“In the long story of man’s endeavours to understand his own environment and to govern his own fates, there is one gap or omission so singular that, however we may afterwards contrive to explain the fact, its simple statement has the air of a paradox. Yet it is strictly true to say that man has never yet applied to the problems which most profoundly concern him those methods of inquiry which in attacking all other problems he has found the most efficacious.
The question for man most momentous of all is whether or no he has an immortal soul; or to avoid the word immortal, which belongs to the realm of infinities whether or no his personality involves any element which can survive bodily death. In this direction have always lain the gravest fears, the farthest-reaching hopes, which could either oppress or stimulate mortal minds.”
“Likewise it behooves you not to despise others when you begin to know something. This vice of arrogance takes possession of some so that they contemplate their own knowledge lovingly, and since they seem to themselves to be something, they think that others whom they do not know can neither be nor become such as they. Hence also these peddlers of trifles, boasting I do not know of what, accuse their ancestors of simplicity, and believe that wisdom was born with them, and will die with them.”
- On Study and Teaching by Hugh of St. Victor, Twelfth century.
“The language of religion is like the language of poetry; and it is a major heresy of post-Enlightenment rationalism to try to turn poetry into pseudo-science, to turn the images of religion, whose function is to evoke eternity, into mundane descriptions of improbable facts. In a sense, atheism is right - but only in its rejection of a God who never was, and of a belief which never touched the heart of religious faith. Traditional theism seeks a contemplative awareness of the Unlimited, beyond name and form, the just perception of what most truly is, standing far beyond our analytical understanding. One key term Aquinas uses for God is esse subsistens: Being existing of itself alone, entire and underived. Or, in another evocative phrase, pelagum, substantiae infinitum: the ocean of unlimited existence.”
- Keith Ward, Concepts of God
“God.” What a cringe-worthy word that used to be for me; bringing to mind images of an angry, immature, Old Testament tyrant with ignorant, bigoted followers. You know, the usual (and rightly so) anti-religious, anti-god critiques. Lately I have become more comfortable with the word, however, because it has started to take on a whole new meaning for me, much like “religion” did many months ago.
We live in a dichotomous world when it comes to the choices presented to you which attempt to explain the world, the nature of reality, and the mystery of being. You either side with the religious, theists, spiritual, people of faith, or, on the other hand, the materialistic, atheist, reason-loving scientists. In some sense more and more people are becoming aware of this as a false distinction, as no real choice at all when trying to come to the bottom of these things. In another sense, I see these false distinctions becoming more entrenched than ever.
“… criticisms of religion are for the most part viewpoints that are themselves historically situated responses to certain historically situated forms of Western religion. Several assume religion to be equivalent to the one the critics are familiar with, that of Western society. In fact, by modern, cross-cultural standards, some of them are not really theories of religion at all, but counterestablishment reactions to certain forms of biblical monotheism. Generalizations with any claim to be inclusive would need to consider all forms of religion. For example, there are types of religious life which are explicitly nonviolent, intended to transcend rather than affirm social roles; nonsexist or goddess-oriented; aimed at overcoming unconscious projections rather than indulging in them; or geared to serving and liberating rather and ruling the poor. Many religious people would therefore say that what critics call religion is not real religion at all.”
- William E. Paden, Interpreting the Sacred: Ways of Viewing Religion,
“Stimulating a self-identifying sentient creature would be a little like trying to stimulate a hurricane. Think about how weather simulations work. Unable to take into account all of the complexity that goes into the production of weather (the whole world, essentially), simulations use some subset of that complexity and are able to do a fairly good job of predicting what will happen in the next hours or days. But as you move out in time, or at the extremes of weather, the model breaks down. After three days, the predictions begin to fail; after ten, the simulation no longer works at all. The fiercer the storm, the less useful the simulation. Hurricanes are not something you predict; they’re something you watch. And this is what human sentience is: a hurricane – too complex to understand fully by rational mans, something we observe, marvel at, fear.”- Ellen Ullman
“Jung’s name has been associated with the New Age for about three decades, but now his alleged “influence” on this movement is being formally proposed and articulated.”
The story of the blind men and the elephant is a parable that originated in India and has played a role in many of the surrounding religions. It has also widely diffused from there and can now be found in many forms all over the world.
This post is probably going to be a little different than you would expect by reading the title. I don’t have much to say on the topic of actual disinformation and COINTELPRO agents, but I do have an observation to make about an alarming trend I’ve been seeing lately; accusing others of spreading disinformation or calling them COINTELPRO agents simply because they disagree with you.
