Christianity

[henry quirk]

How many failures must we list?

That's my point: communism isn't wrong cuz it fails; it's wrong becuz of what men are reduced to in the midst of it, what they must be reduced to if communism is to work even creakily.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I'd like to know what that "deeply new" would consist of or at least some idea. The only thing I can see that's deeply new is that all the prerequisite divinity in god creation was invested in an actual historical person, i.e., someone of that description thereby enhancing its credibility among believers...but there may be something else I haven't or should have considered without knowing what!

I guess it won't help if I reference something 'ineffable' that perpends our senses!

What comes to mind when I talk to you -- this seems a necessity -- is to try and grasp and then to translate into somewhat specific statements what, more or less, you really do believe in the sense of what your actual stance is in the largest existential sense. The reason this is a challenge is because you do not do this yourself. You always allude, cryptically and often with poetic flourishes, to some conceptual picture which I can never fully get hold of. And you yourself are enigmatic -- deliberately so it seems to me.

In respect to your question ... I would have to say that in regard to historical issues (Europe, the Christianization of Europe) I have often spoke from a historical perspective and one of a certain 'respect' for what happened that brought about our civilization. That focus is always within rather brute events -- conquest, expansion, taming of primitive tribes, and also the introduction of the 'categories of civilization' into primitive area, which things are always an issue of force and exertion of power.

However, within the present conversation I note that Nick takes a tack which is substantially at variance insofar as he wishes to locate something unique and special which requires a certain focus of mind, or penetrating and surmounting a certain distracting *noise* which keeps us from *hearing* what he indicates is always there to be heard. You and others, obviously, seem to completely reject the entire allusion. And in this sense you especially have an anti-metaphysical stance in which you are highly invested. That is I gather why you hold *poetic allusion* is such contempt. It can refer to nothing: "poetry usually being one BIG lie". Yet you have qualified it, carefully, with the word 'usually'. Which keeps an escape hatch, or a secret corridor open, through which you can if need be smuggle in some 'thus-and-such'. Nicely strategic!

So if I am to answer your *question* I am agreeing to try to make an assault on a fortified wall that you have established and which you are invested in. Under what circumstances would you even allow that wall to be razed? The wall cannot be razed! It must stand!

René Guénon refers to Vedānta as "neither a philosophy nor a religion, nor does it partake to a greater or lesser extent of the character of either". "Vedānta", according to Guénon, "must be regarded in reality as a purely metaphysical doctrine, opening up truly unlimited possibilities of conception, and, as such, it can in no wise be contained within the more or less narrow framework of any system whatever".

Obviously, and to stretch a common metaphor, if I make reference to such a thing (the metaphysical) I have placed one of the goalposts in the playing field to an area and zone outside of the commonly conceived -- and even to a degree to the conceptual. And this explains, I think, why you will in no way allow such a 'trick'. And of course you will hunker down within your fortifications and allow no breech.

I am not really interested in convincing you of anything of course -- so much of this present thread is ridiculous given the fact that we cannot agree and we do not share a platform of agreement (one of my primary assertions). So the alternative presents itself: it is best, then, to simply try to state as clearly as possible why we disagree. To present it in such a way that it is plain and not obscured.

So that, by way of explanation, gives a sense about why I reject with an almost violent adamancy Immanuel Can's entire Christian platform. Ah, but I am implicated in my own condemnation because, in numerous senses, I seek to defend something in it that is worthy of defense. It places me in a strange conflict. And the conflict is something I live. It is more than intellectual.

So what I do and what I have no choice but to do, is (to use Guénon's reference) is to seek that Vedāntic principle that stands behind the specific confused manifestation that Christianity really and truly is. Here I agree with you: Christianity is a conglomeration of a wide range of different ideas, views, interpretations and also 'existential praxes' that came to be focused by culture-molding power into a foundational system that allowed Europe to come into existence. At that level it is crude and brutal. But isn't that true if any 'foundation' is thought about? You have to dig in the ground with a specific violence in order to create a foundation. And building in this sense is a raw and crude action. But then you look at, say, the 'architectural marvel' and see that the initial brutality has allowed for a final achievement to take shape and form. It is a bit of a paradox. The crudest form of the metaphor is 'to make an omelette you have to break eggs'.

all the prerequisite divinity in god creation was invested in an actual historical person

Yes, that is exactly right. And there are a few levels that must be considered. One being, as I suggest, that behind the imago of Jesus Chist and Jesus of Nazareth there is an 'open canvass' of possibilities (what Guénon describes as "unlimited possibilities of conception"). There is the Gospel picture of this personage but then there is a whole realm of possibility in what is suggested and alluded to by the resurrected spirit. All sorts of things are alluded to there, even in the Gospels. And what is there? I would ask the question: What does Guénon believe or understand is there when he refers to 'Vedānta'?

So there is an esoteric level -- the Christian 'cure' as a therapy which people chose to submit to, under social observation, as an extended type of 'initiation' but really at a most crude and basic level. It still functions like this today. People who submit themselves to the Christian cure and say "Jesus saved me".

