Palindrome, first of all we should bridge Faith with Reasoning/Philosophy. Philosophy/reasoning helps to substantiate the faith,and we need to rely on both.(though Seshadri bluntly disagreed with me the importance of reasoning/critical examining).
Reasoning and philosophies have no boundaries. They can still be defined. But faith cannot, since acts of faith are many times devoid of reasoning. Irrespective of whether a christian chooses to fast and crucify himself in the steps of christ, whether a muslim wants to beat himself to near death on muharram or if a hindu wants to pierce himself all over carrying a kavadi…there are several physical and emotional acts of faith that surpass any reasoning and are not from or restricted to any philosophy at all.
And am not of opinion that faith can ever be so-called critically examined. It wud be akin to judging an other man’s belief. And yet, if one so wishes to do so, he better be clinically detached and be willing to apply the same yardstick to ‘critically examine’ every religion…though in such a case, it becomes a one-man judgmental show..
When religion defines God as SUPREME of all, then, reasoning and logical thinking takes us to towards the all possible Supreme qualities of God also.. ie, Supreme holiness(Good), supreme power, Supreme Justice , Supreme Construction Engineer etc etc.. Thats the corollary of God head definition I was talking about. The dilemma since Aristotle is 'is God stands supreme Evil also?".(we can have a seperate debate on this later). This is the line was talking about "Morals/Good n bad)
Several religions define God as supreme, so do the vedic texts. And the qualities ascribed to God are the same in every religion, including so-called ‘absolute holiness, justice and whatever in your terms.
Before you speak about Aristotle, hope you are considering the key differences in eastern and western thot on religion and philosophy. East never had a prob, its philosphers are its gurus. West always sought to get a philosophy to fit into its doctrinal concepts; and rejected (or even obfuscated) it, if it did not tally its doctrines. Its philosophers are not its gurus within the ambit of faith and doctrinal religion.
In the east we do not shun evil as satanic or something to be feared and rejected in the way christianity and islam does. Instead hindus face their fears heads on and make peace with everything around them. Trying to apply aristotelism to hindu faith wud be like trying to get a small boy to wear his father’s clothes…wish Aristotle had lived amongst the hindus..his mental horizons wud have got that extra width..
If Aristotle believed god stands as supreme evil also, then he was expressing what is understood by very many ancients…that there is no yin without yang, no purusha without shakti…no evil without good….everything in life is complementary…but unlike west, again we do not reject evilwe just accept is as lack of good, like darkness is merely lack of light, we do not judge it on self-designed morality yardsticks...instead we merely associate ourselves with the light instead of darkness..
'God is within us and me'!!!, there is a severe flaw in this philosophy. If God manifests/dwell in me, she or earth, its fine, cos he controls every things. But I'm called as God also (some hindu philosophy says!), then it becomes highly illogical in answering to the Purpose of Life/Freewill/Even a terrorist is also a God/ and creates lot of confusion in logicall consistency in Karma and pupose of becoming one'ness with God..
You are talking abt advaitha…in the advaita school the likeness of god exists in each of us...there is light within each of us…we become enlightened by merely becoming aware of it….the key diff is only awareness (here too you are comparing a terrorist to a realized yogi because of your lack of awareness or ignorance abt this)...awareness is just realization of what exists..Ex: sit in a very quiet place and listen within, you can hear your heart beat, slowly you can feel your blood throbbing in pulse points…as you keep getting more and more aware you can feel blood moving, etc...there are various techniques of breath control, etc, by which if one chooses then he can gain complete control of his own breath and bodily functions such as heart beat…meaning he has conquered death, he can stop his heart from beating at his will, stop breathing at his will and die at a time he chooses to…this is called samadhi (moksha)..
if a man has conquered death ofcourse he has conquered time and is considered as a god-realized one or brahman-realized one…its nothing esoteric or unique…all sages in the ancient past were brahman-realized ones…in advaita there is no differentiation b/w gods and such realized gurus since such a guru can teach you how to conquer death too…
Regarding Evolution/Creationism, we need to use the term 'Theology/Theosophy here.. Creationism, be it Adam/Brahma/Brahman gene merging with African Orangs or even many a creation mythologies, most of them shares a central theme 'God Created it".. both the hindu/christian /African Pagan creationism supports the broad view of 'One Point Start' ie finite start of evolution. ie, Single Starting point. So any logical thinker, without having blind faith, would be able to accept the creationism (lets call it as mythology), in a broad spectrum of 'Single Point Start".. This theology treads well along with "Big Bang Theory', and can be patched/reconciled with Darwinism too.From this single point of starting, we can futher move down the line towards creation of universe/evolution of living being/morals etc etc.. This will help us to bridge the balance. The only hurdle here in Hindu philosophy will be with the contrary school of thought "MAYA, which calls it as illusion or infinite.This infinite doctrine contradicts both Big Bang/Time-Space/.
Why do we need to use Theology / Theosophy instead of Evolution / Creationism?
In what way does maya contradict big bang…i can straight away tell you that you do not know maya. You are very confused abt it...Please read up on it before speaking further…as an aside, big bang is spoken of extensively in the vedic texts. That the sun will cool down to darkness is also predicted, what can therefore be seen or unseen as maya is also spoken of..
Having said that, all of us should understand the importance of co-existence of Religion-Science-Reasoning-Logic-Philosophy-Faith. Unfortunately, after Adi Shankara, no good hindu philosophers developed that approach, where are modern day religions fairly succeeded well, including Buddhism.
Before commenting on shankara, aristotle, maya, reasoning, etc…you might wish to consider yourself a no good self-appointed philosopher as well (doesn't the same yardstick of measuring others apply when talking abt yourself too? esp since its decided to be judgemental with using the same yardstick to measure morality)..plus, you seem to have decided that anything has succeeded except hinduism, after merely scatching at the surface of what hinduism can offer..
Once again, as we all know, hinduism has various kinds of 'Contradictory/diverse philosophy, we should stick to "One particular sect' and head on with the discussion. Otherwise, it will create a confusion. Thats one reason, most of the modern thinkers have choosen 'Buddhism as bench mark for their study, instead of getting confused with 'contradicting hindu philosophies,evolved during various time-lines"
Well it appears that you have only chosen to pronounce judgments…why shd we stick to one particular sect? And who are "we" to decide for others? Whatz wrong with diversity? Yes we hindus are diverse and we are proud of it, because we experimented with the mind and documented its various ways long before anyone did so…if you get confused abt different philosophies its bcoz you do not understand them well enuf and are not capable of discerning what is best for you..in such case you wud be typical of those ppl who do not want to use their mind but want a single method spoon fed to them…that’s the diff b/w east and west..eastern religions accommodate change, western religions do not; and western religion do not want eastern religions to accommodate change either, so they keep clashing with it…
