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It's no trick, it's a spiritual path that can't be understood without following and practicing it- the path very much leads to something real that cannot be exp

• graemep 2y ago
  > I posit almost all intelligent monastics and religious people are smart enough to tell the difference between objective truth and religious truth- but it is taboo to explain this to lay people as they will be confused and think it means the religion is "fake" or a "trick", however I don't feel the need to respect said taboo. That is positing a conspiracy theory level of deception. At least as far as Christianity goes, the "intelligent monastics and religious people" write down their beliefs, and have done so for millennia, and they read each others writings. What you suggest might be possible with an oral tradition, but not with a written one. Christianity is very much concerned with objective truth, and one of the distinguishing characters of it (and some other religions too) is a belief that there is an objective truth.
  • _yb2s 2y ago
    It's no great conspiracy for a religion to have tiers of understanding and nuance reserved for people more intelligent and dedicated in practice- that is one key purpose of having a distinction between lay people and monastics. The mystique of this is openly part of the draw for people to sign up for it. There's no deception- it's something that (as this discussion shows) is very subtle and dangerous to the religions when misunderstood- but not dangerous when understood correctly. It is written down repeatedly in religious texts, in a subtle way with plausible deniability, but clear to those that can read between the lines. Writing in that way was the essential basic art of any intellectual until very recently, it is only now (sort of) safe to plainly state nuanced philosophical and religious concepts without facing persecution. Nietzsche argued you still should not do so even if you can. It's also both quite obvious and relatively unimportant on its own to people that would be capable of understanding nuance, and could be quite harmful to the faith and the stability of the religion of those not able to understand.
    • graemep 2y ago
      > It is written down repeatedly in religious texts, in a subtle way with plausible deniability, but clear to those that can read between the lines. Can you give me an example of what you mean? From Christianity, as its the religion I know most about.
      • _yb2s 2y ago
        I'm not a scholar of Christian literature (or a Christian), and I don't speak Latin, so it would hardly be appropriate for me to pull out a specific quote and insist "this is what they really meant." In truth, my original source for this was my own understanding being raised in a Christian church- and voicing this perspective out loud in church as a young kid didn't go over well, as you might imagine. To me as a young kid, it was immediately obvious that there were deeper ethical principles being explained in these stories, and one had to be an idiot to be worried about if they were objective factual details or not, when the point was clearly to understand and embody the message- to practice and live it. One was called to have faith that living these principles wholeheartedly was the right thing to do and would lead to real spiritual growth, not to have faith that some particular guy built a particular boat- such things are irrelevant. However St. Augustine is someone that I am particularly certain had a clear understanding of this, and I can see it in how he frames most of his ideas. Another example, would be that ancient religious texts are not careful at all to avoid making numerous objectively factual contradictions- as the anti-christian crowd loves to point out over and over while also completely missing the point. If the people writing them thought that was important, they would have avoided doing so- contrary to modern opinion, ancient theologians and philosophers like St. Augustine were not idiots. William Blake is a more modern person that, while just about the furthest thing from a monastic, clearly had a deep understanding of what I am talking about. Carl Jung also extensively understood and discussed a lot of esoteric things in Christianity including this, and wrote about them in a relatively clear modern way.
        • graemep 2y ago
          > However St. Augustine is someone that I am particularly certain had a clear understanding of this, and I can see it in how he frames most of his ideas. Can you give me an example of one? > To me as a young kid, it was immediately obvious that there were deeper ethical principles being explained in these stories, and one had to be an idiot to be worried about if they were objective factual details or not Again, an example? You are suggesting for example that there is no redemption or afterlife but they convey some point? > If the people writing them thought that was important, they would have avoided doing so- contrary to modern opinion, ancient theologians and philosophers like St. Augustine were not idiots. Does Augustine contradict himself? In a single work (different views in different works could be a change of mind)?