It is indeed hard to talk about these things without resorting to theological terms.
Although it's nice to think everyone has the capacity to understand why it's not okay and not a work-able way of being forcefully intervene into other's epistemic processes and why,--because that is basically what they are founded on--the the institutions at the heart of civilization need to be carefully and consciously dismantled and re-built from the ground up,; i don't think it fits the observable world to say everyone is capable of grasping such things (in fact, I'd say most aren't).
I think that some people have what I'd call a 'Divine spark' within them which means that--although they my err--they are capable of growing and evolving into these kinds of understandings but many are operating mostly from unconscious imprints and very little else. When something pushes these buttons, the 'mask' comes off and all other principles go out the window and it doesn't matter what arguments, facts, or logic you present, they will find a way to rationalize the coercive behavior or policy they support and it doesn't even have to be a particularly good argument (can be the most intellectually lazy bullshit or insane mental gymnastics you can imagine in fact) as long as it serves to justify it to themselves, they won't see any reason why they should have to respect the validity of someone else's individual process of making sense of the world if it doesn't agree with what they have come to accept as 'reality'.
And I would add that clearly this has nothing to do with one's political leanings either as I'm sure within the lifetimes of most people reading the 'virus' of thinking epistemology can (or should) be out-sourced to some external entity or other teeter-totter back and forth between the right and the left side of the spectrum--perhaps even multiple times.
In fact, one might even say that's politics in a nutshell.
I absolutely loved listening to this, Tessa. It felt so perfectly stated. Your words really resonated with me. This brought back memories of when I took my first (and only) philosophy course as an elective in college. It was so foreign to me as I had never had such a class in my life. I found it so challenging and intriguing. I recall having to write papers entitled "What do I know?", "Who Am I?", "What ought I do?" "On What There is." I remember handing them in, having no clue if they were what my professor was looking for.....I recall never before that time looking up such words as "is" in the dictionary! I felt like a detective exploring something in a way I never had previously. Each time I was so pleasantly surprised with the grades I received. My professor even had me read some aloud to my class! It was so long ago, but it brought back those fond memories and sense of achievement and satisfaction upon discovering a topic I so loved pondering. Your input brought tears to my eyes as I felt a common thread. We all perceive the world through our filters and our experiences. They are all different. Yet, when I sense a common perception of such things, I feel such unity in my core. I am at a loss for words, but it was so tangible to me. Thank you Tessa! you certainly are gifted when it comes to expression. You have a way of touching people with the words you choose.
Thank you Tessa and I look forward to the coming series. As I grow older I am less convinced that I know anything at all. I've always felt that our purpose during our time here is to learn and seek truth. For me life would be meaningless without the desire to learn and that is why I appreciate your efforts so much. With so much propaganda I try to be careful when evaluating sources of information but I think people who have a history of being altruistic in their actions have more credibility with me.
I love that you are digging back to the epistemological. I say this all the time, though in a shallower way, about what sources of knowledge people are relying on and how they know they are reliable. I have this sort of quasi-hypothesis that back on the savannah, after we left the arboreal life, it seems as it would have been really really advantageous to plan (through gestures, pictures drawn in the sand, sounds, hums) together and all execute that plan together, go a certain direction, take a certain route, stay away from predators or marauding con-specifics or poisonous foods or water. Maybe this derived from herd behavior in evolutionary history. But, then, it sort of became stuck, because it was so advantageous long ago, and the more rigid and all enveloping of consciousness it was, the more advantageous it was, until it wasn't, and hardened belief systems and wars between them became one of the patterns of history. So many wars and power structures are born of this propensity, and its no longer adaptive function. Not to say that it isn't still advantageous for particular people and groups. There are 33,000 sects of Christianity for instance. And we are part divine and part chimp, and no one has yet studied the relationship between the divine aspects of being and how those relate to the archaic evolutionary aspects of being. This is a wonderful revelation from Iain McGilchrist from The Big Conversation, episode 3 "Is there a master behind our minds" "I believe that metaphorical truth is more important than literal truth. Literal truth is a subset of metaphorical truth in which the potential in the metaphor has been collapsed into an actuality in the way that a wave function has been collapsed into a particle. Doesn't make the particle greater than the wave function or the field. In fact the field is greater than the particle" I think this is koanic, and explodes or tames our evolutionary tendency to go to war over beliefs.
You have such exquisite timing Tessa, to introduce these topics at a time that feels like darkness is calcifying around us like the Chernobyl sarcophagus. Thank goodness for your thoughts!
Truth is revealed by the release or undoing of concealment - which is in our minds.
