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

I dont consider empirical science the steward of knowledge at the level of examining the presuppositions of science. Science gets into very serious trouble when it comes to basic questions because it cannot address the simple question as to how knowledge of the world is possible. Its job is not epistemology. Ask a scientist how the world "gets into" a knowledge claim and she will not even know what you are talking about, yet this is fundamental to knowing the world. To be clear: it is not that science has some working paradigm about how knowledge relationships and this will advance based on new observational data; rather, science has no clue at all as to how such a relationship could even possibly work given the scientist's "ontology" of physicalism/materialism.

But of coursr, when it comes to the familiar classificatory work of science and pragmatic efficacy, science is the steward of knowledge.

Government the steward of rules? But prior to this is ethics. Government is right as it reasons ethically, and wrong when it doesn't regardless of the outcome. I refer here to the "good will" of intensions.

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

I am not here concerned with any analysis of why people turned to religion. More often than not, there simply was no choice, conform or die. The way we are entangled with other people, desires and fears brings in matters that are not that have nothing to do with the essence of religion, and more than political favor for certain research has anything to do with the essence of science. It is not why people believe in a religion, but what is means for something to be religiously significant at all! What is there in the world that makes religion even possible outside of narratives and power plays, etc. Or better, what makes the world a "religious place" in the same way that it is a place of science? You mentioned ethics, and I agree, but this just opens the door for discussion. What about ethics makes it the essence of religion?

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

No, no. I mean, it is scary and uncertain, obviously, but I am arguing precisely that the world IS a moral place. I am arguing that religion, beneath all those absurd assumptions of faith and dogmatism, the essence of religion is the realist thing one can imagine, and lies deep in our existence. This is the value dimension of our world. Ask, what is real? in the philosophical sense, not in the general sense in which this term is tossed around mindlessly. I argue that there is nothing more real than affectivity or the "pathos" that saturates experience in every interest, abhorrence, love, hate, and so on.

Of course, to see this, one has to put aside science's absurd claims about science's metaphysics called physicalism (and the like).

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

One has to put aside this kind of categorical thinking. This is metaphysics, but responsible metaphysics, so if it has a name at all, it would be ontotheology, the being of theology that is elucidated through a close look at metaethics. Metaethics, as I am thinking about it here, deals the the notorious "good" and "bad" of ethical matters. Think G E Moore's non natural property, as he tries to explain what the ethical good in essence IS. Contingent goods and bads are easy to understand, as with good knives or bad performances, good news, bad radio reception, and on and on. Ethical goods and bads are very different, for in order to "observe" such a thing, one has to acknowledge something very strange that literally constitutes ethical situations, as in the ethical prohibition against the rack or applying thumb screws. Exhaust the empirical descriptive features of such a thing, and there is the residuum called the "bad" of it. Few take the time to look closely at this: it cannot be seen, yet it is by far THE most salient feature applying the thumb screws has, which is the ethical/aesthetic "bad" of the pain.

Note how one cannot give this further analysis, for pain as such is not a "thing of parts" but is "stand alone what it is," and this makes pain irreducible to anything else, any other explanatory account. It is literally IN the presence of the world, and I would quickly add, MORE SO than anything science can ever come to know, for science's knowledge is essentially quantitative in nature, meaning it processes information through meansuring how qualitative presences can be represented in intensities, degrees, numbers, etc. in quantitative relations. Very complicated, certainly, but, and this is the point: derivative, derived, that is, through discursive reasoning. This is a very rough but accurate way to talk about science's knowledge claims. Take any science, geology, e.g.: ask a question about, say, the orogeny of mountains or plate tectonics or carbon dating, and you will not find anything enlightening about the world cannot be reduced to talk about relative quantitative relations. Qualitatively, the world is there, of course, but the understanding about the world is going to be about relative quantitative relations.

