The Cross

[Nick_A]

Originally Posted by greymare

sorry, Nick, too me, that is thinking too hard on the subject.
I dont see why it has to be pulled apart and disected.
Maybe its just a personal thing?

You raise a difficult but essential question. Religion is a personal thing but it is double edged. When it is used to justify our inadequacy it can lead to all the societal horrors we've witnessed such as religious wars and the personal horrors such as what results from alliance with cults. Yet a person's path must become personal if one is to profit from it. This means that we have to approach the path with the humility, quality of heart, and clear mindedness necessary to distinguish the value from the corruption. Such maturity is rather rare.

"I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded." Simone Weil

Here she suggests that Christianity like the Cross, is something of great value but open to attempts at corruption.

The division between science and religion is only due to the results of corruption. There is no essential division. I believe that we will either regain the natural connection or we will perish from our own selfish stupidity.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Einstein

A minority will admit to it but most will not. They prefer to retain their unnatural separation.

Christian cosmology will serve as a necessary means to unite them in the future if still posible in the Western world and it will come through the efforts of those understanding the essence of Christian Platonism

E. Jane Doering (ed.), Eric O. Springsted (ed.) - The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil - Reviewed by Jeffrey Bloechl, College of the Holy Cross - Philosophical Reviews - University of Notre Dame

The Western mind is captivated by science and there is nothing essentially wrong with it. The harm comes when Man is compelled to serve science rather than science serving the inner Man within the higher context of spiritual reality and Man's connection with higher consciousness.

The Cross suggests that knowledge of science can be placed in a more favorable perspective the closer mankind is to becoming the "New man"

It does require thought because it is the scientific method. Yet for those with a simultaneous interest in science and religion, they will think and try to regain what was lost through unnatural separation normal for corruption.

I agree that religious concepts hidden within their symbols and myths are personal. I do however question the ramifications of "personal" when they are an aspect of any form of escapism. I've seen the horrors of it and have no need to cater to it.

The eventual unification of science and religion and the part carrying our cross plays in cleaning out our psychological inner corruption that keeps them separate includes respect for the many meanings of the Cross and how it connects "above and below" in the cosmological sense.

If our species is to survive the next hundred years, I believe that Simone's following observation will have become common sense. Now most are unwilling to even contemplate it preferring the security of an unnatural division between science and religion. Yet becoming open to carrying ones cross to confront the security of our escapism and to purify oneself will open a person to what became so obvious to Simone:

"I believe that one identical thought is to be found--expressed very precisely and with only slight differences of modality-- in. . .Pythagoras, Plato, and the Greek Stoics. . .in the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita; in the Chinese Taoist writings and. . .Buddhism. . .in the dogmas of the Christian faith and in the writings of the greatest Christian mystics. . .I believe that this thought is the truth, and that it today requires a modern and Western form of expression. That is to say, it should be expressed through the only approximately good thing we can call our own, namely science. This is all the less difficult because it is itself the origin of science." Simone Weil....Simone Pétrement, Simone Weil: A Life, Random House, 1976, p. 488

The question becomes how long our escapist pettiness will deny society as a whole recognition of the obvious. The process of becoming open to recognizing the obvious will include pondering the many meanings hidden within the extraordinary sacred symbols including what we call the Cross.