Any man or woman who professes to speak on God's behalf -- is a fraud. It is an act of rhetorical manipulation -- somebody trying to get you to do do something, or not do something, based on 'Divine Heresay'. God doesn't make ethics. Men and women make ethics -- and then sometimes, oftentimes, attach God's name to the result -- fraudulantly -- in order to give the ethics more 'rhetorical power'. The power of 'Divine Authority'. The power of fraudulant Divine Authority.
A religion needs to be judged by its system of ethics; not the reverse. Not by the professed Authority of God. That is an act of righteous fraud. If you want to judge a religion as being 'healthy' and/or 'pathological', then you have to judge it by ist system of ethics. This system of ethics is made by men in positions of religious power; not by the power and the word of God.
God is a myth -- sometimes a good myth, sometimes a bad myth, depending on whether people are helping each other, caring for each other, in God's name -- or killing each other.
God's name has been used just as often to promote violence as it has been to stop it. God's name has been used endlessly to support and give rhetorical power and manipulation to man's narcissitic and righteous -- ethical or unethical -- intentions. That is why a religion needs to be judged by its system of ethics -- just as a political party does, just as a business does, and just as the men and women operating behind the scenes -- making and breaking the 'professed' ethics -- do. That is why 'idealism' in the philosophy of Marx becomes turned on its head and called 'ideology' which in Marx's system is not a good thing. Ideology in Marx's system of philosophy essentially means 'fake idealism and realism'. Ideology to Marx means 'a smoke and mirrors' cover up for man's real behavior -- his 'narcissistic materialism'. That rule of thumb generally applies for 21st century politics: idealism equals fake ideology equals hypocrisy. The same equation has been just as rampant in religion over man's history as it has in politics. rigtheous idealistic and ideological intentions disguise and cover up man's real intentions: narcissism and materialism. Schopenhauer and Marx are smiling at me in their respective graves.
Religion -- without humanistic-existential ethics and values, meaning a balance of compassion and accountability, self-assertiveness and social sensitivity - generally degenerates into righteous intolerance based on 'either/or' ethics. Good and bad, heaven and hell, God and the Devil...Excommunicate those who are bad, associated with Hell and the Devil...Curse them...This is the religion of promoting hatred and violence. It is not the religion of tolerance, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion.
They -- meaning the Amsterdam Jews, those who had understandably fled the righteous intolerance, the hate, the persecution and the torture of the Spanish and Portugese Inquisition -- turned around and betrayed the finest and most ethical among them -- Baroch Spinoza. The man who dared to integrate Science and Religion -- God and Nature in Spinoza's eyes were One. Not God ruling over Nature. But God in Nature. God and Nature being synonymous. God being the Spirit of Nature. This is a myth too -- just like God the Creator and Ruler over Man and Nature -- without the negative side effects. Without the righteous intolerance based on 'Either/Or' Ethics. God and Nature as being one and the same -- is a good myth. Because now when I look at Nature, I look at Nature with new meaning and substance. I look at Nature and feel a part of Nature -- with a sense of awe and splendor. Enjoying the most of it because it may not last. (Or I may not last.) Not something to be tossed away like a rag doll. Polluted until you are afraid of the dangers of its toxicity. I saw Daytona Beech in the 1960s. I would probably cry if I saw it now. I once jumped into Lake Ontario at Ontario Place when I was drunk (in the 1980s). I had to throw out my clothes when I got home. I smelled like a sewer rat. You were once able to swim at Woodbine Beech in Toronto. I wouldn't want to swime there now. People have to go further and furhter north to find safe swimming. 'You pay paradise and you put up a parking lot.' -- Joni Mitchell.
When I use the word 'God', I do not use it righteously unless it is to protect Nature and Reglious Tolerance in the name of Spinoza, and after him, in the name of Albert Einstein. I don't say that my ethics comes from God. It comes from pre-Enlightenment philosophers like Spinoza, Enlightenment philosophers like Locke and Adam Smith and Diderot and Voltaire and Paine and Jefferson. It comes from Romantic philosophers like Rousseau and Schelling. It comes from Dialectic philosophers like Hegel and early humanistic Marx. It comes from Humanistic-Existentialists like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. It comes from political humanists like Erich Fromm. And it comes from General Semantics empiricists like Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa. To repeat, it doesn't come from God. It comes from me. I will take full responsibility and accountability for my philosophical ethics. And I will use God's name symbolically, metaphorically and mythologically -- not epistemolotically.
Epistemologically (or ontologically), if you ask me if God exists, I will say, 'I don't know. I think that makes me an 'Epistemological Agnostic'. Spiritually, I will call myself a pantheist -- or some derrivative of a Spinozian-Einsteinian Pantheist.
That is where I stand today.
dgb, Aug. 30th, 2007.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Spinoza's Room
I view this essay as a first draft. I expect that I will write a variety of updated modifications of this essay at a later date. You see, this is my first real attempt to grapple with the fascinating ideas of a perplexing philosopher -- Baruch (Hebrew for 'blessed') or Benedictus (Latin for 'blessed) Spinoza (1632-1677). The name 'Spinoza' derives from the word 'thorn' in Portugese (Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza, 2006, Random House of Canada Ltd., Toronto.) Together, Baruch Spinoza's name seems fitting appropriate -- 'blessed thorn'. In my opinion, and the opinion of many, all of mankind is 'blessed' for having been exposed to Spinoza's extraordinary ideas -- he holds the 'dual and paradoxical distinction' that he can be viewed as both a precursor of 'Enlightenment Philosophy' and 'Romantic Philosophy' at the same time. There is perhaps, to my knowledge, only one other Western philosopher before the 1700s who can arguably hold such a dual distinction --and that is the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535BC-475BC). There are other 14th to 17th century precursors to Enlightenment (Scientific-Humanistic) Philosophy -- William of Occam (1290-1349), Montaigne (1533-1592), Galileo (1564-1642), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Isaac Newton (1643-1728), and John Locke (1632-1704) to name some of the more important ones. Rousseau can be viewed as the 'father' of Romantic Philosophy -- the point at which Romantic Philosophy grew out as a rebellion against 'unadulterated' Enlightenment Philosophy (reason, reason, and more reason -- did we forget 'passion' and even 'unreasonable passion'?), rather than being on the integrative 'Pantheistic' (scientific-spiritual) path of both Heraclitus and Spinoza.
There is at least one more very famous member of this 'triadic' scientific-spiritual-pantheistic' movment that Heraclitus started and Spinoza embellished -- and that is one of the most famous intellects in the history of mankind -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
Einstein's conception of God can be found at the end of this essay and is very important because it is very 'Spinozian based' and a flagship of a very well developed pantheistic position. At the end of the paper, we will also look at a quick definition of pantheism along with some of its derivatives and distinctions vs. other forms of spiritualism and/or religion.
Spinoza has been labelled the 'renegade Jew' and a 'sneaky atheist' (Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza) and a 'Bu-Jew' (not sure what Goldstein meant by that but I will do my own interpretation here). I see Spinoza as being a 'Budhist-like renegade Jew' who both stimulated the Romantic Movement of the late 1700s and yet at the same time, except for his pantheistic vision of God, was very 'unromantic' in personality. He didn't marry or father a child. He didn't like or support 'high emotion, passion, appetite, and drama' either in his philosophy or in his life (even though he spent his whole life provoking it in the responses of others to his rebellion against orthodox Judaism, and for that matter, any type of orthodox religion. When you start saying that 'God' and 'Nature' are the same thing -- synonyms for each other, no more, no less -- especially back in the 1600s, you are asking for trouble.)
The only type of person that this pantheistic vision, at least at first blush, might be attractive to is a philosopher or a scientist who would like to add some 'spiritual depth' to his work and thus, in some form or another, integrate religion and science, creation and evolution. This, at least partly if not mainly, seems to be the type of persons who were most attracted to his work, or at least, his pantheistic work. Schelling integrated Hegel and Spinoza to create a more 'dualistic and dialectic romanticism and spiritualism. I follow Schelling in this dialectical spiritualistic direction due also in main part to my post-Spinozian in combination with post-Hegelian vision. In this respect, a distinction can be made between a 'unilateral or unconditional wholist' (Spinoza, Alfed Adler) vs. a 'dialectical integrationist and wholist' (Schelling, early Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, Freud, Jung, Perls, me...) Anyway, I would call Einstein the most honorary member to Spinoza's vision, which in my opinion, his much more 'spiritual depth' than any flat out atheistic position. Spinoza was not a sneaky atheist but rather a profoundly religious, ethical, and deep spiritual person in a way that most people during his time could not, and would not accept. Even today, this is significantly still the case. Spinoza was thinking 'outside the normal religious box'. There are many more sides to Spinoza's thinking that I have not described here -- his rationalism (which I will challenge in my epistemology section), his trumpeting of the pre-Enlightenment ideas of 'freedom of speech' and 'religious tolerance' which would become central to the Scottish Enlightenment, The British Enlightenment, the French Enlightenment, and the American Enlightenment in the middle 1700s. (I will visit Spinoza here again in my Enlightenment section.)
The Spinozian vision that I have focused on here in this section is his pantheistic vision which I will spend numerous essays to follow exploring different possible avenues relative to the potential further evolution of this pantheistic vision.
dgb, Aug. 27th, 2007.
.....................................................................................
Einstein's Position On God
The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." (Brian 1996, p. 127) In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[37]
Einstein defined his religious views in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."[38][39]
By his own definition, Einstein was a deeply religious person (Pais 1982, p. 319).[40] He published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his views on the subject.[41] In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" ... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted ... by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–607)
Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel,[42] which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.[43]
The most thorough exploration of Einstein's views on religion was made by his friend Max Jammer in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion (Jammer 1999).
Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture (Ericson 2006). He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York (See Stringer-Hye 1999 and Wilson 1995). Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and θεός ( 'theos' ) = God) literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the Universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of an abstract 'god'. However, it is important to understand that Pantheists do not believe in a personal, creative deity or deities of any kind, the key feature which distinguishes them from panentheists and pandeists. As such, although many religions may claim to hold pantheistic elements, they are more commonly panentheistic or pandeistic in nature.
Reference: Wikipedia
....................................................................................
Panentheism
Pantheism has features in common with panentheism, such as the idea that the Universe is part of God. Technically, the two are separate. Whereas pantheism finds God to be synonymous with nature, panentheism finds God to be greater than nature alone. Some find this distinction unhelpful, while others see it as a significant point of division. Many of the major faiths described as pantheistic could also be described as panentheistic, whereas naturalistic pantheism cannot (not seeing God as more than nature alone). For example, elements of both panentheism and pantheism are found in Hinduism. Certain interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and Shri Rudram support this view. Reference: Wikipedia
...................................................................................
Pandeism
Pandeism is a kind of Pantheism which incorporates a form of Deism, holding that the Universe is identical to God, but also that God was previously a conscious and sentient force or entity that designed and created the Universe. God only became an unconscious and nonsentient God by becoming the Universe. Other than this distinction (and the possibility that the Universe will one day return to the state of being God), Pandeistic beliefs are identical to Pantheism.
Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Pantheistic concepts in religion
Hinduism
It is generally asserted that Hindu religious texts are the oldest known literature that contains the ideas of Pantheistic doctrine[1]. In Hindu theology, Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all things in this Universe, and is also the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. This pantheistic doctrine is traceable from some of the more ancient Upanishads to later Advaita philosophy. All Mahāvākyas(Great Sayings) of the Upanishads, in one way or another, seem to indicate the unity of the world with the Brahman. Chāndogya Upanishad says "All this Universe indeed is Brahma; from him does it proceed; into him it is dissolved; in him it breathes, so let every one adore him calmly". Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Judaism
The radically immanent sense of the divine in Jewish mystical Kabbalah is said to have inspired Spinoza's formulation of pantheism. However, Spinoza's views have not been accepted in Orthodox Judaism.
Additionally, the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, had a mystical sense of the divine that could be described as panentheism.
Biblical Judaism asserts the origin of the Universe was brought forth by the Torah [law] of nature. Thus the original Torah is found not within the writing of Moshe, but within nature itself. "Reading" the Torah of nature is seen as equivalent to "reading" the Torah of revelation and theoretically will agree with one another in the end [as illustrated for example in the discovery of the Big Bang in 1965]. Rabbinical Orthodoxy viewing this as a discrepancy, in order to maintain the written Torah above that given first in nature, has argued that written Torah preceded creation, and it was from the written Torah that God "spoke" creation. A view rejected by Biblical pantheists.
Maimonides, though Orthodox, reflected the sentiment that the Torah of nature and the Torah of scripture were equivalent and found its logic inescapable, in his comments on the reconciliation of science with scripture. These instructions no doubt served as background for the development of Baruch Spinoza's later views.
Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Einstein's Position On God
The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." (Brian 1996, p. 127) In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[37]
Einstein defined his religious views in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."[38][39]
By his own definition, Einstein was a deeply religious person (Pais 1982, p. 319).[40] He published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his views on the subject.[41] In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" ... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted ... by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–607)
Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel,[42] which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.[43]
The most thorough exploration of Einstein's views on religion was made by his friend Max Jammer in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion (Jammer 1999).
Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture (Ericson 2006). He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York (See Stringer-Hye 1999 and Wilson 1995). Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
There is at least one more very famous member of this 'triadic' scientific-spiritual-pantheistic' movment that Heraclitus started and Spinoza embellished -- and that is one of the most famous intellects in the history of mankind -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
Einstein's conception of God can be found at the end of this essay and is very important because it is very 'Spinozian based' and a flagship of a very well developed pantheistic position. At the end of the paper, we will also look at a quick definition of pantheism along with some of its derivatives and distinctions vs. other forms of spiritualism and/or religion.
Spinoza has been labelled the 'renegade Jew' and a 'sneaky atheist' (Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza) and a 'Bu-Jew' (not sure what Goldstein meant by that but I will do my own interpretation here). I see Spinoza as being a 'Budhist-like renegade Jew' who both stimulated the Romantic Movement of the late 1700s and yet at the same time, except for his pantheistic vision of God, was very 'unromantic' in personality. He didn't marry or father a child. He didn't like or support 'high emotion, passion, appetite, and drama' either in his philosophy or in his life (even though he spent his whole life provoking it in the responses of others to his rebellion against orthodox Judaism, and for that matter, any type of orthodox religion. When you start saying that 'God' and 'Nature' are the same thing -- synonyms for each other, no more, no less -- especially back in the 1600s, you are asking for trouble.)
The only type of person that this pantheistic vision, at least at first blush, might be attractive to is a philosopher or a scientist who would like to add some 'spiritual depth' to his work and thus, in some form or another, integrate religion and science, creation and evolution. This, at least partly if not mainly, seems to be the type of persons who were most attracted to his work, or at least, his pantheistic work. Schelling integrated Hegel and Spinoza to create a more 'dualistic and dialectic romanticism and spiritualism. I follow Schelling in this dialectical spiritualistic direction due also in main part to my post-Spinozian in combination with post-Hegelian vision. In this respect, a distinction can be made between a 'unilateral or unconditional wholist' (Spinoza, Alfed Adler) vs. a 'dialectical integrationist and wholist' (Schelling, early Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, Freud, Jung, Perls, me...) Anyway, I would call Einstein the most honorary member to Spinoza's vision, which in my opinion, his much more 'spiritual depth' than any flat out atheistic position. Spinoza was not a sneaky atheist but rather a profoundly religious, ethical, and deep spiritual person in a way that most people during his time could not, and would not accept. Even today, this is significantly still the case. Spinoza was thinking 'outside the normal religious box'. There are many more sides to Spinoza's thinking that I have not described here -- his rationalism (which I will challenge in my epistemology section), his trumpeting of the pre-Enlightenment ideas of 'freedom of speech' and 'religious tolerance' which would become central to the Scottish Enlightenment, The British Enlightenment, the French Enlightenment, and the American Enlightenment in the middle 1700s. (I will visit Spinoza here again in my Enlightenment section.)
The Spinozian vision that I have focused on here in this section is his pantheistic vision which I will spend numerous essays to follow exploring different possible avenues relative to the potential further evolution of this pantheistic vision.
dgb, Aug. 27th, 2007.
.....................................................................................
Einstein's Position On God
The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." (Brian 1996, p. 127) In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[37]
Einstein defined his religious views in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."[38][39]
By his own definition, Einstein was a deeply religious person (Pais 1982, p. 319).[40] He published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his views on the subject.[41] In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" ... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted ... by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–607)
Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel,[42] which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.[43]
The most thorough exploration of Einstein's views on religion was made by his friend Max Jammer in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion (Jammer 1999).
Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture (Ericson 2006). He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York (See Stringer-Hye 1999 and Wilson 1995). Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and θεός ( 'theos' ) = God) literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the Universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of an abstract 'god'. However, it is important to understand that Pantheists do not believe in a personal, creative deity or deities of any kind, the key feature which distinguishes them from panentheists and pandeists. As such, although many religions may claim to hold pantheistic elements, they are more commonly panentheistic or pandeistic in nature.
Reference: Wikipedia
....................................................................................
Panentheism
Pantheism has features in common with panentheism, such as the idea that the Universe is part of God. Technically, the two are separate. Whereas pantheism finds God to be synonymous with nature, panentheism finds God to be greater than nature alone. Some find this distinction unhelpful, while others see it as a significant point of division. Many of the major faiths described as pantheistic could also be described as panentheistic, whereas naturalistic pantheism cannot (not seeing God as more than nature alone). For example, elements of both panentheism and pantheism are found in Hinduism. Certain interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and Shri Rudram support this view. Reference: Wikipedia
...................................................................................
Pandeism
Pandeism is a kind of Pantheism which incorporates a form of Deism, holding that the Universe is identical to God, but also that God was previously a conscious and sentient force or entity that designed and created the Universe. God only became an unconscious and nonsentient God by becoming the Universe. Other than this distinction (and the possibility that the Universe will one day return to the state of being God), Pandeistic beliefs are identical to Pantheism.
Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Pantheistic concepts in religion
Hinduism
It is generally asserted that Hindu religious texts are the oldest known literature that contains the ideas of Pantheistic doctrine[1]. In Hindu theology, Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all things in this Universe, and is also the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. This pantheistic doctrine is traceable from some of the more ancient Upanishads to later Advaita philosophy. All Mahāvākyas(Great Sayings) of the Upanishads, in one way or another, seem to indicate the unity of the world with the Brahman. Chāndogya Upanishad says "All this Universe indeed is Brahma; from him does it proceed; into him it is dissolved; in him it breathes, so let every one adore him calmly". Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Judaism
The radically immanent sense of the divine in Jewish mystical Kabbalah is said to have inspired Spinoza's formulation of pantheism. However, Spinoza's views have not been accepted in Orthodox Judaism.
Additionally, the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, had a mystical sense of the divine that could be described as panentheism.
Biblical Judaism asserts the origin of the Universe was brought forth by the Torah [law] of nature. Thus the original Torah is found not within the writing of Moshe, but within nature itself. "Reading" the Torah of nature is seen as equivalent to "reading" the Torah of revelation and theoretically will agree with one another in the end [as illustrated for example in the discovery of the Big Bang in 1965]. Rabbinical Orthodoxy viewing this as a discrepancy, in order to maintain the written Torah above that given first in nature, has argued that written Torah preceded creation, and it was from the written Torah that God "spoke" creation. A view rejected by Biblical pantheists.
Maimonides, though Orthodox, reflected the sentiment that the Torah of nature and the Torah of scripture were equivalent and found its logic inescapable, in his comments on the reconciliation of science with scripture. These instructions no doubt served as background for the development of Baruch Spinoza's later views.
Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Einstein's Position On God
The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." (Brian 1996, p. 127) In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[37]
Einstein defined his religious views in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."[38][39]
By his own definition, Einstein was a deeply religious person (Pais 1982, p. 319).[40] He published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his views on the subject.[41] In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" ... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted ... by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–607)
Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel,[42] which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.[43]
The most thorough exploration of Einstein's views on religion was made by his friend Max Jammer in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion (Jammer 1999).
Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture (Ericson 2006). He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York (See Stringer-Hye 1999 and Wilson 1995). Reference: Wikipedia
.....................................................................................
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Epistemology, Mythology, and Ethics of 'God' and Religion
This essay may not be something that the 'religiously devout' person wants to hear. It is an 'rational-empirical' philosopher's perspective on the 'epistemology' vs. the 'mythology' of 'God' and 'religion'. My thesis is basically that the 'epistemology' of 'God' -- meaning the 'realness of His or Her existence' is highly suspect and questionable based on 21st century rational-empirical knowledge or epistemology. There are too many 'leaps of faith' and 'suspensions of disbelief' of normal, every-day, common-sense knowledge necessary to turn the possibility of 'God's existence' into a probability, let alone a 'fact'. Does God have a 'physical presence' and 'physical boundaries'? What does 'He or She or It look like? Are we really to believe that 'God has an ever-lasting life-span, unlike anything else on earth that we have ever seen or heard of? Are we really to believe that 'God is all-powerful'? And that 'God is inherently good when there is so much destructive and selfish evil in this world?'
From an 'epistemological' point of view, the existence of 'God' is highly improbable. 'God' is more rationally seen as a 'mythological construct' -- a projection of many of man's wishful and/or fearful needs -- that has been used for thousands of years by man to 'ward off a fear of death' and to 'help him ethically behave better on earth' (and some might cynically say allow people in power to better control the behavior of the masses and to get them to do things that they would not normally do because these behaviors would violate the 'pleasure and happiness' principle.) The ethical and moral virtue of God and religion can be better supported 'mythologically' than 'epistemologically' but even this comes with a serious 'caveat emptor'. Mythologically-speaking, religion is neither 'good' or 'bad' but the type of man-made ethics, attitude, and behavior that support the religion all make it so -- or not so. You have to 'dig into the contents' of the religion in order to determine whether it is 'good' or 'bad' for man. And you have to 'dig into the particulars' of how each and every person is using his or her religion for the good or bad of him or herself -- and others around him or her -- to determine its relative 'personal health content' or 'personal pathology content'.
Returning to an epistemological point of view, the closest I can come to connecting 'rationality' or 'reason' with 'God' is through 'Intelligent Design Theory'. In other words, it is easy to argue that the world -- and everything in it -- is so amazingly well-designed, so 'intelligently' well-designed, that it is very hard not to, indeed, almost impossible not to, believe that there must have been some intelligent designER behind the incredible complexity of this design. It is very hard to believe the opposite point of view -- that the world, and everything in it, with all of its individual and collective complexities of functional design, was created simply by 'accident'. Even evolution theory -- is a little stale and 'parameter restricted' if by evolution theory we want to restrict ourselves only to the Darwinian perspective of 'genetic evolution over numerous generations'. This cannot account for much faster forms of evolution such as human evolution through individual and/or social learning. Hegelian social evolution or dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) theory is a much stronger way of accounting for faster forms of evolution than classic Darwinian Theory, particularly if it too is broadened to account for 'individual and social, biological intelligence' -- i.e., the power to compensate, modify, mutate, adjust, change -- in even the smallest of animals and plants like 'ants' and 'viruses' and 'bacteria' that are not generally regarded as having 'intelligence'. Even plants can be said to have 'intelligence' in that, for example, they will bend towards the sun, and certain plants -- like say the 'pau d arco' plant -- have 'learned' to fight off and become 'immune' to, its arch enemy -- fungi -- in ways that can only be described as 'learned over time' and 'immune function based on plant intelligence'.
All of this brings us back to the question of, 'Where did this intelligence come from?', and was/is there something 'more all-encompassing, and/or more all-overseeing' that put this type of 'evolutionary intelligence' into every animal, mineral, and plant on earth.
Now it is a major leap of 'faith', 'trust', 'assumption', 'presumption', or a 'suspension of disbelief' as they say in the entertainment business, to jump from 'intellignet design' theory and even the idea of an 'intelligent designer' -- which could be a more intelligent race of people from a different world who may be playing with this world as their 'hobby' or 'university course' -- to the idea of 'God' which include many, many more assumptions -- and probably man-made 'idealistic projections' -- than an 'intelligent designer' theory.
Thus, as an empirically and rationally based philosopher (or at least that is what I would like to think that I am), I can state with conviction that the idea of an 'intelligent designer' theory can be rationally and empirically supported; however, the 'leap of faith' if you will, or 'leap into metaphysics', or 'suspension of disbelief' that takes us from intelligent designer theory to 'God' -- cannot be rationally, empirically, and/or epistemologically supported in the same way.
We look back now at the many 'Gods' of the ancient Greeks -- a 'God of War', a 'God of Love', etc. -- and we partly smile and call them 'myths'.
What would cause us to believe that the 'one God' that many people believe in today, and that most religions righteously trumpet, would be any less of a 'myth' than the 20 Gods that are now being called a myth, some 2700 years ago.
There is only one possible reason: many people NEED to believe in God (for example, fear of death) -- even if this means 'suspending their epistemological sense of disbelief' in order to sustain their belief in God's existence -- and an 'afterlife'.
This is not to say that all myths are bad; there are plenty of myths, fairy tales -- and Gods -- that may, indeed do, play a useful and functional role in man's life (eg. Santa Clause, Peter Pan, the tooth fairy, and so on...)
However, from an empirical philosopher's point of view, the existence of God cannot be rationally supported -- are we really to believe that 'God' has no 'lifespan' and no 'physical presence or boundaries'. (If we believe that God has no boundaries, then we are, in effect, getting close to Spinoza's idea of spiritual pantheism -- 'God is Nature' or 'God is everywhere and in everything'.
Any orthodox or unorhodox form of religion or belief in God is simply a different form of myth. If you want to -- or need to -- choose a 'God' myth; just make sure that it is beneficial to both you and the people around you, and be tolerant of other people's 'myths' as long as they do not violate any human rights laws as put forth by the United Nations, and/or any and every humanistic country that does not tolerate religious suppression and violence.
Whether you are a Muslim, a Catholic, a Protestant, an Anglican, a Mormon, a Jew, or a Spinozian Pantheist, the question of importance is not whether your God 'exists' or not; but rather, whether you are a 'better' or 'worse' person for your belief in the 'myth' of 'God'.
Mythologically and functionally, 'God' -- in any form -- can be supported, if it makes you a better person to yourself and others. Epistemologically, the existence of God can't -- at least not based on any kind of rational philosophical empiricism that I can come up with.
I do not have any problem with the president of The United States being a mormon -- or any other 'humanistic' religion.
