I don't damn him, but his interpretation, like the serpent's, is power-centric. He sees that God is the one in charge and he doesn't like that. He doesn't like that God sets rules. He defines freedom in opposition to these rules. He wants to put his own mind and his own conception of reality above everything else due to his own boundless faith in his own reasoning and intellectual capacities. Recognizing God's authority would mean recognizing someone smarter than him -- something beyond him, greater than him. It's an ego thing, which is the exact thing the serpent appeals to with Eve eat the apple, defy God, and you will become great like God.

In the Mesopotamian cosmology the god Marduk emerges dominant after prevailing over his fellow Gods through brute force. Hebrew writers deliberately sought to counter such ideas.

This would be a very different kind of truth that has to be set apart from propositional truth — Astrophel

Yes, that is not just a prerequisite, but the "hypotheses" informing me suggests that the Truth being sought is necessarily "beyond" logic. That is why "we" have "placed it"/"found its place" outside of conventional philosophy and in, say, "religion."

PROVIDING you have had the same kind of experience — Astrophel

And this "need" we have for truth to be objective and verifiable if not empirically then by "shared" experience is only applying the laws of the very framework that the "essence of religion" which I am positing (admittedly, also within that same framework) is a refuge from.

We understand the world through language. — Astrophel

Agreed. "Understand." But we are Truth (not propositional, but the one nondualistic truth) by being [It] by [being its] doing.

superimposed knowledge" would be dogmatism, which is accepting without justification. — Astrophel

If you are referring to my use of "imposition thinking" and superimposed, I say to clarify my perspective. There is dogma, that is like law, superimposed twice removed from being. The superimposed I'm thinking is every human mind based experience, perception, emotion, idea, thought, conclusion, belief. These are superimposed on real organic consciousness, aware-ing, by the constructions-then-projections of Mind, displacing real present being with the representations of becoming.

I submit the essence of religion may free one of that, albeit very briefly and requiring repeated efforts. Nonetheless, the glimpses into such Truth may afford a more authentic approach to the representations we are enslaved by.

Note: this is not a judgment against knowing. It has many pros. It is simply a way to consider its actual status. a
And by doing so, by recognizing that Truth is ultimately in being-doing, it may improve how knowing/thinking can function for individuals and perhaps the species. Afterall, human Mind (like our concern about AI today) is a tool that got away from "us".

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: — 180 Proof

Exactly. The serpent actually tells the truth in the story. As stories go, it's pretty flimsy one and from it I see no reason why humans should follow anything god says, just because god said it. God in the Old Testament is clearly a superlative asshole. That is, if one were a literalist. If the story is allegorical, then who knows what it is attempting to teach us other than 'obey the powerful'.

The serpent actually tells the truth in the story. — Tom Storm

I realize the majority of participants in this thread view this as a debate in fiction, but regardless, let's examine the tale a bit closer. The warning was "If ye eat from the Tree, ye will surely die", as opposed to "instantly die". Similar to how if you go outside in subzero temperatures or unarmed in a wilderness of wild animals you will "not die" as in, upon doing so, you will be just fine. But. Given time. You see.

Fast forward to today. Mankind has almost exterminated all life on Earth, multiple times, by sheer accident. So, I don't know. Sounds like it holds water to me. :smirk:

Nice try.

:up:

The warning was "If ye eat from the Tree, ye will surely die", as opposed to "instantly die". — Outlander

... or as opposed to the truth: "I, the Lord thy God, shall condemn thee to suffer and die. :roll:

... or as opposed to the truth: "I, the Lord thy God, shall condemn thee to suffer and die. :roll: — 180 Proof

Well that's surely harsh, no doubt. But are Man's decrees and punishments not both beyond on par but surpassing in both fastidiousness and cruelty? "Look at me wrong, I'll beat you up", "Take my overpriced new sneakers, I'll kill you", etc, etc. I could go on. We are of no moral ground to talk let alone compare. Absolutely none whatsoever.

I mean, imagine giving something everything they could ever want and more, literally paradise and perfection. No suffering, no harm, and it still not being good enough. It'd be annoying, wouldn't you say? ONE rule. Not ten, not twelve, not the thousands upon thousands of ordinance and code we have today. One. Again, annoying.

