You're this DattaSwami?

[Iwannaplato]

A core reaction is something like this: the content of someone's beliefs is less important for discussion in these forums then how they discuss their beliefs. So when I see the picture of the Papuan, it came across like....hey, this guy looks weird, his beliefs are a problem. He's primitive. DS is primitive. That's the problem. That reminds me of some fairly pernicious relations 'civilized' people had when they came in contact with so called primitive people, whether native Indians in India or tribal people anywhere. I think there's also an undercurrent new ideas are better than old ones judgment here. This may not be intended by your post.

What do you mean when you say that you "black box" his abilities?

I'm stretching one use of the term. To black box something can mean to just go with the phenomenon and not worry about the mechanisms. We don't know how or what is going on. Usually it implies that the function is real, we just don't know how it works. Here I am stretching it to mean - well, there were suddenly oranges, I'll set aside the issue of how the oranges appeared and not worry about that. I suggest doing that in addition to other brainstorming approaches because for some conclusions, it doesn't matter. For example, Sai Baba was accused of improper sexual relations with minor boys. Does it matter, when thinking of that issue, if he had a real siddhi (magical power)? I don't think it does. There's an odd binary absolutism shared by religious adherants and skeptics alike: if any part of the religion is true (regarding what gets classified as supernatural) then all of it is true. So, either he could really manifest fruit through a process science does not understand and then everything else he asserted is also true, including his moral nature OR he could not do that, it was a parlour trick and nothing he said about God etc is true.

I see no reason to have a binary model here.

Perhaps he managed. Perhaps he didn't. Let's say he could make fruit out of thin air. Does this mean his belief system is correct or his morals or the dynamics of his relations to others? No.

Did you watch the videos of Baba performing what dattaswami calls "miracles"?

Here: https://youtu.be/oNVJyycAZYw, and here: https://youtu.be/lnCwebH0gyk

Sorry, but I'm not giving him (or any human) the benefit of the doubt of being able to materialize objects out of thin air, for it is obvious that he's a fraud in that regard.

I'm not suggestion one should believe it. I saying that in many ways it doesn't matter. Further that if we lock everything together, it limits us. Let's say a new swami comes along who - for reasons science does not currently understand but under rigorous scientific experimental conditions - can produce fruit. I still want the state to investigate claims of sexual abuse of minors. I am also not now suddenly in a position where I must accept Swami X's verions of Karma or God or reincarnation.

And the problem is that, just like the Benny Hinn's of the Christian side of this con game, Sai Baba used that fraudulent practice to manipulate people into giving him money.

Could be.

That wasn't the point I was attempting to convey.

Right but it came off a bit like hey look at the weirdo, we can't take someone like this seriously.

The point was (is) that dattaswami...

(like the proponents of all of the ancient world religions)

...is stuck in a primitive belief system that has been left floundering in the wake of the discoveries of modern physics and cosmology. And as such, the tenuous (but tolerable) relationship between science and spirituality that humans have been operating in for the last several millennia has been thrown way out of whack.[/quote]I think there's a very big difference between the worldviews batched under ancient world religions.

In other words, we need a new and more plausible spiritual "weltanschauung" that can restore some semblance of balance between the material sciences and the spiritual sciences.

I would say we need more flexibility when different paradigms meet. Often people who (think they) see things through the scientific models, overestimate what has been ruled out.

Well, seeing how the divergent and incompatible ideas that make up the world religions has us on the brink of destroying ourselves, then I suggest that they all need to give up something in order to make way for a higher and more unifying vision of reality.

I think we are vastly more threatened by differences over forms of government/economics and the lack of precaution around AI, GM products, nano-teach and the proliferation of weopons of mass destruction. Religious splits certainly play and often pernicious role in the world, yes, but I don't think they are the biggest threats.

Anyway, in the spirit of discussing ideas, your confession of being an animist sounds interesting to me (in a good way).

since it's 'in a good way' I can smile at the word 'confession'.

First, let's look at the standard definition of animism:

an·i·mism
NOUN

• 1. the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena.
  
  2. the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe.

Which of those two descriptions of animism do you lean toward? Or is it both?
_______

Definitely 1
As far as 2, I think the world 'supernatural' is a monkey wrench. If something is real, then it isn't supernatural. If it's not real, it's not real. That adjective (and noun) adds a kind of metaphysical rule that I think fits better with harshly dualistic religions like the Abrahamic ones. If it doesn't (seem to) follow the usual rules, then it has nothing to do with earthly/natural processes. With hints of transcendence and breaking rules or being beyond rules.

I am some kind of theisty, certain pantheist, though there is a notion of conscious overall entities.

I see consciousness as a facet of what gets called matter.