tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post2271408706613180160..comments2024-03-29T06:03:45.545-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Righteous Nobility and Lefteous Pride Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72371050251737708062016-06-23T07:10:02.258-07:002016-06-23T07:10:02.258-07:00Doesn't matter how good the road might seem wh...Doesn't matter how good the road might seem when it leads to hell.Allena-Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08929671005197550931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-43086552218208141772016-06-23T07:07:56.333-07:002016-06-23T07:07:56.333-07:00"In other words, in evil we are dealing with ..."In other words, in evil we are dealing with a phenomenon that is both intrinsic and objective, but nevertheless not ultimate. And if we don't recognize its objective existence, we end up like Loretta Lynch, who yesterday claimed that the most effective way to deal with ISIS is through "compassion, unity, and love."<br /><br />This is a fine example of the Evil One provoking a false affective consolation in Lynch. You could say that he is exploiting her untutored desire to do and be good.<br /><br />That is, we are all born with a conscience that helps us distinguish good from evil. But like any other faculty, this innate conscience must be formed and developed, not just left alone like an empty field. As Spitzer writes, "the vast majority of people know general precepts by nature, but must be taught more specific precepts.""<br /><br />And when we get people with "good intentions" in positions of power it ultimately ends in anything but good, which is to say hell.Allena-Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08929671005197550931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-66543235734325427572016-06-22T18:49:57.713-07:002016-06-22T18:49:57.713-07:00Just slinging a few thoughts out there from julie&...Just slinging a few thoughts out there from julie's comment:<br /><br /><i>The older I get, the more inclined I am to think that, whatever it is, the personification is not merely projection.</i><br /><br />Well, the long and the short of it is that there are thoughts in our heads that are not ours. We call them mind parasites around here. They try very hard to make us think that they are, and do their best to get us to perform their objectives. This has been my experience and the described experience of enough people of my acquaintance, either through direct conversation, or else in reading, over the years that I cannot help but think that this is a universal experience. If you have not noticed, you are not paying close enough attention to what is going on between your ears...<br /><br /><i>...I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it a "rival" to the Divine Person...</i><br /><br />Well, I could get into more personal reasons why I say that evil is no rival to good, but really, we already know that to be the case. Bad cannot succeed at badness in the same way that Good succeeds at goodness (I think it was Lewis that originally put it this way). One is parasitic on the other, and hence not capable of being some sort of anti-God.Paul Griffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11266956202232070017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-13641902499763627272016-06-22T18:14:49.376-07:002016-06-22T18:14:49.376-07:00Schuon sometimes suggests the latter but the quest...<i>Schuon sometimes suggests the latter but the question nevertheless remains as to whether what we refer to as demonic reality is an objectively real personality or the attempt to render intelligible the cosmic dissonances we experience as filtered by the limitations of our human psyche.</i><br /><br />The older I get, the more inclined I am to think that, whatever it is, the personification is not merely projection. Which isn't to say people aren't perfectly capable of doing most of the heavy lifting where evil is concerned. I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it a "rival" to the Divine Person - how could anything be that? But the idea that such an anti-being is <i>permitted</i> in the grand scheme of things doesn't seem implausible.<br /><br />What else to make of the ever-present popularity of human sacrifice as a form of worship? What are they really worshipping, and why do people keep getting the idea that it wants to consume human lives, the more innocent the better? What to make of the jihadi who demands a woman behead her own child for hyperbolically swearing by her god that she would do so?juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-60118791239587886822016-06-22T15:18:13.546-07:002016-06-22T15:18:13.546-07:00Following on from Ted's remark, what exactly i...Following on from Ted's remark, what exactly is 'objective evil'? If you remove the ego and its manifold poisons (i.e. 'mind parasites') from tne equation, what are you left with? Some would say demonic reality or the 'Evil One'. Indeed traditional Buddhism (and not the debased western variety appropriated by the left) does subscribe to the reality of Mara and his army of demons. The question then arises as to whether the Devil is a real person out there 'competing' with God for the adherence of souls or whether this is a personification of the shadow dimension of existence, the negative aspect of manifestation with all its imponderable and painful paradoxes. Schuon sometimes suggests the latter but the question nevertheless remains as to whether what we refer to as demonic reality is an objectively real personality or the attempt to render intelligible the cosmic dissonances we experience as filtered by the limitations of our human psyche. I'm not, for a moment, wanting to engage in reductionism here but it's sometimes difficult to envisage any kind of 'rival' to the Divine Person outside the repudiation of transcendence that is, alas, all too often found within ourselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-67396120162222920202016-06-22T10:44:20.427-07:002016-06-22T10:44:20.427-07:00Wouldn't it be nice instead to see a gay nobil...<i>Wouldn't it be nice instead to see a gay nobility parade, with no public nudity and defiant expressions of deviance from cultural norms? One from which you wouldn't need to hide the children?</i><br /><br />Heads would explode.<br /><br /><i>Exactly what is nobility in the spiritual sense? It is readiness "to sacrifice one’s interest to the truth," and "to see things 'from above' and without any baseness" (Schuon).</i><br /><br />Yes, just so.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9937792339094422712016-06-22T10:25:47.610-07:002016-06-22T10:25:47.610-07:00in evil we are dealing with a phenomenon that is b...<i>in evil we are dealing with a phenomenon that is both intrinsic and objective, but nevertheless not ultimate.</i><br /><br />I was just thinking how western Buddhists comes up short, because they see evil (in their terms it would be called ego) being only intrinsic. Hence, they have flatlined all distinctions sans objective distinctions!tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.com