Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417
Nick A.: This is far easier for me to accept since I've experienced a bit of this transition. Yet I am interested how you and other atheists would react to her observation.
Is it difficult for an atheist to be open to the possibility that something has not opened in them as of yet to experience the real meaning of the essence of religion? Does it seem too elitist to consider? Yet IMO the atheist is quite right to react to the imagination of those who call themselves religious. Atheism then is a necessary purification."
J'C: Perhaps the purification Weil is talking about is the purification from the religious intercession between believers and God. A major cause of atheism is really paying attention to the religious teachings of the major religions and then committing the mortal sin of thinking about them. At that point the only thing left for those needing God is a direct personal relationship with God unmediated by religion. I think this is what Weil is talking about.
There are many people who are overwhelmed by the challenges of life and find the need for God either directly as the mystics strive for, or mediated by religions. Others of us see the challenges as just that, obstacles to overcome. Including the huge challenge of inevitable death. If an individual is unable to cope, that yearning for God gives an escape. I suspect most atheists are past that. I know I have examined many of the religious avenues of escape and found none including direct relationship with God that worked for me. This is not a rejection of religion. I have learned much about living and dying from religion. It is just a celebration of my human yearning for interdependence only with other humans. There is no part of my life that I feel a need to cede to God.
46 comments:
Hi JC
J'C: Perhaps the purification Weil is talking about is the purification from the religious intercession between believers and God.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Actually Simone is referring to the purification OF religious intercession rather then FROM. One word makes a big difference. For example Christianity devolved into Christendom primarily from the forced adoption of the Hebrew personal God and because Rome decided to adopt it as its state religion. Under such pressure and since Christianity was so new, it is no wonder why it became so quickly secularized into the various sects of Christendom and Christianity went underground.
All this is part of the "false gods" Simone referred to. The human condition is such that we are incapable without the help of grace of coming to objectively experience the human condition in order to reconcile it. Our defense mechanisms are too strong.
The theoretical objective purpose of a church is to aid a person becoming able to "know thyself" or have the experience of oneself from a higher perspective. One more advanced helps those less advanced The more one experiences a higher more conscious perspective, the more conscious human meaning and purpose becomes evident. The human condition keeps us turning in circles in Plato's cave where the interpretations of imagination are substituted for conscious experience. But the secular church becoming a part of Plato's cave lacks potency to serve its objective purpose and has become content with secular objectives. As such it is a mixed blessing and like other secular institutions such as politics, leads to both beneficial and detrimental results both for the individual and society..
As Simone suggests, religion as escapism just exchanges one form of imagination for another. If a person cannot cope with daily living experiences in the world, how can they possibly become capable of experiencing the world with the detachment the Eastern religions suggest as does Christianity so as to psychologically profit from a teaching?
I've come to see that the real question isn't if God exists but what is "Man?" The Christian God is outside of time and space as is Ein Sof of the Kabbalah. It is beyond our conception so why argue about it? Yet Judaism and Christendom adopted a personal God and that seems to be the source of problems. From my discussion with Thuse, I'm beginning to think that the non-fundamentalist atheist and the non-fundamentalist believer can come to admit that the real problem is the human condition that both affects the secular world, which is the concern of atheism, and growth of ones being so as to become capable of conscious human meaning and purpose if it exists.
continued
So instead of arguing what we believe we know, it seems better to ponder what if means "to know." Doing so raises the question of why we don't and the reason that there are so many different conceptions of God and man. The real question then IMO is what is MAN?
My interest is in the unity of science and the essence of religion. If they are both true the apparent division must be the result of the "human condition" that Plato described as living in a cave attached to shadows on a wall at the expense of the conscious experience of external life.
The better we can deal with the human condition within ourselves, the more are connection to higher consciousness, if it exists, would be experienced.
The opening of our spiritual part would become more natural rather then this opening becoming sacrificed to egoistic imagination either for escapism or striving for power and control.
Could we agree that the balance Plato refers to is lacking in our presence and would be beneficial to consciously strive for to correct the imbalance of the human condition? From Book 1V of the Republic:
"But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others, --he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals --when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance."
Simone Weil was a provocative “Quote Machine.” Her biography,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Weil
GOD
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.
Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.
It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.
Charity - To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.
Theology and Religion
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.
The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.
A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.
There can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul.
Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.
Philosophy
Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being.
In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more or less than the power of attention.
Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.
The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.
There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
I CAN, THEREFORE I THINK.
Simone Weil
Social Order and Justice
Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.
Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.
If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so, soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.
Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.
Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.
In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!
It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.
It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
Humanity and the Human Condition
A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.
For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.
Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.
Social Order and Justice
Humility is attentive patience.
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.
In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.
Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.
The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest.
The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.
There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile.
To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.
To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.
To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.
When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.
When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.
Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.
More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.
Nothing is less instructive than a machine.
Simone Weil
Nick:Is it difficult for an atheist to be open to the possibility that something has not opened in them as of yet to experience the real meaning of the essence of religion? Does it seem too elitist to consider? Yet IMO the atheist is quite right to react to the imagination of those who call themselves religious. Atheism then is a necessary purification."
EI: I’ve spent the last 41 years since I left Christianity and specifically, my Grandfather’s Assembly’s’ of God Church, considering a similar proposition: “Why is there nothing really there?” That’s quite a question for the only kid in my church who attended every adult Bible Study from the time I was 8 until I was 17. I won trips to Summer Camp by memorizing and reciting whole Books of the Bible, (much to the wonder of the adults who couldn’t remember to tie their shoes or zip up their pants before coming to Church.) They even had me give several short sermons in youth services. I was Saved, Baptized and “filled with the Holy Ghost” by the time I was 14.
One day, I had a reverse-epiphany; I woke up, literally, and suddenly the whole “religion/church/God thing” left me with a feeling of hollowness and a ravenous hunger for “the truth.” Good Christians were advocating for “killing all the Communists;” “Roe versus Wade” was just gathering steam; the girls in our high schools were “taking vacations to Japan” to get abortions. Civil Rights was a collection of bad jokes in my town, and there was an “unwritten rule” that Minorities were “not allowed” to be members in my “WASP” Church.
