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Progressive Faith Movement & Religion Posted by Zeus, 08 Oct 2007 04:31 am

An Alternative: Ten Spiritual Commitments

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Responses to “An Alternative: Ten Spiritual Commitments”

1. on 08 Oct 2007 at 10:18 am 1. spyder said …

   In order, one through ten:

   No, unacceptable premise
   Yes, with responsibility of alleviating suffering through compassion
   No, only the primacy of participational parity for all species
   Maybe; but one person’s depravities may be another’s joy…
   No; i serve no gods/goddesses/deities etc. in anyway shape or form
   Yes okay
   Mostly No, persuasion and coercion are completely different constructs
   No, i have no interest in gods/goddesses/deities etc. and spirit.
   No way, the framing of this, is as authoritarian as those it intends to rebuke
   Nope… nada… unacceptable premise

   I am not seeking to establish merely an individual belief system, but rather offer a possible communal spiritual practice. You and a long line of spiritualists, faith healers, gurus, mullahs, shamen, popes, archbishops, rabbis, psychics, evangelists, etc. et al, ad nauseum–

   I prefer the shorthand version myself:
   1. Life means suffering.
   2. The origin of suffering is attachment, desire, wanting.
   3. The alleviation and cessation of suffering is attainable.
   4. The dharma is the path to the cessation of suffering.

2. on 08 Oct 2007 at 10:56 am 2. Zeus said …

   An offer is just that, not a demand. Even if the commitments are stated in “shall” that they might have the force of promise, one need not make that promise, nor agree with the premise. This, perhaps, is how I differ from the “long line” of gurus, mullahs, etc. I am not seeking to persuade or insert a code of authority. If my articulations resonate at all, they do so because some leap of faith or sense or reason or what ever one may call it has occurred and the compelling nature of that resonant leap is what has authority.

   This is why I do not believe in conversion. This is why I believe in a separation of church and state. Forcing conversions (even those less absurd than the Inquisition) is the death of spirit. This is what many religious and secular alike do not get: Any attempt to use methods of the world to “convert” an individual precludes the actualization of God or Spirit in the life of that person. It is in a word, anti-spiritual. All traditions acknowledge that such an epiphany and choice must come from within, but they keep trying to instigate it from without. It doesn’t work. It must be a choice and an awakening/awareness rooted in the deepest nature of that person.

   This is why I deeply internalize and respect much Buddhist offering. Buddhism offers the most complete and reality-based practice/technology to date describing how to engage spirit in daily life and distinguish that from other aspects (emotionalism, rationalism, mentalism, etc.). Buddhism does not require theism, necessarily so, I suppose, for “God” may become yet another attachment, another concept, rather than a “verb”. This in no way bothers me, for the truth presents itself effectively through the Buddhist form and it mixes and enhances my own being and my own tradition.

   This is what I mean by spiritual pluralism. It is not exclusionary nor exceptionalist. It is generous and appreciative of difference and inviting of a truth that supercedes forms. Christianity emphasizes the conceptual and experiential understanding and rendering of God. Buddhism and Christianity are extraordinarily complimentary. From one “nothingness;” from the other “somethingness.” From one dis-attachment; from the other commitment. From one “compassion;” from the other “passion.”

   It is interesting to me, even though I explicitly use words like “choice” and “offer” and even though I have not called others’ reasoning “wrong,” that so many react as if I am trying to do so in a passive-aggressive way. I know there are historical reasons for this paranoia, but it is also a learning opportunity for one who reacts thusly to investigate how their own perceptions have been formed and perhaps distorted by their experience elevated to some kind of maxim which precludes certain possibilities. Myself, I can even accept the possibility that there may be no God at all. My faith communes with what I sense to be God and my mind tries to render what I sense, but I do not consider myself infallible in any sense. This, however, does not preclude me from expressing, even asserting, what I experience on a deep level as true.

