Why do people need religious beliefs and ideas?
I realise that this is an immense area of questioning and I am not sure that it can be tackled properly on a forum. However, I do think that it just as important to ask as any specific questions about belief in God. The working definition of religion which I will offer is one offered by William James in, 'The Varieties of Religious Experience' :
'Were one asked to characterise the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.'
James looked at religious experience and was probably central to the whole exploration of the psychological aspect of this. One writer who is also of great importance is Carl Jung. Of course, the importance of religion is one looked at within anthropology and sociology and these disciplines offer important insights into the cultural context of religious ideas.
My own perspective is that of being brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition of Christianity. I was an extremely religious teenager and began attending Christianity Union at university, but found that I was at odds with others because I was interested in the whole panorama of comparative religion and could not believe that any one tradition had a monopoly on truth. I am currently outside of any tradition and have a certain sympathy with the deconstruction of religious beliefs, such as the critique offered by Nietzsche. However, in thinking about many philosophical questions I am aware that there does seem to be some underlying source in the universe, such as the Tao, and I keep an open mind to many other questions within religious beliefs, such as the direct encounter with the 'divine'.
However, I am aware that ideas about religion, including the philosophy questions about the existence of God are so bound up with our lives as human beings. I wonder how this all connects together and even if the need for religious experience is innate. I do think that my topic might be seen as a bit complicated for the forum and I apologise if this is the case, but it is the whole area which I grapple with and seek to explore in my own life. So, I am interested in exploring this with anyone else who is also interested in this too.
'Were one asked to characterise the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.'
James looked at religious experience and was probably central to the whole exploration of the psychological aspect of this. One writer who is also of great importance is Carl Jung. Of course, the importance of religion is one looked at within anthropology and sociology and these disciplines offer important insights into the cultural context of religious ideas.
My own perspective is that of being brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition of Christianity. I was an extremely religious teenager and began attending Christianity Union at university, but found that I was at odds with others because I was interested in the whole panorama of comparative religion and could not believe that any one tradition had a monopoly on truth. I am currently outside of any tradition and have a certain sympathy with the deconstruction of religious beliefs, such as the critique offered by Nietzsche. However, in thinking about many philosophical questions I am aware that there does seem to be some underlying source in the universe, such as the Tao, and I keep an open mind to many other questions within religious beliefs, such as the direct encounter with the 'divine'.
However, I am aware that ideas about religion, including the philosophy questions about the existence of God are so bound up with our lives as human beings. I wonder how this all connects together and even if the need for religious experience is innate. I do think that my topic might be seen as a bit complicated for the forum and I apologise if this is the case, but it is the whole area which I grapple with and seek to explore in my own life. So, I am interested in exploring this with anyone else who is also interested in this too.
Comments (548)
What an interesting question. I want to stand in the idea that believing in God or whatever religion is not innate at all. Probably I going to sound so empirical right now but look the next point.
Complex and abstract terms like “God” “Heaven” “souls” are learned to us in our way of life when we are getting to the adulthood. I been raised in a house of atheists people. So in my case I never even been or heard about what is God or a church making me feel so impasible about religion. I cannot remember at all feeling in an innate state trying to find a “way” to understand my meaningless life.
Nevertheless, I understand your point and I guess we can direct it in other path. Sometimes we have that period of life full of complexity where we ask ourselves questions like “why am I here?” “Why am I living this moment?” “What the future holds?” Etc... some authors name this moment as “personal period of thinking” while some people will find the way in a religious path, others in the philosophy branches (determinism, nihilism, empirical, etc...) So somehow I guess it is innate that feeling of questioning everything in our reality but not the answers.
What I tried to explain here is that you can’t know exactly what being religious is if before someone never explained to you that way of beliefs.
Nice to meet you. I wish we can have more debate in the future.
Allan Bloom argues the problem with nihilism in his book "Closing of the American Mind-How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy And Impoverished The Souls Of Today's Students". I find it depressing and therefore hard to read. To me, believing in nothing, not even the differences between males and females, and the importance of family is extremely depressing. Vive la France, at least leave us the pleasure of being man and woman and procreation.
Anyway reading your post, I immediately thought of Bloom's explanation of nihilism and my answer to your question is we must have something to believe in, something to live and die for because if there is nothing we want to live and die for, life is pretty miserable.
I know the US public schools attacked our national heroes and then dropped them and I see this as very destructive of our democracy. Democracy is based on a belief in humanity and education. It is about achieving human excellence and having liberty based on the highest morality. We need our role models and concepts of human dignity and honor and those have been under attack through education. Now we do not understand why we should not storm our Capitol building and take by force anything we think we should have control over. Our Capitol building is no longer sacred and may never again be an open experience for us to have because present conditions demand turning it into a fortress. I don't think a civilization can get any lower than this. The US may appear to survive, but this is not the democracy we inherited. It is more like the Germany we defeated in two world wars and education has brought us to this.
The bottom line, civilizations must have shared values or they self-destruct.
We are fortunate that there are some in the world who have a similar need though at different intensities. Yet there are some with a great need for truth that is stronger than the need for pleasure and consolation
[i]"To believe in God is not a decision we can make. All we can do is decide not to give our love to false gods. In the first place, we can decide not to believe that the future contains for us an all-sufficient good. The future is made of the same stuff as the present....
"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
-- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©[/i]
Something at the depth of our being feeds on truth. Modern society and its dominant secular intolerance makes us suppress it in favor of becoming fixated indoctrinated societal goals. But there is this minority like Simone who keep it alive in the world when exposed to it. This is the goal of philosophy and the essence of religion; to inspire a person to experience truth over pleasure. Then God, as the energy of the Spirit, can be received by Man. I'm glad you seem to feel the need for truth rather than being consumed by the need for pleasure and consolation. IMO It is a worthwhile minority group.
I have a very old book explaining logic and it clear states we can never know enough to be absolutely sure of what we think we know. When we get older we totally get the meaning of "the more you know the more you don't know". Maturity is being okay with that.
We have been awashed with the lying that technology is like a God and empiricism gives us that God's truth. Thanks to education for technology we are smart but we are no longer wise.
I hope my country realizes that education for technology has destroyed wisdom and that we return to education for wisdom. That is liberal education.
This point is so much important. I totally agree with you that educational system is flawed since the day when states decided teaching us the "principles" to just work and pay our taxes. Probably yes we are more practical but we lost the path of wisdom and questioning everything.
When I say questioning I mean the key of not feeling "full" of what ever our teachers in the school/university teach.
Religion being the intellectualization of spirituality (the definition I go with), is a collective mechanism in place to point individuals in the correct direction in order to initiate their own journey. It was never meant to be taken literally as a blueprint.
For those who do go off on their own, it is deeply rewarding, but so many times people seem to get caught up in the orthodoxy of written words, practices, and other attachments that only serve to confuse, distract, and depress.
If the answers were intellectual, believe me, everybody would have known about it long, long ago. The initial buzz created by the very idea of an higher moral order which gives purpose and meaning to life must be sustained by personal exploration which nourishes future spiritual growth. Otherwise, the buzz will depart (like all things) and you will be left like most who seem to think that religion is just a bunch of hooey.
I think it's different reasons for different people. I was raised in a similar tradition and to this day I deeply dislike the tribalism that goes with these religions. I cannot accept a single person as an arbiter or head of my relationship with "that which shall not be named but is all permeating".
I thought about Protestantism, and it's better in that regard, but ultimately still tribal and with hard coded views I can't ever fully accept.
Buddhism though not a religion, is a faith and has a philosophical component, much like Hinduism, which I find more functional.
A religion is almost like a mainstream theory of some system. You may want to define your own but you may not want to be a cultist! Buddhism is certainly the one I have studied the most. So from my point of view, it's ultimately about finding something that can improve my life and outlook, offer enlightenment as I believe Zen Buddhism has - a deeply fulfilling teaching that in my opinion will change you when you study it. You will on some level transcend.
Generally speaking, many people are Religious on loyalty and indoctrination grounds, and wanting to fit in to community. Some reject the kinds of metaphysical and esoteric doctrines of theism because they feel they do not wish to deal in uncertainties as if the universe was lacking in that regard at even just the physical level. I have observed many these days who feel insecure about theism, seeing it as some how ridiculing themselves, but that's at a very shallow perspective in my view. Some may be on a quest of empiricism and so theism is off limits like a pledge of celibacy. Some are desperate and crying out for help. These ones may turn to the dark side if they are unanswered, seeing it as some reason to reject virtue in that there is no arbiter as they see it of virtue. This is probably less likely in the nations with more eastern philosophies, as you are more expected to be your own arbiter of virtue on some level, more disciplined from a functionally practicing perspective too arguably; as meditation, sutras, and mantras, the opening to Sattori etc. are a little richer in action or effort or acceptance or devotion or whatever you want to call it. I would argue that having a philosophical side to a faith cultivates better ethics and virtue overall, but it's my subjective take.
Are people not less hate filled here than in other forums which are about vanilla communication?
I think that having a philosophical aspect to any theist pursuit is healthy for a person and at the community and individual level.
Quoting 180 Proof
Uncertainty (radical contingency) = freedom (agency) aka "dread". At best, philosophy is the critical check on, and active resistance to, the servile, totalitarian, temptations of "religious beliefs and ideas".
I'm not sure James' definition matches mine exactly, but I'll stick with it because, well, we're supposed to use the assumptions provided in the original post.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Reason #1 - Let's not call it a need. I think it's a capacity and a tendency. People see God for the same reason they see the rest of reality. Our minds are built, evolved that way. We look for patterns.
Reason #2 - Maybe there really is a God independent of humans.
Reason #3 - Maybe there is an unseen order.
Reason #4 - People tend to personify things. This is one of those capacities and tendencies discussed in Reason #1. God is the personification of the world.
Reason #5 - The world is a wonderful place. Humans feel grateful. We need to have someone to be grateful to.
Reason #6 - We're afraid of dying and want to believe we'll live forever. I don't like this one. It's the one used by militant atheists to sneer at religion and religious believers.
Reason #7 - People have direct experience of God, or at least something. Something that comes before thought. Before concepts. Something unspeakable, such as the Tao.
Reason #8 - Cause the Bible, and our parents, tell us so.
Reason #9 - Some or all of these.
I am interested to know why you think that we don't need religious beliefs, any more than alcohol and opium. I think that we are talking about whole mythological structures and systems of values. I do believe that we can rethink these for ourselves and find our own, but probably most people don't find the need to do so. To find our own mythic structure of meaning seems worthwhile to me, but this might mean that we are in the minority of the extraordinary.
Perhaps your reason 3 is the most important to consider. You suggest, 'Maybe there is an unseen order.' I am interested to know more about this.
Do you think that the basis of being born into a tradition is of that much significance nowadays? The reason why I ask this is because we live in such an information age that I wonder to what extent the ideas we are brought up with are likely to be held to firmly for the rest of our lives.
You mentioned the idea of indoctrination and this is important to consider. I think that this involves the whole hypnotic power of beliefs and I wonder to what extent can we break free from it?
How do you think that we can go to the heart of this issue authentically, but without being bound to intellectualisation?
From a zen point of view you could see when you were young but you are too young to appreciate it or your youth is corrupted. The hypnotism is a veil that is built up over time so you no longer see. We need to remove the veil, to break free of the hypnotism. This is analogous to switching off the TV, and uncoupling from all sources of indoctrination and programming. As long as we have free will (or at least that we think we have), its application of free will to remove the veil. It's easier said than done. And it's not done by saying.
But habit is born out of practice, and not intent. And it's only through practice that we can do it. The psychological perspective is that the action enforces the habit and that feeds the reinforcement of intent, which is a bit counterintuitive maybe. The action provides confidence for intent and not vice versa.
There is nice line in one of my texts on Buddhism I paraphrase now as I can't find it online but it's analogous to this:
"Too much study without reflection is indoctrination. Too much reflection without study is desolation"
It's the same principle I feel. We should never be getting too much information without reflecting on it. If we have no time for reflection, then surely we have no choice but to cut down on the information.
I do believe that it is essential that we hold on to the need to be able to hold onto the search for truth, wherever it takes us, into the rocky banks of seas of uncertainty. For some, it may lead into an abyss of nihilistic uncertainty and, for others to a spiritual paradise of knowing. I journey in between the two and embrace existentialist perspectives alongside aspects of Western and Eastern spiritual philosophies. I suppose one question is to what extent is it about objective searching and knowing and how much is it about psychological need? Personally, I admit that I have a certain amount of searching for what I wish to find, but objective questions about truth matter as well, in a very deep sense.
I would say that the balance between too much information and too much reflection time is complex. I often feel overwhelmed by both of them. I have so many books to read and that is not counting the online resources. The endless time of reflection, and I am not a good sleeper which means that I think a lot about these issues in the night.
Thee whole prospect of the amount of information and time spent in reflection means that we have a lot of work to do. The one thing that I would say that I do wish is that the quest can be pleasurable too, because I think that without a certain amount of fun and light relief it would all become too overwhelming and beyond our human capabilities. I am not meaning to dismiss the seriousness of the quest, but if there is a higher power overseeing us in our own philosophical pursuit, I cannot believe that this being would want it to be nothing but torture and agony.
I am glad to meet you on the forum. It is interesting to interact with someone who comes from the complete opposite angle of having been raised in an atheist background. In contrast, I was brought up with the belief that I had God watching me, in every moment. This did make me feel fearful but it did lead me to a sense of not being alone. I felt that I had a friend in the form of Jesus, as the son of God, and was brought up in the tradition of praying.
I wonder how much of that affects us even in the present. I say that because even though I don't hold to the beliefs I was taught, I think that I still do act as though I am in touch with some higher power. This probably is related to the way that I do still feel that I have some relationships with some underlying higher power in the universe, and this proceeds from my initial background. I wonder how your background still affects you, and whether it affects you as you go through the day to day experience of life.
Why would a personal structure of meaning need to be mythic?
Thanks for replying to my thread. I went out for a walk in the park after writing the question and have spent the evening going through the replies, and worked upwards.
I do believe that the ideas of William James are essential to the understanding of why religion is important. I also believe that other writers' views are important too, including those of Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade and all ot those who have explored the psychological and comparative aspects of religion.
When you speak of the possibility of destruction in relation to this, I do wonder how nihilism fits into the picture. Personally, I do have times when I feel that there is no objective meaning. I cannot always separate this from depression on a personal level. In other words, it is not always clear whether my own depression leads to lack of belief in any higher power being involved in the enrollment of life, or the opposite way round. Nevertheless, I am still inclined to the view that personal and collective survival matter still matter, but I can see that it is a dodgy area because once we get into the area of a godless world it is possible for all meaning to collapse.
I know what you mean. I've learned to deal with it to a degree but it's certainly a challenge. Some days are better than others. I welcome distractions as an opportunity to switch context and let it percolate in the subconscious, so long as it's not too much of a distraction. I do believe, we are more productive with downtime, and a varied diet of mental, physical and spiritual exercise.
Perhaps religious belief or lack of it can both be overwhelming. Without religion, it all seems illusionary, but, on the other hand, if we see ourselves in the hand of the almighty, as in facing the wrath of Jahweh of The Old Testament, it can be rather stressful, as evident in the writings of Kierkergaard.
William James' look at religious experiences also concerned his effort to make the "psychological" a perspective of common experiences that could be recognized beyond the arguments between philosophers and theologians. At roughly the same time, there were thinkers like Kierkegaard who argued that "psychology" could not go where one actually decides what direction will be taken by an individual.
Is that sort of difference a part of a dialectic that will eventually become a story of past conflicts or a divide that will continue to divide?
I love that book by William James. What I missed in it was a discussion of practices that increased the powers of perception and/or the ability to do things. The sort of experiences the Taoist suggested were possible.
Can the seeker of objective truth through science and/or religious psychology make progress without first experiencing either satori in Zen, Metanoia in Christianity, or inwardly turning towards the light described by Plato? If it is necessary to open to reality beyond the limitations of our senses. The question becomes what it means to inwardly turn towards the light with the whole of ourselves to experience the essential truths beyond what our senses are capable of.?
I think that William James was writing at a particular time and it did, inevitably leave a lot of questions about what we can do in this process. One book which I am reading currently, which explores the connections we can make with any divine power in the universe is by Dr Joe Dispenza, (2017) 'Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon'.
This book is looking at the idea of transformation and I think that it is useful. However, I am aware that the idea of the 'supernatural' is open to question in its own right, and I think that such ideas do need to be subject to philosophical analysis.
That's a pretty good non-sectarian definition of Religion. So, in that case, Albert Einstein was a religious person. But I would distinguish between a personal unofficial Philosophy and a communal doctrinal Religion.
I call my "belief in an unseen order" in Nature, and my attempt to "harmoniously adjust thereto", merely a personal philosophical worldview. However, most people are not so rationally or philosophically inclined; hence their "need" for a religious community of faith & feeling, may result from the cognitive dissonance between their intuition of "Order" in the world, despite the obvious Disorders of life, and their uncertainty about the ambivalent "Unseen" organizer. Having a scriptural authority for your belief, releases you from responsibility for personally resolving the "need" for assurance that someone is in control, and that things are going to be alright.
Those who are philosophically opposed to any form of Supernaturalism or Religion though, may either deny the inherent order of Nature (emphasizing randomness instead), or place their trust in Science (to reveal the self-ordering powers of evolution). :smile:
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
____Albert Einstein
"there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those who do not experience it, since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea of God; the individual feels the vanity of human desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous order which are revealed in nature and in the world of thought."
___Albert Einstein, Religion and Science
"We're hand-wired to avoid uncertainty, because it makes us feel lots of negative emotions,"
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/17/coronavirus-psychology-of-uncertainty-not-knowing-whats-next.html
It would certainly be unreasonable to expect James to solve the problem (or question) of what is "supernatural." I don't think Kierkegaard's challenge regarding the limits of psychology regard that element.
Yes, I think that we do need to consider the whole question of what it means to turn 'inwardly towards the light'. However, I come also with many questions. Even within the more esoteric part of Christianity, we have the whole question of the Luciferan emphasis on light and how this led to the 'fall' of the angelic and human kingdoms. We can also consider to what extent is this symbolic, but this does lead to the larger question as to what extent are all religious perspectives mythic representations. Even the non religious and scientific paradigms can be seen as models, so, even those, are representations.
You ask why a personal structure would be mythic, and I think that this is because we are immersed in personal and other stories, and cannot really step outside of these entirely.
If it is a discussion of religion, then it is intellecualization, as is any discussion on any subject-matter. And please don't get me wrong here, Jack, because I believe that religion is an extremely important topic (perhaps the most important of all), but once you start to pick it apart, it goes south like everything else intellectual.
The truth of the matter is always quite simplistic, so I might ask you to disentangle your question because I am not sure exactly what you are after.
Sure, but not all stories are mythic in nature. Stories can be very meaningful without being mythic.
Sounds more like a principle of action than a result of consideration.
I think that myth is of supreme importance. I believe that this connection with reality is at the core of how we live. It may come into play in religious perspectives but also in our creative lives. Personally, I am interested in the whole level of archetypal reality and I have some gravitation towards transpersonal psychology and philosophy, but I think that the whole dimension of fantasy and stepping into other quantum dimensions is one worth pursuing. This may enable us to face the primordial reality of unknown dimensions in the truest possible way.
Absolute Simplicity is Absolute Truth.
Begin the process of intellectualization, and you move further and further from the truth.
But you are speaking to intellectuals on a forum set up by such people to talk about stuff.
Where are you going with this thought?
The more complex thinking becomes, the further from the truth you get. Look at every institution in the West for examples galore. Do you believe the Law or Medicine can't be written in language accessible to all? It applies to everything.
The answer to every problem is quite simple. What's not simple are all the interests that are taking a cut of the action. That sort of thing.
I do believe that we have to be careful, especially in looking at religious experience.
If anything, I have been a bit overwhelmed by the many replies, when I thought perhaps no one would reply to my thread at all. So, I am probably going to log off for today, but I am especially interested in the whole religious experience as depicted in the writings of Carl Jung, and the whole experience of the whole experience of the numinous, as described by Rudolf Otto.
I am interested in drawing this out and probably more interested in the whole question of living experience of other dimensions, evident in various traditions of thinking, including those of Eastern and Western religious perspectives. I do believe that the whole area of comparative religion is central to the philosophy of religion. I know that you are interested in the practice of meditation and I, most certainly, do see such direct experience with whatever dimensions or reality beyond our everyday experience as being of central importance for us as we find our own search for personal meaning.
I would agree that it is best if we keep our messages as simple as possible. It is difficult though, in dealing with such a complex topic, but overblown theories can get in the way sometimes
The interests various people may have in the discussion of religion is interesting. It seems to me that if you are interested in different motives for what has happened, making everything just about one story is not helpful.
God is Dog backwards. And everybody adores Snoopy. it is so cute...
Interesting, and Led Zeppelin and others spoke of dog as the reverse of God. Some destroyed their records but what does it say about the role of dogs within a grand design'?
Most certainly and obviously. Religious fervor is just as strong today, after thousands of years of science, as it was in the most ancient of times.
Atheism is the child of philosophy, and that’s why the philosophers were persecuted; for the far greater part of mankind will always “cling to their religion”, and attempt to silence anyone who dares question it.
I say atheism is the child of philosophy because it was the natural philosophers who first revealed, that certain seemingly unexplainable phenomena, like an eclipse, were indeed not the result of divine wrath, or a portent of god, as men had always thought, but were in fact only the result of the regular, and therefore calculable, movements of the heavenly bodies. Such discoveries are dangerous for those who discover them and come to believe in them, for they tend to erode the basis of religious belief among the many, who are either unable or unwilling to accept them.
The ancient scientists therefore, having become aware of this danger, began to dissimulate, to put up a front of religious piety to the ppl (cf Socrates’ daemon), and write esoterically, that is, in a way that revealed the truth to perceptive readers, while concealing it from those who were intolerant.
But the moderns, in a bold conspiratorial move that the ancients never dared conceive of, remade politics to be permissive of scientific and philosophical novelties, to the end of protecting their own skin, while allowing them to pursue their science and philosophy. This is why we can have openly avowed (in liberal democracies) and state sanctioned (in Marxist regimes) atheists in our day.
But the old order is far from dead. Regimes based on allegiance to an autocrat or king sanctioned by God are experiencing new life, and threatening the legitimacy of the most liberal democracies around the world and across the globe...
...yes, religion is innate to mankind...but so is science! and the solutions to the problem of how to reconcile these two natural enemies have all failed. Might we then conclude, contrary to the American spirit, that there are some problems that have no solution?
Perhaps we should not recoil and evade such horrors. Obviously, it so easy to look for the brighter aspects of life, but perhaps this is too onesided. Perhaps we need to be more gothic in our exploration. On a philosophical level, I would express this in terms of the whole Jungian emphasis on the shadow, and the general psychoanalytic emphasis of Freud, regarding the battle between the forces of Eros and Thanatos. Perhaps, the reality of Thanatos on a subconscious level has not been acknowledged, and this is a hindrance when we begin to encounter the unknown dimensions.
Perhaps the time we are entering into will show us how hardwired we are for uncertainty. I am inclined to think that any religious beliefs or of an unseen order need to evolve and be adapted to the difficulties of our times. Perhaps we can go outside of conventional religious thinking and explore deeper esoteric systems, including pagan ideas, which have been suppressed within the mainstream of Western philosophy and culture.
An individual's belief is an intensely personal thing. How can anybody possibly understand another's life experience to the point where their fundamental spiritual and religious beliefs might make any sense to them what-so-ever? After all, people can't even understand their own feelings in this regard!
The ones closest to my own experience are Reason #s 1, 5, and 7. I don't have any feeling that there is an unseen order. I was trying to make a complete list. That doesn't mean I buy them all.
First, people obviously don't 'need' religious belief, for plenty do not have any.
Second, your inquiry is about motivational reasons, not epistemic ones. What someone's motives may be for believing something is a matter psychologists look into. Whether the belief in question is true is what philosophers look into.
So, one reason - probably the major one - why many people have religious beliefs, is because they think God exists and wrote this or that religious text.
The philosophical question is whether this belief - the belief that God exists - is true. And to investigate that one looks into whether there are any epistemic reasons for believing it, not the motives of the believer.
The majority of religious people are religious because they were taught to be religious, and many of the people who are not religious were not taught to be religious. True enough, there are substantial numbers of exceptions, just as there are people who do not like games, are not fashionable, do not read fiction, and do not like alcohol, chocolate, coffee, tea, or tobacco (weirdos).
I have spent a lot of time on religion, like a lot of other people. Was there something essential about it? I could have been (might well have been) happier without it. Religion certainly has utility for individuals, but that doesn't make it essential. There are forms of religion which are unhealthy from the getgo.
What people need, above and beyond food, clothing, and shelter, are armaments to cope with what are often harsh realities. Religion, literature, music, science, industry, trade, philosophy, politics, games, fashion, and so on are all part of the armamentarium. Substitutions can be made.
So no: we don't "need" religion.
As I understand it, there are levels of religious understanding beginning at the exoteric level or the Man of opinion. Once a person experiences the futility of opinion they can begin the vertical esoteric path that can lead to transcendent understanding. This is only for a small minority because the world is governed at the exoteric level. Discussing philosophy requires being open to the vertical ascent which unites the exoteric with the esoteric in all the major traditions to experience the transcendent
https://integralscience.wordpress.com/1993/01/01/on-the-transcendent-unity-of-religions/
[i]Frithjof Schuon, a scholar and an authority on Comparative
Religion and the Sophia Perennis, has written a book called
The Transcendent Unity Of Religions. As its title
indicates, the book is about the unity of religious wisdom.
And as the use of the definite article indicates, this unity
is unique. But it is essential to observe that this unity is
also transcendent, i.e., the unity is in the spirit and not
in the letter.
Schuon uses the terms esoteric and exoteric to distinguish
the transcendent spirit of religions from their diverse
formal expressions. A useful diagram can be made which helps
illustrate the essence of this idea:[/i]
The purpose of religion can be based on imagination and fear or the calling from the center of the heart.
How can we contemplate evil and lucifer from a theoretical transcendent perspective as opposed to typical exoteric opinions? Is the Devil necessary? If there was only our source there would be no room for fragments and these levels of fragments create the universal machine. The friction from interacting fragments create the purpose of our universe. The Devil is a necessary part of sustaining the interaction of fragments or the body of God.
Where do people go to meet others they can learn from who have felt what enables freedom from Plato's cave rather than turning in circles which feels "spiritual" and invites all the charlatans?
In contrast, I was brought up in undecided environment. I remained self-determined Christian till I was in my middle teens, with little encouragement from family if any. (I would say Orthodox Christian, but my religious wasn't scholastic.) Then I became unconventional monotheist for a period of time, and currently am on a wide spectrum of theist philosophies - i.e. skeptical possibilianist.
Even so, I am not without bias. From my current theist inclination, if any, you will infer that my attitude is not to be religiously organized and to differentiate between sources of existential origin and ethical approbation. Here is an amalgamation that I would consider to be my most likely theist subscription (sorry for the terminological show off):
This brings me to an important point. We should distinguish religion and theism. The former is a social phenomenon with organized practices - frequently scholastic, institutionalized, ritualistic. Bare bones theism can be conceived under plurality of philosophical considerations, and then remain fluid, whereas religion is concerned with prescriptive philosophy. Religion is politically active, whereas personal theism is merely passively political. The social role of organized religion was summarily both supported and criticized in True Detective (well for a TV show anyway). Marty Hart argued that it pacifies the human condition and restricts it from getting chaotically deviant, whereas Rust Cohle argued that it masquerades certain human and personal deficiencies and makes identifying and curing them harder.
I do not feel personally divergent to the ethical stipulations of some of the religious texts (albeit only overarchingly, not in every detail), but I also do not think that morality needs to be justified theistically, or that religious theism should be the normative source of our personal ethical development. Whether the religious metaphysical claims are correct or not, I think that we should strive to help the individual to determine their ethical convictions on their own, by educating people in their pragmatic humanistic self-interest, from which they could derive the reasonable boundaries for their responsibilities and privileges. In other words, I believe that human beings are already sufficiently social and intelligent to be relied for sensible behavior, if they are provided with proper secular upbringing, which unfortunately is a very complex issue. Religion, on the other hand, would be a rather crude bypass of that issue, if that were its purpose.
I realize that theism cannot be criticized purely rationally, because most of our beliefs (including empiricism and logical reasoning) are rooted at unargumented intuitions. Convictions begin partially spontaneously, even if they are consequently continuously mentally and experientially evaluated. We cannot deprive spontaneous believers of their opinion, but we are not obligated to adopt it if it contradict our own, because that would retract us from the discourse. Neither does admittance of subjective belief prohibit the use of argumentation when observing inconsistencies or methodological issues. For example, I do not disallow the possibility of a single central antropomorphic benevolent transcendent entity, but the specificity of this proposition and the spectrum of alternatives demands that there should be hesitancy to assert such narrow claim, based purely on methodological grounds.
I personally am against attitudes that oppose critical thought, censor counter-argumentation, isolate themselves from opposition, and do not make effort to achieve holistic explanation that reconciles with our success in our epistemic practices. Certain positions have had little growth and openness to critical discourse, which I believe is methodological error, no matter what the metaphysical truth is.
Lastly, I believe that theism has psychological explanation, even if it weren't true. Namely, people are species that need objective in order to function rationally. The most basic of these is survival, but it is internally inconsistent, as I have stated previously in the forum. Everything in nature is ephimeral. This creates intellectual vacuum that the rational brain needs to somehow resolve, or it will become stagnant and despondent (depressed, suicidal). The solution is to hypothesize a hidden objective for being that is beyond rationality and observation. This motivates life, but you might ask to what end. No end, logically speaking. If critical thinking overcomes the hypothesis and there is no remaining goal (hedonism, pragmatism of some kind, personal ethics), life stops. There is no destination towards which to plot life's course and the brain surrenders. And then, other life takes your place. Life which has sufficient remaining motivation. So, a cerebral idealist needs theism in a certain sense, or they enter a self-defeating mode of being.
I have always thought that the second commandment (Ex 20, 7; Dt 5, 11) should be rigorously applied, because whoever talks about Him apparently wants to talk about Him, but only wants to talk about himself. The simplest sentiment about religion will always be much better than the most complex reasoning.
And Snoopy is wonderful.
I am in a period of time (I am 23 years old) that I can't believe in anything neither myself. I don't know if my background has led me to this moment. I feeling more sceptical than ever. Probably due to all the negative experiences I am living since the last year when all my teachers say to me "flawed student"
But I am not praying for someone or something to have more faith in myself because nobody taught in the past to do so (I even went to an atheist school too). I am just sitting like in a fence wondering if I am going to fall down or still there with zero criteria. Sometimes I randomly feel this things can get better.
Except for pathological types (e.g. psychotics), I don't think we have a choice.
Read much Poe, HPL, Ligotti & Eugene Thacker, huh? :scream:
I think that the question of why people need religion is in the borderlands between philosophy and psychology. I am interested in the writings of Freud on this, and, more so, the ideas of Carl Jung. These thinkers were writing mainly from a psychoanalytical perspective, but what they said did cross into philosophy and Jung drew upon Kant's epistemological theory when talking about ideas about belief in God.
I did spend a period of time, probably about 2 years, around about the time after 2 of my friends committed suicide, in which I really agonized over religious questions. Even a few years ago, when I was working night shifts I used to spend time when I was not busy really worrying about spiritual matters, especially life after death. So, I have been compelled to think about religion, but it is probably because thinking about life in a religious context was so central to my thinking in childhood and adolescence that I have not really been able to break free from it, even if I have tried to do so.
I could have made better case. The advantages of organized religion:
The disadvantages are:
Your first comment was good as well. I have just been struggling to get round to replying today. I think that one particular point you make is the distinction around theism and other alternatives. In particular, you can control the Judaeo-Christian God with all the many gods of Hinduism. Personally, I am inclined to think that all these are representations of the underlying divine power. Here, I am drawing upon the way in which Jung speaks about God-images. Personally, my first realisation that I didn't really fit into mainstream Christianity was when I realised how the Hindu idea of Brahman merging into Atman from Hinduism made more sense to me than most of the ideas within Christianity. I have also explored the wide spectrum of Christianity approaches and I think that the one that I probably feel more comfortable with is the Quakers. It is a strict contrast to Catholicism because it so free from ritualism.
