Angelology

General Metaphysics: Theory & Practice
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I was asking myself, if angels are ethereal beings, then how many of them could dance on the head of a pin? I would guess an infinite amount. Do they become one at some point in the close proximity of infinity?
Since everything comes from god, and god is in everything, maybe they have been one from the very beginning? Maybe god just likes to watch them dance.
I am confused about this and i hope that someone could clear this up.

Admin edit: The subject title of this thread has been changed to the correct spelling of the word.

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Is the Holy Spirit an angel? We know of the angel of death? But that is all folklore. If there truly are angels i would point out initially they would probably be timeless. The way i understand timeless is to be existing after the end of everything, something that persists or many things that persist as one. They would undoubtedly need to cling to the initial cause and all the commotion thereafter. I suppose they would be the closet thing we have to Gods? and perhaps blasphemy to say they could become Gods. We even sing and entertain ourselves with the notion that we are angels. Not to mention saying thing like ‘the angels are smiling on me’ which could have colloquial ties to pagan tradition as, i suppose quite late in our history, pagan belief had to take a back seat to Christianity and perhaps our angels are the left over bits and bats from that. As i believe there are even pagan elements in the Quran. I mean who is going to keep waffling on about birds and ants and milk other than some smelly pagan?

I have called them angles since i was a young child any way and have actually always sensed some truth in that, that an angel would be like a nice right angle compare to some sloppy 72.99 degree angle. Either way it needs to be something that is going to impress.

Also we say people are angels when they do a good deed or rescue us from a difficult situation. So we could surmise that what we know of angels is doers of good deeds or rare saints in our daily struggle. We can as with all things only multiply that outward with any certainty i suppose?

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…Maybe, unless you figure both the Old and New Testament of the Bible to be blasphemous:

“I have said, You are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” Psalms 82:6

"Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’?” John 10:34

Humans are an alloy of god and beast.

Ask yourself this, how many particles of light can dance on the head of a pin? How many particles of sound waves can dance on or through the head of a pin? Perhaps this is more than we can count with any degree of accuracy… Now consider, spirit or ethereal energy is much more subtle than both light and sound… the pin becomes almost as nothing, or at least inconsequential or transitory from an ethereal perspective.

And yes, ethereal energy is closer to the One God, but is not the One God in itself… angels, or the highest of individualized beings even more so… depending on their form, function, and level in the hierarchy.

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I remembered a book I read which had a chapter referencing angels so i grabbed the book off the shelf. The chapter is called ‘Was the universe created by angels?’ in the book The Universe Next Door by Marcus Chown. It goes something like this…

"The ultimate experiment is about to begin. On a cold, lonely moon, shrouded in purple-pink fog, a sentient ocean marshals the energy resources of an entire galaxy and focuses them down onto a tiny, unsuspecting mote of matter. A hundred billion stars flicker and dim. The air above the ocean sizzles and catches fire. Crushed by stupendous energies, the tiny mote twists and bucks and, with a violent shudder, implodes like a nuclear explosion in reverse. Smaller and smaller it shrinks. Smaller than an atom. Smaller than the smallest component of an atom. On and on into submicroscopic realms beyond human imagination. Until, suddenly, without warning - puff! - it is gone.

Somewhere else - in another space, another time- a searing-hot fireball explodes out of nothingness and immediately begins to expand and cool. The ultimate scientific experiment has produced the ultimate experimental result: the birth of an entirely new universe.

Could our own Universe have been born in such an experiment? One man thinks it is a real possibility. According to Ed Harrison, formerly of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, our Universe could easily be the outcome of an experiment carried out by a superior intelligence in another universe." Marcus Chown - The Universe Next Door

He goes onto say in the next section ‘Why is the Universe comprehensible?’…

“If Harrison is right, the answer is simple. The reason our Universe is comprehensible is because it was created by comprehensible beings. Beings far in advance of us but basically like ourselves. Intelligent but also intelligible. They made our Universe to be like theirs, and their universe was in turn understandable. How could it not be? They had to have enough understanding of it to manipulate it and make a new universe. ‘We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown’, wrote the English astronomer Arthur Eddington. ‘We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. And at last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! it is our own.’ Not quite. According to Harrison, the footprint was made not by us, but by beings similar but superior to us - angels. In Harrison’s picture, life begets life, intelligence begets intelligence. ‘It is not inconceivable’, he says, ‘that the goal of the evolution of intelligence is the creation of universes to foster intelligence.’” Marcus Chown - The Universe Next Door

So although the use of the word angel here is just colorful language i guess but it is still an insightful look into what an angel might be.

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That is very interesting, wsimm101, and thanks for sharing!

You know, these very ideas; of angels, gods, or principalities being the functional builders of the universe was formulated by many of the ancient polytheistic cultures, but are also shared by Gnostic Judaism and Christianity.

It seems the further modern scientists go, the further they are ‘bugged out’ by the intelligible foundations of the universe, and its direct correlation with Consciousness.

Oh, how the world turns… it seems that the cutting edge of modern science is just now reaching the level of understanding of the primitive pagan, barely past the uncomprehending blindness of atheistic materialism. They deserve a round of applause for their efforts… :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think a hand for our ancient ancestors is a good idea. As for their awareness of grand realities that is, for me, quite comprehensible. I’m not sure how to phrase this but we are all connected to that greater truth, so when we open our minds this is what we are opening them to! I have always said consciousness came into being when some pre-human chipmunk creature came to know all things in (and only for) an instant. Similar to Albert Einsteins idea that a ‘problem’ cannot be solved by the same thinking that created it. For things to expand beyond what they are they need to be intrinsically connected to all things as, i believe, creation is not as easy as it may seem on this earth. Most of what happens is recycling.

That is to say that a simple rock or lump of clay knows everything that there is to know in creation because it is connected to all things, literally. I seem to keep coming back to Star Wars though, i should imagine those noble ancestors were more closely connected to ‘the force’ than the average person today. The more we isolate ourselves in our modern technological fortresses the less connected to that force we become and the more dependent on our own flawed creation we are. But i think the significance of the human journey should not be forgotten, we can become many things or remain formless and our destiny ultimately is our own.