Besides, just to stick to the tale, since that's the subject at hand, the "happy ending" per se was "(but) God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son so that Man would not die but have everlasting life". So, bingo bango, order restored. Happy ending. Cue the mariachi band. :up:

(Again, just going by the chronological "factual" order of the story, as that happens to be subject of discussion)

Religion, to me, is about, and rises out of, the irreconcilability of experiencing being whatever ”I” refers to, and the simultaneous existence of the outside world that is perceived as ”different” or ”other”. From this distinction questions arise that cannot be answered leading to suffering. Many religions thus aim to reconcile this difference by denying it. Thus, ”all is one”, ”experience of self is an illusion” etc.
Fear of death is downstream from the realisation of this distinction between ”I” and ”other”.

Yes, that is not just a prerequisite, but the "hypotheses" informing me suggests that the Truth being sought is necessarily "beyond" logic. That is why "we" have "placed it"/"found its place" outside of conventional philosophy and in, say, "religion." — ENOAH

And just to be clear, this kind of "truth" can be said to be about qualia, the phenomenologically pure color or sound, say. But qualia really doen't carry meaning. One cannot even imagine qualia, really, because the moment one acknowledges it, the quale is IN thought, language, context. Only value-quale "speaks" itself, apart from these. Pain is not analytically contextual even though it is contextualized all the time. A sprained wrist is worse than, has a biological counterpart, a social context, a political context, a history, and on and on. But the pain is stand alone. There is a reason Wittgenstein refued to talk about value. It issues "from the world itself". a very important, the most important feature of our existence. Religion is ALL about this.

And this "need" we have for truth to be objective and verifiable if not empirically then by "shared" experience is only applying the laws of the very framework that the "essence of religion" which I am positing (admittedly, also within that same framework) is a refuge from. — ENOAH

Yes, I conditionally agree. It's just that I think it's important to note that this framework is always already there, even when one is questioning it's limits. It is IN the questioning. To me this brings out the extraordinary nature of the affectivity of the essence of religion. Philosophers want to bring this down to the clarity of thought (positivists) or the disclosure possibilities of language (Heidegger). But few are willing to see that religion essentially IS the world because the world is indeterminate and it is in the ethical indeterminacy of the world, or our being-in-the-world, that insists on meta-redemption and meta-consummation. This may sound confusing, but it's not: Redemption is about being "thrown" into a world of suffering, the negative dimension of ethics; and consummation refers to the positive completion found in the incompleteness of desire.

Long story. Comes from reading Levinas, Husserl, Henry, and others. Phenomenology leads to only one place, which is the impossible (because value is OF the world and cannot be spoken) affirmation in its aesthetic/ethical dimension.

Agreed. "Understand." But we are Truth (not propositional, but the one nondualistic truth) by being [It] by [being its] doing. — ENOAH

I think this is right, and not a bad way to put it, for truth, an epistemic term, and being, and ontological term, are two sides of the same thing. You know, you might find the brief discussion about Michel Henry very interesting. You seem to be predisposed to this as am I. On youtube titled Why Study Phenomenology and The Turn to Religion, an interview with Conor Cunningham. Only ten minutes long and one does have to ignore the bible references if this sort of thing is not to your taste. Henry is mostly mostly not a religious writer. He is a phenomenologist and can be difficult (The Manifestation of Essence is a doctoral thesis on Husserl and Descartes). But this interview is very good at exposing how religion is to be understood in light of the pure givenness of our "pathos" in the world. (See henry's "Barbarism" where he is accessible and gives well constructed thought to this elusive theme.)

Afterall, human Mind (like our concern about AI today) is a tool that got away from "us". — ENOAH

Interesting way to put it. One could say this about technology, a tool that got away from us. It took our perspective away from our living reality and gave us an objectification of the self in science's terminology. Nothing but bones and ash, Henry says. It presents the question as to whether this is something lost through the modernist culture that has forgotten, as Kierkegaard put it, that we exist.

I think it started as pure philosophy, then wandered into superstition and lost its way in organized religion. — Vera Mont

Well put! Compared to blasé moderns --- with artificial senses, allowing us to see our "pale blue dot" from a god-like perspective --- ancient humans may have been more in awe of the immeasurable magnitude of the world, compared to the insignificance of the observer. That wonderful awesomeness may have been the inspiration for "Philosophy" (the search for understanding) and Science (attempts to control), and Religion (efforts to placate the sovereignty of Cosmic Powers).

