teilhard

Brother Blu -- We People of Faith detect "Self-Pity" among The Materialist-Skeptic-Atheist Crowd who voice disapppointment at their LACK of Experience of The Reality of The Mystery we call "God" ...

But detecting things that aren't there at all is what you do for a living, isn't it?

Jan 17, 2010 -- 9:05PM, 2bme wrote:

"The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil."  Simone Weil

  

When I first read this it didn't make sense to me.  How could someone who valued the intellect so much and the necessity of doubt say such a thing?

  

Then it began to make sense when I remembered  "apatheia" and what it meant to both Stoicism and Christianity.

  

Apatheia is freedom from emotion.  The intellect to serve its purpose must be free of emotional bias and the negativity associated with it.  Otherwise associative reason is used as a tool to serve a bias.

 

Now it became clear.  Simone was not referring to doubt but rather to emotionally colored doubt: negative pre-conception that indeed is a psychological poison.

 

This is what I read in atheism and what I've experienced on the Internet.  The positive atheist exudes negative emotion that ruins the inner psychological benefit of doubt.

 

I was pondering this today and then it became clear how important apatheia is for anyone seriously interested in the great questions of human meaning and purpose that the essence of philosophy and religion seek to address.

 

Where Stoicism was primarily concerned with suppressing emotion, Christianity was concerned with allowing the heart to experience higher emotions that are normal for a higher level of being but are normally blocked. We can experience them and their help for awakening..

But these negative emotions are too satisfying just to surrender for the sake of reality.  So everything continues as is.

This Thread is worthy of a GOOD >>> bump <<< ...