SolitaryWalker
Tenured roisterer
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 3,504
- MBTI Type
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5w6
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sx
When I was 18 years old I have read Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying where he has evinced that we tend not to be able to come to terms with our death peacefully.
As a panacea, he recommended a path to spirituality proffered by the Buddhist religious tradition he subscribed to.
I have attempted the pursuit, however, was reluctant to embrace any particular orthodoxy and moreover was dissatisfied with the metaphysical ambiguity of the Buddhistic creed.
Later on I have come across some very well argued propositions in favor of Christianity--were sound enough to convince me to give that a try...
My intellectual honesty was compromised because the pursuit of spirituality insisted on primacy of faith over reason. Therefore philosophy was only as good as it affirmed the religious prejudices. Ideas that agree with the accepted dogma are to be promoted, those that disagree rejected. This I could not accept.
At this point I was well on my way to losing faith until I have come across Kierkegaard whose doctrines seemed to have made the furtherance of such a spiritual path possible. He insisted on fideism, or treating faith as simply a desire of the heart and one that has nothing to do with our intellectual ambitions. So, Christianity for us is not any particular metaphysical or epistemic doctrine, but simply a feeling that reinforces our focus on the spiritual path.
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This I could not tolerate either as such an approach insisted on making decisions based on Feelings and moreover, I did not think I could hold on to my faith by those merits. If my faith was contingent upon feelings, intuitions, impulses, etc...and I was not at all clear on what those were, as I paid little attention to my hunches without the due reasoning, and to feelings even less, there is nothing substantial for my faith to stand on. Moreover, due to my intense Thinking oriented approach to life, my sentiments and hunches massively countervailed the feelings in favor of faith. Fideism was unacceptable to me, so I had to go back and suffer more with my previously embraced approach to religion.
Typical route of epistemic justification, one embraced by St.Aquinas and Maimonides.
I was resolute on maintaining faith because to me it represented the path to spirituality, the highest possible good, and moreover was convinced that in the future I may be able to preclude the religious dogma from stultifying my quest for truth. I still was unsure if I wished to abandon fideism, as I was hoping it would give me an opportunity to pursue my philosophy unperturbed by religious dogma and still continue on the 'spiritual path', if I simply had the idea of Christianity in mind. I was hardly aware that this same fideism has left the idea of Christianity hardly devoid of content..as it has become no more than a vague, amorphous notion of blind hope founded on wishful thinking. I knew I believed in some higher essence, no idea why, or what it even was--though still hopeful I would discover that sooner or later, as my confidence in my abstract problem solving remained stellar, despite the recent setbacks.
Many times have I thought of abandoning the quest as it consistently struck me as no other than barren. It is either the hollow Fideism where Christianity becomes no more than cant, or dogmatic theology at the risk of endangering my inner life. I could not cease vacillating between the two. I have not made up my mind till the very end. Soon enough, in the common INTP fashion I have undertaken to synthesize the two disparate theories and found myself at an intermediate point between the two. I embraced the certain bits of fideism to ensure that the Christian dogma doesnt strangle my inner life, but the sheer poverty of the doctrine compelled me to look for something more substantial.
Not surprisingly, I've turned to the epistemic support of my Christian prejudices, and found myself contriving many intricate epistemic and metaphysical schemes to render my faith tenable. As I thought, in the end it had to be no more than a leap of faith, from a philosophical perspective, Christianity need not be cogent, it only needs to be tenable to a degree, however small. This, I barely managed to accomplish..
Yet in the end I realized I suffered from the many defects common in the epistemic justification tradition of Christianity (Aquinas), philosophy has become subordinate to Christian dogma. I was examining most closely not the ideas that I thought were most likely to conduce to the acquisition of truth, but those that were most likely to allow for me to remain on the 'spiritual path'. This was too heavy of a toll for my inner life to pay and I've finally turned my back on it all...
With the due assistance of Spinoza and Schopenhauer, I've managed to concoct a religion-free approach to spirituality. One of my most noteworthy discoveries yet...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
NTs tend to be dismissive of spirituality because this notion is often amorphous and vague, and therefore is unacceptable to our clarity minded attitudes...
Before having read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, I would not have minded calmly dismissing it all as the kind of superstitious non-sense that I need not pay another second of my time..yet his argument for the need of spirituality and our inability to face death were compelling. How do you recondite this problem?
Moreover, if you have embraced religion, how did you deal with the problems I have struggled with? And what were your reasons for embracing religion?
If you have chosen the path of non-spirituality, do you intend to find a non-religious spirituality, and if not, how do you deal with Rinpoche's problem? (More clearly emphasized in Ernest Becker's Denial of Death).
---------------------------------------------------------------
At this point I have completed my first work on philosophy of religion where I intend to solve the problems that have befallen my lot. I believe that religious orthodoxy is not only harmful to one's inner life, but also stultifies the pursuit of spirituality. The latter could well be acquired with unaided reason, and in the worst case scenario can indeed give us all that we'd need from life. The true autonomy of mind and inner calm that organized religion proves to be no more than a vapid hologram for.
