/lit/ - Literature

>>11363775
Religious people are brainlets because they constantly consume religious media to reinforce their beliefs

The transcendence of time and space (as well as the transcendence of the subject-object distinction) has been spoken of by mystics throughout recorded history. Sure, if you read Pastor Reverend Gerald Springer’s tract on why it’s bad to beat your meat, you’ll have plenty of fodder. Maybe if you read Hakuin Ekaku, Meister Eckhart, and Rumi, you’ll have somewhat more nuanced views to argue against. You’re like a fly puffing itself up that it’s bigger than a mosquito.

>>11363801
>mystics
Why do I have to read any of them, if we have modern science? What is the point of getting educated about concepts that are being studied by the scientific method?

>>11363801
What if its a horsefly? Those things are massive

>>11363811
What is the point of educating yourself in the first place ?

>be me
>have the day off
>want to read some new books but not purchase them through amazon
>decide to go to half-price books
>explore scifi and fantasy and literature sections
>find a few nice classics in hardback
>feel satisfied with my trip
>decide to check out the nonfiction selection too before I leave
>go to eastern religion section first
>peruse books on hinduism, buddhism, daoism, etc.
>nothing too interesting or unusual unfortunately
>lost in thought...
>gremlin man with dreadlocks and a beard sitting nearby pops to his feet and smiles at me and says "hello! good stuff, eh?"
>respond with "hi, sorry, yes, hope i'm not in the way"
>his eyes glimmer malevolently and he pulls out a book on freemasonry, called secret keys or some shit
>"this is where east meets west" he says as he points to his book and then gestures toward the small gnostic and hermetica subsection (a single shelf)
>nod and mhm at him and start planning escape routes
>he comes closer, the odour of cheap marijuana and cigarettes growing ever stronger
>"of course, the best books are in the occult section"
>pulls out a second book from one of two bags (other appears to contain dirty clothes)
>Lords of the Left-Hand Path appears on the title
>ask him half-curiously, "is that about black metal?"
>he looks confused and says "no... it's about tantra... the author lives here in town... i met him a few times at the scarlet lodge... there's a meeting tonight... you should come... you can meet jim and bob.... jim has a lot of power... and cindy and sarah... sarah doesn't get naked for the ceremony tho... but they both contribute menses to the eucharist..."
>thoroughly freaked out
>"well, nice meeting you, i'm gonna head over toward the philosophy now"
>he says "me too" and follows me over
>I scan the titles as he grabs some Foucault and asks me if I've read him
>"Uummm... no..." I answer
>"You should really come to the church, man, if you're interested in philosophy."
>"Thanks. Uh. Bye." I say quickly and then begin walking briskly toward the front to the cashier to check out and leave as quickly as possible

>religious people

>>11363811
It’s not like you have to, you could live your life with the view that all there’s worthwhile to learn is from the scientific method. How do you learn how to be an ethical and sociable person if not by the scientific method? How do you learn to meditate if not by the scientific method? How do you learn empathy and intuition if not by the scientific method?

Sarcasm aside, the claim being made by various mystics is you can come in touch with a supra-rational, non-ordinary reality through supra-rational, non-ordinary means. Your objection is basically “umm sweetie but the only way to get at anything worthwhile is the scientific method!” Science can still hardly explain the meanings and nature of time, space, matter, energy, and consciousness. Mysticism, with its claims of direct experience of higher realities or higher realms of understanding, has as good a claim as science if you’re not extremely biased. I’m not “anti-scientific” either, there’s a lot to learn from science as well.

>>11363863
To learn something useful. Reading mystics is only okay for entertainment or if you're required to being a historian. If you really want to find some truth and think doing it is educating, you're a brainlet.
>>11363870
Beta.
>>11363878
I am not saying everything you should learn is about the scientific method or its results. No, your reading comprehension is poor.
>Sarcasm aside
>Science can still hardly explain the meanings and nature of time, space, matter, energy, and consciousness
Oh, your reading comprehension is indeed fucked. There is no such thing as "the meanings of..." everything you've listed.
>has as good a claim as science
Give me an example please.

>>11363894
>give me an example
Go experience the effacement of the subject-object distinction.

>>11363775
>>11363811
FALSEFLAG BAIT - FALSEFLAG BAIT - FALSEFLAG BAIT - FALSEFLAG BAIT

>>11363870
Should have gone to film cindy naked.

I am sure there is a name for this concept that I just don't know/remember, but I read once that a central pillar of almost all superstitious belief systems (inc. religion) is the need for two causality chains: An empirical/natural explanation, and a moral/supranatural explanation. So if someone falls off the roof and breaks his neck, it's not enough to say "oh he slipped". Humans have a need to know why did this particular person had slipped at this particular time.

So to extend this method of thinking to existence itself, you get >>11363775

>>11363954
Wait, so religion's just stupid thinking throughout ages that forms a culture?

>>11363894
Why are you trying to refute religions then ? I can guarantee you this knowledge will never be useful.

>>11363775
>religious people have never read any Einstein and think that time is something linear

>>11364490
Baited.