Your list of the benefits and disadvantages of organised religion is comprehensive. I think that I would side with the list of disadvantages. But that doesn't mean that I think that religion can be eradicated easily. This is probably because we probably do feel a need for some sense of an underlying divine sense over us, but, of course, it is possible to hold on to this and be apart from organised religion, although I am sure that many feel more at ease with organized religion. Personally, I have never found it easy to conform, so I prefer to think my own thoughts outside the confines of organised religion.
I have always found the esoteric traditions of religion more interesting than the exoteric ones. Within Christianity, there are the ideas of Celtic Christianity as well as the whole tradition of Gnosticism. The early Church was hostile towards Gnostic thinking but, nevertheless, it seems likely that a lot of Gnostic thinking did get incorporated into Christianity on some level, as the Gospel of St John and the Book of Revelation seem to be part of that tradition. There is even speculation that one of the founding fathers had some affinity with Gnostic thinking.
Of course, esoteric ideas have a whole history, as expressed in the Rosucrucian movement, alchemy and, more recently, as well as the ideas of Emmanuel Swedenborg and Rudolf Steiner. More recently, drawing upon the ideas of Eastern thinking, we have the whole movement of theosophy. I have been to a few meetings run by The Theosophical Society. One particular thing that I was impressed by within that organisation is the whole idea of recognizing the truth underlying all religions and creeds. Religion understood on that level makes more sense in some cases than just confining ideas to one viewpoint. The reason I say this is because many people adopt the religious beliefs which they are brought up with as children. That seems to make it all seem too relative and I am in favour of understanding the religious quest on a universal level of meeting the human need for understanding and truth.
The role of the devil in Christianity is interesting. Having been brought up as a Catholic, I had immense fear of the devil, sin and hell. This was the point at which psychology stepped into the picture for me. I found the ideas of Carl Jung extremely important. In particular, his book 'Answer to Job' looks at the whole problem of evil within Christianity, and the whole idea of the devil critically. Jung is controversial in his approach because he sees the idea of the image of God as a Trinity as inadequate and suggests that psychologically the idea of a quarternity is more consistent with the needs of the human psyche. The fourth aspect which he suggests is the the devil, and, or the feminine principle because he thinks that these have been repressed and suppressed within Christianity. In particular, he thinks that we need to become aware of our own dark side, the shadow, which if not faced cconsciously can result in evil being unleashed in a horrific way. Rather than seeing the devil outside of us, he sees it arising within us as destructiveness, especially in the possibility of nuclear devastation which could be carried out. Jung was writing this in the 1950s and I am sure that there are other threats, including terrorism.
I do have a strong interest in the gothic. This probably arose around the time I was questioning religious beliefs, especially as I was reading Jung on the idea of the shadow. I did a couple of courses on art therapy and that was where I read the ideas of Freud on Thanatos, and tried exploring my own shadow in art. This led me to explore the music of Marilyn Manson and go to see many live metal music events. But now, I do read a lot of dark fantasy literature and I have read some Poe and H P Lovecraft.
The whole experience of the 'dark' in religion is interesting, including gargoyles. I remember reading in one of Blake's prose pieces, the idea that Milton was part of the devil's party without knowing it, because he seemed to write better about the infernal aspects of life. This may have been said in Blake's-'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' which really got me thinking about good and evil before I had got to the point of thinking analytically about religion.
I suppose that part of the issue of whether you find it hard to believe in anything is whether you really want to or not. Personally, I do believe that a major aspect of acceptance of an idea does depend on our motivation, to some extent. This may appear to make a mockery of serious religious beliefs, because many religious believers say that they believe because the ideas represent the truth. However, I am inclined to believe that it is not that straightforward and we often believe what we wish to believe,possibly on a subconscious level, and that is where the psychological aspect comes into play.
I am not sure why you think that some stories are not mythic. I take the view that just about all stories have some relationships to mythic structures, because some archetypal forces are coming into play. If the mythic is removed what is left of value in a story?
Technically, we only "need" water, food, shelter, and beer, so the fact that religion has sprung up in nearly every culture suggests that such practices scratch a universal human itch. And it makes sense on all kinds of levels as have been pointed out by those partaking in this discussion who appear to have considerably most ambition to write about it than do I at this moment.
There is a long history of opposition between science and religion, especially when the ideas of Darwin came along. However, it is possible to reconcile these ideas if one chooses to do so, and this can be done through understanding the Bible as a story rather than a literal account. Perhaps the apparent conflicts between religion and science arise when people see the religious texts too concretely.
It does seem that there are phases when scientists seem to be dominant in thinking and times when religion is. Philosophy does seem to have given rise to atheism, but it is quite possible that other ways of seeing may become more accepted, such as the ideas of Kant or Spinoza. But it does seem likely that any attempt to bring forth religious views will need to be a view which takes into account the thinking of the scientists.
I am not sure that religion is an innate need, but perhaps the whole unseen dimension and symbolic aspects of life is. We have the various ways of seeing, such as the the shamanic picture of reality. I do wonder if in the future people will have more direct encounters with the symbolic realm, but perhaps even combining parts from various religious traditions, as so much information is available, rather than being combined to one. We could see more individualised quests with the dimensions arising from the unconscious, rather than people bound to specific doctrines and rituals of mainstream organised religions.
Religion is pro-family and pro-community, which is why it has thrived so long in human society. Even anti-family and anti-community statist societies like Communism have a difficult time stamping-out religion because the state can not replace a moral high-ground with authoritarian decrees enforced with totalitarian measures.
Although a religious-like fervor has recently manifested (in the Western Left) into a religious-like movement, those folks will discover what the poor souls of the Soviet Union and Maoist China did when the honeymoon ended and high hopes were replaced by the tips of bayonets and worse..
I think that it is true that religion is connected to family and community life and, of course, I would not be advocating abolishing religion. That would be a bit totalitarian. Perhaps it will be the people who are not so connected to family and community life who will be free to do more of the individual searching for themselves.
True! But sometimes motivation in our personal ideas goes dawn and you can feel the stress about to giving up. I guess this is the key where philosophy/religion/dogma, etc... show up to confront ourselves like “everything going to be ok. Move on and believe”
Nevertheless, it is interesting the nihilism criteria where sometimes one of us led into it. Why should we have a motivation in something? Why do not just live without emphasis? I guess this kind people who is very deep in nihilism probably is due to lack of goals and perspectives. So does humanity have as innate the feeling of pursuing dreams/goals?
Okay, we had liberal education starting with the day we entered school. Our school system strongly opposed government interference in education until 1958 when the US replaced liberal education with education for technology and began IQ testing, and educating everyone to be products for industry. That is the 1958 National Defense Education Act- education for the Military-Industrial Complex and adopting the German philosophy that goes with it. German philosophy has replaced Classic Greek and Roman thinking which was the cornerstone of liberal education. All that leads us to the storming of the Capitol and I would give anything, even my life, to have a voice like Bill Gates has. Do you know Neitzche's superman? That is Trump and his followers and what Germany had when Hitler was in power. I hate listening to the news and everyone questioning how such a thing could happen and being a nobody who no one with power listens to.
Many of the US founding fathers were Deist. They thought religion was important but did not hold the Christian belief in a God intervening in our lives. They saw the God thing as a machine that was put into operation and then God lets it run without interfering. More Toa, that way, and we need to come in harmony with it. I think Eastern thought is very important to our understanding. And that Christian Mythology of our founding is a disaster!!! What a mess to have Christianity without education in the Greek and Roman classics and come to almost worshiping Neitzche. That is a terrible combination! That brings us to the "Power and Glory" that was the invasion of Iraq against the judgment of the rest of the world, as well as Trump and followers storming the Capitol.
Absolutely nihilism fits into the picture. When there is no agreement on truth and how we should be governed, there is only power and people are reactionary and that leads to rule by the most powerful! We defended democracy against this, but without liberal education, we do not understand that. And with evangelical Christianity without liberal education, personal power gets confused with God's power. Today no one knows, democracy is rule by reason, and because we do not know that, we can not defend it and stop voting for idiots that impress us with the look of power, instead of with good judgment and good character, and the ability to work with others.
Yes, beer. Definitely.
Quoting synthesis
The thing I want to bring forward is that people have MANY itches, scratched with art, politics, fashion, music, fiction, drama, and so on. Religion "works" because it offers rituals, a world-view, social activity, and so on. Clearly it isn't a unique necessity because lots of people scratch the ritual/world-view/social itch with other activity.
So, we could ask, "Do people need art (or anything else that isn't one of the basic needs)?" I think the answer is yes. The itch that needs scratching is real.
Drawing on the computer metaphor, "Catholicism is your operating system. It is always in the background, no matter what applications are running." Even if you become an ardent atheist, your operating system (installed a long time ago) will still be there. That's OK. That's the way our brains works. The worst thing that can happen to someone is to grow up in a very chaotic home and community where chaos becomes the operating system.
Mainline Protestantism is my operating system, even though I have "officially" rejected much of what the church claims to be true.
Bertrand Russell observed that atheists resemble whatever religion they rejected. That seems to be true. People who grew up in narrow, hateful religious settings become narrow, hateful atheists. Broad church folk become broad church atheists.
One of the tasks of age seems to be accepting one's personal history -- good, bad, and indifferent.
What value does myth offer in the context of religion? The value of a hammer is in its ability to efficiently drive nails, for instance, so I suppose you could say that its ultimate value is in construction.
Plato distinguished between knowledge and opinion. Socrates said "I Know Nothing." What then is knowledge and what does it mean "to know?"?
[i]Knowledge is a mental faculty/power that allows us to apprehend "being" (i.e., reality).
Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge.
Conclusion from 1 & 2:
Opinion is subject to error, but knowledge is not.[/i]
Can the essence of religion offer an influence that helps us to grow to experience knowledge of the transcendent level rather than remaining lost in a world of opinions at the exoteric level? Does knowledge exist for Man on earth or is Man doomed to the struggle between competing opinions?
Excerpted from a letter Simone Weil wrote on May 15, 1942 in Marseilles, France to her close friend Father Perrin as she was near death:
At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth.
Was Simone a misguided teen caught up in fantasy and in dire need of professional help or was she one of these rare ones drawn to the transcendent level and willing to risk everything in order to experience it? If the transcendent level is real how can we respect it while acknowledging that we know nothing?
The need for god can be, in my humble opinion, inferred from how we've defined faer - as all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing. In essence, we're looking for someone, maybe even something (I'm not sure whether these 3 attributes constitute a "someone") who/that wants to take care of us (all-good), who/that can take care of us (all-powerful) and who/that knows how to take care of us (all-knowing).
The underlying premise in theism seems rather parochial - we want to be taken care of - and, of course, the reason for that is not at all surprising - we can't take care of ourselves - and the obvious conclusion from that is once we've figured out how to take care of ourselves, god would immediately become redundant i.e. god would no longer be needed.
Although keep in mind that when a new form of communication is introduced, it is pornography, politics and religion that are the BIG THREE initial users.
All of these concerns appear to have a significant following.
I'm not so sure it's "belief in God" that's "innate".
Rather, we're prone to a variety of known cognitive biases or "features", like apophenia, patternicity, personification (abductive), autosuggestion (and the reiteration effect), knowledge-gap-filling, confabulation, wishful/magical thinking.
Taken together with childhood impressionability (indoctrination), this stuff easily leads to superstitions, "seeing faces in the clouds" as it were, etc.
Just joking, but pornographers never used the telegraph, as far as I know, but they did pick up on the potential of photography pretty quickly. It took them something like a century to devise phone porn -- the "1-900 XXX xxxx" call-in numbers introduced in the 1980s. That probably had something to do with deregulation of the telecom industry. There was a debate over who was being exploited more, the women who answered the phone or the men who called.
Was there such a thing as Fax porn?
I'd say a development of our natural way of learning.
We learn from accumulating experiences, interacting with it all, ...
We might then extrapolate (induction) and formalize (for deduction), systematically do away with errors (or demarcate domain of applicability), ...
A cat doesn't type weight, wind angles, force, gravity, etc into parabolic formulae and calculate, to jump onto a prey just the right way.
We might by formalizing the scenario, taken all the way to self-guided missiles.
In principle at least, it doesn't really matter exactly and exhaustively what it all is, as far as the methodologies go.
- justification for prejudice
-Justification for bigotry
-justification for violent behaviour
Religion like corporations or governments can often be thuggish, intolerant and appallingly behaved.
I see religious thinking as full of mythic narrative and symbolic truths. Some of these can be traced back to Egyptian ideas and other ancient pictures of life. But, probably I am fairly esoteric in my own understanding.
I think that you are right in the sense that the idea of God as presented in Christianity does imply that of being looked after by God, the father. Definitely, when I was growing up, I felt that I did not need to take full responsibility because that was God's job. It was probably when I stepped outside that picture that I began to feel that I needed to take responsibility for my choices. However, even when we think about it all from the standpoint of personal responsibility, it does seem that we cannot control everything. We are still unable to determine what happens in our fully.
I asked about the value of myth in the context of religion. The value of a hammer is in its ability to efficiently drive nails, for instance, so I suppose you could say that its ultimate value is in construction. You mentioned the value of myth in religious narratives. How does it express its value?
I wish I wrote that. Even someone like Jordan Peterson, who is a hardliner cultural and religious conservative describes a lot of the religious texts as mythos. However, being a pragmatic utilitarian, he seems to perceive them as socially constructive mythos. I have never heard him express the need to have the degree of metaphysical skepticism that he himself has. His claims to be a Christian, who does not believe in God, but acts as if there is one. Or, differently put, that he is raised and remaining under the influence of the Judeo-Christian system of moral values. Being a psychologist, he has also discussed the compulsive nature of knowledge-gap-filling. It isn't something you can easily turn off, and turns on automatically whenever you are faced with the need to ascribe features to unknown parts of reality. It seems to me that certain advocates of organized theism are themselves rather aware of our cognitive biases, but contented with the population at large being a naive recipient of the religious benefit.
Quoting jorndoe
I am always coming back to the idea that we are applying induction "on faith". We can argue that our practice is confirmable, but that is also inductive retroactive argument. It only demonstrates the internal consistency of empiricism. Or similarly, with statistics, we use chances to justify our decision making. But in the end of the day, we are not actually observing chances, we are observing satisfactory outcomes and apply confirmation bias. If we consider such intuitions productive for science, can we really disallow religious intuition and biases, as possibly being truthful. As challenging as such concession might be to empirically grounded person. I would not consider asking that we accept them or not to critique their internal inconsistencies and methodological errors (such as lack of hesitancy), but still.
Xenophobia and ingroup mentalities run strong in our genes. Religion is another trigger that we might not have otherwise had, but we would have found other reasons to be xenophobic.
Quoting Tom Storm
This I also believe is unjustifiable epistemic error for a sensible human being.
Quoting Tom Storm
This appears to be gradually weeded out, albeit very slowly. I think that it is prevalent in violence-prone subcultures and strata of society, where they are practicing violence to defend all sorts of personal subscriptions.
I do agree with you and Bertrand Russell and think our original faiths are still there lurking in the background. I have never called myself an atheist, and have even told some people that I am a post Catholic. I can see that so much of my own reactions and things I say are clearly influenced by the way I was taught to think as a child, but that is not to say that I have learned to think very differently. I do go to church with a Catholic friend sometimes, but I do find the experience extremely difficult, especially going through the whole ritualistic approach.
My friend finds church so comforting but does also has an affinity with the ideas in, 'A Course in Miracles'. I find this book extremely helpful because it does work more as a psychological way of seeing many of the ideas, especially the idea of forgiveness, on a psychological level.
I would agree that without religious ideas it is sometimes easy to fall into nihilism. I do have some affinity with the philosophy of Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre, even while I was still more religious. It is probably easier to cultivate depression when seeing life from the angle of those kind of thinkers. Personally, I try to keep a more balanced perspective by reading a lot of other ideas, especially those from Eastern Europe and ideas within psychology which have a focus on transforming, such as the tradition of transpersonal psychology. Generally, I like to read as widely as possible and be able to draw on as many different forms of philosophy and thinking as possible, but this does mean that reading is a main part of my life. Perhaps, the idea of a reading life has replaced religion for me.
The thing to remember is that people from all religions often find religions comforting, from the Parsi to the Muslim. Psychological help via Buddhism has also been massive in Western psychological services for some years. People also find social and sporting clubs really helpful. People are social creatures. Hardly a surprise.
I am sure the first telegraph message was something like...
"Can I meet you behind the barn tonight?" :)
I do think that many people would prefer the conventional life you describe of family and employment, but I think that so many don't have this any longer. There are so many who live outside of these conventions. When I think of the people I went to school with who did go on to the more conventional lifestyles, a lot of them do appear to be the ones who did not challenge their religious backgrounds. It is perhaps hard to see whether the lifestyle or the challenging of beliefs comes first. I know that even though I was still religious in my final couple of years at school I was clearly stepping outside my religious background in my reading and it was probably inevitable that I would question deeply, although the need to do so psychologically didn't present it to me at the time.
The idea of a God who doesn't wish to be prayed to and is accepting of atheism is an interesting radical alternative to the picture of Jahweh of the Old Testament.
The priest related how he used to often come up to him after services and quiz him about this or that aspect of the homily he had given that day.
But the point I wanted to make is that I found the imagery and liturgy of the service quite profoundly meaningful, even though I’m not Catholic. I’ve come to understand how the archetypal forms of religions are represented in such services, and I think that Catholicism does that more effectively than the Protestants, as they’ve preserved more of the ancient imagery and symbolism.
I’ve read some of the Catholic, specifically ‘neo-Thomist’, philosophers, and I feel they too retain some elements of the ‘perennial wisdom tradition’ which incorporates the Greek philosophical tradition. It’s an uneasy alliance, there’s a strain in Christianity which is hostile to the Greek philosophers - ‘what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’
As a consequence, I’ve become quite sympathetic to Catholic philosophy, although I don’t feel I could ever convert to the Catholic religion, especially after the dreadful scandals that have plagued the Church of late. But I do sometimes envy them their faith - it would be a source of great comfort to those capable of accepting it, I sometimes feel.
About fifteen years ago, I took two years off and devoted myself to full-time meditation practice. I became a resident at a Zen center in Northern California (there were eight of us). Of the all the people who do this sort of thing (very, very few), a minuscule amount of the them are actually willing to do what it takes to go for it.
In my experience, most people just want to live a nice, simple, balanced life (and who can blame them).
In my experience also, very few people have the available resources to do this.
But that is not the way it’s authors and the traditional readers looked at it. They saw it as “The Book”, literally, “The Bible”, THE roadmap to their lives; and though some few more enlightened souls realized that it was fantastical to believe God made the world in seven days, or that man was seduced by eating a forbidden apple, or that the sun can stand still, etc, they still believed in the god who could summon such divine metaphors from mere mortal authors made of clay.
As for the vast majority of Israel, they DID believe in the literalness of what they read...or, more likely, what they heard, since letters are the achievement of the minority intelligent enough to learn them (as can be seen clearly in this forum), and, that vast majority will always adhere to “the letter and the word” of their native religion.
Mixing various religious principles or ideas drawn from disparate faiths in order to brew an amalgamation that reconciles science and religion is a Chimera; for the two are like the Hatfields and McCoys: intrinsically at odds with each other.
But I can understand why you want to reconcile them, Jack, for that is your temperament; and you are willing to bend your thought away from what seems intellectually more reasonable if only you could somehow bring together in peace all the warring factions in this world...
...I think you would have made a fine politician; not the worse kind, but the better.
I don't know what your experience is, but it's generally not a matter of resources, instead, a matter of priority.
If you're saying that people can be full time mums or dads and work and do everything they need to do and be totally committed to this then you have a much friendlier idea of commitment. Which I welcome. I have not seen this in any of meditation communities I have known over the years; Hindu or Buddhist in derivation.
When you are a mom or dad, that is your primary job. Before or after that responsibility, you might have the opportunity to pursue full-time practice. Even that being the case, "going for it," is not very much about where you practice (although it can be). It is about your commitment to the practice (as I am sure you must be well aware). Those truly committed to practice are very, very rare indeed.
But I’m intending to return to a sitting practice (even though as they say ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions), along S?t? lines, there’s an interstate S?t? sangha that I’m considering affiliating with.
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It appears that some folks have a different idea in mind by god, god as a principle that ties everything together into a unified whole, god as a the universe itself, god as even a deus deceptor, god as a mischievious Cosmic Joker, god as something not to be discussed, but all of this variety in the way god is viewed have something in common viz. inconsistencies between a priori definition (omni-powered god) an a posteriori observation (evil) and our struggle to harmonize the two into a picture of god that makes sense.
Unfortunately, as the Epicurean dilemma proves, the OOO (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) god is untenable and the fact that we have refused to let go of the OOO god despite all the hard evidence that seems to tell a different story and making only minor adjustments to the god concept points to, even as we've learned, as the adage "trust in god but keep your powder dry", over countless generations that "god only helps those who help themselves", a very deeply-rooted desire for a loving, powerful, knowledgeable protector of sorts which some might construe as veering on or as a full-blown case of pathological obsession cum delusion.
I'm ranting.
:razz: That’s a funny way of putting it. It suggests that those willing to “go for it” are out of balance (forsaking a nice simple balanced life), and makes me think that the those going for it are merely attempting to get where others are naturally.
[quote=Zeny proverb]Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.[/quote]
:lol:
Why sitting? It's what The Buddha taught so who's to argue? One of his rationales was that sitting produces pain and pain is our greatest teacher (learning the nature of pain).
I have found the practice life-altering, but if you do pursue it seriously, you will be on your own.
Seeking a nice simple, balanced life intellectually is a whole different situation than realizing it non-intellectually. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the former, but the later holds something very different for those willing to do the work necessary to make it back to the beginning.
Supposedly, chopping wood and carrying water is entirely exempt of suffering. Is that your experience???
I completely forgot about atheistic religions the only one of which I'm somewhat familiar with being Buddhism. The Buddha's refusal to discuss god is legendary, at least in my eyes. I suppose the Buddha didn't wish to throw away a good idea (Buddhism) by including in it subject matter (here god) that would prove to be difficult to talk about and keep one's credibility intact. Perhaps he realized that the doctrine of Karma was, in and of itself, speculative enough to preclude more speculation which would've been the case if he had made room in his philosophy for a deity not to mention what the Epicurean dilemma would've done to his idea of how to live the good life (Buddhism).
In the context of Zen pedagogy, it has a specific meaning about the appropriate attitude to take towards Zen practice, i.e. not ‘idolising’ the idea of enlightenment but treating everyday activities as an expression of bodhi-mind. So the ‘context’ is not only the cultural context which makes such phrases meaningful, but also the context of the monastic life.
(Also notice that the Indian ‘deva’ and the English ‘divine’ both spring from the same Indo-European root.)
If you ever encountered the writings of Thomas Merton or his successors, or the Jesuits like Raymondo Pannikar, (e.g. here)they have very interesting reflections on the relation of God and Buddhism, but it’s a pretty long way off the beaten track.
Why should theism be limited to the description of deity in the Western world? The pantheistic description specifies a deity that is omnipotent, omnipresent. Maybe omniscient, since if we talk about actual pantheism, as opposed to theistically guised naturalism, there should be some proof that the cosmic organization appears sentient with I.Q. of more than 2, according to some generalization of our measure of intelligence to abstract behavior. This is where it becomes only a hypothesis to me.
In any case, I am reasonably passionate about dysthestic, henotheistic ideas, and would gladly subscribe to one if it was well factually argumented (without mythos). I do not support the idea that if there is some true belief in divinity, the believer has to reverent, the divine plan has to be anthropocentric and the divine being has to be in some sense (such as moral duty) antropomorphic. The omnibenevolence is as you said problematic. Why do you consider it necessary for general theology?
Thank you, as always. The etymology part about the word "deva" is telling indeed. I wonder how the concept of god evolved over time. My guess is that it started off realistic - gods with personal agenda bickering among themselves and humans getting caught in between - then it became unrealistic - the omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent god - and then it became realistic again but sporting a different look - atheism. What's your take on the history of the god concept?
This resembles Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis:
[quote=Ethics, 5p19]He who loves God cannot [expect] that God should love him in return.[/quote]
(emphasis, etc are mine)
Something you could never condense down to a couple of forum paragraphs, that’s for sure.
But a couple of things to contemplate: the ancients did not have anything like the conception that we do of ourselves as atomic individual subjects in an impersonal material world. Their ‘meaning world’ was different in ways we can’t even begin to fathom. I think an aspect of that, was that they had an ‘I-thou’ relationship with nature. They didn’t see the world in terms of things and forces, but in terms of living spirits - the Gods - although our modern conception of ‘spirit’ might trivialise their intuitive felt sense of the reality, the awe-some nature, of the Gods. The basic sense was that nature was ‘you’, not ‘it’ - not through any intellectual contrivance, but because their sense of self was much more diffuse than our own; the sense of self-hood was much more attenuated in early man. Whereas for us, it is the perspective we see everything through.
The second thing is, monotheism was in a sense an effort to accomodate the ancient pantheisms by representing ‘’the One’ as ‘a God’. God was depicted as being like Jupiter - only bigger! Better! Stronger! Even more powerful! And recall the name ‘Jupiter’ is derived from ‘dyaus’ father ‘pitar’ father - so, Sky Father. Christianity was a strange amalgam of those pagan Gods with the Biblical God. That’s why there are Christmas trees and Easter eggs, and many other elements incorporated from the so-called ‘pagan myths’.
But there’s volumes and volumes that could be read about all of this, in mythology, comparative religion, anthropology and many other disciplines - it’s a big topic.
What I find intriguing is that polytheism with a pantheon of quarrelsome gods seems indistinguishable from atheism. In both cases we'll get the same results - wars, disease, disasters, etc. things I expect should be usual occurrences if there's, there has to be, "trouble in paradise" or if the population of heaven were zero.
What is ruled out or is highly improbable is an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent god [ref: Epicruean dilemma]. There's and was and probably will be too much bloodshed that makes such a god an impossibility - an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing god just wouldn't jibe with the reality as it was/is/probably will be. All life is just too "short, brutish, and nasty" to be the handiwork of god thus conceived of.
Come to think of it, Buddha's weltanschauung wouldn't have been able to accommodate a single divine being as the be-all and end-all of goodness because, it seems quite obvious on hindsight, Buddhism's central tenet is that life is suffering; how then can there exist an all-good god and even if such a god exists, he must surely be powerless to come to our aid or both [ref:Epicurean dilemma].
It is not nearly so desolate and barren as atheism.
Some would probably think differently. Would you feel your life were enriched if you came to know that, as someone, I can't recall who, said:
[quote=Unknown]We're to the goods as flies to wanton boys; they kill us for sport[/quote]
?
I don't want to contradict you but isn't that like saying "I don't mean that I want god to exist but I find that life without god rings hollow" A distinction without a difference! The alternative to "...human life is empty..." in our case is a pantheon of mutually hostile gods.
What do you recommend for a person down on his luck?
So, it's all in my head...and heart...then?
I am certainly in favour of the experiential domain. I didn't know about Simone Weil's teenage experience, probably because until you pointed her out to me, I was not really familiar with her. She definitely seems to be your spiritual mentor. Mine is Carl Jung as I discovered him when I was a teenager and he definitely had an inner struggle in encountering the lived experience of the 'divine'. This is most evident in his autobiography, 'Memories, Dreams and Reflections.'
I am certainly in favour of exploring the transcendent and that also includes the existence of the diabolical, often called the devil. Perhaps the more one searches for God, one is brought to face the devil, or inner demons, too. The main difference of where I come from to most religious people is that I don't really frame my experience in one clear box. I do believe that the questions and areas of exploration of religion are of central importance though. Probably, the people who do partake within a specific religion rather than go outside it have an easier path. The individual quests can be hazardous.
I do think that the Catholic religion is a very powerful and it is like a world in its own right. There is immense power from the symbolism and many find it to be so comforting. However, when you are living in it can be overwhelming and full of contradictions. I was brought up in a church and a school in which the clashes between the adherence to the church and adherence to the values of modern culture were celebrated. Part of the problem is where 'sex' fits into the picture and also the unspoken undercurrent of 'hell'. These factors brought conflict for me and for many others raised in this tradition.
I think that you are definitely right to say that I read the Bible as if it is a work of literature rather than in the way it was understood originally. However, that is not the way I began reading it.
As a teenager I used to read it in a really literal manner, apart from the 'Book of Genesis', because I was familiar with Darwin. I used to really agonise over passages and worry how to interpret 'The Book of Revelation'. The whole Judaea Christian tradition has a strong belief in the idea of a personal relationship with God, and the Bible is read in that context.
I was brought up in Catholicism, but went to Christian Union. Here, I encountered real difficulty because many people there seemed to think that the reading I was doing, including most of the philosophy and the work of Carl Jung were the work of the devil. I ended up spending a whole day in bed, feeling so confused and depressed. So, perhaps this is why I ended up coming to the approach of being an outsider, looking in on the various religious traditions.
In regards to that important book on religion by James, it is the edited transcript from his Gifford Lectures. Many of these have, over the years, been published. This includes lectures by Carl Sagan, Werner Heisenberg, among many others. The Gifford Lectures are on natural theology.
https://www.giffordlectures.org/
I think the mystery of existence necessarily points to something beyond our everyday experience. That is, recognizing the existence of God is the rational inference from our being here, in my opinion.
you think that's unique to Catholicism? ;-)
I do think that the Eastern thinkers have so much to offer. I do believe that earliest Christianity may have been more attuned to the way of perceiving of the East, but I am drawing upon the wisdom of some of the the Gnostic gospels, which were cast out and buried and found in Nag Hamadi.
What I did find in mainstream Christianity is that everything was taken on such a literal level and I am not sure that events such as the transfiguration or ascension, among other aspects can be read like a textbook. I believe that the whole Cartesian-Newtownian mechanistic model led to the underlying wisdom becoming distorted.
I think that the many contradictions may have given rise for the need for nihilism. However, this can just be a blind avenue as the word 'nihilism' itself implies. That is probably why I think that it may be important for an integration of aspects of diverse traditions and I think that quite a lot of individuals are going in this direction in their thinking.
You say that you were ranting and that's interesting because it seems that's what people who adhere to authoritarian religions seem to do. One of the problems which I see from the whole way that the Judaeo-Christian image of God is the way this translates into practice. The idea of omniscience and wrathful God goes hand in hand with such leadership and it is hard to see whether man is creating an anthropomorphic image of God, or whether the image of God is creating a certain ideal of human nature.
Of course, there is a big contrast between the God of the NewTestament, in Christ, with Jahweh of the Old Testament. It does seem that Jesus was emphasising the first two commandments and emphasising the importance of morality based on loving one's neighbour. However, how much of the image of God in history of Christendom was biased on this is questionable in the way of the Crusades and fighting forces for the mission of bringing the Christian message across the globe. Generally, I think that the whole tension between the God of the Old Testament and Christ has been an underlying tension. There is also the tension between the prospect of heaven and hell. Certainly, I found difficulty feeling these tensions when I have been in church, and while many find comfort I felt oppressed and depressed on many occasions.
So only after enlightenment is chopping wood an carrying water an expression of bodhi-mind? Sounds more than a little idolizing to me.
I am not sure I completely agree with Maslow but I would like to read his explanation of the need for God. Is there a specific book title I should look for? For me, a concept of God helps us have a broader point of view than the lone individual, a much higher stand for humanity and what we can be, than if we have no concept of God. For me, God is also logos and the Tao, the way and our understanding of it.
Quoting Jack Cummins I love agreement and I am glad you are accepting of Eastern philosophy. I have read, at one time Catholicism and Buddhism were so close they almost blended. I absolutely think knowing Eastern philosophy improves our understanding of Jesus. Jesus being a mythical character such as other mythical characters that carry Greek thought (logos). Bahia' is a blend of all religions. A high point in Catholicism is when it turned to Aristotle and other Greek philosophers to justify the power and authority of the Church, but this did not pull Europe away from the superstition that came talk of Satan and demons. Superstitious notions that got worse with translating the Bible into languages common to Europeans and Protestantism.
If Christianity saw the Bible as an important book of mythology and interpreted it abstractly instead of literally, I would find the religion much improved. I am quite sure Jews never intended for their stories to be taken literally. I am also quite sure at least 5 Bible stories are Sumerian. Abraham originating in Ur a former Sumerian city. And much of the New Testament seems to blend Sumerian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek thought. Can we come to peace with a better understanding of this blending?
I am not a Zen teacher so I have no "credentials" to be explaining this kind of thing, but let me tell you this much. The reason Zen is so confusing (intellectually) is because it is not an intellectual practice. Everything you realize is through your meditation practice. So, essentially, there is only one lesson in Zen, meditate.
