Christianity

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Dontaskme
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Image



An (Object KNOWN) can NEVER know / see it's creator.
And the SEEN/KNOWN is inseparable from the SEER/KNOWER


That should tell you all you need to know about reality. Nonduality; the one question to all our answers.

Mummy read a fairy story, and her child believed it to be real.
Adult read the Bible, and believed it to be real just like it did as a child.

Nothing NEVER Changes.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Lacewing wrote:
Nick_A wrote: ↑What is a Christ like spirit?
Being loving
Being forgiving
Having compassion
Being humble rather than being full of yourself and your supposed ‘rightness’
Being generous

I prefer the fighting talk of Jesus who buggered the money changers in the Temple and told his disciples he came with a sword.

The poor of this world ought not to humbly lie down under oppression .
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

The Reign of Absolute Disagreement.

A *sign of the times*.
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:27 pm
Harbal wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:41 pm
I suspect that the "prejudice" you are experiencing here is more to do with your presentation of Christianity, rather than Christianity itself.

Perhaps...but I don't think so.

I've been here a long while. I've sometimes talked in a vague and general way about "religion," or "the transcendent," or "morality" here, and people don't at all get their hackles up. They seem largely undisturbed by my in regard to many, many things. But the things people find most offensive, I have discovered, are the direct quotations from Jesus Christ or from something else Biblical. And for those, I can, of course, claim no authorship at all.
I don't find there to be general hostility towards Christianity. If you were to ask people at random on the streets of Western Europe and the whole continent of America, I think a majority would identify as being Christian. Most of those might not actually practice any form of Christianity, but Christian is what they would nominally think of themselves as being, so no, I don't agree that there is significant hostility towards the idea of Christianity.

Church of England Christianity is what I had limited exposure to as I grew up, and although it always struck me as being uninteresting, there is very little about it that would cause a hostile reaction in any reasonable person. Your variety of Christianity, however, seems very harsh and quite disturbing, not to mention stuffed full of prejudices of its own, and it does suffer the disdain of reasonable people; quite rightly so in my opinion.

Perhaps it's the way you use Biblical quotes that prompts the negative reaction you claim to always receive. You often seem to call upon them to reinforce some implied threat or other. Particularly threats regarding the consequences of not adopting your interpretation of the Bible.

I have learnt to see the funny side of your style of persuasion, but I'm afraid I appear to be one of the very few people here who have managed to achieve that. :)
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Dontaskme
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Re: Christianity

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:27 pm But the things people find most offensive, I have discovered, are the direct quotations from Jesus Christ or from something else Biblical. And for those, I can, of course, claim no authorship at all.
But you are claiming that Jesus Christ as the author of some Biblical quotations...is that right?

On who's authority are you claiming that some Biblical quotations appearing as ink on paper has been authored by some human figure known as Jesus, that even you yourself admit you cannot claim authorship of? and yet seem ok with some other human geezer being the author?

Is what you are saying above even rational or is your only logic irrationality? All you have implied is that some geezer called Jesus authored some Biblical quotations, meaning that humans wrote the Bible.

Or are we just talking about metaphors and concepts here? those ideas that have no more substance or reality than an image of the imageless, aka a photograph?
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henry quirk
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Re: Christianity

Post by henry quirk »

Dubious wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:10 amOf course he had his reasons.
You mean He enfleshed Himself, lived as a man, then paid the price (with His own fleshy life) that no one else could?

Mebbe so.
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Re: Christianity

Post by henry quirk »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 11:03 am The Reign of Absolute Disagreement.

A *sign of the times*.
I disagree.
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Re: Christianity

Post by henry quirk »

Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 10:00 amI prefer the fighting talk of Jesus who buggered the money changers in the Temple and told his disciples he came with a sword
Plagiarist.
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:10 pm I follow the One whom the world hated, insulted and crucified. A "postive response" is nothing a Christian has any reason to expect...nor any reason to want.
The One in your case is a physical man called Jesus. That was sentenced to death because he talked about himself as being the One. But how is that even possible IC?

How can One know itself? One would have to split itself into two into knower and known, but there is no such divide is there?

