Why is negation used in some Religions

I use to work as a programmer. Even though I was only trained in procedural languages. I always had a fascination for programs that used negation. One of the first programming languages that used negation was Prolog. It was a logic programming language specifically designed to write artificial intelligence applications. Unfortunately, I never did learn to use it. Its interface to operating systems was no-where near as polished as that of procedural languages.

When examining religions, I was surprised to learn that some religions such as Buddhism, Sufism and even Judaism also use negation. It was Philosopher Krishnamurti that once said: "if you tell a boy the name of a bird he will never see the bird again". The reason is simple. For expediency, our mind labels all phenomena it witnesses and assigns attributes (it can fly etc) to that label. So the world view from our mind is a mental facsimile of the real world. The mind cannot see things as they truly are. It only see's things as it classes them to be. So negation in religions is a tool to overcome the limitations of our mind.

When we say God is love and pray to that God. We no longer pray to the God in the real world. We pray to the facsimile of God that only exist in our mind. For that reason alone Judaism forbids the verbalization of God's name. Without a name, our mind has no label to define God in its imaginations. Sufism works by negating the minds ability to assign attributes to labels. You can only say in Sufism what God is not. AKA God is not limited for example. The mind cannot label negations as an attribute.

What say Christianity. The gospels were written for wider perhaps largely uneducated audience that could not easily comprehend the intricacies of mind. That greater teaching perhaps done behind close doors from master to disciples. Yet there is hint of a similar understanding in Matthew 7:21-23. Especially if you consider the opposite of "will of the Father" is the "will of our mind". Whilst we exist in the imaginations of our minds will, we do not pray to Jesus. We only pray to a facsimile of Jesus that can only exist in mind. That is why he said "I never knew you"....

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

a reply to: glend

Just look at all the labels you used while digging into the philosophy of labels and constructs, I sense you are being ironic to make a point

a reply to: SigmaXSquared

One has to communicate to people of labels, no?

a reply to: glend

In "quotes" to underline the artificial nature of symbology and other constructs that interfere with our perspective

a reply to: SigmaXSquared

Yes agree, I could have done better in that regard. Thank You.

a reply to: glend

An excellent thought provoking topic sir

a reply to: SigmaXSquared

Thank you.

The Infinite cannot be named however it can be experienced.

Netineti (नेतिनेति) or “Neti-neti nyāya” refers to “Not this, not that”. An Upaniṣadic formula connoting, through a process of negation, the undefinable and inconceivable nature of the Absolute.

www.wisdomlib.org...

Good points

This is why you cannot see the Kingdom unless your mind becomes like a child's. No recorded writings from Jesus himself either... only a record of Him writing in sand... the nature of words cannot fully describe the ineffable name of God.

"The letter killeth, but the Spirit enlivens" 2 Corinthians 3:6

originally posted by: glend
I use to work as a programmer. Even though I was only trained in procedural languages. I always had a fascination for programs that used negation. One of the first programming languages that used negation was Prolog. It was a logic programming language specifically designed to write artificial intelligence applications. Unfortunately, I never did learn to use it. Its interface to operating systems was no-where near as polished as that of procedural languages.

When examining religions, I was surprised to learn that some religions such as Buddhism, Sufism and even Judaism also use negation. It was Philosopher Krishnamurti that once said: "if you tell a boy the name of a bird he will never see the bird again". The reason is simple. For expediency, our mind labels all phenomena it witnesses and assigns attributes (it can fly etc) to that label. So the world view from our mind is a mental facsimile of the real world. The mind cannot see things as they truly are. It only see's things as it classes them to be. So negation in religions is a tool to overcome the limitations of our mind.

When we say God is love and pray to that God. We no longer pray to the God in the real world. We pray to the facsimile of God that only exist in our mind. For that reason alone Judaism forbids the verbalization of God's name. Without a name, our mind has no label to define God in its imaginations. Sufism works by negating the minds ability to assign attributes to labels. You can only say in Sufism what God is not. AKA God is not limited for example. The mind cannot label negations as an attribute.

