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Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2026 8:43 pm
As an example — and I am here thinking of The Grouch Dubious — it might become possible to actually talk about the notion, or the fact, of salvation.
Indeed, it can, but you're self-endorsed sense of superiority makes any such conversation or follow-up nearly impossible.
Salvation is a hugely inclusive word. It's nuances or customizations are applied on whatever deficiencies you feel need to be rectified or saved from. It can as easily refer to anything in this life as well as a supposed after-life. In effect, salvation requires context in which your simple mention of it becomes, once again, meaningless.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:03 pm
Now, "best" in what way? Or, to put it another way, using your own preferred terms, in what way do you believe Vedanta is "generally superior" to other systems? In what way does it have an "advantage"?
I explained very specifically what precisely I admire in Vedanta’s metaphysics. Explanatory strength.
Explanatory of exactly what?
I am not interested in the “interrogation” mode that you are stepping into.
Well, the person who started this OP did so as an interrogation of me. And I haven't chickened out on that. Why would you?
It's a simple question. If you say Indian thought is "superior" and has "intellectual and clarifying power," you should be able to say what that refers to. If not, why should anybody accept your claim? You'll have made vague statements of approbation, but given no substance to your claims.
What I admire in late Indian thought is its intellectual and clarifying power.
Explaining and clarifying what, in specific? Let's have some particulars to talk about.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2026 2:33 am
My darling IC: i stated exactly in what I see Vedanta philosophy as having (superior) explanatory value. Comment on that if it please thee.
But isn’t that your primary position, IC? And your necessary one? It is as I say the very basic Hebrew-Christian position: You would not be able to see or recognize anything of value in any religion or metaphysical conception in any of “the nations” because, in the view that you are aligned with, they are aligned with inferior and ultimately demonic entities. Honestly, that is the Christian position and I think obviously it cannot but be your own. That is your interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita reduced to the most basic is it not?
Now Grumpy Dubious come closer and heed my Teaching, I won’t beat you today: You suppose that I am somehow aligned with darling IC because I continually engage with him, and as I say this is true but only in a conceptual sense.
Put another way, I cannot de-align myself from a sort of ‘essence’ within Christianity, and though you may well piss yourself with the reference, it was René Guénon who noted that there were still strong traces of purer metaphysical concepts even in corrupted Catholicism (i.e. original Christianity: the amalgamation of many currents (as you cynically stated) into a sort of Frankensteinian contraption).
And I think it necessary to say here that if we are seeking a “pure metaphysics” that might explain or say fulfill the religious impulse in it’s best sense (if such exists) then it seems quite realistic to seek that metaphysical clarity in the most coherent system we have access to: that of the Indian subcontinent.
See, I think that when you are in a state of profound relationship with one of your beautiful pieces of music, that really you are deeply involved, if I may put it like this, in a spiritual meditation. And in our own traditions and culture it is the musicians and composers who “explain” to us non-verbally and with musical language their own relationship with “the Divine”. And through this, you see, we actually do ascend in the sense I referred to earlier. And as far as I am able to see and understand, that is the point of religion and spirituality, and if you will the purpose of “God” (or the God-concept) in our world: to aid in “spiritual ascent”.
Now IC, you just listen to me right now: you are being very very naughty and difficult, and yes Yes! I know you have “called BS” with such power and force as all who have read you over the months feel in you, but you are just going to have to wait your turn!
