Query to bananabrain

[Operacast]

I found it very interesting to read bananabrain's remark in a related thread --

hah, i arrived at mine through a process of critical evaluation and empirical evidence, as far as i'm concerned, but that's an individual path, not one i could reliably transfer to someone else.

-- in referring to the way he arrived at his belief. Since I also am under the ........... illusion ........... (?) that I arrived at my belief in the same way, I'd be most interested in knowing if bananabrain might tell us in some detail something about his own personal evaluation/analysis path/journey to belief. Please?

While I keenly look forward to reading something of his story, it may be he would feel it unfair to divulge something so personal without me reciprocating. I can see the fairness of that, but with the best will in the world, I can't seem to cut my own odyssey down (and I've tried) to less than 35,000 characters, which comes to nine and a half printed pages and three CR posts! If the board feels that too much of an imposition, I will naturally respect that, or if bananabrain is still interested in our sharing each other's odysseys anyway, I would be happy to go first or second, whichever bananabrain prefers.

Thanks,

Operacast

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hi Opera,

I do not think anybody here would raise any objection to you posting as much as you have to to convey what you have to say. I suggest you just go first and let BB respond to it in his own inimitable way


tao

 

[wil]

I'd be interested in a BB story as well.

Assumptions being what they are I always assumed by his comments and way he was born into his given religion. With his knowledge and passion it sounds like he was raised in a conservative household. I'll be so surprised to learn his exploration of other religions and conversion to Judaism.

 

[Operacast]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 1)

I'd be interested in a BB story as well.

Assumptions being what they are I always assumed by his comments and way he was born into his given religion. With his knowledge and passion it sounds like he was raised in a conservative household. I'll be so surprised to learn his exploration of other religions and conversion to Judaism.

I suppose it's possible he may have been referring in a more general way to a road that led to his acquiring belief in general rather than the road that led to his specifically adopting Judaism(?). Whichever, I do hope this monster multiple post of my own may prove a "welcome mat" that is effective enough in showing BB that there's no reason to hold back on his own story as well.

So here goes on my own reflections which have more to do with the process of evaluation that led to my crediting the essential idea of deity itself as valid rather than any path leading to a specific religion. For most of my adult life, I was an agnostic, and I guess there were times when I would have described myself as an unequivocal atheist instead. At the same time, I've always been an avid (read "compulsive"! reader of anything and everything I cold lay my hands on, whether it's to do with music history, theater history, political history, cultural history, religious history -- you name it. And in addition, although I freely admit there have been times when I've despaired of ever getting my pea brain around the simplest mathematical propositions or scientific theorems, that hasn't stopped me from stubbornly attempting to understand as much as I could in various writings from certain scientists like ....... the two Stephens, for instance (i.e., Jay Gould and Hawking.

As a long-time skeptic, I was always fascinated by evolution (still am), and I've always taken the process of socialization of certain species as being central to humanity's own biological evolution. Some make a false (IMO) distinction between civilization versus nature (or biology). But being civilized is part of being socialized and being socialized is intrinsic to who/what we are -- naturally -- as a species, IMO. Consequently, while beavers may have a natural drive to erect dams, ants to erect anthills, bees to erect beehives -- etc. -- humans erect families, villages, towns, counties, states, nations and empires. Yes, that does constitute civilization, but it also constitutes nature -- our nature.

In a few of his books, Stephen Jay Gould traces the environmental pressures that make certain species evolve to a point where behavioral characteristics are as intrinsic to their physical being as the number of legs and/or tentacles they have! That is a part of evolution. It combines physical characteristics with the survival of the fittest. Both patterns of behavior and physical change over many generations are equally reflective of the evolutionary process.

When it comes to the behavior patterns, urges to eat, have sex, etc., may well be tied to species survival, of course, but socialization -- = interdependent cohesion -- seems just as crucial. No? Isn't forging many links with others a critical component of making one's own existence viable? Intuiting how best to interact with one's whole environment does involve intuiting how best to interact with others. Consequently, empathy toward others is just as critical to evolution as procreation, etc.? All cohesive structures, from humble villages to sprawling global alliances, seem reflective of a socialized empathy that is just as biological/natural as any other drive. So history’s written paper trail seems crucial in unveiling humanity's critical leaps forward in its growing sensitivity toward the "other", culminating in the fusion of whole communities.

My father was a skeptic, but as a professional historian (unlike myself) he was too strict with his discipline not to see that the religious pioneers (much less so their bloodthirsty followers!) frequently "evolved" (used as an active verb) the cultural conscience of those around them to a greater sensitivity for the left-out, the helpless, the unassimilated, the trashed, the down-and-out, the widow, the orphan, the wanderer, the homeless, the poor -- the "outsiders", in other words. To those in certain cultures not yet "evolved" by these religious pioneers, there seemed no pragmatic reason for caring for such "strays". It took the religious pioneers like Buddha and Jesus and others to legitimize the "fanciful notion" that ........... Hey, such "strays" are humans too -- Duh.

In addition, it's not just a case of some pathbreaker who happens to be good. It's even more than that: It's a case of the pathbreaker being both good and an "Original"!

There is a whole related part to this equation that is just as important as any egalitarian innovations in and of themselves, but one can't properly address this whole riddle without first showing certain additional aspects to it that may not be immediately apparent. There is also the ultimate teaser as to how (most of) our brains may be wired.

I've decided to provide here two different lists, showing a contrast that has teased me considerably through the years. I've already referred to this contrast in very general terms in other posts on this board, but it may be time now to put some flesh and bones on that list, so others can judge its significance for themselves.

So here we go <wiping sweat off brow>:

The first of the two lists shows many path-breaking and entirely original spins on social/cultural ethics that have emerged from founding pioneers who have, in the process, founded new theistic creeds alongside their contextually welcome moral values --

(values that, as we'll see, have precious little to do with so-called "sin", really [ultimately, a red herring anyway, and fostered more by followers obsessed with exceptionalism than by the initial pioneers]) --

those initial pioneering moral values from the initial founders consisting primarily of salutary puncturing of socially thoughtless attitudes denying the humanity of all social misfits. These thoughtless attitudes are replaced by these pioneers with a constructive sense of responsibility instead by all and for all without exception ("I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine"). All well and good, but why must the most far-reaching and original spinners on such social responsibility always bring in some brand new (and countercultural and initially nonconformist) theistic creed along with their independent social conscience?

Whatever each pioneer's individual faults -- and a few of them certainly have their individual personal flaws, no question -- each one has shown clear originality for their time and place and culture in that they introduce, without prior precedent

1. the centrality of peace as the spine to all social values (Lugal-Shag-Egur of 3rd-century-B.C.E. Sumeria -- and he also introduces the worship of a new deity, Ningirsu, who's conceived as a powerful god who safeguards all peace treaties);

2. the establishment of protections for the treatment of the socially downscale and the introduction of the concept "freedom" ["amagi" in Sumerian] (Urukagina, the Sumerian reformer -- and he also reconceives Ningirsu as the safeguard of the widow and the orphan [the first known use of this turn of phrase], thus instituting a new form of worship);

3. the notion that those who are afflicted and oppressed deserve the most respect and consideration of all (the writers of Exodus -- and they also introduce the worship of a new god, Yahweh, who has "surely seen the affliction of my people .. and have heard their cry .. And I am come down to deliver them" -- in salutary contrast to most other gods of that period who usually safeguarded the mighty instead);

4. the fundamental concept of Yin and Yang (the writer of the I Ching [thought by some to be a certain Wen Wang] -- and this text also introduces something called "Tian" [loose translation: "Heaven"] as a metaphysical bulwark of all that is and therefore worthy of worship);

5. the first conscientiously designed Constitution in the Western tradition, instituted as the Constitution of Orchomenus (Hesiod, nicknamed "hearth-founder" for his groundbreaking constitution -- and he also introduces into literature the classic picture of the cosmos as conceived in ancient Greek tradition, in his epic Theogony, with its pantheon of gods like Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and so on);

6. the establishment of conventional wisdom as automatically suspect and the powerful's use of the jackboot (so to speak) as intrinsically antithetical to all nature (the writer of the Tao-te-king, sometimes called Lao-Tzu -- and this text also introduces a new form of worship, Taoism, which worships the Dao as "the mystical source and ideal of all existence: it is unseen, but not transcendent, immensely powerful yet supremely humble, being the root of all things");

7. the utter repudiation of any and all violence whatsoever and a rejection of a caste system and of any system that imposes any types of discriminatory levels on the human family at all (the originator of the sermons in the Digha-Nikaya, usually taken to be Buddha -- and these sermons also reconceive a new Brahma, a deity now free of anger, pure of mind, free of malice, without wealth and free of worldly cares, capable of union with all those who "regard all with mind set free, and deep-felt pity, ... sympathy, ... equanimity");

8. the primacy of reining in the arrogance and violence of those in power, advocating a new-minted reciprocal and considerate reform in political life instead, eventually inspiring from the grave the extraordinarily peaceful and stable culture of the Han dynasty (Confucius -- and he also introduced the concept that all moral strength comes ultimately from "Tian", a new wrinkle on the "Tian" of the I Ching);

9. ethics itself as the most important element in humanity's existence, together with a claimed capacity for anyone, from freeman to slave, to grasp it and master it better through continually sharpening self-knowledge (Socrates -- and he also introduced his conviction that he could sometimes hear God's own voice, when being dissuaded from a course of action that would not be right);

10. service to all and living purely for others, even loving one's enemies (the writers of the Synoptic Gospels, in describing Jesus Christ -- and these texts also introduce a new Yahweh, who is merciful and loving and veneration of whom constitutes a new form of worship);

11. the primacy of negotiating peace with one's enemies on their own turf, going in unarmed at great personal risk, just in order to construct a peaceful existence for all peoples in the region, and the instituting of an automatic gift to the poor from all citizens (Mohammed, a reformed raider -- and he also introduces a new god, Allah, who must be worshiped five times a day); and

12. a nuts-and-bolts path to total world peace in our modern world, and the first conception, within a semi-political context, of our globe as a single village long before other politicians ever took up this idea (Bahá’u’lláh -- and he also re-introduces the modern world to a then-new conception of deity as the inspirer of a sequence of "messengers", and therefore worthy of a new form of worship, Bahai).

