You said my post had defects, but you don't tell me what they are! — Thorongil

I think it's this:

1) Is there any truth in religion?

2) Is any religion true?

The perennialist is someone who answers the first question in the affirmative and the second in the negative. — Thorongil

Huston Smith, whom I mentioned, was a living refutation of this assertion. He was born of Methodist missionary parents in China, and maintained a lifelong Christian faith, whilst also being educated in, and practicing, Sufism, Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism.

There are many other such scholars in today's world. But I think it unnerves the authoritarian personality, because of the difficulty of dealing with multivalence and the apparent contradictions between traditions. They want clear answers, hence their appeal to the One True Faith. I think that comes out in their politics also. Speaking of which, I think I am of the 'religious left'.

But I think it unnerves the authoritarian personality, because of the difficulty of dealing with multivalence and the apparent contradictions between traditions. They want clear answers, hence their appeal to the One True Faith. I think that comes out in their politics also. — Wayfarer

But can't the same be said about you? Can't it also be said that your own commitments with regards to this come out of your politics? I mean I've been asking you for why you think your position is true, and you haven't yet given one single reason. Instead you tell me about a genealogy of you and your family, how you live in a Christian household, etc. but that's not what I'm asking at all :s ...

I'm rather interested to know if you ever considered that truth may be a "one true faith" kind of truth, and if so, why did you rationally - and not emotionally or based on considerations of usefulness - reject that idea? — Agustino

I'll be completely honest: went to an Anglican school with services three days a week. I think I always felt an affinity with Jesus, and I still do. But when it came to confirmation, I baulked. Part of it was the amount of work: you had to learn the catechism, which seemed an awful lot of memorising, and go to a large number of services over 6 weeks. I was a lousy student, and I said to my dad, don't want to do this. And he was quite happy, because he was pretty anti-religious.

Over my teenage years -this is the sixties, remember - there was the whole Woodstock thing, the hippies, Vietnam protests - I participated - and so on. I got high with a little help from my friends. I wasn't the least bit interested in religion, but I sure was interested in enlightenment. I had glimpses of the clear light - I thought, hey there's something here that none of 'the straights' understand. This is why they're, like, f**** up the world with nuclear arms and so on.

But the kinds of figures I learned about, again, weren't 'religious'. Religion was for straights, I was interested in alternative spirituality. The books I got were like, Autobiography of a Yogi, Teachings of Ramana Maharishi, First and Last Freedom by Krishnamurti, then Alan Watts and D T Suzuki. (Not to forget The Politics of Ecstasy, by that rascal, Leary.) In there, somewhere, was the way to get to that state they were talking about. I took it seriously enough to do a degree in comparative religion, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and history, and then, decades later, a master in Buddhist Studies. I was studying a curriculum which I could only teach myself, because nobody around me understood what I wanted to learn.

Ultimately, I came back around to Christian teachings again, because I now was able to understand them from a different perspective. But I went to an Anglican service with my dear one around Easter, and there's no way I am going back to church. My spiritual path is simply not based around the Bible.

So - no, I emphatically do not agree that Christianity is the 'one true faith'. One question I would ask is, if it were, why is Christian history so bloody? They have spent centuries arguing over what 'the one true faith' is, and they're still at it. On the other hand, I nearly always defend Christianity against atheism, or rather evangatheism, because the latter are falling into the pit of nihilism, often without even knowing it. People nowadays are spiritually, and philosophically, illiterate (present company excepted, I hasten to add.)

But my belief about universalism or perenialism, is that it is the nearest we'll get to a scientific understanding of religions. It reveals the topography of the spiritual world. Within that framework, I can perfectly understand and even validate Christian teachings. But as Jesus himself said, 'I have other sheep that are not of this flock'. The world is a much bigger place nowadays.

In a philosophy forum I look to argument, not proclamation. — mcdoodle

Amen to that ;-)

Sorry for a Little bit off topic, but how would you view Simone Weil's view on justice quoted below?

"Justice. To be ever ready to admit that another person is something quite different from what we read when he is there (or when we think about him). Or rather, to read in him that he is certainly something different, perhaps something completely different from what we read in him.
Every being cries out silently to be read differently."

