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Religion
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Religion

Andy Pedersen
Assistant Professor

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Joined: Jan 06, 2005
Total Topics: 50
Total Posts: 428

Posted 04/30/08 - 01:46 AM: Subject: Religion	#1
I am a religious person. I find religion enticing and inspiring. Similarly with mysticism, pious people, and the concept of a divine. Why is all that so? Because I think religious belief is a belief in the truth. But not a belief in the literal truth. My definition of the divine is that which is transcendent and ontologically self-sufficient. It exists apart and independent of us. Because of the depth of separation, the divine is also incommensurable to us. That which is incommensurable must be understood metaphorically. Science is wholly incomplete in terms of progress and quantity. Philosophers still debate questions that Socrates asked. Additionally, others argue that reason and logic themselves are wholly subjective. We have yet to know the complete set of actual "truths". We may sometime - through the scientific method, through deductive reasoning, or by way of some mysterious mode of thought. But as of yet, that goal eludes us. So where does that leave me? It leaves me with a void; a desire to satisfy my quench for the truth. But I have no literal truth, so I get by for now with metaphorical ones: religious myths and the divine. I interpret the divine as being the truth(s) of our existence, the reason we are here, or the fact that there is no reason at all. I see it as the grand unifying theory of all theories. That may be a scientific proposition, or a religious proposition, or something entirely different. But I seek that. I yearn for that, and interpreting the divine in that way gives me a metaphor for understanding it. However, this only satisfies me on an emotional level. Just as important is my intellectual understanding. I don't ignore that and I certainly don't replace it with anything. I continue to seek literal truths. I keep my religious beliefs in a separate "truth class" from my intellectual beliefs. My religious beliefs are myths, metaphors, and representatives. My intellectual beliefs are literal, factual, and accurate. Both are extremely important to me, and only together to they satisfy my desire for the truth.
_____________________ "This is the life of gods and of god-like and blessed men - liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of earth - a flight of the alone to the Alone." --Plotinus "This is the dark silence in which all lovers lose themselves." --Ruysbroeck per se notam quod nos

unenlightened
Mysteriosopher

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Joined: Aug 10, 2007
Location: Wales
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Total Posts: 813

Posted 04/30/08 - 02:41 PM:	#2
Yes. I find this void a good place to start, not with rules and names of God, but with a sense that there is a limit to what can be expressed by number, that scientific models are only - models - and not the real thing, that there are limits to thought and those limits are too confining to live within. But we can still talk about these things, as long as it is clear that we are talking non-sense. Any old finger will do to point at the moon, only let us try not to poke each other's eyes.
_____________________ The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

The_Rational_Animal
Übermensch

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Joined: Mar 21, 2008
Location: München, Germany
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Total Posts: 137

Posted 05/06/08 - 01:14 PM:	#3
I would just like to say that I find that balance which you have found between the two classes of "truth" is a very nice thing, much better than the mystic who makes no distinction between the rational and emotional sets of true claims. However, I just want to make the point that these two classes are not always as distinct as they may seem subjectively to you. I often find the emotional sets of truth, of some truly great minds, spill into those of the intellectual variety, distorting the latter in various ways. This is a problem which has faced some of the greatest scientists in history: a deeply-rooted conflict between the two realms. Additionally, while I am not aware of it here in this thread, but be careful when referring to the word "truth", clearly distinguishing the "literal" and the "metaphorical"/"spiritual" kinds. This to help you avoid confusing others and equivocating with the term.
_____________________ "Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand

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