Do we need a new global religion?

[Oeaohoo]

2 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm the most dedicated slave there is. The difference is that I'm just awake.

Awake to what?

[AtheisticNonduality]

2 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

Well, if you’re going to worship the self you might as well do it well. The present narcissistic and self-obsessed world presents a certain opportunity in that true selfishness can be a spiritual path. After all, God is the Self.

So the "black magical" path of the self emulating the Self into/until they become One?

Edited June 16, 2022 by AtheisticNonduality

[Oeaohoo]

15 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

So the "black magical" path of the self emulating the Self into they become One?

Yes, that’s a nice way to put it.

It gives “a flight of the alone to the Alone” a new meaning…

[AtheisticNonduality]

42 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

Yes, that’s a nice way to put it.

It gives “a flight of the alone to the Alone” a new meaning…

And so understanding the self as a transcendental agency (a la Kant) is more modern, rather than immersing yourself in a pantheistic Nature as planes of immanence (like interpretations of Spinoza), which is more romantic. So of course you would side with the more pre-self way of spirituality (ecocentric) instead of the "black magic" Left-Hand Path (egocentric). But the main point, the issue, that I'd have is that the ego is actually a higher development than ecology and that immersion in ecology is healthy but not final, and that it is not the highest spiritual ascent. The means of pre-self spirit is not able to jump up to post-self as effectively as self, because post-self is more consecutive with self and has its functioning understood better by an ego than by a pre-ego, though the failure to develop an ego in the first place (or a regression which would be basically identical) ostensibly resembles this realm of transcendence we call God more.

[Oeaohoo]

5 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

And so understanding the self as a transcendental agency (a la Kant) is more modern

The Self has been regarded as a transcendental entity for millennia so I assume that by self here you mean the ego. It’s not so much that the ego is a transcendental agency as that the ego can pursue its own self-interest up to the point at which it finally realises that what it really wants is annihilation in God.

9 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

rather than immersing yourself in a pantheistic Nature as planes of immanence (like interpretations of Spinoza), which is more romantic.

It is important to understand that this sort of naturalistic pantheism didn’t really exist except as an aberrant anomaly in the ancient world. It is a projection of the post-Renaissance anti-Christian cult of youthful exuberance, blissful nudity, extravagant sensuality, rococo elegance and so on onto the past. Nietzsche’s war against “pure spirit” in the name of “the instincts”, “life” and “nature”, for example.

Nature for the ancients was always a reflection of something more than Nature.

13 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

So of course you would side with the more pre-self way of spirituality (ecocentric) instead of the "black magic" Left-Hand Path (egocentric). But the main point, the issue, that I'd have is that the ego is actually a higher development than ecology and that immersion in ecology is healthy but not final, and that it is not the highest spiritual ascent.

I actually agree that the ego is superior to eco (that is to say, to mere Nature). The ego is human and Nature is sub-human; Nature is the realm of fate whereas the ego is the realm of will. Both are inferior to the metaphysical plane which is the realm of Providence or Divine Will. Ecology is certainly not final or the highest spiritual ascent.

18 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

The means of pre-self spirit is not able to jump up to post-self as effectively as self, because post-self is more consecutive with self and has its functioning understood better by an ego than by a pre-ego, though the failure to develop an ego in the first place (or a regression which would be basically identical) ostensibly resembles this realm of transcendence we call God more.

Of course it is easier to approach God from a state which approximates God but that doesn’t mean that you must be in such a state to do so. After all, God is not a state. Anyway, It is called the “left hand path” because it is harder and more dangerous.

Yes, there is a way in which failing to develop an ego is similar to transcending the ego. Interestingly, I made the same point about postmodernism the other day and you didn’t seem to like it: “God includes all distinctions and so all distinctions dissolve in God; postmodernism denies all distinctions and so there are no distinctions in postmodernism. They look the same but that is because the latter is a radical negation of the former”. Replace God and postmodernism here for “post-ego” and “pre-ego” in your evolutionary formulation and you have the same point.

[AtheisticNonduality]

3 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

It is important to understand that this sort of naturalistic pantheism didn’t really exist except as an aberrant anomaly in the ancient world. It is a projection of the post-Renaissance anti-Christian cult of youthful exuberance, blissful nudity, extravagant sensuality, rococo elegance and so on onto the past. Nietzsche’s war against “pure spirit” in the name of “the instincts”, “life” and “nature”, for example.

But Nietzsche said those who believed voluptuousness was spirit were led astray. His concepts of value-enforcement seem more identity-based, not based in dissolving one's identity into Nature.

5 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

Yes, there is a way in which failing to develop an ego is similar to transcending the ego. Interestingly, I made the same point about postmodernism the other day and you didn’t seem to like it: “God includes all distinctions and so all distinctions dissolve in God; postmodernism denies all distinctions and so there are no distinctions in postmodernism. They look the same but that is because the latter is a radical negation of the former”. Replace God and postmodernism here for “post-ego” and “pre-ego” in your evolutionary formulation and you have the same point.

I would say postmodernism is actually post-ego, although not as fully as God-states. Modernism is when individual identity becomes more valued than group mentality.

[Oeaohoo]

2 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

But Nietzsche said those who believed voluptuousness was spirit were led astray. His concepts of value-enforcement seem more identity-based, not based in dissolving one's identity into Nature.

Yes, Nietzsche was a more profound thinker. I only mentioned him as an example because certain aspects of his philosophy fit in with this trend and I know you are familiar with him. Better examples would be Neo-classicism, Romanticism (particularly Percy Shelley and the English Romantics), Rousseau’s Noble Savage and so on.

5 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

I would say postmodernism is actually post-ego, although not as fully as God-states. Modernism is when individual identity becomes more valued than group mentality.

I know you would! I would say that postmodernism is a fall even below the ego. People are extremely collectivistic today, living from one “trend” and social fad to the next… This all comes back to the basic theme of interpreting history as an upwards or downwards trajectory.

[AtheisticNonduality]

11 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

downwards trajectory.

Impossible.