Supernatural and fantasy thinking about religion. Is it good or evil?
We can scientifically explain the supernatural itch that some allow to control their thinking.
In children, this might be a good way of expanding their minds, but adults are asked to put away the things of children, which, to me, includes supernatural and fantasy thinking.
I use these to show substance dualism. I see this as a useful trait for us in nature but not for our spiritual and religious sides.
I see thinking supernaturally as a deterrent to knowing god, even as I promote fantasy thinking in the seeking of the best rulers and laws to live by, which is a good definition for god. After all, Moses, not that he was real, came down from the mountain with rules and laws and not some fantasy supernatural god.
The laws on earth can never be the same laws as in heaven and we can never reach the pinnacle of as above, so below.
Do you see supernatural thinking as childish or adult thinking?
Do you see supernatural thinking in childish as good?
Do you see supernatural thinking in adults as evil?
I know a number of just lovely shamans with beliefs that some would call supernatural or fantasy. These guys and gals are concerned about nature not homophobic, help people and they are pretty damn interesting. IOW I would answer your question with: it depends.
Both indigenous and Western, the former within the traditions of their groups, though these tend to be flexible, the latter having been mentored by other Westerners or indigenous shamans. They definitely had beliefs in what gets called supernatural entities, they believed also in healing that is, well, outside the Western medical models…spirts, ghosts, reincarnation, soul retrieval type work and more, with individual variations.
I know the Western indigenous, I married one, and those who have not converted to Christianity are naturalists, Not supernatural believers. Even the indigenous I and my wife know well, who for convenience call themselves Christian, do not believe in the supernatural. Those I do not know might of course hold supernatural beliefs.
I still do not know who e are talking about when you say “Western”. If you mean the Eastern that have temples in the West, they are still following an Eastern tradition like Buddhism.
As to their medical views, my native friends go to a regular doctor before their healers. I see some benefits to shaman healing but only in the sense of what we know about holistic and placebo effects.
If we are talking about Native Canadians, say, sure many fit with the label naturalists, but there is a significant minority that believes in things not currently supported by science. There are those who have reinvigorated the belief systems they had pre-colonial times, and of course, pockets and pieces were continuous throughout. They would consider themselves naturalists since they would see these entities and practices as part of nature, but it includes a lot considered ‘supernatural’ by most scientists, for example. My sense of this is from dialogue. I have relatives all over Canada and my interest in such things went with me in my time there.
Yes, I assumed that.
Again I see no problem with many of the shamans I have met who have beliefs that would be called supernatural by many. It doesn’t really matter whether they are from European or now no longer indigenous groups or from indigenous groups. They seem peachy to me. Certainly not evil.
I am sure some shamans are assholes, some carry out evil. But the OP was asking, amongst other things…
and I say no. And I tend to really like animists and panpsychists. There is tremendous variety in indigenous beliefs and also in shamanic beliefs in general. A vast range. I assume some could be considered gnostic in your sense, but also others quite smack dab in the so-called supernatural belief system pool. With everything in between.
For years I have opposed myself to the supernatural as it appears in Catholicism and fundamentalism. I have followed Kant with regard to metaphysics. The divine I have understood in terms of symbolic meaning. Of course, I entertain Peirce’s idea that nature may be more a matter of habits than natural law. And then there is the infinite unknown. It’s probably wise to contemplate the mystery of death daily and admit that there are more questions than answers.
According to Jung the symbols was arise as images spontaneously from the unconscious psyche. So they tell us something about ourselves. Whether they tell us something about ultimate reality is another question. Since we are the product of 3.5 billion years of evolution, it isn’t a leap to conclude that such images are neither arbitrary nor meaningless. What do they mean? What are they telling us? Where is the Rosetta Stone of the psyche? Even among Christians there is little agreement let alone among the gnostics or the other religions or secular thinkers of the world.
My O.P. was written more with the mainstream religions in mind, like Christianity and Islam, whose beliefs in the supernatural has made them call a genocidal god good and have formed homophobic and misogynous religions around their supernatural beliefs.
Nicely put but I disagree on your final view of the religions that are seeking wisdom and knowledge, like Gnostic Christians, Buddhists and other religions, that do not seek a sky daddy.
Those types of religions were the vast majority before the fairly recent advent of religions like the mainstream that read myths literally.
There seems to be a lot of diversity of belief and disagreement between the religions you’re describing. If Gnostic Christians and Gnostic Muslims were in complete agreement they wouldn’t make a distinction between themselves would they? Are you perhaps saying that the various gnostic religions have a common core on an esoteric level?
Christianity has one apostles creed and have, what, 3,000 denominations.
The free thinkers have no uniting creed and it is not surprising to me that culture, peer pressure and traditions would also be different.
One can be a Gnostic, not only to Christianity, but to all religions that are in ones society.
There are Gnostic Muslims, for instance.
Regards
DL
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There seems to be a lot of diversity of belief and disagreement between the religions you’re describing. If Gnostic Christians and Gnostic Muslims were in complete agreement they wouldn’t make a distinction between themselves would they? Are you perhaps saying that the various gnostic religions have a common core on an esoteric level?
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Yes. The oldest Chrestian, not a spelling error BTW, and Jewish esoteric thinkers were esoteric ecumenists and free thinkers who put man above god. They knew that all the gods were man made. That is why they almost all used the central Gnostic myth found in the Nag Hamadi library and called Yahweh a demiurge in our myth.
Cathars, the latest large group that the inquisition decimated took the I am designation for Yahweh and applied it literally to themselves, as I do, and used/applied the name of their enlightened ones as Parfait. This means perfected ones. Perfected humans, not a supernatural god.
C. G. Jung, who’s works interest me, has been described as a Gnostic and a Taoist. “As early as on August 12, 1912, Jung wrote a letter to Freud about the Gnostics in which he called the Gnostic conception of Sophia a reembodiment of an ancient wisdom that might appear once again in modern psychoanalysis.” [Hoeller, Stephan A. The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Quest Books).] In Catharism I also see parallels to Taoism.
You show some of the contradiction in the literature.
The highest form of enlightenment in Buddhism, is Buddha. An enlightened man or woman.
The highest form of enlightenment in Gnostic Christianity of the Cathar style, is a Parfait. An enlightened man or woman.
From google.
Taoism does not have a God in the way that the Abrahamic religions do. There is no omnipotent being beyond the cosmos, who created and controls the universe. In Taoism the universe springs from the Tao, and the Tao impersonally guides things on their way.
The last link in this shows Gnostic Christian thinking.
We are not literal believers of our own myths, which were written to put against the Christian myth when mostly everyone were bright enough to not read myths literally.
I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental efforts that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.
Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, “The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it.”
Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.
"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, “God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning.”
Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.