>>11363775

The modern notion of causality as simple efficacy is a spook. Read Aristotle's Metaphysics - Christians are referring to the idea of final causality, which for Aristotle is a legitimate form of causality.

>>11363878
>Science can still hardly explain the meanings and nature of time, space, matter, energy, and consciousness. Mysticism, with its claims of direct experience of higher realities or higher realms of understanding, has as good a claim as science if you’re not extremely biased.
Do you even understand why the scientific method is preferred by educated people all over Earth? You seem to have no understanding of the distinction between pure conjecture and calculated experimentation/studies.

>>11363775
>just to make sure I'm right
close minded reason to read spiritual texts

>>11364640
>Aristotle had microscopic vision
Is there any real evidence that he saw things that we could only notice thousands of years later? Any sort of excerpt or passage from his writings? This is very interesting

I agree OP. Those fucking Hindus. We should ban their religion.

>>11363775

Honestly? No. They’re not. No one can be certain of anything since there are so many possibilities as to the origin of everything, so being religious is just as reasonable as being certain that religion is false.

>>11364693

You sound very certain about your uncertainty?

>>11364693
>being religious is just as reasonable as being certain that religion is false
When people say we live in a multiverse, they don't mean there's a universe where there is a god.

>>11363878
>Mysticism, with its claims of direct experience of higher realities or higher realms of understanding, has as good a claim as science if you’re not extremely biased
lol okay deepak, everyone who disagrees with you is just biased

>>11364770
> you seem very certain about something you subjectively believe
Yes, yes I do

>>11364846
How is that relevant?

>>11363775
cause is meaning. consider the acorn and its symbolism. the fruit of something contains its genesis, destiny and origin are one and the same which is why the rightful place of the human soul is not the earth, but in god

>>11363954
He was a fool who didn't clean his own damn roof so the tiles grew lichen and got slimy. It was his own fault if he slipped. Or maybe he was clumsy, or prone to vertigo.

There's so many reasons why this particular person slipped at this particular time, and most of it has to do with him going on to the roof and giving himself the opportunity to fall in the first place.

>>11364950
This.

>>11363954
Sounds a bit like primitive mentality by levy bruhl

>>11363775
Religion is philosophy. Answering why when asked why is kind of the point.

This thread 7/10.
Still saged.

>>11363775
Linear time is essentially the reality that we experience, so any claim that purports a more "real" conception of reality while remaining on a subordinate level to and without ever venturing to touch the realm of metaphysics is nothing but snake oil.
Meaning is another essential in the composition of our experience, if it had no actual existence why do you even care to ask these questions or to continue with your life? Meaning is implied in every single moment of our experience, and our experience is the only way which this world can be known.

>>11365168
>Meaning is implied in every single moment of our experience
So, I farted. What's the meaning of that?

>>11365334
It means you need to get the fuck away from me

>>11365168
>dude things can’t be different than I personally experience haha
based

>>11363775
>we know that time is not linear
We literally don't. That's why string theory and line theory are still contested fagit

>>11363775
Well, yeah. The real question is, what are you doing wasting your time here with these faggots? They're the brainletest of them all. Go read a book on making friends, and maybe recommend it to me if it works

>>11363775
Read Tolstoy confessions and the kingdom of God is within you, they are about christianity not as an external tradition but as a conception of life that mankind will inevitably take, communications increasing no longer justifies hating the people on the other side of the planet and nuclear bombs has made war impossible, the kingdom of heaven where man lives for God and not selfish desires or the stability of his nation is coming.
Read st Augustine's confession also he has a way with words and his understanding of the trinity and the book of genisis are quite rational if you like that

>>11365616

Heretic.

If you believe that time is not linear, then does the present not necessarily come after the past? Is there one future or are there many futures within one same physical space? Does one person's actions affect that which happens around him, or does it not? Is there any way by which you may judge a person's actions to be either beneficial or not beneficial if time is not linear, and there are no perceivable consequences for what immediately follows from what came before?

>>11364887
Deepak is a charlatan who should be executed.

>>11364653
If you’ve never tasted sugar, you can’t speak of sugar. You can’t reduce the mystical experience to something else if you’ve never experienced it. Strictly speaking, the claim of many mystics is not de facto irrational. This claim is that, through certain contemplative practices and methods (or perhaps, for some, luck or fate) you can experience super-ordinary states of consciousness which don’t fit into linear and scientific thought. The situation of trying to explain this to others can be compared to scientists trying to explain radio wave to tribesmen, or even to people from 400 years ago.

>there’s invisible waves which can carry coherent information and sounds across large distances
>what? That’s insane
>if you have faith for a little while in a system which goes against your ordinary way of thought, I can make you understand this...
>No, that’s irrational and unscientific

Just look at huge paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions throughout history. The clear (maybe disturbing) view is that every once in a while some new revelation comes along changing how we view reality and science. Your so called “scientific method” doesn’t exist really, it’s not a static unchanging entity, it wasn’t strictly followed in some of the greatest revolutions in science, and it doesn’t have a monopoly over knowledge.

