Epistemology

"Epistemology." Now this is a word used in some strata of academia and which is another one of these things that no one bothers to ever check. And so of course, naturally, everybody is sure they know what the word means.

Okay...

So if you want to raise the dead though, or walk on water, or heal the terminally sick - then this is the word you need to understand in depth.

"Life's Rich Tapestry" a modern work inspired by Mondrian

Can you - right now - do any of these things? Can you?

How 'bout you, doc? You - Mr Science-Man; can you manage at least some of that list? ...Maybe turn water into wine, at least? Seems simple enough.

Okay so just how do we get though, from 'espisteme' (genuine knowledge) to the word 'faith' in modern religions? Because the word used in all the books is 'pistis.' Which doesn't mean 'faith.' It means sound, factual knowledge.

Oh dear. Jesus did stuff because he had 'sound, underlying factual knowledge...(?)' Actually, he even laughs at some of the disciples who were not able to heal one particular young boy when they tried to mimic what he was doing, and he told them 'ah, but you don't have the underlying basis (about the particular thing being looked at) to have that happen.'

Hmn. 

You see we don't any longer possess such highly discriminated types of words or explicit meanings, and it is only with some difficulty that we may look at what it was more learned people of deeper times were on about:

Epistemology comes about from a branch of rhetoric, concerned with being able to have and to communicate the necessary elements to induce true judgement about something, and hence also to give proof of a statement.

So what is rendered nowadays as the word 'faith' (pistis) is really something quite categorically different, and with more a much more complicated and long-winded 'meaning.' And there is another word that bears some scrutiny in relation to this whole thing too: proseuxomai. In doesn't really mean 'prayer' like we use that word now - it means prosecute, but not prosecute in the way we use that word either (lol), which is that people go to court and make a lot of accusations and so on...

A modern art photo called 'Neon Life'

No. Proseuxomai means persuading by having (possessing) the underlying factual basis in the correct logically connected steps so that there is only one conclusion to any given matter.

Modern human beings then, you have to admit, from your present basis of knowledge now, are pretty stupid, are they not. You can't say they are just ignorant - they all have incredible access to information and historical references; and they should know better.

I think, I suppose, if we continue to look at the religious context and the vast highway of religious tradition - that the most obvious question arises as to whether or not people at the time actually felt that Jesus was literally or actually doing any of these 'wonderous' (Italian/Latin - 'mirare'/'miror') things. Because if he was and people there thought it to be so from what they saw, then he was some kind of 'futuristic, super-scientist' really, who 'understood the correct underlying basis' of things and was able thereby to manipulate elements of those 'things' in order to secure particular outcomes.

Now this then is a bit different to 'The Secret' and this present-era concept about 'manifesting through the law of attraction. There might not be any such thing as a 'law of attraction.' 

The presumption, of the traditional religious texts is that there is a solution to every given problem and somewhere, some day, somebody will discover it. Assuming Jesus is God, then He must know each one of those solutions. I suppose the only unresolved matter is how come He doesn't just give everyone the solutions so that everyone can solve every serious problem that right know we don't know how to.

Mysteries and Treasures

I sometimes watch with some mirth, videos about the Sphinx of Egypt and that kind of thing, and listen to all the speculation about what else is or was there.

For me it's all rather amusing because the one thing it reveals is just how little of any of the actual ancient texts from which people regularly quote, is ever really read by any of them.

In those texts there are crystal clear and detailed descriptions of what was there, and why. How come people don't talk about that?! Sure the texts are quite austere and complex in the Greek but that shouldn't prevent really intelligent people from reading them fully.

Maybe, okay maybe, just maybe, there has been some consistent plan down through the ages to hide what is there, from most people. And rather successful it has been too!

But what's the point, really, of knowing what was there, or still is there, and what is meant to be there, unless it performs some sort of contemporary function today? If it's just a burial mound or a memorial to a ruler, or some completely mysterious building whose point and purpose no one knows any longer because it pertains only to functions of past societies - then it is just a relic; very large but nonetheless just a relic and a ruin. Pointless to our lives as they are today.

A depiction of the Goddess 'Night' from a scroll which had an
ancient poem written on it

That is not, of course, the case.

Yet exactly what the thing is - the whole complex of structures - I can guarantee you that very few people really know. Some people have suspicions, and they draw on them to make allusions in public but they definitely do not know.

And that is the way it should be - great treasures lie always undisturbed behind thick mists.

