For Discussion: A Poem

[Gracchus]

Crystal Cabinet

“The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm - which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.

Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with pole, and night with day;
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man.”

--- Julian Huxley

Think of it this way: Religion is the placenta of reason. When the child is born, the placenta is discarded. It was a part of you that is discarded when you are born. You don't carry it around with you all your life, although you owe your life to it, and its death.
The universe, in mankind, became conscious of itself. I/you/he/she am not a separate thing, but a dynamic process in the whole. In this, physicists and mystics agree.
In the individual, the infantile self is the placenta of the reborn, (in Buddhism, the enlightened), human.

That is the message of the poem. It is the message of the Buddha and the message of Jesus, somewhat extended by biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology. Does it speak to you?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Crystal Cabinet

“The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm - which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.

Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with pole, and night with day;
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man.”

--- Julian Huxley

Think of it this way: Religion is the placenta of reason. When the child is born, the placenta is discarded. It was a part of you that is discarded when you are born. You don't carry it around with you all your life, although you owe your life to it, and its death.
The universe, in mankind, became conscious of itself. I/you/he/she am not a separate thing, but a dynamic process in the whole. In this, physicists and mystics agree.
In the individual, the infantile self is the placenta of the reborn, (in Buddhism, the enlightened), human.

That is the message of the poem. It is the message of the Buddha and the message of Jesus, somewhat extended by biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology. Does it speak to you?

Not really...but at least it rhymes.

 

[Gracchus]

Not really...but at least it rhymes.

How clever of you to notice! The rhyme scheme is a.b.b.a.a.b.b.a, c.d.c.d.e.e .

But this isn't the poetry forum. It is the philosophy forum.

I was really trying to open discussion with someone who understood the meaning of the poem. If you didn't understand it though, don't worry. It's non-placental. You're just a victim of apoptosis.

 

[Ana the Ist]

How clever of you to notice! The rhyme scheme is a.b.b.a.a.b.b.a, c.d.c.d.e.e .

But this isn't the poetry forum. It is the philosophy forum.

I was really trying to open discussion with someone who understood the meaning of the poem. If you didn't understand it though, don't worry. It's non-placental. You're just a victim of apoptosis.

Yikes! I'm sorry, I thought you just wanted an answer to your question "Does it speak to you?"

I understand what the poem is saying, I simply don't agree.

 

[juvenissun]

Crystal Cabinet

“The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm - which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.

Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with pole, and night with day;
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man.”

--- Julian Huxley

Think of it this way: Religion is the placenta of reason. When the child is born, the placenta is discarded. It was a part of you that is discarded when you are born. You don't carry it around with you all your life, although you owe your life to it, and its death.
The universe, in mankind, became conscious of itself. I/you/he/she am not a separate thing, but a dynamic process in the whole. In this, physicists and mystics agree.
In the individual, the infantile self is the placenta of the reborn, (in Buddhism, the enlightened), human.

That is the message of the poem. It is the message of the Buddha and the message of Jesus, somewhat extended by biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology. Does it speak to you?

Religion is the Origin of reason.
Even that is wrong. Some major religions do not know where does reasoning come from.

The truth is: Christianity is the origin of reason.

 

[Gracchus]

... I understand what the poem is saying, I simply don't agree.

Well, you hardly had to post to the forum just to say that. The title invites discussion.

Religion is the Origin of reason.
Even that is wrong. Some major religions do not know where does reasoning come from.

My point was that religion provided the basis of reason. Why do bad things happen? Religion provides a hypothesis, although it is not posed as a hypothesis, but as a dogma: A divinity is showing disapproval. For instance: Sexually promiscuous societies are wracked with plagues. Religion says the divine being is punishing wrong-doing. A few thousand years of testing this idea, and gathering new information along the way, brings us the germ theory of disease and the idea of STD's.
Religion provides us with untested hypotheses, often based on observation, to be sure, that can guide the behavior and relationships in a primitive society until better hypotheses and well founded theories take the place of dogmas. Research and reason lead us to other and more accurate hypotheses.

The truth is: Christianity is the origin of reason.