However, I have a big problem with politics, the State, and religion being epistemologically and ethically connected.
You do not bring a myth to epistemology, law, science, or politics any more than you would a fairy tale; and you do not lead a country based on either a myth or a fairy tale in situations where good, sound, credible, reliable, empirical epistemology is what is needed.
Thus, when and where I use the term and concept 'God', I am using it symbolically, mythologically, and spiritually -- but not epistemoligically. This is a very, very important distinction, not only for me, but for anyone who is seriously interested in digging into the ethical merit of their religion, and the relative health or pathology of the particular religious ideas that they are being asked or told to 'buy into'.
Ask not first what you can do for your religion, but rather what your religion can do for you, the people who are practising the religion, and the people outside of the religion. Is it helping people to live happier lives? Or is it making people miserable? Is it making the people within the religion more tolerant, caring, and peaceful towards other people? Or is it making people righteously intolerant, unaccepting, even aggressive and violent towards other people of differing religious or unreligous ideas? Is it making people submissive and masochistic? Or is it making people assertive and independent in balance with compassionate, caring, and socially sensitive and giving? I am looking for a new evolution and breed of religions -- of any name or faith be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other form of religion -- that is based on 'humanistic-existential values and ethics'; not squashing the same.
db
From an 'epistemological' point of view, the existence of 'God' is highly improbable. 'God' is more rationally seen as a 'mythological construct' -- a projection of many of man's wishful and/or fearful needs -- that has been used for thousands of years by man to 'ward off a fear of death' and to 'help him ethically behave better on earth' (and some might cynically say allow people in power to better control the behavior of the masses and to get them to do things that they would not normally do because these behaviors would violate the 'pleasure and happiness' principle.) The ethical and moral virtue of God and religion can be better supported 'mythologically' than 'epistemologically' but even this comes with a serious 'caveat emptor'. Mythologically-speaking, religion is neither 'good' or 'bad' but the type of man-made ethics, attitude, and behavior that support the religion all make it so -- or not so. You have to 'dig into the contents' of the religion in order to determine whether it is 'good' or 'bad' for man. And you have to 'dig into the particulars' of how each and every person is using his or her religion for the good or bad of him or herself -- and others around him or her -- to determine its relative 'personal health content' or 'personal pathology content'.
Returning to an epistemological point of view, the closest I can come to connecting 'rationality' or 'reason' with 'God' is through 'Intelligent Design Theory'. In other words, it is easy to argue that the world -- and everything in it -- is so amazingly well-designed, so 'intelligently' well-designed, that it is very hard not to, indeed, almost impossible not to, believe that there must have been some intelligent designER behind the incredible complexity of this design. It is very hard to believe the opposite point of view -- that the world, and everything in it, with all of its individual and collective complexities of functional design, was created simply by 'accident'. Even evolution theory -- is a little stale and 'parameter restricted' if by evolution theory we want to restrict ourselves only to the Darwinian perspective of 'genetic evolution over numerous generations'. This cannot account for much faster forms of evolution such as human evolution through individual and/or social learning. Hegelian social evolution or dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) theory is a much stronger way of accounting for faster forms of evolution than classic Darwinian Theory, particularly if it too is broadened to account for 'individual and social, biological intelligence' -- i.e., the power to compensate, modify, mutate, adjust, change -- in even the smallest of animals and plants like 'ants' and 'viruses' and 'bacteria' that are not generally regarded as having 'intelligence'. Even plants can be said to have 'intelligence' in that, for example, they will bend towards the sun, and certain plants -- like say the 'pau d arco' plant -- have 'learned' to fight off and become 'immune' to, its arch enemy -- fungi -- in ways that can only be described as 'learned over time' and 'immune function based on plant intelligence'.
All of this brings us back to the question of, 'Where did this intelligence come from?', and was/is there something 'more all-encompassing, and/or more all-overseeing' that put this type of 'evolutionary intelligence' into every animal, mineral, and plant on earth.
Now it is a major leap of 'faith', 'trust', 'assumption', 'presumption', or a 'suspension of disbelief' as they say in the entertainment business, to jump from 'intellignet design' theory and even the idea of an 'intelligent designer' -- which could be a more intelligent race of people from a different world who may be playing with this world as their 'hobby' or 'university course' -- to the idea of 'God' which include many, many more assumptions -- and probably man-made 'idealistic projections' -- than an 'intelligent designer' theory.
Thus, as an empirically and rationally based philosopher (or at least that is what I would like to think that I am), I can state with conviction that the idea of an 'intelligent designer' theory can be rationally and empirically supported; however, the 'leap of faith' if you will, or 'leap into metaphysics', or 'suspension of disbelief' that takes us from intelligent designer theory to 'God' -- cannot be rationally, empirically, and/or epistemologically supported in the same way.
We look back now at the many 'Gods' of the ancient Greeks -- a 'God of War', a 'God of Love', etc. -- and we partly smile and call them 'myths'.
What would cause us to believe that the 'one God' that many people believe in today, and that most religions righteously trumpet, would be any less of a 'myth' than the 20 Gods that are now being called a myth, some 2700 years ago.
There is only one possible reason: many people NEED to believe in God (for example, fear of death) -- even if this means 'suspending their epistemological sense of disbelief' in order to sustain their belief in God's existence -- and an 'afterlife'.
This is not to say that all myths are bad; there are plenty of myths, fairy tales -- and Gods -- that may, indeed do, play a useful and functional role in man's life (eg. Santa Clause, Peter Pan, the tooth fairy, and so on...)
However, from an empirical philosopher's point of view, the existence of God cannot be rationally supported -- are we really to believe that 'God' has no 'lifespan' and no 'physical presence or boundaries'. (If we believe that God has no boundaries, then we are, in effect, getting close to Spinoza's idea of spiritual pantheism -- 'God is Nature' or 'God is everywhere and in everything'.
Any orthodox or unorhodox form of religion or belief in God is simply a different form of myth. If you want to -- or need to -- choose a 'God' myth; just make sure that it is beneficial to both you and the people around you, and be tolerant of other people's 'myths' as long as they do not violate any human rights laws as put forth by the United Nations, and/or any and every humanistic country that does not tolerate religious suppression and violence.
Whether you are a Muslim, a Catholic, a Protestant, an Anglican, a Mormon, a Jew, or a Spinozian Pantheist, the question of importance is not whether your God 'exists' or not; but rather, whether you are a 'better' or 'worse' person for your belief in the 'myth' of 'God'.
Mythologically and functionally, 'God' -- in any form -- can be supported, if it makes you a better person to yourself and others. Epistemologically, the existence of God can't -- at least not based on any kind of rational philosophical empiricism that I can come up with.
I do not have any problem with the president of The United States being a mormon -- or any other 'humanistic' religion.
However, I have a big problem with politics, the State, and religion being epistemologically and ethically connected.
You do not bring a myth to epistemology, law, science, or politics any more than you would a fairy tale; and you do not lead a country based on either a myth or a fairy tale in situations where good, sound, credible, reliable, empirical epistemology is what is needed.
Thus, when and where I use the term and concept 'God', I am using it symbolically, mythologically, and spiritually -- but not epistemoligically. This is a very, very important distinction, not only for me, but for anyone who is seriously interested in digging into the ethical merit of their religion, and the relative health or pathology of the particular religious ideas that they are being asked or told to 'buy into'.
Ask not first what you can do for your religion, but rather what your religion can do for you, the people who are practising the religion, and the people outside of the religion. Is it helping people to live happier lives? Or is it making people miserable? Is it making the people within the religion more tolerant, caring, and peaceful towards other people? Or is it making people righteously intolerant, unaccepting, even aggressive and violent towards other people of differing religious or unreligous ideas? Is it making people submissive and masochistic? Or is it making people assertive and independent in balance with compassionate, caring, and socially sensitive and giving? I am looking for a new evolution and breed of religions -- of any name or faith be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other form of religion -- that is based on 'humanistic-existential values and ethics'; not squashing the same.
db
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Who's Projecting What? Did God Create Man In His/Her Own Image? Or Did Man Create God In His Own Image?
Who is projecting what? Is God dead or alive? Male or
female? Black, white, or brown? Finite or infinite?
Abstract or concrete? Good or evil? Against the devil?
Or associated with the devil? Is God the whole? Or did
God create the whole? Is God nature? Or did God create
mature? Can religion be mixed with philosophy?
Science? Politics? Law? Or must religion be totally
separated from all of these more 'epistemological' as opposed to 'mystical', 'spiritual', and 'faith-oriented' domains?
This is perhaps the craziest, most convoluted essay I
will ever write. If you can follow this, you can
perhaps follow me to the most convoluted corners of my
mind. Or maybe it is not so crazy. I just finished
writing it and maybe I 'uncrazied' it. One way or the
other, this is what over 30 years of studying
psychology and philosophy can do to you. When
Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Confucious, the Han
Philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augistine,
Spinoza, Hegel, Darwin, Kierkegaarde, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Beckett, Freud, Jung, Adler,
Korzybski, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...are your
bedfellows, your mind goes to rather strange places.
Nietzsche wrote, 'God is Dead!' I write: 'God is very
much alive and working partly through all my strange
bedfellows.
Am I a religious person? Or an atheist? An agnostic? A
pantheist? A deist? All of the above? Or none of the
above? I'm still scratching my head. You read what is
to follow and you try to figure it out. For the moment
-- everything subject to change -- I think I feel most
comfortable calling myself an 'An
Anaxamanerian-Heraclitean-Platonic-Aristotlean-Spinozian-Hegelian-Darwinian
Pantheist'. You can quote me on that. I think I like
it. But if I was writing in Spinoza's time, I would
probably have to be a lot more careful about what I
was writing. Indeed, I probably wouldn't write it. I
don't have Spinoza's courage.
If you are a 'conservative, either/or person', then
you will probably not like what I have to write. If
you are a more liberal, flexible, integrative person,
then you may or may not like what I have to write. But
my odds are much better with you.
You cannot separate man from his/her egotism,
narcissism, and hedonism. And sometimes these three
factors make strange bedfellows as man tries to
wrestle between wanting to be an animal and wanting to
be God, wanting to be Apollo and wanting to be
Dionysius, wanting to be his/her 'Id' and wanting to
be his/her 'Superego'. Wanting to be his/her
'Personna' and wanting to be his/her 'Shadow', wanting
to be 'little' and wanting to be 'big', wanting to be
'inferior' and wanting to be 'superior', wanting to be
a 'topdog' and wanting to be an 'underdog', wanting to
be real and wanting to be manipulative, wanting to
'act in Good Faith and wanting to act in Bad Faith,
wanting to be associated with God and wanting to be
associated with the Devil...Need I go on?
The full embodiment of man's paradoxes are endless,
countless -- no philosopher could or can ever get to
them all. Man wants to be an animal. And man wants to
be God. Man wants to be powerful. And man wants to be
powerless. Man wants to pray to God. And man wants to
BE God.
I wrote a semi-poem a few years ago called, 'God is
the Bridge'. You can read it not far below. It was
very much a culmination -- and a spiritual embodiment
-- of my work, my philosophy up to the point that I
wrote it. It still is. And yet I look at my work, I
look at my philosophy, and I see that my philosophy --
and indirectly me through my philosophy -- is also
trying very much to be 'The Grandest of all Grand
Narratives', the 'Biggest of All Bridges'. I am trying
to take my philosophy closer to 'The Absolute' than
Hegel ever did, or ever was. Does that mean that Hegel
was 'right' in his 'dialectical theory' and in his
theory of 'The Absolute'. Or does it mean that I am a
bigger egotist than Hegel? Kierkegaard? Schopenhauer?
Marx? Nietzshe? Freud? Jung? Adler? Perls? Do you have
to write a great philosophy to be a great egotist? Or
do you have to be a great egotist to be a great
philosopher? Is philosophy any different than anything
else that man does -- or attempts to do. There are
priests and ministers who stand up at the pulpit every
Sunday morning -- indeed, I can find them on my tv in
the darkest hours of every night and the earliest
hours of every morning. They would like you and I to
think that they are the 'bridge to God'.
Look at my work and tell me that I am not trying to do
the same thing -- perhaps in a more 'secular' or
'semi-secular', 'spiritual pantheist' way. 'God is the
Bridge' is the spiritual embodiment of everything that
I have to say in my philosophy. I am writing that 'God
is the Bridge' but at the same time I am trying to
write a philosophy that 'creates a
multi-dialectic-wholistic bridge to and between man
and and man and woman and nature and God'. God is man
-- and man is partly God because man is an embodiment
of God's work. (Or is it the other way around? To be a
philosopher -- a good one anyway -- is always to be a
skeptic. Is God above Nature? Or are God and Nature
and Man all 'dialectically and wholistically
interconnected'? I opt for the latter approach. That
is what makes me a 'Hegelian-Spinozian pantheist' (to
shorten my spiritual title down a bit). I see man,
God, and Nature all spiritually, dialectically, and
wholistically connected. I see Creation and Evolution
both interconnected in an
Anaxamanerian-Heraclitean-Platonic-Aristitolean-Confucian-Spinozian-Hegelian
-Nietzshean
way.
When I get to Nietzsche, you will read my
interpretation of Nietzsche as I write about the
'Abyss', the 'Tightrope', and Nietzshe's
'Superman-will to power-will-to-excel' philosophy.