I prayed for guidance and got a little help from the Quakers, but it just wasn’t enough. Someone gave me a copy of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” and “the rest is history.” Recently, I “unofficially” joined the Secular Humanist Society and now, I feel myself to be Spiritually “at home” at long last.
As I continue to grow in my understanding of it all, the “gears are finally beginning to mesh.” My life is working well.
In a weird sense, I feel that I have finally found the God of Myth; He’s real and He’s not supernatural at all. Most of the stories told about Him are fabrications by men trying to service their own misguided agendas; these men sought power and control over others and manufactured a God that was “only approachable by them.” When the people rebelled and wanted to commune with God directly, the myth of Jesus was invented to finally bring humans “close to God.”
In actuality, when Human Spirits commune together, God is in their midst.
“GOD IS THE MANIFESTATION OF THE INTERTWINED COLLECTIVE OF COMMUNING HUMAN SPIRITS; THEY SHALL KNOW IT IS THE PRESSENCE OF THE ONE TRUE GOD BY THE LOVE THEY FEEL AND SHARE, TOGETHER.”
This “God” is not external, is not a separate entity nor is it an autonomous supreme being. “God” is just something we humans feel when we get really close together and Love one another.
Nick, I’ll bet you didn’t expect this answer from “an Atheist”
Always be at peace,
EI
High Exploringinside
As an aside, Simone's quote isn't I can therefore I think but rather "I can therefore I Am." One word makes a big difference, :)
I refer to Simone because there is no Simone Weil cult, school, or anything else but only this strange being with an inner purity and high intelligence that was compelled to be drawn to "truth."
You seem to be verifying what Simone wrote about the dangers of religion expressed by people whose supernatural parts are not open but rather consumed by imagination. At some point you had to reject it.
You couldn't reject it if you were dead inside. Simone wrote something interesting on this.
In order to obey God, one must receive his commands.
How did it happen that I received them in adolescence, while I was professing atheism?
To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled--that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist.
- Simone Weil, First and last notebooks (last notebook 1942)
(Oxford University Press 1970) p 137
She experienced that her atheism was rejecting false gods rather then something beyond our comprehension that we only can know through grace.
My concern is if these two following observations are right. If they are, our increasing scientific advances put us at great risk of self destruction.
"Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace. "
"The combination of these two facts – the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it – constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings." Simone Weil “Draft for A Statement of Human Obligations” SIMONE WEIL, AN ANTHOLOGY ed. Sian Miles
If they are we have to begin sincere thought as to the nature of the human condition and why it leads to hypocrisy.
You might appreciate this post I did concerning Ayn Rand and Simone Weil:
Hi All
Harleygirl had posted asking for help discriminating between Eastern and Western Philosophy. It got me to thinking. Philosophy as it concerns women is usually associated with gender rights and abortion which IMO is a very superficial use of the word philosophy.
So for the sake of any female students reading this post I'd like to suggest a way you can knock the socks off your philosophy professor by comparing two women that could think beyond gender rights and abortion.
The philosophy of Ayn Rand is bottom up while with Simone Weil it is top down. Now that is a contrast worth chewing on.
Quote:
"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject." Ayn Rand
Quote:
"Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace." Simone Weil
Trouble already. Ayn Rand suggests that it is individuality that sustains civilization rather than wishful thinking. I would agree. In contrast Simone Weil suggests that it isn't altruism that is the problem but more that we are incapable of it without grace. Who but true individuals could inspire others to open to grace?
Simone Weil loved Plato. So I'd like to draw some ideas from this comparison of Ayn Rand and Plato. As the author suggests, they were miles apart.
http://www.lawrence.edu/sorg/OBJECTIVISM/plato.html
Quote:
At this point I would like to introduce a new term to describe the Platonic metaphysics: primacy of consciousness. A primacy of consciousness metaphysics is one which states that reality is, fundamentally, a form or function of consciousness. We can see evidence for this position everywhere in Plato's metaphysics. First of all, the "Forms" are abstractions, that is, universal ideas which we would normally expect to find in someone's mind. There is little coincidence, then, that St. Augustine easily converted Plato's "Forms" into ideas in God's mind when Christianity was introduced. Plato wasn't far from saying the same thing. In his dialogue, the Timaeus, Plato describes how the universe began in a state of chaos, but was rearranged into a certain degree of order by a god-like figure, the demiurge. Thus for Plato, mind -- be it the mind of the creator, or the intellectual realm of the forms -- is the operative metaphysical concept.
So the world as we experience it is a degeneration of higher forms from which they originate. Man's conscious evolution is the return to the world of forms.
continued
Quote:
From the very beginning, Ayn Rand opposes the direction of Plato's thought. In the realm of metaphysics, she opens by observing that existence comes first, not consciousness. Sure, there is consciousness -- we are aware of things -- but we are aware of things: independently existing entities which are there irrespective of our hopes, wishes, or dreams. Facts are facts, A is A, and wishing won't make it so. This description applies to the universe as a whole, as well: its existence is not dependent upon another consciousness -- as Plato argued in the Timaeus. It, and not a realm of Forms is eternal, not created by a hyper-consciousness which was not previously conscious of anything before the universe was created. The essence of the difference between Ayn Rand's metaphysics and Plato's is the difference between this world and "the other". Furthermore, because Ayn Rand does not hold the primacy of consciousness, she sees no reason for which mind and body must be at war with each other. Mind and body are integrated, and this is a principle which will echo throughout her system, just as Plato's mind/body dichotomy does for his.
*************************
For Ayn Rand the integration of mind and body is the norm through the intellect while for Simone Weil the integration comes through consciousness and its tool of conscious attention. From Simone's perspective, Ayn Rand is in the middle of Plato's cave consumed by imagination normal for misguided egotism. The intellect is very limited when we are consumed with imagination or "asleep" as the anccients have described it. Simone Weil wrote
"Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life."
"Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it."