Such figures play critical roles in prodding us toward an increasingly inclusive ethic.

 

[Operacast]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 2)

That's one list. Here's the other:

This second list consists (primarily) of certain genuinely upright and courageous nonbelievers throughout history that historians rarely talk about --

A) Mathias Knutzen, who described himself as the first "Conscientist" in a series of path-breaking pamphlets published in Central Europe in the 1670s:

'We declare that God does not exist, we deeply despise the authorities and also reject the churches with all their priests. For us Conscientists the knowledge of a single person is insufficient, only that of the majority is sufficient, as in Luke, 24,39: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (because a single person cannot see everything) and the conscience in combination with the knowledge. And this, the conscience, which the generous Mother Nature has given to all humans, replaces for us the bible -- compare Romans, 2, 14-15: (14)"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:" (15)"Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another" -- and the authorities; it is the true judge, as Gregory of Nazianzus testifies ("On his Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail," paragraph 5: "Under what circumstances again is the righteous, when unfortunate, possibly being put to the test, or, when prosperous, being observed, to see if he be poor in mind or not very far superior to visible things, as indeed conscience, our interior and unerring tribunal, tells us"), and is valid for us instead of the priests, because this teacher teaches us to harm nobody, to live in honor and to give everybody what is his. When we fail to do this, I maintain, as this life is for us the only one we have, our entire life will seem like a host of plagues, even as a hell. If, however, we behave in a just manner, it will be like heaven. This, i.e. the conscience, comes into existence with our birth, and it also dies when we pass into death. These are the principles that are innate in us, and whoever rejects them, rejects himself.'

When we research these ethical principles of his -- and their nub is (and actually presented in italics in the original German) "to harm nobody, to live in honor and to give everybody what is his" -- we find that Knutzen, in setting this off in italics, is unabashedly and frankly adopting another's code that he sincerely admires rather than conceptualizing an original groundbreaking one of his own. He is borrowing here from the ancient Roman jurist Ulpian, a polytheist whose writings formed the backbone of the Justinian code.

B) Going back to the ancient Greeks, we have Democritus who urged that everyone be engaged in public service. Admirable sentiment, of course. The "asterisk" here is that this time it is his nonbelief that is not original with him, since he was an avid student of and proselytizer for Leukippos, the ingenious elder pioneer of the ancient Greek Atomist school, the first school to recognize that all life is composed of atoms. And frustratingly, it is clear from what little we have of Leukippos's own voice that he himself was solely engaged in the close study of what many term purely as physics, with social justice and ethics and philosophy never an abiding interest. In fact, Epicurus appears to have remarked that Leukippos was no philosopher.

C) A century or so later, there is Theodorus, who is, unlike Democritus, an original atheist, and also a reasonable socially responsible philosopher. His brand of philosophical hedonism partakes partly of Epicurus's more thoughtful spin on hedonism and more directly of Aristippus's mild hedonism, the latter having pioneered the Cyrenaic school. Again, though, we have someone who is not entirely an "Original", this time adopting, albeit sincerely, others' ethical tenets.

D) Then there is Stratton, another upright original atheist, seemingly uninfluenced by forebears like Theodorus and/or Democritus and/or Leukippos. His (sincere) ethics, though, constitute a wholehearted adoption of the Socratic model rather than a new paradigm of his own.

E) In the C.E., there is even a genuine martyr of freethought, Vanini. His tongue was amputated and he was strangled and burned at the stake. On his way to this ghastly ordeal, he stated he wished to die "en philosophe" -- with equanimity. He was an avid student of Aristotle, whose concept of the Good Life had deeply impressed this brave nonbeliever. At the same time, where Aristotle states that the Good Life resides ultimately in contemplation, Vanini had enthusiastically adopted the then-new variation on that construct, promulgated by a thinker of his own time whom he adopted as his more immediate model, Pomponazzi. Pomponazzi may be the first to advance the notion that all religions contain a kernel of the truth, but Vanini, a nonbeliever, probably had little interest in that. What he did adopt enthusiastically from Pomponazzi -- and lived and died by -- was Pomponazzi's variation on Aristotle: Instead of the Good Life residing ultimately in contemplation, Pomponazzi stated that the Good Life resides ultimately in moral action. Vanini was courageous but not an "Original" in holding fast to this formulation at his very last hour.

At some point in future history, there may yet be a nonbeliever figure like one of these, who is just as much a moral model as one of these, but also at the same time an answer in "double" originality to the 12 cases of pioneering theism cited further up in this post -- and such a future figure may even end up playing a part in shaping the entire philosophical outlook of a whole civilization. The thing is, no nonbeliever yet has shown that "double" originality, both in creed and in ethics, that the 12 theist groundbreakers (toward the top of this post) have, and no such nonbeliever has successfully shaped a whole civilization's outlook in a way that has endured across centuries, much less millennia -- yet. Instead, they've either been original in one respect or in the other but never both, unlike the first list.

So far -- and I've beaten my head against a wall on this, researching this to a fare-thee-well, so I feel fairly confident in saying this -- no one of this nonbeliever description has been an "Original" in both respects. Could such a figure still come along? It hasn't yet. So far, only total double "Original"s have brought cultures back from the sociopathic brink in the past, and those total double "Original"s have been exclusively theists, and, moreover, exclusively countercultural theists -- while those dedicated nonbeliever advocates for decent and responsible ways of life, who've meanwhile dotted the landscape with some already-mooted ideas, have been merely consigned to "big yawn" status (like the impeccable but ineffective Vanini).

Also, all the successful theist paradigms I've cited at the top of this monster post were hardly following the herd, despite their being theists. In fact, they were radically countercultural instead and often paid the ultimate price on precisely that count. But they ended up having enormous influence anyway. So that means that the fact that atheists can also be counter-cultural does not in itself necessarily preclude one or two of their number being a successful double "Original" too in influencing some culture in the future. Ultimately, it could be relevant, therefore, that, in 6000 years of humanity's more civilized history, this hasn't happened yet with a pathbreaking atheist. Does that huge time period constitute a fair enough "laboratory"? Perhaps it does.

And of course, it is not a case of there being all that few nonbelievers in every age. There are always a number, if you know where to look and what to read (encyclopedias are generally a waste of time). The thing is, they have not seized everyone's imagination in the same decisive way -- yet. And I think that can be traced to the fact that we have not had a total double "Original" among those atheists who were indeed morally perceptive -- yet.

F) I spent a lot of time researching Marx in precisely this context. No question that Marx attained a following, and that in doing so he emphasized the primacy of life on this world rather than an importance in the metaphysical.

There were still a few reasons, though, why he didn't emerge as parallel to the theist forebears after all. Instead, he proved more of a parallel to the ancient atheist Democritus, duly cited above. Democritus, if you recall, did develop his ethical and social philosophy entirely on his own, as Marx did. Also, like Marx, though, Democritus did not arrive at his atheism by himself. Instead, D. fell under the spell (and why not?!) of the ancient Greek genius Leukippos, the founder of the ancient Atomist school and the first to realize that all life is composed of microscopic atoms.

Similarly, Marx emerged from a German milieu that was fully aware of atheism as a vibrant and viable philosophy already. Marx was an avid reader of Feuerbach by the time he first formulated his social philosophy. And even Feuerbach did not introduce atheism into the philosophical "bloodstream" of Germany. Feuerbach simply brought it to wider attention. The German intelligentsia were fully aware of atheism as a fully developed philosophy over a hundred years before. It first started circulating among the German intelligentsia as a result of the pamphlets of Matthias Knutzen back in the 1670s, also cited above.

Was Marx, 150 years later or so, reintroducing the Knutzen outlook to an altogether innocent reading public? No. He was already brought to atheism by reading Feuerbach, and many of Feuerbach's readers snapped up Marx as a follower. Feuerbach in turn emerged out of a vibrant thinking circle where atheism was already recognized as a legitimate part of human discourse. His heritage traces itself right back to Knutzen. Thus Marx only reflected a continuing tradition of some standing by the time his own thoughts were published.

On a more personal level -- and since this is strictly a personal take, it has no bearing on whether or not Marx fails to parallel the theist "Original"s -- I'm disappointed by some of Marx's ethical stands during his lifetime. Take as an example a contrasting atheist like Vanini (also cited above) who faced death with equanimity for the sake of maintaining his intellectual integrity. He also apparently was personally generous in all his dealings and wished no man ill. A true role model.

Well ..... Marx was implacable when he learned that Tsar Alexander II was freeing the serfs: [paraphrase] "He's still a Tsar and therefore a walking epitome of an evil and doomed order". Consequently, when Alexander was assassinated, Marx openly rejoiced at his death, as constituting a welcome blow to the "ancien regime". There are even some vague indications -- and they are quite vague, admittedly -- that Marx may have actually been happy(!) at the subsequent collapse of the reform juggernaut Alexander had started once Al.'s repressive and reactionary successor took over and slammed on the brakes. Acc. to some hearsay accounts, Marx felt it was important that the Tsars be as repressive and reactionary as possible in order to spur on a revolution -- and bother the heightened suffering in the meantime! While this latter attitude may be hearsay, his rejoicing at the death of a man whom he knew full well to be a real reformer is fully documented in his own words, and that leaves him less admirable in my eyes than some other atheists and theists alike (whether Vanini or Knutzen or Socrates or Democritus or Confucius).

 

[Operacast]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 3)

It's time to finish this list with two of the earliest atheists of all, atypical atheists for whom both their self-started atheism and their own original creed of living seem equally independent of others. Does that creed fulfill the function of providing forward leaps in a growing sensitivity toward the "other", prodding humanity toward an increasingly inclusive ethic?

