Perfection of Man

[Belinda]

Ape I am sorry but sometimes I find your style too difficult to read.
_________________
Socialist

[ape]

[SpiralsHappen]

The imperfect becomes perfect;
The crooked becomes straight.
The empty will be filled and old things renewed.
He who has little will gain.
He who has plenty loses.
The man of supreme wisdom, clings to Tao-The One
and is ever free.
But not clinging to his ego, he clearly perceives.
Not stuck in opinion, his understanding is clear.
Not proud of his deeds, he is honored.
Not haughty in success, his fortune continues.
Not competing in the relative world-
-knowing it is quicksand...none can upset him.

A poetic expression of Lao Tsu's yin yang philosophy.

[ape]

[Ediaan]

I think we should first clarify some things, before I would like to go ahead.

Belinda said:

[Belinda]

[ape]

[Ediaan]

[ape]

[Templar]

Edaan, I apologize for being a latecomer to this discussion. I've only just discovered this site (in an invesitagion into the idea of imperfection, a subject upon which I am developing a treatment) and noticed your posting. I thought, if you do not mind, I would reply.

The idea in Christianity of YHWH (God is, after all a title, not a name) being contained within each individual is known as Humanism (a term which has evolved over the years to mean whatever its detractors wish it to mean). This idea of Humanism, in Aristotlean logic,held that, the God is perfect. All that the God creates contains some of the God within it. Therefore, all thigns created by the God are (to some degree) perfect.

The Roman church, in the early Middle Ages, and then later during the Enlightenment, when the idea resurfaced, realized that, if this line of reasoning were to be allowed to persist, it could (would?) spell the end of existence for the church. If, after all, we are all equally Holy, then what need is there for a priest to tell us we are not and to place upon us edicts devised to make us Holy and condemnations as punishments for not being so?

It also led the church to the problem that, since all thigns were created by the same God, then all things contain the same Divine Essence. That would mean that a pig or a dog or a blade of grass was on equal terms with humankind, and that, as we all know, ran completely counter to the teachings of the church at that time (not to mention some more conservative sects today).

It was decided that Humanism must be treated as a heresy and stamped out just as had been Gnosticism and other more tolerant strains of the belief.

Now, as to your question of perfection -- and more to the point of my own investigations -- I ask these questions:

1) What is perfection? Is it something can can be conceived?
2) If it can be conceived, how then is it described? (This is not the same as defining perfection -- that is an entirely different set of problems to be dealt with later in my examinations -- but how do we describe perfection so that we know what it is?
3) Upon what, or whose, authority do we accept this description? And does this authority speak -- or ahve the right to speak -- for any other than itself?
4) Provided that this authority does have that right and does speak for others, is this authority relative to ourselves and our existence? In example, is the same authority that states to kill is evil (and thus imperfect, if we use the absence of all evil as perfection) does this apply to those who, through no actions of their own, are put in a position of "kill or be killed"?

There are other questions I have on the topic of percection, but it was not my intent to carry on as long as I have and I do not wish to become tiresome, so I will leave it here.

I look forward to discussions with any who wish to do so. What is, after all, the purpose of philosophy if not to learn?

[Nick_A]

[Ediaan]