Quote:
Because Ayn Rand rejects the existence of two realities in favor of just one, she does not share Plato's desire to bisect. In her epistemology, reason is the only means of knowledge, but reason is not detached from the real world. Reason is the "faculty that integrates and identifies the materials provided by man's senses". According to Ayn Rand, physical reality is comprehensible by means of the senses -- they are as valid as far as they go, allegations of illusions to the contrary notwithstanding. This base implies the need for a rich epistemology, as compared to Plato, who dispenses with almost any need for a method of knowledge at all. Miss Rand's work, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology , is all about how to form concepts, i.e., abstractions. Rather than existing in another realm, abstractions are objective tools of man's cognition of this world, the formation of which requires an active process, in accordance with strict rules of economy.
continued
So for Ayn Rand "reason is not detached from the real world. Reason is the "faculty that integrates and identifies the materials provided by man's senses". According to Ayn Rand, physical reality is comprehensible by means of the senses -- they are as valid as far as they go, allegations of illusions to the contrary.
For Simone Weil, reality is only possible through detachment and a higher conscious quality of reason that puts direct sensory experience into a higher conscious human perspective. Simone Weil wrote:
Quote:
"Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached."
"There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too."
So that is a beginning. Ayn Rand seeks understanding on one level of reality. Simone Weil suggests that reality requires detachment from what one world consciousness attaches us to. How to grasp this contradiction. Do we deny it or can we ponder it?
Quote:
"When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door." Simone Weil
Nick,
3 years ago I had a stroke that left my entire right side partially paralyzed. Through the assistance of a Feldenkrais Practitioner, I am mostly restored to full function but cannoit yet write ligibly or type with my right hand. In the meantime I've learned to "hunt and peck" and write checks, left-handed. I'm still working on a reply to your first 2 comments but it will be don soon
EI
Nick,
I find it a bit ironic that I should feel a concern for those I perceive as having been misguided at the same instant they are feeling the same thing about me.
Such is life
EI
Just to keep count......I posted my little "Coming Out Party" on Beliefnet in the Religion and the Human Mind Forum....12 people read it in the first 3 hours it was posted. I also e-mailed it out last night to 12 goog friends....one just replied.
Hi E
It is good to learn that you didn't allow that temporary setback to get the better of you. A toast to you in the old Russian tradition.
IMO your questions are natural ahd psychologically healthy. People are feeling sorry for me all the time thinking me misguided and yet I have this concern that Plato is right as to the human condition and if we don't begin to recognize it culturally, there could be severe consequeces from our egotism and stupidity.
People argue about what to do and my concern is for what we ARE: the human condition.
Rather then questioning God, it makes far more sense for me to question the existence of grace.
Simone Weil wrote the book "The Need For Roots" as she was dying. It was her contribution as to the rebuilding of France after Hitler's devestation. In it she describes a human being as a plant. The roots of the plant get nourishment from the quality of soil or culture in the case of humanity. The higher parts of the plant or leaves are nourished by the sun or grace in the case of Man.
So I'm back to this question of the human condition and the fallen quality of culture that supports it and denies receiving grace much as we would if a plant strives to grow in a cave without the light of the sun.
Perhaps we approach this sense of "Beingness" from opposite sides. Iam trained to instruct some subjects but now that I'm retired I wish to join the Team that teaches "Personal Vision."
"A personal vision statement describes how you see yourself in the future. It describes your hopes and dreams and evokes a sense of achievement and fulfillment. It identifies in some detail who you hope to become rather than detailing what you want to be doing."
"You are and will become what you think about most of the time."
Earl Nightengale
Hi E
We are approaching it differently which is not to assert right and wrong. You are referring to being capable of and what inspires "will" towards a linear goal connecting today with tomorrow.
I'm referring to the metaphysical conscious quality of the moment itself. Our difference is one of conscious "perspective."
You've undoubtedly read of all the arguments between Christianity and Judaism. They exist only because the misguided egotism of the human condition prevents realistic understanding of the value of each and how they are complimentary.
"Simone Weil and the Intellect of Grace" by Dr. Henry Leroy Finch was written as he was dying so the book contains a lot of sincerity. In chapter 12: Time and Timelessness, he makes the following comparison between Judaism and Christianity:
"................The law has a timeless character just because it is laid down once and for all as part of the timeless myth or timeless history of the people. Even when it is practiced by only a handful of people, it remains alive and authoritative. These Orthodox people are a demonstration of the original character of Judaism which did not distinguish the sacred from the secular and united the cultural, the biological, and the religious in one timeless system.
I turn to the Christian experience of time and timelessness. This is as much a closed book to Jews as the Jewish point of view is to Christians. But as the Jews have their treasure which is the treasure of the Law preserved in the torah, Christians too have their treasure, which is the spirit of Christ preserved in the Gospels.
If we study the Gospels we will find that it is life in the present - not in the timeless present of past and future, but in the (timeful) present of the NOW - that is the true essence of Christianity The secret of the teaching of Christ is that all true life is life in the present, as distinct from the past and the future. This is where reality is. If there is no experience of the present, as the now, then there is no real life at all."
The question is if the quality of the future can be defined in terms of NOW. Only a developed human being would be capable of such a conscious perspective. It is something Man can develop. In Plato's cave we lack this perspective.
We have this choice of making life more acceptable within Plato's cave or striving for a quality of the moment, of "NOW", that leads to freedom from the psychological restrictions of the cave. Those like Simone have this calling.
Exploringinside’s Reply:
It is pleasing to see so much potential wisdom on display. Your type of flower is so rare, one hardly ever encounters it growing wild, and when encountered, if at all, such a flower is even rarer still to be found in bloom.
My Compliments
It is also interesting to me how much ignition is obtained when the name Ayn Rand puts spark to the tinder. More on that later:
All this is part of the "false gods" Simone referred to. The human condition is such that we are incapable without the help of grace of coming to objectively experience the human condition in order to reconcile it. Our defense mechanisms are too strong.