Stephen Fry On God

The entertainment identity and occasional journalist, Cambridge man Stephen Fry, poses the straightforward question which is at the heart of all human inquiry into Cosmic moral existentialism - the question often termed 'the problem of Evil': 'How can a good God permit bone cancer in children, or the existence of tiny parasites whose entire life cycle involves burrowing into human eyes and eating them out from the inside making the victims blind.' And Fry adds, 'how dare he!' (In other words, how dare God claim to be Good when he creates or allows such pointless evil).

And so, we have at least established as an existential fact, to the satisfaction - albeit depressed - of most normal human beings, the reality of Evil.

Man in the rain of Stephen Fry's question!

Reality however, is the most elaborate of things. We, as humans care to know mostly, what our senses relay to us, and what intellectualizing we make from those sensations and feelings, and moreover we are positioned inside a fairly small perimeter of our 'now' or momentary consciousness bouncing off a very relatively small stockpile of memories from one personal lifetime, and the limited visions about the future, from our creative, imaginative mind.

Even so, Fry's argument is quite a fair one. There is no moral equivalency between some putative Being that has consciousness BEYOND the simple 'now' combined with limited memory and even more limited imaginings -, and the constrained consciousness of the human being.

And so I go back to what I also just said: namely, that reality is most elaborate. And even among those who recognize this fact, it is their own elaboration (means, 'presentation or explanation of their view') of why there is the presence of a grand Cosmic Evil in the material Universe of sentience (many sentient beings) while at the same time declaring the existence of a Good and Supreme Divinity, that trips itself up often, and becomes confused and unable to convince objective and discriminating people. 

Fry should know better, though, since he is a Cambridge graduate. He should know that Christianity, for instance, within its ACTUAL source texts in Greek, does not teach a 'Creator God;' it does NOT teach that God created EVERYTHING. The words 'In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth' are not even very close to what the actual Hebrew and Greek texts say.

'Ba Ra Sheth, Aleph-Tov.' And this means 'God contains (is 'around'/'surrounds') everything.' And there are very elaborate, more detailed and complete explanations of what this means to say and also imply, but we don't need to go into that here.

On a quest? Or after having found?

You see, I'd like to say just this to you: it may be, for instance, that there are aliens - Extraterrestrials - who have space ships parked on the Moon - like the chief engineers and scientists from the old Douglas Aeronautics (Division of Douglas Aircraft Company) are rumored to have claimed. And it may be that there are such things as a kind of Reptilian (Alien) species which advised Adolf Hitler and gave him some technology. These things are all 'possible,' within the concept of God being 'around' all other things. And it doesn't make either the Reptilians the source of all Cosmic Evil, nor does it make God somehow complicit in a violent struggle in the Cosmos between material 'armies' of advanced Alien species, some of whom are 'Good' and some of whom are 'Evil.' This is good stuff for Star Wars movies but it isn't reality.

Well, it isn't reality in the sense that it does not represent the 'Grand Scale' of Morality and Ethics in the Cosmic Universe of all things material and non-material. 

If you take a Sine Curve profile of let's say, all moral levels of things, all points along the curve, let's call it - then you are confronted with an idea that says 'everything is there; it's there in potential but sometimes it is also there as a material fact.' Pain is there, suffering is there, insanity is there, pointlessness is there too. Reality is multi-faceted and multi-dimensional; things exist, they cease to exist, and some come back into existence, others have great longevity, others yet, like certain ideas from Physics seem to be eternal. But 'everything could be there' is not the same thing as saying 'everything that could be, is there.' Yet again, even so, Fry's argument still stands in this way - why not 'all good' and 'wonderful;' why any evil at all? But I don't think human moral self-awareness is sufficient to quickly grasp any complete answer. 

You see - Sentience is one thing, but sentience with power is quite another thing. Human beings are forever on this path of hope - vainly, mostly, seeking some glimmer of hope that somewhere, out there, or deep underground even, there is power greater than what we have commonly speaking, and then then if we but might grasp that power, then we could apply the best of moral standards and use the highest ethics.

We want power.

Very few of these around - not lost,
but very 'distant,' and fairly isolated

Mankind is after power above all other things.

Now here is a word that I throw to you, and which is never used in religious discussions: 'Thuroros.' Now it's better for you that you find out for yourself, and to your own personal satisfaction what this word means.

But if you are able to locate a 'Thuroros' and are able to communicate with it, you will learn what skills are necessary to be able to master the power of the Cosmic Forces - and then you will be able to do anything. And yes Mr Fry, this means even you - but then, what will you do? And will you yourself not be motivated by the demands issued from your own ego? a la - worship me, for I go about the world curing all children of bone cancer, and saving the sight of African babies and old people. Or will you just go about doing it and telling no one.

We are certainly NOT alone, this I must tell you though, leaving the tongue out of the cheek for a brief moment. We are most certainly NOT alone.