The Evolution of Religion

[Nick_A]

Nick_A wrote:

It isn't easy Belinda. Exoteric religion tells people what to do while the esoteric paths have the purpose of allowing humanity TO BE. We can see how far we are from recognizing the difference.

One way to recognise the difference is the difference between how Jesus of Nazareth lived and died, and ideologies made out of what people say his teaching was about.

Very true. How many people know the purpose of the Crucifixion and why it leads to the Resurrection. Instead it leads to arguments about morality and what to do. Jesus becomes another representative of Judaism with a fixation on foot washing. I don't see how it leads to distinguishing between what to do and what it means "To be."

[Nick_A]

So collective consciousness remains at the same level.

Levels of consciousness are relative to the instrument that consciousness uses to function as a conceptual object within it's reality. For example, bee, ant, mouse, or chimpanzee consciousness is probably functioning at a whole different level than say that of a human being. But this is all conceptual mind stuff. In reality there's just ONE Consciousness expressing itself in myriad of forms, each at very different levels of that same ONE Consciousness.

Is there really such a thing as a higher state of consciousness for what is always just consciousness and nothing but consciousness? except to impose one upon itself in this conception, which is just a conceptual story known to the story teller itself which is an appearance of consciousness itself, which just happens to be a unique appearance, appearing as human consciousness.

What if consciousness expressing itself as human consciousness was the highest level of consciousness? To me, that would make chimp consciousness to be actually more appealing. It's all relative and a matter of how one happens to perceive reality.
And then there's still the ever elusive and mysterious question that always begs to be answered which is WHO or WHAT makes the distinction between all the levels of consciousness but consciousness itself...is there really any other consciousness outside of consciousness itself that can make any kind of distinction? Surely that belongs in the realm of conceptual thought?

So the question would be HOW would or could the religiously inclined consciousness expressed as and through the human mind body instrument possibly evolve any higher than what it is already, and what would that ''HIGHER/BETTER'' consciousness even look or feel like exactly?
Can you describe what that evolved religious state of mind would look and feel like, and would it even change the actual CONSCIOUSNESS in which the evolved higher state is known and experienced ?

This is what I tried to explain to you on the other thread by using the Law of the Included Middle. the laws creating fragmentation are like onions. As fragments devolve in their quality they acquire denser materiality and more laws. They all simultaneously exist as levels, one within the other. I remember once reading of a seminary student who was asked what God couldn't do he replied he can't beat the ace of trumps with the deuce. The laws of creation create creation. If one thing is changed then others have to change. God is not in creation. Only the level of the Son is. Creation is within God as the "body of god.

[RCSaunders]

Religion is both art and social control.

Social control is political control.

Religion is any ideology based on credulity with no evidential foundation. All religion is superstition.

Most political control is excused on the basis of some ideology, often a religious one.

Art is a luxury with no other purpose than the pleasure of those who use it. Anything else said about art is bunk. Art, sport, and entertainment are incidentals that have no fundamental significance and are not possible until a certain level of economic success has been achieved.

[Nick_A]

The evolution of religion is the evolution from superstition to reality. Religion correspons to the same level of the person believing in it. People who understand the exoteric level do not understand the person having experienced the transcendent level. Frihjof Schuon wrote a good book which the reader can grasp the exoteric level which contains all our misconceptions along with the Transcendent religions initiating with a conscious source which all have the same truth at their apex

Does Einstein's emphasis on awakening conscience a necessary part of the evolution from the exoteric to the Transcendent?

https://integralscience.wordpress.com/1 ... religions/

Frithjof Schuon, a scholar and an authority on Comparative
Religion and the Sophia Perennis, has written a book called
The Transcendent Unity Of Religions. As its title
indicates, the book is about the unity of religious wisdom.
And as the use of the definite article indicates, this unity
is unique. But it is essential to observe that this unity is
also transcendent, i.e., the unity is in the spirit and not
in the letter.
Schuon uses the terms esoteric and exoteric to distinguish
the transcendent spirit of religions from their diverse
formal expressions. A useful diagram can be made which helps
illustrate the essence of this idea:




As Huston Smith writes in the Introduction to Schuon’s book,
“the defect in other versions of this
[esoteric/exoteric] distinction is that they claim unity in
religions too soon, at levels where, being exoteric, true
Unity does not pertain and can be posited only on pain of
Procrusteanism or vapidity.” Once we identify any
particular thought system, no matter how comprehensive, as
the truth, then we have excluded other thought
systems and denied the Truth its unity and its infinite
possibilities for expression. The unity of Truth must
therefore be a Transcendent Unity. “The fact that it
is transcendent,” Smith writes, “means that it
can be univocally described by none.” Thus, while
there is one and only one Truth, there are many expressions
of it.

