Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2023 9:47 am
That there is no god does not make a person a demon; that's bullshit, the kind of logic IC uses to demonize atheists...that even if they behave uprightly their non-belief negates their morality. I'm beginning to think that a well-written novel has much more to say about morality or lack of than any scripture.
The Bhagavad-Gita is an ancient document and its form is steeped in the time and place where it was produced. But
by reference to it, and to the 16th chapter, I am referencing ideas that can be examined outside of the context. I do grasp that you understand that the logic or intuition used to arrive at the set of ideas I think are overall valid are similar to the "kind of logic IC uses to demonize atheists" but take into consideration that in my view I do not see atheism in a negative light. I see it as a necessary step out of too constrictive religio-social modes of thinking. But, I do not see it as the final point on the strange trajectory we (humankind at this juncture perhaps?) are in.
The position that I take -- and I would agree it is purely personal -- is to focus on the human confrontation with
Existence and
Being and as I said I could examine it in ways similar to Heidegger. Existence and Being are absolutely beyond our description and, again in my view, it is when
that is confronted on an inner plane that one understands, intuitively, what we are really dealing with. Something completely unexplainable, something only known through 'relationship'. By relationship I mean intuited, meditative, revelatory frame of mind or consciousness. So many words to describe the very core of a mystical, internal, intuited relationship to something inexplicable. The source of my being in a larger sense of Being. The source of my existence within Existence.
For months now -- I am just as capable of a form of idea-zealotry as others! -- I have been writing about my perception that when people lose their 'metaphysical anchor' they fall down into the resulting 'traps' or 'prisons' of mutability. That is to say that if one loses a grounding in higher concepts one only then has access to, or is dominated by, what I refer to as the 'lower' dimension. I would say it is basic Platonic theory and as such I admit to it. Religious modes and religious practice, despite all their faults, are based in a principle of sacrificing a lower, mutable or immediate gain for a higher, less tangible (or less material and thus more 'spiritual') goal or object that is only perceived as valuable by a being with the clarity of understanding to
see it. And as I have referred to numerous times I accept the basic sense in the Catholic/Christian term intellect (
intellectus):
The faculty of thought. As understood in Catholic philosophical literature it signifies the higher, spiritual, cognitive power of the soul. It is in this view awakened to action by sense, but transcends the latter in range. Amongst its functions are attention, conception, judgment, reasoning, reflection, and self-consciousness. All these modes of activity exhibit a distinctly suprasensuous element, and reveal a cognitive faculty of a higher order than is required for mere sense-cognitions. In harmony, therefore, with Catholic usage, we reserve the terms intellect, intelligence, and intellectual to this higher power and its operations, although many modern psychologists are wont, with much resulting confusion, to extend the application of these terms so as to include sensuous forms of the cognitive process. By thus restricting the use of these terms, the inaccuracy of such phrases as "animal intelligence" is avoided. Before such language may be legitimately employed, it should be shown that the lower animals are endowed with genuinely rational faculties, fundamentally one in kind with those of man. Catholic philosophers, however they differ on minor points, as a general body have held that intellect is a spiritual faculty depending extrinsically, but not intrinsically, on the bodily organism. The importance of a right theory of intellect is twofold: on account of its bearing on epistemology, or the doctrine of knowledge; and because of its connexion with the question of the spirituality of the soul.
I can examine this set of ideas (essentially a set of assertions) from outside of a specific religious context (or 'contraption' as Brother Iambiguous might say). What I discern here is
essentially metaphysical concepts and concerns.
I would also say that *a well-written novel* is
much more of the field for considering everything that I refer to! The novel and the poem (and the work of art) is really & truly the place where idea, value & meaning are explored. So I tend to reject *religious piety* and the formalism that religious conformity tends to demand of people.
But what I do say and I do believe it is that when average people who do not have intellectual foundations established and are not capable of real distinguishing of both value and meaning are ripped out of their religious contexts, and here religiousness is a sort of dike around their unruly selves, that they quickly fall down into what is termed materialism and sensuousness. Again, if you have lost the 'conceptual pathway' to be capable of defining "higher things" (which are always supersensuous and metaphysical) you have np option available to you but to seek all your satisfactions in the here-below. And I have certainly seen with my own eyes how rapidly people 'fall' and how consequential this is to their lives.
Is my stance elitist? In every sense emphatically yes. And it is necessarily so. And for this reason I made reference to Ortega y Gasset in
The Rebellion of the Masses:
"If from the viewpoint of what what concerns public life, the psychological structure of this new type of mass-man be studied, what we find is as follows: (1) An inborn, root-impression that life is easy, plentiful, without any grave limitations; consequently, each average man finds within himself a sensation of power and triumph which, (2) invites him to stand up for himself as he is, to look upon his moral and intellectual endowment as excellent, complete. This contentment within himself leads him to shut himself off from any external court of appeal; not to listen, not to submit his opinion to judgment, not to consider other's existence. His intimate feeling of power urges him always to exercise predominance. He will act then as if he and his like were the only beings existing in this world; and, consequently, (3) will intervene in all matters, imposing his own vulgar views without respect or regard for others, without limit or reserve, that is to say, in accordance with a system of 'direct action'."
