jar - On Christianity

robinrohan writes: I take your point about the tradition. You could also have mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, though not Anglican, espoused a similarly uncompromising moral vision--and backed it up.I'm new here, but I've met my fair share of PC, New Agey, 'it's beautiful, man' types. My impression is that Jar is being sold short.Jar is often trying to convey ideas that defy easy formulation in words. Hence the photos. Hence 'it really is that simple.' Something is 'that simple'--verbally--because there really is little more to say. But he's always made it clear that plenty more remains to do.He usually declines to spell out what it is. He knows the religious world is already full of people who are all too eager to spell out everything. He doesn't want that gig. He leaves it to you to figure it out applications in your own life.He has said as much. I find him very clear on this.It's a very rabbinical way of putting a point over. Which is the way Yeshua, the Rabbi, put his own ideas over. (I concede at once that Yeshua did it better. Jar would concede as much, too. But it's clear to me who Jar is using as a role model.)People exchange ideas in different ways. Jar's manner of expression will not be to everyone's taste--least of all to the kind of temperaments you are likely to encounter on a science board. And it's a risky way to express yourself. Sometimes he tries things that misfire. In his efforts to activate his readers' intuitions, he sometimes spins the ball a bit too much in the direction of emotions and sentiment. It sends off everyone's cheese alarm and the point gets lost.But he's had a cartoon drawn of him here and it's obvious that some people, now that the cartoon is drawn, prefer it to the real person. I seem to get that cartoon pushed at me every time I ask him a question. I'll draw my own conclusions, thanks.William James pointed out in The Varieties of Religious Experience that no single experience of any belief exists. All beliefs are manifested through the conduit of individual personalities.Your taste seems to run toward austere, even depressive varieties of religious experience. Qoheleth, TS Eliot. That's fine; I'm with you. Some people are of naturally sunnier dispositions. That's fine, too. Some people are mystics. Some are hands-on, get-to-work types. It takes all kinds.What specific aspect of, say, TS Eliot's view of the world do you think Jar throws away? Put it forward. Let's ask.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Redeemed from fire by fire. What a line! You, saved from being ever-consumed by fire (wrath) by being purifed by fire (love). All that will be left in the end is the purest you - all the sin and tendency to sin will have been destroyed. Love conceived of this, love paid for this to be able to happen (it cost everything). Yes, you have to suffer. But once the 'choice' is made then into the fire of your 'choice' you go. Christ (the one discharge on whom the dove alighted) paying all made such a purifying fire possibleThe suffering of redeeming fire is not all unpleasant - given what one knows it leads too. It is the suffering under a dentists drill, it is the suffering of getting a skin graft. Worthwhile and profitable suffering. But don't just take it from me - find out for yourself...Believing is seeing.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

If my tone struck you as urgent, Faith, it is because the historical cost of your brand of insouciance has been high. That cost is a matter of record.No one asked you to change your beliefs. No one asked you to refrain from stating your views. I recommended making room for acknowledgement, in the name of accuracy if nothing else, that other views exist besides your own. You do not have a monopoly.It is an odd mutation of Christianity that has no Golden Rule left in it.

Intolerance lies at the core of evil.
Not the intolerance that results
from any threat or danger.
But intolerance of another being who dares to exist.
Intolerance without cause. It is so deep within us,
because every human being secretly desires
the entire universe to himself.
Our only way out is to learn
compassion without cause. To care for each other
simpley because that 'other' exists.

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- Rabbi Menachem Mendle

Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

That's my favorite part of the poem.All religions maintain that approaching the deity, the ultimate reality, carries with it the risk of annihilation. There is an intensity to this experience, a fire that consumes. But it also refines and purifies, to the extent that one can survive it. Eliot's 'fire to fire', in the context of his entire poem, shows he has this well in mind. He is talking about two different effects of the same reality.

God gave us so many emotions, and so many strong ones. Every human being, even if he is an idiot, is a millionaire in emotions.
- Isaac Bashevis Singer

His image corresponds with (and was influenced by) the mystic experience in a number of world faiths. Buddhism conceives of Nirvana just this way, and you see the same motifs in the works of Jewish and Hindu mystics. Annihilation of the self, the ego, and desires before the unknown. The ultimate intimacy. Death and life at once.In every case, the genuineness of the experience is known to the one who experiences it. It ultimately remains inaccessible to anyone else, though, precisely because it is so personal.