But those early crude limited views left most of reality as a black box mystery. Hence, the emergence of "Superstition" as a means of coping with things beyond comprehension : natural events imagined as divine or demonic activities. Then, eventually, the primitive attempts at understanding and controlling Nature, became formalized into the religious symbols & rites & prayers we know today as "Religion" : a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe ; and our humble place in its superhuman schemes.

Modern Science & Technology have given us almost divine power over Natural forces. And for some, that may be all the "religion" they need. But at the same time, the complexities of Culture present seemingly insuperable obstacles to personal peace & justice. So, the modern role of Religion may be more Ethical than Creedal & Intercessory. Yet, the essence of Religion remains : to serve as a go-between for impotent minuscule Man versus all-powerful magnificent Nature & Culture. :smile:

I think it started as pure philosophy, then wandered into superstition and lost its way in organized religion. — Vera Mont

What do you mean by "pure philosophy" and how does "superstition" follow from it?

Religion, to me, is about, and rises out of, [ ... ] questions arise that cannot be answered leading to suffering. Many religions thus aim to reconcile this difference by denying it. Thus, ”all is one”, ”experience of self is an illusion” etc. — Jussi Tennilä

:up:

Fear of death is downstream from the realisation of this distinction between ”I” and ”other”.

I differ with this only in the order of experience/realization: developmentally humans experience death¹, therefore instinctively fear it, long before realizing – those who do explicitly – that the 'I-world duality is irreconcible (or even irreparable)', which compounds the fear (i.e. suffering) that requires relief and succor in degrees of self-consoling reality-denial (e.g. dreams of / quests for symbolic / magical immortality) aka "religion".


¹After all, death was far more ubiquitious and impactful thousands of generations ago, long before language & culture took hold, and we have always consumed dead things in order to survive.

Religion, to me, is about, and rises out of, the irreconcilability of experiencing being whatever ”I” refers to, and the simultaneous existence of the outside world that is perceived as ”different” or ”other”. From this distinction questions arise that cannot be answered leading to suffering. Many religions thus aim to reconcile this difference by denying it. Thus, ”all is one”, ”experience of self is an illusion” etc.
Fear of death is downstream from the realisation of this distinction between ”I” and ”other”. — Jussi Tennilä

What questions arise? This is the most important. One faces a world of terrible impositions and joyful engagements, and religious questions arise. I think you are right in saying, as I put it, that there is this "distance" between the thinking, feeling, intuiting person and the world she is thrown into (so to speak). But to speak of it as simply a "difference" doesn't describe what it is that makes the interface with the world religious. Religion deals with the passion, the need, the angst, the dread, the terrors, all which demand redemption (a churchy word I don't really want to use) as well as the love, the happiness, the compassion, the beauty, the dreams all which demand consummation. Metaphysical redemption, that is.

This is a hard sell because, you know, while it IS an argument, and I can argue it with you if you like, one has to be attuned to what can be called threshold experiencing the world. If one is thoroughly IN the world, and here I mean the unquestioned commitment to the culture's values, the getting married, raising a family, the possessions that follow, the devotion to friends, and on and on. then one is not going to understand this very well. They will be, as Heidegger said, living in a tranquilized world of little if any real meditative thought.

I think if one wants to understand religion in its essence, one has tocare about these foundational issues of our ethical and aesthetic (Wittgenstein thought these were the same thing) existence. Being in the world is caring. We are thrown into caring. Suffering in the world is not simply a question in an equation of thought. It is in the second and third degree burns over half ones body after a car accident, or the gangrened extremities of plague.

I differ with this only in the order of experience/realization: developmentally humans experience death, therefore instinctively fear it, long before realizing – those who do explicitly – that the 'I-world duality is irreconcible (or even irreparable)', which compounds the fear (i.e. suffering) that requires relief and succor in degrees of self-consoling reality-denial (e.g. dreams of / quests for symbolic / magical immortality) aka "religion". — 180 Proof

A good example of the failure to understand. Death is only an issue if one first cares about dying. Death, to be taken seriously, needs to be understood as to what makes it so serious. Thus, caring is primordial. Caring has an existential counterpart, which is that which is cared about and this moves to the nature of encounter itself. These are the actualities of experience, and they are logically PRIOR to "self-consoling reality-denial."

One must deal with presuppositions. This is the telos of philosophy.