This is why science cannot talk about ethics any more than it can talk about reason qua reason as Kant tried to. Reason, like ethics' value, cannot be observed and quantified. Modus ponens doesn't have a quantitative dimension to it, but this is where the argument gets interesting, because the ethical/aesthetic "good and bad" does, which leads to the most basic part of this analysis: We look here at ethics as Kant looked at reason, trying to isolate the "purity" of value-in-ethics. Kant had to go transcendental because of the apriority of the logic discovered in judgment, and here, we, too, go thsi way. What religion seeks is an account of value-in-the-world that is AS apodictic as logic, but is ABOUT existence. Logic is vacuous, let's face it. It is, as Wittgenstein said, just tautological in nature, so its apodicticity is equally vacuous, meaning, who cares? It only has meaning in contexts of meaningful affairs, like seeing that IF you want to stay dry in the rain THEN you must bring an umbrella. Pure form is only intersting if you TAKE in interest in it. But value: Demonstrate that value qua value is apodictic, like logic, and now you have an extraordinary affirmation of foundational meaning of our existence.

Like proving God exists, but without God and all the churchy fetishes; the depth of meaning is now absolute, and our ethical throwness into the world carries with it the redemptive and consummatory promises inherent in religion.

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

No. It is very important that one is able to witness something they "know". Otherwise, it is just bad metaphysics. You might as well be talking about God and her omniscience, omnipotence or how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Metaphysicl materialism is simply an extension of loose talk about things in the world. Material physics is not a metaphysical concept, but refers to observable properties of things. The underlying substratum of all things will never been observed because it is not A being. It IS being. The only responsible way to talk about such a substratum requires the term transcendence, simply because there is nothing to say. This is Wittgenstein's "world" which is mystical.

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

On the other hand, experience is not a numerical indeterminacy. Hagen Dazs is not a numerical indeterminacy, nor sex or love or death by a thousand cuts. This is what religion is all about. Analytic philosophers generally deal with the good and bad of ethics/aesthetics as if the normativity of these terrible and wonderful things are to be dealt with just like one deal with facts of the world. But to do this ignores the nature of the normativity itself, which issues from the pain being "bad" and this is in double inverted commas because we are dealing with a "quality" in the presence of pain that makes the "ought" of a prohibition what it is. This is the ontology of value-in-being.

Usually, oughts are contingently conceived, that is, they are part of a conditional construction, IF...THEN, as in If you want get an A on the exam, THEN you have to study, and so, the ought entirely depends on something else. But in ethics, the ought is stand alone.

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

Brilliant! Nothing at all, and in an important way this tells us that the greatest "wisdom" of philosophy is not going to be found in mere propositional truth or the pragmatics, or rational soundness, or representational alignment of knowledge claims. The answer to the question of life the universe and everything lies with the elucidation or the enlightenment about and realization of value-in-the-world.

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

Metaphysics is only meaningful to the extent it is realized phenomenologically, for phenomena are all that IS. Anything that is posited that is not grounded this way is just bad metaphysics. Kant didn't see this. He thought of metaphysics as hopelessly transcendental in the absolute sense of this term and impossible to talk about. But then, where are the grounds for the discussion about it being beyond discussion? And how is it possible that noumena and phenomena are to be conceived as separate ontologies when the former has no delimitations for to delimit noumena is to draw a line and one cannot draw a line about something utterly transcendental' it would be like separating finitude and infinity, a separation that occurs only in language! A rope or a snake, asks Adi Shankara.

It is language and its pragmatic nature that so strongly inhibits understanding of metaphysics.

I agree, and that is why I have argued recently in another thread that experience or perception is not "in the head'. — Janus

If you understand this, and I trust that you do, you have realized something very profound about our existence that I won't, following Wittgenstein, trivialize with talk beyond saying that in you are right there with the (serious) Hindus.

