Thinking that No One Knows Anything Contradicts Love Thy Neighbor

When something exists, we know it is real. And if something is imaginary, we know it doesn't exist. Of course we want our imaginings to exist, this is called wish fulfilment. It touches our hearts but bounces off our heads. \ The interesting problem is that we respond to our imaginings in a almost the same way we respond to reaity. This can be helpful in. terms of rehersal and planning, but the temptation is always there to believe our own imaginings. And worse our temptation is belief and faith, which takes the form of revealed religion and even pornography. Who would have believed that revealed religion and pornography use the same tropes and techniques. But no matter how far we stray in imagination, we can always return to reality, like a cool, clear mountain stream on a hot day. . 74 Comments Micah Hoover Socrates and Descartes gained notoriety for admitting no one knows anything. Why did you discover that they missed ? If people who looked at porn were believers, why wouldn't they believe they could find an actual woman who wanted to be with them?… See more Reply Share 1d Mark Rego Monteiro Micah Hoover Socrates insightfully observed that, paraphrased, "What he didn´t know, he WAS AWARE that he didn´t know." That is the insight that has been distorted. You may agree with the conventional distortion "nobody knows anything" as Christian dogmatists like to identify with verses like "me, a miserable sinner," but the Commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself, as Jesus did" isn´t about people not knowing anything. That itself is self-contradictory in the power of logical reasoning that was originally Christian spiritual practice, and can easily be reclaimed. Reply Share 20h Micah Hoover Mark Rego Monteiro If Socrates was aware he didn't know, that also means he didn't know. My view is a dogmatism and your view isn't? I don't see what is self contradictory between not knowing and loving someone. And I definitely don't see what is logical about spirituality. Love can be very absurd. Reply Share 56m Mark Rego Monteiro Micah Hoover As for Socrates, you missed him. No, he indicated that HE KNEW what it was he didn´t know. All told, Jesus´ legacy had to corrall ancient Greek philosophy in order to make modern globalized University-based, UN human rights society with structured pluralism. Love is only absurd if you haven´t understood the meaning of that phrase, that is my basic spiritual revelation. We don´t just live in Western Civilization. We live in Jesus´ legacy, and before we can shift to effective and widespread spiritual modernization, people need to understand that they have been hijacked and indoctrinated into ideological materialism in various ways. You just distorted a basic piece of information without batting an eye, that I am correcting you on a second time now. Dogmatism creates mental, and spiritual ruts. I am not dogmatic, but asserting the search for spiritual truth, having made the rather innovative effort to connect all the dots from Jesus to modern University-based philosophical truth, through scholarship with empiricism. What is "self-contradictory between not knowing and loving someone"? Well, it gets at the monster that Jesus´ legacy has become due to the power of its fruits and the despicability of human bio-psychosocial tendencies to indulge in the abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Loving people as Jesus did has been glorified in the traditional saints, and has become a widely forgotten value in the infamous turn of modern capitalist materialism. Jesus´ religion, even in the hands of someone as cultivated, progressive, and capable of insightful concern as former president and former community organizer Barack H. Obama. A progressive individual and Christian, he showed every sign of psycho-social spiritualist materialist reductionism, as typically polarized against fundamentalist supernaturalism. Obama talked in favor of a pro-active modern medical system, but made no mention of the benefits of updated spiritual psychosomatic medicine. For example. "Christian loving people" in modern society shows how Jesus´ mission was not in fact self-contained, but as open-ended as the term "love" itself. In 270 years, Anthony of the Desert became the pioneering Christian ascetic and Father of Christian monks. Western monasticism in John Cassian´s slightly later legacy led through Cassiodorus and Benedict of Nursia´s own influences to the founding of the U of Paris from monastic schools. Christian spiritual practice using philosophical scholarship with empiricism was then launched by the monk Thomas Aquinas. Jesus´ very legacy led to the University-based philosophical scholarship with empiricism that in fact is the very nature of "secular society": modern "science," business, democratic government, and social movements. And flitting about, or dancing on puppet strings, that figure with antiquated orientation overall, churches. The Religious Right dances on puppet strings, having been funded to obey modern profiteering business ideology and turn evangelical Christianity to their bidding. Mainstream progressives have also acquiesced, with Obama´s original Christian denomination United Church of Christ (formerly Congregationalist) having some impressive activist tools. The historically high-powered Quaker Friends have their Nobel Prize-winning American Friends Service Committee as a signpost. Gandhi´s own image as an interfaith Christian Hindu, along with FD Roosevelt´s vision and legacy of UN human rights form even more public beacons, although perhaps Rev MLK´s image does as well. Thus, "not knowing" in the form of not valuing philosophical truth, characterizes the responses to FDR´s legacy UN human rights and sustainability, both in the US and abroad. How right wing evangelicals followed Trump, and as they orient themselves by worshiping US Big Biz and ideologically and aggressively opposing only communism and smearing the political opposition, makes them the extreme example. The late CEO Ray Anderson, and apparent Methodist, had an awakening after the 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit. After a client´s inquiry, he led the Interface Carpet multinational company to engage in massive ecological and social sustainability efforts. Matt Sleeth MD author of Serve God, Save The Planet and Mitch Hescox former coal executive and pastor leader of the Evangelical Environmental Network are two other prominent examples in that area. Love can be expressed in the simplest terms and level, but that has long failed to be sufficient as the fruits of Jesus´ legacy have been appropriated by profiteering businesspeople in the Industrial Revolution and converted into ideology after the 1929 Crash, FDR´s Social Gospel New Deal and UN, leading to all the events that resulted in Reagan´s overconfident delivery of anti-social, pro-rich kind of extremist business deregulation after his election. That is why my revelation has been the need to respond to all three main forms of ideological materialism: secular, economic, and scientific by taking authors´ insights like Fritjof Capra, JB Cobb, and Karen Armstrong to the next level. University liberal arts and sciences not only appears more balanced than scientific and economic materialism, but requires a viewpoint that acknowledges efforts in Multidisciplinary Studies. The simple and sensible label for the method and practice is Multidisciplinary Philosophy. Love can´t be expressed sufficiently in the face of toxic ideological sin that is for profiteering unlimited economic growth (funding anti-social Christian fundamentalism) and scientific supremacism. It requires the knowledge that I have benefited from, and am taking to the next level. Including the simple point Socrates made. And the differences between dogmatism and the standard of modernizing Jesus´ legacy and spiritualized Christian philosophical truth. That is, in fact, an interfaith Christianity in modern society with structured pluralism. But connecting those dots takes knowing how to relate to not knowing.