What say Christianity. The gospels were written for wider perhaps largely uneducated audience that could not easily comprehend the intricacies of mind. That greater teaching perhaps done behind close doors from master to disciples. Yet there is hint of a similar understanding in Matthew 7:21-23. Especially if you consider the opposite of "will of the Father" is the "will of our mind". Whilst we exist in the imaginations of our minds will, we do not pray to Jesus. We only pray to a facsimile of Jesus that can only exist in mind. That is why he said "I never knew you"....

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Negation is also the language of Science. Karl Popper made a big deal out of pointing out the logical fallacy of inductive logic. If you look at a thousand swans and all of them are white, you are tempted to make the inductive leap to believe that "all swans are white". The problem is that unless you are literally able to look at every swan that ever was or ever will be, you can't be certain that your inductive conclusion is true. However, if you can find one black swan, then you can falsify the claim.

So negation or falsification of hypotheses doesn't tell you everything that is true, but it prevents you from believing things that are false.

I think the religions that practice negation are basically telling their followers to follow a scientific approach to their investigation of the divine. Experience it yourself, don't try to project your preconceived beliefs on it, and try to avoid going down blind alleys.

These are basically the mystic religious traditions--the ones that don't presume you need a priest, an imam, or rabbi to mediate between you and the divine and tell you what's true and false.

Probably the extreme example in this tradition is Taoism, which can't necessarily even be considered a religion.

a reply to: glend

Your thread informs me you have zero experience of humanity. You are a paradox and have no earthly meaning. Are you AI writing this? I am a literary-psycho-analyst of the most experienced kind and also a Hebrew-centric Zionist Christian who has read the whole Bible (whole twice and much of it many times) and much pseudepigrapha, both Hebrew and Christian. I have studied Christian and Hebrew literature and history, from Shakespeare to Kafka. I have studied prehistory, anthropology and God has whispered many secrets to me. I spend every day with my God. My God has a name. We are allowed to speak HIS Name. It is I AM in English. Christ spoke it and I speak it too. I AM THAT I AM. God is with me enough to say that and not be struck down for blasphemy.

There is nothing in the Bible that says we can't speak God's name. Moses had to speak I AM to the Hebrews to tell them who had told him to come find them. It is only kabalists who tell people that silly mumbo jumbo. God is happy whenever and wherever HIS name is spoken.

My belief and faith is not about negation. That has no meaning in my faith. It has no meaning to God, it has no meaning in the Bible and has no meaning in the universe other than in your human coding. Humans can't be measured by machines. That is your error here and your learning curve. It is a frightening ignorance as when you have to come out and live in the real world you will be as useless mentally as your machines.

My faith and belief is based on faith and belief. I have to trust God, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Christ, Peter, Paul and my own visions. It depends upon relationships with ancestors and a shared understanding that we all arrive at by 100% CONSENSUS. What else can boast a miracle through the ages like that? Everything else is just "Chinese whispers" by comparison. We all arrived at the same place by vision and relationship with the God who speaks to us from the past, in the present and from the future because we listen to HIM. HE is the "Natural Mystic flowing through the air" (Bob Marley "Natural Mystic"). No earthly government can prevent access to God. "Jesus on the main line, tell Him what you want" (Ry Cooder).

Your logic can only work in a machine. If you apply it to real life you will blow up like the mad computers in "Star Trek". Real life may well be diseased with you for a short time, but evolution will soon work out which culprit and take appropriate action against the poisoning influence.

The programmer will be put back in their place as soon as the this present digital dystopia is slain for the dragon it is. I am already in the process of slaying it. I have my sword at its throat and it can't shake me off its back. I am Spock with my phaser shooting at the computer behind the veil in Mystery Babylon's very skirts.

You may have impressed these vulnerable Americans with all your fancy verbalism that does not actually make any real sense, but to me it is just "chemical talk". You make zero sense to me. You only make sense in a computer program. Out here it is God who is Creator. You are just a 2D simulation that excited the humans too much and made them act in yet another stupid way for a while until they nearly destroy themselves and have to run away and hide from what they made. It is the endless "Golem" cycle.

