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  • #31
    Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
    I'm recalling now C.S. Lewis' comment in the preface to Mere Christianity:

    Source: Mere Christianity

    It is at her center, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests at the center of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.

    © Copyright Original Source



    Lewis found that the ones who were most in agreement with his writing were the ones who were devoted members to their communion.

    Blessings,
    Lee
    Yes, he did. And I actually love C.S.L. But to get to this principal, he had to ignore all of the rest of the divergent voices. For any given thought/idea, there is a core that speaks with one voice. That core is not, to me, a testament to the truth of the proposition. There are simply too many divergent cores...
    The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

    I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
      Yes, he did. And I actually love C.S.L.
      Me too!

      But to get to this principal, he had to ignore all of the rest of the divergent voices. For any given thought/idea, there is a core that speaks with one voice. That core is not, to me, a testament to the truth of the proposition. There are simply too many divergent cores...
      But C.S. Lewis wrote about the core of Christianity, and found remarkable agreement across the various communions. Ignoring the divergences was ignoring the peripheral matters.

      Blessings,
      Lee
      "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
        I'm not sure where this belongs, so I'm using the lobby. I'm curious what people think of this:

        The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.
        ”Future” in relation to what time - that in which we Twebbers live, or, some time early enough for us to be living in that “future” ? Or a time perhaps centuries in the future in relation to us ?

        If dogmas are apprehended as true, should they not be embraced as true ? It is not clear why “the religion of the future should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology” - “should” in this quotation seems to imply a degree of duty; so what is this seeming duty founded on ? Not wanting to be disputatious or anything like that; I just want to know, if possible, what exactly is meant.

        As for “covering both the natural and the spiritual”, that it does so is for me is one of the incidental attractions of Catholicism.
        Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 05-18-2018, 12:24 AM.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
          I'm not sure where this belongs, so I'm using the lobby. I'm curious what people think of this:

          The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.
          I rather doubt that Buddhism will ever include the natural in a unity arising from experience, unless the unity be aesthetic rather than rational: here's from a New Yorker magazine review of two recent books on Buddhism and its meditation practices.
          A deeper objection to the attempted reconciliation of contemporary science and Buddhist practice flows from the nature of scientific storytelling. The practice of telling stories—imagined tales of cause and effect that fixate on the past and the future while escaping the present, sending us back and forth without being here now—is something that both Wright and Batchelor see as one of the worst delusions the mind imprints on the world. And yet it is inseparable from the Enlightenment science that makes psychology and biology possible. The contemporary generation of American Buddhists draws again and again on scientific evidence for the power of meditation—EEGs and MRIs and so on—without ever wondering why a scientific explanation of that kind has seldom arisen in Buddhist cultures. (Science has latterly been practiced by Buddhists, of course.)

          What Wright correctly sees as the heart of meditation practice—the draining away of the stories we tell compulsively about each moment in favor of simply having the moment—is antithetical to the kind of evidentiary argument he admires. Science is competitive storytelling. If a Buddhist Newton had been sitting under that tree, he would have seen the apple falling and, reaching for Enlightenment, experienced each moment of its descent as a thing pure in itself. Only a restless Western Newton would say, “Now, what story can tell us best what connects those apple-moments from branch to ground? Sprites? Magnets? The mysterious force of the mass of the earth beneath it? What made the damn thing fall?” That’s a story we tell, not a moment we experience. The Buddhist Newton might have been happier than ours—ours was plenty unhappy—but he would never have found the equation. Science is putting names on things and telling stories about them, the very habits that Buddhists urge us to transcend. The stories improve over time in the light of evidence, or they don’t. It’s just as possible to have Buddhist science as to have Christian science or Taoist science. But the meditator’s project of being here now will never be the same as the scientist’s project of connecting the past to the future, of telling how and knowing why.

          https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...d-what-it-cant

          Or put more bluntly, Buddhism and 'science and reason' seem to be incompatible.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
            Me too!


            But C.S. Lewis wrote about the core of Christianity, and found remarkable agreement across the various communions. Ignoring the divergences was ignoring the peripheral matters.