3. on 08 Oct 2007 at 12:04 pm 3. Zeus said …

   This does, however, raise the practical question of whether theism can be retrieved. What do you think? If it can be, than how? Even, if it can be, is it worth retrieving? Obviously there are formidable tendencies within human behavior to contend with. It seems like theism is easily converted into a tool of domination, of claimed superiority of some over others. Is there a God which is not this? Is there a practical theism that might effectively resist this instrumentalizing of God into authoritarianism? Would such a God stand a chance in the world? What is the relationship between spirit (human, heavenly, and otherwise) and the world? Is spirit just an adviser, a transformer, a shaper of things, none of the above? The responses so far seem to range pretty narrowly between God is unneccessary, God does not exist, God is a tool, to God is dangerous. Is there any way out of a box of God as some kind of concept or strategem? What is happening in us, when we are awakened, surprised, or transformed by the input of a friend or another human being? Could there be an analog for God (if one is to recognize a larger consciousness as not merely an illusion or a projection)? Could there be a God which is not “benevolent” or “malevolent” in the ways we have come to domesticate, but a force or intelligence that “lifts us out of our skin”? Certainly there seem to be larger forces most are willing to recognize (carthartic social, natural experiences, etc.)? Could it be so with God?

4. on 08 Oct 2007 at 12:48 pm 4. spyder said …

   This, however, does not preclude me from expressing, even asserting, what I experience on a deep level as true.
   And thus the hint of that passive-aggression you sense being criticized. It is indeed difficult to assert that XYZ are true in a totally passive manner, particularly when you are discussing the mythos and not the logos. Fundamental foundational truths of one’s religious belief are not debatable so much as discussable, and sometimes barely that, outside of one’s own religion.

   I would suggest (to your comment of questions) that we need to examine the construct of hierarchy and how it manifests itself throughout the religio-socio developments of the past and present. You must assert that there is such a concept as spirit that exists independently outside of human knowledge. To make this assertion you construct a layering of hierarchy that frames your questions using terms like: “larger consciousness,” “larger forces,” “force or intelligence,” and so forth. It can’t really be helped if one begins with the premise based on the “wholly/holy other.” Be that as it may, i think the really important question for the 21st century is: Do we humans have any further need for religion as a species???

   Certainly there seem to be larger forces most are willing to recognize (carthartic social, natural experiences, etc.)? You mean like string theory and quantum mechanics (quantum equilibrium is absolutely fascinating), particle physics and molecular chemistry???

5. on 08 Oct 2007 at 3:07 pm 5. Zeus said …

   Spyder,

   I would contend you can assert that XYZ are true in a totally active manner without it being a play for power (especially over others), which is what I am attempting to do. You, yourself, simply said “yes” and “no” to the imperatives. I do believe in using language and forms of expresssion to “vivify” the possibility not in order to persuade others through the power of rhetoric or promise of salvation. I do believe in a sort of internal power of an idea or expression (as with good poetry), and the power of mythos, to move and involve the person in ways that benefit and deepen human experience.

   I don’t believe reason is sufficient to do this. Reason does not have any inherent power. It is truly a very necessary tool (to sort through bunk, for instance), but it provides no meanig in and of itself. Attempts to pretend otherwise (eugenics, comes to mind) usually end up as disastrously as religion’s attempts to establish its authority.

   Furthermore, yes, those areas like quantum physics are intriguing to me because they cannot be merely reduced to the rational and seem to point to a larger organizing or self-organizing force, which is not a “holy other” (as you say) but an IMMANENT universal possibility. This “larger force” does not require hierarchy at all, and in fact would find senseless the artificial distinctions born out of hierarchy.

   It doesn’t seem to register no matter how many times I say that I do not believe in a wholly supernatural, “other” type of God, but rather one that is suffused and infused into our lives. This has very different implications, even if one admits a god that is both transcendent and immanent.

   Religion as an institutional force? Clearly I am wondering and even doubting if that is necessary myself. To me it should serve simply as a form for availability/proliferation of spiritual content and fellowship. I posited in the last post that it, in fact, is NOT necessary. I do believe in the need for a worship community, but I am unsure if there is a need for the formal structures that have come to be called “churches” for I see how many times the structure overwhelms the spiritual purpose it is meant to serve, not unlike the ego which tends to overwhelm the mind when given too much credence.

   Lastly, “fundamental foundational truths of one’s religious belief” ARE both debatable and discussable outside of one’s own religion. If this were not the case my own religious beliefs could not be substantially transformed by other religious traditions as they have been. Now you might be right if you are talking about those who think that religion itself or any attempts to articulate a “larger consciousness” (not reducible to say “collective human awareness of global warming”) is pure hogwash. If you think something is pure fancy, you cannot possibly take up its premises and begin exploration for yourself. Perhaps such people think it is a waste of time. I doubt there is anything I could say to invite them to entertain otherwise.

   Frankly this seems to pretty much describe almost everyone who reads this blog. Perhaps I should invite a couple of people who think differently than I, but at least share the premise that this is more substantial than mere fancy.

