3 Theories Of Everything by Ellis Potter

Potter plays his cards quite close to the vest. He explains his conclusions further: So lets figure out what Potter means when he claims these three absolutes. Personally, the way you guys carry on around here, I see you as accepters of scientism. I'm finding my argument through discussion. I am not quite able to express Potters views in my own words, though I am finding quotes that he makes which I agree with. Tangle would claim that I am simply agreeing with made up mumbo jumbo that gives me comfort. Perhaps he is right. Time will tell. I considered your line of reasoning enough to look outside Potters definitions. The article gets deep, but does not address Potters insistence that there are only 3 basic absolutes:
Oneism
Twoism
Threeism.Potter was a Buddhist before he became a Christian. The story is intriguing.Edited by Phat, : punctuation 101

What does he think an 'absolute' is? It sounds like he's just substituting a pseudo-philosophical term for a god. Bullshit. That's just the rationalisation of a believer. People don't believe in religious waffle because it's just dumb. I can't even work out what this is supposed to mean - if anything. Science is simply a method of understanding our universe. Scientism is a slander than those believing in magic use in an attempt to dismiss it because it threatens them.Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives.The measure of everything? Again, he's just saying that humanists don't believe in god - wow who knew? - and being critical of then for not doing. That at least is true. The only intriguing thing about it is why anyone is fooled by a pile of incoherent twaddle.

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He explains his conclusions further:

3 Theories Of Everything writes:

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I believe the existence of absolutes is most likely,but is inconvenient and disagreeable to our egos. People nowadays are often motivated not to believe in absolutes, because if there are true absolutes, then we are responsible to the absolute.(...)When I looked for absolutes, I discovered there weren't many. I believe it comes down to three: Monism, Dualism, and Trinitarianism.

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No, this makes no sense to me at all.

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So lets figure out what Potter means when he claims these three absolutes.

Ellis Potter writes:

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If science is the measure of everything, you have scientism. If the human being is the measure of everything,you have humanism.

Personally, the way you guys carry on around here, I see you as accepters of scientism.

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I don’t think that my views would be fairly classified as either. Some things should be science-centred. Others should be human-centred.

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Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy writes:

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There are many monisms. What they share is that they attribute oneness. Where they differ is in what they attribute oneness to (the target), and how they count (the unit).

The article gets deep, but does not address Potters insistence that there are only 3 basic absolutes:
Oneism
Twoism
Threeism.

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Then it’s likely that Potter is using his own private definitions. And without those we can’t discuss his work.

I found one of his absolutes.This is one big absolute pile of crap.Why so narrow minded? Why present this as some mutually exclusive dichotomy? And how could either be the "measure of all things"? What does that even mean?

And it absolutely sells to those who simply don't know how to think or that know how but refuse to think.Absolutely great stuff for bobbleheads.

We are in the process (in this discussion) of defining reality...as an abstract concept. jar always talks of logic, reason,l and reality.So lets ask ourselves some questions.

How is reality defined? Is it defined only through that which we can quantify and verify? Is it objective or subjective?

jar writes:

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And it absolutely sells to those who simply don't know how to think or that know how but refuse to think.

It is so easy for you to bash and criticize other peoples arguments while being too lazy to provide one of your own. You often trip over your own ego. To be fair, you dont have the book to read as I do, thus you cannot fully understand Potters arguments and yet you immediately jump to your pet conclusion that the man must be "selling" something and that he is likely a conman. Am I right?

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Potter writes:

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The Western tradition of thought recognizes that the idea 'things were once perfect and need to be made right again' is the biblical view of history.

You would of course disagree, claiming that the Bible is human-centric and was created solely as a product of man. Edited, redacted, compiled, yada yada yada.

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So some questions about the basic storyline.

Was there perfection in the beginning? Does the storyline indicate that God existed before humans thought Him up? Is the focal point of reality, in this context, focused on God as humans understand Him or is the focal point on our human understanding itself?

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Perhaps another way to phrase the question I am asking is this:

Is reality a concept that is defined by humans or is it a concept that is discovered by humans and pondered philosophically? If the former, you are supporting what Potter calls scientism. Feel free to throw humanism in with it. The basic question is whether we should focus on human-centric thinking in describing reality or whether we should speculate on whether there is a power/reality/ground of being that exists whether we choose to acknowledge "it" or not?

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Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

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"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
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We must realize that the Reformation world view leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist world view with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, must put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state.- Francis A. Schaeffer

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The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.
- Criss Jami, Killosophy

Those two concepts are monastic and indistinguishable. They both are human centered. You cant have science without humans to define and quantify it.

When you suggest that someone makes the claim that you posted, then I most certainly can see that he is simply another carny huckster.Examples:

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Lets start with The First Circle.
Potter basically breaks the three worldviews down as
Monism
Dualism
Trinitarianism

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That itself is more than enough evidence to simply laugh and walk away.But wait, there's more. You posted some more of his absurdities in Message 16. They are all simply meaningless word salad and quite honestly, just bullshit and misrepresentation as has already been pointed out to you.