[Lacewing]

The evolution of religion is the evolution from superstition to reality.

Then religion might dissolve.

[Dontaskme]

It looks to me too that religion is not longer evolving. I hope and pray man is now experiencing pains of new birth not approaching death.

Nick's quotation from Ecclesiastes is the sort of thing DontAskMe says. Cyclical time is undoctrinal surely?

There is no room in here for two.

There is only ONE God and the image of that God in the form of many concepts known. The ''known'' know nothing.

To be born is to die, and to die is to be reborn into deathless reality. That which lives never dies and that which dies never lived.

God is neither alive nor dead. God just IS everything and nothing infinitely for eternity.

Reality is infinite, there is nothing inside or outside of infinity but infinity itself.

That maybe depressing news for the illusory separate self, or it may be a blessed relief, it's all a matter of which way round you want to look at yourself.

.

But historically there is "room for two" gods and hundreds more than two.

There’s only one infinity.

The Many are of this One.




ONENESS IS A MYSTERY....philosophytalk.org



(1) there is being
(2) there is only being (no non-being)
(3) if there is only being there is oneness
(4) if there is oneness there is mystery because human knowledge requires multiplicity

Human knowledge requires multiplicity because all definitions of knowledge include a perceiver and something that they understand or are aware of. Knowledge cannot occur in the absence multiplicity and the perception relationship.


Concepts such as infinity and oneness are problematic in terms of our capability to describe them accurately. While it can be argued that perception and language are always inaccurate representations of reality, we judge the fitness, accuracy and consistency of representations based on comparison and our concept of knowledge.



.

[Dontaskme]

So collective consciousness remains at the same level.

Levels of consciousness are relative to the instrument that consciousness uses to function as a conceptual object within it's reality. For example, bee, ant, mouse, or chimpanzee consciousness is probably functioning at a whole different level than say that of a human being. But this is all conceptual mind stuff. In reality there's just ONE Consciousness expressing itself in myriad of forms, each at very different levels of that same ONE Consciousness.

Is there really such a thing as a higher state of consciousness for what is always just consciousness and nothing but consciousness? except to impose one upon itself in this conception, which is just a conceptual story known to the story teller itself which is an appearance of consciousness itself, which just happens to be a unique appearance, appearing as human consciousness.

What if consciousness expressing itself as human consciousness was the highest level of consciousness? To me, that would make chimp consciousness to be actually more appealing. It's all relative and a matter of how one happens to perceive reality.
And then there's still the ever elusive and mysterious question that always begs to be answered which is WHO or WHAT makes the distinction between all the levels of consciousness but consciousness itself...is there really any other consciousness outside of consciousness itself that can make any kind of distinction? Surely that belongs in the realm of conceptual thought?

So the question would be HOW would or could the religiously inclined consciousness expressed as and through the human mind body instrument possibly evolve any higher than what it is already, and what would that ''HIGHER/BETTER'' consciousness even look or feel like exactly?
Can you describe what that evolved religious state of mind would look and feel like, and would it even change the actual CONSCIOUSNESS in which the evolved higher state is known and experienced ?

This is what I tried to explain to you on the other thread by using the Law of the Included Middle. the laws creating fragmentation are like onions. As fragments devolve in their quality they acquire denser materiality and more laws. They all simultaneously exist as levels, one within the other. I remember once reading of a seminary student who was asked what God couldn't do he replied he can't beat the ace of trumps with the deuce. The laws of creation create creation. If one thing is changed then others have to change. God is not in creation. Only the level of the Son is. Creation is within God as the "body of god.

