I am not sure I understood the very last part. I simply believe in the power and necessity of open debates. I believe in the confrontation of ideas. The lack of these confrontations may be one of the main elements that brought religion to the place where it is today. When there is just one guy (or a group of people) talking and the rest are shaking their head in approval no matter what, this can be a big issue.
So if I am wrong, maybe we should debate this. Now, without referring to some historical events that were mostly man-made, where do you think there is misogyny, incitation to violence, oppression of the masses, denial of scientific facts and reason in the religious teachings themselves? Other than the Quran, I read the New Testament, the beginnings of the Old Testament, and a little bit of the Bhagavad Gita and listened to some other Vedic texts, + the Tao Te Ching of course. I know that there are many stories in the Old Testament (that I know from one source or the other). These stories contain things like murder, adultery, in fact many negative elements that we don’t really like in our civilized societies. Yet I have come to believe that these are all allegorical stories, with a deeper spiritual meaning. I don’t know a lot on the Bible in these terms, so it is possible that you may come up with some elements that I may not be able to answer.
But as long as you don’t have hard evidence, I am part of those who like to think that the original message of these teachings were mostly correct but that the people to whom those messages were sent were what I would call “first chakra level” persons. That is persons who had a 100% materialistic perception of the world with little to no abilities of philosophical thought who “had” to distort these messages because otherwise they wouldn’t understand it at all + who decided to murder all those who understood the contents of these messages because their ego’s found it threatening to have other people understanding things that they were simply unable to understand. Or at least that’s my current interpretation.
Take the Poem written above by St-Francis for instance. Repeating it is quite easy. What if you met people who could put it into practice? What if you were a roman of equestrian order with 200 or so slaves working for you in your property and you met such a person immediately after having given some 20 lashes to one of your slaves for attempting to steal a loaf of bread. – You would think they are weird. Your Ego would push you to the conclusion that they are not respecting your emperor (who is the one and only God, as everyone knows) and you would be pushed to do them some sort of harm. You just wouldn’t like them.
400 years later: Same think. Byzantine scribe or priest. You are a well-educated, literate person. You would be discussing with your mentor: - Could Jesus really have meant “Love your neighbors as you love yourself” when he said that? Maybe what he meant was “All the non-believing pagans must be converted to Christianity whether they like it or not”. And these debates go on and on. And the Jews who were seen as equals in the 4th century East-roman Empire, gradually became unwanted heretics who were procecuted in the high middle ages. And during the Spanish inquisition, they had to convert to Christianity or be murdered or flee here to the Ottoman Empire. But the same process is going on here. Those people who were seen as “ehl-I-kitap” (or people with an equal level of faith) in 1492, became “Kufar” (infidels) in 1955.
Same event. Original message. Than degeneration. And then even more degeneration. And than degeneration to a point in which no logical person can willingly decide to adhere to something like that.
But my argument remains. I believe that in all cases the original message was quite good. But the people were simply not at that social and intellectual (and spiritual) level. So only the lucky few understood this. And (my theory) That’s why you had things like Rosicrucian, Mithraism, Neo-Platonism in the west, some mystical teachings in the east, or some special monasteries in the far east with “zen” teachings. Which had some “secret” teachings, simply because the overall population was far, far, far away from being anywhere near those teachings.
That’s the main theory. But still. Indian mystics still define our era as an era of material perception some than spiritual perception (just don’t ask). So my view is that philosophy and science is our main tool of perceiving the reality about ourselves and the rest of the universe. So I have faith in this supremacy of reason and science while keeping an open door to more spiritual teachings. That’s my personal approach.
So if I am wrong, maybe we should debate this. Now, without referring to some historical events that were mostly man-made, where do you think there is misogyny, incitation to violence, oppression of the masses, denial of scientific facts and reason in the religious teachings themselves? Other than the Quran, I read the New Testament, the beginnings of the Old Testament, and a little bit of the Bhagavad Gita and listened to some other Vedic texts, + the Tao Te Ching of course. I know that there are many stories in the Old Testament (that I know from one source or the other). These stories contain things like murder, adultery, in fact many negative elements that we don’t really like in our civilized societies. Yet I have come to believe that these are all allegorical stories, with a deeper spiritual meaning. I don’t know a lot on the Bible in these terms, so it is possible that you may come up with some elements that I may not be able to answer.
But as long as you don’t have hard evidence, I am part of those who like to think that the original message of these teachings were mostly correct but that the people to whom those messages were sent were what I would call “first chakra level” persons. That is persons who had a 100% materialistic perception of the world with little to no abilities of philosophical thought who “had” to distort these messages because otherwise they wouldn’t understand it at all + who decided to murder all those who understood the contents of these messages because their ego’s found it threatening to have other people understanding things that they were simply unable to understand. Or at least that’s my current interpretation.
Take the Poem written above by St-Francis for instance. Repeating it is quite easy. What if you met people who could put it into practice? What if you were a roman of equestrian order with 200 or so slaves working for you in your property and you met such a person immediately after having given some 20 lashes to one of your slaves for attempting to steal a loaf of bread. – You would think they are weird. Your Ego would push you to the conclusion that they are not respecting your emperor (who is the one and only God, as everyone knows) and you would be pushed to do them some sort of harm. You just wouldn’t like them.
400 years later: Same think. Byzantine scribe or priest. You are a well-educated, literate person. You would be discussing with your mentor: - Could Jesus really have meant “Love your neighbors as you love yourself” when he said that? Maybe what he meant was “All the non-believing pagans must be converted to Christianity whether they like it or not”. And these debates go on and on. And the Jews who were seen as equals in the 4th century East-roman Empire, gradually became unwanted heretics who were procecuted in the high middle ages. And during the Spanish inquisition, they had to convert to Christianity or be murdered or flee here to the Ottoman Empire. But the same process is going on here. Those people who were seen as “ehl-I-kitap” (or people with an equal level of faith) in 1492, became “Kufar” (infidels) in 1955.
Same event. Original message. Than degeneration. And then even more degeneration. And than degeneration to a point in which no logical person can willingly decide to adhere to something like that.
But my argument remains. I believe that in all cases the original message was quite good. But the people were simply not at that social and intellectual (and spiritual) level. So only the lucky few understood this. And (my theory) That’s why you had things like Rosicrucian, Mithraism, Neo-Platonism in the west, some mystical teachings in the east, or some special monasteries in the far east with “zen” teachings. Which had some “secret” teachings, simply because the overall population was far, far, far away from being anywhere near those teachings.
That’s the main theory. But still. Indian mystics still define our era as an era of material perception some than spiritual perception (just don’t ask). So my view is that philosophy and science is our main tool of perceiving the reality about ourselves and the rest of the universe. So I have faith in this supremacy of reason and science while keeping an open door to more spiritual teachings. That’s my personal approach.