6. on 08 Oct 2007 at 4:47 pm 6. Seattle said …

   I think the argument that humanity does not need organized religion is specious. Some of us might wish otherwise, but detaching people from the framework of their lives leads to chaos-yes worse chaos than what we would now appear to be experiencing. I think that institutional or doctrinal religion does not have to be oppressive, spirit destroying, self idolatry. Over and over we focus on the oppressed individuals/populations and deny the healthy populations engaged in religious worship. Individual by individual, the socio/religious systems work or they don’t.

7. on 08 Oct 2007 at 6:37 pm 7. Arnaud said …

   Zeus, you are right when you say:

   If you think something is pure fancy, you cannot possibly take up its premises and begin exploration for yourself. Perhaps such people think it is a waste of time. I doubt there is anything I could say to invite them to entertain otherwise.

   Frankly this seems to pretty much describe almost everyone who reads this blog. Perhaps I should invite a couple of people who think differently than I, but at least share the premise that this is more substantial than mere fancy.

   and I must say I spent some time wondering what to answer here. I will just point out that I for one think that it’s no accident that Christianity has very little in the manner of a spiritual tradition like the one you describe.
   Christianity makes claims about the existence and the nature of god. Jesus himself talked of god not as internal, not as an emotion or an asppiration but as a being, external and acting in the world, he also talked of judgement and (conditional) salvation. Yourself tend to mix religion and morality rather liberally (and find in the former an inspiration for the later) and that for me rings a few alarm bells as I hinted before.

   So I will just say that I do not believe in your 10 commitments, not only because I dismiss them, and the premices on which they are based, as “pure hogwash” but because I think you yourself fall into the trap you are trying to point out to us. Such commitments implies judgement, a certain amount of orthodoxy. Sooner or later you will find people all too ready to enforce this orthodoxy and others, far too many, ready to follow them and your institutionalised church will be reborn anew. I do not believe that a species that is able to use Thou shall not kill as a war-cry will be sway by your new up-to-date commandements.

   In my opinion there isn’t much of a choice: if you want to create a spiritual christianity, you’ll need to separate religion from morality and I simply don’t think it is possible.

   By the way, we need a Godwin’s Law for Quantum mechanics.

8. on 08 Oct 2007 at 8:31 pm 8. James Killus said …

   First – Courage
   Second – Endurance
   Third – Nobility
   Fourth – Honesty and Faithfulness
   Fifth – Unsullied Integrity
   Sixth – Simplicity and Directness
   Seventh – Compassion (toward the weak)
   Eighth – Honor
   Ninth – Self-sacrifice
   Tenth – Non-attachment to worldly importance (including life and death)

   All of these virtues are interwoven into a single code of warrior discipline called Bushido.

   –from a talk given by Chiba Sensei at Birankai International Summer Camp 2007

   Simpler, more succinct, and all quite admirable. Bushido also formed the basis for Japanese militarism in the early 20th Century, one of the most undiluted national disasters of all time.

   Which is to say, “Why do you believe that you can possibly create a moral and spiritual code out of words?”

   Also, vis a vis quantum mechanics, what Arnaud said. At the very least, the invocation of quantum mechanics should always require first chalking Schrodinger’s equation inside the pentagram.

9. on 08 Oct 2007 at 11:35 pm 9. Zeus said …

   I guess there are two ways one can travel. Recognize the danger inherent in any assertion (and point to the aversive historical evidence) and try to avoid assertions altogether (except the ones based on Reason, of course, no religion there, no scientism or misuse possible with Reason). Or try to develop a rational and inspired treatment of the assertions that keep them robust and healthy. I don’t think it is necessary that all declared aspiration, all attempts to form and follow mission statements and visions are doomed to devolve and go to pot and eventually contradict themselves. Abolitionism and the civil rights movement certainly successfully reawakened the liberatory potential in religion and were successful to boot, but it took a lot of work.

   Certainly commitments imply “discernment” (a more accurate descriptor than judgment which seems to connote damning or judging others). I think the commitments I listed are that, attempts to discern. They also attempt to affirm or embrace, and if someone thinks they are hogwash, my only “judgment” is that they are not willing to entertain the premises and follow them through to see where they might go. But the difference is, they are not the ten commandments, they articulate in spiritual terms what is heretofore been spoken only in “godless” secular terms (i.e. pluralism), and this has allowed an intolerant religious apparatus to claim intolerance as godly, as conviction, as principle, so my taking the religious direction confronts that, not on its own terms, but still in spiritual terms. I think that is quite useful as well as worthy.

