Post-Secularism

[andrew]

Any thought on this? I'll do a bit of linking to start off: 

http://www.telospress.com/religion-and-the-new-cosmopolitanism-in-a...

This one on Islam: 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/09/why-islamic-reform-is-delayed/

He pretty well covers most everything I've said on this issue over 10 years. 

He leaves out Hollywood's 100 year dismal portrayal of arabs which has been fertile soil for American Sniper. Israel behaving badly has nothing to do with it, eh? 

I also see the French Revolution's treatment of religion as flaming the fans of long term hostility. I've mentioned that the English deists had a better attitude . 

We've gone from myth and metaphor to complete denial of the possibility of god PERIOD; with  no in-between possibilities. It doesn't seem like a reasonable conclusion to me. True enough, the New Age movement in the west is filling that void, but there is one hell of a lot of woo-woo there. 

More from counterpunch: 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/06/the-storm-blowing-from-parad...

And Habermas: 

http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/02/03/a-postsecular-world-society/

[andrew]

This on how the corporation itself is becoming a religion: 

http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2015/01/20/corporation-as-sect/

Which points towards my Ka$h posts and how money itself is the most prominent form of religion in a post secular age. At the very least: a type of fetishism, or for the more conservative minded--idolatry. 

If human beings are driven one way or the other towards some type of spiritual projection; then, it would seem to me that we ought to stop warring against that disposition, and find ways to allow this propensity to be at least benign and not malignant.

[andrew]

Here is a CBC link to the rise of ISIS: 

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/The+Passionate+Eye/ID/2584569103/

Very graphic scenes of violent assassinations on a massive scale. If one follows Truthdig and TomDispatch none of this comes as a surprise. Iraq 2 was a birthday present of billions of dollars of weapons to the Sunni insurgence courtesy of the PCMIC. Who plans this stuff? 

Anyway, the point being-- because this thread is meant to explore our post-secular situation--how do we keep religion from becoming forces of great destruction. The last 30 years in N.A. has seen the Christian Zionists rise to the apex of power in The White House and The Parliament . This has created a privileged position for Israel which has embolden that state to act out extreme forms of prejudice and bigotry.  This situation has interfered with a natural move towards modernity within muslim lands and has created a cauldron of hate and resentment. None of this seems resolvable unless we can challenge religionists using reason and logic ; or to bring religion back into dialogue with reason and logic--not to wipe out religion; but rather, have it not be a curse. 

[andrew]

More from Habermas: 

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html

[andrew]

From an online thesis, by M. Redmond: 

In our secular age, tolerance demands that believers and unbelievers alike must expect to go on encountering dissent from their views. Without this reasonable expectation of disagreement between theists and secularists neither can engage in public reasoning in the sense that both camps try to translate morally compelling intuitions into a generally acceptable language.26 

[Edward theurj Berge]

This is not a disagreement between theists and secularists; it is only with the pre- and conventional theists. So to just agree to disagree with them is not 'post-secular.' I have no quarrel with post-conventional theists that have at least a rational basis, and it is 'reasonable' to expect that level of discourse. As but one example, I don't always go to church but when I do I prefer the Unitarian.* They accept people from any religion or no religion, so they are post-secular in that sense. And yet there are some foundational principles, Enlightenment rationality being among them. Granted that might not be the highest development level of cognitive capacity, but it is certainly the necessary prerequisite for anything even remotely calling itself post-secular. I think Habermas would agree, given his penchant for communicative action and ideal speech situations as foundational for his own rehabilitated Enlightenment project.

* Stolen from the Dos Equis commercials.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I'm also recalling this post on the Lingam's conveyor belt.

[Edward theurj Berge]

The link above is wrong; this is it.

[andrew]

I'm going to post this here again as I think its useful. And I wasn't using conventional here in the usual pre/trans sense. I was using to as a guide to establish who's positing what when it comes to metaphysics; Wilber being a post-conventional metaphysician ( as am I ) according to this schema. 