Over my teenage years -this is the sixties, remember - there was the whole Woodstock thing, the hippies, Vietnam protests - I participated - and so on. I got high with a little help from my friends. I wasn't the least bit interested in religion, but I sure was interested in enlightenment. I had glimpses of the clear light, I thought, hey there's something here that none of 'the straights' understand. This is why they're, like, f**** up the world with nuclear arms and so on. — Wayfarer

Would you say that you were more like a progressive or a liberal when you were young and have become more socially conservative over time as you aged then? Or did you lean towards social conservative from youth, apart from being "on the left" religiously?

One question I would ask is, if it were, why is Christian history so bloody? — Wayfarer

Why do you think Christian history being bloody would preclude Christianity being true? And I'm not even claiming Christianity is true here, for the sakes of this discussion, any other religion in a exclusivist sense could be the true religion. In other words I don't see the relationship between a religion having a bloody history and the religion being false, or not the only (or rather highest expression of) truth.

And regarding Simone Weil on Truth:

"It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms."

"Justice. To be ever ready to admit that another person is something quite different from what we read when he is there (or when we think about him). Or rather, to read in him that he is certainly something different, perhaps something completely different from what we read in him.
Every being cries out silently to be read differently." — Beebert

It's too vague to agree or disagree with. It could be interpreted in a variety of ways. Some of these interpretations I would agree with, others I would disagree.

"It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms." — Beebert

Yes, I encountered this one before. I agree, Christ is both.

And to this comes more of her quotes; free to read if you want. I love them:

"Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence."

"One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about his rights."

"To die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive convict who is a victim of injustice, that is a proof of faith in God"

"To claim that theft or adultery or lying are "evil" simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity."

"The supernatural greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it."

"Either God is not all-powerful, or God is not absolutely good, or God does not command wherever He has the power to do so. So the existence of evil here below, far from being a proof against the reality of God, is what reveals Him to us in truth."

"Creation is, on God’s part, not an act of self-expansion, but a retreat, a renunciation. God and all his creatures are less than God alone. God accepted this diminishment. God emptied Himself of part of His being. God emptied Himself in the act of His divinity. This is why St. John says, ‘The Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.’ God permitted things to exist other than Himself and worth infinitely less than Himself. By the act of creation, God denied himself, just as Christ told us to deny ourselves"

"Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith ; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong."

"What evil violates is not goodness, for goodness is inviolate; only a degraded good can be violated."

"To love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and that which we love"

"The true God is the God we conceive as all-powerful, but Who nevertheless does not command it where He has the power, for God is found only in the heavens or here below in secret."

"We should seek neither to escape suffering nor to suffer less, but to remain untainted by suffering"

You are trying to pretend that I agree with you that nothing follows from perennialism. I'm telling you that your query makes no sense at all.

(Y)

"Why do you think Christian history being bloody would preclude Christianity being true? And I'm not even claiming Christianity is true here, for the sakes of this discussion, any other religion in a exclusivist sense could be the true religion. In other words I don't see the relationship between a religion having a bloody history and the religion being false, or not the only (or rather highest expression of) truth."

How do you consider the following as an answer to what you said there? I guess you know the one behind the words ;) :

"A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure that his creatures understand his intention could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out the prospect of frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of the truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth? But perhaps he is a god of goodness notwithstanding and merely could not express himself more clearly! Did he perhaps lack the intelligence to do so? Or the eloquence? So much the worse! For then he was perhaps also in error as to that which he calls his 'truth', and is himself not so very far from being the 'poor deluded devil'! Must he not then endure almost the torments of Hell to have to see his creatures suffer so, and go on suffering even more through all eternity, for the sake of knowledge of him, and not be able to help and counsel them, except in the manner of a deafand-dumb man making all kinds of ambiguous signs when the most fearful danger is about to fall on his child or his dog? A believer who reaches this oppressive conclusion ought truly to be forgiven if he feels more pity for this suffering god than he does for his 'neighbours' for they are no longer his neighbours if that most solitary and most primeval being is also the most suffering being of all and the one most in need of comfort. All religions exhibit traces of the fact that they owe their origin to an early, immature intellectuality in man they all take astonishingly lightly the duty to tell the truth: they as yet know nothing of a duty of God to be truthful towards mankind and clear in the manner of his communications. On the 'hidden god', and on the reasons for keeping himself thus hidden and never emerging more than half-way into the light of speech, no one has been more eloquent than Pascal a sign that he was never able to calm his mind on this matter: but his voice rings as confidently as if he had at one time sat behind the curtain with this hidden god. He sensed a piece of immorality in the 'deus absconditus' and was very fearful and ashamed of admitting it to himself: and thus, like one who is afraid, he talked as loudly as he could."

