Can there be New Ways of Understanding and Practicing Ancient Religious Teachings?

[The Magic Pudding.]

Well new and inspiring hats of course.

Bloke out the front, acting as the conduit of god, telling the congregation what he says god says they should be doing.

Flip it.

Congregation telling god's  conduit to tell god how he's fucking up, don 't make the tasty food dangerous, don't make the healthy food fucking lettuce...

[Leonardo17]

- Nothing that can be directly observed or measured by the naked eye or any instrument that we know of or even mathematically calculated either (as I said before)
 
   These are more like subtle forces that (we believe) are having very real effects on our lives here and now. Like denial of reason, practical intelligence, logical approaches in the name of our self-hatred that is pretending to be our self-love or instinct of self-preservation. In other words our fear based self or Ego.

That's why religious people need churches/ temples, just like UFO people need UFO books. Religious people go to the church/ temple and pretend that god is real, that he exists, so when people ask them for evidence that god exists, they are out of words, they're like "Well, it's not that simple," and just talk deluded nonsense. I hear the same from people in the UFO religion - they spend hours every week reading UFO books (or websites) where people act like aliens are real, and when you ask them to provide evidence that aliens are visiting Earth, they give the same excuse "Well, it's not that simple." And that's why you write these nonsensical posts.

Their issue is more like: “There is intelligent life outside of this planet” or “There isn’t any intelligent life outside of this planet”.
 
My issue goes deeper than that. It provides answers to things like “Why are these guy so damn stupid” and “What can I do to not be like them?”
 
/ There is nothing in Humanities that explains that type of stupidity.
 
In fact, there are many atheists who also happen to believe in some sort of similar inner-work or inner-journey. The philosopher Plato describes “The little Human” in us, that has to learn to tame the “Inner Lion in us” in order to go and defeat “The Hydra in us”.
 
So I am saying that true spirituality has to do with these universal themes more than any set of dogmas added to a number of rituals.
 
/ I believe in occult practices but what I am described is unrelated to that. That’s a whole different universe (and I don’t know a lot about that)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You’re not suggesting that Plato was an atheist, are you?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Has it ever occurred to you Leo, that you actually created this thread because you don't want to understand ancient religious teachings in a new way? That you would prefer to continue to understand them in the old way, as endowing some greater underlying truth, despite their profligate inadequacy and inaccuracy.

[Leonardo17]

BrianSoddingBoru:
 
I am only saying that the main themes of spirituality are very ancient and universal. If you go to the core of things there is this universal teaching that is designed to do some good rather than turn human masses into obedient brainless flocks of people.
 
 
Grand Nudger:
 
No. Quite the opposite. I am trying to say that the old ways are mostly too obsolete to keep doing in the same way in this era because
 

---

 
1) No one is even interested. Here was documentary that I saw few months ago. Priest schools in Germany that were built for several hundreds of students in the 1960’s are now getting only a dozen of priest candidates every year now. And in the Islamic world fundamentalists are trying to maintain some of the “old ways” through artificial means by (as they do in Iran) trying to raise “a pious generation” who usually end up hating religion more than their parent’s generation. Simply because their energy levels are higher than their parent’s generation.
 
2) People are searching something new. In West-European countries there is this memory of what the Church did in the old days. So people are very lucid about the amount of evil religion is able to do on an individual or social level. People are not about to forget for instance the silencing of scientists or the forced confessions during inquisition and other realities on the dark aspects of religion.
 
   At the same time: There is this spiritual search within us. Religion is too obsolete or backward minded to even try to respond to this need. Have you ever felt like you are like a complete alien in this planet? – That’s because we are complete aliens on this planet. And therefore there is this need in us (at least in some of us) that needs to be fulfilled. And that’s the new approach I am talking about.
 
    You can go to you synagogue or Stupa or whatever and hear stories of endless reincarnation or levels of enlightenment you can reach after this many hours of deep meditation. Without a more lucid approach it’s just a waste of money + time. It’s not enough for someone of our generation. For us it’s too superficial / to simplistic. No one will even adhere to that without social pressure, brainwashing at an early age or being forced into it in some way.
 

---

 
But that’s not the right way of doing things anyway. As I said, there are (and has always been) better approaches that will produce results in the individual level. And these are the real forms of spirituality.

[The Grand Nudger]

Have you ever felt like you are like a complete alien in this planet?

No.

That’s because we are complete aliens on this planet.

False, and...frankly...silly.  We're certainly natives.

And therefore there is this need in us (at least in some of us) that needs to be fulfilled. And that’s the new approach I am talking about.

You know what happens when you base a "therefore" on something false and silly, right?

[Leonardo17]

Have you ever felt like you are like a complete alien in this planet?

No.

That’s because we are complete aliens on this planet.

False, and...frankly...silly.  We're certainly natives.

And therefore there is this need in us (at least in some of us) that needs to be fulfilled. And that’s the new approach I am talking about.

You know what happens when you base a "therefore" on something false and silly, right?

   Thanks for correcting me. I think it is more accurate to say that I feel like a complete alien in this world sometimes and my reading in spiritual subjects are telling me that I am truly an alien in this planet. This means that the Inner Self is something that resides in Eternity and (for instance) our quest for “more” stuff in this world is actually a masquerade for this inner alien that is simply not satisfied with anything the world has to offer. This is one of the main themes we can discuss later if you want. 