   James, if you want a summary of my “commitments” here they are boiled down (not that much different than yours, actually):

   First- Presence (of being)
   Second- Love
   Third- Inherent dignity
   Fourth- Connection
   Five- Non-possessiveness
   Six- Humility
   Seven- Non-violence
   Eight- Non-instrumentalism
   Nine- Authenticity
   Ten- Humility

   Citizen Zeus

10. on 09 Oct 2007 at 12:37 pm 10. Zeus said …

    No one picked up on the rather provocative statement that I made, that Reason is not an end, but rather only a tool (a very useful one, but only a tool). This leads people who trumpet Reason, to answer what may be the deeper, more instrinsic values of life. One does not hear people saying, “It is my greatest aspiration to be reasonable.” So what is it that reason serves?

    Order is not an end in itself, neither is policy nor “facts.” Some might say “love,” and I would agree with this. What is the nature of love? This I think brings discussion back to immanent spirituality and our own connection to one another. This cannot be mollified by modernist reason, nor religious fundamentalism, which in the end are both attempts to explain away the creative and to “limit the damage” that creativity can cause.

    “If you go off all ‘inspired’ and such, you might claim you speak for God and come after me with your weird voices and ideas. No, we need a cool, clinical reason to protect from that possibility.” And then we get the same with reason, when it does aspire to some kind of vision, producing things like social engineering, eugenics, etc.

    Is the fear that anyone “trying to make the world a better place” will only impose a new and oppressive regime. What is the difference between offering a creative option for life and imposing it? What is the difference between asserting another way to live and coercing others into following it?

    I have a faith that the creative power itself will compel on some level. Yes, this can be dangerous as it can inspire someone to go off “half-cocked” and start a church or something which attach to teachings or possibilities as “the answer.” But I don’t see a way around it, but rather through it.

    We must get better at fielding, respecting, handling, and developing creative possibilities as we must get better at connecting and understanding one another. This is helped by openness and candor about consequences and an honoring of where a contributor may come from. I don’t think it is helped by trying to prevent uncertainty or creativity or inspiration outright or simply deny acknowledgement.

11. on 09 Oct 2007 at 2:38 pm 11. spyder said …

    Lastly, “fundamental foundational truths of one’s religious belief” ARE both debatable and discussable outside of one’s own religion. If this were not the case my own religious beliefs could not be substantially transformed by other religious traditions as they have been.

    No, your own religious beliefs, your myths, are not debatable. What you are suggesting is that you have a rational, reasoning intellect that investigates possibilities and incorporates them into your mythos. You can choose to transform them into your own belief constructs anyway you want, without regard for from whence they came, or if your assumptions about them are valid per se. This is what i mean by not debatable. When you start a religious sentence with “I believe” you are immediately stating a mythological claim to an absolute truth. It ceases to be of the world of logos, of proof.

    For example this phrase: my only “judgment” is that they are not willing to entertain the premises and follow them through to see where they might go. I don’t have to be willing to entertain your premises, nor bother to follow them through to some sort of consensual agreement. Your premises are religious, and as such are void of any value for me, other than being available to be used for examining someone’s religious orientation.

    You also seem to keep wanting to attack Reason for its sins (so to speak). You have done it now in several paragraphs. Reason is debatable, discussable, must be examined and evaluated, laid bare, proven or disproven, and so forth. It is not like your religious beliefs which cannot be said to be wrong or untrue, but rather open to all manner of inquiry and examination. Yes human beings make some pretty lousy decisions sometimes, and yes religions (as vehicles of human collective political and social power) have also acted in hideously vile and evil ways. One can criticize the behaviors and the rational thought processes involved in the actions. Indeed your criticisms of what you call doctrinal religions are not based on their religious beliefs but on the manifestations of their human behaviors; and i wholeheartedly agree with most of what you critique in that regard. I just don’t happen to agree that a different religious orientation, a different theological construct is the solution.

    Last–and i just don’t really have the time in this moment for this–I find you too often assert (perhaps even insist) your own definitions, connotations, semantical constructs for a variety of words that are of common usage. You reconstruct terms such as: faith, love, power, spirituality; bending them to fit your ‘creative’ dogma. This doesn’t help really.

    and seem to point to a larger organizing or self-organizing force, which is not a “holy other” (as you say) but an IMMANENT universal possibility. This “larger force” does not require hierarchy at all, and in fact would find senseless the artificial distinctions born out of hierarchy.
    So the other is an other, but it isn’t????

