It's not clear whether the idea is justified that enlightenment is somehow an objective phenomenon, quite independent of religions, and that different religions just have different takes on it.
— baker

At last! You say something connected to what I've written. Took some doing. It is, nevertheless, a thesis I find both defensible and appealing, because it points to a genuine 'higher truth' over and above the individual manifestations that have appeared in different times and cultures. — Wayfarer

On the contrary, it's not defensible. The different religions that have the concept of "enlightenment" or something like it have quite different ideas about what exactly it is, how to get to it, and how valuable it is.

And why focus only on "enlightenment" as a "higher truth"? What about "God" or "eternal damnation"? Those notions are quite common in religion/spirituality.

It's clear, though, how such a thesis as yours can be appealing. It requires no work, no commitment, no religious choice, no practice. It allows one to sit back and rest comfortably in the conviction that all is well.

It seems the whole implicit purpose of comparative religion is to emasculate the religions, to make them seem harmless, redundant, and most of all, ineffective, so that neither the need nor the desire for actual practice can arise in one's mind.

To paraphrase you,

After all, if all paths lead to the top of the mountain, then there's no greater purpose to be served in one's religious/spiritual/philosophical quest other than possibly warm feelings of self-justification.

That is really not a fair criticism, but then maybe you’re trolling, which you seem to be doing in many of your comments. Comparative religion is a perfectly legitimate discipline, it interests people of various religious orientations or none whatever. It provides a way to make sense of the range of religious and spiritual literature in the world traditions without necessarily professing faith in any of them, although there’s also no reason not to do that.

Do tell how you distinguish between
on the one hand, religious/spiritual/philosophically deep/profound experiences or insights,
and
on the other hand, the feel good feeling you get after a good meal, or the experience of hypoxia, or what comes up when under the influence of intoxicants — baker

How do you distinguish the influence between the good feels in general? One simply does. Keep in mind that hypoxia is a term that belongs to pathology, that is, assuming something's wrong. How would Thích Quảng Đức.the Buddist monk who immolated himself in 1963 be pathologically assessed? The answer? Very easily.
I push kriya yoga to its limit. Pays off. It's only a pathology if you are on the outside looking in.

Such "stepping out of texts" is, for all ordinary practical intents and purposes, impossible.
What you're doing is just ditching standard religious texts, and firmly embedding yourself in other texts. — baker

Which is saying, there is no stepping out of text, and if you were Derrida, I would know what you mean. But read Caputo on Derrida, his Radical Hermeneutics. You may be averse to unorthodox approaches, but you should know where orthodoxy itself has it end. It is like this: Try any interpretative reduction that is possible, any at all, and you will end up in the contingency of language, aka, deconstruction. Deconstruction is all pervasive, because language itself is its own indeterminacy. For me (and you are free to read his Structure, Sign and Play, Of Grammatology, and others) it translates into a perceptual indeterminacy (not unlike Sartre's Roquentin and the chestnut tree, if you've read Nausea), not merely an abstract theory. Look at the world and realize the object you behold is NOT possessed by the language that claims it, and does so with the powerful grip of familiarity only. This is Husserl's epoche at its perfect realization. This is what Buddhism is all about, I would argue: for language has its "grip" deep into the conditioned psyche; a lifetime of socializing that began in infancy.

I've noticed and drawn attention to this book a few times over the years, with your interests you in particular might find it interesting Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy, Carl Olson

Thanks, I'll read it this weekend, perhaps.

I've managed well through life without your gratuitious advice, so you can keep it.
/.../
That is really not a fair criticism, but then maybe you’re trolling, which you seem to be doing in many of your comments. — Wayfarer

If after all this time, you still think that ... then go fuck yourself.

How do you distinguish the influence between the good feels in general? — Constance

That's not what I asked you about.

One simply does.

No, it's more systematic than that. Can't you tell?

How would Thích Quảng Đức.the Buddist monk who immolated himself in 1963 be pathologically assessed? The answer? Very easily.

Killing oneself in a public place for a political reason is not a sign of a noble attainment.

I push kriya yoga to its limit. Pays off. It's only a pathology if you are on the outside looking in.

So it is with shooting heroin up your veins.

You may be averse to unorthodox approaches,

I'm averse to hocus pocus and to shallowness being masqueraded as depth.

but you should know where orthodoxy itself has it end. It is like this: Try any interpretative reduction that is possible, any at all, and you will end up in the contingency of language, aka, deconstruction. Deconstruction is all pervasive, because language itself is its own indeterminacy.

Again: In its proper application, the analytical mind exhausts itself.

This is what Buddhism is all about, I would argue: for language has its "grip" deep into the conditioned psyche; a lifetime of socializing that began in infancy.