In my first reading of any group of words on any subject, my natural instinct is to approach the group as if it were an Engineering Problem that needs a solution:
The word “grace” tends to put me on high alert – like a Wildebeest being stalked by a Lioness, while she is desperately searching for a meal for her hungry cubs.
The words “false gods” snap, like the end of a wet towel.
“We are incapable” is another trigger phrase – I’m bobbing and weaving, now.
The overtly named problem is “Our defense mechanisms are too strong [to objectively experience the human condition in order to reconcile it.] What is concealed within this claim? [“…reconcile “it” to “what”…..defense against “what”...”]
The coup de grace is “coming to objectively experience the human condition in order to reconcile it;” the quandary….take a subjective mind and focus it so that it, “objectively experiences the Human Condition…..and for the purpose of “reconciling it”
And what of this “reconciliation;” What two things are so far apart that reconciliation is required?
The claims are:
1. Our ability to experience life through the filter known as the human condition is not sufficient without God’s help. [Not sufficient for what purpose is yet to be discussed]
2. Are there any other clues in Simone’s other quotes?
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
[Comment: “Wretchedness” is an appallingly negative assessment of the life of human beings; humans are not inherently wretched, and it requires the combined efforts of both religious and evil people to “queer it” for the rest of us. The only way up and out of this spiritual and intellectual cesspool is through an objective education concerning Reality.]
Charity - To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.
[This one angers me to no end. Religion demands sacrifice; it demands altruism – Sermon1001 on Tithing, “God tested Isaac by demanding his first born son as a blood sacrifice; and you mumble and complain about a 10% Tithe; what would you do if God demand you sacrifice anything and everything rather than just asking for 10%?” Rand saw through this man-made hypocrisy and still identified Charity and Benevolence as serving the rational self-interest of the individual and the common good of all society.]
The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation. [Another dreary projection of her own life experience.]
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.
[A “hungry soul” is quite an image; they want us to think our soul lacks a fulltime feeding tube. There’s nothing there to feed.]
Just an informal question:
Since you surmised I have been an Objectivist for 40 years, why did you include your copied post on Rand and Weil? Did you not expect me to disagree with every premise and conclusion you made regarding Objectivism?
My rejection of most "Simone sentiments" would be "nothing new" and hardly worth the work.
Hi E
Your questions are logical. I've had many of the same ones. It is OK to react emotionally to certain words like "grace" for example from previous life experiences. But are these reactions justified in relation to grace itself?
Grace really is divine love that permeates the universe. Love is the energy of unification and when pure is the highest objective quality. The energy of creation is a bit below it in quality and is the basis of what we know of as Creation. This means that the ultimate source that illuminates creation is outside of Creation and why Simone refers to it as absence.
Divine love as a unifying force drawing the life forces towards the source is what makes conscious evolution possible
"We are incapable" should be annoying if true. It attacks our opinion of ourselves. Socrates in the Cave analogy suggests that someone having experienced the light and questions these opinions could even be killed:
"[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is why the human condition in relation to atheism interests me. If the human condition is as asserted by Plato, and esoteric traditions including esoteric Christianity, can we become impartially open to witness our limitations so as to become capable of becoming part of a higher conscious perspective?
We defend against the truth of ourselves. We have been conditioned to live by our personality which was established by the external world including society. It governs us and consists largely of imagination necessary to tolerate our inner contradictions.
For our being to grow consciously as it should, our personality cannot be dominant. The trouble is that if it isn't dominant it means its death. Buddhists understand this well and Paul described this as the ability to be all things to all men.
If we are as Paul described the "wretched man," it means that our struggle is within ourselves. That part of us that awakens to the value of higher consciousness, the light, and drawn to it is opposed by everything within us that is attached to our habits.
continued
All the religious arguments you read are debates between dominant personalities which have suppressed the essence of religion. They are unable to say 'I don't know" or as Socrates said: "I know nothing."
Jacob Needleman said that listening is the beginning of morality. It is obvious that the emotions permeating religious arguments prevent the ability to listen.
But if we are to have an objective experience of the external world we have to be able to listen and experience with detachment. This doesn't mean without caring but precisely the opposite. Such a quality of listening is real caring. It requires conscious experience and listening our personality doesn't want.
To reconcile the human condition requires a quality of "feeling" that sees our desire for consciousness opposed by our habitual nature that substitutes imagination for consciousness. In other words it requires our hidden heart to open and witness this struggle. When it awakens to its objective "need" then grace can help to consciously rise above and consciously witness the struggle with detachment leading to inner freedom.
"There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too. ..." Simone Weil
Think of the inner freedom possible for a person who was not restricted by hatred and lying by becoming capable of witnessing from a higher conscious perspective. We could acquire real attention.
"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." Simone Weil
I posted that comparison between Simone Weil and Ayn Rand because it was my attempt to vivify these two directions of human reason: bottom up and top down. They are both necessary IMO for a person to be truly human.
Another post seems to be more appropriate for my response.
Nick,
Before we resume the intellectual joust, I would like to introduce an alternative style of thinking or it may also serve as a resting place, an interlude. I think value can be derived from both rest and reveries.
The Scene: Two of the billion or so aspects of "The Narrative Center of Gravity Other People Identify as Nick" are speaking to each other for the first time in the last 3 or 4 nanoseconds.
[Editor's Note: I hate the contrivence of Nick 1 and Nick 2; every line of dialogue is spoken by a different "Nick" that are each a distinct member of the composite of self-directed thoughts that are in the process of becoming the "Temporal Leader of the Nicks" for about a milisecond or two, each]. It is with a touch of very very temporary pride, each Nick speaks really fast, then "winks back out" to let his fellow Nicks have the floor, so to speak."
"How's things, Nick?"
"Things are fine, Nick; and thanks for asking."
"Did one of the other Nicks tell you about this "new state of mind" that's coming soon, called, Higher Consciousnes?
"I've heard some rumors but haven't heard anything definitive; is this new state supposed to be "better"?
"Whichever Nick is being Temporasl Leader at any given moment always claims everything "new" is "better." When do you get to be Temporal Leader?"
