The West's pillaging of the world by didn't begin the 20th century — TheWillowOfDarkness
Actual scientists stopped being that - in terms of operative metaphysics - about a century ago. — apokrisis
I think it is important to respect this actual shift in scientific thought — apokrisis
However dig into the ontology of modern physics, and it seems as immaterial as it gets. You are dealing with mathematical forms imposed on pure possibility - constraints on actions. — apokrisis
Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework.
I would say the illegitimate response was Romanticism - or at least that aspect of Romanticism that tried to retrieve a transcendent metaphysics. — apokrisis
And to attack what is going on in woolly spiritual terms just ain't going to work. Marx tried it. The hippies tried it. The new agers tried it. Wishful thinking just doesn't scale. — apokrisis
So in broad terms, what I think has happened to Western culture is that it has been hijacked by a hostile force
— Wayfarer
I agree with the severity of that claim, but I'm not sure that's it's an actual premeditated act of metaphysical violence like your language suggests. I'm cautious about any language that suggests "they" have done this or that, or have this or that agenda. — Noble Dust
Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. — Richard Weaver
Admit - for it is true, - that this age of which materialism was the portentous offspring and in which it had figured first as petulant rebel and aggressive thinker, then as a grave and strenuous preceptor of mankind, has been by no means a period of mere error, calamity and degeneration, but rather a most powerful creative epoch of humanity. Examine impartially its results. Not only has it immensely widened and filled in the knowledge of the race and accustomed it to a great patience of research, scrupulosity, accuracy, - if it has done that only in one large sphere of enquiry, it has still prepared for the extension of the same curiosity, intellectual rectitude, power for knowledge, to other and higher fields, - not only has it with an unexampled force and richness of invention brought and put into our hands, for much evil, but also for much good, discoveries, instruments, practical powers, conquests, conveniences which, however we may declare their insufficiency for our highest interests, yet few of us would care to relinquish, but it has also, paradoxical as that might at first seem, strengthened man's idealism.
I would say it's religion or the transcedent itself which is the problem, a self-inflicted wound of one's own expectations. To be "bigger than politics" (or bigger than recreation. Or bigger than your own wisdom) was a lie all along. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Tradition is nothing but slavery and confusion until we've twisted its proteins into our own.We are only finite. Nothing about our lives has the desired stability because it always being replaced, even when the new is similar. Our world is emergence or creation, not tradition. — TheWillowOfDarkness
My point is a description of what was done when Christian tradition dominated society. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Calling the church out on it's own moral terms without offering an alternative way that does credence to those moral precepts you're using to make your critique is not an argument. — Noble Dust
Spirituality will always be bigger. — Noble Dust
I think the historical roots are fairly evident, and it does involve actual violence. I mean, Western history is not without violence, and at least some of the conflict was over ideas. At least some of these ideological conflicts are referred to as 'culture wars', after all. — Wayfarer
Maybe we can sum it up by contrasting Bach's music to some shrill post on Facebook. — Ignignot
My question to you and the other contributors is where are we headed?
Also where should we head? — Punshhh
My question to you and the other contributors is where are we headed?
Also where should we head? — Punshhh
The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.
Yes, I see two issues here, firstly where we should go from here, so as you say recalibrate, aiming for a good and meaningful life. Spirituality would indicate (in a knutshell) that this would be some kind of stable sustainable civilisation acting as a custodian of the biosphere.So the world has to re-calibrate its expectations as to what constitutes a good and meaningful life. Endless consumption and meaningless entertainment is not it. But unfortunately the '1%' who are to all intents driving the process, are probably not going to concur.