You are trying to pretend that I agree with you that nothing follows from perennialism. I'm telling you that your query makes no sense at all. — charleton

Compare the following two quotes:

"Perenialism" and any other set of -isms are not the sort of thing from which a description or exposition of which "LEADS TO", or has things that follow from — charleton

Now, what follows from perennialism? I answer: nothing. — Thorongil

This is a philosophy forum. There are many Christian theology forums out there. — Wayfarer

But he doesn't merely proclaim it to be true. If he did, you have a point.

Huston Smith, whom I mentioned, was a living refutation of this assertion. He was born of Methodist missionary parents in China, and maintained a lifelong Christian faith, whilst also being educated in, and practicing, Sufism, Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism. — Wayfarer

This doesn't make him a perennialist. It makes him a Methodist who dabbles in other religious practices. In other words, as a Methodist, he believes in the distinctive truth claims of Christianity.

So long as we're name dropping, I think of someone like W.T. Stace as a paradigmatic example of a perennialist. He didn't formally belong to any religion but thought that all religions propose symbolic structures to describe a single ineffable reality.

I think Wayfarer has never really questioned his attitudes with regards to this. Apart from my last post which he has not addressed, it seems that he has just taken some of his personal impressions to be the truth and that's that, never really thought if it could be otherwise.

I haven't even accused him of being a perennialist and haven't said that perennialism is false, so I don't understand why he feels he's being personally attacked. I also asked him several questions that he hasn't responded to at all.

Try and THINK about it.
You've not ever asked the question you think you have.

Try and THINK about it.
You've not ever asked the question you think you have. — charleton

Maybe I'm small-brained, dear charleton, so could you please enlighten me?

That's just the problem - I already have.

Where? In your mind?

This doesn't make him a perennialist. It makes him a Methodist who dabbles in other religious practices. In other words, as a Methodist, he believes in the distinctive truth claims of Christianity. — Thorongil

So if Huston Smith, who wrote a best-selling book called The Religions of Man, which is still taught throughout the University system, is not 'a perennialist', then who is? Perhaps there are no 'perennialists', and the entire thread is devoted to attacking a straw man.

Apart from my last post which he has not addressed, it seems that he has just taken some of his personal impressions to be the truth and that's that, never really thought if it could be otherwise. — Agustino

How very condescending. As I explained, I have studied comparative religion, anthropology, philosophy, and history at the University of Sydney.

As for the question which you said I hadn't responded to:

Would you say that you were more like a progressive or a liberal when you were young and have become more socially conservative over time as you aged then? Or did you lean towards social conservative from youth, apart from being "on the left" religiously? — Agustino

My political views tend towards what in the US would be democrat with respect to health, education, taxation and financial services regulation, but I am socially conservative. Small-l liberal, would probably be close to the mark.

I also asked him several questions that he hasn't responded to at all. — Thorongil

I had thought that the OP was a criticism of the idea that there are universal truths that different religions embody in different ways. If it's not, perhaps you could illustrate your point with respect to who you think represents this purportedly 'meaningless perennialism'.

How very condescending. — Wayfarer

Well, sorry, I didn't mean to be condescending, I just honestly said what you answer sounded like to me...

My political views tend towards what in the US would be democrat with respect to health, education, taxation and financial services regulation, but I am socially conservative. Small-l liberal, would probably be close to the mark. — Wayfarer

Yes but notice that again this isn't what I asked. I asked you if your views - these views that you're telling me about now including the social conservatism - were different when you were young than they are now when you are presumably older? In other words, did you change your views over time, or were you always pretty much holding these views?

My views change constantly.