12. on 09 Oct 2007 at 5:45 pm 12. Arnaud said …

    Zeus,
    No one picked up on that statement because it is not provocative. Reason is indeed only a tool and, I must add, as such serves no end or person. Is a hammer the slave of anybody or the mean to any end? Reason itself can be placed in the service of unreasonable ends.
    May I be too frank once again? You sound bitter here, Citizen Zeus, and try to attack what you perceive are our idols, our own “fundamental truths” as if to retaliate for some slight we did to you by not treating your ideas with the respect you feel they deserve.

    “Connecting and understanding one another” would be nice but are the stuff of personal relationships. When it comes to social problems they are not really essential; unconditional love from strangers always creep me out. As I said before to Kiera, bad things can be done in the name of love.

    As for your last paragraph, it is just the standard demand for respect religious people always make for their personal beliefs. To follow on what Spyder said, you tend to twist words to give them new (old) meanings and I cannot help but feel that you try to blackmail us into respect by calling your spiritual experiences “creativity” and “uncertainty” your own convictions.

13. on 09 Oct 2007 at 6:19 pm 13. James Killus said …

    Perhaps this is in the spirit of piling on, but I prefer to think of it as more a tangent.

    Several times I’ve said something that I consider more “provocative” than any slap at reason might be. I’ll say it again, to see if it gets any more response than the other times I’ve said it.

    Why does anyone believe that a philosophy of life can be expressed or communicated in words? It seems particularly odd to me to have someone preaching “spirituality,” using rhetoric to try to convince people of something that is stipulated as being experiential. Doesn’t this seem rather like trying to enforce silence with an alarm, or non-violence with bombs?

    Now talk may be cheap, or it may be very expensive, but I’m pretty sure of the fact that talk is talk. It looks to me like the real problem with the country/world is that there are too many people who believe in magic words, that somehow the slogan “Support Our Troops” is more important than verterans’ benefits and good health care in the VA, or that sloganizing against abortions and stem cell research is more important than policies that actually reduce the number of abortions and help mothers with pre-natal care.

    The fact is that lies have considerably less power when people know that there is truth to be had, and have ways of discovering truth that do not depend upon what other people say.

    Now I do recognize the paradox here, that I am saying something like “deeds not words” but that phrase is still words. I’ll also stipulate that I do a lot of words, often for pay, and that quite frequently the words are more than “mere words,” because I’m writing about things that are concrete and tangible. Other times I write words that are overtly fiction, fanciful, or which pertain to a single aspect of experience. The point here is that I try to make sure I know the difference.

    So, as is so often the case, I think my main message is, tell funnier jokes.

14. on 09 Oct 2007 at 9:39 pm 14. JP Stormcrow said …

    Zeus,

    Said I would have a more substantial comment on this, but here I am 2 days late, exhausted and bereft of insight. But I will just say the following:

    I myself personally do feel that it is quite appropriate to have what I have called a “legitimate sense of awe and wonder” in regard to the very existence of the universe and the fascinating puzzle that it is. I do have a lot of respect for the ineffable parts of existence (not that these words capture it … hat tip to James) and for mankind’s attempts to reconcile them with whatever tools our puny minds can construct. I have been drawn at times to Buddhism and various “mystic” systems, but none have stuck (or really even gotten a foothold).

    But what I really have not ever been able to do is tie this quasi-religious feeling that I’ll gloss as “the amazing thing isn’t that we are here acting badly at times, but that we are here at all”, with any kind of moral code. For the latter I tend towards a very pragmatic stance - which I am too tired to elucidate. Maybe if I examined thing more deeply, I could connect the two more satisfactoriy, but I find that I have no need of that exercise.

    I do enjoy what you write and it does spur me to examine aspects of both my feelings about the ineffable as well as my pragmatic ethical stances. However, I personally do find it hard to really go further than that. Perhaps my brush with institutional religion just left me too intellectually “bruised” to even go too far with an approach that uses so much of the same manner of rhetoric. (even if it is “re-purposed”) There is of course great vanity in my attitude - but I am more willing to be gored by that horn than the other - perhaps to my loss. I’ll try to tie this together tomorrow.