The intellectual part of the practice is telling you to do this in a thousand different ways. There is no other message. Zen is simply every day life. Nothing more, nothing special. It is viewing life with clarity which gives rise to wisdom. That's all. Chopping wood, carry water is everyday life, nothing more.
I think many people have missed Maslow's whole emphasis on peak experiences, in focusing on his hierarchy of needs. When I have been on modules of psychology courses I have found that his ideas are often represented as the importance of the lower needs being met as the main thing. I remember being in a class and speaking about the peak experiences and self actualization and the tutor looked puzzled. I certainly don't think that she had read Maslow's writing.
I think that Roper's model of nursing has done disservice to Maslow's psychology because it has used it as a model for focusing on the activities of daily living. In mental health nursing, I have seen it being used as a model for planning care. The sort of way in which it seems to be applied to the top of the hierarchy needs is making patients aware of the chaplaincy services for various cultural groups. Of course, I am not saying that staff are able to look at issues such as peak experiences. However, I feel that staff in psychiatric care, including psychologists often don't seem aware of this dimensions to Maslow's theory.
I believe that the search for peak experiences underpins the quest for religious experience and knowledge. This is probably true of most religions traditions but probably many who go through the motions of attending church services and rituals probably don't really explore this dimension.
I hope you’re not suggesting that only a teacher (religious authority) can speak for your own experience.
Quoting synthesis
A nice simple balanced life. :love:
What struck me most was the notion that the manifestations of our higher motivations, our higher selves, can only emerge from a milieu in which the lower "deficiency" motivations are adequately met. It just fits so well with the concept and practice of stoicism. People can be more or less well-adjusted and, accordingly, they can be more or less trapped by the relative satisfaction of their deficiency needs. That is, based on the relative "healthfulness" of their environment, people will to a certain extent develop (micro)pathologies which keep them in a cycle of deficiency-motivation (catering to lower needs). I think this describes one of the pitfalls of modern culture well - it caters to these lower needs in a cycle of neverending non-satisfaction.
But the whole idea of stoicism is that one consciously trains oneself to learn to master and control exactly what constitutes satisfaction of these lower motivations. So an accomplished stoic can lower the threshold of Being-motivations, overcoming the effects of psychopathologies (whatever they are, the key point is, it is the dominance of d-motivations that constitute the driving problem of the pathologies) and open the door to the maximization of Being-motivations, to self-actualization. It is a practical model. It answers the needs for which we otherwise look to religion.
Yes, it does seem that there does appear to be some higher source behind the scenes of the laws of the universe, some mysterious factor that gives rise to the laws of nature and ignites the spark of consciousness. Many have called this God, or the Tao.
That is possibly separate from many of aspects of exoteric religions. However, many have argued clearly for and against belief in God, and I inclined to think that some of these arguments are so bound up in logistics. I think that we can appreciate the mysterious from a religious or scientific perspective and I wonder if it really matters how we label this.
In Zen, there is "understanding," and there is "UNDERSTANDING." It is often advised to allow those with the later "certified" understanding to do the teaching. IOW, a Zen master is one who has had the teaching passed to them by another master. I have not been through this process. It doesn't mean I can not share my experience, only that if you are really interested in Zen, you should seek a teacher.
Quoting praxis
Perhaps, but first it is about confronting your stuff, working through it, and then ...
The place you want to get to is where you become ok with whatever presents. Bad comes, ok. Good comes, ok. Let each go. It is attaching to either that produces the suffering in life.
Life is very difficult and full of suffering. Zen is not a way to rid yourself of the difficulty, only the suffering.
The search for An Unseen Order is currently very widespread and very powerful in the world including in thousands of universities.
Take a good look at the words : "AN UNSEEN ORDER." To me those words very accurately describe Science in its most generalized sense.
Even more precisely they also describe Philosophy and Philosophers
including this very Forum
But, a caveat. Also I deny that a Concept of a God with magical powers comes even close to describing that Unseen Order. In fact it even obstructs the search for an unseen order. Once it even attempted to obstruct Me personally from my personal search for an seen order. I could describe that event with an anecdote.
The belief in magic in any form except for that of a stage magician is ultimately childish. And if you remove childish magic from a concept of a God what is left of that God? Nothing.
This point is so interesting. I respect your opinion of proof rational existence when you believe in God as something that powerful which reminds you are “here” and then, gives answers to our perpetual question and mystery of existing.
Nevertheless, there is a debate here because Descartes purposed the idea of cogito ergo sum. If I am aware, I exist as a human because it makes me feel “alive” of myself. So in this statement sometimes you do not even need a subterfuge to proof you are here or your existence itself.
Well this opens of course another debate about existentialism which can leads us in a tangent about the original debate or maybe like a circle it drives us to the starting point.
Keep in mind that The Buddha developed his teachings because he realized that only the truly exceptional could realize the truth, i.e., attain clarity, immediately. So the religion was an intellectual path pointing to the practice and the goal of realization.
Although I am anything but a Buddhist scholar, suffering and its cause is the primary teaching, as to provide motivation for those to practice (meditate) and overcome.
As an aside, some of the most serious mediators are Christian mystics, so the two can be quite compatible. God, like any other idea, takes no precedence.
So are you saying that this is your experience and the benefit of "going for it"? If your child or loved one got diagnosed with terminal cancer, for example, you'd be okay with it and not suffer at all because of it?
I definitely don't think that fears around the topics of hell and sex are exclusive to Catholicism and I am sure that many people from other Christian denominations experience fear and anxiety in relation to these. Personally, I have spoken to many people raised in the Catholic church who have spoken about these. Some of these have become Buddhists in response to the need for a religion which is free from this fear.
At least, within Catholicism there is regular confession, thought of as a sacrament, and absolution of sin. I am not sure that confessions features as strongly in other denominations. But, of course, forgiveness of sins should play an important role. We do get a picture of Jesus having his feet washed by Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, and him forgiving her sins.
I have never had much discussion with anyone from an Islamic background on the topic of hell or sex to know their exact experiences, but from my reading of the Islamic faith, I would imagine that Muslims would probably have a lot to worry about too.
I agree with the first half.
But then you say: "to something beyond our everyday experience." Agreed, but the words: "Something" point to nothing specific. Nothing at all. That something could be any one of dozens of different possibiities. The existence of a "God" or rather "the son of a God" is certainly not the most probabable possibility. I might suggest it is the least probable.
I think that you are correct to see the idea of an unseen order as being an aspect of science. I think that the idea can be used in a religious or scientific context equally. Sometimes, I think when people see the concept of an unseen order, the associations conjured up are of magic, mysticism and the supernatural arise. Perhaps the word supernatural would be regarded as almost a swear word in some philosophy circles, although I once read a book by Lyall Watson called, 'Supernatural' in which he was using to describe order and patterns in biology and nature, rather than in a hidden order of spiritual beings.
I think that we were replying at the same time, so I have just read your latest comment. I think I leave a certain amount of ambiguity about the idea of the unseen order, whether I would place it in the ranking of the 'divine' or 'science' because I simply don't know how to define it in an ultimate way.
A random collection of goofy gods is imaginatively richer than a random collection of atoms? Frankly, the later requires more imagination. I could never have dreamt up nuclear physics on my own, and have only the most basic concept of it now. A person could spend a lifetime studying and theorizing about it.
Like @Jack Cummins, you seem to think that myth has value in religion, and in the absence of myth life is somehow spiritually barren or less meaningful.
A neglectful thread host, Jack as thus far not addressed the question of how myth expresses its value in religion. Perhaps you or someone else will?
I have all of art. I, myself, am an artist.
I even have you, to liven things up.
Just bear in mind that it is easy to jump to conclusions. Confession is not a significant part of all Catholic practice these days and is diminishing. Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. This is not supported or even hinted at in any of the Biblical texts. It's a folk tradition - like so much unquestioned nonsense in life.
Myth is an extremely complex but interesting topic. One of the problems with the term myth is its colloquial use to mean false. I embrace it in the sense of the whole idea of symbolic dimensions. There is so much interesting reading in this area from the writings of James Campbell, Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade. In thinking of the mythical we are talking about a whole dimension of experience of trying to capture truths.
We have the whole story of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden as a starting point. This has caused a lot of controversy and, really, if you think about it the account probably was part of oral history which got written down and some people have taken it all so literally, when it was never written down on the first day of creation, like a newspaper report.
One mythical idea which I find fascinating is the whole idea of the fall of the angels and the consequent fall of mankind. I was taught this very strongly as a child and when I tried to explore this idea I discovered that it is more based on Milton's 'Paradise Lost' than the Bible. However, if you look in esoteric literature there are all kinds of ideas about the fall of Atlantis and Nephilim giants who ruled the earth. It is so hard to know if this is pure imagination.
Myth fascinates me and it encompasses all the comparative religious perspectives. One of the best resources which we have is art and I am thinking of all the riches within religious icons of Christianity, Hindu art and statues of all the gods and goddesses and the many other varieties of symbols. The symbolic dimensions are endless and we can begin to access them in our dreams or in out of body experiences. Some Eastern thinkers speak of this dimensions as the 'astral plane' but I would guess than many philosophers would be very suspicious of this concept.
I have read some of a book, 'The Physics of Transfigured Light: The Imaginal Realm and the Hermetic Foundations of Light' , James Marvell (2016) which suggest that there is an imaginary dimension, which is objectively real and the author even suggests that it is from this realm may even that from which Plato's forms are derived. However, when we get into the whole question of dimensions beyond us so much is speculation and, as much as I am fascinated by the imaginary it is possible to go off into tangents, but I do think that the nature of myth, should have a place, like religion, in the philosophy.
I will tell you from experience because I have lost a son. It was his death that prompted me to embark on a very serious philosophical journey that morphed into my Zen Path.
Those who truly "go for it" are generally people who have come out of a very serious life episode (as did I). In a Zen sense, when something really bad happens, you want to be with that 100%, not only so you can react in the most efficacious manner (i.e.,see what's taking place with the greatest clarity), but just as important, you want to let go as soon as possible because the real suffering in life is many times not from the event itself, but instead, the emotional reaction to the event.
So, by building "your center," you have the strength to withstand whatever comes your way, deal with it the most effective way possible, and then move-on (which is the solution to all life's issues).
What you are saying shows how we are all taught differently. I am interested to know what ideas you have and sources you have for alternative pictures of Mary Magdalene. I have come across some people who think that she was Jesus's partner, but it is hard to come up with clear evidence. There is even so much written about Jesus and the tomb after his death, the Grail tradition so much more. It could be much more than one lifetimes of research really, and one area of exploration opens up many more.
I think that you are right that the people who explore beyond the accepted norms are often those who have reason to do so, as you have shared in your personal experience. I was pushed to question and go searching through difficult circumstances too, mainly knowing 2 people while I was university, and1 a year later, who committed suicide. I do believe that it is only through truly painful life experiences that most individuals are inclined to really search, because as you have said in previous posts the majority of people would rather settle for the comforts of the norms.
Okay, what's the value of packaging truths this way?
There's a saying that spiritual life begins with the introduction of pain.
Quoting synthesis
And maybe after a nice simple balanced life. Nothing wrong with that!
Sorry for being obscure. What I am trying to say is that myth is a whole perspective or way of viewing experience, incorporating symbols. I am also saying that it is one way of trying to grasp 'truth.'
I don't think you're being obscure.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Right, what I'm asking is what's the value of this method? There are other ways of viewing experience and grasping truth. How is that value expressed?
The term 'unseen' is one which can be interpreted in many ways, like 'hidden'. These terms can be used by a born again atheist like yourself. On the other hand, that is also the language of the mystical or esoteric philosophers. You might even be a 'mystical atheist.' That seems an interesting concept, like a born again atheist.
Some of us are taught the wrong things. All religions are encrusted in a separate folklore which does not come from any holy books. I think your first step is to get to know the official tradition from the scriptures - if that material interests you. Only then mess about with alternative narratives and traditions and myths and Dan Brown style nonsense.
All that atheism is is the rejection of the proposition that a God exists. It says nothing about a person's other beliefs. Many people who call themselves atheists believe in the occult, mysticism, numerology, astrology or other supernatural material. 'Born again atheist' is a meaningless term - born again has a specific meaning in some Christian traditions and refers to a believer's relationship with Christ.
You say about spending time reading the scriptures. I have known people who have attended all kinds of Bible study groups, or even read the Bible cover to cover. Even then, it comes down to interpretation. There are differences between the Gospels and a lot of speculation over who were the real authors, as it is likely that they were written long after the death of Jesus. Apart from anything else, there is the hold field of debates in theology and a lot of questions about how the Bible was put together. So, it is not such an easy task, because even the theologians have a lot of unanswered questions.
I would have thought that much was obvious. Believers cherry pick what they want to accept in all religions. My point is you have to start with what the source material says. The matter of interpretation is a separate one.
Nice to meet you too!
Buddhism has an elaborate system of hells, and many forms of traditional Buddhism are more negative towards sexuality than Christianity ever was. It's kind of an urban myth, in my view, that Buddhism doesn't believe in sin or hell.
Yes, I have some awareness that Buddhism is often seen in a very romanticized way. The idea of rebirth often appeals to many people, although I know that beliefs about rebirth differ. From my understanding, the Buddha was uncertain about rebirth. Of course, he did not write books and most of this is oral tradition, and there are many traditions of Buddhism, just as there are many Christian denominations.
Indeed. Say what you want about Buddhism. The opposite is also true.
I believe that you are correct to see the New Testament as blending of many traditions, including the Egyptian and Sumerian. This probably isn't acknowledge enough and I don't believe that all the Old Testament writers saw themselves writing literal accounts. We have Psalms, accounts of exiles, and 'The Book of Job', which is like a drama.
I do think your emphasis on 'blending' is one than can be useful. It is more the language of the artist. It may be that philosophy can make use of blending as a concept for putting ideas together, rather than being just about refuting arguments.
As far as my remark about 'atheism' - I don't necessarily believe in the God(s) that atheists reject. I think a lot of people, believers and atheists alike, believe (or don't believe) in a being like Jupiter.
Chomsky said 'I'll tell you if I'm an atheist, if you can tell me what it is I'm supposed not to believe in'.
Quoting Gregory
Nonsense.
The mythos of Mythras started in Persia and had the sacred bull sacrifice for sins. There are similarities in most of the religions of that area with the upcoming Christianity. Egyptians had communion, lots had baptism, and a number of other similarities can be pointed out. I don't take religious texts as pure history for the simple reason that the religious impulse is not in accord with historical accuracy. All religions make up myths. Syncretism is the heartbeat of religion
Saying you don't have a soul is the core of what Buddha, like it or not
That much is obvious
"You are not" is the same as "you have no soul" . The very first philosophy of Buddha is anatman
Sure
I have just looked at your link and the book looks extremely interesting. I have often thought that it was strange that just about all the near death experiences which I have come across are of heavenly realms, light and meeting with loved ones who had died previously. It would make sense for some to be of a hellish nature.
Do you not think that part of the problem may be that the word 'soul' is open to critical examination, because it is not just a static entity. My understanding of Eastern thinking is of existence being comprised of layers, or subtle bodies. Identity is related to the ego, which would not survive but that doesn't mean that there is nothing else. The part which goes into the astral plane would probably be the astral body.
That is a misrepresentation. The Buddha never used such a term, it is not part of the Buddhist lexicon. It comes from assuming that the Hindu term ?tman, which literally means 'I am', has the same meaning as 'soul', which is questionable in its own right.
The Buddha's objection was to the teaching that there is a permanent, unchanging self, atta, which carries on from life to life 'fixed and immovable like a mountain peak'. This was in the context of a religious culture where the belief in reincarnation was endemic. There were schools of asceticism which said that through the right rituals and actions, the soul could be reborn in perpetuity, forever. This is the kind of view that the Buddha rejected as 'eternalism'.
The opposite 'extreme view' is nihilism, the idea that there are no karmic consequences of actions committed in this life. The 'middle path' is the avoidance of all such 'extreme views'. It is a very subtle teaching and hard to grasp.
Most atheism and materialism falls under the classification of 'nihilism' in the Buddhist view. Belief that one will have 'eternal life in heaven' might map against 'eternalism'. But if neither is true, what is the middle way? That is the question.
The thesis I wrote on it is here.
I argue that this is an example of why the Bible is not a trustworthy source to govern one's life. It's seems painfully obvious to me that tradition Buddhism believes subjective consciousness is all that is and that objectivity and substance is an illusion. Nirvana is knowing that nothing is, a thought without a thinker. The thought itself has no substance they say. If there are alternative readings of this, it reveals of that Christianity too is open to so many interpretations that you can never know what is of "the Lord". Religions of those times have passed through the filter of thousands of years
First we can distinguish between objective truths and social truths. Clearly, myths and legends fall into the category of social truths.
The shallowest value that myths may offer is that of mere entertainment, but even in this regard myths can resonate on a deep or archetypal level, such as stories that reflect the all to common theme of the hero's journey.
Myths have value in helping to reinforce social truths, and thereby strengthen group solidarity. That is the primary value, I believe. There is an additional value in religion, which is simply that the generator of myths (though they're not seen as myths until there's a paradigm shift) enjoys the position of ultimate authority, because only they have special access to whatever metaphysics they're preaching. Basically any charismatic leader can develop their own social truths and lead the weak minded around like cattle, and that's the negative value of myths.
If you had read the various posts which I have written you would see that I am not advocating the Bible as the source for guiding life, but interested in thinking about the issues and questions surrounding religion. Also, my approach to looking at religious experience is one which appreciates the whole field of comparative religion.
I remember you saying you are a recovering Catholic. I use to be Catholic too. Anyhow, when someone is having religious thoughts they are not in the best place to interpret history and the same applies when writing a gospel while filled with religious fervor. That was the point I was after. You can't open the Bible and start with assuming it's history. Would you agree that works of such religious fervor like the NT should not be accepted as detailed history because of the motives behind those books?
It is hard to know the motives of the writers of the Gospels because there is a lot of dispute about the sources. They were probably written and put together a long time after the time of Jesus's death.
I think that it is worth bearing in mind that this is a discussion forum, so all topics are approached as a matter of opinion. Hopefully, participants have read a certain amount and are giving their best, but it is not a specialised research project, so the discussion is primarily of ideas.
We are not that far apart. Years ago when I had my first mystical experience I was a musician who drank too much. I assumed life was meaningless. Then I had the good fortune to discover a book which answered my questions to such a degree that it changed my life. The world wasn't meaningless but just responding to natural laws as it must. Imagine how it felt to realize that the world and the universe it functions within makes perfect sense but I was just too blind to the vertical psychological experience to see it. Before this in college I knew I was surrounded by idiots but now I saw that i was an idiot not to see it. It dawned on me that I needed help and an influence in the form of a book appeared when it was necessary to help me open to the vertical direction. Coincidence? No, not with that intensity.
I don't speak of this influence on a casual internet forum but do so privately because of all the negativity. A person can read a word like "God" for example and acquire negative connotation to it. So why hurt people?
Discussing Simone is easy. There is no Simone tradition or school. There is just Simone. People like Albert Camus and T.S. Eliot felt the value in her letters and essays so compiled them into books for no money. Simone Weil is an individual who cannot be classified. Leon Trotsky praised her when she was a Marxist and later she became an intellectual influence on Pope Paul VI. She was "Plato's spiritual child." and someone I can learn from who offers experiential verification far more valuable than opinions.
[i]I had the impression of being in the presence of an absolutely transparent soul which was ready to be reabsorbed into original light. I can still hear Simone Weil’s voice in the deserted streets of Marseilles as she took me back to my hotel in the early hours of the morning; she was speaking of the Gospel; her mouth uttered thoughts as a tree gives its fruit, her words did not express reality, they poured it into me in its naked totality; I felt myself to be transported beyond space and time and literally fed with light.
Gustav Thibon[/i]
True? Who knows. We cannot judge these people by social standards. They are individuals and beyond classification.
I believe you can expand this to... "Thinkers cherry-pick that which they wish to accept."
Quoting synthesis
That is sometimes true. But it depends on the cherry picking. If you are only picking that which you think you understand and you are banishing that which you don't. Then the thinking won't be so great. There's probably a vast difference between cherry picking (often used as a pejorative) and judicious selection. But I'll leave it to others to decide where the fault lines lie.
Hello. Yes interesting point regarding Descartes though from what I know (not enough, surely) of his writings leads me to think he and I would have some disagreements in these areas. Hah. But yes, I do not want to get off topic.
I always seem to bring things down to lower levels of abstraction. To me a near death experience is exactly what the words say. Thoughts that would normally occur during moments of attenuated awareness. Such as Delusions, clear memories of events that have never occured or hallucinations. Misinterpretation of present observations together with some low level of conscious control.
What else could they be?
What near death experiences do Bushmen have?
Are you close friends with any anthropologists, by any chance? They might be able to help out.
Religion is, whatever said and done, advertised/presented as a force of good - that's the basic idea of all religions and this realization is key to understanding why people behaved/behave/will behave the way they did/do/will do. Surely, if one feels that one is doing good, that good being defined by one's particular religious affiliation, then one will have a conviction, an unshakable conviction, that one must do whatever it is that one sees as good. This, in a nutshell, gives you a general idea of all acts committed in the name of religion.
The crusaders, Christian jihadists if I may say so, were all acting in good faith - they were thoroughly convinced that they were good and that what they were doing was good. They didn't have the privilege of possessing historical records on similar religious undertakings as theirs (unlike present-day Moslem jihadists) that could've changed their minds regarding the nature of holy wars. People like us, in the 21st century, are luckier in that we have a somewhat reliable record of past human activities and that gives us an advantage, an unfair one if the matter concerns the moral aspects of actions.
I know, I've experienced, that there's such a thing as love at first sight but then I've also heard people say that it takes time to know people. I suppose a similar rule, if I may call it that, applies to the relationship between ideologies and people. Religion, because of how appealing its core ideas are, could've been a case of love at first sight but then, over centuries of this rather passionate affair between man and god, we've begun to realize that we, some of us at least, want to end this nexus.
I may well be mistaken here in this present assumption that people are probably similar all over the world and that these thoughts are universal and that there does appear universally to all of them to be some higher source behind the scenes of the laws of the universe, some mysterious factor that gives rise to the laws of nature, some need for feelings of religiosity itself. Also perhaps a "need" or yearning that would permit them to to observe or to know more.
If that yearning actually is universally the case then obviously this yearning must be genetic and inherited and would exist independent of thought or logic and indeed there would be no need for these thoughts to be in any way logical or reasonable or be remotely connected to some actual "higher source."
Do I make any sense?
Regarding the ‘laws of the Universe ‘ - important to recognise that science has no explanation for why there are such laws, or why the universe is lawful. But a lot of people seem to think that science can take credit for them, which is like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise. ‘The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena’ ~ Wittgenstein.
//and I’m not saying that as a preamble to saying that ‘God did it’, only to highlight how superficial our knowledge might be.//
:rofl: :up: :clap: Quoting Wayfarer
:up:
I want to run something by you if you don't mind. I've always been fascinated by science and math, not so much by religion except maybe Buddhism and the fringes of faith proper viz. esotericism and mysticism. What kind of a mindset does that reveal? The obvious conclusion seems that, to people who share a similar outlook, science, math, esotericism, and mysticism are connected in some way or another but then there are many mathematicians and scientists who think nothing of mystics and vice versa.
I don’t see how anyone could doubt that, and that this ignorance extends to all human endeavors, including the sacred ones.
No, I don't agree with that. I've come to accept that there is such a thing as religious revelation. When Buddha said that he 'saw through the house-builder', I don't think that is either mythical or mythological but a statement of fact. I'm not a cultural relativist when it comes down to it.
Quoting TheMadFool
Had gnosticism been more accomodated in Western religion, what 'religion' means today might be something completely different. The main stream of Western religion was detemindely 'pistic' in orientation - where 'pistis' means defined in terms of belief, of ortho-doxa, right worship. As distinct from gnostic, which is defined in terms of insight. Which is not to say the ancient gnostics were all benign or rays of sunshine.
There is a kind of 'religious underground' in Western thought - Descartes secretly a Rosicrucian, Newton with interests in alchemy and occult, Hegel an hermetic. But that kind of material borders on conspiracy-theory territory so I've never gone that far into it - but i know it's there. You might find some of the books of Gary Lachman interesting.
I know that we should better agree to disagree. But I am a curious person. I try to understand or provoke different arguments and have always failed to fathom the essence of the perceived need for explanation. Not that I don't feel it. I do. But I think that it may not be what it appears to the person themselves. That I just need permanence and am grasping at air for immutable objective.Explanation for science means to simplify and harmonize, not to assume that something is foundational. Atoms are not more fundamental to chairs and stones, but they offer terms of understanding of the complex interactions that sometimes occur, such as burning and chemistry, without making every encounter with those phenomena a case by case study.
Obviously, the goal of the explanation for a theist is something else. I am critical of the idea, because I fear that is rather antropocentric, meaning that it is not a search for explanation in the same sense as physics (to simplify and harmonize), but loaded with preconceived expectation for personal satisfaction, for peace of mind. And if I have to be honest, expecting a peace of mind is something towards which I am very critical when it comes to philosophy. I may be opinionated for saying so, but I severely oppose the idea that knowledge should bring the person's mind rest. Awareness of the hidden complexity and adversity, yes, but rest, I cannot say.
I defend the plausibility of intuitive/innate belief, because science uses the same. But I cannot understand what we mean by "explanation". Let's suppose that we find a deity in some sense, but it is not humanistic - like the ultimate triangle or square or something such, and that is our deity. And suppose that we explain everything, but without giving purpose to life. We make everything fit together, but in an undignified inhumane way. Would that offer adequate answer, having your perspective?
P.S.: Obviously, the question is, about the nature of the explanation expected. Whether a triangle or square can actually explain the universe is not the subject of discussion, but we need to understand what we think an explanation should answer as a question, and why we think that it should.
:up: You brought back memories of my fairly recent and very superficial encounter with 15th, 16th natural philosophers (scientists) and mathematicians who had delved into the occult. I dislike the word "occult" though, wish there was a better word without the negative connotations the word has acquired over its history. I suppose it's got to do with our rather unhealthy and thus unwise fascination with the unknown - both the occult and natural philosophy, not to mention mathematics, were uncharted territories, at least in Europe, back then. Yet, I can't shake off the feeling that there's, not to toot my own horn, a hidden and deep relationship between these subjects. Look at how it all panned out - the nexus between math and science in the modern world is as clear as crystal and the occult, at least alchemy, has transformed into chemistry, chemistry itself built upon a bedrock of rigorous math. A penny for your thoughts...
In light of the current state of physics, that is quite an ironic statement. Physical theories produce many practical consequences, not least of which the one you’re looking at right now, but saying that modern physics has ‘simplified and harmonised’ is almost hilarious, considering.
I mean, the idea of the atom used to be a very simple idea. The atom was uncuttable - that’s literally what the word means. Atom=1, void = 0. Nothing could be simpler. Now ‘the atom’ is ‘the standard model’, also known as ‘the particle zoo’. Of course it is a brilliant discovery but it also has many loose ends, many of which terminate in insoluble conundrums or point out towards what Plato would term aporia, unanswerable questions.
We are today well-adapted barbarians, that is all. We’ve managed through technical ingenuity to squeeze many resources out of our long-suffering planet, but for how long?
Quoting TheMadFool
Try googling ‘dark matter occult’.
Yeah, science and even math, in certain respects, seems to have come full circle. Both had origins in occult practices (grain of salt recommended), along the way, they discarded this filial association, and now, they're back into doing business in the gray zone between science as we know it and, for lack of a better word, religion. The child has returned home.
By simplified, I mean that distinct in appearance phenomena were consequently accounted for by interrelated causes, which reduced the number of cases that had to be dealt with conceptually (even if not so much practically). By harmonized, I meant that theories were unified, that is, explanations were reconciled.
You criticized science, but I was inquiring about something else. You said that 'science has no explanation why there are such laws'. What do you mean by "why". This question has various interpretations, some of which are empiricist. Empiricism does answer this question empirically, which is not expected to exceed a certain scope of relational material investigations. It may not be able to provide a foundational ethical framework for humanity, but it doesn't attempt to either. Apparently this is not enough for you, theologically speaking. What do you mean by 'why'? Could you elaborate what an answer to such a question should provide, to be considered meaningful, and what are your reasons to expect that the answer exists and thus the question is well posed?
Edit: That is, empiricism explains facts through constrained relations to facts, which I understand to be your concern here. If you want explanation for facts independent of any facts, how do you define the quality of such explanation and why you insist on its existence? For example, we can claim that there is a certain fact that needs no explanation, and call it deity. First, aside from the use of new nomenclature, what does such a hypothesis provide qualitatively? What does it describe? Is there some use for it, does it have any implications, does it foster new ethical considerations? In itself, saying that a fact is found without the need for explanation means nothing more.
Very simple. Science has discovered fundamental principles from which we benefit - no question. But it doesn’t say why f=ma. Nor does it need to. You want to lob a missile or a shell, that’s what you need to know (obviously elaborated considerably.)
The origin of modern science was to concentrate on a particular type of causal explanation - what Aristotle would call material and efficient causation. What cause gives rise to what effect? But the two other kinds of causes were left out. They are the ‘why is this thing the way it is?’ And ‘what purpose does this thing serve?’ That was all rejected as part of Aristotle’s ‘teleological physics’. So now you have a universe in which things act for no reason. They act because other things act on them, according to the laws of physics. But why it is this way is outside the picture. I have put this in very simple terms, but it is nevertheless the case.
You can see this as a result of interacting historical factors unfolding over many generations. But the vision it culminates in, is one of a universe comprising dumb matter obeying physical forces. They are the only ‘principles’ which scientific materialism understands. And that is fine, as far as mechanics goes, but it leaves out the greater sense of ‘reason’ which animates the philosophical tradition of Western culture.
Quoting simeonz
That we are here for a reason. It’s not ‘a reason’ as in what, if you’re an actor, is given to you as a script. It may not be obvious or even meaningful to some other person. But there’s a reason why the universe gave rise to beings such as us, and even you in particular, and a large part of philosophy is in discerning that and responding to it. This is what the East calls your ‘Dharma’.
Don't get me wrong. I relate to your suggestion as a feeling, but I believe that we are making projection of our ethical considerations into the world.
I am not just attacking you, but what 'reason' means for me, abstractly speaking, when I am trying to be detached from emotion and bias as much as possible, appears to be just a relationship that people explore while pursuing their goals. We have developed ethical considerations when evaluating the cause and effect connection in our surroundings, because we act as a community and protect our social fabric. We need to have ethical considerations, because we are pursuing ethical goals. But when we try to project them into the greater structure of the world, wouldn't that then appear to be, as such, a cognitive bias. Wouldn't that be merely trying to achieve intellectual consistency?
What do you mean by 'reason'? Is it something ethically immersed? What is your abstract definition of reason, or do you consider it a notion that need not be explained?
But from the perspective of Christian philosophy, perhaps that 'principle of self-organisation' is what has been 'bestowed' by 'the Creator'. That is what it means to say that beings 'borrow' their being from God. Hence, the freedom of will that is an essential part of the theistic model. All sentient beings are, as it were, recapitulations of being, within their capacity. In man, this capacity can come to full realisation, which is what Eastern religions call 'realisation'.
Quoting simeonz
I am harking back to the pre-modern vision of reason as 'animating principle', not simply a subjective or internal faculty. Reason, in Greek philosophy, was the underlying principle of the universe, which the human, as the rational animal, is able to discern by virtue of the faculty of reason (or nous, which is a key term.)
So, in a sense, you can't 'explain' reason, because reason is 'that which explains'. The mistake of modern philosophy is to reduce reason to a Darwinian faculty. Reason, in modern philosophy, has become 'instrumentalised' - it only has value insofar as it serves ends, and those ends are determined by survival. 'Whatever works', as moderns like to say. This is the subject of Max Horkheimer's book, The Eclipse of Reason. But it subordinates reason to survival, and so, sells it short, it undermines reason. That is the sense in which modern philosophy is fundamentally irrational.
:up: :clap: It's true that science, in its present form, seems to be only half the story if we look at it from an Aristotelian perspective on causality.
As I remember, Aristotle on causes and how science has dealt with them:
1. Material cause. Check
2. Efficient cause: Check
3. Formal cause: Check but only descriptively
4. Final cause: Ignored
It must be then that were Aristotle alive, science would be exactly half the picture in his eyes. The way I see it, Aristotle's take on causality seems to provide, intended or not, a good place to start the reunification process of science and religion given, as it appears to me, the first two causes as listed above is what current science is about and the last two causes seem to have a religious dimension.
