RT 201:
“RELIGION AND THE
HUMAN QUEST”
THE PLAN
FOUR SEGMENTS
1. BASIC PHILOSOPHY OF
‘RELIGION’
2. ICONS OF COSMOS
3. ICONS OF RELATIONSHIPS,
SOCIETY AND COMMUNITY
4. ICONS OF HUMAN DESTINY
2
THE “PLAN”
FOUR SEGMENTS:
1. BASIC PHILOSOPHY OF “RELIGION
History and etymology
Definition: “Religion”=
Intensive and Comprehensive Valuing
Committed and holistic life-quest
Vocabulary: holy, sacred, power, tradition...
Plato’s Cave and Line
3
State of Mind
EPISTEME
ABSTRACT
THINKING
DOXA
Knowing from
direct experience
Mental Activity
Object/Outcome
NOESIS
ARCHAI
Meta-physics
First Principles
DIANOIA
MATHEMATIKA
LEARNED
CONCLUSIONS
METHOD, LOGIC
REASON,
CALCULATION
PISTIS
ZOA
Knowing from
personal
experience
Knowledge of
Particular Things
EIKASIA
EIKONES
Imaging,
Symbols, arts
4
RELIGION AND THE HUMAN QUEST…
R=ICV
DESIRE TO LIVE
RECOGNITION OF
CONDITIONALITY
NEED FOR STRATEGIES
RELIGION AND THE HUMAN QUEST…
• PISTIS
EXPERIENCE OF PARTICULARS
• EIKASIA
IMAGINING THE WORLD
AND OURSELVES
• EIKONES
THAT RECORD OUR
EXPERIENCE
• DIANOIA
THAT ALLOWS US TO STUDY
HUMAN EXPERIENCE
ICONS OF COSMOS
• SIMPLE COSMOLOGICAL EXPRESSIONS
– Chant, dance, and contingency
• LAKOTA STAR COSMOLOGY AND LIFE STYLE
– Directions, experience, value
– Constellations, geography and seasons
– Wakan
– Tipi and Sun Dance
• UNITY OF CHINESE EXPERIENCE
• LAO TZE excerpts from TAO TE CHING
7
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
A HINDU RESPONSE (Smith 72):
1. A multiple world that includes
innumerable galaxies
horizontally, innumerable tiers
vertically, and innumerable
cycles temporally
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
WHAT DO YOU THINK? WHAT’S YOUR pistis?
HOW DO YOU KNOW?!
1. How vast is your image of the world?
Does cosmic vastness have any meaning? Is it
valuable? Does it matter to the human life
search?
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
2. A moral world in
which the law of
karma is never
suspended.
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
2. Is the cosmos indifferent to human
action?
Is human commitment (intensiveness)
without meaning?
Does human decision count?
Why do we care if we or others are
indifferent or fanatical?
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
3. A middling world that
will never replace paradise
as the spirit’s destination
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
3. What lies ahead for us?
Individually? Collectively? How
could we know?
What’s in your pistis? What’s the
ground of wanting more? What
are the limits of life quest?
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
4. A world that is maya,
deceptively tricky in passing
off its multiplicity, materiality,
and dualities as ultimate
when they are actually
provisional.
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
4. Can we humans be mistaken? What
do we do to get it right? Are there
absolute conditions or only
temporary ones? Can anything we
do have meaning if the conditions
are only temporary?
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
5. A training ground on
which people can develop
their highest capacities
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
5. Can we learn? Can we secure and
pass our learning experience on?
How?
Whom do we trust? What value does
my individual experience have?
Is 1 in 7 Billion an adequate sample?
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
6. A world that is lila, the play
of the Divine in its Cosmic
Dance—untiring, unending,
resistless, yet ultimately
beneficent, with a grace born
of infinite vitality.
WHAT KIND OF WORLD
DO WE LIVE IN?
6. Do words like JOY,
HAPPINESS, FULFILLMENT,
SUCCESS have any lasting
meaning?
Is reality “gracious”?
ICONS OF RELATIONSHIP, SOCIETY,
COMMUNITY
• INDIA:
–VARNA/CASTE: work and social
organization
–HOLY COWS: Indian ecology and
economy
• CONFUCIUS: Deliberate tradition
and social cohesion
20
ICONS OF RELATIONSHIP, SOCIETY,
COMMUNITY
• FIVE PILLARS: The architecture of
community
• Genesis 2-3: Cosmos and
Community
• SANTOS: Community of Holy
Persons on Earth and in Heaven
INDIA’S SACRED COW
ICONS OF HUMAN DESTINY
• YOGA: the quest/search and
human differences
• 4 NOBLE TRUTHS/8 FOLD PATH
• ZEN & JODO
• KINGDOM OF GOD: Holy Week
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SIGNUP?