Philosophy of Religion: Humanism & the Nature of Man

[Manaf]

The issue of man is an extremely important one. Today's civilizaion has based its religion upon humanism; that is, the originality and worship of man. It is assumed that various religions in the past shattered man's personality, and forced him to sacrifice himself for his gods, admit his powerlessness, and forced him to ask favors from them through prayer, supplication and begging. Humanism is a post-renaissance religion which set itself across the providential orders and those religions which were based upon the supernatural and the unseen, which aimed to bestow nobility upon man. The roots of humanism go back to Athens, and as a universal religion it has become the foundation of today's Western culture. As a matter of fact humanism is a reaction against the scholastic creed and Christianity of the Middle Ages, though reactions usually are not characterized by wisdom and modesty. Therefore, some philosophers attribute the excessive freedom in the today west to the pressure they experience in exactly the same matters they are going too far in them, like sexual and behavioral freedom.

I should say that the language of religions, especially the semitic ones, whose prophets , are all symbolic. This is the finest language accessible to man and it is superior to expository language which is lucid and straightforward. An expository language may be more suited and simpler to utilize in instruction, but it is not lasting. Why? Abd-Alrahman Badawi, the contemporary Egyptian philosopher, states that a school or a religion which expresses all its facts and connotations in direct, clear-cut, and one-dimensional sentences will not last long, since it is addressing diverse individuals from all walks of life. Further, these people include various strata and classes who vary in thinking, viewpoint, and outlook. And so, a language which is selected for a religion must be multi layered and multi-dimensional so that each generation can decipher one layer and each group can understand one dimension at a time.

The human nature consists of two dimentions; the material or earthly one, and the spiritual or heavenly one. When you "feed" anyone of them over the other, it will enlarge in your personality and manifest itself in a cancerous-like manner in your life.
Thus, such a two-dimensional being needs a religion which can protect him from swinging to either asceticism or worldliness, and continually keep him at an equilibrium. Only a two-dimensional religion is able to give reality to man's great responsibility.

When you see a phenomenon (religion) that lasts from the dawn of humanity up to this moment, just like sexuality and hunger for food, the person who deeply thinks and contemplates should come to the conclusion that it stems from the person's nature, regardless of his place, time, sex, or social position.


What do you think?

thanks

 

[christodouloum]

Interesting thoughts.


"The human nature consists of two dimentions; the material or earthly one, and the spiritual or heavenly one. When you "feed" anyone of them over the other, it will enlarge in your personality and manifest itself in a cancerous-like manner in your life."

What exactly is in your mind when you say that the overfeeding of the spiritual over the material dimension of a man could manifest itself in a cancerous-like manner?

 

[Manaf]

Hi dear,
I mean that for any ideology to be swallowed by people and be aceepted, it must recognize the dual nature of human. Any ideology that fails in some respect is due to the imbalance between these 2 sides. Take example, christianity concentrates on spirituality very much to the degree that the marriage is considered something unappropriate and animalistic, while ignoring the material and natural material needs inside every one of us. The secularism, which eveloved against this imbalance, brought about another imbalance. It ignored the spiritual side and gives more animalistic freedom than ever to the society. In addition, it striped the authority from religion and all its associted morals to become a force just to fullfil what the society needs with any means inside and outside the society, even if it is against morals. No wonder we see how the people nowadays are getting more alcoholic, dug dealers, and prostitutes, and some countries kill nations "to defend the security of its people".

This critical balance is the criteria I talked about. It is a universal law. Just like we don't want our bodies to grow unattened to develop cancer, we should not let one side of these 2 grow likewise.
thanks.

 

[L'Amour Oublié]

What do you mean when you say:"Take example, Christianity concentrates on spirituality very much to the degree that the marriage is considered something unappropriate and animalistic"?
Could you site some verses for me?

 

[Pythagorean]

What do you mean when you say:"Take example, Christianity concentrates on spirituality very much to the degree that the marriage is considered something unappropriate and animalistic"?
Could you site some verses for me?

he may not be drawing from scripture so much as the catholic attitude towards their own clergy members. There was a time (early catholic rome) when the priest fornicating was socially acceptable, and the issue was more that they didn't want their priests getting married, starting a family, and causing extra expenses. His life is to be dedicated to the church and god, not a family; but a little fornicating was okay.