Splendid, sir. Exactly what it would mean.
I'm in your debt. G'day
I have to be honest. If I start to respond with inquiries on that paragraph, I will first ask what "freedom" is and how is it different from having your agency in the world physically present. I understand that there are physical laws that govern human beings, but that does not change the fact that they are separable as state. That is, what is the difference between having a mind of your own, and a physical state of your own. Do we need anything else that we get from transcendence - non-determinism, sense of investment, sense of involvement. Also, why is a deity needed, such that we can justify the existence of external factors, other then through intuition. I think that I am too skeptical, and I know that we differ in opinion in this regard.
Quoting Wayfarer
If reason is how things are, then why look for it beyond the things themselves? I don't oppose the idea that the world is divine, as in beyond our personal agency, but why look beyond it? We have to have some, apparently presently unmet, criteria for "ultimate reason", or otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this. Can you elaborate on what such "ultimate reason" would provide for us - fairness, peace, vindication of effort?
Those would be a great starting point. I’m commenting more on the widespread idea that science ‘knows’ or ‘proves’ or ‘shows’ that the Universe is purposeless. It almost amounts to folk wisdom nowadays, but it has no basis in philosophy.
What you are saying does make sense. I do believe that on a general people are similar. It does appear that most developing societies have developed some kind of spiritual beliefs, such as exemplified in religious beliefs of the Aboriginal people.Perhaps, this does show that there is some kind of innate need for some religious or spiritual belief system. It is also interesting to see how there are parallels and recurrence of themes in the various traditions of beliefs.
One relevant area for considering is the idea within Frazer's book, ' The Golden Bough', is the development from systems of magic, religion and science. It appears that we have reached all these stages of thinking. Perhaps science has more to offer. However, as long as human civilisation continues to exist, which is contentious in it's own right, we could ask, where do we go from here, what comes next in the evolution of consciousness?
I do think that myths can resonate on an archetypal level. However, I do see the danger you speak of about how charismatic leaders can use mythic constructs for their own ends. It is extremely dangerous when myths or religious ideas become 'the opium for the masses'. In that sense, it is extremely important that we hold on to our ability to think for ourselves. Of course, it is easy to retreat into forms of religious thinking to obliterate painful awareness. I prefer to think that rather than being brainwashed we can enter into our own symbolic quests, the journey of the shaman. Of course, that does come with perils but it is about discovering our own mythic truths.
Absolutely and I do not believe this was so before changing education and then removing legal motives to be better human beings, such as divorce laws that discouraged divorce and censorship policies and speaking of the duties that go with rights.
Last night I listened to a show about prisoners and how unjust our justice system is. At one time I thought I would be a probation officer so I studied our prisons and visited prisoners and wrote those further away. I was impressed by the youth and the fact that they were not prepared for life. One clearer said he looked forward to the rehabilitation that he thought our criminal justice was. One of the Netherland countries has an excellent rehabilitation system, so it is possible. Some of our prisons do educate prisoners and this key. In one prison the prisoners have a class and access to the classics and learning the concepts in the classics has been transformational.
My favorite word is "concept". We can only be as good as we know how to be and we should not take that for granted! We used to use the Conceptual Method for education that teaches children progressively more complex concepts, and we used literature to help them understand life.
Quoting Pantagruel
Yes and no. I love your explanation and with it, it is a yes! But you are speaking of complex concepts and we need to know the simpler concepts that go with the complex concept, as you did by explaining D and B.
When Jefferson wrote of the pursuit of happiness, he meant the pursuit of knowledge with the unquestioned concept that knowledge keeps us out of trouble and leads to fulfilling our higher-order desires. This goes with literacy in Greek and Roman classics and Cicero. And having self-control, as William James, explained, gives us freedom! Freedom! from being controlled by our lower urges that can make us as puppets on strings, and prevent us from actualizing ourselves as thinking human beings. Undeveloped people are not the masters of their lives that we become. Some may find happiness as you said, but many do not.
That thought does not lead to freedom and it does not support liberty and leads to authoritarianism. It leads to suffering, not happiness.
We can pursue spirituality without religion, I agree, but the reason I was asking about the value of myths is because I believe that the value is in reenforcing social truths, and social truths are necessarily social, so what role would they play in a individual pursuit? Perhaps it’s like art, where we can both discover and express ‘truths’ with others?
Of course you don’t, human knowledge is superficial, except for the human knowledge that we subscribe to. :lol:
I think we assume science and technology are the same thing. They are not. Human beings have always had technology but we did not always have science. Learning a technology does not improve our understanding of life and does not lead to wisdom as science greatly improves our understanding of life, moral judgment, and makes democracy as rule by reason possible. Technology does not lead to wisdom as science does. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. It is not the education of men.
Democracy with liberty and justice for all.
Which social truths are you thinking about? The reason I ask about that is because there are ones which are just about conformity. I definitely believe in communicating with others, and you say it's a bit like art, but I see art and the arts as one of highest forms of communication.
Trinity of the soul. The first part of that trinity dies when our bodies die. We are judged and may or may not enter the good life (heaven) and the third part of the soul trinity returns to the source, no matter what.
Spirit, how we feel. Our spirit can be up or down, angry or peaceful. The Spirit of America is a high morale, the feeling we get when we believe we are doing the right thing.
If that is not the result of philosophy it is not worth doing. :grin: What you said speaks of complex concepts, and truth often is this and that. I hate arguing with an argumentive person who treats the act of communication as a war to win rather than the path to enlightenment. Being put on the defensive is a sure way to end developing thought.
How do you justify that statement? It seems a little sour and dour to me? I really don't think my love of discovery and science is superficial, but rather what makes being alive so much fun. How much fun would the game of life be if we knew everything and there was nothing left to discover? I mean like, you just pissed in the wonderful hamburger and now no one wants to eat it. :vomit:
It isn't just about facts, but every much about our spirit.
Yeah, unless you're an Orwellian. As the song says
[i]"When you believe in things
That you don't understand,
Then you suffer ..."[/i]
:fire:
I like the dictionary definition of "Myth"
"A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
"ancient Celtic myths"
A myth is a story first and formost although it can relate to and refer to much greater complexities.
Also I have a suspician that in earier discussions of "myths" I have read there was lacking a firm awareness of the basic power of tradition. Tradition has always been the sole governing power of all societies up until the recent breakthrough invention of democracy by the Greeks. Tradition directed societies have no other source of direccion and control than their tradition they cling fanatically to their traditions because their loss would mean bloody chaos and death.
Thus a "traditional Myth". May become far more important to the a society than a mere myth.
Am I making any sense?
I think that we are in constant stories, some made by others and those made by others. We can be oppressed by them, or transform them into our own stories of empowerment. The mythic dimension is tapped into by the religious but even science involves a certain amount of myth: the missing link of Darwin's theory, neuroscience and so much more. We are in a constant web of fictive truths and knots, trying to find our way within the maze. Sometimes, it is enough to make me just want to crawl under my duvet, but I do believe that we have to get up, and transform our own lives into the best possible stories, of our own making.
I'm just curious about how or why anyone would utilize myths in an individual spiritual pursuit, basically.
I wish to suggest that the main idea which I think is central in the individual mythical and spiritual pursuit is that of transformation.
There needs to be a healthy relationship between knowledge and faith. Gnostic hopes of finding the secret concept that explains all life and makes the future perfect is a desire we unconscious have, but it doesn't seem to be to be consistent with faith being primary in life. Knowledge of faith is important and faith in knowledge can be misleading. There is a lot of moving parts in all of us, and the desire to find the concept that completely and permanently "settles the boat" is probably a pipe dream
Spinoza didn't believe in free will. When I was reading his Ethics at first I thought he was a compatibilist until he directly denied that any free will was real. I would guess Einstein was of the same frame of mind. This is indicated by his desire to fully understand God by finding a scientific "theory of everything". I see this as just Gnosticism
The Catholic Church at Vatican II said it respected most established religions, which means that the Church recognizes more good than bad in them now (in the past non-Christian religions were considered demonic). The Church is very negative about non-established religions however. An example of this is when John Paul II said Buddhism, although "atheist", had a lot of good in it, but then went on to say that the New Age is all bad. Gnosticism has a lot of individually about it, and it is this that the Church is against. The Church can stomach an established religion that denies the Church a divine mandate, but it has problems with individuality, andperhaps rightly.
Interestingly, John Paul II in 1986 had an inter-faith summit in Assisi, wherein he prayed along-side leaders and members of the other world religions. He repeated this in 1993 and 2002, and Pope Benedict also presided over one in 2011. "The Community of Sant’Egidio" organizes inter-faith prayer events every year, and were behind Pope Francis's own one in 2016
My point is that the relationship between two established religions is different from the dynamics involved in the conflict between established faith and individuality
We can learn from stories and in a sense be transformed by them in that way. Stories can also reinforce prejudices or influence us in other ways that we may not be entirely aware of, and transform us that way. I suppose that something like a Zen koan could be viewed as a myth that has the potential to transform us in a transcendent way. Not sure what you're suggesting exactly.
When I attended Catholic church services there was more of an emphasis on the ecumenical movement between the Christian churches than with other religions in sermons.When at university, I attended services, I went to services in different denominations and encountered a lot of moral panic about the whole idea of the 'new age.' movement.
I am not sure what to make of the idea of a new world order. I do think that there are ideas around about world governance, and I am suspicious of these. It does sound like a whole picture of centralised control. One movement which I am aware of is that of Share International, which was founded by Benjamin Creme, and seemed to propose the idea of a one world government. Personally, I think that there is a lot going on behind the scenes which we don't know about and that worries me.
The whole idea of transformation which I am talking about is ways we can work on ourselves, including meditations practices and seek out achieve states of peak experiences for ourselves, rather than just follow rituals.
After world war 2 the ideal of a global government gained traction in the Catholic Church and Paul VI wanted the United Nations to be that government. The Popes since Paul VI also speak out for a New world Order, but it's now unclear which political body would take this role. There is a lot stuff behind the scenes of course which we don't see
I don't like discussion to be like wars, as you probably know from my whole thread about people wishing to be right. I do see us as all experimenting with ideas and a certain point of argument seems important to tease out the ideas fully. However, when it all comes down to people becoming really defensive, I end up feeling rather demoralised and depressed. After all, we are just trying to use ideas to serve us and I don't like it to be the other way round. Of course, often religious people have seen the battle being about fighting for the ideas, especially in the Christian tradition it was often viewed as the war of good against evil.
I see that you mentioned the writer Gary Lachman in one of your posts. I have read a number of books by him and was very impressed by him. He was in the band, Blondie, and married to the lead singer, Debbie Harry, as well. The books which I read by him were on Jung, Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, Colin Wilson and one on secret teachers within the Western world. Have you read much in the esoteric tradition?
You won't find that answer until you die
And myths may facilitate this in the ways I mentioned, if not other ways? I'm still curious about exactly what you're talking about. For instance, it isn't clear if you mean consuming or studying the myths of others or generating your own myths. If the latter, how would generating myths lead to peak experiences?
I do agree that the central question is what happens when we die and I have engaged in discussion on that topic on this thread. Really, I see it as about the most important question in philosophy, more so than the existence of God, because if there is life after death it will affect us beyond this life, independent of whether or not there is a God.
I find it hard to come to a solid conclusion. So much does seem to involve the body and mind question in philosophy. I am interested in the whole issue of near death experiences but don't think they can be taken at face value because the person was not dead permanently.I would like to believe in reincarnation too, but just because I like the idea doesn't necessarily mean that I think it is necessarily true. What do you think about life after death?
I probably mean entering into mythic dimensions in the arts, in experiencing it or creating it. I read a lot of fiction, including fantasy and in listening to music, mostly alternative music. When I listen to music I usually lie in the dark and visualise to it. I have also experimented in trying to use what Jung describes as 'active imagination', in making art. That involves trying to find symbolism from the subconscious in drawing or painting, sometimes with music. I haven't done it recently but would like to do more of this.
I do believe that everything is energy, which is consistent with the new physics and shamanism.I have read quite a bit about shamanism and the writings of Carlos Castaneda. I have heard that Castaneda's writings were probably fiction, but they still are an interesting perspective on reality.
I think I have to take a break for tonight. It's my first day on this website :D
Yes, I will probably interact with you again. It is easy to be up in the night on this site, and I often get up and read messages in the night, which is probably not a very good idea.
Life force: Leibniz
Elan Vital: Bergson
Ashe: African philosophy
Qui: Confucian
Tao: Daoism
Prakriti+Purusha: India
These are all the same I suspect
Sounds more like self-discovery/expression than conscious or deliberate transformation.
I see things very differently. Deliberate practice in meditation to relieve general and existential anxiety, and to 'depattern' the mind. Deliberate practice in art to build skill in self-expression. A good practice in creativity is letting your imagination wonder, I think, and tap into the subconscious.
Independently of the whole question of world governance, I do think that there is a lot of recurrence between the ideas, as your equation show. Perhaps what is interesting is the whole division between the exoteric and the esoteric. Really, I have taken more interest in the esoteric side of religion than what the main leaders like the Vatican have to say. However, I think I am logging off for tonight because I am really tired, but if you write a reply to this, I will respond tomorrow.
Sleep well
Prakriti can be seen as yin and Purusa as yang. Indians call their unity Ayus. For most esoteric believers the body has gender but the soul at its higher levels is above gender distinction. This actually seems like a common Eastern idea
Spinoza's argument against free will was not to say there was nothing to be done about changing one's experience and of those around you. Consider the following proposition:
I got up again, because I couldn't sleep, as usual.
One idea which I am familiar with about the gender of the soul is Jung's representation. Everyone has an anima and an animus side to the psyche, which is similar to the idea of yin and yang.The anima, which is the female aspect, is often projected by males onto females as lovers, and the animus, the male part in females is often projected onto males as lovers. This probably works a bit differently in gay and bisexual people. There is a similar idea to the anima in males expressed as the idea of the muse.
I see meditation as more of a process of attaining higher states of consciousness.I have also experimented a little with astral projection, or rather, I had some out of body experiences accidentally and decided to work with this more.
Art and the arts can be about self expression, but it can also be about entering into different states of consciousness and that is where it is more shamanic. The shamans did sometimes use stimulating herbs, but there are other ways to stimulate this including certain music.
Spinoza's expressed position on freewill was based on his understanding of Cause & Effect Determinism, for which he saw no gaps. (But he may not have been familiar with Pascal's statistical & probabilistic definition of Chance) Anyway, in lieu of religious consolation, perhaps he found contentment in philosophical freedom of imagination. However, in my Enformationism thesis, the inherent randomness of natural events allows a small degree of freedom for the human Will to act as a Cause. I have several blog posts to explain how I arrived at that conclusion.
Let me know, if you are interested in my variant of Compatibilism : Conditional or Contingent Freedom Of Will (via Veto). Only the Creator or Cause of the world system would have Absolute freedom to deviate from the inevitable chain of cause & effect. But, any broken links in the chain would seem to be a self-contradiction of He/r expressed Will in the program for evolution. Unless, of course, the Programmer intended for some creatures to have the power to make moral choices : by taking advantage of random deviations from determinism.
Einstein, likewise, saw no loopholes for exceptions to inevitable Causation. But he also didn't seem to believe in classical Fatalism. Perhaps the mere illusion of freedom was enough to give him some comfort in his prison cell. FWIW, Albert called himself an "Agnostic". :smile:
He was also an incompatibilist; in 1932 he said: I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein
Conscious-will could thus affect the outcome of the volitional process even though the latter was initiated by unconscious cerebral processes. Conscious-will might block or veto the process, so that no act occurs.The existence of a veto possibility is not in doubt.
___Benjamin Libet, the 'freewill' experiment
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/551587e0e4b0ce927f09707f/t/57b5d269e3df28ee5e93936f/1471533676258/Libet%2C+Do+We+Have+Free+Will%3F.pdf
Yes, the actual work is where the rubber meets the road.
In the Taoist practices (which I am more familiar with than the Zen), that element is strongly emphasized but also is in a complicated dialogue with ethics that want to define obligations and values in unambiguous statements. Accepting uncertainty does not locate oneself in a map of certainty.
But I take the point that the "intellectual" is not self sufficient.
Don't recall if they're shamanic but there are techniques where just the breath is used. Anyway, never heard of art to induce different states of consciousness. I often experience [i]flow[/I] (sometimes referred to as a peak experience, I think) while painting or other creative things but that doesn't sound like what you're talking about.
It is quite interesting that you do paint because not that many people do. If you do get peak experiences while doing so that is important in it's own right, and you probably don't need to worry about shamanic techniques.
I'm not worried about shamanic techniques, :grin: I'm curious about how art can be about entering into different states of consciousness. Maybe I'm taking you too litterally?
Maybe this observation belongs on a more Spinoza specific thread but the determinism relates to how something is either caused by itself or by something not itself. That is quite different from viewing the matter as whether one can insert a cause between other causes. The point of "God" not being able to do it is pointing to a structural problem with the question more than offering an opinion about what is possible.
I don't think the discussion among the Plato and Aristotle people about natures is relevant to gender questions. I'm a nominalist and a body just is what it is. I define a male as he who is masculine in their soul and normally becomes female in love. A female is the reverse. A transsexual or hermaphrodite is defined, not by their bodies, but by the masculine or feminine nature of their souls. I imagine that all people born with male bodies are male, ect. The female form, when compared to the male, is nature's model of the soul. Daoists have a practice where they punch the penis at one of several pplaces and force the semen back into their body (and into the bladder). This way they do not lose yang but instead get yin from their sex partner. Obviously they aren't fully turning on their anima but maybe it is a wise practice. I don't know anything however about Indian tantra
Ye if you have an article on compatabilism do link it for me. It's one of my favorite topics. I've had threads on it
What gives us meaning differs between people. Most are happy with what the world provides since IMO they repress the deeper needs of the heart and often find themselves winning the world but losing their souls. As a result, they age feeling empty. Can we admit that meaning is relative and our God is meaning. But suppose meaning is not found in the world; can a person with the help of society awaken to the needs of the heart? Is the purpose of modern society to indoctrinate or to awaken? How can it help us to awaken? Can philosophy help us to realistically feel what is called the human condition and why we are as we are?
Simone Weil wrote "The Need for Roots" as she was in the hospital with TB. France was recovering from the war and was concerned how it can recover.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith
[i]There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men..................................[/i]
She offers a beginning. We must distinguish between the facts of science and the values which enter the essence of Man from a higher conscious source beyond the limitations of Plato's cave. She suggests that it is through the influence of certain minority already able to receive from above which makes it possible, They make it possible for the being of Man and scientific knowledge to become balanced and complimentary
Can Man open to receive this influence or is he doomed to lose it as his being deteriorates into fragmentation and becomes lost in the trees forgetting the needs and reality of the forest?
This is the human problem as I understand it. Can society become able to serve the normal urge for conscious evolution or is it doomed to further the devolution of the being of Man? Perhaps conscious evolution is not possible for society but only possible for individuals.
For all but the very, very few, the intellectual is a snare in many different ways. First, it warms you with wonderful thoughts of oneness with all The Universe, and then brings the hammer down as you get caught once again in the revolving door of life and death.
As wonderfully meaningful and poetic are the teachings of, The Dao, one must completely let it go and instead embrace it's essence lest you go down the rabbit hole of infinite duality...
Reading Zhuangzi, the release from duality is becoming more circumspect about saying what essence may be of anything. And thus all the jokes told to signal all the effort to point this out breaks the rule they seek to establish.
Yes. That's two different ways of looking at Causation and Determinism. Animals are differentiated from inanimate objects by their ability to cause themselves to move. But that's not much of a philosophical issue. The debatable question is whether the animal can make moral choices. For example, most animals seem to follow the First Commandment of "thou shalt not kill thine own kind". Predators sometimes fight amongst themselves, but seldom actually kill their rivals. But is that moral restraint built into their genes, or is it a situational choice? We can only guess about their motives. Bet humans can tell us why they did what they did. And they can lie about it. Yet few of us would admit to ourselves that "the devil made me do it". We tend to accept responsibility for our positive actions, and deny being self-caused in the case of negative or immoral acts.
However, a God is assumed to be able to do anything that is logically possible. So, the creator of this world might be faced with a choice : a> build a mechanical world that always does exactly what it is programmed to do (efficient, but boring!), or b> create a smoothly-running world that evolves into an uncertain & interesting future. Option could be achieved by merely adding an element of randomness to the mechanism of option . The latter is what we see in Darwinian Evolution : a continuous chain of Cause & Effect, but with statistically probable effects, instead of absolutely certain consequences.The Freewill vs Determinism debate would be a waste of time, if our world was completely determined or absolutely random. But it seems to be a delicately balanced blend of both. Hence, evolution makes a Natural Selection between the options presented by random changes. And humans make their own artificial selections between forks in the moral highway, based not on chance, but on personal preferences. Randomness is the "structural problem" in an otherwise flawless machine for replication of identical clones.
With those alternatives in mind, I have created my own personal theory of FreeWill within Determinism. It's not based on any particular religious doctrine, or philosophical authority. It's also grounded on neither Theist nor Atheist assumptions, but on a moderate philosophical position. This theory is how I justify the assumption that my socially significant choices are free-enough to make me morally responsible, and morally laudable. :cool:
Evolution -- a game of chance : https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/evolution-a-game-of-chance-observations/ .
Rationalism versus Fatalism : Freewill Within Determinism
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page67.html
My discussion of Jung's ideas about anima and animus was not meant to be a discussion of gender, as construed in the modern world. Jung's ideas were never developed in that context at all, but more in the context of ideas such as Taoism, Plato and other philosophers. He was speaking of the psyche in a philosophical sense.
You suggest that conscious evolution is not possible for society but for the individual. Perhaps what may be true is that in past times it was only possible for rare individuals to explore conscious evolution. It could be that with education and technology, that it is becoming possible for more and more people to begin and pursue this possibility. Of course, it is far more than just a matter of having information. It requires a lot of time and energy. I do wonder if the period of self-isolation for great numbers at the present time could give rise to many going in that direction, as a possibility.
I am not sure if you are taking me too literally, in talking about art leading into other dimensions. With or without, I do feel as if there are other dimensions. It could be the idea of parallel universes spoken by scientists. However, I do believe that there are other dimensions, which do exist and it is from this that ideas and images arise in the first place. I do think that the mythical ideas arise on this level.
I know that many people believe in four, of five dimensions, at least. The fourth includes time and there is the one of intersubjective experience, as well as the imagination. Carl Jung spoke of the importance of dreams and those coming from the collective unconscious. I do believe that the idea of the collective unconscious is useful for thinking about as a source from which images and stories evolve.
You maybe right but I doubt whether there is a well-defined line of demarcation between the two. To my reckoning, the fact of the two being, in a sense, out of phase - technology preceding science - has no bearing on what many have acknowledged viz. that at the heart of every piece of tech we've invented lies a scientific principle. Take for example the wheel - it's a good way to get around the problem of friction.
Not when they are beautiful things because it is as we make it and when we believe in beautiful things that is what we make.
Sure there is science behind technology, but when the science is not known it doesn't matter. It matters a lot when the science is known. That is when we step away from superstition and realize our power to overcome evil.
We have culture wars in the US between those who trust in science and those who don't. There are real consequences to this, such as over a million avoidable deaths, and a huge avoidable economic problem resulting from following a leader who lies to us, and I am blown away that someone who lies to us can be very popular. But it is more than this. It also involves having faith in what we can achieve, or faith in supernatural beings of good and evil, and rushing to self-destruction like lemmings rushing over a cliff. It is a barbaric criminal justice system, versus a correction system that actually corrects the problem. So much changes with science that I think the difference is important. Technology without wisdom is a very dangerous thing. Our morality is higher with science and our reality can be very bad without it.
Quoting 180 Proof
For sure, the notion that we can fly is making up shit, right?
The notion of evil is curious to me. Doesn't it go with a belief in a supernatural being of evil and demons? I can see a big problem with ignorance and things like drinking from a polluted well spreading disease, but what is evil? Do we need a concept of evil or will the notion of ignorance service?
As someone who works as a creative (graphic designer) I can say that the general formula for creative ideas is to saturate yourself with material related to the design problem, put the problem aside for a while to let the subconscious do its work, and then brainstorm. If other dimensions are involved in that process I’m completely unaware of it.
Do you accept the possibility that perennial philosophy has always existed? Those who do believe that conscious evolution is not the result of learning anything new but rather remembering what has been forgotten. Why it has been forgotten and why the world struggles against remembering is another question. The seeker of truth defies the world by making the necessary efforts for remembering.
The education and technology of the world actually increases the acquired tendency to forget since they are not included within a conscious perspective but just the mechanical reactions normal for organic life on earth responding to earthly and cosmic influences. Life in the jungle for example is not a conscious action but rather an orderly mechanical reaction following the cycles of life supporting the earth. It is the same with society as a whole explained in Ecclesiastes 3.
The needs of the earth supplied by the transformation of substances along with acquired habits including those of animal Man sustain the acquired needs of the earth.
Yet there is something in Man which didn't arise from the earth but rather has descended from above. It has the need to live and to consciously evolve. It is this seed of the soul so to speak that the energy or essence or unsecularized religion is directed at. Only a few in the modern age of technology and education can have a need strong enough to "remember" and question imaginary progress while remembering and opening to the human potential for conscious evolution
Thank you for that contribution. :clap: The similarity between Spinoza and Hinduism and Buddhism has been noticed by many. I find your post quite agreeable with my own thinking.
I think if we all knew Eastern thought, we might see an end to religious wars because to me it makes perfect sense.
And if we consider the gods to be concepts, instead of supernatural beings, then there is no problem with pantheism. Civilizations with a pantheon of gods created more and more gods as they realized new concepts. This got out of control, resulting in Amenhotep IV's grandfather ordering a search of the archives for the true god, and Amenhotep IV then declaring there is only one god and attempting to end the worship of other gods. Which I explain to support my opinion of gods being concepts. We also have knowledge of the Greeks inventing gods as they needed them, and changing the nature of Athena when Athens became a democracy.
I am not sure of Buddhism but both Lao Tsu and Confucius believed in and extolled "The Basic Goodness of Man."
Confucius was by far the most day to day practical of the phrofets.
I think that I might be able to make a strong case for the fact that "Morals exist genetically in the human mind and were installed there by the forces of natural selection and evolution perhaps a quarter of a million years ago.
I think that most people who do just adhere to religious beliefs still believe in the existence of evil but they do not see it in exactly the same way, as the devil, but real, nevertheless. It does seem that most secular philosophers still see a basic duality between good and evil. Mill saw human beings as having higher and lower pleasures. T Huxley, who was an agnostic saw conflict and destructiveness as problems.
In the psychoanalytic perspective saw the tension between Eros and Thanatos. These were the life and death forces, but, to some extent to some extent his whole notion of the death instinct seems a bit like evil because it is about destructiveness. He sees life as being about instincts, with the superego being like conscience, with ego mediating between the two.
Perhaps complexes are like inner demons.
Jung certainly saw complexes as being like demons arising from the unconscious. Of course, I am aware that whether to rank Jung as falling into the religious or secular is highly debatable in itself because he wrote so much about religion and evil, and in some places he writes as if he is outside of religion and critical of it, but, at times, he writes as though he is coming from a religious perspective, as expressed in his famous interview quote, 'I don't believe in God, I know.' In some ways, he seems to come from a Gnostic perspective. He was involved in a lot of dialogue with a theologian, Victor White, about the whole problem of evil. Essentially, he seemed to side with the view of evil as a real force, as in contrast to one Christian perspective that evil is simply the absence of good. This was all documented by White in a book, 'God and the Unconscious.'
However, my main point is that it is not necessary to believe in God in order to believe in the existence of evil. That is not to say that all philosophers in the secular tradition necessarily believe in the existence of evil as a force. It is an area worth researching. I would be surprised if many believe in literal demons. Probably a lot of esoteric Eastern philosophers do believe in them. I know that many in the theosophical tradition do.
.
But what about current children's myths? Do any exist in competition with TV? A modern child hearing of Peter and the wolf would think: Why weren't the parent in jail for child neglect?
Do you personally know any myths?
I am sorry if it appears that the discussions seem to focus on Christianity. That is certainly not my intention and I would like it to involve many other traditions. I am interested in the whole area of comparative religion, but more familiar with Christianity because that is the background in which I was raised. I would love people to discuss the other religions and atheist perspective, because this dialogue would be fantastic. Feel welcome to input any ideas of your own because I have certainly not wished to create a thread which is focusing completely on Christianity.
I just saw your comment to Athena about myths. This is a fascinating area, touched on briefly so far. It will be interesting to hear Athena's view, but I think it would be helpful if you spoke a bit more about the myths you grew up with, because I was mostly brought up with the Christian ones, so I am interested in your experience.
Thank you for considering the passage. I think the latter parts of the Ethics address the William James perspective more directly than the first parts.
I am leery of viewing traditions of thought as systems that complete the expression of specific concepts. Taken to a certain point, that would be to say there is only one concept that can translate all others.
In regards to Spinoza, I find the consideration of his work as a conversation with Maimonides to be illuminating. Spinoza was expelled from the Jewish community but he did not expel them from his. He was also keen in his opposition to the religious wars raging amongst his Christian contemporaries.
It could be tht you are commenting on what Kierkegaard called Christendom or man made Christianity. Christianity as I understand it is a perennial tradition meaning its essence always was. Naturlly secular influences devolves it into its opposite.
The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian. -ST. AUGUSTINE, Retractiones
For Christianity to retain its value and avoid being secularized, it must be discussed in private for those who have already begun to "remember." Othewise it devolves and becomes a part of secular society.
I am inclined to spend loads of time thinking about questions, but in writing I think it is important to experiment with lines of thinking. Certainly, I am not trying to say that I have the answers. But I am open to you raising any questions which really stand out because these forum debates do allow for such useful dialogue, so much more than thinking alone.
It is interesting to hear that you are a graphic designer. I thought about training in that when I left school but decided to follow other studies, but I have pursued art to a lesser extent in certain ways and from a different angle. I used to illustrate a poetry magazine at university, and did do an evening course in illustration, which was focused on the technical aspect of drawing and painting. However, I did go on to do some study of art therapy and that is where I probably began thinking about getting in touch with the symbolic dimension, especially as I did undertake personal therapy with a Jungian therapist. So that forms the background to the approach I come from. Also, I was in discussions about exploring other dimensions in art on a thread about whether art was creative about 2 months ago.
But, probably my basic idea is that of tuning into the collective unconscious. Do you believe in the collective unconscious? This is probably where it fits into the discussion with myth, because these involve archetypes, and these are also central to the narratives within the various religious traditions.
I definitely believe that there has always been some kind of perennial philosophy in existence because human beings do need to find meaning. There is a great need for answers. You are right to say that in the jungle people were far more aware of rhythms and cycles. We have been taking modern life for granted and grumble if the transport is behind schedule or even if the Wifi does not work as we expect. It is so easy for us in this technological age to lose sight of wisdom.
It is interesting that you should speak of the idea of 'descended from above'. In some perennial accounts, including that of Blavatsky, there is the idea that evolution in that way. Rather than human beings having descended from apes there is the idea of the first human beings as angelic beings who were with more subtle bodies, and how after the fall of Atlantis, fell into the gross bodies. Blavatsky and others have developed these ideas and there is the whole 'new age' myth of the process of 'ascension.' I went through a period of reading books on this which suggested that human beings could ascend again to the state of the human beings prior to the fall of Atlantis. However, I am aware that there is very little evidence for its historical existence.
It is possible to get carried away with these myths but it does present a radical alternative way of seeing than we are accustomed to and it does give some hint of a possibility of conscious evolution. It is hard to know what the idea of conscious evolution does mean exactly. I have read a little of Henri Bergson.
Also, I do believe that the majority of human beings only use a very tiny part of human potential. Here, I can even mention another mythic idea in 'new age' thought, the idea of DNA activation. I have been to the mind, body and spirit festivals in London, in which there are workshops offering this. It is based on the assumption that people only use 2 strands of DNA and the rest is known in science as junk DNA, but it is not really junk at all. The workshops were about enabling additional strands of DNA to be activated to release untapped potential. But I won't go on any further as it will probably sound like gobbledegook to many reading it. But, it is an alternative way of seeing to conventional narratives. Generally, I do think that the whole new age movement draws upon the mythical ideas of perennial wisdom.