So Yes, that would be seen as blasphemy talking as if you are the sole One agency who is making life happen, when in reality is it not known what is making life happen. If it is known by a ''someone'' what is making life happen, then that ''someone'' can make life unhappen, which is absurd.

And here you are calling yourself a ''Christian'' ..so ask yourself, is that the truth? ...and yet you had no such label as a 'Christian' to your being at birth. So who told you, that you are a Christian? Are you the author of that truth? Or are you being very gullible and just being tricked and fooled into being told something that is not true. Seems you are keen to accept to being told a lie, when you already know full well this lie is not what reality is, or that you were born into, the reality that is this nameless reality.

How can ONE talk about itself, unless it could fool itself into believing it was something else, aka a label known as a 'Christian' that was never there to begin with at your birth. So who placed the label, who imposed the label on you? you did didn't you, you were the only author weren't you? yet you deny the Christian Doctrine as written in the Bible as being not a human author. How absurd, this absurdity just gets more and more absurd.

Just keep pretending you know what you are talking about IC, eventually you will come to convince yourself you do one way or the other, because what can your mind do without it's story, the story only you have invented all along?


.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

seeds wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 6:51 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:47 pm As well, no one even seems interested in discussing and analyzing contemporary events in the light of the break-down in the possibility of metaphysical agreements.
Perhaps you haven't yet spoken with the right person about such issues. So, what "contemporary events" are you talking about? And how are they breaking-down the possibility of metaphysical agreements?
By "contemporary events" I refer to the entirety of the present social and political conditions which go on, with increasing intensity, all around us. There is not one person writing on this forum who agrees with any other person at a fundamental level. Each person, each perspective, seems atomized and instead of it being possible to forge alliances or build bridges, what goes on here is 'idea-war'. Now, all around us the heat and the intensity builds and 'toning it down' is no part of anyone's modus operandi. So my view is that when fundamental disagreements become manifest at this level it is *war* that is the next step. But I am not necessarily saying that I desire that war be avoided.

It is possible, likely even, that I do not have the breadth of experience that I'd like to have to be able to *see clearly* the lines of causation that have led to the present moment, yet it does seem to me that we could locate a primary cause in what I refer to as the breakdown in metaphysical agreements.

Nietzsche stated it in this way:
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
What is that 'horizon'? What else could it be but the Scholastic model of The World?
The chain starts from God and progresses downward to angels, demons (fallen/renegade angels), stars, moon, kings, princes, nobles, commoners, wild animals, domesticated animals, trees, other plants, precious stones, precious metals, and other minerals. Each link in the chain might be divided further into its component parts. The chain of being is composed of a great number of hierarchical links, from the most basic and foundational elements up through the very highest perfection, in other words, God.

God sits at the top of the chain, and beneath him sit the angels, both existing wholly in spirit form. Earthly flesh is fallible and ever-changing, mutable. Spirit, however, is unchanging and permanent. This sense of permanence is crucial to understanding this conception of reality. It is generally impossible to change the position of an object in the hierarchy. (One exception might be in the realm of alchemy, where alchemists attempted to transmute base elements, such as lead, into higher elements, either silver or, more often, gold the highest element.)

In the natural order, earth (rock) is at the bottom of the chain; this element possesses only the attribute of existence. Each link succeeding upward contains the positive attributes of the previous link and adds at least one other. Rocks possess only existence; the next link up is plants which possess life and existence. Animals add motion and appetite as well.

Man is both mortal flesh, as those below him, and also spirit, as those above. In this dichotomy, the struggle between flesh and spirit becomes a moral one. The way of the spirit is higher, more noble; it brings one closer to God. The desires of the flesh move one away from God. The Christian fall of Lucifer is thought of as especially terrible, as angels are wholly spirit, yet Lucifer defied God (who is the ultimate perfection).
Image

So it seems to me that when we stand away from the disagreements that are ever-present and ever-dominant in this specific conversation, we must see that we are in a fragmented condition having fallen away from a unifying vision or idea of the world.

I am going to suppose that what I am saying here makes sense to you and the reason I put it tentatively is because my impression is that many people who are fragmented do not realize that they are so. So what is one outcome of the fragmentation I refer to? A type of mental unbalance. And what is the core cause? The loss of the ground under one's feet. That is, metaphysical certainty.