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

When dealing with an ontology of language and culture, I agree. But then, there is the taboo ontology that Gadamar or Heidegger will not take seriously because it underscores the notion of the "pure" phenomenon, which Husserl took up so rigorously and was rejected for the impossibility of the claim that the phenomenological reduction could bring one to the absolute presence of the object. There are those, particularly Michel Henry and Jean Luc Marion who continued forward with this radical taboo ontotheology of religious revelation in the objective study of being (of course, all in the long shadow of Heidegger's analysis in Being and Time and latter works. The very term ontotheology is from Kant then Heidegger from the Greek. For more on this see his [what I consider quite difficult] Identity and Difference and his Ontotheological Constitution of Metaphysics. Again, a bit of a struggle for me. For clarity, you could ask JoshS).

I, on the other hand, take this taboo philosophy very seriously. I am sure that philosophy leads one to foundations, and here, even the receptive "meditative thinking" can only be an index to "the world," a pragmatic index, if you will, "opens seeing".

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

But you know how this problem goes: The only ontology that can sustain in what-is-and-can-be-known is hermeneutics. Long and involved. I want to agree with you, but I can't see how acknowledging my cat as my cat can discover the "my cat" in an objective claim so familiar, in the language that is in the apprehension of it being my cat. But I do stand with Michel Henry who takes us through a Cartesian path to affirmation (in his Manifestation of Essence): Descartes made a basic mistake in that the cogito is impossible to conceive apart from the cogitatum. The indubitably of "I think" is nonsense apart from an object, and this is, of course, Husserl's intentionality, which Henry uses as the basis of his thinking. the idea is that when I acknowledge my cat, it is patently ludicrous to imagine nothing is happening here and that which it IS: that is not language.

The trouble is, what one can say is bound up in the structural entanglements of the language (the difference and deference, as Derrida put it) and this makes my knowledge of my cat entirely contingent and contextual.

Only one thing survives this analysis: value-in-being. "Ouch!" and "oo and ah and yum" experiences are not language, BUT they "speak" the "language" of ethics. The bad and good, that is; the non contingent "bad" of the "ouch" of having teeth pulled without anesthetics is a "bad" that issues from the world.

A bit much here. Apologies. Talking about these things tests the limits of talking.

I've been sidetracked and meaning to respond, but there's a lot there and I'm down with a virus at the moment.

I've been sidetracked and meaning to respond, but there's a lot there and I'm down with a virus at the moment. — Janus

Nothing but time. Get well soon!

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

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.

That we identify that Truth as God or Spirit is only a reflection of our intuition that it is something utterly other than our imposition thinking, the place we seem to be ineluctably trapped. Though, so calling it ended up naturally getting carried off by the rapids of imposition thinking, and mythology, ritual, law and dogma surfaced.

But at its core seek Truth, all else is talk.

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.

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.

The essence of religion is seek truth; and it holds true in its authentic practice.

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?

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". :naughty:

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".

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904100

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

Well, after prefacing my answer with the admission that I'm no authority, because as I said, individuals can experience the essence of religion in authentic practice.

As for its failings in the public square, as I said, once that core seeking of Truth became identified, say, as God, it got swept away by "imposition thinking."

What you are (seemingly) frustrated with is not religion, at its core, but a bastardized version.

The same can be said of democracy at its core. Somewhere there might be an elected official practicing authentic democracy. The fact that it is not so in the public square is not the fault of democracy.

I would see the fear of death as the basis for the bastardized version of religion. The one which has you understandably frustrated references to the scriptures.

But the core of religion, is not the denial of death, but its affirmation, along with life: Truth, not imposition thinking (sorry, Constance, or Nietzsche, the term fits).

I'm not "frustrated" with anything, least of all religion. Stick to what I've actually written as I don't have a hidden, or sublimated, agenda. The history of religious practices (e.g. oracles / prophesies, scaoegoating, heresies, martyrs, persecutions, schisms, missionaries, holy wars, etc) speaks loudly for itself – quests for magical/miraculous "immortality" (i.e. escape from (denial of) mortality). 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.

Ok, then your use of essence conflicts with mine. I don't deny yours exists. Unless you were being flippant, you don't deny some religious folk seek Truth. Good enough.

