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6/11/2025, 9:34:23 PM
>>24459054
>God is more easily understood and emulated by us, in the form of the perfect man, Jesus Christ, than an indescribable all pervading energy that is everywhere, and is everything
I don't necessarily agree. The human intellect is so constituted as to grasp toward concrete representations, but in doing so, it stultifies its own emergence as a dynamic living being. And as a protestant, you might not see it this way, but I think both practices are only really understood through being part of a traditional lineage. 90% of Western Taoists are really just people with a washed-down ideology of "just like stop caring man", just like 90% of Western Christians are part of modernist lgbt churchianity. It isn't any better in the East; it just takes its own forms of cultural impurity.
>it is not as refined as the Philosophy of Christ
Again, I don't quite agree. Do you have any examples of Christian concepts that don't find their analogue in other traditions and in Taoism?
For me, the defining feature of the Christian worldview that separates it from other mystical philosophies is the concept of Original Sin as described in Genesis. Differing views on the original nature of man and its authentic mode are the most substantial difference in practical mysticism between Taoism, Sufism, and various Buddhist and Christian approaches. If this resonates with you at all, I highly recommend reading William James' Varieties. (A mostly Christian book, ironically enough.)
>the questions of how you should live your life, and what way you should worship, I think those are answered more clearly by, a clear headed reading of the Gospels
Maybe so, but essential to the Taoist's view of the authentic man is that he does not need to be *told* or shown how to live and worship in any exclusive outward form, but rather through degrees of patient affirmation and practice induced into the inexhaustible phenomenological disposition at the mysterious living core of Tao.
>If you've read this and you still do not understand
I've read Thomas, and I found in it nothing that isn't in Eastern systems (really I should use another word than system). And how many of these apocryphal sayings were uttered by Jesus the man anyway? When I read a piece of wisdom from a historical or living master, I am not cast into doubt as to the veracity of the statement, since it does not make the initial claim to be the Word of God.
At any rate, one thing I appreciate in the Eastern traditions is the concrete and practical wisdom that, at the same time, does not overreach into grand theological narrative.
>Mencius went to see King Hui of Liang. The King was standing over a pond. ‘Are such things enjoyed even by a good and wise man?’ said he, looking round at his wild geese and deer.
>‘Only if a man is good and wise,’ answered Mencius, ‘is he able to enjoy them. Otherwise he would not, even if he had them.
>God is more easily understood and emulated by us, in the form of the perfect man, Jesus Christ, than an indescribable all pervading energy that is everywhere, and is everything
I don't necessarily agree. The human intellect is so constituted as to grasp toward concrete representations, but in doing so, it stultifies its own emergence as a dynamic living being. And as a protestant, you might not see it this way, but I think both practices are only really understood through being part of a traditional lineage. 90% of Western Taoists are really just people with a washed-down ideology of "just like stop caring man", just like 90% of Western Christians are part of modernist lgbt churchianity. It isn't any better in the East; it just takes its own forms of cultural impurity.
>it is not as refined as the Philosophy of Christ
Again, I don't quite agree. Do you have any examples of Christian concepts that don't find their analogue in other traditions and in Taoism?
For me, the defining feature of the Christian worldview that separates it from other mystical philosophies is the concept of Original Sin as described in Genesis. Differing views on the original nature of man and its authentic mode are the most substantial difference in practical mysticism between Taoism, Sufism, and various Buddhist and Christian approaches. If this resonates with you at all, I highly recommend reading William James' Varieties. (A mostly Christian book, ironically enough.)
>the questions of how you should live your life, and what way you should worship, I think those are answered more clearly by, a clear headed reading of the Gospels
Maybe so, but essential to the Taoist's view of the authentic man is that he does not need to be *told* or shown how to live and worship in any exclusive outward form, but rather through degrees of patient affirmation and practice induced into the inexhaustible phenomenological disposition at the mysterious living core of Tao.
>If you've read this and you still do not understand
I've read Thomas, and I found in it nothing that isn't in Eastern systems (really I should use another word than system). And how many of these apocryphal sayings were uttered by Jesus the man anyway? When I read a piece of wisdom from a historical or living master, I am not cast into doubt as to the veracity of the statement, since it does not make the initial claim to be the Word of God.
At any rate, one thing I appreciate in the Eastern traditions is the concrete and practical wisdom that, at the same time, does not overreach into grand theological narrative.
>Mencius went to see King Hui of Liang. The King was standing over a pond. ‘Are such things enjoyed even by a good and wise man?’ said he, looking round at his wild geese and deer.
>‘Only if a man is good and wise,’ answered Mencius, ‘is he able to enjoy them. Otherwise he would not, even if he had them.
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