Is there any evidence that Jung was anything more than a crank? There is absolutely no evidence for any of his ideas (which I studied formally some years ago). Why would you be preoccupied by other dimensions when evidence for them is scant and there is no reason to believe, even if they can be imagined, that they matter to us at all.
I think that the better question would be is what evidence do you have to suggest that Jung was a 'crank'? I think it is difficult to measure his ideas and probably the only way you could do this would be to measure the way in which his ideas or Jungian therapy have a positive impact on people's lives.
Really, the reason why I brought in his idea of the collective unconscious was because it is seen as a useful construct for thinking about recurrent themes and symbols, underlying myths and religious narratives. Do you know of any better way for considering them?
Jack, I remember reading once that rat poison is 98% good corn. It is that 2% that gets them. Many worthwhile ideas begin with good intentions but natural laws designed to turn actions in circles and sustain creation will turn a lot of ideas including new age thought into its opposite. How could Christianity be corrupted into the Spanish Inquisition? It is the result of animaIistic reacting to natural laws.
You've mentioned your interest in what the Devil means.
[i]Revelations 13: 11-18
11. And I beheld another beast rising out of the earth;
it had two horns like a lamb, and spoke as a dragon.
[12. And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him,
and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast,
whose deadly wound was healed.]
13. And he did great wonders, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all,
14. By the wonders it had power to do in behalf of the beast,
it deceived the inhabitants of the earth,
telling them to make an image to the beast,
which had the wound by a sword, and yet lived.
15. And it had power to give breath to the image of the beast,
that the image of the beast should both speak,
and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.
16. And it caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave,
to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17. That none could buy or sell, who did not have the mark:
the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding calculate the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.[/i]
If the number of the Beast is a Man's number 666, it makes the Beast Man. What is this power which gives breath to the Beast assuring none could buy and sell without it? Is this the effect of the personality of the Beast created by technology and the internet? Those who do not worship the image of the Beast could be killed. Is society moving closer to losing itself and demanding worship of the Beast?
Conscious evolution begins with acquiring the ability for conscious attention as opposed to directed attention. This enables a person to become free of unnecessary laws and habits and open to receive help from above to awaken. Absolute conscious attention is prayer. It requires getting out of our own shallow way and asking from the depth of our being.
Jung was a 'psychologist' whose interest in myth ran away with him. His collective unconscious idea has rarely been taken seriously except by artists who use it in many ways because it feels right to them. It is no different to astrology - which persists despite the evidence. Jordan Peterson has made Jung popular again in some circles.
It's not unusual for bad or false ideas have a positive impact on people's lives, that doesn't mean this is a good thing.
What makes you think it is necessary to try to classify or group together myths in the first place? What precisely does this provide you?
Your answer seems to be a rather literal interpretation of the 'Book of Revelation.' I don't come from that angle. That was how I thought when I began university, but I see things in a much wider way. I do think that we are at a critical juncture in history but I don't interpret it all in a Biblical way.
The reason I believe it is important to understand myths is to understand the recurrence of themes underlying religious experience. I don't think that any one religious belief system has the whole picture of truth. However, I do think that the questions underlying religions are a central human need and are of importance. I don't think that there are any absolute answers but I do not that these issues are central to philosophy and for living.
People often get lost in comparative religion and see what they want to see. Given that the subject is crammed with vagueness and deepities and unverifiable premises and centuries of symbolism and ambiguities, how exactly will you tell good from bad and what are you hoping to get from this?
Not sure what you mean by the 'whole area of religious thinking' not sure such an area exists. Maybe you mean the common or general discourse on religion and spirituality. But is that in fact an accurate account? Fundamentalists abound in all areas - from economics to religion. There are many more nuanced discussions on theism and atheism e.g., David Bentley Hart for one.
My aim in starting the debate was to break down the divide between the religious and the atheists and I think that the whole field of comparative religion enables clearer possibility of this. You speak of the danger of getting lost, but, my genuine view is that I see the mythical perspective of understanding religion as the one that makes sense to me, because I don't see it as completely false or true.
I have just seen your latest response and perhaps it is religious fundamentalism which I find oppressive, but there are so many fundamentalists. Perhaps, I am an agnostic, but I do have sympathy with the underlying message of Christ and the Buddha.
Fair enough. Fundamentalists are monomaniacs and it is generally beyond our capacity to address this, whether it be political fundamentalists or Jungian versions :smile: . Once a person is fully infected by a doctrine, they see the world entirely in those terms and anything which contradicts their 'certainty' is viewed with rancour. These sorts of monomaniacs are pretty common on discussion forums. The irony is, to be human is to dismiss ideas that don't work. In this activity we all need to take care not to become the kind of shrill pest I described.
Lao Tzu. Witter Bynner
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: "we did it ourselves".
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu
When the natural goodness of man fails, written codes of morality will flourish, When written codes of morality fail, Laws and Lawyers will fourish.
Here he is unknowingly describing the advent of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years age.
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.
If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.
Lao Tzu
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
Lao Tzu
Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.
Lao Tzu. When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.
Lao Tzu
To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.
Lao Tzu
The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days. (Particularly If you learn to integrate intuition and logic into the conscious mind which I do frequently as an artist.)
Lao Tzu
Notice his back handed slap at gods.
I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.
Lao Tzu
He who does not trust enough will not be trusted.
As it is represented in the text, none of those outcomes are necessary. Observing the progression is to suggest another movement is possible.
Otherwise, why bother? Who wants the inevitability of their futility described in excruciating detail?
Yes, I do find approaches such as Taoism more easy to take on board, but I do find my views hop around from one view to another, which is why I gravitate towards comparative religion. Really, I am constantly thinking up more and more questions. Perhaps I have philosophy disease.
the whole world belongs to you. Lao Tzu. Witter Bynner
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Lao Tzu. Witter Bynner
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.
If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.
When the natural goodness of man fails, written codes of morality will flourish, When written codes of morality fail, Laws and Lawyers will fourish.
Lao Tzu
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
Lao Tzu
Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.
Lao Tzu When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.
Lao Tzu
To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.
Lao Tzu
The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days. (Particulary if you are able to integrate intuition and logic in the conscious mind as I do routinely as an artist.)
Lao Tzu
I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.
Lao Tzu
He who does not trust enough will not be trusted.
I suppose it's about different levels of experimental rigor. The birth of technology was driven by experimentation yes but these experiments were crude and simply consisted of feeling less tired when rolling something (wheel) than when sliding it (more friction), a similar argument can be made for other ancient technologies that existed before science became a formal discipline. On the other hand science, after it took its present form whenever that was, has as an absolute requirement that experiments meet a certain set of criteria that are designed to not only prove a point but also to reveal the principles of the phenomenon being studied.
Thank you for inputting the quotes from Lao Tzu. I definitely didn't set up this thread for it to be one to be dominated by Christian thought. So, when I had a long quote from the Bible, about "the beast and 666' late at night I felt really unnerved. At a couple of points in my life this aspect of religious thinking made me begin to get unwell mentally. Even now, I do get a bit 'wobbly' if people start to preach to me.
I suppose that by starting this thread I was likely to get a certain amount of 'preaching'. Some of the responses have been good, but I am a bit disappointed that there has been less constructive dialogue. Apart from brief discussion about Buddhism, there has been little discussion about other religions. I am personally extremely interested in other views, ranging from Hinduism to Jainism. It could be that people on the forum do see religion mainly about the big divide between believing in God or not, in the conventional way. Or, it could be that people who fall outside of this, just avoid the religious threads. I was not looking for some kind of watered down discussion but some more diverse and independent thinking.
:up:
All science exists inside human brains and inside human writings and exist in no other place in the known universe.
Is religeon primarily concerned with human Morals? Or primarily with religeous Ritual? Or primarily concened with advice about mundane concerns of day to day living? Or primarily concerned with group activities such as Bingo games or picnics? Or economics? Or all of the above in equal amounts?
It’s primary purpose is to bind groups in common values and teleology. It’s all about the tribe and all other concerns are secondary. This is why religious folk aren’t uncommonly virtuous, or particularly good and offering mundane advice, but have a good turnout at bingo night.
What if we are all crewmen on the Ship of Fools from many paths who have taken over the ship? They argue over who knows the way home. They are all equal in ignorance at the exoteric level. Does anyone from any authentic path initiated by a conscious source know the way home? Who on the ship recognizes the North Star so knows the way home. Are their such people and will they be killed for questioning the mutineers?
Plato's Ship of Fools
In the Republic, book vi, Plato describes the following scene:
"Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the steering --every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?" [Translated by Benjamin Jowett]
The Advaita Vedenta school is a non-dualist school of Indian thought that is very interesting. "Darshanas" means philosophy in India, while "Jnana" means knowledge gained through philosophy.
Some in Hinduism speak of the nirguna God, which has 3 attributes: sat (existence), chit (consciousness), and ananda (bliss). We are to merge with him. My reading of Buddhist theology says only ananda is real and that we must merge with bliss. However I got in trouble earlier for talking about Buddhism and "lack of substance", so..
The Hinduism that arose about the time of Jesus speaks of the saguna of God, the many infinite attributes. Everything from love-making to cooking is "like unto God", or really his essense (in a sense)
One last point:
The great Persian Sufi Mansur al-Hallaj was killed in Baghdad in 922 for uttering "I am the Truth" and since truth was one of the 99 names of God in Islam they took him to mean he thought he was God. Interestingly, Jesus may have been speaking merely about his immanent divinity as well, not that he was the Son of God in the way Christians understand that
I do think that we are probably like a load of crewmembers on a ship of fools. I prefer you quoting Plato to the Bible. I am rather sensitive about ideas such as the beast and 666. This probably goes back to groups of evangelicals who used to try to tell me that the music I was listening to was the work they the devil etc. Even before that, as an early teenager I got in such a state over the passage in the Bible over the unpardonable sin, which is the mysterious sin of 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit'. One of the reasons I am such a fan of Jung is because I discovered through reading his autobiography when I was in sixth form that he worried that this. Later, I read that Kierkergaard worried about it too.
Religion, especially Christianity, can create such fear and I have known people, including friends, who have experiences religious psychosis. I have come across people who have believed they were the Antichrist. I am glad that I never developed that delusion. However, I do have a certain sensitivity like I felt a bit anxious when I came to write my number 666 post on this forum, and fortunately it wasn't about anything particularly contentious.
I am not really opposed to Christianity at all, just find it conjures up so much fear, but I feel so really stressed if I go into an old church. The new ones don't seem so bad, because so much light seems to come through the windows whereas I get such a sense of the uncanny in the old ones. One could say that perhaps I should not have written a thread about religion if I have such a sense of fear, but I do think that we do not to face our fears. But I did get worked up when I got the quote about the beast of revelation.
Aside from issues about religion, in other threads there is quite a lot of thinking that we are coming to the end of a cycle, if not the end of civilisation. However, I do think that the fundamentalist Christians are too literalistic in their interpretation of the Bible. I am genuinely sympathetic to most belief systems, including atheism, because it is a tenable form of thinking. But, you are right to say that we are like crew on a ship of fools and I realise that you are just someone finding your way as well, so I am not annoyed with you, and I am interested in Simone Weil's ideas.
It is interesting to see some input on Hindu and Buddhist ideas. I am saying that not just from my own issues but also thinking about how this reads when people log into the thread, especially if someone is new to the forum. My aim with the thread is not just to sort out my own concerns but for the thread to be the most possible open minded and broad discussion, taking in diverse approaches. I can't believe that I am the only person on the forum who has struggled with worries about religion because there is so much overlap between religion and philosophy questions.
The aspect of Hinduism you have presented is new to me because I have only read about the Theravada school of it, as there are so many traditions. I have read some books on Buddhism, but once again there are many schools, and so much written about it. Sufism is the area of Islam that interests me and I would like to read on it. The main writer who I have read on the comparative religion is Ninian Smart.
I do believe that you are right in saying that Jesus was speaking about his imminent divinity, and I don't think that he was saying that he was the Son of God, as the only one son.
I think that you are right to speak of the social dimension to religion. This can be about rituals and community life. The rituals around baptism, marriage and funerals play such importance for so many people. I also know that for many Hindus the marriage ceremony is not just a day but much longer, perhaps up to a fortnight. Rituals are such a major part of life for people and often people who would not go to church ordinarily go for these. I once went to a funeral for someone who did not have any religious beliefs. It took place in a church, but without any prayers at all and it seemed so stark.
So many people do rely on church for social life. I went to the youth club at my church a few times, but I didn't really enjoy it. A lot of people even go to church events to find potential marriage partners. It is such a feature of community life and one which is unavailable to people currently. At present, in England, churches can open but there are restrictions on the numbers. A lot of people are attending church services by Zoom, and whoever would have imagined virtual reality church services.
Unanswerable questions. Depends on the religion, the country, the culture, the individual.
Just some thoughts I had
Of course, it is true that all kinds are wars have been fought in the name of religion. We have the whole history of fighting for Christendom. As well as that, we have the terrorism, such as the tension and Catholicism and Protestantism in Ireland. There has been the whole tension between the Christian dominated countries and the Islamic nations, although that may have been about oil too. As well, we have the Islamic terrorists and the war against that. One could go on and on.
We could say that violence and war is a problem for human beings generally, but certainly we can see that religion has given rise to it in many ways. However, this is in contradictions to the ideas of the founders, such as Jesus's message of turning the other cheek. There is also the contrasting approach, of non violent protest, as expressed by Mahatma Gandhi.
Don't forget that many forms of Christianity do not accept the idea of a devil or demons or any of the cartoon violence in Revelation. For many Christian theologians the Bible is allegorical and not to be taken literally under any circumstances.
Back in the day, we read children the classic stories which we also call moral stories and folk tales, and then we asked "What is the moral of that story". The answer would be a cause and effect. The Little Red Hen didn't share her bread because on one would share in the work. The Fox didn't get the grapes because he gave up and comforted himself by saying the grapes were probably sour anyway. The Little that Could made it over the hill because he didn't give up and kept encouraging himself by saying "I think I can. I think I can." I deeply regret this did not remain part of education with parents understanding the importance of reading these stories to their children, but I have seen indication of education picking them up again.
Golden Books for children added to these stories with modern tales and popular characters. However, when Random House bought Golden Books in 1998 I think they lost their focus on virtues with a focus on money. Hum, if I had the money for travel and research, I would enjoy doing a book about how money has corrupted the forces of morality we once had. This being the result of organizations based on values, being bought up for by people only interested in profits.
Among other things, this means loosing our culture. For sure cultural changes were necessary but the complete loss of our culture could lead to the fall of our civilization?
I want to pick up what you said of other religions and philosophies such as Confucius and Hinduism. Eastern philosophy/religion begin with a belief in "The Basic Goodness of Man" but it seems to me they also assert that we need to work on letting go of our lower selves and developing our higher selves. That is, unlike Christians believing we must be saved by a supernatural power, our development is a matter of our own effort. I seriously do not believe if we are racist bigots here, we will not also be racist bigots when we cross over. Like if Christians think we should not be racist and bigots, here and now is when to correct the problem and clearly being saved by Jesus has not worked the miracle that needs to happen.
Really, I prefer to see most people the Bible as allegory. Generally, I do see 'The Book of Revelation' in that way, but I was brought up to see it more literally. However, I have moments where I slip into thinking about the whole Biblical end times. However, I do believe that there have been many points in history when people have thought it previously. I do believe that the early Christians thought it was within their sights. But the 'Book of Revelation' makes so much more sense as a symbolic prophecy rather than as a literal one.
I think many books have been done on this subject already. Das Kapital being one of the more famous examples. I think this this is one of the great recurring tropes in popular culture too.
What are the names of those theologians, so I can look them up?
As for revelation being allegorical, the allegory of the beast is one of my favorites! Wasn't Rome dominated by military men when that was written? The economy of Rome came to depend on its ability to conquer people who had the resources Rome needed, and that made the taxing citizens to pay for the military essential, and military men were able to take over the rule of Rome. To me, that is the beast, and the reality of the US. Our consumer economy is worshipping the wrong the God and yet Christians seem to strongly support this? It is all rather confusing to me.
Many criticisms of Christians are framed as putting too much responsibility upon individuals for their choices. Your description does not account for the thought in the City of God or the Imitation of Christ.
Most theologians, priests and preachers I have met hold this view.
For some famous examples of Christian thinkers, in chronological order
Paul Tillich
Thomas Merton
Bishop Shelby Spong
David Bentley Hart
This idea is much in the public discourse already. Even just those people who write interminable complaints about Disney and its vacuuming up and vandalism of the Star Wars franchise. The idea that commercial forces hijack a good idea and destroy it in their rapacious quest to make money is a commonplace. But if you can do something brand new or unexpected with it, great.
Do you think the City of God or the Imitation of Christ are more important than other philosophies and mythologies?
I can understand how some factions of Christianity are criticized for putting too much responsibility upon individuals but doesn't that tend to be more so for Protestants than Catholics? I am not sure what is wrong with putting responsibility on individuals because that is saying we have a degree of power over our fate. It is compatible with Hinduism and Confusious.
Bill Gates of Microsoft fame seems pretty intent on doing good, and philanthropy is very old with citizens paying for great public works wanting to be well thought of since ancient times. But that, at least to some extent, depends on culture.
Disney is no longer the creator's manifestation but itself is a commercial hijack. Walt Disney died in 1966. Hum, I can see if I were to write the book, I would have to deal with the difficult challenge of continuing the enterprises these people begin and preserving the integrity of the creator.
:lol: God creates the Garden of Eden for humans, and then throws them out into a wilderness that is not so pleasant. How can this maintain the integrity of God in His creation? How could they remain gentle when their reality is brutal?
It is possible that you like many others have never experienced esoteric or perennial Christianity but just turned off to literal man made secularized Christianity or what Kierkegaard called Christendom. We can compare secular apprecitions of Buddhism to Christianity but they may appear as a contradiction. For example Simone Weil wrote that; “The supernatural greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.” The four noble truths speak of eliminating suffering. Can they be reconciled?
The Truth of Suffering. ...
The Truth of the Causes of Suffering. ...
The Truth of the End of Suffering. ...
The Truth of the Path Leading to the End of Suffering.
Is this a contradiction but only appears so because of our limited binary perspectives?
Actually, I am extremely interested in esoteric Christianity. I do believe that there is so much inner truth conveyed in ideas such as the transfiguration of Jesus. Probably, the truth of this as well as the mystery of resurrection transcend the whole body and mind problem within philosophy. I am inclined to think that the Eastern perspective of thinking probably has more to offer in understanding the resurrection rather the viewpoint of Western philosophy, as conceived within the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm.
I brought up the matter of taking responsibility as an objection to your statement: "That is, unlike Christians believing we must be saved by a supernatural power, our development is a matter of our own effort."
However one considers debates over being saved by works or faith, the command to love your neighbor as yourself requires that one become such a lover. While there are sharp disagreements amongst Christians, they all accept that the one who obeys the command will have to struggle and suffer for having done so.
Running through the many ways this effort is expressed is that one is revealed and witnessed as a result. There is no place to hide if one bears witness to themselves. The City of God compares the City of Men on the basis of this visibility. By their fruits you shall know them. The Imitation of Christ is a very personal devotion I cannot characterize. But it asks for a lot. Written as a Catholic reflection, it can be heard echoed in Kierkegaard's Works of Love.
As I understand it the universe is sustained by both mechanical laws and consciousness. Each of the seven layers of reality within creation is a distinct blend of the qualities of consciousness and the amounts of universal laws sustaining its level. What we call a miracle is just the manifestation of the laws normal for a higher reality taking place either accidentally or intentionally into the lower.
The great chain of being is a good description of the structure of our universe. It is sustained by the dual processes of involution or the process of creation, and evolution or the return to the source. Science is wary of involution because the quality of the source described by Plotinus as the ONE, denies Man as the source of consciousness. but instead could be considered a demiurge or qualities of consciousness within the universe.
I can see how MAN devolved to become Man on earth but can Man consciously evolve and return to its source? If it can, it must be the purpose of esoteric Christianity rather than secularized Christendom
Maurice Nicoll's two books: The new Man and The Mark have helped me grasp the inner meanings and purpose of parables. Here is an except on conscious human potential and the reason for esoteric Christianity in the world.
[i]The Gospels speak mainly of a possible inner evolution called "re-birth". This is their central idea. ... The Gospels are from beginning to end all about this possible self-evolution. They are psychological documents. They are about the psychology of this possible inner development --that is, about what a man must think, feel, and do in order to reach a new level of understanding. ... Everyone has an outer side that has been developed by his contact with life and an inner side which remains vague, uncertain, undeveloped. ... For that reason the teaching of inner evolution must be so formed that it does not fall solely on the outer side of man. It must fall there first, but be capable of penetrating more deeply and awakening the man himself --the inner, unorganized man. A man evolves internally through his deeper reflection, not through his outer life-controlled side. He evolves through the spirit of his understanding and by inner consent to what he sees as truth. The psychological meanings of the relatively fragmentary teaching recorded in the Gospels refers to this deeper, inner side of everyone.
- Maurice Nicoll; The New Man[/i]
The quotation from Maurice Nicholi makes a lot of sense to me. I can definitely cope with the move esoteric interpretations of the gospels. I have read some books on this esoteric approach, including one on Celtic Christianity. I would like to read Plotinus too. I have read some of the writings by Rudolf Steiner and Emmanuel Swedenborg , which may be slightly outside of this tradition, but they are also specific esoteric interpretations. I definitely see evolution, as opposed to devolution as being an inner process. That is probably why I read Jung, because he looks at Christianity, including the apocalyptic writings on a symbolic rather literal level. On the subject of the beast, we could say this is probably represented as the collective shadow.
It does seem that esoteric Christianity was pushed underground, and you are correct in saying that Aquinas and Augustine's interpretation of the Greek writings was central to the way in which mainstream Christians developed.
Most Christians today, as far as I am aware, seem to come from the exoteric angle. I know that many mainstream Christians are opposed to that particular churchI believe that there is one more esoteric in London, St James, in Piccadilly. I have never been, but I might go there, if lockdown restrictions ever end. I do go to an esoteric bookshop in London. They have such an interesting collection and I would imagine there is a section on esoteric Christianity. I definitely plan to explore further.
Can the Beast described by Plato and the Great Beast described by Simone Weil also refer to the ID described by Yung? If so we can't deny it but must see it for what it is.
Weil gets the term "Great Beast" from Plato. Specifically, this passage from Book VI of his Republic (here Plato critiques those who are "wise" through their study of society:
I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes...
Despite my initial dismay when you quoted the Biblical idea of the beast of Revelation, I have come to the conclusion that the idea of the beast is a powerful truth. We probably all have a beast within ourselves and an inner antichrist.
Let me just clarify my previous post by saying that the Roman church considered abortion before 80 days to be simply akin to second degree murder because of Rome's idolatrous acceptance of Aristotle. With the morning after pill controversy Rome changed her mind and teachings. It's a hard issue for everyone for sure but it should be decided by science, not by what some Greek dude thought in ancient bygone days. It's a great example to give to traditional Catholics because now they are so pro-life in every respect and what I brought up in my last post is an embarrassment to them
Yes, one of the big issues for Catholics is abortion and it probably puts women in a lot of conflict. I can remember being at church and hearing the pro-life campaigners. I am not sure what all the other religions think about abortion. I think that the Catholic church is also opposed by contraception but I don't think that many adhere to that. But the idea of sex in the Catholic church is very controversial indeed. One of my memories is being at my local youth club when we was growing up and a song which was often played was, 'Tainted Love'.
I know the song. The Catholic Church fought with the progress of modern society for years. It was trying to hold on to the old culture that has existed for centuries in the past. It fought heliocentrism, relativity, evolution, changes in music art and architecture, and democracy. The Church was always the last to approve of something modern. In 1899 Pope Leo xiii sent an encyclical to America condemning (can you believe it) "Americanism" . This "heresy" had dared to say that morality and virtue is found more often in social actions or war than in silent undisturbed prayer. The Catholic culture put nuns and monks who don't go to war or participate much in society on a pedestal. This Pope made it Church teaching that virtue is gained more often in silent solitude than in any more social activity. Of all the weird things to make into a church teaching! How could this pope even know he was right? He couldn't. All he went on was his desire to stay in power and control the future of societies and their evolutions
Simone Weil is known as the Patron Saint of Outsiders for all who feel like outsiders. Many feel that there is great value in the Catholic Church but has become corrupted. Science cannot replace it since it has no conception of value. It can define and measure things but doesn't know its value. Awakening people to value should be the purpose of the great teachings initiating with a conscious source. But when they have become secularized and corrupted the concept of value is decided by those in charge or "might makes right."
What is objective value? What is the value of life and which lives have value? Does a fetus have value? Science doesn't know and secularized religion supports "might makes right." Unfortunately it can only be the results of efforts to Know Thyself and remember what has been forgotten in society as a whole to keep the influence of objective value alive in the world.
I didn't know that Simone Weil was the patron saint of outsiders. That makes me more interested in her because I have always felt like an outsider. One of my favourite books is 'The Outsider" by Colin Wilson. I don't know if you have read it. It looks at a lot of creative people, including many existentialist philosophers. I don't think it mentions her. My copy is in my mother 's house, so I will check whether or not Simone Weil gets a mention in the book when I am able to visit my mother. I find Colin Wilson to be a very interesting writer for the whole way in which he focuses upon the search for peak experiences.
Simone was not well known before her death. I think there were only seven people at her funeral. Now she is loved around by those who admire her intellect and emotional purity in dedication to truth. Once an outsider begins to read her they begin to feel something attractive and special rather then philosophical and religious BS. It is refreshing. This essay is bit long but it is obvious why the author as an outsider much like you and me was drawn to her. If nothing else, her descriptions of conscious attention made me aware of what I lose along with the world, of my potential for growing attention span. She had suffered the need to impartially look rather than judge. I as a man, was incapable of such freedom. It was embarassing. If her only contribution is awakening humanity to the value of conscious attention, it will be a necessary contribution.
https://begininwondersite.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/simone-weil-saint-of-outsiders/
All my life I have felt like an outsider, never quite fitting in wherever I was. Being an outsider can make one both extremely lonely but also allows one to identify with those on the fringes, those who are forgotten or overlooked. During my college years, while working in a bookstore, I began to read the existentialists. My favorite was Albert Camus, not only because of his writing but because he looked like a movie star in the same cool, rebel style of James Dean or Marlon Brando. It was through Camus that I discovered the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil. Not only did she have a huge influence on him (Camus described her as “the only great spirit of our time) but he meditated in her room before he went to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize. She also impacted feminist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Both attended the École Normale Supérieure where they studied philosophy and logic. Weil finished first in her final exams, while de Beuavoir came in second. Simone de Beauvoir spoke often of her admiration for Weil’s intelligence and courage to live out truly what she believed....................
Science alone does not give value but science cannot be done "in a box". Common sense plays a role and what common sense is cannot be decided by scientific measurements. But my point was that Aristotle was accepted as an authority on science within the Church for some 15 hundred years and this was unfounded and stood in the way of progress
The discussion of attention span, as referred to in the article link, is interesting. Generally, I think that many people I come across have an extremely short attention span. I find that in conversations and people often focus on the external environment constantly. I have even had people criticise me for the extent that I can get so immersed in a task, especially reading, that I can switch off the outer world, almost. However, I do believe that focused attention is important, so it is good to hear of a writer who is concerned with it. I do believe that it is important to be able to focus fully on another, as well as within, as inner space. I do believe that inner space is the domain of conscious evolution.
Conscious attention is our potential. It is a conscious or religious skill. It is possible that a person can receive the external world with the whole of themselves. They can experience the external world simultaneously with their mind, their heart, and their body. They can think, feel, and physically respond to the same impulse making it possible to "understand" the experience" rather than judge it. Normally our attention is just a response of one of these three parts. A person responding to the question of the meaning of life responds either primarily with thought and analysis, what it means emotionally, or just physically solves the problem with mechanical skills.
The ability for directed attention is a necessary beginning. However it has become distorted and used for the purpose of indoctrination by society itself corrupting our ability to awaken to understanding and develop conscious attention.
It seems easy but if Thoreau is right, it is for more difficult than normally believed.
[i]The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
- Thoreau, Walden[/i]
The love thy neighbor as thy self doesn't seem to work so well when the other is different. We have not been too nice to those people who have a different faith or look different and do not know God and morals. :lol: The only people I know who were in favor of separating children from their families at the border were Christians. :rage: I am sorry but I can not tolerate people who think they are God's favorites and what they want is what God conveniently wants too. I am not sure if there have been any atrocities that were not justified by religious people?
City of God? Where is that? Jerusalem, Rome, someone's imagination? Like really who has been to the City of God and how do we know about it? How is it different from the good life people get to enter if their hearts weigh right when they are judged by Isis of Oris?
That's true. But there are questions that come out of this. Why is it that Christianity - and let's face it, so many religions worldwide - so effortlessly undertake evil actions?
Is it just a matter of believe oneself to be God's favourite? Might it not also be what happens when you think you have access to special knowledge that comes from an uncountable, extramundane source that is the origin of all morality.
Suppose the transcendent unity of religions is a reality as described in the following book. They all disagree at the exoteric level but can unite at the transcendent level. Then the real question is why humanity as a whole lacks the conscious ability to understand and instead become enchanted with the shadows on the wall?
https://integralscience.wordpress.com/1993/01/01/on-the-transcendent-unity-of-religions/
There have been a zillion attempts to distill the elements of the true spirituality underpinning all religion from Theosophical syncretism to Jung.
What is fascinating always is the underpinning of status seeking and elitism inherent in the proposition. Only special people have capacity to see the truth. Or in words like this:
Quoting Nikolas
You refer to the attractions of the exoteric level of reality and the rewards of cave life and I refer to the small minority attracted to what is necessary for freedom from cave life or the transcendent level of reality. We speak of different things.
Are you asking those questions for purely rhetorical purposes or are you genuinely curious?
So far in this discussion, I have not opposed your thesis but only remarked upon where your observations did not satisfy my understanding of matters. That does not mean I am representing Torquemada or apologizing for the sins of an institution. You said something was easy-peasy for Christians. It isn't for all of them.
Maybe so. Do you believe that all the ancient traditions initiating with a conscious source exist at the exoteric level and devolve into opposing opinions. They only come together at the transcendent level after consciously passing through the esoteric level?
I couldn't say for certain. I think people are similar so their ideas are often similar. But people are also tribal, so approaches develop and split off and often expand in deliberate contrast.
True, but all this happens at the exoteric level. But what if it is possible to consciously develop from being fixated on fragments to experiencing the wholeness of human being in relation to its origin or what Plotinus called the ONE? Then all the paths can lead to the "way" or what the depth of the human essence needs to experience. How to graduate from a path into the way?
Society rebels against this idea and prefers fighting over and or abandoning paths as with atheism. But what of those who seek the esoteric evolutionary teachings of their paths in their need to experience the "way?" How do they proceed and stand up to the power of imagination which rejects their potential to experience the way?
Sorry - This kind of model isn't my thing; if it is exoteric - I don't get it :smile: For me human beings are clever animals with language and an ability to develop conceptual frameworks. For me there is no pathway or oneness available to us - there are only good and bad ideas.
That is because modern culture only recognizes discursive, symbolic modes of consciousness. I'm not saying there's anything the matter with that, but I accept there are other ways of knowing and being, that Niikolas and others are referring to - that it's not just made up, but refers to something real. Real, but off the beaten track of mainstream culture.
Quoting Nikolas
I certainly believe that there are such 'cognitive modes' but also that they're very difficult to access. It's easy to read about them or imagine that you might realise them, but in practice it's very difficult.
Pierre Hadot, for example, was an historian of philosophy, whose first book was on Plotinus - still regarded as one of the best introductory texts. But one of his obituaries noted that:
That said, Hadot devoted the rest of his career to 'philosophy as a way of life', and he sought to understand and teach those 'philosophical exercises' that enabled students to go through the inner transformation that he believes philosophy was originally about. (See entry here.)
Not only Catholicism! There's a reactionary political-philosophical movement, called Traditionalism, not very well known outside academia, that believes that modernity is fundamentally evil and will ultimately result in the destruction of mankind. Some of these figures, like Julius Evola, are associated with fascim, and some of them are adulated by the radical right. See Traditionalists, a weblog by Mark Sedgwick, whose book on the subject is Against the Modern World.
I understand that - I was immersed in Jung and theosophy amongst others in the 1980's. I would need someone to demonstrate that this is justifiable before accepting it. Just because there are impressive cross cultural snippets about it doesn't make it true. The same thing could be said about human sacrifice (not that I am comparing the two).