If we give or yield our own thought to truth - or what is - we no longer filter through a presumption of knowledge taken in vain or self-imaged reality.
So much is filtered by the self-image as a self or thing in itself.
Infinity is filtered & masked by our presumption to know - by virtue of giving focus to self in image - or what we usually mean by 'thinking'.
How is coherence felt?
How is resonance felt?
How do you know what is aligned with who and what you are?
By the Word there was light and it was very good!
The word that we give can be out of alignment with the Word that created us whole.
Such that we know not what we do - but be-live the conflict of our own Projection.
But there is no conflict in God - even if we think to Project our conflict onto God and be-live the result.
Be still, and know.
That is release the conflict as your word and receive a true Word by which to guide & heal your mind.
Or persist in 'your own way' as if you can do what love has always already given. This usurps the true movement of being for an augmented 'reality' experience that thinks to become autonomous but is trapped by its own self-conflict such as to replicate archetypal patterns of 'Separation trauma' by the very attempt to escape, overcome or heal it.
separation trauma is undone by letting love - the movement of being - move directly through where you thought you were - a thing of or unto itself.
Whenever u read ,say, the Guardian, it’s amazing how transparent their lies are. Ad Hominem attacks and straw man fallacies seem to be the only type of argumentation they know. One reads it for the same reason a Russian read Pravda 50 years ago - to see what evil plans the commissars have planned. I wonder if any true global elite can arise on such a bed of lies. The Soviet Union went in 15 years to putting a man in space to being unable to feed its citizens. I wonder if we are not seeing the end of US supremacy. The liar usually ends up believing his own lies. A phrase of HL Mencken’s comes to mind “in the modern world, to sin against efficiency is the true sin against the Holy Ghost”. If the present elite is to maintain power , their manifest inefficiencies necessitate an aggressive depopulation agenda.
Your bit on Christianity I'll respond to at the end of this piece, but before that;
Below is the UK Government's response to my request by Public Petition;
'TO REMOVE INDEMNITY FROM MANUFACTURERS OF COV 19 INJECTIONS'.
This is their unbelievable response;
"As indemnities for manufacturers do not generally prevent individuals from pursuing a legal claim for compensation, the Government would not consider it necessary to seek to remove any such indemnity."
Pathetic White-wash of a reasonable expectation.
With regard to Christianity; it is one of many man made 'solutions' to thinking they've found the answer to THE MEANING OF LIFE!
In reality all religions are 'man made' and just desperate attempts to think one has an answer to an unanswerable question. That's why I limit my thoughts to 'believing' the sun is the closest 'REASON' that my minuscule brain can ever get to knowing the true reasoning for our existence. There IS NO REASON! It's just that humans NEED REASONS!
Mick from Hooe (UK) Unjabbed to live longer!
LIABILITY MUST BE REINTRODUCED for all MEDICINE AND (DEADLY) INJECTION MAKERS!
Wow Tessa, what a searching soul you are. I think you are channeling Russian philosophers. For me, the truth lies in tears. God's tears. The rest is just stuff we dress up in.
Jan 11, 2023·edited Jan 11, 2023Liked by Tessa Lena
Thanks for this Tessa. I'm glad to have provoked debate. Obviously it's not an issue that can ever be determined with certainty, given our individual free will. We have to make up our minds ourselves, which is how it should be.
Here are a few small thoughts from me.
'What is truth?' This is the question Pilate asked Christ. Christ didn't answer. It's worth pondering why. I do that a lot.
I think truth can come via (not from) two (human) sources: tradition, or the individual self. Modernity is a process by which tradition is abolished and/or demonised, and the individual is crowned. In theory: in reality of course, the individual is often corralled and controlled - but usually in the name of 'democracy' or freedom or 'the individual' ...
How do we determine what is spiritually true?
The pre-modern answer, in all cultures at all times, was: through the tradition. Whether in large global faiths like Christianity or Islam, smaller faiths like Sikhism, or tiny indigenous tribal traditions, it's the same process. Over time, a community builds up an understanding of spiritual truth, often based on revelation and also on much practice. This is then passed down through a tradition, which, if it is real, will continue to create spiritually powerful people ('saints', in the Christian tradition). Sometimes these traditions are corrupted or lost or broken, and often they are dragged back again. This is just humanity. However, the followers of the tradition broadly trust in its teachings.
The modern way, which we can trace back to Luther, is to say: no, only my conscience is my guide. I have my Bible and my mind and I need nothing else. I reject saints, monastics, hierarchies, traditions, lineages. Only I can know God truly for myself.