The salient point of my earlier response was that, earlier in life, I was not much interested in what I understood as 'religion', but in 'enlightenment'. I believed there is such a state, and that it was real, important, and mostly neglected, ignored or misunderstood. That view hasn't changed.

Subsequently I discovered in the course of my studies that the term 'enlightenment' originated as the translation for the Buddhist word 'bodhi', chosen by Thomas Rhys-Davids, founder of the Pali Text Society. He partially chose the term because it had connotations of 'the Enlightenment', and because he saw in Pali Buddhism, a 'scientific religion'which was more suited to the scientific age.

As to Christian beliefs and enlightenment - I have come to the view that for the Christian, enlightenment is 'living in the light of Christ'. In that sense, Christ embodies enlightenment. Of course, the Christian lexicon and doxology (belief system) is very different to the Buddhist one, but I don't believe that they're fundamentally at odds or antagonistic to one another.

My position is that perennialism, irrespective of whether it's true or not, is a fruitless position to hold. That is to say, it has no implications with respect to the life, and its quality, one leads. Before I explain further, let me try and say what I mean by perennialism. Consider the following two questions:

1) Is there any truth in religion?

2) Is any religion true?

The perennialist is someone who answers the first question in the affirmative and the second in the negative. Religions glimpse a single truth exclusive to none of them. They each merely point to this truth with words like God, Brahman, Nirvana, Tao, etc. — Thorongil

Here's a statement: "Chicago is the capital of Illinois".

One person could say that the statement is true and must be accepted by everybody as true.

Another person could say that the statement is false and must be accepted by everybody as false.

Another person could say "I did not know that there is such a thing as Illinois. You learn something new every day!"

Another person could say "This inspires me to visit Chicago! Secretary, book a flight for me!"

Another person could say "Capital?! I use "capitol". Where can I associate with like-minded people?"

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

The number of possible responses could rival the number that represents the human population.

Different people have different goals, needs, desires, etc.

I would argue that if anything is fruitless it is trying to prove that only one response is appropriate for all people. That's not an appeal to pluralism. It is recognizing that personalities and character vary greatly and that there is nothing that every single individual is going to fit into.

Alas, that diversity of personalities and character means that there are, and probably always will be, some people--atheists, theists, "spiritual but not religious"sts--who try to make everybody fit into something.

So if Huston Smith, who wrote a best-selling book called The Religions of Man, which is still taught throughout the University system, is not 'a perennialist', then who is? — Wayfarer

I literally just gave you an example.

Perhaps there are no 'perennialists', and the entire thread is devoted to attacking a straw man. — Wayfarer

Sigh....

I had thought that the OP was a criticism of the idea that there are universal truths that different religions embody in different ways. If it's not, perhaps you could illustrate your point with respect to who you think represents this purportedly 'meaningless perennialism'. — Wayfarer

It wasn't an attack on perennialism per se. It was making a point about its implications (or lack thereof), which does pose a problem for a certain kind of person (read the last paragraph again). You may not be that person. In any event, you have consistently ignored most of what I have said and asked you, so you're really not in any position to make sarcastic quips.

I literally just gave you an example. — Thorongil

Apologies, so you did. W T Stace.

In any event, you have consistently ignored most of what I have said and asked you, so you're really not in any position to make sarcastic quips. — Thorongil

Alright, apologies again. I got drawn to this thread because @Agustino pasted my name into it about four posts down. So, when I read it, I took it as a criticism of the approach I generally take on the Forum, which is why I thought that Agustino had mentioned it - which is often based around the 'perennial philosophy' - which I see generally as a noble pursuit.

I did encounter W T Stace during my studies, but where the question of the universalism of mystical experience came up, was in respect to an academic called Steven Katz. He argued that there is no such thing as a universal spiritual experience, that all such experiences, insofar as they are 'experiences', are culturally mediated and the product of a particular kind of cultural milieu.

Opposed to him was another scholar by the name of Robert Forman. This became known as the 'Katz-Forman Debates'. Forman was a universalist, Katz a constructivist. I side with Forman, on the basis of the kinds of ideas found in James' Varieties of Religious Experience, and Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy. Also I should mention D T Suzuki, whose influence in American public life was quite considerable in the 50's and 60's; it's a little-known fact that his wife was a prominent Theosophist, and I will certainly own up that theosophy has left a mark on me.