Thus, ”all is one”, ”experience of self is an illusion” etc. — Jussi Tennilä

And I did fail to give a comment here: So if experience of self is an illusion, what agency is
"experiencing" that spear in my kidney?

Death is only an issue if one first cares about dying. — Constance

I.e. if one is a sentient, self-aware mortal.

this kind of "truth" can be said to be about qualia, the phenomenologically pure color or sound, say. — Astrophel

If I am understanding correctly, here is how this kind of "truth" can be said to be about...pure color or sound: because "we" are talking about the sensing (of) the organic (human, but not necessarily) being as it is sensing, presently and in "truth," and "free" of the displacing projections/imposition thinking.

But, and here's where I'm not certain I'm understanding correctly. This "sensing" "presently" "free of displacing projections" is what Kant is staying clear of. His phenomenal is the color or sound already mediated by imposition thinking. Perception; one step removed from sensation. But the kind of truth we're talking about is sensation, pure, direct, but unknowable.

qualia really doen't carry meaning. — Astrophel

Yes because "qualia" if that "experience" of direct sensation, is before meaning has been constructed and projected.

The Truth as in essence of religion, is unmediated, not knowable by logic or reasoning. More similar, in human knowledge, to "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" Or, a God who dies a criminal, to save humanity, no less.

A sprained wrist is worse than, — Astrophel

My only comment here is to acknowledge that physical pain is an example of that kind of truth. The "suffering" we primarily experience is purely constructed and projected and calls for something like "the essence of religion" to relieve us from.

However, though the first instant of physical pain provides a glimpse into that same "truth", just like it is in Zazen, or deep contemplative prayer, the truth in much physical pain is quickly bypassed by attention to imposition thinking.

It's just that I think it's important to note that this framework is always already there, even when one is questioning it's limits. It is IN the questioning. — Astrophel

Totally. For me too. It also creates the absurd irony of either of us discouraging as if we're accomplishing anything outside of the box which is not ready there, but in which we ineluctably look.

But few are willing to see that religion essentially IS the world because the world is indeterminate and it is in the ethical indeterminacy of the world, or our being-in-the-world, that insists on meta-redemption and meta-consummation. — Astrophel

Very nice! Your secondary part is almost soteriological, though I totally understand and agree with the moral/metaphysical concept of a "need" for "redemption". And that is exactly what I was attempting to suggest.

But also, from that. The so called order is the determinate world which has displaced the natural indeterminate reality. To me, the latter has neither ethical nor moral concerns. It (literally) just is that it is-ing, and we are that we are-ing.

Our ethical concerns are that within that "box" we mutually understood, there are established laws relating to order, or "functionality" because that's all the box is about.

And beyond the function of the box, morality relates to that "redemption" you eloquently pointed to because perhaps by nature, perhaps by a divinity, who am I to judge, we intuit that we are in a box and that there is a truth being, and a morality has evolved which suggests that excessive attachment to the box is "evil". This provides, by chance, evolution, intuition, or design, an incentive to seek Truth. Ergo, religion and its essence.
And, ergo:

Redemption is about being "thrown" into a world of suffering, the negative dimension of ethics; and consummation refers to the positive completion found in the incompleteness of desire. — Astrophel

The negative/positive dialectic, as you put it: my "incentive to seek truth".

Both expressions of the same essence of religion.

you might find the brief discussion about Michel Henry very interesting — Astrophel

Thank you, I will.

It took our perspective away from our living reality and gave us an objectification of the self — Astrophel

This sums up what the entire human condition is, I believe, since the dawn of history/the dawn of human mind.

forgotten, as Kierkegaard put it, that we exist. — Astrophel

I think Kierkegaard made the correct and necessary movement (though there are aspects of Hegel, I prefer) for his time.

I think the movement we are ripe for today is that philosophy has forgotten we are organic beings.

If it interests you, I think it's common sense that people turn to religion to resolve the fear of death, which as you say, and I agree, is rooted in the I/world duality.

But, when you ask these people, and I would assume, in your own mind, how does religion resolve this painful dissonance, the answer is with the promise of immortality.

That, I believe, is an error regarding the essence of religion. If that were the case, and only that, I'd stand with you on this.

However, the essence is to seek the truth that we are not this I/world duality, we are an organic being like any other animal. There is no end of the story I am identifying with and terrified of losing, because there is no story, there is no I. Thriving human which was born and though driven to surviv, thinks not of dying, and simply will die.

