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KASTENKAMPF (CASTE STRUGGLE): AND THE IDEA OF DOMINATION
It may be true to say that art, science, history, philosophy, religion, and literature all embody the "Absolute Spirit" or the "Spirit of God", and it may be truer to say that they are, by definition, universal and timeless and not bound by historical or social conditions whilst laws and the courts which apply them are a quantum or classic state and national expression. One could say that they are inalienable and indivisible and cannot be judged or rationed according to nationality, wealth, sexuality and gender. Reality, said Charles Fillmore, is that which is abiding, eternal, and unchangeable. The basic principles of mathematics and music are real, because they are not subject to change. God is Spirit, the Principle of creative life, the moving force in the universe, the omnipotent, omnipresent essence from which all things proceed. God is life. God is in the universe as its constant "breath." And of course I admit the divine omnipotence, and I wholeheartedly agree, and believe, like they did in the Middle Ages, that one of the most important features of divine omnipotence, as defined by the SEP, is and was the capacity of annihilating, which was, and still can equivalently be, viewed as the necessary counterpart of the divine capacity of creating. Life is a principle that is made manifest in living. Spirit is not matter. Spirit is not person. God is the one harmonious principle underlying all being, and the one reality out of which all that is eternal comes. Alternatively, if faith is based on objective reality, then it will, as Kent (2004) rightly points out, stand the test of time regardless of the circumstances. Like, for example, the Psalmist David who welcomed his test, rather than aversion. I really prefer the truth when it is unvarnished and direct. These are words from the Arbitrator (1918) that I would invite all others to smell and taste:
God is Spirit. A finite spirit can not definitely say that God is omnipotent or all-good.
The impelling upward force of the universe. God is in the MAKING still.
Immanent. The part of his life as expressed in man is still imperfect.
A soul of the Universe, infinite, intelligent, personal and good.
Man's symbol to express the unity of all things; also to express the highest VALUES of experience.
The spirit of integrity, justice, co-operation, democracy and love, reflected in the universe and the character of our souls.
A wise, just, merciful and loving Father. Not omnipotent nor all-good.
God is Love, Truth, Goodness and Mercy. Omnipotent and all-good.
There is no proof of a God.
A personality, the centre of Wisdom, Power and Influence. Omnipotent and all-good.
That He is a Cosmic Spirit. Omnipotent and all-good, though many of His works may seem evil because we do not perceive the ultimate purpose.
Truer words were never spoken. These words speak volumes, and they will stand the test of time. Indeed, as the American Teacher Magazine similarly noted about this theory back in 1918, democracy demands a citizenry that excels in initiative, self-control and self-direction. It must have free men and free women, who respect the rights of others while jealous of their own; who perform their duties not thru compulsion, but because of an inner urge. Is there any doubt that such practice is not conducive to the best interests of democracy? God or Nature, which are really the same thing considered differently, and are really two ways of saying the same thing, is the one harmonious Principle underlying all being and the Reality out of which all that is eternal comes. The facts of Spirit are of a spiritual character and, when understood in their right relation, they are orderly. As for the word "state", modern contexts reveal that it indeed pops up in many places and in many minds, as the Quantum Atlas notes. Like we speak casually of a state of affairs or our state of mind, and every year Americans can tune into an address called the State of the Union. In all these cases, "state" means something like "the way things are." Such is the power of the status quo, as Backman and Wojczik rightly note in The Way Things Aren't: Deconstructing 'Reality' to Facilitate Communication (2019). And as they went on to note:
People who live within the status quo – whether it be Roman occupation, religious tradition, institutionalized racism, or interfaith violence – rarely think of their situation as a product of their culture and history. Rather, they assume it as the universal condition of all human beings: 'just the way things are'. Moreover, they have built their lives, their values, and their deepest convictions around these assumptions. When someone challenges 'the way things are', it is often seen as a challenge to an entire way of life.