I wrote my Hons thesis on the American Transcendentalists and R M Bucke, basically along the lines of 'redefining religion', which is what I think they were doing.

But anyway, if you're criticizing a kind of non-committed syncretism, with bits taken from here and there, and no real commitment, then I agree with that and sorry for being so prickly.

The point with your criticism of me with regards to pluralism is that you deny the triumph of truth. You don't seem to understand that there is a relationship between truth and authority - in that truth is authoritative. If truth is no longer authoritative, then we end up in a post-truth world, and I think we have actually been in a post-truth world for a very long time - largely because of people like you, I would add. When you irrationally undermine authority and 'triumphalism' then you also undermine truth, for how can truth exist if it is not authoritative? Is it not its authority that guarantees its truth so to speak? Its unavoidableness? It is the authority (its unavoidableness) of the law of gravity that guarantees its truth. — Agustino

I have to say I'm with on this. Truth may or may not triumph, because it is only truly potent insofar as it is found in, and founded upon, personal experience and/or or freely believed on the basis of conscience and intuition. Truth has nothing whatsoever to do with authority.

Take, for example, Christ's teaching of non-resistance to evil by violence, or resistance to evil by non-violence, if you prefer. That teaching, which is absolutely central to the gospels, has never been institutionalized, practiced or even recommended for practice by any ecclesiastical or political authority.

The "law of gravity" example seems glaringly inapt because gravity is beyond dispute; whereas no doctrine is indisputable. The attempt to objectify doctrine is the first step towards religious bigotry and fundamentalism. When it comes to religion, truths are not determinate like empirical matters of fact; religion and spirituality are, and should remain, deeply personal, uncoerced, matters. There is no religious or spiritual truth apart from that.

So, when I read it, I took it as a criticism of the approach I generally take on the Forum — Wayfarer

Tensions are a bit high around here in general, it seems. ;) Sadly it ends up being contagious.

But anyway, if you're criticizing a kind of non-committed syncretism, with bits taken from here and there, and no real commitment, then I agree with that — Wayfarer

But it's the "non-commitment" part that is worthy of criticism, not the "syncretism" part, no? The question then is as to what one should be committed to. I would say that one should be committed to attempting to follow, to live in accordance with, what one understands and believes to be the most authentic, honest, compassionate, loving impulses that one can find in oneself, and the ideas that best support those. And that does not necessarily mean abandoning an eclectic tendency when it comes to religious/ spiritual ideas or a commitment to any particular religion or to any sect of of any religion.

The question then is as to what one should be committed to. I would say that one should be committed to attempting to follow, to live in accordance with, what one understands and believes to be the most authentic, honest, compassionate, loving impulses that one can find in oneself, and the ideas that best support those. And that does not necessarily mean abandoning an eclectic tendency when it comes to religious/ spiritual ideas or a commitment to any particular religion or to any sect of any religion. — Janus

Well, can't disagree with that. But as I think you know, when you're committed to the work of self-realisation, ego has a way of appropriating the cure so as to make it part of the malady. And that is certainly something perennial; you see it in Buddhism or any kind of spiritual path. Any of them are subject to corruption. But there is something that is not subject to corruption.

From a blog post:

From the Dhammapada verse on 'Old Age':


147. Behold this body — a painted image, a mass of heaped up sores, infirm, full of hankering — of which nothing is lasting or stable!
148. Fully worn out is this body, a nest of disease, and fragile. This foul mass breaks up, for death is the end of life.
149. These dove-colored bones are like gourds that lie scattered about in autumn. Having seen them, how can one seek delight?
150. This city (body) is built of bones, plastered with flesh and blood; within are decay and death, pride and jealousy.
151. Even gorgeous royal chariots wear out, and indeed this body too wears out. But the Dhamma of the Good does not age; thus the Good make it known to the good.


From the 'Sermon on the Mount':


"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."


The spiritual life is the search for what is beyond birth, death and decay; that is 'what your heart should treasure'. It's no use asking whether anything of that nature exists, from a hypothetical or lounge-chair perspective; you have to engage yourself in the quest for it; that is what it takes to ask the question.

It is a question you ask with your life. — Wayfarer