I was feelin’ poorly yesterday. Though I managed to evade the cold that was trying to catch me, body and mind felt slow and stupid. I ended up climbing back into bed and, with eyes too tired for the computer, tried to read the vast heap o’ books that’s been building by the bedside.
Inspired by a friend, I’ve gotten into reading about Eastern Orthodox spirituality, which led in turn to Gnostic spirituality. Religion to me is as fascinating as it is opaque, as compelling as it is impossible. But I keep hoping something will eventually make sense, that an answer will turn up to some key question. That something will click.
Never mind that I was lying there trying to read The Way of a Pilgrim, excerpts from the monastic tome Philokalia and The Gospel of Thomas with a brain that could barely have handled Thomas the Tank Engine.
This kind of reading in religion is roughly equivalent, I suppose, to being a freedomista and delving into details of the Articles of Confederation and the Northwest Ordinances. Not necessarily difficult or dull. But you really have to care.
Actually, The Way of a Pilgrim (the Russian classic about the Jesus Prayer made famous to the rest of the world by J.D. Salinger in Franny and Zooey) is a lovely (and thin!) little book. And The Gospel of Thomas is cool in that it makes Jesus — Yeshua, in the translation I have — sound like a Zen master. No shepherds or magi, no hellfire threats, just sayings that appear simple on their face and go miles deep. Pleasant to read. But not “lite.”
(And yes, I’m reading four or five books at once; it’s easier to skip around when books are “heavy” and it’s not like I’m going to lose a crucial plot thread by jumping from Elaine Pagels to Fr. Thomas Keating.)
Religion remains a puzzle to me. But I’m about half thinking I could be a Gnostic. Or maybe have always been one. Their cosmology is as goofy as any other religion’s. But it’s orderly and elegant. And somehow, in its symbolic way, it explains a lot about why the world is the way it is. The definition of gnosticism is so flexible it practically folds in on itself, defying easy summation. But generally the Gnostic view of the divine and our potential relationship to it is so humane. So welcoming. And so utterly individualistic compared with “believe what we tell you OR ELSE” religion.
Besides, there’s compelling drama in how once-mainstream but suddenly “heretical” Christian texts like The Gospel of Thomas were hidden and lost. They were probably buried by monks who had treasured them for generations as authentic scripture. The newly powerful Catholic Church had begun its long campaign to silence every dissenting view. Individualistic spirituality had to be crushed. Powerful bishops ordered books destroyed. But some brave soul or souls saw to it that original Christian concepts had a chance to live. And there’s drama again in the texts’ amazing twentieth-century rediscovery and in their restoration to the world by a monopoly-busting American researcher.
What’s a freedomista not to like about free speech and thought, suppressed by Authoritah, preserved by brave and defiant monks, and re-delivered to the world centuries later thanks in large part to a respectable, but distinctly Outlawish, scholar?
I usually have 3-4 books going at one time, too.
Good luck with the religion thing. I think religion, like philosophy, mostly gets it right…until it totally runs off the rails, which it always does. Raised in a very religious household, it was a wrenching experience for me to admit that I didn’t really believe. Rather than spend the rest of my life bashing religion, as many of us Fallen tend to do, I found myself defending my old religion against mis-characterizations, making me the most Catholic atheist you’ve ever seen.
I find religions to be full of useful aphorisms, like “do unto others…” that distill complicated philosophical dissertations into consumable bite size pieces, without losing any of the intellectual nutrition. Perhaps that is one of the reasons people are drawn to religion? The prospect of pondering Great Thoughts?
Unfortunately, Religion tends to demand Belief and Faith rather than Understanding, and that’s where it leads people astray. If people simply adopt a code of conduct based on a Good Book and the authority of the Leaders and the Majority, then they will eventually come to believe absurdities, like the promise of 64 virgins in the afterlife (or whatever the number…I picked 64 maybe because of a game show….I don’t remember anymore…we Fallen don’t get into the weeds on that stuff very much).