G) The ancient Greek Critias was a rough contemporary of Leucippos, but he provides a reason for being an atheist that is different from Leucippos's formulation of all matter being composed of atoms. Instead, Critias, in articulating Western literature's first overt exposition of nonbelief (Leucippos's nonbelief is inferential by dint of his naturalism, not overtly spelled out as is Critias's), wrote

“A time there was when anarchy did rule
The lives of men, which then were like the beasts’,
Enslaved to force. Nor was there then reward
For good men, nor for wicked punishment.
Next, as I deem, did men establish laws
For punishment, that Justice might be lord
Of all mankind, and Insolence enchain’d.
And whosoe’er did sin was penalized.
Next, as the laws did hold men back from deeds
Of open violence, but still such deeds
Were done in secret, -- then, as I maintain,
Some shrewd man first, a man in counsel wise,
Discovered unto men the fear of Gods,
Thereby to frighten sinners should they sin
E’en secretly in deed, or word, or thought.
Hence was it that he brought in Deity,
Telling how God enjoys an endless life,
Hears with his mind and sees, and taketh thought
And heeds things, and his nature is divine,
So that he hearkens to men’s every word
And has the power to see men’s every act.
E’en if you plan in silence some ill deed,
The Gods will surely mark it. For in them
Wisdom resides. So, speaking words like these,
Most cunning doctrine did he introduce,
The truth concealing under speech untrue.
The place he spoke of as the God’s abode
Was that whereby he could affright men most, --
The place from which, he knew, both terrors came
And easements unto men of toilsome life --
To wit the vault above, wherein do dwell
The lightnings, he beheld, and awesome claps
Of thunder, and the starry face of heaven,
Fair-spangled by that cunning craftsman Time, --
Whence, too, the meteor’s glowing mass doth speed
And liquid rain descends upon the earth.
Such were the fears wherewith he hedged men round,
And so to God he gave a fitting home,
By this his speech, and in a fitting place,
And thus extinguished lawlessness by laws.”. . .
- - - - - - - - - - - -[ lacuna ] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
. . .“Thus first did some man, as I deem, persuade
Men to suppose a race of Gods exists.”

Critias's ethics are, sadly, recorded for all time. He was the chief oligarch among the Thirty Tyrants at Athens, 404 - 403 B.C., instituting policies like abrogating the promise to cobble a new Constitution, executing without trial statesmen like his friend Theramenes when faced with advocacy for a moderate course between oligarchy and democracy, and summarily executing without trial dozens of private citizens as well, just to facilitate the use of their wealth -- in the process thinning out the population in various pockets of the surrounding countryside. Even if we accept the notion that tyranny of this sort was less frowned upon in ancient times than it would be today, the Athenians of that era, in fact, reeling from such a Draconian reaction to the world’s first democracy, came to regard the brief reign of the Thirty Tyrants as a singularly cruel and bloodthirsty chapter by any standards.

H) The very earliest (known) pioneering nonbeliever of all was a signal failure in terms of any new culture arising out of his example, even though he certainly had both an entirely original creed and entirely original "ethics", unlike most unbelievers cited above. But when one studies what he said, it's not hard to see why his example failed to gain a significant shelf life, although he did have a few adherents for about a century or so. He was the ancient Indian thinker Brhaspati (not to be confused with other figures named Brhaspati in ancient Indian culture), the pioneer of the ancient Indian Lokayata school of philosophy during the 7th century B.C.E. Here are some bits of what he said:

"There is neither god nor liberation" [i.e., an afterlife]. "Moreover, earth, water, fire and air are the four forms of matter. The only valid form of knowledge is the one produced by the senses." "There is no world other than this; there is no heaven and no hell; the realm of Siva and like regions are invented by stupid impostors of other schools of thought."

"There is no heaven, no final liberation,
nor any soul in another world,
Nor do the actions of the four castes,
orders, or priesthoods produce any real effect."

And his "ethics"?

"Merit and demerit also do not exist." "The pleasure that is produced in a person due to the obtainment of the desired and the avoidance of the undesired is useless." "Gifts of gold and land, the pleasure of invitations to dinner, are devised by indigent people with stomachs lean with hunger.
"The building of temples, houses for water-supply, tanks, wells, resting places, and the like, please only travelers, not others" [OUCH! So much for social responsibility].

"While life remains, let a man live happily,
let him feed on melted ghee [an extremely expensive and fattening butter] though he runs in debt".

It's always struck me that here, and not in Brhaspati's avowal of total unbelief, we have the reason why he failed to capture a whole culture's imagination (despite his fair number of adherents for a century or so). Hypocritical or not, people -- most people, that is -- just like to think of themselves as caring and compassionate. So when a philosophy fails to address the needs of others in ways that presuppose that everyone hearing them is naturally as upright as the day is long (;-), it eventually gets tuned out -- by most, that is -- as somehow a personal insult (i.e., "You expect me to share in this self-centeredness?!") -- what happened to Brhaspati. His "philosophy" (as the earliest known atheism) may even have done significant damage to the cause of atheism for many generations, if not centuries. Its "ethics" may simply have turned too many people off.

All this does not gainsay the fact that sociopathic philosophies can still exert a hold of sorts if advanced with enough charisma and cunning. But they don't tend to transform whole cultures for more than -- maybe -- a couple of centuries, at most. Those "ethics" that have longer influence than that are, sooner or later, the more stable ones that effectively include greater numbers within the "social compact" than would a Brhaspati's. Inclusiveness just yields greater long-term stability. Yes, there can be appalling suffering so long as a sociopathic philosophy prevails. And it can last for as long as two or three lifetimes. But it is ultimately self-destructive and unstable through its very cruelty.

Brhaspati's (relatively) poor reception may be an object lesson for today. If certain people want to be respected as proselytizing atheists, they may have to advance a clearly responsible and universally caring ethical/social/cultural code (a la the 12 theist paradigms cited at the top here). Otherwise, the underlying idea -- in this case, atheism -- may have a hard journey indeed. It could even be that latter-day nonbelieving "self-centered-ists" like Rand and Nietzsche (and Hobbes, to an extent) have done just as much long-term damage to atheism as Brhaspati may have, due precisely to the same lack of a caring ethic.

In consulting with a Sanskrit specialist at the New York Public Library, I managed to confirm that Brhaspati is, in fact, the first extant espouser of an overtly self-centered (non-communitarian, non-inclusive, if you will) philosophy (philosophy as a discipline pretty much starts in India, ca. 1000 B.C.E. and then spreads to Greece, Rome, etc.). So it's sobering to think that the first (extant) espouser of such an anti-social philosophy and the first (extant) overt atheist are one and the same. Not a comfortable discovery for one like me who has been a nonbeliever oneself for most of one's life. Sobering that the earliest (known) atheist, Brhaspati, is also the earliest (known) social isolationist! Not exactly consonant with the parameters outlined at the top of this multiple post for the evolutionary type of ethic needed to evolve the species discretely along.

That concludes the second list.

 

[Operacast]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 4)

Where do we go from here?

Well, that which is both original and good tends to have a strong influence. Apparently, that which is originally good has to be presented in an entirely new and original package as well in order to establish any foothold inside any culture. So far, any such successful original packages have been exclusively theistic. That shows that religion, provided it's a new counter-cultural religion, has been the only effective carrier of such good -- and original -- ethical ideas -- thus far.

Now, is religion -- a new countercultural religion, that is -- the only package in which good -- and original -- ethical ideas can take strong root in a culture on the brink of sociopathic collapse? That's the million-dollar question. Fact is, we don't know the answer. But some facts on the ground do seem to point the way to an answer. It would be intriguing if an atheist as thoroughly original (for his immediate culture) as Brhaspati could fire the imaginations of enough people to jump-start more environmentally and socially responsible habits on a global scale. But that would need a much more socially responsible social ethic than the apparently disreputable Brhaspati could muster up in himself almost three thousand years ago.

Is there a possibility that our brains are actually wired in such a way so that we (the majority of us, that is) only respond as a whole species or a whole culture to ideas that are both good/original when, and only when, they are also "clothed" in new counter-cultural theisms? That seems possible, given our history so far.

One can't help wondering, What would have happened to ancient India had Brhaspati coupled his pioneering nonbelief with an ethical code a century ahead of Buddha's (he came approx. a century ahead of Buddha) in its all-embracing sense of social responsibility and caring? Would Brhaspati's ideas have then ended up in the same obscure circular file we know today, or would his ideas have instead transformed much of Asia into a region eventually free of religion altogether? The only region of the world like that?

If we knew the answer to that question, we would know if our brains require some form of religion (probably counter-cultural) in order to "take in" good/original ethics that periodically save us from the full horrors of sociopathic apathy, or if they can "take in" such good/original ethics in some other creedal package instead, including nonbelief, provided that that package is just as soundly original and autonomous from its culture as are the original/good ethics confronting such an imperilled culture in the first place. If history is all we use to answer that question, then the answer is already in: Both countercultural theism and countercultural social/ethical reform seem mutually symbiotic and equally essential to each other for cementing long-term cultural reform through the ages, thus invalidating any form of pioneering atheism -- however ethically impeccable -- in the process.

Is this pattern involving religious founders versus pioneering atheists a coincidence -- one sustained over thousands of years? On one hand, religious founders (separating aside bloodthirsty, often immoral, followers of various creeds, and sticking only with founders) introduce countercultural altruism again and again while, on the other, countercultural innovators in atheism like Critias, a Greek dictator, a century or so after Brhaspati, and a number of others in ancient and not so ancient times as well (not all enumerated here, since this yarn is already waaaaaaaaaaay too long), are primarily supporters of a recurring self-centered ethic. Frustratingly, the philosophical demographics among countercultural pioneering atheists only start veering toward a more caring than non-caring ethic a bare five hundred years ago, but at least that shows that rank-and-file atheists have the same checkered ethics pattern that rank-and-file believers -- and all humans -- do. The thing is, even the more plentiful decent atheists of recent times do not introduce new ethical constructs alongside brand new formulations for atheism at the same time. And the recent formulators of new constructs for atheism don't introduce new ethical constructs at the same time, including those increasing cases recently where such people are unusually upright and ethical.