Meanwhile, Floribert Patrick Endong (2019) starkly reveals the way in which the media influences our behavior, consciously or without us even realizing it, and our understanding of what is happening around us, and observes that they can sustain authoritarianism, exploitation, conflict and exclusion as much as they can promote democracy, development, nation building and inclusion. Take, for example, the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and how messages from a radio station were used to spread hate messages which led to a war of ethnic cleansing that left millions of people dead. And as the Information Resources Management Association (2019) points out in no uncertain terms:
What is sometimes more difficult to determine is the integrity of the information as it is possible there is deception embedded in the communication if the form of selective or half-truths, and outright lies.
It therefore cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to go back "to the things themselves", as BMC Public Health observes, and describe them as they are. Further, as the Quantum Atlas observed, scientists use the word "state" to mean basically the same thing, but states don't only describe things in the present. They tend to change over time. And as the Times rightly points out, the process of creative destruction is never-ending; change is the only constant; and decay and growth are synonyms. Conveniently, the law allows you to plug in information about the initial state, crank through some math, and discover what might happen in the future. But when we look more deeply in this direction and begin looking at smaller and smaller things, we begin to see that the predictions no longer match the measurements and measurements no longer match reality. Culture, art, literature, politics, science, technology, and other peculiarly human accomplishments, as the SEP points out, are the soul's exteriorizations. So I guess I'll start with this one because I just saw a YouTube video titled "Why Are Christians so Divided Across the World?" And that also reminds me of an article by Philip Jenkins published in January 2004. And it is certainly necessary to repeat or quote in detail the observations made by him and by other researchers. Religion always reminds me of fireworks. To quote a fictional philosopher, Renée Feuer Himmel:
"One question is shot up and bursts into a splendorous many. Answers? Forget answers. The spectacle is all in the questions."
The whole purpose of philosophy, says Avinash Dixit, is to not find answers to anything, but rather it is to complexify questions to the point where they don't have answers. As Professor Zapp once mused, any damn fool could think of questions; it was answers that separated the men from the boys. If you couldn't answer your own questions it was either because you hadn't worked on them hard enough or because they weren't real questions. In either case you should keep your mouth shut. Be that as it may (and passing over the sexist wording), sometimes the act of questioning an existing theoretical structure, as Matthew D. Bunker says in the book "Critiquing Free Speech: First Amendment Theory and the Challenge of Interdisciplinarity," can prove at least as valuable as any answers to which the questioning may lead. Would anyone here disagree with the premise, as already expressed in the mid 19th century, that natural and scientific truth are the orderly basis of spiritual and divine truth; and that therefore true philosophy and true theology are essentially harmonious, and indeed utterly inseparable. I don't think anyone would disagree with the importance of cultivating a true and lofty Philosophy, in connexion with the high and holy Theology of the New Dispensation. The significance of this cannot be overstated. And it is, indeed, a familiar thought, and yet most deeply significant. And, in this instance, the New York Times notes that courses in the philosophy of religion tacitly subordinate religion to philosophy by subjecting religion to philosophy's questions and standards. And this raises or brings us back to the question of meaning. Or, more precisely, what would you really need to know to understand the utterances of another? The theory of meaning, the SEP says, is necessarily part of a much broader theory of interpretation and, indeed, of a much broader approach to the mental as such. In the first place, truth, Martin Heidegger declared, is understood to be a feature of statements about things. Truth is thus a property of propositions, by virtue of which they express something just as it is. There are many truths (i.e., many true propositions and statements), or when we speak of eternal and temporal truths or of absolute and relative truths. But, as Hotopf (2016) notes, it is not just a matter of differences about shades of meaning, for it constantly happens that one word has to serve the functions for which a hundred would not be too many. But is there no order in the multiple meanings of a word? Our indifference to these questions, as noted by Victoria Alexandrina Maria Louisa Stuart-Wortley in 1903, is indeed nothing less than literally insensate; since it tends to fetter and cripple us both in that typical human energy which we call expression, and in its comprehension. Of note, Broekman and Backer have pointed out that Lady Victoria Welby classified the many meanings in three groups of meaning called 'Sense', 'Meaning', 'Significance'. Welby, Fisette and Fréchette point out, is indeed a defender of an intentionalist theory of meaning, and here is one of the most important principles articulated in Welby 1983:
There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as the Sense of a word, but only the sense in which it is used – the circumstances, state of mind, reference, 'universe of discourse' belonging to it. The Meaning of a word is the intent which it is desired to convey—the intention of the user.