Quoting Wayfarer
Who did it successfully in your view?
That's an interesting question. Like a many others I was very attracted to Zen, but after a long while, I realised that Zen is a highly-structured and culturally-specific discipline and that it's very easy to fool yourself that you understand it when you don't. I stuck with sitting practice for many years but it's fallen away since the end of 2019. Can't find the motivation for it, but of those traditions, feel the greatest affinity for S?t? Zen, specifically the recent teacher Nishijima-roshi.
I don't believe all of the sages of the East, or West, for that matter, have clay feet. The first one I noticed was Ramana Maharishi. But then, probably like you, I used to visit the Adyar Bookshop when it still existed, so I read a lot of those kinds of teachers. Krishnamurti, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (boy his downfall was an eye-opener).
I've also started to realise that we inherit cultural archetypes. So my current interest is the Western philosophical tradition. Seriously thinking about enrolling in my alma mater to do an MA - in The Argument from Reason. Although I know I'm probably tilting at windmills. :-(
It is true that lacking consciousness we cannot prove that conscious humanity exists. But we can verify the human condition as it exists in us by making efforts to Know Thyself rather than judge ourselves. I've experienced the struggle between my higher and lower natures St.Paul describes in Romans 7. Is its reconciliation possible through the help of the Spirit? This is something a person must experience rather than debate.
[i]14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord![/i]
I started with Alan Watts, I always wondered what he would be like to know, but I suspected he had strong hedonistic impulses that might have taken him off course. I studied philosophy at university briefly but had an argument with the Head of Department when he said, 'You are not here to learn, you are to give us what we want and parrot back to us everything we say.' I quit, went out and bought Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces and read for several years. Those were the days...
Indeed, that is a very meaningful passage from the Letters, it sure resonates with me.
A lovely story. It's fortunate for us that Hadot could live in both worlds and appreciate simplicity as well as complexity.
Quoting Wayfarer
I was introduced to Hadot when following Marcus Aurelius. I bought but, as usual, haven't completed his book 'The Inner Citadel - the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius'.
I was also attracted to his 'philosophy as a way of life'.
Unfortunately, the link you provided didn't work for me. 'The site can't be reached'.
It is fascinating to read the different paths people have taken in their lives, their continuing interests.
An amazing amount of sharing.
Right now, I have started to read the Chuang Tzu or Zhuangzi.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhuangzi/
Free download from an extraordinary index and choice of translators here:
https://terebess.hu/english/tao/ChuangTzu-palmer.pdf
Also a kindle Penguin classic by Martin Palmer, £1.99 ! Usually £10.99.
Thanks to @Jack Cummins for starting this thread.
A quick reply to why the need for religious beliefs and ideas:
Because we're human.
Ideas are part of who we are, they're just there aren't they - part of the thinking process.
Not everyone has a need for a religious belief.
In my case, I was brought in to the Protestant Church as a baby, the christening ceremony.
My family were religious. At some point you start questioning. Turmoil can set in.
Long story short - reading philosophy and sharing ideas with others now seems to have become a need.
Although it can get a bit overwhelming at times, you can step away and go visit a bakery.
Possible even in this day of covid restrictions.
To walk and reflect in your own space...
That sounds good to me :smile:
Edit to add:
The IEP article is less dense than the SEP one. Also has a useful chart of the text showing where 'the further to the right the chapters are listed, the further away they are from the central ideas of the Zhuangzian philosophy of the Inner Chapters':
https://iep.utm.edu/zhuangzi/
It is a good link but that site is a bit erratic, it is intermittently unreachable.
A bit like myself. I'll try again later...ta.
Strangely, the links worked for me and it is strange indeed because a lot of the links people put on this site don't seem to work from my phone. And, the link provided me with a whole free book, instantly downloaded onto my phone. I have had parts of books or an article downloaded on my phone but never a whole book, so thank you for enabling me to read this, like a gift from the divine. It is very interesting to me because it links Taoism and shamanism, both of which I find extremely interesting.
I will have a read and reply to the content of your post later today when I have read more of the book as I am starting chapter 4 of the book. Also, for anyone else who is reading this post, I recommend logging into the second link which Amity provided to see if you receive this book like I have done. I think it all depends on signals and locations, and perhaps, also, a few mysterious factors.
Yes. It was the link in Wayfarer's post re Hadot that didn't work for me.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Glad that you found the link to the free book useful !
The website index is quite remarkable.
https://terebess.hu/english/tao.html
A bit too good to be true. I hope it doesn't lead to any unwanted viruses or anything horrendous.
That would be devilish :naughty: and not so divine :halo:
I am certainly wanting to avoid devilish viruses, and also trying to digest and think about all the ideas arising on this thread. I am glad that it has got the amount of response it has, and hope this continues, but I often feel the need to reflect, because there are a lot of deep questions. Of course, I do not see myself as having all the answers but I am trying to respond to it in such a way that it can be a springboard for people's exploration. In the meantime, I have just thought of a question for people who think about, because I do like to ask questions.
:smile:
Yes, I think we all noticed that - and your way of bringing people and their ideas together in even a single thread is most appreciated.
I couldn't start and manage a thread without my brain splitting in half and me falling through the gap !
Talking of left and right hand brains...
The Christians I know attempt to resolve every problem with prayers and they have complete faith that God/Jesus will answer their prayers. Obviously, if that is what one believes, God, will take care of everyone and all we need do is pray. Those who survive the hurricane, flood, landslide, or whatever, will be reassured God takes care of them. Those who don't, won't be here to worry about it. The religion is going to help in so many psychological ways, but it does not work as well as science. :lol: However, many Christians do not trust science and put their faith in God. When that can lead to thousands of people dying and suffering, I have a BIG problem with that!
My Christian friend kept approving of Trump and enjoyed believing her prayers helped him be "a good father to our country". She even approved of children being separated from their families and that was the last straw for me! Bottom line, faith has wonderful psychological effects, but it can also be the worse source of evil we have.
My relationship with Christianity has changed many times over my lifetime. I went through a period when I believed it was a challenge that brought out the best in us and I still believe that is psychologically true, but I do not like literal interpretations of the Bible. I came to prefer Eastern philosophy/religion.
I do not recall ever having a concept of the City of God, but since you didn't answer the question I googled to see if it is mentioned in the Bible and I see it is, and after reading the explanation, I have a big problem with that notion because of the religious/political nature of it.
Which quality of faith do you refer to? For example Gurdjieff taught that:
Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.
As important as it is, how many have ever contemplated the difference?
I am so glad that you are keeping up the discussion. It is interesting that you do prefer a literal interpretation of the Bible. I am a bit more on the esoteric level, but I think that there is a whole spectrum of possibilities, ranging from the exoteric and esoteric.
I have not forgotten the thread I started, but need time and creation of new threads, because the matters discussed are extremely complex and need careful thought. However, I think that you are doing so well, in keeping discussion alive.
Whoops did I forget the little word "not" again? I hate a literal interpretation of the Bible and I hate it when I forget the word "not".
Your question for this thread is particularly important to me. I mean, really, really important to me! As I see it, we can not have liberty and democracy without the correct education. For me, that does not mean education for technology and leaving moral training to the Church. :gasp:
How much fun to think about what I think with the replies to this thread. Especially with the thread Philosophy has failed to create a better world and Quoting T Clark post in that thread forcing me to think about what I think.
That is I believe philosophy is essential to right thinking and right thinking is essential to liberty and democracy and must be a part of education. :sweat: that is a lot of mental work and there is nothing better I can do with my life than do as the Greeks attempted to do- to get it right. :lol:
The only faith I know of is a blind belief. Without it there is doubt. I don't see the logic in doubting what we believe as equalling freedom? I have no idea what a mechanical faith would be? Believing something without questioning it? I don't think I have done that since I was 8 years old. However, I am pretty sure gravity pulls things to earth and I stopped jumping off of the top of the swing, and buildings, with the hope of flying. :lol:
I found page 13 of the thread extremely difficult, mainly due to the tension between literal and non literal interpretation of scriptures. When I was struggling with page 13, feeling grateful that the topic had continued for this many pages, I wondered about my own superstitions surrounding the figure of thirteen. The irrationality arises unexpectedly. I was once surprised by a psychiatrist, who I don't believe was religious, suggesting that by certain talk that I might cause jinxes. Anyway, I still believe that this thread is a way of bringing forth areas of discussion, for myself and others.
I think that you are sensitive towards others. If anything, I feel that I need to be more aware of this thread because I created it and I don't wish for tensions to erupt. Of course, the whole topic of religious ideas is emotive in itself, but I am hoping for the best possibilities.
I noticed your remark about the whole area of linterest in comparative religion and how it is not the way for making a living, and I do empathise. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this was different.I do believe that this is a neglected area of philosophy, where it seems to come down to a rigid question of belief in God, or non belief, depending on how we conceive the whole principle and what the idea of God stands for in the fullest way.
Mechanical faith is what you were taught to believe. Emotional faith is belief based on fear which is why it is considered the blind faith of slavery
Conscious faith is our potential It connects above and below. A person realizes they are more than just a mechanical being and strives to retain their connection with higher consciousness. The Gospel of Thomas writes of the potential for conscious faith:
(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
Normally a person only witnesses themselves for brief moments. But when a person can consciously witness themselves and sustain it they become known and helped from above. Emotional faith is a horizontal reaction while conscious faith is a vertical conscious action connecting levels of reality.
Like any academic area, there are those who can excel in it and build a career from it. But unless you have exceptional skills, and maybe luck, it's very diffficult. Case in point - I did an MA in Buddhist Studies in 2011-12, again for no particular vocational outcome. There was a brilliant young lecturer with skills in Tibetan and Sanskrit at my uni. He was leaving at the end of my last year there for a Fellowship in the US. I later heard he had resigned the Felllowship and from academia altogether to explore an alternative career path.
The subjects I've studied have helped me in some ways but I sometimes think I've been tilting at windmills.
Perhaps that sums up the situation. When I tell friends that I am spending time reading and writing on a philosophy forum, some of the responses suggest that such an interest is ridiculous. I have even had people suggest to me that philosophy is a complete waste of time and that practical matters, such as cleaning, are far more important, but I haven't given up the philosophical quest.
No point in setting up faith as a magical word. It is just belief without evidence and works no differently than in the case of those people who thought Hitler was delivering them a magnificent world based on blood magic and race. Faith is the excuse people give for believing in something when they have no good reasons.
Quoting Athena
This is true but what of it? All religions commit atrocities and justify it with appeals to truth or faith. There is no necessary correlation between religious belief and moral behaviour. The history of our world is one of religions energetically basing their actions on choreographed bigotry and human rights violations. Hardly surprising when the only shaky evidence for God is in ancient books and outrageous claims.
Don't be afraid to call out and oppose supernatural appeals to bigotry where they happen. It is best understood this way: 'I don't hate you, I hate your beliefs.'
What we do is an expression of what we are both individually and collectively. Since we are as we are, everything is as it is. What we are is witnessed in all institutions including politics and religion at the exoteric level. Hypocrisy is the norm for the human condition at the exoteric level.
Humanity is capable of both the greatest compassion and the most horrible atrocities and rationalizes it with dualistic BS. Subjective morality is just the devolution of our capacity for objective conscience. So why be surprised when hypocrisy is the norm?
Plato explained the fallen human condition with the Chariot allegory. The poor driver has to deal with the dark horse representing our lower parts which pulls the driver and the white horse down to the earth. If true the question becomes how enable the driver to cure a psychologically sick horse so the chariot can function as it should. I would say he needs help.
[i]Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417
That is why St. John of the Cross calls faith a night. With those who have received a Christian education, the lower parts of the soul become attached to these mysteries when they have no right at all to do so. That is why such people need a purification of which St. John of the Cross describes the stages. Atheism and incredulity constitute an equivalent of such a purification.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 418[/i]
The lower or animal parts of the collective human essence wasn't made for God. Yet people try to teach Christianity from the perspective of our lower parts. If true, Atheism can serve as a purification when the supernatural part has not been awakened.
Can Christianity ever be taught by a person whose supernatural part has yet to awaken? Can a believer be misled by associating it with the lower parts of the soul where it doesn't belong. Atheism can purify what is wrong but who can support those whose supernatural part has begun to awaken and experiences the futility of dualism
Don't. You're obviously intelligent, articulate and interested. And philosophy doesn't require a 'practical outcome'.
[quote=Aristotle]At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure. [/quote]
(981b)
[quote=Aristotle][W]e do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake. [/quote]
(982b)
The idea that philosophy or metaphysics OUGHT to have utilitarian outcomes, is the basis of the criticism of the way modernity 'instrumentalises' reason. That reason should always be employed for some pragmatic outcome is surely a prejudice of industrial society. Traditional metaphysics has a much broader or higher outcome in mind.
I think you ought to aspire to writing for publication in this area. It doesn't necessarily mean getting paid upfront for anything, but establishing an audience and a set of themes or topics. Someone who really landed a career as a philosopher was Jules Evans. Have a look at his work. I think he's brilliant. There are definitely opportunities in these areas of research. The online audience is now approaching 5 billion people, which is more people than there were in the world not long ago. Pick some key themes, something you feel is really vital, and read deeply into them, then find a medium, like Medium, to publish in. Preferably do some degree studies which support it.
BTW on that note, have you heard of the Temenos Academy? They're in the UK, if I lived there I would definitely check them out, with your interests it seems a natural fit https://www.temenosacademy.org/
Quoting Tom Storm
Yeah the religious say something like that. 'Hate the sin but not the sinner'.
You can be part of a very important minority who will help to keep the great ideas alive in the world. It beats complaining about Trump IMO
[i]Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.
Simone Weil[/i]
Not necessarily. I guess not all faiths drive you to slavery or being slave of your circumstances. When you have some beliefs and then, you believe in something particular (religion, atheism, politics, etc...) doesn’t make you slave because it is not painful to you. You just believe and do the best to pursuit happiness or whatever situation that is worthy is society. It is all about how we evaluate it.
But I guess the blind faith is not a negative aspect. Sometimes it can lead you to change something.
In our progress as a human we need: faith, beliefs and believe in.
For example: I have the faith we can distribute natural resources differently. We have beliefs on it. Then, we believe in the change and take some actions.
You seem to be describing mechanical faith which is instilled in someone by adapting to society or indoctrination. Expand your example to the question of government. We can have mechanical faith that it will change things for the better. But somehow it never does.
Efforts to know thyself reveal that since we are as we are, everything is as it is. A person can have blind faith in government but can learn that government just reflects the hypocrisy of the human condition as it is so everything repeats regardless of our blind faith. If self knowledge reveals the futility of blind faith in government, then the purpose and necessity of the essence religion becomes clear; it provides an inner vertical path to conscious faith and freedom for those open to it which reconciles our higher and lower natures.
You referred to some interesting ideas in your recent posts. You spoke of St John of the Cross, but I did read his book, 'The Dark Night of the Soul' a couple of years ago. One book which I have, but haven't got around to reading is, 'My Imitation of Christ,' by TA Kempis. I became interested that after reading about it in an interview with Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs, because it inspired a track they wrote called, 'The Imitation of Christ'. Also, The Temenous Academy looks interesting. I am familiar with the writings of Kathleen Raine on William Blake, but had not heard of this academy.
One idea you mentioned was the whole idea of the lower and higher aspect of the self and this is something I have wondered about, partly in relation to Jung's idea of the shadow. However, he was a bit ambiguous about this in his writings. In some places he talks about the distinction but he also says that we should try to integrate parts which have been relegated to the shadow. However, I do find the idea of a division between the lower and higher self useful, although it is probably not absolute. One other idea, probably linked to the higher self is the idea of the daimon, which I believe has a history going back to the Greeks. I find this concept very useful and perhaps it can be developed through meditative practice.
I am still reading 'The Zhuangzi'. I can see why it is considered as a literary classic. I might have finished it by now if it wasn't in such tiny print on my phone, but it is perhaps best to absorb a book like this slowly, giving time for reflection.
Regarding your post, I do agree that questions about religion are connected to being human. I have always wondered about religious and philosophical ideas. I was brought up as a Catholic but have, as you may have come across in my posts, questioned those beliefs. It became so intense at one stage and I used to even take caffeine tablets to try to gain the greatest clarity of thought. I was really wrestling with the whole question of understanding how to view reality. This was partly to try to understand my own precognitive experiences initially, but it ended up with me questioning the whole basis of my Catholic faith.
However, I do think about questions of religious beliefs a lot and do have affinity with esoteric philosophy. It does seem that there is so much time for thinking and reflection on the deep questions in the time of lockdowns.
Yes. It is sad but this is what literally happens in most of the issues which come from governance. Somehow I have blind faith on people. No in governors. Governors are just there to plump theirs pockets with a lot of money and disappoint the people.
But I guess we did not lose everything. It is all about of no depending from government (It is impossible I understand). Because we can use internet and knowledge to improve the circumstances. For example, I have a lot of hope on the people who participate in this forum or other related forums. This what makes the difference. Debating without consideration or prejudices in others.
Quoting Nikolas
Also yes, I tried to explain it in a mechanical way because in my opinion it could have a chain of working. Nevertheless, as you explained this not necessarily works all the time.
It seems awful that you had a philosophy tutor who wished you to 'parrot' what was taught. It seems to defeat the whole purpose of studying philosophy. I don't think I ever had a tutor say that to me in any subject I studied.
I have read both Alan Watts and Krishnamurti and find them both inspirational. Krishnamurti is particularly interesting in the way so much was projected upon him as an expectation that he was to become a world spiritual teacher. He had to deconstruct that myth in itself and then he did become a renouned spiritual writer, but on his own terms.
I disagree and will continue to argue "faith" can have a magical effect including healing us and achieving more than we believe we can. The nature of faith proves to religious people, and especially Christians, that what they believe is true. Faith can be very empowering and I don't think we should underestimate that. So can self-confidence.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes, there is a necessary correlation between belief and behavior because the belief is a point of view that determines how we see it and our behavior is a reaction to how we see it. Which makes your statement of choreographed bigotry true.
Our planet, and life, is reason enough to believe in a god. The problem is with the mythology not the notion of a force beyond our comprehension. Personally, I am strongly in favor of having reverence and a sense of awe. Some appreciate worshipping in nature rather than a church. When we can do this with reverence, our hearts can be flooded with happiness and when we feel good we desire to do good.
Since we are as we are, everything is as it is. If this is true the knowledge of the internet and philosophy debates are meaningless since they are only concerned with what we know; rather than what we ARE. The great ideas of the past associated with religion and philosophy help us to remember. In these times it means to "awaken" But before beginning seriously to awaken, person must have experienced that they are not awake. How can I believe in humanity, as a creature of reaction, being different from what it is, when what we ARE is proven every day? It is like asking a leopard to change its spots.
Yet if we want to change what we ARE for the good of humanity and ourselves, we first have to learn what we ARE or the qualities of our being. This requires efforts to "Know Thyself" or having the experience of ourselves rather than imagining ourselves.
Imagine some kid in college who has felt the problem and asks his prof returning from a BLM meeting: "How can I know myself"? What kind or response will he get? That is why nothing changes and everything repeats. We don't know what we ARE.
I had to look up the meaning of bigotry.
I think coming down too hard on religious people instead of being respectful and open-minded might qualify as bigotry? It is about being the kind of person I want to be. I don't want to be obstinate or unreasonable, but for sure, I feel that way often.
I had to look up the meaning of bigotry.
obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction; in particular, prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
— Oxford
A good description of Antifa and BLM not to mention an expression of emotional faith in ones imaginary self importance.
Well it could be an interesting question for a kid. It depends in the knowledge of that kid because asking who I am only can come from a person who love to read or debate. It is sad but there will be people that will never question or experience this important belief.
As you said, we do not know what we are. Because it is a good metaphysic question. It is free to interpret.
But... somehow it can be quite sad that humans can go to Mars but we don’t explain who we are or how we can be happy (I am pretty romantic sometimes).
Quoting Nikolas
Yes. Completely. Requires a lot of effort. But the problem starts when we are in a complex situation that our educational system only promotes practical education. They prepare us how to work and have an income but not asking ourselves what is going on
This situation started since Spinoza in the enlightenment, decided put a practical system.
I agree. I have only just finished the Introduction :smile:
Thanks for sharing your background; most interesting. To have a healthy curiosity, interest in people and ability to pose intelligent questions is of great benefit when starting and maintaining a thread.
It also takes time, energy and commitment.
Thank you.
A liberal education encourages us to ask the big questions and before 1958, in the US, all children had liberal educations. The purpose of education was well-rounded individual growth. In 1917 vocation education as add to public education and this was a wonderful thing! It meant having better jobs and better pay and moving into cities with more to offer. It meant developing a middle class and an economy that provides so much for citizens our forefathers would be thrilled by our success. But adding vocation education did not change the priority purpose of education.
The military technology of the second world war changed the purpose of education. We began preparing the young to be products for industry. The 1958 National Defense Education Act had a 4 year limit but instead of returning to education for well-rounded individual growth, education for the military-industrial complex consumed us. We are now what we defended our democracy against, and our Capital Building is an ugly fortress no longer open to the public.
Yes this is the human condition. Some people are destroying and killing while others throw flowers. Then after a while the destroyers start preaching love and the flower throwers start to destroy. As written in Ecclesiastes 3:
[i]A Time for Everything
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:[/i]
Existence including animal life, moves in cycles. Is it the same for conscious life? That we don't know
Of course it is. Vocational education is one of the pillars in ancient society, this provided making many beautiful things like art, philosophy, or books. But sadly we will not see this anymore, because as you said:
Quoting Athena
We still be products for industry. Here is what happens right know: Just go for school to learn the principles of basic. Then, choose a career. Afterward (supposedly) you get a job. Congratulations you are just another brick in the wall. Pay the bill and hmm... use the public services (?) because States want to make us think this is “success”.
How we ended up here? Easy. The governors and government. It is the most powerful aspect in today’s society. If they control education they control everything. They are so clever because we are in an era where is more easier the access for education. So they do not want the vocational education. If you are more open to read you question everything, even the governors... and they do not want so.
I wish we can go back to liberal education. This is literally where works so good in the social welfare states as Norway for example.
You might try Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. books, "Gods in Everyman" and "Goddesses in Everywoman". The Greek gods and goddesses are archetypes of our different human types. Bolen's books tell us more about ourselves than we thought we could know because we can see ourselves in the gods and goddesses.
In my youth, I was Persephone, the maiden stage of a female's life. When we marry some follow the path of Hera (wife) and some the path of Demeter (mother). Demeter and Hestia became very important to me. When my children were grown and out of the home, I shifted to Athena and have been a teacher and defender of democracy ever since.
What is really surprising is Bolen's explanations include the different stages of our lives and the positive and negative sides of each archetype. Here we can see how our childhoods influenced the other stages of our life and the lives of people who know.
You got it but it is not because this is what governors and representatives want for us. They were lead to believe what we have is essential, just the same as most citizens believe we must have the education we have. Agreeing with me about the importance of liberal education puts you in the minority and those who represent us in government are humans just like you and me.
I say those words because I have tried so hard to raise awareness of what was done and why and I hit the wall of people being sure we must have the education we have and jumping on me for thinking public education should return to education for good moral judgment. You missed what Christianity has to do with the mess we are in! Christianity plays a big role in this mess. German education for technology left moral training to the church and both the military interest and Christian interest are best served by leaving moral training to the church. Both the military and the church want people who do not question and obey. You may have noticed, Bible study is limited to studying the Bible, and excludes other religions and philosophy. You are invited to ask questions as long as all your answers come from the Bible.
Edit :lol: I just wrote a short book and deleted it. There is a lot to say. The US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and their model of education for technology. We replaced classic philosophy with German philosophy. Now the US is as seriously in need of psychoanalysis as much as some whackos on the streets.
Sure. But as I said 'where they happen' coming down on people too hard is not possible if they are homophobic, transphobic, racist and misogynist as some religious people often are and proudly so.
I doubt there is any evidence for what you say, but that said, faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good reason. What can you not justify with an appeal to faith? Faith is used daily by millions to justify any number of bigotries.
One last thing. In the 1980's I knew some people from South Africa. I was against apartheid. They were not. They were devout church going Christians. I asked them why separate black people from white people. They responded, 'It is God's will. We have it on faith that black people are not equal to white people apartheid is a necessary step.' I will spare you the other views they held on faith. Over the decades I have met dozens of people (and we know there must be millions) who hold similarly inadequate views as a matter of faith. Faith has no quality control and because it is not based on reason, it is not open to scrutiny.
I am an Aries male. That is the essence type I am a part of. However it doesn't make me a God and Simone Weil explains why
"We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him."
To know thyself is not to imagine oneself.
Pardon me, I was referring the book of The City of God by St. Augustine.
My earlier reference to The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis is another book from the 15nth century.
I should have given those as references the first time.
I don't stand upon firm enough ground to say what the emphasis upon "utility" may develop in histories of philosophy. What puzzles me is that the desire to narrow the terms of exchange ends up saying that things would be simple if all matters related to the issue were put in certain terms.
Well, sure. I could solve all the problems that appear if that was the only objective.
I understand you. Sometimes it is hard to meet someone who thinks like us. It is quite complex when we as a kid are taught since 3 years old how to do "things" but not question anything. Just do it if you want have a job. Doesn't matter if you are agree or not. You have to pass all the university exams doesn't matter if the classes and the content have quality or not.
So I guess these people are so brainwashed. But one of the things that triggered me the most is how the implanted us the "survive" method. You have to be "better" than the best. But what exactly means being "better"? We lead this meaning just to subjective people like our teachers.
They built a world in education/work of excessive competitiveness. What if an intelligent student cannot get a scholarship because he is just lazy and not feel motivated?
I guess these are different things. It is not the same being lazy or stupid. But our educational system always want the "proof" that we are really good.
As you perfectly said here:
Quoting Athena
Yes, because German philosophy can lead us to be more practical. Ancient Greek evaluated the mind. This is why Ancient Greek philosophy is important to understand ethics, empathy, honor, etc... Where these basic principles have gone?
But suppose humanity is not human but just potentially human. Humanity needs an attitude by some to lead the way.
Simone Weil and Thomas Merton were born in France 6 years apart - 1909 and 1915 respectively. Weil died shortly after Merton entered the Abbey of Gethsemani. It is unclear whether Weil knew of Merton, but Merton records being asked to review a biography of Weil (Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love, Jacques Chabaud, 1964) and was challenged and inspired by her writing. “Her non-conformism and mysticism are essential elements in our time and without her contribution we remain not human.”
What does it mean to become human and how can non-conformism and mysticism annoying the status quo help in becoming human? What is step one?
I think that you are pointing to an important question in asking what it means to be human. The whole question of conformism, mysticism and the whole question of truth emerge in this context.
Quoting Valentinus
Quoting Nikolas
I feel there's been some misunderstanding here. I was responding to this -
Quoting Jack Cummins
What I'm saying is that the study of philosophy doesn't need to be justified in terms of practical outcomes. First and foremost, it is a purely intellectual subject, something to be understood for its own sake. That was, I hoped, the import of those two quotations from Aristotle. In that, I was trying to reassure Jack that the fact that philosophy is not obviously practical is not an argument against studying it.
THAT SAID, most of us obviously have to make a living and form a career. But the point remains that philosophy is an adventure of ideas first and foremost.
I do believe that philosophy is the absolute adventure, beyond material and all other gains. We may stand back in trepidation, clinging on to what we have, for better or worse, but it brings us to the abyss of all possibilities. It can be seen as the cliff edge in front of us, looking out into the precipice below.
I understand and agree that practical outcomes are not the central concern of pursuing philosophy. My response was meant to say that if such was the case, what can be deemed to be "practical" is another problem with their own questions. Some of those questions are philosophical.
Tom I wonder if a thread about, why there is so much opposition to Christianity, would succeed? If I did such a thread I would want Christians involved, but on the other hand, I am not comfortable trying to disprove their superstitious notions. However, the ones you speak of are quite intolerable!
I totally agree with you, except for your understanding of the power of faith. Faith healing is a proven reality even if is a witch doctor chasing out demons and doing the healing with feathers and rattle. This is very important if you want to oppose Christian belief in the supernatural. Consider the placebo effect. Placebos are proven effective. Consider Chopra a doctor from India who explains how powerful our thoughts are. This is scientifically proven and when we understand it is the power of our thoughts, no matter what religion we are, or what gods we pray to, that leads to our success or our healing, then we can argue it is not a supernatural being that causes good things to happen in our lives, but good thinking.
Our brains can chemically correct our problems, and good thinking can lead to good choices such as meditating, healthy eating, exercise, taking steps to avoid harmful stress, and good sleeping habits. And during a pandemic cleanness, wearing a mask, keeping our distance, and avoid gatherings.
:heart: I just bought a very old first-grade textbook on health to share with my 6-year-old, great-granddaughter, and to show people to convince them we need to return to some of the old-fashioned ideas about education. Especially now, I think our young children need to have more of a sense of community than they have with the isolation they are experiencing. The way old textbooks are written exudes a sense of community. Back in the day, we could not rely on medical technology as we do today, so Christians and non-Christians got the same lessons on avoiding the spread of disease and the disaster Trump and some well-meaning Christians lead us into. It infuriates me when well-meaning preachers argue in favor of ignoring the rules for stopped the spread of Covid. That is not how the old first-grade textbook explains our duty as citizens to avoid the spread of disease.
Interesting idea. Christianity is an easy target in its limited literalist formulations. I have a soft spot for Christianity and unlike Nietzsche and other resentful thinkers, I consider its reverence towards the weak, the marginalized, the lost, the 'bungled and the botched' to be of profound importance to culture.
It's a pity so much Christianity - especially where it is growing fastest - is of a grotesque, materialistic fundamentalist bent. But it seems most religions and spiritual systems have their gross populist variations.
My grandmother was a school teacher when we had one-room schools. Her generation of teachers thought that they defending democracy in the classroom because they became teachers as we entered the first world war, and it was the job to mobilize us for war and get us through the war years. I have a copy of the book of the 1917 National Education Conferences, and among other things, schools taught women to substitute cornmeal for flour so we could send our allies our wheat. Women knit soldiers' socks. School children used their lunch money to buy war bonds. When industry tried to close the schools, teachers argued an institution of making good citizens could make patriotic citizens and before the military technology of WWII our defense depended on the patriotism of every citizen. I want to make this point very clear, our defense today depends on technology and taxpayers to pay for that very expensive technology.
When my grandmother's generation was defending democracy in the classroom that meant giving everyone a well-rounded education for individual growth. This included teaching literary, music, and art appreciation because a well-rounded education means well-rounded individuals. That is a totally different human being than what we have today. Pericles of Athens spoke of how Athenians were different from Spartans. Athenians were well-rounded and enjoyed liberty. Spartans were highly specialized for war and their women had far more liberty than women in Athens, but overall Spartants had very little liberty compared to Athenians.
Germany was the modern-day Sparta and the US was the modern-day Athens. Hitler spoke of the New World Order and Eisenhower used the term Military, Industrial Complex. We have education for the Military, Industrial Complex since 1958. The US is now the strongest military force on earth and its democracy is in big trouble!
I am 15 credits short of a degree because I refused to play the game of flattering my professors and I stayed true to myself and I concluded I could not bow to the evils of a college education. I have continued reading and I listen to college lectures from The Great Courses company and love forums that for me, are like talking with fellow college friends. My life is devoted to an intellectual revolution and reestablishing the liberty we once had.
I really do not believe Christians are doing such a good job of being tolerant and compassionate people when compared to Hindus and Buddhists. Until Bush Jr. took us to war with Christian support I did not argue religion, but that was the last straw. Trump and his Christian supporters are even worse. Christianity without education in the classics is what Germany had and we have had that since 1958.
To be clear, Germany was a Christian Republic not so different from ours and our enemy. The US replaced the classics with German philosophers, and adopted Germany's models of bureaucracy and education. We are now Christian and what we defended our democracy against.
How do you come by your opinion of Hindus and Buddhists and other Asian people living with Eastern philosophy?
First we would have to agree on what Christianity is as opposed to the well known Christendom functioning in society. Kierkegaard was aware of a difference but obviously is in in a minority.
[i]People who perhaps never once enter a church, never think about God, never mention his name except in oaths! People upon whom it has never dawned that they might have any obligation to God, people who either regard it as a maximum to be guiltless of transgressing criminal law, or do not count even this quite necessary! Yet all these people, even those who assert that no God exists, are all of them Christians, call themselves Christians, are recognized as Christians by the State, are buried as Christians by the Church, are certified as Christians for eternity.
