Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

That's great stuff, especially from a Christian. Do you think it's possible for George Bush not think in absolutes?

But we not are a part of absolute truth, even though we have a hard time seeing it? What we see with our misconceptions is just an illusion, like mistaking a rope in the grass for the snake. We just don't see it because of ego-illusion. This ego gives us our illusion of self, and causes our suffering. The illusion of self also claims that absolute truth (kingdom of heaven) is "out there" rather than here.

What's your take on the Buddhist ideas of interdependence, and/or emptiness, of Non-duality in the light of our "blind-spots" that you spoke about?

 

I’m going to have to do a little reviewing and get back to you on this. I have read some Ken Wilber on this and if his position is reasonably representative I can speak to it.

 

I don't much about him, but I don't think Wilber is a Buddhist. Most Buddhists reject him and his fused philosphies, and they are pretty tolerent people. Go to the source.

 

I'm with you in spirit...

But are you sure Christ didn't die and then three days later He rose from the dead? (1Corinthians 15:3-4)

Could truth be found in a person? (John 14:6)

God knows all absolute truth. To man it must be revealed. There again lies the rub...

I have asked atheists if there is absolute truth.
Most answer no, some I don't know and a few say yes.

Then I ask- is this an absolute truth- There is no God.

No man can claim truth unless God revealed it.
How do you know it is truth?

Again there lies the rub.

Faith is not a leap in the dark, faith is a step into the light.

Let me better say it this way-
God may ask us to believe what we do not understand, but He will never ask us to believe what is not true.

 

If you could point me to a good summary then I’d appreciate it.

 

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets it.

- Leonard Cohen

 

hmmmmmm....

http://www.purifymind.com/Interdepen.htm
http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/wisdom_emptiness.html

You can try looking here at the diamond and heart sutras http://www.buddhanet.net/ebooks_ms.htm

Or try the books The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra & The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Diamond Sutra by Thich Nhat hanh


I think it realtes a lot to what you were talking about.

 

To get back on the original topic, I would have to put LOOKING BACKWARD by Edward Belamy in my list of top ten most harmful books. Belamy was a nationalist and a socialist. His book, which describes a centeralized socialist utopia, was a best seller of the time. John Dewey was heavily influenced by Belamy. His book Democracy and Education makes the list, but Belamy's more influential book is left off.

 

I was unable to check back on this thread and now I see that it has gone nutty.

I still don't really understand how we got to (and are continuing) the dialectic when discussing the "evils" of the Communist Manifesto.

Also, I guess my problem with you rhester is that it seems you are changing the definition and meaning of the dialectic from it's original...and then changing it up within your own thoughts/posts. So, I have trouble following your logic.

I'll just start with this as a jump-in point:

I don't really like the Democrat vs. Republic format applied to the dialectic (what started the trajectory that lead to Sishir's post) because it would be impossible to identify what is "thesis", what is "antithesis", and there is never any true synthesis. Parties and ideas generally remain well entrenched and they do not become a kind of unified position over time.

In general, the dialectic charts how history moves, so politics and goverments in a grander scheme could fit in, but I don't think we should try to apply it to the minutiae.

 

Well, again it depends on how we’re defining “die”. We can try to choke down a definition far enough to make it seem like absolute truth, but apart from the fact that the context will be very limited, I think we’re only fooling ourselves. The same principles apply. Man is not good enough to know or declare absolute truths, and we are told not to. But we are told to share what we believe. It may seem like a subtle point but I think that straying over that line too much can get us into a lot of trouble in a number of ways.

Only if that person is Christ. No one else can claim to be representing absolute truth. And ultimately it’s not that big a problem IMO, (other than the issue of dealing with our own egos, which is a challenge for some of us.) We are not absolute authorities, and we shouldn’t proclaim to be. The danger of some Church leaders portraying themselves this way is that people will follow that leader. They will conform. They will “follow the rules” instead of seeking God in their own hearts. This may put more bodies in the pews and more money in the plate, but it doesn’t bring anybody to God in my experience. Instead I think it can put up a barrier.

