19 Comments

1. April 27th, 2011 / 6:23 pm deadgod—

   Religion is the imaginary contraception of reality; art is an imaginative enablement of perception and so of mindfulness.

   ‘Materialism’ is a poetic theory of reality, in the same way that maps are territories.

2. April 27th, 2011 / 6:27 pm deadgod—

   Aphorizing is architecture by the brick, board, spatula of mortar, nail, and shingle.

3. April 27th, 2011 / 7:50 pm jose Alvarado—

   Religion is an imaginative enablement of perception and so of mindfulness.

4. April 27th, 2011 / 7:58 pm deadgod—

   “Mystical explanations are considered profound; in fact, they are not even superficial.”–Nietzsche

   What would be acceptable as evidence that perception and mindfulness are enabled by “religion”?

5. April 28th, 2011 / 12:54 am jose a.—

   What is neither profound nor superficial is what?

   paradoxical?

   What would be acceptable as evidence that perception and mindfulness are enabled by “religion”?

   I suppose the Dali Lama might be interested in answering that.

   I think its funny when people wield “reality” like it was something as stable and definite enough to be wielded, contracepted, as if by spermacide. What is perception? and is perception waiting to be enabled by something that could boxed into an activity known as art? who or what has lived and not perceived?

   I sense God is alive in your big answers to your big questions.

   Can you explain yourself?

6. April 28th, 2011 / 2:09 am Guestagain—

   Materialism is an amnesia of the personality; love and cruelty are the quiddity of memory.

7. April 28th, 2011 / 2:44 am deadgod—

   Mystical explanations are neither “profound” nor “superficial” because they’re not explanations at all.

   – No, that’s not “paradoxical”.

   I think it’s funny when people wield “god” like talking about something they can’t talk about is the ‘same’ as talking about a rationality whose method suffices to question the explanations it produces.

8. April 28th, 2011 / 5:09 am jose a.—

   Yes, rationalism does have methods to suffice the questioning of its own explanations. Assuming that the explenations are derived from the same rational principal, and that the question appeals to rationality as a catergory. But many questions do not. Didn’t Ayer say something to that effect? Isn’t that why people like Iris murdock tried to preserve the notion of what was “good” outside of rationalist thought?

   Furthermore, does say, a zen buddhist world view, in explanations for suffering, and rationalising of the experience of cognition become wholly invalid because it springs from religous, meditative, or devotional practice.

   Rationality is only itself when it’s idle.

   But please, enlighten me on the nature of reality, you must know it well, if you are to state that the religous or mystical mind cannot touch it.

9. April 28th, 2011 / 2:45 pm deadgod—

   I think it’s funny when people wield “rationalism” like cases of insufficient understanding rationally demonstrate the limitations of rationality.

   I doubt my ability “[to] enlighten” you on the nature of reality, jose. I am confident in your ability – given only your interest – to become more enlightened.

   Here:

   What evidence do you accept that “mystical knowledge” is ‘knowledge of actually mystical reality’?

10. April 28th, 2011 / 6:15 pm jose—

    well you’ve avoided answering any question I’ve raised or substantiating any statement you’ve made.

    If “cases of insufficient understanding” don’t demonstrate the limits of rationality then wherefore does the insufficiency come? insufficient data?

    As far as mystical knowledge, I accept the evidence of a peaceable nature as exhibited in the thought of people as diverse as the dalai lama and Tolstoy.

    But I ask again. Even if you don’t think I’ll believe you, tell me what reality is.

11. April 28th, 2011 / 7:14 pm STaugustine—

    Two separable discussions possible, I think, Deaders: how The Folk use religion and how religion is used to use The Folk. The debate I see *here* is an offshoot stream popular with The Morbid Nordics: the rhetorical version of a sandwich trying not only to taste itself but to judge the experience objectively.

    Two of my favorite relevant aphorisms:

    “Cruelty is Power at the end of its Patience.”

    “Entertainment is the friend who always tells you what you want to hear; Art is the friend who doesn’t.”

