1) No, I think I understand your point. Please don’t think I’m avoiding your questions all the time in order to be able to maintain my belief system as a whole.
The truth is you and I are not a speck of dust in this Galaxy, and our galaxy isn’t a speck of dust in the universe. So there is no need for a feeling of greatness in any religious or philosophical viewpoint. All I am saying is that I may be right or I may be wrong. I cannot know for sure.
My only strong convictions are my political convictions. That’s because there is something inside me that is revolted when it sees injustice that is committed “in the name of God” while I know (for sure) that God didn’t say anything like this.
See, I was in a high school where the “cool” was to be an atheist who looks down on all these superstitions, unscientific beliefs etc. But even then, while maintaining my “atheist” identity in public, I would read some new-age literature, or things like the Tibetan book of the dead etc. So that’s how I am, I can’t really do anything against it
2) Yes but Neo-Pagans wrote these books and rituals themselves. These are probably not the rituals that were performed by the ancient Pagans, and the Ancient Pagans probably saw the entire universe in a much different way than we see it today. So if the goal is to revive these ancient belief systems, I think that neo-pagans are not going to be successful in that. And therefore I assume that they are simply having fun. And that’s why I even like it in some way
On idols: This subject is again very large. The ancient Egyptians believed for instance that the “kha” or “spirit” or the deceased pharaoh was able to live in the statues. Statues of Gods (unlike today’s Christian icons for istance) were also believed to have “energy” in them. There was a whole system of magic and occult that was related to these objects. And as I said before, this spiritual system (which was not “evil” at all, at least not at the early and middle bronze age period) gradually started to degenerate and turn into black magic and bigotry. That’s when the story of Abraham and Moses happened, and these prophets challenged these entire notions and they wanted to bring an idol-less religion. (In fact, you might even have heard of Akhenaten: This guy was a 13th century BC pharaoh who for some reason wanted to do exactly the same thing but was unable to do so).
So holy books are not idols. In the past there used to be idolatry-like taboos concerning the holding of the holy-book. You would have to do ritual purification before even holding the book (I think there are still many people who believe that). Yet, the interpretation of modern scholars is that you just need to respect usual hygienic rules, and then, that you are allowed to read it just like an ordinary book. What matters is that the individual is able to understand the messages that are contained in the book. Not that the book itself is veneered as an object of worship. Again, this is a pagan way of thinking that somehow has remained in the collective subconscious. People want to veneer the object, even if it’s only a book.
3) As far as I understand it, it is. Christians are using pictures and statues, and icons (which is highly condemned in Islam and Judaism). But the aim of these pictures or frescos that you might see in churches is to relate biblical stories (or their interpretation) to the illiterate populations of the medieval period. Icons on the other hand, are mostly used to focus attention during prayer, as a helping tool for the veneration of the one true God. I’ve heard of “Holy Virgin Mary Icons” or similar object that were for example taken to conflict zones and Byzantine armies were believed to be undefeatable as long as that Holy Icon is in their possession. Yet such beliefs are highly debated within Christianity itself and highly criticized by the two other monotheistic religions.
And you cannot know the number of wonderful Greco-Roman statues, byzantine mosaics, or early-Christian wall paintings that were either damaged by “pious” Muslims or iconoclast Byzantines themselves because they were believed to host evil spirits.
So Monotheism hates icons to the point of even dismissing their aesthetical and historical values.
Now I must also make this explanation: In terms of religion, there is no problem with the artistic, aesthetical or other usage of statues, icons, images etc. The only prohibition is the usage of image for idolatry purpose.
One thing I may add: Anyone willing to explore this dimension of the human experience must be willing to do some amount of research in a lifelong process. By this I don’t mean the constant accumulation of several forms of knowledge. See the Mullah’s of Iran are known to speak up to four languages each one of them and in a newspaper article I read a while ago a Turkish Journalist was relating how a Mullah that he knew in the 80’s knew more about Turkish inner politics than he did. Many of them are said to know a lot of thing about science and philosophy as well. So the ego-oriented accumulation of such knowledge doesn’t mean anything spiritual terms. But you have to accept the fact that people with religious authority can and will lie to you (and have done so – a lot – in the past) and you have to invest a certain amount of effort to find out what these lies are and then only you can deal with the real thing.
And the Chinese call this “Dao” or “Tao”. “Tao” means the way. And the Tao-Te-Ching says that “The way itself is the Goal”. This means that the effort is likely to be permanent and one has to accept the fact that there is a long way ahead of him/her. In fact there are a limited number of spiritual seekers who are known to experience satisfying results in a relatively short period of time. For the rest of us: - We learn, we unlearn, we learn again, we make false assumptions, we correct them, we work on new assuptions, etc. etc.
So I am not making fun of you when I said that if philosophy and science (or that way of approaching reality) is working with you must simply keep up with it. In fact in the yogic tradition, each man and woman is said to come with an amount of software in him/her. And each person is here to work on that particular software or “memory” as some guru’s like to call it. So the spiritual message is that, what may work well for one, may not work at all for the other.