I think I’m with you here but I’m not sure I’m catching your point.

 

"The task before UNESCO... is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose. This is opportune, since this is the first time in history that the scaffolding and the mechanisms for world unification have become available.... And it is necessary, for at the moment, two opposing philosophies of life confront each other from the West and from the East....

"You may categorize the two philosophies as two super-nationalisms, or as individualism versus collectivism; or as the American versus the Russian way of life, or as capitalism versus communism, or as Christianity versus Marxism. Can these opposites be reconciled, this antithesis be resolved in a higher synthesis? I believe not only that this can happen, but that, through the inexorable dialectic of evolution, it must happen....

"In pursuing this aim, we must eschew dogma - whether it be theological dogma or Marxist dogma.... East and West will not agree on a basis of the future if they merely hurl at each other the fixed ideas of the past. For that is what dogma's are -- the crystallizations of some dominant system of thought of a particular epoch. A dogma may of course crystallize tried and valid experience; but if it be dogma, it does so in a way which is rigid, uncompromising and intolerant.... If we are to achieve progress, we must learn to un-crystallize our dogmas." Julian Huxley, UNESCO: Its purpose and Its Philosophy (Washington DC: Public Affairs Press, 1947), page 61.

"In an otherwise excellent speech at the UN (9/12), President Bush, perhaps as a sop to win UN favor for military action in Iraq, called for the U.S. to rejoin the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Membership had been terminated in 1984 when it was discovered that large portions of the UNESCO budget, mostly extracted from the hides of U.S. taxpayers, was being diverted to Soviet fronts, terrorist organizations, and to support the bizarre and lavish tastes of the UNESCO Director-General, Senegalese leftist Mahtar M'Bow and his entourage.

At the time, UNESCO was attempting to implement a "New World Information Order" in which the world's journalists would be required to pass an ideological litmus test in order to practice their craft. Theoretically, if a journalist ran afoul of the UNESCO commissars, his license could be revoked and he could face fines and possible criminal charges. This would have fulfilled a central plank of the Communist Manifesto, which calls for "public ownership of the means of communication." In terminating U.S. membership, President Reagan stated that UNESCO had "extraneously politicized virtually every subject it deals with. It has exhibited a hostility toward the basic institutions of a free society, especially a free market and a free press."

UNESCO is often referred to as a school board for the world and, as such, it reflects the educational philosophy of its founding Director-General, biologist/humanist Julian Huxley. In his book "UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy" (1946), Huxley spills the beans. "The task before UNESCO…is to help the emergence of a single world culture, with its own philosophy and background of ideas, and with its own broad purposes." Huxley stated that the agency would advocate "the ultimate need for world political unity" and would condition "all peoples with the implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to world organization." His stated that UNESCO "can do a great deal to lay the foundations on which world political unity can later be built."

In the early 1950's, former Communist Joseph Z. Kornfeder expressed the opinion that UNESCO was comparable to a Communist Party agitation and propaganda department. He stated that such a party apparatus "handles the strategy and method of getting at the public mind, young and old." Huxley would lard the agency with a motley collection of Communists and fellow travelers. "


link

Huxley believed the same process, "the thesis, antithesis and synthesis of Hegelian philosophy," would mold global citizens committed to the oneness of all. Through "the Marxist 'reconciliation of opposites,'" conflicts would cease and a new manageable world would rise from the ashes of the old.
This revolutionary program was officially incorporated into American education in 1985, when President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev signed the U.S.-USSR Education Exchange Agreement. It put American technology into the hands of Communist strategists and sanctioned our use of their psycho-social strategies, including the mass media. As Julian Huxley suggested back in 1947, "the techniques of persuasion and information and true propaganda" must be "deliberately" used "as Lenin envisaged - to 'overcome the resistance of millions' to desirable change.

 

We may be saying the same thing in different terms...

Yes, only if that person is Christ (I agree)and does Christ speak truth? Can His words be taken absolutely?