This, quite obviously, leads us to secular modernity. Today we all make up our minds about reality - we all have 'my truth', which is subjective. We have different truths about everything, up to and including what a man and a woman are. And we're not finished yet.
This bleeds into the spiritual realm. I'll talk about Christianity, since it started this conversation. The modern individualist rejects Christian teaching and tradition. He - or she - may have a feeling for Jesus, but doesn't want to submit to the teaching of the church, which he instinctively mistrusts. And so, in order to have it our way, we re-invent Jesus. This has been the project since at least the 1960s. There's quite a bit of it on this thread. Jesus of Nazareth is detached from his historical context, and the modern mind re-invents him to tell us what we want to hear - which is usually that 'the sacred' is entirely internal and individual, and God is whatever we want him to be.
The problem is that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual person who did and said actual things, and the gospels we have were written by people who knew him. The church that he started persisted for centuries without any power, wealth or influence, so it can't have been created for those reasons. Millions have died for a truth which to Christians has been expounded since day one: that Jesus was the second person of the Trinity, and the son of God. This was not a story invented to justify a 'control system.' It was, to Christian eyes, a revelation from the first, which they have held to throughout their imperfect history.
If we want to deny this, we have to have a good reason to believe that all those who knew Jesus or set up his church were wrong and we, 2000 years later, are right. I don't think we have one.
This doesn't mean Christianity is correct, or that anyone should be a Christian. But much to my surprise, I have found the modern story about this, as about so many other things, to be wrong. It is why I was received into the Orthodox church. And as I have followed the path, I have discovered a deepening of understanding that dwarfs anything I found on my own. This has made me think a lot. How much of my previous desire to find and defend 'my truth' - my unique understanding - was actually spiritual pride?
I think we have to decide whether we are prepared to trust any sources of truth or teaching which are handed down to us. I didn't used to, but I have come to see how much wiser my spiritual ancestors are than me, and what I can learn from them. I have come to see too, much to my own surprise and joy, how freeing this is.
Great level of inquiry Tessa! There is so much to unpack, but yes epistemology is critical. I have studied Walter Ong (and Marshall McLuhan) regarding the different quality of knowledge produced through literary cultures versus oral ones. I love reading and writing immensely, but there is trememndous importance in verbal conversation, because the knowledge in a Conversation is Co-created, Together. It is also more Emergent - stories are applied to the present moment. The religions based on infallible scripture tend to become more ossified, unchanging, and this itself is problematic. There is a corresponding shift in brain function toward left-brain function and objectification in written cultures. These are just a couple of aspects of this.
As etymology shows, and as you allude to in your talk, words themselves change over time - and this has been manipulated more and more by those in power as they have become knowledgeable about how to do so...
Great stuff you are parsing out between those using words for their own purposes and those actually trying to refer to something real beyond the word-form. One way I like to look at it is that "words are maps, reality is the territory." When coming from this understanding, we can negotiate what we are really talking about, and include mutual experience and feelings.
As far as religion goes, I live in a small midwestern town the last few years, so I have run up against disconnections head on. The essential issue - that is taboo to discuss in mainstream Christian circles - is the second part of the gospel of John 14: 6, "no one reaches the Father but by me." If your religion claims to be the only access to Creator/Source, it is a very slippery slope into denigrating all those who do not subscribe to your religion as misguided ones needing your salvation. It is an inherently disrespectful and arrogant position to take, and particularly insidious when it is considered an infallible scripture. It is not hard to see how this directly leads to the justification of so much of the oppression we have seen in western civilization over indigenous native peoples everywhere. This includes the Earth-based religions of Europe. St. Patrick is celebrated still for clearing the "snakes" (pagans) out of Ireland. Charlemagne is still celebrated despite slaughtering 4000 Saxons and many others who chose beheading rather than accepting the new god being imposed on them. The key in all these matters for me as a German-American is to avoid the worst excesses of our thinking, those ideas that lead toward genocide.
That is one of my root epistemological stances: Avoid Genocide! Listen to and learn from those who have suffered it! Take literally the idea of "Never Again" - to anyone!
I find most modern middle-class normies (or "whites" if we must) think very abstractly about things. When I am with Indigenous friends and acquaintences, or Blacks, or often when traveling, or even around poorer and working class whites, there is less bullshit small talk, and much greater chance of actual human encounters, which have a natural quality of being a bit more shy and gentle than is the mainstream norm. I get dissed (by politically correct whites) for saying this, because I seem to be stereotyping entire groups, but it is my consistent experience over 60 years. Even if I am connecting to someone from a Native American tribe I have not been around before, even if that person has a chip on their shoulder, there is likely to be a connection. Less forked tongue nonsense. Those who have been subjected to cultural genocidal or enslavement have less tolerance for bullshit. We understand the same basic commitment to try to avoid idiotic genocidal thinking.