I described it when I wrote about the artist and it’s painting. When I said the artist is not in the painting...the painting is in the artist.

The artist is invisible..seen only in its image...aka the painting...in other words, reality is an illusion appearing real.

There is no reality because there is no other than reality....the problem with discussing oneness is that language is dualistic...so knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of reality...in that it’s non-dual, two, but not two.


So in a nondual reality ..nothing can ever be any different than what it is as it is appearing in every moment....simply because no thing is making anything happen, it’s just all happening to no one.

If people want to reject religion, then that too is just an expression of oneness happening...nothing wrong with it at all, in that it’s just a story anyway written and spoke about by no one.





You are infinity itself expressing itself in multiplicity....including all negativity..
The infinite is beyond knowledge....in the same context the artist is beyond the picture.


From the Christian sense of the human condition..there really is no one to awaken, or be saved or be born again. Except in this conceptual fictional story...appearing real.

.

[Belinda]

There is no room in here for two.

There is only ONE God and the image of that God in the form of many concepts known. The ''known'' know nothing.

To be born is to die, and to die is to be reborn into deathless reality. That which lives never dies and that which dies never lived.

God is neither alive nor dead. God just IS everything and nothing infinitely for eternity.

Reality is infinite, there is nothing inside or outside of infinity but infinity itself.

That maybe depressing news for the illusory separate self, or it may be a blessed relief, it's all a matter of which way round you want to look at yourself.

.

But historically there is "room for two" gods and hundreds more than two.

There’s only one infinity.

The Many are of this One.




ONENESS IS A MYSTERY....philosophytalk.org



(1) there is being
(2) there is only being (no non-being)
(3) if there is only being there is oneness
(4) if there is oneness there is mystery because human knowledge requires multiplicity

Human knowledge requires multiplicity because all definitions of knowledge include a perceiver and something that they understand or are aware of. Knowledge cannot occur in the absence multiplicity and the perception relationship.


Concepts such as infinity and oneness are problematic in terms of our capability to describe them accurately. While it can be argued that perception and language are always inaccurate representations of reality, we judge the fitness, accuracy and consistency of representations based on comparison and our concept of knowledge.



.

My comment was historical and sociological. But your comment is ontological. Different conversations. Ontologically, as I have told you, I agree with you.

[Belinda]

Religion is both art and social control.

Social control is political control.

Religion is any ideology based on credulity with no evidential foundation. All religion is superstition.

Most political control is excused on the basis of some ideology, often a religious one.

Art is a luxury with no other purpose than the pleasure of those who use it. Anything else said about art is bunk. Art, sport, and entertainment are incidentals that have no fundamental significance and are not possible until a certain level of economic success has been achieved.

Your view of what art is is too narrow. There was a time when art, science,religion,and feeding and sheltering the family were all the same activity in which rituals helped to sustain life.

[Nick_A]

Belinda

Religion is both art and social control. When social control is religion's main purpose religion ceases to be art or science. Whether time will or not we have the duty to ourselves as men to preserve the honesty of art and science because religion is always going to be traduced by political power.

If this is true then religion cannot evelve for humanity but only for some individuals

Secular interpretations of religion have politics as its motive. The esoteric paths have the need "TO BE" in relation to human meaning as its purpose. Right now the secular religious influence is dominant in society. It prevents contemplation of what we ARE and replaces it with what to DO. Without the human need to experience what we are, religion cannot evolve and the struggle remains within society between opposing political ideas of what to do. Only a small minority can experience the hypocrisy of this struggle and question what we are and why it dominates the world.

[Belinda]

Belinda

Religion is both art and social control. When social control is religion's main purpose religion ceases to be art or science. Whether time will or not we have the duty to ourselves as men to preserve the honesty of art and science because religion is always going to be traduced by political power.

If this is true then religion cannot evelve for humanity but only for some individuals

Secular interpretations of religion have politics as its motive. The esoteric paths have the need "TO BE" in relation to human meaning as its purpose. Right now the secular religious influence is dominant in society. It prevents contemplation of what we ARE and replaces it with what to DO. Without the human need to experience what we are, religion cannot evolve and the struggle remains within society between opposing political ideas of what to do. Only a small minority can experience the hypocrisy of this struggle and question what we are and why it dominates the world.