15. on 10 Oct 2007 at 2:22 pm 15. Zeus said …

    Spyder,

    What if other spiritual understanding transforms my mythos, rather than being simply incorporated into it? There seems to be an overemphasis in academic thinking on constructs as both the ends and foundations of human meaning. Constructs are creations. When I say, “I believe” spiritually, it is the same as when I use it in science; it is a proposition, open to influence, expansion, transformation, refinement, and even testing. The worlds and means (intuition, inspiration, non-rational events, etc.) by which one examines the moral/spiritual is different, for sure, than the heavily empirical medium of science, but these worlds and means do not have to be arbitrary (though they are perhaps more vulnerable to arbitrariness– it’s easier to say, “yes” or “no’ by way of confirmation or falsification in the empirical realm than in the more ethereal evidences in the spiritual dimension.).

    To say “belief” HAS TO BE a claim to an absolute truth is to confuse the institution with the field. It would be like saying the NIH IS science. Institutions DO take propositions as working truths for purposes of advocacy and so forth. That is a different endeavor. If I were insitutional in my belief, my beliefs would in fact be “bedrock” foundations of my personal mission and advocacy, and there are aspects of my spirituality in which this is true, as with my advocacy for appreciating and honoring gay marriage. However, that is not the only possibility, nor is does it have to be mutually exclusive of holding other senses, perspectives, commitments interactively.

    In fact, my belief and understanding is enhanced on an empirical level by those I don’t “agree” with and who don’t agree with me. So my qualitatively “strengthened” belief “interdepends” on them, even if some might say it is “quantitatively” diminished (that is it is not as absolute as it once was). [This recalls Hegels thesis, antithesis, synthesis.] The purpose of my writing is not to persuade people to agree with me, any more than it is the purpose of a novel to get the reader to agree with or reject the author (or for that matter to agree with or reject one of the characters in the book).

    Either move, ready agreement or rejection ruins the story and misses the point, which is to inhabit as one’s own the perspective and experience of another, and to come home to one’s self and one’s human condition richer and transformed, illuminated on some level. Agreement and rejection ruin the story and the benefits that come from the story, because they come from a stand-alone finite and alienated, static, disconnected, impermeable place. They comes from fear or romantic hope, two sides of the same coin.

    My purpose is to enlarge and make coherent other possibilities for spirit in the religious realm that might be taken up as useful in some way. “I believe,” in this sense, is a way of understanding, seeing, and acting in the world. The vessel, or instrument, I might use to do this might rightfully be criticized. Perhaps I can be accused of poor writing or pedantic orientation, but my motivation is one of creativity and possibility, and I am willing to be wrong, make mistakes, and even look like a fumbler and a hack initially to develop what I consider to be important aspects of my and possibly others’ existence.

    Everything I say CAN be said to be wrong or untrue, and certainly respondents have not been hesitant to say so. But again like the novel, even if my ideas and conviction are “made up” (i.e. “created”) they can, tenably like a well-written novel, use the “fictional” tool to express and draw out something more deeply and even acutely that which is NOT made up, but presented in the human condition– the “real”, consequential, substantial, relevant. This is much better than the opposite, use the club of the pseudo-real (dogma) to “impose” its own designs and strictures on human possibility and love.

    I do not pretend my beliefs are ends-in-themselves. If they do not serve the flowering of humanity, then they ought be consigned to the dime novel dustbin. It is not your “belief” that I am after, but your willing suspension of disbelief, realizing and retaining all your critical abilities to assess the world that you enter as a result of your choice to accept something alien as your own. That takes a certain amount of chutzpah, but in my experience, it has been very rewarding.

    Citizen Zeus

16. on 10 Oct 2007 at 3:01 pm 16. Zeus said …

    Arnaud and Spyder,

    Unprovocatively, then, reason is a tool, and religion also is a tool. Neither has intrinsic value, but both have some indispensable value– reason as an arbiter of social and personal judgement and religion (as Spyder suggested) as a provider of “framework” for meaning, value, and purpose in human society. The latter can be debated. The former not so much. The easiest way to falsify intrinsic value is to observe how readily both reason and religion have been drafted to accomplish destructive ends.

    Reason, especially in modernity, has been elevated into an almost “religious” object of belief, not so much in terms of scientific method (which is quite useful and generic) but in terms of the technotopia that a significant minority have sought to establish as a kind of salvation emerging from the “church” of science. Religion has been similarly plagued by a zealous but significant minority that have sought to impose a theocratic notion of order and goodness upon the world. But because both are tools, what matters more is how they are used and to what ends they are employed. Those ends, those aspects of the human condition we might call “virtues” are constantly in development; they don’t just sit there. And it is this development toward which I aspire to devote myself and my ideas.