If a self-centered ethic is indeed counter-evolutionary - and I feel it is - then the apparent symbiotic relationship between pioneering self-centeredness and pioneering atheism is troubling. It may constitute a mirror image of a similar relationship between pioneering altruism and pioneering countercultural spins on belief -- the latter two being equally essential to our evolution? If so, would it make sense for mere belief to assist evolution so tangibly with no need for an actual deity? Perhaps it would; perhaps belief by itself, whether or not based on a fiction, could still remain useful as an evolutionary prod on a purely social level. Yet, can a constructive process that's based on a fiction be logical? Ultimately, the apparent historical primacy of the role of belief in human evolution seems to point to deity itself (whether mono- or poly-) being real too, and thus just as essential to human evolution as mere belief.

It’s not easy for a lifelong skeptic like me to make this conclusion. But my keen disappointment at the earliest extant atheists being also the first extant self-centered philosophers, and vice versa, has made me conclude that engagement with deity is essential for healthy cultural/social evolution. Now, it's exciting to discover the earliest espousal of skeptical ideas that have characterized my own thinking for most of my life; but I'm suddenly pulled up short by the unwelcome baggage that comes with these ideas at their inception. I don't think I'm mistaken in perceiving empathy or altruism as essential to humanity’s cultural/social evolution. Consequently, any doctrine that also starts as a pioneering rejection of either concept -- and in the case of the earliest atheists, both concepts! -- would seem counter-evolutionary and therefore wrong.

One can readily perceive, I believe, that a figure like Brihaspati is less than an ideal poster boy for nonbelief--unfortunately. I admit my revulsion with his type was partly bound up with the emotional impact of my high expectations being dashed -- the expectations of an erstwhile skeptic who assumed an egalitarian outlook in whoever would turn out to be the earliest known secularists. This made the unexpectedly unsavory sentiments of Brihaspati and Critias truly shocking for me.

Consequently, today, I can only therefore conclude that God probably exists after all, meaning I'm no longer an agnostic. God -- the visceral awareness of God by certain gifted human beings -- seems inseparable from the evolutionary juggernaut for cohesive community. And if I take that juggernaut as being intrinsic to our natural evolution, as I do, then the intricate mechanics of that evolution -- individual human beings uncannily aware of some higher deity even as they prod us to a more caring ethic at the same time -- seem just as intrinsic to evolution as the socialization process itself. That would seem to mean then that deity itself is intrinsic to any evolved patterns of behavior for the human family.

I am fully aware that I am merely dealing here with what might be termed "circumstantial evidence", and nothing more. There is merely a generally uncanny pattern here that seems to point to a certain number of _probable_ answers. We're dealing with mere _probability_ here; nothing more. This is not intended as a demonstration of certainty at all. Certainty and probability are not the same!

There is, though, one aspect here that may actually strengthen the validity of looking at these questions in this way: to wit, this argument is theoretically disprovable. In other words, when we look at the section on #E in the second list, you'll see I don't entirely dismiss the remote possibility that a pioneering nonbeliever, who is a double "Original" in both her/his nonbelief and in a clearly altruistic code of ethics, may yet shape some future civilization's outlook across the centuries. When/If that should happen at some point in the near or distant future, the monopoly that countercultural theists have apparently had on countercultural altruism would then be broken, and the conclusions made here concerning the apparent _probability_ (though not certainty) of deity as a valid concept can then be summarily dumped <shrug>. Again, though, humanity has had at least six thousand years of growing civilization for this to occur somewhere; yet it never has. So that leaves the concept of deity looking more valid to me now than it ever did for most of my life.

I guess none of this answers the question as to which religious creed may have "the full truth", of course. But perhaps Pomponazzi is right: Perhaps each creed has some kernel of the whole picture.

My two cents,

Operacast

 

[Operacast]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 4)

OOPS! Two different versions of the same (but garbled) sentence got included side by side! ===============>

Where do we go from here?

Well, that which is both original and good tends to have a strong influence. Apparently, that which is originally good has to be presented in an entirely new and original package as well in order to establish any foothold inside any culture. So far, any such successful original packages have been exclusively theistic. That shows that religion, provided it's a new counter-cultural religion, has been the only effective carrier of such good -- and original -- ethical ideas -- thus far.

Now, is religion -- a new countercultural religion, that is -- the only package in which good -- and original -- ethical ideas can take strong root in a culture on the brink of sociopathic collapse? That's the million-dollar question. Fact is, we don't know the answer. But some facts on the ground do seem to point the way to an answer. It would be intriguing if an atheist as thoroughly original (for his immediate culture) as Brhaspati could fire the imaginations of enough people to jump-start more environmentally and socially responsible habits on a global scale. But that would need a much more socially responsible social ethic than the apparently disreputable Brhaspati could muster up in himself almost three thousand years ago.

Is there a possibility that our brains are actually wired in such a way so that we (the majority of us, that is) only respond as a whole species or a whole culture to ideas that are both good/original when, and only when, they are also "clothed" in new counter-cultural theisms? That seems possible, given our history so far.

One can't help wondering, What would have happened to ancient India had Brhaspati coupled his pioneering nonbelief with an ethical code a century ahead of Buddha's (he came approx. a century ahead of Buddha) in its all-embracing sense of social responsibility and caring? Would Brhaspati's ideas have then ended up in the same obscure circular file we know today, or would his ideas have instead transformed much of Asia into a region eventually free of religion altogether? The only region of the world like that?

If we knew the answer to that question, we would know if our brains require some form of religion (probably counter-cultural) in order to "take in" good/original ethics that periodically save us from the full horrors of sociopathic apathy, or if they can "take in" such good/original ethics in some other creedal package instead, including nonbelief, provided that that package is just as soundly original and autonomous from its culture as are the original/good ethics confronting such an imperilled culture in the first place. If history is all we use to answer that question, then the answer is already in: Both countercultural theism and countercultural social/ethical reform seem mutually symbiotic and equally essential to each other for cementing long-term cultural reform through the ages, thus invalidating any form of pioneering atheism -- however ethically impeccable -- in the process.

Is this pattern involving religious founders versus pioneering atheists a coincidence -- one sustained over thousands of years? On one hand, religious founders (separating aside bloodthirsty, often immoral, followers of various creeds, and sticking only with founders) introduce countercultural altruism again and again while, on the other, countercultural innovators in atheism like Critias, a Greek dictator, a century or so after Brhaspati, and a number of others in ancient and not so ancient times as well (not all enumerated here, since this yarn is already waaaaaaaaaaay too long), are primarily supporters of a recurring self-centered ethic. Frustratingly, the philosophical demographics among countercultural pioneering atheists only start veering toward a more caring than non-caring ethic a bare five hundred years ago, but at least that shows that rank-and-file atheists have the same checkered ethics pattern that rank-and-file believers -- and all humans -- do.

================> The next sentence should read:

The thing is, even the more plentiful decent atheists of recent times do not introduce new ethical constructs alongside brand new formulations for atheism at the same time, or in cases where their ethical constructs do indeed show something new, their atheism appears to come from various sources around them, rather than being self-generated.

If a self-centered ethic is indeed counter-evolutionary - and I feel it is - then the apparent symbiotic relationship between pioneering self-centeredness and pioneering atheism is troubling. It may constitute a mirror image of a similar relationship between pioneering altruism and pioneering countercultural spins on belief -- the latter two being equally essential to our evolution? If so, would it make sense for mere belief to assist evolution so tangibly with no need for an actual deity? Perhaps it would; perhaps belief by itself, whether or not based on a fiction, could still remain useful as an evolutionary prod on a purely social level. Yet, can a constructive process that's based on a fiction be logical? Ultimately, the apparent historical primacy of the role of belief in human evolution seems to point to deity itself (whether mono- or poly-) being real too, and thus just as essential to human evolution as mere belief.

It’s not easy for a lifelong skeptic like me to make this conclusion. But my keen disappointment at the earliest extant atheists being also the first extant self-centered philosophers, and vice versa, has made me conclude that engagement with deity is essential for healthy cultural/social evolution. Now, it's exciting to discover the earliest espousal of skeptical ideas that have characterized my own thinking for most of my life; but I'm suddenly pulled up short by the unwelcome baggage that comes with these ideas at their inception. I don't think I'm mistaken in perceiving empathy or altruism as essential to humanity’s cultural/social evolution. Consequently, any doctrine that also starts as a pioneering rejection of either concept -- and in the case of the earliest atheists, both concepts! -- would seem counter-evolutionary and therefore wrong.

One can readily perceive, I believe, that a figure like Brihaspati is less than an ideal poster boy for nonbelief--unfortunately. I admit my revulsion with his type was partly bound up with the emotional impact of my high expectations being dashed -- the expectations of an erstwhile skeptic who assumed an egalitarian outlook in whoever would turn out to be the earliest known secularists. This made the unexpectedly unsavory sentiments of Brihaspati and Critias truly shocking for me.

Consequently, today, I can only therefore conclude that God probably exists after all, meaning I'm no longer an agnostic. God -- the visceral awareness of God by certain gifted human beings -- seems inseparable from the evolutionary juggernaut for cohesive community. And if I take that juggernaut as being intrinsic to our natural evolution, as I do, then the intricate mechanics of that evolution -- individual human beings uncannily aware of some higher deity even as they prod us to a more caring ethic at the same time -- seem just as intrinsic to evolution as the socialization process itself. That would seem to mean then that deity itself is intrinsic to any evolved patterns of behavior for the human family.

I am fully aware that I am merely dealing here with what might be termed "circumstantial evidence", and nothing more. There is merely a generally uncanny pattern here that seems to point to a certain number of _probable_ answers. We're dealing with mere _probability_ here; nothing more. This is not intended as a demonstration of certainty at all. Certainty and probability are not the same!

There is, though, one aspect here that may actually strengthen the validity of looking at these questions in this way: to wit, this argument is theoretically disprovable. In other words, when we look at the section on #E in the second list, you'll see I don't entirely dismiss the remote possibility that a pioneering nonbeliever, who is a double "Original" in both her/his nonbelief and in a clearly altruistic code of ethics, may yet shape some future civilization's outlook across the centuries. When/If that should happen at some point in the near or distant future, the monopoly that countercultural theists have apparently had on countercultural altruism would then be broken, and the conclusions made here concerning the apparent _probability_ (though not certainty) of deity as a valid concept can then be summarily dumped <shrug>. Again, though, humanity has had at least six thousand years of growing civilization for this to occur somewhere; yet it never has. So that leaves the concept of deity looking more valid to me now than it ever did for most of my life.

