I disagree that the Tao is no diety. I think that by the term you only mean a transendental diety; but that isn’t the sole meaning of the term - a diety may be immanent as well.
Moreover, whether of not the Tao is a “diety”, there is no question that Taoists embrace mysticism. A “philosophic” claim that some elements of culture have an “active” existence greater than the sum of its parts strikes me, coyness about what exactly you are claiming aside, as basically mystical and in a manner similar to Taoism, only as it were writ small - and I apologize is so saying is “discourteous”.
If I used a “sarcastic smiley”, it was over the use of a neologism as if it was a generally understood term, in order to seek an explaination for it.
Certainly the wiki article I linked to doesn’t make this distinction. And no, I wouldn’t class the Tao as immanent deity. Immanence, yes, sure, but not deity. And please learn to spell the word.
Sure, but I’ve no problem with mysticism. Had mystic experiences myself. I just believe you’re mischaracterising my idea of emergent extelligence by labelling it as mystic. I’m not suggesting the EE is something to be communed with or directly experienced.
I’m not being coy, I’ve been quite specific in what I’m claiming.
Labelling my beliefs as “not atheist” is where the discourtesy comes in. I’ve made no mention of theistic entities and kept all my descriptives grounded in physical process. How you can read “mysticism” into that is incomprehensible to me.
The :dubious: is inherently sarcastic, no need for scare quotes. And you could have gotten a succinct explanation by asking, without the :dubious: . Or just googled.
Well I for one was rather shocked to find out that the Hebrews fought in wars several thousand years ago in the otherwise peace and harmony loving ME.
There we have the Assyrians and the Egyptians toking up at free music festivals and wearing flowers in their hair when along come the Jews.
Theres always one got to spoil things for all of the others.
Amusing snark, considering that most people regard using a Wiki definition as if it was an argument to be a far, far stupider thing than mis-spelling “deity”.
So, how does it affect people?
I think you are being coy - all that guff about making a philosophic claim, ra-ra.
If you make claims about invisible entities that nonetheless have an existence greater than the sum of their parts, be prepared for some “discourtesy”. The fault lies not in others.
If you use odd neologisms as if they were words, it would be kinder to your blood pressure to define 'em in advance rather than blowing a gasket over a smiliey used in the Pit. :rolleyes:
In a GD thread today, I found this letter by Einstein , and if I read it correctly, it shows he thought that “chosen” meant privileged or better, as opposed to “having special obligations”.
So, while he rejects that the Jewish people are chosen, it seems pretty clear that the interpretation of “chosen” that he uses is “better” or “privileged”
Keep in mind, too, that Einstein was a German Jew who had his books burned by the Nazis and who, presumably, had much of his outlook influenced by that period in his life. That he would respond to the word “chosen” as it was often used to demonize Jews at that time is, frankly, unsurprising. In context, that he would be addressing some of the popular memes of his age isn’t that noteworthy. In addition, he may very well have been talking about, for instance, how he didn’t believe that a personal God had “chosen” the Jews to bear the burden of The Law.
In any case, it’s not really all that relevant, although Einstein of course always serves as a flashy example. The phrase “the chosen people” refers, almost exclusively in a modern context, to being chosen to receive God’s word. Even in ancient times, the dynamic of it being a burden was quite clear.
All that being said, what exactly are you getting at?
You’ve been told several times that the vast majority of modern Jewish theologians simply do not cast the phrase in terms of superiority, but obligation. What is your point, other than that some can/could/have interpreted it in a non-standard manner?
You have a factual correction to make to the article, or is argumentum ad populum your only recourse?
By being the knowledge base for their own thoughts. This is not the same as direct experience, as the whole is at once too nebulous and too dispersed to be communed with. Think of it as a cloud of facts.
Which is a specific claim.
Where did I say it was invisible? I need only open a Bible or turn on a TV or open a browser and Whoomp! there it is, visible as anything. You’re reading between lines that don’t actually exist, I think.
