Well noted and well expressed. To become a rational secular blah blah blah is like emerging from a long process of the training of the unconscious, until it's hard to be afraid of the dark again or excited by ghost stories. Man becomes lord of this world, in his feeling if in no other way, by exterminating all the demons and fairies.This de-mystiquefying of reality I take to imply a transformation of the unconscious. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Frued posited dream content to be a surfacing of unconscious material. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Well noted and well expressed — igjugarjuk
The point then is to become an automaton - we need to stop trying to wrest control of our minds + bodies from the unconscious. — Agent Smith
Or a God who experiences everything brought to him by magic, as he desires, not realizing his body is hard at work making everything happen. — igjugarjuk
At times I miss the spring fairies - but the demons had to go. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Deus ex machina (automatons). — Agent Smith
Thanks. :cool: It's been good getting to know you. Welcome to the forums! — ZzzoneiroCosm
OK, but I thought the gods just rode down on the machines, to save the day and help the author with a jammed up plot. — igjugarjuk
Trying hard to be rational vs. Effortlessly being rational. Wu wei! I'm getting mixed up...or not. Practice, practice, practice...makes perfect. We must develop good habits. — Agent Smith
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64037/64037-h/64037-h.htmThough I may conceive that the divine spirit in a state of renunciation and abasement becomes the human, and that the human nature in its return into and above itself becomes the divine; this does not help me to conceive more easily, how the divine and human natures can have constituted the distinct and yet united portions of an historical person. Though I may see the human mind in its unity with the divine, in the course of the world’s history, more and more completely establish itself as the power which subdues nature; this is quite another thing, than to conceive a single man endowed with such power, for individual, voluntary acts. Lastly, from the truth, that the suppression of the natural existence is the resurrection of the spirit, can never be deduced the bodily resurrection of an individual.
...But do we then deprive the idea of all reality? By no means: we reject only that which does not follow from the premises. If reality is ascribed to the idea of the unity of the divine and human natures, is this equivalent to the admission that this unity must actually have been once manifested, as it never had been, and never more will be, in one individual? This is indeed not the mode in which Idea realizes itself; it is not wont to lavish all its fulness on one exemplar, and be niggardly towards all others—to express itself perfectly in that one individual, and imperfectly in all the rest: it rather loves to distribute its riches among a multiplicity of exemplars which reciprocally complete each other—in the alternate appearance and suppression of a series of individuals. And is this no true realization of the idea? is not the idea of the unity of the divine and human natures a real one in a far higher sense, when I regard the whole race of mankind as its realization, than when I single out one man as such a realization? is not an incarnation of God from eternity, a truer one than an incarnation limited to a particular point of time.
This is the key to the whole of Christology, that, as subject of the predicate which the church assigns to Christ, we place, instead of an individual, an idea; but an idea which has an existence in reality, not in the mind only, like that of Kant. In an individual, a God-man, the properties and functions which the church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race, they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures—God become man, the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude; it is the child of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human history the spirit more and more completely subjugates nature, both within and around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active power; it is the sinless existence, for the course of its development is a blameless one, pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does not touch the race or its history. It is Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to heaven, for from the negation of its phenomenal life there ever proceeds a higher spiritual life; from the suppression of its mortality as a personal, national, and terrestrial spirit, arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, man is justified before God; that is, by the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity, the individual man participates in the divinely human life of the species. Now the main element of that idea is, that the negation of the merely natural and sensual life, which is itself the negation of the spirit (the negation of negation, therefore), is the sole way to true spiritual life.
This alone is the absolute sense of Christology: that it is annexed to the person and history of one individual, is a necessary result of the historical form which Christology has taken. Schleiermacher was quite right when he foreboded, that the speculative view would not leave much more of the historical person of the Saviour than was retained by the Ebionites. The phenomenal history of the individual, says Hegel, is only a starting point for the mind. Faith, in her early stages, is governed by the senses, and therefore contemplates a temporal history; what she holds to be true is the external, ordinary event, the evidence for which is of the historical, forensic kind—a fact to be proved by the testimony of the senses, and the moral confidence inspired by the witnesses. But mind having once taken occasion by this external fact, to bring under its consciousness the idea of humanity as one with God, sees in the history only the presentation of that idea; the object of faith is completely changed; instead of a sensible, empirical fact, it has become a spiritual and divine idea, which has its confirmation no longer in history but in philosophy.
When the mind has thus gone beyond the sensible history, and entered into the domain of the absolute, the former ceases to be essential; it takes a subordinate place, above which the spiritual truths suggested by the history stand self-supported; it becomes as the faint image of a dream which belongs only to the past, and does not, like the idea, share the permanence of the spirit which is absolutely present to itself.
Most of most people's time is consumed in more fruitful activities. — baker
Coming up with alternatives to mainstream views, philosophizing, questioning, doubting, "being yourself...all this is easy... — baker
...Developing a perspective on life and a course of action that will actually result in a life well lived: this is not so easy. — baker
...Developing a perspective on your own life and pursuing a tailored course of action that closely fits your individuality will not be easy.
Have you encountered mountain ranges of new ideas for good living that aren't pro forma reiterations of proverbs, aphorisms, biblical quotes, folklore, folk wisdom, urban myths, bawdy limericks, slang and the occasional citation from published luminaries? — ucarr
...Developing a perspective on your own life and pursuing a tailored course of action that closely fits your individuality will not be easy.
The modified quote is what I think.
To amplify, I believe nothing is harder than developing as an individual.
For starters, finding oneself is terribly difficult. This is so because, paradoxically, as selves we are almost nothing. Without the daily reenforcement of society, we quickly begin to forget our most basic attributes.
What do you think the self consists of? — baker
It's not clear what in this story sets a "strong example of individuality". Could you sketch it out? — baker
What I've learned in our conversation - I go on at length when a brief statement will do; I indulge whimsy to the detriment of my position; I grossly exaggerate the cogency of my arguments; I sometimes promote language arts above logic; my imaginative sallies sometimes break contact with common sense. — ucarr
Alas, I have no didactic bullet list of individuality markers.
I want you to share your thoughts on the following three enemies of individuality.
Peer pressure; ad copy; disinformation — ucarr
One's understanding of "individuality" must be very superficial, and one must think of "individuality" as something quite weak, if one considers it assailable by peer pressure; ad copy; disinformation. — baker
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