"It is not a question of the mass-man being a fool. On the contrary, to-day he is more clever, has more capacity of understanding than his fellow of any previous period. But that capacity is of no use to him; in reality, the vague feeling that he possesses it seems only to shut him up more within himself and keep him from using it. Once for all, he accepts the stock of commonplaces, prejudices, fag-ends of ideas or simply empty words which chance has piled up within his mind, and with a boldness only explicable by his ingenuousness, is prepared to impose them everywhere.… Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding. There is no question concerning public life, in which he does not intervene, blind and deaf as he is, imposing his 'opinions.' "
Because I have these views I must, as always, take responsibility for them. I am therefore placed in a position where quite often the things I say and assert get 'reacted to' with vehemence. But so far no one has made a successful argument against the sort of ideas the Ortega y Gasset works with. (And obviously I have been influenced by him a great deal).
From the Bhagavad Gita: 24 Therefore let the scriptures be your guide in what to do and what not to do. Understand their teachings; then act in accordance with them.
Dubious: Isn't this also what the IC types strive to do within 'their' scriptural beliefs?
The *IC types* are men who are locked within a specific tradition and who solidify a 'zealotry' of a specific sort. What I recommend is examining the metaphysical ideas that stand
behind the specific declarations. The picture offered by a religious presentation is confused with the content (or the meaning & value) referred to. As you clearly see, as we all see, Immanuel Can
will not be moved. He has locked himself into a specific (Evangelical Protestant) stance and cannot make the comparison necessary to other religious and philosophical systems. That is a failure in my view.
Christianity suffers as a descriptive metaphysics because it is bound up in
crude pictures and all that I say is defined by Hebrew Idea Imperialism. The strategy of overpowering people with fear and guilt in order to have your way with them. But this does not mean -- again in my view -- that all its content can simply be
dismissed. But this assertion I make is better expounded by René Guénon who attempts a more comprehensive, perhaps a more removed and universal, metaphysical vision.
So I say: Yes, we do have to 'understand what the scriptures' are speaking about (taking the Vedas as a whole and certainly what the Rishis expounded) and arrive at the core or the kernal of meaning. It has to do with what a person does in the face of
Existence and
Being. That is expressed in Vedanta as 'sat-chit-ananda'. These ideas transcend any specific religious form and also time and place. It is an attempt to arrive at a transcendental perspective.
And yes! Sex is the basis of life allowing for all its possibilities to assert themselves. On this planet, what else can it be! Without sex there is no one to read scripture and no one to have written any. Without sex good and evil and all the shades between wouldn't exist!
I am not sure where you are going with this. But I will say the following. Examine what is happening on a world-level as access to pornographic imagery rips through established, and necessary, social conventions. Porn is intensely destructive because it hooks a very basic and very powerful compulsion. So let's not become confused about what we are talking about. In all religious ethics sexuality is described as requiring restraint. There is a sound reason for this. But 'regulation' has to be accepted and especially because it is necessary for family life. Unrestrained sexual expression is immensely destructive. I cannot myself find anything of value in it that I'd be required to defend.
The ideas expressed in Vedanta (and in the Vedas) have a very coherent and sensible view of sexuality for the life of a householder. For those with more concentrated spiritual aspirations there are of course more rigorous controls imposed.
That was already clear to Nietzsche but does it have to be religious in the sense of requiring deities to complete the definition. Put another way, does religion require a pantheon of gods to manifest itself as somehow sacred?
When one examines the origin of god-concepts -- let's take the Vedic and the Grecian as examples -- one finds that the gods derived from observations of natural phenomena. Or really from
concepts that presented themselves in natural phenomena. One example that struck me when I was examining the origin of Indian beliefs was that of the Dawn:
Uṣás:
She repeatedly appears in the Rigvedic hymns, states David Kinsley, where she is "consistently identified with dawn, revealing herself with the daily coming of light to the world, driving away oppressive darkness, chasing away evil demons, rousing all life, setting all things in motion, sending everyone off to do their duties". She is the life of all living creatures, the impeller of action and breath, the foe of chaos and confusion, the auspicious arouser of cosmic and moral order called the Ṛta in Hinduism.
I choose to focus on the
concept that animates the picture. And again if Existence and Being become the focus then the *meaning* of our appearance in a world where there is 'dawn' can be examined in many different ways. What does it mean when taken at a pure, existential level? A great deal I'd say.
But you are very right: to have converted Ushas into a cartoon-image that gets hung on some shop-keepers wall is not a very intellectual, nor even a profoundly intellectual, relationship with whatever 'dawn' can mean and must mean.
Again: we have to go back to the very origins. We have to see things again in a new light.
