16.02.09
More on James comment
http://www.gurdjieff-con.net/2009/02/15/kauffman-and-god-concept/
I muddled your good point on Kauffman and his approach to the ‘god concept’. Bringing in the ‘devil’ as unhelpful perhaps. The legacy of Spinoza, by rights, ought to resolve much of the confusion of theology.
James said,
15.02.09 at 3:29 pm ·
I have been harsh towards Kauffman, but I think he deserves credit for trying to rescue the “God” concept from the Judeo-Christian baggage (for some reason Spinoza didn’t succeed here). Nobody would care if the non-anthropomorphic philosophical concept of the Greeks, Plotinus, etc. had won the day.
But Spinoza had his day: he was completely taboo for a century and a half, then resurfaced in the German Enlightenment, and between Kant and Hegel saw both the critique and apotheosis of his vision.
The problem is that, as Kant saw, his universal causality, in practice, led to a confusion over the idea of freedom.
In any case, the question of god is not so important in these sufistic or New Age circles. God obsessed (or god-concept obsessed) fundamentalism has been left behind. Many sufis were crypto-pantheists, in any case.
A demonic figuure like Gurdjieff can hide behind god concepts, spinoza concepts, or theistic concepts. It would be impossible to easily sort out these bluffs. The problem here is not god beliefs or the lack of them, but the hiding of the demonic behind these beliefs, or the lack of them behind god belief bluffs.
Darwiniana » Reinventing The Sacred said,
18.02.09 at 4:29 pm
[...] Discussion of Stuart Kauffman’s Reinventing The Sacred, at The Gurdjieff Con James said, 15.02.09 at 3:29 pm · I have been harsh towards Kauffman, but I think he deserves credit for trying to rescue the “God” concept from the Judeo-Christian baggage (for some reason Spinoza didn’t succeed here). Nobody would care if the non-anthropomorphic philosophical concept of the Greeks, Plotinus, etc. had won the day. [...]
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31.05.09 at 8:46 am
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