I don't know when sex became hush hush again, and moral standards were revised; there began a lot of branching in church sects after the first branch, when a King decided he wanted to divorce his wife and remarry, and so he made a branch of the church where this was acceptable.

Nowdays, the church puts a lot of pressure on the priests to not even be alone with a woman, let alone marry one. They're apparently deprived.

These are opinions from a friend of mine who is a history buff, as I entepreted them. I've never been able to prove him wrong before, but this is harder to research for me. Any historical insight that supports or refutes this storyline won't be taken as offense or appraisal.

 

[Brother Jerry]

Manaf
Let me expand upon something. In Christianity man is viewed as 3 dimensional in the terms you referred them. In various aspects. This 3 dimensional array is as follows, the mind and soul are one, the spirit is two, and the body is 3. There could be a long dissertation on this but it would probably get beyond the bounds of the rules of the forum.

Pythagorean
As far as the early church and it's views of fornication. I would state a couple of things. There may have been that in the Roman Catholic church for some groups, however even early on the Roman Catholic church had many different organizations within it, and many maintained that sex outside of marriage was sinful and not practiced. As far as the church that Jesus established in the Bible, sex outside of the marriage was (and is) a sin.

One of the biggest reasons that you will find that most church officials and not even within the church anymore but also in many large organizations (like police departments, medical facilities, etc) you will find that men in the position of authority are not left alone with a female (male officer with female perpetrator, male doctors with female patients, etc) because of the world we live in where that is an invitation to some sort of sexual offense lawsuit or the like. Not a matter of depravity but just that trial lawyers like to feed like sharks and there are far to many people out there looking for their McDonald's and Big Tobbacco.

Sincerely
Brother Jerry

 

[moving finger]

When you see a phenomenon (religion) that lasts from the dawn of humanity up to this moment, just like sexuality and hunger for food, the person who deeply thinks and contemplates should come to the conclusion that it stems from the person's nature, regardless of his place, time, sex, or social position.


What do you think?

thanks

The phenomenon of war has also lasted from the dawn of humanity up to this moment - I guess that's in mankind's nature too.

Imho the main thing in mankind's nature which results in predisposition to religiosity is the human desire for ultimate purpose and meaning. The same desire feeds belief in the soul, free will, ID, spiritualism and mysticism.

Best Regards

 

[Pythagorean]

you will find that men in the position of authority are not left alone with a female (male officer with female perpetrator, male doctors with female patients, etc) because of the world we live in where that is an invitation to some sort of sexual offense lawsuit or the like.

i don't know if this is so true anymore. I remember once when me and a friend were interrogated, we both got male officers (she was a female). Also, when me and the same chick got in a wreck, the male doctor took care of her and the female nurse took care of me. They were matching the proper wound to the proper attention, they didn't care about sex at all.

 

[Outlandish_Existence]

I believe the commandments were given to us by extra-terrestrials. Re-read the Bible and check it out. A whirlwind from the heavens visits Moses on top of Mt. Sinai and inside there are 4 creatures that give him the laws that the beings on every planet in this universe must live by. Crazy? I think you're all crazy for thinking otherwise! Things are clear as day here. All the rest of the religious texts are non-sense spurted by these intervening outside occurences. Sure, they might have really happened, but they are meaningless. All we need are the laws.

 

[Brother Jerry]

Pythagorean
What you will find is also very situation dependent. If while you were down at the PD if there was to be a search involved. Then the odds are that a search of your person would have been conducted by a male officer and vice versa for your friend. Or there would have been multiple officers.

Our world has become very politically correct, even if in some cases it is flat out wrong, in order to not offend anyone we keep our mouths shut and let the wrong doing continue. And much of that comes from fear of being sued and other actions. And people in positions of authority as mentioned have to take extra percautions whenever they are possible because as soon as they do not, then someone with bad intentions will come along and attempt to sue them for something that did not happen but is incredibly hard to prove one way or another and that does not matter in a media circus anymore.

Outlandish
ummmm...I can so no more to that comment except there was no one else on the mount with Moses but God. (Exodus 19).

Sincerely
Brother Jerry