So this is what I meant. I am not trying to avoid the discussion or doing some word-games here
The truth is you and I are not a speck of dust in this Galaxy, and our galaxy isn’t a speck of dust in the universe. So there is no need for a feeling of greatness in any religious or philosophical viewpoint. All I am saying is that I may be right or I may be wrong. I cannot know for sure.
My only strong convictions are my political convictions. That’s because there is something inside me that is revolted when it sees injustice that is committed “in the name of God” while I know (for sure) that God didn’t say anything like this.
See, I was in a high school where the “cool” was to be an atheist who looks down on all these superstitions, unscientific beliefs etc. But even then, while maintaining my “atheist” identity in public, I would read some new-age literature, or things like the Tibetan book of the dead etc. So that’s how I am, I can’t really do anything against it
2) Yes but Neo-Pagans wrote these books and rituals themselves. These are probably not the rituals that were performed by the ancient Pagans, and the Ancient Pagans probably saw the entire universe in a much different way than we see it today. So if the goal is to revive these ancient belief systems, I think that neo-pagans are not going to be successful in that. And therefore I assume that they are simply having fun. And that’s why I even like it in some way
On idols: This subject is again very large. The ancient Egyptians believed for instance that the “kha” or “spirit” or the deceased pharaoh was able to live in the statues. Statues of Gods (unlike today’s Christian icons for istance) were also believed to have “energy” in them. There was a whole system of magic and occult that was related to these objects. And as I said before, this spiritual system (which was not “evil” at all, at least not at the early and middle bronze age period) gradually started to degenerate and turn into black magic and bigotry. That’s when the story of Abraham and Moses happened, and these prophets challenged these entire notions and they wanted to bring an idol-less religion. (In fact, you might even have heard of Akhenaten: This guy was a 13th century BC pharaoh who for some reason wanted to do exactly the same thing but was unable to do so).
So holy books are not idols. In the past there used to be idolatry-like taboos concerning the holding of the holy-book. You would have to do ritual purification before even holding the book (I think there are still many people who believe that). Yet, the interpretation of modern scholars is that you just need to respect usual hygienic rules, and then, that you are allowed to read it just like an ordinary book. What matters is that the individual is able to understand the messages that are contained in the book. Not that the book itself is veneered as an object of worship. Again, this is a pagan way of thinking that somehow has remained in the collective subconscious. People want to veneer the object, even if it’s only a book.
3) As far as I understand it, it is. Christians are using pictures and statues, and icons (which is highly condemned in Islam and Judaism). But the aim of these pictures or frescos that you might see in churches is to relate biblical stories (or their interpretation) to the illiterate populations of the medieval period. Icons on the other hand, are mostly used to focus attention during prayer, as a helping tool for the veneration of the one true God. I’ve heard of “Holy Virgin Mary Icons” or similar object that were for example taken to conflict zones and Byzantine armies were believed to be undefeatable as long as that Holy Icon is in their possession. Yet such beliefs are highly debated within Christianity itself and highly criticized by the two other monotheistic religions.
And you cannot know the number of wonderful Greco-Roman statues, byzantine mosaics, or early-Christian wall paintings that were either damaged by “pious” Muslims or iconoclast Byzantines themselves because they were believed to host evil spirits.
So Monotheism hates icons to the point of even dismissing their aesthetical and historical values.
Now I must also make this explanation: In terms of religion, there is no problem with the artistic, aesthetical or other usage of statues, icons, images etc. The only prohibition is the usage of image for idolatry purpose.
One thing I may add: Anyone willing to explore this dimension of the human experience must be willing to do some amount of research in a lifelong process. By this I don’t mean the constant accumulation of several forms of knowledge. See the Mullah’s of Iran are known to speak up to four languages each one of them and in a newspaper article I read a while ago a Turkish Journalist was relating how a Mullah that he knew in the 80’s knew more about Turkish inner politics than he did. Many of them are said to know a lot of thing about science and philosophy as well. So the ego-oriented accumulation of such knowledge doesn’t mean anything spiritual terms. But you have to accept the fact that people with religious authority can and will lie to you (and have done so – a lot – in the past) and you have to invest a certain amount of effort to find out what these lies are and then only you can deal with the real thing.
And the Chinese call this “Dao” or “Tao”. “Tao” means the way. And the Tao-Te-Ching says that “The way itself is the Goal”. This means that the effort is likely to be permanent and one has to accept the fact that there is a long way ahead of him/her. In fact there are a limited number of spiritual seekers who are known to experience satisfying results in a relatively short period of time. For the rest of us: - We learn, we unlearn, we learn again, we make false assumptions, we correct them, we work on new assuptions, etc. etc.
So I am not making fun of you when I said that if philosophy and science (or that way of approaching reality) is working with you must simply keep up with it. In fact in the yogic tradition, each man and woman is said to come with an amount of software in him/her. And each person is here to work on that particular software or “memory” as some guru’s like to call it. So the spiritual message is that, what may work well for one, may not work at all for the other.
So this is what I meant. I am not trying to avoid the discussion or doing some word-games here