(quoted in Protestant Thought in the 19th Century by Claude Welch p.294)
Christendom has done away with Christianity, without being quite aware of it. The consequence is that, if anything is to be done, one must try again to introduce Christianity into Christendom.
ibid p.295[/i]
One of my ancestors was an archbishop in the Armenian church and was friendly with Helena Blavatskia the founder of Theosophy. When they discussed Christianity it would be different from what you hear today
I don't really have a strong view on this. I am attracted to some Buddhism ideas - but isn't everyone? I don't see any Asian cultures that I would swap for mine. I am always most interested in how cultures manage poverty, illness, work and law and order.
I hear you but I don't think you can get agreement on this so readily. We don't have a mechanism to discern who is a true Christian and who is not. Generally, if someone calls themselves a Christian, we have to take them at their word unless we have sufficient evidence to the contrary (whatever that might be).
One aspect which I think is important to consider is the whole way in which Christianity developed as a mainstream religion and may have, at many times, have not really expressed the whole message which Christ taught. I am speaking of the whole ideal of compassion for the downtrodden and poor. In addition, so much of what Christ taught may have been lost in the way the Bible was put together. A lot of the teachings which were established were based on the ideas developed by Paul. Another underlying tension in the development of the Christian tradition was the conflicts over Gnostic thinking, and the role of teachers, especially Origen, in deciding what writings were put into the New Testament, and this is critical for thinking about how the way Christian thought developed.
they're often the ones who make the most noise and attract the most attention. So much for the ‘still, small voice’.
Quoting Athena
Generally speaking, Christian charitable and missionary organisations have been well ahead of Buddhists and Hindus when it comes to actually doing stuff.
Quoting Jack Cummins
David Bentley Hart’s book Atheist Delusions is a salutary reminder of how and in what way the Christian message was revolutionary in the ancient world. The idea of the equality of souls and the command of universal compassion was entirely foreign to the Classical world.
Yes, that's all a given. I think all we can go by in assessing a religion in the world is living traditions.
I greatly enjoy Hart's work. It interests me that he has identified the problem of evil and the suffering of innocents as the one which has capacity to shake his faith.
It is interesting that one of your ancestors was an archbishop who was friendly with Madame Blavatsky. I have read some of her writings and also, another writer called Alice Bailey. I did attend a few lectures at The Theosophy Society centre near Baker Street in London.
I am interested to know how you think the discussion between you relative and Blavatsky may have been focused in relation to Christianity. I have often wondered whether the basic understanding of reality of early Christianity may have been more in line with Eastern metaphysics. This does appear to be particularly true of the ideas in the Gnostic gospels, which were excluded. However, I have wondered many times if part of the way ideas about Christianity don't work for many is because they are being viewed through a Western picture of metaphysics.
I would have liked being a fly on the wall during some or their talks but I urge you not to bring Gnosticism into it. Gnosticism speaks of the duality between spirit and flesh with flesh being evil. Christianity is ONE and three. Outside time and space God is ONE but intentionally divides into the trinity at the beginning of creation. "Let there be light" refers to this division and God is simultaneously ONE and three. Dualism os opposed to the structure of creation..
The Russian Orthodox tradition is far deeper than what is practiced in the West. Consider this discussion between Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh and Jacob Needleman from his Book "Lost Christianity"
[i]Metropolitan Anthony," I began, "five years ago when I visited you I attended services which you yourself conducted and I remarked to you how struck I was by the absence of emotion in your voice. Today, in the same way where it was not you but the choir, I was struck by the same thing, the almost complete lack of emotion in the voices of the singers."
Yes he said, "this is quite true, it has taken years for that, but they are finally beginning to understand...."
"What do you mean?" I asked. I knew what he meant but I wanted to hear him speak about this - this most unexpected aspect of the Christianity I never knew, and perhaps very few modern people ever knew. I put the question further: "The average person hearing this service - and of course the average Westerner having to stand up for several hours it took - might not be able to distinguish it from the mechanical routine that has become so predominant in the performance of the Christian liturgy in the West. He might come wanting to be lifted, inspired,moved to joy or sadness - and this the churches in the West are trying to produce because many leaders of the Church are turning away from the mechanical, the routine.."
He gently waved aside what I was saying and I stopped in mid sentence. "There was a pause, then he said: "No. Emotion must be destroyed."
He stopped, reflected, and started again, speaking in his husky Russian accent: "We have to get rid of emotions....in order to reach.....feeling."
Again he paused, looking at me, weighing the effect his words were having. I said nothing. but inside I was alive with expectancy. I waited.
Very tentatively, I nodded my head.
He continued: "You ask about the liturgy in the West and in the East. it is precisely the same issue. the sermons, the Holy Days - you don't why one comes after the other. or why this one now and the other one later. Even if you read everything about it you still wouldn't know, believe me.
"And yet . . . there is a profound logic in them, in the sequence of the Holy Days. And this sequence leads people somewhere - without their knowing it intellectually. Actually, it is impossible for anyone to understand the sequence of rituals and Holy Days intellectually. it is not meant for that. It is meant for something else, something higher.
For this you have to be in a state of prayer, otherwise it passes you by-"
"What is prayer?" I asked.
He did not seem to mind my interrupting with this question. Quite the contrary. "In a state of prayer one is vulnerable." He emphasized the last word and then waited until he was sure I had not taken it in an ordinary way.
"In prayer one is vulnerable, not enthusiastic. and then these rituals have such force. they hit you like a locomotive. You must be not enthusiastic, nor rejecting - but only open. This is the whole idea of asceticism: to become open."[/i]
The intense attention being spoken of is rejected in favor of excess emotion. Emotional energy replaces spiritual energy. As you can see the logic and practice of Christianity is hard to discuss.
Well, I'm surprised by that. I was given Atheist Delusions as a gift although i didn't finish it. I did read Experience of God, and aside from finding it overly polemical in places I generally find it congenial, especially in the sense that he shows why many of the atheist criticisms don't have a proper conception of the God they claim doesn't exist. I haven't delved into his thoughts on the 'problem of evil'.
Quoting Nikolas
I've been impressed with those Orthodox theologians I've read. I used to serve a Greek Orthodox scholar when I was a university computer reseller, we had some brief conversations on Orthodox philosophy. I wish I knew more like him, there's nobody like that in my orbit now. Oh, and I have that Needleman book also. Small world.
@Athena
Yes. Of course it is. When you have well-rounded education you not only have well rounded individuals but more empathy and lack of violence in the streets. We both are agree that everything that can create beautiful things need a previous solid educational system. You in the US are not only. Here in Europe is the same. They do not teach you how to be a well-rounded person they teach how to work.
Also, I am focus in a search of freedom/intellectual revolution with education. To be honest sometimes it is difficult find persons who wants to improve their knowledge like you or the members in this forum. Because it is so easier not asking anything when you are being paid for someone. They (the State) are clever because they developed an interesting leviathan: if at least we can make you an employee you will be happy because salary is everything. Without it you are not longer in the capitalism era
So, most of the people ask for a job not how to be a good person in society or the pursuit of happiness. We are not longer in the Greek era that's true. Spinoza is guilty for changing everything back in the overrated period of time called as enlightenment
But... Here we are someone like us. Nothing is totally lost. We can change for better. This is a properly use of internet and its data. We can do it but it takes a lot of change.
I think that I am familiar with the attention to such practices as holy days and prayers, as certainly that was the Catholic background I was brought up in. My father grew up in Ireland and following the catechism was very important. I was taught to kneel down and say prayers every night. Lent and fast days were seen as being of extreme importance.
I think that it is only a minority who hold on to these ideals now. I remember as a child that, when I explained about my own religious background, some other children seemed a bit shocked. I don't adhere to the specific practices but do still hold onto the central principles, such as attention. I think that it is true that emotionality may have replaced attention and, this may mean that psychology has taken over in filling the void left by the meaning which religious beliefs used to provide.
There are three degrees of Christians: Non-Christians, pre-Christians and Christians. A Christian is one who follows in the precepts of Christ. Non Christians have no interest. Pre-Christians may want to be Christians but are unable. They are like students.
I am a pre-Christian so wouldn't call myself a Christian. Not many can follow in the precepts of Christ which is why there are so few Christians.
Interesting - you raise many questions. On what basis do you arrive at this Trinitarian model? When you say precepts of Chris (I am assuming you mean teachings of) does it matter if they are the purported original teachings or ones with theological additions? Is it enough to say 'I follow Christ', regardless of quality control? The term pre-Christian is interesting. Why Pre? Generally pre-Christian means Iron Age faiths. Do you perhaps mean nascent-Christian? I am also curious about your use the word 'unable'. Unable to what? To believe it, or is there some other barrier - such as commitment to the purity of the teachings? I think you may have left one out - cultural Christians.
I am not sure that your three degrees of Christianity are definitive. I don't feel that I fit into them, and probably would consider myself as post Christian. I think that this has some connection with your idea of pre Christian, more than non Christian because it is more a case of feeling unable to follow the original pathway. However, that is not rejection but more of a feeling of wishing to embrace the truth underlying all religions rather than one. I think that this is probably more in line with the theosophical tradition.
I don't think Christianity is a matter of tradition but of desire. Can we follow in the precepts of Christ? Do you believe that at one time you were able to follow in the precepts of Christ but have abandoned the effort in favor of embracing the truth underlying all religions?
Man made sects of Christendom would deny the truth embracing embracing all religions or its transcendent unity but Perennial Christianity is a part of this transcendent unity. I don't understand what you mean by the original pathway. Perhaps you are attracted to the the original pathway which at one time you mistakenly associated it with Christendom. Sensing the truth in Christianity rather than the interpretations of Christendom seems like spiritual growth to me.
That is why Simone Weil became the Patron Saint of Outsiders. Many have felt the same thing and have the desire to return to the source of human meaning which the depths of the heart craves
Maybe this would be more understandable when compared to becoming a classical pianist. The first thing a person needs is the wish to be a classical pianist. If they don't have this desire then they are non-pianists. Yet some have heard the performance of a superb classical pianist and are inspired to become one. They sit at a piano and soon learn they are not able to be a pianist. Their minds, hands, and heart don't work together. They need talent and practice to become a classical pianist. Some become part of a music school which teaches piano by a competent instructor. This was the role of the original Christian church. It was an esoteric school. It would teach how to be rather than what to do. When we learn how to be, then doing as a human being becomes obvious.
Of course it is hard to become a Christian. The world is against it and prefers imaginary life in Plato's cave
There are certainly many pairs of elements and agents who are seen as set over against each other in Gnosticism. Many of the separated pairs are seen as sources of evil and suffering. On the other hand, some of the Gnostic Christians were less inclined to identify the "flesh" as the source of evil than their Pauline brethren. The division itself was seen to be the problem.
The trinity was an important concept for some Gnostic Christians. Consider verse 44 from the Gospel of Thomas:
True, but who believes? We don't have inner unity but the human organism is a plurality. We are many. We believe one thing for an hour and then forget bout it and believe something else. What we believe is defined by what we do so he who follows in the precepts of Christ is Christian. If we can't, we are pre-Christian with the potential to become Christian. What we really believe is a big question.
Granted there are as many sects in Gnosticism as there are in Christendom. Is the universe evil as some sects of Gnosticism believe? If not, what IYO is objective evil and how is it distinguished from the good?
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil predates Man on earth. What does evil refer to?
The only tree of knowledge I know is the kabbalah. Knowledge isn't evil per say but you may be commanded to remain ignorant/simple - in which case seeking knowledge then becomes a transgression.
Those two are some pretty difficult questions.
Martin Buber made some interesting observations regarding that tree in his book Good and Evil. What I found most interesting there was how the first psalm compared the happy person to a tree with roots and the wicked out on roads that petered out.
Regarding the idea that we live in something evil by default, I view the Gnostic versions of that as suspect as the notion that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
Is seeking knowledge evil and remaining ignorant the good? This doesn't make sense to me. Why would a God create knowledge and call it evil? If knowledge is evil why create our potential to receive it in the first place
I'm not being critical but just asking questions that anyone interested in the meaning and purpose of our universe and Man within it would ask. Is there a logical premise or skeleton of our universe that would reveal its meaning and purpose in which the questions of objective good and evil would be reasonable. ?
That's not the interpretation I am making. And the question you pose has nothing to do with my proposition. I never said knowledge was evil. But not following God's command is wrong. He is very specific about not eating that bloody fruit.
But Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She acquired knowledge of evil. Why should God deny this knowledge when Jesus descended to our planet to awaken Man to the harm of ignorance concerning objective good and evil? Is there a way this all makes sense?
Yes, many ways. God puts people to the test. Do not eat the fruit. Do not do anything God asks you not to do. Obedience is fidelity. But if you must concentrate on the fruit, it is knowledge that is the issue - the betrayal of purity. Which in the end facilitates Adam and Eve's pursuit of their own desires and ideas about right and wrong - free will instead of God's will. The first step in the separation of people from God and the tragedy of good and evil becoming mixed together in creation.
I see that the two you were speaking of the passage in the Bible, which I think is the hardest of all, or certainly it really worried me. That is the passage about the unpardonable sin: 'whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.' You mentioned it in connection with the idea of the Trinity, but it is has far wider implications for the idea of an unpardonable sin seems so contrary to the whole emphasis on forgiveness in the New Testament. When I have mentioned this idea to a number of people who are Christian's they don't really seem tot have thought that much about it. However, having agonised over it, I was a bit reassured to discover later that Jung and Kierkergaard had both struggled over this.
When I read the passage I lay awake worrying about it and I was troubled for about a year. I was so puzzled about what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was and, somehow, became convinced that I might have committed it. I was 13 at the time and did not confide in my parents but did tell a friend. The RE teacher ended up hearing about my worry and called me in, but he was not completely helpful because he seemed to think that I had done something which I felt ashamed about. However, I did manage to look up the idea in some reference books and it did seem that the whole idea represented the whole rejection of the spirit of Christ's teachings and that the reason why the person could not be forgiven was because the person, having rejected Christ, would not wish for his forgiveness. But I never saw the passage as being one about the essentiality of the Trinity idea, although that is an interesting interpretation. Personally, I would say that the passage you referred to was the initial anxiety I had with the Bible.
I think how a country manages poverty is very much an economic matter. The US was totally dependent on charity and government had nothing to do with the welfare of people until Roosevelt and the Great Depression. Some people continue to fight against the government managing welfare issues. Some European countries are more advanced in the government taking care of welfare matters and it seems secular people are more in favor of a government that does manage welfare issues, while there are Christians who want to keep the government out of doing what charity should do. In fact, Christianity is known in the US for getting people to accept poverty before the US moved from an industrial economy to a consumer economy.
Again, I think this is an economic matter. In the US, not that long ago, Christianity helped the poor by assuring them they were closer to God than the rich. I was strongly impressed by Jesus and poverty being closer to God. Although I decided I am not Christian, I internalized fear of working for the money instead of the cause. In the past, Christian leaders have worked with the US government to get people to accept poverty and not rebel in protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Christan leaders worked to mobilize the cold war against those "godless people". Christian leaders have supported war and it was the Christian Right and the invasion of Iraq that ended my belief that is wrong to argue against Christianity. Billy Graham was one of those leaders and he did a marvelous Christmas show announcing God wants us to send our sons and daughters into the Iraq war, you know the war that was the "power and glory".
How do you know of the charitable work being done by Buddhists and Hindus that makes you feel comfortable determining they are not as charitable as Christians?
I think I love you! I have returned to buy old, grade school textbooks because there is a new committee to study education for democracy and I want to organize something locally to build public support for a return to education for democracy. In book after book, there are stories about family and community that at one time created a different reality from what we are experiencing today.
Can you find old textbooks? If you can find them we can bring the past into the present. With a book you can show people the "thought" is not your own but comes from books of a past that was different from the present. Look for information about what international banking has to do with turning us into products for industry and the production of national wealth. It takes money to make money and a properly educated mass is good for bank loans.
I think this is a transition period. We need wealth to have good education and medical care, libraries, the arts, etc. We are new at having so much money. Hopefully, we will regain wisdom and do better. :heart: :flower:
I was bothered by this question also until I realized that only exceptional people who understand the power of the Holy Spirit could sin against the Holy Sprit. I found this explanation in Lost Christianity:
Jacob Needleman, quoting “Father Sylvan”
"Forgiveness is the seeing that carries the holy force of reconciliation. God forgives; Christ forgives; but actually, the power of forgiveness lies with the Holy Spirit."
The Holy Spirit connects no-thing with everything. We misunderstand God and Christ so everything is forgiven. We can curse out God but it is meaningless. However the power of reconciliation or connecting above and below can be taken advantage of which is basically demonic and impossible to erase from the seed of the soul. It has replaced the power of reconciliation. But don't worry about it. Real Satanism takes skills that we are incapable of as we are.
This is why real esoteric teaching is done in private and not written down. It protects the ignorant curiousity seekers from themselves.
It is interesting that you were concerned about the passage in the Bible about the unforgivable sin, because I have only ever come across one other person who has told me that they were worried. It was when I was starting my upper school and it did affect my school work. The RE teacher did seek to reassure me but I was annoyed that he seemed to think I must have done something, But it was the first time that I really began worrying about hell, and at a later stage of adolescence that I began worrying again in relation to real sins.
However, at some stage in school, I did learn from the same RE teacher that what was taught to the disciples was different from the rest of the people. But, generally the fear of hell was what led me to look outside of Christianity, and even now, I do find I get anxious if I try to read the Bible or if I go to church. I think that the distress of the whole time I worried about the passage in the Bible has left me with a deep psychological scar. However, this may go beyond this because I know so many Catholics who have a big guilt complex generally.
I think it’s a matter of fact, although I’d have to research it to find the specifics. It’s not that they’re not as charitable, but that Christianity has an explicit command to care for the poor and sick. But I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
Economics - where money and resources are prioritized is almost entirely a reflection of the cultural priorities of a society.
Quoting Athena
I have worked with Buddhist and Hindu community members have made this point to me often. But clearly there are individual practitioners who do are highly charitable.
The difference between science and religion fundamentally lies in the relation both have to the world and truth more generally. Religion explains the world. Science tries to describe the world. Because of this, religion is a belief as it can never be proven : you need faith to believe in God. On the contrary, science does not need faith to hold true, and relies on proof. Yet science is never exact and theories are wrong or incomplete. Because of this, science as a whole has a faulty or incomplete relation to truth. Quite paradoxically then, it is science that is never true but tries to get closer to truth, while if you have faith in a religion then that view of the world is entirely true.
Suppose that we are naturally curious, which by all means we appear to be. Then it would only be natural for us to try and understand the world around us. If science can only give us a partial view of what the world is like without ever fully being able to understand it, then it is unsurprising that people use religion as a relation to the world. This form of relation to religion is known as the theological state, and is the explanation of the world through belief.
While this is a possible answer, and most certainly is the case for a lot of people, I believe that need in of itself is a bad reason for belief. This is because need is essentially desire and this makes us consider religion only from a functional point of view, despite that not being the case. Religion is fundamentally irrational in the sense that it cannot be apprehended through reason. Because of this, if we try and see religion as functional then we are dutifully mistaken since function is associated to reason.
Some people have a need for religion, whether it is for reassurance, understanding or anything else. But I believe that if we are religious out of need then our belief isn't strong enough. Religion should flow through you instead of us trying to use it as a tool, and that I think is why people have a need for religion -but shouldn't.
Let me precise that I am an atheist. This does not mean that I disregard religion. Or faith. I believe that the principles that I just outlined should be applied to belief as a whole : we shouldn't believe in a cause if we expect something out of it in return. The same holds true for religion.
I wish you best,
Eliot.
The way I view the matter is through how the the "holy spirit" is presented as an advocate in different ways in the text. In John 14:15, Jesus explains how it will be when he is gone:
"If you love me, you'll obey my instructions. At my request, the Father will provide you with yet another advocate, the authentic spirit, who will be with you forever. The world is unable to accept (this spirit) because it neither perceives nor recognizes it. You recognize it because it dwells in you and will remain in you."
So the matter of keeping the dwelling place is the work of the one who would invite the spirit to live there. One can sever themselves from this love through a kind of self destruction. In Luke 12:10, the harsh condition is combined with how the advocate supports you:
"And everyone who utters a word against the son of Adam will be forgiven, But whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit won't be forgiven. And when they make you appear in synagogues and haul you up before rulers and authorities, don't worry about how or in what way you should defend yourself or what you should say. The holy spirit will teach you at that very moment what you ought to say."
Having the harsh condition presented together with the helpful one suggests that being a dwelling place is a different situation than being one who commits sins that hurt others. In that sense, Jesus, as a Rabbi, is drawing from the "wisdom" tradition of the Proverbs such as verse 16:
"The plans of the mind belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes but the Lord weighs the spirit."
One outlook on the idea of the Holy Spirit, as overseeing the ego, is in, 'A Course of Miracles'.
Here is an example passage:
'The ego speaks in judgement, and the Holy Spirit reverses its decision, much as a higher court has the power to reverse a lower court's decisions in this world. The ego's decisions are always wrong because they are based on the error they were made to uphold. Nothing the ego perceives is interpreted correctly. Not only does the ego cite scripture for its purpose, but it even interprets Scripture as a witness for itself. The Bible is a fearful thing in the ego's judgement. Perceiving it as frightening, it interprets it fearfully.'
I realise that, 'A Course in Miracles' is criticised by some, especially some Christians, because it is a 'channelled' book, but for some, who have developed a whole attitude of fear in response to the Bible and Christianity it can be helpful, in working with the fear itself.
I think that your distinction between describing the world through science and explaining it through religion is an important one. I think that you are right to say that religion is irrational, but part of the issue I see with that is that we are not completely rational beings. Certainly, I try to develop the rational side of myself, but I am aware of irrationality in myself and my own thinking. I have thought through my own religious background of Catholicism, and don't hold onto them as I did I did, but I would not describe myself as an atheist. But, it is definitely good to have an atheist join in the debate because I did not intend for this thread to be one just intended for people who hold religious convictions.
From the quotes given, it sounds like there is a psychology being proposed that incorporates particular elements of "scripture" that would attempt to explain the roles of all involved. I think Kierkegaard would consider the interpretation to be as self serving as the motivation charged to the poor ego in that theory.
In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard separated the circumstances of sin from the realm of psychology by arguing that the choices we all have to make are not circumscribed by explanations of human nature. Being Kierkegaard, he made many psychological observations on the way to establishing that limit. You might be interested in a passage in his personal writings that his editors have pointed to in the work:
Another Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, emphasized that the Holy Spirit had to be recognized as beyond the powers of human nature if the explanation for the Paraclete or advocate in The Gospel of John was to make any sense.
Now, there are interesting psychological approaches that provide sort of a negative image. In Ouspenski's In Search of the Miraculous, Gurdjieff refers to the first Christians as closed door dojos who were only interested in training in what they only discussed amongst themselves. As a result, G had no idea what they might have been up to.
The quote from Kierkergaard is interesting to me because I do remember reading that he worried about the unpardonable sin.
Regarding the book, 'A Course in Miracles', it does seem that it approaches the whole idea of the Holy Spirit on a psychological level. However, on some level, I do think that ultimately, as a 'channelled' piece of writing, that implies some higher source, and wouldn't that be the Holy Spirit. I have a Catholic friend, who does a lot of religious art and she describes her own work and inspiration as 'channelling' the Holy Spirit.
I think that in some ways the church may have used the term Holy Spirit to reinforce it's own views over those of other faiths. However, on a positive level, I think that it refers to the whole spirit and healing pointed to in Christ's life and message. But, even though I am interested in religion more in line with the theosophical tradition, I do still worry about what it would mean to really have committed the unpardonable sin. At one point, when I looked in the footnotes to the large family Bible in my parents' home, the suggestion was that it would be the whole reverse set of values, in which good is seen as evil.
The quote is interesting to you but does not engage you as some part of what you worry about.
That makes it sound kind of boring. I get how it bores people but I don't understand why a lack of interest does not resolve itself into an oblivion of reference. Nobody cared about certain distinctions after some point of time so talking about it became an irritating detritus to a formerly important matter to understand.
I planned to look at it in the morning, but started thinking and dashed off a reply, so I have to admit that I hadn't paid full attention to the quote. I will have a read of it again in the morning as it's after midnight. I definitely don't wish to see Kierkergaard as boring and would like to read more of his writings really.
I have looked at the quote you gave from Kierkergaard and not sure what to make of it out of context. I am sure that the idea of spiritual trial makes sense. I do feel that many, including myself, dislike the word sin because it seems to conjure up a picture of preachers telling people what they should and should not do. That is not to say that I think that the idea of sin, in its meaning of erring, should be underplayed.
I do plan to read more Kierkergaard because I do believe that he struggled 'spiritual trial' but I think that sometimes the language of religion does reinforce convention. Of course, the Gospels do really go beyond this, in the whole way that Jesus criticised the Pharisees. I do believe that the whole inner process of trial is important and one quote I do have access to from Kierkergaard's writing is,
'Despair is a Sickness in the Spirit, in the Self, and So it May Assume a Triple Form: in Despair at Not Being Conscious of Having a Self (Despair Improperly So Called); in Despair at Not Willing to Be Oneself; in Despair at Willing to Be Oneself.'
Of course, I am simply choosing a quote which I prefer but all this talk of sin in religion brought me to the despair in the first place, and I wonder if Kierkergaard was coming from that perspective too.
. Religion is dead. It has really lived too long, it should have been dead long ago. It has not done any good to humanity, it has done immense harm. It has divided humanity. It has given different groups of people the idea that “You are the real people of God,” that “You are special; other human beings are second class.” It has fulfilled the egos of Jews, of Christians, of Hindus, of Mohammedans – of everybody. It has created so many wars. It has killed millions of people, burned thousands of people alive, and all in the name of God. For your own sake you are being burned alive!
. Religion is one of the most criminal phenomena that have existed in the world. It is time that we declare it dead.
. But remember, every death is a beginning of something new; every death is not an end. On the one side it looks as if something has ended, but on the other side something fresh starts growing. The death of religion becomes the beginning of religio.
. The word “religion” comes from religio. Religio has a beauty of its own, which is lost in “religion.” Religio means an existential, an experiential phenomenon. The very word means coming to a point where you are one – one with yourself, one with existence. Religion which comes from the same root does not have that meaning. It, on the contrary, makes you split. Making you one is not its work; its work is to make you schizophrenic, to put you into a split state, to put you against your own body, to put you against your own sex, to put you against yourself; to divide you into parts, fragments, and create an inner conflict in you.
. All religious people are continuously fighting with themselves, because their biology says to do something, and their holy scripture says to do just the opposite. Their own being wants to grow in one way, but the priests direct them into some other way.
. Every religion has been trying to make you somebody else. No religion has allowed you to be just yourself. They are all afraid of your being just yourself; then their function is lost. Their function is to create conflict in you, to make you miserable, suffering, in anguish. Then naturally you have to seek help.
. They create the disease, and then they start praying for you to be forgiven. They are the criminals, and they are asking for you to be forgiven. And whom are they asking? There is nobody.
. So it is really a great exploitation by the priesthood of all the religions. They have destroyed every individual. They have made you Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, but they have not allowed you to become just an individual, a human being. You were born not as a Christian, you were born not as a Buddhist; you were born just as a human being. They have destroyed your innocence; they have misdirected your life. They have molded you into something which you cannot become; it is not your potential.
. This is not religio. Religio is accepting you in your totality, making you whole, healthy. And that opens the door to become one with existence. You are part of it; every moment you are part of it. You are breathing existence in and out every moment – you are eating it, you are living it in every possible way. No man is an island, we are all part of an infinite continent; that’s what I am calling existence.
. Religio will relax you. Religio will give you, for the first time, the dignity of being a human being, and the vastness of being part of the whole existence.
. Religion is dead, religio is born.
. Religion is something like marriage: unnatural, arbitrary, artificial, created by social convenience.
. Religio is like love: natural, simple. No law is involved in it; no society, no culture dominates it.
. Love is a law unto itself, and love gives you something that is immensely precious. You start feeling needed. You are not superficial, you are not just accidental; you are needed, you are fulfilling some essential need. Love gives you the first glimpse that existence wants you the way you are. There is no need to become Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha. Nature does not like carbon copies. Existence likes originals. You, in your originality, are acceptable.
. But a Christian is a carbon copy; he is trying to become Jesus Christ, and in two thousand years not a single Christian has succeeded. In twenty-five centuries not a single Buddhist has succeeded in becoming Gautam Buddha. Is it not proof enough? You can go even further backwards. In five thousand years, no Hindu has succeeded in becoming a Krishna. It is simply impossible. Nature never repeats.
. They say history repeats itself – because history is not nature. History belongs to carbon copies, retarded people; naturally it repeats itself. They don’t know what else to do, so they go on doing the same thing again.
. Nature is very inventive. It does not create even two persons equal, even similar. There are four billion people on the earth today, but you cannot find two persons who are exactly alike. Even twins are not exactly alike. They may appear to be, but their mother knows who is who; their wives know who is who. There are differences – very subtle. Outsiders may be puzzled, but those who know them closely can see the differences in their individuality – in their gestures, in their way of speaking, in their way of thinking, in their way of walking – in small things. But the differences are bound to be there.
. Religion has tried a very futile experiment, and almost destroyed humanity for thousands of years.
. The death of religion releases you from becoming somebody else. Now you can enjoy being yourself.
. We can call our commune, religio – a mystery school, a way of searching for one’s own spiritual being, a way of discovering one’s original face. Nobody has to become anybody else.
. And you are asking me, “God is dead, religion is dead, then what is left now?”
. In fact, those were the hindrances, which are removed, and everything that is essential is available now. Now you can be yourself without any guilt. Now you can be simply a human being without belonging to any organized religion. The moment truth becomes organized, it becomes untrue.
. I am reminded of a beautiful ancient story. A newly-recruited devil came running to the master devil, huffing and puffing, and said, “Something has to be done immediately! One man on the earth has just found the truth! And if he spreads it, what are we going to do? Our whole business is finished! He has to be prevented.”
. The old man laughed. He said, “You are a new recruit; you don’t know – my people are already there.”
. The young devil said, “Your people?”
. He said, “Yes, my people. The priests are already around the man, and they are organizing whatever he has found. That is my way of destroying truth, and it has never failed; for centuries I have been doing that. The priests – all the priests – are in my service! They don’t know it, but the moment truth is organized, it dies.”
. Why does truth die when it is organized? It dies because it is an individual experience. Can you organize love? Nobody has ever thought about it; otherwise it would have died. You cannot organize love. Love is something that transpires between two individuals. It does not need any priest, it does not need any book of instructions.
. When I was studying in the university I used to have a roommate – he was a little bit of an idiot, just the same as people are all over the world.
. He asked me, “Everybody talks about the fact that he has fallen in love, and some girl has fallen in love with him. It seems we are the only two persons in this whole university…. About you there is no problem, because you don’t want anything to do with any love, any woman, because you think they will be a distraction in your search. I don’t know what you are searching for, but I am at a loss. I want to fall in love. But how to fall in love? I have been to the university library looking for a book, HOW TO FALL IN LOVE; there is not a single book on the subject. And I cannot ask anybody else, because they will simply laugh. If everybody knows how to fall, then why don’t I?”
. I said, “You don’t be worried, I will teach you. You just choose the girl that you would like to fall in love with.”
. He said, “I chose her two years ago, but how to start? The moment she enters, I become so nervous in the classroom, I forget all about love. I forget even what the teacher is saying.”
. I said, “Don’t be worried. I will write a love letter for you. You simply post it to the girl and wait for the answer.”
. I knew the girl; she was one of the most beautiful girls in the university. She had been interested in me, but I had told her, “Right now, I am involved too much in my own work, in my meditations, and I don’t think you have patience enough to wait. But if you can wait, then I can promise you one thing: the day I become enlightened I will be ready. But not before that.”
. She said, “Enlightened? My God! How long will I have to wait?”
. I said, “Nobody knows. I may become enlightened in this life, I may become enlightened in another life. Nothing can be said, it is unpredictable. So the best is, for the time being you choose somebody else.”
. But she was persistent. So I approached her and said, “Just do me a favor.”
. She said, “Have you become enlightened?”
. I said, “No, not yet. But one of my friends is in a difficulty. He wants to fall in love, but he does not know how to fall in love. So you will receive a letter from him. Don’t discourage him – write him a beautiful letter.”
. She said, “This is tricky. Then I will be stuck with that boy – and I know your roommate, I don’t want anything to do with him.”
. I said, “You need not be worried.”
