Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Oct 22, 2026 9:28 pm
Well, the text is the thing being believed. So regardless of you or me, the text will stay the text.
Not quite. Here, the text is being
examined. And it is being examined by a diverse cohort that has on the whole passed beyond a capability of even having *faith* (as you put it, as the text puts it).
The message in the text is eyed with suspicion and also with ridicule — generally. Since most of philosophical mind have been extruded into post-Christianity, your zealous presentation of it, without being capable of offering an explanation by way of philosophical concepts, influences and convinces no one. And if your audience is Gary whatever message you are trying to communicate is not received.
This is one reason why a far more developed metaphysical philosophy, with developed and linguistically scientific terminology, may
better set up the possibility of illuminating the meaning in the text. Since — this is my view — the meaning in the Bhagavad Gita chapter 16 is about what happens to a soul in this world who turns from the metaphysical dimension of ‘higher things’ (and higher pleasures) down into sheer materialism and to use a conventional word, brutality. That “demonic appetite” can be understood by way of the language of addiction. Or sexual obsession. Or all the substitutes for love.
Similarly to the NT evangelists, the Vaishnava (Krishna worshipping) evangelists attempt to persuade people to recognize that there
is a higher dimension. That is precisely what the early Christians offered. An alternative. And I can tell you for absolutely certain: the ‘preaching tools’ within these schools (their rhetoric, discourse, their communicated concepts) is infinitely more sophisticated than your blunt hammers.
You influence
no one!
I give you credit when you deserve credit. No problem there.