Collaboration Between Artist and Audience

[Some Schmo]

Interesting post.

I personally don't have a vision of what God looks like and I don't feel I have a general assignment of what God is like. I know we talk about God's love and all that. But deep down, I worry because I'm not entirely sure that God is anything like what Earthlings teach. When I pray, I pray out but I'm not really sure where it's going and I just hope that whatever is out there or within me hears it with the intent I send it. I fall asleep 99 percent of the time. Then spend the morning worrying and have to finish my prayer and apologise for falling asleep. I've connected prayer to sleep and find that if I don't pray I find it much harder to sleep as if prayer leads me to the neural pathways that sends me to sleep.

Sounds like you might be meditating. Not a bad thing.

When I was about 22 (a good 5 years or so after leaving the church), I remember praying for an answer to a question, and the question was immediately answered. It occurred to me that maybe god (when I still had a hazy notion of a god) was our own brains answering the questions asked it. It was the first time I ever found a practical use for prayer (I was praying at the suggestion of a book I was reading at the time, not because I kept praying after becoming "inactive").

Now asking myself questions is just a habit because I know that asking the right questions primes your brain for the right answers. Many times, when I'm working through a problem, I might start an e-mail to someone with my current questions, and end up never sending the email because the simple act of articulating the problem in words helps lead to the solutions I'm seeking.

So, I have had the experience of thinking that god was a part of my brain, or existed in people's subconscious somehow. I've dabbled in ideas about a collective consciousness (as an objective, external thing, as opposed to the more sensible way that phrase is interpreted). I've thought all kinds of things about the supernatural when I was younger. All of them have left me wanting.

What I am sure of is that most people don't give their own imaginations nearly enough credit.

[Some Schmo]

On the other hand I think most people hold very general ideas of God and respect the fact that there is a lot of unknown and mystery. It may be best to be cautious about filling in what you don't know with representations.

But you and I don't know anything about any god, so we're left filling in everything about him/her/it.

It's easy for many people to agree that their god is mysterious, when we literally know nothing about any god.

My view is that there can only be one God, source of life and order in the universe and that God surely exists as there is order and life in the Universe. This one God is misunderstood in various ways by people all over the world(repect to the principal you stated here Some Schmo).

Most people feel this way about the god they worship, possibly to the same degree they, themselves, feel misunderstood.

With the misunderstandings there is a thread of understanding based upon what we understand of the order creating and nurturing life here(love and respect your neighbors , community and environment)

By virtue of being a social animal, it is in our best interest survival-wise to nurture life by loving and respecting our neighbors, etc. Many species besides humans exhibit this behavior, and I doubt any of them have read a holy book.

[High Spy]

Speaking of fiction, I noticed that 3 Body Problem has been released for TV in 8 episodes.

3 and 8 represent J Christ or Crist as per miracles confirmed on March 8 and 18 respectively.

84 represents warning as confirmed by the upcoming eclipse.

There for 384 represents tribute and warning as confirmed by searching 384.

Said searching is one form of collaboration to move the story forward.

[Imwashingmypirate]

Interesting post.

I personally don't have a vision of what God looks like and I don't feel I have a general assignment of what God is like. I know we talk about God's love and all that. But deep down, I worry because I'm not entirely sure that God is anything like what Earthlings teach. When I pray, I pray out but I'm not really sure where it's going and I just hope that whatever is out there or within me hears it with the intent I send it. I fall asleep 99 percent of the time. Then spend the morning worrying and have to finish my prayer and apologise for falling asleep. I've connected prayer to sleep and find that if I don't pray I find it much harder to sleep as if prayer leads me to the neural pathways that sends me to sleep.

Sounds like you might be meditating. Not a bad thing.

When I was about 22 (a good 5 years or so after leaving the church), I remember praying for an answer to a question, and the question was immediately answered. It occurred to me that maybe god (when I still had a hazy notion of a god) was our own brains answering the questions asked it. It was the first time I ever found a practical use for prayer (I was praying at the suggestion of a book I was reading at the time, not because I kept praying after becoming "inactive").

Now asking myself questions is just a habit because I know that asking the right questions primes your brain for the right answers. Many times, when I'm working through a problem, I might start an e-mail to someone with my current questions, and end up never sending the email because the simple act of articulating the problem in words helps lead to the solutions I'm seeking.