"I don't know and really don't care; that's such a nasty job....everybody excited about something, wanting your immediate attention; all I want to do is contemplate."
"You go contemplate, I want to play another round of Solitare....see you later, Nick"
"Thanks Nick!"
The dialogues are going on all over the brain, all the time, both in unison and separately. The role of Temporal Leader rotates so rapidly, none of the Nicks bother to ask which Nick is in charge.
OK....let's talk about "Higher Consciousness."
As you might guess I believe that Plato’s ideas, his Cave, his thoughts on the soul, the human condition and even his concepts on Forms, were all “misses” and were very far from Reality. At least he did it with style, patting himself on the back for improving on the Socratic Method of Inquiry; however, style added no “substance” to his ideas. The Cartesian Theater was also a “miss.” Almost all the philosophers who lived prior to the 20th Century espoused dualism in one form or another; without going into a lengthy and tedious argument, I will simply state for the record:
1. There is one, single Reality and we are in it; no other Reality is accessible by Objective means;
2. Something identified by several “thinkers” as being “the human condition” are short-sighted and grossly inaccurate visions of what it is to be a human, in Reality;
3. “Limitations” are artificial measures of those that are short-sighted;
4. Atheism is defined as being “without theism;” anything else attributed to persons holding the position of being an Atheist can only be coincidental.
Now, would you like to discuss “a higher conscious perspective?”
Hi E
I looked in on your thread on Beliefnet and at other threads. I don't see the sense in the majority. I read a lot of denial, but where is the positive? Who is referring to the essential questions of the heart, the nature of man, or why we must be hypocrites for example?
Why must you consider conversation as an intellectual joust? Debates have the goal of winning while discussion has the goal of understanding. You cannot win a discussion. Your choice.
I came here as a follow up to a one and one conversation I was having with Thuse on Philosophy Club in the thread "Atheism with Thuse"
http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=11
The idea is if an atheist and I can discuss, ideas after getting all the tension out, perhaps we can agree that the essential beginning is the question what is Man rather than focusing in on the existence of God which cannot be proven. I do believe that if we don't get our pscho/spiritual act together, our species can do severe damage to itself if not destroy itself.
So my question for the atheist's perspective is if one can accept the possibility that their supernatural part has not yet opened as suggested by Simone Weil in the OP.
The first step from a discussion point of view is a simple yes or not. If no, then the nature of man can be nothing but a secular animal of conditioned thoughts afflicted with these "memes" that are the rage of the day. Man from this perspective is incapable of a conscious perspective but just a creature of conditioned habits.
I believe that man not only serves a mechanical purpose but has the potential for a conscious purpose where objective human meaning and purpose resides.
If man does have a conscious purpose that he remains asleep to yet some are attracted to, the question becomes how to further it? Can religious fantasy come to see it as such and can the secularism of atheism experience its limitations and be open to acquiring the "presence" necessary for a natural opening to grace if it exists? If we cannot our species is in serious trouble.
If you want to read on what I mean by a conscious universe, try reading the first chapter of Jacob Needleman's "A Sense of the Cosmos."
http://www.rawpaint.com/
Click on Library at the top right of the page and scroll down to:
Jacob Needleman's Chapter One: The Universe
The Universe as A Teaching
Pragmatism and Desire
A Conscious Universe
What Is Consciousness?
Microcosmic Man
The "Parable" of Geocentrism
The Face of Reality
Against the Literal Mind
Heliocentrism
Where Bateson studies Mind as a scientist from the outside, Jacob Needleman observes it as a philosopher and metaphysician, from within. This first chapter from his book, A Sense of the Cosmos; The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth (Doubleday), presents us with the possibility that the Universe is a living teaching. Don't mistake this for another "New Age" criticism of science. Needleman has the greatest respect for science and for the search for truth that is the heart and soul of science. Be sure to read section 4, What Is Consciousness? Needleman's challenging reflections imply that there are states, levels or qualities of consciousness that can be developed within us. What is more, the implication is that this development is the purpose of both the Cosmos and Great Teachings.
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If you want to discuss it with the purpose of appreciating consciousness, I'd be open to it. There is no need for an intellectual joust. If I want to argue, I'll get married. I believe in the value of an open exchange of ideas where the motive is to understand rather fixate on denial.
Nick: We defend against the truth of ourselves. We have been conditioned to live by our personality which was established by the external world including society. It governs us and consists largely of imagination necessary to tolerate our inner contradictions.
EI: Please pardon me if I appear to “fumble” this one a little bit, but the ideas presented are so obviously wrong [IMHO] that it is somewhat difficult to post a terse response without letting it grow into a multi-page diatribe.
Who told you such bullshit? Please pardon my crudeness but this is an absolutely horrible evaluation of the human mind and how it works. If anything we don’t “defend against the Truth;” we simply were never taught to recognize it when we see it.
We are taught to learn how to comprehend the World by those that don’t comprehend it. We are carefully taught the same misinformation that blocked our teachers’ capabilities to learn. “Garbage in; Garbage out!!”
Have you seen the poster of 8 blind people touching various parts of an elephant, and then giving 8 different concepts/descriptions of what an elephant is?
Did you read the book, "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum?
Here is everything you need to know:
• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
The “inner contradictions” occur when you learn these “lessons” and then observe your “role models” violating every one of those rules on a regular basis; it’s no wonder that even the most innately intelligent people get confused by what they experience.
Yes, the external world points at your person and says, “You;” they don’t know shit, either.
I apologize, Nick.
I am bombarded by people who have agendas that I find crude, frivolous, misguided and just plain wrong. Because I’m willing to engage them, they eventually get upset because I refuse to honor the unrealistic premises that they received from one or more “authorities” and then internalized. Whatever satisfaction they derive from the crap they think they learned, does not in any way persuade me to respect their ideas.
I don’t fake Reality; I am ruthlessly and sometimes brutally honest. My time is very precious to me; when I’ve exercised my brain cells sufficiently to feel as if I’ve had a good workout on this subject, Bye Bye….it’s on to the next.