Your description seems to hint at the jhanas.
There is, however, more to "Buddhism" than the jhanas. People often forget what it takes to get to them.

No, it's more systematic than that. Can't you tell? — baker

Just the obvious point that one tells the different between experiences according to their, well, differences. Clear as a bell; so clear one wonders why the question is raised at all. Surely you know the difference between being in love and lasagna. You're grasping at straws. Curious.

Killing oneself in a public place for a political reason is not a sign of a noble attainment. — baker

Do better. It is not the killing oneself that is in question nor the noble attainment. It is the inner state of mine that made such an act possible; to suffer so little, or not at all, inspires the wonder that perhaps there is such a thing as nirvana and its perfect detachment. So then, what IS nirvana? Not simply happy as a child, but removed, distant from engagement, the manifesting of something profound and beautiful. One has to take this kind of think seriously, and no summarily dismiss it. Buddhism is certainly NOT about a "noble attainment" in the usual sense, the term 'noble' being a social and ethical concept.
Again, a bit obvious. Oddest yet: no respect for someone who almost without argument did the most extraordinary thing one could do.

So it is with shooting heroin up your veins. — baker

A little juvenile.

I'm averse to hocus pocus and to shallowness being masqueraded as depth. — baker

And yet you toss around such terms as if you know what they are. Is kriya yoga hocus pocus? Well, my goodness. Sorry to trouble.

If after all this time, you still think that ... then go fuck yourself. — baker

Couldn't help but notice. Hope things improve with whatever is troubling you.

Does the term "religion" refer to nothing? — Banno

It's just a bland term that encompasses all the dogmas and rules that an intellectual minority superimposes on a civilization in order to remain in power indefinitely.

Of course, that is, if we are looking at the concept of "religion" with completely unbiased eyes.

shame it came to that. I'll take it as a hint to turn my attention to something other than philosophy forums for a while.

It's just a bland term that encompasses all the dogmas and rules that an intellectual minority superimposes on a civilization in order to remain in power indefinitely. — Gus Lamarch

SO neoliberalism is a religion.

SO neoliberalism is a religion. — Banno

You could say that Communism, Socialism, Fascism, even some modern social movements are "religion-like" too.

No, it's more systematic than that. Can't you tell?
— baker

Just the obvious point that one tells the different between experiences according to their, well, differences. Clear as a bell; so clear one wonders why the question is raised at all. Surely you know the difference between being in love and lasagna. You're grasping at straws. Curious. — Constance

Too bad that in my question you don't recognize Joseph Campbell's question. He wondered how it is that one can tell whether one has indeed had a religious/spiritual experience, or whether the feel good feeling one has is simply due to having had a good meal.


Direct your attention to the difference between feeling x and being x.

Some "spiritual practices", "tips & tricks", consumption of intoxicants, altered states of mind due to physical exertion readily produce in one's mind a feeling, feeling x. This, however, doesn't yet mean that one is x.

For example, one can read some productivity literature, hype oneself up, put some of the advice into practice, and then one feels more productive. But whether one is actually more productive or not is something that yet needs to be measured.

One can make oneself "feel the presence of the Holy Spirit", through prayer, going to a church, using intoxicants. But that alone doesn't yet mean the Holy Spirit is indeed present.

There is a difference between feeling safe, and being safe.

There is a difference between feeling that one has overcome egoic thinking, and actually overcoming egoic thinking.

And so on.
Feelings are easy enough to conjure up. Facts that can be measured, not so readily.

Buddhism is certainly NOT about a "noble attainment" in the usual sense, the term 'noble' being a social and ethical concept.

Strange that the Buddhists say the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths.

Again, a bit obvious. Oddest yet: no respect for someone who almost without argument did the most extraordinary thing one could do.

Clearly, you are not aware of the wide range of opinions that one can find among Buddhist practitioners on the topic of public protest in the form of self-immolation.

So it is with shooting heroin up your veins.
— baker

A little juvenile.

Insiders have knowledge, experience that outsiders don't. It's not uncommon for insiders to be proud and to feel superior to outsiders. This is true for lovers of modern art, fine dining, religious adepts, etc. or heroin addicts.

Couldn't help but notice. Hope things improve with whatever is troubling you.

On the contrary, I'm not the one being troubled, because I'm not the one acting in bad faith.