    It is important to make a distinction between the shovel and the dirt and the seed and the plant which grows from the seed and the life which the plant expresses and represents. The shovel does not create life (any more than reason or religious belief create meaning). The shovel cultivates life, gardens life, plants life. What makes that life is really a mystery and not one solved by DNA analysis or cliched references to “God’s plan.” What I call “spirit” cannot, given its timelessness, even if it has intrinisic value, ever have “final” value. It’s absoluteness is always changing, flowing, growing, It needs expression to have existence and value. Religious scholars sometimes talk of “ultimacy” (sort of the “all in all”), but for us the ultimate is always in motion evoking presence of mind, body, and spirit, bringing consciousness but solving nothing for us.

17. on 10 Oct 2007 at 3:03 pm 17. Zeus said …

    My bad, I meant to say Arnaud and Seattle as my “framework” reference is to here post.

18. on 10 Oct 2007 at 3:12 pm 18. Zeus said …

    A good Buddhist koan from Spyder, “So the other is an other, but it isn’t????”
    Exactly.

    Contradiction is a reality. Simultaneous existence of opposites is an inextricable truth of the human condition. We exist at the intersection of the mental, physical, social, historical, psychological, spiritual, astral, emotional, rational, etc. realms all simultaneous, often conflicting in terms of “rules” and implications, and all helping to make life very interesting and creative with their tensions. Parents see their only child going off to college; they are simultaneously elated and proud and devastated and sad. Why is this so difficult to accept. Cartesion thinking might have us belief and have whole thought systems centered upon mutual exclusivity of “A” and “not-A”, but these are constructs useful for certain realms and positively unproductive [and even incoherent] in other realms (even those in science, give Schrodinger’s Cat, and a lot of the really neat stuff coming out of chaos theory, string theory, fuzzy logic, etc.).

19. on 10 Oct 2007 at 5:12 pm 19. Zeus said …

    James,

    I certainly don’t believe a (lived) philosophy of life can be expressed or communicated in words. “Here’s your life package from Amazon.com, with Super Saver shipping free, it’s a bargain at 25.95, and all you need to do is read and follow. Great life here I come!” The purpose of words, well used, is to open up life inquiry and present possibility, not as invective or imperative, but as vibrant possibility. If words do this well, they invite a person to consider things they hadn’t and to experientially go where they might not have. Of course, a skeptic will simply say, “No thanks” or “I’m bored.” No harm, no foul, except some wasted time I suppose. That is why I used the words “commitment” (internal choice acted upon externally) and “I shall” and “we shall” (referring to those who see a promising possibility illuminated in the writing) rather than “you shall.” “Preaching,” “convincing,” even “blackmail” are words used to describe possibility as I have asserted it MIGHT be, if certain choices or commitments are made.

    I do appreciate and concur on the harm caused by belief in symbols, slogans, and “magic words” which do your thinking and choosing for you– not only susceptibility to lying and a derogation of morally and politically effective action, but a philosophical and spiritual consumerism as well, which cuts the soul and the citizen from the “wonder and awe” that JP refers to, and has people glutting themselves on ideals as ends.

    Service is not accomplished by words alone. It requires actions. On the other hand, experience and exploration can be enhanced by thoughtful writing and speaking. Those words that serve to evoke thoughtful action rather than replace action with a certain self-satisfied righteousness, might even be considered indispensable to maturing experience. Fact is, my words could be either, depending upon who read them and what the context was. There is not a lot I can do about that. People can claim to love you by abusing you, too. In the end one must both verbally and actively stop abuse (of writing and people) and develop a healthier alternative. I doubt that is ever resolved, but it is made better by a new take on things powerfully expressed that disrupts assumptions, I think. And that is what I attempt to do, as a reflection of my own non-traditional nature.

    In the spirit, there is an analog to reason for living the good life. People might claim, “I like being rich and famous and materialistic and self-aggrandizing. It makes me happy.” (Then two years later their lives are playing out like a rerun of “VH1: Behind the Music” (meteoric rise, fame, interpersonal problems and/or substance abuse, car wreck, moment of truth, pockmarked older and wiser view on things)). Reason-wise, you can note that mentally and physically, it appeared their lives were in fact, crap. Meaning-wise, spiritually, you can observe this “happiness” was fleeting and tied to changing things that did not hold lasting value.

