Re: IC please clarify for us
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2026 9:34 pm
(Esteemed IC, please note that I continue to talk to you as if you were a normal, thoughtful, positively-minded man who is operating in good faith).
It is more productive I think to consider the idea in juxtaposition to the Christian idea that a decision by a Primeval Couple caused man’s fall and also afflicted the entire world. Somehow, for reasons difficult to fathom — here I speak for a religiously conceived viewpoint, not our scientific viewpoint — that God made and, let’s say, is responsible for the world and cosmos as it is.
I do indeed suggest that the admonition is sober and realistic. I would also say that the Christian idea is based in a fairy-story and because it is unreal or a fantasy (the Genesis version in any case) that it is not realistic. Certainly not sufficient for the age we are in. And because the framing Story is unbelievable, it is abandoned because it lacks “explanatory value”.
That does not mean that it slips my mind that the metaphysics of the Indian subcontinent is also ensconced within a Medieval world-picture. The overall “picture” is still mediated through symbolic images. As much as is the Hebrew conception.
But any of this, and what is dealt on in the Gita, does indeed propose ways and means — perhaps strategies is the right word — for spiritual progress despite the way this world is.
It is more productive I think to consider the idea in juxtaposition to the Christian idea that a decision by a Primeval Couple caused man’s fall and also afflicted the entire world. Somehow, for reasons difficult to fathom — here I speak for a religiously conceived viewpoint, not our scientific viewpoint — that God made and, let’s say, is responsible for the world and cosmos as it is.
I do indeed suggest that the admonition is sober and realistic. I would also say that the Christian idea is based in a fairy-story and because it is unreal or a fantasy (the Genesis version in any case) that it is not realistic. Certainly not sufficient for the age we are in. And because the framing Story is unbelievable, it is abandoned because it lacks “explanatory value”.
That does not mean that it slips my mind that the metaphysics of the Indian subcontinent is also ensconced within a Medieval world-picture. The overall “picture” is still mediated through symbolic images. As much as is the Hebrew conception.
But any of this, and what is dealt on in the Gita, does indeed propose ways and means — perhaps strategies is the right word — for spiritual progress despite the way this world is.