Exactly. Thoughts and experiences. Maybe even based on a real person. But NOT living today. Are you? Put it in your own words so we can see what YOU think it means.

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Those two concepts are monastic and indistinguishable. They both are human centered. You cant have science without humans to define and quantify it.

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Oh they are distinguishable. From a scientistic viewpoint there is nothing wrong with using Mengele’s data. From a humanistic viewpoint that data is tainted by the way Mengele got it.

OK I will try. I've heard your arguments enough that I think I can mimic them to a degree.You essentially believe or are convinced through logic, reason, and reality that there is an essential distinction between beliefs (of any garden variety) and facts...those events,behaviors, and physical laws which can be objectively proven.I perused Potters notes in his questions and answers to see if he addressed your particular types of worldviews and did not specifically find it.I concluded on my own that you were basically Monists...if we could fit you (ringo,Tangle, and perhaps AZPaul3) into a category. In that there is a singular reality and not a dualistic cosmic battle or a Trinitarian God who brings His wayward children back into a unified fold through Holy Communion.You guys essentially skip belief all together---you throw it away basically. All that you embrace is objective truths through human interpretation of physical evidence and the observable behavior of how the universe around us operates.

I'd rather have you explain Potter's arguments like I asked. Well of course there isn't a cosmic battle any more than there's one magic ring that rules them all. I don't see that as a worldview. It's just common sense that anybody with any worldview should be able to see. It isn't about skipping belief. It's about realizing that belief is a last-ditch copout when you just can't bring yourself to admit that you don't know.

I have to say the idea that the Trinity are three separate Gods is not one that orthodox Christianity accepts. But if they are really only one God isn’t that a form of what Potter calls monism ?(I wonder how much Potter is influenced by Hindu belief. The Hindu Trimurti is usually presented as three Gods - at least in Western material - even if they are thought to be aspects of one The Christian Trinity is far more explicit about them being one God).

Remember how he chooses to break this stuff down as "circles"? The first circle is Monism, the second circle is Dualism and the third circle is Trinitarianism? (Don't ask me why he does it this way.,...but lets roll with it for now)This is how he explains it:

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According to the third circle, when we look around at the world we see both unity and diversity. In this way we are like the people of the first circle. But whereas the people of the first circle conclude that unity is good and diversity is not, and that unity is real and diversity is illusion, people of the third circle have a different view. They regard the original perfection, which is called God, as both perfectly unified and perfectly diversified. We see a clear description of this reality in the Bible. God is perfectly unified as One God, and yet God is perfectly diversified in the three persons of the Father,Son, and Holy Spirit. There is unity and diversity in absolute reality. There is not One God who chooses to reveal Himself in three ways in order to create the appearance of diversity, and there are not three persons who choose to unite and cooperate in order to create the appearance of being unified. The original reality is 100% unified and 100% diversified. Its a 200% reality that cannot be comprehended by simple logic.

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Thats what I think he meant when I quoted him in Message 1
I actually misquoted. The correct quote he used was:
God alone is God,and God is not alone.He mentions that no other God in human imagination has this attribute. You can say Buddha alone is Buddha, but thats all. (The rest is silence)
You can say Krishna alone is Krishna, or Allah alone is Allah, but again...the rest is silence.

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If the God of the third circle wants to talk to somebody, He talks among Himself because He is three persons. A God who wasn't diversified could not talk among Himself. He would have to create something else to talk with. He would require a creation in order to be personal, whereas (Ellis argues) the God of the third circle is intrinsically personal, independent of His creation.

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Thus Potter explains his understanding of Trinitarianism as the centrality of the third circle.
In a sense, his concept unifies Yin and Yang(the 2nd circle) back into monism(One God) while preserving the belief in the Trinity and a subsequent explanation of his understanding of it. Which sorta makes sense in that the first Adam fell from unity into diversity and the 2nd Adam, Jesus, reunified the diversity caused by that pesky snake back into perfect unity....through acceptance of GOD in the personality of Jesus Christ and preserved eternally through the presence of the Holy Spirit. I mean, it all makes sense to me. I know Tangle insists its all made up Bushwa, but in a strict sense, any belief can be accused of being made up. Ellis Potter expanded my own understanding of Christianity in that his explanations felt intuitively sound. I suppose a critically thinking scientist would challenge the assumptions, but without throwing all belief away and relying solely on objective evidential discovery, what else can one do?Edited by Phat, : added clarification

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This is how he explains it

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Explains is a bit strong. Doubling down on the contradictions of the Trinity is an interesting take but not one I can take seriously.

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He mentions that no other God in human imagination has this attribute. You can say Buddha alone is Buddha, but thats all. (The rest is silence)

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How about the TrimurtiI have to say that Potter looks like another apologist with nothing of great value to say.