RELIGION (6) - Is anybody there? (1)

notes from Peter Popper's Book - Is anybody there?

own translation


1.1 FAITH - Paul defines faith in Hebrews 11 as “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. So on the one hand faith is being certain of what we hope for. This implies that you can only live the transcendent and not know it. On the other hand faith is the doubling up the existence, thus, creating a dualistic world view. There is a microcosm, the material world that you can physically sense. And there is a macrocosm, beyond space and time, that you cannot sense, things never seen.




1.2 TRUTH - Knowledge is based on scientific truths, which are provable and rebuttable. However, time passing by new scientific truths emerge and overwrites former truths. Therefore, in science there is no absolute truth. There is only relativism. We can say that the story of science is actually a story of human errors. On the other hand there are truths you cannot prove in a rational way. For instance, Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) This is true for those who are sure it is true, who feel the truth. In mathematics this is called conjecture. Nevertheless, every culture is composition of conjectures and superstition.




For there are questions in the improvable truths concerning the details; such as Satan appeared to Jesus in a physical body? Lazarus was a novice to John, who was beloved by Jesus, and is Rudolf Steiner really his reincarnation in the 20th century? You may say that for Life the Truth is indifferent, only the effect counts. Faith is usually composed of mosaics of faith. That is, you fear being punished for your sins by God (Christianity), but you also believe that underground waters affect your well-being (Feng Shui).


1.3 The RELIGION is faith in a framework. Teachings are built upon each other. Teachings are about 1. God and the transcendent world – this is Theology; 2. The World and its origin – this is Ontology; 3. The Human, his purpose, life and death – this is Anthropology; 3. Morals, Good and Bad, Redemption and Damnation – this is Ethics. Every Religion deals with the relationship between God and the Man. It seems that for a religion to emerge 3 features are required: consciousness, self-reflexion and mortality. The main point is that the Humankind is continuously quarrel with Mortality. You may say, however, that the purpose of Religions is solely the Consolation. Freud writes about the Unconcern of the Nature – Man creates religions against a cosmic solitude. Nevertheless, almost everyone has felt the existence or the effects of something supernatural and he that has something to do with infinity and eternity. This is called Oceanic Feeling, by Romain Roland.




For those who have not experienced the oceanic feeling, religion is no more than a formal rite. Troy was only a legend before Schliemann and there were only stories about the labyrinth of Minos, but we now know they have existed. World religions are considered “world” due to their influence. 3 of them emerged in the Far East and are based on ENLIGHTMENT. Another 3 of them emerged in the Middle East and are based on REVELATION. The histories of each of them are characterized by a process of separation and fragmentation into different groups. For instance, Jews formed distinct ethnic groups, such as Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe and the Sephardi Jews of Spain, Portugal and North Africa. From another point of view, nowadays there is Haredi Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Reform, Liberal and Conservative Judaism, inter alia. It is also worth mentioning, that modern religious regulations are usually quite different from their origins. Anyway, Religions exist, and will exist, since the mankind is always searching for reasons and rational assurances, and they severely fear of the empty (horror vacui).

image credits: dharmalog.com; softwarehamilton.com; photographyblogger.net; thiennh2.deviantart

UPDATE - REMARKABLE COMMENTS

JP Reville What is there to fear? WHO is there to do the fearing, for that matter?
T Mandrake purgatory would be pretty grim I guess, and this photo is quite close to how I picture it. but actual death is a snap, the light goes out, you know no more.
A Kahn I cannot be certain about anything. Anyone honest would say the same... we all have doubts because so much is unknown. A fear of nothingness is a fear of the unknown... so were I to fear nothingness I would spend all my life in fear and I'm not willing to do that. Therefore I despise any religion or science that tries to instil fear in me or anyone else.
L Latta in science there is no absolute truth. There is only relativism. We can say that the story of science is actually a story of human errors. I Love that!
A Kahn I like it too... but couldn't we extend it by saying that life itself (of which science is just a part) is a story of human errors? And perhaps we never uncover truths but can only expose untruths.
M Clark I fear nothing! I've always regarded it as something inconceivable--I've never known the sheer absence of anything material--so, fascinating to contemplate it.
T Mandrake those cages in time bandit    
K Wright //and they severely fear of the empty//
That is, of course, if they can 'sense' the empty. I cannot imagine why one would or how one could. The picture above, by the way, is not empty..  
D Blair Do you fear being God, the only God, no peers, no "others?" Stuck with yourself, by yourself, of yourself? Demiurge? Does Creation make better sense now? No-thing-ness is the same as all-one-ness (alone?) I kinda wonder about that. Creation being God running away from his all-one-ness, his no-thing-ness. 
K Wright All one can ever lose is consciousness, Vikor. Ever been under anesthesia? Total oblivion. The only difference between that and death is that one lasts longer. I can never understand why things would be more complicated after I die. I will never understand that notion.. 