Well, no! Reason existed before Christianity. Effects do not precede causes, except perhaps in quantum mechanics. Before Christianity, some people had already figured out that you didn't have to wait for some divinity to hurl lightning bolts at a tree on a holy mountain to get fire.
And again, Christianity is not reasonable, because for instance, it enjoins us to pray and sacrifice to change the mind of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent deity. That is not a reasonable thing to do. But the idea of prayer and sacrifice arose before religious people erected their omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent idol, who, for instance, punishes sabbath-breaking with eternal torment. The divinities worshiped by primitive people were not omnipotent. The Hebrew deity, for instance, could not overcome "chariots of iron". They were not omniscient. The Hebrew deity repents the consequences of his own actions, which argues against omniscience. And this same deity is notoriously capricious, and sometime very cruel and unfair. See, for instance, the Book of Job.
Is it reasonable to maintain that an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent deity would punish his creatures for doing what he knew they would do before he created them? In the case of Job, he kills Job's children and ruins his health and finances just to make a point to his servant, Satan.
If miracles are needed to convince people of his existence, the reasonable thing to do would be to show them to everybody, and not just a few scattered in backwater cultures and villages,long ago and far away.
Religion claims all the answers, even if the only answers they provide are, "That is a sacred mystery.", "God's ways are mysterious, and unknowable by man.", "It is God's will.", "God did it."
Using the tools of reason, observation, hypothesis, testing, and checking, science has cleared up a great many "mysteries" and showed a great many religious dogmas to be wrong. Olympus has been climbed, and no palace was found.
So, religion gave to reason hypotheses for testing, and many of those religious "answers" have been proved wrong. God does not shoot arrows of lightning from a polychrome bow. Reason has shown us the truth of static discharges and the prismatic effects of water droplets on sunlight.

Back to the poem: The poet says that divinity is the universe whose consciousness of self, arises in the mind of man. Your holy book says that God breathed his own breath (spirit) into man alone of all the animals. And reasoning ability alone is what sets mankind apart from the other animals.

The poem:
"The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm - which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned."

What partners could be more estranged than science and religion, "corporeal fact" and "spirit"?

 

[juvenissun]

Well, you hardly had to post to the forum just to say that. The title invites discussion.

My point was that religion provided the basis of reason. Why do bad things happen? Religion provides a hypothesis,

My point is that it does not take any religion to provide a decent hypothesis.
You can even do that.

 

[juvenissun]

Well, no! Reason existed before Christianity.

It can not be.

Reasoning started from Adam and Eve.

Or, you mean the evolution of reasoning in biology/neuroscience?

 

[Gracchus]

My point is that it does not take any religion to provide a decent hypothesis.
You can even do that.

The hypotheses provided by religion, not as hypotheses to be sure, but as dogmas, may have been reasonable once. They are reasonable no longer.

Religion evolved as an attempt to explain the inexplicable mystical experience, where

"Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away."

It cannot be expressed because it cannot be defined. Religions arose, in part, from attempts to reconcile this experience with preconceptions.

It can not be.

Why not, pray tell? Because you are not allowed to believe it by family, friends, and some invisible king in the sky? If mankind differs from the other animals, it is reason that sets him apart. Yet we know from a simple perusal of ancient texts that mankind did not always reason as we do. (At least some of us. The chimps we always have with us.)

Reasoning started from Adam and Eve.

So you're saying then, your god was not reasonable before Adam and Eve? Then you have conceded the point of the poem: That, until mankind appeared, the universe was not aware of itself, was not conscious. Mankind developed from the universe as a baby develops from a blastula.

Or, you mean the evolution of reasoning in biology/neuroscience?

Science was impelled by the inexorable logic of mathematics. Reason evolved from doubting the religious myths of primitive man, and religion has always attempted to suppress reason, sometimes with fire and sword.

"Reason is a harlot, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.” ― Martin Luther

But if God is real, then reason poses no problem. It poses a problem only to the idolaters, those who serve other masters than truth.

Science is the tool of reason. Religion promulgates dogmas that must not be questioned, no matter how outrageously ridiculous, and those who accept these dogmas are said to be people of "faith".

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." --- Ephesians 6:5

"Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh." --- 1 Peter 2:18

Religious people are sheep to be fleeced and slaughtered at the command of their shepherds.

"It is because we believe absurdities that we are able to commit atrocities." --- Francoise Marie Arouet

And I might add, it is because we believe absurdities that we allow ourselves to be victims of atrocities.

 

[juvenissun]

The hypotheses provided by religion, not as hypotheses to be sure, but as dogmas, may have been reasonable once. They are reasonable no longer.

Religion evolved as an attempt to explain the inexplicable mystical experience, where

"Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away."

It cannot be expressed because it cannot be defined. Religions arose, in part, from attempts to reconcile this experience with preconceptions.

Regard to natural features, religion explains some, implies some.
Science does the same.