. And she said, “How can I write a very loving letter to that idiot? I cannot!”
. I said, “Then I will write it.” So I was writing letters from both the sides. And the boy was so ecstatic!
. He could not believe that just with his writing a letter, love began.
. But then the girl fell in love with somebody else. She told me that she could not wait, her parents were forcing her: either she had to choose someone, or they would. “You are my choice, but your enlightenment is a strange thing,” she said. ”I have never heard of anybody making such a condition, that when they become enlightened, then they will think about other matters. I have to choose; otherwise they will choose. So I have chosen, unwillingly. I will remember you, but I am getting married.”
. I said, ‘You get married happily, and don’t feel that you are doing it unwillingly. I am responsible for making you sad, and for making you decide in favor of someone else. I like you, but as far as love is concerned, that involvement is possible only after my enlightenment, not before that!”
. She said, “Then what about your friend that you have been unnecessarily forcing upon me? He goes on writing every day. And you have made it such a mess that you go on writing in my name, and I have to post those letters. I read them and I say, ‘My God! That idiot!’ And you are praising him and telling him, ‘I will die without you, and I cannot live without you. You are my heart.’ What am I to say to that man?”
. I said, “You have simply to say that your parents are forcing you to get married.” And in India it is common, an arranged marriage. A love marriage is still not acceptable.
. So she told the idiot, “What can I do? I love you so much, but my parents have arranged my marriage. So now I will not be seeing you anymore, and you stop writing the letters.”
. He almost came to a nervous breakdown, crying, in tears. I asked, “What is the matter?” – I knew what was the matter!
. He said, “My love affair was going so smoothly. Every day a letter – I was writing, she was replying; everything was going so smoothly. And her father has disturbed everything. I will shoot that man!”
. I said, “That won’t help. You find another girl – there is no problem – and start writing letters again.”
. He said, “But I don’t know what to write.”
. So I said, “You do one thing. You go to the girl and ask for all the letters you have written to her.”
. He said, “What!”
. “You just tell her, ‘I need those letters, because I have not been writing them.’ And return her letters to her.”
. So he went to the girl and asked for his letters. But she said, “What will you do with those letters?”
. He said, “What will I do? Have I to live or not? You are getting married – I will have to write letters to somebody else. Now what is the point of writing the same letters again? I can use these letters. And here are your letters that you had written to me; perhaps you may need them sometime, because who loves one’s own husband? Who loves one’s own wife? You may need them.”
. The girl said, “You can have both the sets, because both are written by the same man.”
. He was very angry with me, but I said to him, “That is the function of a priest. I have not done anything unique; that is what the priests have been doing all through man’s history. They pray for you to God. They even bring answers from God to you – answers to your prayers. They make your prayer, they make the answers for your prayer. I have been just functioning like a priest – only the area was different; it was love, it was not God.”
. The priests have no function if there is no God. Then there is no prayer, then there is no holy book, then there is no ritual. The priest has nothing left. He wants an organized religion. He turns religio into its opposite and calls it religion.
. Religio is a freedom. Religion is a slavery. Dropping God, dropping religion, I have restored your freedom. Now you can be yourself without any fear. You can grow without copying anybody. You can just grow into your own unknown potential.
. You are asking, “What is left?” Everything becomes available; only blocks have been removed, hindrances have been removed. Now you can meditate. You cannot pray; prayer needs a God.
. Meditation needs no God. Prayer has divided humanity, because Christian prayer is different from Hindu prayer. Mohammedan prayer is different from Christian prayer. But meditation is the same.
. Here, this very moment… if you are all silent, it is the same silence.
. Silence cannot have any name, any label.
. And meditation is the ultimate growth of silence.
. Now you can be silent, you can grow deeper and deeper within yourself, searching for the center from where your life arises. The moment you discover that center, there is an explosion which is far more significant than any atomic explosion, far more luminous. The atomic explosion is destructive. The explosion that happens at your center gives you a tremendous energy to be creative.
. And it does not make you part of any organized cult, creed, dogma – no. It simply makes you a dignified individual, immensely blissful because you have found the greatest treasure in the world. There is nothing more to be found. In finding your center, you have found the very center of existence.
. You have found eternity.
. Now there is no death.
. And out of this experience arises lovingness, compassion, creativity. Even sitting silently, doing nothing, there will be a certain aura of bliss around you, a certain fragrance around you.
. You have come home.
I don't know if Kierkegaard will address your thinking about sin and punishment. I brought that quote up in response to your comments about fear. It shows that he does not consider the tradition of enduring a "Fear of the Lord" as something that can be circumvented if one takes life seriously.
In regards to the limits of psychology, that element is part of his objection to the Hegelian system that would explain all experience and thus overcome conflicts. There is something that we cannot repair by ourselves.
I am interested in reading Kierkergaard, but not necessarily expecting him to provide answers, but just to encounter his voice and perspective. Both he, Hegel, and others were coming from a different time in history. I am not suggesting the current climate of thinking is a superior viewpoint, but radically different because we have such a wider panorama of ideas.
I am not wishing to go into the wilderness of mere relativism, but wish to be aware of the many perspectives because this awareness leads to a certain amount of distance. I don't believe that humanity has overcome the need for religious thinking, because even the most rational scientists have to encounter the unexpected and unpredictable. Perhaps the people who think that they have no moral dilemmas, will get to the point where they feel the guilt of conscience, even though they may not call it 'sin.'
I think all religions are basically the same. However, they are organized differently. Rome gave Christianity its organization and when Rome in the West failed, the Church had to pick up much of the responsibility of government. But charity is common to different belief systems.
Someone put a lot of work into that explanation. Is it your original work?
Personally, I think family is very important. Next to that is a sense of community. But that is the way of the female. Our identity is about relationships, whereas, male identity seems centered on what a male does, a carpenter, a welder, a machinist, a farmer etc..
I am amazed by the huge transfer in wealth we are experiencing with so much money being given to citizens who have done nothing to earn it and telling them to spend it to stimulate the economy. I don't think that has been well thought out and I really want to live long enough to know how this does work out. I don't know if this is caring about the people or a new way of thinking what is best for the economy? I like it a whole lot better than Reagan's denial of people needing help and slashing the domestic budget and pouring money into military spending. But in the Reagan years, our dependency on OPEC oil and OPEC embargoing oil to the US, lead to an economic crash, and at the time the only way to correct that problem was having the military might to take back control of oil and keep it.
Trying to take control of Afghanistan did not go well, and setting up half the people to want to be like the West and leaving them to the mercy of the other half that wants to defend a way of life that is as old as biblical times, is a human crisis that I am very ashamed of.
Is it good human values to destroy the lives of others, so we can have a high standard of living? Once we have intervened, is it morally our responsibility to defend those who want to be as the West? Should we ask families to give up their sons' and daughters' lives in a defense of people on the other side of the world? I am really torn up at the moment because of our role in Afghanstan?
I am wondering about the economic plays and how they fit into human values.
That is where I rely on Cicero and the belief that humans are compelled to do the right thing when they know what that is.
We all know shoplifting is wrong but how wrong? When we do wrong, we justify it. As in shoplifting, or paying a worker a wage that is not a livable wage. Capitalism can lead to great inequality and robbing from the rich is not so wrong. It can be seen a fair equalizing. I am not saying that shoplifting is right, but that we justify doing what we know is wrong. Justifying our wrongs proves Cicero is right. We need to see ourselves as the good guys. It is a biologically and psychologically determined fact.
I just read a book about education that is so racist it is shocking that such a book can be rewritten and published in this day and age! The man who wrote the book believes he is doing a good thing. This is where philosophy and science come in! In a democracy, we need to argue until we have a consensus on the best reasoning. We do not see this as the word of God, but an ongoing process to have, and live by, the best reasoning possible.
The problem isn't a lack of reasoning but the inability to look; to consciously see. Simone Weil explains in this short poem. Without the ability to look, reasoning becomes just a tool for self justification further supporting all the arguments.
[i]There Comes
If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,
there comes
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;
if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.[/i]
Most of the time we are in fast thinking mode and automatically do things without thinking. Slow thinking consumes a lot more energy. :lol: After a couple of hours in the forum, I have to take a nap. Slow thinking is the real thinking that separates us from other animals.
Slow thinking is best when we learn the higher-order thinking skills.
Quoting wikipedia
I would say being capable of thinking does not automatically result in good thinking. Education is very important to good thinking.
Let us be clear, reading the Bible does not equal becoming a good thinker. We can hold an understanding of the Bible without higher-order thinking skills. In fact, the 2012 Texas Republic agenda was to prevent education in higher-order thinking skills.
Slow thinking requires logically developing critical thinking from the need to problem solve. The law of the excluded middle or non-contradiction is necessary for slow thinking. Without it a person become a political thinker or parrots talking points.
However the law of the INCLUDED middle rather than the excluded middle is necessary for the seeker of truth who realizes the need for the experience of truth is more important than the temporary need to solve a problem. The law of the included middle requires opening to a higher quality of reason than the law of the excluded middle
It is even known now on certain levels of education. The goal is to unite the superficial understanding of the law of the excluded middle with the higher psychological potential of putting lower understanding into a higher perspective. Where the law of the excluded middle is scientific reasoning, the law of the included middle makes biblical contradictions understandable from higher intellectual perspective.
The world as I know it is not ready to open to what makes a higher perspective possible and is content to argue the value of fragments. Yet there are those who are aware of the law of the included middle. These are the people I try to learn from as I strive to understand what it means to reason.
http://esoteric.msu.edu/Reviews/NicolescuReview.htm
[i]After reading Nicolescu's Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, it is hard to imagine how any thinking person could retreat to the old, safe, comfortable conceptual framework. Taking a series of ideas that would be extremely thought-provoking even when considered one by one, the Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu weaves them together in a stunning vision, this manifesto of the twenty-first century, so that they emerge as a shimmering, profoundly radical whole.
Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.
Transdisciplinarity “concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,” and its aim is the unity of knowledge together with the unity of our being: “Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge.” (44) Nicolescu points out the danger of self-destruction caused by modernism and increased technologization and offers alternative ways of approaching them, using a transdisciplinary approach that propels us beyond the either/or thinking that gave rise to the antagonisms that produced the problems in the first place. The logic of the included middle permits “this duality [to be] transgressed by the open unity that encompasses both the universe and the human being.” (56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.
Nicolescu calls on us to rethink everything in terms of what quantum physics has shown us about the nature of the universe. Besides offering an alternative to thinking exclusively in terms of binary logic, and showing how the idea of the logic of the included middle can afford hitherto unimagined possibilities, he also introduces us to the idea that Reality is not something that exists on only one level, but on many, and maintains that only transdisciplinarity can deal with the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of Reality at once. It is for this reason that transdisciplinarity is radically distinct from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, although it is often confused with both. Moreover, because of the fact that reality has more than a single level, binary logic, the logic that one uses to cross a street and avoid being hit by a truck, cannot possibly be applied to all of the levels. It simply does not work. Nicolescu explains it is only the logic of the included middle that can be adequate for complex situations, like those we must confront in the educational, political, social, religious and cultural arenas. As he writes, “The transdisciplinary viewpoint allows us to consider a multidimensional Reality, structured by multiple levels replacing the single-level, one-dimensional reality of classical thought.........” (49)[/i]
I found the ideas of Niscolescu very helpful as my understanding of reality is certainly multidimensional. I also think that the whole idea of the middle is essential, as it seems that binary thinking, as extremes seem so limiting. In particular, I feel that a lot of people tend to prefer a clear pessimist or optimist approach both seem mistaken. I think that we need to find the balance in how we see most aspects of life, in order for be able to think clearly. Obviously, we don't just want a watered down version of reality, but it seems to be about juxtaposing opposites in a careful and intricate way in our perception and philosophical quest.
I believe that you are correct in focusing on Cicero and, when you suggest that all religions are the same, I think that you are pointing to the way in which there are central importance teachings underlying most of them. Probably some of the teachings have been distorted in the implementation by organised religion, but the original teachers had a certain vision. It is likely that the distortions, as well as valid philosophy questions which turned people away, and it may be that are moving into a time of religio, as suggested by @Anand-Haqq
I do believe that it is important for us to draw upon the best of all traditions of thought, religious and secular. Also, you point to the whole issue of male domination and it does seem that Western and some other religions have been served a patriarchal society. However, there is a whole tradition of the goddess. It may be that the idea of the goddess preceded the Judaeo-Christian image of God as Jahweh.This may be a lost, repressed aspect of religion. Certainly, some anthropologists, such as Chris Knight, have pointed to a matriarchy prior to a patriarchy.
I do believe that apart from asking why we need religious beliefs, the whole history of religion is also important. This includes understanding how the ideas were established. It also involves the complex relationship between mainstream teachings and esoteric ones. What I find is that the more I try to write, the more aware I become of the need to read so much more, because there is so much to discover.
The middle can be understood as a balance between extremes and is often the secular perspective. Dr Nicolescu is describing the middle in the law of the included middle as including the extremes from a higher conscious perspective. Where the law of the excluded middle or non-contradiction refers to one level of reality, the law of the included middle describes how the extremes are united as one from higher conscious level of reality.
The base of triangle creates the two extremes. They are reconciled or exist as one at a higher reality or the apex of the triangle.
I know that you are talking about the higher consciousness but do you think that the balance of opposites is different to the one in real life?Do you not think we can climb the triangle to the highest state to enable us to find the answers?Or does that involve such dangers as going trying to go beyond good and evil? I am wondering about the Buddhist middle way, or am I jumbling up all the jigsaw pieces?
What you refer to as the real world is the world of dualism on which all these interactions of life take place mechanically on one level of reality. I believe there is a greater reality within which a person can consciously experience this duality and not be a part of it. It is like a mother looking down at her kids playing in the sandbox. Man has the power to observe himself in war for example. The two sides are fighting but the real winner is the descending aspect of the third force. Watch how Simone describes our situation in her famous essay on the Iliad:
http://www.holoka.com/pdf-files/weil.pdf
[i][b]1. The true hero, the true subject matter, the center of the Iliad is force. The force that men wield, the force
that subdues men, in the face of which human flesh shrinks back. The human soul seems ever conditioned by its ties with force, swept away, blinded by the force it believes it can control, bowed under the
constraint of the force it submits to. Those who have supposed that force, thanks to progress, now belongs to the past, have seen a record of that in Homer’s poem; those wise enough to discern the force at
the center of all human history, today as in the past, find in the Iliad the most beautiful and flawless of
mirrors.
2. Force is that which makes a thing of whoever submits to it. Exercised to the extreme, it makes the
human being a thing quite literally, that is, a dead body. Someone was there and, the next moment, no
one. The Iliad never tires of presenting us this tableau:[/b]
... the horses
made the swift chariots thunder along the paths of war
in mourning for their blameless drivers. On the earth
they lie, much dearer to the vultures than to their wives.
11.159–62
3. The hero is a thing dragged in the dust behind a chariot:
... All around, the black hair
was spread, and the whole head lay in the dust,
just before so charming; now Zeus has granted
to his enemies to debase it on his native land.
22.401–4
4. We taste the bitterness of such a tableau undiluted, mitigated by no comforting lie, no consoling expectation of immortality, no faded nimbus of glory or patriotism.
His soul flies from his limbs, goes to Hades,
grieving its destiny, relinquishing its strength and youth.
22.362–63
5. Still more moving and painfully contrastive is the sudden evoking and immediate effacing of another world, the distant, fragile, touching world of peace, of the family, a world where each man means
more than anything to those around him.
She called to her fair-haired servants in the house
to put by the fire a large tripod, in order that there might be
a warm bath for Hector on his return from combat.
So naive! She knew not that far indeed from warm baths
Achilles’ arm had beaten him down, because of green-eyed Athena.
22.442–46
6. Truly, he was far from warm baths, that hapless man. Nor was he alone. Nearly all of the Iliad takes
place far from warm baths. Nearly all human life has always taken place far from warm baths.
[b]7. The force that kills is summary and crude. How much more varied in operation, how much more
stunning in effect is that other sort of force, that which does not kill, or rather does not kill just yet. It will
kill for a certainty, or it will kill perhaps, or it may merely hang over the being it can kill at any instant; in
all cases, it changes the human being into stone. From the power to change a human being into a thing by
making him die there comes another power, in its way more momentous, that of making a still living
human being into a thing. He is living, he has a soul; he is nonetheless a thing. Strange being—a thing
with a soul; strange situation for the soul! Who can say how it must each moment conform itself, twist
and contort itself? It was not created to inhabit a thing; when it compels itself to do so, it endures violence through and through..................................................[/b][/i]
What is this force which controls mechanical duality and makes puppets or losers of everyone in war ? As I understand it, the only ascending force which obstructs the descending force of creation is the ascending force of grace or conscious evolution returning to its source.
War my be a necessity to serve the needs of nature but a conscious human being need not serve nature but can return to its source. Of course it is easier said than done. The world doesn't want to let you go.
But beginning to outgrow dualism and experiencing the triune nature of our universe opens new doors for those willing to open their minds to explore it and begin to understand why everything is as it is.
Yes, I didn't think that your triangle should mean that people should just stay at the bottom. In many ways, dualistic thinking seems to be the illusory way of conventional thinking. It does seem that most philosophies which stress some kind of evolution of consciousness, or even initiation do see beyond binary thinking. Or, if nothing else, they see opposites as more intricately involved, like the yin and yang symbol, in which the complementary parts are reflected in the circles of the two halves. I am also thinking of how Jung spoke of the path of individuation as being one in which one opposites are faced on the path towards conscious wholeness.
Wow-what a nice way of explaining. Are you coming from Eastern culture? And I like what Jack Cummins said about getting beyond binary thinking.
I have an 8 A.M. appointment for swimming and I am going to enjoy so much contemplating what the two of you have said while I exercise. Thank you for a wonderful start to this day.
Thanks Athena. A lot of my ideas are influenced by what has been called Esoteric or inner Christianity which is not the same as the exoteric or outer Christianity you dislike and popular in society.
I'll be interested to learn the questions you come up with.
By far the best definition of ‘religion’ I’ve come across is Clifford Geertz’s: https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/syllabi/w/wattles/geertzppt2.htm
From his book ‘Interpretations of Cultures’: http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/poerwanti-hadi-pratiwi-spd-msi/cliffordgeertztheinterpretationofculturesbookfiorg.pdf
I read this in combination with Levi-Strauss’ ‘Structural Anthropology’ and Eliade’s ‘The Sacred and The Profane’.
Levi-Strauss is clinical and dry, Eliade - in this particular work - surprisingly expressive compared to other scholarly works of his, and Geertz more like the cool kid on the block (a bit too opinionated and a tad of bias shining through).
To refer more to Eliade’s use of terminology, ‘religion’ is innate in that we all possess a certain foundation upon which we base our interpretations of experiences that come our way (the ‘cosmological’ view, Jungian ‘axis mundi’ AND/OR the ‘weltanschuuang’).
Upturn someone’s sense of reality and they will refuse to accept it regardless of what their senses and are exposed to. Blind people can accept the concept of ‘colour’ yet some people who are sighted may deny the existence of ‘colour’. Like with any serious paradigm shift not everyone is willing/able to take it in their stride. It is a necessary mechanism for mapping out the world - without a map there is no ‘world’ to speak of, so when people have used certain ideas to orientate themselves they’re either extremely unwilling to remove them, or more likely, simply unable to as it would literally tear them asunder.
The anthropology of religion is an area I find fascinating. I have read Eliade's, 'The Sacred and the Profane'. I have dipped into Levi Strauss, but I find his writing a bit dry too. Have you read, 'Purity and Danger', by Mary Douglas?
Jung's ideas have been the most inspiring for me. One work which I regard of central importance is his, 'Answer to Job', for its whole analysis and interpretation of the Judeo-Christian image of God. Also, I like his whole understanding of Eastern religions.
Really, I like reading around the whole area of symbolism, including the writings of Joseph Campbell, as well as Rudolf Otto's approach to numinousity. I am also fascinated by many esoteric writers, especially Rudolf Steiner.
There is evidence that classical music results in better plant health. Music has been used for healing people. I certainly felt good as I listened to the music while driving to the pool and with your post in mind my question is- can music transform us? What exactly is transformation? Is it just emotional or also physical?
There is a lot of talk about the plasticity of our brains. Music and also meditation can change our brain waves.
:grin: I have to return to reading "The Mayan Factor" and Jose Arguelles's explanation of the transformation humans and the planet are experiencing. What he says is really far out there and weird to our modern minds, but did he discover a truth we should know?
Music by itself cannot result in transformation or evolution of a person's being like the transformation of the being of a caterpillar into a moth. However it can serve to remind us emotionally of what we search for at the depths of our being when not caught up in daily life effecting our personality or outer nature. Sacred music like choir music can sometimes have this effect by slowing us down into spiritual contemplation
Music is vibration. The structure of our universe is the lawful expression of vibrations we can interpret as music. The effect of music can raise or lower our vibrations as well as animal and plant life which hears it. The study of music is a big topic but begins with the knowledge of vibrations. Does this make sense to you.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/kyb/kyb11.htm
[i]"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything
vibrates."--The Kybalion.
The great Third Hermetic Principle--the Principle of Vibration--embodies the truth that Motion is manifest in everything in the Universe--that nothing is at rest--that everything moves, vibrates, and circles. This Hermetic Principle was recognized by some of the early Greek philosophers who embodied it in their systems. But, then, for centuries it was lost sight of by the thinkers outside of the Hermetic ranks. But in the Nineteenth Century physical science re-discovered the truth and the Twentieth Century scientific discoveries have added additional proof of the correctness and truth of this centuries-old Hermetic doctrine.
The Hermetic Teachings are that not only is everything in constant movement and vibration, but that the "differences" between the various manifestations of the universal power are due entirely to the varying rate and mode of vibrations. Not only this, but that even THE ALL, in itself, manifests a constant vibration of such an infinite degree of intensity and rapid motion that it may be practically considered as at rest, the teachers directing the attention of the students to the fact that even on the physical plane a rapidly moving object (such as a revolving wheel) seems to be at rest. The Teachings are to the effect that Spirit is at one end of the Pole of Vibration, the other Pole being certain extremely gross forms of Matter. Between these two poles are millions upon millions of different rates and modes of vibration.....................[/i]
I have read 'The Mayan Factor,' by Jose Arguelles.
It is an inspiring book. One I am reading at present is 'Cosmic Consciousness,' by Richard Maurice Bucke. He speaks of how in addition to there being 'consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment or illumination which would place the individual on a new plane of existence...' Perhaps this aspect is a central truth underlying the religious quests.
Sorry that my reply to you is brief, but I have been busy writing on threads. However, what I wish to say that I am interested in your discussion of Hermeticism. I have believed that this is a central but overlooked aspect of philosophy. I have gathered some literature on the topic, but just trying to find the time to read it all. Today, I have been reading some of the book I mentioned to you a while ago, in relation to your thread discussion on Plato's forms, 'The Physics of Transfigured Light: The Imaginal Realm and the Foundations of Science' by Leon Marvell. I am also interested in hermeticism in relation to the tradition of alchemy. Another tradition which I believe is extremely important is Rosicrucianism.
In all that you've read, I'd be interested to learn what is the one idea that reconciles all these opinions as ONE?
I am not sure if I can narrow down to the most important idea, but it is a good question, so I will have a think and get back to you.
Good grief another book I need to read. I so want to know of that of which you speak. At this point in time, it is beyond my comprehension.
How did you come to read "The Mayan Factor"? I think few people have. I was very distressed by how intensely people in science forums rejected the book. But things like harmonics are part of science and worth discussion. Understanding the matrix (any matrix) and how they are used to reveal information seems very important to me. I decided the science community in forums is no better than the church of old with their narrow vision and intolerance of unfamiliar information. I think that narrow vision and intolerance have retarded our sciences and leaves us excessively materialistic.
I have to add this quote from the same Wikipedia explanation.
Quoting Wikipedia
I am excited by Pythagoras, Kaballah, and "The Mayan Factor" because of the use of math in all of them. I would love a summer camp with teachers who could explain each one and then have a comparison study of them. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us could meet at such a summer camp?
Yes, there are so many interesting books to read. I keep finding them, e-books and paper ones, and I have been given plenty of recommendations on this forum. The world of reading is like a maze of treasures. I think that the many people I know think that I am rather strange doing all the reading which I do. I have thought that I wouldn't mind working in a library, but my mother thinks it wouldn't work. She thinks that I would be too tempted to read the books rather than stack them on shelves and would get into deep conversations with the customers.
I can't remember when I read 'The Mayan Factor' but I have always gravitated towards unusual books. It is a pity that we are all situated in different countries, but just imagine a summer camp. It would be so surreal. What has happened to me on several occasions Is I have dreams in which I am reading and responding to threads on the site which don't even exist. When lockdown eases I do plan to go to some talks or workshops, and the more alternative the better. It is good that you are able to go swimming as just about everything is still closed here. But, I am trying to make best use of the time, and it has certainly given so much time for critical reflection.
I remember when I read Cosmic Consciousness I was struck by the idea that these experiences of cosmic consciousness happen around mid life. From an astrological perspective we are opposite of essence influences we were born with. This raises the contradictions in our being which invite this experience.
Hermeticism isn't popular since it requires more than binary thought. Have you pondered Hermes Emerald Tablet? This site has several translations including one by Helena Blavatskia Does it make sense to you?
https://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm
From Madame Blavatsky
2) What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is similar to that which is below to accomplish the wonders of the one thing.
3) As all things were produced by the mediation of one being, so all things were produced from this one by adaption.
4) Its father is the sun, its mother the moon.
6a) It is the cause of all perfection throughout the whole earth.
7) Its power is perfect if it is changed into earth.
7a) Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross, acting prudently and with judgement.
8 ) Ascend with the greatest sagacity from earth to heaven, and unite together the power of things inferior and superior;
9) thus you will possess the light of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly away from you.
10) This thing has more fortitude than fortitude itself, because it will overcome every subtile thing and penetrate every solid thing.
11a) By it the world was formed.
[Blavatsky 1972: 507.]
What pulls this together for me is you making me aware of Hermetism. I have always wanted to create a retreat but I was thinking along the lines of a spiritual retreat and that idea didn't inspire me as much as working with philosophies around Hermetism and the Greek explanations of happiness inspire me. I like it because of the variety of thought and how it can apply to this moment in time. It is more practical than just spiritualism and that is very appealing to me. I like being more earthy and even global warming and the care of our planet can play into this when we include The Mayan Factor and the book you are reading now.
We are starting to open up and I hope this is not too fast and too soon. •
Lane County, Oregon has a population of 382,067 people and we had 11 new cases of covid. That means we are rated at low risk and can return to almost normal as long as we wear masks and distance ourselves. I don't know how happy I am about this. It means the pool will have twice as many people and I don't like that. I would vote for having the pool all to myself but maybe that is a little selfish?
Michael S. Schneider's book "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe- the Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science" is as a bible to me and I quote...
"Yet, paradoxically, the One is more truly real then the Many. In the visible world of nature all is flux. Everything is either being born or dying or moving between the two processes. Nothing ever achieves the goal of perfection or the state of equilibrium that would allow it to be described in essence. The phenomena of nature, said Plato, are always "becoming", never actually "are". Our five senses tell us that they are real, but the intellect judges differently, reasoning that the One, which is constant, creative, and ever the same, is more entitled to be called real than its ever-fluctuating products." This goes with a concept of numbers that are the language of God and are essential to our understanding of truth.
That is, our idea of this or that is disillusion because it is all fluctuating. I have heard in India it is understood when we speak of one thing we are also speaking of its opposite.
I have to reply to this again because this morning I am so excited by the number 9. The number goes with the quote for mathematical reasons. I don't really have anything intelligent to say about this, but must repeat, I wish we could gather at a summer camp and one of the things to do would be to explore numbers 3 and 9. It would be fun to use "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe and explore all the numbers, but that would take many days.
How about a Pythagorian Camp and comparing Pythagorian math with Aztec math and life concepts and what this has to do with Hermeticism? You guys are driving me crazy as I am so excited by the discussion we are having and I so much want to gather with like-minded people. I must find away to do this.
I am glad that you are still keeping up the thread consistently, as I never thought that it would last so long. I am still thinking before replying to Nicholas's posts because he has given me a lot to reflect upon. I don't know if you opened the link which he sent put in his last reply to me. It is almost a book in itself and I think that you would probably be interested in it, although it is a fairly difficult read. I am at my mum's house, because she has hurt her knee, so I will probably have to use this site a bit less while I am here, but I do have some interesting books here in her house to keep me busy as well. I think that it will be great if you are able to organize a summer camp in philosophy in your local area and, I am sure that the big philosophy questions about religion will feature strongly.
Yes, it was Nicholas's post that pushed me to check my books, so I could move from the familiar to the unfamiliar and got me so excited I want to take action on a summer camp, but I don't like doing things alone. If there were one other person working with me, today I would be exploring for a good place to do the summer camp. I mean Nicholas got me exploring the mathematical connection and I went crazy with excitement. All of the Hermetic thinking can be brought together with math. Do you realize 3 and 9 have been very important to many cultures? Going back to Jung and Campbell and the consciousness we can all tap into, humans everywhere saw something special in 3 and 9. Why? We have 10 fingers, why don't we have a number for 10 that is not a return to the beginning 1?
And if we can understand the math, the archetypes, we have a center for understanding it all.
The structure of our universe is mathematical and logical. That is why I know if humanity survives, science and the essence of religion (facts and values) will become complimentary and when they do, the potential for humanity to survive its own self destructive imaginations will become possible.
That is why I asked you what reconciled all the books you've studied. We can have a piece of the truth but are unable to build on it. This is the purpose of CIRET for example.
https://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/index_en.php
Just imagine open minded scientists, skilled artists, and mechanics, representing human types all knowing they have a piece of the puzzle. How can they work to put the pieces together (mind, spirit, and body) in pursuit of the experience of universal human meaning? It requires humility rare in modern times. It is hard to find our essential question and build on it with the balanced whole of ourselves rather than from the dominant side of ourselves..
I am replying to your today's comment rather than giving a response to the link because my thinking feels rather foggy at the moment. What you have said in your post makes me think about the responsibility that comes with knowledge. Perhaps that is why certain ideas were hidden from many people in the form of the esoteric. Even now, even though information is available readily it is unlikely that people will try to understand it or even take an interest in it. Of those who do try to gain specialised knowledge it is essential that they do not abuse the power of it but use it with sensitive understanding, as a basis for wisdom for humanity.
I am replying to your couple of posts previous to the last. When you suggested on what important idea stands out, I did reflect on what I thought about was that considering that I started this thread on religious beliefs, I have not in my own responses touched on the idea of God. I don't know if this is apparent to others, but I am asking myself about this. I have spoken about my own difficulties arising from my religious background and about the importance of looking at all religious perspectives, but I seem to stop there. I probably do believe in some divine power and I don't really believe that life or evolution is merely random, so in that sense I do believe in God.
In looking at religion , I think that there are big differences between that which is taken literally and that which is symbolic. It is hard to know how far to take this though, especially when reading the NewTestament. I don't really believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. I also struggle to know what to make of the miracles and the resurrection of Jesus. One idea which some hold to is the idea of the resurrection may have been of a spiritual body rather than a physical one. Perhaps, living with in a climate of thinking based on the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm physical reality is stressed too strongly as the supreme reality. The Eastern thinkers have a more fluid picture.
I have a sympathy with theosophy and the ideas of Blavatsky. A few years ago I read the writings of Benjamin Creme, and I don't know if you have come across him. He was the founder of transmission meditation and I attended some workshops in this meditation. The meditation is based on the idea of levelling down the energies and the divine hierarchy. I am aware that the idea of a divine hierarchy is questionable in itself. One idea in Creme's teaching which I found interesting was that Jesus was only Christ during the time of his actual ministry. Creme thought that Jesus and the Buddha were both representations of the Christ consciousness.
For a while I was enthralled by Creme's ideas and read a number of his books. However, the biggest problem I found, and I think many other people saw too, was his belief that the Maitreya was living in East London and waiting to emerge. It also appears that he had been awaiting this emergency since 1977, and there were various sightings of him, especially one in Nairobi. However, Creme died in his 90s and Maitreya never made his expected emergence on a wider scale.
I see Creme's ideas as an example of spiritual teachings being interpreted too literally. He relied on what he believed were 'channelled' messages and he seemed to take them too literally. In contrast, to his waiting for Christ consciousness as the Maitreya appearing as a person perhaps Rudolf Steiner's idea of the Cosmic Christ which can be known in our own consciousness may be more helpful.