Nevertheless, it can be said that we all have a belief system that is based on faith in something, because we ultimately have to trust something whether it be senses, logic, parents, priests, televangelists, or Old Books to form the basis of our convictions. There are reasons to choose any one of them, but we all have to decide for ourselves which is right. That doesn’t mean all beliefs are equally true, just that we cannot escape the necessity of choosing, nor the effects of getting it wrong.
So, Claire, I have no doubt you will find the journey enlightening no matter what truths or falsehoods you uncover. Frankly, I wish I understood more about Islam (I only know what was in Rose Wilder Lane’s book “Discovery of Freedom”, and it was reasonably positive), but I’m more drawn to history and philosophy than religion, probably because my mind is rather concrete bound. Currently I’m reading the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates, which have been a real eye-opener. I’ve been amazed at how accurately the Anti-Federalists predicted the eventual evolution of the new Federal government, and at how polyanna-ish the Federalists were. Fascinating reading. My study of Islam will have to wait.
You can tell a lot about someone by what they’re reading…you’re nuts!! LOL, just kidding. My only two good college courses over forty years ago were two religious courses I took as part of a liberal arts curriculum. Over time, I have moved solidly into the atheist camp for some of Ron’s reasons and now regard organized religion as brainwashing detrimental to human development, since we’ve moved beyond prescientific fears. The big problems for religion are, as someone smarter than myself in Sapiens noted, you can have have either Security or Free Will for the masses but not both.
Individual spiritual quests, though, make a lot of sense to me and I have always considered myself an open minded seeker. I just haven’t found anything yet…
Ron J has the best perspective I’ve heard on the subject.
I don’t put religion down for those who believe in it (any version), but it’s proselytizing and pushing beliefs, and arguing for them from their own interpretation as being _ipso facto_ “proof,” that I object to.
I read too long in this blog and a couple of its links so started to get blurry-eyed and had to quit, but there were several thoughts that Gnosticism raised for general discussion, and I may come back to them.
Have had Gnosticism on my list of things to find out more about for some years now. And have also been most curious about the suppressed and rediscovered aspect to this. Thanks for raising the subject.
I believe in God because I don’t want to believe that man is the best this universe has to offer anyway when you are facing doom you do need to have something to pray to for help, my question of all of us who have done this is for those that promised to never do something or be a good boy/girl if you got out of what made you pray; did you follow up on your promises? To be honest I can’t remember but most likely not methinks for me, my credibility might be shot the next time up.
Methinks religion has been with man longer than fire or the wheel and we are still pretty much working at it. I like morality and virtue as long as making some people into other people’s slaves ain’t consider one of those.
I’m reading 3 books right now, too, one about being manly, one on tactics and another on being an outlaw (I wonder who wrote that?) all of which IMHO has some religious undertones if nothing else just in the fervor of the author but in between everyday I keep finding articles, some short & some long that catches my fancy which sidetracks me, and just about every week I am buying a new book to read when I get to it, when ever that might be.
The thing about truth is IMHO it’s a lifelong quest and the day you think you know all of the answers is a day that you don’t know any of them.
To whatever extent notions of God and / or religion are beneficial, I think Heinlein, in Stranger in a Strange Land, elucidated it as well as I’ve seen. The following excerpt, BTW, also touches on the hazards:
[snip]
“The other possibility troubled me more, that they might move in and try to make us over. Jubal, they can’t do it. An attempt to make us behave like Martians would kill us just as certainly but much less painlessly. It would all be a great wrongness.”
Jubal took time to answer. “But, son, isn’t that exactly what you have been trying to do?”
Mike looked unhappy. “Yes and no. It was what I started out to do. It is not what I am trying to do now. Father, I know that you were disappointed in me when I started this.”
“Your business, son.”
“Yes. Self. I must grok and decide at each cusp myself alone. And so must you . . . and so must each self. Thou art God.”
“I don’t accept the nomination.”
“You can’t refuse it. Thou art God and I am God and all that groks is God, and I am all that I have ever been or seen or felt or experienced. I am all that I grok. Father, I saw the horrible shape this planet is in and I grokked, though not in fullness, that I could change it. What I had to teach couldn’t be taught in schools or colleges; I was forced to smuggle it into town dressed up as a religion – which it is not – and con the marks into tasting it by appealing to their curiosity and their desire to be entertained. In part it worked exactly as I knew it would; the discipline and the knowledge was just as available to others as it was to me, who was raised in a Martian nest. Our brothers get along together – you’ve seen us, you’ve shared – live in peace and happiness with no bitterness, no jealousy.