If there was any doubt remaining, it's gone now, and it's in the past now. And this one's truly over. As the New Church Herald and Monthly Repository noted back in 1854, religion and philosophy which are true are never at war, but, on the contrary, true religion may always rest in the broad field of natural science, and there lead the steps of the philosopher, and cast light upon his path, and inspire him with hope, and encourage him in his weary way, while he is attempting to trace the arcana of nature, and disclose their laws in their most comprehensive bearings, and in their profoundest entanglements. True philosophy, moreover, may be and ought to be imbued with the deepest emotions of the devout wor shipper, and with the sincere acknowledgment of the spirituality and truth of the holy word itself. Numerous studies have explored the close association between philosophy and religion in much of non-Western thought, and in addition, as Bynagle (1997) noted, there remains, when all is said and done, a vast area where religion and philosophy are not only closely intertwined but where it is virtually impossible to separate them. As to the question of why Christians are so divided, the answer, at least for now, seems pretty clear. And certain tendencies at this point do seem pretty clear. Glimpses of an answer can be found in literatures, but perhaps the best answer can be found in the following research article by Philip Jenkins titled "After The Next Christendom". It is rich in citations, and it is where an answer can be found. In general, these studies are worthy to be referred and are worthy of being investigated in more detail in future studies. Overall, I consider these trends and patterns to be quite revealing, and I expect these trends to be maintained. And here are the key passages that caught my eye and that are definitely relevant to the question at hand:
Contrary to popular stereotypes, most Christians are members of the "two-thirds world" or what some have called the "global south" (McGrath, 2002). From a global perspective, the typical Christian is no longer a rich western European male, but an African or Asian woman living in poverty, often in unimaginable poverty by western standards, with little access to cultural or political power (Jenkins, 2002). According to some estimates, more Christians have died for their faith in the past century than in the preceding 19 centuries combined (shea). Christianity's demographic center of gravity has moved steadily from the west to Africa, Asia and Latin America, a trend that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future (McGrath, 2002). Some 70 percent of evangelical Christians, a vibrant branch of Protestant Christianity often targeted for persecution, now live in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Hertzke, 2003). Women, people with darker skin and those who are poor tend to disproportionately comprise the Christian Church of the global south.
In India, Christians officially comprise 2 to 3 percent of the population (Jenkins, 2002). The majority appear to be 'untouchables', or, as they tend to describe themselves, Dalits, who represent the poorest of the poor in India (Human Rights Watch, 1999). The lack of cultural and political power, in tandem with campaigns that scapegoat Christians, Muslims, and other minority faith groups for the nation's problems, has led to severe persecution of Christians and other people of faith (Marshall, 2000). The Indian Dalits (the untouchable) have rejected the traditional Hindu belief systems in favour of Christianity, which affirms the equal dignity and worth of all human beings. On account of their social status (as the untouchables, poor and vulnerable), these Christians are easily targeted by those attempting to maintain a social structure that grants them privilege (Hamilton & Sharma 1977; Hodge 2006:434; Jenkins 2002; Wambach & Van Soet 1977; Young et al. 2004). Owing to their social status, they are perpetual victims of persecution. Jenkins (2002) stated that the oppression of the Dalits represents the single largest case of institutionalized oppression in the world today. According to Jenkins, Dalit Christians are regularly persecuted for their faith, often with the tacit approval of higher caste governmental authorities seeking to maintain the social order that privileges their status.
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Originally Posted by VikLevaPatel
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