By demolishing the foundations of faith , Scientists have unintentionally caused the collapse of the entire edifice of our civilization . In their ambition to install reason as the ultimate arbiter of human destiny , they have indiscriminately rejected tradition and thus cut themselves off from the spiritual source .
Despite the fact that quantum physics and modern cosmology have tremendously enlarged our understanding of the world we inhabit , these sciences still are afflicted with a material bias . In a way , the theories are ahead of the human beings formulating them . Once the prejudice is lifted , the spiritual presence in the universe will be rediscovered .
Reason undoubtedly has its place , but is a poor substitute for spiritual realization . The immoderate use of reason implies a deficient exercise of our human faculties . Thus rationalism has driven us into a sinister cul-de-sac .
We are now facing countless problems resulting from a rampant technocracy , bureaucracy , imperialistic idealogy and consumerist mentality . Which are all manifestations of an imbalanced , egotistic approach to life . Only a civilization afflicted with a severe spiritual myopia could ever regard these shortcomings as progress .
We must recover our spiritual anchorage . Its not really lost ; but by our own doing we have concealed it very well . We should,nt attempt to discard reason and logic , but illuminate it with the light of the spirit . The reason bound ego-personality only ever feasts on its own sense of self importance , and fiercely seeks to be independant if left unchecked . Hence the German philosopher Nietzche could in the last century defiantly declare the death of god .
We must,nt destroy the ego , but make it serve our higher mind . Thankfully there is a new type of philosopher emerging these days for whom philosophy is not about semantic quibbling or wordplay but what it was originally , the love of wisdom
You are attacking science, technology, reason, philosophy and philosophers indiscriminately for their lack of spiritualism. You might as well continue and attack society and even religion as well to complete the picture. And philosophy has not and will not seek the type of wisdom you would accept.
This post is a nifty example of what philosophy is not.
I think one problem here is that the average reader might not have noticed that civilisation has collapsed. I, myself, have not noticed this. Maybe I should get out more.
Read any history? In terms of, say, the Roman Empire while it flourished the most, one could as easily make the argument that these factors are among the most important of those that created Western Civilisation.
Maybe it is good for science to demolish the foundations of traditional faith,becauce these foundations of traditional faith were mainly build on the grounds of ignorance.
This doesn’t mean humans won’t need a faith based on reason and truth.As the old faith was demolished,humans wisdoms will be liberated from the durance of the old faith and freely marching toward a new stage of civilization with faiths based on reasoning and intelligence.
Scientists have cut us of from the spiritual source of what, exactly? Civilisation? I am sorry, but I have no idea what this means. Perhaps I should have waited until you made some sense of this very vague statement.
What is this “spiritual presence”? Do you mean the presence of a spirit? Or that everything possesses a spiritual presence? What could that mean?
Is “spiritual realisation” the realisation of a spirit, or the realisation of anything we realise “spritually”? Who is doing the realising - spiritual beings?
What is the case for balance? Is it also given that balance of some kind is an absolute value? What are we balancing - materialism and spiritualism? How is that possible?
What is the case that this condition is unacceptable? Why is it unacceptable? Because we therefore do not feast on the self-important spirit? Which is what? What is this spirit? Is it an entity?
And what is our “higher mind”? This sounds lofty enough, but there us no evidence that we even have a lower mind. “Mind” is a metaphysical idea. Are you speaking metaphorically here?
Too much materialist deconstruction would be a problem…
But that’s not reason.
Some NewAge science/research actually supports “spirituality” subjects by researching and proving supernatural things.
Anti-esoteric sentiment arose due to such a corrupted and stupid esoteric culture existing. “To hell with all of the rotten mess”. It was a reaction to an abused, exploited, abusive and exploitive tool.
Sorry Disciple of light, I have a lot of questions about your opening post.
If science targets material things and in doing so demolishes the foundations of faith, does that mean the foundations of faith can be found in the material things science analyzes? What evidence is their that the foundations of faith are destroyed at all? What evidence is their that society has collapsed?