As a panacea, he recommended a path to spirituality proffered by the Buddhist religious tradition he subscribed to.
I have attempted the pursuit, however, was reluctant to embrace any particular orthodoxy and moreover was dissatisfied with the metaphysical ambiguity of the Buddhistic creed.
Later on I have come across some very well argued propositions in favor of Christianity--were sound enough to convince me to give that a try...
My intellectual honesty was compromised because the pursuit of spirituality insisted on primacy of faith over reason. Therefore philosophy was only as good as it affirmed the religious prejudices. Ideas that agree with the accepted dogma are to be promoted, those that disagree rejected. This I could not accept.
At this point I was well on my way to losing faith until I have come across Kierkegaard whose doctrines seemed to have made the furtherance of such a spiritual path possible. He insisted on fideism, or treating faith as simply a desire of the heart and one that has nothing to do with our intellectual ambitions. So, Christianity for us is not any particular metaphysical or epistemic doctrine, but simply a feeling that reinforces our focus on the spiritual path.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This I could not tolerate either as such an approach insisted on making decisions based on Feelings and moreover, I did not think I could hold on to my faith by those merits. If my faith was contingent upon feelings, intuitions, impulses, etc...and I was not at all clear on what those were, as I paid little attention to my hunches without the due reasoning, and to feelings even less, there is nothing substantial for my faith to stand on. Moreover, due to my intense Thinking oriented approach to life, my sentiments and hunches massively countervailed the feelings in favor of faith. Fideism was unacceptable to me, so I had to go back and suffer more with my previously embraced approach to religion.
Typical route of epistemic justification, one embraced by St.Aquinas and Maimonides.
I was resolute on maintaining faith because to me it represented the path to spirituality, the highest possible good, and moreover was convinced that in the future I may be able to preclude the religious dogma from stultifying my quest for truth. I still was unsure if I wished to abandon fideism, as I was hoping it would give me an opportunity to pursue my philosophy unperturbed by religious dogma and still continue on the 'spiritual path', if I simply had the idea of Christianity in mind. I was hardly aware that this same fideism has left the idea of Christianity hardly devoid of content..as it has become no more than a vague, amorphous notion of blind hope founded on wishful thinking. I knew I believed in some higher essence, no idea why, or what it even was--though still hopeful I would discover that sooner or later, as my confidence in my abstract problem solving remained stellar, despite the recent setbacks.
Many times have I thought of abandoning the quest as it consistently struck me as no other than barren. It is either the hollow Fideism where Christianity becomes no more than cant, or dogmatic theology at the risk of endangering my inner life. I could not cease vacillating between the two. I have not made up my mind till the very end. Soon enough, in the common INTP fashion I have undertaken to synthesize the two disparate theories and found myself at an intermediate point between the two. I embraced the certain bits of fideism to ensure that the Christian dogma doesnt strangle my inner life, but the sheer poverty of the doctrine compelled me to look for something more substantial.
Not surprisingly, I've turned to the epistemic support of my Christian prejudices, and found myself contriving many intricate epistemic and metaphysical schemes to render my faith tenable. As I thought, in the end it had to be no more than a leap of faith, from a philosophical perspective, Christianity need not be cogent, it only needs to be tenable to a degree, however small. This, I barely managed to accomplish..
Yet in the end I realized I suffered from the many defects common in the epistemic justification tradition of Christianity (Aquinas), philosophy has become subordinate to Christian dogma. I was examining most closely not the ideas that I thought were most likely to conduce to the acquisition of truth, but those that were most likely to allow for me to remain on the 'spiritual path'. This was too heavy of a toll for my inner life to pay and I've finally turned my back on it all...
With the due assistance of Spinoza and Schopenhauer, I've managed to concoct a religion-free approach to spirituality. One of my most noteworthy discoveries yet...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
NTs tend to be dismissive of spirituality because this notion is often amorphous and vague, and therefore is unacceptable to our clarity minded attitudes...
Before having read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, I would not have minded calmly dismissing it all as the kind of superstitious non-sense that I need not pay another second of my time..yet his argument for the need of spirituality and our inability to face death were compelling. How do you recondite this problem?
Moreover, if you have embraced religion, how did you deal with the problems I have struggled with? And what were your reasons for embracing religion?
If you have chosen the path of non-spirituality, do you intend to find a non-religious spirituality, and if not, how do you deal with Rinpoche's problem? (More clearly emphasized in Ernest Becker's Denial of Death).
---------------------------------------------------------------
At this point I have completed my first work on philosophy of religion where I intend to solve the problems that have befallen my lot. I believe that religious orthodoxy is not only harmful to one's inner life, but also stultifies the pursuit of spirituality. The latter could well be acquired with unaided reason, and in the worst case scenario can indeed give us all that we'd need from life. The true autonomy of mind and inner calm that organized religion proves to be no more than a vapid hologram for.
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