I thought best to post this thread here so as to invite discussion and not be limited to debate.
I've learned that trying to understand the meaning and purpose of the essence of religion requires more than the intellect but requires the whole of ourselves as well as a degree of conscious attention. As we are, we are as the old story of the four blind men having touched different parts of a camel, trying to argue over what it looks like. This is what is normally called debate. It tries to understand a higher whole through examining its parts by the associative mind. It cannot be done.
So for those that need more than mental stimulation but the ability to nourish the heart that is a natural calling for man, what do we do? We know there is a lot of self deceptin out there but is there truth at the bottom of it. Is Rumi right when he says:
Perhaps the reason that there is so much BS is because there is actually something genuine and of great value for humanity we've become blind to.Fool’s gold exists because there is real gold. –Rumi.
Jacob Needleman is one of these rare men that are able to unite religion and science. He shows that science tries to understand the external world but for us to come to understand human meaning and purpose that the great teachings like Christianity seek to serve, requires our knowledge of the inner man: ourselves. This knowledge he calls here inner empiricism. I invite anyone with the need for the "heart" of philosophy in contrast to the joy of argument to read the following article so that we can discuss it in a more satisfying manner than debate?
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Needleman_93.html
For example: does this make sense to you?
As it happens, I believe there is a growing number of younger philosophers who are interested in getting to the heart of the matter--about what we mean by "reality" and the central role of experience. What draws them, and what originally drew me, to the whole area of philosophy is a quest for meaning. I discovered that the mind by itself cannot complete the philosophic quest. As Kant decisively argued, the mind can ask questions the mind alone cannot answer. For me, this is where the juice of real philosophical investigation begins to flow. I believe it is precisely where intellect hits its limits that the important questions of philosophy start to come alive.
Mainstream academic philosophy has for a long time tried to answer these fundamental questions with that part of the mind we call intellect. Frequently the difficulties encountered were so great, the logical tangles so confusing, that many philosophers decided such questions were meaningless, and some even began to ridicule anyone who dared ask "What is reality?" "What is the meaning of life?" "Is there life after death?" "What is the soul?" "Does God exist?" Yet these are the questions of the heart. These are the questions that matter most to people--not whether the syntax and deep structures of our language can ever truly represent real knowledge. The meaningful questions, these " questions of the heart", rise up in human beings because of something intrinsic to our nature, an innate striving which Plato called Eros.
One aspect of this is the striving to participate in a reality greater than ourselves. It is a yearning, a hunger, a force we may recognize as love. This drive is as much, if not more, a part of our nature as the sexual, physical and animal desires which psychoanalysis and mainstream psychiatry have identified as parts of our essential nature. Our drive for understanding, for participation in a higher reality, shapes our psyche as much as anything else.
But what can the mind do with this deep participatory urge? Even at its most brilliant, the intellect alone can only ask questions that skim the surface of Eros; it cannot answer these questions. Yet such questions--the meaning of life, the nature of the soul--need to be answered. If intellect is not up to the job, how can we penetrate these mysteries? The solution, I'm proposing, is that we can only extend the reach of intellect through experience. There is a certain type of experience that opens up the mind, expands our consciousness, and allows us to approach answers to many of these fundamental questions.