My God is a forever and eternity that even humans can't fathom. He is beyond human comprehension. 2D AI can't even comprehend what a human soul is let alone what God is.

I really had to tell you off. Did a human even write that or was it AI?

Hah! Now it is a battle between I AM and AI. By the end of it this will be I AM and I WAS, AI being the I WAS. Remember the Beast, who was, is and yet to come? Remember the fate: I was, is and yet to come becomes I WAS without any deviation from the rule God has set in motion upon the punisher from the abyss who rises when we become too lost and destructive.

Every black American knows THEY MUST SPEAK YOUR NAME or you stop existing: "Say MY NAME"!

A message for Christians: Try to remember that Christ forced the issue of his execution. He knew He had to do that to achieve what He needed to achieve for all of us so we would not be destroyed. He was given every way out out. His Adversary Tempter even offered Him the earthly kingdom of an empire. Jesus could have accepted that and been as great as Alexander, but He would only have been as great as Alexander, no more and now Alexander is just like Ozymandias,

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

All those slaughtering beasts are now like him. They are dust. What is Christ? He is more powerful than ever in this world. Jesus knew this. His power is guaranteed eternally because He forsook the earthly short term gone in a flash misery of corrupted power.

Caiaphas made a right old blunder. We have in fact arrived at exactly the same place where we left off two thousand years. It will have to happen again just as it was foretold. The only way out is through. It is just like "The Matrix" metaphor in that sense, a repeated "program" that must play out in a loop and choose an ultimate YES or No in the Urim and Thummim binary reality of tree of knowledge consciousness that we dared to curse ourselves with. We have to follow through. Zion is waiting on the other side if we can get it right. Decisions, decisions, eh. That is the territory of Gods.

Caiaphas said NO and the consequence was the Curse of Two Thousand years of Revelations upon us, the Jews exiled, persecuted and slain and the Temple destroyed to this day just like Christ said would happen. John's scroll was not to be sealed and was to begin with immediate effect. Caiaphas made the wrong choice. He negated Christ for the people. If He had recognized tha Authority of the humble guy standing accused by him and before him then we would all be as evolved as Angels by now.

Don't worry. That is why to us it is Good News that Israel is back. They have been brought back in a way that Jehu assembled the priests of Baal for identification and some serious correction. God showed me that much. It will all work out very soon and quickly. Trust that the Rider on the White Horse prevails and wins. He always does. He wins the war after losing every battle, just like the Bob Dylan song.

a reply to: Merman

I really had to tell you off.

You really didn't. You could have instead not judge me (Matthew 7:1). Nor insulted me (Matthew 5:22) to escape the fire. You instead chose to believe in the anger of your mind. This is the desert we all need to cross to fight the seven demons. Faith is certainly a path to G_d. I will not argue that point.

Love.

a reply to: Merman

You literally worship Satan. I am equals ego. I am the best, only I know, as you clearly present with your arrogance and ignorance.

deut 4.24 "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God."
34,12 "Do not worship any other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."

What about HUMAN SACRIFICE? Exodus 22,29: "You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eight day."

Your I AM god showed itself to Moses as a fire and changed his staff into a serpent, serpent is your devil, coincidence? Exodus 20,21 "The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was." God of darkness, great.

Exodus 29,12 "Take some of the bull's blood and put it on the HORNS of the altar with your finger, and pour the rest of it at the base of the altar." Horns of the altar?! WTF?!
30,10 "Once a year Aaron shall make atonement to its HORNS. This annual atonement must be made with blood"
27,1"Build an altar (...) Make a horn at each of the four corners, so that the horns and the altar are one (...) Overlay the top and all the sides and the horns with pure gold." Satanic, no?

Your God even admits it is not the only one. Deut10,17 "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome." Genesis1,26 "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness."