Nietzsche can divorce himself as much as he wants from
Hegel -- but I bring Nietzsche back to Hegel. For me,
his first book, The Birth of Tragedy -- Nietzsche's
first book and totally Hegelian in its construction, a
foreshadowing, a precursor, to Psychoanalysis before
Freud built Psychoanalysis -- is as important to me
and to the overall evolution of Western philosophy as
Nietzsche's supposedly more 'mature anti-Hegelian
work' later on. Freud re-connected Hegel and
Nietzsche. Jung re-connected Hegel and Nietzsche.
Perls re-connected Hegel and Nietzsche. Gap-DGB
Philosophy re-connects Hegel and Nietzsche in a way
that has perhaps never been clearly articulated
before. What is Nietzsche's Superman Philosophy and
his 'Will to Power -- or Will to Self-Empowerment',
his 'abyss' and 'tightrope' philosophy other than a
'chemical union' between Hegel and Nietzsche --
arguably the greatest philosophical chemical union in
the history of Western Philosophy. A union of reason
and passion, structure and anti-structure, structure
and process, being and becoming -- through the
evolutionary process of the dialectic. If God created
this world, then He or She created it through the
principle of the dialectic and the priniciple of
'optimal and/or homeostatic and/or dialectical
balance' -- man and woman coming together in a
chemical union both sexually and spiritually, Hegel
and Nietzsche coming together in a philosophical union
between dialectical reason and dialectical passion.
God is the Bridge but He/She is the Bridge through the
embodiment of Man and Woman and Nature and their Union
all together, as well as the embodiment of every man
and woman in all of their individual and collective
creative achievements and potentialities, in the work
of every philosopher and psychologist, every
politician and economist out there that you or I could
ever read about. And meanwhile, while God is the
Bridge that links everything and everyone together,
both dialectically and wholistically, in war and
diplomacy, life and death, love and hate, Apollo and
Dionysius, Good and Evil -- but more harmoniously in
dialectical-democratic creative negotiation rather
than trying to kill, destroy, blow each other up...and
war-mongering people seemingly trying to find a faster
way to meet God. Meanwhile, I am trying to do it a
slower, more democratic, harmonious way.
Multi-Dialectical Unity and Wholism where the
dialectic is addressed peacefully and diplomatically
through debate -- not war. But it takes two people to
debate and negotiate, and to WANT to do this rather
than to want to kill and/or overpower each other -- in
contrast, it takes only one person, or one set of
people, to create a war...God is the Bridge -- and I
am trying to meet God, man, and Nature on the Bridge
of Life, through my philosophical work...
db, Feb. 12th, 2007
female? Black, white, or brown? Finite or infinite?
Abstract or concrete? Good or evil? Against the devil?
Or associated with the devil? Is God the whole? Or did
God create the whole? Is God nature? Or did God create
mature? Can religion be mixed with philosophy?
Science? Politics? Law? Or must religion be totally
separated from all of these more 'epistemological' as opposed to 'mystical', 'spiritual', and 'faith-oriented' domains?
This is perhaps the craziest, most convoluted essay I
will ever write. If you can follow this, you can
perhaps follow me to the most convoluted corners of my
mind. Or maybe it is not so crazy. I just finished
writing it and maybe I 'uncrazied' it. One way or the
other, this is what over 30 years of studying
psychology and philosophy can do to you. When
Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Confucious, the Han
Philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augistine,
Spinoza, Hegel, Darwin, Kierkegaarde, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Beckett, Freud, Jung, Adler,
Korzybski, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...are your
bedfellows, your mind goes to rather strange places.
Nietzsche wrote, 'God is Dead!' I write: 'God is very
much alive and working partly through all my strange
bedfellows.
Am I a religious person? Or an atheist? An agnostic? A
pantheist? A deist? All of the above? Or none of the
above? I'm still scratching my head. You read what is
to follow and you try to figure it out. For the moment
-- everything subject to change -- I think I feel most
comfortable calling myself an 'An
Anaxamanerian-Heraclitean-Platonic-Aristotlean-Spinozian-Hegelian-Darwinian
Pantheist'. You can quote me on that. I think I like
it. But if I was writing in Spinoza's time, I would
probably have to be a lot more careful about what I
was writing. Indeed, I probably wouldn't write it. I
don't have Spinoza's courage.
If you are a 'conservative, either/or person', then
you will probably not like what I have to write. If
you are a more liberal, flexible, integrative person,
then you may or may not like what I have to write. But
my odds are much better with you.
You cannot separate man from his/her egotism,
narcissism, and hedonism. And sometimes these three
factors make strange bedfellows as man tries to
wrestle between wanting to be an animal and wanting to
be God, wanting to be Apollo and wanting to be
Dionysius, wanting to be his/her 'Id' and wanting to
be his/her 'Superego'. Wanting to be his/her
'Personna' and wanting to be his/her 'Shadow', wanting
to be 'little' and wanting to be 'big', wanting to be
'inferior' and wanting to be 'superior', wanting to be
a 'topdog' and wanting to be an 'underdog', wanting to
be real and wanting to be manipulative, wanting to
'act in Good Faith and wanting to act in Bad Faith,
wanting to be associated with God and wanting to be
associated with the Devil...Need I go on?
The full embodiment of man's paradoxes are endless,
countless -- no philosopher could or can ever get to
them all. Man wants to be an animal. And man wants to
be God. Man wants to be powerful. And man wants to be
powerless. Man wants to pray to God. And man wants to
BE God.
I wrote a semi-poem a few years ago called, 'God is
the Bridge'. You can read it not far below. It was
very much a culmination -- and a spiritual embodiment
-- of my work, my philosophy up to the point that I
wrote it. It still is. And yet I look at my work, I
look at my philosophy, and I see that my philosophy --
and indirectly me through my philosophy -- is also
trying very much to be 'The Grandest of all Grand
Narratives', the 'Biggest of All Bridges'. I am trying
to take my philosophy closer to 'The Absolute' than
Hegel ever did, or ever was. Does that mean that Hegel
was 'right' in his 'dialectical theory' and in his
theory of 'The Absolute'. Or does it mean that I am a
bigger egotist than Hegel? Kierkegaard? Schopenhauer?
Marx? Nietzshe? Freud? Jung? Adler? Perls? Do you have
to write a great philosophy to be a great egotist? Or
do you have to be a great egotist to be a great
philosopher? Is philosophy any different than anything
else that man does -- or attempts to do. There are
priests and ministers who stand up at the pulpit every
Sunday morning -- indeed, I can find them on my tv in
the darkest hours of every night and the earliest
hours of every morning. They would like you and I to
think that they are the 'bridge to God'.
Look at my work and tell me that I am not trying to do
the same thing -- perhaps in a more 'secular' or
'semi-secular', 'spiritual pantheist' way. 'God is the
Bridge' is the spiritual embodiment of everything that
I have to say in my philosophy. I am writing that 'God
is the Bridge' but at the same time I am trying to
write a philosophy that 'creates a
multi-dialectic-wholistic bridge to and between man
and and man and woman and nature and God'. God is man
-- and man is partly God because man is an embodiment
of God's work. (Or is it the other way around? To be a
philosopher -- a good one anyway -- is always to be a
skeptic. Is God above Nature? Or are God and Nature
and Man all 'dialectically and wholistically
interconnected'? I opt for the latter approach. That
is what makes me a 'Hegelian-Spinozian pantheist' (to
shorten my spiritual title down a bit). I see man,
God, and Nature all spiritually, dialectically, and
wholistically connected. I see Creation and Evolution
both interconnected in an
Anaxamanerian-Heraclitean-Platonic-Aristitolean-Confucian-Spinozian-Hegelian
-Nietzshean
way.
When I get to Nietzsche, you will read my
interpretation of Nietzsche as I write about the
'Abyss', the 'Tightrope', and Nietzshe's
'Superman-will to power-will-to-excel' philosophy.
Nietzsche can divorce himself as much as he wants from
Hegel -- but I bring Nietzsche back to Hegel. For me,
his first book, The Birth of Tragedy -- Nietzsche's
first book and totally Hegelian in its construction, a
foreshadowing, a precursor, to Psychoanalysis before
Freud built Psychoanalysis -- is as important to me
and to the overall evolution of Western philosophy as
Nietzsche's supposedly more 'mature anti-Hegelian
work' later on. Freud re-connected Hegel and
Nietzsche. Jung re-connected Hegel and Nietzsche.
Perls re-connected Hegel and Nietzsche. Gap-DGB
Philosophy re-connects Hegel and Nietzsche in a way
that has perhaps never been clearly articulated
before. What is Nietzsche's Superman Philosophy and
his 'Will to Power -- or Will to Self-Empowerment',
his 'abyss' and 'tightrope' philosophy other than a
'chemical union' between Hegel and Nietzsche --
arguably the greatest philosophical chemical union in
the history of Western Philosophy. A union of reason
and passion, structure and anti-structure, structure
and process, being and becoming -- through the
evolutionary process of the dialectic. If God created
this world, then He or She created it through the
principle of the dialectic and the priniciple of
'optimal and/or homeostatic and/or dialectical
balance' -- man and woman coming together in a
chemical union both sexually and spiritually, Hegel
and Nietzsche coming together in a philosophical union
between dialectical reason and dialectical passion.
God is the Bridge but He/She is the Bridge through the
embodiment of Man and Woman and Nature and their Union
all together, as well as the embodiment of every man
and woman in all of their individual and collective
creative achievements and potentialities, in the work
of every philosopher and psychologist, every
politician and economist out there that you or I could
ever read about. And meanwhile, while God is the
Bridge that links everything and everyone together,
both dialectically and wholistically, in war and
diplomacy, life and death, love and hate, Apollo and
Dionysius, Good and Evil -- but more harmoniously in
dialectical-democratic creative negotiation rather
than trying to kill, destroy, blow each other up...and
war-mongering people seemingly trying to find a faster
way to meet God. Meanwhile, I am trying to do it a
slower, more democratic, harmonious way.
Multi-Dialectical Unity and Wholism where the
dialectic is addressed peacefully and diplomatically
through debate -- not war. But it takes two people to
debate and negotiate, and to WANT to do this rather
than to want to kill and/or overpower each other -- in
contrast, it takes only one person, or one set of
people, to create a war...God is the Bridge -- and I
am trying to meet God, man, and Nature on the Bridge
of Life, through my philosophical work...
db, Feb. 12th, 2007
Email Feedback From My Dad
Gordon Bain" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: God is the Bridge
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:50:31 -0400
I am having some trying days of late, but today is bright and while it
is
cold, it is fun to think.
I go back a little and come to your God is a Bridge thinking, or is Man
the
Bridge?
It occurs to me that without question, God is the Bridge.
There are countless times in life when the load gets heavy, and you
must try
to understand the unthinkable...the questions for which there are no
logical
answers. It is then we can look to the stars and imagine beyond, as
your
mother does most every clear night. She is not crazy with man contrived
theological passions. She simply finds solace and calmness in the
belief of
a greater power ... God...and allows her uncertainties and unanswerable
questions ..indeed all of her hurts and despair .. and we all have
them.. to
ride the stars (read that crossing the bridge) through the vastness of
incalculable space to a place of perfection, serenity and
understanding. It
is a bright and happy place where a person can set their load down, and
find
solace. It allows her to have inner strength that is enviable. In other
words that which she cannot understand she gives to God.
It is said you rarely see an athiest in the heat of battle. In truth,
most
all of the world with its billions of people believe in a greater
power. We
are in a state of self love and me..ness right now. If those less
endowed
could not reach out to their God, how could they bridge the death and
destruction of world savagery, or explain their children dying of
hunger and
disease?
I think your Mom is right. I have thought about it a lot in my time,
tried
to be smart, said clever things to suggest I had an angle on the
religion
thing. I come back to the simple belief in a greater power. As Einstein
remarked in his later life, no matter how many answers are found, there
are
ten thousand times more that are unexplainable except to view and
explain it
as the work of a greater power. Paraphrased and pulled from my memory
of
what he said, but that is the gist of it.
So David, I was quite fascinated with your God is the Bridge poem, for
all
of the reasons given. I hold that the title is suggestive, soothing,
and
meaningful. It is worthy of a scholar's rendering. However, it would be
easy
to crash under the weight of needing to have this God-like state proven
beyond a shadow of doubt. Then it would be a bridge to nothingness,
literally.
Dad
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: God is the Bridge
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:50:31 -0400
I am having some trying days of late, but today is bright and while it
is
cold, it is fun to think.
I go back a little and come to your God is a Bridge thinking, or is Man
the
Bridge?
It occurs to me that without question, God is the Bridge.
There are countless times in life when the load gets heavy, and you
must try
to understand the unthinkable...the questions for which there are no
logical
answers. It is then we can look to the stars and imagine beyond, as
your
mother does most every clear night. She is not crazy with man contrived
theological passions. She simply finds solace and calmness in the
belief of
a greater power ... God...and allows her uncertainties and unanswerable
questions ..indeed all of her hurts and despair .. and we all have
them.. to
ride the stars (read that crossing the bridge) through the vastness of
incalculable space to a place of perfection, serenity and
understanding. It
is a bright and happy place where a person can set their load down, and
find
solace. It allows her to have inner strength that is enviable. In other
words that which she cannot understand she gives to God.
