I think the Greta mind has finally gotten to you. You are so engrossed in complaining and condemning that you’ve become closed to the obvious.Almost all of his ideas oppose yours; his frames of reference has zero in common. If he thought anywhere near like you he’d be a sick moron and not the very insightful person he was. He talked about both sides of the equation being both reasonable and necessary, not just highlighting the virtues of one while condemning every attribute the other may possess. He never crusaded against secularism as a whole, which would have been stupid, only against some undesirable aspects of it, which certainly exist and did the same for theism.
I’m the Platonist here which you reject and Emerson was very influenced by Plato. He is the insightful person and I’m the sick moron. It never dawns on you how controlled you are by emotional preconceptions.
Get this idea of good and bad out of your head. Lacking consciousness our species is incapable of anything objectively bad but instead responds to societal conditioning as to good and bad.
Secularism isn’t bad; it is incomplete. It is structured on imagination which keeps us ignorant that the earth is part of the living universe like a dime is part of a dollar. Consider Emerson in relation to Plato. Have I ever opposed this common sense?
https://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... platonist/
It is you who are so caught up in self justification and complaining that you have become closed to the obvious. Live a little; open that mind of yours.We can identify at least three distinct themes of Platonism reflected in Emerson and other American Transcendentalists:
1. A view of man. The essence of the Platonist view of man is that we, as human beings, have a two-fold nature. We are, of course, material creatures, living in a temporal, material world. But at the same time we have an eternal nature, which exists outside of time. We must, first of all, reject the modern materialistic view that sees man only as a collection of atoms, a machine. But we must not reject our material nature altogether or try live as world-denying ascetics. What we seek is to live an integrated life. having, so to speak, a foot on both realms – material and eternal, earth and heaven. We are as a Sacred Tree, a Cosmic Priest, uniting heaven and earth.
2. A view of Nature. The material world as it appears is, in a sense, a reflection of deeper spiritual realities, eternal Forms in a Platonic Ideal realm. Nature has spiritual meaning. Nature is constantly teaching us spiritual things.
3. Self-cultivation. From Platonism, Transcendentalism derives its emphasis on the individual responsibility for self-cultivation, especially cultivation of ones moral and intellectual life. Distinctly Platonic is the emphasis on building the strength of the intellect in the service of spiritual growth. Well is the story told that engraved on the door of Plato’s Academy a sign read, “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.”
Emerson and Transcendentalism offer a great deal in themselves for modern readers. But Transcendentalist writings may also serve to increase interest in Platonism, the Western Tradition, and the perennial philosophy. If more people read Plato today we would have fewer arguments about religion. Plato is a common element of Christianity and paganism, orthodoxy and esotericism. He unites East with West. He harmonizes moralism and naturalism.
So why deny it? If you understood this you would understand Christianity and Plato. But you continue to support denial. Reconciliation enables a person’s personality to reflect the quality of the unified inner man we have as a potential.The whole person resembles more of a synthesis between inner & outer since both palpably exist with different inherent values which strive for reconciliation. "Knowing oneself" - one of your perennial favorite phrases by which you seek to glean credibility by simply mentioning it - requires that ALL sides of the human psyche be acknowledged. This includes the sides that don't do us any favors. This is a principal, not simply an idea, thoroughly opaque to a mentality like yours though most people would instinctively understand it.
Jesus doesn’t tell Peter to go to hell he just says “get behind me Satan.” Of course the world is necessary but that doesn’t mean it should be dominant over the developing inner man.Matthew 16:23 New International Version (NIV)
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Clearly Emerson was aware of what the blind deniers oppose. Why be a blind denier? Isn’t there anything more psychologically motivating for you than blind condemnation and pointing fingers?“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.”Socrates
Matthew 6
28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
To know thyself means to have the experience of totality of yourself. Of course it isn’t wanted. It denies the impulse for self justification dominant in the secular world. Can a person willfully dominated by expressions of negative emotion ever become capable of impartial self knowledge?
It is easy to justify being self absorbed when captivated by secularism and its one world earthly view. However it is far easier for a universalist to experience their insignificance when they begin to feel the potential for human being within a universal structure. Humility necessary for making efforts to become human become natural.
you are so incredibly slippery and dishonest.