EI
No apology necessary E. I've made my interests clear. I believe that we have a potential very serious problem because of our collective inability to appreciate the human condition as it exists within us both individually and collectively. We have technologically advanced but our human "understanding hasn't changed. That is the formula for a violent explosion.
At some point and on some site I hope to organize a roundtable discussion between various paths and atheism to discuss our concepts of the human condition and what we ARE including our "being" potential.
I can see the vibes aren't right on Beliefnet for such an endeavor but I may bump into some individuals who may be open to the importance of such sharing at some point in 2010.
If human beings like Simone Weil and Prof. Needleman can raise vital questions, I can at least further these efforts if at all possible even if only in a minimal way through introduction. From the preface to Jacob Needleman's book "Lost Christianity:
".............But in fact, no assumption of moral authority by secular humanism has taken hold or now seems in any way likely or justified. The modern era, the era of science, while witnessing the phenomenal acceleration of scientific discovery and its applications in technological innovation, has brought the world the inconceivable slaughter and chaos of modern war, along with the despair of ethical dilemmas arising from new technologies that all at once project humanity's essence-immortality onto the entire planet: global injustice, global heartlessness, and global disintegration of the normal patterns of life that have guided mankind for a millennia. Neither the secular philosophies of our epoch nor its theories of human nature - pragmatism, positivism, Marxism, Liberalism, humanism, behaviorism, biological determinism, psychoanalysis - nor the traditional doctrines of the religions, in the way we have understood them, seem able to confront or explain the crimes of humanity in our era, nor other wise and compassionate guidance through the labyrinth of paralyzing new ethical problems."
continued
"What is needed is either a new understanding of God or a new understanding of Man: an understanding of God that does not insult the scientific mind while offering bread, not a stone, to the deepest hunger of the heart; an understanding of Man that squarely faces the criminal weakness of our moral will while holding out to us the knowledge of how we can strive within ourselves to become the fully human being we were meant to be -- both for ourselves and as instruments of a higher purpose.
But this is not an either/or. The premise --or rather, the proposal -- of this book is that at the heart of the Christian religion there exists, and has always existed, just such a vision of God and Man. I call it "Lost Christianity," not because it is a matter of doctrines and concepts that may have been lost or forgotten; nor even a matter of methods of spiritual practice that may need to be recovered from ancient sources. It is all that, to be sure, but what is lost in the whole of our modern life, including our understanding of religion, is something even more fundamental, without which religious ideas and practices lose their meaning and all to easily become the instruments of ignorance, fear, and hatred. What is lost is the experience of oneself -- myself, the personal being who is here, now, living, breathing, yearning for meaning, for goodness; just this person here, now, squarely confronting ones existential weaknesses and pretensions while yet aware, however tentatively, of a higher current of a higher current of life and identity calling to us from within ourselves. This presence to oneself is the missing element in the whole of the life of Man, the intermediate state of consciousness between what we are meant to be and what we actually are. it is perhaps the one bridge that can lead us from our inhuman past toward the human future....................."
Not politically correct but still a worthwhile siruation to ponder.
Stay well
Nick
Nick: I looked in on your thread on Beliefnet and at other threads. I don't see the sense in the majority. I read a lot of denial, but where is the positive? Who is referring to the essential questions of the heart, the nature of man, or why we must be hypocrites for example?
EI: Is the discussion of “serious” questions the exclusive bailiwick of Theism?
Essential Questions of the “Heart”
“Beauty and Moral Judgment” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--2221-beauty.aspx
“Chastity before Marriage” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--2107-Chastity.aspx
“Emotions” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1238-Emotions.aspx
“Family and Gifts” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1304-Family_and_Gifts.aspx
“Love and Sacrifice” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1213-Love_and_Selfsacrifice.aspx
“Abortion” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1218-Abortion.aspx
The nature of Man [Humans]
“Parental Obligations” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1193-Parental_Obligations.aspx
“Reason versus Authority” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1271-Reason_vs_Authority.aspx
“Sociobiology and Altruism” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1209-
Sociobiology_and_Altruism.aspx
“Eldercare, Nursing Homes, Hospice” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1246-Eldercare_Nursing_Homes_Hospice.aspx
“Harmony or Conflicts of Interest” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--2158-HarmonyFAQ.aspx
“Suicide and Assisted Suicide” http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1197-Suicide_and_Assisted_Suicide.aspx
Why we must be hypocrites?
We must not be hypocrites. The “young” learn 95% of their “Life-Lessons” by observing the actions of their parents, mentors and peers. Most “Life-Lessons” that were “mislearned” cannot be corrected without major reconstructive efforts and even then, the “Trust” may have become too damaged to repair.
[Postscript: I must admonish you to be careful about forming opinions without full knowledge of what you think you’re seeing. Anymore, I rarely visit The Atheism Debate Board; whenever a good discussion topic comes up, there are a handful of Theists and Atheists that get their jollies by verbally pissing on each other. Such BS is a waste of my precious time. Most of my work has been accomplished in the Psychology and Religion/Religion and the Human Mind Forum. I “control” my Threads by chasing away those that seek pissing contests; they can be easily humiliated when confronted by “The Truth” and they usually tuck their swollen egos between their legs and slink off. Occasionally, I’ll set up “a dummy thread” to give the “pissers” something to do.
Those that come prepared to make significant contributions to deeper discussions of many varieties are these –
Seefan [Baha’i Faith], F1Fan [Buddhist], Beingofone [Marantha Christian], Trans J [The Principle Author of Transtheism], Blu [Skeptic], Namchuck [Spiritual but not religious], Ken [Professor of Art History - Atheist], Caliber Cadillac [Christian], Wiscidea [Freethinker], Kwinters [Post-Doctoral Fellowship – Atheist] and you know J’Carlin and me.
Beliefnet facilitates “Private” Discussion Groups where only “invitees” can participate. [None of the crap one gets into when in an Open or a Public Forum.] J’Carlin can probably set that up for you and ones not currently registered for Beliefnet that you want in such a discussion can be easily registered for B’net.
