Originally posted by WWKMD?+October 02, 2007 02:02 am--> (WWKMD? @ October 02, 2007 02:02 am)
Too much real-world involvement is nothing without introspection. If you never stop to think about anything, and just involve yourself in the world, you would be chewed up by the omnipresent entertainment/consumer society we live in. It preys on people who never stop and think.[/b]
What you say dosn't seem far off. But what comes to mind is what Marx says in my tag;
"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering." That is I think you are protesting a society you don't like through a secularized spiritual practise and/or through semi-religious contemplation of sorts. Something that is meant to console and distance oneself from what is deemed spoiled and rotten.
But the only thing that can brake this "entertainment/consumer society" which is capitalism pure and simple, is revolution. And one should have no illutions about that. But Marx said that "he struggle against religion is [...] indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion."
But I let Marx's qoutation continue, because it is so beautiful and relevant;
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."
[email protected] 02, 2007 02:02 am
In any event though, meditating on nothingness, i.e. "emptying the mind" is not spirituality it's a form of mental and physical relaxation, just like a waking sleep.
Christians think about angels and clouds and sulphur and devils when they think about what its like to be dead, I think about my real destination. Humans are by nature fixated on death, but for me, thinking about nothingness after life is calming personally. If I hadnt thought on nothingness, I may be more depressed by the thought of Atheism, but for me, meditating on it turns Atheism from a harsh reality to a liberating truth. It is fear of death which drives people to religion, and it is understanding of death which shatters its emotional credentials.
Yes, but it dosn't have to be that a of big deal. It just requires bit of an understanding of evolution. In short death has been a natural part of life which functions to make room for progeny, and thus heraditary changes in the species. If the members of a spiecies have lifespans that are indefinate it can't evolve to meet different environmental requirements and dies off.
But further more, the nothingness that occurs after death is about as mysterious and profound as the nothingness we experinenced before we were born.
The thing is that religions try to make death a big deal - a big problem - to which they so conveniently happen to be selling the perfect solution.