>>11363894
>To learn something useful.
oh god when will these fucking brainlets ever leave the board.

>>11363811
because mysticism is about understanding what is outside discursivity. your argument rings hollow

>>11363966
no, it's a ridiculous strawman of religion

>>11367101
>does the present not necessarily come after the past
That's not what I meant by time's non-linearity. From a perspective of an object trapped in a black hole time is different than it is for us, humans. Traveling at huge speeds can change the time flow for your perspective. Even kids learn that in classes. But there is more to time than that. When religious people talk about time, they imagine it strictly from the perspective of a human being, and imagine it being like a straight line. It's not. And the space-time fabric is something they don't mention at all, because understanding that there was no current space-time as we know it before the Big Bang gives no room for a God to be the ultimate beginning, it only leads you to more questions begging for more scientific research.
>>11367216
>because mysticism is about understanding what is outside discursivity
>discursivity; noun; Philosophy; Chiefly with reference to the philosophy of Kant: the quality of reasoning by a series of logical steps.
So, you've just fancily said that mysticism is a way of understanding irrational stuff? Lol what?
>>11367262
>m-muh religion is so much more!
That doesn't excuse that it's just made up, buddy. Fairy tales shouldn't govern our lives, I'm sorry.

>>11363894
>There is no such thing as "the meanings of..." everything you've listed
Why?

>>11367454
>space-time as we know it
know it through a materialist positivist paradigm**

I've had experiences where time literally flows in different directions or even not at all, where all of creation - past, present and future - is

>>11367492
happening at once. And this wasn't brought about through drugs or any other such thing - it arose spontaneously during moments of psychological stillness after periods of long emotional and ethical cultivation. Just because you have to experience these things, it does not mean they do not exist.

>>11367466
Because even the language as a whole is a way to describe the world, words as concepts can have meaningless expressions that can only exist because... Well, you can say any kind of shit. You can ask questions such as "who is the person behind the gravity?", but the ability to ask doesn't mean it has any sense. Same with the search for "meaning". You can only find meaning either in man-made stuff, or it can be strictly subjective from your point of view, and explained by your innate psychological conditions.
>>11367496
Oh, hallucinations prove that materialism is not everything, lmao!

>>11363775
>we know that time is not linear
Just because time is relative doesn't mean that time is not linear. The arrow of time points in one direction only and it's innately tied to the laws of thermodynamics. You cannot reverse entropy and that is because you cannot reverse time and vice versa.

In short you're just an average brainlet who has a false sense of superiority because you read some pop-sci

>>11367500
Meaning isn't bound by language. Meaning defines language.

>>11367500
>Same with the search for "meaning". You can only find meaning either in man-made stuff, or it can be strictly subjective from your point of view, and explained by your innate psychological conditions.
The search for meaning is primarily driven by the intellect, which needs to find some "purpose" in order to give a reason for it's existence. When one is able to transcend or subvert the intellect, all questions of "meaning" or "non-meaning" break down. A baby does not cry for meaning, being purely content to exist with conscious reality as presented to it. Likewise, with enough psychological and spiritual cultivation, the adult human can let go off the clinging to "meaning", and instead experience present reality in a state of calmness.

>Oh, hallucinations prove that materialism is not everything, lmao!
Ignoring the fact that I was able to cultivate the conditions for and remain lucid throughout these "hallucinations," the answer to this is yes, they do prove that materialism is not everything. The power of the mind is far, far grander than just the intellect alone, and it's an awful shame that modern civilisation has more or less collectively forgotten this.

>>11367503
That's literally what I explained in one of the previous posts here. Also, there is no arrow of time. And there is no beginning of it.
>>11367509
You're talking about concepts as meanings. Again, another fag who uses imperfections of the language for the sake of argument.The meaning that's not bound by language you are talking about is... The real world. Yes, the real world is different from the language, congrats for proving my point.

>>11367520
>The power of the mind is far, far grander than just the intellect alone
Are you one of people who say they travel in time because their consciousness changes states while they sleep?

>>11367522
>Also, there is no arrow of time. And there is no beginning of it.
There is. Eternalism is false. Sorry.

>>11367525
Literally everyone "travels in time", if you want to use that language. Being able to experience a memory of events that happened "in the past" during the present moment is literally just that.

A problem when a lot of people hear about mystic states of consciousness is that they externalise them and assume that somehow the person is "physically" (or perhaps "spiritually") going to different places "out there" in the universe. It's really a lot more simple than that. Experiencing a dream is going to a different plane of reality, because your whole reality is being influenced and presented as something wholly different to this physical plane.

>>11367522
Are you trying to argue that the abstract doesn't exist? That "meaning" doesn't exist because it's an abstract concept and not a physical one?

>>11367540
Not outside of humans.

>>11367553
We've had remarkable success mapping the abstract onto the physical and using it to describe reality. Mathematics being the best example

>>11367569
Yeah, and this is it. Describing reality. There is no such thing as a straight line in reality. The concept is, however, very useful. Doesn't make it real.