12. April 28th, 2011 / 7:24 pm jose—

    The sandwich cannot taste itself.

    Makes sense to me.

    Not that I’m implying that this is an opinion of yours, ST.

13. April 28th, 2011 / 7:51 pm STaugustine—

    “The sandwich cannot taste itself.”

    It’s my opinion that the sandwich never stops trying; yes, Jose!

14. April 29th, 2011 / 1:01 am deadgod—

    avoided answering any question

    Here is one (1) question-and-answer: “what is neither profound nor superficial is what? paradoxical?” “Mystical explanations are neither ‘profound’ nor ‘superficial’ because they’re not explanatory at all. – No, that’s not ‘paradoxical’.”

    I think it’s funny when people wield “avoided” like their re-posing of questions is their ‘half’ of a real conversation.

    What I meant – and said – is that ‘insufficient understanding in some particular case’ represents cognitive insufficiency in that case, not a “limit of rationality [itself]”.

    The insufficiency could be a “data” problem (I don’t know your birthday, or any of the Chinese languages), could be an intellectual deficit (I don’t remember the sequence of words in a novel, and can’t ‘see’ ten moves ahead – or behind – in a chess game), could inhere in the virtually incalculable possibilities of the future (I don’t know who’s going to win the next Super Bowl or Presidential election), and could indicate a specific intellect incommensurate with questions it thinks it can pose (my answer to ‘the meaning of life’ doesn’t perfectly correspond to my life).

    jose, is any of these insufficiencies disclosive of a “limit of rationality [itself]”?

    More to the point, is an imperfectly rational being evidence of supernatural or spiritual reality?

    You say (I think) that you accept ‘political non-violence’ as evidence of “mystical knowledge” – knowledge of an actually mystical reality? Okay.

15. April 29th, 2011 / 5:53 pm jose—

    Of course this thread should be long dead but just for clarity:

    Religious thought is not by necessity belief in supernatural or metaphysical realities.

    I believe it was a writer from the Frankfurt school (cant remember which one) that said that only a non-believer could be a true christian. Because these human ideas, yes, god is a human idea, have value to some beyond their institutional demand for “belief” or dogma. The value is in their place outside material thought, a place that can serve as a staging ground for battle against an onslaught of immediate forces.

    Belief in heaven can be likened to belief in political utopia. For that reason religous thought should not be dismissed as inherently anti-rational. Thats what I meant.

    What I doubted was your initial levraging of “reality” (you still wont tell me what that is) against religion or mysticism.

    But hey, at the end of the day, I enjoy a man with convictions.

16. April 30th, 2011 / 12:19 am deadgod—

    For me, the question is not ‘what is reality?’ – which only looks like a question – , but rather, ‘what are the conditions for the possibility of some particular commitment to or concept of reality?’. That’s why I ask what the reality of ‘faith’ says about a faithful person’s self-understood relation to reality.

17. April 30th, 2011 / 12:19 am deadgod—

    For me, the question is not ‘what is reality?’ – which only looks like a question – , but rather, ‘what are the conditions for the possibility of some particular commitment to or concept of reality?’. That’s why I ask what the reality of ‘faith’ says about a faithful person’s self-understood relation to reality.

18. April 30th, 2011 / 12:19 am deadgod—

    For me, the question is not ‘what is reality?’ – which only looks like a question – , but rather, ‘what are the conditions for the possibility of some particular commitment to or concept of reality?’. That’s why I ask what the reality of ‘faith’ says about a faithful person’s self-understood relation to reality.

19. April 30th, 2011 / 3:22 am jose—

    I would actually say the same thing. Except for me the question of faith is removed, because faith of that sort has never found use or meaning in the world I’ve lived in.

    I also dont think mysticism requires faith, its a matter of a kind of confidence in something that could be called irrational by someone else, because knowledge of it was arrived at through an experience that may not lend itself to explication.

    It would be lazy to say that faith in rationalism is equal to faith in god, but I think that there are only–and have only ever been–imperfect rational beings. So if the image of a perfect ratonality persists it must persist in that same faculty that can believe in some removed perfection.