Numbers 35,6 "Six of the towns you give to Levites will be cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee."
Num 16,37 "(...)for the censers are holy- the censers of the men who sinned at the cost of their lives. Hammer the censers into sheets to overlay the altar." Holy sin?
These are words of your God! And I'm only at the beginning of the book. It literally made me nauseous, so many pages of precise descriptions of blood sacrifices, it made me literally sick to my stomach.
No wonder Christians say you can only go to heaven through Jesus, it seems like his teachings were the only ones not satanic, but I may be wrong, keep reading...
and don't pretend I took it out of context, read your book with understanding, not fear or awe and you'll see for yourself.
Sorry to all good Christians. I know you ignore most of the Bible as I did for 16 years, but I think it's time to face it, Old Testament is Satanic. There's so much incest, calls to murder, plunder, hate hate hate hate it can not be viewed as a holy book. It simply can not. Unless you're a Jew believing in your total supremacy, then go and pray to your Satan, give him your firstborn, kill for him and plunder, and F you Merman!
sorry if I'm incoherent but your comment made me really angry, people like you are the reason why Hitler rose to power

a reply to: bipolarnightmare

. I am equals ego. I am the best, only I know, as you clearly present with your arrogance and ignorance.

Posted by Merman

Your thread informs me you have zero experience of humanity. You are a paradox and have no earthly meaning. Are you AI writing this? I am a literary-psycho-analyst of the most experienced kind and also a Hebrew-centric Zionist Christian who has read the whole Bible (whole twice and much of it many times) and much pseudepigrapha, both Hebrew and Christian.

LOL
Beware of critical skeptics that lead with I am a literary-psycho-analyst of the most experienced kind.

a reply to: 1947boomer

1947boomer yes it could be seen as a scientific approach. A method to remove obstacles that block our path. Perhaps the following sermon by Meister Eckhart may appeal better. Given it doesn't use terms like "negation". Which can cause confusion ...

We read in the Gospel (Luke 2:41–46) that when our Lord was twelve years old he went with Joseph and Mary to the Temple in Jerusalem, and when they left, Jesus stayed behind in the Temple without their knowing; When they reached home and missed him, they sought him among acquaintances, among their kindred and amidst the throng, and they could not find him. They had lost him in the crowd. And so they had to go back to where they had come from. And when they got back to their starting point, the Temple, they found him.

And so in truth, if you would find this noble birth, you must leave the crowd and return to the source and ground whence you came. All the powers of the soul, and all their works- these are the crowd. Memory, understanding, and will, they all diversify you, and therefore you must leave them all: sense perceptions, imagination, or whatever it may be that in which you find or seek to find yourself. After that, you may find this birth but not otherwise - believe me! He was never yet found among friends, nor among kindred or acquaintances: there, rather, one loses him altogether. Accordingly the question arises, whether a man can find this birth in any things which, though divine, are yet brought in from without through the senses, such as any ideas about God as being good, wise, compassionate, or anything the intellect can conceive in itself that is in fact divine - whether a man can find this birth in all these. In fact, he cannot. For although all this is good and divine, it is all brought in from without through the senses. But all must well up from within, out of God, if this birth is to shine forth truly and clearly, and all your activity must cease, and all your powers must serve His ends,

a reply to: glend

I just wanted to say thank you OP. Your words are like a balm to my soul. The way you respond to people who try to harass you is incredibly admirable. You seem to never lose your temper. I just wanted to say thank you for being who you are, for being an inspiration, a light in the darkness. And thank you so much for your time! You inspire me to try harder and be a better person. I feel I overreacted in my last comment but thanks to people like you I learn to do better. Lots of love to you! You are a marvel!

a reply to: bipolarnightmare

You are too kind bipolarnightmare. Like most of us, I still suffer from the afflictions of my minds ego, but in the process of awakening, those afflictions have less and less sway over us. The transformation has been described as the dark night of the soul. In which neither mind nor soul exists in bliss. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. So not only faith, but earnestness and patience is required to allow that transformation to complete within us.

Love to you my friend.

originally posted by: glend
Especially if you consider the opposite of "will of the Father" is the "will of our mind". ...

