Friday, August 12, 2022

Are Eastern Religions Universal or just Academic? An Indian Guy´s Question

Rowdy-Rohan greenpeaceRdale1844coop • 16 hours ago Do you see anything universal in Asian philsophies and faiths or is it simply academic. Can you apply satyagraha, nirvana, dharma to every day life of Americans or modern western history and how these aspects would have changed history? have you read E Michael Jones books or heard his videos on the Holocaust and if you have what is your take on him • Reply • Share › − Avatar greenpeaceRdale1844coop Rowdy-Rohan • 12 minutes ago First of all, you use the terms "universal" and "academic" with certain associations, some limiting. For clarity´s sake, I am responding based on my recognition that the modern culture conceptual discussion is based on University-based philosophical scholarship with empiricism. "Science", which is actually scientific natural philosophy, has become a highly visible and somewhat distorted subset of that. The US drew on diverse European resources to develop the atomic bombs in WWII, used them against Japan in the magnitude of the conflict, and established a primary example of how "science"-related technology can be said to have developed the world´s most destructive kind of weapon. And it has spread. Throughout Asia, to speak geographically. Because of its power. But, underlying that is the University-based system of education, which is in fact philosophial scholarship with empiricism. Moreover, not only scientific natural philosophy is involved, but popular terms like "democracy" and "free markets" with their ideological misrepresentations and their empirical, philosophical realities. University-based education with empiricism, however, underlies the truths of all of that. And its own normally disguised truth as having origins in Christian monastic spiritual practice, developed from ancient Greek philosophy as spiritual practice. It is illuminating, moreover, to be clear about the monk Thomas Aquinas´ role as identifying "infinity" as an abstraction and unempirical, and not of the real world. That, along with his philosophical formulation from motion of God as First Cause. In the context of Jesus´ role, teachings with spiritual practice, and his legacy. That is the key knowledge-based framework that I was operating in back in high school when I read scholar Huston Smith´s World Religions book, and appreciated his description of the Chinese Tao at first. I also appreciated Unitarian Universalist interfaith´s support of spiritual paths. Thus, your question relates to phenomena operating at multiple levels. First of all, whatever strengths Asian philosophies and spiritual-religious traditions have, it was European merchants, soldiers, and politicians using Christianity´s University-based fruits in Jesus´ legacy that colonized the world. And opened up Japan, that recognized the power of University-based education. The timing and events around WWII are all important to grasping the different levels that are in operation across cultures in affecting people´s minds. Like European colonialism reflected human bio-psycho-social tendencies, it has gone with ideological materialism that permit objectifying situations. FD Roosevelt´s Christian Social Gospel vision and legacy proposing the UN and human rights then established a highly moral secular materialist form of international quasi-governance, or at least, standards of conduct. That supplements, and extends, the framework of University-based philosophical scholarship, as forms of communication and interaction. You say, "academic," in a way that subordinates University-based practices, as if it is less than real world effectiveness. Thus, Buddhism has universal insights, but is centered around its own limiting factors. Buddhism certainly spread naturally in history, and has some important popularity in the West already. Yet, it is secularized Christian structures that form the mainline structures for knowledge development, communication, and interaction standards. I find Buddhism essential to my orienting to spiritual practice with depth of integrity for personal growth as an interfaith Christian . The Four Noble Truths, for example, and the goal of nirvana. That gave me powerful insights as I researched Christian history itself, and learned about Christian monasticism and Anthony of the Desert´s own demonstration of what became called "divinization/theosis." Gandhi´s demonstration of satyagraha at least involved Gandhi´s applying the orientation of the likes of the dissident high integrity Christian Thoreau et al. Yet, Thoreau was somehow co-existing with the abolition anti-slavery movement and Quaker-Friend Christianity´s remarkable developments, led in being co-founded by George Fox in the 1600s. Thus, in taking Gandhi´s interfaith Christian Hinduism and satyagraha, we can understand its relationship more or less directly with a full range of phenomena in Christian culture in the first place. The abolition anti-slavery movement initiated modern social movements and Civil Society, and that is what I have been mentioning to you represented by Right Livelihood Award winners of all kinds, including India´s Colin Goncalves, LAFTI, Swami Agnivesh, and the prominent Vandana Shiva. She may have won a RLA also. Ela Bhatt who founded SEWA also comes to mind. So, yes, I do see the Asian philosophies as having universal qualities. However, it is Jesus´ legacy in University-based philosophical scholarship with empiricism and societal innovations that have established the standardizing frameworks that can operate non-violently. Gandhi´s example illuminates various qualities, including the relevance of spiritual practice hard to see in Western culture. The Quaker-Friends were involved in the founding of Greenpeace, and John Muir in founding the