As for my erroneous assumption about you being frustrated, I guess that's your standard speech. I won't misread it next time.

Religion has a bloody history? Aren’t you a leftist? Leftism in practice has killed more in the past century than all the religious wars and martyrs and witch burnings over the past 2 millennia. :lol:

magical quests for "immortality" — 180 Proof

Isn't everything a magical quest for immortality, when you think about it, really? We (people in general, not necessarily anyone reading) seek to prolong and yes even immortalize ourselves and ideas with medicine, philosophy, networking, friends, relationships, rearing children, science, sure it's of a different flavor but is it not all the same at the end of one's weary day? We wish to become more than we are or were the previous day, this is not anything mystical or bewildering or some sort of hocus pocus from a book, this is the real most unrefined nature of who we are as a species, to become greater and break free from our mortal shackles as most concretely and effectively as can be done. We have done this through intellectual evolution and philosophical intercourse with one another's ideas and identity on a level that truly transcends the physical into the metaphysical or spiritual, through scientific advancement, which all began from a simple "unrealistic" idea in one's mind! It's all the same, friend! I do contend. Religion gives man the blueprint for the impossible to become possible. Through simple faith yes often in a higher power but also indirectly in one's self and potential to continue on, to thrive, to grow, to take challenges and defeat with a smile and hearty laugh, knowing even in one's defeat and yes even death, seeds were left behind, be they physical such as writings, unfinished plans, half-built inventions, or conceptual such as ideas from those who perished hundreds of years ago that we discuss as if their authors were alive this very moment in the same room as us! All actions, even failures, become the most powerful stepping stones for future generations that remain strong, everlasting throughout the ages if we only have the will, the spirit to pioneer and truck on, knowing that while the body may die, the spirit, be it physical as religious texts purport or conceptual as simple observation confirms, truly does live on in others! This I believe is the essence of all great religion!

Isn't everything a magical quest for immortality ...? — Outlander

Nope.

Go away troll.

:up:

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

Just to be clear, you just said that religion is a return to truth away from knowing and thinking. This is qualifiedly right, I think. But it needs a lot more.

But at its core seek Truth, all else is talk. — ENOAH

But here, you may find yourself in agreement with Nietzsche: Perhaps truth is like a woman. Demeaning attitude toward women aside, he is essentially saying the truth conditions set down by logic and proper reasoning do not "speak" the world. The world has none of this rigidity, but is radically Other than this. Kierkegaard said something similar: rationalist philosophers (Hegel) have forgotten that we exist!

So it is not that you are wrong to say this, and I think Nietzsche is right here, too, but that truth needs to be understood very differently from what is generally understood in philosophy and its often steely devotion to logic.

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

But I don't think religion's bad reputation among responsible thinking people is at all like hating hockey. The latter is not a thesis about what IS the case, asks you to believe nothing and therefore does not rankle those who are serious about this kind of thing. Religion is not entertainment, though it can be entertaining, distracting, and appear to be entertainment, as we see lately how most of those who go to church are really old people facing death and seeking company, and the entire occasion reduces to church luncheons and conversation.

This "core" is exactly what the OP attempts to discover. Nietzsche didn't understand this at all.

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

But this contains the basis for error in religious thinking. 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: what is it about Buddhism's "enlightenment and liberation" that underscores and manifests this "core" so well? The error I have in mind is the way religion when authentically practiced carries one into the most foolish thinking, and in the attempt to uncover what religoin is in its essence, it is this kind of thing that is most immediately dismissed because most if no all of this religious culture is incidental and misleading people into thinking, say, religion is all about Jesus, the son of God. This kind of thing is off the table here.

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

Forget about Abraham, Moses and any other historical accidents you can think of. The OP makes as a principal interest of inquiry just this "public impersonal" objectivity. Religions in their general beliefs and practices ARE quite public, public to a fault; but they are not conceived out of proper regard for justification, and this is due to the failure to find any justificatory basis for belief. Faith steps in, and faith takes the foundational indeterminacies religion is grounded in and affirms and insists dogmatically.