[snip] [emphasis added]
Good luck with the religion thing. I think religion, like philosophy, mostly gets it right…until it totally runs off the rails, which it always does. Raised in a very religious household, it was a wrenching experience for me to admit that I didn’t really believe. Rather than spend the rest of my life bashing religion, as many of us Fallen tend to do, I found myself defending my old religion against mis-characterizations, making me the most Catholic atheist you’ve ever seen.
Ron Johnson — Thank you for a bold, beautiful, and candid take on the subject. I think you (and Heinlein via trying2b) summed it up pretty well.
Maybe it’s a paradox (well, one paradox among many, when it comes to religion): some people are attracted to religion to ponder great thoughts and great mysteries — to strive toward the divine; others are attracted to religion to end all mysteries and have certainties handed to them from above. The two mindsets are incompatible. Religion tries to satisfy both.
But the simplistic dog-and-pony aspects of religious teaching end up overshadowing the deeper aspects and discouraging a lot of the former people.
“You can tell a lot about someone by what they’re reading…you’re nuts!!”
Entirely possible. If so, I hope my best friends will tell me. 😉
If so, you also appear to be nuts right along with me, given what you said about that long quest. And didn’t you say you’re a clinical psychologist? Which means — ack! — that I suspect you know nuts when you see it.
“The thing about truth is IMHO it’s a lifelong quest and the day you think you know all of the answers is a day that you don’t know any of them.”
Oh, ain’t that the … erm, truth? In fact, put in slightly fancier language, I can easily see your line there as something from the Gospel of Thomas.
“Have had Gnosticism on my list of things to find out more about for some years now. And have also been most curious about the suppressed and rediscovered aspect to this. Thanks for raising the subject.”
firstdouglas — I can tell you it’s a fascinating exploration. If nothing else, the long version of the finding of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts (plus their eventual liberation from the clutches of the same kind of academic monopoly that kept the Dead Sea Scrolls locked up so long) is a compelling story.
I’m just beginning to get a glimpse of all of this, but I can say that so far two of the most helpful (and highly readable) backgrounder books I’ve found are The Lost Way by Stephen J. Patterson and Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels.
The former covers The Gospel of Thomas and the so-called “Q gospel,” another early “sayings” book, which has never been found, but which is presumed to have influenced the writings of Matthew and Luke.
The Pagels book is subtitled “The Secret Gospel of Thomas,” but it’s really more about the contrasts in worldview represented by the “heretical” Thomas and the canonical Gospel of John. It’s about how Thomas got suppressed while John (which had once been considered heretical itself by some!) and John’s completely different view of Jesus got elevated and enshrined.
Both books (Patterson more than Pagels) delve into why the nascent Catholic Church needed miracle stories, an emphasis on martyrdom, and unquestioning faith more than they needed the individualistic mystical inquiries of the Gnostics.
“I don’t put religion down for those who believe in it (any version), but it’s proselytizing and pushing beliefs, and arguing for them from their own interpretation as being _ipso facto_ “proof,” that I object to.”
Bothers me, too, Pat. I’m fortunate to be having a long discussion right now that may be the most thoughtful and non-proselytizing exchange I’ve ever had on the subject of Christianity and Christian history, spirituality, and practice. It’s wonderful just to be able to talk freely and (I hope) intelligently about the subject without pressure or threats or any of the usual “musts” and “shoulds” and “or elses.”
I’m sorry about your eye troubles, but I’d very much look forward to hearing your further thoughts on Gnosticism.
We’re not nuts here, just out-of-the-mainstream free thinkers, I think.
The book I read in religion that most impressed me was The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade. Decades later, I told my atheist dad to read it and he said, “I can’t read this, this guy is on drugs.” Sure, enough, forty years after reading it and, maybe unknown to us dummies back then, including my religion prof, I googled around and found out he was right.
