A Cup Of Tea
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Is the world the best it's ever been ... and why?
- Thread starter Thomas
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"What seems to be singularly human is not consciousness or free will but inner conflict – the contending impulses that divide us from ourselves. No other animal seeks the satisfaction of its desires and at the same time curses them as evil; spends its life terrified of death while being ready to die in order to preserve an image of itself; kills its own species for the sake of dreams. Not self-awareness but the split in the self is what makes us human. How this split came about is unclear. There is no convincing scientific theory on the matter. The best account remains that in the book of Genesis."
and
"... seemingly annihilated by Christianity, Gnosticism has conquered the world. Belief in the liberating power of knowledge has become the ruling illusion of modern humankind. Most want to believe that some kind of explanation or understanding will deliver them from their conflicts. Yet being divided from yourself goes with being self-aware. This is the truth in the Genesis myth: the Fall is not an event at the beginning of history but the intrinsic condition of self-conscious beings. Only creatures that are as flawed and ignorant as humans can be free in the way humans are free. We do not know how matter came to dream our world into being; we do not know what, if anything, comes when the dream ends for us and we die. We yearn for a type of knowledge that would make us other than we are – though what we would like to be, we cannot say. Why try to escape from yourself? Accepting the fact of unknowing makes possible an inner freedom very different from that pursued by Gnostics."
(from "The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom" by John Gray)
and
"... seemingly annihilated by Christianity, Gnosticism has conquered the world. Belief in the liberating power of knowledge has become the ruling illusion of modern humankind. Most want to believe that some kind of explanation or understanding will deliver them from their conflicts. Yet being divided from yourself goes with being self-aware. This is the truth in the Genesis myth: the Fall is not an event at the beginning of history but the intrinsic condition of self-conscious beings. Only creatures that are as flawed and ignorant as humans can be free in the way humans are free. We do not know how matter came to dream our world into being; we do not know what, if anything, comes when the dream ends for us and we die. We yearn for a type of knowledge that would make us other than we are – though what we would like to be, we cannot say. Why try to escape from yourself? Accepting the fact of unknowing makes possible an inner freedom very different from that pursued by Gnostics."
(from "The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom" by John Gray)
John Gray hasn't made me an atheist, or even agnostic ... but he has posed some really, really thought-provoking questions.
My theology is currently along the line — as it has been for some time — that God can act in human history, but that God is not micromanaging human affairs or even moving things along towards some utopian ideal.
As I have said before, it's not a case of God as fairy-godmother. He's not there to prevent shit happening if we pray hard enough, or turn our bad choices to good, but rather simply to be there with us ...
... a lot of metaphysical/theological questions must no doubt spring from that. It does rather put me at odds with received dogma, I think, although not sure as yet whether it makes me heresiarch.
Having said that, no immediate question springs to mind ...
My theology is currently along the line — as it has been for some time — that God can act in human history, but that God is not micromanaging human affairs or even moving things along towards some utopian ideal.
As I have said before, it's not a case of God as fairy-godmother. He's not there to prevent shit happening if we pray hard enough, or turn our bad choices to good, but rather simply to be there with us ...
... a lot of metaphysical/theological questions must no doubt spring from that. It does rather put me at odds with received dogma, I think, although not sure as yet whether it makes me heresiarch.
Having said that, no immediate question springs to mind ...
. I don't think that had much to do with reduction in lynchings, civil rights movement, animal rights, domestic violence laws changing, or most things pointed to regarding reduction in poverty and starvation around the world...
I will grant you it has affected the nuclear powers from getting involved with each other directly (instead we both supply money and arms to smaller countries so they can fight each other)
Interesting posts thomas! I think the line of heretical is not fixed. What is heretical for some today, was heretical for many years ago. As our knowledge of the universe's growth and our evolution changes that line has moved.
We are discussing things that have made many atheists, (Bart Ehrman) and cemented the belief in others even while discrediting old interpretations of scripture, new interpretation emerge, (not speaking of the apologists that try to reinvent to satisfy new science)
We are discussing things that have made many atheists, (Bart Ehrman) and cemented the belief in others even while discrediting old interpretations of scripture, new interpretation emerge, (not speaking of the apologists that try to reinvent to satisfy new science)
I also don't believe in a micromanaging G!d, the reason I have issues with the accounts of direct involvement, like with Lot, the thisjudesese slaughtering the thatjudeses or even Jesus healing. (That thought alone has lead to thousands if not millions rejecting medical advances over the centuries to prayer)
The OT is rampant with an invisible G!d micromanaging affairs of people and nations, while the NT is ripe with Him walking around micromanaging the health care and food supply of the masses. (Hence my nontheistic stance, I don't believe in that interpretation of G!d). I do however see the power of the stories under differing examination.
The OT is rampant with an invisible G!d micromanaging affairs of people and nations, while the NT is ripe with Him walking around micromanaging the health care and food supply of the masses. (Hence my nontheistic stance, I don't believe in that interpretation of G!d). I do however see the power of the stories under differing examination.