But then there is another level. And that is the esoteric level. And to get a sense of what that is, or was, one would have to refer to those who worked in those zones of a certain mystery. Meister Eckhart for example, etc. These are traditions that exist and are as real as anything else but they are not merely 'basic' or rudimentary. There is always an *area* or *border* on the other side of which 'heresy' is defined. But it seems to me, if the Gospel allusions are considered, that Jesus of Nazareth is therefore a heretic. Imagine, appearing in a resurrected body after he was allegedly killed. All the allusions to 'secret orders' and networks of supporting actors even in the Gospel stories. All manner of alluded *teachings* during those 40 days in the resurrected body. Things never written down.

Do I 'believe in' these things? That is not what is important in my view. What is important is the existence and reality of the metaphysical realm if I can reference it in that way. How could such a realm be presented to and explained to the 'profane'? The answer is that it cannot. So there is a domain of concern and activity among the profane (the common people) which involves very very simple things. That is what the larger part of the concerns of our world, our society, involve: very basic and 'mundane' issues and problems.

If a definition were insisted on for me it resembles a dreamlike influx of an anti-gravitational force lifting one's default mental plateaus into far higher regions like standing at the base of a mountain and feeling transported to its summit. At its most intense, spirituality is experienced as a hyper compression of time in which all questions in that moment cease, becoming silent and superfluous...the mental compression of time limiting all such limitations.

See, that is why I always wondered if you'd ever taken mushrooms!

Religion is for the gullible obeying the rules of their masters whereas philosophy remains a discussion, an inquiry into things independent of any assumed reality status...a universal religion where any salvation offered resides in thought alone upon whose base religion itself is dependent upon.

How thoroughly ungenerous of you. Do you have any contact at all with *average people*? Do you every once in a while float down from your anti-gravitational height and pop out of compressed time to appear before the masses to give them any useful advice?

I am joking with you of course. I see things in terms of levels. The lower levels exist. They have basic needs. They also have 'unruly appetites' that require restraint (through force and also through education -- often the same).

Gullibility (self-deception) could occur when one does not realize the real situation and the real conditions culture faces.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Conscience, like the forms, always existed. Morals always change while conscience remains constant as do the forms. If true, how much faith do you put in moral and ethical systems?

I share a fundamental agreement with you that I express when referring to metaphysical ideas that always must have existed, and are just as real as all other created forms that have manifested in our world and in our universe. They are part-and-parcel of ourselves and I also agree that they have to be 'uncovered' and 'rediscovered' on an inner plane.

But unlike you I do not negate, nor diminish in relevance and importance, the vehicles that purvey the knowledge or the admonitions that prod people, and us, to make that discovery. There has to be 'levels' where knowledge is brought into the world. I refer to that (in the Occidental sense) as our paideia. But every culture has a paideia.

I do not know if I would say that I place faith in a moral or ethical system. It would be similar to asking what I thought of our jurisprudential system. It is only as good as it is. But when you consider it in relation to what does not exist it is certainly very good.

Have you ever thought about feral children? Children that are separated from human culture and do not acquire even language? There is a definite relationship between our 'conscience' and our culture -- despite the fact that it is possible, conceptually, to separate them.

The concept 'conscience' always existed and will always exist, I agree. But one has to pay equal attention to the ways and means through which *it* (and all that ramifies from it) become manifest.

[Immanuel Can]

How many failures must we list?

That's my point: communism isn't wrong cuz it fails; it's wrong becuz of what men are reduced to in the midst of it, what they must be reduced to if communism is to work even creakily.

Well, that's true. It is a dehumanizing creed.

And it begins with one of its fundamentals: collectivism. Human value is defined by your belonging to a particular "class" (or "race" or "sex" or whatever...a group, though, not an individual). And if you fail to adhere to what Communists decide is the "class" position, then your worth as a human being becomes instantly zero. This is why Communists are able to hate and abuse all their detractors with such impunity -- they stepped outside of the approved "class" position, and thus have no inherent value anymore.

I discovered how different this was when I belonged to a union. Very early in my career, I discovered that the union did not exist to protect worker's rights. It existed to protect the position of the union itself. So if the union's interest aligned with your individual interests, the union would defend you vigorously, in order to advance its own interests; but if you did not have any interest alignment with the union, even if you didn't represent a problem to the union, but your case just wasn't lined up perfectly with their perceived interests, they would sell you out to management in order to advance the union agenda. As an individual, you had no value to them unless they saw union value in you. And one person, one lone individual, was entirely disposable to the interests of the union to which he paid his annual dues.

We were paying to be used. That was all. The union is for the union. They are not for the workers.

[Alexis Jacobi]

...but there may be something else I haven't or should have considered without knowing what!