There’s nothing about being a neologism that stops it from being a real word, but forgive me if I gave you the benefit of the doubt and considered the word wasn’t such a neologism to bunch of swots like us. I mean, it featured in a series of science popularisations by Terry Pratchett, FFS. And it’s more than 10 years old & has its own Wikipedia page. Would you be raising eyebrows if I used the terms “viral marketing”, “disneyfication” or “jam tomorrow”? I mean, that last was Lewis fucking Carroll, that’s an odd take on neologism, don’tcha think?
And no, I take offense at the tone because that’s obviously directed at me, personally, and that’s because your just a worthless shit who wasn’t even the person I was addressing, and yet you stuck your nose in anyway. Idiot cunt.
Please note the context, and how he defines “privilege”:
[Emphasis added]
So, in this letter Einstien is clearly not claiming that anyone believes Jews as people are “better” in the way that (say) Nazis claimed superiority for “Aryans”, but rather that Jews, such as the friend he was writing to, claim the “privilege” of “monotheism”.
In short, he is rejecting the Biblical notions of special-ness root and branch - the assumption of a “chosen people” as discussed above - which he is considering a “privilege”. The thesis is contained in the last sentence:
It is this that is his target - the “special” or “unique” nature of the religion, and consequently, the assumption that Jews are “special” because under their religion (which he finds no different from or better than any other) they claim a special status, monotheism, a “monopolization” of god-hood. He notes that this monopoly has not made them “better” and indeed that assertion of such a monopoly is a “self-deception” which impedes his friend’s “moral efforts”.
I see nothing in this letter to support tyhe notion that “the chosen people” means anything other than “having special obligations” - that’s pretty well exactly what he finds a problem - he doesn’t think this special “privilege” of monotheism either has any reality to it or makes anyone morally better as individuals.
Which is a far cry from asserting that “the chosen people” is intended by Jews to mean “better than other humans”. I’m quite certain that a proposition as absurd as that would be quickly and condignly rejected by Einstien, who, as can be seen, was in fact making a rather more subtle philosophical point.
Seriously though, you had the nerve to respond to a post made on a public message board, even though you weren’t the person to whom it was addressed. And you even, on the SDMB of all places, expressed disagreement and that your opponent was playing rhetorical games. And in a forum as delicate and polite as this, used a smiley!
“Playing rhetorical games”? I’d say it was Malthus who was doing the Semantic Shuffle.
That’s where you debate endlessly about the meaning of words but never back up your own utterances - like having a personal definition of deity that you can apply where you like. But *I *have to explain every word I use. Probably before long he’ll be nitpicking my use of “is”, 'cos you know the theists have the whole “I AM” thing cornered, so if I use the verb “to be” in any form, I’m being “mystical”.
There’s actually many schools of thought in Taoism. See Taoism is a set of practices to make peace with daily earthly life. Practices such as living simply, and using action without action. Some branches of Taoism have deities, and some do not. Generally it’s left up to the follower to pick a branch.
The word Tao it’s self is actually just Chinese word for “way”. It isn’t a deity, it isn’t anything. It’s nothing. It’s the uncarved block. It’s free to be anything you need it for.
So I guess it could be deity if you need it to be, but for those that see it as more a philosophy, or a advice system it isn’t a deity. Although it does help you to see nature, life, the universe, ect as godlike in it’s beauty.
I should point out I suck at Taoism so far, especially the actioin without action part. Plus “the Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao”.
I have to ask though. Why is Taoism relevant to Hebrews? Moses decide he wanted some Chinese takeout?
I found your later posts, rather um off putting, but this post right here is a good one!
Seriously, it’s only with in the last few decades that we stopped segregating, and suppressing by skin color, less then 200 years since the end of slavery. We forget our enlightening isn’t the obvious thing it seems now.
We also need to remember someday we’ll prolly seem just as brutal. There’s alot of things in our age future generations may change and scorn us as savages for. Things like war, poverty, lack of medical care, the environment, ect.