It appears to me that you’ll likely need some more intelligent and articulate Theists for your discussion group; I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to find such people; you probably should start looking for them, now, before 2010 has come and gone :-)]
If you believe the level of discussion must rise to service a need you see, who's responsibility is it to make that happen?
Hi E
Take "beauty" as one of the objectivist ideas you posted. How can it be argued before it is understood?
Gustav Thibon remarked concerning Simone Weil that she was opposite most women who made the initial impression of beauty that vanished after a while. Simone in contrast was without vanity but her deep beauty only became evident after a while. What does this mean in relation to the human mind and religion?
Take for example two classic quotes on beauty:
"The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite. ~ Richard Dawkins Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" ~ Richard P. Feynman
"Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. ... It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." Simone Weil
Where Feynman seeks to dissect what inspires beauty, Simone is drawn to what beauty is a boundary of. This is the human mind in action. These are exciting ideas to ponder. You cannot argue this but must be open to experience both attractions without condemnation but simply to experience the contrast.
It is no longer wanted or possible with all the denial. If there have ever been people on that board willing to be open to the question of the mind, they have apparently been driven off. As a result the board now could never do justice to the question of "beauty." You asked:
"If you believe the level of discussion must rise to service a need you see, who's responsibility is it to make that happen?"
This cannot become a turf war. That is silly. If this is what regulars and management want, there is no sense in fighting it.
A board is like a lounge. Restaurant lounges provide an atmosphere that attracts people of certain interests. It makes no sense to fight a desired atmosphere but rather to find atmospheres that inspire the quality of mutual respect and thought that furthers this interest of mine to mutually better come to better understand what is Man which I've come to believe is essential for the survival of our species...
The correct answer to the question,"If you believe the level of discussion must rise to service a need you see, who's responsibility is it to make that happen?"
"If it is to be, it's up to me."
I'm attempting as best I can to be helpful....you respond by calling my suggesstions "Turf Wars?"
You appear to feel some urgency to get on with your mission...what's slowing you down?
You apparently have honed the skill of "cut and paste" but are those quotes from other authors the extent of your thoughts on the matters at hand?
Why would anyone want to "argue about beauty?" What is wrong with asking another human being what they think beauty is "to them," listenining to their answers and learning a little bit about who they are?
Is the sense of a pending "communications crises" something you feel deep within you? Is one of your creative "Nicks" trying to fight his way out into the open?
You score -5 points if any of those simple questions is answered with another author's quote.
E, have you ever seen the preperation students of Buddhism go through for a meeting with their teacher. The students create an attentive respectful atmosphere. It is necesary to make questions genuinely meaningful.
The topic of the human mind and religion requires such attentive respect since it is difficult to appreciate. Without such an atmosphere thinking just devolves and becomes fragmented permeated with the negativity obvious now.
If it meets the needs of the board and management, why fight city hall? It is a losing proposition that just leads to more nastiness. I appreciate people that are willing to come to grips with the human condition. It requires the usual quality of thought to willingly strive for a higher one
"We can never solve our significant problems from the same level of thinking we were at when we created the problems." - Albert Einstein
The nastiness that creates the problem are too attractive to sacrifice for many so they just continue. I appreciate those willing to buck the tide.
You cannot force this on people. It is either wanted or it is not. Right now it isn't wanted so there is no sense trying to change anything.
E, the expression "turf wars" refers to board dynamics and the struggle for supremacy within it. Those controlling the "atmosphere" believe themselves superior.
I'm doing the best I can with this. 2009 was the 100th birth centennial for Simone Weil and I organized some discussions in local libraries. I've introduced Simone on several sites and raised questions. One young female college student wrote me in appreciation since she didn't know of women philosophers not obsessed with secularism, gender rights, and abortion but rather on a par with Kierkegaard she could use on her papers.
Why do people argue anything E? Right there you have a question for the human mind.
Feynman is an atheist which I am not. Simone is just Simone: a unique human influence. Putting these quotes together gives a contrast hard to find on our own but useful for developing our understanding.
What do our subjective feelings of beauty have to do with the objective question of beauty? We all find things of beauty. But the question for the human mind is why we feel it and what does it inspire us toward? Denial doesn't help. Instead we have to impartially open to the question not just with the mind but with the heart that is having the experience.
Einstein Quote - Minus 5 points
We are not Buddhist Monks preparing to meet our religious leader; we are "everyday people with everyday lives" and a few of us like to discuss things that are a little deeper than the weather or the local gossip.
By training and profession I am an Engineer and a Vocational/Adult Education Instructor. I am Retired due to poor health and my days alive are limited. I am writing constantly, every day, to many people concerning many subjects. My wife of 33 years died last year and I'm trying to finish her biography before I kick off.
You've spoken several times of "denial;" ask 10 people to define what is their purpose for living; how many "right answers" will you get from the 10?
I would guess that your passion for Simone Weil will earn you few "takers" for discussions of her work, outside Academic Circles. In most academic settings even those discussions when the do occur, will be brief.
I joined "SharpBrains" to assist me in my research in Neuroplasticity; for joining, they just sent me a free e-book "The Guide to Brain Fitness."
Don't think I'm being critical of you. I'm not against regular sharing and usual conversation such as asking another what they find beautiful.
I am suggesting that for those needing to go further it requires a mutual committment to do so. It requires exchanging the self justifications of arguments for the joy of "understanding" or the wisdom philosophy is called to. It requires a different atmosphere.
It doesn't require being a Buddhist monk but just the humility to become more open since we "feel" its advntage.
Nick, with all the respect that is due to you, I will suggest that none of the people I know, including myself are likely candidates for your proposed learning sessions. The commitment you desire would have to be earned; the relative value of such an effort would need to be demonstrable prior to initiation. We are "most of us" old codgers, content with who we are and in my case, a bit too close to the end to entertain such efforts.
E, I do hope you are not as close to the end as you think. I hope to read you in five years.
So we're all a bunch of old farts but I'm not referring to learning sessions but just being open to an attitude that lets in life. Attitude is the key.
Consider again what Simone Weil wrote:
"Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong."