It’s still a fascinating brief book with interesting concepts.
(Mostly related thoughts)
Both my conscious intellect and my “gut reaction” tell me that “spirituality” is man-made; by becoming AWARE of life and death as a result of the human, non-intuitive brain, we have developed religion(s) and the need for something greater than ourselves, in order to explain ourselves or explain natural phenomena that we do not understand.
We wanted to KNOW (Gnosis?) what is out there, where we came from, and especially where we’re going when our “souls” (awareness) were no longer able to respond through death of senses, brain, or body. Not knowing is scary. We have a NEED TO KNOW in order to live confidently and be in control. From primitive times forward, we’ve never understood much of what happened in life, or death (and still don’t, we have no comprehension of the state of “nothingness”), so we made something up (i.e. we established myths, as defined by Gnosticism on the Summary link) to explain it all. Today we even explain our brain activity, e.g. Freud’s dreams, in terms of “supernatural” mental phenomena — which is where psychology comes in. (And, BTW, there no longer seems to be a “normal” psychology by which to guage the abnormal; every action and thought that doesn’t rely on some pre-dictated course or preconceived idea is seen as “abnormal.”)
The phenomenon of seeing a light at the end of a tunnel when near-death occurs may have been a factor, too, in “explaining” why religion of all kinds reared its head. Unexplainable even by those who’ve experienced it, they can only describe it, but can’t tell you what “it” is or what it means. They assume the light is “heaven,” or is God beckoning them, because the unknown is all they have to express it. The nature of earth is not perfect, and we seek “perfection” i.e. peace and calm in our lives, so what they see is always “heavenly,” never chaos or confusion (except in “Ghost”, the movie). What we ALL feel and think leans toward needing the tranquil; what we “believe” in is something or Someone to take care of us, if not Here on earth, then There after death.
(This may also explain the many “sheep” that exist in society — people looking for stability and safety in their lives in the midst of an unknowable existence, so are quick to fall back on any institution they think can take care of them… especially true as religion (Faith) has gone out of society, they feel the need for government (Force) to be their “savior.”)
I’ve often thought that the human brain was the best and the worst thing that could happen to us; as well as allowing us the ability to achieve so much, it became our “hell on earth” by enabling our minds to imagine the many possibilities that scare us. We may have devised religion to escape from our own minds, as a way to achieve some form of peace from our imagination.
I, too, have been curious about Gnosticism, but mostly from a historical POV. I always perceived it as pre-religious philosophy, when our minds went into flights of fancy, delving jnto the unknown and finding (right or wrong) answers. I would definitely like to read the Gospel of (doubting) Thomas. Gnosticism does seem to allow for more freedom of thought. Perhaps (as far as Thomas is concerned), he was the first recorded free-thinker; after all, “doubt” questions everything, and seeking answers is what free-thinkers do.
“Both books (Patterson more than Pagels) delve into why the nascent Catholic Church needed miracle stories, an emphasis on martyrdom, and unquestioning faith more than they needed the individualistic mystical inquiries of the Gnostics.”
The re-directing of inquiry, of metaphysics, and natural philosophy, to the service of church and state?
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/04/psychology_the_hard_truth_abou.html
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/20/hard-vs-the-soft-sciences/
Is it science or metaphysics?
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/
I’m agnostic, about everything. I’m “pretty sure” though, that the earth isn’t flat. I’m still looking for someone to account for consciousness without a bunch of fluff and gibberish. I want equations and a working lab reproduction! G*d did it is as good as any explanation I’ve encountered so far, and more optimistic. Inquiry is challenging!
I’d meant to say thanks for the links in my first short message, and now, for the Patterson and Pagels titles, too.
Jung has gone through religions, including “primitive” ones, pretty thoroughly. One of the standing jokes is Freudians think all religion is suppressed sex and Jungians think all sex is suppressed religion. I asked a friend who knows much, much more than I about it and he suggested The Allure of Gnosticism https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+allure+of+gnosticism&sprefix=the+allure+of+gn%2Caps%2C233&crid=3JAG632TOJ9K1 that, as he put it, “has a number of very respectable scholars writing on the subject.”