I guess none of this answers the question as to which religious creed may have "the full truth", of course. But perhaps Pomponazzi is right: Perhaps each creed has some kernel of the whole picture.

My two cents,

Operacast

 

[Tao_Equus]

A very thought provoking post

I'l be back

tao

 

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

A small aside to Operacast: our beloved bb is very much a male, so you don't need to use the her/him pronoun combination (bb, his wife and two bblings would appreciate that.)

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

 

[Tao_Equus]

I kind of expected a few comments on your post(s) by now, but I suppose there is a lot to digest.

Well I read, then slept on it, then read it again just now. Aside from having to take your word on it that the several inter-relationships you mention are historically accurate, which I do, my immediate thoughts during the first read, and then again this morning, is that while this is a beautiful way to approach social evolution it kind of ignores the relevance of the masses.

Is it not possible that rather than these 'visionaries' driving progress that they are the pinnacle of previous stages of cultural progress. That it is the change in culture that gives birth to those that can articulate it. And is it not the truth that the difference between the two lists really is defined by those that have and use charisma and those that did not?

For example you state that Brhaspati was almost contemporary with Buddha, only 100 years or so separates them, a cultural eye blink. Is it not that Brhaspati was articulating a rationalism that was necessary to grind down to bare truths in a culture that was ready to sift through the dogma? A short time later that culture had reasserted a new paradigm that took charisma, (and I'm thinking on charisma here in the Buddha as an expression of love), to new intellectual highs. Buddha, my depth of knowledge on him woefully poor as it is, I classified as a typical charismatic that shares the attributes of most others on that first list. The glaring exception being Muhammad. he may have been an adept politician with charisma of another kind, but I do not believe he was interested in anything but personal power. But I digress. The charisma of all the others is perhaps and arguably their most striking feature.

Combined with their social altruism they became the master poet/philosophers of their day. The cultural celebrity in an age before we had turned that into the banality we see today. It feels good to be popular and so occasionally altruism creeps into a leadership, a king or emperor. But that is rare, most power hungry people, to my mind, are about the most Godless atheists you will ever encounter. They do not just get power over us but the get the keys to the gnosis of a civilisation. They learn how virtually every high churchman, indeed every man, is corruptible. And so they hijack the story of charisma and altruism and the revolution is all but dead. They are free to proceed with their greed and their power lust. And civilisation, as measured through altruism, slides inevitably backwards. The poetry of the "prophets" is butchered, re-interpreted, chopped again then given a bunch of repetition as only being able to be understood through the guidance of the priests. Power lust and insatiable greed are the opposite and counter to the altruism the people, encapsulated in the poetry and philosophy of these verses of values, strive for. In small tribal societies the shaman and the chief are rarely the same person. Our evolution has till very recently been based on these tribal units and we learned to keep leadership and religion separate. Several times have I seen Jesus quoted here as having said keep power/politics (in this case Rome) separate from the message of his altruism. I tend to think there was a Jesus, but rather I think he was one of many voices in that area at that time. A voice crying out for a separation of state and church for one. People were, as now, paying hard earned alms/taxes, to a Church and imperialist occupational power that were openly and overtly robbing them blind.

Muhammad was different though. He studied the same patterns you study, he is second last on your list of 10, he saw patterns in precedent and used them to cement his political ambition. I think there is no other conclusion to be drawn than that Muhammad started and headed a political hegemony that botched together a religion, commanded it be recited repeatedly (in what any sane man knows to be a brainwash technique), and gave its generals/preachers power over all tax raising and subjugation of the general population. Islamic law was born. Islamic law, (quite aside from advocating cruel and barbarous punishments on other human beings for often petty misdemeanour's or natural behaviour like sexual orientation or desire itself, this is terrorising of a people, keeping a population in fear.), is all pervasive, totalitarian and it is the work of a totalitarian control freak that had the cunning and strength to sweep away any opposition to his expansion. Especially religious dissent. I think Muhammad was as atheist as I am. He saw religion and belief as a tool to build his empire with. And he made it very clear dissent = death. This picture of him has no altruism and so to me he should not feature on the list.

To imagine that Muhammad had no knowledge of the ruthlessness with which Constantine the Great had risen to total power, and his adoption of a monotheistic theocracy, is impossible. They lived 250 years in neighbouring geographical positions. Constantine's 'story' Would still be fresh on every political thinkers mind. So Muhammad saw a precedent and used it's lessons to create his empire. Raise his own name to legend.

Democracy may be a bit of a farce everywhere but there are degrees. Where you find Islam you find the most sham lip service to democracy. The altruism of the people is denied expression on the one hand and substituted with rigid, enforced rituals of indoctrination on the other. I cannot conceive of progress in altruism without it striving for an ideal of democracy as a central tenet. Democracy is altruism, one and the same.

Like I say we use the word a lot in the west but our own democracies are still sadly failing. Social altruism exists as pervasively as ever, the masses are by large naturally that way, and it finds expression in the good deeds of people around the world to help a fellow person. But there is a percentage of ordinary people who are willing to be the spies and footsoldiers, the generals and the executioners. People that have a very narrow range of empathy for their fellow beings.

Afraid time makes wrap on this for now, but I am not finished yet. I will be back soon though to finish where I was going with the above.


tao

 

[wil]

I kind of expected a few comments on your post(s) by now, but I suppose there is a lot to digest.

A lot to digest??

Oh my. I had to print it out. Like Tao, I don't have all it takes to verify what you've stated as info to back up your thesis, but quite a bit of interesting stuff there.

Interesting reasoning...and here is me with..."well I can't explain it" and when I try words escape what I wish to convey and I sound like a fool... but I believe.

OperaCast, I don't think I have the capacity to respond, but thoroughly enjoyed the reading, and rereading, thank you.

 

[Operacast]

I kind of expected a few comments on your post(s) by now, but I suppose there is a lot to digest.

Well I read, then slept on it, then read it again just now. Aside from having to take your word on it that the several inter-relationships you mention are historically accurate, which I do, my immediate thoughts during the first read, and then again this morning, is that while this is a beautiful way to approach social evolution it kind of ignores the relevance of the masses.

Is it not possible that rather than these 'visionaries' driving progress that they are the pinnacle of previous stages of cultural progress. That it is the change in culture that gives birth to those that can articulate it. And is it not the truth that the difference between the two lists really is defined by those that have and use charisma and those that did not?

Perfectly fair observation -- which in turn begs the question that pestered me back when I first wanted, not so many years ago, to discover some pioneering atheist who was a profoundly influential double "Original": How come it's always the countercultural theists who have that requisite charisma in the first place and never the countercultural atheists? I agree with you that it's entirely possible that the altruistic pioneers may be an expression of a pinnacle at the end of a civilizing progress rather than a harbinger of things to come. Even so, it is somewhat uncanny, although I grant not decisive, that whether or not such figures emerge at the start of an enlightening process or at its height, they should always come from a countercultural, religion-bucking perspective that bucks a prevailing religion with a new one rather than bucking it with a nontheistic perspective altogether. Goodness knows that countercultural theists like Socrates and Jesus still pay the ultimate price anyway. So they're hardly successful among their contemporaries. Neither would countercultural atheists be, theoretically. Rather, it's the long-term impact that we're looking at. And for some reason, these countercultural theists often have a paradigmatic long-term impact in spite of a checquered story while alive. Why?

For example you state that Brhaspati was almost contemporary with Buddha, only 100 years or so separates them, a cultural eye blink. Is it not that Brhaspati was articulating a rationalism that was necessary to grind down to bare truths in a culture that was ready to sift through the dogma? A short time later that culture had reasserted a new paradigm that took charisma, (and I'm thinking on charisma here in the Buddha as an expression of love), to new intellectual highs. Buddha, my depth of knowledge on him woefully poor as it is, I classified as a typical charismatic that shares the attributes of most others on that first list.

Oh, most definitely. That's not off the mark at all.

The glaring exception being Muhammad. he may have been an adept politician with charisma of another kind, but I do not believe he was interested in anything but personal power. But I digress. The charisma of all the others is perhaps and arguably their most striking feature.

Combined with their social altruism they became the master poet/philosophers of their day. The cultural celebrity in an age before we had turned that into the banality we see today. It feels good to be popular and so occasionally altruism creeps into a leadership, a king or emperor. But that is rare, most power hungry people, to my mind, are about the most Godless atheists you will ever encounter.

Careful: You're implying that atheism is uniquely associated with a-ethicalism. I should add that I, for one, am definitely not saying that. I'm talking about the undue influence of pioneering countercultural theists among the pioneering countercultural ethicists. But history shows that the rank-and-file mix of the ethical end the unethical is pretty much the same among believers and nonbelievers alike.

They do not just get power over us but the get the keys to the gnosis of a civilisation. They learn how virtually every high churchman, indeed every man, is corruptible. And so they hijack the story of charisma and altruism and the revolution is all but dead. They are free to proceed with their greed and their power lust. And civilisation, as measured through altruism, slides inevitably backwards. The poetry of the "prophets" is butchered, re-interpreted, chopped again then given a bunch of repetition as only being able to be understood through the guidance of the priests. Power lust and insatiable greed are the opposite and counter to the altruism the people, encapsulated in the poetry and philosophy of these verses of values, strive for. In small tribal societies the shaman and the chief are rarely the same person. Our evolution has till very recently been based on these tribal units and we learned to keep leadership and religion separate. Several times have I seen Jesus quoted here as having said keep power/politics (in this case Rome) separate from the message of his altruism. I tend to think there was a Jesus, but rather I think he was one of many voices in that area at that time. A voice crying out for a separation of state and church for one. People were, as now, paying hard earned alms/taxes, to a Church and imperialist occupational power that were openly and overtly robbing them blind.

Couldn't agree more. In fact, I already find much that is in Paul, for instance, a "muffler" against what we read in the three Synoptics. I think, BTW, you're inadvertently overlooking the very real possibility that that corrupting process is precisely what may have overtaken Islam in certain quarters, BTW.