It is said you rarely see an athiest in the heat of battle. In truth,
most
all of the world with its billions of people believe in a greater
power. We
are in a state of self love and me..ness right now. If those less
endowed
could not reach out to their God, how could they bridge the death and
destruction of world savagery, or explain their children dying of
hunger and
disease?
I think your Mom is right. I have thought about it a lot in my time,
tried
to be smart, said clever things to suggest I had an angle on the
religion
thing. I come back to the simple belief in a greater power. As Einstein
remarked in his later life, no matter how many answers are found, there
are
ten thousand times more that are unexplainable except to view and
explain it
as the work of a greater power. Paraphrased and pulled from my memory
of
what he said, but that is the gist of it.
So David, I was quite fascinated with your God is the Bridge poem, for
all
of the reasons given. I hold that the title is suggestive, soothing,
and
meaningful. It is worthy of a scholar's rendering. However, it would be
easy
to crash under the weight of needing to have this God-like state proven
beyond a shadow of doubt. Then it would be a bridge to nothingness,
literally.
Dad
Monday, February 19, 2007
Email Feedback From One of My Readers -- Paul Baioni -- on Essay 18.2.
Introduction,
Paul and I have had -- and still have -- our differences of opinion mainly on the issue of 'freewill vs. determinism' but I enjoy his counter-arguments and differences of opinion just the same. Here is a sample of his style and content of philosophical argument. Also, I thank Paul for keeping up with his emails not only for the content of his feedback, and the development of his own ideas, but also -- and yes this is a 'narcissistic reason' -- partly because as in this case, I have accidently lost or deleted one of my essays, or an old version of one of my essays and then been able to recover it again through our emails. db
.....................................................................................
Hello Dave,
Whoa, I think you need a break!!!! Just kidding. You asked more
questions
than I believe you answered for sure. I have read it once, and will
read it
again. I can follow this, mostly at least, because I am not as
intimately
familiar with the works and teachings of these philosophers and such as
you
are. Even though I have only a partial understanding, I can grasp the
concepts rather easily and can understand the dilemma that you are
questioning. And in that light I would like to respond in my own rather
simplified way of reasoning and understanding of man and our existence.
Of
course you know my position, and I know yours, contrasting styles in
many
ways, not only in presentation but also conceptually.
You reference God in such a variety of ways that you definitely are
struggling with the concept of his existence. You even to some extent
question his existence. God is alive, God is everything, God is dead,
and
God is nothing. Does that clear it up for you????? Let me explain if I
can
in a more detailed way.
God is alive in the sense that he plays a very important role in our
society. God(s) has/have been the explanation for everything that man
in his
limited wisdom has been unable to explain. If I don't know, it must be
God
sent, or created by God, or at the hands of God, or the work of God.
God has
also been associated with everything that man considers good, just as
the
Devil is associated with evil. Blind faith in God is a very strong
influence
for man. A belief, especially a strong one, no matter what the source
is, or
its verifiability, its origin, SP, IP, religion or whatever, is real to
man
and drives man's actions. Based on the fact that he exerts such a
strong
indirect influence in society, he is very much alive.
God is everything. God is responsible for everything that we know,
everything we see, feel, dream, every experience, and every event in
our
lives. God is responsible for the evolution of everything in man's
existence, good, evil, finite, infinite, pleasure and pain, physical
and
mental, therefore being the creator, his is everything that evolution
has
produced. He is all positive and negative energies. Polar concepts just
like
so many other things in our lives. God is also the energy that drives
it
all, the light, electromagnetic, sound, and every other influence that
the
scientists have been able to discover, conceptualize and those they
have yet
to imagine. It all ties together to form our existence. God truly is
everything. God is Nature, not just earthly nature, but the natural
order of
things, physics laws, etc.
God is dead. In man's limited understanding of our existence, God is
totally
an indirect influence, he is a creator, but not a controller. By not
having
direct influence, he could easily be considered dead. We can not
imagine his
being, we can not understand his power or influence. We truly do not
know
God for what he really is. Failing to understand, failing to define,
failing
to find any verifiable evidence of his existence, in human terms God is
dead. Do we have any physical evidence to support anything that has
been
conceived to be God?
God is nothing. There is no God except as having been defined by
scripture.
His influence is only imaginary, that is, being only an influence
because
man has defined him as an influence in many ways through the
scriptures. He
has basically only been defined in man's mind. God neither controls nor
manipulates anything. He is purely creation, that is all. By
definition,
things without influence of any kind are deemed non-existent, for every
other known thing in our existence exerts influence of some kind. A
vacuum,
void of any element of any kind is considered sterile, nothingness,
much
like the vast majority of space found in our universe.
Religion is philosophy, both are based on pure beliefs, faith,
conceptualizations of the unproveable. Politics and law are man created
philosophies, but based on the individual IP's of those that created
them,
similar to religion except that religion is based on perceptions of an
unknown, while politics and law are based more upon a democratic
process of
creation. Science is also based on perceptions, but grounded in
empirical
evidence, thereby differentiating it from religion which is based upon
conjecture. Lacking in many ways a democratic process of creation, it
also
differs from politics and law. They are similar in the respect to the
influence they carry on our beliefs, our IP, and SP in general. All are
intricate to the creation of all other philosophies, individual and
social.
Man's is an emotional and mental mess, driven by so many humanly
natural
desires which are all based on what we consider polar concepts. The
internal
struggle is very real for it is based on our beliefs, real or
imaginary, and
they are what drive our IP and our resulting actions and our paths in
life.
This is the basis of all human existence. To say that any one is better
or
worse than another is purely subjective, for they are all natural and
all
purely human desires and emotions. To grade them as good or bad is to
measure them in light of SP. SP exists in all forms with extremely
varying
concepts. To Americans, SP is grounded in totally different
fundamentals
than anywhere else in the world. All SPs are developed from collective
IP of
their creators, so each is based on equal ground. So how can we stand
in
judgment of SP's that are different from our own? Were they not created
from
the same source, from the same creator, God, since he is ultimately
responsible for our entire existence? Does he judge one over another?
Does
he not influence the creation of all, dare I say through the natural
evolution of everything? So how can we judge what he does not? Man is
the
embodiment of all desires, yes I agree with you on that, and that is
such a
natural thing that we dare not argue with that, but is that bad or
wrong? I
say not!!!!!!
Does that mean I have to accept everything that is against what I
believe?
No again. My IP is my personal guide, just as with everyone else. If I
perceive injustice, it is my choice to react or to let live. If the
injustice is such that I feel the need to react, to counteract the pain
created for others, then that is my prerogative, just as everyone has
the
choice to act according to their own IP.
Humans are perfect. Humans are terribly flawed. Humans are everything
that
we are, nothing more or less than we were created to be. We live as we
must,
and die when we will. We have little control over our birth and almost
as
little control over our death. We live, we breathe, we learn, we
develop, we
are inhabited by an IP that is created and formulated from genetics and
environment, and it guides our actions until one day we live no more.
This
totally natural process occurs mostly with minimal control. We suffer,
we
rejoice, we feel for others while ignoring most of what happens around
us,
we exist in a world that could end through no fault of our own. Our
time is
limited, highly controlled by nature, and in that respect we are
terribly
flawed.
I have read your poem, "God is the Bridge." You basically admit to the
fact
that everything is connected. You talked about an absolute, a meaning
to it
all, the essence of our existence, which is basically the concept that
I
have tried to impress upon you from the beginning. Everything is
connected
through nature. Man, earth, God and the entire universe. There is a
bridge
and it is a very simple concept, the absolute meaning of it all.
Everything
you wrote is true, you just can't seem to take the final leap and give
up
the notion of control. To be totally connected, to be totally equal, to
be
totally bridged, we must come to a single thread of truth about our
existence. All men were created equal, in fact, everything in our
existence
was created equally, all emotions and desires are equal, all are
evolved,
all are uncontrollable (in a very basic sense), and all interact in a
way
that drives our existence, our evolution, our creation and our demise.
If
you take away any single part of our existence, things will change, the
evolution will be altered and forever cast in a new light. It doesn't
matter
what that thing is, it impacts. Our thoughts will change, our beliefs
will
be altered, our actions will shift, and all this shifts the evolution
for
everyone. Every single action is accounted for, every single thought is
accounted for, every single physical/natural event is accounted for and
it
all occurs in the same natural environment known as the evolution of
our
existence.
But you are wrong about one statement you made. It takes two to start a
war,
not just one. If I have something you want, and I am not willing to
give it
to you voluntarily, then I am contributing to the war. If I have
beliefs
that make it impossible for me to cede control or to give up, then I am
also
creating the war. For if you hit me, and I do not hit back, there would
be
no war. So to say that one person can create war is wrong. Many people
tried
to create war on Jesus, and his apostles, but without retaliatory
efforts,
there was no war. This sometimes leads to an extermination effort, such
as
the Jews in Germany, or the Crusades, or many other similar actions by
insane humans, but that is not war. Just like they say it takes two to
tango, it takes two to start a war. I could go much deeper into this,
but
time does not permit that here.
You fear that you may be considered an evangelist (maybe an
exaggeration),
but when you consider that you are attempting to influence people
concerning
concepts that are highly personal in nature, the way we feel, what we
believe, then yes you could be considered in that light. When you try
to
tell others that what they are doing or what they believe or feel is
wrong,
then you are seen in a very similar light. If you hold yourself to a
strictly objective level and present facts without judgment (for that
is a
very personal and subjective thing) then you will be okay. You can
influence
without criticism, for people get defensive when you tell them that
what
they believe is wrong, or bad. Do not insult someone's intelligence by
telling them that their personal beliefs are wrong, let them figure it
out
for themselves. If I read what you write and am influenced by it, then
that
is okay, but don't ever tell me what to believe or that what I believe
is
wrong, at least not directly. Stay objective, present facts and let
people
do with that information what they want, or what they will.
God and nature are one in the same, man is a byproduct of those forces
that
were created billions of years ago, by whom, or what I do not know. But
I do
believe that everything has all evolved and is continually evolving,
being
and becoming. We never will be, we are always becoming.
Personally, I rather enjoyed reading through your personal dilemma. Is
that
morbid for me to enjoy your personal struggle? I think it is wonderful
that
you are curious enough to push the envelope of our limited
comprehension,
seeking enlightenment. You crave knowledge and understanding and that
is a
great personal attribute to have. The struggle of comprehension is the
pain
which makes the gains all that more enjoyable, for without
understanding
suffering, we know not joy. I, like you, understand the connection
between
conflict, the challenging dialectic that builds bridges of
understanding.
The greater the bridge, the closer we get to the "absolute". Keep up
the
construction, one day you may find what gives you peace, the inner
peace
that comes from an ultimate understanding of our existence. In that
search
somewhere, you will realize the importance that acceptance of the
uncontrollable plays in that. I may hold different beliefs, but my
level of
inner peace is very high, and that is what all humans seek, for with
that
comes the ability to be happy, to grow, expand and reach our true
potential.
The negatives surrounding the unknown fade and all energies are focused
on
positive growth and greater peace.
Did I grasp your concepts well enough, I could have addressed each
statement
individually, but I felt that I understood enough to cover my response
in a
broader sense. Was I right or did I miss the whole point?
Good luck and back to you,
Paul
.....................................................................................
The main purpose of any humanistic religion -- as I see it -- is to counter-balance man's propensity for selfishness, greed, excess, egotism and narcissism with the opposite characteristics such as altruism, caring, love, generosity, helping people who are struggling, moderation, ethics and morality. Much of this is supposed to be taught in families and at school as well being demonstrated by good role models in society such as politicians. But as religion loses power and narcissism gains power - espcially when kids see narcissism rampant at home with parents who are not getting along and/or not spending enough time at home, all of the characteristics designed to counteract human narcissism start to lose their power as well. Humanism dies the more narcissism prevails. There are two types of 'anti-humanism'. One is the anti-humanism of 'self-denial'. The second is the anti-humanism of 'narcissistic excess'. Both need to be balanced in the middle by a combination of 'self-assertiveness' and 'social sensitivity'.
Religion is still feeling the fallout of Nietzsche. Nietzsche bombarded Christiianity and Judaism with his criticisms of a 'religious herd morality' and 'the preaching of self-denial' in this life in order to atone for 'original sin' and to be accepted by God into a much better 'afterlife'. Nietzsche in particular and humanists in general protested that this was all 'balderdash' - and a waste of human life. Individualism and enjoying this life should be the ideal; not the condemned. Gradually, people took more and more heed, and orthodox religion lost more and more power.
However, as Hegel has written, and I am partly paraphrasing, 'Any theory, any philosophy, any lifestyle, any religion carries with it the seeds of its own destruction'. The limitations, weaknesses, hypocrisies, and anti-humanism of religion was exposed by Nietzsche but so too is the philosophy of Nietzsche and current Western culture and society showing all the limitations, weaknesses, hypocrisies, and anti-humanism of too much Nietzsche and too much narcissism. Ethical narcissism is leading us to to the brink of ethical nihilism.
The solution to the problem is simpler in theory than it is in practice: balance. I will try to capture the spirit of this balance and the spirit of 'humanistic religion, spirituality, deism, and/or pantheism' in the following poem that I wrote a few years ago and have been updating ever since. It is called: 'God Is The Bridge'. It idealizes balance as the 'bridge and the zone of health between pathological extremes'.