This spirals into many other areas. The current Land Back movement gaining strength in Indigenous circles is profound. We all by birthright deserve a place to live on this Earth. It is what Occupy was about, but only got so far. There are many profound aspects to the Native ways, not the least of which is the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) also coming forth to restore abundant ecologies that permaculture (as great as it is) only scratches the surface of. As we each travel to the essential ground of our own Being, in infinite ways including epistemological inquiry, I think we will end up re-Indigenizing ourselves to place. This is a long and humbling process, involving unwinding the entire paradigm of colonization. Epistemology is ulitmately about finding the Ground of our knowledge, which includes those essential shared aspects of our humanity - the right to clean air, water, food, beauty, freedom, mutuality, safety, etc., and those connections to Source, practical and ceremonial, which provide their continuance.
Tessa.... A large part of this video seems stuck on the concept of "truth" and "honesty," and the references to God are references to a "higher authority." But let's think about truths. Where does truth come from? Does truth come from individuals, or from individuals we respect, or perhaps from God?
Truths come from two sources, from individuals and from communities.
Every individual has their own truths. Some of their truths are more firm than others. Some of our individual truths can be swayed by others, that's why we have terms like "vaccine hesitant" - someone whose truth is not firm, vs anti-vaxxer - someone whose truth is more firm.
Each individual has individual truths. But at the community level, all individual truths are suspect. All individuals are suspect, liars, because they live in communities with different truths.
Real truth comes not from individuals - but from communities. When two people agree on a truth, it grows stronger. When more people agree - stronger still. We might notice that, when the men in a community believe a truth, it becomes a truth of power and when the women agree on a truth, it becomes a truth of support. There are many types of truths. Truths have many uses.
When a large number of people believe in a truth, or a leader, or a God, they create a community of "truth". All of the lions in a pride know who holds the power of truth and who holds the power to aid, to support. In another pride, there are other truths. However, over time, the true leader changes. Individuals grow old and die.
Other believers, other communities create other "truths". Which truth is "true"?
The one with the larger community. There are two main communities: us and them. Our community has the truth. Their community consists of liars. This is very apparent in the COVID pandemic nonsense in which we are currently enmeshed.
But lets take a higher ground, a higher view, a broader perspective. Every individual human lives in many communities. each of which has their own truths. The truths each community agrees on are unimportant. The important truths are those where we disagree.
Life is about change - about intentional change. Over time, every individual is changing, their truths are changing. Over time, every community is changing, their truths are changing. Looking for "one truth" or "one god" (one community with the truth) is a fools-errand. We need to find our own truths every day. We need to build our communities of truth, to guide them in the directions we want ourselves and our communities to move - to move forward.
I realize this note is a bit disjointed, even spastic, it's "stream of consciousness". But I hope it helps you to understand that the source of truth lies not in others, but in actions with others, in our communities. No individual wants to control us - they want to control their truths. Communities have their own truths and work to support them, to control the truths of others. There is no ultimate truth - except for things like God, which cannot be disputed logically, rhetorically.
Another perspective to think about. Morals. Where do morals come from? From communities. Adam, alone in the Garden of Eden, hadd no morals. He could not break any of ten commandments, until God appeared, creating a community - and demanding "no other Gods before me, make no idols, do not take the name of the lord in vain, remember the sabbath." The next commandments all require a larger community: honor thy father and mother, do not murder, commit adultery, steal. And a larger community - do no tbear false witness against a neighbor, do not covet. All truths are about communities.
One of the critical problems (as I see it) is that we evolved to 'know' a life very different and less complex than the ones we now lead. We are not built with brains that can comprehend any great complexity and so cannot seriously understand global climate for instance, no matter what the claims made by pseudo scientific charlatans. This idea, that there are limits to our capabilities flies in the face of a few centuries of human hubris, but is perhaps what should underpin any way forward in creating a better world for us and the planet. We need to build a world where once again, the kind of things we may be confronted with in our daily lives, are same things we're readily capable of understanding, and the questions we need to ask are capable of being answered.
https://erudanus.substack.com/p/the-etymology-of-the-word-god
Hu.
It's a starter video... not great.
It is indeed hard to talk about these things without resorting to theological terms.