Muhammad was different though. He studied the same patterns you study, he is second last on your list of 10, he saw patterns in precedent and used them to cement his political ambition. I think there is no other conclusion to be drawn than that Muhammad started and headed a political hegemony that botched together a religion, commanded it be recited repeatedly (in what any sane man knows to be a brainwash technique), and gave its generals/preachers power over all tax raising and subjugation of the general population. Islamic law was born. Islamic law, (quite aside from advocating cruel and barbarous punishments on other human beings for often petty misdemeanour's or natural behaviour like sexual orientation or desire itself, this is terrorising of a people, keeping a population in fear.), is all pervasive, totalitarian and it is the work of a totalitarian control freak that had the cunning and strength to sweep away any opposition to his expansion. Especially religious dissent. I think Muhammad was as atheist as I am. He saw religion and belief as a tool to build his empire with. And he made it very clear dissent = death. This picture of him has no altruism and so to me he should not feature on the list.

To imagine that Muhammad had no knowledge of the ruthlessness with which Constantine the Great had risen to total power, and his adoption of a monotheistic theocracy, is impossible. They lived 250 years in neighbouring geographical positions. Constantine's 'story' Would still be fresh on every political thinkers mind. So Muhammad saw a precedent and used it's lessons to create his empire. Raise his own name to legend.

Democracy may be a bit of a farce everywhere but there are degrees. Where you find Islam you find the most sham lip service to democracy. The altruism of the people is denied expression on the one hand and substituted with rigid, enforced rituals of indoctrination on the other. I cannot conceive of progress in altruism without it striving for an ideal of democracy as a central tenet. Democracy is altruism, one and the same.

I was careful to stress that not all of the 12 trailblazers were impeccable from cradle to grave. What's critical is the redemptive effect they had on their culture and often the extent to which they themselves had to undergo an inner redemption too to arrive where they did at the end of their journey. Mohammed is undoubtedly an instance of someone who (it seems to me) had to travel a long way indeed before reaching the point where he too could exert some enlightenment around him.

But exert it he did: He had first become a ruthless raider by the time he chose to contribute his greatest gift to those around him. Maybe he became a raider out of necessity (people in Medina were in a desperate way), but that does not excuse his choosing to do what others in similar straits were doing as well. Remarkably, going from that to his subsequent gift of being the brave negotiator who ultimately inspired some of his followers to join him in going unarmed to Mecca to talk peace with his most dangerous and ruthless enemies (and even ordering some of his followers to go back home when they joined him on the road bristling with arms instead!) entailed a huge change characterized by great courage and intelligence. In the last few years of his life, this huge gamble paid off, earning him the friendship and profound respect of one or two of his worst enemies. He did finally achieve a temporary peace among the tribes of the area of a sort that the region had not known for quite a few centuries before Mohammed was born.

Now, there is still a tragedy associated with Mohammed's story and the results of what he had been before renouncing the raids. Certain close associates of his did not drop their rough ways the way he had, and when he died, those rough associates compromised much of the hard-won peace Mohammed had achieved. In addition to resuming old belligerent ways against other tribes, they fell out among themselves and much blood was shed. Some say this is as much a part of Mohammed's legacy, due entirely to his chosen companions during his most rough years, as any of the peace dividends he cemented in his maturity. For some, that is a bum rap. For others, it's valid.

Suffice to say that the peace Mohammed emphatically achieved against all expectations did not entirely stick, with the result that Islam itself has since acquired a violent image in some minds that lingers to this day. Probably the truest mirror of what Mohammed himself eventually became is found in the inspiring annals of Andalusian Spain, when the region became generally recognized as the most civilized outpost in all of Europe, and when life there was characterized by the most varied and ecumenical society in the whole world! At the same time, one nadir was certainly reached when one of the most violent inheritors from inside Mohammed's circle ended up cold-bloodedly exterminating pretty much the entire Mohammed bloodline at Karbala, a hideous turning point that for some changed the face of Islam irrevocably and that is, in fact, formally commemorated to this day as an occasion for the deepest mourning.

Mohammed's is still not a Simon-pure story, of course, but then neither is Urukagina's, nor that of one or two others here in addition. It's what these figures later became that impacted their behavior sufficiently to give of themselves for others. Very, very few of them start out utterly blameless and remain so throughout their odyssey, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates and Jesus being arguably the only ones with no spot on them at all (IMO -- and I'm unequivocally ready and willing to have that very slim estimate challenged by anyone, BTW.)

Like I say we use the word a lot in the west but our own democracies are still sadly failing. Social altruism exists as pervasively as ever, the masses are by large naturally that way, and it finds expression in the good deeds of people around the world to help a fellow person. But there is a percentage of ordinary people who are willing to be the spies and footsoldiers, the generals and the executioners. People that have a very narrow range of empathy for their fellow beings.

Agreed. And although this further closing reflection on my part here is somewhat off the main topic here, I will say that there are times these days when I seriously think that there are such "perfect storm" conditions obtaining among us today for such a lethal mix of myopia -- and "other"-hating -- that ultimate human extinction remains a very real possibility before the end of this century, either through increasing but preventable polar warming, or eventual but preventable free-lance use of WMDs, or some other trip-wire effect brought on by a stubborn muddling through of a sort today that humanity can no longer afford. The idealistic has never been fused so fatally and so urgently with the pragmatic before. If we fail to match our vision today with those twelve pioneers whom I cited in my outsize post, I sincerely believe we are doomed and that the grandchildren born this decade will never see old age. Truly.

That's but one reason why my studies launched back when I was still a skeptic took on such a degree of urgency in my mind (still do). I begin to feel it's imperative that whatever impelled the Urukaginas, the Buddhas, the Confuciuses, et al, to successfully steer their cultures away from a cliff should now be "bottled" right away or never.

Sincerely,

Operacast

 

[bananabrain]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 1)

to return to the OP - i knew i had something like this lying around:

as you may know, i was brought up in the reform movement, where i was taught that the Torah was a human document which was ‘inspired’ by G!D but nonetheless redacted in line with the prevailing ‘documentary hypothesis’. although this was my default position and i was aware of others, it didn’t seem to me an unreasonable point of view. i disagreed strongly with the idea that the shulhan ‘arukh had the same force of authority as the Torah and maintained that halakhah was an entirely human construct which had to be modified in line with modern thinking and society, to say nothing of the autonomy of the individual. in short, my judaism was largely one of social action, ethics, uncomplicated monotheism, zionism (by which i meant support for jewish national self-determination within a nation-state format in our ancestral homeland) and ethnic pride. i no longer hold a reform theological position, but it is instructive to trace the path of my spiritual development to where i am now. it’s not really about theology but about practice. the theology is almost after the fact.

i suppose it started at a jewish-christian-muslim interfaith dialogue conference in germany that i ended up going to after meeting karen armstrong (author of “a history of G!D”) at the informal “limmud” jewish education conference (Limmud Home). people who know me personally know that the closest thing to spirituality for me is music (that’s if one doesn’t count, ahem, conjugal relations, but i digress) and, from your own experience, you will no doubt concur that it is a highly personal and subjective perspective. you don’t know why it works, but you know it does and you know that it has unexplained power and ineffable beauty. this was something i never associated with synagogue services, which i always found boring, repetitive, longwinded and embarrassingly formal, despite occasional bursts of relevance in the “study section” or sermons. i always found reform rabbis ethically and intellectually credible, but not people i wanted to emulate or hang out with. they were always a little bit distant and were like “keepers of the ritual”. i didn’t feel i had to do the ritual stuff myself. well, as you know, music isn’t like that for me. music is something like breathing for me, it’s something i can’t not do. it bursts out of me. at this interfaith conference, i attended a sufi dhikr ceremony, i felt i saw people – muslims – use music to speak to G!D. i felt it myself. they were high on it. i felt this was something i was missing. where was this in judaism? not in the self-conscious, english-accented mumblings of the rsgb, that was for sure.

fortunately i was meeting inspiring people all the time at limmud. a reform teacher from l.a. who runs a place called “Torah aura” got me interested in talmud. i started reading books. i met more student rabbis. i met inspiring teachers from many different jewish backgrounds. i met jewish musicians who used music in their spirituality. jewish options outside my previous experience started appearing. all of this seemed to be pointing me in the right direction. at some point, i don’t remember when, i read abraham joshua heschel’s “the sabbath”. this for me was a turning point. finally, someone who spoke about jewish things with real passion, not merely in the disinterested intellectual tone of “ethical monotheism”. it had soul. the same thing happened when someone lent me aryeh kaplan’s “jewish meditation”. it had never occurred to me that there was such a thing or that it related to what went on in synagogue. it demonstrated not only intellectual complexity, but also appeared to have a level of integrity and self-containedness that i had never encountered. it felt like something i didn’t require other people to do at the same time. i could get it right in my own space. there was an almost yoga-like physical quality to it. i started reading about mysticism and kabbalah, consuming as much kaplan as possible – his approach felt almost scientific and, moreover, he was also a nuclear physicist with a phd. what i was reading was similar to what i had read about esoteric martial arts. i started feeling maybe there was something beyond the everyday religious and physical experience in the same way i experienced it musically. i wanted to connect with this myself. fortunately, at just this point, a close friend convened a group of people to participate in a monthly class on kabbalah, which enabled me to move in this direction, just as learning flamenco enabled me to connect with sephardic folk culture.

my interest in interfaith dialogue, of course, had been sparked originally by karen armstrong, whose “history of G!D” i found enthralling. but one thing in it bothered me – and it was about how she talked about the Torah as being a composite document, j, e, p etc. i wasn’t sure why, because it was, in essence, a comprehensive statement of the documentary hypothesis, which was also supported by reform theology. i just hadn’t seen it put in quite so bald terms. but it felt wrong. Divine inspiration notwithstanding (from a reform perspective), it felt like listening to a music cd and then being told that what i was listening to was a collection of 1s and 0s, just some binary code using an algorithm designed by engineers, obviously that misses something rather important about the experience.

at about the same time, i read “the disappearance of G!D” by richard elliot friedman, which resonated with my perception of history and the jewish people. i liked his approach, so i read his other book, “who wrote the bible?”, which was an in-depth treatment of the documentary hypothesis – and it was this book that really put me off it. the more i read about it, the less i liked it and the more it felt like it was the product of a bunch of career-minded academics, intellectually dishonest sceptics and untrustworthy, self-promoting professional debunkers, many of whom had a distinctly anti-semitic tinge to their beliefs, wellhausen in particular. the field felt tainted. i don’t think it was friedman’s fault. i just found myself unable to reconcile this theory with the judaism of heschel, kaplan and the kabbalists – surely they knew more about the text and its accompanying traditions than these 19th century euro-centric chauvinists? increasingly, post-enlightenment rationalism felt to me like self-congratulatory, sneering triumphalism, particularly combined with the unalloyed admiration of “progress” that resulted in the mechanised destruction that the 20th century wreaked on my people and others, through marxism, nazism, maoism and other abominations. it was the illusions of the 19th century that brought us the idea that only the secular nation-state could save the world – and we all know how well that has worked out, especially for us in the middle east. how could i continue to subscribe to this as a basis for my relationship with the Divine?