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417
Regardless of believers or non-believers the question is the humility to be open to personal psychological limitations. This is not learning but an attitude that invites understanding. Both the atheist and believer have strengths and weaknesses.
The value of those like Simone is that they invite us to awaken to the value of humility and the attitude associated with it. Attitude is not to be confused with blind belief. It just invites more impartial experience and information.
I've learned that atheism varies in its fundamentalism much like secular religion. I do believe that negative atheism can gravitate towards the question of what is man where the positive atheist would avoid it.
http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html
"The exact meaning of 'atheist' varies between thinkers, and caution must always be shown to make sure that discussions of atheism are not working at cross purposes. Michael Martin, a leading atheist philosopher, defines atheism entirely in terms of belief.[1] For him, negative atheism is simply the lack of theistic belief, positive atheism is the asserted disbelief in God, and agnosticism is the lack of either belief or disbelief in God. This suggests that negative atheism, the minimal position that all atheists share, divides neatly into agnosticism and positive atheism. It is worth noting that the 'positive atheist' need not have certainty that God doesn't exist: it is a matter of belief, not knowledge."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So my concern isn't for who is too old to learn but just an attitude a person can have regardless of age that isn't poisoned by belief so as to be open to the question of "what is man" without being limited to defensive pre-conceptions. My guess is that negative atheism would be open to it.
[one Weil Quote and an article cut and paste - Minus 10 Points]
I am realistic about my chances for long-term survival - 3 yeares ago I had a massive stroke that paralyzed my entire right side. I had another minor stroke 2 years ago. My Maternal Grandparents both died from multiple massive strokes in their 60's - I am 58. I have severe complications from Diabetes; I have had 11 surgeries on my legs and feet and have had both feet partially amputated. I have outlived my Paternal Grandmother by 5 years; she died of complications from Diabetes. I entertain no false illusions of longevity. Every day that I remain alive is precious to me.
Atheism is such a "big and ominous sounding word", non-atheists initially have absolutely no clue how simple a thing it is as experienced by its adherents.
Theism posits the existence of an "Objective God;" Atheism does not find any evidence of Goid existing in Objective Reality, thus "A" "Theism" which literally means "without theism." Atheism is not a belief system nor does it have any implications regarding the Worldview of the individual Atheist. Many Buddhists are also Atheists. Any person practicing a religious belief that does not include a God, gods, godesses, or any other "Deity" of any kind is also, technically, an atheist.
It is the World's reaction to atheism that is "large and complex." It is considered an offense against society so severe, immediate execution, without the need of a trial, is the law enforced, particularly in Islamic countries. Atheist have been prohibited from government service and teaching in public schools; they have been denied the right to participate in a non-secular marriage ceremony; atheists are prohibited from joining certain fraternal organizations; all that simply because they don't have a "God belief." What is this Objective Reality that is void of Deities?
Things that exist in Objective Reality have a very few characteristics:
1. The existent things are either composed of Matter or are the direct result of the interactions of matter, such as sound, heat, radiation, etc.
2. Things existing in Objective Reality exist independent of any observation
3. Things existing in Objective Reality are perceivable by any capable perceiver.
The "fundamentalism" within the ranks, legions of Atheists is just 2 real flavors, one vanilla and one chocolate; my version is a swirl of the two:
"God exists subjectively in the minds of the adherents."
"Supernatural beings or supernatural phenomena most likely have no Objective Existence.
"The Universe exists "as is" and does not require an Intellignt Design or need a First Cause to explain its existence."
The idea of having "the humility to be open to personal psychological limitations" is a "nonthought" to me. My conceptions of "what is man" are constantly being revised as new information is integrated. To be bluntly honest, the philosophy of Simone Weil was rejected by me, long ago and nothing you have presented has opened even a crack of new curiousity within me.She, just like all other Dualists, simply did not understand the true nature of Reality. Her eloquence and passion are compelling human traits; her knowwledge is just as poor and limited as is that of her predecesors and heroes. [No personal offense meant]
EI
Nick A December 27, 2009 1:50 PM
So my question for the atheist's perspective is if one can accept the possibility that their supernatural part has not yet opened as suggested by Simone Weil in the OP.
The first step from a discussion point of view is a simple yes or not. If no, then the nature of man can be nothing but a secular animal [...]
I believe that man not only serves a mechanical purpose but has the potential for a conscious purpose where objective human meaning and purpose resides.
If man does have a conscious purpose that he remains asleep to yet some are attracted to, the question becomes how to further it? Can religious fantasy come to see it as such and can the secularism of atheism experience its limitations and be open to acquiring the "presence" necessary for a natural opening to grace if it exists? If we cannot our species is in serious trouble.
J'C: The answer to your question is No. There is no necessary need for a supernatural "part" to mediate access to the conscious purpose of the individual. This does not mean I am nothing but a secular animal. I of course am a secular animal, but I am a secular animal with a clear, reasoned, and conscious purpose that I have developed with a lot of help from my friends all of which were human. Basically that purpose is to navigate purposefully between the bookends of my life, birth and death, making as much difference as I can in the lives of my friends so that we all may live spiritually fulfilled, meaningful, productive, and love filled lives.
It is not an easy nor an intuitive process, so it is not surprising that some need a little help from their supernatural friends. But the supernatural help is neither necessary nor desirable for me, and is an inferior solution to the extent that the conscious purpose is one-size-fits all which fits no one perfectly.
EI -
Neg 5 for the quote. Plus 5 for Fulghum, and 5 more for All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.
I haven't found a God that can help any more than that.
...Plus 5 for Fulghum, and 5 more for All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.
I haven't found a God that can help any more than that.
JC,
The "points" should be yours; yours is the brilliant mind that recognized the value of Fulgham's ideas and pointed me toward him; I was just following your lead.
Thank You,
EI
Fulghum is one of those rare people who speak profoundly in words we all can understand, and even get a chuckle out of if we can restrain ourselves from ROFL.
I get no points for having been introduced to his work, or introducing others. It is simply a necessity in the purpose of my life.
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