Wholeness

Wikipedia notes that "phrases such as “contemplating one’s navel” or “navel-gazing” are frequently used, usually in jocular fashion, to refer to self-absorbed pursuits.”

Philosophy itself apart from dialog has been derogatorily characterized as belly button gazing. Phenomenology is a way of doing original philosophy centered in one’s own consciousness.

Exactly. And those are phenomenological questions. Per Kant we can never know “the ding an sich”. And the special sciences put the true nature of objects out of the reach of our everyday consciousness.

With the technological expansion of images and words, everything seems to fall apart into mere appearances. it seems that we now are flooded by fragments without any wholes. But, through phenomenological reflection we discover that parts are only understood against the background of appropriate wholes. Identity and intelligibility are available in things. We ourselves are the ones to whom such identities and intelligibilities are given.

I hear what you’re saying. Church Orthodoxy destroyed much of the diversity of early Christianity. But the historic church was also the means by which not only the teachings of Christ but, along with Islam, classical civilization itself was preserved and conveyed to the present. Whose account are you reading? Have you read Dominion by Tom Holland?

Holland, a professing agnostic, makes the case that the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination. Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves.

How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this conviction as they influenced history.

Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a Western civilization that was Christianized and remains so today if often subliminally.

Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.

There are a bunch of videos where Holland discusses the book on YouTube if your interested.

It is obvious that those who have a God(who became them through Jesus) in the sky won’t tolerate a God as a man or a man as a proxy for the Gods and hence they are freer culturally and more resistant to dictatorships and utopias. Muhammed was a proxy for a Gods will, Jesus was not a proxy but a vehicle for whole of mankind to become Gods proxy.

The fact that there are 45,000 denominations worldwide attests to the ambiguity of the Christian proposition. Nevertheless, according to the New Testament narrative when he was crucified Jesus was said to be both the king and a criminal. As the uniter of opposites he points to the transcendence of dualistic cognition. In other words, Christ is a symbol of psychic and cosmic wholeness.

ok buddy…

My reference was more jocular I must admit, but I did want to point out that the question below does tend to lead us in circles at times.

So, the doubt that I mentioned, is what is fitting and leads to trying to identify the parts and wholes that surround us, trying to understand in this way? The more one delves into reality as it presents itself, the more one ends up questioning one’s perception, and confusion can be the result. It remains to be cleared up, whether we are able to formulate with any precision the phenomena we are experiencing. Perhaps it is a question of vocabulary, being unable to find suitable language. In the thread inspiration I tried to point out that, although experiences have been meaningful, they have had a fleeting aspect about them, much like the prophet in the cave hearing a whisper.

The book I’m reading is:
Nixey, Catherine. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. Pan Macmillan. Kindle-Version.

I’ve heard Tom Holland refute the statement that antiquity was destroyed by the militant Christianity of the fourth and fifth century, in particular in a conversation with AC Grayling, but despite the fact that the church picked up the threads and started copying and translating what was left, there are indications that 90% of classical literature in Greek and in Latin was destroyed along with the temples. The story of Hypatia of Alexandria is particularly gruesome. Perhaps we’ll talk on that when I’m better informed.

This is a topic that never grows stale.
And with each generation needs to be heard again, since Gibbon dished the dirt on christianity in his Decline and Fall.

I think the rot started when Justinian closed down the philosophical schools in Greece, the autocracy of Constatine meant the persucution of so-called, and newly dubbed “Pagans”, until a monoculture of bigotry reigned until the Enlightenment.

I dont even feel a need to defend Christianity from lying kooks accusations anymore. You are wrong factually but it is a fool’s errand anyhow, even if you were completely right(and you are not); since nobody sane can claim that religion from over two thousand years ago is the same as the religion now, that scholasticism did not lay the groundwork for modern science, and that the civilizations of Antiquity were tolerant and progressive or conversely, that Medival Europe was not a fertile ground for what came afterwards because of its cosmopolitanism and its division of power and protection for free-thinking monks from the oppression of the aristocracy and conversely, the protection of the free-thinking civilians from the Church by the aristocracy itself and later by the Catholic/Protestant split, which turned Europe into the most free-thinking and democratic society known to human-kind.

This reminds me of this autistic Lyssa delusions and lies. A strong woman in Ancient Greece :confused: :confused: :confused: ok…Canadian kooks can have it their own way.

Yes I saw the debate between Holland and Grayling. There are obviously facts in support of both sides. The censorship of the 4th century church was shocking as in the case of the nag hamadi texts which had to be buried unless they be burned. The destruction of the library in Alexandria or certainly a tragedy for civilization. However, The cultural forces of destruction and preservation are always inexorably at play. One can see this on a micro level even in one’s own life and family. What did you make a record of? What will be remembered? Whose values will endure?

Where do you stand in the prevailing modern multiculture to reach those conclusions?

Right. Holland contrasts the modern democracy with that of ancient Greece. Jefferson could think that the principle that all men are created equal was self-evident because the presupposition that Man was created in the image of God (both male and female by the way) is embedded in Western society by Judeo-Christian cultural history.

Lyssa?

She was a mediogre poster from back in the day.

Ah… Thank you.

A new topic: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=197012

Have you ever explored the bizarre characteristics of Uranus? lol, this is related to a title of a video on YouTube - I just messed with it.
I have never watched that video either - because you were clearly wondering that, hahaha.

Is polish not referring to the ancient greek spirit of mad rage?

I guess Lyssa could have been a mediocre poster compared to some of her greek counterparts.

It seems that unless we take up the issue directly by exhaustive first person research, we are at the mercy of dueling historians whose propositions we evaluate through the lens of the presuppositions we come to the subject with due to our childhood indoctrination.

As early as I can remember I was taught about the evils of state religion and the virtues of the separation of church and state that led to the dark ages. So what’s new here?

I reposted this on the new thread.

The controversy reminds me a bit of the current political debate about the cancel culture. Thus does the world divide our soul on a daily basis. The Tao de Ching reminds us to seek the center.

Lyssa the SHITthyself poster that had to leave because SATIRE decided he does not like Nietzsche after not reading him for the second time and whos posts which made up her argument with SATIRE leading up to her shadow-ban were deleted by the autistic neo-nazi SHITthyself dullard kooks in an attempt to protect their guru. Satyr is a really insecure person because deep down he knows he is a pretentious and unedcuated dullard kook who is just pulling shit out of his arse and throwing accusations left and right like a rabies dog.

Ah… well, there you go!

Rather than talking about God, it makes more sense to me to refer to Ultimate Reality or, even better, the Ultimate Mystery. That, I believe, is what “God” represents.