Too bad that in my question you don't recognize Joseph Campbell's question. He wondered how it is that one can tell whether one has indeed had a religious/spiritual experience, or whether the feel good feeling one has is simply due to having had a good meal. — baker

But this just begs the question: what does having a good mel have to do with the qualitative nature of experience? Certainly there can be a causal relation between the two, but this says nothing about WHAT the experience IS. Looks as if you are looking some kind of reduction of experience to physical brains states, such that a brain chemistry's analysis can yield up what an experience IS. This is obviously not true; the worst kind of question begging: how does one know what brain chemistry is? Why, through brain chemistry!? You should see that this is one way to approach the justification for a phenomenological approach.

Some "spiritual practices", "tips & tricks", consumption of intoxicants, altered states of mind due to physical exertion readily produce in one's mind a feeling, feeling x. This, however, doesn't yet mean that one is x. — baker

Same problem. An experience due to exertion, the light headedness, the runner's "high" and the like, are seen to be causally related to the exertion and it effect on physical systems like the brain's, but talk about this, even at the detailed chemical level says nothing at all about what the elation itself is. It tells you nothing about the nature of value. You will have to deal with the Tractatus here: the good feeling of a runner's high is entirely transcendental. Of course, all experience is, at the basic level, transcendental. We, e.g., think before we commit to ontology. Thinking is a structured experience, so the ontology can be no other than someting that issues from this structure, and since we have no access outside of this, we are committed to a general indeterminacy in all things--THE foundation to our existence is indeterminacy.
So what I claim is that experiences need to be assessed and understood for what they are, as they "appear" for appearance is all one ever has. And this is not to invoke talk about "representations" and their objects that do not appear. The world "appears".

For example, one can read some productivity literature, hype oneself up, put some of the advice into practice, and then one feels more productive. But whether one is actually more productive or not is something that yet needs to be measured. — baker

This raises the issue of making an error in judgment. Certainly this happens all the time, as when my dogmatic Christian neighbor insists the gay couple down the street is going to hell for eternity. But this is not about unjustified beliefs. It is descriptive, merely. Go into a strong effective meditative state, control the breathe, especially the release, out and slow, and at the end when the breathe cycle is complete, linger. It is a remarkable experience of control.

Serious meditation is not an easy thing to account for. One must, I hold, see that it is not about the brain, even though there is science's strong causal claim in the background. The brain is just another phenomenon, and it has no more relevance here than knitting. The brain is a phenomenon, and its causal relation to experience is phenomenally acknowledged. So, one simply witnessed the breathe, the intruding thought or feeling, the dismissal. the breathe is simply this rising and falling and the work one has is about controlling this, for the breathe is a most insistent attachment. After all, we yield to the breathe's insistence as we do to a thought or a feeling. The calm that issues from this exceeds familiar calm, and the world "settles" in such a way that one actually stands on the threshold of a sublime stillness, and the concepts of existence and reality take on an extraordinary meaning.
Look, I can't convince of the validity of this. But if you're going to criticize it, you should know something about phenomenology. A medical diagnosis is inherently pathological in its judgment, and this implies a standard of what is normal that issues from everydayness. In serious meditation, you are not in everydayness at all! Meditation is the cancellation of just this.

One can make oneself "feel the presence of the Holy Spirit", through prayer, going to a church, using intoxicants. But that alone doesn't yet mean the Holy Spirit is indeed present.

There is a difference between feeling safe, and being safe.

There is a difference between feeling that one has overcome egoic thinking, and actually overcoming egoic thinking.

And so on.
Feelings are easy enough to conjure up. Facts that can be measured, not so readily. — baker

But all of this talk belongs to a world of assumptions one gets from high school text books. Here "all schools are in abeyance" says Walt Wittman. You have to go there. I live in a world of dogs and cats and shopping just like everyone else, but I also read Kant through Derrida, and I have learned that this everydayness is a fraud, at the level of basic questions, lacks reflective justification altogether. Facts? Are these Wittgenstein's facts, on the logical "grid"? These are free of value content. So then, what IS nirvana? The most extraordinary value experience.
One thing Witt did was he took value off the table for discussion by claiming to be transcendental and unspeakable. This gave analytic philosophers the license to ignore THE most salient feature of our existence: affectivity. The meaning of life is not about facts; it is about the depth and breadth of affectivity.

Strange that the Buddhists say the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. — baker

Heuristics! That is all this is. Sitting under that fig tree is not at all about the four noble truths.

Too bad that in my question you don't recognize Joseph Campbell's question. He wondered how it is that one can tell whether one has indeed had a religious/spiritual experience, or whether the feel good feeling one has is simply due to having had a good meal.
— baker

But this just begs the question: what does having a good mel have to do with the qualitative nature of experience? Certainly there can be a causal relation between the two, but this says nothing about WHAT the experience IS. Looks as if you are looking some kind of reduction of experience to physical brains states, such that a brain chemistry's analysis can yield up what an experience IS. This is obviously not true; the worst kind of question begging: how does one know what brain chemistry is? Why, through brain chemistry!? — Constance

No such reductionism. Again:
You find yourself feeling good, hopeful, life seems meaningful. Question: Is this feeling because you just had a good meal, or is it evidence of your spiritual attainment?

