Nick_A wrote:The trouble is as I see it is that if we don’t know what awakening means, how do we know, presuming those like Buddha and Jesus existed, if what they offer is remotely desirable?
The same way that we know the universe isn't a simulation, a deceit, an illusion or dream; or that it isn't the body of god, or ideas in its mind, or something it created from nothing: we don't.
Nick_A wrote:Being asleep, we don’t know what it means to be awake.
You are perfectly entitled to believe we are somehow asleep. Can you think of a reason that might persuade someone who disagrees with you?
Nick_A wrote:Many are in a defensive position.
Can you give an example of what someone has said, and justify your characterisation as 'defensive' in the current context?
Nick_A wrote:They need but don’t know what they need.
That's easily said. Can you give a specific example?
Nick_A wrote:This invites not only unintentional but the worst kinds of intentional charlatans to take advantage of this weakness.
This brings to mind psychics and spiritualists, but the idea of unintentional charlatans, I think, is an oxymoron. There are compassionate and sometimes beautiful people that sincerely believe their faith is a blessing and could help many others; I'm sure that is so, but there are still others who have no need.
Nick_A wrote:That is why society seeks to eliminate in one way or another anyone who has even slightly awakened.
Is there a particular case you would like to present as evidence, that we may discuss?
Nick_A wrote:If sleep is sustained through self deception, the last thing a society built on self deception wants to do is to tolerate an awakening influence.
Again, that's if. What society is built on what self deception?
Nick_A wrote:From Plato’s Cave allegory:
Socrates: And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
It would probably help if you could understand the allegory of the cave in the context of Socrates' cosmology. This was explained in the Phaedo, one of the dialogues set in the period of Socrates' imprisonment, awaiting execution. It is based on the hierarchy of 'Greek' elements, which become more rarefied and purer as they ascend from earth, to water, to air. Those are the things our world is made of, higher up still, in 'heaven', everything is made of something even purer, the aether, and if a man could but fly and stick his head above the air, like fish poking their heads above the water: "and if his nature were able to bear the sight, he would recognise that that is the true heaven and the true light and the true earth. For this earth and its stones and all the regions in which we live are marred and corroded, just as in the sea everything is corroded by the brine, and there is no vegetation worth mentioning, and scarcely any degree of perfect formation, but only caverns and sand and measureless mud, and tracts of slime wherever there is earth as well; and nothing is in the least worthy to be judged beautiful by our standards. But the things above excel those of our world to a degree far greater still." Also Socrates.
Nick_A wrote:I agree that there are a great many influences which increase slavery to sleep.
Who are you agreeing with, and what exactly have they said?
Nick_A wrote:But what if there are some which do not seek to shut our eyes but to open them for those who feel the need to open their eyes?
As I said above, religion is fine for those that need it and use it well, but for others, it is a hindrance, even a menace. One of the things attributed to Jesus was “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.19) Fine. Whoever wrote those words (I have a hunch the original 'gospel' was written by Flavius Josephus) can cast away, but some fish are too fast to be caught, or their mouths too big to be hooked.(That's a gift to all the knuckle draggers who will even now be thinking, 'Yuh, and look who's got a big mouth.')
Nick_A wrote:What is our obligation to them and to ourselves? How do we recognize them?
Well, as I have said elsewhere, the key to our recognising gods is the degree to which they look like us.