Jung’s general approach attracted a lot of Christians to his line of thought. Then he wrote Answer to Job https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=answer+to+job&sprefix=answer+to+%2Cstripbooks%2C229&crid=21N3OD8WVOYB3&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aanswer+to+job in which he railed against God for what He did to Job and why He did it. A lot of people chose not to follow Jungian ideas after that. Jung did say that his writing was intended in the philosophical sense and not in the literal sense; but he also said that of all his works, Answer to Job was one for which he would not change a word.
Jung believed that Christianity was a dying religion primarily, I think, because the concepts had become so concrete. He felt that Catholicism had done best in retaining mystical elements.
I may get another book recommendation or two; if so, I’ll post them in comments.
I asked my friend if he knew of any general book on Jung and religion: “Yes, I do. Jung’s own Terry lectures, in book form, called Psychology and Religion. Good reading.” https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_20?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=psychology+and+religion&sprefix=psychology+and+relig%2Caps%2C230&crid=WTTXXLVF2P2W
Great links, Shel. I couldn’t find “Allure” at my library, but I’ve put holds on the others.
firstdouglas — You’re welcome and I hope you find those books interesting. Pagels and Patterson sometimes disagree with each other (they even disagree on whether Thomas is Gnostic or not), but between them an enlightening picture develops. Clearly biblical scholarship is more art than science.
People in psychology used to say that that Jung was either 100% right or totally FOS. In my experience his theories attracted the thinkers and intellectuals in the field, though not necessarily the best clinicians.
“Is it science or metaphysics?”
Mind-blowing article, John. When I read things like that, I’m torn between saying, “Yeah, that could be” and “Wait; you better provide some serious proof of claims like that.”
Both my conscious intellect and my “gut reaction” tell me that “spirituality” is man-made; by becoming AWARE of life and death as a result of the human, non-intuitive brain, we have developed religion(s) and the need for something greater than ourselves, in order to explain ourselves or explain natural phenomena that we do not understand.
Thanks for the write-up elaborating your views, Pat. Much to chew on.
While I’m inclined to agree that religion (especially when talking about dogma, belief, and so on) is all manmade, I think spirituality is something much more. I believe it’s inborn — although why it’s inborn, how it got into us, what it is, and what it’s for, are questions that lead to other questions.
Spiritual experiences can be induced so easily and naturally in humans: meditation, ecstatic dance (or chanting or other rituals), starvation and thirst (as in vision quests), entheogenic drugs. I just read a book by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor about how, after having a left-brain stroke, she lived in blissful oneness with the universe even as she struggled to regain her rational left-brain functions. Our brains are pre-programed for spiritual experience.
I’ve often thought that the human brain was the best and the worst thing that could happen to us; as well as allowing us the ability to achieve so much, it became our “hell on earth” by enabling our minds to imagine the many possibilities that scare us. We may have devised religion to escape from our own minds, as a way to achieve some form of peace from our imagination.
And there I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Although I’d add that religion then creates and spreads more scary sh*t for our poor brains to grapple with.
After all this preparatory reading, Icon Painting Week should be an eye opening (pun intended) experience in a remarkably good way.
Claire said:
“While I’m inclined to agree that religion (especially when talking about dogma, belief, and so on) is all manmade, I think spirituality is something much more. I believe it’s inborn — although why it’s inborn, how it got into us, what it is, and what it’s for, are questions that lead to other questions.”
We’ve had this discussion about spirituality before, a few years ago. While my opinion hasn’t really changed, I’ve done a lot of thinking about it. If — IF — there was any sort of “spirituality” in humans, I think it would have come to us through evolution, i.e. as a holdover from instinct, for we are not so far removed from our origin that there may be a degree of human intuition still floating about in our DNA.
As “smart” as we have become over time, while losing instinct we are still influenced by “gut reaction” – a feeling of danger in a surrounding, or of someone standing behind us, or not trusting a “too good to be true” offer, etc. We call it intuition and we may or may not act on it — that is the CHOICE that humans have evolved into; but the “feeling” of a higher being, or of having a “spirit” or soul, may emanate from the instinctive holdover that we evolved from.
