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Mysticism in religion and
science
opens the
door to all kinds of intellectual chicanery.
Mysticism versus Understanding
02/03/2019
One of the great or fundamental issues for philosophy or theology is
mysticism versus understanding, mythos versus logos. The J person calls for
our understanding of “God” as a human being. He equates that with salvation,
as in, “And this IS eternal life, that they understand you and the one that
you have sent.” Where does he call for some mystical connection or loss of
individuality or physicality? In HIS prayer, he asks that we may be “one”
with god, but clarifies that as being in unity. Being in unity MUST mean
being in unity of purpose, values and paradigm! Jesus had NOTHING to do with mysticism, but
came to eradicate it by demonstrating himself as LOGOS, the
source of purpose, logic and reason versus MYTHOS, the ground of mysticism.
Mystical Oneness
To think that final success is some
mystical, impossible-to-understand-oneness is to deny the
validity of all other natural, normal, morally defensible
desires and needs. In such a situation everything loses
definition. There is no valid definition of life, nor
definition of tangible love as fulfilling those needs and
desires, no enhancement of life beyond this mystical
oneness. It makes “god” the end all and be all, and denies
his character of humility and service, denies his offering
of equality. It dissolves his being a friend and leaves him
being the ultimate vacuum or black hole that sucks everything up into
himself. It makes him the great demander for being the
center of attention, the ultimate selfish egotist. It leaves
him being defined as the center of power and control. It
leaves him with no beauty or appreciable magnificence at all.
And why am I the problem in this regard? Why is the
burden of submitting to this oneness upon me? If this is the
great solution, then why doesn’t “god” submit to this
oneness with me? I have no memory of choosing to be
separate! The whole thing assumes facts not in evidence
beyond any reason to even care to investigate or think along these lines.
Beyond understanding
Also, isn’t this idea of the mystical
oneness the ultimate copout? An admission that we CANNOT
understand and relate to as fully dimensional human beings? It
requires that we lay down everything that we naturally
cherish as human beings, including our rational faculties.
Who is doing this completely? No one, and the people that promulgate
this idea are the arrogant ones, the tricky egotistical
deniers of reality. Meanwhile, they strive very hard to be
somebody in the world, make a name for themselves.
Hypocrisy! Which was the ultimate (temporary) condemnation by J-man.
Mysticism in stark contrast to J
The whole line of thinking is in stark
contrast to J-man’s life and message as a human being, and
his response to Phillip's request for him to "show us what
God is like." His reply was, “This is it. If you have seen (understood,
experienced) me, you have seen God.” The whole mystical
oneness thing removes J from being the paradigm, the truth that goes into the
paradigm, and the inspiration to care. It denies his claims
of being THE ONE shepherd or messenger of god and pulls him
down to just being another in a long line of mystics. It
denies his claim to be the AUTHORITY on the truth who came
from beyond! Can they not read? “All who came before me are
false shepherds.”
Buddhism does not resolve the human
condition, but merely helps some people cope with it. Within
the "mystical oneness answer" there
is a complete denial of his promises of “houses and lands”,
the empowerment to move mountains, and the ability to judge
ideas and doctrines; a complete denial of his statement
about a resurrection and an age of punishment and justice.
It denies his respect for physicality, personal sovereignty
and freedom. To equate J with this is to be egregiously
careless and sloppy in your reasoning.
Intellectual chicanery
Mysticism in religion opens the door to all kinds of intellectual
chicanery. If you can be "mystical", you can entertain all sorts of
fantastical, exotic concepts that are decoupled from any reality that we
experience or that we would upon sober reflection even desire. Mysticism allows people to continue
to live in denial and to be dishonest with themselves on the most
fundamental level.
Lastly, sometimes this line of thinking makes me the source of evil.
Anything that I see as evil and cannot see as good is strictly my own fault
for thinking wrongly. All of the distasteful aspects of the world are only
because I relate to them wrongly. Nature red in tooth and tong, the wanton
destruction wrought by geophysical catastrophic agencies, the nefarious
activities of fellow human beings, the relentless assault on ourselves by
disease and aging, the unspeakable suffering of myself and others are all
WONDERFUL? Give me a break from this insidious denial of REALITY by my
fellow homo sapiens! It is the ultimate frustration to try to reason with
people that are addicted to mysticism, because they have already been broken
with it. Just as well save your pearls.
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