It is that understanding and acceptance which alleviates the dissonance by unveiling the truth behind the duality. That is the essence of religion.

Michel Henry — Astrophel

I watched the video. Very interesting. I'd like to read his trilogy even as art.

My obviously hasty and prejudiced take is 1. he was aware of the crisis of (Kant ff) phenomenology, 2. He was aware that the resolution could be (may only be) in a turn to religion, 3. But fell in love with the art of it and got carried away, just like all of metaphysics since Plato spoke of the cave and proceeded to bury himself and all of us in it.

What I understand the OP question about "the essence of religion" to mean pertains to the (speculative) cultural-anthropological origin of religion and not how contemporary people use religious practice in their daily lives. For some, perhaps religion functions as "seeking truth" as you say, ENOAH; I suspect, however, that several hundreds of generations ago primeval humans were in the thrall of profound ignorance of, and helplesslessness before, the fact of imminent decay dying & death (i.e. mortality) and told themselves self-consoling fairytales and made propitiating sacrifices to 'good fairies for "protection" from evil fairies' as ritualized anti-anxiety terror management (i.e. religion).

I understand the OP question — 180 Proof

Ok, from that perspective, I have no issues. Of course the fear of death at the root of myth and ritual.

Sorry I went off (likely willfully blinded) on my own tangent.

the thrall of profound ignorance of, and helplesslessness before, the fact of imminent decay dying & death (i.e. mortality) and told themselves self-consoling fairytales and made propitiating sacrifices to 'good fairies for "protection" from evil fairies' as ritualized anti-anxiety terror management (i.e. religion). — 180 Proof

That's all well and good, seems to fill in all the gaps quite nicely and whatnot, but surely you've left out another just as equally profound line of questioning: Purpose.

Put yourself in the shoes of primeval man, or even modern man, a distinction I find to be quite fleeting at times. Why strive? To accumulate, to spread one's genes throughout the biosphere not unlike a common cold germ, experience pleasure and perhaps a bit of profound discovery and enlightenment (somehow), then hit the sack for good and all, knowing inevitably all one's worth and accomplishment will go the way of the morning dew on the grass blades of eternity? Surely there must be more to existence than that? Surely man's place in the universe is more than that of a glorified cold germ? Surely...! It would seem man has yet another unique ability to distinguish himself from the animals: uncanny ability to create purpose when there is none. Something from nothing, the hallmark of the divine. Ideological alchemy in the purest and grandest of ways! That and that alone is reason to believe, in at least the possibility, there is more to existence than can be known or is currently known in the course of man's lifetime. Perhaps? :confused:

Put yourself in the shoes of primeval man, or even modern man, a distinction I find to be quite fleeting to say the least. — Outlander

The distinction is profound and lasting. Primeval man had no shoes and very little assurance of a tomorrow. His barefoot world was unrecognizably different from the plate-glass and styrofoam world of modern man. His anxieties and aspirations were different. His world-view and dreams were different. His Purpose was to survive and, at a stretch, to keep most of his loved ones alive, but he was not at odds with or alienated from his environment and community. He was never alone or adrift.

All true. Didn't mean to oversimplify, I do have a habit of doing so, not intentionally, mind you. Still, I'd argue much of our core "driving factors" remain the same. Fears, desires, motivations, and whatnot. More refined, tailored to the specific going-ons and happenings of the modern world, existential anxieties and concerns of not seeing a tomorrow all but corralled to the back of one's subconscious, of course. But in essence, much of the same.

Certainly agree with earlier society, those fortunate enough to have such, being more connected with one another out of necessity of proximity to life-sustaining goods and services and other "tight-knit" circumstance contributing to the resiliency and defense of said society's existence, in contrast to the modern world and it's "just text me" or "add me on Facebook" norms of interaction.

I think there is no disagreement here. My calling it a "difference" is simply one level of abstraction removed from "distance" as distance implies difference.
As to what particular questions arise, that is also downstream from the fundamental realisation of the distinction between the self and the other. Which, I suppose, was the original question of this post - what is religion about in its core.

Purpose ... Perhaps? — Outlander

"Purpose" in the context, as I've pointed out previously, seems to me a (sublimated) quest for symbolic/magical immortality (motivated (driven) by the fear of disease dying & death).

:up:

Still, I'd argue much of our core "driving factors" remain the same. Fears, desires, motivations, and whatnot. More refined, tailored to the specific going-ons and happenings of the modern world, existential anxieties and concerns of not seeing a tomorrow all but corralled to the back of one's subconscious, of course. But in essence, much of the same. — Outlander

Agreed. In fact, I outlined all those things in the first couple of pages of this thread. Hominids are pattern-seeking and classifying thinkers. All I'm saying is that we moderns process the input through very different filters from our ancestors. One main difference is the enormous weight of historical and cultural baggage we carry, compared to their fresh, uncluttered world-view.

Certainly agree with earlier society, those fortunate enough to have such, being more connected with one another out of necessity of proximity to life-sustaining goods and services and other "tight-knit" circumstance contributing to the resiliency and defense of said society's existence, in contrast to the modern world and it's "just text me" or "add me on Facebook" norms of interaction. — Outlander

They cemented their bonds with ritual, just as we do. For us, however, the various rituals are isolated - one for family, a different one for the workplace, for the male or female friends, for sporting events and mass entertainments, and that special, set-aside, encapsulated one for worship. For them, drumming and dancing around the fire included all those social and spiritual aspects of their community.
I do think modern people cling to religion, not so much for their spiritual aspirations or solace, but as an antidote the fragmentation of their daily life.

If I am understanding correctly, here is how this kind of "truth" can be said to be about...pure color or sound: because "we" are talking about the sensing (of) the organic (human, but not necessarily) being as it is sensing, presently and in "truth," and "free" of the displacing projections/imposition thinking. — ENOAH

I think you are in the middle of it. If I understand your use of the terms "displacing projections/imposition" you refer to the way language "displaces" non linguistic intuitions. There is a lot that has been said about this. Kant's "intuitions with concepts are blind; concepts without intuitions are empty" remains very strong as a kind of prototype denial that any sense at all can be made of what there is in the world in its bare "givenness". But you heard Colon Conners speak about Henry: we have turned away from life, and gone into the world and become dust and ash, and it is not just Galilean science (from his "Barbarism") but the collective mentality of "right" thinking that we all have that allows us to participate in a culture. The everydayness of mundane existence. Phenomenologists all argue like this, one way or another.

The trick about phenomenology lies with Husserl's reduction, or epoche. He opens his "Ideas" like this:

Pure Phenomenology, to which we are here seeking the way, whose unique position in regard to all other sciences we wish to make clear, and to set forth as the most fundamental region of philosophy, is an essentially new science, which in virtue of its own governing peculiarity lies far removed from our ordinary thinking, and has not until our own day therefore shown an impulse to develop. It calls itself a science of “phenomena”.

I bring this up only to introduce the "method" of restoring what has been lost in the inflated and unwieldy production of knowledge claims science and culture have produced in the modern age. The epoche asks the philosopher to suspend the most common thinking that we naturally settle into in daily living, and reduce the world to its pure phenomena. This term "pure" is of course at issue here. can one actually have a "pure" perceptual encounter with the world such that what is there is received perceptually as it is. The analytics would add to this "as it is independently of the contribution of the perceiver, and this obviously creates a problem in epistemology, for S know P is nonsense if there is no essential "knowing" relation in place, and if P is entirely outside S, and independent of S, then knowledge is impossible.

So when you talk of "being as it is sensing, presently and in "truth," and "free" of the displacing projections/imposition thinking" you are treading close to post-Husserlian phenomenology, idea that if you put "the ordinary world" on hold, and look closely only at the phenomenological pure presence of what is there actually that the ordinary world presupposes, you discover this dimension of truth that is altogether ignored by science. To make this move is uncanny, for the world is reclaimed by mystery or "unknowing". All this is done with and in the language that first opens world to the understanding. This is the paradox of phenomenology. When I look at my coffee cup like this, it is no longer a coffee cup, nor is it qualia, or anything at all. Its "isness" is stand alone, and this is a quasi-mystical state, but language doesn't flinch: I know it is a coffee cup now, Nothing has changed in this as it remains in the background just as I did when I was doing my taxes or talking to an acquaintance.

A bit windy on that. Sorry.

Yes because "qualia" if that "experience" of direct sensation, is before meaning has been constructed and projected.

