The purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone they become no more than beasts.
- Saint Sophia
Though Saint Sophia lived in the dying days of the Roman Empire, she was able to see how materialism corrupted Rome from within. The entire western part of the empire fell to the barbarians who, on close inspection, were likely more humane than the Christian Romans.
It was not the Romans or the barbarians, but the Christian church that plunged Europe into the Dark Ages. At least we don't have any powerful groups destroying books and the people who read them and closing schools of higher learning today.
We do, however, have more than our share of men who are concerned almost solely with the material world. Whether in business or in war, we see their beastly sides. Diplomacy and dialogue are lost arts when each side of a summit declares "You must do it our way, or else!"
But, philosophy? It simply means discussion of the troubles of life, and how to solve them. A few television programs have such discussions, but they constitute no more than five percent of airtime dedicated to nonfiction. Other programs tell, they don't engage the viewer. No viewer engagement means no viewer thinking. No thinking means no solutions to life's problems on a large scale.
Sophia said that action should enable more discussion about how to solve the perplexing problems of life. Since we don't tend to go in that direction, we have more troubles than we can manage. Our ways of dealing with them are to hire more police, more judges, more soldiers and to build more prisons, more psychiatric hospitals and more sophisticated weapons.
No one tells our leaders to talk. We just vote for them and leave them to figure out what to do. So, how do you think that has worked out?
We need the situation to change. The squeeky wheels at present are those with personal agendas (something to gain), not those who want what is best for the country.
When the good people are quiet, only the bad ones are heard.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to ge the good people together to speak with one strong voice.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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Comments: 8
Magi
http://www.krishnamurti.oddech.com/strona_801.html
namaste
Of course, now he would be called a pagan. Ironaically, pagans have a better grasp of life than adherants of the mainstream religions.
Namaste, my friend.
I see a similar parallel to the middle east. With the breakdown of an enlightened society, the spread of ignorance and power grew, and people look for a meaning to it all, and unfortunately find survival in that corrupted power umbrella.
Yes, no?
Have you asked yourself why the Dark Ages were "dark?" It was because books were destroyed in massive numbers and places of learning were closed. The church took advantage of the Roman Empire becoming Christianized by burning books and closing "academies" (such as the one in Athens) that did not conform to the "updated" version of Christianity. This new version was created in the 4th century when the church threw out many of the existing books of the Bible and settled on one set we now call the Old and New Testaments. Many of these discarded books are revealed in the Nag Hammadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls (though the latter is of lesser significance in this way).
Teachers of the old ways (considered to be pagan ways) were put out of work, some were even killed if they persisted in teaching.
The Gnostic Christians were wiped out in a flurry of genocide. Previously, there had been two streams of Christianity. The church of Rome wanted no evidence left of what the Gnostics believed because it was much closer to what Jesus preached than what Rome was teaching (Rome's version was essentially the worl of Paul, a Greek, and the Roman church leaders). The Gnostics also were evidence that what we now call Christianity was essentially created in the 4th century, not in the time of Jesus. They were annihilated in some of the more inhumane ways possible, including slaughtering children as they slept.
So, no books, no schools, no teachers, no history, no evidence of previous teaching, nothing existing other than what the Roman church wanted to be taught. Much like the situation in the Middle East today, in Islamic republics, you will say.
Contrary to popular belief, the barbarians were not the creators of the Dark Ages. The church and the barbarian leaders slept in the same bed, so to speak. The barbarian kings got the money of the people and the church got their minds.
The Christian church has always (since the 4th century) offered to be the saving grace of humanity--in heaven, if not on this earth. This, too, sounds like Islam, which accounts for why these are the two largest religions in the world today. Well, that and the fact that their swords were more effective than their words in the hands of imperialist leaders.
Thanks for your question, John.
Gates and Buffett both deserve credit, especially for the work that they have done to get useful tools into the hands of people who need them most. But I would also want to give credit to those who gave $5 from their meagre income to help those who were displaced by Katrina or the Asian tsunami. The latter are indicators of the real heart of a people.