And yes when a Christian leaders 'claims to have the truth' he no longer is sharing Christ's message, he could be sharing HIS message. Sometimes I think preachers would be best served just reading the Bible aloud on Sunday mornings.

My point is that all truth is absolute by definition. We actually live in a world God designed in truth.

For example, God knows the wavelength of light spectrum that registers green in the human brain. You and I may say it is red, but that doesn't change the wavelength.

Perception is unreliable at best.

Here is the question- what happens when you die?
If I told you that after you die you would spend eternity in heaven or hell you may not agree.

Now if I am wrong there must be a right answer. My answer cannot be wrong if there is not at least one other different answer.

You cannot have a wrong answer unless there is a right answer.
The right answer is what we can call truth.

There is nothing evil with being wrong, but to deny truth opens the door to lies.

I am often wrong (human), but I would never say there is no right answer.

Pontius Pilate asked Jesus 'What is truth?'
Great question.

 

Grizzled- I think I muddy things...

What I was attempting to communicate is- instead of saying Christians have 'truth'

I think I would say Jesus has the truth.

 

Certainly there are instances where truth is not absolute. This may be totally irrelevant, but it does belie the point. Bagwell's batting stance is very wide leg. He's been coached to chane it and tried it. It doesn't work for him. However his stance certainly is not the best for most hitters in the major leagues.

There are multiple truths for what the best batting stance. Two people can say two different things about batting stances and both be correct.

Looking biblically, there is a chapter in Romans, and I think it is twelve that talks about multiple truths. In that chapter it talks about how some people keep a certain day holy, and how other people think all days are equal. The bible says that the one who believes a certain day should be the sabbath should believe it to the fullest because for him that is true. The other person should believe all days are equal, and believe that to the fullest, because for him that is true. The chapter then mentions a few other examples of things that are true for one person, and not true for a different person. Furthermore it instructs people not to throw a stumbling block in front of those that believe in a different truth.

 

What is this you?

 

I couldn't agree more with you FrancisBlade and that is the point of perception.

Everyone has perception.

If you jumped off a building and hit the ground and every one of your friends jumped off a building and hit the ground my perception might be that I will hit the ground if I jump off the same building.

Here my observation produced my perception. But that truth does not depend upon my perception.

Gravity is the truth.

What is best for Bagwell or what makes a good religious holiday is a perception.

Think this way- If Bagwell is watching a pitch coming straight for his eye ball, his perception better be right. If he doesn't move or flinch and a 90 mph fastball hits him square in the eye socket his perception failed at point of impact.

His batting stance is how he perceives to hit, his average demonstrates that it is a perception and not an absolute truth.

In Romans you refer to an important truth- God looks at the heart. If I decide to give my wife a very special day to express the truth of my love to her the day itself is not the expression of that truth, it is what I made of that day.

Imagine me telling my wife- "today is our wedding anniverary I hope someone remembers and sends you a gift because if they do that will show you how much I love you."

When showing our love to God we each have special ways and God knows by looking into our heart.

Perceptions are often expressions of truth, but truths are never simply expressions of perceptions.

 

I was thinking more along the lines that the nature of democracy and a checks and balances system is that opposing points of view are forced to confront each other and compromise, create a synthesis. Thesis and anti-thesis are only POV's of individuals and parties.

But as I said I'm very rusty on my Hegel so am throwing that out as a general question to further the discussion.

 

The wind was flapping a temple flag. Two monks were arguing about it. One said the flag was moving; the other said the wind was moving. Arguing back and forth they could come to no agreement. The Sixth Patriarch said, "It is neither the wind nor the flag that is moving. It is your mind that is moving."

 

There is no spoon.

 

This is all very interesting stuff and actually this helps me understand your POV on a lot of the other issues.

If I get this right is what you're saying is more than that God knows the truth but that God created the absolute truth and I by extension is truth. So while as humans we may differ about definitions God is constant.

Very Platonic.

I can see then how you would consider faith not to be a going beyond logic or empiracism because your example of gravity implies that faith is empiracism since empiracal proof is itself the proof of God.

Is that correct?