   I want to bounce back to things that are not genuinely spiritual. You guys know now the pages long thread I’m writing on all these “spiritual” issues. So let me show you something that has nothing to do with spiritual issues:
 

---

 
https://irp.fas.org/cia/guerilla.htm
 
(Go to the Combatant-Propagandist Guerrilla section)
 
   This is the Bin-Laden stuff. You know that he was also a CIA trained agent at some point. I recently saw a very shocking movie about the organization structures of Sectarian Muslims or Political Islamists right here in our country in the 1990’s during which we were a secular democracy that was closely monitored by the secular armed forces (a bit like Today’s Egypt).
 
   So the methods they are using. How they hide from secular authorities. How they subvert influential people to their cause. How they brainwash young people through the use of a travestied form of Islamic practices…. You could go to the document I am sharing above and replaces words like “Sandinista” / “Communist” with “Secular” / “Democratic” and the words like “Democracy” / “Freedom” with “Islam” and “Sharia” and there you got your Sharia Cookbook or “Psychological Operations in Urban Sharia Warfare”.
 
   I am someone who sees and recognizes these things because I had made it a habit in the early internet days to download “cool stuff” and even read them when I had time after printing them from my black-white ink printer.
 
So how does a practice that is normally defined as urban guerilla propaganda subversion techniques end up becoming “The true way of Islam” and so many people end up actually saying “Yeah, these are the ways of Islam indeed, I agree with that”
 
I don’t know if you are getting what I am telling you here. I could say the same for “Christian” teenage LGBT reeducation centers in America for instance. I could ask when did a medieval blend of typical fascism that does nothing except freely torturing young people because of their sexual tendencies end up being known as “Christianity”?
 
Note: The text above is short and really cool. I was subjected to different types of propaganda while I was growing up. Thanks to these sources I grey-rocked most of them. Another source I read back on these days was the book of William Powell. Back in the 90’s that book had also a section on propaganda and urban guerilla tactics. There was even a section on hacking (Early 90’s hacking of course).
 
Anyway: What I want to say is that this is (or should be) the field of law enforcement (I am talking about the actions of groups like “The Muslim Brotherhood”). It is not, and will never be the field of religion and spirituality. I don’t spread my ideas and/or convictions like that. I don’t brainwash people into it. I don’t make plans to undermine the secular / democratic structure of the society (or world) I am living in. I have convictions but I am not convinced in the way a member of IRA is convinced about his/her ideology or a strong Leninist is determined to do whatever is necessary in order to promote what he/she is believing is “The best way of action for the good of us all”
 

---

 
So I think the difference between a “typical” Muslim and someone who falsely assumes he/she is a Muslim should be crystal clear by now.

[The Grand Nudger]

Islam is a medeival blend of typical fascism. That's why it doesn't surprise me when islamists do typical fascist shit.

[Ahriman]

Islam isn't the most progressive ideology, but I still think it would be interesting if there were some kind of "update" for it, although I would not want it to go the same way as mainstream Christianity.

[Belacqua]

I think it is more accurate to say that I feel like a complete alien in this world sometimes and my reading in spiritual subjects are telling me that I am truly an alien in this planet.

Obviously none of us is alien in the sense that we come from another planet. Humans evolved here. But I know that's not what you mean.

The feeling of alienation has been an important topic in philosophy since at least the time of Hegel. This is a good introduction:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alienation/

In a nutshell, alienation in this sense is the feeling that one is separate from the world or from society in a way that's problematic. You don't feel at home in the world as it is. 

Naturally most people will blame you for feeling this way, because it's easy just to say that you ought to be better adjusted. But the fact that SO MANY people feel this way indicates that there are elements of our society which work to alienate people. Marx of course blamed the economy. But there have been many many different analyses of why people don't feel at home in the world and how we could improve matters. 

Albert Camus's most famous novel is L'Étranger, which is usually translated as The Outsider but could just as easily be The Alien. (Unfortunately people might buy it thinking it's a novelization of a SciFi movie.) Alienation is one of the main themes of Existentialist philosophy. 

https://blog.oup.com/2019/05/albert-camu...absurdity/

So it's a huge topic, but one that people have been thinking seriously about for some time. And I agree with you that spiritual solutions have, traditionally, been a way of dealing with this feeling. Religious belief can provide, among many other things, a sense of where and how a person fits into the universe. For the Existentialists, at least, alienation becomes an issue once religious belief becomes impossible. 

And I think you are right to connect this sense with the possibility of beauty in the world. Beauty is by definition something attractive, and if you are in a beautiful building or city street or garden you feel attracted to it. Ugliness repels and alienates. (This is not to say that I feel at home in every beautiful space -- it's just that a space in which I am happy to spend time is not one which is likely to alienate me.) Listening intently to Bach keyboard music gives the feeling that something, at least, is right in the world, and I am happy to be here. 

I am not sure what a "typical" Muslim is. There are a lot of different ones. One of the reasons that old religions continue to attract people is that while they claim to declare eternal verities, they also adapt and evolve. I see no reason at all why young Muslims who claim to be returning to some heart of true Islam couldn't readjust the practice of the religion to something better and more loving. I don't know much about it, but Sufism might be a good start. 

Do you know of any Muslim writers who offer positive guidance in this?