You will necessarily consider the government the steward of the rules, science the steward of knowledge, and religion the steward of ethics and meaning if that's the system you've decreed, but that isn't where society began. It's where it happens to be now, but only in some parts of the world. — Hanover
That is, some turned to religion not only for reasons to do with death, truth, or meaning, but because they wanted to know what to do if their neighbor's ox gored theirs, what sorts of foods were safe to eat, and when they should have celebrations and when they should be solemn. They also wanted to know why the sun rose and fell and why the animals did as they did, and so they came up with all sorts of explanations. — Hanover
But this conversation isn't about all this. It's about why you folks think people still cling to religion when science and government has prevailed and from there the psychoanalysis follows. It must be, you assume, because the world is scary, uncertain, and otherwise amoral. — Hanover
Religion is an all encompassing worldview, just as is scientism. It can reach as far into the realms of science as much as science can reach into the realms of religion. The question is where to draw the line, but I do think the quest for meaning is as inherent a human drive as is the quest for knowledge. While science can tell us why the world does as it does, it can't tell how to live in it. That's why I'd suggest religion perseveres in an otherwise scientific world. It simply provides answers science does not. — Hanover
We know material being, we live it. So, I don't think it is necessary to witness it, in some way analogous to how one witnesses events, or material beings of the various kinds. We don't know any other kind of being than material being, although of course we can think immaterial being as its dialectical opposite. — Janus
I don't deny that the idea of transcendence has moment for we humans; it is an inevitable feature in the movement of thought, just as zero, infinity, and imaginary and irrational numbers are in mathematics. Of course, the indeterminable cannot be determined, but it features prominently as an absence, a mystery, the unknowable, in our thinking. It has apophatic value, in other words. — Janus
I agree, we live predominantly in our sensations, feelings and emotions, they are what is most vivid, most real, for us; without them life would be as good as nothing. — Janus
I'd say it is more a phenomenological question than a metaphysical. Well, at least it is if taking "metaphysical" in its traditional sense. — Janus
I agree, and that is why I have argued recently in another thread that experience or perception is not "in the head'. — Janus
I agree with Hegel that all the historical movements of thought are important, but I also believe we cannot go back. I agree with Gadamer that we cannot even be sure what the ancients philosophers meant. This is the problem of anachronism, and to imagine ourselves as returning to think like Plato or Aristotle, is anachronistic. Which is not to say that we cannot find interest there, but we will always interpret that interest as moderns. — Janus
I disagree here. I think we do directly apprehend objects. Further thinking about that will of course include what you said, though. I see no reason to think that animals don't also apprehend objects, but I see good reason to think that they don't think about it in general terms as we do. We do that because symbolic language allows us to abstract generalities from particular experiences. — Janus
I would agree with Nietzsche (here, but in few other places) that a great deal of what we fuss over issues from errors conceived out of the imposition thinking has itself created. — Constance
If so, then why are religions not founded on public impersonal objective truths and are not daily practices (celebrations) of rigorous public error-correction?The essence of religion is seek truth; and it holds true in its authentic practice. — ENOAH
If so, then why are religions not founded on public impersonal objective truths and are not daily practices (celebrations) of rigorous public error-correction? — 180 Proof
magical quests for "immortality" — 180 Proof
And religion is necessarily not that. At its core it is refuge from that. Religion is turning attention away from our imposition thinking, our knowing, including, God forbid, our Philosophies, and returning it to Truth. — ENOAH
But at its core seek Truth, all else is talk. — ENOAH
I think Religion is the victim of prejudice. Its like hating hockey if the NHL has serious issues. That core seeking of Truth exists in many if not all religions. And cannot by definition exist in (Western) philosophy. — ENOAH
When religion is authentically practiced by an individual, they express that core. They loosen, if not abandon, attachment to ego, the Subject to which imposition thinking falsely attaches. And often, they spend a lot of time in meditation or deep prayer. In these states, they are either loosening attachment to imposition thinking all together, or at least, focusing on a single imposition thought, leaving much more "space" for the Truth to naturally become the focus of one's organic aware-ing. — ENOAH
If so, then why are religions not founded on public impersonal objective truths and are not daily practices (celebrations) of rigorous public error-correction? — 180 Proof
it needs a lot more. — Astrophel
truth needs to be understood very differently from what is generally understood in philosophy and its often steely devotion to logic. — Astrophel
When one "authentically practices" religion, have they, as you suggest, become nothing less than meditating Buddhists? If so, then this needs to be further understood — Astrophel
Maybe some religious folk "seek truth" as you say, ENOAH, but they are outliers and do not constitute, as several millennia of history shows, the essence, or raison d'etre, of religion as such. — 180 Proof
Obeying "the Lord" (and his anointed/appointed pimps) in order to avoid punishment (fear), not "seeking truth", seems to me religion's historically manifest "essence". — 180 Proof
I don't think you'd find the religious practice of the Orthodox Jew essentially the same as the fundamentalist Christian. — Hanover
After all, the Abrahamic tradition begins with a woman disobeying "the Lord" who forbade her from eating fruit from a "Tree of Knowledge" (truth): Hebrew (JCI) scriptures depict "the original sin" as a woman thinking for herself by "seeking truth".
After all, the Abrahamic tradition begins with a woman disobeying "the Lord" who forbade her from eating fruit from a "Tree of Knowledge" (truth): Hebrew (JCI) scriptures depict "the original sin" as a woman thinking for herself by "seeking truth".
. And, not only not where you will find the "essence of religion, but precisely where we lost both the essence of religion, that is, living and our freedom in the process.the imposition thinking — Constance
There is no "freedom" without "knowing" (e.g. the difference between being free and not being free). To be free from ignorance is the capacity to be free for learning, knowing, understanding and then freeing others. I read the biblical creation myth this way: "Adam and Eve" were slaves punished with mortality by The Master for learning that they do not have to be slaves by learning to disobey (i.e. how to free themselves). :fire:We start off with freedom. [ ... ] What do you want with knowing? — ENOAH
e.g. the difference between being free and not being free — 180 Proof
Adam and Eve" were slaves punished with mortality by The Master for learning that they do not have to be slaves by learning to disobey (i.e. how to free themselves). :fire: — 180 Proof
"Adam and Eve" were slaves punished with mortality by The Master for learning that they do not have to be slaves by learning to disobey (i.e. how to free themselves). :fire:
You define freedom as defiance to God. You are the serpent. :grimace: — BitconnectCarlos
Not necessarily Buddhist meditation, nor Christian prayer. These were raised to point away from the direction of "imposition thinking." Not sure if OP intended the same, but I am coming from the angle that knowledge is superimposed, displacing truth.
Philosophy (also, theology, myth, dogma, ritual) no matter how clever or eloquent, is messing with superimposed knowledge.
"Authentic" practice (whatever that is, if I define it, I bring it into superimposed) I am proposing (which finds its source in religion) allows a (brief) turning away from superimposed knowledge and, presumably a glimpse at Truth.
Needs more, but defining it brings it into superimposed. It must be practiced in order to be accessed. — ENOAH
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