Paul and I have had -- and still have -- our differences of opinion mainly on the issue of 'freewill vs. determinism' but I enjoy his counter-arguments and differences of opinion just the same. Here is a sample of his style and content of philosophical argument. Also, I thank Paul for keeping up with his emails not only for the content of his feedback, and the development of his own ideas, but also -- and yes this is a 'narcissistic reason' -- partly because as in this case, I have accidently lost or deleted one of my essays, or an old version of one of my essays and then been able to recover it again through our emails. db
.....................................................................................
Hello Dave,
Whoa, I think you need a break!!!! Just kidding. You asked more
questions
than I believe you answered for sure. I have read it once, and will
read it
again. I can follow this, mostly at least, because I am not as
intimately
familiar with the works and teachings of these philosophers and such as
you
are. Even though I have only a partial understanding, I can grasp the
concepts rather easily and can understand the dilemma that you are
questioning. And in that light I would like to respond in my own rather
simplified way of reasoning and understanding of man and our existence.
Of
course you know my position, and I know yours, contrasting styles in
many
ways, not only in presentation but also conceptually.
You reference God in such a variety of ways that you definitely are
struggling with the concept of his existence. You even to some extent
question his existence. God is alive, God is everything, God is dead,
and
God is nothing. Does that clear it up for you????? Let me explain if I
can
in a more detailed way.
God is alive in the sense that he plays a very important role in our
society. God(s) has/have been the explanation for everything that man
in his
limited wisdom has been unable to explain. If I don't know, it must be
God
sent, or created by God, or at the hands of God, or the work of God.
God has
also been associated with everything that man considers good, just as
the
Devil is associated with evil. Blind faith in God is a very strong
influence
for man. A belief, especially a strong one, no matter what the source
is, or
its verifiability, its origin, SP, IP, religion or whatever, is real to
man
and drives man's actions. Based on the fact that he exerts such a
strong
indirect influence in society, he is very much alive.
God is everything. God is responsible for everything that we know,
everything we see, feel, dream, every experience, and every event in
our
lives. God is responsible for the evolution of everything in man's
existence, good, evil, finite, infinite, pleasure and pain, physical
and
mental, therefore being the creator, his is everything that evolution
has
produced. He is all positive and negative energies. Polar concepts just
like
so many other things in our lives. God is also the energy that drives
it
all, the light, electromagnetic, sound, and every other influence that
the
scientists have been able to discover, conceptualize and those they
have yet
to imagine. It all ties together to form our existence. God truly is
everything. God is Nature, not just earthly nature, but the natural
order of
things, physics laws, etc.
God is dead. In man's limited understanding of our existence, God is
totally
an indirect influence, he is a creator, but not a controller. By not
having
direct influence, he could easily be considered dead. We can not
imagine his
being, we can not understand his power or influence. We truly do not
know
God for what he really is. Failing to understand, failing to define,
failing
to find any verifiable evidence of his existence, in human terms God is
dead. Do we have any physical evidence to support anything that has
been
conceived to be God?
God is nothing. There is no God except as having been defined by
scripture.
His influence is only imaginary, that is, being only an influence
because
man has defined him as an influence in many ways through the
scriptures. He
has basically only been defined in man's mind. God neither controls nor
manipulates anything. He is purely creation, that is all. By
definition,
things without influence of any kind are deemed non-existent, for every
other known thing in our existence exerts influence of some kind. A
vacuum,
void of any element of any kind is considered sterile, nothingness,
much
like the vast majority of space found in our universe.
Religion is philosophy, both are based on pure beliefs, faith,
conceptualizations of the unproveable. Politics and law are man created
philosophies, but based on the individual IP's of those that created
them,
similar to religion except that religion is based on perceptions of an
unknown, while politics and law are based more upon a democratic
process of
creation. Science is also based on perceptions, but grounded in
empirical
evidence, thereby differentiating it from religion which is based upon
conjecture. Lacking in many ways a democratic process of creation, it
also
differs from politics and law. They are similar in the respect to the
influence they carry on our beliefs, our IP, and SP in general. All are
intricate to the creation of all other philosophies, individual and
social.
Man's is an emotional and mental mess, driven by so many humanly
natural
desires which are all based on what we consider polar concepts. The
internal
struggle is very real for it is based on our beliefs, real or
imaginary, and
they are what drive our IP and our resulting actions and our paths in
life.
This is the basis of all human existence. To say that any one is better
or
worse than another is purely subjective, for they are all natural and
all
purely human desires and emotions. To grade them as good or bad is to
measure them in light of SP. SP exists in all forms with extremely
varying
concepts. To Americans, SP is grounded in totally different
fundamentals
than anywhere else in the world. All SPs are developed from collective
IP of
their creators, so each is based on equal ground. So how can we stand
in
judgment of SP's that are different from our own? Were they not created
from
the same source, from the same creator, God, since he is ultimately
responsible for our entire existence? Does he judge one over another?
Does
he not influence the creation of all, dare I say through the natural
evolution of everything? So how can we judge what he does not? Man is
the
embodiment of all desires, yes I agree with you on that, and that is
such a
natural thing that we dare not argue with that, but is that bad or
wrong? I
say not!!!!!!
Does that mean I have to accept everything that is against what I
believe?
No again. My IP is my personal guide, just as with everyone else. If I
perceive injustice, it is my choice to react or to let live. If the
injustice is such that I feel the need to react, to counteract the pain
created for others, then that is my prerogative, just as everyone has
the
choice to act according to their own IP.
Humans are perfect. Humans are terribly flawed. Humans are everything
that
we are, nothing more or less than we were created to be. We live as we
must,
and die when we will. We have little control over our birth and almost
as
little control over our death. We live, we breathe, we learn, we
develop, we
are inhabited by an IP that is created and formulated from genetics and
environment, and it guides our actions until one day we live no more.
This
totally natural process occurs mostly with minimal control. We suffer,
we
rejoice, we feel for others while ignoring most of what happens around
us,
we exist in a world that could end through no fault of our own. Our
time is
limited, highly controlled by nature, and in that respect we are
terribly
flawed.
I have read your poem, "God is the Bridge." You basically admit to the
fact
that everything is connected. You talked about an absolute, a meaning
to it
all, the essence of our existence, which is basically the concept that
I
have tried to impress upon you from the beginning. Everything is
connected
through nature. Man, earth, God and the entire universe. There is a
bridge
and it is a very simple concept, the absolute meaning of it all.
Everything
you wrote is true, you just can't seem to take the final leap and give
up
the notion of control. To be totally connected, to be totally equal, to
be
totally bridged, we must come to a single thread of truth about our
existence. All men were created equal, in fact, everything in our
existence
was created equally, all emotions and desires are equal, all are
evolved,
all are uncontrollable (in a very basic sense), and all interact in a
way
that drives our existence, our evolution, our creation and our demise.
If
you take away any single part of our existence, things will change, the
evolution will be altered and forever cast in a new light. It doesn't
matter
what that thing is, it impacts. Our thoughts will change, our beliefs
will
be altered, our actions will shift, and all this shifts the evolution
for
everyone. Every single action is accounted for, every single thought is
accounted for, every single physical/natural event is accounted for and
it
all occurs in the same natural environment known as the evolution of
our
existence.
But you are wrong about one statement you made. It takes two to start a
war,
not just one. If I have something you want, and I am not willing to
give it
to you voluntarily, then I am contributing to the war. If I have
beliefs
that make it impossible for me to cede control or to give up, then I am
also
creating the war. For if you hit me, and I do not hit back, there would
be
no war. So to say that one person can create war is wrong. Many people
tried
to create war on Jesus, and his apostles, but without retaliatory
efforts,
there was no war. This sometimes leads to an extermination effort, such
as
the Jews in Germany, or the Crusades, or many other similar actions by
insane humans, but that is not war. Just like they say it takes two to
tango, it takes two to start a war. I could go much deeper into this,
but
time does not permit that here.
You fear that you may be considered an evangelist (maybe an
exaggeration),
but when you consider that you are attempting to influence people
concerning
concepts that are highly personal in nature, the way we feel, what we
believe, then yes you could be considered in that light. When you try
to
tell others that what they are doing or what they believe or feel is
wrong,
then you are seen in a very similar light. If you hold yourself to a
strictly objective level and present facts without judgment (for that
is a
very personal and subjective thing) then you will be okay. You can
influence
without criticism, for people get defensive when you tell them that
what
they believe is wrong, or bad. Do not insult someone's intelligence by
telling them that their personal beliefs are wrong, let them figure it
out
for themselves. If I read what you write and am influenced by it, then
that
is okay, but don't ever tell me what to believe or that what I believe
is
wrong, at least not directly. Stay objective, present facts and let
people
do with that information what they want, or what they will.
God and nature are one in the same, man is a byproduct of those forces
that
were created billions of years ago, by whom, or what I do not know. But
I do
believe that everything has all evolved and is continually evolving,
being
and becoming. We never will be, we are always becoming.
Personally, I rather enjoyed reading through your personal dilemma. Is
that
morbid for me to enjoy your personal struggle? I think it is wonderful
that
you are curious enough to push the envelope of our limited
comprehension,
seeking enlightenment. You crave knowledge and understanding and that
is a
great personal attribute to have. The struggle of comprehension is the
pain
which makes the gains all that more enjoyable, for without
understanding
suffering, we know not joy. I, like you, understand the connection
between
conflict, the challenging dialectic that builds bridges of
understanding.
The greater the bridge, the closer we get to the "absolute". Keep up
the
construction, one day you may find what gives you peace, the inner
peace
that comes from an ultimate understanding of our existence. In that
search
somewhere, you will realize the importance that acceptance of the
uncontrollable plays in that. I may hold different beliefs, but my
level of
inner peace is very high, and that is what all humans seek, for with
that
comes the ability to be happy, to grow, expand and reach our true
potential.
The negatives surrounding the unknown fade and all energies are focused
on
positive growth and greater peace.
Did I grasp your concepts well enough, I could have addressed each
statement
individually, but I felt that I understood enough to cover my response
in a
broader sense. Was I right or did I miss the whole point?
Good luck and back to you,
Paul
.....................................................................................
The main purpose of any humanistic religion -- as I see it -- is to counter-balance man's propensity for selfishness, greed, excess, egotism and narcissism with the opposite characteristics such as altruism, caring, love, generosity, helping people who are struggling, moderation, ethics and morality. Much of this is supposed to be taught in families and at school as well being demonstrated by good role models in society such as politicians. But as religion loses power and narcissism gains power - espcially when kids see narcissism rampant at home with parents who are not getting along and/or not spending enough time at home, all of the characteristics designed to counteract human narcissism start to lose their power as well. Humanism dies the more narcissism prevails. There are two types of 'anti-humanism'. One is the anti-humanism of 'self-denial'. The second is the anti-humanism of 'narcissistic excess'. Both need to be balanced in the middle by a combination of 'self-assertiveness' and 'social sensitivity'.
Religion is still feeling the fallout of Nietzsche. Nietzsche bombarded Christiianity and Judaism with his criticisms of a 'religious herd morality' and 'the preaching of self-denial' in this life in order to atone for 'original sin' and to be accepted by God into a much better 'afterlife'. Nietzsche in particular and humanists in general protested that this was all 'balderdash' - and a waste of human life. Individualism and enjoying this life should be the ideal; not the condemned. Gradually, people took more and more heed, and orthodox religion lost more and more power.
However, as Hegel has written, and I am partly paraphrasing, 'Any theory, any philosophy, any lifestyle, any religion carries with it the seeds of its own destruction'. The limitations, weaknesses, hypocrisies, and anti-humanism of religion was exposed by Nietzsche but so too is the philosophy of Nietzsche and current Western culture and society showing all the limitations, weaknesses, hypocrisies, and anti-humanism of too much Nietzsche and too much narcissism. Ethical narcissism is leading us to to the brink of ethical nihilism.
The solution to the problem is simpler in theory than it is in practice: balance. I will try to capture the spirit of this balance and the spirit of 'humanistic religion, spirituality, deism, and/or pantheism' in the following poem that I wrote a few years ago and have been updating ever since. It is called: 'God Is The Bridge'. It idealizes balance as the 'bridge and the zone of health between pathological extremes'.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Second Paper on Gap Humanistic-Existential Pantheism
Those who dwell...among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. . . Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. The more clearly we can focus our attention on
the wonders and realities of the universe about us,
the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Rachel Carson
In dealing with the religion one has been taught, one has a number of choices -- and this goes, not only for religion, but for everything that one has every been taught. The formula that follows incidentally, is predominantly a Gestalt formula, which is a modification of some earlier Freudian (Psychoanalytic) ideas. One can/could also easily turn or construe this in Hegelian terms as a 'Hegelian evolutionary-learning formula' as well: 1. 'Introjection' (thesis): Simply 'swallow whole' everything one has been taught and don't challenge anything that one has been taught; 2. Rebellion and Rejection (anti-thesis): Rebel against and reject everything that one has been taught -- and in essence, 'throw it all back up again, out one's mouth', because one has come to the conclusion that it is all toxic and pathological, and has not one iota of 'nutritional value'; 3. Assimilation (integration, synthesis): One 'chews' and 'absorbs' the beliefs that one concludes are 'nutritional' while 'spitting back up and out' the beliefs that one concludes are 'toxic and pathological'.