Are you saying that the source of spirituality is tradition? Isn’t tradition what has happened in the past? Does the past contain spirituality we cannot find in the present?
What do you mean by this sentence?
Are you saying that reason has entirely replaced spirituality? What makes you think this?
Could you give a couple specific examples?
Independent of what? What is bad about this independence?
What is the difference between a higher mind and a self or an ego?
Last of all, are you saying something that applies generally, to a majority, or to a minority in society today?
A possible interpretation of your post would be that you think the intrinsic value of humans is wasted in a world that strives to focus entirely on reason, and thus we should be wary of letting our spirituality wane, despite the advancement and appeal of the material aspects of our lives. However, your heavy tone leads me to think that you weren’t aiming for something as vague as a warning of possible danger. It sounds like you want us to think we’re doing something wrong, right now, and that we must fundamentally change or be a spiritual wasteland.
If you are saying something like the latter interpretation, then my fierce independence leads me to question how your higher mind has reached such harsh judgement upon individuals of whom you know little, yet claim to be entirely apart from egotistical arrogance.
It’s all means to one end. To make mankind Godlike. That perfection we project onto our gods is what we’re persuing in our endlessly obsessive compulsive nature.
Good question. Why postulate ‘spirit’ in the first place?
There is a reason why one should consider the possibilities of ‘spirit,’ and that is consiousness and cogitation. Consciousness and cogitation exist, they must be explained in any world view that claims to be complete.
Because scientific equipment can’t measure experience, science itself cannot be expected to be adequate to the task. There must be metaphysics, and in metaphysics it must be at least allowable to raise ‘spirit’ as a hypothetical substance the nature of which we ought to be able to consider. Coherence and redundancy play an important role here, i think.
To cut a long story short I should refer you to one of several documentaries made about the shaolin monks . Or any of the other informative and remarkable DVDs available for sale out there which demonstrate the power of " chi " . The life force of the universe , and the higher mind within man .
Now its not the last word , but If anything these chaps will illustrate to you the sort of thing the higher mind is . Although not an answer to your question completely , it will be a good starting point for you in understanding your own nature , and what is possible .
Its a great example of the higher mind in action affecting the physical body . Rather than a lengthy explanation of what the higher mind is now , watch something like this instead and get back to me and I,ll be happy to answer any queries you have
I think it’s a picture of Sartre, who, being an existentialist, believed the authentic self was being lost in consumerism–consequently, he supported communism. Edit: sneaky sneaky; he posted while I was writing.
Disciple of light, illustrations can be interpretted in a very extensive number of ways. As some addage roughly says, a picture is worth a thousand words. I tend to think the average person picks out only a few of these words to store in their memory banks; which ones are you using to describe this higher mind and what kind of thing it is?
jeffl, you’re using scientific terminology (hypothetical); science can deal with questions without equipment. Science can’t really prove anything, to a reasonable degree, in metaphysics, because we’re in the wrong system to be able to test enough of it. However, we don’t know whether consciousness exists to that degree, and it’s possible it’s a lot closer to home, and thus eventually testable in science.
I didn’t realize that the hypothetical belonged to science; my own perspective of science has it as a formal system of observation and measurement. It seems to me that, by definition, formally observing personal experience is not on is a secular society.
Further to that; when you move from the metaphysical hypothetical to the scientific, you’re asking the question ‘what does it look like in spacetime?’ What does ‘heat’ look like? Actually, i think the situation with heat in the early days of science is much like the situation with spirit today; we shouldn’t assume that the result will be the same, that’s just bad science (or is it bad metaphysics).
And, to be clear, i must say that it is my distinct impression that i had already mentioned that…
Look; collapse of the wave function was a very nice canidate for something metaphysical presenting in the physical, in spacetime. Now, for some reason, such discussion is neutered by the assertion that the wave function actually doesn’t collapse. Well, i’ve seen no evidence for that; and when i think about notions of ‘entanglement’ and ‘coherence’ along with ‘collapse of the wave function’ as the world of potentials moves to the world of history, the stuff writes itself, as the Truth should.