IOW, we may be in a transitional period of evolution where we haven’t completely lost all the “animalistic” tendencies that make us jump, and flee, and “sense” the unknown. “Spirituality” comes into play when we try to explain away things we don’t understand while still retaining this holdover response.
Religion was co-opted to answer our questions, and the not-quite-yet fully evolved state of the human mind continues to make us “feel” that there is a higher sense and we should respond to it. But I think that higher sense comes from the knowledge that we are the top of the food chain and should act “humanely” and morally in a manner that we’ve learned throughout history. Others call it spirituality.
I can’t prove that any of this is true, of course, but it could explain the emotional response to, and desire for, a belief in “spirituality.” In any case, that’s where Gnosticism comes in, because it was just before and during that time that people began to seriously question the origin and meaning of things — at least as far as we know historically.
Interesting premise.
D. Harry said:
“A Man’s Got to Know his Limitations”
In there somewhere is open, option to expand understanding and capability. My eyes cannot see over the horizon, but I can go looking in that direction. Pursuit of discovery, and tools made to that end, expand the limits of perception.
First I must be curious, motivated, and open…
And know the limits of what I know.
Claire @March 30, 2017 1:09 pm:
>some people are attracted to religion to ponder great thoughts and great mysteries . . .
>others are attracted to religion to end all mysteries and have certainties handed to them from above.
This strongly reminded me of something I had read recently. I was pretty sure it was from Stranger in a Strange Land, but I couldn’t find it. It was bugging me, so I kept looking . . . finally:
. . .
“‘Thou art God.’ It’s not a message of cheer and hope, Jubal. It’s a defiance – and an unafraid unabashed assumption of personal responsibility.”
. . .
“No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that all the trouble they are in is of their own doing . . . is one that they can’t or won’t entertain.”
. . .
emphasis added
You, and Heinlein, are both correct about the dualistic nature of religion / spirituality. One aspect – which I detest – sacerdotal parasite mind-control shuck. I’m entirely open to the other, even though I’m as hard-line an atheist scientific materialist as you’re ever likely to encounter.* However, if there is any reality to the notion of God “outside”, I’m inclined to think it lies somewhere in the neighborhood of Kurt Vonnegut – The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, wherein the worst possible blasphemy is the presumption that God actually gives a shit, or Roger Waters: What God wants, God gets. But here’s a very interesting article, which more or less splits the difference between God external / internal: Why is God so interested in bad behaviour?
* At this point I had elaborated for a couple sentences, but not yet saved to disk, when the power dropped out for a few seconds during a thunderstorm, and my computer – connected to a functioning UPS with perfectly good batteries – rebooted. I’ve gone through a lot of dropouts in a lot of storms, and that’s NEVER happened before. So I decided to leave my “spiritual experience” story for another (if ever) time. Actually, I kind of blew off this whole comment, but then I ran across the link above, which fit in so well with what I’d already written I figured I’d go ahead and post it.
HA HA
UPS (“Uninterruptible Power Supply”), the arrogance of humans!
🙂
The Gods have spoken!
(I get it: “Semi-UPS” doesn’t market so well.)
Happy you stayed with it to post the link. Article started off about children that presumably had heard the word “god”, omniscient. Then troubled to ask them what God knows. Tautology, question begging, circular reasoning, lesson #1 .
The middle has some worthy content, though the end begs we can muster some omniscient, omnipotent, and presumably benign, secular reality.
Wonder what entity or institution he might be thinking of.
John — I thought the article that trying2be linked was fascinating. Agenda-driven, yeah. But it also brought something new to the discussion: that we tend to impute far-seeing powers to invisible beings, whether they be childhood friends, ghosts, spirits, angels, or gods. And if they’re gods, we might behave ourselves better because we’re worried about them seeing what we’re up to and retaliating against us.
I think that’s a goofy and dubious way to arrive at morality, but it explains a lot.
I’d love to learn the rest of trying2be’s story.
Claire yes,
Very much agree.
That was the middle of the article I thought very fun / good.
Getting solidly at morality is a standing challenge ain’t it?
“I’d love to learn the rest of trying2be’s story.”