Have no fear, I have a safety harness for when I lean over the edge, and while you see a horse others see a golden bull, and none see the slide I've built down the back side, this ain't my first rodeo in my amusement park.
I was talking Catholic. We're very nuanced about who and what we call heretic and who and what we don't.
Evolution: what changes?
I don't see any new spiritual or human values emergent over the last 50 years? The Golden Rule is still the Gold Standard, as it were, that's millennia old?
Is there any concrete evolutionary change that you can point to?
There's always been atheists, and Biblical text criticism has been around since the 17th century (the Catholic professor Jean Astruc, 1684 – 1766 was the first to propose the multiple source theory of Genesis). And 'credited' and 'discredited' interpretations of Scripture come and go. Look at Creationism, Intelligent Design, Rapture! So I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make?
But you seem to express a belief in something as micromanaging? An end to which we are being brought, despite ourselves?
OK. You have to take each case on its own merits. You make sweeping statements taking no account of different scripture genres ...
Oh, people reject all sorts of stuff for all sorts of reasons!
Again, this is rather a hyperbole, not a reasoned critique.
All stories have power, old chum, the most powerful are our own!
An evolution of understanding... That hurting you will hurt me.... That we and the earth have a symbiotic relationship.
Not a god nudging...but us developing an understanding, that UNeyeR1.
https://www.facebook.com/mindvalley/videos/1720588267986178/
Not a god nudging...but us developing an understanding, that UNeyeR1.
https://www.facebook.com/mindvalley/videos/1720588267986178/
Wil, I really can't understand why you think this is evolutionary?
It's been known for millennia. The Golden Rule?
'Native' and 'Primitive' peoples know this. The indigenous peoples of everywhere were appalled at the ignorance of our 'civilisation'.
Far from evolutionary, surely it's a marker of degeneration that we forgot it in the first place?
They knew this....yet this is the history we are comparing the current situation to.... the tribes of the past were horrific in their tortures, slaughter and enslavement of those they don't like
there is a difference between what is known by a few and that which slowly expands to a larger percentage of the people...there is a difference between what is known by the people and how they act and act out.
our public squares in most the world no longer hold public executions, our arenas are not comprised of fights to the death or the blood sport of animals...sure they still exist, but they are no longer ubiquitous....this is the evolutionary tide that is turning...
there is a difference between what is known by a few and that which slowly expands to a larger percentage of the people...there is a difference between what is known by the people and how they act and act out.
our public squares in most the world no longer hold public executions, our arenas are not comprised of fights to the death or the blood sport of animals...sure they still exist, but they are no longer ubiquitous....this is the evolutionary tide that is turning...
possibility
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Wil and Thomas, I always seem to find your discussions so interesting - I'm inclined to agree with both of you at different times throughout.
I've been quite fond of rose-coloured glasses, myself. I was buoyed by the belief that humanity was on its way to something amazing - that we had progressed so far since biblical times in awareness, knowledge and understanding of the universe and ourselves, that we can almost taste the fulfilment of our human potential. A part of me still feels that way, so I understand where you're coming from and your frustration, wil.
I even got into a similar 'discussion' to this a while back with someone on a different website, who pointed out that my worldview suggested I either thought the world needed to somehow be 'restored' or else it was broken and needed to be fixed, rather than simply accepting the world as it is, right now. I took exception to this assessment, and insisted that I was the one who had the 'positive' worldview, and others were just doom-and-gloom-ers...
I've since realised that my focus on the 'evolution' of humanity towards something better is in many ways a denial or refusal to fully accept the concept of 'all is one'. Because to accept it is to accept that there is no boundary: no black or white, no good or evil, no better or worse, no self or not-self, no past or future - only what is: the eternal now. This is harder than I had thought to genuinely accept. I thought I was so enlightened, but I continued to dismiss, ignore or battle with the shadows - seeing them as something other, that we would hopefully, eventually, destroy altogether. But that's not how it works. We need to embrace the shadows as much as the light...
To say 'the world is the best it's ever been' is to narrow our worldview to certain variables and then simply dismiss others as arbitrary or irrelevant to the discussion, even though it's clear that they're not. It's nice to put on the rose-coloured glasses every now and then, but I think statements like these need to be examined in the full spectrum.
id gladly discuss whatever bars folks think relevant
Hi Wil —
We've got to that point of you putting skittles up and me knocking them down, so you put up more skittles ... but there's nothing new being said and no progress being made.
I think the quotes from John Gray above point to two things relevant to this discussion:
"No other animal seeks the satisfaction of its desires and at the same time curses them as evil; spends its life terrified of death while being ready to die in order to preserve an image of itself; kills its own species for the sake of dreams."
I see no change in this over the last 50 years. The fact that we've enjoyed peace can be put down to: 1: The Bomb and 2: The US as the only World Power after the collapse of Communism. (Bearing in mind the Cold War very nearly ended in a nuclear conflict. But Russia is on the rise, as is China, so watch this space ...)