D Blair Kevin, hi. My wife's a neurologist. Empirically, I'm not sure it's (consciousness) quite as simple as that. There are degradations of consciousness and awareness it would seem. Who knows? Viktor. Even from a strictly materialist approach "I" who am a thing, cannot "have" everything, in any meaningful sense of the word. Even if some Corporation forms and starts selling distant Galaxies to folks, time-space effects get in the way of objectively "having" everything. Time-space wise, not everything is "mine" to have, least as I see it. Gotta drop the Empirical Materialist approach to address the Whole in any meaningful way to us puny humans, I think. Anyway, I was suggesting that perhaps each of us is perhaps a part of the Demiurgic creator god. Each of us can indeed come in and out of existence at the whim or folly of the greater/'behind-our-limited-dimensionality creator god. Each of us little humans can (usually do) become "lost/acclimated" in/to this created world during our usually brief time of existence/creationality. Did that make any sense? It's not just the "bigger" demiurgal god that does all the "creating/forgetting/loosing itself" in its own created existence, it's all the many-layered sub-parts as well.
EC Lee-O'Neal I'm not sure why ending w nothing is a bad thing? What's worse for me is a bunch a dangling carrots of non-nothingness w no proof
K Wright I take you have never received propofol, D Blair? Pure oblivion. Consciousness is a brain function. Remove that function and you have oblivion. No thought, no passage of time, no awareness whatsoever. Death cannot be dissimilar, to my mind.. 
D Blair Kevin. I've been under general anesthesia. Don't know the name of the anesthetic, though. It would be interesting to crawl inside the brain of a late-stage Alzheimer's patient. Consciousness with no working memory? Perhaps ego consciousness is just a useful illusion of the brain, much like stereoscopic vision is a useful illusion? 

RELIGION (4) the nothingness - chinese ink drawing

Béla Hamvas
Le dessin chinois à l'encre

a translation of Béla Hamvas ideas on chines ink drawing and the philosophy of the nothing



Le dessin chinois à l'encre consiste en deux éléments : l'un est la ligne et la tache noires, l'autre est l'espace vide et blanc. Aussi longtemps que je regarderais le dessin avec un regard européen, commençant par la ligne et la tache noires et percevant l'expansion du blanc simplement comme un environnement, je ne le comprendrais pas. Je pensais que cela représentait un objet, un paysage ou une scène.

 

Dans un moment heureux j'ai réalisé que l'image comprenait deux forces formatrices de statut inégal. Le blanc n'était pas l'environnement, ni l'étendue passive, ni le vide, ni l'éventualité. Rien de tout cela! Plutôt c'est le blanc qui donne la forme au noir. C'est le blanc qui est la force sculptrice. Le rien. L'indéfinissable. L'infinitésimal. Tout ce qui existe pour l’œil européen n'est que la ligne et la tache noires. C'est uniquement ce qu'il peut voir. L'espace, le blanc, le rien ne peut pas être perçu. Dans un moment heureux je n'ai pas commencé du noir au blanc, mais du blanc au noir. Et c'était justement à ce moment là que j'ai compris le dessin chinois à l'encre. En même temps j'ai réalisé que bien que le blanc soit « à l'extérieur », le blanc est « l'environnement » et « l'espace », le blanc est donc à l'intérieur, et cela est le contenu, le personnel et le temporel. Il est donc nécessaire que je ne regarde pas de noir sensible au blanc, mais du blanc indéfinissable au noir. (Le sujet est la place d’où la réalité est visible). Je ne me déplace pas dans l'objet mais dans la force formatrice, dans le sujet, et pas dans le réel mais dans le magique. La peinture moderne est liée fortement au dessin chinois à l'encre. La seule faute de la peinture moderne est qu'elle débute encore par le noir, le sensible, l'objet; et considère l'espace comme vide et passif. C'est encore de l'idolâtrie. Du réalisme. Un complexe d'objet. C'est le fond. Ce n'est pas encore la réalité. Un grand peintre moderne serait celui qui reconnaîtrait que c'est le rien qui forme le quelque chose et pas l'inverse. Celui qui comprend que le blanc, le vide, l'espace et le sujet infinitésimal ne sont pas l'extérieure mais l'intérieure, ni le réel mais le magique, ni l'objet mais le sujet.