Sierra Club,, but secular materialism has significant influence in their image and conduct. I´ve found it necessary to define spiritual-religious phenomena, since materialistic tendencies have simply been trapped by compartmentalizing and reductionism. Defining Multidisciplinary Philosophy with empiricism, too. Buddha and Gandhi both have served as important guides for me to consider in identifying those two key conceptual innovations that I ´ve had to make. They are related to some published insights, but are otherwise significant and unique. Pantanjali´s Yoga, Morihei Ueshiba´s aikido, too, have been helpful. Lao Tzu and Taoism, also, in fact. Tai chi and qi gong as part of that. "Science" has identified brain wave and brainscan data to identify meditative and prayerful states, yet it is the Eastern / Asian traditions that provide powerful human systemic examples. How they would have changed history? Study the history of comparative religious studies, and observe that a foundation has been established for what is in fact necessary for a saving history and the future. UN reports demonstrate a catastrophic combination of human rights abuses and unsustainable industrial socioeconomic process underway. Asian practices and philosophies have powerful elements, but not an interactive framework. Secularized Christianity has provided the interactional framework, and needs infusions of the spiritual-religious insights of Asian/Eastern spiritual-religious practices and their insightful elements. Thus, I have been learning about how Catholic missionaries studied things like Confucius, which was recognized by the atheist scholar Christian Wolff in the 1700s already in Germany. Great Britain´s Wm Jones established the Asia Society around 1790 as a major step in cultural studies. Franz Boff was an important early scholar, among others. Thoreau, in some relation to Emerson, was also studying Hinduism. Emerson developed the idea of Oversoul as an alternative idea about God. I don´t know that I´ve heard of EM Jones. The Holocaust is part of Nazi Germany´s rise, at the same time as Japan´s imperial militarism and Stalinist Soviet Communism, along with US industrial corporate profiteering businesspeople which caused the Stock Market Crash of 1929. So, I relate all this around University-based educational culture, ie philosophical scholarship with empiricism, and how Jesus´ legacy in spiritual practice and phenomena relates to the rise of modern social movements in the sequence of Luther´s inspiring the Reformation and George Fox´s leading the co-founding of the Quaker Friends in Great Britain. The American Revolution with Jefferson et al´s ending absolute monarchy with constitutional democracy and Civil Rights coincides with the rise of the modern abolition anti-slavery movement. The co-operative pro-social business movement, also, was founded by workingpeople in the UK in the 1840s. The efforts in comparative cultural and religious studies led to the 1893 Chicago World Parliament of Religions, organized by Bonney and Barrows. The US Social Gospel initiated as pro-labor by Washington Gladden in 1877 is also key there, creating a thread to FD Roosevelt. All of that is where Gandhi´s satyagraha ultimately fits in. "Dharma" represents the need for practice, and the cause-effect nature of moral law, and illuminates all manner of these events now interrelated through the study of human psychology, sociology, and international relations. The Holocaust primarily involved the transition in Germany from monarchy to secular democracy, based around their intense secularized University enriched culture, with minimal international colonialism. Now, that phenomena "vented" sociohistorically, Greenpeace represents one Civil Society group that has been taken up intensively throughout Germany. Germans have some appreciation for Eastern religions, and so it is through that lens that further insights need to develop. Comparative Religious Studies is a multidisciplinary subject that allows for the comprehensive grasping of the issues involved. That is simply necessary in the face of ideological materialism´s three rather treacherous forms: scientific, secular, and economic. If you are obsessing about the Holocaust, I can share that I certainly benefited in studying Hitler´s psychology and the anthropological meaning of the Nuremberg Rallies. That is no less related to Aztec human sacrifices and cannibalism. If European brutality intrigues you, the history of European wars, including Luther´s inspired Reformation, are full of bloodshed. The Battle of Lepanto in the 1570s was part of the chronology of Muslim-European Christian conflict, with the 1683 Siege of Vienna the last in Europe. WWI is also not to be neglected, as it resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. All that technical knowledge needs to satisfy a person´s capacity for military realism. It is at the same time, however, that psychological insight becomes necessary, along with that of social movements. Satyagraha, nirvana, and dharma are important correlates to psychology, anthropology, and sociology perhaps most of all, with political science and economics actually reflecting those primary subjects. Again, the Right Livelihood Award now serves an important role in identifying further key actors in social movements in the UN human rights world community that is in Jesus´, and then FD Roosevelt´s legacy negotiated with the world as it led to decolonization and reorientation to the potential of University-based society. I refer to spiritual modernization as the process needed in secularized Christianity, with Eastern and indigenous traditions offering powerful resources in the study of phenomena and developing knowledge about practices through experience.

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