But beneath this dogmatic insistence (of whatever kind) there remains this foundational this ethical-epistemological-ontological indeterminacy, and this is, treading carefully along this line, a "solid fact" of our existence. But, it will be argued, all facts are contingent, and religion deals explicitly with metaphysics. This issue is at the heart of discovery, where inquiry BEGINS. Certainly NOT what cultures through the ages have thought rendered categories for.

it needs a lot more. — Astrophel

Without a doubt.

truth needs to be understood very differently from what is generally understood in philosophy and its often steely devotion to logic. — Astrophel

Yes, my exact position.

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

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.

religion deals explicitly with metaphysics — Astrophel

Yes, death – ritually denying, or wishing away, its finality (i.e. anti-anxiety terror management (E. Becker)).

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

The position that religion and science stand in opposition is part of the scientific community's mythology. Like all mythology, it has its place in establishing certain necessary foundational truths that might not be actually objectively true.
https://jameshannam.com/conflict.htm

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

Are you an essentialist in other philosophical matters or do you reserve this line of thought for the religious discussions? Arguing for a contextualist/usage definition for a term seems obvious, so I don't follow why you abandon the nuance here, but instead throw down a brittle definition that potrays religion in the simplest of ways.

In any event, if you do wish to play the "essence" game and ask what the essence of religion is, you have to look at religion generally and not limit yourself to the Abrahamic ones. However, if you do limit yourself to the Abrahamic ones, you'll doubtfully find the common thread you want because it's not as if Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are essentially the same. I don't think you'd find the religious practice of the Orthodox Jew essentially the same as the fundamentalist Christian. They don't even worship the same god after the final analysis.

You also have to work through your problems with the Hebrew Bible not actually demanding absolute obedience to God, but instead you have to take into consideration the important instances of humans arguing with God and even instances where God changes his mind based upon those arguments. That does occur in the Hebrew Bible.

For your argument to work, you've got to model all religion upon the earliest of stories where God directly interacted with humans, and, even then, you've got to ignore a good number of those interactions to establish an argument contrary to the facts. Not all stories reveal blind adherence to God. And then of course there is the fact that the Abrahamic religions do not hold the Bible as the sole source of authority, so just reading the text and thinking that a verbatim interpretation reveals the theological stance of the religion is not an accurate way of gaining an understanding of the religion.

I did not anwhere claim or imply your "religion in opposition to science" strawman. Also, read the OP and thread title: "essence" is @Constance's term and not mine. :roll:

Yes, death – ritually denying, or wishing away, its finality (i.e. anti-anxiety terror management — 180 Proof

Now you're talking! Of course, the question remains untouched: what is all the fuss about? Now one has entered phase two of inquiry. Phase one is mundane.

I don't think you'd find the religious practice of the Orthodox Jew essentially the same as the fundamentalist Christian. — Hanover

:100:

A case could be made that Christianity, specifically branches like evangelical Christianity, are a bit like "inverse Judaism." I'm inclined to agree that there's no "single essence" save for what another user mentioned earlier -- the search for 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".

"as soon as you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God..." (3:5)

The serpent entices eve by associating godliness with defiance of god and power rather than strength of character.

"Original idea" is not an idea until Augustine.

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".

Your take is of course reasonable and functional.

Here's a "different" take of the same story.

We start off with freedom.

God says, you are living beings, I created you for living. Eat from the tree of life all you want. Being is living.

But you are also free and intelligent beings. There is the tree of knowledge. Don't eat from it, though you have freedom and curiosity. What do you want with knowing? Being is not knowing.

Knowing is (to stick to the OP term)

the imposition thinking — Constance

. 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.

Where once we were free to our living, now, we are Slaves to the imposition thinking which makes some of us construct "religion" and others of us despise it.