The Truth as in essence of religion, is unmediated, not knowable by logic or reasoning. More similar, in human knowledge, to "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" Or, a God who dies a criminal, to save humanity, no less. — ENOAH

I remain uncertain about things not knowable by logic, because after all, logic doesn't really know anything. It is the form of knowing, that is identified in the structure of judgment. Not that there is any such thing as logic outside of the systems of thinking that recognize it. But that aside, you know, one has to be rational to know since knowing is the affirmation, the denial, the conditional, the conjunction and so on. Even when one is being her LEAST rational, there is the foundation of reason that makes this so.

The best way to look at this is to recognize that when one is finally of age, and questions rise up, and one can freely deal with the world and its ponderables, one is already IN a culture of science and daily living, and this culture permeates thoughts and feelings. It is the collective spirit of the times, the era, the zeitgeist, the historical framework. Call this the "totality" referring to the cultural literacy everyone has. This totality (as in Emanuel Levinas' Totality and Infinity. First conceptualized like this by Heidegger, I think). This is the ordinary plain talk, from the idle banter to hard science. THIS is what possesses one such that one cannot understand the "truth" as you have been describing it. One is busy, entangled and fascinated IN the totality.

My only comment here is to acknowledge that physical pain is an example of that kind of truth. The "suffering" we primarily experience is purely constructed and projected and calls for something like "the essence of religion" to relieve us from.

However, though the first instant of physical pain provides a glimpse into that same "truth", just like it is in Zazen, or deep contemplative prayer, the truth in much physical pain is quickly bypassed by attention to imposition thinking. — ENOAH

You would have to explain this to me, that suffering is constructed. Not that I doubt the adept Buddhist's ability to ignore pain. Thich Quang Duc comes to mind, the Vietnamese monk who set himself ablaze in protest. Unless one is Thich Quang Duc, this about physical pain being quickly bypassed baffles me.

But also, from that. The so called order is the determinate world which has displaced the natural indeterminate reality. To me, the latter has neither ethical nor moral concerns. It (literally) just is that it is-ing, and we are that we are-ing. — ENOAH

You sound a lot like a love and peace hippie. This is a good thing, mind you. The hippies may have been a little out to lunch, but they were possessed by something more deeply authentic than, say, the hospital ethicist who deals with matter of bioethics. To talk about compassion, empathy, pathos, caring, conscience, love, as well as "it hurts; it hurts and I know it!" as the Real foundation of ethics, prior to, or more primordial than, principled thinking like Kant's categorical imperative of the principle of utility does not solve complicated entangled ethical dilemmas, but these latter are entirely contrived out of affairs that themselves stand outside of ethics. Robbing a bank to compensate for being thrown into structural poverty and ignorance and this justification standing vis a vis the necessity of the law that prohibits bank robbing---this creates a serious dilemma for justice, and compassion will not resolve this because ethical confusion runs so deep in such a thing. But if compassion had ruled culture to begin with, prohibitive laws like this would be far less necessary.

But keep in mind the OP: Religion has its grounding in something more basic. Go fall in love and observe. Being in love has everything IN love, or, a person in love lives is a world of being in love. Is love reducible to further analysis? Of course, there are neurologists, psychologists, sociologists, and so on who have sometihng to say, but there the question goes to the "pure" phenomenon, the condition itself that is there to be understood. It is a quality of the given world, and science cannot elucidate qualities. It can only talk about quantitative relations, degrees, intensities, causal relations of these, and the like. Now take the ethics of, say, the prohibition of divesting someone of love, which is a prima facie rule: one shouldn't break the heart of another. A defeasible rule, to be sure, for often circumstances are intractable, but note: the prima facie rule is PRIOR to the entanglements, so from whence comes this? It comes from the world itself, for love issues from the world! It is not a principle, but an actuality, not even arguably, the most salient feature of our existence. And moral realism has just been proved. This kind of reasoning applies across the board to any and all ethical cases: find the value that is at stake, at risk, to be won or lost or compromised, etc, and you will find the essence of the ethicality. And value issues form the world (Wittgenstein's Tractatus, e.g.)

Because love is a quality of the, as you put it, "is-ing, and we are that we are-ing" it issues from the world itself, from being. It is as if all ethics had the same metaphysical grounding as those stone tablets written by God on a mountain. Only ethics is Real.