    For me, writing (words) is a channel of experience, contemplation, and examination of my own life. I hope it is also one of service that can, through my peculiar lens, stimulate thought, tell a different story for others (authentic to myself and my growth) that might be equal to the emerging world (and helpful for their own the inchoate aspirations) in some way. I hope my writing might evoke or provoke, but at least enhance some action, rather than replace action. I do not believe they have intrinsic power for me, and I am requesting that others do not see them as substitutes for their own experience nor solicitations to vicariously live through my meaning. I’m not interesting in promoting virtual living. I’m interested in engagement. I’m interested in an interesting, contributing life.

20. on 10 Oct 2007 at 5:54 pm 20. Zeus said …

    JP,

    Of all the posts, I think you touch upon best what I am attempting to do, however awkwardly I carry it out. Maybe, it cannot be otherwise. Can anyone really engage the ineffable, touch “awe and wonder” without being awkward? I suspect not.

    There is humility and insight in your descriptions, a kind of “keening” into your own life that I find very illuminating for mine. To this movement, I don’t think any system, mystic or otherwise, or any moral code can be definitive. Again these are mere aids to the journey. Life is not meant to be solved. It is meant to be lived.

    Moral codes (and mine is a sort of moral code) really have to be pragmatic, if they are to be engaged honestly. The question in my mind for moral codes is, “What kind of world does it encourage?’ and does that lend itself to more inclusive and deeper participation in creating meaning for all involved and does it aid “awe and wonder” and intensify interaction with the ordinary and perennial and mysterious. Does that moral code invite us to be more present-minded and responsive to our fellow beings, out of which we might be more creative, wiser, and more vital.

    By saying as I did that “we should seek no salvation or reward for belief” and that “we should not set the world against itself” I am seeking to remove the barriers to a more intimate and respectful spiritual engagement that is not tied up in things and “results” but rather the present wisdom and experience. When I proclaim this notion of “love unconditionally”, it is to affirm a pragmatic regard for something intrinsic more powerful and fulfilling than strategy, more courageous than privilege, something expressing abundance and generosity that may be a facilititator of spiritual sharing.

    Much of my Ten Spiritual Commitments was a direct pragmatic attempt to turn on their heads intolerances done in the name of religion, and invite a “new day” and a new way into the experience and perception of religion. These new ways are still susceptible to old habits. Certainly we notice that political ideologues, so-called Left or Right, can vary in their content, but but be almost identical in their habits. So I know that the words must be different, but the actions and habits also. The latter requires a community, and community requires communication and respect and interest.

    I appreciate your candor. Too much bruising, there is in the world, and not enough acknowledgement of what is necessary for real healing and learning. Too much proclamation and no real listening. Humility is missing in most teaching and prophesizing. As in teaching, writing ought to open the avenue to knowledge and joy through its content, skills, dispositions, and environment.

    Frankly I think my writing has been worthwhile if your response is “I do enjoy what you write and it does spur me to examine aspects of both my feelings about the ineffable as well as my pragmatic ethical stances.” That succeeds beyond my attempts. I don’t think there really need be more. What is more, anyway– a heroic saga of heartwrenching transformation and conversion? It is in the simpler engagement that I feel our collective destiny is written, not by some divine eternal and exterior hand, or some dramatic turning of events, but by the subtle and powerful action of insight within and between us taking the form of knowledge, of new doorways opened and walked through. Ours is a sand in the desert, a drop in the ocean, but tinged with joy and intimacy with the universe.

21. on 11 Oct 2007 at 12:12 pm 21. spyder said …

    Rather than trying to fisk through your almost 35k characters, and close to 6000 words, you have posted in this thread, i shall simply ask: What’s your point???

    I started to count the “shall’s,” “ought’s,” “must’s,” and other expressions of generalized assertions, and ran out of patience. Suffice it to say, if your point is to engage in a dialectic with others (and not just with yourself), then perchance you might wish to examine the number of times you ‘insist’ that others accept your premises and definitions and reduce that number. I have no inclination to suspend my disbelief for the sake of discussing your personal beliefs and constructs. I have had sufficient life experience in the histories and phenomenologies of religions, and am well aware that science is yet another human construct, and that reason is a tool yada yada yada.

    So what?? What is your point?? If it is, as you say immediately above, “my writing has been worthwhile if your response is… ,” then you are suggesting that you have intentionality and purpose. Are you proposing a spiritual framework by which you wish others to live? Are you suggesting that human beings are fundamentally spiritual beings??? Or are you simply expressing your views as a smorgasbord for us to pick and play with??