Everything that I have written, and will continue to write, in this philosophical process and system (structure) follows this basic formula -- that is why this philosophical venue is partly called 'Hegel's Hotel'. I follow classic Hegelian dialectical theory in my thinking -- with some 'humanistic-existential and non-deterministic' modifications -- which makes me a 'post-Hegelian philosopher'.
So here is the number one problem: How do I fit 'non-secular' ideas and beliefs into a 'secular philosophical process and system' -- or is attempting to do this in itself a 'pathological process' because it defies 'secular, empirical sensory validation and reasoning'? For you 'hard line secular-empirical philosophers' out there who choose to completely reject any form or type of religion that defies standard secular-empirical -epistemological principle -- and from this, choose to become either 'atheist' (don't believe in God) or 'agnostic' (have no way of proving or not proving the existence or non-existence of God), I have no problem with either of your philosophical positions. Because from a strictly 'secular, empirical, epistemological' point of view -- the point of view that has been the foundation of both our democratic system of science and medicine, and our system of law, going back at least to the 'Enlightenment' period of Western philosophy. (See both the internet 'Wikipedia' articles on the Enlightenment, and a very good synopsis of the history of the Enlightenment by Paul Brians -- underneath the Wikipedia articles (Google) Created by Paul Brians March 11, 1998. Last revised May 18, 2000. This gives a very good background on much of the 'humanistic-existential' philosophical historical tradition that is central to my own evolution of philosophical thought development -- and as such, is creating the impetus here and now to 'reconcile and integrate' these ideas with my orthodox but very liberal rendition of the Protestant beliefs that come from my family background.
View these ideas to come as being very formative, in their infancy, if you will, as I struggle to find a 'spiritual and/or religious' position that is consistent with my post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential, philosophical position. For those of you who are strongly religious in an orthodox, traditional way, you do not have to read what is to follow. You can spit my ideas out if you don't like them. Or -- if you are struggling with your own sense of 'spiritual-religous self' and are looking for some form of integrationism between 'secular-empirical, Enlightenment-Romantic philosophy' and more traditional spiritual-religous beliefs and values -- much like what Spinoza was doing in his time, and perhaps even before that, Heraclitus in his time -- then maybe you will find something below that is provocative, inspiring, innovative, and/or just some kind of quasi 'spiritual-philosophical foundation' that you can rest your head on and/or build from. Welcome to a new area of evolution in my post-Hegelian philosophical thought. This is not for the Conservative-minded.
Firstly, the main problem I have with most contemporary, hardline, orthodox religions is this:
Their appeal to the unchallenged authoritarianism -- and often the 'sado-maschocistic delivery and moral enforcement' -- of the Church, its rulers, its customs, its supposed 'revealers of the words of God' (i.e, the Pope, priests, ministers, evangelists, and the like) at the expense of what i would call more 'humanistic-existential and Enlightenment-Romantic' beliefs and values.
Now let me be very clear on this next point: sometimes, indeed oftentimes, traditional orthodox religous values and humanistic-existential, Enlightement-Romantic values are very compatible and interchangeable with each other -- especially in such areas as: 'loving, caring, altruism, generosity, helping others, particularly helping those who are struggling in whatever way, family values, and so on...'
Where traditional, orthodox religions and proponents of humanistic-existential, Enlightenment-Romantic values tend to split company -- not totally but to a significant degree -- is in such inter-related areas as: hedonism, narcissism, sex and sexuality, sensuality, egotism, individualism, rebelliousness, 'living in the here-and-now -- and enjoying it' -- and the like.
For most proponents of humanistic-existential and Enlightenment-Romantic values, I would say that there is generally much more of a 'liberal-mindedness, an acceptance and/or a tolerance' of a significant degree of the types of 'narcissistic-hedonistic' activities mentioned above that is not generally nearly as accepted and/or tolerated as by most orthodox religions.
The reason is simple: the orthodox religions know as well as anyone -- or better -- that human narcissim and hedonism can, when it is taken too far, be the root of much human evil, destructiveness, and self-destructiveness.
However, paradoxically, hedonism and narcissism can also be the core of much human pleasure and enjoyment in living. To eliminate all forms of human hedonism and narcissism from living -- which I would say is next to impossible because they are 'hard-wired' into us -- arguably by 'God', perhaps partly for reasons of continuing Creation and Evolution (would anyone -- or nearly as many people, as often -- have sexual intercourse if the experience was generally 'painful'?).
Thus, proponents of orthodox religious beliefs and values have, can, and do, come into conflict with proponents of Humanistic-Existential-Romantic-Enlightenment beliefs and values (let's short form this and call the latter types 'HERE' types) over the extent of how much 'hedonism' and 'narcissism' should play a part in people's 'normal, moral, day-to-day behavior and living'.
How do we resolve this conflict? Or do we?
The argument goes a long way back -- back to the 14th and 15th century. I cite the Paul Brians article from the internet mentioned above:
.......................................................................................
The Renaissance Humanists
In the 14th and 15th century there emerged in Italy and France a group of thinkers known as the "humanists." The term did not then have the anti-religious associations it has in contemporary political debate. Almost all of them were practicing Catholics. They argued that the proper worship of God involved admiration of his creation, and in particular of that crown of creation: humanity. By celebrating the human race and its capacities they argued they were worshiping God more appropriately than gloomy priests and monks who harped on original sin and continuously called upon people to confess and humble themselves before the Almighty. Indeed, some of them claimed that humans were like God, created not only in his image, but with a share of his creative power. The painter, the architect, the musician, and the scholar, by exercising their intellectual powers, were fulfilling divine purposes.
This celebration of human capacity, though it was mixed in the Renaissance with elements of gloom and superstition (witchcraft trials flourished in this period as they never had during the Middle Ages), was to bestow a powerful legacy on Europeans. The goal of Renaissance humanists was to recapture some of the pride, breadth of spirit, and creativity of the ancient Greeks and Romans, to replicate their successes and go beyond them. Europeans developed the belief that tradition could and should be used to promote change. By cleaning and sharpening the tools of antiquity, they could reshape their own time.
.....................................................................................
This shows that humanism (or humanistic-existentialism) and religion do not need to be divorced from each other but often are divorced from each other on matters of what it means -- and/or should mean -- to be human.
The philosophical problem for me becomes: how do I philosophically, morally, and spiritually reconcile and/or integrate -- if this is possible -- Nietzsche, religion, humanism, and existentialism? And how do I reconcile and/or integrate -- again if this is possible -- Nietzsche's most infamous and provocative philosophical assertion, 'God is dead!', with religion, spirituality, humanism, and humanistic-existentialism?
Let me get a number of Gap-DGBN definitions onto paper and working as a backdrop here as quickly as possible:
1. 'Gap' refers to the 'void(s)', the 'abyss(es)' in human existence, in human philosophy, in truth, in ethics, in all of human life and culture...The term 'gap' was first taken from a Gestalt book by Fritz Perls where he said -- and I am paraphrasing here because it could take me a while to find the exact quote (it was about 20 years ago that I read it) -- that his form of psychotherapy (Gestalt Therapy) basically dealt with diagnosing and dialectically working with the 'gaps in peoples lives and personalities'.
2. 'DGBN' is an acronym partly for: 1. my name; 2. 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations' (which is what I am doing here in this essay as well in most of my other essays); and 3. 'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism' which is my main lament and criticism against Western culture.
3. 'Humanism' in Gap-DGBN Philosophy refers to 'compassion', 'empathy', 'sensitivity', 'altruism', 'love', 'generosity', 'caring' in human philosophy and human behavior;
4. 'Existentialism' in Gap-DGBN Philosophy refers to the 'accountability' of each and everyone of us to our own 'selfhood', and a 'willingness to take responsibility for own own thoughts, feelings, actions, and lack of actions, capabilities, potentialities, limitations, failures, successes...and 'bridging the gap between being and becoming' both in our personal lives and ideally in the betterment of mankind...
5. Humanistic-existentialism integrates the best of both capitalist and socialist ideology and idealism -- human self-assertiveness and individuality with human compassion, sensitivity, and caring about others.
Now where does Nietzsche fit in the scheme of these definitions? I would call Nietzsche a full blown existentialist (individualist) but not a humanist in the sense that Nietzsche did not philosophically, or in his own life, show much, if any, support for human empathy, compassion, altruism, caring about others, etc. His was a very 'un-compassionate' philosophy -- Capitalist-narcissistic-conservative ideology and idealism both at its best in terms of its existential-individualistic values and its worst in terms of its hard line narcissistic-ultra-Darwinian idea of 'who cares if you walk over your neighbor and what he or she wants as long as you get what you want'. Nietzsche -- even if he was totally against Nazism, German Nationalism, and Antisemitism -- still did/does not sound like he was a very compassionate, caring, humanistic person. It was all about Nietzsche and his own personal and philosophical brand of narcissism. From what From what I have read, he fell significantly in love at least twice, maybe three times -- and does not seem to have much success in love -- spurned twice in two different marriage proposals with two different women (1. a young Dutch woman, Mathilde Trampedach, in 1876; and 2. a young Russian girl, Lou Andreas-Salome, in 1882, who later became an intimate of Freud); and -- perhaps he even fell in love with Richard Wagner's wife Cosima -- see Alan Ryan's short essay on the internet, 'The Will To Madness', January 24th, 1999...
The Will to Madness
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story of Friedrich Nietzsche's fateful relationship with Richard and Cosima Wagner.
By ALAN RYAN
....................................................................................
Nietzsche was not without friends but for the most part he was a usually physically sick and, from most accounts, was a psychologically lonely man who perhaps -- and this is my interpretation -- compensated for some of the core of his deficiencies in health and love -- with a very compelling, charismatic, articulate intellect 'that blew most, if not all, of his academic and non-academic competitors and adversaries away'. He did indeed create a philosophical earthquake of the highest proportions in both in Western philosophy, psychology, and Western culture as a whole, starting in the late 19th century -- and with us ever since -- the repercussions and fallout of which we are still very much feeling today. Did Nietzsche 'free' us from 'oppressive, anti-humanistic, anti-self-oriented religion, only to condemn us to a polar opposite and equally oppressive and bad life of -- 'self-infatuated, anti-compassionate, narcissism'?
Once again, Anaxamander's Fragment (and Law) comes to mind -- the 'Case of the Swinging Pendulum' -- black and white, male and female, religious and anti-religious, bourgeois and the proletariat forces will never be or become totally divorced from each other, as hard as they might try, as much as they each might vie and fight for their own particular and 'unique form of philosophical and narcissistic lifestyle supremacy' (or 'will to power'), first one taking the spotlight while the other is in the shadows, then a 'reversal of fortunes' while the tide turns or the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, and what was bright is now dim, what was dim is now bright, what was up is now down, what was down is now up....always consciously or unconsciously, purposely or non-purposely, freely or deterministically, looking for that perfect, mystical, mythical dialectical union...that oasis of life, or is it a mirage...like the perfect sexual, emotional, and spiritual intercourse...before the perfect union is over...every good thing has to come to an end sooner or later...and if you hang onto what was once a 'perfect union' for too long because you are afraid to lose it...which you inevitably will...you develop what Fritz Perls called a 'hanging on bite' which is no longer 'good contact' but rather 'pathological, symbiotic confluence' because everything and everyone must go through the natural life process of 'contact' and 'withdrawl' (the Gestalt therapists call this process 'organismic self-regulation') and 'too much of anything for too long is a bad thing...it's eventually going to turn stale, stagnant, and/or toxic'...everything and everyone is 'in flux' (Heraclitus)...and eventually everything and everyone in contact with something or someone else is going to have to go through a temporary or permanent state of withdrawl and individuation again...either in health and/or in pathology...only to hopefully and ideally come back together again stronger and more united than ever...this is my own Gap-DGBN integrative (post-Anaxamanderian, post-Heraclitean, post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-Christian brand of philosophical, psychological, political and religious-spiritual ideology and idealism. Nietzsche and Christianity (narcissism and altruism) need to meet in the middle. Divorced from each other they are both intolerable. Same too with Plato and Aristotle. Same too with the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Same too with Apollo and Dionysus. Same too with Adam Smith and Marx (Capitalism and Socialism), Conservativism and Liberalism. Same too with 'superego' and 'id', 'personna' and 'shadow', 'topdog' and 'underdog'...humanism and existentialism. For each belief, value, goal, and action, there is a counter-belief, counter-value, counter-goal, and counter-action. For each philosophy there is a counter-philosophy. The 'truth' and the 'ethics' of it all usually somewhere between the 'swinging pendulums of human extremism and righteousness'. Gap-DGBN Philosophy, through the reincarnation and embellishment of Anaxamander's Fragment and Law, and through Hegel's Hotel, is -- if you permit my boldness and partial egotism (I have played the 'underdog' a lot more in life than I have played the 'topdog') -- here to show you the way.
dgbn, Feb. 18th, 2007.
the wonders and realities of the universe about us,
the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Rachel Carson
In dealing with the religion one has been taught, one has a number of choices -- and this goes, not only for religion, but for everything that one has every been taught. The formula that follows incidentally, is predominantly a Gestalt formula, which is a modification of some earlier Freudian (Psychoanalytic) ideas. One can/could also easily turn or construe this in Hegelian terms as a 'Hegelian evolutionary-learning formula' as well: 1. 'Introjection' (thesis): Simply 'swallow whole' everything one has been taught and don't challenge anything that one has been taught; 2. Rebellion and Rejection (anti-thesis): Rebel against and reject everything that one has been taught -- and in essence, 'throw it all back up again, out one's mouth', because one has come to the conclusion that it is all toxic and pathological, and has not one iota of 'nutritional value'; 3. Assimilation (integration, synthesis): One 'chews' and 'absorbs' the beliefs that one concludes are 'nutritional' while 'spitting back up and out' the beliefs that one concludes are 'toxic and pathological'.