I bet Medicine will be a big one “they actually used to cute people open for surgery and drug them asleep?” “why didn’t they just a virus to deactivate cancer cells like we do now?” “the doctor examined your prostate by putting his what! in your what!? o.O”
The Tao was, at least by the Chinese philosophers Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, thought to be more than that.
The Tao that can be spoken of is not the Tao - certainly; that doesn’t mean that the Tao is meaningless or non-existant, simply that the action of describing it is itself an impossibility.
I disagree that the Tao literally means “nothing”, or “whatever you want”.
The Tao is both the “way” and the embodiment of reality - it is the immanent diety (that is, it is that part of the universe that, permiating the whole, seeks “virtue” and is worthy of awe and worship). It cannot be defined, but it is certainly not “nothing”. “Nothing” is itself a definition!
The first verse of the Lao Tzu has been translated many times. I like this one:
The first line is often quoted (as in “the tao that can be named …”), but the significance is in the last verse - that names, or definitions, and the nameless are both in a way the same, and mysterious; that lack of desire and desire are both necessary and that the universe is both inconceivable and conceivable …
I wasn’t clear, and I do apologize. I said Tao was a Chinese word for"way". A way is not a not a thing. It’s an idea or set of actions. Like if you need help you’ll ask some one to “show me the way you do that”. They won’t show you a physical object. they’ll show you how to do it.
See the significance of the uncarved block is it can be carved into any shape because it hasn’t been carved yet. The moment you cut a piece off you’ve limited what it could be. When you define something you limit what it could be. That’s why, and again I may be very wrong, the Tao Te Ching also says “One who seeks knowledge learns something new every day.
One who seeks the Tao unlearns something new every day.”
The Tao is both the “way” and the embodiment of reality - it is the immanent diety (that is, it is that part of the universe that, permiating the whole, seeks “virtue” and is worthy of awe and worship). It cannot be defined, but it is certainly not “nothing”. “Nothing” is itself a definition!
The first verse of the Lao Tzu has been translated many times. I like this one:
The first line is often quoted (as in “the tao that can be named …”), but the significance is in the last verse - that names, or definitions, and the nameless are both in a way the same, and mysterious; that lack of desire and desire are both necessary and that the universe is both inconceivable and conceivable …
[/QUOTE]
Your link was to this paragraph
Reads to me like it could be either be philosophy, religion, neither, or both. At peace with both sides. Just how Taoists like it;)
The Taoists were fond of puns and word-play: Tao does indeed mean “way” but it has lots of other meanings, too.
In Taoist cosmology, the Tao is also somewhat akin to the prime mover, only a pantheistic one: hence, my description of it as an immanent deity.
While a wiki quote is obviously determinative of nothing, this is similar to my understanding of the matter, as gleaned from translations of the Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.
To my mind, Lao Tzu at least believed that one must at the same time attempt definitions of things so as to understand their manifestations, and remain open to the ultimately ineffible nature of the ultimate reality, the Tao; what is meant by this (I think) is is that one needs both logic in order to observe and understand reality, and an intuition of the divine (in this case, the Tao) in order to really be “in tune” with reality - to find the Way (again, Tao).
To object which one is “in tune” with, the “mystery of mysteries”, is the Tao; the act of intuition or mysticism is realizing one-ness with the Tao. Whatever the Tao is, I’d say it is best characterized, at the risk of “naming” (and speaking as a student of religions and philosophies rather than as an adherent), as an immanent deity of the roughly pantheistic variety; it has no personality (Lao Tzu remarked that the Tao is not benevolent), but it has an effect; it exists as more than the sum of creation, though it has no existence outside of creation.
I think the distinction is mostly meaningless. The issue imposed by Western scholars was imposed because of the long-standing difference, in the West, between “philosophy” and “religion”. I’m not sure how meaningful such a dichotomy was to the Chinese.
