tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post5770271801553412946..comments2023-08-27T12:35:12.308+02:00Comments on sanscrite cogitare, sanscrite loqui: Saints, rebirth and beliefelisa freschihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post-8847778292627761522012-05-22T06:08:12.437+02:002012-05-22T06:08:12.437+02:00Dear Aśvamitra,
we had this conversation already ...Dear Aśvamitra,<br /><br />we had this conversation already and you know I disagree. I do not think that religion is just an evolution of our epistemological attitude towards understanding the external data. One believes for reasons, you are right, but the sort of reasons is radically different. On the side of religion weight reasons such as one's mystical experiences, one's acquaintance with pious people or texts, etc. NOT one knowledge about facts. Whether there has been or not a Mahābhārata war might be of interest for a Vaiṣṇava believer, but will never be the reason for one to conver to Vaiṣṇavism, and so on.<br /><br />I am sorry for the losses in your family, but I would not underestimate the power of death on human beings. It is the ultimate experience and the fact that one is scared facing it does not necessarily mean that one did not believe at all, but just that one is sincerely open to the greatness of what is happening. <br /><br />As for the six days account and the things you ought to believe in order to be a Christian, I cannot really follow you. It seems to me that you are attacking a straw-man no one is defending (or maybe someone, if you say that your Canadian friends did). Christianity emerges as the religion of faith as opposed to that of rituals, as the religion of love as opposed to human justice, etc. These points seem to be the core of it, whereas the ontological understanding you mention seems to me the one of either fundamentalists or people external to a religion, who have no grasp of its religious significance at all. It is as if I were to say "Buddhism is preposterous: who could ever believe that an elephant entered the womb of Māyā?".elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post-4862659332357269462012-05-21T04:07:18.468+02:002012-05-21T04:07:18.468+02:00(If one needs the support of natural sciences in o...(If one needs the support of natural sciences in order to believe in something, does not it mean that she is not really believing it?) Natural science is just a development of the universal belief in reality. People believe things _for reasons_, and we derive reasons from the evidence of our senses. It's really as simple as that. I come from a family that is very religious on both sides, and on my father's side, there is a tradition of study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. One generation has been dying recently, and again and again I've seen how this modernist talky-talk about "two kinds of belief" and symbolic interpretation of the scriptures simply evaporates in the face of impending death. They die in hopeless terror like the unbelievers they always really were. The days when it was possible for sane and informed people to believe in Christian doctrine are over, at least in the west, which is why this religion has come to the still largely illiterate third world for a brief second wind before it finally gives up the ghost. Either you believe that the world was created six thousand years ago, that Jesus rose again, that heaven exists, or you don't believe. You may _think_ you believe it "symbolically", blah blah blah, but the truth (i.e., that you don't) comes out in the very end. There are other less crazy and more updatable things to believe in the world of religion, things that teach us more about reality and prepare us betterr for passing on. That's what brings us some of us to Indian religion.Philliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07829053219715458764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post-2509809356062304552012-05-17T23:51:44.412+02:002012-05-17T23:51:44.412+02:00You were in the back of my mind.You were in the back of my mind.ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post-50271517880877866622012-05-16T14:23:41.984+02:002012-05-16T14:23:41.984+02:00Ombhurbhuva, I just wanted to add that I understoo...Ombhurbhuva, I just wanted to add that I understood your point much better after having read your comment on Amod's blog (http://loveofallwisdom.com/2012/05/the-christianity-that-changes-is-the-one-that-dies/#comments).elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post-48508549310718468482012-05-15T14:58:20.609+02:002012-05-15T14:58:20.609+02:00thanks, Ombhurbhuva. As I wrote while commenting y...thanks, Ombhurbhuva. As I wrote while commenting your post, I see the problem in these terms:<br />"what is" differs from "what ought". The first is the realm of direct perception and so on until science. In the second realm, science can say nothing, just because its precinct of application regards only things which exist and not deontic realities (i.e., things which ought to be). As for the latter, then, we can rationally either be agnostic or have faith. Probably, the choice depends on extra-rational elements.elisa freschihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17068583874519657894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6641738716446631837.post-51100282050908089332012-05-15T10:38:40.210+02:002012-05-15T10:38:40.210+02:00Elisa,
Stimulating post. I've made reference ...Elisa,<br />Stimulating post. I've made reference to it on my blog where I develop some ideas about epistemic duty at length. Von Hugel has interesting points about the stages of religious apprehension that must be gone through from the childish acceptance to the intellectual questioning to the spiritual/mystical.Most intellectuals in this modern age never make it through to the final stage to find an emotional/spiritual/mystical assurance. They fall down before the idol of the Great Empiric dressed by its attendants in the white lab coat they themselves wear.ombhurbhuvahttp://ombhurbhuva.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com