If metaphysical certainty existed, that is if it were perceived and understood as *being real*, my assumption is that we would share common ground in the widest senses. Clearly we do not! So we can then (perhaps) be described as the microcosm within a larger macrocosm of breakdown. But, though intellectual agreements (i.e. agreements at a true intellectual level) are impossible there still remains and there still goes strong the emotionalized motor of the will. A reasoned, secure, grounded platform does not exist. I doubt very much if anyone writing on this forum would say, were they to truthfully analyze it, that they feel *secure* and *grounded* within their own selves. So it seems to me that people are in a state of *upset*. Or 'fighting mood'.

And I suppose that I am making myself clear: If what I am noticing is real (the breakdown in agreements) it likely has a central cause, and that cause is that no metaphysical agreements are possible -- except in small circles which are like isolated islands. What else can one do in such circumstances but retreat into one's 'solitary self'? And this circles back to the idea of fragmentation and atomization.

These things are not going to be solved simply by noting that they exist and dominate. It is possible that (for example in this conversation on this forum) that we realize the depth of the division, yet nothing we can do could really resolve it -- that is at the macro level. So what is going to happen is also what is happening: far larger currents over which we have little or no control will sweep us along, like it or not.

My reference here -- a way to conceptualize the issue -- has been influenced by two essays by CG Jung: Wotan and After The Catastrophe. (Unfortunately there seems to be no version of After the Catastrophe available on-line).

The difficult thing about reference to Jung is that Jung himself was deeply involved in a form of racial/cultural renaissance that opposed itself, essentially, to Judeo-Christian domination of Europe. One would not gather this reading these essays.

What I try to point out -- or put a different way what I attempt to *get out on the table* so that it can be seen and understood -- is that the present social problems, the present conflicts, and the direction where things are going (we are, in fact, already in war but it is war of a different and a new variety), are continuations of or octaves of the struggles of the early 20th century.

So there you have a somewhat brief outline of what I see as *contemporary events*. In order to talk about these things, one has to claim for oneself absolute freedom of thought no matter the forces that rise, immediately, to oppose free thought. And arise immediately they do!
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:47 pm Do we conceive of a non-metaphysical world? Is that the meaning of the deconstruction of the Christian Story? Is all of Christianity a false-metaphysics?
Seeds replies: Absolutely not. Again, we must mine the "Christian Story" for its valuable nuggets and leave the useless "tailings" (mythological nonsense) behind.
How would you go about isolating the *relevant nuggets* and into what metaphysical system can they be fitted?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:47 pm C'mon you shards & fragments, you sons & daughters of civilization's salvific Moloch! Surely there must be more?
Seeds replies: If you can't imagine the incredible degree of "more" implied in the two illustrations above, then keep studying them until (hopefully) it dawns on you.

Again, I admit that I could be wrong, but I propose that there literally cannot be "more" to our ultimate and eternal destiny than what the illustrations suggest.
You will have to explain in prose or in other symbols. I could only sort of get what you mean by the symbolic diagrams.
Last edited by Alexis Jacobi on Tue Oct 04, 2022 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nick_A
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Lacewing wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:22 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 am What is a Christ like spirit?
Being loving
Being forgiving
Having compassion
Being humble rather than being full of yourself and your supposed ‘rightness’
Being generous
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 am Since I don't appear to have one in your estimation, you must be repelled by my ideas.
Pretty much. You're probably a nice guy aside from the evil religious trip you're on.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amYou then must believe in might makes right attacking what repels you.
No, I don't believe that. I do believe it's valuable to call out destructive bullshit, though. Didn't Jesus do the same? I asked you before: How do you respond to things that you think are destructive?
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amOf course it would help if you knew what Christianity was and its purpose.
What makes you think that I don't and that you do?
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amBut that just gets in the way of your need to be right and attack what repels you as a Christ like reaction.
That doesn't even make sense. Your distortions repel me. Your obsession with darkness repels me. I was clear about that.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amCertain questions must be avoided for the sake of keeping the peace on a philosophy site.
What questions are those, Nick? Nothing needs to be avoided. If it's bullshit, however, it will be called out as such.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amThey can only be discussed in an atmosphere where a higher quality of understanding is invited and welcomed
Where is that? If the atmosphere has a "higher quality of understanding" (ie. agrees with you) what would there be to discuss? How 'right' you are? The actual reason it isn't being discussed further here is because the way you're presenting it is a bunch of self-serving nonsense. If you really want to have some good discussions, set your stories and obsessions aside, come to the table as 'an equal', and be willing to question everything, including what you think you know. There is nothing to fear.
Is this a Christ like attitude apparently promoting a divisive attitude? Isn't there enough friction in the average family?. Do you think the average secular philosopher would welcome discussion on this idea or just strive to practice condemnation? From Matthew 10:
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:58 pm
Is this a Christ like attitude apparently promoting a divisive attitude? Isn't there enough friction in the average family?. Do you think the average secular philosopher would welcome discussion on this idea or just strive to practice condemnation? From Matthew 10:
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
You are seriously deluded. No one comes here. There is only here and all comings and goings have nowhere to go, because they are always and ever the appearances of nothingness. Which can NEVER be understood, except in this illusory conception.

