Wholeness

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.

A phenomenon that in principle eludes unambiguous statement and explanation? Yes, I think that is an apt circumscription, although the apophatic seems to have been well-tried, and fitted as well as anything else.

I think our problem lies in the fact that our vocabulary wears out after a while, especially when words have become empty and lose their dynamic. That is why some mystics used the language of lovers, or used poetry to describe their relationship with that Ultimate Mystery that was so elusive.

Even if it cannot be expressed in words, the Godspell or immediate awareness of the Whole, can be discussed as a real experience. Were this not so, the concept of a God or the God would have faded from our vocabularies over the centuries.

Reply

Right, but the God that can be represented or talked about is not the ultimate one. That one is beyond human comprehension, language and representation. So, in a sense, everything we say about God is wrong. Everything we say about God is at best metaphoric. This includes the statement that God is one and the statement that God is. As absolutely unique and transcendent God is beyond one. One only points to God metaphorically as it were. And since God must be being itself, it cannot be said that God is. Rather, God is the ground of everything that is. In sum, though I am here using words, my words are paradoxical because God is beyond words. Therefore the word God represents that which cannot be spoken, the ineffable, the ultimate mystery.

Yes and…

Yes and we have only to consider the acts of supreme compassion and the heinous crimes committed in the name of God to begin to get some sense of the ambiguity involved in the word.