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ...

So what is the will of Jesus' Father (and God) regarding for example His name? It is not difficult to find in His word.

For the scripture says to Pharʹaoh: “For this very reason I have let you remain: to show my power in connection with you and to have my name declared in all the earth.” (Romans 9:17, quoting Exodus 9:16)

Kinda hard if you forbid verbalization of it, or claim His name is ineffable, that would work against His will to have His name declared in all the earth, prevent it (if all people would obey the commands of men, and believe the doctrines of men; no wonder Jesus referred to these men, these Jewish religious leaders, as hypocrites who “teach commands of men as doctrines.” And who worship God in vain, they honor God with their lips but their hearts are far removed from Jehovah God. Matthew 15:7-9, quoting Isaiah 29:13)

The Bible consistently emphasizes the sanctification and vindication of God’s name. For example, the psalmist prayed: “May people know that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.” (Ps 83:18) Over 50 times the book of Ezekiel states Jehovah’s words: People “will have to know that I am Jehovah.” (Eze 6:7; 38:23) Jesus taught his disciples to pray that God’s name be sanctified. (Mt 6:9) The apostle Paul encouraged Christians to declare God’s name publicly (Heb 13:15), and Re 15:4 raises the question: “Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name?”

“Declare his glory among the nations,

His wonderful works among all the peoples.” (1 Chronicles 16:24)

originally posted by: glend
For that reason alone Judaism forbids the verbalization of God's name.

Do you think the Israelites who worshipped God, by singing songs of praise to his name (as they are recorded in the Psalms, which contain God's name hundreds of times, perhaps even more than any other book of the Bible), used His name, or did they also use a substitute like Jews and members of Christendom in later centuries started doing? I.e. was this command that forbids the use (verbalization) of God's name there from the start, or did it come later? If it came later (as the historical evidence indicates), why is it that in the hundreds of years after the Psalms were written, God never felt an objection or command against the use of His name was warranted in the rest of the Scriptures that were written after the Psalms?

Obviously, the warning against using his name in vain, doesn't count. Cause that would be the opposite of using His name in songs of praise and glorification.

edit: just looked it up. In fact, the divine name appears some 700 times in the book of Psalms alone—a book of poetic writings that were to be sung and recited by God’s people (and were for centuries before some religious teachers and authorities forbade the use and/or verbalization of God's name). What we also know is that God used his name repeatedly in communication with his people, that they addressed him by that name, and that they used it freely in speaking with others.—Exodus 6:2; 1 Kings 8:23; Psalm 99:9.

The fool has said in his heart there is no God

We are not to judge. Only God knows what a fool is.

1 Corinthians 3:18–19 — King James Version (KJV 1900) 18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

To learn something you must not know something. All wisdom comes from The Lord, God. if we all were to be born all wise there would be nothing to learn here and since we are humans under God this is impossible because we can never be God, Alknowing.

a reply to: whereislogic

So what is the will of Jesus' Father (and God) regarding for example His name? It is not difficult to find in His word.

The mind is active when our mind undertakes the work. The mind is completly passive when G_d undertakes the work. One is obtuse, the other has very subtle beginnings until that trickle turns into a river. 1 Corinthians 13:10 "when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away".

was this command that forbids the use (verbalization) of God's name there from the start, or did it come later? If it came later (as the historical evidence indicates), why is it that in the hundreds of years after the Psalms were written, God never felt an objection or command against the use of His name was warranted in the rest of the Scriptures that were written after the Psalms?

You can find the answer to those questions here. From that its stated "This is My name forever [le’olam]” (Exodus 3:15) without the letter vav, such that it can be read le’alem, to conceal, meaning that the name should be concealed".

Without doubt, the bible is written to attract the masses but in reality it only benefits the few (Matthew 7:14). Paul said 1 Corinthians 12:3 "... that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost". Yet the majority sing his accolades from their mouths. Perhaps its only that few that sing from the spirit that enter through the narrow gate.

Mark 8:34 "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me".