The leaf becomes flower when it loves. The flower becomes fruit when it worships.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The tendency of mystics worldwide to have kindred experiences has always drawn suspicion from theologians who are fond of clear boundaries. That's why people like Francis of Assisi, Aquinas and Eckhart--and many of the saints, actually--tended to encounter trouble from religious authorities.One has to admit that, whatever Eliots' experience, Christianity is full of people who haven't suffered much. They have a comfortable set of beliefs they inherited from family, pastor, and community. They wield these beliefs like a shield in the face of new ideas. This is a complacency Eliot attacked.I don't suggest that in this respect the adherents of Christianity are any different than adherents of many other religions. It is a human phenomenon. Most of us inherit our religious ideas from family and community. It is our default setting. We remain confident in our views because we've never had to entertain any other notion.The suffering you describe, then, is not the property of a single belief system. Neither is it guaranteed by asserting any one religion. You are talking about having one's comfortable answers overturned. You are talking about doubt, confrontation with new experiences, experience of one's smallness in the vastness of the whole, openness to direct action by God.This experience stands at the core of all faiths.

Know God and all fetters will fall away.
No longer identifying yourself
With the body, go beyond birth and death.
All your desires will be fulfilled in him
Who is One without a second.

​

Know him to be enshrined in your heart always.
Truly there is nothing more in life to know.
Meditate and realize this world
Is filled with the presence of God.

​

- Shvetashvatara Upanishad, The Upanishads (tr Eknath Easwaran)
- Nilgiri Press, 1987

I love how Eliot describes it. Brilliant.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

robinrohan writes: How familiar are you with the works of Annie Dillard?Pilgrim at Tinker Creek seems right up your alley. For the Time Being as well.Dillard isn't peddling a particular religion. The books are meditations on nature (Tinker Creek) and humanity (Time Being). Tinker Creek is a powerful antidote to any romantic images of nature a person might entertain.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Italic format.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

One of the things I liked about Tinker Creek is that it is much like the stretch of Turkey Run I was familar with. The areas she describes, the landscapes of experience are much like what I grew up with, the same hills and valleys, streams and forests, the same (well close to the same, she is just a touch younger than me IIRC) time period.Thinking back on Tinker Creek, and it is one that I had not thought about in many years, one thing that struck me was the influence that Walden seemed to cast over all she wrote. She does reach out though, past the bounds of Christianity, and reflecting in many ways the nuances of my sig.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Here's my favorite part:

Jar's view is as far from Eliot's as one could imagine. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

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"Your friends, if they can, may bury you with some distinction, and set up a monument, to let posterity see that your dust lies under such a stone; and when that is done, all is done. Your place is filled up by another, the world is just in the same state it was, you are blotted out of its sight, and as much forgotten by the world as if you had never belonged to it."--William Law

I had just taken my seat in the departures lounge of an airport today and noticed a kerfuffle a few seating rows ahead. Parmedics arrived within seconds and I copped that a woman traveller had collapsed. I could see her arm lying on the ground under the rows of seats. I prayed a while for her over the sound of the defib machine charging up and the medics saying "clear"... then a crackly sound and some beeps.There were various reactions from the hundreds of people gathered. Many stood and watched the proceedings as if transfixed; wives clutching husbands arms and kids, not knowing what was going on, but gathering from parents reactions that now was not the right time to pester for a McDonalds. An opportunistic pickpocket would have had a field day. The look on those faces was either the wide-eyed excited look of the voyeur or one of fear. It was about 50/50 voyeur/fear amongst those who were looking.There were a surprisingly large amount (20%) who continued on with their lives. Reading the newspaper and glancing up occassionally to check on a paras progress or tapping away on their laptops or as the attractive (but now increasingly ugly) girl opposite me: chatting to her friend on her mobile about her weekend and glancing over occassionally at the show.I gather the woman died. The paramedics were still pumping her chest 15 minutes later when I'd had enough of this train stuck in a tunnel and left the scene.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

quote:

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Jar's view is as far from Eliot's as one could imagine.

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That's not very specific, robin.

One has to be at least present on the field of play before another can start considering how far wide of the goalposts that person is shooting. I've a Buddhist mate who shoots closer to Christianity than Jar!

The difference is that Eliot believed in the Fall. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

You're confusing the players with the Referee.The players don't get to decide whose goal counts.Edited by Ringo, : Added signature.

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I don't really see what the Fall has to do with christianity specifically.Isn't it also part of the jewish tradition? after all, adam is their forefather, as is noah. adam and eve commited original sin, noah survived (the fall?).So saying that Jar's not a christian (or whatever) because he doesn't accept that the fall occured is really pointless.I thought the key part about christianity was accepting Jesus as your savior--not believing in a fall.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

The Fall is a handy copout IMHO, yet another way for folk to shift the blame elsewhere. It is one of the ways to avoid taking responsibility for your own acts, "Man is filled with a sinful nature since the Fall", "We are Cursed", "All was perfect before the Fall."The story of the Garden of Eden is among other things the charge that WE know right from wrong, and that WE are expected to try to do what is right and to try not to do what is wrong.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion