06.18.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 11:25 am
If Apes Could Talk to Atheists: How Religious Life Has More to Do With Animal Instinct Than You’d Think
Frans De Waal’s new book, “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates” hits some hot button issues.
http://www.alternet.org/books/bonobo-and-atheist-review?paging=off
This article at Alternet is a good moment to challenge Franz de Waal’s bad science, and, since he takes on the New Atheists, the confusion of the secular humanists also.
De Waals, like so many in the field of biology, lives in a Darwinian cocoon, and never really encounters the critiques of that theory, a theory so entrenched that scholars in the dozens embark on research careers based on false premises. It is not a plus in his book that he takes on the New Atheists, as I do, because his own assumptions aren’t very different, and, as with Dawkins, his views of religion are based on Darwinism, a pseudo-science. Mr. De Waals, Darwinism is a pseudo-science.
We have pointed to the fallacy of thinking that ‘religion’ arose as some kind of evolutionary adaption, with a similar statement about the evolution of morality. It is entirely possible that ‘religion’ in some sense has genetic correlates, a different statement from any claim as to its Darwinian evolution. We don’t know how morality emerged in man, homo sapiens, and it’s unproven to say that it evolves ‘upward’ from below rather than ‘downward’ from above. The question is simply ambiguous, we don’t know how it happened. It is part of the immense disservice done to science, and secularists, by Dawkins, and not only he, by creating a kind of cultic belief system out of Darwin’s theory. As late as the forties, pace Gore Vidal’s classic, academic dissent of Darwinism didn’t cause an eyeblink, but then the synthesis took hold. The theory of natural selection, Act II. The whole legacy of (Neo-) Darwinism has been based on a series of confusions, ultimately stretching back to the beginnings of Wallace’s theory (not Darwin’s), a theory he later rejected because it failed on the issue of human evolution, and morality.
It is entirely apt to conduct research on ‘moral behavior’ in bonobos. But we cannot assume that anything we find in the primates shows direct continuity with the human reality, a moral reality so complex that noone has been able to describe it, as Kant made clear in his attempts to do that. The evolution of man, we suspect, was NOT a directly continuous result of primate givens. But even so, the line from the earliest predecessors of man (who were not the same as the parallel Chimps) is hardly a clear result of anything we see in the earliest apes. There might well be direct strains of primordial similarity, for sure. But the overall result in man’s moral behavior is not really clarified by evolutionary psychology. It simply isn’t. It is something new in evolution. Where is the proof of Darwinian claims? There is none. We do not have a continuous chain of evidence for the emergence of human morality, and, most important, we don’t really know what precedents there were in homo erectus, set aside the chimps for a moment. The step to homo erectus was decisive, but still primitive. The step to homo sapiens closed the case, as it were. How did it happen that such limited research with bonobos could enter the debates over religion, let alone the debates between theists and atheists. Read the rest of this entry »
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06.16.13
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at 10:48 am
I am sorry to be hard on E. J. Gold, but the whole Gurdjieff legacy is even worse than the Tibetan. At least the standard of a ‘path to enlightenment’ is used (and then undermined) to give a rough measure of a path. But with these so-called sufis there is not declaration of intent, nothing. Gurdjieff via Ouspensky actually tried to provide a come-on substitute. But look carefully, it amounts to very little. And note the way Enlightenment is never mentioned in the whole corpus.
The figure of Gurdjieff may help to understand the Tibetan. Gurdjieff as local vehicle for a ‘beelzebub’ X factor, who is able to reincarnate over time, but who is a demonic closure around something unknown, but ominous: a sort of damned figure who is in a kind of reincarnational limbo, unable to manifest as the real buddhas, stuck thus in samsaara.
This phenomenon of Gurdjieff may explain what it happening with the closed elite of Tibetan lamas, and the figures they have to recruit and train to be their supposed ‘reincarnations’.
Gold is a hard to figure interloper here who has never clarified what he is doing, never, bullshit always, produced no real students, and staged the ‘thieves of baraka’ syndrome I have talked off before. He is truly dangerous when he uses occult mind control and produces melt downs in anyone who starts to make spiritual progress…. He seems to do Crowley ‘magick’ is disguise, and will try to create your own personal ‘scandal’ blowout without your quite realizing he is doing anything. He is truly insidious, and yet he is pegged as some successor to Gurdjief, god forbid.
Beware of all these people. you are on your own in the end. And it might be helpful if none of these demons have ever heard of you. disavow allegiance and seek refuge near trustworthy spiritual sources (for what it is worth).
(This is a little unfair to Tibetans, who will off some kind of refuge, and do no more than ‘fix’ you as an inert boddhissatwa).
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Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:28 am
I am sorry to be hard on E. J. Gold, but the whole Gurdjieff legacy is even worse than the Tibetan. At least the standard of a ‘path to enlightenment’ is used (and then undermined) to give a rough measure of a path. But with these so-called sufis there is not declaration of intent, nothing. Gurdjieff via Ouspensky actually tried to provide a come-on substitute. But look carefully, it amounts to very little. And note the way Enlightenment is never mentioned in the whole corpus.