Although it's nice to think everyone has the capacity to understand why it's not okay and not a work-able way of being forcefully intervene into other's epistemic processes and why,--because that is basically what they are founded on--the the institutions at the heart of civilization need to be carefully and consciously dismantled and re-built from the ground up,; i don't think it fits the observable world to say everyone is capable of grasping such things (in fact, I'd say most aren't).
I think that some people have what I'd call a 'Divine spark' within them which means that--although they my err--they are capable of growing and evolving into these kinds of understandings but many are operating mostly from unconscious imprints and very little else. When something pushes these buttons, the 'mask' comes off and all other principles go out the window and it doesn't matter what arguments, facts, or logic you present, they will find a way to rationalize the coercive behavior or policy they support and it doesn't even have to be a particularly good argument (can be the most intellectually lazy bullshit or insane mental gymnastics you can imagine in fact) as long as it serves to justify it to themselves, they won't see any reason why they should have to respect the validity of someone else's individual process of making sense of the world if it doesn't agree with what they have come to accept as 'reality'.
And I would add that clearly this has nothing to do with one's political leanings either as I'm sure within the lifetimes of most people reading the 'virus' of thinking epistemology can (or should) be out-sourced to some external entity or other teeter-totter back and forth between the right and the left side of the spectrum--perhaps even multiple times.
In fact, one might even say that's politics in a nutshell.
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I absolutely loved listening to this, Tessa. It felt so perfectly stated. Your words really resonated with me. This brought back memories of when I took my first (and only) philosophy course as an elective in college. It was so foreign to me as I had never had such a class in my life. I found it so challenging and intriguing. I recall having to write papers entitled "What do I know?", "Who Am I?", "What ought I do?" "On What There is." I remember handing them in, having no clue if they were what my professor was looking for.....I recall never before that time looking up such words as "is" in the dictionary! I felt like a detective exploring something in a way I never had previously. Each time I was so pleasantly surprised with the grades I received. My professor even had me read some aloud to my class! It was so long ago, but it brought back those fond memories and sense of achievement and satisfaction upon discovering a topic I so loved pondering. Your input brought tears to my eyes as I felt a common thread. We all perceive the world through our filters and our experiences. They are all different. Yet, when I sense a common perception of such things, I feel such unity in my core. I am at a loss for words, but it was so tangible to me. Thank you Tessa! you certainly are gifted when it comes to expression. You have a way of touching people with the words you choose.
Thank you Tessa and I look forward to the coming series. As I grow older I am less convinced that I know anything at all. I've always felt that our purpose during our time here is to learn and seek truth. For me life would be meaningless without the desire to learn and that is why I appreciate your efforts so much. With so much propaganda I try to be careful when evaluating sources of information but I think people who have a history of being altruistic in their actions have more credibility with me.
I love that you are digging back to the epistemological. I say this all the time, though in a shallower way, about what sources of knowledge people are relying on and how they know they are reliable. I have this sort of quasi-hypothesis that back on the savannah, after we left the arboreal life, it seems as it would have been really really advantageous to plan (through gestures, pictures drawn in the sand, sounds, hums) together and all execute that plan together, go a certain direction, take a certain route, stay away from predators or marauding con-specifics or poisonous foods or water. Maybe this derived from herd behavior in evolutionary history. But, then, it sort of became stuck, because it was so advantageous long ago, and the more rigid and all enveloping of consciousness it was, the more advantageous it was, until it wasn't, and hardened belief systems and wars between them became one of the patterns of history. So many wars and power structures are born of this propensity, and its no longer adaptive function. Not to say that it isn't still advantageous for particular people and groups. There are 33,000 sects of Christianity for instance. And we are part divine and part chimp, and no one has yet studied the relationship between the divine aspects of being and how those relate to the archaic evolutionary aspects of being. This is a wonderful revelation from Iain McGilchrist from The Big Conversation, episode 3 "Is there a master behind our minds" "I believe that metaphorical truth is more important than literal truth. Literal truth is a subset of metaphorical truth in which the potential in the metaphor has been collapsed into an actuality in the way that a wave function has been collapsed into a particle. Doesn't make the particle greater than the wave function or the field. In fact the field is greater than the particle" I think this is koanic, and explodes or tames our evolutionary tendency to go to war over beliefs.
You have such exquisite timing Tessa, to introduce these topics at a time that feels like darkness is calcifying around us like the Chernobyl sarcophagus. Thank goodness for your thoughts!
Truth is revealed by the release or undoing of concealment - which is in our minds.
If we give or yield our own thought to truth - or what is - we no longer filter through a presumption of knowledge taken in vain or self-imaged reality.
So much is filtered by the self-image as a self or thing in itself.