But there is the trend towards increased choices and social mobility for all including the poorest in society. When individuals increase their power of choice that is when religion will evolve. Change is the effect of freedom :change is not the effect of ignorance and oppression.

[Lacewing]

But there is the trend towards increased choices and social mobility for all including the poorest in society. When individuals increase their power of choice that is when religion will evolve. Change is the effect of freedom :change is not the effect of ignorance and oppression.

These are very good points.

Rigidity, fear, and limitation prevent broader awareness and expansion. There is only so much "truth" in a controlled environment.

I get the visual of my cat walking into a room where I have placed something new. Upon noticing the item, the cat stops and stares wide-eyed at it, then cautiously walks around it keeping some distance. But in no time at all, the cat is laying relaxed on top of it... eyes squinted in full acceptance of the new addition to its reality. Ah, the things we can learn from animals.

I think it would be wonderful if religion evolved with a much broader scope for what is recognized and celebrated as divine, removed the idol worshipping and archaic fantasy stories, and shifted its primary focus to serving and supporting people in need. No more rich preachers. No more Bible thumpers ranting about evil and condemnation. No more self-righteous zealots claiming to know a god better/truer than anyone else does. Just good people doing good work with love and kindness in their hearts for others they indiscriminately recognize as equal to themselves. From my perspective, that has always been the most beautiful and divine element coming out of religion.

[Sculptor]

Belinda

Religion is both art and social control. When social control is religion's main purpose religion ceases to be art or science. Whether time will or not we have the duty to ourselves as men to preserve the honesty of art and science because religion is always going to be traduced by political power.

If this is true then religion cannot evelve for humanity but only for some individuals

Secular interpretations of religion have politics as its motive. The esoteric paths have the need "TO BE" in relation to human meaning as its purpose. Right now the secular religious influence is dominant in society. It prevents contemplation of what we ARE and replaces it with what to DO. Without the human need to experience what we are, religion cannot evolve and the struggle remains within society between opposing political ideas of what to do. Only a small minority can experience the hypocrisy of this struggle and question what we are and why it dominates the world.

But there is the trend towards increased choices and social mobility for all including the poorest in society. When individuals increase their power of choice that is when religion will evolve. Change is the effect of freedom :change is not the effect of ignorance and oppression.

Actually ignorance and oppression also lead to change; just not the change most of us want.

[Sculptor]

A copy of Epoch Times landed on the doorstep this morning. 8 broadsheet pages of anti-China propaganda from the Trump brigade - I don't even live in the US, FFS. How would you characterise this as a cause of change? Freedom of speech?

It's published by Falun Gong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
What sort of evolution of religion does this represent?

[Nick_A]

Belinda

But there is the trend towards increased choices and social mobility for all including the poorest in society. When individuals increase their power of choice that is when religion will evolve. Change is the effect of freedom :change is not the effect of ignorance and oppression.
Actually ignorance and oppression also lead to change; just not the change most of us want.

Secularism offers choices and argues what to DO. Once a person becomes aware that no one is doing anything but everything in the world is the result of the interactions of universal laws. The world is reacting by imagination and not by conscious experience. Simone Weil describes:

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. ”

“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
― Simone Weil

Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.

Nothing provokes secular intolerance like the suggestion that we live by imagination so incapable of choice which prevents the evolution of religion. Humanity is fixated as a whole on what to do. Is this good or bad; external morality. However some come to realize they live in imgination and strive to "awaken" Questioning what we ARE is intolerable for secularism which offers choices. But what choice does person living in imgination have? They become seekers of truth hated by the world which glorifies its choices.

Who knows what it means to awaken or the first steps essential for someone needing to escape from imagination? If philosophy is the love of wisdom which requires freedom from self justifying imagination taking the place of conscious experience, it can only be found in private where people are free to share how they have experienced escapist imagination within themselves

Of course it is intolerable. Why is a good question. I think I've documented it on this site. Wisdom or the purpose of philosophy requires detachment yet the world must hate it which glorifies attachment. As Spock would say: fascinating.