The figure of Gurdjieff may help to understand the Tibetan. Gurdjieff as local vehicle for a ‘beelzebub’ X factor, who is able to reincarnate over time, but who is a demonic closure around something unknown, but ominous: a sort of damned figure who is in a kind of reincarnational limbo, unable to manifest as the real buddhas, stuck thus in samsaara.
This phenomenon of Gurdjieff may explain what it happening with the closed elite of Tibetan lamas, and the figures they have to recruit and train to be their supposed ‘reincarnations’.
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Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:22 am
I remain puzzled by the commentary over Chogyam Trungpa. Of all the things to discuss, jusfifying his legacy seems to take the front row. I am suspicious here that I have misunderstood what is going one here, but at the same time beginning to suspect the truth, which is that Trungpa represented a vested interest in the Tibetan tradition, his strange life and behavior notwithstanding. I suspect the Tibetan tradition is built around these bizarre entrenched zones of people and the disembodied ‘ghost persons’ who have to solicit ‘reincarnation’ vehicles which are nothing of the kind. What was happening with Trungpa, however, is not clear, and may not follow this pattern exactly.
Students here should be asking if they are supporting a hidden elite that pays no attention to its students at all.
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06.03.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 9:27 am
As per previous post…
People associated with Gurdjieff seem to be ‘formal devils’, apply the ‘counteraffirmative force’ to active spiritual efforts. Another definition of the ‘devil’, apparently.
Beware of such people. They WILL try to knock people off their path. Beware of them. They aren’t gurus…
Gold and the rogue sufis (and Tibetans in some cases) are very dangerous. You can fail to even notice action on the unconscous.
Cut the spiritual bullshit, and be wary.
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Posted in Uncategorized
at 9:23 am
As per previous post…
People associated with Gurdjieff seem to be ‘formal devils’, apply the ‘counteraffirmative force’ to active spiritual efforts. Another definition of the ‘devil’, apparently.
Beware of such people. They WILL try to knock people off their path. Beware of them. They aren’t gurus…
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06.02.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 11:29 am
moved here from Darwiniana
Catholic Priest: Disbelief in the Devil main cause of atheism
The Pope’s exorcism is a splendid sign because one of the main causes of today’s atheism is that people don’t believe in the Devil any more. But Jesus said: ‘Who is not with me is with Satan.’ If you don’t believe in Satan, Satan has got you in his pocket.”
The tactics of scaring people into belief is passing away once and for all, leaving one to ask what was this religion?
First the quote from Jesus is probably apochryphal, but in any case the statement would show confusion on Jesus’ part.
Sorry to say it, but Jesus seems not to have reached enlightenment in his lifetime. Some have claimed he reached that state during the crucifiction. Who can say. Jesus was obviously a vibrant and unique spiritual person, one of mesmerizing charisma. But many sages (e.g Rajneesh) have warned that if we met him today he would seem strange, offkey, almost primitive. His life is so veiled that it is an insoluble puzzle.
He did what he was in some way sent to do, and left a mystery in his wake. But to create a religion confused about the devil is, well, the sad tale from the beginnings.
All this said, I don’t espouse standard views here, those of most secularists. It is an incomprehensible question, save for those who converge on the path of enlightenment, apparently. The demonology of the buddhas is witnessed to by those who enter the path of enlightenment. Gautama, Milarepa. The mysterious obstacles and battles with ego often seem like struggles with demons. Maybe they are. They could also be the rogue sufi next door perfoming black magic. Or those who prey on those close to enlightenment to suck away spiritual energy. There is indeed a monstrous world of spiritual dangers. But the myth of the devil is off the mark.
We cannot safely adopt skepticism (or belief) here. The major buddhas who have reached enlightenment have repeatedly said so, quietly warning, Gautama with his Mara. What was he talking about? Your local priest is confused. but so is you local shrink.
The path of the buddhas is unsafe, and it seems that few make it in their early attempts, and succumb to forms of evil, madness, or simple mental confusion in reactive down spirals. That is how the myths arise. The problem is that something is real here, but no knowledge is possible. That is why reifying concepts of demonology always ends in superstition. For that reason exoteric religions tend to adopt simpler standards to protect a gathering in an assembly of faith or belief. But the result is that everyone is confused, and myths of the devil emerge. But this reality in common exoteric religion has degenerated into a belief in the devil which totally confuses the issue. the confusion is not easy to analyze, and books on the subject are few, viz. Pagels’ book on the history of the Devil.
Actually Star Wars almost got it right: there might be cosmic beings who have adopted forms of evil and who appear as evil beings. The sufi Gurdjieff claimed to be such himself.
I wouldn’t put much stock in science fiction, but the latter is often evocative unwittingly of something that eludes us.