Everything that I have written, and will continue to write, in this philosophical process and system (structure) follows this basic formula -- that is why this philosophical venue is partly called 'Hegel's Hotel'. I follow classic Hegelian dialectical theory in my thinking -- with some 'humanistic-existential and non-deterministic' modifications -- which makes me a 'post-Hegelian philosopher'.
So here is the number one problem: How do I fit 'non-secular' ideas and beliefs into a 'secular philosophical process and system' -- or is attempting to do this in itself a 'pathological process' because it defies 'secular, empirical sensory validation and reasoning'? For you 'hard line secular-empirical philosophers' out there who choose to completely reject any form or type of religion that defies standard secular-empirical -epistemological principle -- and from this, choose to become either 'atheist' (don't believe in God) or 'agnostic' (have no way of proving or not proving the existence or non-existence of God), I have no problem with either of your philosophical positions. Because from a strictly 'secular, empirical, epistemological' point of view -- the point of view that has been the foundation of both our democratic system of science and medicine, and our system of law, going back at least to the 'Enlightenment' period of Western philosophy. (See both the internet 'Wikipedia' articles on the Enlightenment, and a very good synopsis of the history of the Enlightenment by Paul Brians -- underneath the Wikipedia articles (Google) Created by Paul Brians March 11, 1998. Last revised May 18, 2000. This gives a very good background on much of the 'humanistic-existential' philosophical historical tradition that is central to my own evolution of philosophical thought development -- and as such, is creating the impetus here and now to 'reconcile and integrate' these ideas with my orthodox but very liberal rendition of the Protestant beliefs that come from my family background.
View these ideas to come as being very formative, in their infancy, if you will, as I struggle to find a 'spiritual and/or religious' position that is consistent with my post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential, philosophical position. For those of you who are strongly religious in an orthodox, traditional way, you do not have to read what is to follow. You can spit my ideas out if you don't like them. Or -- if you are struggling with your own sense of 'spiritual-religous self' and are looking for some form of integrationism between 'secular-empirical, Enlightenment-Romantic philosophy' and more traditional spiritual-religous beliefs and values -- much like what Spinoza was doing in his time, and perhaps even before that, Heraclitus in his time -- then maybe you will find something below that is provocative, inspiring, innovative, and/or just some kind of quasi 'spiritual-philosophical foundation' that you can rest your head on and/or build from. Welcome to a new area of evolution in my post-Hegelian philosophical thought. This is not for the Conservative-minded.
Firstly, the main problem I have with most contemporary, hardline, orthodox religions is this:
Their appeal to the unchallenged authoritarianism -- and often the 'sado-maschocistic delivery and moral enforcement' -- of the Church, its rulers, its customs, its supposed 'revealers of the words of God' (i.e, the Pope, priests, ministers, evangelists, and the like) at the expense of what i would call more 'humanistic-existential and Enlightenment-Romantic' beliefs and values.
Now let me be very clear on this next point: sometimes, indeed oftentimes, traditional orthodox religous values and humanistic-existential, Enlightement-Romantic values are very compatible and interchangeable with each other -- especially in such areas as: 'loving, caring, altruism, generosity, helping others, particularly helping those who are struggling in whatever way, family values, and so on...'
Where traditional, orthodox religions and proponents of humanistic-existential, Enlightenment-Romantic values tend to split company -- not totally but to a significant degree -- is in such inter-related areas as: hedonism, narcissism, sex and sexuality, sensuality, egotism, individualism, rebelliousness, 'living in the here-and-now -- and enjoying it' -- and the like.
For most proponents of humanistic-existential and Enlightenment-Romantic values, I would say that there is generally much more of a 'liberal-mindedness, an acceptance and/or a tolerance' of a significant degree of the types of 'narcissistic-hedonistic' activities mentioned above that is not generally nearly as accepted and/or tolerated as by most orthodox religions.
The reason is simple: the orthodox religions know as well as anyone -- or better -- that human narcissim and hedonism can, when it is taken too far, be the root of much human evil, destructiveness, and self-destructiveness.
However, paradoxically, hedonism and narcissism can also be the core of much human pleasure and enjoyment in living. To eliminate all forms of human hedonism and narcissism from living -- which I would say is next to impossible because they are 'hard-wired' into us -- arguably by 'God', perhaps partly for reasons of continuing Creation and Evolution (would anyone -- or nearly as many people, as often -- have sexual intercourse if the experience was generally 'painful'?).
Thus, proponents of orthodox religious beliefs and values have, can, and do, come into conflict with proponents of Humanistic-Existential-Romantic-Enlightenment beliefs and values (let's short form this and call the latter types 'HERE' types) over the extent of how much 'hedonism' and 'narcissism' should play a part in people's 'normal, moral, day-to-day behavior and living'.
How do we resolve this conflict? Or do we?
The argument goes a long way back -- back to the 14th and 15th century. I cite the Paul Brians article from the internet mentioned above:
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The Renaissance Humanists
In the 14th and 15th century there emerged in Italy and France a group of thinkers known as the "humanists." The term did not then have the anti-religious associations it has in contemporary political debate. Almost all of them were practicing Catholics. They argued that the proper worship of God involved admiration of his creation, and in particular of that crown of creation: humanity. By celebrating the human race and its capacities they argued they were worshiping God more appropriately than gloomy priests and monks who harped on original sin and continuously called upon people to confess and humble themselves before the Almighty. Indeed, some of them claimed that humans were like God, created not only in his image, but with a share of his creative power. The painter, the architect, the musician, and the scholar, by exercising their intellectual powers, were fulfilling divine purposes.
This celebration of human capacity, though it was mixed in the Renaissance with elements of gloom and superstition (witchcraft trials flourished in this period as they never had during the Middle Ages), was to bestow a powerful legacy on Europeans. The goal of Renaissance humanists was to recapture some of the pride, breadth of spirit, and creativity of the ancient Greeks and Romans, to replicate their successes and go beyond them. Europeans developed the belief that tradition could and should be used to promote change. By cleaning and sharpening the tools of antiquity, they could reshape their own time.
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This shows that humanism (or humanistic-existentialism) and religion do not need to be divorced from each other but often are divorced from each other on matters of what it means -- and/or should mean -- to be human.
The philosophical problem for me becomes: how do I philosophically, morally, and spiritually reconcile and/or integrate -- if this is possible -- Nietzsche, religion, humanism, and existentialism? And how do I reconcile and/or integrate -- again if this is possible -- Nietzsche's most infamous and provocative philosophical assertion, 'God is dead!', with religion, spirituality, humanism, and humanistic-existentialism?
Let me get a number of Gap-DGBN definitions onto paper and working as a backdrop here as quickly as possible:
1. 'Gap' refers to the 'void(s)', the 'abyss(es)' in human existence, in human philosophy, in truth, in ethics, in all of human life and culture...The term 'gap' was first taken from a Gestalt book by Fritz Perls where he said -- and I am paraphrasing here because it could take me a while to find the exact quote (it was about 20 years ago that I read it) -- that his form of psychotherapy (Gestalt Therapy) basically dealt with diagnosing and dialectically working with the 'gaps in peoples lives and personalities'.
2. 'DGBN' is an acronym partly for: 1. my name; 2. 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations' (which is what I am doing here in this essay as well in most of my other essays); and 3. 'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism' which is my main lament and criticism against Western culture.
3. 'Humanism' in Gap-DGBN Philosophy refers to 'compassion', 'empathy', 'sensitivity', 'altruism', 'love', 'generosity', 'caring' in human philosophy and human behavior;
4. 'Existentialism' in Gap-DGBN Philosophy refers to the 'accountability' of each and everyone of us to our own 'selfhood', and a 'willingness to take responsibility for own own thoughts, feelings, actions, and lack of actions, capabilities, potentialities, limitations, failures, successes...and 'bridging the gap between being and becoming' both in our personal lives and ideally in the betterment of mankind...
5. Humanistic-existentialism integrates the best of both capitalist and socialist ideology and idealism -- human self-assertiveness and individuality with human compassion, sensitivity, and caring about others.
Now where does Nietzsche fit in the scheme of these definitions? I would call Nietzsche a full blown existentialist (individualist) but not a humanist in the sense that Nietzsche did not philosophically, or in his own life, show much, if any, support for human empathy, compassion, altruism, caring about others, etc. His was a very 'un-compassionate' philosophy -- Capitalist-narcissistic-conservative ideology and idealism both at its best in terms of its existential-individualistic values and its worst in terms of its hard line narcissistic-ultra-Darwinian idea of 'who cares if you walk over your neighbor and what he or she wants as long as you get what you want'. Nietzsche -- even if he was totally against Nazism, German Nationalism, and Antisemitism -- still did/does not sound like he was a very compassionate, caring, humanistic person. It was all about Nietzsche and his own personal and philosophical brand of narcissism. From what From what I have read, he fell significantly in love at least twice, maybe three times -- and does not seem to have much success in love -- spurned twice in two different marriage proposals with two different women (1. a young Dutch woman, Mathilde Trampedach, in 1876; and 2. a young Russian girl, Lou Andreas-Salome, in 1882, who later became an intimate of Freud); and -- perhaps he even fell in love with Richard Wagner's wife Cosima -- see Alan Ryan's short essay on the internet, 'The Will To Madness', January 24th, 1999...
The Will to Madness
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The story of Friedrich Nietzsche's fateful relationship with Richard and Cosima Wagner.
By ALAN RYAN
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Nietzsche was not without friends but for the most part he was a usually physically sick and, from most accounts, was a psychologically lonely man who perhaps -- and this is my interpretation -- compensated for some of the core of his deficiencies in health and love -- with a very compelling, charismatic, articulate intellect 'that blew most, if not all, of his academic and non-academic competitors and adversaries away'. He did indeed create a philosophical earthquake of the highest proportions in both in Western philosophy, psychology, and Western culture as a whole, starting in the late 19th century -- and with us ever since -- the repercussions and fallout of which we are still very much feeling today. Did Nietzsche 'free' us from 'oppressive, anti-humanistic, anti-self-oriented religion, only to condemn us to a polar opposite and equally oppressive and bad life of -- 'self-infatuated, anti-compassionate, narcissism'?
Once again, Anaxamander's Fragment (and Law) comes to mind -- the 'Case of the Swinging Pendulum' -- black and white, male and female, religious and anti-religious, bourgeois and the proletariat forces will never be or become totally divorced from each other, as hard as they might try, as much as they each might vie and fight for their own particular and 'unique form of philosophical and narcissistic lifestyle supremacy' (or 'will to power'), first one taking the spotlight while the other is in the shadows, then a 'reversal of fortunes' while the tide turns or the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, and what was bright is now dim, what was dim is now bright, what was up is now down, what was down is now up....always consciously or unconsciously, purposely or non-purposely, freely or deterministically, looking for that perfect, mystical, mythical dialectical union...that oasis of life, or is it a mirage...like the perfect sexual, emotional, and spiritual intercourse...before the perfect union is over...every good thing has to come to an end sooner or later...and if you hang onto what was once a 'perfect union' for too long because you are afraid to lose it...which you inevitably will...you develop what Fritz Perls called a 'hanging on bite' which is no longer 'good contact' but rather 'pathological, symbiotic confluence' because everything and everyone must go through the natural life process of 'contact' and 'withdrawl' (the Gestalt therapists call this process 'organismic self-regulation') and 'too much of anything for too long is a bad thing...it's eventually going to turn stale, stagnant, and/or toxic'...everything and everyone is 'in flux' (Heraclitus)...and eventually everything and everyone in contact with something or someone else is going to have to go through a temporary or permanent state of withdrawl and individuation again...either in health and/or in pathology...only to hopefully and ideally come back together again stronger and more united than ever...this is my own Gap-DGBN integrative (post-Anaxamanderian, post-Heraclitean, post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-Christian brand of philosophical, psychological, political and religious-spiritual ideology and idealism. Nietzsche and Christianity (narcissism and altruism) need to meet in the middle. Divorced from each other they are both intolerable. Same too with Plato and Aristotle. Same too with the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Same too with Apollo and Dionysus. Same too with Adam Smith and Marx (Capitalism and Socialism), Conservativism and Liberalism. Same too with 'superego' and 'id', 'personna' and 'shadow', 'topdog' and 'underdog'...humanism and existentialism. For each belief, value, goal, and action, there is a counter-belief, counter-value, counter-goal, and counter-action. For each philosophy there is a counter-philosophy. The 'truth' and the 'ethics' of it all usually somewhere between the 'swinging pendulums of human extremism and righteousness'. Gap-DGBN Philosophy, through the reincarnation and embellishment of Anaxamander's Fragment and Law, and through Hegel's Hotel, is -- if you permit my boldness and partial egotism (I have played the 'underdog' a lot more in life than I have played the 'topdog') -- here to show you the way.
dgbn, Feb. 18th, 2007.
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