 

[bananabrain]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 2)

(cont’d)

having cast the questionable wisdom of modernism into the outer darkness, i felt that the logical position to adopt was a sort of jewish version of “restore factory settings”. if i was unable to subscribe to the criticisms of traditional belief offered by spinoza and the early reform movement, it seemed to me that i owed it to myself to explore what they had rejected. the traditional beliefs had, after all, an enviable track record and, if kaplan was anything to go by, were still sustainable even by someone with scientific training. however, this was not about surrendering my individualism – i was not going to relinquish the moral heritage of the reform movement, after all, nor was i about to become one of those ghastly born-again traditionalists who alienates his entire family and has to change all his friends. the question was whether i could find a version of these beliefs compatible with modernity as well as my inner life. fortunately, at this point, my rav hoved into view. here was someone whose humanity, ethics, tolerance and intellectual rigour appeared entirely compatible with and indeed flowed from their judaism. i was privileged to study with him over a traumatic period following my first engagement and the his approach to modern traditional (i’m still not comfortable with the word “orthodox”) judaism seemed to work for me, so i set about exploring the system from within, particularly with respect to my familial roots in the sephardic world, which was facilitated by another close friend, who is now on the new spanish & portuguese ordination programme. this friend, who had a traditional religious upbringing and yeshiva training, has been an incredible resource for me. he was discovering the world of philosophy and secular literature, history and culture just as i was discovering the traditional jewish world and i think we very much balanced each other out, each keeping the other on the straight and narrow.

there was an eventual point when i realised that i had become traditional, almost by stealth. the theology that spoke to me was that of the mystics. the language of the sefer yetzirah in particular describes the universe i feel i inhabit – a multi-dimensional space created within the Infinite Divine, in which numbers, letters and names are the interface by which we seek to understand these dimensions. science can tell us a lot about the three dimensions of place and the fourth of time, but it rejects the existence of the fifth dimension of “soul”. as humans we can move ourselves along the three dimensions of place, but we are mere spectators in relation to the fourth dimension, which is unaffected by our actions. however, the fifth dimension is one we can move ourselves along by our behaviour, for good or evil. our location is our responsibility and the result of our free-will. only the Creator, who is not subject to the restrictions of five dimensions, can perceive any given point within this five-dimensional hyperspace – cause and effect are one to the Divine just as past and future are. this perspective is not one that humans can share. even four-dimensional consciousness is hard to attain. ability to integrate knowledge of the five dimensions is a tremendously challenging spiritual discipline and it is this that the practice of judaism enables. i see it as a huge conjunction of spheres, which rotate at varying speeds and every so often line up – particularly during the counting of the ‘omer. when they are all aligned, as happens on Shabu’oth, a channel to the ‘higher worlds’ is open. a similar conjunction occurs weekly on Shabbat. the cosmos is ‘thinner’ – background noise is reduced (especially if traditional observance is followed) and the Divine ‘signal’ is doubled in strength – hence tefillin (as ‘amplifiers’ of this signal) are not required.

although it is of course traditionally understood that the great mystics and sages were capable of utilising their mastery to effect tiqqunim for the purpose of Divine unification, the hester ha-panim or ‘hiding of the Divine Visage’ makes the results of holy endeavours for the less advanced somewhat obscure. effectively, we must believe that our actions on a macrocosmic scale can affect the universe just as they can measurably affect the world we live in. as the zohar puts it, ‘the arousal from below affects the arousal from above’. when we light candles on Shabbat, we are performing a powerful ceremony to mark the beginning of a period of sacred time. actively initiating this period (which would, of course, be happening regardless of our actions because it is a function of the fourth dimension) within one’s personal space builds a potent connection to the energy of the universe. it creates what one might almost understand as a ‘bubble’ of holiness, within which the normal rules of creation do not apply. the concerns of the week cannot touch you. you are protected from the incursions of politics, media and commerce. nobody can call you from the office to bug you about stuff. for me, the development of this sense of peace and tranquillity has been incredibly helpful in an increasingly turbulent and troubling world. it has been an oasis of calm which has helped me create a private space for myself and my wife and children, where we can socialise with friends and family on our own terms. effectively, developing a ‘palace in time’ in accordance with the practical principles of jewish observance has had tangible and far-reaching benefits which far outweigh the inconveniences involved. in short, it can be shown to work for us. furthermore, the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cycles create a sense of connection to the fourth dimension, making it feel far less hostile and uncontrollable.

observance of Shabbat and the holidays is of course conditional upon the ability to do so competently and this, in turn, is in part conditional upon one’s comfort level with ceremonial and liturgical observance, in particular the ability to connect with the hebrew language. again, music acted as my interface. i was fortunate enough early in my interfaith experience to meet a jewish ethnomusicologist who, like my mother’s family, is from the bombay baghdadi community. she is an expert in the sacred song of the baghdadis, which dates back to the first temple diaspora and is, as such, one of the oldest and most unchanged liturgical and customary traditions in the jewish world. she runs a performance group with whom i played ‘oud (arabic lute) for a long period. they go to great lengths to replicate the authentic sound of baghdadi song with particular reference to the correct traditional accent and pronunciation.

in fact, due to the arabic context of the accent (double letters are actually pronounced, gutturals like the ‘ayin and qof sit at the back of the throat, het and khaf are distinguished from each other, as are the tet and tav – and don’t get me started on the dental sibilants!) it is possible to pronounce baghdadi hebrew clearly and accurately as it is written. this is very different from the ashkenazi accents of the united synagogue, masorti and rsgb, to say nothing of yeshivish, hasidic or even modern israeli pronunciations, all of which seem to me to do considerable violence to the nature of the letters as understood by the kabbalists – there being, of course, a rich and influential strain of iraqi mystics stretching back to the prophet ezekiel. don’t get me wrong, i’m not being chauvinistic about it (well, not much) but it feels like a different language, more muscular, more musical, deeper, more connected to the breath. learning the songs, in addition to introducing me to people from that community, enabled me to pick up the accent and adopt it as my own – much to the consternation of my family and friends, who find it completely weird. of course, this is because they don’t tend to move in those circles, as i now commonly do. when i finally began to daven in sephardic and ‘eidoth mizrah prayer groups (‘sephardic’ is commonly used as an umbrella term for non-ashkenazic jews, although it is not, strictly speaking, correct, as it does not distinguish between those descended from families from iberia (such as the moroccan, bosnian and turkish jews) and those from communities that never lived in spain and portugal, such as the persians, iraqis and yemenites. these communities are more properly referred to as the ‘eidoth ha-mizrah or ‘communities of the east’) i felt not only at home with the tunes, but with the rhythm and accenting – to say nothing of the food! what a great religion – whisky in the morning during kiddush, that’s a start, but add in chicken hamin (curry) at 11 o’clock; now you’re talking.

anyway, connecting with the pronunciation enabled me to connect with the language and connecting with the language enabled me to learn to pray; first at home, by myself, at my own pace and then later on with a group – but, more importantly, within the group. that is to say, i didn’t feel i had to be bound by the pace of the group, i never liked the ‘churchiness’ of everyone speaking in unison at the same speed like they do in the reform. the thing i like about traditional minyanim is that it’s ‘warm’ – people are more or less in the same place but you can do your own ‘riffing’; you add your own ornaments and so on. if you fall behind, you catch up at your own speed. it’s a bit like jazz, but more like middle eastern heterophony. if there are extra kabbalistic unifications you want to slip in, that is always possible. plus for me personally, not always being able to daven with sephardim, the liturgy’s slightly different and i know it well enough not to be constrained if i want to use a variant. of course, i prefer sephardic davening – they don’t gabble like the ashkenazim; it’s actually closer to chanting. and the tunes are better. and it’s less pompous and self-conscious.

the other part of my journey involved coming to terms with the idea of halakhah, the philosophy and application of the law. as should be obvious, there are many ways of doing so; philosophical, like r. soloveitchik or practical, like, say, r. norman lamm or r. david hartman, the aristotelian, rationalist model followed by maimonides among others. the crucial thing for me was identifying the dynamic i wanted to tap into. i knew it wasn’t going to be a matter of surrendering responsibility for my actions to however well-chosen a rabbi. mindfulness and knowledge must remain key. My rabbinical student friend always talking about how many people seem to relinquish their critical capacity when it comes to issues of halakhah. he talks about a barrister friend of his, a highly accomplished woman who speaks both chinese and japanese, who nonetheless feels that in questions of simple kitchen kashrut, she is better off phoning her rabbi than working it out for herself from a knowledge of the principles. it is this lack of responsibility for one’s own halakhic practice that i object to – not that i don’t call someone with the right knowledge when i come across something for which i don’t know a suitable answer – but rather what seems to me a wholesale surrendering of critical detachment with regard to this particular area which would not go accepted in any other area of one’s life and also flies in the face of the principle that one should do things with intention, kavvanah as it is traditionally known.

clearly, the ability to pray is a key enabler for me. i strongly believe that one’s spirituality is driven by what one might call ‘areas of engagement’. for example, some are obsessive about their observance of kashrut. others are obsessive about their ethnic or political traditions. still more are obsessive about the provenance of the rulings that they will accept in matters of weights and measures. my own are more ‘tonal’, in that i strive to anchor all areas of my practice clearly to the obligation dynamic in a mystical sense. what this means is that i accept that i was born with halakhic obligations according to my status as a jew which were effectively accepted by me at mt. sinai. of course i wasn’t there as i am now, but as a descendant of jacob, as all jews are, i could argue that much of my dna undoubtedly was, which genetic material has survived through countless generations of recycling through the maternal line down through the millennia. if one also considers, as i do, that the principle of conservation of energy holds true for spiritual energy, then the same is likely to be true of my equivalent ‘spiritual dna’, which has been ‘recycled’ through the process of the transmigration of souls. in other words, both my physical essence and, more importantly, my spiritual essence (in the form of the constituent parts or nitzotzot of the soul-roots of my neshama, ruah, nefesh and hayah) were at sinai. that which they accepted as a binding covenant became part of my spiritual dna and to deny it would be to deny my innermost nature. naturally, this is pure belief at its most fundamental – it would hardly meet academic or scientific critical criteria, nor does it recognise them as relevant to its operation, although philosophy is of course another matter.