In any case these priests are out of line to be still peddling this toxic brand of Xtianity (which has been pretty constant since the beginning).
Priests who peddle this nonsense should stop it, and enter a path of meditation to encournter their probable psychic possession below the level of consciousness, projected outward on the phantom ‘the devil’. The reality is almost more scary, because it ‘real’.
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05.26.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 9:18 am
http://descentofmanrevisited.com/DMR_pdf/DMR_Chap_2.pdf
The buddha phenomenon and the incomprehension of darwinism
The evolution of consciousness is simply beyond the capacity of Darwinism and current science. Instead of acknowledging what they don’t know the attempt is made to deny the existence of complex consciousness…
The Buddha Phenomenon That close observation of historical facts might uncover some surprising indications of what is left out of Darwinism can be seen in the history of Indian religion. That Wallace was righter than he knew is obvious to any student of world religion. Man in his ordinary state is unaware of the potential of his ‘self-consciousness’, let alone able to produce a theory of its evolution. History shows the extreme antiquity of explorations of self-consciousness in the discovery of the famous cylinder seal possibly showing a meditating yogi from the period ca. -2000 (denied by some scholars) in a possible hybrid with Shiva mythology. That what we find in later Buddhism should be discovered much earlier was to be expected, and makes us suspect still earlier forms of such explorations stretching backwards into the Neolithic, or before.
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05.24.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 11:13 am
I was asked to comment on Hindutva, but as I said, my knowledge of Indian issues here is not adequate to the task. Anyone with useful information put links in the comments, and I will post them, if appropriate.
One problem is playing off Hinduism against Hindutva. But to me both are problematical.
That said, I am critical only of the superficial culture confusion called ‘Hinduism’, not the great legacy of Indian religion.
The issue to me is the way in which the tradition of primordial Indian become entrwined, and ensnared, in the period after the entry of the Indo-Europeans. The hopeless confusion introduced on this issue is not, to my knowledge, the exclusive fault of Hindutva, but it appears to have contributed. I don’t know. The cultural details are not known to me.
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05.18.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:24 am
Dalai Lama Decries Buddhist Attacks On Muslims In Myanmar
Reuters | Posted: 05/07/2013 1:37 pm EDT | Updated: 05/07/2013 6:16 pm EDT
By Ian Simpson
Read the rest of this entry »
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05.16.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:56 am
Sujay rao mandavilli
Submitted on 2013/05/15 at 9:33 am
http://www.gurdjieff-con.net/2013/04/22/the-aitoit-question-and-sujay-rao-mandavillis-book/comment-page-1/#comment-40622
for those who have trouble reading part two in the above link use the link below: part one http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25880426/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One part two (very important) http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25865304/SUJAY-NPAP-Part-Two Literacy in pre-Buddhist India (before 600 BC)
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/156763259/Sujay-NDNVNP-104
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/156763018/Sujay-Indus-reintroducing-lost-manuscipt-hypothesis
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/156762954/Sujay-Indus-script-FINAL-VERSION-FINAL-FINAL
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/156763890/Sujay-Post-Harappan-literacy-final-final-final
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Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:54 am
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Socissues/hindutva.html
Hinduism Versus Hindutva
The Inevitability Of A Confrontation
Taken from:
Times of India, February 18, 1991.
By ASHIS NANDY
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05.12.13
Posted in Uncategorized
at 9:52 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
Hindutva
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search For Veer Savarkar’s book, see Hindutva (book).Hindutva (Devanagari: हिन्दुत्व, “Hinduness”, a word coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet entitled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? ) is the set of movements advocating Hindu nationalism. Members of the movement are called Hindutvavadis.[1] According to a 1995 Supreme Court of India judgement the word Hindutva could be used to mean “the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos”.[2]
In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva. The sangh comprises organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bajrang Dal, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
This ideology has existed since the early 20th century, forged by Savarkar, but came to prominence in Indian politics in the late 1980s, when two deliberately managed events attracted a large number of Hindus to the sectarian movement. The first of these events was the Rajiv Gandhi government’s use of its large Parliamentary Majority to overturn a Supreme Court verdict granting alimony to an old woman, a verdict that had angered many Muslims (see the Shah Bano case). The second was the dispute over the 16th century Mughal Babri Mosque in Ayodhya—claimed to had been built by Babur after destruction of a Hindu temple and claomed in nineteenth century to be birthplace of Shri Ram, one of main Indian Vaishanavait Gods. The Supreme Court of India refused to take up the case in the early 1990s, as Supreme Court did not considered itself competent and trained to weigh historical evidence. Shri Lalkrishna Adwani together with Shri Pramod Mahajan, Ms. Uma Bharati and Bhartiya Janata Party, Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangha Vishva Hindu Parishad members illegally and violating all norms of decency in public life openly demolished the 6 years old Babri Mosque taking law into their hands. Causing nationwide communal riots. The razing of the Mosque lifted the BJP and Hindutva to international shame.
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