The body of the earth including the body of man is already at perfect peace. The mind of concepts is an imposter upon that peace, it's an illusion.

The body does not know it is in conflict or pain. Pain and friction arise to no body.
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Lacewing wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:22 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 am What is a Christ like spirit?
Being loving
Being forgiving
Having compassion
Being humble rather than being full of yourself and your supposed ‘rightness’
Being generous
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 am Since I don't appear to have one in your estimation, you must be repelled by my ideas.
Pretty much. You're probably a nice guy aside from the evil religious trip you're on.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amYou then must believe in might makes right attacking what repels you.
No, I don't believe that. I do believe it's valuable to call out destructive bullshit, though. Didn't Jesus do the same? I asked you before: How do you respond to things that you think are destructive?
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amOf course it would help if you knew what Christianity was and its purpose.
What makes you think that I don't and that you do?
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amBut that just gets in the way of your need to be right and attack what repels you as a Christ like reaction.
That doesn't even make sense. Your distortions repel me. Your obsession with darkness repels me. I was clear about that.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amCertain questions must be avoided for the sake of keeping the peace on a philosophy site.
What questions are those, Nick? Nothing needs to be avoided. If it's bullshit, however, it will be called out as such.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amThey can only be discussed in an atmosphere where a higher quality of understanding is invited and welcomed
Where is that? If the atmosphere has a "higher quality of understanding" (ie. agrees with you) what would there be to discuss? How 'right' you are? The actual reason it isn't being discussed further here is because the way you're presenting it is a bunch of self-serving nonsense. If you really want to have some good discussions, set your stories and obsessions aside, come to the table as 'an equal', and be willing to question everything, including what you think you know. There is nothing to fear.

Is this a Christ like attitude apparently promoting a divisive attitude? Isn't there enough friction in the average family?. Do you think the average secular philosopher would welcome discussion on this idea or just strive to practice condemnation? From Matthew 10:
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
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Dontaskme
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dontaskme »

Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 2:12 pm
Lacewing wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:22 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 am What is a Christ like spirit?
Being loving
Being forgiving
Having compassion
Being humble rather than being full of yourself and your supposed ‘rightness’
Being generous
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 am Since I don't appear to have one in your estimation, you must be repelled by my ideas.
Pretty much. You're probably a nice guy aside from the evil religious trip you're on.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amYou then must believe in might makes right attacking what repels you.
No, I don't believe that. I do believe it's valuable to call out destructive bullshit, though. Didn't Jesus do the same? I asked you before: How do you respond to things that you think are destructive?
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amOf course it would help if you knew what Christianity was and its purpose.
What makes you think that I don't and that you do?
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amBut that just gets in the way of your need to be right and attack what repels you as a Christ like reaction.
That doesn't even make sense. Your distortions repel me. Your obsession with darkness repels me. I was clear about that.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amCertain questions must be avoided for the sake of keeping the peace on a philosophy site.
What questions are those, Nick? Nothing needs to be avoided. If it's bullshit, however, it will be called out as such.
Nick_A wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:03 amThey can only be discussed in an atmosphere where a higher quality of understanding is invited and welcomed
Where is that? If the atmosphere has a "higher quality of understanding" (ie. agrees with you) what would there be to discuss? How 'right' you are? The actual reason it isn't being discussed further here is because the way you're presenting it is a bunch of self-serving nonsense. If you really want to have some good discussions, set your stories and obsessions aside, come to the table as 'an equal', and be willing to question everything, including what you think you know. There is nothing to fear.

Is this a Christ like attitude apparently promoting a divisive attitude? Isn't there enough friction in the average family?. Do you think the average secular philosopher would welcome discussion on this idea or just strive to practice condemnation? From Matthew 10:
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
More conceptual fairy story telling.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

Nick wrote on another thread:
1 Corinthians 2: 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

If this is true it reveals the futility of human reason for answering the question of God other than theoretically. Only the Spirit of wholeness can reveal the truth to the essence of human being. But how to open to the spirit that can reveal the truth beyond what dualistic reason is capable of?

My concern is for the young who are God’s people but are having the spirit killed in them by spirit killers and blind deniers dominant in institutions of child abuse called schools. Must they become part of the spiritually dead who will bury their dead or can they receive some kind of help that will allow them to open to grace so as to become themselves? How can they be made aware of the knowledge they are born with that they are in Plato’s cave and surrounded by influences of the World but capable of consciously inwardly turning in the direction of the light entering the cave? Naturally it won’t come from the World but from people who have become God’s people. But where do they find them and how can they avoid the many charlatans and blind believers who imitate them for worldly goals? One thing for sure; kids have it rough.
I would respond in this way:

By defining *spirit* in that way, you are referring to a monistic concept. But the facts seem to be that you have to get what *the spirit* communicates through a specific, cultural and historic context. So for a person who reads Corinthians the context is already there: it is the *picture* that has been revealed in the NT Bible. It is 1,000 years of familiarity with the Occidental Canon.

But what if one had no familiarity with all of that context? Let's say some person on the Indian subcontinent 800 years ago -- let's say in Bengal. Here, I translated it 1 Corinthians 2:14 into Bangla:
আত্মাবিহীন ব্যক্তি ঈশ্বরের আত্মা থেকে আসা জিনিসগুলিকে গ্রহণ করে না কিন্তু সেগুলিকে মূর্খতা বলে মনে করে এবং সেগুলি বুঝতে পারে না কারণ সেগুলি কেবল আত্মার মাধ্যমেই বোঝা যায়৷
Obviously, that person would have to access his own contextual and symbolical system and would have to translate the ideas into those terms that made sense to him. How would that person then talk about the idea presented? First, it would have to have been translated into patterns of ideation already developed, but developed within that other conceptual system. It would also have to fit into the cultural mores of that other culture. Then, if diagrams or symbolic artwork were created it would take the form of the symbols and patterns of that culture.

This is actually from Mediaeval Bengal (Chaitanya Mahaprabu and his entourage):

Image

Now, if human reason cannot sufficiently reveal or explain to a student whatever is to be revealed by *Spirit* as you present the notion here, and if we are still in 9th century Bengal, the question will arise: What method will reveal it? How will The Spirit speak? And what will it say? And what will it recommend? And what sort of person will arise through contact with this Spirit?

How will 'wholeness' be defined in 9th century Bengal? How was it defined? Would the idea even translate? But if it could not translate (since when we refer to *wholeness* we refer to ideas and concepts very much from our own context) it would have to be approximated, would it not? So wholeness would be integrity in relation to one's own traditions or the way life is seen and understood. That is, an entire metaphysical picture (such as one from the Bengal culture of the 9th century would understand as *noram* and as *right*).

Need I go on in speaking of the variations even in Bengal culture of the 9th century in respect to dualistic/non-dualistic philosophical ideas?

The remaining paragraph makes great sense to me -- I swear I understand it! -- but how could the unity and (as I say) the agreement necessary for those children to be raised up into a conceptually unified world be enforced today? The 'school' that you envision is, quite literally, an impossibility. Though there might be some environment, somewhere, some monastery that had a small school attached where a coherent and cohesive picture (of the world) could be taught.

But those who emerged from that school would be *strangers in a strange land*.
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