Here is the full quote from René Guénon's Man and His Becoming (1945):

To return to the Vedānta, it must be regarded in reality as a purely metaphysical doctrine, opening up truly unlimited possibilities of conception, and, as such, it can in no wise be contained within the more or less narrow framework of any system whatsoever. In this respect and without looking any further, one can observe a profound and irreducible difference, a difference of principle, distinguishing it from anything that Europeans include under the name of philosophy. Indeed, the avowed aim of all philosophical conceptions, especially among the moderns, who carry to extremes the individualist tendency and the resultant quest for originality at any price, is precisely to establish systems that are complete and definite, or in other words essentially relative and limited on all sides. Fundamentally, a system is nothing but a closed conception, the more or less narrow limits of which are naturally determined by the 'mental horizon' of its author. But all systematization is absolutely impossible in pure metaphysics, where everything belonging to the individual order is truly non-existent, metaphysics being entirely detached from all relativities and contingencies, philosophical or otherwise.This is necessarily so, because metaphysics is essentially knowledge of the Universal, and such knowledge does not permit of being enclosed within any formula, however comprehensive.

[Nick_A]

A caterpillar does not know why it is compelled to create a cocoon and become what it was destined to be. Perhaps it is the same with Man who is attracted to higher form of life but unable to do so. Which Man is the measure of all things: Man as we are on earth or his conscious potential which the great ways point us to?

I don't know what the "gret ways" are, and just because some of us have a feeling that there is a higher form of life for us to achieve doesn't mean that there is. If we can figure out the best way to live our lives between being born and dying without hurting or taking anything away from each other, that is probably the best we can hope for, because there is nothing to indicate there is anything more than that.

The Great Ways are those like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism which all began with a conscious source and after a while devolved into secular expressions.

What you suggest is often the best we can hope for. But philosophy as the love of wisdom and the esoteric search of the Great Ways call some to something more. I like how Simone Weil explains it free of academic jargon and the purity able to communicate an essence:

"...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.- ©

Have you noticed that on philosophy forums great battles arise on what to believe. She is speaking of not believing so as to open our connection with higher consciousness and the source of truth some are called to experience. Of course we know how the academics attack such reasoning questioning academic reason. But still. some feel it and are drawn to transcend the world and the quality of meaning it offers. I admire such people and believe they may indicate the future for conscious evolution transcending the dominance of opposing animal reactions and the horrors it must lead to.

[Harbal]

The Great Ways are those like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism which all began with a conscious source and after a while devolved into secular expressions.

Apart from a vague knowledge of Christianity, I know next to nothing about all that. I don't like organised religions,in fact, I just don't like religions of any type. I'm all for making the world as good as we can make it for everybody, but I don't see why your way is the only way. I am turned off by anything that tastes of "spirituality" and I am sure there are many like me. You are going to get absolutely nowhere with people like me as long as you continue to use the language you use.

I like how Simone Weil explains it free of academic jargon and the purity able to communicate an essence:

Yes, I'd forgotten about your crush on Simone. I don't know anything about her, I'm afraid, but that is another thing I am always suspicious of; hero worship. It's another thing that turns me off.

[henry quirk]

communism

It is a dehumanizing creed.

Yep. Man is reduced to cog.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Apart from a vague knowledge of Christianity, I know next to nothing about all that. I don't like organised religions,in fact, I just don't like religions of any type. I'm all for making the world as good as we can make it for everybody, but I don't see why your way is the only way. I am turned off by anything that tastes of "spirituality" and I am sure there are many like me. You are going to get absolutely nowhere with people like me as long as you continue to use the language you use.

I am always interested in this sort of statement, which is also a sort of declaration about values, toward 'metaphysical principles' and about proper and recommended behavior in our world.

In regard to such a position (which makes sense to me and I can understand) I can only say that the expression of a religion, or the expression of a religious philosophy, or a philosophical religiousness, in whatever form it takes, would only and can only be an expression of a metaphysical position and outlook.

Harbal expresses this sense of ethics and also value/focus by expressing 1) dislike of the expressions of religious forms, 2) the presentation that living without any of them is possible and desirable, 3) that his interest is in ethics (for making the world as good as we can make it for everybody), and 4) a rejection of anyone suggesting, or insisting, that they have an exclusive answer or even an expression of a necessary program.

In his way he does respond to and answer the notorious and constant question: What is this world? Why does it exist? What is the purpose of (my) life? and What are we to do here? (and not to do?)

[henry quirk]

You have been frowned upon, Harbal.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Yep. Man is reduced to cog.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You have been frowned upon, Harbal.

It has nothing to do with 'frowning', it has to do with seeing clearly and possibly explaining. There is a causal chain that has led to the emergence of a person, a man, who sees as Harbal does. This is a philosophy forum where, at least in some ideal world, careful and penetrating analysis should be undertaken.

It is not frowning, Henry, it's thinking.

[Harbal]

You have been frowned upon, Harbal.

I consider it a failure if I haven't been frowned upon at least once every day, henry.

[henry quirk]

Yep. Man is reduced to cog.

Yep...it's comin', in some form.

[henry quirk]

You have been frowned upon, Harbal.

It has nothing to do with 'frowning', it has to do with seeing clearly and possibly explaining. There is a causal chain that has led to the emergence of a person, a man, who sees as Harbal does. This is a philosophy forum where, at least in some ideal world, careful and penetrating analysis should be undertaken.

It is not frowning, Henry, it's thinking.

Sure, sure, sure....of course....