One thing Witt did was he took value off the table for discussion by claiming to be transcendental and unspeakable. This gave analytic philosophers the license to ignore THE most salient feature of our existence: affectivity. The meaning of life is not about facts; it is about the depth and breadth of affectivity.
/.../
Heuristics! That is all this is. Sitting under that fig tree is not at all about the four noble truths.

You're giving up on analytical thinking before it has had the chance to bear fruit.

Does the term "religion" refer to nothing? — Banno

Well, that's that's the question. To god or not to god. If you consider not being observable not to exist, then virtual particles don't exist either. Still they have observable effects. Is god a virtual macronic? Can they show up by hidden mechanisms, and if so, what would be the message they try to convey? What are they. What kind of creatures we could expect, might they show up one day? How can a life without them be worthwile? These are the questions philosophy needs to address. It will articulate the concept.

You could say that Communism, Socialism, Fascism, even some modern social movements are "religion-like" too. — Gus Lamarch

These are ideologies, religion isn't ideology.

religion isn't ideology. — SpaceDweller

It could be interpreted as an ideology since the moment when it is based on "faithful" who follow a leader/prophet just for religious ideas or beliefs

There are two orders we can put all religions into:

1. Chronological order: Someone well-versed in theology should be able to help. The best I can do is as follows:

? $\to$ Judaism $\to$ Buddhism $\to$ Christianity $\to$ Islam $\to$ ?

2. Logical order: There's got to be a sense of progression, I'm using ethics as the yardstick. In that case, religions can be ordered thus:

? $\to$ Islam $\to$ Judaism $\to$ Christianity $\to$ Buddhism $\to$ ?

The sequences above are almost mirror images. We're, truth be told, regressing, morally speaking.

Chronological order: — Agent Smith

:up:

Logical order: — Agent Smith

I think there could not be a "logical order" in terms of categorise religions. All of them are just metaphors which were born by a prophet discussing them. They even tend to share the same principles or basic points such as: God, suffering, uncertainty, life afterwards, etc...
But just from a different interpretation

Well, I was looking at from an animal's point of view. Buddhism is decidely animal-friendly, while the Abrahamic Triad is distinctly not - Christianity, to my reckoning, is the best among the three insofar as animal welfare is concerned, but not in the best of the best kinda way, in the best of the worst sense.

You are right that Buddhism uses animals as symbolism in their metaphors. Even the elephant is a cult animal in India.
Inside Christianity it is often used the phrase lambs of God. The metaphor is related to the followers of the average priest representing the Christian values. Nevertheless, I see it as an insult because it seems to be a relation to follow some standards without questioning the circumstances

You are right that Buddhism uses animals as symbolism in their metaphors. Even the elephant is a cult animal in India.
Inside Christianity it is often used the phrase lambs of God. The metaphor is related to the followers of the average priest representing the Christian values. Nevertheless, I see it as an insult because it seems to be a relation to follow some standards without questioning the circumstances — javi2541997

Point made, point taken. One must take into account the general milieu into which religions are born. The Abrahamic religions, to my knowledge, weren't founded in the best of circumstances (those were violent times - genocide was just another day at the office if you know what I mean). It shows.

On the other hand, Buddhism was possibly part of the golden age of Indian civilization.

In other words, it would be unfair to compare Abrahamic religions to Buddhism.

In other words, it would be unfair to compare Abrahamic religions to Buddhism.

Exactly :up: :100:

:ok:

It could be interpreted as an ideology since the moment when it is based on "faithful" who follow a leader/prophet just for religious ideas or beliefs — javi2541997

controversial abuse of terms and language.
Many things could be "interpreted as" with the aim to decry.

.

My goodness. — whollyrolling

Maybe I should have included a definition to avoid confusion?

religion is the branch of knowledge that deals with the methodology of worship and the praise of God.
On the other hand ideology deals with the system of ideas at the basis of an economic or political theory.

https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-religion-and-vs-ideology

.

From the link:

Religion consists in the belief in a superhuman controlling power especially in a personal God or gods entitled to worship ( Defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary). In other words religion is the branch of knowledge that deals with the methodology of worship and the praise of God.

I believe in gods but don't think they have controlling power. They just created the universe and let it,go it's way, including all life in it. Like it's happening in heaven. They have the power of creation but uncreating or intervening in what they've made is something completely different, although quantum mechanics seems to offer possibilities.