It seems to me that all the goods you mention are won through protest (civil rights, gay right, etc.), not through evolution. All the goods are, by Occam's Razor, the result of economical and sociological development within the existing human context without mention of evolution.
And I rather think the contemporary liberal egalitarian perspective comes under what Gray refers to as a new 'Gnosticism':
"(The) belief in the liberating power of knowledge has become the ruling illusion of modern humankind. Most want to believe that some kind of explanation or understanding will deliver them from their conflicts." Once it was religion. Currently it's science, and the same 'blind faith' prevails. Yet the truth is conflicted is what we are. Conflict is what we do. That we can resolve conflicts peacefully is not itself a sign of evolution, simply of self-management. Evolution would mean an end to that inner conflict.
For me, the Golden Rule was, is and will remain as a rule acknowledged and broken. The history of humanity is the history of the tension between knowing what is right, and wanting what is wrong. As Gray says, the lesson of the Fall in Genesis is not a one-time event of our prehistory, its part of the ongoing human dynamic, the human drama...
Evolution suggests to me a transcending of that condition, the decision not to reach for the forbidden fruit, but to accept ourselves as we are and not reach for the chimera of a knowledge-based utopia, itself just another version of angels sitting on clouds playing harps ...
We've got to that point of you putting skittles up and me knocking them down, so you put up more skittles ... but there's nothing new being said and no progress being made.
I think the quotes from John Gray above point to two things relevant to this discussion:
"No other animal seeks the satisfaction of its desires and at the same time curses them as evil; spends its life terrified of death while being ready to die in order to preserve an image of itself; kills its own species for the sake of dreams."
I see no change in this over the last 50 years. The fact that we've enjoyed peace can be put down to: 1: The Bomb and 2: The US as the only World Power after the collapse of Communism. (Bearing in mind the Cold War very nearly ended in a nuclear conflict. But Russia is on the rise, as is China, so watch this space ...)
It seems to me that all the goods you mention are won through protest (civil rights, gay right, etc.), not through evolution. All the goods are, by Occam's Razor, the result of economical and sociological development within the existing human context without mention of evolution.
And I rather think the contemporary liberal egalitarian perspective comes under what Gray refers to as a new 'Gnosticism':
"(The) belief in the liberating power of knowledge has become the ruling illusion of modern humankind. Most want to believe that some kind of explanation or understanding will deliver them from their conflicts." Once it was religion. Currently it's science, and the same 'blind faith' prevails. Yet the truth is conflicted is what we are. Conflict is what we do. That we can resolve conflicts peacefully is not itself a sign of evolution, simply of self-management. Evolution would mean an end to that inner conflict.
For me, the Golden Rule was, is and will remain as a rule acknowledged and broken. The history of humanity is the history of the tension between knowing what is right, and wanting what is wrong. As Gray says, the lesson of the Fall in Genesis is not a one-time event of our prehistory, its part of the ongoing human dynamic, the human drama...
Evolution suggests to me a transcending of that condition, the decision not to reach for the forbidden fruit, but to accept ourselves as we are and not reach for the chimera of a knowledge-based utopia, itself just another version of angels sitting on clouds playing harps ...
Ahanu
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Okay. You promote the theory world peace is largely because of nuclear weapons. But which nations have fought the most international wars since World War II? Nuclear states, such as the U.S. and Russia. Nuclear weapons did not deter China from attacking U.S. soldiers in the Korean War. I could very well chalk this so-called "peace" up to non-zero-sum games facilitated by modern technology and economics. Why bomb the other nation building your car, knowing their welfare is intertwined with your own? The web of interdependence is far greater now than, say, in the days of Augustine or even the Korean War. More and more people from various nations are discovering they are playing on the same side of the tennis court, creating a possible win-win situation.
By the way, why should we watch Russia and China?
Hi Ahanu —
China is stepping up its presence in its own region, and also looking to Africa. It's engaged in an arms race with the US.
I don't think there was any single cause, but nuclear weapons changed the way the big players viewed the board, as it were.
Well Russia has demonstrated it is now a major player in the Middle East, where it lost influence about 50 years ago. The US, Europe and Turkey were calling for Assad to go, and then Russia stepped in, bolstered the regime and provided a victory, where the West offered words but little tangible results. Turkey, the Saudis and others are now looking to Russia as a partner.
China is stepping up its presence in its own region, and also looking to Africa. It's engaged in an arms race with the US.
Warning rose colored glasses interpretation ... Watch out you glass is half empty folks!!
In the past it was totally acceptable to conquer a village, steal all their stuff, along with the land, enslave the people, rape the women, and force them all into your religion.
While war is still hell... The UN frowns on some of that, as well as with Geneva we've decided collectively that other weapons are in appropriate and that all is not fair in love and war.
Ignorant me sees this as an improvement.
In the past it was totally acceptable to conquer a village, steal all their stuff, along with the land, enslave the people, rape the women, and force them all into your religion.
While war is still hell... The UN frowns on some of that, as well as with Geneva we've decided collectively that other weapons are in appropriate and that all is not fair in love and war.
Ignorant me sees this as an improvement.