Alex Jacob wrote:I do not see an avenue where I will ever be relieved of 'mental chaos' (uncertainty, discomfort, a sense of deficiency) and I have begin to get 'comfortable' with that.
Yep, that pretty much accords with my perception of you. Whatever distaste you have of being buffeted about by mental chaos is far outweighed by your fear of clarity and consciousness of truth. It's a case of "better the devil you know".
The reason why you like poets and soaring artists, as opposed to the directness of philosophers, is that you can use them to rise above the chaos for a short time, safe in the knowledge that you can sink back into the chaos once more, where you are comfortable.
I saw it as an opportunity to illustrate the way in which feminine-mindedness has no potential for becoming conscious of truth. The masculine approach to wisdom is, after all, a key focus of this forum.Why doesn't it surprise me that you organize your critique through a location of supposed 'female' traits? When the QRS edifice is challenged it is the classic female characteristics that are trotted-out and condemned.
Also, it does not surprise me that you would focus on my admitted uncertainty, a lack of complete conclusiveness. And if I locate my 'problem' of uncertainty in a social context, and link it to a history, a movement within the world of ideas, and 'the Nietzschean paradox', that for you becomes the thrust for undermining my general thrust, since, we note, QRS-tianity is based on absolute certainties, an absolute ethical bedrock.
Your desire to locate the source of your uncertainty within historical and social movements is simply a way of making yourself even more comfortable with the chaos. Not only does it deflect attention away from the true source of your uncertainty - namely, your own fear of truth - but it absolves you from taking any responsibility for it.
Instead of reacting defensively and projecting onto me all sorts of labels, I would rather you look within your own mind and discern the way in which you fear becoming clear about anything.To work the angle---and it is a working of an angle, the standart QRS-tian angle---of labelling someone's approach to religion or spirituality as 'feminine' is just the standard and easy way to discredit my views. If you---and it is a herd effort, I mean that in the strict Kierkegaardian sense---can get your definition to stick, you have validated your own judgment, and smugly you continue within your 'defective certainties'.
How do I coerce people? All I do is appeal to people's sense of logic.When YOU talk about someone not being able to use one's own mind to know what it true, that means, really, that you seek to coerce others to accept your 'herd agreements', David. There is a boyish coerciveness that is not too original going on here, it is a standard feature and tactic of y'all.
I suppose, in a way, this is a form of coercion because I temporarily co-opt people's logical processes and use them to direct attention to their own fears and contradictory thought-processes. But that is no bad thing.
There are essentially two stages of spiritual struggle. The first is the struggle to understand what God is - a process that is part intellectual and part experiential. The second is the struggle to become wholly in tune with God on a permanent basis and live perfectly truthfully at all times.I would mention, in a Christian and Kierkegaardian sense that the mind that continues to engage with 'the paradox' is a mind still alive, still evolving. You guys though THINK you have it all worked out, and your whole endeavor is to get people to accept your shallow doctrines. Where in that is the real struggle of the individual, in a profound sense? How could you ever tie that to the Kierkegaardian recognition of sacrifice, commitment, the message and meaning of Christ's sacrifice in the Gospel narratives? How pathetic and cheap---and rather ugly at times---are your 'reasonings'!
The first stage is the shorter and easier of the two, while the second stage is the work of a lifetime. Kierkegaard's focus was primarily on the second stage. He fully understood the nature of God, and thus his main concern was how to become more involved with God in one's personal life. That was the "paradox" as he saw it – namely, that the more one becomes involved with God, the more wretched one's life becomes. One's clash with the world becomes increasingly stronger and the world's response becomes increasingly more unforgiving as a result.
To Kierkegaard’s mind, Jesus fully embodied this paradox. Here was a man who was supposedly the greatest spiritual being who ever lived, believed by many to be the son of God no less, being whipped and persecuted by his society and forced to die alone on a cross.
This is the real paradox of spirituality.
As Kierkegaard notes:
What you're talking about, on the other hand – namely, your own feeble attempts to grapple with your confused understandings - is a million miles away from this. You haven't completed the first stage of spiritual struggle, and by all appearances, you haven't even made a start. You're still in a pre-spiritual stage, which won't change until you start taking truth seriously and make a genuine attempt to leave your mental chaos behind.Man has the natural tendency to think that if he only makes an effort he will be victorious. Christianity says that downfall is being victorious. Know this - if you manage to reach merely a modest degree of perfection, your downfall is certain; and the more you succeed, the more certain your downfall. To turn over thoughts like these for only one hour is more exhausting than enormous efforts in the hope of being victorious.
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