I wonder if this proposal  may be of utility. I wonder if it would be helpful if we were to think this way: that there was a time of pre conventional metaphysics where anything and everything was once thought of as an explanation for existence/reality/being; that this era had early, middle and late phases. This transitioned to the times of conventional metaphysics where empiricism, reason, logic, scientific method, became  the tools and criteria used to discern existence/reality/ being. This era also had its early and late phases. This era is slowly transitioning to a post conventional metaphysics wherein the previous conventional era is examined and deconstructed . This era has its early phase (MOA1/2) and potential late phase ( MOA 3/4 thank-you LP) . Perhaps there are already a few people that are perceiving an even newer era and are intuiting today a deconstruction of the present era. Perhaps the early phase of a post conventional metaphysics reconsiders some of the strict knowledge claims posited by the conventional metaphysicians ( that existence/reality/being is strictly material and physical). That the post conventional  metaphysicians have more flexibility and less stiffness when dealing with conventional orthodoxies. This would put Wilber squarely in the post conventional metaphysics era and explain his proclivity to endorse  spiritual hypothesis ( a reconsideration of some of the better spiritual explanations from previous eras ). This era may even introduce new spiritual ideas or proposals.

Okay, the audacity of young drunk punks!

To me there are two main issues here: religion itself as practised by humans and the tougher question of god. IMO., if people at conventional and post conventional want to have a dialogue with pre conventional on the latter , then they need to keep a door open to possibilities. We shouldn't , once again, be completely dismissive. Here is a link exploring this particular issue:

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/antigod-reasoning-blunde...

Now myself, i am not even necessarily arguing for god, I just see god as ALWAYS being a possibility for humans and that we shouldn't act like this isn't true. Now, of course, I spend most of my time arguing against pre conventional religious metaphysics (non sensical beliefs that contradict reason and logic).

I think this path has more practical utility than the immature god/atheist polemic. 

And BTW, according to this schema, you, theurj, are a post-conventional post- metaphysical metaphysician; whereas Wilber is a post-conventional metaphysician. hahaha.

[andrew]

Even she believed in god! There is no reason to expect A.I. not to. 

Hey, have you heard the one about the Buddhist and the scientist discussing epistemology ? Their bias leads them to ontological fallacy! Ha! 

So, again, we might think of post conventional post-metaphysics as a type of natural metaphysics; wherein even mediation is natural when it is re-visiting previous structures of consciousness. And that Wilber, indeed, is practicing post conventional metaphysics ( kind of a beyond natural) when he posits that consciousness and god are exactly the same thing. 

[andrew]

More on this line of thinking: the basic premise here is that as long as there are humans that hold certain spiritual views; then we need to develop some consideration and guideposts to these views. This isn't to say that conventional metaphysicians need necessarily consider these views--they don't--but that shouldn't stop those of us who are open to consideration of everything which is laid upon the table when it comes to religion/spirituality ( in a post-secular digital age everyone has a view). I've mentioned previously that there are probably a million spiritual ideas out there; so because of this truism we definitely need some parameters. The first being 'how shall we live'?', and the 2nd being 'what is the nature of reality'?'. On the first issue: is there anything within any given spiritual theory that is dangerous to a civil society? Here are 3 exp. of what might be classified as pre conventional metaphysics:  

Barclay Powers: http://www.integralworld.net/powers18.html

  JMG                     :http://galabes.blogspot.ca

Teal Swan               :http://blog.thespiritualcatalyst.com

I'm not seeing anything here that is inherently dangerous to society in general. As long as people are not advocating bigotry, racism, violence , etc. then I can't really see the problem from a societal perspective. True, we need to be aware of the cultish nature of some of the personalities involved but that is more along the lines of psychological profile rather than the spiritual theories themselves. Now, on the 2nd question: under the schema outlined above none of these views is automatically dismissed as rubbish because of the seeming pre conventional metaphysics involved. The issue then becomes one of verification/falsification. And it's here that ALL spiritual claims become problematic; better, IMO, to hold all these theories loosely within a multiplicity of possibilities rather than have any one of them claiming spiritual certainty and superiority. At that point one better be able to offer more than anecdotes ; otherwise reasonable people should disregard it < IMO.