Reasoning exists without religion.

 

[juvenissun]

Why not, pray tell? Because you are not allowed to believe it by family, friends, and some invisible king in the sky? If mankind differs from the other animals, it is reason that sets him apart. Yet we know from a simple perusal of ancient texts that mankind did not always reason as we do. (At least some of us. The chimps we always have with us.)

Wrong.

Be able to reason is one of the content in the definition of mankind. Every human being can reason.

 

[juvenissun]

The hypotheses provided by religion, not as hypotheses to be sure, but as dogmas, may have been reasonable once. They are reasonable no longer.

Religion evolved as an attempt to explain the inexplicable mystical experience, where

"Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away."

It cannot be expressed because it cannot be defined. Religions arose, in part, from attempts to reconcile this experience with preconceptions.


Why not, pray tell? Because you are not allowed to believe it by family, friends, and some invisible king in the sky? If mankind differs from the other animals, it is reason that sets him apart. Yet we know from a simple perusal of ancient texts that mankind did not always reason as we do. (At least some of us. The chimps we always have with us.)

So you're saying then, your god was not reasonable before Adam and Eve? Then you have conceded the point of the poem: That, until mankind appeared, the universe was not aware of itself, was not conscious. Mankind developed from the universe as a baby develops from a blastula.


Science was impelled by the inexorable logic of mathematics. Reason evolved from doubting the religious myths of primitive man, and religion has always attempted to suppress reason, sometimes with fire and sword.

"Reason is a harlot, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.” ― Martin Luther

But if God is real, then reason poses no problem. It poses a problem only to the idolaters, those who serve other masters than truth.

Science is the tool of reason. Religion promulgates dogmas that must not be questioned, no matter how outrageously ridiculous, and those who accept these dogmas are said to be people of "faith".

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." --- Ephesians 6:5

"Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh." --- 1 Peter 2:18

Religious people are sheep to be fleeced and slaughtered at the command of their shepherds.

"It is because we believe absurdities that we are able to commit atrocities." --- Francoise Marie Arouet

And I might add, it is because we believe absurdities that we allow ourselves to be victims of atrocities.

It is so sad to see that you are going away from the truth farther and farther. This blinds your mind even to some secular recognitions.

 

[Gracchus]

Regard to natural features, religion explains some, implies some.
Science does the same.

What "natural features" does religion explain?

Reasoning exists without religion.

Of course it does, in the same way that you exist without your umbilical cord.

Be able to reason is one of the content in the definition of mankind. Every human being can reason.

Mankind is a genus: Homo. Some humans are able to reason, just as some are able to play the piano. Some do not reason, because they never learned; some simply have no talent in that area; and some, like Martin Luther, find reason to be a useless annoyance, or even, depending on the culture in which they exist, extremely risky.

It is so sad to see that you are going away from the truth farther and farther.

This is argumentum ad hominem. You are not addressing the case, but the person arguing it.
Why are people religious? I submit that it is not because they arrived at reasonable conclusions based on facts, but because of parental and peer pressure, because the are afraid, and because, they are too lazy to think for themselves.

This blinds your mind even to some secular recognitions.

Perhaps! Which "recognitions", in regards to the poem, are those?

 

[juvenissun]

What "natural features" does religion explain?

(in the OP) Think of it this way: Religion is the placenta of reason.

Originally Posted by juvenissun
Reasoning exists without religion.

Of course it does, in the same way that you exist without your umbilical cord.

OK. Thanks. My argument is done.

-----
Sorry, my mistake. The Bible mostly describes natural features without explanation. However, it is common that the description itself provides some explanations. Examples are many: For example: the "burning wind", the "running sun", etc.

 

[apache1]

Crystal Cabinet

“The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm - which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.

Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with pole, and night with day;
Spirit dissolves the world's material bars -
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man.”

--- Julian Huxley

Think of it this way: Religion is the placenta of reason. When the child is born, the placenta is discarded. It was a part of you that is discarded when you are born. You don't carry it around with you all your life, although you owe your life to it, and its death.
The universe, in mankind, became conscious of itself. I/you/he/she am not a separate thing, but a dynamic process in the whole. In this, physicists and mystics agree.
In the individual, the infantile self is the placenta of the reborn, (in Buddhism, the enlightened), human.

That is the message of the poem. It is the message of the Buddha and the message of Jesus, somewhat extended by biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology. Does it speak to you?

[/QUOTE "What if C A T really spelled D O G"? Ogre - from
"Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise"