(January 6, 2023 at 6:34 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: I believe that the first step taken against slavery in the western world were the monotheistic religions. The economy of the Roman Empire relied almost entirely on slavery. Christianity replaced it with serfdom. Islam put some limits to it and placed it inside some sort of legal context. And serfdom, not slavery was the basis of the medieval labor economy in the Islamic world as well. Slaves were still much less used in comparison to the Roman way of doing things.
1) If there is a God that we can simply define as “The highest or Supreme Being” and this being is a good being (The word “God” in old German meant something like “The highest good”) and if we are logical beings by creation, then the message given by that being has to be a positive, constructive, helpful and logical message. Otherwise there are only two option a) He doesn’t exist, b) He is a man-like person like the Gods in the Greek Mythology who doesn’t really know what he is doing. I don’t agree with the b) option
2) I don’t think these are simply “the products of their times”. I read ancient philosophers as well. If you like simple wisdom, you might read the works of Marcus Aurelius as well. Plato and Socrates were also great thinkers of their times. I also like modern philosophers and other thinkers as well. I think spiritual knowledge is different. While reading a book on philosophy all that you need to do is to remain well focused. And the end result is a sort of knowledge that accumulates. Faith has a different mechanism. It’s a life-long process. We in the west we are meditating on some texts, trying to decipher their meaning in a lifelong process. They don’t even do that in the east. They just sit down and remain silent. So this is not really wisdom that we are after. The goal here is spiritual growth and increased spiritual understanding.
3) On reading the magic books: I don’t think you just “read” these holy books. I even knew someone who had learned Arabic and saw some meaning that were hidden in the Arab Alphabet and grammar itself. And in my Ancient-Greek class I met people who would learn Ancient Greek in order to be able to read the New Testament more effectively. There are even people who learn Aramaic in order to be able to do that. And that’s where it gets complicated: There are several methods of spiritual awakening. Learning about the messages hidden in the scriptures is one of them. Meditation is another. Devotion alone is said to lead us to spiritual enlightenment as well.
You seem to believe that there no such thing that is spiritual and that all mystic traditions were an invention from the very beginning. That’s not a bad theory either. We have the archaeological record that shows us how we started from the cult of the mother-Goddess, then switched to organized religions before finally inventing monotheistic religions. I see what you mean. The history of mankind is clearly older than the history of organized religions.
Let’s say I’m working on the possibility that there might be some sort of common knowledge that existed since at least the time of the builders of the earliest religious structures. Like if this is some sort of Matrix we are in. There has to be a switch that allows us to get out of the Matrix if we want to. The idea may seem crazy to some. But that’s my idea on what might be happening in this world.
After all Socrates said “All that I know is that I don’t know anything”. So everyone is free to have his or her theories on these things right?
1) There is no basis to believing in a supreme being that is good. There could be a supreme being who is completely amoral, or there might not be a being any more "supreme" than you or I am.
2) Yes, writings are a product of their times. The questions may sometimes be universal, but the answers are a product of the times.
3) You are searching for "hidden meanings" in texts, like a game of Where's Waldo? Here's a thought - how about the writers meant what they said. If there were writing a parable or allegory, the meaning was clear. If they were writing a story, they had an intended religious message of the story that was meant to be clear (whether or not they expected the reader to believe the story was history).
If you read the bible, with the assumption that the writers meant what they freak'n said, you get a portrait of an ignorant culture that believed their tribal god did all the good and the bad. God isn't good - he is simply THERE and will do good things to those who worship and obey him, and bad things to others. This is the worldview. You don't need to be into numerology or look for hidden mysteries. When a list of laws are given, the priests are just trying to give laws - they aren't some mystical hidden gems from an omnipotent deity. The laws give an insight into the culture, but the applicability to current culture is extremely limited (and in 90% of cases must be ignored for moral reasons).
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As for your assumption that "there might be some sort of common knowledge that existed since at least the time of the builders of the earliest religious structures", I think I'm finally starting to understand where you are coming from.
I am going to give you one concession - our common humanity means that all cultures have questioned cosmology, morality, community, happiness. If you want to read ancient writings on these topics, and meditate on them, go ahead. Assuming that ancient answers to these questions come from some mystical source (god, etc.) is not reasonable.