I’ll second that!
🙂
>The Gods have spoken!
In all truth, I was ambivalent from the get-go towards even bringing it up, and also I’m enough of a Discordian to believe that something, at any rate, had given me a hint. But since y’all ask so nicely . . . maybe the hint was just that I should test the water a bit first. I must warn, though, that the “experience”, as such, was nothing special – it happened in the dentist’s office, of all places – merely the first time I had ever been under any kind of anesthesia. However, it had a major effect on my thinking, inducing me to write down a crude outline of a “spiritual philosophy” (for lack of a better term) and even to name it: Neo-Solipsism. Pretentious, I know, but hey, I was just a kid, cut me some slack. If you’re still interested, I’ll wrangle those old notes into something at least semi-fit for public consumption, but no guarantee that you won’t injure yourselves laughing (or cringing). Here’s a representative sample:
Existence exists, but existence is a concept, concept is a concept, that only has any meaning or relevance – or existence – to a sapient. Like me, and presumably (hopefully) at least a few of the other meat puppets blundering around on this little speck of dirt.
Like I say, you’ve been warned . . . 🙂
Just got a new book, Homo Deus, by Harari, sharp author of Sapiens, could be of interest here.
If the write-up of Homo Deus in the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/books/review-homo-deus-yuval-noah-harari.html?_r=0) is correct in what the book says (it _was_ written by the NYT, after all), the author may be only partially right.
I’m not sure it would be technology that kills off humanity, but more like humans themselves. Up to now (essentially) we have evolved naturally. When man attempts to control his environment or his destiny, he has proven himself abominably misguided. We may kill ourselves off before technology does. Technology can only do what we program it, and if we’re not too bright, technology won’t be, either.
The book does sound interesting, but I tend to think we should turn to our past and “start over” as it were, learning from where we began, if we will ever evolve ourselves into a reasonably-humane animal. First we have to know (and accept!) what we are and how and why we got here, before we attempt to proceed to the next level.
Thx, will read that review after I read the book, my style to think my own thoughts first.
Actually, Harari would agree with you about the basics ie.acknowledging that we are just highly evolved animals who did best as hunter-gathers in tribes no larger than 150. I don’t think we can go back there for numerous reasons.
I agreed with and learned a lot from his first book book but was astounded that he committed what you’d call the fallacy of magical thinking in one of the last chapters. He disparaged doomers who say we’ll run out of resources or overpopulate the place by saying that technology has always come through. Yikes, pretty scary for a smart guy to want to bet species survival on hope.
“I don’t think we can go back there [hunters-gatherers, etc] for numerous reasons.”
No, and we shouldn’t try.
But we could go back to, say, the humanly endeavor of thinking the problems through before we act; and of recognizing what we’ve done wrong throughout history, and trying to find our way out of the control-maze that has brought us to the present-day fiasco. We have enough knowledge to know what shouldn’t be done. We can no longer afford to let politicians, academia, religious leaders, etc. define for us what morality is, or what it takes to maintain a humane condition. Technology is ONLY a tool, it should never be used to take our place. Every piece of technology can be used for good or for bad; in the wrong hands (such as “fearless leaders”) it WILL be used to determine their own agenda.
In effect I’d like to see future generations take the best they’ve got — their human brains — and apply it to the problems we run into every day. Instead of an Industrial Revolution, I’d like to see a Cranial Revolution.
Technology can’t do a thing without people to guide it; people can do whatever needs to be done with or without technology. That’s the only way that humanity is going to progress.
This is why I think Gnosticism sounds so interesting — because it arrived as one of the first -isms we know when men began to think philosophically, to pose questions and answers as they related to the nature of humanity.
I’ll look at some of the Gnosticism references you folks posted but I haven’t found too much in the way of religion or spirituality that clicks for me other than the Zen Daily Calendar.
Reagan, not a great guy, oddly said that if aliens invaded Earth we’d all unite, probably right (we’d be toast anyway, of course). Short of that it’s hard for me to see even a large group of committed humans able to significantly steer us in an agreed upon social or political or economic direction.
But maybe I’m wrong. A lot of the “isms” have done it.