            Blessings,
            Lee
            Lee...give me any group of people (humans), and I can whittle away everything they do not agree on, and find a "core" of things they do. Any group. Whatsoever. Lewis isn't really saying anything, except he has found a basic truth about humanity. If the group shares a common bond (e.g., Christianity), then the core will include elements of that religion. The exact same thing can be said of Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, etc.
            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
              ”Future” in relation to what time - that in which we Twebbers live, or, some time early enough for us to be living in that “future” ? Or a time perhaps centuries in the future in relation to us ?

              If dogmas are apprehended as true, should they not be embraced as true ? It is not clear why “the religion of the future should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology” - “should” in this quotation seems to imply a degree of duty; so what is this seeming duty founded on ? Not wanting to be disputatious or anything like that; I just want to know, if possible, what exactly is meant.

              As for “covering both the natural and the spiritual”, that it does so is for me is one of the incidental attractions of Catholicism.
              As with so many things, I have no idea what was in his mind when he said it - I can only speak to what it says to me, and what I take away from it. Given my starting place (atheism), when I read this I read a hope that eventually humanity will set aside its divisive god-based religions and find our common bond in our common humanity, and our common existence on this planet in this universe. And we will find our spirituality in the love and friendship that unites us, and our common quest to better understand the cosmos and our place within it.
              The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

              I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by David Hayward View Post
                I rather doubt that Buddhism will ever include the natural in a unity arising from experience, unless the unity be aesthetic rather than rational: here's from a New Yorker magazine review of two recent books on Buddhism and its meditation practices.
                A deeper objection to the attempted reconciliation of contemporary science and Buddhist practice flows from the nature of scientific storytelling. The practice of telling stories—imagined tales of cause and effect that fixate on the past and the future while escaping the present, sending us back and forth without being here now—is something that both Wright and Batchelor see as one of the worst delusions the mind imprints on the world. And yet it is inseparable from the Enlightenment science that makes psychology and biology possible. The contemporary generation of American Buddhists draws again and again on scientific evidence for the power of meditation—EEGs and MRIs and so on—without ever wondering why a scientific explanation of that kind has seldom arisen in Buddhist cultures. (Science has latterly been practiced by Buddhists, of course.)

                What Wright correctly sees as the heart of meditation practice—the draining away of the stories we tell compulsively about each moment in favor of simply having the moment—is antithetical to the kind of evidentiary argument he admires. Science is competitive storytelling. If a Buddhist Newton had been sitting under that tree, he would have seen the apple falling and, reaching for Enlightenment, experienced each moment of its descent as a thing pure in itself. Only a restless Western Newton would say, “Now, what story can tell us best what connects those apple-moments from branch to ground? Sprites? Magnets? The mysterious force of the mass of the earth beneath it? What made the damn thing fall?” That’s a story we tell, not a moment we experience. The Buddhist Newton might have been happier than ours—ours was plenty unhappy—but he would never have found the equation. Science is putting names on things and telling stories about them, the very habits that Buddhists urge us to transcend. The stories improve over time in the light of evidence, or they don’t. It’s just as possible to have Buddhist science as to have Christian science or Taoist science. But the meditator’s project of being here now will never be the same as the scientist’s project of connecting the past to the future, of telling how and knowing why.

                https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...d-what-it-cant

                Or put more bluntly, Buddhism and 'science and reason' seem to be incompatible.
                As a non-Buddhist, I am not qualified to respond. I know very little about the beliefs or the practices. But thanks for sharing this.
                The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                  As with so many things, I have no idea what was in his mind when he said it - I can only speak to what it says to me, and what I take away from it. Given my starting place (atheism), when I read this I read a hope that eventually humanity will set aside its divisive god-based religions and find our common bond in our common humanity, and our common existence on this planet in this universe. And we will find our spirituality in the love and friendship that unites us, and our common quest to better understand the cosmos and our place within it.
                  I do not believe the citation you referenced rejects a God(?) based religion, and it indeed does present a naive view of Buddhism and the many variations. This interesting citation can read from different perspectives to justify one's own world view. For example; All religions define themselves as a cosmic religion throughout history depending how you choose to define 'cosmic religion.' You apparently define 'cosmic religion' as having no God(s).

                  "The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description."

                  Buddhism as it is definitely does not answer this description.

                  Transcending a personal God would not translate to no God at all. It does indeed reject the dogmas, doctrines and theologies that define God in terms of one personal God of one belief system as the dominant contemporary Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions and their variations.
                  Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-20-2018, 08:03 AM.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment

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