So, I have had the experience of thinking that god was a part of my brain, or existed in people's subconscious somehow. I've dabbled in ideas about a collective consciousness (as an objective, external thing, as opposed to the more sensible way that phrase is interpreted). I've thought all kinds of things about the supernatural when I was younger. All of them have left me wanting.

What I am sure of is that most people don't give their own imaginations nearly enough credit.

Haha, I've done that with emails before. Writing massive emails to discover I don't need to send them after all.

I think most people have those thoughts. I remember at uni I had thought that life was a learning process and that we worked out way up dimensions. We are trapped in this physical dimension by our bodies and we moved onto the next when we die. We leave the 3D world and maybe we were in a 2D world before this. We can glimpse the next world when in tune with our spirits or in dreams. But that it would continue on and on.

I thought of religions and knowledge like a broken vase.
That people try to put back together but some prices change shape because of perspective or pieces become lost and so you get kind of a vase but it's not right.

[Some Schmo]

I thought of religions and knowledge like a broken vase.
That people try to put back together but some prices change shape because of perspective or pieces become lost and so you get kind of a vase but it's not right.

I love this analogy with respect to knowledge.

[Imwashingmypirate]

I thought of religions and knowledge like a broken vase.
That people try to put back together but some prices change shape because of perspective or pieces become lost and so you get kind of a vase but it's not right.

I love this analogy with respect to knowledge.

Pieces* not prices. Phone autocorrects. But you knew that lol. I think with scientific knowledge they can be putting the vase together and get a giraffe lol.

[Some Schmo]

I think with scientific knowledge they can be putting the vase together and get a giraffe lol.

I wouldn't go that far. If I thought that, I wouldn't fly on a plane or use a microwave oven... or a million other things we all take for granted that we wouldn't have without science.

[Imwashingmypirate]

I think with scientific knowledge they can be putting the vase together and get a giraffe lol.

I wouldn't go that far. If I thought that, I wouldn't fly on a plane or use a microwave oven... or a million other things we all take for granted that we wouldn't have without science.

I was thinking along the lines of flat earth thinking and space revolving around earth, pre modern medicine etc. But yes, lots of awesome technological advances that can be trusted.

I find electricity odd and TVs odd when I start thinking about it. Like magic. I have a physics degree and I know the science but I don't know, it seems strange that we can make so many things happen. Or make full blown image replicas digitally. Maybe it's like when you say a word over and over and it loses it's meaning and doesn't sound right anymore lol.

[Gunnar]

some schmos observation about the reader creating richness is certainly valid. Comparing books with movies books have the possible advantage of being richer ,more complicated and longer. About 1970 I was a bit of a fan of Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. I was horrified by what they did with it making a movie. Some of that was description. In the book rain and mud were significant players introduced from the very beginning. The movie looked sunny and California even though filmed in Oregon. That was just the beginning. How I interpreted the book was far away from how the movie did.

A contrasting example is the Movie a River Runs Through it. I had read and enjoyed the book before seeing the movie but in this case I loved the movie perhaps even more. There are some liberties in story line the movie takes and they help expand the story and what it has to say.(even though going a few further steps away from details of the real events behind the story,poetic license) As description the movie succeeds so well I feel like I have been there.

I appreciate your comments. All of the above resonates well with my own experience. Sometimes a well-done movie based on a book I have already read enhances both my appreciation and understanding of the book itself and makes me want to read the book again. More often, though (for me at least), it works the other way around. Reading the book usually reveals background context and details the movie, by itself, failed to make fully clear within the time constraints of the movie.

[huckelberry]

Most people feel this way about the god they worship, possibly to the same degree they, themselves, feel misunderstood.


By virtue of being a social animal, it is in our best interest survival-wise to nurture life by loving and respecting our neighbors, etc. Many species besides humans exhibit this behavior, and I doubt any of them have read a holy book.

Some Schmo, I am sure my dog has the same God as I do. I think that is true of the other animals as well.Of course we share principals. I do not think scriptures are the source of peoples idea of God.The Bible records a history of peoples thoughts about God and times they understood as having a special relationship to God.

I should point out that I did not intend to exclude myself when referring to various misunderstandings people have all over the world.