Je pense que le temps est venu qu'un tel peintre naisse. Aussi longtemps qu'on ne voit que les lignes et les formes, on voit seulement la moitié de l'image. Comme l'image européenne est seulement la partie extérieure de l'image réelle. Jusqu’à ce qu'on comprenne que le vide blanc qui a un effet de l'extérieur vers l'intérieur est exactement la force formatrice pénétrant de l'intérieur à l'extérieur, on n'a pas la moindre idée de ce qu'est la réalité picturale.

Silence

(notes au dessin chinois à l'encre)



Feruccino Busoni a écrit dans son esthétique de musique que dans la musique européenne il peut identifier seulement deux éléments concernant la musique réelle: le fermata (le point d'orgue) et la pause. La pause, le silence signifie la plénitude maximale des sons. Voilà, c'est ce qu'on voit dans le dessin chinois à l'encre comme espace vide, ou bien le rien. La musique européenne consiste en 98 pour cent de musique et 2 pour cent de pause (silence, espace, indéfinissable). Dans la musique chinoise, quand même, il y a au moins 60 pour cent de pause et 40 pour cent de musique. Le dessin chinois à l'encre flotte dans le rien. Il y a des images où on ne voit pas de pause – c'est étouffant. Dans une sculpture on peut découvrir la pause comme un torse, le membre manquant, l’œuvre laissée à l'état brut.

La pause tonnante


C'est pas l'objet qui doit être formé mais le rien. Une pause bien définie.

Le Dieu vit dans cette pause.

Ça ne s'est produit qu'une fois, dès l'existence du monde, le Dieu était au point de ne plus pouvoir supporter le déroulement des événements et il n'a presque pas dit un mot. Presque. Son cœur accélérait et il a voulu s'exclamer. C'était le moment où Jésus-Christ a poussé un soupir sur la croix: «Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, pourquoi m'as-tu abandonné?» Mais il n'a pas parlé. Si seulement je savais ce qu'il voulait dire. Et après les mots de Jésus-Christ la plus grande pause est survenue. Une pause rugissante. Une pause tonnante.

 

image credits: lenscratch. jon wyatt; voicesofglass.wordpress.com; truthsimplified.com; pinterest.com.shelli777

UPDATE - REMARKABLE COMMENTS

D Blair Is gray an option?
T Beer ^depends on how many shades Dave
D Blair As many as you'd like...
D Blair Quantum Foam. Nothingness is infinite shades of anything you'd like. The Nothingness is Everythingness, n'est-ce pas? (...) Viktor: The best way perhaps to explain me is, "Zero, One, Infinity" They're separate yes, but they each have their "fingers" in each other, too. Quantum entanglement. Being as Newtonian as I can be I'd say that Absolute Nothing and Absolute Everything represent the same idea. From a Newtonian perspective we're kinda just talking about the lack of "particularity" here. (...) I'm not a Newtonian, but it sometimes helps to be understood if one uses that mode of worldview. I'm more of an Augustinian myself. All of Creation/Existence being a single, simple, willed wholeness, that can be/is/was/will be/etc, experienced in parts by it's various parts (some of which are us.) I don't believe in a God who's outside of time and space, who creates/fashions a time/space 4 or 5 D universe, winds up the Laws, then let's her rip. So I'm not a Deist. But if one wants to be, that's fine. (...) Perhaps we're being too visual? What are white and black but mental constructs? White light is all frequencies of light together (that we can see anyway.) Could smell or hearing be used to expand the conversation? Or might they contract it a bit?
JD Logan " What do you think about the nothing?"
I think only Atreyu and the Childlike Empress can save us from the Nothing....
K Wright Thats the trouble with oblivion: You never know it when you're there.. (...) The new representations of dark matter and how they cluster galaxies in strands reminds me of brain neurons. I like that..