I think that amongst the intelligentsia, that would include most posters on this forum, people have achieved a level of morality suitable for us to go forward with confidence. — Punshhh
I do think there are more, by far, good people in the world. But the not so good people do seem to create havoc and often get into positions of power etc. — Punshhh
I appreciate your view of mysticism, I think that it's place is amongst a periphery of people who are suited to contemplation. A world of Mystics would, I think, look a bit like Lord of the Rings, so that is not a way forward. — Punshhh
I don't mean to denigrate simple, pure, morally good folk, but they are not going to lead us through this troubling time. — Punshhh
I meant morally good, not good as opposed to evil. — Punshhh
Regarding The Lord of the Rings, the ring is an interesting thing, whoever posses it is compromised. Golem, my favourite character, is a good example. — Punshhh
If there really is an inner spiritual path that leads to enlightenment or salvation, then that means most people are not on it, and this bothers me. — Noble Dust
there's something to be said for the man of simple faith. — Noble Dust
there's such profound wisdom in the parables that involve Jesus celebrating children — Noble Dust
But Christianity taking hold never seems to work out well. But Christian morals, bereft of a religious context don't seem to hold up, which stirs doubt in me about the efficacy of any form of humanism whatsoever. But organized religion is equally destructive to mankind. And why? It's because there's no moral evolution. — Noble Dust
The time of Christianity is past — Metaphysician Undercover
There can be no such thing as a new Christianity because then it would not be Christianity at all, but a new form of religion — Metaphysician Undercover
I do not believe that organized religion is destructive to mankind, because evolution is rooted in organization. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is false to claim that there is no such thing as moral evolution because Christianity is a very good example of this. — Metaphysician Undercover
Carl Schmitt asserted that "All significant concepts in the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts" — Cavacava
the apparent rejection or disappearance of religion and theology in fact conceals the continuing relevance of theological issues and commitments for the modern age. Viewed from this perspective, the process of secularization or disenchantment [as described by Max Weber] that has come to be seen as identical with modernity was in fact something different than it seemed - not the crushing victory of reason over infamy, to use Voltaire’s famous term, not the long drawn out death of God that Nietzsche proclaimed, and not the evermore distant withdrawal of the deus absconditus Heidegger points to, but the gradual transference of divine attributes to human beings (an infinite human will), the natural world (universal mechanical causality), social forces (the general will, the hidden hand), and history (the idea of progress, dialectical development, the cunning of reason). …
That the de-emphasis, disappearance, and death of God should bring about a change in our understanding of man and nature is hardly surprising. Modernity … originates out of a series of attempts to construct a coherent metaphysic specialis on a nominalist foundation, to reconstitute something like the comprehensive summalogical account of scholastic realism. The successful completion of this project was rendered problematic by the real ontological differences between an infinite (and radically omnipotent) God and his finite creation (including both man and nature).
And again, from the schism of 1054, to the birth of protestantism, to the splintering of countless denominations, it's all the same religion. This seems obvious to me. — Noble Dust
Carl Schmitt asserted that "All significant concepts in the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts" — Cavacava
The occasion where one of my favorite quotes (since 1983) is appropriate: "Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics." Charles Peguy (a late 19th century early 20th century Frenchman). — Bitter Crank
Various varieties of religious experience are provided by Christian churches around the world. As a whole (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox) the Church offers many flavors, even if the fundamental ingredients of the faith do not vary much from one denomination to another. — Bitter Crank
Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Reformation for the modern condition: a hyperpluralism of beliefs, intellectual disagreements that splinter into fractals of specialized discourse, the absence of a substantive common good, and the triumph of capitalism’s driver, consumerism.
Some people wonder why Americans are so religious. (They are compared to Europe, especially). I would say it is (at least to some extent) BECAUSE there has been so much splintering. Every time a group divides, it is re-energized. — Bitter Crank
There is a definite evolution of moral concepts, but I see no evidence of a moral evolution of the inner life of the individual or humanity as a whole. — Noble Dust
The result is the appearance of an inner moral evolution of mankind (held up the most conspicuously by the new left), but the actual inner moral evolution isn't there. Look to the proliferation of fundamentalist tendencies like shaming, virtue-signaling and the suppression of free speech (all on the left) as evidence of this lack of moral evolution. — Noble Dust
"Moral" refers to the distinction between right and wrong in human actions. So if there is an evolution of moral concepts, then there is an evolution of the distinction between right and wrong in human actions, and by definition, this is moral evolution. However, I don't know what you mean by "moral evolution of the inner life of the individual". But as for humanity as a whole, if there is evolution in our moral concepts, then there is evolution in our ability to distinguish right and wrong in human actions, an therefore moral evolution. — Metaphysician Undercover
Evolution is based in change. What leads toward the survival of the species we might call good change, and what leads toward the extinction of the species we might call bad change, if survival is what is designated as good. To give evidence that some moral principles may change for the worse is not evidence that there is no such thing as moral evolution, as evolution consists of changes for the worse as well as changes for the better. — Metaphysician Undercover
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