 

[bananabrain]

Re: Query to bananabrain (part 3)

(cont’d)

to return to the halakhic dynamic, it therefore seems necessary to conclude that the physical observance of halakhot is contingent upon the will of the inner self, which provides the obligation, as well as the meaning attached to this observance. location of my specific observances within the mystical frameworks of judaism can, for me, be summed up in the traditional formula leShem yihud Qudsha Brich Hu u’Shekhinteh, of whose meaning you may be aware. although i can and do appreciate and support explanations of halakhic practices that are underpinned by rationalism, social idealism, ethics, community development, ethnic solidarity and personal mastery, all mitzvoth must have an inner dimension that emerges with the correct degree of mindfulness and, in the final analysis, they are dependent upon this for the obligation to continue to be both meaningful and immediate. thus one can throw up all the arguments one likes about circumcision, whether they are spurious popular superstitions about hygiene or clinical statistics about the incidence of stds within different ethnic groups, but what is really operating here is a dynamic of Divine commandment, which is made meaningful by the symbolic and anagogic integrity of the specific observance within the system. however, the ancillary practices which surround the mitzvah, which operate according to the principle of ‘keeping a fence around the law’ – these need not, i believe, necessarily be observed to a universal level of strictness to the degree that is becoming unpleasantly common.

that for me, is the aim of many of our ‘born-again’ (“outreach”) organisations and its effect is, i believe, harmful to the longterm health of our judgemental faculties, whilst, of course, providing gainful employment for an increasing number of professional rabbis. the more lawyers that are trained, the more legislation will emerge for them to concern themselves with. i believe the jewish community is currently resorting to severe methods in order to deal with the sheer volume of religious bureaucracy which are harming our ability to think for ourselves. the all-encompassing methodology of jewish observance peddled by organisations such as the publishers artscroll may make it easy to simply follow instructions, but there is a cost in critical thinking and spiritual nuance. drowning in halakhic red tape, we have no time to think about the inner meaning as we plough through the enormous ‘minimums’ required. one might almost conclude that keeping up is made intentionally difficult in order to keep us in thrall to the judgement of the ‘professionals’. many of these organisations, incidentally, seem to encourage the perception that, without years of study in the right yeshiva, one is barely entitled to exercise one’s own judgement. i believe that judaism did not survive by suppressing dissent and perpetuating monolithic, monopolistic philosophies. not for nothing do people refer to artscroll as “micro$oft judaism” – certainly its publications are dominant, market-leading, widely-available and easily accessible, but they tend to get carried away with their own comprehensiveness and simplicity of outlook. theology is stated as a given when, in fact, much of this is based upon aggadic interpretation. however, aggadah is open to multiple positions; there is not generally one that is considered to be correct, unlike in the case of halakhah.

there are some people, for example, that believe, more or less, that moses had peyot (earlocks) and studied in yeshiva. obviously, it is possible to spot midrash that is meant to be illustrative or symbolic rather than literal *without being any less true for that*. the literalist position, unfortunately, has fossilised many of our aggadic interpretations and as a result certain positions are taken to be theologically de rigueur when historically they can be clearly shown to have been nothing of the sort.

my journey towards a traditional, mystically powered theology was thrown into sharp relief by my interfaith activities. how can you be a jew to other people without knowing what that means for yourself? how can you address questions about judaism without knowing something about the tradition? i was always being asked “what do jews believe about x?”, so i began to feel the need for a comprehensive statement of theology. the best place to look turned out to be the classic statement – maimonides’ “thirteen principles of faith”. controversial at the time (other rabbis thought he was being too categorical) i eventually realised that what he had done was find the thirteen things in judaism that rely on faith alone – you *have* to believe them, because there’s no way you can *prove* them, nor can they be derived from other teachings. these thirteen (rather than the ten commandments) are the basic axioms from which all other teachings in judaism can be directly derived and they can be found in various places on the web – i recommend wikipedia or ou.org:

OU: Torah Resources
Jewish principles of faith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

however, they are a pretty short list. nowhere is it explicitly stated, for example, that the Torah we are obliged to believe was given min ha-shamayim contained vowels – an insight which i gained after being challenged on it here at CR by bob_x, in the thread “tilting at windmills”. many key texts, in particular bereshit rabbah, allude to the fluid nature of the primordial Torah. the devil, as it were, is in the details. jewish theology is meant to be like this. one is not obliged to believe the cosmology of the zohar any more than one is obliged to agree with yehuda ha-levi in the kuzari that ‘G!D forbid that there should be anything in the Torah which contradicts reason.’ theological maximalism drives a hardening of attitudes and underpins a growing lack of halakhic flexibility. a generation ago, the then chief rabbi, lord jakobovits, with the head of the federation beth din, were accustomed to going to the royal opera house. no longer is this the case, as nowadays the kol isha (prohibition of men hearing the female singing voice) standards of gateshead and me’ah shearim are enforced in mainstream orthodoxy. practically speaking, this means my band can’t perform at most orthodox synagogues because we have a female singer – yet the canon of traditional sephardic song was clearly developed for and by women. the position of my own rav – that kol isha is only a consideration in a liturgical setting, which is adhered to in practice in the mainstream sephardic world – is seen as being dangerously liberal, when in fact it is the prevailing opinion that is not only obsessively hardline but utterly inappropriate for the community that the ruling is supposed to serve. this creeping ‘haredisation’ of the mainstream is bolstered by the dominant publications and organisations, which draw their strength and values from the yeshiva world. not that this would necessarily be a bad thing – except for the fact that they seem to expect everyone to do things the same way as them and see things the same way. and their motivations are not at all the same, as anyone who studies them will gradually understand. not that they’re bad motivations, necessarily – i just don’t think that people would sign up to them if they were explicitly set out.

at the end of the day, theology, like everything else, seems to come down to trust. the first sentence of the tractate ‘avot, (‘ethics of the fathers’) in the Mishnah, describes the transmission of the chain of tradition – G!D to moses, moses to joshua and so on all the way down to the writers of the Mishnah. if we don’t believe this transmission was correctly done, we cannot trust that the tradition we have received is correct. likewise, from my perspective in the 21st century, if i don’t trust the tradition i was transmitted by my teachers, i must find a chain of tradition that i can. i believe this is the same whatever one’s field. in science, one must believe in the purity of motive and scientific credibility of the work upon which one’s own work is based. when i get into a car or an aeroplane, i am exercising trust in the method by which these machines are designed, built and operated. scientists will claim that their methods and principles are borne out by the evidence. i too feel i can claim that the survival of judaism in more or less the same form it has had for the last two millennia at least is evidence that the tradition was transmitted correctly and that this tradition included an element of sustainable design. the fact that it has survived proves to me that it was sustainable. the fact that people whose learning and motives i trust are willing to sign up to this system is evidence of its integrity. if those people found it impossible to sustain their belief i believe i would have a challenge on my own hands – just as it is apparently difficult for people to trust reputable scientists or even disreputable politicians when deciding whether they believe in climate change. one must examine not only the evidence, but one’s own judgement and value system. if one cannot trust one’s teachers, if one suspects their motives or those of the teachers that taught them, it must be very difficulty to believe anything at all, whether we are talking about scientific principles or religious ones. the sages understood this issue of credibility very well, as can be shown by the following tale:

our rabbis taught: a certain gentile once came before shammai and asked him: “how many Torot do you have?”
“two,” he replied: “the written Torah and the oral Torah.”
“i believe you with respect to the written, but not with respect to the oral Torah.” said the gentile. “make me a proselyte on condition that you teach me the written Torah [only].”
shammai scolded him and rejected him in anger. but when [the gentile] went before hillel, hillel accepted him as a proselyte.
on the first day, hillel taught him, “alef, bet, gimmel, dalet.” the following day hillel reversed the letters: “dalet, gimmel, bet, alef”.
“but yesterday you did not teach them to me like this!” he protested.
“must you then not trust me? then trust me with respect to the oral Torah as well.”

Talmud, Shabbat 31a

trust is a much ignored ingredient of belief. but, when it comes down to it, there are people whose motives and knowledge i trust, as well as those who fail to inspire my trust on either or both counts. the inner, experiential knowledge of what resonates with me may be subjective rather than scientifically verifiable, but it seems to resonate with a whole bunch of other people that i trust. religion is nothing if not a people-centred issue and a G!D who cannot inspire belief – as well as followers who themselves inspire trust – does not deserve my trust. i may not always find it easy to understand or act in accordance with the message, but as long as i feel i can trust the messenger, or the system by which the messages are designed, encoded and transmitted, i can believe that the message is one that reflects the ultimate truth of the Infinite Divine.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[wil]

no comments...great reading...just stopped in to rate the thread...

 

[Tao_Equus]

BB, apologies are proffered but I am sure you understand that your post is quite different from Opera's and could never tease from me such an engaged response. None the less I am touched with your personal value in the dirge, the lament, the ballad, the harmonious expression of the human condition. Such passion as you have is independent of faith I think but helps me appreciate your passion throughout your dialogue here. Thx for sharing.


tao

 

[juantoo3]

Wow.

 

[Dream]

Banana is back.