Infinity is filtered & masked by our presumption to know - by virtue of giving focus to self in image - or what we usually mean by 'thinking'.
How is coherence felt?
How is resonance felt?
How do you know what is aligned with who and what you are?
By the Word there was light and it was very good!
The word that we give can be out of alignment with the Word that created us whole.
Such that we know not what we do - but be-live the conflict of our own Projection.
But there is no conflict in God - even if we think to Project our conflict onto God and be-live the result.
Be still, and know.
That is release the conflict as your word and receive a true Word by which to guide & heal your mind.
Or persist in 'your own way' as if you can do what love has always already given. This usurps the true movement of being for an augmented 'reality' experience that thinks to become autonomous but is trapped by its own self-conflict such as to replicate archetypal patterns of 'Separation trauma' by the very attempt to escape, overcome or heal it.
separation trauma is undone by letting love - the movement of being - move directly through where you thought you were - a thing of or unto itself.
Whenever u read ,say, the Guardian, it’s amazing how transparent their lies are. Ad Hominem attacks and straw man fallacies seem to be the only type of argumentation they know. One reads it for the same reason a Russian read Pravda 50 years ago - to see what evil plans the commissars have planned. I wonder if any true global elite can arise on such a bed of lies. The Soviet Union went in 15 years to putting a man in space to being unable to feed its citizens. I wonder if we are not seeing the end of US supremacy. The liar usually ends up believing his own lies. A phrase of HL Mencken’s comes to mind “in the modern world, to sin against efficiency is the true sin against the Holy Ghost”. If the present elite is to maintain power , their manifest inefficiencies necessitate an aggressive depopulation agenda.
Thanks again Tessa!
Your bit on Christianity I'll respond to at the end of this piece, but before that;
Below is the UK Government's response to my request by Public Petition;
'TO REMOVE INDEMNITY FROM MANUFACTURERS OF COV 19 INJECTIONS'.
This is their unbelievable response;
"As indemnities for manufacturers do not generally prevent individuals from pursuing a legal claim for compensation, the Government would not consider it necessary to seek to remove any such indemnity."
Pathetic White-wash of a reasonable expectation.
With regard to Christianity; it is one of many man made 'solutions' to thinking they've found the answer to THE MEANING OF LIFE!
In reality all religions are 'man made' and just desperate attempts to think one has an answer to an unanswerable question. That's why I limit my thoughts to 'believing' the sun is the closest 'REASON' that my minuscule brain can ever get to knowing the true reasoning for our existence. There IS NO REASON! It's just that humans NEED REASONS!
Mick from Hooe (UK) Unjabbed to live longer!
LIABILITY MUST BE REINTRODUCED for all MEDICINE AND (DEADLY) INJECTION MAKERS!
Mick from Hooe (UK) Unjabbed to live longer.
Wow Tessa, what a searching soul you are. I think you are channeling Russian philosophers. For me, the truth lies in tears. God's tears. The rest is just stuff we dress up in.
Thanks for this Tessa. I'm glad to have provoked debate. Obviously it's not an issue that can ever be determined with certainty, given our individual free will. We have to make up our minds ourselves, which is how it should be.
Here are a few small thoughts from me.
'What is truth?' This is the question Pilate asked Christ. Christ didn't answer. It's worth pondering why. I do that a lot.
I think truth can come via (not from) two (human) sources: tradition, or the individual self. Modernity is a process by which tradition is abolished and/or demonised, and the individual is crowned. In theory: in reality of course, the individual is often corralled and controlled - but usually in the name of 'democracy' or freedom or 'the individual' ...
How do we determine what is spiritually true?
The pre-modern answer, in all cultures at all times, was: through the tradition. Whether in large global faiths like Christianity or Islam, smaller faiths like Sikhism, or tiny indigenous tribal traditions, it's the same process. Over time, a community builds up an understanding of spiritual truth, often based on revelation and also on much practice. This is then passed down through a tradition, which, if it is real, will continue to create spiritually powerful people ('saints', in the Christian tradition). Sometimes these traditions are corrupted or lost or broken, and often they are dragged back again. This is just humanity. However, the followers of the tradition broadly trust in its teachings.
The modern way, which we can trace back to Luther, is to say: no, only my conscience is my guide. I have my Bible and my mind and I need nothing else. I reject saints, monastics, hierarchies, traditions, lineages. Only I can know God truly for myself.
This, quite obviously, leads us to secular modernity. Today we all make up our minds about reality - we all have 'my truth', which is subjective. We have different truths about everything, up to and including what a man and a woman are. And we're not finished yet.