I think the movement we are ripe for today is that philosophy has forgotten we are organic beings. — ENOAH

Spiritual beings, I would say. The word 'spirit' has too much history, I know. Spoils meaning. But our spirituality is really a thing so easily understood. When the question is raised regarding the nature of the self, note that one does not find anything at all that is remotely a thing, all the caring, worrying, thinking, happiness, misery, and on and on and on: there is nothing physicalist in any of this. Then how can one classify this? These qualities are spiritual, this passion for hagen dazs spiritual, this desire to go for a swim, meet friends, etc. spiritual. Objects are what they are, we are what we are. In itself, it says nothing of redemption and consummation and the eternal duration of the spirit. It is a simple observational fact.

I think there is no disagreement here. My calling it a "difference" is simply one level of abstraction removed from "distance" as distance implies difference.
As to what particular questions arise, that is also downstream from the fundamental realisation of the distinction between the self and the other. Which, I suppose, was the original question of this post - what is religion about in its core. — Jussi Tennilä

I think of Ahab and the whale for this "distance": Note that Ahab did not chase down the whale to get revenge against the mindless brute. It was what was "behind" the whale, and this really does go the the OP. The world's horrors an joys come to us in the usual ways, the lions and tigers and bears, and the falling in love, ice cream, and roller coaster rides. But the most uncanny question of all, entirely ignored, which is, what is all this doing here AT ALL? Ahab struck out at the world that produced leg amputating whales, in an ethical outrage toward the impossible source of his affliction: God. Even if there were no God, there would still be the very justified ethical outrage. The OP is saying God was never there in the first place; this is just a bit of bad metaphysics invented by ancient minds. But the conditions of our existence that PUT God there remain and we stand before Being as such (if you will) with fist clenched toward the world, just like Ahab. And the same goes for the love, bliss, joy, and the rest. Not a fist, but a yearning.

terms "displacing projections/imposition" you refer to the way language "displaces" non linguistic intuitions — Constance

Yes. Exactly that. Add, nonlinguistic could just as easily be called pre-linguistic.

Colon Conners speak about Henry: we have turned away from life, — Constance

Without knowing enough yet about Henry, I cannot say I am on board, but with that statement, I am completely.

The epoche asks the philosopher to suspend the most common thinking that we naturally settle into in daily living, and reduce the world to its pure phenomena. This term "pure" is of course at issue here. can one actually have a "pure" perceptual encounter with the world such that what is there is received perceptually as it is. The analytics would add to this "as it is independently of the contribution of the perceiver, and this obviously creates a problem in epistemology, for S know P is nonsense if there is no essential "knowing" — Constance

This is intriguingly on point. Both the problem of "pure" and of the epistemological problem of "perceiver" "knower" are addressed by what I thought you were referring to in the OP re "essence of religion ".

1. "Pure" "perception", is not perception at all. It is sensation. And similarly, perception is not pure, it is mediated by imposition construction/projection. Sensation, the direct aware-ing of the human animal, pre-construction, is "pure"

2. And said "pure" sensation cannot be "known". Knowing is of the construction projection. Being the organism sensing is the only access we have to "pure". Hence no epistemological problem.

"What's the point?" Asks the imposition construction projections, "if there is no meaning to the sensation?"

And that's why religion, in its essence, "saves" us, affording us a glimpse into being without the imposition displacing it with knowing.

A bit windy on that. Sorry. — Constance

No, you were clear. I do understand the "paradox" and the "problem" of is-ness (I prefer is-ing). But I am currently settled here and am discovering a bounty of parallels

one has to be rational to know since knowing is the affirmation, the denial, the conditional, the conjunction and so on. — Constance

Yes, I recognize that in the world of knowing, cause and effect, linear time/narrative form, difference, dialectic, reason, logic, meaning and so on,
necessarily function.

I hold that they do not function in nature, or the world of being. It does not imply dualism. There is only the world of being. Knowing is fleeting and empty.

THIS is what possesses one such that one cannot understand the "truth" as you have been describing it. One is busy, entangled and fascinated IN the totality. — Constance

Yes. Exactly. I have found that History is constructed and projected and moves as one Mind. Too much to describe here. The point is, we are truly ensnared in History because my mind is your mind is History.

But religion provides, in essence, a peek into the truth that we are not History.

nothing physicalist in any of this. — Constance

I've taken up enough of your time, and appreciate it. I'd say quickly this. Those desires, Icecream, a walk in the deer park, love even, are "spiritual" because they are constructed (mind).

What is real is not desire but drive, not Icecream and gluttony (trust me, Im a glutton) but hunger and satisfaction; not love but bonding and mutual concern.