All the while we are ignoring its essence, living, being, without knowing. The truth.

We start off with freedom. [ ... ] What do you want with knowing? — ENOAH

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:

e.g. the difference between being free and not being free — 180 Proof

I get your perspective, even that it is accepted widely. But I happen to think difference is exactly where freedom stops. I'm not sure if you would be interested in having me explain further.

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

That's a completely understandable read. I'm not humoring. If I wasn't currently settled where I am, I'd prefer that over the traditional misunderstanding.

I'm not sure if you think I'm promoting "religion" as in the institutions we both seem to reject, or if you are of the mind (which I sincerely respect) that religion is unreasonable no matter what its methods or aims.

But I've seen "evidence" that--though an obvious allegory--the Eden story, as expressed in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, expresses a "truth" which philosophy to my knowledge has forgotten. Possibly blame it on, not Socrates, who warned against knowing, but his disciples Plato then Aristotle who went on knowing like madmen, exposing that we "chose" the construction of our own world, one built upon the knowledge of this and that, difference. Rather than accepting God's world, Nature, Life, living.

We are stuck in becoming, religion gives us access, albeit tiny glimpses, into being.

And I realize the story of Eden is fiction, and this sounds like a literary assessment, at best; or at worst, like new age crap. And I understand the resistance.

But that's what I have settled upon. Religion is not harmful, or even useless. Not in its essence. Not if one recognizes its essence is a return to "Eden," to attention to our organic being in being "itself," aware-ing its feelings, and drives, bonding with its group (I wont even say, "grateful;" that's no less imposition thinking), and not our imposition thinking and the Subject it travels by.

:fire: — 180 Proof

I hope to "god" this doesn't offend you. But there seems an underlying humor? Not your thinking; its delivery. I prefer you don't answer. Regardless, it's growing on me. And I appreciate the Dialectic, even though I do not believe we are necessarily in antithesis.

"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:

Friend, freedom is serving God and bring his ways to fruition. “On Earth as it is in Heaven.” I’ll pray for you. :wink: :pray:

You define freedom as defiance to God. You are the serpent. :grimace: — BitconnectCarlos

Oh come now. I can assure you @180 Proof is far from the one who masquerades as an angel of Light. Far. :lol:

A bit stubborn, perhaps, we might not see eye to eye, but there's been nary a time I observed him speak with ill-logic or intent!

To rephrase his interpretation, let's frame it under the context of an old-fashioned parent, who has seen all there is to see, and more, and that of a fledgling child. The child questions the outside world, becomes enchanted in its delights and mysteries, wholly unaware of the pitfalls and dangers that he himself is unable to fathom! In the context of magic and lore, talking serpents, and whatnot, surely there are dangers man is not prepared for, despite his ability to convince himself otherwise. To judge a man for his own limitation, nay, to damn him, is what makes one a serpent in my book, I dare contend. :smirk:

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

This would be a very different kind of truth that has to be set apart from propositional truth, and I don't think the matter is all that easy leave behind, and I say this because there is nothing really that cannot be said. After all, God could actually appear to me, and I could somehow be allowed to experience eternity and the gravitas of divinity, and there would be nothing at all stopping me from telling you about it, PROVIDING you have had the same kind of experience. Language was never about embodying actuality. Rather, it is essentially social, pragmatic, and depends entirely on shared experience.

Also, language is always there in the experience for us. We understand the world through language. Try to imagine a feral adult understanding anything outside of how to swing from a tree. No symbolic life to interpret the world. On the other hand, language becomes a "totality" and this is where your thoughts come in: In fact God has not imparted us with divine knowledge, and so we are left to the possibilities contained within our cultural delimitations and THIS is an imposition of finitude upon the infinite, you could say.

There are, I've read, Tibetan monks who can speak readily about things way outside of common understanding. They are, if you will, scientists, or no different, essentially, from scientists in that they observe and report.

I think a "superimposed knowledge" would be dogmatism, which is accepting without justification.