This bleeds into the spiritual realm. I'll talk about Christianity, since it started this conversation. The modern individualist rejects Christian teaching and tradition. He - or she - may have a feeling for Jesus, but doesn't want to submit to the teaching of the church, which he instinctively mistrusts. And so, in order to have it our way, we re-invent Jesus. This has been the project since at least the 1960s. There's quite a bit of it on this thread. Jesus of Nazareth is detached from his historical context, and the modern mind re-invents him to tell us what we want to hear - which is usually that 'the sacred' is entirely internal and individual, and God is whatever we want him to be.
The problem is that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual person who did and said actual things, and the gospels we have were written by people who knew him. The church that he started persisted for centuries without any power, wealth or influence, so it can't have been created for those reasons. Millions have died for a truth which to Christians has been expounded since day one: that Jesus was the second person of the Trinity, and the son of God. This was not a story invented to justify a 'control system.' It was, to Christian eyes, a revelation from the first, which they have held to throughout their imperfect history.
If we want to deny this, we have to have a good reason to believe that all those who knew Jesus or set up his church were wrong and we, 2000 years later, are right. I don't think we have one.
This doesn't mean Christianity is correct, or that anyone should be a Christian. But much to my surprise, I have found the modern story about this, as about so many other things, to be wrong. It is why I was received into the Orthodox church. And as I have followed the path, I have discovered a deepening of understanding that dwarfs anything I found on my own. This has made me think a lot. How much of my previous desire to find and defend 'my truth' - my unique understanding - was actually spiritual pride?
I think we have to decide whether we are prepared to trust any sources of truth or teaching which are handed down to us. I didn't used to, but I have come to see how much wiser my spiritual ancestors are than me, and what I can learn from them. I have come to see too, much to my own surprise and joy, how freeing this is.
Great level of inquiry Tessa! There is so much to unpack, but yes epistemology is critical. I have studied Walter Ong (and Marshall McLuhan) regarding the different quality of knowledge produced through literary cultures versus oral ones. I love reading and writing immensely, but there is trememndous importance in verbal conversation, because the knowledge in a Conversation is Co-created, Together. It is also more Emergent - stories are applied to the present moment. The religions based on infallible scripture tend to become more ossified, unchanging, and this itself is problematic. There is a corresponding shift in brain function toward left-brain function and objectification in written cultures. These are just a couple of aspects of this.
As etymology shows, and as you allude to in your talk, words themselves change over time - and this has been manipulated more and more by those in power as they have become knowledgeable about how to do so...
Great stuff you are parsing out between those using words for their own purposes and those actually trying to refer to something real beyond the word-form. One way I like to look at it is that "words are maps, reality is the territory." When coming from this understanding, we can negotiate what we are really talking about, and include mutual experience and feelings.
As far as religion goes, I live in a small midwestern town the last few years, so I have run up against disconnections head on. The essential issue - that is taboo to discuss in mainstream Christian circles - is the second part of the gospel of John 14: 6, "no one reaches the Father but by me." If your religion claims to be the only access to Creator/Source, it is a very slippery slope into denigrating all those who do not subscribe to your religion as misguided ones needing your salvation. It is an inherently disrespectful and arrogant position to take, and particularly insidious when it is considered an infallible scripture. It is not hard to see how this directly leads to the justification of so much of the oppression we have seen in western civilization over indigenous native peoples everywhere. This includes the Earth-based religions of Europe. St. Patrick is celebrated still for clearing the "snakes" (pagans) out of Ireland. Charlemagne is still celebrated despite slaughtering 4000 Saxons and many others who chose beheading rather than accepting the new god being imposed on them. The key in all these matters for me as a German-American is to avoid the worst excesses of our thinking, those ideas that lead toward genocide.
That is one of my root epistemological stances: Avoid Genocide! Listen to and learn from those who have suffered it! Take literally the idea of "Never Again" - to anyone!
I find most modern middle-class normies (or "whites" if we must) think very abstractly about things. When I am with Indigenous friends and acquaintences, or Blacks, or often when traveling, or even around poorer and working class whites, there is less bullshit small talk, and much greater chance of actual human encounters, which have a natural quality of being a bit more shy and gentle than is the mainstream norm. I get dissed (by politically correct whites) for saying this, because I seem to be stereotyping entire groups, but it is my consistent experience over 60 years. Even if I am connecting to someone from a Native American tribe I have not been around before, even if that person has a chip on their shoulder, there is likely to be a connection. Less forked tongue nonsense. Those who have been subjected to cultural genocidal or enslavement have less tolerance for bullshit. We understand the same basic commitment to try to avoid idiotic genocidal thinking.
