea in a moment. Right
But he talks about how science and religion can do that, right? It's always a science in the making. It's always a religion in the making, a philosophy in the making, even a God in the making, a humanity in the making, events in the making. On those lines
And that's more of like, I guess, in the realm of ecology, talking about eco theology and saying, do I buy into the industry and building homes, or do I nomadically move my body and live in a nomadic lifestyle to a certain extent, to where I can just be mobile or on the move, but not really settled, like a settled culture. And I think that as a shaman, I exist because I'm not really part of a settled culture or way of thinking
Sontaia Briggs
@PKBriggs · 2:26
But, yeah, it should be like an openness. It should be like more of this great unknowable beyond because it's endless. Right? The information is endless. The wisdom is endless. The experience is endless. So how could it just be within those three or 400 pages of a bunch of people have written that couldn't possibly contain God? Right. So I'm here for it. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for sharing these experiences in your queer theology class
Grand Rising Santa, thank you for contributing this new but unused word in this dialogue, especially within the context of queer theology. I love how you brought to the dialogue. This term outlier a person or things situated away or detached from the main body or system, a person or thing differing from all other members of a particular group or set