The vast overhang itself from history and human sectarian "belief" , of this present state of "clash of civilizations" in the confrontation of religions & peoples in the ME ....
After 911 , you certainly have the prompt reemergence of the rising spirit & specter of the Crusades all over again and knee jerk reeaction of the call to arms of the faithful in the Armegeddonist camps by sectarian "leaders" on both sides, on all sides and many at war with each other on the same side . And all claiming to be directed by the "truth" of their scriptures . For you to say get back to the essential "Christ" is to say no more than what that perennial philosophy that was taught by Epictetus or others centuries before Jesus back before .
There have been preachers all over the fundamenatlist world recently and always at hand offering their flocks diatribes of scriptural revelations that decree this or that outcome of the defeat and destruction of the other . Yet you would mention a return of devotion regards the sanctity & preservation of the mind & soul and that really always fell into the realm of philosophy. Religion was always at its best when it finds the spirit of this in its churches , temples or mosques . Those contemplations that would be called "divine" but really emanate out from your own psyche if a man has chosen to delve deep enough into himself and into the truer fundamental realities of life and that which he sees around himself . Heaven is promised to the believer of coursec , and all over again you find the same messianic martyrdom playing out in those same sand filled regions .
It was nearly 500Bc that Socrates first exclaims :
" I am not a citizen of Athens , I am a citizen of the world "
As a philosopher Jesus was saying exactly the same thing hopefully , but being poor and from the country had to use a limited religious lexicon and framework of the tribal mode his psyche was constructed around . The allusions, analogies & parables offered in the scriptures were found no less offered time and again thru others lips as well . The promise of eternal life of this young utopian rabbi , is another way of expressing an deep emotional hope & need of all men to escape the banal crudity of day to day existence often this world represents . There is not one early founding father of Christianity that holds more importance to me than I would consider the role of an Epictetus Zeno or Socrates . No more a Moslem saint or prophet either , for all that is an illusion religions & their priests & preachers create.
nice quotes from Einstein here
"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
rescomp.stanford.edu |