This spirals into many other areas. The current Land Back movement gaining strength in Indigenous circles is profound. We all by birthright deserve a place to live on this Earth. It is what Occupy was about, but only got so far. There are many profound aspects to the Native ways, not the least of which is the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) also coming forth to restore abundant ecologies that permaculture (as great as it is) only scratches the surface of. As we each travel to the essential ground of our own Being, in infinite ways including epistemological inquiry, I think we will end up re-Indigenizing ourselves to place. This is a long and humbling process, involving unwinding the entire paradigm of colonization. Epistemology is ulitmately about finding the Ground of our knowledge, which includes those essential shared aspects of our humanity - the right to clean air, water, food, beauty, freedom, mutuality, safety, etc., and those connections to Source, practical and ceremonial, which provide their continuance.
Love to you beyond words <3
Tessa.... A large part of this video seems stuck on the concept of "truth" and "honesty," and the references to God are references to a "higher authority." But let's think about truths. Where does truth come from? Does truth come from individuals, or from individuals we respect, or perhaps from God?
Truths come from two sources, from individuals and from communities.
Every individual has their own truths. Some of their truths are more firm than others. Some of our individual truths can be swayed by others, that's why we have terms like "vaccine hesitant" - someone whose truth is not firm, vs anti-vaxxer - someone whose truth is more firm.
Each individual has individual truths. But at the community level, all individual truths are suspect. All individuals are suspect, liars, because they live in communities with different truths.
Real truth comes not from individuals - but from communities. When two people agree on a truth, it grows stronger. When more people agree - stronger still. We might notice that, when the men in a community believe a truth, it becomes a truth of power and when the women agree on a truth, it becomes a truth of support. There are many types of truths. Truths have many uses.
When a large number of people believe in a truth, or a leader, or a God, they create a community of "truth". All of the lions in a pride know who holds the power of truth and who holds the power to aid, to support. In another pride, there are other truths. However, over time, the true leader changes. Individuals grow old and die.
Other believers, other communities create other "truths". Which truth is "true"?
The one with the larger community. There are two main communities: us and them. Our community has the truth. Their community consists of liars. This is very apparent in the COVID pandemic nonsense in which we are currently enmeshed.
But lets take a higher ground, a higher view, a broader perspective. Every individual human lives in many communities. each of which has their own truths. The truths each community agrees on are unimportant. The important truths are those where we disagree.
Life is about change - about intentional change. Over time, every individual is changing, their truths are changing. Over time, every community is changing, their truths are changing. Looking for "one truth" or "one god" (one community with the truth) is a fools-errand. We need to find our own truths every day. We need to build our communities of truth, to guide them in the directions we want ourselves and our communities to move - to move forward.
I realize this note is a bit disjointed, even spastic, it's "stream of consciousness". But I hope it helps you to understand that the source of truth lies not in others, but in actions with others, in our communities. No individual wants to control us - they want to control their truths. Communities have their own truths and work to support them, to control the truths of others. There is no ultimate truth - except for things like God, which cannot be disputed logically, rhetorically.
Another perspective to think about. Morals. Where do morals come from? From communities. Adam, alone in the Garden of Eden, hadd no morals. He could not break any of ten commandments, until God appeared, creating a community - and demanding "no other Gods before me, make no idols, do not take the name of the lord in vain, remember the sabbath." The next commandments all require a larger community: honor thy father and mother, do not murder, commit adultery, steal. And a larger community - do no tbear false witness against a neighbor, do not covet. All truths are about communities.
to your health, tracy
Founder: Healthicine
ps. Communities want control. Here is an interesting view of our current communities of control, our current "ministries of truth" inspired by a diagram from Elon Musk's twitter: https://personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-big-picture.html
Great collection! It all adds up.
Everything has been pointing in the same direction ever since the United States became incorporated in 1871:
https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/in-case-you-are-in-doubt
For over a hundred years, people have been groomed to become compliant or even complicit:
https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/a-brief-history-of-compliance-training
One of the critical problems (as I see it) is that we evolved to 'know' a life very different and less complex than the ones we now lead. We are not built with brains that can comprehend any great complexity and so cannot seriously understand global climate for instance, no matter what the claims made by pseudo scientific charlatans. This idea, that there are limits to our capabilities flies in the face of a few centuries of human hubris, but is perhaps what should underpin any way forward in creating a better world for us and the planet. We need to build a world where once again, the kind of things we may be confronted with in our daily lives, are same things we're readily capable of understanding, and the questions we need to ask are capable of being answered.
Wise and uplifting in more than one way.